License to Thrill

my dad credit for anything!" Her voice and hands shook violently. Hateful, bitter words that had been festering in her stomach for years bubbled up and out of her mouth, like a cleansing regurgitation.
    "For years, my father begged Mr. Jellico to build a restoration center, only to be told it was a foolish idea. Then Guy Trent arrives and reads an old memo my father wrote and presented it like it was his sudden inspiration. Not only was it built, but Guy received national recognition for his innovative concept of assembly-line-style restoration teams—an idea he stole from my father's notes."
    She stepped to the floor and walked closer to him, leaning forward, shaking her finger. "My father bought that stamp one day on his lunch hour—I had convinced him to leave Jellico's and he said we'd use the money to start our own antique furniture business. Instead, Guy told him he'd bought it on the gallery's time, and bullied my dad into giving it to him."
    To her horror, tears blurred her vision. "My dad was so naive, he just...handed it over." She stopped and straightened, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to calm down. "After he died, I actually forgot about it until I went into Guy's office to fetch something he was too lazy to get for himself, and there it was, lying on his desk in a mailing case, next to a sales order. The bastard had sold it for eighteen thousand dollars." Her laugh tasted bitter on the back of her throat. "I couldn't let him do it, so I stole the stamp." She sniffed mightily. "Go ahead and call the police if you feel like you have to."
    Except for his eyes, he had barely moved during her outburst. Setting her mouth, she refused to drop her gaze, refused to back down.
    He pressed his lips together and held up the stamp. "So this is why you failed the polygraph?"
    She nodded, wary.
    "And you had nothing to do with the disappearance of the letter?"
    She shook her head no.
    "So why didn't you simply sell the stamp and pay off your debt to the gallery?"
    "Guy would have been suspicious," she said. "Besides, just having it gives me more satisfaction than the money it would bring."
    James nodded slowly, then studied the stamp for several long moments.
    "So," Kat said, trying to keep her voice steady, "are you going to call the police?"
    When James looked up, a frown carved deep lines in his face, pulling down the corners of his eyes. "How can I do that without admitting I removed the humidor in the first place? Besides, perhaps what you did was wrong, but it was for the right reason."
    His mouth twisted into a sad smile as he closed his fingers around her wrist and gently tugged her toward him. At first, Kat resisted—the fact that he was leaving today was the worst reason to succumb to him...and the best, she decided with a sigh, allowing herself to be pulled down on his lap. She settled into his body like floodwater searching for low ground, oozing into his crevices and leveling off.
    He grabbed the end of a sheet she'd dragged onto the floor, whipped it above them with a flip of his wrists, and allowed it to float down around them. Then he clicked off the light and tucked her head beneath his neck. Relieved, spent, and a little frightened of the strong feelings coursing through her, she felt herself drifting off almost immediately, lulled by the cadence of his heart beneath her cheek.

    *****

    James started awake and blinked, not sure what he'd heard. A dull sound—a distant knock perhaps? From the direction of his room came the sound of a faint scrape and a swishing noise, as if someone had slid something under the door to his adjacent room.
    He lifted his head, and winced at the needles shooting through one arm and both legs. Kat lay snuggled up against him, her breath fanning across the hair on his chest. She hadn't stirred, and he hated to wake her. The clock read only five-thirty, and her sleep had already been interrupted once.
    By him—because he'd been so shaken that she'd lied to him. But even as a small part of him hoped Kat had lied so he'd have a reason to forget her, he'd wrung from her a soul-baring confession that triggered all kinds of protective feelings in his chest. Now as he watched her sleep, he wondered how he'd ever thought she would have committed a crime for her own personal gain. In his mind, the stamp rightfully belonged to her, and he had a new lead suspect—Guy Trent. Perhaps he and Beaman were in cahoots.
    He bent his arm and made a fist, then wriggled his toes