St Kilda Consulting 04 - Blue Smoke and Murder

it should slow down the opposition long enough for the auction to take place.
    After that, he didn’t care what happened.

46
    TAOS
SEPTEMBER 15
8:30 P.M.
    T hat hasn’t changed,” Zach said, disgusted.
    “What?”
    “Lupita won’t be in tomorrow and Garland will do anything to avoid dishes.” Zach began collecting dirty plates. “Figures it’s beneath him, I guess.”
    Jill laughed. “How long have you two been pretending to dislike each other?” she asked as she joined him in clearing the table.
    “Pretending?”
    “Pretending. You’re not fooling anyone except yourselves.”
    Zach scraped plates into the garbage disposal and stacked them on the counter. Jill opened the dishwasher and began loading it.
    “I went to work for Frost my last few years of college,” Zach said. “Unpaid intern, and worth every cent, he used to say. I finally got a paycheck after six months. I stayed for five years. But…” He shrugged. “The place wasn’t big enough for both of us.”
    “Two captains on a ship is one too many,” she agreed. “First thing you learn on the river.”
    Smiling, Zach opened a drawer and pulled out an old brass key.“C’mon. I’ll walk you to your room. I put your backpack in there earlier.”
    “What about my belly bag?”
    “Stuffed in the backpack. You need it?”
    “No.”
    She followed him into the crisp, high mountain air. A breeze shifted dead leaves across the Spanish tiles of the courtyard. The splash of a fountain was like soft laughter in the darkness.
    Zach opened the door of a small cottage and stepped aside for Jill to enter. As she brushed by him, her warmth and subtle fragrance made his body tighten even more.
    He shut the door behind him. The only light in the room came from a wall niche holding a small, ancient pottery cup.
    “When I left Frost,” Zach said, hanging the key on a nearby nail, “I wasn’t planning on coming back. Ever. One of Frost’s old business associates hired me on at the CIA, advising people on the international art market.”
    “I wouldn’t think the CIA would have much use for art,” Jill said, going to the fireplace.
    “You’d be wrong. There’s a lot of diplomacy and international intelligence work involved in the art trade. The Russians alone have laundered hundreds of millions of black dollars through high-end auction houses in London and New York.”
    A long match flared in the darkness. Jill touched flame to the dry tinder and small branches in the fireplace.
    “Whatever happened to art for the sake of art?” she asked, straightening.
    “Reality.” Zach walked until he stood close to her and the graceful dance of flames. “But I wasn’t any happier being a bureaucrat than I was as a gofer for an arrogant genius. So when Ambassador Steele made me an offer of contract work, I jumped.”
    Jill turned and looked at Zach. Really looked at him.
    She liked what she saw.
    “What?” he asked. “Is my nose on backward?”
    “I didn’t get to read your dossier, so I’m at a disadvantage.”
    His whiskey eyes were nearly gold with the reflection of fire. “You didn’t miss anything worthwhile.”
    “For work, probably not. But for play…?” She waited.
    He went still. The tactile memory of her hard nipples was burning at the edges of his mind like fire.
    “Ask away.” His voice was too husky, but he could no more change that than he could the fit of his jeans, tighter with every heartbeat.
    “Are you involved with anything other than St. Kilda and old muscle cars?” Jill asked.
    “Like what?”
    “A woman.”
    “No. You?”
    “I prefer men.”
    “Plural?” he asked, deadpan.
    “I think one of you is all I can handle.” Probably more than I can handle , she admitted silently, but finding out will be a wild ride.
    Just the way she liked it.
    Zack wrapped his hand around the back of Jill’s neck and drew her close, then closer still, until he could feel her from his mouth to his knees.
    “Are you thinking what I hope you’re thinking?” he asked.
    “If your thoughts include two of us and one bed, yes.”
    “Bed, floor, wall, whatever. I’m easy.”
    “You’re hard,” she said against his neck, “which makes you easy.” And too tempting to pass up.
    The feel of her tongue lightly tasting him made Zach’s breath break. “You’re making me forget my lecture about the dangers of mixing business and pleasure.”
    “Running rivers is my passion and my work. Where’s the downside?”
    “Damned if I