A Burning Obsession Page 16

  So she loved him. Yes, she did.

  But that didn’t mean they had a chance for a future together. They could have the rest of her vacation, the rest of his mission. And then they would say goodbye.

  “Miss Hayward.”

  “Yes?”

  The bartender pointed to a phone on the wall. “There’s a call for you.”

  12

  KIMBERLY PICKED UP the phone, praying that Jason wasn’t calling from jail. “Hello.”

  “Everything went down great.” Jason’s deep voice immediately reassured her and tension eased out of her shoulders. “Can you meet me at the twenty-four-hour computer center?” He gave her the address.

  “Sure.” She wanted to ask a million questions but knew better than to say much over the phone. Besides, he’d already answered the most important of her concerns in his first four words to her. “What’s up?”

  “Kincaid e-mailed the information we requested about our tour mates.”

  And Jason’s computer was probably still in the museum’s janitorial closet. At least he was safe.

  Safe.

  She’d been so tense that it took several moments for the relief to transfer from her brain to her lungs that finally breathed in a deep draught of air. He was okay. He’d gotten into and out of the museum without getting caught.

  She practically skipped the three blocks to the computer center. Through well-lit windows, she could see the place was surprisingly large and busy. Much too busy for her to ask Jason her questions.

  However, when Jason stepped out from the shadows between two parked cars and onto the sidewalk, nothing could stop her from throwing her arms around his neck, burrowing against his warmth and kissing him. “I am so glad to see you.”

  He chuckled, kissed her and then led her inside the Internet café. Coin-operated machines at the front took money and spat out log-in codes. She and Jason found seats in the third row back at a long counter that housed a dozen computers, monitors and keyboards. Jason typed in the user code he’d purchased, gained Internet access, typed in another password, then downloaded his documents.

  He had nine files. One on each of their traveling companions, plus another on their tour guide. Jason popped in a disk, saved the files and then pocketed the information.

  “We can read that on my laptop,” she offered.

  “We’re going back to the hotel?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She lowered her voice and slipped her hand into his as they headed out the door. No one appeared to pay any attention to them. “You think the police are at our hotel?”

  “It doesn’t matter. The Star is back where she belongs and the police will eventually return the Book of Celts to Cornwall.” Jason’s steps along the dark city road were jaunty, confident. He really enjoyed his work and she wanted to hear about his adventure.

  “So tell me what happened.”

  “By the time I had arrived, the cops were mopping up. A forensics team had already come and gone, as had the museum’s director and the head of security.”

  “Did they find your computer?”

  “I don’t know. Even if they did, it won’t help them. The program would have automatically wiped the hard drive clean before they found it.”

  “So how did you get into the building?”

  “I posed as a reporter, bumped into a guard and lifted his ID.”

  “And then?”

  “I walked in the front door.”

  “But don’t those ID tags have pictures?”

  “I inserted my picture and a fake name.”

  “And you just happened to have false ID with you.”

  “S.O.P. Standard Operating Procedure.”

  “Don’t the guards know one another? And have a checklist?”

  “Probably, but they were distracted by a diversion. I timed some fireworks to go off in the fountain as I walked through the front door. In the confusion and smoke, no one questioned me.”

  She swallowed hard at the risk he had taken. “And then?”

  “I had access to the security system, so I flipped it off, walked down the hallway and replaced the Star.”

  “You just walked in and flipped off the security system?”

  He sighed in satisfaction. “Well, it was a little more complicated than that. I hacked in from an inside terminal. You see I’ve hidden my regular program inside a super computer that’s housed—well it’s better you don’t know the location—at a major university.”

  “So basically you used the same program again?”

  “Yes. Then I had to wait for it to work.” He hugged her closer to his side. “This time the wait wasn’t anywhere near as pleasant as this afternoon.”

  She squeezed his hand. “It’s your own fault.” The memory of making love behind that tri-fold screen seemed so long ago but it had only been this afternoon. “You made me stay behind.”

  “And I haven’t thanked you for doing as I asked. I know it was hard for you to sit and wait.”

  “You have no idea.”

  “But it was difficult enough sneaking in alone. It would have been too risky to—”

  “I understand.”

  “You do, don’t you?” He stopped walking and turned to her. “Why do I sense this underlying sadness in you? Are you okay? Was there a problem at the police station?”

  She shook her head. “I’m just tired.” And he was on top of the world. Exhilarated. Which simply made her realize how far apart their worlds really were and always would be.

  “It’s more than fatigue,” he insisted.

  When had he gotten to know her so well? She didn’t want to talk about her feelings for him. Not when she still felt so unsettled. She’d only realized that she loved him in the last few hours and had yet to explore all the ramifications of what those emotions implied.

  “I never knew that just sitting and waiting could be so stressful. If you’d been caught…”

  “I wasn’t.”

  She tried to continue walking, but he gently gripped her arm, impeding her progress. Grateful that he couldn’t read the expression in her eyes, she suppressed her doubts about continuing her fling. She didn’t like hiding her love, didn’t want to burden him with the truth. She just wanted to have a good time on her vacation with him and then go home to lick her wounds.

  But she wasn’t good at fooling herself. Now that she knew that she loved him, everything had changed. She couldn’t go on pretending that wonderful sex and a charming companion were enough to make her content. She’d never been interested in short-term relationships.

  His voice rough, rousing and ready to challenge her, demanded, “Talk to me.”

  “About what?” she countered.

  “What’s going on in your head?”

  “I was just thinking about those files Logan Kincaid sent,” she lied.

  “Yeah, right.”

  “How could he do extensive research so quickly? I saw them flash on the screen before you printed them. Those files were long, went back years and covered everything from credit card debts to phone bills to schools attended.”

  “It’s going to eat away at you until you open up.”

  Obviously he wasn’t buying her attempt to distract him. Frustration added an edge to her tone. “Did you ever think I might not want to share every thought in my head with you?”

  “No.”

  She snorted. “Then maybe you should think again.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  They began to stroll again, but she’d taken back her hand and they no longer touched. While this wasn’t their first argument, she suspected it might be the beginning of the end of their relationship and melancholy gripped her. So much for a carefree fling. So much for letting herself enjoy a breezy vacation with a good-looking hunk. Except she’d never been able to look at any man that way—never mind Jason. Sex came connected not just to a hot body but to a real live person—a person with feelings and worries and goals, and she suspected her
mood had put a damper on his successful mission.

  She didn’t want to spoil his exhilaration and yet, as much as she tried, she couldn’t quite hide her sadness.

  He glanced sideways at her. “You do understand that I don’t have a clue what’s wrong here?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And that I can’t read your mind?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Abruptly, he changed the subject. “A woman was driving down a road in the opposite direction to a man behind the wheel of his own car. She rolled down her window and yelled ‘Pig.’ He yelled back, ‘Bitch,’ and kept driving. Around the next curve, his car struck a pig that had wandered into the road. And the moral of that story is…”

  “Men are aggressive?” she guessed, suspecting he was pressing her again, but couldn’t figure out where he was going with this.

  “Men need to listen. Well, I’m listening, babe, but you aren’t talking.”

  Kimberly had never felt less like talking in her life. If she was as daring as Maggie, she’d lure Jason into bed, distract him from a conversation she wasn’t ready to have. But she couldn’t think about making love right now. She needed to give her emotions time to settle and to come to grips with her feelings.

  “I really am tired.” She knew he didn’t believe her, but all she wanted to do was rush up to her room, take a long hot bath and then sleep. She didn’t want to think about him and her for the next twelve hours.

  When they approached the hotel, cop cars were just leaving. They entered through the front door and Jason spoke to the kid behind the desk. “What’s going on?”

  “The police said that someone stole a diamond from the museum. On a hot tip, they searched a bunch of our rooms, including yours, but found nothing. And then they heard that the diamond was back at the museum after all, so they left. Odd, huh?”

  “Very.” Jason walked her to her room without saying another word. When he followed her into her room, she wanted to demand that he leave, but that would require explaining and she simply didn’t have the energy. She left him in her room with her laptop and his files from Logan Kincaid while she ran a bath.

  No sooner had she settled into the hot water than he strolled inside the bathroom, closed the lid of the commode and sat on the throne with her laptop balanced on his knees. “Our fellow travelers have more than their share of secrets hidden in their pasts.”

  She lathered a washcloth with soap and smoothed it over her skin. She’d thought to bathe in privacy and silence, but his statement had provoked her curiosity. “Like what?”

  “Alex, surfer boy, has a record.”

  “Really?”

  “As a juvie, he stole a goat.”

  “A goat?”

  “Probably a school mascot, but after junior high school, the nature of his crimes altered in severity. Breaking and entering. Car theft. He sold drugs in college.”

  “With that record, how did he get accepted to college?” She leaned her head back and let the hot water take the strain from her muscles.

  “His father made a large donation to the university. The newest wing of the medical school bears their name.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “The Barrs have been married and divorced four times—”

  She frowned. “But this trip is to celebrate their twentieth anniversary.”

  “They’ve been married and divorced four times to one another. I guess they count anniversaries from their first wedding.” He hit a few keys and moved on.

  She shrugged, and used her toe to turn on the tap to add more hot water. The trickling sound relaxed her as much as the heat did. “Anything on our astrologer?”

  “Caroline? She’s been in and out of several mental institutions.”

  “Any violent tendencies?” she asked.

  “None.”

  “And the professor and his trophy wife?”

  “She has a record. Used to be a hooker.”

  Kimberly’s eyes popped wide open. “You’re kidding!”

  Jason shook his head and stared at his screen. “Oh, this is interesting. The professor teaches screenwriting at the University of Orlando in Florida. You ever enter your script in a contest there?”

  “No.” She sat up so fast that water splashed in the tub.

  “What?” Jason might have kept his thoughts on track but his gaze focused on her breasts.

  She eased back under the water, trying to make her action casual, but he had to have noticed that at his look her nipples had tightened to hard nubs. But she wasn’t cold and had to use her toes to turn off the hot water spigot. “We do send scripts to what we call a first reader in Orlando. As head of the department, Professor Jamison might know him.”

  “And?”

  “Maybe I’m overly sensitive, but the professor has made a few jealous comments.” She fought with herself not to cover her breasts. She wasn’t cold, but maybe he’d think she was, instead of responding to the appreciation in his gaze. “But I can’t picture the professor stealing the Book of Celts or the Star of the North and even if he could, what would be his motive?”

  “Jealousy? Theft of your idea? Revenge?”

  “Now you’re really reaching.”

  His eyes brightened. “What I’d like to reach for…is your heart.”

  Oh, God. Why did he have to say the very thing that made her feel as though she was shattering into pieces? Her chest tightened and she had difficulty speaking around the lump in her throat. Was he saying he wanted her to have feelings for him? Because maybe he had them for her. “My heart?”

  “Yes. I wish I could massage it. Warm it up. Keep it safe.”

  The burning heat in his eyes seared her.

  She licked her bottom lip nervously. Damn, the man didn’t play fair. He’d allowed her to feel safe and pampered in her hot bath. Then he’d switched the conversation from business to personal so fast that he’d spiked her desire when she hadn’t even been thinking about lovemaking. He shouldn’t turn on practical Kimberly with his sexy looks, but he did. So how had Jason managed to make her feel sexy and wanton and desirable when she was tired and hadn’t even had sex on her mind? It was if he’d flipped a switch, a switch that only he knew existed. And she could no longer recall exactly why making love to him again was a bad idea.

  She lathered the washcloth, slowly and deliberately. And this time, she removed one leg from the water, pointed her toe at the ceiling and made a production of allowing the suds to run down her leg in thick soapy trickles while she washed the arch of her foot, her ankle, her calf and her thigh.

  He sucked in a breath when she repeated the maneuver with her other leg. This time, she knew if he climbed into the tub with her that she’d be on the receiving end of a lot more than a foot massage.

  So she had to bite back disappointment when his gaze returned to the laptop’s screen. “Professor Jamison has no criminal record. He lives in a four-bedroom home by the college campus and has two adult children from a former marriage.”

  “He sounds boring.”

  “Those are always the ones you have to watch.” His eyes twinkled as he watched her lather her breasts. “How many times have you seen neighbors in the news interviewed saying, ‘He was so quiet and kept to himself.”’

  She held the washcloth over her breasts and wrung it out, allowing the water to wash away the soap. He watched her every move, then his blue eyes returned to the computer. Damn him.

  What did he want? An invitation?

  She knew what she wanted, one last time together with this man she loved. One final night in his arms before she said goodbye.

  “Logan Kincaid just e-mailed me. The Shey Group has conclusive evidence that the professor had direct access to your script. According to their analysis, there’s a probability of over ninety-eight percent that he’s the thief.”

  “That’s just a theory and will do us no good unless we can catch the bastard.” Then she changed her tone to deliberately low. Husky. Provocative. “Aren’t you going
to join me?”

  “I’m not sure.” He turned those twinkling blue eyes on her, and she could see mischief layered with desire. “But I think better in a hot bathtub.”

  She arched her eyebrow, her heart hammering her ribs. “Is thinking all that you can do in a bathtub?”

  “Oh, I might come up…with…other interesting possibilities.”

  “If I shared this tub with you, would you be willing to wash my back?”

  “Darling, you let me share that tub with you and I’ll not only wash you, I’ll lick the excess water off you…with my tongue.”

  Despite the heat of the hot water, despite the sad lump in her throat that this would be their last time together, a shiver of anticipation licked down her spine and curled in her stomach. “Take off your clothes.”

  “In any particular order?”

  “Your shirt.”

  She leaned back as he ripped off his shirt and tossed it over the sink. Muscles rippled across his powerful chest dusted with swirls of dark hair that narrowed about his flat stomach. She liked looking at him and took her time, allowing her gaze to appreciate the hard, lean length of him.

  He placed his hands on his hips, a cocky smile curling one side of his mouth and emphasizing the gleam in his eyes. He looked every inch a dangerous jewel thief about to snatch a precious diamond and make it his own.

  “Now the rest.” She gestured to his leather pants, expecting to enjoy the sight of him wriggling out of them. But the material had a hook-and-loop fastener, and he stripped them off along with his shorts in one graceful move that left her breathless.

  He stepped into the tub. “Scoot up.”

  She’d thought he’d sit by her feet but instead he sat behind her, his long legs surrounding hers, his chest brushing her back, his head dipping to allow his lips to nip her earlobe.

  She tossed him the washcloth. “Hey, you promised to wash my back.”

  “I promised you a lot more than that.” His tone, seductive and sultry, matched the warmth of his hands. Ignoring the washcloth, he plucked the soap from the dish, lathered his hands and then slicked them over her shoulders. His fingers found knotted muscles and released them.