Naughty or Nice? Page 7

  Well, that last part wasn’t a lie, but it was the only thing she knew about him that wasn’t. How could he possibly pursue a relationship with her under those circumstances?

  He’d blown it. Bad.

  And then there was that fifty grand, which would be legitimately his once Kat dumped Preston. The right thing would be to turn it down and thereby free his conscience from the grip of Celeste Worth’s coral-tipped talons. Did he have the moral fortitude for that? Last night, he’d decided he did, and he’d set about mentally unraveling all the plans he’d made for that money. But Grady, who’d phoned him this morning for a briefing—good thing, too, or Jack would have overslept for this gig—had argued vehemently against turning it down. After all, Grady had reasoned, Jack will have saved Kat from Preston without having taken advantage of her himself, thereby, in essence, having performed a good deed. Didn’t that deserve some sort of reward?

  Just promise me you’ll think about it, Grady had begged.

  Jack, in the process of racing out of the house unshowered and unshaved, had promised.

  He took off his gloves, checked his watch again: 2:09.

  Show time. Detouring to where he’d dumped his parka, he fished out his cell phone and the folded-up page he’d printed off the Internet at around 4 A.M.

  When he entered the kitchen, he found Kat talking to a burly fellow in coveralls that had the name Gus Hamm embroidered on the chest; he was leaning on a handcart loaded with boxes labeled “Young Tom Turkeys” and shaking his head. Chantal, watching from the corner, caught Jack’s eye and gazed heavenward.

  “Look, lady,” Gus said as he lifted a box off the cart and slammed it onto the table, “you ordered ’em, they’re yours.”

  “But I’m telling you they weren’t supposed to come today.” Kat snapped her rubber gloves off. “I specifically said tomorrow. The refrigerators haven’t even been turned on yet, and they’re filthy. I’ve got no place to keep them.”

  “It’s cold outside.” Gus unloaded another box. “Keep ’em there.”

  “What, so every dog in the neighborhood can tear into them?”

  “That ain’t my problem, lady.”

  “No, I’m your problem.” Jack shoved the cell phone and printout in his back pocket as he stepped forward, freeing his hands. “And trust me,” he said, placing himself between Kat and Gus so that he had the man’s full attention. “I’m a problem you don’t need.”

  “Is that right?” Gus sneered, but the uneasy way he checked out Jack’s build in the sweat-dampened T-shirt, the heft of his fists curled at his sides, gave him away. “Take it easy, Tarzan. I’m just messin’ with her.”

  “Then you won’t mind loading those turkeys back on that cart and bringing them back tomorrow, say around . . . ?” He turned to Kat.

  “Uh . . . sometime in the morning?”

  Jack said, “Have them here by twelve noon, Mr. Hamm. Otherwise I’ll have to come looking for you, and I get cranky when I’m inconvenienced.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Gus said with blustering nonchalance. It took him about twenty seconds to reload the turkeys and beat a hasty retreat.

  Chantal let out a low, impressed whistle. “Who’s the man?” She gave Jack a playful punch on the arm, then paused to test the solidity of his biceps. “Kat, honey, check this out. This is how a man’s supposed to feel.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” Kat said, a faint wash of pink staining her cheeks. “Gosh, Jack. I didn’t realize you’d be so handy to have around. If you could only solve all my problems that way. It’s been one thing after another today.”

  “Speaking of which . . .” Chantal looked chagrined. “I’m sorry to add to your troubles, honey, but Calvin wanted me to tell you he’s not gonna be able to—”

  “I can’t hear you!” Kat clapped her hands over her ears.

  “I’m sorry, Kat.” Chantal patted her friend on the shoulder. “He just found out he’s got to work a full shift on Christmas.”

  Kat collapsed wearily onto a chair. “Great. Now, on top of everything else, we’ve got no Santa. The kids’ll be crushed.”

  “I’ll find someone else,” Chantal promised.

  “Someone else who’s willing to give up his Christmas morning on such short notice?” Kat asked. “You had a hard enough time roping Calvin into it.”

  Chantal brightened. “Hey, maybe Jack’ll do it. You wouldn’t mind giving up your Christmas morning, would you, Jack? Christmas means nothing to you.”

  “Which is exactly why he shouldn’t do it,” Kat pointed out. “Even if we could talk him into wearing the costume.”

  “Which I’ll be more than happy to do,” Jack said cheerfully, “when hell freezes over. But I might actually know someone who would do it—my nephew. He loves Christmas.” Jack mentally kicked himself as soon as the words were out of his mouth. Grady had snatched Kat’ s purse just a week ago today. She would recognize him . . . except he’d have a beard on, right? And a hat. He could pull it off, Jack decided, as long as he kept a fairly low profile.

  “Is he used to dealing with children?” Kat asked.

  “He’s an O’Leary,” Jack said with a grin. “There are nine kids in his immediate family alone. And he’s crazy about them.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Chantal said as she headed for the door. “He’ll need the costume we rented. You can take it with you when you leave today.”

  The kitchen seemed smaller after Chantal had left and Jack found himself alone with Kat. “Pretty big job, huh?” he asked as he withdrew the printout from his pocket and unfolded it. “Getting this party off the ground?”

  “You could say that,” she muttered, burying her face in her hands.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just . . .” Kat uncovered her face. “I feel like I’ve done nothing but put out one fire after another all day. I’m that close to just . . .” She flexed her hands in an explosive gesture.

  “Seriously? You always seem so . . . unflappable.”

  “Yeah, my doctor says I’m gonna get an ulcer from internalizing stress. What’s that?” she asked, nodding toward the printout.

  “Um . . . oh.” Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all, at least right now. “Nothing,” he said, starting to refold it.

  “It’s something about Aspen,” she said. “What is it?”

  He unfolded it and handed it to her. “It’s the Web site for a hotel called the Inn at Aspen. I did a little surfing last night. This is the only lodging at the base of Buttermilk Mountain where you can ski in and ski out.”

  Her brows drew together as she looked up at him. “I don’t get it. Why did you—”

  “It gives their phone number,” he said, pointing. Of course, he’d had it all along, but he could hardly tell her that. “You can call Preston now.”

  “Why do you want me to—”

  “So you can ask him point-blank if he’s married.”

  She groaned. “Jack . . .”

  He stepped closer, gentled his voice. “Tell me you haven’t been wondering if I might not be right. Tell me you haven’t had doubts.”

  “But if what you think about him is true—and I don’t think it is—wouldn’t he just lie to me?”

  “Listen for a telltale pause, or any strain in his voice. See if he dances around the question or just comes out and denies it. Pay attention, and you’ll know right away if he’s lying.”

  She stared at the printout.

  He withdrew the cell phone, held it out to her.

  She took it. “If I’m satisfied with his answer, you let the matter drop. Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  Kat punched out the number, held the phone to her ear. Jack heard it ringing on the other end, having cranked the volume all the way up so he could effectively listen in. A woman’s muted voice said, “The Inn at Aspen. How may I direct your call?”

  Kat said, “Preston Worth’s room, please.” With a glance at Jack, she added, “He probably won’t even be there.�
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  No, but Celeste would. Jack stepped back and crossed his arms, resisting the urge to snatch the phone out of her hand.

  The call was answered on the first ring. “Hello?” Celeste must have been waiting by the phone.

  Kat blinked. “Um . . . I think I might have the wrong room. I’m looking for Preston Worth.”

  “I’m his wife. If this is the masseuse, he’s on his way there now.”

  Kat stared blankly for a moment. “I’m sorry. Did you say . . . you’re his . . .”

  “His wife. Celeste Worth.” There came an ominous pause. “Who is this?”

  Kat opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. The color had leached from her face.

  Celeste’s voice turned hard. “I know who you are, Miss Peale. Preston really should have known better than to give you this number.”

  “I . . . he . . .”

  “Enjoy those diamond earrings, ’cause they’re the last thing you’re getting from him in a tiny little velvet box. Underneath it all, you’re just another high-priced whore. You weren’t his first, and I’m sure you won’t be his last.”

  Click.

  “Kat?” Jack said softly, lifting the phone from her hand.

  She continued to stare into middle distance. Her eyes were shiny, too shiny. The printout was balled up in her fist.

  “Oh, Kat, I’m sorry. I . . .” He closed a hand over her shoulder.

  She flinched at his touch, sprang off the bench. “I’ve got to get out of here.”

  He followed behind her as she grabbed her trench coat off another chair and bolted toward the back door. “I’ll come with—”

  “No, I’d rather you didn’t,” she said, her voice quavering as she pulled open the door. “I just need some fresh air. I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

  But, of course, she wasn’t.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  It was getting dark by the time Jack got home that evening, and a steady, frigid rain had begun to fall.

  Kat hadn’t come back to Augusta House after leaving to get some “fresh air.” Nor had she returned to her apartment; Jack had checked in three times with the doorman. Nor had she shown up in any of what Chantal had assured him were her favorite midtown haunts: a coffee shop on East Forty-seventh, a sit-down deli on Lex, and the Argosy Bookstore on East Fifty-ninth.

  Assured by his contacts in the various Manhattan police precincts that there had been no violent crimes that day involving women of Kat’s description, Jack had finally thrown in the towel. After swinging by her building one last time—where he left a message with the doorman for her to call him the second she got home—he’d caught the F train back to Brooklyn.

  Stowing the plastic-wrapped Santa costume in his front hall closet, Jack grabbed the cordless phone off the desk in the living room, dialed Grady’s number, and sprawled out on the couch.

  “Are you serious?” Grady demanded incredulously. “You want me to play Santa to a couple of hundred kids?”

  “I know it’s asking a—”

  “That is so awesome! I’ve always wanted to do something like that. Oh, my God. This is so cool.”

  “Have you been mainlining lattes again?”

  “Oh! Oh! I’ve got this totally bitchin’ idea. You know Leon, my on-again off-again squeeze from last year?”

  “The female impersonator?”

  “He only does the drag thing in his cabaret act. He’s a Teamster during the day, for crying out loud. Anyway, I’m thinking he’d make an excellent Mrs. Claus.”

  “He probably would.” Jack rubbed his forehead. “If there was a role for a Mrs. Claus. But they really just need—”

  “Oh! Or I could be Mrs. Claus and Leon could be Santa. Why should he have all the fun?”

  Jack sat up. “No, you’d better be Santa so Kat doesn’t recognize you as the guy who assaulted her and knocked her to the ground last week, when all you were supposed to do was—”

  “Look, man, you know how sorry I am about that. I screwed up, but I’ve said my mea culpas, and now I can maybe even make up for it a little bit by helping her out here. I’ll get some wire-rimmed glasses and a wig and one of those dustcaps. Leon can make me up. I’ll pluck everything. Trust me, she’ll never know it’s me.”

  “She’d better not.”

  Jack started dozing off after saying goodbye to Grady, but his empty stomach finally propelled him off the couch and into the kitchen. He couldn’t recall ever having felt so utterly scorched, not just physically—he’d put in a full day of hard labor on an hour of sleep and two slices of pizza—but mentally and emotionally, as well. A bowl of Cheerios was all the dinner he felt capable of mustering up, after which he stripped down and showered off the film of sweat and grime he’d accumulated that day.

  Donning a fresh T-shirt and oversized boxer shorts—his loungewear of choice—Jack flopped down on the living room couch, yawned and grabbed the remote. Five minutes of national news and he’d be nodding off, for sure. He thumbed it on, and the TV crackled to life, but he wasn’t looking at it. He was looking at his desk in the corner, and the file folder that lay half on top of his computer keyboard.

  Muting the TV, he went to the desk, flicked on the green-shaded banker’s lamp and opened the folder. The newspaper clipping of Celeste’s Village Voice ad lay over Kat’s face on the top photo. He brushed the clipping aside and studied her image in softly grainy black-and-white. Funny he hadn’t noticed before how brightly she seemed to glow against her night-in-the-city surroundings: the radiant skin, the lustrous hair, the gleam of silk, the snap of diamonds and rhinestones. She looked ethereal, angelic . . . and a little sad, buttoning her jacket against the cold.

  Jack opened the middle desk drawer, withdrew the fat kraft envelope, dumped its contents on top of the desk.

  Five thousand dollars in bound twenties. He grabbed a packet and brought it to his nose; the bile rose in his throat.

  Bzzt! It was the intercom on the wall by the front door; someone was downstairs. Jack crossed to it, pressed the talk button. “Yeah?”

  A pause. “Jack, it’s me—Kat.” Kat! She said something else, but he was already holding down the door button so she could enter the building. She must have looked up his address; he didn’t think he’d ever given it to her. He hadn’t wanted her to know too much about him—just like Preston, he realized soberly.

  He opened the door and stepped into the hall, swore sharply, and turned to sprint back to his desk. Jerking open the middle drawer, he scooped the money and envelope back into it, tossed the file on top, shut it and went back out to the hall.

  “Up here,” he called from the top of the stairs. “Third floor.” When he saw her trudging upstairs, wet ponytail drooping, sodden trench coat hanging limply, he raced down to meet her. “Kat, honey, where have you been?” he asked, taking her hand to guide her back up to his place. “I looked all over for you.”

  “I was just . . . walking.” Eyeing his attire, or lack of it, she said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “You’re not. I was just hanging.”

  Old Mrs. Wise was peering out through her cracked-open door with those monstrous baby-bird eyes of hers. They widened cartoonishly when she got a load of his boxers.

  “ ’Evening, Mrs. Wise,” Jack greeted as he ushered Kat into his apartment. The old woman slammed her door shut.

  Kat looked around curiously as she strolled from his foyer into his living room, dark but for the flickering bluish light of the muted television and the banker’s lamp. She did a slow three-sixty, taking in the worn leather furniture, framed B-movie posters, Navajo-inspired rug. “Nice, but it could use a few t-tacky Christmas decorations.”

  “You’re cold.” Coming around to face her, he untied the sash of her damp trench coat and flicked open the buttons. “Look at you.” He raised a hand to her face, brushing his fingertips lightly over her mouth. “Your lips are blue.”

  She rubbed her face against his hand like a kitten wanting to be petted.


  “I’m sorry,” he said in a raw whisper. “I’m really sorry. I never should have had you make that call.”

  “No, I needed to know. You have nothing to be sorry about.”

  If only that were true. Jack started to withdraw his hand, but Kat held on to it, pressed it to her mouth, kissed it—just a warm tickle against his knuckles, but he felt the thrill of it, the promise, right down to his toes.

  Kat looked up at him, pale and beautiful in the fluttering incandescence. She skimmed her hand—so cool, so soft—over his beard-roughened cheek, curled it around the back of his head, drew him closer . . .

  “Kat . . .” He shouldn’t do this. This was the last thing he should do.

  She touched her lips to his, just lightly.

  The pleasure of it jolted him, made his heart ram in his chest, his body tighten with sudden need. He dragged her to him, clutched her hair, her coat, kissed her like a man seeking air to breathe. God, how he’d craved this, needed this.

  She tore at his T-shirt; he whipped it off over his head. She kissed his throat, his chest, kicked off her loafers, unzipped her jeans. While shimmying out of them, she got tangled in her trench coat and lost her balance. He caught her and they fell together to the carpeted floor, she yanking at his boxers, he kneading her breasts through her sweatshirt as he kissed her ravenously, stunned by how hard he was, how ready, how desperate for this. She guided his hand between her legs, hitching in a breath at the first gentle slide of his fingertips; she was ready, too.

  Naked now, he rolled on top of her, her legs cradling him snugly, her hands gripping his hips, urging him—

  “Jack,” she gasped as he filled her, one slick hot lunge that made them both cry out with the fierce pleasure of it. He buried his hands in her hair, kissed her in triumph and helplessness and inexpressible gratitude.

  They writhed together with increasing urgency, to the escalating cadence of the blood pounding like drums in his ears. She arched her hips, dug her fingers into his shoulders, whimpered his name. He groaned with each thrust, reveling in the turbulence of their joining, the unthinking furor of it.