He paid for dinner. He insisted, because if they hadn’t had to leave on short notice he’d have cooked for her. Mollie didn’t remind him that she’d never expected to stay for dinner at all.
She relished the warm evening air on the walk back to his apartment, enjoyed the bustle of the crowded streets, imagined how different a late February night in Boston would be. A year ago, she’d have worked late, maybe gone out for dinner with friends, or to a concert with her parents or sister. There had been no steady man in her life. Jeremiah Tabak was a distant, if still very real, memory.
There wasn’t a steady man now, she reminded herself, glancing at Jeremiah as he strode beside her, preoccupied with his own thoughts. She had no illusions. He was driven and utterly focused on one thing: investigating the Gold Coast thefts. Just because he couldn’t do the story didn’t mean it didn’t absorb him. The physical part of their relationship was just an extension of that focus and drive. If it became a distraction, something apart from the story, it would end. The story determined everything. And when it ended, so would his interest in her. As much as he might want to believe she was his reason for being on the jewel thief story, she wasn’t. He was the reason. His need to know things, his need to unravel and solve and figure out and just know.
When they arrived back at his building, the guys were all still outside, Bennie smoking a fat, putrid-smelling cigar. “Old habit,” he said. “My wife never let me smoke inside.”
Jeremiah turned to Mollie, his eyes flat now, lost in the shadows, his voice low. “I’ll walk you to your car.”
She shook her head. “There’s no need. It’s right there.” She pointed across and down the street. She smiled. “Thank you for dinner. I enjoyed myself.” She drew in a breath, so aware of him standing close, silent. “Of course, it was business.”
“ ’Course. I’ll deduct dinner from my taxes.” He winked, smiling. “You can sit out here with the guys for a while, if you want. Good night, Mollie.”
She felt three pairs of old-man eyes on her. “Good night, Jeremiah.”
He headed inside, and Mollie frowned, wondering what had possessed her to drive to South Beach in the first place. Sal, the ex-priest, settled back in his rickety chair and said thoughtfully, “He’s afraid to want something he doesn’t have because he might lose it.”
“Nah,” Albert said, “he’s just got to be jerked up by the balls and forced to pay attention to what’s important. Reporters, you know?”
Bennie shook his head. “Jeremiah’s an honorable man. He wants to do what’s right. He’s not going to press himself on a woman if he doesn’t think it’s right.”
“Jesus,” Sal said, “you’re making the lady blush.”
Albert grinned at Mollie. “It’s not like we have this conversation every week with a woman.”
“He hasn’t been right lately,” Bennie said. “You can tell by his whittling. You see that?” He picked up a carved piece of something that looked vaguely like a palm tree. “He can whittle better than that. He was just hacking. His mind was somewhere else.”
Meaning, presumably, Mollie thought, on her. But she expected it was more likely on the jewel thief story and her potential role in it, Croc’s behavior, his own next move. Jeremiah would love a story he could chew on, that would occupy him fully.
“Go on upstairs.” Albert gave her an encouraging nod. “We have coffee and bagels down here at eight every morning. You can come sit with us and tell us how things worked out.”
“You’re a dirty old man, Albert,” Bennie told him, his putrid cigar tucked between thumb and forefinger.
Sal shrugged off both their comments and turned to Mollie. “Jeremiah needs more for company than reptiles and us old men. That much we know. I’m just not sure he knows it-or is willing to take the risk of hurting himself, and you, to admit it.”
He seemed so sincere, so certain. Finally, Mollie nodded and without a word went back inside and upstairs to Jeremiah’s apartment. What happened next, she thought, happened. But she wasn’t ready to climb back into Leonardo’s car and drive north.
12
Mollie knocked on Jeremiah’s door with a calm that surprised her. She had no intention of changing her mind. He opened up, tilted his head back, his eyes half-closed, his expression unreadable. She thought she saw a twitch of humor but couldn’t be sure. “Forget something?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’ve been talking to the guys downstairs.”
“Ah, the council of wise old men.”
She smiled, noticing that he hadn’t moved from the doorway. “They observed your abrupt departure with interest.”
“They observe everything I do with interest. I suppose they had opinions on my motives?”
“Of course. They believe you’re being honorable or you’re scared-or a mixture of both-except for the one old guy who thinks you just need to be jerked up short.”
“That would be Albert, and I’m sure he was more colorful in his choice of words. He thinks I have a one-track mind about my work and need a two-by-four upside the head every now and then to get my attention.” He shrugged, the amusement reaching his eyes now. “Which could be true.”
“What about the honor and fear factor?”
“I try to do what I think is right. I don’t know if that’s being honorable. As for fear-” He smiled, leaning in close to her. “I’m not afraid of you, Mollie.”
She folded her arms on her chest in an effort to be cool, collected. “Does that mean I’m invited in?”
He stepped back from the door, motioning her inside with a mock bow and a sweep of his arm. Mollie eased past him. His apartment was silent and still, no television or CD playing, no reptiles stirring in their cages. As stripped down as Jeremiah’s tastes were, she felt comfortable. She remembered waltzing around the pink bedroom in Leonardo’s house, picking out her dress for the ball, caught up in the luxury and temptation of diamonds and rubies and beautiful clothes, all fun, but, somehow, not as real as standing in Jeremiah’s apartment with his books, CDs, videos, newspapers, magazines, simple furnishings, lizard, turtle, and snake.
“As much as I hate to admit it,” he said behind her, “I understand where Bennie, Albert, and Sal were coming from tonight. We’ve gotten to know each other, sitting out whittling, eating bagels in the morning, smoking an occasional cigar. They don’t know about you and our week together, but they know about me. The work I do, my commitment to it-and my determination not to inflict myself on a relationship that can’t last.”
Mollie turned to him, emotion and desire knotting her insides. A seriousness seemed to have enveloped him, darkening his eyes, bringing out the harsh angles of his face. But she didn’t regret her decision to walk back up to his apartment. “Jeremiah, right now I’m not worried about what can last and what can’t last. I’m not here about anything except tonight.”
“I don’t want to hurt you again.”
“That’s the risk we take, isn’t it?”
“Maybe it is.” He moved to her, toe to toe, and curved an arm around her waist, his mouth finding hers as he whispered, “I’m awfully glad I didn’t have to follow you up to Palm Beach tonight.”
“Would you have spied on me?”
“Darlin’, I’d have found some way inside your gates.”
He slipped his hands under her shirt and opened his palms against her warm, bare skin, sending waves of sensation through her as their mouths came together again, and she said between kisses, “I brought a change of clothes, just in case. They’re down in the car.”
His eyes flashed, sending more tremors through her with their blatant desire. “What about my plan for us to steer clear of each other?”
She drew her arms around him, felt the strong muscles of his back. “Did you think even for a half-second that would work?”