Truly Daddy

Madame Yeltsy did not approve of women who made such matters a priority.

“Oh, brother,” Toni exclaimed in a tone that would have made her mentor proud, “did you design this? I want it I want more like it. I want—”

“No, no,” he squeaked. “Not for sale.”

She glanced up at her reluctant salesman. Little beads of perspiration were standing out on his forehead. He looked like he was about to faint.

Not a reaction even she had ever caused. In fact, he seemed to be looking uneasily past her left ear and out the window. She glanced over her shoulder. The street was absolutely thronged. But suddenly, among the bustle, her gaze was attracted to stillness. Three men were standing across the street, looking over at the shop. Were they noticeable because they were so large and Caucasian in a sea of people who were smaller and golden? Or was it because there was something vaguely menacing about them?

“Take the ring,” he said softly, folding his hand over hers. “Go now.”

“I can’t take the ring. I want to buy several of them. And that necklace--”

“Go now,” he said, his voice practically a whisper. “Go.”

“You don’t understand. I need—”

“Leave card,” he said firmly, almost ferociously. “Come back later.”

The man was going to jump out of his skin at any moment, so she slipped a card from her jacket pocket and scribbled her hotel and room number on it. She laid it on the counter.

He nodded. “Go.”

She started to leave the ring.

“Take,” he ordered.

She looked at him again and could almost smell his fear. Something was very wrong here, wrong enough to pierce her elation about Ying.

“Can I help?” she asked quietly. “What’s the matter?”

But whatever the matter was, she could see her persistence was making it worse. She thanked him uneasily, feeling his urgency, turned abruptly on her heel and left.

She moved into the throng and was jostled along for several yards. There was incredible energy on this crowded street, and she wished she had thought to bring her camera with her. Maybe she could get to her hotel room and come back before the light faded.

Though Madame Yeltsy frowned on hobbies and considered them frivolous, Toni knew her own tendency toward the artsy, her love of balance and her ability to pick out pleasing images, had helped to bring her to this position in the first place.

A noise made her glance back over her shoulder. The three men who had been on the other side of the street crossed, paused and then went hurriedly into the store she had just left.

A moment later she heard shouting. One of the men came back out of the store and was scanning the crowded street.

Intuitively, she knew, without a doubt, that he was looking for her. There was a flat, cold expression on his face that filled her with foreboding. The little shop proprietor came out, firmly in the grasp of a large thug. He was wailing. His eyes searched the crowded street, and then he pointed right at her!

All three men were on the sidewalk now, staring at her with dark menace in their eyes. Still holding the storekeeper firmly captive, the thug went back into the store while the other two men started pushing through the congested street toward her.

Her reaction was one of pure panic.

Instinct told her she had just become the hunted. What had she gotten herself into now, and how was she going to get out of it?

Crazy to think she could outrun them. She had on three-inch heels and a pencil-line skirt!

She had to outthink them. Her specialty.

First, she ducked. There was no sense being six inches taller than anyone else on the street. From behind her curtain of people, she thought frantically. She had only seconds.

She was crouched beside a car. She raised herself slightly and peered in the window. A child’s car seat was strapped in the back. An abandoned teddy bear leaned drunkenly on one ear.

Not even really thinking about it, she tried the handle.

The door whispered open.

She slithered onto the back floor, bemoaning only briefly the damage to her new gray skirt. She pulled the door gently shut behind her. There was a beautiful hand-quilted blanket on the floor.

She tugged it quickly over herself.

She could hear them approaching, calling out to each other.

“She was here just a second ago, dammit!”

“Well, she’s a flippin’ amazon, so she shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

Amazon! Under different circumstances she would have taken pleasure in setting him straight on that account.

The men seemed to have stopped right outside the vehicle. Her heart racing uncontrollably, she tugged one corner of the blanket down and peered up and out.

Her heart did stop then. A man who bore an unfortunate resemblance to a giant stood on the sidewalk, inches from the vehicle window.

But it never occurred to him to look in the car.

He moved on, face set in an angry scowl, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

She would wait five minutes. In fact, she would look at her watch right now and time it, because five minutes was going to seem like an eternity. She would wait five minutes, then sit up carefully, look around and, if the coast was clear, go back to her hotel and call the police.

And tell them what?

“One thing at a time,” she instructed herself tersely. She wasn’t anywhere near a phone yet.

She had to swallow a shriek when she suddenly heard the front door tested.

They’d found her!

She put her head back under the blanket.

Click. The door opened.

Make a run for it. No, wait.

A bag came tumbling over the back seat, followed by a second one. The springs of the front seat creaked as weight settled into them. A delicious aroma filled the vehicle—of sunshine and aftershave. A smell one hundred percent male.