The Dare

For a prolonged second, he was arcing over the alley, his body slicing through the air. If something happened to him…

Before he could complete the thought, his foot came down hard and he tucked and rolled across the roof. Lungs burning, blood singing, Harry got to his feet and ran toward the door. It took him less than three minutes to finesse the lock. The sirens were still blocks away.

He was whistling as he stepped into the stairwell.

AN HOUR LATER, Harry stood on the balcony of his apartment in Montmartre and swirled cognac in a glass. Now that the excitement of the heist was over, his mood had turned melancholy again as he once more thought of Rory. Dammit, he missed her. He had three girls, triplets, and lately, he’d been missing all of them.

More than that, he’d been feeling an urgent need to talk to them. That was impossible, of course. They’d been ten years old when he and his wife, Amanda, had forged their agreement. She’d wanted a normal life for the girls, and so had he.

For the first ten years of their lives, he’d done his best to give them one. But he’d become bored with their “normal” life in the suburbs of D.C. He’d missed the adventure, the risk taking, the thrill of pulling off a perfect heist.

Amanda had been firm. At ten, the girls idolized him, and she didn’t want them idolizing his profession. Therefore, he could leave and resume his former profession as a master jewel thief on the condition that he didn’t see his girls or communicate with them until their twenty-sixth birthday.

Harry took a sip of his cognac. He’d made a mistake—the biggest one of his life—by agreeing to those terms. He and Amanda should have found another way. Two weeks ago, the girls had celebrated their twentieth birthday, and six more years had begun to seem far too long. Time could easily run out for him before that. It nearly had tonight.

Turning, he strode toward the desk in his study. On the night of their birthdays, he’d written a letter to his oldest daughter, Natalie.

But it was Rory, the second born, he’d thought of on that roof tonight. Each of his daughters had inherited something from him. Natalie had inherited his gift for picking locks and his talent for disguise. Sierra, the youngest, had inherited his curiosity and his analytical brain.

But it was Rory who’d inherited his love of taking risks and his inability to refuse a dare. Even as a toddler, she’d been the most impetuous of the three, and he’d always thought of her as his little daredevil. Natalie had worked hard to suppress any reckless streaks in her nature. And Sierra had naturally preferred to think things out, to plan. Rory had always chosen to throw herself into situations, making things up as she went along.

Earlier he’d opened an album to his three favorite photos of his middle daughter. In one, she was running over the finish line in a race. Harry smiled. Of the three girls, she was the one who always rushed headlong through life.

In the second, she was at her senior prom. And she was beautiful. When she was a little girl, she hadn’t believed that. She’d always felt that her sisters had inherited the “beauty” genes, as she’d called them. He couldn’t help but wonder if the years had brought her more confidence.

In the last picture, his favorite, she was on horseback, leaping over a fence. She’d been nineteen, and no doubt she’d dared herself to do it. That was what she’d always done when she was little. Rory had always been an excellent horsewoman. He recalled the times they’d ridden together, just the two of them, and rubbed the heel of his hand against the tight little band that squeezed his heart.

He had taken those photos himself. He might have promised Amanda that he wouldn’t contact them, but that hadn’t kept him from being there at important events over the years.

Harry set down his glass of cognac. He might have a pictorial history of his girls’ lives, but he didn’t have them. Reaching for a paper and pen, he shook off the nagging feeling that his time was running out. He might have to wait six years to deliver the letter in person, but he could write to her tonight.

To Rory, my darling daredevil…

1

WHY COULDN’T SHE EVER PLAN ahead?

Rory Gibbs gave herself a mental kick as she pushed her way through the crowd in the waiting area of the Blue Pepper. When she’d made the urgent call to her sisters to join her for dinner, she’d totally forgotten that Tuesday night was singles’ night at the popular Georgetown bistro. Now, as usual, she was going to have to depend on her luck to get a table. Rising to her tiptoes, she scanned the crowd trying to spot one of the owners.

George, a gentle giant of a man, would be busy at the bar, but his partner, Rad, should be somewhere near the reservation desk. Skirting a group of preppy-looking men, Rory climbed the four steps that led to the bar and once more scanned the crush of people. Or tried to. It was just hell being short.

“Excuse me.” Rory smiled up at a tall man as she wedged herself a path between him and the brunette he was talking to. He didn’t even glance down at her. Neither did another man whose elbow she jarred as she attempted unsuccessfully to duck beneath it. Halfway to the reservation desk, she finally bumped into Rad as they both were squeezing their way around a group of three women.

“Rory, Rory, Rory, Rory.” In spite of the crush of people, Rad managed to grasp her hands and kiss the air near her left cheek. Then he stepped back to give her a critical once-over. She returned the favor, noting that tonight his hair was white-blond and spiked. Rad changed his hair color almost as frequently as he changed his ties.

Before he’d bought the Blue Pepper, Rad had studied fashion design in New York City, and he’d appointed himself fashion policeman for the Gibbs sisters. He’d convinced her older sister, Natalie, to experiment with new colors and to start wearing her hair down.

For a full minute, Rory held her breath, hoping that the outfit she’d decided on met with his approval.

Rad had insisted she develop her own signature style. But like everything else she did, she was never quite sure how she was doing. She’d gotten the idea of pairing the faded, low-slung jeans with a vintage organdy-and-lace shirt from one of the layouts in Celebs magazine. She’d made the look her own by tying the shirttails beneath her breasts and adding strappy, high-heeled sandals, along with cascades of thin Italian gold hoops in her ears.

Finally, Rad beamed a smile at her, then leaned in and pitched his voice to be heard above the clatter of glasses and snatches of conversation. “A very nice variation on the Sarah Jessica Parker look! And I love the little gold bar in your navel. Veerry sexy.”

“Thanks.” Rory tried not to think about the fact that the only men who ever used that word to describe her were gay. No negative thoughts tonight, she reminded herself as she beamed a smile at Rad. “Tell me my luck’s holding and you can find me a table.”

Rad’s brows shot up. “On a Tuesday night? You’re lucky to have two sisters who plan ahead and call for reservations. Detective Natalie paged me at noon.”

That figured, Rory thought. Natalie took her responsibility as the oldest very seriously, and as a cop, she was good at thinking ahead.

“Dr. Gibbs beat her by calling this morning,” Rad said.

That figured, too. Sierra was a meticulous planner. She was forever making lists on blue note cards, and it had certainly paid off. She’d recently accepted a tenure-track position in Georgetown’s psychology department, and she ran her life with the same smooth efficiency that she wrote her books and taught her courses.

A little sliver of envy ran through Rory. Despite that they were triplets, she and her sisters were as different as two suns and the moon, and she wanted to be more like them. For starters, Natalie and Sierra had inherited the “planning” genes while her own approach to life so far could best be described as seat-of-the-pants.

She envied them in the looks department, too. Both Natalie and Sierra were tall like their father while she was short like their mother. Natalie was a smashing redhead; Sierra was a cool Gwyneth Paltrow–type blonde; and she was a plain brunette. But what was beginning to bother Rory most of all was that at twenty-six, her sisters were settled on their career paths and she was still trying to figure out what she wanted to be when she grew up.

Those days were history, she reminded herself. If everything went well tomorrow, she would no longer be the “muddled in the middle” triplet. She would be a reporter with a staff job at Celebs magazine. Nerves knotted in her stomach. If everything went well…

“Dr. Gibbs and Detective Natalie are waiting for you out on the patio,” Rad continued.

Sierra and Natalie had also inherited the “title” genes. She was just plain Rory.

“I’ve already put in an order for the appetizer special.” Rad turned her in the direction of the patio and gave her a nudge.

Food. That’s what she needed to settle her nerves. Usually, she chewed bubble gum, but she’d run out—a result of bad planning, of course.

No negative thoughts, she lectured herself again. As she nudged, ducked and generally bulldozed her way through the crowd, Rory tried to organize her thoughts and screw up her courage. After all, she was about to have one of life’s defining moments. She was going to open the letter her father had sent to her.

One month ago, she and her sisters had gathered here at the Blue Pepper to celebrate their twenty-sixth birthday, and Natalie had dropped a little bombshell into their lives.

After not seeing or hearing from Harry Gibbs for sixteen years, they’d each received a letter from him—a letter that had been held in trust by their father’s attorney for six years after Harry had died. They’d only been twenty when they’d lost both parents within months of each other.

Even now, it was hard for Rory to let herself think about her father without feeling a few pangs of pain and resentment. She couldn’t quite forgive him for walking out on them when they were ten. Neither could her sisters. Shortly after he’d left, they’d stopped calling him Dad and started referring to him as Harry.

Coming up short behind a solid wall of people who’d gathered to watch the salsa band, Rory edged her way along, looking for an opening. Just the thought of opening that letter had the nerves dancing in her stomach. Natalie had opened her letter a month ago, and the advice Harry had given her—to trust in her talents and risk everything to get what she wanted—had changed Natalie’s life. Not only had her older sister decided to say yes to the adventure of a lifetime, but she’d also found love. Since Natalie had found Chance Mitchell, she’d positively glowed.

But then Natalie had always had a lot of talents to trust in. Rory couldn’t imagine what Harry would say to her. Wiping damp hands on her jeans, she gave up on finding an opening in the wall of people. Instead, she ducked her head, twisted to the side and muscled her way through the crowd. After spotting her sisters, she shot across the dance floor, and finally dropped into a chair between them. Martinis were waiting, along with a platter of the Blue Pepper’s famous finger food. Rory reached for a stuffed mushroom and popped it into her mouth. Then she said around it, “Thanks for coming.”

“You don’t have to do this if you’re not ready,” Natalie said.

Sierra tapped the blue note card on the table in front of her. “We only agreed that you would be the one to go second. You can take all the time you want.”

Rory swallowed and drew in a deep breath. “I’ve waited long enough.” Slipping the letter out of her pocket, she set it on the table. “I need Harry’s advice.” There. She’d said it, and the words eased some of the flutters in her stomach.

“What’s up?” Natalie asked.

Rory glanced at Natalie. Of course, her perceptive older sister would know that something besides the letter was bothering her. She drew in a deep breath.