License to Thrill

“Remember the time we were on the vice-presidential detail in Seattle?”

Silence.

“You remember. He was in Washington for the preprimary debate, and we were placed on extra alert—”

“I remember,” Mel interrupted, apparently giving up her study of the cuffs.

He glanced to find her staring at him. “Then you remember what you did when you saw that perp in the hotel kitchen? You wrestled the guy to the floor before he had a chance to identify himself.” She turned her face away. “Good thing the vice president’s ticker was strong, or you would have given him a heart attack.”

No response. Marc tightened his hands on the steering wheel. Maybe that hadn’t been the best memory to use.

“Of course you couldn’t have known he liked to walk the streets incognito, picking up a paper or two. Hell, none of us knew.”

Silence.

Marc cleared his throat. The art of conversation was obviously not an inherited skill. His father was a pro at it—at least with others—as was his brother Mitch. Given Mel’s response, he guessed he was still an amateur. “Not in the mood for reminiscing, Mel?”

“Don’t call me Mel,” she said finally. He exhaled in surprised relief. An angry Mel was much easier to deal with than a silent one. “My name’s Melanie. And no, I don’t feel like revisiting the past, Marc. I’d just as soon forget it.”

He turned onto the on-ramp for I-270 South. “It wasn’t that long ago.”

“Ninety-two days. Two-thousand, two hundred and eight hours. One hundred, thirty-two thousand—”

“All right, I get the picture already,” he grumbled.

“—four hundred and eighty minutes,” she finished, her voice little more than a whisper. “That’s a lot of time. Enough time for a person to completely reinvent herself.” She paused. “I’m not rusty, Marc. I’m not the person you knew.”

Maybe she had a point there. Marc rubbed his fingers across his chin. Then again, his reaction to her hadn’t changed. While Mel still carried her .25—strapped to her milky thigh, no less—she didn’t call herself his partner anymore, in either sense of the word, no matter how much he wanted to lose himself in her. Now more than ever. Three months without Melanie had done that to him.

He resisted the urge to rearrange a certain painfully erect body part into a more comfortable position. He reminded himself that his plan had as much to do with physical urges as it did with the threat that loomed over Mel’s head. And the changes in her merely amplified her need for protection.

What would she do when he told her Hooker had escaped from custody en route to his hearing? That it was strongly suspected he was coming after her to finish the job?

He looked at her in the rearview mirror, flinching when the rock she wore on her left ring finger reflected the sunlight. He thought about the velvet pouch in his pocket. His ring was nothing compared to the one she had on. Little more than costume jewelry. Why had he decided an emerald was prettier than a diamond?

He grimaced, wondering why he carried the stupid thing around, anyway.

Marc mulled the situation over for the half-hour ride into the city, finding no easy answers to his questions or the ones Mel kept asking. Honesty to a degree. That’s what a piece in last month’s issue of It’s a Woman’s World had said. But what was that degree? He absently thrust his fingers through his hair. Sure, he knew enough not to tell a woman her hips looked big in a certain pair of jeans or that a shade of lipstick looked awful when it did…well, most of the time anyway. But how much did he tell Mel about what was going on? Was it best to keep the truth from her altogether? Was it better to let her believe he’d kidnapped her to keep her from marrying someone else? Which wasn’t exactly a lie…

He slid the velvet pouch to the side of his pocket. Who in the hell had colored in so many shades of the truth, anyway? He really couldn’t guess how Mel would react. All he knew was that her injury must have scared her but good, or she would have never quit the division.

“God, you’re not taking me to your town house, are you?” Mel’s voice broke into his thoughts.

He cleared his throat. “So you still recognize the way. Given the number of times you’ve visited lately, I’m surprised.”

She whispered something he couldn’t hear. He turned to look at her. He’d noticed before that she’d let her hair grow. He watched the setting sun bounce rays off the golden strands, making it appear as if she wore a halo. Only he knew how much of the devil resided within her, even if she chose to forget.

“What was that?” he asked.

Metal clanked against metal, but she said nothing.

“Let’s see, what could it have been? Hmm. Could you have been commenting on how many times I visited you in that colonial mansion wannabe on Cherry Blossom Road in Bedford you now call home?”

Her continued silence told him what he wanted to know.

He grew more agitated. “I was afraid your mother wouldn’t tell you how many times she turned me away—”

“She did not.” Another nudge to the back of his seat nearly threw him against the steering wheel. But it was the loud tearing of material that caught his attention.

Marc pulled into the garage of the two-family town house he had lived in for the past ten months. With a flick of the remote, the garage door started to close, clipping off the sunlight. He turned to see Mel’s frown as she took stock of the rip in her dress.

“Tsk, tsk,” he said softly.

“Go to hell, McCoy.”

He climbed out of the Jeep. “Oh, me and hell are coming to know each other very well lately,” he said to himself, then opened the back door. “Are you going to cooperate? Or should I leave you out here until you cool down?”

He watched her school her features into a mask of calm. Only the bright spots of red on her cheeks gave away her true feelings. “I’ll cooperate.”

He grinned, not buying her act for a second. “Good.”

He took the key to the cuffs out of his front jeans pocket and released her. She rubbed at the red rings around her wrists, then stared at the tear in her dress.

“I can’t believe you did this,” she said as she scooted to the door. Marc stepped out of the way. “Where’s the phone?”

She glanced around the garage to where a telephone extension had once hung next to the door to the kitchen. “Phone?” he asked.

Her gaze warily shifted to him. “Yes, you know, that little banana-shaped instrument you use to contact others. Where is it?”

He glanced at her, taking in her shoeless feet. “Let’s go inside, why don’t we?”

He placed his hand at the small of her back, silently groaning at the way the silk of her dress complimented the warm hollow. She didn’t budge. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Oh? You’re here, aren’t you?”

“Not by choice.” She moved away from his touch, and he saw the ten-inch tear in the side seam of her dress.

He dropped his voice an octave, doubt briefly tainting his intentions. “What makes you think you have a choice now?”

Wrong thing to say. He knew without any magazine telling him that. No one liked to be boxed in. Especially a woman like Mel.

He watched as her eyes widened slightly. For the first time in the years he’d known her, he spotted fear lurking in her face, in her stiff posture. Never had Melanie Weber been afraid of him. And he didn’t like the thought that she was now, even if it was for her own good. He molded his fingers gently around her upper arm and urged her toward the door.

“Come on. If you’re still hungry, you can raid the fridge while I see to some things.”

She tried to tug her arm from his grip. “I don’t want to raid your fridge, Marc. I’m supposed to be in the middle of a perfectly wonderful dinner with—”

“I know. Your groom-to-be, his parents, your mother and all of Bedford. I hate to tell you this, Mel, but I think your guests have figured out you won’t be back.”