Tess Gerritsen: Thief Of Hearts aka Stolen

At the yew hedge he finally caught up with her and pulled her to a halt. “What were you doing in there?” he demanded.

“What were you doing in there?” she countered.

Back at the house the bedroom lights came on, and a voice yelled from the balcony, “Thieves! Don’t you come back! I’ve called the police!”

“I’m not hanging around here, ” said the woman, and made a beeline for the woods.

Jordan sighed. “She does have a point.” And he took off after her.

For a mile they slogged it out together, dodging brambles, ducking beneath branches. It was rough terrain, but she seemed tireless, moving at the steady pace of someone in superb condition. Only when they’d reached the far edge of the woods did he notice that her breathing had turned ragged.

He was ready to collapse.

They stopped to rest at the edge of a field. The sky was cloudless, the moonlight thick as milk. Wind blew, warm and fragrant with the smell of fallen leaves.

“So tell me,” he managed to say between gulps of air, “do you do this sort of thing for a living?”

“I’m not a thief. If that’s what you’re asking.”

“You act like a thief. You dress like a thief.”

“I’m not a thief.” She sagged back wearily against a tree trunk. “Are you?”

“Of course not!” he snapped.

“What do you mean, of course not? Is it beneath your precious dignity or something?”

“Not at all. That is-I mean-” He stopped and shook his head in confusion. “What do I mean?”

“I haven’t the faintest,” she said innocently.

“I’m not a thief,” he said, more sure of himself now. “I was…playing a bit of a practical joke. That’s all.”

“I see.” She tilted her head up to look at him, and her expression was plainly skeptical in the moonlight. Now that they weren’t grappling like savages, he realized she was quite petite. And, without a doubt, female. He remembered how snugly her sweet curves had fit beneath him, and suddenly desire flooded through his body, a desire so intense it left him aching. All he had to do was step close to this woman and those blasted hormones kicked in.

He stepped back and forced himself to focus on her face. He couldn’t quite make it out under all that camouflage paint, but it would be easy to remember her voice. It was low and throaty, almost like a cat’s growl. Definitely not English, he thought. American?

She was still eyeing him with a skeptical look. “What did you take out of the wardrobe?” she asked. “Was that part of the practical joke?”

“You…saw that?”

“I did.” Her chin came up squarely in challenge. “ Now convince me it was all a prank.”

Sighing, he reached under his jacket. At once she jerked back and pivoted around to flee. “No, it’s all right!” he assured her. “It’s not a gun or anything. It’s just this pouch I’m wearing. Sort of a hidden backpack.” He unzipped the pouch. She stood a few feet away, watching him warily, ready to sprint off at the first whiff of danger. “It’s a bit sophomoric, really,” he said, tugging at the pouch. “But it’s good for a laugh.” The contents suddenly flopped out and the woman gave a little squeak of fright. “See? It’s not a weapon.” He held it out to her. “It’s an inflatable doll. When you blow it up, it turns into a naked woman.”

She moved forward, eyeing the limp rubber doll. “Anatomically correct?” she inquired dryly.

“I’m not sure, really. I mean, er…” He glanced at her, and his mind suddenly veered toward her anatomy. He cleared his throat. “I haven’t checked.”

She regarded him the way one might look at an object of pity.

“But it does prove I was there on a prank,” he said, struggling to stuff the deflated doll back in the pouch.

“All it proves,” she said, “is that you had the foresight to bring an excuse should you be caught. Which, in your case, was a distinct possibility.”

“And what excuse did you bring? Should you be caught?”

“I wasn’t planning on getting caught,” she said, and started across the field. “Everything was going quite well, as a matter of fact. Until you bumbled in.”

“What was going quite well? The burglary?”

“I told you, I’m not a thief.”

He followed her through the grass. “So why did you break in?”

“To prove a point.”

“And that point was?”

“That it could be done. I’ve just proven to Mr. Delancey that he needs a security system. And my company’s the one to install it.”

“You work for a security company?” He laughed. “Which one?”

“Why do you ask?”

“My future brother-in-law’s in that line of work. He might know your firm.”

She smiled back at him, her lips immensely kissable, her teeth a bright arc in the night. “I work for Nimrod Associates,” she said. Then, turning, she walked away.

“Wait. Miss-”

She waved a gloved hand in farewell, but didn’t look back.

“I didn’t catch your name!” he said.

“And I didn’t catch yours,” she said over her shoulder. “Let’s keep it that way.”

He saw her blond hair gleam faintly in the darkness. And then, in a twinkling, she was gone. Her absence seemed to leave the night colder, the darkness deeper. The only hint that she’d even been there was his residual ache of desire.

I shouldn’t have let her go, he thought. I know bloody well she’s a thief. But what could he have done? Hauled her to the police? Explained that he’d caught her in Guy Delancey’s bedroom, where neither one of them belonged?

With a weary shake of his head, he turned and began the long tramp to his car, parked a half mile away. He’d have to hurry back to Chetwynd. It was getting late and he’d be missed at the party.

At least his mission was accomplished; he’d stolen Veronica’s letters back. He’d hand them over to her, let her lavish him with thanks for saving her precious hide. After all, he had saved her hide, and he was bloody well going to tell her so.

And then he was going to strangle her.

The party at Chetwynd was still in full swing. Through the ballroom windows came the sounds of laughter and violin music and the cheery clink of champagne glasses. Jordan stood in the driveway and considered his best mode of entry. The back stairs? No, he’d have to walk through the kitchen, and the staff would certainly find that suspicious. Up the trellis to Uncle Hugh’s bedroom? Definitely not; he’d done enough tangling with vines for the night. He’d simply waltz in the front door and hope the guests were too deep in their cups to notice his disheveled state.

He straightened his bow tie and brushed the twigs off his jacket. Then he let himself in the front door.

To his relief, no one was in the entrance hall. He tiptoed past the ballroom doorway and started up the curving staircase. He was almost to the second-floor landing when a voice called from below.

“Jordie, where on earth have you been?”

Suppressing a groan, Jordan turned and saw his sister, Beryl, standing at the bottom of the stairs. She was looking flushed and lovelier than ever, her black hair swirled elegantly atop her head, her bared shoulders lustrous above the green velvet gown. Being in love certainly agreed with her. Since her engagement to Richard Wolf a month ago, Jordan had seldom seen her without a smile on her face.

At the moment she was not smiling.

She stared at his wrinkled jacket, his soiled trouser legs and muddy shoes. She shook her head. “I’m afraid to ask.”

“Then don’t.”

“I’ll ask anyway. What happened to you?”