Maddie shoved her face closer to his. He tried not to stare at her luscious lips and failed miserably. She was so incredibly sexy when she was steamed. It was all he could do not to kiss her.
“It means, Hot Shot, that if you would think things through and act more cautiously you might not waste so much time running up blind alleys.”
“Not everyone needs to be as plodding and methodical as you,” he retorted.
“This half-cocked loose cannon shtick is going to come back and bite you in the ass.”
“This isn’t the wrong move,” he insisted stubbornly.
But even as he clung to his position, David knew if he made the wrong choice by traveling to Paris, not only was his FBI career in jeopardy, but his mistake could cost Cassie her life.
David Marshall was the most infuriating, arrogant man she’d ever met in her life and the fact that she was inordinately attracted to him only made things worse.
What was wrong with her? Why did she find his high-handed masculinity so exciting? Why couldn’t she stop thinking about the irritating man and what had happened in the coconut grove? Why couldn’t she stop wishing she’d been more awake for their kiss?
She’d given in to him. Not because she thought he was right about Paris, but because Cassie would need her protection if it turned out he was correct. She was the only thing standing between her twin and the hardheaded FBI agent determined to see her behind bars.
They chartered a plane from Grand Cayman to Miami and caught the next available flight to Paris at two
A.M.
Maddie took her assigned seat next to the window. She did her best to ignore David, but denying him was akin to denying the sun in the desert. Physically, he was so present. Big and prominent and . . .
there.
Two little girls in matching dresses moved down the aisle of the airplane. The oldest one was eight or nine, the youngest barely six. They were carrying matching tote bags and the oldest one was holding the youngest one’s hand. They took the two seats in front of Maddie and David.
Watching them caused Maddie’s chest to knot up. How many times had she and Cassie boarded a similar plane, shuttling from their mother and stepfather’s home in Belize or Panama or South Africa bound for their father’s home in San Antonio? She knew exactly how the oldest one felt.
Responsible.
The flight attendant helped the girls get situated, but she’d no more than walked away when the youngest one undid her seat belt, turned around and peered at David over the back of her seat.
“Hi.” The girl grinned at him. Six years old and already an incorrigible flirt.
“Hi, yourself.” He grinned back. His smile was so genuine, Maddie forgot she was mad at him.
“I’m Katy.”
David winked at her and she giggled coyly. “Nice to meet you, Katy. I’m David and this is Maddie.”
“Sit back down,” her older sister hissed. “And leave those people alone.”
“That’s Rebecca,” Katy said with a dismissive flip of her hand. “She’s my sister. She’s bor-r-ring.”
Maddie felt a special kinship with Rebecca. She knew what the girl went through trying to corral her ebullient sibling.
“You know what Mom said about talking to strangers.” Rebecca tugged on her sister’s sleeve. “Turn around.”
“They’re not strange, Becca.”
“We don’t know them, that makes them strangers.” Rebecca was trying to keep her voice low, but her perky sister was having none of the subterfuge.
“We don’t know the airplane lady either and you talked to her.”
“She works for the airline. It’s okay if you talk to her.”
“But they’re very nice, Becca,” Katy coaxed. “Look at ’em.”
Rebecca peeked around the seat. She arrowed David and Maddie a suspicious glance. “Sorry about her,” she apologized. “This is her first time traveling without our mom.”
“I like how your hair sticks up,” Katy said boldly to David. She tugged at her own hair, trying to make it spike like his.
“Sit down,” Rebecca repeated. “Or I’m gonna tell Dad on you when we get to Paris.”
Katy wrinkled her nose. “Do you think that stupid Trixie will be there?”
“Probably, she’s his girlfriend now.”
Katy blew a raspberry.
“Come on, sit down,” Rebecca begged.
“You’re not the boss of me.” Katy tossed her head.
Gosh, Maddie thought, if she had a dollar for every time she’d heard that line she’d own Bill Gates.
David leaned forward and spoke softly to the little girl. “The plane’s about to take off, Katy, and you don’t want to get thrown out of your seat. I’d hate to see you skin your knee. Why don’t you sit down and put on the seat belt until we’re airborne?”
“Okay,” Katy said easily, turned around and plunked down. Rebecca shot him a grateful glance.
David looked over at Maddie. He was still grinning. She realized she had never seen him looking relaxed.
“Cute kid,” he said.
“You’re good with her.”
“She likes male attention. Sounds like she doesn’t get enough of daddy’s time.”
“That sounds familiar,” Maddie muttered and it came out harsher than she intended.
“Strike a nerve?”
She shrugged. She wasn’t about to tell him about her daddy issues. It was none of his damned business.
David let it go and nodded at the back of the girls’ seats. “I’m guessing their names could just have easily been Maddie and Cassie.”
“They’re not twins.”
“You two don’t act like twins anyway.”
“I know. Cassie is fun and sexy and charming and I’m stodgy and anxious and overly cautious.”
“I never said that.”
“I’m sure, like everyone else, you prefer her company to mine.” Maddie knew she sounded like she was feeling sorry for herself, and maybe she was a little. Her life had been spent not only in her sister’s shadow but being there to catch Cassie when her escapades went awry. Just once, she would like to have her own limelight, her own adventures.
“No,” David said. “I don’t think that. I think Cassie is flighty and irresponsible and self-centered.”
“Hey, no bad-mouthing my twin. She’s not self- centered. She just doesn’t stop and think how her actions affect others.”
“Isn’t that what it means to be self-centered?”
“You don’t understand her.”
“So help me to understand.”
Maddie told him then, about Cassie’s accident and how it had shaped both of their lives. She told him about her vow to God.
“Cassie was in a coma for three months and in a rehab hospital for six months after that. She had to learn how to walk all over again.”
“The accident on the pond wasn’t your fault,” he said.
“Yes it was. My mother told me to watch her.”
“How come your mother always put you in charge? How come she wasn’t the one watching Cassie?”
Maddie shrugged. “Mama is as scatterbrained as my sister. They’re two peas in a pod. They’re so caught up in having fun and being creative they forget about the mundane but essential things in life.”
“Like?”
“For instance, Mom was famous for her odd-ball breakfasts, especially after Dad left. Cold pizza. A can of beans. Whatever was in the cupboard. If we were lucky, she would throw eggs in a plastic bowl, nuke them and call them scrambled. Of course, they exploded and guess who had to clean egg gunk off the inside of the microwave.”
“Yuck.”
“Could have been worse. At least she took the eggs out of the shells first.”
“I can just see an industrious young Maddie scrubbing off egg plaster. I bet you wore rubber gloves and an apron.”
“How did you know?”
“It fits.” He smiled and she felt herself relenting toward him. Okay the guy could be a hard-ass, but sometimes he made her feel really special in a way no one else ever had.
“See. Boring even when I was ten.”
“Not boring. Tough. You said your Dad left. What caused your parents to split up?”
“Cassie’s illness ripped them apart. I love my Dad but he’s something of a good-time Charlie. When the going got tough, Dad got going. Don’t get me wrong. He stayed in our lives. We saw him every other weekend and a month in the summer but he couldn’t handle serious stuff. He’s still that way at fifty. I don’t think he’s ever going to grow up.”
“You kept everyone grounded.”
“Somebody had to.”
“You’re pretty amazing, Maddie Cooper. You know that?”
His words warmed her to the very back of her heart and she felt her throat tighten. She glanced out the window into the darkness so he couldn’t see the mist of a tear in her eye. It had been a rough day and she was feeling a little emotional.
“Know what else I like about you?” he whispered.
“What?” She smiled faintly. Her cheeks tingled. God, she was actually blushing.
“You’re strong and smart and thoughtful. You can be a little hardheaded at times, but so can I. You have a really sly sense of humor that slaps my funny bone. You’re honest, trustworthy and dependable.”
“You make me sound like a Boy Scout.”
“Believe me, babe,” he drawled and raked an appreciative gaze over her body. “There’s nothing boyish about you.”
Babe. He’d called her babe. She went all whooshy inside. Don’t smile for gosh sakes, Maddie. He’ll think you like his flattery.
Trouble was, she
did
like it. A lot.
“Are you flirting with me, Agent Marshall?” She slanted him a coy glance that was pure Cassie.
Their gazes locked. Wow-o-wow-o-wow. The heat from his intelligent dark gray eyes toasted her from the inside out. She stared into him, he stared right back.
Everything faded from her mind. Cassie, Shriver, the stolen art. Her past, their future.
Nothing mattered except the breathtaking electricity of the moment. The emotion on his face was intense and knocked her off balance. She saw so many things reflected in those eyes. Desire, confusion, curiosity.
David took her hand.
She wanted to draw back. She should have drawn back, but she was so tired and his hand felt so good that she just sat there, staring at his fingers. He had very nice fingers. Long and strong and comforting.
Watch out! You know better than to trust him. He’s a cop and your sister is a suspect.
He angled his head toward her. “Would you be upset if I was flirting with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s not professional of me.”
“No.”
He leaned closer. “I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Not at all,” she murmured, moving in his direction.
“We really can’t depend on this attraction,” he said, inching his mouth ever closer to hers.
“Absolutely not,” she agreed, her gaze trained on his lips.
“The timing, the situation, it’s all wrong.” He was barely whispering.
“Couldn’t be worse.” She shifted her gaze from his lips to his eyes and her heart almost jumped right out of her chest.
“How’s your headache?” he asked, reaching over to gingerly rub the spot where the coconut had struck.
What was the protocol in a situation like this? Her dating skills were rusty. Not that this was dating, but it most certainly was a sexual attraction man-woman thing.
His fingers, firm but gentle, probed the tender area. She inhaled his warm masculine scent. Using the pad of his thumb, he massaged her temple in a circular motion with light, steady pressure. It felt so good she almost moaned out loud.
“Relax,” he murmured. “Just relax.”
Yeah, right. How was she supposed to relax when her head was practically nestled on his shoulder and those devastating lips were oh so close?
“That’s right, Maddie, let go.”
And the next thing she knew, they were kissing.
She couldn’t say who made the first move. Maybe it was him, maybe it was her. Bottom line? It didn’t matter. They were swept away like flotsam on the sea.
Closing her eyes, she savored the warmth of his mouth, oblivious to their surroundings. Her head reeled from the intoxicating power. His kiss was a thousand times more wonderful than the fantasies she’d been spinning.
He kissed her as if he couldn’t get enough, drinking her in, teasing her with his tongue. He used just the right amount of pressure. The kiss wasn’t too demanding, nor was it too plain. Not too wet, but moist and hot and perfect.
Then again, what else would she have expected from a man with such raw animal magnetism. She’d bet her last dollar that sex with him would be phenomenal.
The pilot turned off the seat belt sign, the faint dinging hardly registering in the back of her mind. She didn’t notice that some passengers were moving up and down the aisles, that the flight attendants were serving drinks. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he threaded his fingers through her hair.
They were welded together, singed by the kiss to beat all kisses.
And if it hadn’t been for little Katy popping her head over the top of her seat to giggle at them, Maddie feared they would not have stopped kissing until they reached Paris.
EIGHT
D
AVID NEEDED JAVA.
Pronto. A double espresso would be ideal but any variety of caffeine would do the trick. Something strong to wire his system, kick his butt into high gear and buzz his brain so fast he would forget all about the taste of Maddie’s lips.
Before they’d left Grand Cayman for Miami, he had contacted Henri Gault, his counterpart at Interpol and asked him to put a surveillance team on Shriver and Cassie when they arrived in Paris. He was itching to get his feet on the ground and his head back into the investigation.
Henri, a reedy man with a thick head of dark hair, an oblong face and sad-sack eyes met them at the arrival gate.
“Why don’t you go on through customs?” David nodded at the checkpoint.
He wanted Maddie out of earshot so he could discuss the case privately with Henri. He also hoped to minimize the risk of her spilling his secret. He didn’t want anyone else knowing he’d recruited Cassie. As far as Henri knew, Cassie was simply Shriver’s doxy, not an unofficial FBI informant turned art thief accomplice.
“You’re not coming through customs with me?” Maddie asked.
He pulled his badge from his pocket. “I get to circumvent.”