Two Hearts Read online

  Smiling broadly, Grace nodded hard. “Okay.” She squeezed her sister’s hand. “Thank you for this, Hope.”

  “Hey, don’t think it means I approve of your little deception. Just that…I understand why you feel you have to go through with it.”

  “I can’t imagine how.”

  “Just know this, little sister. Eventually the truth has to come out. You can pick the time, and the place, if you’re lucky and don’t wait too long. But if you don’t, it will. The truth doesn’t stay hidden forever. No matter what.” She looked very serious, but then she smiled. “Come on. We’ll get Daddy to let us take the Jag.”

  “I’m driving,” Grace shouted.

  “Not if I beat you to the keys, you aren’t!”

  They ran into the massive hall, footfalls echoing, laughter ringing.

  CHAPTER 3

  So he went to the party, and the first thing he did was spend ten minutes in the curving driveway wondering if he could find a hole in which to hide his car. Hell, his car wasn’t bad. He’d been restoring it for most of the time he’d had it, but it still didn’t look like much more than a thirty-five-year-old Mustang in sore need of a paint job.

  These people lived in a mansion, surrounded by a tall fence, with automatic gates at the end of a driveway filled with Porsches and Beamers and Benzes. And in the middle of that looping, luxury-lined drive, there was a fountain.

  A fountain, for crying out loud.

  Jack was out of his league, and he damn well knew it. And if he’d had a lick of common sense he’d have kept on driving right around the loop and back out the front gates.

  But he didn’t. Because he made the mistake of looking up, and he saw this face at an upstairs window. And it was her face. And he couldn’t look away, even when the lacy curtain fell in front of her to block her from view.

  So he gave in. He let the valet have the Mustang to park it, and prepared himself for his snooty sneer. But apparently, he was new to snootiness, because the valet said, “Wow, is this a seventy-five?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “Ni-ice,” the valet said, drawing out the word.

  Jack tossed him the keys, feeling marginally better.

  He was an idiot, though. He felt like an idiot. He had gone to one of those swanky menswear shops downtown and bought a new suit. It had cost him almost a week’s pay, not to mention that he’d spent his entire lunch hour with some foreign guy’s tape measure in his crotch. The suit felt good, though. It looked good, too.

  But hell, did he really think he was going to fool anybody? Class wasn’t something you put on with a new suit. It was something that was bred into you. Well, it hadn’t been bred into Jack. He’d spent his life with the scum of the earth, doing jobs that would make Little Miss Gracie Phelps’s skin crawl. She was different. Above all that filth. Clean, and she ought to stay that way. Jack got the feeling that if he touched her he’d leave handprints. Stains.

  But he was there, anyway, walking into that swanky mansion, into that crowd of what Harry had called “pretty boys,” and waiters with trays full of snacks too pretty to eat and too small to do you much good if you did; and women with their hair sprayed unnaturally stiff and their nails unnaturally long and their waists unnaturally small. They reeked of money—all of them. Jack stood in the midst of them all, eyeing young men who probably had bigger bank rolls at twenty-five than he’d have when he hit seventy. And for a minute or two, he just watched.

  The cop in him, he guessed. You served long enough, you started bringing it home. It wasn’t just a job, after all. Jack could no more walk into a room without sizing up the occupants first, than he could let a stranger handle his gun. And when he watched, he was not a half-interested observer. He saw it all.

  It was only a minute before he thought he understood a little better why Harry didn’t want men such as these for his daughter. They had something in their eyes, in their faces—a competitive little mask that could go from gloating gleam to sneaky slant to petulant pout in about two and a half seconds. There was so much petty jealousy floating around the room that the air was damn near green with it. And everyone pretending not to notice. They talked about jobs and cars and housing and golf in roundabout ways meant to assess the other guy’s net worth rather than his personality. And they lied. Jack was a cop; he knew how to spot a liar. And he was surrounded by them.

  “Jack!”

  Harry’s shout cut through them all like nobody’s business, and when he shouldered through the crowd to clasp Jack’s hand, Jack thought the looks flying their way could have sliced through his mamma’s meat loaf. Sizing him up. Seeing right through the spit shine he’d slapped on for the party. That was okay. They’d taken far more pains than Jack had, and he saw through them, too.

  He should stick the .44 in their smug, superior faces, he thought. Let ’em size that up.

  Stupid thought.

  “How you feeling, Harry?”

  “Good as new,” he said. “And yourself?”

  “Frankly, I never did get your statement yesterday.”

  “I’ll come by tomorrow morning, get that taken care of. But no business talk tonight. Come on, I want you to meet some people.”

  Well, he dragged Jack on through the crowd, introduced him to some of his big business buddies, telling them Jack was some kind of expert security consultant. Jack didn’t have a clue what that was supposed to mean. So he damn near stammered when one of them asked him what, exactly, an expert security consultant did.

  But Jack caught himself, saved himself, by simply telling the truth—a solution that he’d found usually worked.

  He sipped his drink and leaned on the leather chair’s soft back as if he belonged there. “When there’s trouble afoot, they call me in. I…assess the situation through several means. Observation, interviewing the involved parties, and often times, gut feelings. Once I’ve decided on the best course of action, I…and, um, other members of my team, carry it out.”

  “Fascinating,” said one of the men. “Tell me, McCain, is there good money in the field?”

  Jack just smiled. “They don’t pay me nearly what I’m worth.”

  The men around him released barks of laughter, and one of them slapped him on the back. “I like you, McCain.” His cigar smoke smelled good when it wafted toward Jack’s face. A little too good. Probably Cuban. If he’d been one of the shiny-faced little pricks on the other side of the room, Jack would have arrested him on the spot. But he wasn’t. He was part of the inner sanctum. Harry’s friends. Come to think of it, by dragging Jack into this little alcove where they’d gathered, Harry had made him a part of that clique, as well.

  And the pretty boys out in the main part of the room didn’t like that one bit.

  “Any chance I could convince you to go over security in my corporation?” the smoker asked, puffing some more.

  “I don’t freelance,” Jack said. “And my…employer doesn’t think too highly of moonlighting.”

  “And who would that be? Your employer?”

  Again Jack smiled and, lowering his voice, leaned forward. The men around him leaned in, too. “I could tell you,” Jack said. “But then I’d have to kill you.”

  Hands slapped knees, and they roared. Hell, fine. Jack had never done standup before, but if they liked it then he figured he could keep going all night. Glancing beyond the magic circle to the pretty boys relegated to the rest of the room, Jack saw looks of pure hatred sent his way. Uh-huh. Jealousy. He was eating it with a spoon.

  But a second later all those pouting faces turned to the left and the men in Jack’s circle fell silent. Jack knew it was her. He felt her coming close even before he looked. And then he turned around and saw her.

  She stood on the stairs for just a moment, before coming the rest of the way down. And Jack thought he couldn’t have been more starstruck if it had been Julia Roberts or Cindy Crawford coming down those stairs. She was grace, and poise, and elegance, and purity. And her dress…man, what a dr
ess. As white as her soul, and as tight as Jack’s throat. Halter neck, just hinting at the shadowy well between her breasts. It hugged her figure all the way down to the slit that revealed teasing glimpses of her endlessly long legs. Her hair was piled up. Diamonds dangled from her ears, and her toes showed in those white shoes with their spiky high heels.

  She came down the stairs, and started right toward Jack. He almost smiled as he watched her approaching, and he wondered just what the hell this was that was hitting him so hard and so fast.

  Then the pretty boys crowded in, blocking her from Jack’s view. And she was smiling at them, answering their silly questions, nodding and looking interested in all they had to say, which was a lot. One brought her a drink and tried putting a possessive hand on her shoulder. Suddenly Jack felt like an intruder.

  Then she looked past them, caught his eye and sent him a message. One he read so easily that for a minute, he didn’t move. Just stood there, thinking that was amazing. He and JW had been partners for five years before they’d been able to do that sort of thing—send an entire message with a single look. It shouldn’t be possible with someone he’d just met, Jack thought.

  “Excuse me,” he said to the Old Boy network surrounding him. Then he went over there, shouldered his way through the handsome, hair-gel set of younger, richer, better-looking men who sent him nasty looks, and acted as if he were exhibiting the height of mannerlessness—but didn’t shove back.

  “Hello again, Grace,” Jack said when he got to where she stood. “The way I remember it, you promised me a dance.”

  She smiled, shoved the drink she held into some blond beach boy’s hand, and put her hand in Jack’s. The others faded back, all but gaping as he pulled her close. He put a hand on her waist, she slipped hers around his neck and moved against him, and they managed to dance themselves away from the hopeful crowd of phonies.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “No, thank you.”

  “You rescued my father, and now you rescued me.”

  “You were doing fine. Could have had them all on their knees with a word.”

  She shook her head. “Oh, God, no. Not in a million years, Jack.”

  “What, you didn’t see the way they were all drooling over you?”

  Lowering her chin so he couldn’t see her eyes, she sighed. “I’ve never been the sort of girl men do much drooling over.”

  “No?” She could have fooled him, he thought. He was drooling plenty.

  “No.”

  “Well, you are tonight. You, um…you look…incredible.”

  “Really?” She seemed genuinely surprised, not fishing for compliments.

  “Oh, yeah. How can you not know that? What, you don’t have mirrors in this house?”

  She smelled good. She felt good against him, just lightly touching, brushing, teasing but totally innocent.

  They moved around, and other people began dancing, too. But when the dance ended, she didn’t step out of Jack’s arms. She seemed content to stay where she was.

  “Gracie?”

  “Hmm?”

  He smiled, he couldn’t help it. “Hon, our song’s over. And there are about fifty guys waiting in line for the next dance.”

  Right on cue, some reed-thin, peach-fuzz-faced frat boy tapped Jack on the shoulder. “Don’t forget, Gracie, you promised me a dance, too.”

  Gracie smiled at him, took a step and then stumbled against Jack’s chest. An event that sent bolts of heat sizzling through him and startled him at the same time. “Ow!”

  Jack closed his hands on Grace’s shoulders to hold her up and searched her face. “You okay?”

  “Oh, darn,” she said. “My ankle! Not tonight of all nights!” Several heads turned in their direction as Jack’s innocent dance partner leaned on him, holding up one foot. “I’m sorry, Greg,” she told the punk. “I was so looking forward to that dance, too.” Then she looked at Jack again, putting her back to the guy as if he’d been dismissed and no longer existed. “Help me to a chair, would you, Jack?”

  People crowded closer, one of them handing Grace an ice pack, but Jack barely saw them. He couldn’t take his eyes off Grace, and he saw the playful gleam lingering in hers.

  That might have been the moment he fell in love. Right then. That playful little prank that seemed so out of character. He scooped her right up off her feet, carried her to a chair and then sat in the one beside her. She propped her injured ankle across his legs and asked him to hold an ice pack on it for her.

  Of course, he happily obliged.

  Eventually, wounded-looking suitors faded away and stopped with their wimpy questions. And when Jack could speak for her ears alone, he said, “So, you want to tell me what this was all about?”

  “I didn’t want to dance with any of them, Jack. What would have been the point?”

  His throat went dry, and a little flame of panic—and something else—started licking at his belly.

  Jack let the ice pack slide to the floor. The only thing on her cool wet skin now was his hand, rubbing slowly, massaging a nonexistent injury. He wanted to slide off her shoe and caress her foot, her toes. He wanted to run his hand farther up her leg, feel the curve of her calf and the power of her thigh. And he thought she knew it. The way her eyes clung to his, and the dancing heat he saw in those blue depths—the little catch in her breathing told him as much.

  He didn’t know how long they’d been sitting there when she said, “We’ve got some awfully impressive gardens out back.” And her voice was the barest whisper.

  “I’d dearly love to go out there and see them,” Jack said, his voice equally raspy.

  She looked a little afraid but mostly excited as she lowered her foot to the floor, got to her feet and, taking Jack’s hand, limped to the patio doors.

  CHAPTER 4

  Jack walked with her onto the patio, where some of the party guests milled around, sipping drinks from cut-crystal glasses. Grace leaned on him, but she was the one leading the way. They moved slowly to the farthest corner from the house, and down the steps to the ground below. The beautiful people glanced their way, but no one made comment. This was the golden child of Harrison Phelps and one of the men from his group of chosen ones. At least, that must be how it appeared to them. So what could they say?

  They took a path lined in white gravel, and the moment they were out of sight, Grace’s mysterious limp vanished. She stopped leaning on him and walked easily, sending him a mischievous smile.

  “You never fooled me for a minute, you know,” he said, his voice low, his body at odds with his mind. Hell, he knew she was too good for any kind of fling, and he also knew anything more was impossible. She wasn’t cut out to be a cop’s wife. Hell, they’d had seminars on this kind of stuff. The divorce rate, the depression rate, the suicide rate. But Jack didn’t need seminars. His father had been a cop. And he’d watched the stress and the strain of that reality slowly wear away at his mother, making her old, making her hard long before her time. And his mother had been tough. Strong, cut from burlap…not silk, like Grace Phelps.

  Yet, here was Grace, looking up at him with eyes bluer than the sky…waiting for him to…kiss her.

  Yeah. That was it, no doubt. She’d stopped walking, and was leaning now with her back against a flowering apple tree, all in blossom. The smell of the flowers was intoxicating and heavy and sweet. Little paper petals of white with a touch of pink tinting them at the edges. Growing in bunches, and raining down like confetti every time one of them moved.

  And Jack thought for the thousandth time that he was only human. So he leaned in, and he kissed her. She slid her arms around his neck, and she kissed him back. And he fought with everything in him to keep it sweet and tender. No tongue, no grinding of hips, though damn, how he wanted to add those elements. She wasn’t like that, though. She was crystal glasses and he was paper cups. She was as pristine and delicate as one of the petals that drifted to the ground around them. Still, her body pressed to his, and his t
o hers, and his arms held her tight, and he kissed her long and slow amid a shower of apple blossom petals.

  And it was just like magic.

  * * *

  A month later Jack sat in the Five-Alarm Diner on Main, across from his partner of more than a decade, and he broke the news.

  “What do you mean, you’re quitting?” JW sat there looking at him as if he’d grown a second head.

  “Look, I can’t start out married life with a lie this big hanging between us. I just can’t.”

  “No, you’re right. You can’t. So tell her, Einstein. Tell her you’re a cop.”

  Jack shook his head slowly. “She couldn’t handle it.”

  “I think you’re underestimating her.”

  “Look, what makes you think I want to be a cop all my life, anyway? Huh?” He averted his eyes when he said it. “The way Harry Phelps has things set up, I can practically pick a job and name the salary.”

  JW sipped his coffee, then set the cup carefully in its saucer. He ran a hand over his widening bald spot and the thick dark hair that surrounded it like a horseshoe. He sighed. “You don’t want to work for your father-in-law, Jack. Believe me, it’s not—”

  “I wouldn’t be working for my father-in-law. He has friends. Tons of them. They like me.”

  “You mean, they like the guy they think is you. Jack McCain, security consultant, the guy with the expensive suits and shiny shoes that are costing you every bit of your paycheck. They don’t even know the real Jack McCain, the cop who spends ten hours a day with the scum of the earth.” JW shook his head. “And come to think of it, neither does your bride-to-be.”

  Jack faced him slowly. “That’s right. And she never will.”

  “You’re making a mistake, Jack.”

  “She’s worth it, JW. I don’t want this garbage touching her. I’ve seen what it can do. My mother—” He bit his lip, cut himself off. “I just don’t. You understand?”

  JW nodded. Sighed heavily, rolled his eyes, but nodded.