Christmas Confidential (2 page)

It had been twenty years since she’d seen her siblings, twelve years since she’d had any family at all. Just once, just for a day or two, she’d like to be with someone who’d once loved her, who might think of her or even miss her from time to time.

Just once, she didn’t want to be alone.

“If you say no, I’ll follow you,” Dean warned. “I’m stubborn that way.”

She knew that for a fact. The first time he’d asked her out, she’d said no—and the second and the third. But he’d kept asking, catching her in the office, on the street outside, at the deli where she ate lunch every day, never giving up until she’d given in. Then she’d been flattered. Now she knew the real reason he’d been so persistent.

A ride to Dallas. With her guard up, what could it hurt? It would be faster than a bus, and Dean couldn’t be much more annoying than a Greyhound full of strangers, could he?

“All right.” She turned and marched back to the forty-some-year-old Charger that was his pride and joy, climbed into the passenger seat and fastened the seat belt, staring straight ahead. She pretended not to recognize the familiar scents of the car—age, leather, cologne, Dean. She pretended not to notice when he slid into the driver’s seat and turned his all-too-familiar gaze on her. Already she regretted accepting his offer, but she reminded herself again of Sophy, of the gift and all she’d sacrificed for it.

She’d been through hell more than a few times. She could bear it once again if it meant getting to her sister sooner.

* * *

Not even 432 days in prison could make Miri any less the prettiest woman Dean had ever known. Slender, graceful, delicate features, pale blond hair, big brown eyes that held a sense of...sadness, maybe, or vulnerability. He didn’t know exactly how to describe it. He just knew it had caught his interest the first time he’d ever seen her.

She didn’t look like a woman who’d spent the past fourteen months in jail. She wasn’t thinner than usual, paler or tougher. She wasn’t any friendlier, or any less so, than he’d expected given the circumstances, but he could handle that. He had 110,000 incentives to take whatever hostility she directed his way.

Shifting into gear, he eased back on to the roadway, then kicked it up to sixty-five. With a sidelong look her way, he said, “Nice that you got out in time for Christmas. You have family expecting you somewhere?”

She gave no sign of hearing him, but he was nothing if not relentless. “I’m on my own this year. Mom and Dad are on a cruise somewhere in the Caribbean right now. Celebrating their forty-fifth anniversary.”

No response.

“My sisters are all meeting at Adele’s house in California, but I’m thinking three sisters, two husbands and nine kids under the age of ten are a little more holiday cheer than I want to take on.” And with Miri’s release coming right before the big day...

Her gaze flickered to the right as they approached a road sign—fifty-two miles to Dallas—then she went back to staring straight ahead.

It was going to be one hell of a long drive.

He let a few miles pass in silence before trying again. “Are you planning to stay in Dallas?” He didn’t know where she’d lived before coming to Texas. Truth was, considering how close they’d gotten and how fast, he didn’t really know a lot about her.

He’d had no clue she was the embezzler he’d been searching for.

He sure as hell hadn’t known he would be instrumental in sending her to prison.

But he wouldn’t change anything he’d done. She had stolen more than a million dollars from his client’s insurance brokerage. She’d chosen to commit the crime and, therefore, to accept the potential punishment. If he hadn’t traced the theft back to her, someone else would have.

Though maybe, if he’d known everything, he wouldn’t have gone out with her.

Nah, he probably would have. He’d never been able to resist a challenge, and she’d been a major one from the start.

Getting her to say something was a new, smaller challenge. “You can try to ignore me, Miriam, but we’ve got about fifty miles left, and I’m not so easy to tune out.”

Finally she turned her head to level a cool, unemotional gaze on him. “I spent 431 nights in a cell block with 120 other women who talked, snored or cried all night. You underestimate my ability to tune out annoying noise.”

That twinge in his gut must be hunger, because he did
not
feel guilty for even one of those nights. His fingers tightening on the steering wheel, he casually said, “I never underestimated anything about you, Miriam. Except your tendency toward criminal behavior. But, hey, it paid off for you, didn’t it? A million bucks isn’t a bad trade for fourteen months of your time.”

Her gaze sharpened, her mouth pinched, then she turned away again, this time staring out the side window.

One thing he’d never known: why she’d taken the money. She hadn’t used any of it to pay for an attorney, instead pleading guilty to the charge against her. Before getting caught, she’d driven an eight-year-old Toyota and lived in a cramped apartment in a neighborhood
he
hadn’t been comfortable in without his gun. She hadn’t worn designer clothes, taken any vacations since she’d started working for the company or owned any electronics besides an off-brand TV. Her only jewelry had been a cheap watch, a chain with a silver heart and a plain gold wedding band.

He didn’t know if it had been hers, if she’d been married or, hell, if she’d stolen it, too.

And he didn’t care. All he was interested in was the ten percent finder’s fee John W. Smith had offered, both to Dean and to Bud Garvin, one of Dean’s competitors in the P.I. business, for the return of his money.

Dean intended to claim it.

“Remember Trish Lewis? Sat in the cubicle across from you? She got married six months ago and delivered twins two months later. Boys.”

He might as well be talking to himself for all the reaction she showed. He’d expected something. Trish had been the closest to a friend Miri had had at the company. She had also, for a while, been a suspect. He might look like all charm and no substance, but he had a few skills, including the ones needed to trace all the unauthorized financial transfers back to Miri.

A short distance ahead was the entrance to the interstate, along with a half dozen fast food joints. Remembering her fondness for small, very basic burgers, he slowed and pulled into the drive-through for the golden arches. “Want something?”
Other than to be away from me?

He thought she was going to continue the silent treatment, but as he stopped in front of the order box, she relented. “A burger.”

“With cheese, right?” Though he’d never known many of the details of her life, he remembered she liked burgers with cheese, coffee with cream, onion rings instead of fries, loved hot cocoa and had a wicked sweet tooth that she indulged every evening and compensated for by skipping breakfast the next morning.

And he remembered that her kisses tasted of chocolate and rich dark roast coffee, that she smelled like jasmine and felt like the finest-woven silk.

He definitely remembered his regret that she’d been arrested before he’d been able to get far enough past her defenses to have sex. He was pretty sure it would have been the best he’d had in a long time.

Scowling, he ordered four cheeseburgers, figuring if she didn’t want a second one, he could polish it off. He added pop, diet for her and high-sugar, high-caffeine for himself, then tossed in an order of fries. He could always run an extra few miles.

“What’s the food like in prison? I hear both good and bad about it.”

Nothing.

He let his gaze slide over her, from the top of her natural blond roots all the way down to her well-worn tennis shoes. “It doesn’t seem to have hurt you.”

Ah, the muscles in her jaw twitched. It wasn’t much, but it
was
a response. She didn’t have to be friendly. She just had to lead him to the cash.

As he pulled up to the window, she shifted to dig in her pocket, pulling out a crumpled bill. He waved it away, smiling as if she wouldn’t like to claw his eyes out. “My treat.”

Without protest, she put the money back.

The woman at the cash register was chunky and gray-haired and looked as if she’d had a long shift, but her smile was genuine. “Four dollars and eighteen cents is your change. Y’all have a Merry Christmas.” Then she winked slyly. “Hope you find what you want under your tree Christmas morning.”

Dean grinned. “I always do.” He was lucky that way, and this year a hundred grand would make for the best holiday ever.

After picking up the food and drinks at the next window, he pulled into a parking space and began unwrapping one burger. He felt Miri’s attention before she actually spoke.

“Can’t you drive and eat?”

“When I need to, but what’s the hurry?”

Her mouth pinched again, and he was pretty sure she’d barely stopped an eye roll.

“Let me remind you, Miriam, if I hadn’t talked you into accepting a ride, you’d be hoofing it into town about now, then waiting for a bus. I know that because the guard told me when I went looking for you at the prison. Since you’re ahead of schedule, you can spare a few minutes for a civilized meal.”

This time the corners of her mouth twitched, but she maintained the flat expression. “This is your idea of a civilized meal? Even in prison we sat at tables and had utensils—nothing dangerous, of course—and napkins.”

He dipped into the bag and pulled out a handful of paper. “We have napkins. And who needs utensils for hamburgers? Besides, I’m not sure I’d trust you with anything dangerous, either.”

She stared at him while nibbling her burger, taking delicate little bites and chewing them thoroughly before swallowing. He’d finished his first and a handful of fries in the time it took her to eat a third of hers.

She did everything delicately. Even the smallest of movements, like brushing back a strand of hair or pursing her lips in concentration, were potently feminine and graceful, sensuous and innocent. He’d wondered a lot over the past year how much of it was an act, but he’d never been able to decide. She’d planned and carried out a complex crime, and yet she looked... Not like an angel. Heavenly beings surely didn’t kiss the way she did. Like a faerie or pixie or some other make-believe creature.

“Why are you here?”

Though he saw her lips moving to form the words, it took him a moment to hear the question. With a shrug, he unwrapped the next burger. “I told you, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for the way things worked out. I know a ride’s not much in exchange for sending you to prison, but—”

Her shrug was much more elegant than his. Her thin jacket, worn over a plain T-shirt, shifted and hugged her, reminding him of the curves those clothes held. Not that he’d actually seen her naked. He’d never gotten her stripped beyond her shirt, but the memory of her breasts and the small bits of lace that didn’t quite cover them still hung around. He could imagine the rest. He was a man, after all.

“Like you said, you were doing your job.”

That surprised him. “You don’t hold it against me that I turned you in?”

She took a suck of pop before giving him that look again. That was the only real difference he’d found yet: that flat lack of expression. Just how bad had prison been to wipe all the emotion from her face?

“Am I a success or failure among your cases?”

“I caught you. What do you think?”

“But you didn’t recover the money.”

“I wasn’t hired to get the money back.”
Not that time, at least.
“My orders were to find who was funneling Mr. Smith’s money into overseas accounts and stop it. I did.”

“Mr. Smith.” Her tone was almost disinterested, but faintly, barely noticeable, scorn underlay the words.

When she didn’t continue, Dean finished his second burger, then asked, “So if you don’t hold the whole arrest and prison thing against me, then we’re good, right? Friends again?”

* * *

Making and keeping friends had never been an easy thing for Miri. When Social Services yanked her from home to home for nearly a year, then she and Mom had had to stay on the move the next seven years to avoid their notice, she hadn’t had friends—just people who came and went from her life. By the time she was old enough that no one cared whether she had a stable home or slept under a bridge, she’d lost the ability to make friends. Everyone she’d loved had abandoned her. Everyone, even her mother, had gone on to a better life without her. How could she have trusted anyone to stay?

All her adult relationships had been superficial—the occasional boyfriend for occasional sex, office chatter with the people whose desks surrounded hers, exchanging guarded hellos with her neighbor. Finding Sophy, Oliver and Chloe would give her back that ability to connect, she’d thought, and so she’d searched and plotted, but she’d wondered. Was it already too late? Was she too damaged to have normal relationships again?

With Dean, she’d begun to believe the answer was no. She’d trusted him. She’d connected with him. She’d believed he wanted her, cared for her. Then she’d opened the door to him the evening of their last date, and there he’d stood with two detectives behind him. He had listened to them read her rights, had watched them lead her away in handcuffs, and he hadn’t said a word.

As they’d both said, he’d just been doing the job Smith had hired him for. She’d been well aware when she came up with her scheme that her freedom was at risk. But she hadn’t known her heart was at risk, too. She hadn’t counted on Dean Montgomery romancing her, gaining her trust, making her think he might love her, all for the sake of his job.

That was what she held against him. What she couldn’t forgive.

Friends again?
“That’s not going to happen. But I do appreciate the ride.” She took the last bite of her cheeseburger, savoring the taste as she carefully wadded the wrapper into a neat ball with the napkin and straw paper inside. Deliberately she turned her head to the side again, glancing from restaurant to gas station to passing traffic. So many people with places to go, families to see, friends to celebrate with. She felt so alone, but that was nothing new. If men were put on earth to break women’s hearts, maybe
she’d
been put here just to have her heart broken. Maybe she was one of those sad people destined to live their lives in quiet despair, so needy of companionship that they’d take it from anyone or so fearful that they couldn’t risk it with anyone.