Hotbed Honey (2 page)

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Authors: Toni Blake

BOOK: Hotbed Honey
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Which made her feel lousy, but didn't surprise her. She might have loved the guy once, but that didn't mean she was any happier to see him at the moment than he was to see her. "As a matter of fact, I am."
"This is my worst nightmare," he muttered as he came down the stairs.
Oh, so this was how it was going to be, huh? She glared at him. "You're not exactly my first choice of a partner, either," she snapped. "Or my second. Or my tenth."
He raised his eyebrows. "
You're
complaining about working with
me?
I don't believe this!"
"Well, believe it. When did you get back to
L.A.
, anyway?"
"About six months ago."
She narrowed her gaze and tilted her head. "And here I thought I'd never have to see you again. What on earth brought you back?"
He returned her condescending tone. "There aren't enough good P.I. firms in this town. And I figured enough time had passed since you ruined my reputation that I could come back and open up shop here."
She sucked in her breath at the accusation. How dare he! "Ruined?
Ruined?
One little incident and you blame me for—"
"All right, what the hell's going on in here?" The booming sound forced both Kimberly and Max to shift their gazes to Frank, whose heavyset frame filled the doorway, his eyes wide and his coat soaking wet. "I could hear you two all the way out on the street. And Max … what are you doing parading around in a towel?"
"Frank, you've gotta get me another woman."
"What's wrong with this one?" Frank motioned to Kimberly with outstretched hands.
"
This one
has a habit of tipping off my suspects."
"What?" Frank asked, confusion in his eyes. "She's a good P.I., Max. And the only suitable one I've got at the moment. She'll have to do."
"
She
," Kimberly interjected, planting her fists on her hips, "is not a cut of meat on a slab, gentlemen. She's standing right here, so maybe you could quit addressing her in the third person."
Max looked at her. "You just did the same thing yourself."
She rolled her eyes. "For effect. See how annoying it sounds?"
"I still don't know why you're not wearing any clothes," Frank pointed out.
"I was in the shower," Max said, "and she came in without knocking. It might be one thing if I were an elusive suspect, but—"
"I rang the bell three times!"
Max ignored her and looked back to Frank, eyes pleading. "Come on, Frank. Get me somebody else.
Anybody
else."
"I told you, there is nobody else. I only have two other women who fit the bill, and they're already in the middle of other cases." Frank took a step toward Max. "Look, Kim will do a good job for you—she's never let me down."
Max eyed her critically and she knew he was remembering it again—the Carpenter case. She wanted to cringe, but instead she just kept scowling at him. She was a much better P.I. than he'd ever given her credit for and she wouldn't let herself be cowed into guilt or submission by his accusing look.
"Never let you down, huh?" Max said, sounding as if he didn't believe a word of it.
"No, she hasn't. Now, how do you two know each other, anyway?"
Max held his gaze on her. "We used to work together."
She didn't look away. "But then we got fired."
"Because
she
tipped off an embezzler that we were onto her," he clarified, accusation in his voice.
"An incident which I've never had the opportunity to give my version of."
But Max was shaking his head and she could see that he still wasn't interested in her side of the story, even three years later. She'd be damned if she was going to waste her time trying to make him listen. "Look, do you want me for the job or not, Tate?"
He sighed, muttering beneath his breath. "Talk about being between a rock and a hard place."
"Believe me, this is hardly my dream scenario, either. But I'm a professional and I can handle it. If
you
can't," she challenged, "say so, and I'll happily be on my way."
She waited for his answer, her heart in her throat. She didn't know why. Or maybe she did. It was more than a little surprising to her, but maybe she really wanted this now, suddenly, the chance to work with him again, the chance to clear her name with him. Maybe she really wanted to show the pompous, arrogant jerk just how good she was, once and for all. She'd never thought she'd have the chance to do that, but now, here it was, dropped in her lap like some unexpected gift.
Still, Max said nothing, and she wasn't about to beg or even let him know she had anything to gain by this at all. So after waiting for what she decided was a reasonable length of time, she turned to leave. Working with him would only be torture anyway. "Come on, Frank. Let's go back to your party. Maybe there are still some hors d'oeuvres left."
"Wait." The voice came from Max, and it made her chest tighten in some combination of victory and nervousness. The old adage came back to her, Be careful what you wish for. Nonetheless, she smiled inside at the idea of making him crumble by threatening to leave. It was good to see Max squirm a little, and although she knew most people wouldn't consider this squirming, she also knew it was as close as Max would ever come.
She slowly turned and looked up at him. "Yes?"
His words sounded almost wracked with pain. "All right. Come on in and I'll … brief you about the case."
Her heartbeat increased again, but she didn't smile, in favor of looking regally triumphant. "Go back to the party, Frank," she told her boss. "I can handle things from here."
He raised his eyebrows. "Sure you two won't claw each other's eyes out as soon as I walk out the door?"
Kimberly slanted a look in Max's direction. "A tempting notion, but I'll try to resist."
Frank looked hesitant. And with good reason, Kimberly thought. For all he knew, she and Max
would
kill each other. But, shaking his head, Frank departed, pulling the door shut behind him and closing out the gentle sounds of falling rain that had become more audible since Kimberly and Max had stopped yelling.
So now they were alone. Everything was quiet, except for the low murmur of music from the stereo, which Max walked over to and turned off, immersing them in total and intense silence.
He looked back at Kimberly, who still stood in the foyer, and held her gaze once more. She wished she could read his eyes, but she'd never gotten very good at it. Still, looking into them reminded her of something she hadn't expected, something that caught her totally off guard—how much she'd
loved
those eyes once upon a time. They were a warm, wrap-around-you shade of brown. And sometimes, she recalled, they were more than warm, they were hot.
Very
hot. Like when the two of them were moaning in a glorious symphony of sex.
Uh-oh, she hadn't meant to start thinking about that stuff. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and glanced toward the floor.
"Come in and sit down and I'll, uh … go put some clothes on," he said.
"Good idea." In fact, it was the best idea she'd heard since walking through Max Tate's door. The sight of his body had obviously started rekindling some old fires inside her and that wasn't good. For one thing, they were enemies and she refused to let herself be attracted to him after the way things had ended between them. And for another, they were about to be partners in a potentially dangerous case, which would require all her concentration. So she promised herself that she simply wouldn't think about the sexual aspect of what they'd once shared. She'd blot it right out of her mind. It was the only sensible way to handle the situation.
And now that she had
that
little misunderstanding cleared up with herself, she could think about this case and what suddenly made it so important to her on a
personal
level. She needed to prove to Max Tate that she was a good P.I.
After he'd gone, Kimberly climbed the few stairs to the living area and settled on the leather sofa pushed against the back wall of the spacious, high-ceilinged room. As she straightened her dress, she looked around and saw … his life. His life without her. Okay, so thinking about why the case was important to her wasn't all that easy at the moment. Her eyes were drawn to pictures on the small marble mantel, frames around people that weren't her. Prints on the wall that he hadn't owned when she and Max had been dating. Magazines on the table that she'd never known him to have an interest in before. In fact, even the furniture was new.
So, apparently everything had changed for Max. He'd packed up, gone to
Las Vegas
, and come back a new man. But it was clear that one thing
hadn't
changed. He still hadn't forgiven her for what had happened on the Carpenter case. Kimberly's stomach clenched with the memory and she strengthened her vow to prove to him that she could do her job and do it well.
She looked around Max's living room again, and then it hit her in a whole new, powerful, horrible way. Oh God, she was really going to be working with Max again. Max, who had been so much more than just a lover to her, whether or not he knew it. Max, whom she'd wanted to build a life with and wake up next to every morning until they were old and gray. This had been about the last blow she'd expected today.
But she was an adult. And a professional. She'd told Max she could handle it, so what choice did she have now?
She only hoped she didn't do anything to mess up his career again. And she hoped that she didn't somehow end up falling into bed with him again, which seemed pretty unlikely considering how much he seemed to despise her. But stranger things had happened and … oh brother, what had she just gotten herself into?
* * *
Max let the towel drop at his feet. He went to the chest of drawers and pulled out a pair of gray boxer briefs, stepping into them. Then he yanked a pair of worn blue jeans up from the bedroom floor and put them on, using one hand to swipe a lock of still-wet hair up off his forehead.
He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above the dresser as he passed by. It made him come back to reality and quit going through the hurried motions of putting on clothes and getting ready to brief his partner.
This wasn't just another case. And he wasn't getting dressed to meet with just another partner.
Kimberly Brandt
was sitting in his living room.
Kimberly Brandt
was about to be his partner on the last case of his career.
He rolled his gaze heavenward and sighed. "What could I
possibly
have done to deserve this?"
Hell, he probably should have let her leave with Frank when she wanted to. This was a bad idea, there was just too much bad blood between them to pull this off. But as he'd told Frank earlier, he'd really had no choice in the matter. He needed a female partner and he needed her by tomorrow morning.
Still, for the first time since he'd taken this case, he began to feel a niggling sense of doubt and worry. Mistrust. The same mistrust that he'd had after the Carpenter case. The same mistrust that had made him choose to run his business as a one-man operation when he'd moved to Vegas. If you didn't make the mistake of depending upon other people, they couldn't mess things up for you.
Leaving the West Coast and starting over, opening his own firm, had been the best thing Max had ever done. No one knew him in Vegas or knew what had happened. He'd performed at peak level for the entire two and a half years he was there. And he'd discovered that when the gambling mecca's high rollers needed a private investigator, they were more than willing to loosen their purse strings.
He'd made a killing in just two years … but he'd also gotten tired. He'd finally admitted to himself that he just didn't like living in the neon desert. So he'd come home with a plan to establish his firm in L.A., but this time to hire enough good P.I.'s that he could get out of the field.

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