LATER, WHEN IT was all over, Lucas Kincaid would decide the entire adventure was proof that the gods did, indeed, laugh whenever men planned. In the beginning, however, he foolishly believed himself capable of controlling his destiny.
IT WAS D-Day. Departure Day. This time tomorrow, he’d be cruising through the Pacific’s blue water, headed for Alaska. There was no longer any reason to stay here in San Francisco. He’d successfully wrapped up his final case last night, when he’d put the English movie star back on the British Air jet to London. The past ten days spent dodging seduction attempts while accompanying the spoiled, sex-crazed actress on a publicity tour for her upcoming film had only confirmed Lucas’s decision that he didn’t belong in the bodyguard business.
He simply didn’t have the people skills for the work. Part of the problem was that, despite his Southern upbringing, he’d inherited his grandmother Fancy’s penchant for plain spesaking. During his midshipman days at the naval academy, such outspokenness had resulted in being put on report for insubordination more times than he cared to count.
Another problem was his impatience with prima donna types. There’d been several occasions during this latest gig when Lucas had been tempted to spank the redhead, whose off-screen antics were even more outrageous than her sex-bomb movie roles.
“She probably would have enjoyed it,” he muttered, thinking back on a few of the actress’s kinkier sexual suggestions.
He finished emptying his desk, then stood at the window, took in the always riveting sight of the wide blue bay and the orange spans of Golden Gate Bridge, and contemplated leaving early. Since everyone had already taken off for the holiday weekend, the office was uncharacteristically as quiet as a Bible Belt whorehouse on Sunday morning. If he left now, he might be able cruise up the coast, dock at Petaluma and spend a lazy weekend enjoying the historic old town that had put arm wrestling on the map.
The phone rang. Lucas ignored it. He didn’t need ESP to know it meant trouble. When it continued to ring, he felt the heavy yoke of responsibility—another damn Fancy inheritance—settle over his shoulders. He picked up the receiver.
“Kincaid.”
“I was hoping I’d find you there.”
He bit back a curse, glared out at the enticing span of San Francisco Bay gleaming in the late afternoon sun and once again considered escape. Then, surrendering to the inevitable, he threw himself into the leather chair and put his booted feet up on the desk.
“Well, hey there, darlin’.” His friendly tone belied his aggravation. “Are you callin’ to congratulate me on wrapping up the case of the British bimbette?”
“Good try, Kincaid,” the female voice on the other end of the phone countered. “But you’re not going to duck the issue.”
“Well now, I can’t rightly recall ever ducking anything in my life.” There had been that bullet in Hawaii when the winsome hotel-dinner-show hula dancer had forgotten to mention a husband, but Lucas didn’t figure that was relevant to this conversation.
“The issue, as you damn well know, is you trying to quit on me.”
“But I have quit,” he reminded her patiently. S. J. Slade was determined to keep him from leaving. Just as he was determined to leave. The battle of wills had been going on for the past month, despite the fact that he’d flat-out told her there was no way he was changing his mind. “Our deal was that as soon as I put that redheaded barracuda on the plane, I was sailing off into the sunset.”
“That was your deal, hotshot. Not mine.”
“Heaven help me, I do love a contrary woman.” He leaned back in the chair and switched the phone to the other ear. “Why don’t you bail on the female executive gig you’ve got goin’, Samantha darlin’, and come sailing the seven seas with me?”
“One week out to sea and we’d undoubtedly be trying to drown one another.”
“You may just have a point,” he agreed with a chuckle. “But think of the high times we’d have for the first six days.”
When he heard a snort he took for a smothered, reluctant laugh, Lucas figured he’d successfully defused the situation. He’d thought wrong.
“I’ve got a case for you.”
“Now, I told you, sugar—”
“Don’t sugar me,” she retorted. “And quit talking like some uneducated Southern redneck right out of Deliverance. Don’t forget, I’ve seen your resumé. You just happen to have dual degrees in literature and mathematics.”
“I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“Dammit, Lucas, this is serious.”
“You wouldn’t have called at the start of a holiday weekend if it wasn’t.” That was an out-and-out lie. The sharp-tongued owner of the bodyguard agency Lucas had been working for for the past eighteen months never allowed Sundays, holidays or even what any normal person would consider sleeping hours to stop her from contacting her operatives. “And you know I admire you greatly, darlin’, but—”
“Why don’t you knock it off with the buts until you hear me out?” she snapped, cutting him off again. “And get your damn cowboy boots off my antique desk.”
Although they’d never met face-to-face—indeed, Lucas didn’t know anyone at the agency who’d actually ever seen S. J. Slade in person—she knew him too well. “It’s a reproduction.”
He crossed his feet at the ankles and admired the hand tooling on his boots. That was the only problem with boats: he couldn’t wear his beloved Tony Lamas on board because the heels scuffed the Rebel’s Reward’s teak decks. “But a very good reproduction,” he allowed, glancing around the office, which was decorated in an eclectic blend of Chippendale furniture and black-and-white movie posters.
The office, located on the third floor of the Victorian Queen Anne building that housed the S. J. Slade Agency, definitely reflected Samantha’s fondness for 1940s detective movies. Although she’d assured him when he’d come to work for her that he could make whatever changes he wanted, Lucas hadn’t bothered, since he hadn’t planned to stay in San Francisco all that long.
“Now you’re an antique dealer,” she grumbled.
“Actually, that’s my mama who’s the antique dealer.”
“Dammit, you’re doing it again. Getting me off track.”
Despite his irritation, Lucas smiled at that idea. Samantha Slade was about as single-minded as a hound dog scratching fleas. There was very little that could get her off track. He’d always taken perverse pleasure in being able to.
“To get back to business, since the office is technically closed this weekend, I had my calls forwarded here,” she said.
Lucas wasn’t surprised. Samantha’s workaholic life-style would have made the Puritans look like pikers. From what he could tell, the woman lived, slept and breathed the bodyguard business.
“We’ve got a priority-one call on the 800 line. From the USA Today ad.”
He knew exactly what ad she was referring to, of course. Samantha Slade advertised her business in the classifieds all over the country: Need a Hero? Call 1-800-555-Hero. Personally, he’d always thought it embarrassingly cute. But he couldn’t deny that it brought a lot of business into the agency.
“There’s a convention in town this weekend,” she revealed, blithely ignoring his ripe curse.
“Now there’s a surprise.”
“It’s at the Whitfield Palace. The RNN’s—otherwise known as the Romance Novelists Network’s—annual bash.”
“No way.” He could see this one coming and would rather walk the plank than baby-sit some white-haired old lady swathed in pink chiffon and diamonds.
“It’s right up your alley, sweetheart.” Lucas hated it when Samantha called him sweetheart. Or worse yet, precious. It meant she was going into coaxing mode, which was even more dangerous than her Captain Bligh routine. “Two thousand women, Lucas. Women with romance on their minds. And you. Just think of the possibilities.”
“I’d rather not.” He might have been something of a ladies’ man during his navy days, but any guy who’d get within a block of two thousand women all gathered in one place with romance on their minds could well be risking estrogen poisoning. “Besides,” he reminded her yet again, “I’ve quit.”
“So you keep saying. But how are you going to live with your conscience if someone knocks off romance’s most beloved author while you’re sailing into the sunset?”
“Now who’d want to do a nasty thing like that?”
“That’s what Roberta Grace needs you to find out.”
“Sorry, sweetheart, but I’ve got a hot date with some killer whales.”
“Those whales migrate up and down the coast all the time,” she murmured, in a vague way that told him she was just guessing. “You can always catch up with them later.”
“Dammit, Samantha—”
“I need you on this one, Lucas.” There it was again. That feminine wheedling he didn’t buy for a minute. But that didn’t make it any less effective. “This could well be a life-and-death situation. Somebody’s been writing Roberta Grace threatening letters. This latest one said this conference would be her last.
“Now the letters could be the work of a crank. Or not. If you’d just help me out for this weekend, I’ll double your pay, and when the conference is over and the writer leaves town without a scratch, I promise not to say another word about your foolish plan to resign.
“In fact,” she said, with what Lucas took to be a burst of spontaneous inspiration, “if you still insist on leaving, I’ll come to the dock to wave you off. And even spring for the bubbly for the bon voyage party.”
“Why can’t you get someone else to cover the lady? How about Val? Hell, she reads the stuff.”
He recalled the day Eric Janzen, an agent recruited from the DEA, had made the mistake of giving Valerie Brown a bad time about the novels with the suggestive covers. The former Oakland cop had calmly put down the paperback she’d been enjoying during her lunch break, aimed her semiautomatic Beretta 9mm at a point below Eric’s belt and threatened to blow away any chances he might have for any romance in the future. After that, not a single male in the place had dared utter a word about Val’s choice of reading material.
“Val’s up in Washington State, baby-sitting a software mogul who’s gotten more than a few people ticked off about his plot to take over the electronic world.”
“Dean, then.” Dean Phillips came from the blue suit, starched white shirt and neatly knotted tie ranks of the FBI. Since the guy’s training had apparently included the ability to remain unrelentingly polite under stress, Lucas figured he’d be a natural for this gig.
“Dean’s in Albuquerque on a fund-raising junket with some politician. And before you run through my entire roster of operatives, all I’m asking you to do is to run by the Whitfield Palace and meet the lady. Then, if you still want to leave, I swear I’ll find a replacement and not do a thing to stop you.”
And pigs would sprout wings and start dive-bombing the Bay Bridge, Lucas thought.
“You’re an angel,” she said in her brisk, staccato voice when he didn’t immediately respond. “I realize that since you’re going to be spending the next three days at the hotel, you’ll need to go home and pick up some clothes. I’ve arranged for you to meet with the client in Neptune’s Table—that’s the oyster bar off the hotel lobby—at six.”
“How am I supposed to spot her with two thousand women roaming all over the place?”
“You’re the professional. I have absolute faith in your ability,” Samantha said blithely. “Also, while I was talking on the phone with her, I did a quick Internet search on the other line. Her publisher is Penbrook Press, and if her photo on their web site is at all current, she’s remarkably young to have achieved such success, I’d guess about twenty-six or-seven. She also appeared to be a large girl, with long, rather mousy brown hair.”
“I doubt any other of those two thousand women fit that description,” he muttered.
“You used to track down terrorists in jungles,” Samantha noted, reminding him of his navy SEAL days, which he’d just as soon forget. “I can’t believe you’d have that much difficulty locating one romance writer. Besides, if you can’t manage to spot the woman yourself, she’s famous enough that I’d imagine all you’d have to do is ask someone to point her out.... Have fun, precious.”
The matter settled in her own pigheaded mind, at least, Samantha hung up before Lucas could summon up another argument.
Although there were those who might argue the point, Lucas had always considered himself a levelheaded man. He did not believe in ghosts, vampires, aliens or Bigfoot. He considered the Loch Ness monster an ingenious tourism ploy, hadn’t had any reason to think about the Tooth Fairy since he’d lost his last baby molar during a scuffle on the baseball field two weeks before his eleventh birthday, and the jury was still out on the existence of his guardian angel.
However, as he walked into the gilded lobby of the San Francisco Whitfield Palace Hotel, Lucas decided he must have somehow passed through a curtain in time and space. Or else he’d gotten some bad pepperoni on the pizza he’d had for lunch today.
Women dressed in hoopskirts the diameter of the Liberty Bell were gathered in small groups, chatting pleasantly with kohl-eyed vampires, Stetson-clad cowgirls, Pocahontas look-alikes and at least two women dressed in what appeared to be filmy white nightgowns with huge, white-feathered wings extending from the back of their shoulders. Those feathers, combined with all the female voices chirping at the same time, gave him the feeling of walking into an aviary on some alien planet.
He checked in at the desk, requesting a room next to Roberta Grace. Fortunately, the agency put most of their out-of-town clients in the hotel, which gave him clout. Although it took a bit of finagling and some fast talking, adjoining rooms were arranged. After being assured by the manager that the bell captain would have his garment bag taken upstairs to his room, Lucas went in search of Roberta Grace.
He was still trying to decide whether to escape while he had the chance, or attempt to wade through the feminine throng to the oyster bar, when a woman leaped out from behind a marble pillar and grabbed his arm. She was wearing a low-cut, blue silk gown, a towering powdered wig and enough fake jewelry to ensure death by drowning if she were unfortunate enough to trip into the lobby fountain.
“Thank heavens! Where on earth have you been?”
“In Sausalito.” Lucas decided that if this was the woman he’d come here to meet, the deal was off.
“You were supposed to be here ages ago.”
“Hey, I figured if I was going to have to work this shindig, you’d want me to take time to pick up the appropriate clothes.”
She was looking at him as if he were the strange one. “That doesn’t explain why you weren’t here as promised. Two hours ago.”
The badge pinned to her breast revealed her to be Marianne Tyler, a member of the conference coordinating committee. There were enough multicolored ribbons attached to the badge to suggest she’d just won Best of Show.
“Look, I think we must have our wires crossed here—”
“I’ll say we do!” The furrows in her brow deepened. “If you think I’m paying your entire agency fee, when you’re so horrendously late, you can think again, young man. And you’re not in costume.” She eyed him with frustration. “Where’s your cutlass? Your agent promised you’d have a cutlass.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. But I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“You’re not my pirate?”
“No, ma’am. I’m not.”
“Oh.” Her lips drew into a tight line as she gave him a long silent perusal from the top of his dark head down to his boots. Then back up again. “It was probably your hair that threw me off,” she decided. “Most normal men are wearing it short these days.”
Lucas wasn’t about to get into a discussion about normalcy with a woman who appeared to take fashion tips from Marie Antoinette. “That and the fact that I seem to be the only man in the hotel,” he suggested helpfully.
“Women are always in the majority at these things. Which is why a good-looking male is such a draw.” She continued to gaze up at him. “You know,” she said speculatively, “since my pirate still hasn’t shown up, perhaps you’d like to fill in.”
Lucas had been shot at on more than one occasion. He’d fought hand-to-hand for his life in a South American jungle while nearly delirious with malaria. In his former life as a SEAL, he’d swum from a bone-chilling sea onto a distant shore on a moonless night with a knife between his teeth prepared for the worst. But the speculative gleam in this woman’s pale blue eyes was the most frightening thing he’d ever witnessed.
“Now there’s an idea,” he drawled. “But I’m afraid, since I have a previous engagement, I’m going to have to decline.”
“Oh, dear. And you would have been so perfect. The ladies would have gone wild for that scar on your cheek. It makes you look très dashing.” When she shook her head with regret, pins flew out of the snowy white beehive onto the plush red-and-gold carpeting. “Well, I suppose I have no choice but to keep looking. He has to be here somewhere.”
With that the conference coordinating committee woman took off with a rustle of silk.
Hell. If he hadn’t stopped to clean out his desk, he’d already be headed for blue seas. As he continued to make his way through the crowds of women, Lucas wished he’d never answered that damn phone in the first place.
Neptune’s Table was, unsurprisingly, as packed as the lobby. He stood in the doorway, looking past the iced trays of raw oysters lined up on the half shell, scanning the tables of women, searching out someone who might fit Samantha’s sketchy description.
He found her on the second survey of the room, sitting alone, half-hidden beneath a towering banana palm. Unlike most of the patrons, who were dressed in evening clothes or elaborate costumes, she was wearing a silk suit the color of sunshine on wheat, with an ivory blouse buttoned all the way to the throat and fastened with a cameo. Also, unlike the other patrons, she was working. Her fingers were literally racing over the slate gray keyboard of the laptop computer, and her eyes, behind a pair of tortoiseshell glasses, were intensely focused on the screen.
Lucas crossed the room to her table. Lost in her writing, she remained oblivious to him. He cleared his throat. Nothing. Just a frown as she backspaced furiously, erasing the words on the screen. He tried again. “Excuse me?”
Murmuring something that could have been a curse, she looked up at him. As their eyes met, then momentarily held, Lucas imagined the roar of distant surf and felt himself drowning. And the crazy thing about it was that he didn’t even care.
“If I’m wrong, this is going to sound like the world’s worst pickup line. But are you the lady I’m supposed to spend the weekend with?”
She surprised him by blushing, pink color flooding prettily into cheeks so creamy she could have been the poster girl for milk. He wouldn’t have expected a woman who penned steamy romance novels to be shy. But damned if she didn’t seem to be.
“I wouldn’t exactly put it that way.”
“But you are Roberta Grace?”
“Actually, I’m Grace Fairfield. Roberta Grace is my pseudonym. And you must be Lucas Kincaid.”
“That’s me.” He held out his hand.
After a moment’s hesitation, she held out her own. Her short, neat nails were unlacquered, and a silver band, fashioned into interwoven Celtic knots, adorned her ring finger. Her skin was buttery smooth, cool and fragrant.
“I have a friend who reads romance novels.” Recognition clicked as Lucas envisioned this woman’s name penned in fancy gold script across the front of a book cover. “She was reading one of yours last week, now that I think about it. Bodice rippers, right?”
Grace Fairfield lifted her chin. Repressed passions swirled intriguingly in her eyes, contrasting with the earlier shyness. Lucas had always been a man who appreciated contrasts. He was also discovering that he was a sucker for a female in glasses.
“That just happens to be an outdated and inaccurate, not to mention insulting, term, Mr. Kincaid. For the record, I’ve never ripped a bodice yet.”
“Neither have I,” Lucas said easily. Enjoying her hauteur the same way he was enjoying looking at her, he pulled up a wooden chair and sat down at the small round table. He couldn’t quite decide whether her eyes were green or blue. But they sure were pretty. “But hope springs eternal.”
When she didn’t laugh, as he’d intended, or so much as crack a smile, he decided to try again. “I’m sorry. I certainly didn’t mean to insult you, Ms. Fairfield.” He pulled a contrition-laced smile from his repertoire, one that had always worked wonders with women from Seattle to Singapore.
The corners of her lips tilted. Just barely, but enough to let him know he was off the hook. For now.
“Apology accepted. And I didn’t mean to sound huffy. It’s just that you hit a sensitive spot.”
“I understand.” The idea of searching out a few more of the lady’s sensitive spots was definitely appealing. Samantha had been wrong about Grace’s hair. Mousy? It was the color of the melted caramel his mother used to dip apples in every fall. It was also as shiny as a shampoo commercial and looked as if it’d be soft to the touch. Lucas allowed himself a brief fantasy of loosening it from that tidy little knot she’d fashioned it into at the nape of her neck. “I also didn’t mean to interrupt your work.”
“That’s all right.” She hit the keys, saving the text. “I was going to have to be stopping soon, anyway. I’m scheduled to judge the costume pageant at tonight’s welcoming party.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “That explains the belly dancer.” He tilted his head in the direction of a woman clad in spangles and purple chiffon who was drinking a Bloody Mary and downing raw oysters with three more women all dressed like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.
“The conference operates on several levels,” she explained. “Some of the attendees come here to network. Others to visit with friends, some to gain writing tips and publisher information from the seminars. But since just about everyone also enjoys a party, there are times it can seem a bit like a three-ring circus.”
He tipped the wooden chair on its back legs and grinned at her. “Lucky for me that I’ve always enjoyed circuses.”
She took off the dark-framed reading glasses and studied him. The frown that replaced the faint smile was not encouraging.
“So, I guess you’re in need of a hero?” he asked.
“No.” When she bit her bottom lip, Lucas decided that the sight of those white teeth sinking into that soft pink flesh was about the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen. “I mean, I don’t think so, and I’m certain I’m overreacting. But I received another letter when I arrived at the hotel this morning, and...” Her voice drifted off.
“Yeah, my boss told me about the letters. She said something about them threatening you?”
“Well, yes.” Grace felt the embarrassed color flood into her cheeks and wished she’d just continued to ignore them. After all, Tina was undoubtedly right. Who would want to kill her? The idea was ludicrous. “I suppose,” she said reluctantly, “you could call them death threats.”
He glanced around the room. “Well, you’ve definitely landed in one helluva pool of suspects.”
Her remarkable eyes widened. “Oh, I can’t believe any one of my friends would be capable of writing such letters. We’re a very close group,” she insisted.
Lucas suspected the Borgias had probably said the same thing on occasion. “Perhaps you should let me see them,” he suggested.
“Oh. Of course.” She’d gone from pretty pink to paper pale, and although he had to give her credit for making a good stab at appearing composed, Lucas didn’t miss the tremor of her hand as she reached into her purse and took out the envelopes.
Deciding that they’d already lost the chance to check for fingerprints, he took them from her, noticing that the postmarks were from four different cities in three different states.
The paper and envelopes could have been purchased from any office supply store in the country. From the justified margins, he knew they’d been written on a computer, which made him wish for the good old days when a detective could track down a culprit by the idiosyncracies of a typewriter—a raised e, perhaps, or a broken crossbar on a t. He turned his attention to the rambling, often incoherent prose.
Grace watched him read the letters that had caused her so many sleepless nights, and admired his absolute concentration. She imagined a bomb could go off in the middle of the bar and he wouldn’t even notice. She knew the feeling well, since she was the same way herself, whenever she was writing. The thought that she and this hero-for-hire could have anything in common was more than a little disconcerting.
His dark hair, pulled back into a very unbusinesslike ponytail, could have appeared artistic on another man, but instead gave him a rakish, dangerous appearance. When her nerves tangled again, Grace assured herself that she could handle them. After all, she certainly had in far worse situations.
After he’d read each letter carefully and twice, Lucas lifted his head. His gaze collided with hers. The air in the bar was suddenly electric, like heat lightning shimmering on a distant horizon.
Lucas had always enjoyed women. He liked the way they felt—like the undersides of the snowy blossoms on his grandmother Fancy’s blue ribbon-winning camellias. He liked the way they smelled; liked the smooth, enticing, catlike way they moved; liked the way they tasted. The truth was, he flat-out loved everything about the opposite sex, and since women sensed that, mostly they liked him right back. Which had always suited him just fine.
He’d settled down a lot since his younger days, when he’d felt almost honor bound to live up to the old naval tradition of a girl in every port. But even so, he’d always enjoyed playing the field too much to narrow it down to a single woman.
Until now.
Her lips were full and pink and shiny from being licked. From nerves, Lucas guessed. Lord help him, he wanted to taste them. Actually, he wanted to taste the rest of her, too. Every lush, perfumed inch.
A little pool of silence settled over them.
Grace was the first to break it. “So,” she said, a bit breathlessly. “Do you think I’m in danger?”
They both were, Lucas thought. And suspected there wasn’t a thing either one of them could do about it. Fate, he decided, had one helluva quirky sense of humor.
“It’s obvious that whoever wrote them is a card-carrying paranoiac.” The letters professed a belief that Roberta Grace was spying on the letter writer and then stealing the writer’s real-life adventures to use in the Roberta Grace books. “I’d say it’s a distinct possibility.”
He rubbed his chin and vaguely wished he’d taken time to shave before driving back into the city. “Is there an outside chance that you could have accidentally written about some true instances in someone’s life?”
“That would be extremely difficult, since my books are set in eras ranging from medieval France to nineteenth-century Arizona.”
“Well, that definitely narrows our suspect list,” Lucas decided.
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“It’s obvious that we’re dealing with a time traveler. So all we have to do is keep an eye out for the Way-Back Machine, and it should be a cinch to keep you safe.”
This time her smile was quick and warm and genuine. The thickly lashed eyes he knew he was going to be dreaming about tonight brightened.
“And to think people no longer believe in truth in advertising,” she murmured, wondering what the chances were of actually finding a genuine hero in the classifieds. She wasn’t certain that even she would get away with such a plot.
“We’ve never lost a client yet.” As he watched those ripe, petal pink lips curve in a faint smile, Lucas reminded himself that he’d never stooped to begging for anything in his life. And he wasn’t going to start now. Even if Grace Fairfield was the type of woman who made a man want to run out and buy some long-stemmed red roses and a gilt box of rich, melt-in-the-mouth chocolates.
“So,” he said, dragging this thoughts back to his reason for being at the hotel in the first place, “why don’t you tell me the names of all the people you think might have it in for you?”
“Oh, I can’t believe it could be anyone I know,” she said quickly. Too quickly. She fell silent and dragged her gaze over to the tropical fish tank along the far wall. Although patience had never been his long suit, Lucas waited her out.
“I suppose Robert might qualify.”
“Robert?” The pieces instantly fell into place. “That’d be the other half of Roberta Grace?”
“That’s right. Robert Radcliffe is my former husband.”
Lucas made a mental note to check out Radcliffe ASAP. Any guy stupid enough to let this woman get away had to have more than a few screws loose. Enough to threaten murder? Lucas wondered. “So you two collaborated?”
“That’s what Robert has always told people.”
“Why do I hear a ‘but’ in that?”
“I have no idea.” She folded her arms across the front of her suit jacket. “You have to understand, Mr. Kincaid, that Robert is not exactly my favorite subject. Our divorce was, unfortunately, not without its unpleasant moments.” From the flame that flashed in her eyes, Lucas decided that was an understatement.
“And you have to understand, Ms. Fairfield, that if you want me to protect your life, we’re not going to be able to ignore past unpleasant moments. Since they tend to be the ones that lead to murder.”
“Point taken,” she said quietly. Grace rubbed at her temples, where a headache threatened. Murder. It was such an ugly word. She still couldn’t believe it.
“Have you called the police about these letters?”
“No. I’m a very private person. Besides, in the beginning Tina and I decided that they were merely some unstable reader letting off emotional steam.”
“And Tina would be...?”
“My agent, Tina Parker.” Who definitely wouldn’t be all that thrilled to discover her client had hired a bodyguard, Grace feared, but did not say. “Although I’ll admit to being uneasy about the letters, I agreed with her that there’s no point in creating headlines. After all, I’ve had enough negative publicity lately, what with the divorce, and the lawsuit—”
“Lawsuit?” Lucas hated going into a job without sufficient background.
Grace sighed. Talking about Robert was her least favorite thing to do. Even below root canals and swimsuit shopping. Deciding her bodyguard would hear the gossip anyway, Grace decided it was better if it come directly from her.
“Robert is suing me for the rights to the Roberta Grace name.” She lifted her chin in the same challenging way she’d done when Lucas had inadvertently insulted her books. “My novels are my sole intellectual property. I have no intention of relinquishing a name I’ve worked very hard to establish to a man who never wrote a single publishable sentence.”
There. She’d finally said it out loud. Grace wondered how she could have been so stupid to go along with the so-called collaboration lie in the first place.
“Makes sense to me.” Money was a popular motive for murder. Strike two against the ex-husband, Lucas decided.
“So, what about Tina? Did she continue to represent your ex?”
“No. He has a new agent now. Actually, it’s our former editor.”
There was a lot more there, Lucas determined. A lot more Grace was going to have to tell him, no matter how upsetting it proved. After all, wounded pride was a lot less painful than murder.