For a moment, he felt as if he couldn’t take his eyes off her. The woman’s smile was warm, inviting. Radiant. Standing in its aura, a man could almost believe that people were naturally good instead of desperately in need of redemption.
No one had ever accused him of being talkative, but his mind never went blank—except for now. It didn’t help matters any that every single person on the floor was looking at him with unabashed surprise, as well as a touch of envy.
His lack of visitors was a known fact. In his seven years at the precinct, he hadn’t received so much as a personal phone call. Stanley didn’t know how to dial the phone and there was no one else, if he didn’t count Eli Levy. Which he didn’t because Eli would never call here despite all the years they had known one another. Theirs was a one-on-one, eye-to-eye kind of relationship.
“Detective Munro.”
On her lips, his name sounded almost like a song. Which was fitting because she moved toward him like a melody, her hand outstretched, her manner as welcoming as if this were her turf, not his. As if they were old friends instead of strangers.
After a beat, James realized that some sort of reciprocation on his part was necessary. Rousing himself, he took her hand and shook it. Soft, speculative murmurs were beginning to rise all around them.
Maybe it was a bad idea after all, meeting here. He should have suggested the diner on the corner. The coffee was weak, the pastry usually well on its way to stale, but at this time of the day, they would have been able to avoid prying eyes. Nothing he hated more than an invasion of privacy.
“Yes,” he answered almost reluctantly.
Santini looked from one to the other, a bell belatedly going off in his head. “Then you two don’t know each other?” There was audible disappointment attached to every syllable.
“Not yet,” Constance replied at the same time that James uttered an emphatic, “No.”
Ordinarily it was hard to hear himself think in the squad room. The constant hum of voices, computer keys clanking and phones ringing created a constant, annoying, sometimes almost overpowering din. All that had died down. All eyes were still on them, hungry now for a little action, a little amusement and diversion to momentarily make them forget about the harsh, seamy parts of life.
Annoyed by the lack of privacy, by the clear invasion he was being forced to endure, James took the woman by her arm and turned her toward his cubicle. “Why don’t you come this way?”
It wasn’t a suggestion. More like a command. But she wanted her mother’s cameo and would have talked to the devil himself for it. Though gruff, this man didn’t look as if he had a tail or cloven hooves. She figured she could easily put up with him.
Constance smiled a little wider. Mama had always told her that a woman’s most effective weapon was her smile and she’d found that to be pretty accurate. Being determined and graduating at the top of her college class didn’t hurt things either.
“Anything you say, Detective.”
A smattering of barely concealed laughter echoed in the wake of her words, adding to James’s annoyance. He brought her over to his cubicle, belatedly releasing his grip on her arm. Not for the first time, he wished he had a ceiling to go along with the walls, or at least walls that couldn’t be visually breached by anyone measuring over five and a half feet.
“Have a seat.” He nodded toward the chair that was butted up against the side of his desk. The chair was too close to him, but there was nothing he could do about it. He would have rather put her on the other side of the desk directly opposite him to gain more breathing room.
He watched her as she seemed to drift onto the chair rather than just sit down. She never broke eye contact, which he found a little unsettling. It seemed as if she were putting him on his guard instead of the other way around.
The best con artists had the same trait. It made them seem more trustworthy. As far as he was concerned, the woman wasn’t out of the woods just yet.
Clearing his throat, he reminded himself that he was first, foremost and single-mindedly a detective. It was time he began acting like one. “Do you have any proof that the necklace—”
“Cameo,” she corrected.
“Cameo,” he echoed with a short nod of his head as his irritation mounted. James began again. “Do you have any proof that the ‘cameo’ is yours?”
“You mean like a sales receipt?” She pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. That would have been impolite.
“That would be good.” The words were out before he remembered that she had said the cameo had once belonged to a family ancestor. James felt like an idiot and he was none too happy about it.
Especially when he watched the smile she was attempting to keep from her lips creeping out along her mouth anyway. “It would also be impossible. It was my great-great-great—”
“Times seven, yes, I remember now.”
She was digging into her purse. For a handkerchief to dab delicately at the corners of her eyes? he wondered, a wave of cynicism getting the better of him.
But it wasn’t a handkerchief. The cool Southern belle with the drop-dead legs pulled a photograph out of her purse. When she held it up for him, he saw a woman with a small girl. Though the clothes appeared somewhat out of date, he saw that the woman in the photograph was the same one sitting beside his desk. Around her neck was the cameo he’d picked up from the sidewalk.
“That your daughter?” he asked, taking the photograph from her. When she laughed, he looked up at her sharply.
“No, that’s me. The little girl,” she prompted when he gave her a quizzical look. “The woman wearing the cameo is my mother.”
“She looks just like you,” he couldn’t help commenting. He handed the photograph back to her.
“She did.” Unable to help herself, Constance lightly ran her fingertip along her mother’s image. Time didn’t help. She still missed her like crazy. “She’s gone now.”
That’s right, he remembered. She’d said as much to him on the phone. He felt a tiny pinprick of guilt for thinking it was a ploy to get him to lower his guard. The woman at his desk looked genuinely sad as she spoke about her mother.
Uncomfortable in the face of her sorrow, James cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”
Constance inclined her head. “Everyone who ever knew her was sorry.” And that had added up to a great many people. Her mother had friends everywhere. It made Constance proud.
She roused herself before the sorrow could pull her under. “And they were furious when her things were stolen.” Uncle Bob had put men on it immediately. Everything was recovered within twenty-four hours—except for the cameo. It was almost as if the cameo needed to be set free for a time. There were too many strange things in the world for her to laugh away the thought when it had occurred to her. But she was glad to have the piece back. “There was a robbery at the house the day of the funeral,” she explained.
He didn’t believe in coincidence. Someone had to have known the house would be empty because of the funeral. “Inside job.”
He looked like a man who didn’t trust anyone and she wondered what had made him that way. Something drastic, she felt, her heart going out to him. He also looked like a man who would resent any charitable feelings sent his way.
“Not technically,” she responded. “Turned out to be the cousin of one of the people working in the funeral parlor. He knew what time the funeral was taking place and broke in. The police apprehended him a day after the robbery.”
“Fast.” She heard a touch of admiration in his voice. “Was he that sloppy?”
“The police were that good,” she countered. He couldn’t help wondering if she was pandering to him. “He gave everything up, including his cousin. But he didn’t have the cameo. Said he didn’t know what we were talking about.”
He raised his eyebrow quizzically. “We?”
She flashed another smile, sending another salvo to his gut. “Sorry, I tend to lump myself in with the good guys,” she continued, moving forward on the chair. Moving closer toward him, he noted. “Anyway, it’s been missing for over a year and I didn’t think I was ever going to get it back.” She placed her hand over his, catching him completely off guard. As did the warm feeling that traveled through him, marking a path from her hand through what felt like every part of his body. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
Her eyes were blue. Wedgwood-blue. So blue that if he looked into them long enough, he couldn’t breathe right. That’s what he got for not eating lunch during his break, James upbraided himself.
“There’s no need,” he told her gruffly.
The man was incredibly modest. But then, she’d sensed that when she’d placed her hand on his. He was a man who preferred the shadow to the light. Preferred going his own way, unimpeded.
“Oh, but there is,” she told him softly. Firmly. “That cameo has a great deal of sentimental value for me. My mother wore it when she met my father.” She smiled. “As a matter of fact, that’s in keeping with the legend.”
His brow had knitted together in a single furrowed line. “Legend?”
“That the first time a woman puts on the cameo, she will meet her own true love within twenty-four hours.”
Well, that was a load of garbage if he’d ever heard it. But the way she said it, the words sounded like gospel. She looked too intelligent to buy into something like that. And yet…
Not his business.
“That’s bunk,” he heard himself saying.
That he’d even use a word like bunk seemed out of character to him. He wondered if his sleepless nights were finally taking their toll. For the last month or so, he’d averaged less than five hours a night. Part of the problem was that he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he was waiting for something to happen.
What, he had no idea.
She smiled at him. “Yes, I know. But the cameo still has a lot of sentimental value for me.”
There didn’t seem to be enough air in the cubicle. His head felt a little fuzzy. The sooner he gave her what she was here for, the sooner she’d leave. And the more air there’d be for him. “All right, then I guess a reunion is in order.”
James took a key out of his pocket and unlocked his middle drawer. The cameo moved slightly as he did so, coming to rest against the center. He realized that the blue background was exactly the same shade as the woman’s eyes. Come to think of it, they were the same color as the eyes of the older woman who’d discovered the thing in the first place.
He didn’t like coincidences when he couldn’t explain them.
He dropped the cameo into her hand, avoiding touching her skin. He didn’t know why, but he just figured it was less complicated that way.
About to say something along the lines of “that being that,” he found himself watching her eyes in fascination as they welled up. Damn, he hated tears. He hadn’t a clue what to do when a woman cried, only that he was supposed to do something.
With a barely suppressed sigh, James looked around his desk for a box of tissues, knowing ahead of time that he wouldn’t find anything.
She used the back of her hand to brush away the telltale marks. A smile returned to her lips and any tears that might have subsequently fallen held their positions.
The cameo felt warm in her hand, like something alive, connecting her to her heritage. “I didn’t think I was ever going to be able to put this on.”
“You’ve never worn it?” Thanks to Santini’s never-ending stories about his three girls, he was vaguely aware that daughters played dress-up with their mother’s jewelry. That she hadn’t seemed rather odd, given her feelings about the cameo.
Constance shook her head. “Mother was adamant about the legend. She firmly believed in it. I got engaged to Josh before she could pass the cameo on to me.” She smiled as the memory came back to her. “She told me the cameo would be there waiting for me if I discovered I needed it.” It was her mother’s way of saying that she didn’t completely approve of the match. But then, her mother wouldn’t have approved of anyone that the cameo wasn’t responsible for “choosing.” Her mother had been very, very superstitious.
James glanced down at her left hand. He told himself that it was just an “occupational habit,” taking in as much about a person as he could, to be used later. Except that in this case, there wasn’t going to be a “later.”
Her hand was bare.
She noticed him looking at her hand. Constance curled her fingers under her palm. “It didn’t work out,” she told him quietly.
Looking up at her, he shrugged dismissively. “None of my business.”
An enigmatic expression played along her lips. “Wish he had felt that way. Unfortunately, he felt that everything about me was his business, especially my mother’s money.”
She saw the look of curiosity enter his eyes. She wondered if he was aware of it. There was no question in her mind that he was trying very hard to maintain distance between them. Asking questions, verbally or otherwise, decreased that distance.
“Josh was my mother’s financial adviser,” she explained, “and I discovered right after the funeral that he’d been playing fast and loose with my mother’s money.” Which explained the bad feeling about him that had been steadily making itself more known to her, she added silently. “Marrying me would have given him a better claim to it.” Her tone became breezy, as if she were relating just another story instead of something that had caused her a great deal of pain. “So I broke off our engagement and I fired him.”
“So now you need the cameo to help you find someone.” He tried unsuccessfully to keep the touch of sarcasm out of his voice.
She raised her eyes to his. “No, I want the cameo because it had been my mother’s. And her mother’s before that.” Her smile was warm as she added, “I don’t need a man to make me complete, Detective Munro.”
The way she said it, he believed she meant it. From where he sat, the woman appeared to be pretty complete as it was. He watched her untie the black velvet ribbon and placed the cameo against her throat. She leaned her head forward just a touch as she tied the ribbon at the nape of her neck. Finished, she tossed her long, straight blond hair back over her shoulder, then raised her chin as she looked at him. Her eyes were smiling at him. Touching him.
Which was impossible.
But he still couldn’t shake the feeling.
“How does it look?” she asked.
He wasn’t one to notice jewelry as a rule. But this looked as if it belonged exactly where it was. Resting against the hollow of her throat. Moving seductively with every breath she took. The blue of the background made her eyes seem even more vivid than they already were.
He was mesmerized. It took him a second to get his bearings.
“Fine.” He bit the word off, wanting to get back to something that he knew his way around.
Constance touched the cameo, as if to assure herself that it was really there. Welcome back, she thought. Her gratitude felt boundless.
“Are there some papers I need to sign?”
James shook his head. “This wasn’t official police business, so no, there’s nothing for you to sign.” He certainly didn’t require anything. “You can just go.”
As quickly as possible, he added silently. Maybe if she went, the edgy feeling he was experiencing would leave with her. When she didn’t rise to her feet immediately, an uneasiness undulated through him.
“I can’t go without giving you some kind of reward,” she protested.
There were folders all over his desk, hard copies that went along with the series of robberies he and Santini were investigating. They had yet to make it into the computer. He nodded toward them. “Letting me get back to my work is reward enough.”
“No, really,” Constance insisted, leaning forward. Bringing with her a whiff of something sweet and stirring. And unsettling his gut, he noted darkly.
The sooner she was gone, the sooner he could grab something to eat. “Yes, really,” he insisted.
She knew ahead of time that he wouldn’t accept money or a gift. He wasn’t that kind of man. It didn’t deter her. “There has to be something I can do. At least let me take you out to dinner.”
He remained firm, fully aware that other men in his position would have given in immediately. Having dinner with a beautiful, grateful woman, well, there were a great many worse things in life.
But one thing always seemed to lead to another, ushering in unwanted complications. Even this. It had begun as a reluctant good deed on his part and wound up turning him into the center of attention in the squad room, a position he couldn’t have hated more if he tried.
The adage about no good deed going unpunished whispered through his mind.
His eyes met hers. “No need,” he repeat with feeling.
Sensations rippled through her as she continued looking into his eyes. There was a need, a definite need, she thought.
Something in his eyes just beneath the surface spoke to her. Told her she was in the presence of one of the walking wounded. Her mother had always said she had a knack for finding lost spirits and restoring them.
Was that what had happened between her and Josh?
No, it wasn’t, she told herself. With Josh it had been different. She’d been the one in need.
But all that was behind her.
The end result was what mattered. She hadn’t made the mistake. She’d followed those unsettling instincts that had kept nagging at her, refusing to allow her to sit back and let Josh take full control of everything the way he’d kept first hinting, then suggesting, and finally insisting that he do. He’d claimed that she couldn’t love him if she didn’t trust him.
Truer words were never spoken.
Feeling somewhat guilty, she’d had Josh and her mother’s accounts checked out by an independent third party. That had brought the truth home to her. That she’s been nothing more than a walking bank account to Josh. A rather sizable bank account. Of course, it wouldn’t have remained large for very long because, as it turned out, Josh Walker had lousy business instincts.
She fingered the cameo at her throat. It already felt as if she’d worn it forever. Thoughts of Josh and the mistake she ultimately hadn’t made swiftly disappeared from her head.
Instead, she concentrated on the man who had reunited her with the cameo. One look at the determined set of his jaw told her that there was no arguing with the man. At least, not here. This was his terrain she was standing on.
Rising to her feet, Constance extended her hand toward him once again. His grip was firm. Like her father’s used to be.
The memory warmed her.
“I really don’t know how to thank you,” she repeated softly.
“Then don’t try.”
The way he said it, she knew he thought that put an end to it. She never liked being the one owing a favor. Her mother had raised her to believe that it was far better to give than to receive—and right now, she was on the receiving end. But not for long, she promised herself as she walked out of the squad room. She nodded at Detective Santini as she passed him.
“I see it’s still intact,” he commented.
She looked at him curiously. “What is?”
“Your head. Munro tends to bite people’s heads off—without meaning to,” he explained.
She turned her head side to side for his benefit. “Yes, still there.” And then she smiled at him as she left.
Santini sighed. If he didn’t have a wife and three kids… Glancing toward his partner in the distance, he shook his head. Some guys had all the luck. And didn’t even know it.