Tempting Tara Page 16

  Hearing the opening notes of the music, she drew a deep breath, pasted on the bright stage smile Stephanie had taught her and stepped onto the stage.

  SMUGLY SATISFIED with his own performance that evening—all except for one loose end still left dangling— Blake slipped into the theater in time to hear the music begin. He recognized it as what he and Tara had called. “the big ball number,” and he found a spot in the back where he could stand unnoticed to watch.

  Tara stepped onto the stage, looking so beautiful his breath caught, smiling in a way that let him know she was enjoying herself. He scanned the audience quickly, realizing with a slight frown that he wasn’t the only man who was close to drooling over her. And then he looked back toward the stage.

  Jeremy helped Tara climb into the lower half of the colorful ball. At a wave of Jeremy’s hand, his other three assistants—Stephanie, Paula and Monica—lifted the top half of the sphere and snapped it into place, completely concealing Tara within it. And then the fun began. The audience laughed as Jeremy and his assistants began to play with the large ball, rolling it around the stage, batting it between them, making everyone believe that Tara was getting quite a workout in there.

  Blake heard the amazed gasps when the ball—which had never left the audience’s sight—was opened to reveal the Irish setter, who barked and rose on his haunches, begging for the applause he received in spades. Blake knew that Tara was to appear from the wings in a puff of smoke soon afterward to receive her own accolades.

  The smoke arrived, but Tara didn’t.

  Blake saw the slight frown that darkened Jeremy’s face as he turned his head to look in the direction from which Tara should have made her entrance. The three women posturing behind him also looked surreptitiously that way, their smiles frozen in place, but just a bit puzzled.

  The audience continued to applaud, apparently believing that everything was as it should be.

  And Blake was hit with a feeling so strong it almost knocked him backward. Something was wrong with Tara. Seriously wrong.

  His heart in his throat, Blake dashed toward the back of the theater.

  THE BEEFY HAND that covered Tara’s face was ominously familiar. And so was the rough-edged voice that growled in her ear. “Did you really think I wouldn’t know you, just because you’ve changed your hair color? As soon as I spotted your boyfriend, I knew you’d be around somewhere.”

  He dragged her through the backstage shadows toward the exit. Frantically, Tara wondered where Pete was, or any of Jeremy’s other staff.

  Blake!

  Her captor pushed through the back door, dragging her outside and then pulling her into what might have been a formal garden behind the main house. Tara tried to resist him, fighting him every step of the way, but she was no match for his strength. He held her left arm behind her, the pain so intense that tears leaked from her eyes despite her best efforts to hold them in.

  Tara wondered where Willfort’s guards were—but then she reminded herself that this man very likely worked for Willfort.

  He paused close to a huge magnolia tree, where Tara was quite sure they blended into the shadows. Even her spangled costume wouldn’t be visible here, away from the security lights that dotted the estate.

  She could hear the man breathing roughly, heavily in her ear—more from anger than exertion, she sensed. Her futile struggles hadn’t caused him undue effort.

  “We’re going to the parking lot on the other side of the theater,” he growled. “And you are going to keep quiet, you got that?”

  With his hand over her mouth, Tara couldn’t have answered if she’d wanted to. She struggled again, her protests muffled against his palm.

  “Shut up,” he said, jerking at her arm again, hurting her so badly her stomach lurched. “And be still. It’s your fault you’re here—you and your P.I. boyfriend. Willfort can take the fall for his stupid insurance-fraud plan, but I’ll be damned if I’m going down with him. I need money to get out of the country. We’ll see if your boyfriend and his rich magician buddy are willing to pay to get you back.”

  “Let her go, Doren.”

  Tara almost sagged in relief at the sound of Blake’s voice.

  The man holding her reacted quite differently. His hold on Tara tightened until she felt her head begin to spin from the pain in her arm and the lack of oxygen. “Back off. I mean it, man, I’ll snap her neck. She’ll be dead before you take two steps.”

  Tara had no doubt that he could—and would—do exactly as he said.

  The man Blake had called Doren had his back to the magnolia, making sure no one crept up on him from behind. His attention was focused on Blake, who, in his black T-shirt and jeans, was barely visible in the shadow of the tree.

  “Don’t take another step,” Doren ordered. He shoved Tara’s twisted arm higher behind her back, making her cry out in pain. The sound was muffled by Doren’s hand, but she knew Blake heard it.

  “Let her go. It won’t do you any good to take her,” Blake said, his voice low and unnaturally controlled. “The police know everything. Botkin has already identified you as the man who shot him.”

  Tara’s eyes went wide above Doren’s hand. Botkin was alive? Could that possibly be true?

  “I’m not going down,” Doren insisted, his gravelly voice taking on a desperate edge. “I need money. Travel arrangements. If you want your friend back, you’ll help me.”

  “I can’t, Doren. It’s too late.”

  “Then it’s too late for her.” Another vicious twist of Tara’s arm brought another cry of pain to her smothered lips. She heard something snap. Stars exploded in front of her eyes, and she was sure for a moment that she would pass out. She fought the weakness with every ounce of her strength.

  “No! Damn it, Doren, leave her alone.”

  A column of bright light suddenly shot up from the ground near Doren’s feet, like a sudden eruption of fire from the very ground they stood on. For a moment, Tara thought her pain was making her hallucinate, but Doren flinched back from the leaping flames. He and Tara were spotlighted for an instant in that weird glow, which reflected blindingly from the sequins on Tara’s costume. Doren dropped his hand from Tara’s face to shield his eyes, taking her out of immediate danger of having him snap her neck.

  Trying to ignore the agonizing pain in her arm, she took advantage of the opportunity to escape. She kicked her right foot backward, her spiked heel digging into Doren’s shin. As he yelped and instinctively released his hold, Tara shoved herself away from him.

  And then something whizzed past her to slam into her captor’s shoulder. Doren cursed, and staggered backward. A moment later he went down with two men on top of him—one of them a uniformed security guard, the other Blake.

  Tara’s left arm fell heavily to her side, useless. She stumbled and would have fallen if someone hadn’t caught her.

  “Are you all right?” Jeremy asked her, cradling her against him.

  Clutching his black dinner jacket with her right hand, she sagged against him, her knees refusing to support her. “The fire,” she gasped. “You did that?”

  “Seemed like a good idea at the time. I was impressed that you took immediate advantage of the chance to get away from the jerk. Good job, Tara.”

  Other people were suddenly running toward them. Lights flashed, voices shouted. And Tara felt herself giving in to the agony radiating from her left arm.

  Her knees buckled completely. Jeremy supported her, murmuring reassurances.

  And then Blake was there.

  “Tara.” His voice was strangled. “Tara, I’m so sorry.”

  Jeremy eased her into Blake’s familiar arms, saying, “I’ll get an ambulance.”

  Tara opened her mouth to order him to do nothing of the sort. She didn’t need an ambulance. It was only a bruised arm, for Pete’s sake.

  But nothing emerged from her dry, tight throat except a hoarse exclamation of pain.

  “She’s going into shock, Blake.” It was Stephanie�
�s voice that time. “We need to lay her down.”

  “Blake?” Tara’s voice was a bare whisper. She tried to hold onto his shirt as he lowered her gently to the grass.

  “Don’t try to talk, sweetheart.”

  He was leaning close to her, but for some reason she was having trouble focusing on his face, even with all the light that had suddenly appeared around them. She struggled to make herself heard over the confusion. “I have to...know. Is Botkin...alive?”

  “Yes. He’s alive. Thanks to you, Tara. If you hadn’t gone into that office when you did, Doren would have finished him off.”

  The sheer relief of knowing that she hadn’t helplessly watched a man die was almost too much for Tara. “Oh, Blake, I...”

  “Shh. Rest now. We’ll talk later.”

  That suddenly seemed like a very good idea. Tara closed her eyes and let Blake take care of her one more time.

  12

  “YOUR APARTMENT is very nice.”

  In response to Stephanie’s comment, Tara glanced around the living room that now looked so strange to her, though it had only been eight days since she’d last been in it. “Thank you.”

  At least Doren, or whoever had been inside her apartment, hadn’t made too much of a mess after he’d let himself in with her key, she found herself thinking rather distantly. A few drawers had been riffled through as Doren had looked for clues to where Tara might be hiding, but there’d been no real damage done. The only thing that looked out of place was the dead rose stuck in a crystal bud vase on her coffee table.

  Gazing at that rose, Tara felt her heart clench. It seemed almost as if months had passed since Blake had pressed the vivid red bloom into her hand.

  Sitting in the wingback chair Blake had occupied that afternoon eight days ago, Stephanie sipped the soft drink Tara had offered her when they’d arrived an hour earlier. “It’s a shame Doren wouldn’t tell you what he did with your purse,” she said. “Now you’ll have to replace everything in it.”

  “There wasn’t that much,” Tara answered with a shrug that caused a twinge of discomfort in her left arm, which was immobilized in a bulky cast and suspended in a sling. “I’d just stuffed a few things in it for the evening. It won’t be that hard for me to replace everything.”

  “Good.” Stephanie looked around the living room again, and cleared her throat. “Is there anything else I can do for you this afternoon? I’d be happy to run to the grocery store. I’m sure you need some supplies.”

  “No, I have enough for now. But thank you.”

  Tara shifted to a slightly more comfortable position on her sofa, cradling her injured arm in her lap. The medication she’d taken three hours earlier, prior to the trip from Savannah on a small, private jet Jeremy Kane had generously provided for her, was beginning to wear off. Her arm ached dully in a promise of worse to come.

  “Stephanie, I’m so grateful to you for accompanying me on this trip, but there’s no need for you to hang around here. I’ll probably just get some rest and then make some calls later this afternoon. Jeremy’s pilot is waiting for you at the airport, and I know you’re ready to get back to Savannah. I’ll be fine.”

  Stephanie bit her lip. “I really hate to leave you here alone.”

  “I’ve been living here alone for five years,” Tara answered gently.

  “Not with a broken arm.”

  Tara smiled weakly and patted her cast. “It’s not exactly a debilitating injury. I’m right-handed. And I have friends I can call if I need anyone. When I talked to my mother this morning and told her everything, she even offered to take a leave of absence from her job and move in with me for a while. It was all I could do to talk her out of it. One phone call and she’d be here in less than an hour.”

  Stephanie looked torn. “You know Blake is sorry he couldn’t bring you home himself, don’t you? He really didn’t have any choice but to stay and wrap up his case. There were a zillion more questions he had to answer for the police, not to mention the insurance company.”

  “I understand. I’m grateful to him for arranging for me to answer the questions they had for me so quickly this morning, so that I could come back to Atlanta this afternoon. And it was incredibly kind of Jeremy to lend us his private plane.”

  “They both knew you were anxious to get home and check on everything here. And Jeremy thought it would be too uncomfortable for you to ride in a car for very long. He’s a really thoughtful guy.”

  Tara held onto her smile with an effort. “Yes, he is. You and Blake are lucky to have him for a friend.”

  “He’s your friend, too, now. He said so. And Jeremy doesn’t take friendship lightly, Tara. None of us do.”

  “Neither do I, Stephanie. I’ll never forget how kind you’ve all been to me.”

  “You’re sure there’s nothing else I can do?”

  Tara shook her head. “Call a cab,” she urged. “One should be here within fifteen minutes. I’m going to take another pain pill and head straight for bed—my own bed,” she added with forced enthusiasm.

  Stephanie left reluctantly. “If you need anything... anything at all...”

  “I’ll call,” Tara promised. “Thank you again, Stephanie. For everything.”

  Stephanie kissed her cheek. “Take care.”

  “I will.”

  “I’m sure Blake will be here as soon as he can.”

  “Stop apologizing for Blake. He can speak for himself,” Tara said, trying to sound teasing.

  Stephanie didn’t smile. “Just...be patient with him, okay? He’s never been in love before.”

  Tara’s smile wavered, but she didn’t want to argue just then. “Goodbye, Stephanie,” she said.

  “Not goodbye. See you later,” the other woman corrected her. And with that, she finally made her departure, leaving Tara alone for the first time in days.

  Tara sighed and rested her head against the back of her couch. It was so quiet in her apartment, she thought. It felt so strange to be back here and not to be afraid that someone was looking for her.

  It was even stranger to realize that she’d left her heart back in Savannah with a man who simply hadn’t known what to do with it.

  She knew Blake had no choice but to remain behind when she left. He had a job to do, a case to finish.

  He would always have another case. Another puzzle to solve. Another excuse for living in the shadows under assumed names and identities.

  He was very good at his job. It was Blake who’d quietly gathered enough evidence for Doren to be charged with attempted murder, attempted kidnapping, assault, and who knew what else. Blake who’d found the supposedly stolen paintings hidden in Willfort’s house, who’d provided proof that Liz Pryce, Willfort’s clandestine lover for many years, had sold him the paintings for an exorbitant amount even though she’d suspected at the time that they were fakes.

  Apparently, Liz Pryce had confessed the truth to Willfort when she’d learned of his plans to put the artwork on public display. He’d been furious enough with her to break off their relationship, but under threat of her going public and ruining his family-man political image, he’d agreed to keep quiet.

  Willfort hadn’t been willing to risk having the paintings disclosed as fakes, however. He had his reputation as an art collector to consider—though Blake had said to Tara that Willfort was more of an artconnoisseur-wannabe than a true expert in the field. And, besides, he’d added, Willfort had been infuriated at the possibility that word would get out that he’d been so roundly duped by the woman with whom he’d been having an affair.

  And so, Jackson Willfort had come up with the plan to report the paintings stolen. It might even have worked, had Botkin—a man with a great deal of bitterness and a private reason to want reprisal against Liz Pryce and Jackson Willfort—not found out the truth.

  Afraid of making the accusation publicly, Botkin had contacted Blake, posing as an agent from the insurance company that carried the policy on the stolen paintings. Since Blake had conducted
some investigations for the same company on several previous cases, a couple of which had involved the art gallery in minor ways, it hadn’t been too difficult for Botkin to learn how to contact him. But Doren—one of Willfort’s personal and well-paid lackeys—had found out about the plan at the last minute, and had taken it upon himself to rush to his boss’s defense. Willfort swore he hadn’t known about the botched attempted murder.

  Tara was still incredibly relieved that Botkin had survived. It seemed that Doren had gotten careless in his panic over Tara and Blake’s escape. He and his partner—the man who’d shot at Tara and Blake as they’d run from the gallery—had dumped Botkin’s body on the side of a little-used road on their way to search Tara’s apartment. They’d apparently believed him to be dead. They’d been wrong—though not by much.

  Had a couple of teenagers looking for a make-out spot not happened by only minutes after Doren had driven away, Botkin would have died there on that weed-choked side road. It had been several days before he’d been stable enough to tell the police what had happened to him.

  And that, Tara thought with a groan, was something else she was holding against Blake. On Monday evening, when Tara was so upset that she’d been enjoying herself with Jeremy so soon after witnessing what she believed to be a man’s murder, Blake had known that Botkin had survived. And he hadn’t said a word to her—then, or at any time during the four days that passed before she finally learned the truth.

  When she’d asked Blake why he hadn’t told her, he’d given her vague explanations about Botkin being in such critical condition that he hadn’t been expected to survive the week. He hadn’t wanted to get Tara’s hopes up only to have her upset again if Botkin died, he’d said. And besides, Botkin would be in even more danger if word should somehow get back to Doren that he was still alive. The fewer people who knew the truth, the safer the man had been.

  She hadn’t been satisfied with his reasons, but she’d let it drop. There hadn’t been time to tell him exactly how she felt about being kept in the dark about so many things.