Bluer Than Velvet

“I have a confession to make, Sam Zachary,”

Laura said as she traced the rim of her glass with a fingertip. “I thought I had made a big mistake about hiring you. I was even thinking, earlier tonight, about asking you for a refund, and hiring somebody different.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“I know now I didn’t make a mistake. I feel safe with you.”

She wouldn’t have, Sam thought, if she knew the direction in which his mind was tending while his gaze roamed unhindered over her relaxed face and figure. About all that separated him from the thugs he had just taken care of was a willingness to obey the law. That and the fact that they were in a public place. Otherwise…

Otherwise, what, for God’s sake?

Dear Reader,

As the Intimate Moments quarter of our yearlong 20th anniversary promotion draws to a close, we offer you a month so full of reading excitement, you’ll hardly know where to start. How about with Night Shield, the newest NIGHT TALES title from New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts? As always, Nora delivers characters you’ll never forget and a plot guaranteed to keep you turning the pages. And don’t miss our special NIGHT TALES reissue, also available this month wherever you buy books.

What next? How about Night of No Return, rising star Eileen Wilks’s contribution to our in-line continuity, A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY? This emotional and suspenseful tale will have you on the edge of your seat—and longing for the next book in the series. As an additional treat this month, we offer you an in-line continuation of our extremely popular out-of-series continuity, 36 HOURS. Bestselling author Susan Mallery kicks things off with Cinderella for a Night. You’ll love this book, along with the three Intimate Moments novels—and one stand-alone Christmas anthology—that follow it.

Rounding out the month, we have a new book from Beverly Bird, one of the authors who helped define Intimate Moments in its very first month of publication. She’s joined by Mary McBride and Virginia Kantra, each of whom contributes a top-notch novel to the month.

Next month, look for a special two-in-one volume by Maggie Shayne and Marilyn Pappano, called Who Do You Love? And in November, watch for the debut of our stunning new cover design.

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

Bluer Than Velvet

Mary McBride

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my editor

Margaret O’Neill Marbury,

with gratitude and much affection

MARY MCBRIDE

When it comes to writing romance, Mary McBride is a natural. What else would anyone expect from someone whose parents met on a blind date on Valentine’s Day, and who met her own husband—whose middle name just happens to be Valentine—on February 14, as well?

In addition to her contemporary romances, she has also written eleven historical romances for Harlequin Historicals, most recently Bandera’s Bride, a June 2000 release.

She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, with her husband and two sons. Mary loves to hear from readers. You can write to her c/o P.O. Box 411202, St. Louis, MO 63141.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 1

“Most people hire a private investigator to find somebody, Miss McNeal. Not the other way around.”

“Well, I’m not most people, Mr. Zachary.”

“Yeah. I can see that.”

What the man could see, Laura McNeal thought as she reversed the upward creep of her hemline and the downward plunge of her bodice, was plenty of cleavage and way too much leg, but she couldn’t help that. There hadn’t been time to change.

What she could see, on the other hand, was a dingy, pea soup-colored room with a scuffed linoleum floor and windows that were so dirty they barely let in more than a ray or two of daylight. Against one wall there was a dented metal filing cabinet. Against the other wall was a calendar with a picture of Rocky and Bullwinkle on top and the wrong month hanging down below.

The place looked more like the Salvation Army furniture annex than an office, and across the big battered desk, slouched a man who didn’t look at all like a tough-as-nails private eye.

Just her luck. She’d been in the market for a German shepherd, rabid if possible, and she’d wound up with a Saint Bernard, instead. She needed Sam Spade, but who did she get? Sam Spoon.

“Mind if I ask how you got my number, Miss McNeal?”

“The phone book,” she said, not adding that out of the dozen or so private investigators listed there, Zachary, S. U. was the very last one she had tried. Her first call that morning had been to Allied Investigators, but when she detailed her immediate problem for the man on the phone, he had made it absolutely clear that his agency didn’t want to be allied with her or her problem.

All the other investigators she had called had been out of their offices, presumably plying their trade, and she had been too desperate to leave a message with a secretary or on an answering machine, too frightened to wait for someone who might or might not return her call.

Then, when she called Zachary, S. U., he answered his own phone. No secretary. That should have set off a little warning bell right then that maybe Zachary, S. U. wasn’t the keenest private eye in town.

Laura remembered wondering what the initials S.U. stood for. Now she came to the unhappy conclusion that they probably stood for Seriously Unqualified. Or Severely Unemployed. Sexual Under-current also came fleetingly to mind, but she immediately dismissed that notion.

“And the shiner?” he asked.

Laura blinked, painfully. “Excuse me?”

“How’d you get the shiner?” He touched a finger to his eye. At the outer corner where the deep, sexy crinkles were. “You know. The black eye.”

She wracked her Suddenly Unprepared brain for an answer that wouldn’t unnerve this last-ditch detective as much as the truth had unnerved the first. If a real investigator didn’t want to have anything to do with her even on the phone, this guy would probably pick her up bodily and throw her out of his office.

“I got it from the man I don’t want to find me so he can do it again,” she said as firmly as she could.

“Did you call the police? File a report?”

Laura just shook her head and tried to look pathetic, even more than she already did, so he wouldn’t ask why she hadn’t called the police. Nobody called the police about Art “the Hammer” Hammerman or his son, Artie, unless they had a particular fondness for black-and-blue or an incredible longing for plastic surgery or—worse—an outright death wish.

“I’d recommend that you do,” he said. “File a report. The sooner the better.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Laura never meant to cry, but all of a sudden a big tear plopped on the blue velvet of her skirt, followed quickly by another and another. She brushed at them, then brushed again to reverse the dark nap of the velvet, then just kept brushing, unable to stop either that or the stupid crying.

Oh, hell.

Sam Zachary yanked open the warped, top right drawer of his secondhand desk. When he didn’t see a box of tissues, he slammed the drawer shut and opened the top left, the middle left, then every other drawer. He had scratch pads, legal pads, an outdated phone book, a lifetime supply of paper clips and cheap ballpoint pens, four cans of tomato juice and half a dozen granola bars, but not a single tissue for this weeping woman. Dammit.

Then he heard the distinctive sound of a tissue being plucked from a box, and realized she had helped herself from the box hidden behind a stack of magazines and client files on the far side of his desk.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out between soggy sniffs. “I’ll be fine. I really will. Just give me a minute to get myself together, will you?”

“Sure. Take your time.”

Sam leaned back in his chair, battening down that natural instinct of his to wrap his arms around a crying female, especially this one in her ditzy little dress that left almost nothing to the imagination. Except that wasn’t quite true because his imagination had gone into overdrive the minute she’d walked into his office a little after noon like a blond, blue velvet vision teetering on three-inch spiked, rhinestone-studded heels. With a shiner the size of Rhode Island.

He sighed softly. Why me?

Using his surname plus initials rather than some macho company name and batting last in the Yellow Pages had been a fairly successful strategy thus far in limiting his business. He really hated his job, and used any excuse not to do it. Today was the twentieth, and just as soon as he wrapped up the surveillance on Millard Boynton—straying spouse No. 72—he planned to take the rest of the month off, add thirty or forty square feet to his vegetable garden, put in some good mileage on his rowing machine, and finally nail down Bach’s “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” on the piano.

In a minute, once the waterworks stopped, Miss or Mrs. Laura McNeal was going to lift her blue velvet eyes from her blue velvet lap and ask him—no, she was going to implore him—to help her escape an abusive husband or, more likely, to elude an overly aggressive pimp.

Sam Zachary was already framing his reply.

No.

He hadn’t gotten far beyond that thought when Miss or Mrs. Laura McNeal sniffed a conclusive sniff, wadded the soggy tissue in her fist, then recrossed her dynamite legs, and leaned forward.

“Will you help me, Mr. Zachary? Please. I need to disappear.”

Sam felt his eyes snap up from the wisp of black lace just visible at the leading edge of her neckline.

“I’m not a magician,” he said half-heartedly.

“Please.”

“I’m pretty expensive,” he said. Coward.

“How much?” She was already withdrawing a checkbook and a big blue fountain pen from a tiny beaded purse that didn’t look as if it could hold more than a key and a Kleenex.

“A hundred dollars a day, plus expenses.” Liar. It’s two-fifty and you know it. He cleared his throat and shifted in his chair. The springs squealed like stuck pigs. “I’d need a hundred as an advance.” Instead of the usual five.

“You’ve got it.”

She wrote the check with a quick, left-handed flourish that struck Sam as a nearly impossible feat, then she ripped it out and waved it like a tiny flag of victory before she passed it across his desktop.

“So, what do we do first?” she asked. “I mean, to make me disappear?”

Sam closed his eyes a moment. That was one way of doing it, he thought.

For starters, Zachary, S. U. had told Laura that he was going to take her someplace safe. That had entailed a walk down the three flights of stairs from his office and then a pretty precarious climb into the front seat of his battered, black Chevy Blazer truck, which had also afforded S.U. not only a further glimpse of thigh but the opportunity to clamp his hand to her blue velvet backside when one of her high heels slipped off the running board.

Beside him now as he wove the vehicle through traffic, Laura asked, “So, what does the S.U. stand for?”

“Sam,” he said, hitting the brakes for a sudden amber light. “Samuel Ulysses, actually.”

“Oh, God.” Laura rolled her eyes. He was a Sam, even if he wasn’t Sam Spade. She started to giggle.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” The laughter she tried to stifle erupted in a snort. The facial contortion made her eye hurt. “It’s just sort of a private joke.”

He gave her a sidelong glance—a fairly withering one, in her estimation—then said, “Between you and yourself, I take it.”

“Sort of.” Laura sat up straighter, tugging her hemline down and her bodice up. “Sam’s a nice name, actually. You should use it in the phone book instead of those silly initials.”

“I’ll take that into consideration.”

He stepped on the gas, and Laura was pretty sure she saw his fingers tighten on the steering wheel and his mouth shape a tiny, impatient sneer. Oh, great. Her big Saint Bernard was turning out to be as irritable as a cocker spaniel. She sighed. This wasn’t going to work.

“Look, maybe we should just forget…”

Sam Zachary spoke the exact words, at that exact moment, in the same frustrated tone of voice. A quick little grin telegraphed across his lips before he stiffened them again.

“I really do need some help,” Laura said quietly, looking down while she traced a beaded daisy on her handbag, not daring to look at him because she didn’t know whether or not she was going to dissolve into tears again. For someone who had barely shed a tear in the past decade, she was certainly making up for it now.

“I know,” he answered just as quietly. “That’s why I’m taking you someplace where you’ll be safe.”

Safe. That was all she wanted to be just then. Safe from rotten Artie Hammerman.

Laura tilted her head back and closed her eyes, one of which had begun to throb painfully. Maybe it was all her fault. Maybe if she hadn’t accepted Artie’s first, surprising gift, none of this would have happened. But nobody had given her flowers since her senior prom, and suddenly, three weeks ago, there was her landlord’s bullnecked, muscle-bound son, dressed in a checked suit with foot wide lapels and a tie as wide as the Mississippi River, angling a huge box of long-stemmed, deep red American Beauties through the front door of her shop.

“Oh, Artie,” she’d exclaimed. “For me? They’re beautiful. But why?”

Her next mistake was accepting his dopey shrug and big gooey smile as a satisfactory answer.

Then came the candy. She didn’t even know they made heart-shaped boxes that big! Or bottles of Chanel No. 5 that were so enormous they had to be picked up with two hands.

After the perfume arrived, she got nervous and put in a call to the Hammer himself. But Art Hammerman, Sr., had brushed off her concerns about his son.

“Don’t worry about it,” he’d told her in that Don Corleone voice of his. “Indulge the kid.”

But then the car came. A white convertible with red leather seats and the biggest red bow that Laura had ever seen. That had been early this morning, just before Artie knelt before her and opened the little hinged purple box with the big diamond ring nestled inside it.

Then, when she told him he had to take it back, Artie had pushed her, then pulled her, then finally punched her, all the while bellowing “If I can’t have you, Laura, then nobody else can, either.”

Well, nobody else wanted her. But that wasn’t exactly the point. And nobody, by God, had ever hit her. Ever.

“What’d I do wrong?” she muttered now, dragging her fingers through her hair. “I really, really don’t deserve this.”

“People rarely do, Miss McNeal.”

She’d almost forgotten that Zachary, S. U. was sitting barely two feet away, his eyes safely glued to the road, his hands at a steady ten and two on the wheel. “Excuse me?”

“I said people rarely get what they deserve. Good, bad or indifferent.”

Great, Laura thought. He was a philosopher, too.

“Well, they should,” she answered irritably.

They were crossing the two-lane Tri-County Bridge just then. The river glittered below in the summer sun. Laura looked back. The steel-and-glass towers of the city were diminishing fast. Ahead of them, on both sides of the ribbon of road, stretched green fields, broken only by an occasional farmhouse and a dull red barn.

It suddenly occurred to Laura that it might be prudent to ask Sam Zachary just where he was taking her. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. What if she had escaped rotten Artie Hammerman only to be abducted by a guy who sat in a crummy little office just waiting for innocent victims to come along? What if the S really stood for Serial, as in killer?

Laura swallowed hard. Then the U was obviously for Uh-oh.

She glanced to her left. Sam Zachary didn’t look like a sociopath or a menace to society. He didn’t even look dangerous. He looked…well…sincere. Even sweet. All this despite the fact that he also looked strong as an ox.

His thigh muscles bunched just under the faded denim of his jeans. His navy polo shirt curved across a barrel of a chest and the short sleeves showed off his tanned, muscular arms. The sweetness, though, was in the little upward curve of his mouth and the deep crinkles at the outer corners of his eyes. Actually, he was a very good-looking man.

But so was Ted Bundy.

“Do you have a license or anything?” she asked, breaking their silence.

Those lips tilted up a little bit more. “Good time to ask.” He shifted in the seat, stretching out a long left leg, and produced a worn leather wallet from his back pocket.

“Here,” he said, tossing it onto her lap.

Laura breathed a little easier after she opened it and saw not only his driver’s license but a pretty official-looking license from the State Board of Private Investigators. Zachary, Samuel Ulysses was thirty-three, six foot three, and weighed two hundred and fifteen pounds. She already knew he had medium brown hair, although the card failed to mention that it was slightly sun-streaked, and that his brown eyes held an incredible warmth while they crinkled at the corners.

“Satisfied?” he asked, holding out an open hand for the return of his wallet.

Laura closed it and plopped it in his palm. “I guess so.” Relieved was more like it, she thought. “Now I should probably ask where you’re taking me.”

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than he slowed the truck and hit the turn signal. “We’re almost there,” he said, turning the big Blazer left onto a shaded and narrow gravel road.

Laura’s first thought was that this was probably the rural equivalent of a dark, deserted alley, that proverbial place where you never wanted to meet anybody, but before she was able to feel properly hysterical, she found herself quite overwhelmed by the beauty of the scene.

Big trees along both sides of the road formed a green, sun-dappled canopy high overhead, and through the trees to her right Laura could see a pasture brightly carpeted with wildflowers where horses and cows were grazing contentedly. A white wooden fence ran along the edge of the road, and birds—blue ones and red ones and black ones with red-spotted wings—perched atop every other fence post as if they’d been hired by a landscaper for decorating duty.

“This is lovely,” she said, opening the window all the way and sticking her head out to take in a deep breath of the fresh, clean country air. “I haven’t been out here in years. I’m pretty much a city girl.”

She sighed as she edged down the hemline that had crept several inches up her thigh when she leaned out the window, and just for good measure she gave her bodice an upward tug. “You can probably tell.”

“I can tell.” Now he swung the car into another, narrower canopied lane, then put on the brakes in front of one of the most enchanting Victorian houses that Laura had ever seen.

It was two stories of pristine white clapboard and dark green shutters, of spooled archways and gingerbread eaves, all of it nestled into a deep wraparound porch. There was a porch swing with dark green cushions. Oh, and a trellis fairly groaning with bright yellow roses in the sideyard, and not too far from that a wonderful blue gazing ball that mirrored the entire, incredible scene.

“Oh, this is just absolutely gorgeous! I love it!” Laura exclaimed. “What is it? A bed and breakfast?”

“Nope.” Sam Zachary turned off the ignition and plucked out the key. “It’s home,” he said. “Come on.”

Sam went into the kitchen after doing a quick inspection of the rest of the house. The important rooms—the living room, guest room, and both baths—looked fairly decent, much to his relief. It had been a while since he’d had anybody in to clean. Although why he was worrying about Laura Mc-Neal’s first impression of his house was beyond him.

On the drive from the city, he’d pretty well concluded that she was a hooker. She had to be. Nobody else would dress that way in the middle of the day. Nobody else would dress that way period.

He’d left her on the porch swing, happy as a three-year-old, smiling while she pushed the big wooden swing back and forth with the pointed toes of her impossibly high, rhinestone-studded heels. She struck him as unusually carefree for a working girl who was obviously out of work for the duration.

Unless she thought that he…

Sam had just opened the refrigerator door, but now he slammed it shut. He must be nuts, bringing this woman here. It had seemed so obvious, so perfect. An ideal hideout where he could keep a casual watch out for her while carrying on with his own life. What was he thinking?

Shaking his head, he opened the door again and grabbed two cans of diet cola. She was still blissfully swinging when he walked out on the porch. Fine host that he was, he popped the tab on her cola before he handed it to her.

“We need to talk, Miss McNeal. We need to get a few things clear.” He slung a hip up on the porch rail, staring down at her, blatantly ignoring her long shapely legs and world-class ankles. “It is Miss, isn’t it?”

“Why don’t you just call me Laura?”

“Okay, Laura. But that still doesn’t answer my question. Are you single? Married?”

“Single,” she replied, and Sam felt a sudden, inexplicable, almost goofy sense of relief. He immediately relegated it to the fact that he didn’t like working domestic disputes which tended to be ugly if not downright dangerous. People who loved each other could be the very worst of enemies.

“So you’re not trying to get away from an angry husband, then, I guess.”

“No.”

Sam sighed. He felt more like a dentist pulling teeth than a P.I. eliciting details from a client. “Who, then?”

“A man.”

He stared out at the yard a moment, courting patience, taking a break from the sight of her lovely legs. “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific, Miss, uh, Laura,” he finally said, “if you want me to help you with this situation.”

“A man who wants to marry me even though he barely knows me.”

Okay. So she wasn’t running away from her pimp. That still didn’t mean she wasn’t a hooker. One of her johns got emotionally involved no doubt. Somehow that didn’t surprise Sam. Laura McNeal was a beautiful woman. She had a face like an angel and a body custom-designed for sin. His own body, as a matter of fact, was acutely aware of hers at the moment. He took a swig from the soda can in the hope of cooling off.

“This man,” he said. “He’s a john, I assume.”

“No,” she answered, after a quick, confused blink. “He’s an Artie.”

Then it was Sam’s turn to blink. “Excuse me?”

She kicked off one shoe, then the other, and tucked about six miles of slender leg beneath her. “The man who hit me, the one who wants to marry me, is named Artie.”

“I meant, is he one of your customers?”

She shook her head, frowning. “No. Artie’s never…” Then her velvety blue eyes sparked with sudden comprehension. “That kind of john!” she exclaimed. “You think I’m a…a prostitute?”

“Well, I… You know.” He gestured to her minuscule dress and the discarded shoes. “The clothes and all.”