Up Against the Wall

Rebecca picked up two intact bottles and righted them on the tray before squatting down beside the blond waitress. “Here. Let me.”

Melissa paused in her frantic retrieval of the broken brown glass. “This isn’t your job.” Her blue eyes were moist and wide with unshed tears as she met Rebecca’s gaze. She dropped a shard onto the tray and cradled her left arm against her chest. “I can do it. I have to.”

Son of a bitch.

Lifted up to the subdued light of the bar’s chandeliers, the pattern of bruises on Melissa’s swollen wrist became evident. Five of them. With the span of long, strong fingers. The imprint of a man’s hand.

Rebecca swallowed the bile in her throat and reached for the next shard of glass. “I’m helping,” she insisted, resisting the urge to ask who’d hurt her. Was it Tom? Was that why he was so protective and anxious to get her off the floor? Was it a customer? Boyfriend? Husband?

She’d written pieces on domestic violence before. She knew the numbers to call, the words to say. But her dad…She owed him so much. Could she help Melissa without betraying a plan that had been months in the making?

“I’m helping,” she repeated, positioning herself between Melissa and Tom when the bartender hurried over with a towel to mop up the splatters of beer.

Maybe making a friend tonight, making this friend, was just as important as finding her father’s killer. Maybe there was more than one story here on the Riverboat, more than one reason why Rebecca needed to become a part of this world and discover all the secrets hidden here. Maybe she could help the living as well as the dead.

The perfect opportunity lay scattered at her feet.

“Hey—Melissa, is it?” The waitress nodded, blinking away the tears she refused to shed. “I’m assuming you guys have a first aid kit here. Why don’t you go wrap your wrist for some extra support, and I’ll cover for you for a few minutes. Just tell me which tables are waiting on drinks and I’ll deliver them. I can clear away the empties, too.”

When Tom seconded the idea, Rebecca wondered if he was sincere in his concern—or eager to cover the evidence of his assault.

Melissa shrugged, clearly reluctant to showcase her injury, despite the practicality of the suggestion. “I couldn’t let you do that.”

Rebecca grinned, including them both in her offer. “I want to.” She beat big Tom to helping Melissa to her feet and carried the tray to the bar. “I’ve been looking for a second job to help make ends meet.”

Austin was waiting for them at the waitress’s station. “Melissa, are you all right?” He shifted on his feet, burying his hands in his jacket pockets. “What happened?”

“Just an accident.”

He nodded, than darted a glance at Rebecca. “Thank you.”

Rebecca picked up on his uneasiness. Good Lord, was Gramps the man responsible for her injury? He was certainly fit enough to do some damage. “No problem. I worked my way through college waiting—” that’s when she noticed a handful of her chips and tokens had disappeared from her cup “—tables.” Perplexed by the discovery, she couldn’t quite breathe a sigh of relief. Austin was guilty of something, if not abuse. “If you could use another waitress, I’d love to have the job.”

Melissa was the first to respond to the proposition. “I don’t know. Really, I’ll be okay. We’ve been shorthanded before. Right, Tom?”

The big bartender glared a response. But Melissa glanced away from the message he tried to convey. Whether concern had been rebuffed or a threat satisfied, Rebecca couldn’t tell. Tom dumped the mess into the trash and grumbled, “It’s not my call.”

“I say give her a chance.” By comparison, Austin was downright enthusiastic about getting Rebecca on the payroll. “I’d be happy to run it by Mr. Wolfe. If Tom thinks you can handle it, you’d have my full recommendation. You could take care of the paperwork later.”

Rebecca went along with his friendly support, pretending she didn’t hear the click of metal tokens and plastic disks knocking together in his jacket pocket. She assumed he’d have some ready excuse if she did call him on the theft. Add one more suspect to her list. Austin the Nameless One had secrets to hide. Maybe it stopped with kleptomania. Maybe it meant there were other, darker, mysteries he could reveal to her.

“Melissa, you come with me.” Now the older man was eager to leave. “I’ll bandage that arm for you. You?” He winked at Rebecca. “Grab an apron and start clearing those tables.”

“You got it.”

Everyone she’d met thus far had been polite and accepting, if not outright friendly.

Everyone she’d met thus far was hiding something as well. Her reporter’s nose was telling her as much.

She was in the right place. She was in. She was going to succeed where KCPD had failed.

Her father would be proud.

Rebecca adjusted the black apron around her waist and moved to the next table to gather glasses and take their order. She’d already discovered the bar’s outside entrance, and used the opportunity of clearing the deck tables to scout out where public access ended and private balconies and service corridors began. She’d met other staff, and had identified some of the Riverboat’s repeat and long-term customers.

Other than wishing she’d worn more comfortable shoes, she didn’t have to worry about anything else tonight. She’d be back tomorrow. She could ask her questions and begin her search then. Chat with Teddy Wolfe. Meet Daniel Kelleher. Take Austin Cartwright up on a tour. Befriend Melissa and find a way to help her.

No one would suspect a thing.

Nothing could go wrong.

But her smug smile was short-lived.

She sensed the hostile gaze boring holes into her back. More intense, more direct than anything she’d felt before. A beat of time passed before a blunt voice from her past grated against her ears.

“What the hell are you doing in my casino?”

“YOUR CASINO?” Tawny gold eyes shot sparks at him as Seth Cartwright strode through the maze of tables.

Rebecca Page. Intrepid reporter. Dogged investigator. Wouldn’t say uncle even if it meant saving her own skin.

Caught. Snooping where the woman damn well knew she shouldn’t be.

He walked right up to her until he was close enough to absorb her scent and to communicate in a whisper.

“It’s a free country, so you’re welcome to throw away your money in whatever way you please.” Sarcasm came far too easily to Seth these days. He’d been at this job long enough that he’d learned to ignore any flicker of guilt or regret when the verbal arrows unleashed themselves. “But when you stop playing and you start chatting up the employees and customers, it’s time for you to go.”

Her chin tilted up. Seth expected no less from a woman who relied on guts as much as a wickedly precise intuition when it came to tracking down a news story. Her tongue was in fine form tonight, as well. “It’s a pleasure to see you, too, Detective.”

“Don’t call me that. Not anymore.”

He said the words he loathed to hear and watched the transformation cross her face. Shock. Confusion. “You’re not a cop anymore?”

When the serves-you-right smirk reached those painted lips, he reached for her. “I got a better job.”

“Hey.” The would-be waitress dodged his grasp and turned on the attitude. She pulled her tray in front of her like a shield and tipped her nose up with that Amazon arrogance he was all too familiar with. “Then you can’t arrest me.”

As though besting him by a few inches had ever made him retreat.

“Is there a reason why I should? I just want you to leave.” He wrapped one hand around her arm, pried the tray from her resistant grasp and started walking.

“You want—?” She tugged against his grip. “You have no right—”

“I’m Chief of Security around here. I have every right.”

“Chief of—? No way.”

“Way.” He tugged back and she stumbled beside him, bumping into his shoulder, freezing for an instant in mute surprise before regaining her balance and pushing away. She felt like any other woman, with delicate breasts that poked against his arm and back, and hair dark and soft as mink that caught in his collar and brushed his neck. But Rebecca Page wasn’t like any other woman. She was trouble on stilts. He didn’t need the kind of curiosity and attention she thrived on to walk into the middle of his investigation.

He’d worked too damn hard for eight long months to get to where he was at Wolfe International. He’d trashed his reputation on the force, lost the loyalty of his friends and gained the trust of his enemies. He’d lied, bent a few rules, broken a few bones. He’d learned the difference between being tough and being dead. No nosy reporter—woman or otherwise—was going to waltz her way onto the Riverboat and blow his operation.

“C’mon.” He slowed his pace and altered his grip to keep her on her feet and keep her moving. “I thought you’d gotten a clue last fall when you were harassing my mother about the Baby Jane Doe murder case. I don’t like report—”

“Shh!” She darted in front of him and pressed her fingers over his mouth, stopping up his words. Stopping him. What the hell? An apologetic frown creased the smooth skin on her forehead. “Don’t say another word,” she whispered. “I don’t know what you think is going on here. I was only pitching in to help Melissa. But I’ll go. Just let me get my purse.”

Huh? Capitulation? Seth’s gaze narrowed. Had to be a tactic. But a quick study of her fervent expression revealed no clear objective. Or motive. “Whatever.”

He tossed the tray on the bar and, without releasing her, picked up her little black bag.

“That’s mine.”

Evading her grasping fingers and annoyed huff, Seth twisted it open and spotted the keys, comb, lipstick—and cell phone-size recorder inside. Just as he’d thought. He had Little Miss Innocent’s number. Seth lifted his gaze to her gold-brown eyes. Was that a plea he read there? Or defiance?

Didn’t matter. He was in control of this situation. He snapped the purse shut and pushed it into her hands. “Pitching in to help yourself to what?” But that wide mouth was pressed into a fine, thin line. No problem. He could remove the tape outside, away from these witnesses, and get his own answers. “Time to go byebye.”

He reclaimed his grip on her elbow and turned her toward the doorway and the main lobby. This time she didn’t protest.

But Sawyer threw his arms up behind the bar. “Hey, you’re stealing my only waitress.”

Rebecca glanced over her shoulder. “I’ll be back.”

Seth kept moving. “No, she won’t.”

The click of her killer heels muffled when they reached the lobby carpeting. He never had understood how a woman could walk in those things, and suspected that hurrying at his side was a difficult task, even with those long legs. But she didn’t argue his hold on her arm or his path toward the front door.

He hadn’t believed it when he’d first spotted her on the monitor in his security office. He’d pegged Rebecca Page as a woman who liked to stay in control of things—not an easy thing for a gambler to do. Still, he hadn’t taken any chances and had radioed Ace Longbow, the pit boss on the floor tonight, to keep an eye on her. As long as she was playing, she could stay. Seth would steer clear of her and keep his suspicions in check.

But then Ace had taken a break to handle some personal business, and by the time the big Indian had reported back in, he’d lost track of Rebecca. Seth had scrolled through nearly every camera angle on his monitors before he found her at the Cotton Blossom.

There she sat, flirting with his father at the bar. Long mahogany hair down to here, short black skirt up to there. His dad’s eyeballs bugged out to…hell. The woman clearly wasn’t here to gamble.

Seth had long since given up on the idea of his parents ever getting back together—and he knew his mother was far better off without Austin Cartwright. Messing with the ladies had never been his dad’s problem. But he had other weaknesses that an opportunist like Rebecca Page wouldn’t hesitate to exploit if it meant getting her story.

And the story brewing beneath the surface of the Riverboat was too big to allow an ambitious reporter to break it before his mission here was accomplished.

If he could still accomplish it.

Seth had been out of the office in an instant, knowing this entire undercover operation could be lost with one wrong word by that woman. He couldn’t get to the bar fast enough. Couldn’t risk asking his father about what they’d discussed when he’d dashed past him and Melissa in the lobby. He’d been blinded by the same surge of adrenaline he’d felt when their paths had crossed in the past. Rebecca Page had to go.

Her resistance renewed once he got her out the door. No surprise there. This time she tried to reason with him. She flipped the hem of her apron at him. “I have a job here, you know.”

“Where’s the rest of your uniform?”

“I just started.”

He got her across the gangplank. “Then you’re fired.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Watch me. Where are you parked?” He remembered the flashy red Mustang from their last encounter when she’d had the gall to stalk his mother to her home to bug her about the Baby Jane Doe murder investigation. Sure, that case had since been solved with the help of his new stepfather, and his mother’s position as acting commissioner of police had become a permanent job since they’d put the killer behind bars.

But he figured once a pest, always a pest. In another profession, he might have admired Rebecca’s persistence. But it was a reporter’s job to make headlines. Reveal secrets. Expose facts that could do more harm than good if they became common knowledge.

Therefore, the lady with the diehard curiosity had to go before she opened her mouth.

“Give me your keys,” Seth ordered, as they approached the Mustang, moving farther away from the lights and crowd of the casino. Instincts honed by months of learning to spot trouble before it spotted him had Seth checking between and underneath the vehicles before he led her to the door of her car. He snapped his fingers when he saw she wasn’t complying. “The keys.”

Out of sight from the front doors and beyond the hearing of other customers, she was done pretending to cooperate. She stuck her purse out at arm’s length and tried to play keep-away. “Can’t you ever just ask nicely when you want something?”

The role he’d been forced to play since taking this assignment didn’t involve making nice. People who asked got trampled on in this business.

So he grabbed her outstretched arm, spun her around and backed her against the car while he snatched the black bag from her grasp.

“Damn you. Give me that!” Her fingers tangled in the lapels of his jacket as she tried to push him away and retrieve her purse.

“Stop.” Seth leaned in half a step closer, pinning her hips and thighs in a mockery of intimacy, warning her she couldn’t win this particular battle. Her struggles stilled with a startled gasp. But if she hadn’t made the sharp sound of surprise, he would have. Her lips hovered at eye-level, painted red and parted, breathing little puffs of tantalizing warmth across his cheek, reminding him how long it had been since he’d risked being with a woman. How long it had been since he’d risked feeling anything beyond the job.

The imprint of her feminine shape was an unexpected shock to his system. Blood surged through his veins and things awoke. Control and denial had sustained him for months. But here he stood, caught unawares in the middle of the night, wanting something he shouldn’t—needing something too dangerous even to put a name to.

Damning that weakness inside him, Seth opened her purse and fished out the keys. While she watched in mute condemnation, he removed the tape from her recorder and dropped it in the pocket of his jacket.

“That’s stealing,” she accused, drawing her hands from his chest and crossing her arms between them.

He’d done worse recently. “I call it a security precaution.”

A cool breeze off the river blew a long, curly tendril over her flushed cheek, but didn’t do a thing to soothe the fever rising in his body. He tested his restraint by refusing to move away, by denying the urge to sweep away that lock of hair that had caught at the corner of her mouth. He denied the urge to sample that corner with his tongue to find out if she was as rich and fiery to the taste as she was to the eye.

He forced Rebecca to be the one to retreat. She obliged by leaning back against the sweet lines of the car to ease a whisper of space between them.

“You are a son of a bitch,” she accused, jamming the tempting strand of hair behind one ear. The husky softness of her voice was a direct contrast to the darts targeting him from those golden eyes.

He didn’t argue the point. He didn’t say anything as he returned her purse and slipped the key into the lock.

“Did they boot you off the force for being a jerk?” She was determined to get the upper hand he wouldn’t allow.

“It is my right and responsibility to escort anyone off the premises whom I deem a threat.”

“A threat to what?” She snatched at his sleeve and demanded he look at her. “This is about your mother, isn’t it. If she and I can share a civil conversation now, then you—”

“Leave my mother out of this.” Seth could do the in-your-face thing, too. “I don’t want you snooping around here.”

“I wasn’t—”

“You don’t know how to do anything else.” He opened the door and pushed her inside, instinctively taking care to protect the back of her head, just as he would load up any of the suspects he’d once pulled off the streets. “Did you tell anyone here you work for the Journal? Or were you recording conversations illegally?”

“What? No. That tape is still blank.” Seth climbed in right beside her and closed the door, forcing her to scramble over the console onto the passenger seat. “Hey. Get out!”

For a split second, her backward crab crawl exposed a smooth tanned thigh all the way up to a line of black silk panty. Sheesh. Hormones lurched in a base male response to all that bare skin and he slapped his hands around the steering wheel before he reached for something he shouldn’t. Rebecca Page was the enemy here. She fired his temper, not his lust.

She threatened his mission, not his conscience.

Tender feelings like guilt or concern had no place in the world of power and intimidation in which he’d immersed himself.

And he was too smart to forget that.

He wisely averted his gaze while she hastily sat up in her seat and righted her skirt and the apron she wore. He went on the attack before he did something foolish, like ask if he’d been too rough with her. “Why are you here? What story are you working on?”

She tucked the heavy charm at the end of her necklace back inside the front of her dress. “I’m here to make friends and earn some extra money with a part-time job.”

“Liar.”

“Ass.”

With a noisy huff, she folded her arms and stared out the windshield into the fog off the river.

Seth breathed deeply, right along with her, waiting for a response. The carefully preserved interior of the small vintage car was tinged with the scents of leather polish and Rebecca’s own spicy perfume. Frustrated with her stubborn silence, he raked his fingers through the careless spikes of his short blond hair. His focus should be back on the Riverboat and proving that Teddy Wolfe was just as deviant and dangerous as Interpol and KCPD suspected him to be. He shouldn’t be sitting here, noticing the Mustang’s fine details. And he damn well shouldn’t be noticing anything about the car’s owner.

“Well?” he prodded.

“You said you weren’t a cop anymore. I don’t have to talk.”

Enough of this battle of wills. He needed to win this argument more than she could ever understand.

Seth fitted into Teddy Wolfe’s world all too well. He released the steering wheel and leaned over the center console, bracing one hand on the dashboard and the other on the seat behind her head. “You’ll talk to me.”

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