Now That You're Here

With a final shove at his captive’s shoulders, the creep scrabbled onto the sidewalk and backed up, crabwise, against the building.

Tomas nodded his approval. “Good idea. Now you—” he turned to the man with the knife “—drop the friggin’ knife before I friggin’ shoot your hand off. Good. You okay, Harlow?”

The other boy staggered to his feet, wiping blood off his face. “I’m okay.”

Jimmy could see Emma staring out the car window behind Tomas, her eyes wide with shock and, probably, terror. He started to sweat, thinking what a bullet could do to the thin shield of glass. “Nothing’s going to happen now, Tomas. Put the weapon away.”

As Harlow limped up beside the Indian boy, blue lights flashed at the corner. “Come on, Tommy. You want to keep that piece, you’d better stash it before the cops see you carrying.” He glanced at Jimmy, his eyebrow quirked. “Mr. Falcon’s not gonna give us away, right?”

“I didn’t see a gun…unless I count to five and it’s still in his hand.”

Tomas dropped the pistol into a pocket of his camouflage jacket just as a department vehicle pulled up behind the Jag. A couple of uniforms Jimmy didn’t know got out, each with a hand on his weapon and the other hand holding his stick.

Great. This explanation would have gone down easier with somebody he’d worked beside. “Evening, Officers.”

The taller one just looked him over. “What’s going on?”

“These guys jumped us in the alley.” Tomas spoke before anybody else could. “Practically killed us with that knife there.” He kicked the weapon with his toe.

“Sure.” The cop looked back at Jimmy. “Who are you?”

“Jimmy Falcon. I own The Indigo.” He nodded toward the nightclub. “I was about to take a friend home when these guys rolled out of the alley. I stayed to keep the numbers even.”

Finally the outlaws on the ground got their share of attention. The shorter cop glanced at Harlow. “You say these three attacked you?”

“Yeah.”

“You didn’t, like, attack first?” He began to sound bored. “What were you doing in the alley, anyway?”

Both Harlow and Tomas cut their gazes Jimmy’s way. “Just hanging out,” Harlow said in his Texas-flavored accent. “That ain’t a crime.”

“Uh-huh. You buying or selling?”

“Dunno what you’re talking about.”

The shorter cop pushed at one of the thugs with the toe of his boot. “This one’s out cold.” Bending over, he patted down the body. “Don’t think he’s carrying anything besides a pack of gum.”

“Check out the rest of them,” his partner ordered.

The other two dealers gave up bags of coke and weed, and a couple of dimes of heroin. Jimmy saw Harlow swallow hard as the small plastic sacks dropped into an evidence container.

Two minutes later the Saturday-night special was out in the open again. The short cop balanced it on his palm. “Nice toy. You got a permit, son?”

Tomas told the cop what he could do with the permit.

Using a speed and expertise Jimmy remembered from his days on the force, the cops slammed Harlow and Tomas up against the side of the police cruiser, patted them down again and cuffed them.

Emma sprang out of the Jag like a lioness in the African bush. “Don’t be so rough! They’re only boys!”

Jimmy caught her arm and pulled her back. “Stay out of it, Emma. These guys know what they’re dealing with. You don’t.” Another police car pulled up, and the three pushers, who—Jimmy had reason to know—had been in and out of jail for years, got their own sets of bracelets.

Emma turned on Jimmy. “I saw them earlier tonight as I was coming to see you. They were hungry. They’re young and homeless. They need help, not more violence.”

The cops exchanged derisive grins.

“They’re drug addicts.” With a hand on each of her arms, Jimmy pulled her farther away from the scene. “The whole mess is about selling and buying drugs. Let the police sort it out.”

She struggled against his grip. “How do you know that?”

“Because they hang around here a lot. Because they hit on me and my customers…” He watched her cheeks flush. “Damn. You gave them money.”

“I told them to get something to eat!”

“We did, too,” Harlow called. “Meat loaf and potatoes and corn. Thanks, lady.” A cop shoved him into the cruiser and closed the door before he could say anything else.

Yet a third cop strolled over. “You’re Falcon?”

“Yeah. This is Emma Garrett.” He released her, reluctantly. “She called in the incident from the car.”

“What’s going to be done with those boys?” Emma wanted to know. “Where are you taking them?”

“Detention.” The officer—his name tag said Havers—made a note on his pad.

“Jail?” Her voice squeaked on the single syllable.

Jimmy put a hand on her back, trying to give comfort. “They’ll have a bed for the night, Emma. And a decent breakfast. They’ll be okay.”

She gazed at him, disbelief written in the lines between her eyebrows. “Does this happen often?”

“It’s a tough neighborhood,” Havers said. “We’re taking your word for what happened, Mr. Falcon, mostly because we ran you through the computer and found out you’re an ex-cop.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’ll want to be available in case we have more questions.”

Jimmy shrugged. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Havers nodded. “Thanks for the help.”

In another few minutes, the cruisers took off and the sight-seers went back to their regular business, whatever it was. Jimmy put a hand to Emma’s jaw. Under smooth skin, the muscles were tight. “Let me take you to your hotel.” With a sigh, she slipped past him into the seat, and he caught a whisper of that new scent—some kind of flower he didn’t recognize, but wanted more of. While he buckled his seat belt, her fingers stroked the curve of the dash, her skin pale against the black leather and dark wood.

He blew out a short tense breath. “Where are you staying?”

She directed him to a hotel in a better part of town, near City Park. When he pulled to a stop at the entrance, neither of them moved or spoke for a measurable time. They turned to look at each other at the same instant.

Jimmy breathed in that perfume and said the first thing that came to mind. “That was some summer, twenty years ago. Every time I think about it, I have to smile. Nothing bad about goodbye, nothing to regret. The end was there in the beginning—you left for school in England and I…got on with life.”

Emma nodded, and the corners of her mouth curved up. “It does seem strange to think that we didn’t break up or get bored. So few relationships end painlessly.” Regret claimed her face again.

“I figured you’d be married by now, with a couple of kids in boarding school.”

“Boarding school is the last place I’d send my children. If I had any.”

He reached out, stroked his knuckles down her cheek, touched by the note of sadness in her voice. The pad of his thumb lingered at the corner of her mouth, waiting to test texture and shape. A kiss was not a good idea. They hardly knew each other anymore.

But her soft lips tempted him, and he was losing the battle with good sense. If either of them even breathed…

Faster than he’d have believed possible, Emma had the door open and was standing on the sidewalk. “Good night. Be careful.”

He fumbled to get out of the car. “I’ll walk you to your door.”

“No.” She put up a hand for emphasis. “I can get to my door by myself. Thanks for the ride, Jimmy. I’ll look forward to dinner tomorrow.” In a second or two she was on the other side of the glass door and lost in the lobby’s shadows.

Jimmy dropped back into the driver’s seat, then regretted it as his hip howled in protest. A vulgar word escaped his control. That fight tonight, even as little as he’d done, had aggravated his wrecked muscles.

He drove to his place slowly, thinking. The next week would be interesting. He’d never imagined seeing Emma again, especially once her letters had stopped coming. You could track down anybody on the Internet nowadays—that was how she’d found him. But he hadn’t thought about looking for her. Their time together was in the past.

Or was it? There was still a current between them, part memory, part brand-new attraction. Jimmy hadn’t followed an impulse in years, didn’t believe in them anymore. He had his life set up the way he liked it. Why invite change?

Then he thought of Emma’s blue eyes, her easy laugh, her lush curves. He remembered how she’d challenged him, taught him, loved him that summer. And the irrepressible question occurred to him.

Why not?

TIRED AS SHE WAS, Emma spent two restless hours trying to get to sleep before finally giving in and switching on the lamp again.

Her mind seemed to bounce from one problem to the next, without finding a solution and without settling down. She thought of those boys—Harlow was the Texan, she gathered, and Tomas the Indian—spending the night in detention. Horrible possibilities assailed her; American jails had a reputation for danger, even violence, from the people in charge. The officers had come close to assaulting the boys tonight. What would happen when there were no civilian witnesses?

Forcing herself to think of something else only brought her to Jimmy. Jimmy Falcon, whom she’d expected to know as easily, as intimately, as if they’d been together yesterday.

Even after twenty years, she remembered the beginning as clearly as she remembered yesterday. She’d been visiting her dad, at work on the Sioux reservation in South Dakota, before starting her studies at Oxford in October. Taking refuge from the fierce flatlands sun, she’d opened the door to a reservation trading post and been nearly knocked over by a young man—Jimmy—trying to sneak two bottles of beer without paying for them. The owner of the shop had grabbed him and threatened to call the police, but let him go when Emma laid down the cash.

Outside, Jimmy handed over one of the bottles. “You paid for it,” he said with that completely engaging grin. “Let’s go for a ride.” He gestured at his beat-up truck.

They ran wild together that summer, while her dad spent meticulous hours recording stories and language. Jimmy took her to the mountains, to the rodeo, to the Badlands of South Dakota. More often than not, Emma paid for the truck’s gas, the food, the tickets. If Jimmy showed up with money, she learned not to ask how he got it. Gambling was an answer she accepted, but stealing made her nervous. As long as she didn’t know which route to wealth he’d taken, she could simply share and enjoy.

He’d made love to her for the first time in the mountains at midnight. She relived the moment now—cold air and the heat of his body against hers, the taste of whiskey on his mouth, the clean scent of his skin, the rasp of his tongue, the only sounds that of their heavy breathing, and of her own pounding heart.

Oh, God. Emma left the bed and opened the mini-fridge, pulled out a can of ginger ale and pressed it against her cheeks, her forehead, her breastbone. This was the reason she’d kept the memory of Jimmy at the back of her mind all these years. It was almost too vivid to endure.

The man’s magnetism had only intensified with time. He would have kissed her tonight. With the smallest movement, she could have joined her lips to his. A kiss for old times’ sake—what would be the harm?

Turning off the lamp, she opened the curtains and stared into the city street—quieter here than outside The Indigo, nearly empty. No homeless boys to foolishly worry about.

Kissing Jimmy would be foolish, as well. They weren’t so young now, so eager for experience, so confident of the future ahead of them. A relationship of any depth would complicate their lives, perhaps beyond possibility of resolution.

And Emma had too many complications already. Making a life without her dad’s wry, loving support would be hard enough. The loss of one’s employment ranked very high on the list of significant life changes, and within the last six months she’d lost not just a teaching position, but her entire career as a research historian. She’d lost a fiancé too, though she hardly regretted the fact—Eric Jeffries had simply used their relationship to further his own interests. Still, the knowledge that he hadn’t really loved her hurt. As did her inner recording of things he’d said…

The bedside clock relentlessly counted the hours as she lay there, trying to sleep. She saw four-thirty, then five…and finally fell into an exhausted slumber just as the sun was coming up.

ON WEDNESDAY Jimmy stepped into the club and took off his sunglasses, relieved to be in the air-conditioned shadows after Denver’s summertime heat.

“Tiffany? Tiff?”

His bartender came out of the kitchen. “Hey, Jimmy.”

He gave her a grin. “Hey, beautiful. I hope you ordered me whatever you’re having. It smells great, and I haven’t seen food yet this morning.”

“It’s two o’clock, boss. That makes this the afternoon.” She winked at him. “But listen. I’ve got good news and bad news.”

“Hit me.” He eased his sound hip onto a bar stool.

“The good news is that I ordered Chinese and there’s enough for an army.”

“And?”

“The bad news is I ordered in lunch because Hank quit.” Hank Rawlins was the only cook he’d hired in the past year who’d stayed more than a couple of weeks.

Jimmy swore. “Why?”

“Something about a fight in the alley last night. He said he didn’t get paid enough to risk his life.”

“Great. Fantastic.” Jimmy tossed his sunglasses onto the bar. “What a way to start the day.” Thanks to Harlow and company, The Indigo was now missing a cook. And while the food wasn’t the draw, people usually liked something to eat while they drank. “Did you call the agency, see if they had any temps?”

“I did. And they didn’t. I also called to put an ad in the paper. But that’ll take a few days to get results. Meanwhile…”

“Meanwhile, dammit, I do the honors.” Eyes closed, he waited out the urge to throw something. He opened them again on a deep breath. “Those are the breaks, right?”

Tiffany shook her head, her smile sympathetic. “I can help you get ready.”

Jimmy put a hand on her shoulder. “That’s okay. You’ve got all you can handle out here. I think I can manage cutting up lettuce and tomatoes. I’ve got to make a call first, then I’ll get started.”

In the office, he pulled out the phone book and found the number for Emma’s hotel. With his finger on the button, though, he stopped and put the handset down. Unlocking the desk drawer, he reached in, then sat looking at the walnut box resting on his palms.

Without lifting the lid, he could visualize the medallion inside. Most likely Navajo or Hopi or Zuni work, the Southwestern tribes were known for their expertise with metals and stone. The route the piece had traveled from Arizona to South Dakota might be interesting to follow. If you cared about things like that.

Jimmy didn’t. He’d decided a long time ago that his Indian background created more trouble than it was worth. His ambition from the age of eight had been to get off the reservation and forget he’d ever been there. For the most part, he’d succeeded.

Until now. Emma had brought the reservation back into his life. Seeing her, getting at all close to her, would most likely involve him in the search for the background on the medallion.

But not seeing her again…he didn’t like that option, either. She wasn’t the girl he’d known that long-ago summer—redheaded, reckless and sassy, a strange combination of English manners and outright hell-raising. They’d caused some trouble and some talk when they were together, and why her dad hadn’t horsewhipped him Jimmy never knew. Maybe Aubrey Garrett just never noticed what had gone on under his nose.

Now there were shadows in Emma’s sweet blue eyes, pain in the set of her mouth. She’d just lost her dad, that was part of it. But there was something else, and he wanted to know what. He wanted to know about where she’d been these twenty years, and who’d been with her. There had been other women in his life, off and on. Had Emma loved other men? Had she been…was she married?

Jimmy swore and put the walnut box back in the drawer. It was a little late to be jealous. Or whatever the hell this gnawing in his gut was called.

The fact remained that he couldn’t see her tonight for dinner. He tracked down the number for the hotel and dialed, then asked for her room and waited to be connected, wishing that Hank had quit just a week later. Or a week ago.

“Hullo?” She sounded barely awake.

“Hey, Emma. Still in bed?” Bad question, raising possibilities he shouldn’t consider.

“Um…yes, actually.” Jimmy could hear her waking up. “Jet lag, I suppose. How are you?”

“Okay. But I’m going to have to break our dinner date.”

There was a pause. “Well, that’s all right.” Her tone had cooled down considerably.

“No, it’s not. But my cook quit. I can’t get hold of a temporary replacement this quick, and so I’m going to end up in the kitchen tonight.”

“That’s really too bad.” Emma thought she heard exasperation in his voice, along with regret, which lightened her plummeting spirits considerably. “I was looking forward to a chance to talk.”

“Me, too. I can’t even promise tomorrow night, since I don’t know when I’ll be able to get somebody in the kitchen.”

In the silence, she thought she heard drums. “Is that the band? Are they rehearsing?”

The sound stopped as he chuckled. “No, it’s just me. I have a bad habit of beating on any flat surface nearby. Listen, how about lunch tomorrow, before I go to work?”

“That sounds good.” A long time to wait, though. “I’ll see you then.”

“You bet.”

After they’d hung up, Emma gazed around the hotel room, wondering what she would do for the rest of the day. She did not want to play tourist—at least, not without Jimmy as the tour guide. For the first time in twenty years, she had no reading to do, no paper to write or examinations to grade. Just…time. Empty time.

Finally she connected her laptop computer to the Internet port provided by the hotel and signed on to check her e-mail—a couple of notes from friends, commiserating with her on the loss of her teaching fellowship, then the usual and irritating advertisements for sound equipment, airplane-fare discounts and instant riches. She replied to the notes and started to sign off, then reconsidered.

Her first search for Native American artifacts turned up thousands of sites. She went through them slowly, gathering scraps of information here and there. When she narrowed the search to metalwork, the Southwestern focus of that particular art became apparent. So Jimmy’s medallion wouldn’t have been made near the Sioux reservation. That argued for trade between tribes or, possibly, commerce between Southwestern tribes and whites, who then traded again with the groups on the Plains.

By dark she had quite a stack of note cards, her preferred method of keeping important information, and a few hints as to the meaning of the sun-over-mountains design. She also had a list of galleries and museums in Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona specializing in Native American metalwork. With a car, she could reach most of them in a day’s drive.

Stretching out her stiff neck muscles, Emma acknowledged that she would much prefer a day’s drive with Jimmy to one without him. If she didn’t ask him to go back to South Dakota, but only to Santa Fe, or even across Denver, would he cooperate? Was it just the reservation, or was Jimmy avoiding a more fundamental issue?

And what right did she have to ask? Or to push him into an enterprise he had already refused? After twenty years, she had no claim on Jimmy Falcon other than the fact that he had been her first lover and she, his. Not much of an obligation, especially since Jimmy had probably made love to any number of beautiful women since. His charm and magnetism guaranteed female attention.

But then again, her dad had asked them to trace the medallion. He felt “strongly,” the note said, that Jimmy should have this particular piece. Aubrey Garrett had gotten a bit, well, mystic, as he grew older. He’d studied the Native American legends and myths with great intensity.

There would be a reason her dad wanted Jimmy to know the history of the disk. And a reason he’d insisted that she deliver the box herself. Don’t mail it or ship it, he’d instructed. Take it to him yourself.

Perhaps he suspected Jimmy would resist the true message behind the medallion. And perhaps he counted on her to overcome that resistance. Her parents had enjoyed a long-standing joke comparing Emma’s tendency to take charge of a situation with the heroine of Jane Austen’s novel Emma, a young woman who considered herself an expert in the conduct of other people’s business.

Thinking about the twinkle in her father’s eye as he teased her, Emma smiled. Yes, Aubrey might well have been counting on her to see that Jimmy pursued this particular piece of business. She would hate to let him down.

An hour later, she once again stepped out of a cab across the street from The Indigo. She wouldn’t press too hard tonight, when Jimmy was overworked and understaffed. But the music called to her. And if they happened to talk, and she happened to mention the medallion, what could it hurt?

BY 10:00 P.M., Jimmy wished he could close the club for the night. He was sick of lettuce, pickles, tomatoes and nacho cheese. Or maybe he should just close the kitchen down. People who really liked jazz didn’t care about the food.

Darren came in with a tray full of paper plates and crumpled napkins. “She’s back.” He dumped the tray in the garbage can beside the back door.

Jimmy leaned back against the counter. His hip was on fire. “Who?”

“The lovely lady from last night. Tall, red hair…” A certain appreciative light in Darren’s eyes said he was ready to elaborate on the description.

“Yeah, that’s Emma. Did she ask to see me?” The server shook his head. “She asked for a table and a drink—a Pimm’s Cup, if you can believe it. She had to tell Tiffany how to make it—tall gin and lemonade, in case you’re interested. Now she’s just listening to the band.”

“Great.”

Knowing she was out front destroyed what was left of Jimmy’s patience with food. He cleaned up fast, before Darren could bring in another order. Then he straightened his tie, pulled down his cuffs, locked the back door and went out to see Emma.

She looked up in surprise as he dropped into the chair at her table. “Jimmy! I didn’t want to bother you while you were working.”

“I just hung a Closed sign on the kitchen. You gave me the excuse I needed.” Darren set a whiskey at his elbow and he nodded his thanks. “What brings you down tonight?”

“I was in the mood for jazz. Maybe not acid fusion,” she said as the band went for a far-out chord progression, “but the silence in my room was deadly.”

“TV?”

“All the police and attorney programs are reruns.” She smiled at him, and his pulse jumped. “I thought live music would be more fun.”

They listened for a couple of hours, talking during the quiet spots, trading glances at high points in the music…and low ones. During the last break, three different customers stopped to harass Jimmy about closing the kitchen.

“You’d think the food actually tasted good,” he said after the last couple left. “The bread was fresh tonight, anyway. That might have impressed them.”

“Fresh is always a good start.” Emma’s eyes laughed at him over the rim of her glass.

He enjoyed her good mood, maybe a little too much. “What do you know about cooking, Professor?”

“Quite a lot, actually. I’ve taken classes for years.”

“No kidding? I’m glad you didn’t take more than a bite of that sandwich last night, then. I didn’t know I was feeding an expert.”

Her smile was preoccupied. “You know, Jimmy…”

He recognized that look. Emma’s troublemaking face hadn’t changed in twenty years. “What?”

“I could cook for you.”

“That’d be great some night.” He deliberately misunderstood.