The Complete Series

3

NATALIE SPOTTED her sisters the moment she stepped into the Blue Pepper. Rory, as usual, was in the thick of things, having an animated conversation with the reservation hostess. Natalie had no doubt that in spite of the crowd, Rory would get them a table. With her pixie face and short, dark hair, Rory had always reminded Natalie of Puck, the mischievous fairy in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She had a knack for muddling things up the same way he had.

As Natalie edged her way through the crowd, she searched for a glimpse of her youngest sister, Sierra. Sure enough, Sierra was seated next to the reservation desk, looking on and jotting something down on one of the blue note cards she never seemed to be without. Natalie bit back a sigh.

With her straight blond hair and innocent air, Sierra had always made Natalie think of Alice in Wonderland. Though the academic Sierra was more intellectual than Alice and more shy, she was every bit as curious. However, Sierra never ever just tumbled into things the way Alice had. Instead, from the time she was little, she’d mapped out everything she did on blue note cards.

Well, Natalie believed in plans, too, but she drew the line at listing steps on note cards of any color. And she worried a bit that Sierra, who’d been sick a lot as a child, was a little too organized and too cautious in her approach to life. But whenever she broached the subject to Sierra, her sister would point out that her planning had gotten her two Ph.D. degrees and a tenure-track position at Georgetown University.

Ever since their father had left them, Natalie had always believed that it was her job to look out for her sisters, and she couldn’t help worrying about how they were going to take the news that she was bringing them tonight.

Outside on the patio, a saxophonist blew a trill of notes, and Natalie stopped short as the image of Chance Mitchell slipped, unwanted, into her mind. That was all it took for her body to respond. Annoyance streamed through her. It had been three months since she’d been here with him—three long months since she’d thrown caution to the winds and spent the night with him. And she still couldn’t get him out of her mind.

One night. That’s what he’d offered and what she’d agreed to. He’d promised no-strings, no-etiquette sex, and he’d certainly delivered. Just the memory of what he’d done to her, what they’d done to each other, was enough to have her skin heating and something deep inside of her melting.

It certainly wasn’t Chance’s fault that she’d never before experienced anything like it. Nor could she in all fairness blame him for the fact that she wanted to experience it again.

Her glance shifted to the patio where they’d danced and where he’d made her the proposition. Oh, there was a part of her that wanted to blame Chance, a part of her that wanted to pay him back for the fact that since she’d spent that one freeing night with him, she’d felt restless, unsatisfied with her job and with her life.

And dammit, she’d been perfectly satisfied before. Her work on a select task force that handled high profile crimes in D.C. was exciting, but lately she was…just plain bored.

“Detective Natalie! Greetings, greetings, greetings.”

Natalie smiled at Rad as he rushed up, grabbed her hands and rained kisses on the air several inches above her knuckles. The young restaurant owner was a full head shorter than she was, and he changed his hair color as frequently as he changed his ties. Tonight he was wearing his pale blond hair in spikes that were tipped with orange. She noted that the shade matched one of the swirls in his psychedelic tie.

Holding her hands a few inches out from her sides, Rad’s smile faded as he gave her outfit a thorough look. The linen suit she wore was khaki colored, the T-shirt beneath was black, and she could sense a fashion critique coming her way.

“How’s George?” she asked in an effort to deflect Rad’s attention. George, Rad’s partner, was a bronze-skinned, gentle giant of a man who managed the bar while Rad ran the restaurant.

Rad waved a hand. “George is gorgeous. Perfect, as usual. You, on the other hand…” He broke off to press a hand over his heart. “It cuts me to the quick to see you in such drab colors. Aquamarine would do wonders for you. Or mint-green.” He tapped a finger to his lips as he considered. “No, pink. You should really think pink.”

Natalie suppressed a shudder. A cop wearing pink? Not to mention what the color would look like in contrast to her red hair. She thought not. In a second attempt to distract Rad, she said, “Nice hairdo.”

He flashed her a grin. “Thanks. There’s a lot of product up there.”

“Excellent match with the tie.”

Rad fluttered his hand an inch above the spikes. “I had to work on the color for over an hour. I could do something quite wonderful with yours.”

“I’d rather you found me a table.”

Rad glanced over to where Rory was beaming at the reservation hostess. “I think your sister has taken care of that. I’ll run interference for you.”

Straightening her shoulders, Natalie followed Rad through the crowd. Tonight she and her sisters were going to celebrate their mutual birthdays, and she was bringing them a surprise present.

The envelope she carried in her purse had arrived this morning. It had contained a note from her father’s attorney and three separate sealed envelopes for Harry Gibbs’s daughters. Inside were messages from their father—messages that he’d written six years ago and had wanted them to read on their twenty-sixth birthday.

All day long the letters had been weighing on her mind and her heart. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about them. Harry Gibbs had walked out on his family when she and her sisters were ten years old. When they were twenty, he’d died in a fluke climbing accident. Her father had always been taking risks. Within six months of receiving the news of Harry Gibbs’s death, their mother had died, too.

Natalie had always known that her parents had loved one another—and there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that her mother had died of a broken heart. But ten years before their deaths, Harry and Amanda Gibbs had split up because of “irreconcilable differences.”

In this case the difference they couldn’t reconcile was the fact that Harry Gibbs was a master jewel thief who found it impossible to settle down, and their mother Amanda wanted to raise her daughters in a stable, conservative environment.

Six years ago their father had suddenly decided to send them some kind of message they would receive on their twenty-sixth birthday? Personally, Natalie felt half pissed and half saddened by that, and she suspected that her sisters would feel the same.

Just then, Rory spotted her and called out, “Nat! This way.”

Not content with waiting for Natalie to reach them, Rory grabbed Sierra by the hand and began to muscle her way through the crowd. The picture that they made moving toward her was one she’d seen so often—Rory rushing forward and Sierra having to be dragged along. Natalie had sometimes wondered why Rory hadn’t made it first out of the womb.

“Happy birthday,” Natalie said when they reached her.

“Happy birthday,” Rory echoed.

“Ditto,” Sierra said as they exchanged hugs.

“It’s not every day we all turn twenty-six,” Rory said in an undertone. “When I explained it to the hostess, she agreed that we should have a table on the patio. C’mon.”

The patio was the last place Natalie wanted to be, but she didn’t have the heart to spoil Rory’s delight with herself. Still, as they moved down the short flight of stairs, she had to put some effort into keeping her eyes from straying to the spot behind the potted trees where Chance had drawn her to make his proposition.

“You all right?” Sierra asked as they followed Rory across the dance floor.

Natalie managed a smile. “Absolutely. How’s the research going, Dr. Gibbs?”

“It’s going. Of course, all the data isn’t in yet.”

“Don’t pay any attention to her. Her research is going brilliantly,” Rory said. “It always does. The big news is that my job at Celebs magazine is going well. A first for me. There’s a senior reporter there who’s taken me under her wing and I’m really enjoying the work.”

“This calls for champagne,” Sierra said.

“Agreed,” Rory said as she sat down and picked up a menu. “And I’m starved.”

Natalie waited until they were all seated before she said, “Maybe we ought to hold off on the celebration.”

“What is it?” Sierra asked.

As Natalie explained the package she’d received that morning, she took the sealed envelopes out of her purse and placed them on the table. For a moment, all three of them simply stared at the white rectangles.

“To open them or not to open them, that is the question,” Sierra finally said.

“Exactly.” Natalie could always depend on that fine analytical mind of Sierra’s to cut to the bottom line.

“They’re from our father,” Rory pointed out.

“So what?” Natalie said, letting a little of her anger show. “We agreed to stop calling him ‘father’ when we were ten because he left us.”

Silence stretched between them again.

“It’s been sixteen years since we last saw him and six years since he died.” Sierra placed one finger on the corner of her envelope. “Why now?”

“Exactly,” Natalie said again. “He’s never once gotten in touch with us—not when we were sick, not for a birthday or a graduation. Not for anything. Why did he instruct the attorney to get those letters to us now?”

A waiter appeared, pen poised at the ready. “Drink orders, ladies?”

“A martini,” Natalie said without taking her eyes off the envelopes. “Very dry with an olive.”

“I’ll have what she’s having,” Sierra said.

Rory sighed. “Ditto. Champagne just isn’t going to do it. And bring us one of those appetizer samplers with three of everything. I’m definitely going to need food before I deal with this.”

After the waiter hurried off, the silence descended again for a moment.

“Neither of you has to deal with this right now,” Natalie finally said. “But I think I do have to open mine. I’ve got too much of Harry in me just to throw it away.”

“We all have too much of Harry in us,” Rory said.

Sierra drew in a quick hitched breath and let it out. “I’m afraid to open mine.”

Natalie reached for her sister’s hand. “Are you all right? Do you need your inhaler?”

Sierra shook her head. “I’m not having an asthma attack. I’m just a coward.”

“No, you’re not.” Natalie and Rory spoke in unison.

“Tell you what,” Natalie said. “We’ll make a plan and you can jot it down on one of those note cards.”

Rory nodded in agreement. “Even I could use some kind of plan for this.”

Sierra pulled a blue card out of the canvas bag she always carried with her.

“We’ll go in the order of our births. I’ll go first,” Natalie said.

Rory patted Sierra’s arm. “Number one—Natalie, our fearless leader. And put me down for the number two slot.”

“And I’m number three,” Sierra said as she added her name to the list.

“And I’m the only one who’s going to open her letter tonight.” Though Natalie could sense that Rory might want to open hers tonight, she willed her to go along. “The two of you can wait. For a few weeks, a year, five years—take all the time you need. Harry certainly took his time getting these to us.”

“Good plan,” Rory said.

As Natalie slipped a finger under the flap, she could see some of the tension fade in the way Sierra was gripping her pencil. Finessing the envelope open, she took out the letter. Then clearing her throat, she read it out loud.

Dearest Natalie, my warrior and seeker of justice, Happy birthday. You’re probably wondering why I’m sending you this letter on this particular birthday, and the answer is a bit complicated. Your mother and I were exactly twenty-six when you came into our lives. Ten years later, I gave you up. Your mother and I agreed when we separated that I would cut off any contact with you until you were twenty-six. We thought that was for the best. I now know that leaving you and leaving your mother was the biggest mistake I ever made. If something happens to me and I can’t be with you on your twenty-sixth birthday, I want you to know this: Don’t make the same mistake that I did. When you see what you want, trust in your talents. Risk anything it takes to get it. And most importantly, hold on to it.

Love,

Harry

“Well,” Rory said.

Natalie placed the letter down on the table and ran her finger over the signature. She couldn’t put a name to any of the feelings swirling through her. “You’ve got to hand it to him—he’s a man who walked his talk. He went for what he wanted, and we all paid the price.”

“Look.” Sierra pointed at the envelope. “There’s something else inside.”

Natalie pulled out three photos. One was taken at her high school graduation, another on her first day at the police academy. The third one was from when she was twelve, and she’d had to stay in the hospital overnight to have her tonsils out.

“He was there,” Rory said. “I’d figured he’d forgotten all about us.”

Sierra studied the photos when Natalie passed them to her. “I’d always suspected that he and Mom made some sort of deal that he had to stay away. She was so afraid that we would take after him.”

“And now he seems to be advising you to do just that,” Natalie said. “‘Trust in your talents…risk anything it takes….’”

“That’s exactly what you want to do, isn’t it?” Sierra asked as the waiter set their drinks and a platter of appetizers in front of them. “That’s what’s been bothering you for the past three months, right?”

Natalie stared at her. Sierra was the most observant of her sisters, but Natalie hadn’t thought she’d been that transparent. “I don’t want to become a jewel thief, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“But…” Sierra urged.

Natalie sighed and turned to Rory. “It was a mistake to let her get that Ph.D. in psychology.”

“You’re just evading the issue,” Rory said around a mouthful of shrimp. “You haven’t been yourself lately. Even I’ve noticed that. But I don’t think it’s because you’re thinking of ditching law enforcement for a career in grand larceny. I’m betting it’s a man.”

“I’ve sworn off,” Natalie said with a frown.

“Here, here.” Rory lifted her glass. “I’ll drink to that. Ever since Paul the jerk dumped me, I’ve decided that the only men I’ll allow in my life are the ones I create in my fantasies.”

Sierra laughed and joined in the toast. “Which particular man have you sworn off, Nat?”

Natalie slanted Sierra a look. “You should have been a cop.” Then with a sigh, she set down her glass. Who better to talk to than her two sisters? “The man is the one I worked with on that smuggling case three months ago. I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind.”

“So what’s the problem?” Rory asked. “I’ve never known you to have any trouble getting a man if you wanted him?”

Natalie turned to face her two sisters. “That’s just it. I don’t want to want him. Besides, the feeling doesn’t seem to be mutual. I haven’t heard from him in three months. Not that I expected to. We had an agreement—for one night. That was all.”

“That is a problem,” Sierra said.

Natalie sighed. “That’s not the only one. Ever since I worked with him on that case, I’ve begun to be restless at my job. I’ve been grumpy with my partner, Matt, my office seems to be closing in on me and I want more than anything to escape.”

Shocked at what she’d just admitted, Natalie stared at her two sisters and found them staring right back at her. “I am just like Harry.”

“Of course, you’re like him,” Rory said, helping herself to a crab puff. “We try to deny it, but we’re all like him. I count on luck to get me out of scrapes. Sierra uses that marvelous brain she inherited from him. And you take the risks that he thrived on, though you try very hard to keep a lid on that tendency. But, face it, we can’t escape our genes.”

“Sierra,” Natalie said, “you want to help me out on this one? Tell her she’s wrong.”

Sierra shook her head. “I can’t. Rory’s right. We are, all of us, his daughters—for better or worse. But if you want my advice…”

“I need something,” Natalie said, waving away the shrimp that Rory offered her. “And I don’t mean food.”

“I think that you ought to follow his advice. You’ve seen what you want. Why not trust in your talents and take a risk?” Sierra said.

Natalie turned her gaze to Rory.

“You’re not going to get any argument from me. You like this guy who hasn’t called you in three months. I say go get him. And if you want to give up your job as a cop, do that, too. For years, you’ve been the responsible one, holding down a steady job, helping Sierra apply to another graduate school, helping me write yet another résumé. But Sierra and I are officially all grown-up now. You can stop worrying about us and escape.”

“I’m not giving up my job.” The thought had a little curl of panic tightening in her stomach. “I heard this afternoon that he’s going to be at the party Sophie Wainwright is throwing at her shop on Friday.”

“Excellent,” Rory said. “Sierra was invited, and she’s bringing me as her guest. We’ll be there to cheer you on.”

Natalie drew in a deep breath, then let it out. “I’m just not sure….”

“Do you want him?” Rory asked.

“Yes.” She couldn’t deny that. It had been three months, and she hadn’t gotten him out of her head.

Rory selected another mushroom. “Then I say follow Harry’s advice and take a risk. What have you got to lose?”

Natalie said nothing as the curl of panic tightened in her stomach. As a cop, she was used to facing her fears. As a woman, she was less sure of herself. Except for that night she’d spent with Chance. She lifted her hands and dropped them. “We had an agreement—for one night.”

“Agreements can be renegotiated.” Rory sipped her martini.

“Whose idea was it to make it one night?” Sierra asked.

“His,” Natalie replied.

“Figures,” Rory said.

“In many primitive cultures, the woman is the hunter when it comes to mate selection,” Sierra said.

“Whoa.” Natalie lifted her hands, palm outward. “I’m not on the hunt for a mate. I’m more in the mood for a fling. And I was in total agreement about the one night.”

“And all you want is one more night?” Sierra asked.

“Yeah,” Natalie said. One more night. Maybe then, she could get him out of her system and get her life back to normal.

Sierra cleared her throat. “Then I have a suggestion. For my current research project, I’ve been researching the sexual fantasies of different cultures.”

“That’s our girl,” Rory said, lifting her glass.

After they toasted again, Sierra continued, “One of the most universal fantasies is sex with a stranger—someone you don’t know and never will know.” Pausing, she cleared her throat again. “So why don’t you just pretend that you’re someone else for the night?”

When her two sisters turned to stare at her, Sierra hurried on. “It makes sense. You love undercover work and you’re good at it. So just come to Sophie’s party as someone else.”

“That’s a great idea,” Rory said, waving a shrimp.

“I don’t think—”

“That’s your problem, Nat,” Rory said. “You over-think everything. Sierra’s got a great idea.”

“You’re so good at disguise,” Sierra continued. “You could just let yourself be this other person. That way you can put Natalie Gibbs’s fears and hang-ups away for the evening and be free to make a play for this man as a totally different person.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Natalie asked.

“Absolutely.” Sierra leaned forward. “It’s the age-old concept of Mardi Gras. For one night you put on a mask and do things that you would never do as your real self. Very freeing.”

Rory shot Natalie a look. “Freeing? Does this sound like the baby sister we used to know and love?”

Natalie shook her head, seriously considering her youngest sister’s idea. She glanced down at her drink. The glass was still half-full, so she couldn’t blame the martini. Her gaze shifted to the letter and her father’s words.

When you see what you want, trust in your talents. Risk anything it takes…

Natalie ran her finger over her father’s signature again. She wanted Chance, and if she took Sierra’s suggestion, she could go after him with a clean slate. She wouldn’t be Natalie, the woman he hadn’t called for three months.

“Think about it,” Sierra said.

If she did decide to follow Sierra’s advice, she knew two things for sure. Chance Mitchell wouldn’t recognize her. And he wouldn’t know what hit him.

CHANCE STOOD outside on the flagstone patio at the back of Sophie Wainwright’s antique and collectibles shop and scanned the crowd through the window. From what he could see, the event was a success. Three musicians were tucked away in a corner playing Mozart, and a white-jacketed waiter offering flutes of champagne was threading his way through the crush of guests.

In between the potted trees and terra-cotta urns bursting with pansies and geraniums, Chance spotted a prominent senator, a congresswoman and several well-heeled collectors who’d been frequent clients at the gallery down the street where he’d worked undercover.

The person he hadn’t spotted yet was Natalie Gibbs. He’d told himself that he came through the back alleyway because of the line of guests waiting to get in the front door of the shop, but the truth was he was stalling. He still wasn’t sure how he was going to handle Natalie when he ran into her.

Damn if his hands weren’t damp. With a frown, he rubbed them on his pants. A woman hadn’t made him nervous since junior high school. He’d spent two days thinking of ways to convince her to go with him on the Florida caper. The best scenario he’d come up with was to play it by ear. Not that he was worried about that part. He wasn’t a planner by nature, and he’d gotten himself out of plenty of scrapes by improvising. He wasn’t worried about the job—she’d come with him to Florida, all right. It was on the personal level that he wasn’t quite sure how to handle Natalie Gibbs.

Later, he couldn’t have said what it was that drew his gaze to the small balcony on the second story of Sophie’s shop. But the moment he saw the woman, he felt his mind go blank and then fill with her. Her hair was blond, parted in the middle, and it fell in a straight, smooth curve almost to her shoulders. The tiny black dress revealed curves in all the right places and left more bare than it covered. The summer sky was finally beginning to darken overhead, but even in the less than perfect light her skin had the pale perfection of an old-fashioned cameo. Chance let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding.

She was the kind of woman who would get a second glance from any man, but Chance couldn’t seem to get past the first one. The quick tightening in his gut was unexpectedly raw and hot, but what surprised him most was the flicker of familiarity, recognition almost, that pushed at the edges of his mind. He could have sworn he’d never laid eyes on her before. If he had, he certainly would have remembered.

And then her eyes met his, and for the second time in as many moments, Chance felt his mind empty. The primitive streak of desire that moved through him had him scanning the iron railing, looking for a staircase, a ladder—or tree branch that extended far enough to…He hadn’t realized that he’d moved closer to the balcony until he bumped smack into a waiter. The man’s tray tilted, two champagne flutes began a downward slide. Chance barely managed to catch them.

“Sorry,” he murmured as he settled them on the tray.

“No problem, sir.”

“I’ll take one of those, if you don’t mind.” He took a long swallow of the icy wine before he raised his gaze to the balcony again.

She was gone.

Disappointment warred with astonishment. Had he really been thinking of doing the Romeo thing and scaling a balcony? What in hell was the matter with him? Shakespeare’s star-crossed hero had been all of about sixteen. Chance was twice that age. Hormone-driven foolishness was a thing of his adolescent past. Or it should be.

Still there was some similarity between Romeo and himself, he thought as his lips curved in amusement. In a way, he was crashing a party. He hadn’t gotten an engraved invitation from Sophie, merely a verbal, secondhand one from his friend Tracker. But that’s where the parallel would end. He hadn’t come here to meet some woman he was going to lust after at first sight and then fall madly and tragically in love with.

He was here to make an offer to Natalie Gibbs that she would not be able to refuse. Taking another sip from his glass, Chance made his way to the French doors that opened into the shop. But it took more effort than he liked not to glance back up at the balcony.