By Hook or By Crook Read online

  She jerked away. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” she said, breathless, willfully ignoring her heated body and pounding heart. “You’re working for my father! He wouldn’t like it.”

  A dash of cold water couldn’t have stopped him any more effectively. Panicked by a flood of unfamiliar emotions, she had reached for the first weapon she could lay her hands on: her father’s wrath. Even in the dimness of the cabin, she could see Joe’s annoyance.

  Emotion roiled her. Embarrassment at her clumsiness, relief that she’d managed to stop something she wasn’t totally comfortable with, and a tiny bit of curiosity about what would have happened if she hadn’t put a halt to it.

  “Last time I checked, we’re two adults,” he pointed out. “What does your father have to do with it? Why would he even have to know?”

  “I don’t like hiding things from him,” she countered, pulling the hem of her shirt down and sitting upright.

  “You think other people run home to their parents with a list of everybody they’ve slept with?” he scoffed.

  “Of course not. But you’re not just some guy. You’re his employee. It’s a bad idea.”

  “Jesus Christ. Grow up, will you, Ivy?” He rolled over, his back to her, pulling the blanket tight around him.

  Stung, she quietly moved back onto the sofa and crawled under her own blanket. The sofa felt cold and empty after sharing a blanket with Joe. The reason she’d given him was ridiculous, she admitted to herself, as she lay watching the firelight flicker against the ceiling. She’d simply felt things moving beyond her control, turning into something she’d never experienced before, and had sought to stop it, to retreat to the safe and familiar.

  She didn’t hop into bed with a guy she barely knew because he made her heart beat fast and could make her blush like a sixteen-year-old. She chose partners based on shared interests, compatibility, and mutual respect.

  Even then, she usually required a long series of dinner dates, trips to the theater, and social events before she moved on to a sexual relationship, if she ever did. She simply didn’t get much out of it, and saw no reason to rush into the physical.

  Joe, on the other hand, seemed to be able to short-circuit all of her elaborate requirements and appeal straight to some primal part of her that she didn’t know existed. She suddenly understood why people sometimes got involved with the wrong guy...why Daisy sometimes got involved with the wrong guy.

  Ivy shuddered. She had come out here to show Daisy the error of her thoughtless ways, not to adopt them herself. Joe Dunham made her nearly forget that, and that made him dangerous.

  ****

  By morning, the blizzard had finally petered out to a drizzle of freezing rain, forming a thin layer of ice over more than a foot of fresh snow. It made for precarious footing, but Joe lifted his gaze every now and then to take in his surroundings anyway. The landscape awed him. The snowdrifts sculpted to a razor’s edge by the wind and the firs weighted with fresh snow almost made him forget the frustration of last night.

  Almost.

  At every step, his shoes broke through the ice and sank into the deep snow beneath, slowing his progress. He didn’t mind much. His hike to see whether anybody had plowed the main road yet also gave him some time to think, and he needed it badly.

  As he’d left Ivy sleeping on the sofa this morning, he’d wrestled with a set of seriously mixed emotions. Getting involved with his biggest client’s daughter, when that client opposed the idea in no uncertain terms, was one hell of a professional blunder.

  When it came to his career, he’d always excelled at putting both feet in it—his history with the Chicago Police Department proved that. Hell, as his father used to tell him regularly, “screw-up” had been his middle name. The old bastard had ruthlessly mocked every mistake he’d ever made, from a bad grade on a report card to a fumble in a football game. He’d learned to stop caring what the old man thought. His drunken, abusive father had been the ultimate screw-up, so what did he care about his opinion?

  Still, Joe’s dream of a position on the CPD tactical force had been a casualty of his tendency to act first and think later. If he thought at all.

  Fortunately, this time, Ivy had done his thinking for him. She had spared him from a big screw-up that could have cost him his biggest paycheck. He had worked too hard to rebuild his life after his summary dismissal from the force to blow it now. For that reason alone, he should be glad she’d called a halt to things last night.

  God knows, he wouldn’t have. The firelight had set her cool blonde beauty ablaze, and sleep had left her rumpled and undefended, a stark contrast from her usual remoteness. What had come over him? No matter how heated things got, he had always been able to put the brakes on with a woman.

  He pushed the memory out of his mind even as his body tightened with desire. A couple of days from now, the novelty of Ivy Smithson would wear off. He knew it would because he had always lost interest in every other woman he’d been with. He wasn’t proud of it, but he doubted he could change it. Hell, he’d never tried to change it. He just had to keep his distance for a couple more days, until they could find Pock and Daisy. Then he could wrap this case up, collect his fee, and go back to Chicago.

  When he did, maybe he’d think about getting a real girlfriend. Maybe his interest in Ivy Smithson meant he had grown too old to keep chasing a series of one-night stands. He’d go back to Chicago and find a girl who wouldn’t give him too much trouble, one he could shoot pool with, go to Blackhawks games with, one who wasn’t so uptight and conventional. A blonde, though.

  Definitely a blonde.

  He passed the rented Jeep, half-buried in wind-blown snow, and soon verified that the plows hadn’t made it through to the main road yet. He doubled back in the other direction, passing the cabin and moving farther down the side road to scout out the area. He found four other cabins scattered along the road before it ended at the lake.

  All of the cabins stood empty for the winter. He and Ivy were on their own, stranded together, for however long it took to get the snowplows to this altitude. In complete contradiction to all of the resolutions he’d just made, he found himself hoping the plows wouldn’t come for another day or so. The realization annoyed him so much he spent the whole hike back to the cabin calling himself a fool.

  Inside, he shook off the snow on the entry rug, letting the welcome warmth ease the chill out of his bones.

  He didn’t see any sign of Ivy, but, after a moment, he heard the shower running. The thought of her naked and wet right on the other side of a flimsy cabin wall instantly got him hot.

  Distraction. He definitely needed a distraction. He called Sheila to get the update on Daisy’s credit card activity. While he was on the phone, Ivy emerged from the bathroom, dressed in a crisp white blouse and slim wool pants, wet hair trailing to her shoulders. The heat of the shower had flushed her skin rosy. Free of make-up, she looked like a teenager.

  He remembered how soft her skin had been under his mouth last night. He forced his eyes away from her and concentrated on jotting down Pock and Daisy’s last known location, according to Sheila.

  “Uh-huh. And the address?”

  Daisy and Pock had charged gas at a station near the southern Lake Tahoe shore. The trip would take only hours if the roads were clear, but in current conditions they might as well have been on the other side of the country. The thought maddened him. Ending the call, he dialed Ivy’s father—his client, he reminded himself—to update him.

  “Stuck together in a mountain cabin in a snowstorm?” Smithson echoed. “Isn’t that cozy?”

  Joe didn’t need anyone to tell him which way the wind blew. Smithson was pissed. He resisted the impulse to defend himself. He hadn’t done anything to violate the man’s trust—yet. Admittedly, that was due more to Ivy’s reluctance than any sense of honor on his part.

  “I’m doing everything possible to see to your daughter’s safety, Mr. Smithson,” he promised.

  “Hopefull
y that includes keeping your pants zipped,” the man barked.

  “That goes without saying,” Joe lied, keeping his answer vague to avoid tipping Ivy off to the topic of conversation.

  As if having sex with him would jeopardize Ivy’s safety. Sometimes, Richard Smithson really annoyed the hell out of him.

  If he went back on the force, he could tell the old bastard to kiss off.

  The thought came out of nowhere, and he squelched it, fast. His cop days were over. Cops might not have to deal with pain-in-the-ass clients, but the job came with a million other headaches, as he’d found out when he blew his chance at the tactical ops job.

  Ivy gestured for the phone after he finished his status report, and he gladly handed it to her, happy to be rid of the elder Smithson. If only he could put the younger Smithson out of his mind so easily.

  She disappeared into the bedroom and carefully closed the door behind her, shutting him out. He sat on the couch, playing solitaire with an old deck of cards he’d found in a drawer, feeling more than ever like a hired hand, despite what had transpired between them.

  He didn’t know why it bothered him. He was a hired hand. Getting involved with the daughter of any client, let alone Richard Smithson’s, broke the rules. He should be happy that Ivy put up barriers between them.

  On the bright side, Ivy’s first reaction to hearing her sister’s whereabouts had been genuine relief. That Ivy wouldn’t wish a blizzard on her sister to prevent her marriage to Pock counted in her favor, Joe conceded. He couldn’t say as much for her father. The old man cared more that he kept his hands off Ivy than about the near-miss with frostbite they’d both had. He had to give Ivy credit for being a better human being than her miserable father.

  He still didn’t like Ivy’s willingness to defer to Richard Smithson’s ideas of what was best for his daughters. Clearly, though, she thought she was helping her sister.

  Right or wrong, she believed Pock wanted her sister’s money. Given her own history, he could understand her reaction. The pain in her voice as she talked about her own thwarted romance had been undeniable, and it made Joe want to track the loser down and flatten him.

  He realized he’d absently thumbed through the deck three times without finding a match. He tossed the cards down and wandered to the window, feeling like a caged animal. Snow tumbled hard from the gray skies again, making him wonder if they’d ever get out of here. On the phone, Richard Smithson had promised to bend an ear of somebody at the Nevada State Highway Department to get the roads plowed pronto, and Joe didn’t doubt heads would roll if the man didn’t get his way. The thought of Smithson throwing his weight around on his behalf annoyed him, but he supposed he shouldn’t complain. The sooner he could get this case wrapped up and get away from Ivy Smithson, the sooner his life could get back to normal, whatever that meant.

  Chapter 7

  After she and Joe shared another meal of warmed-over soup and stale crackers from the back of the cabinet, he trudged out again in the afternoon to see whether the roads had been plowed yet. They hadn’t, but he retrieved her laptop from the Jeep at her request. If she had to be stranded, she wanted to get some work done.

  After he’d delivered her laptop, Joe went back out to cut more wood for the fire. The pile of logs next to the hearth would keep them warm throughout the day and night, if it came to that, but he wanted to replace what they’d used.

  She suspected he also wanted to get a little distance from her, and she couldn’t blame him. They had spoken little all day, and never mentioned what she privately thought of as the Events of Last Night. Joe apparently wanted to pretend the whole thing had never happened, which was fine with her. For the best, really. It was.

  That awkwardness hadn’t kept her from lingering by the kitchen window for a few minutes, hypnotized by the grace of his movements as he chopped wood. The axe head swung through the air, hit the wood with a thunk, lodged in the cut. He twisted the axe to free it, lifted it high, and started the whole process again.

  She’d never known anyone like him. She’d certainly never experienced anything like their relationship, if you could even call it that. She’d been relieved to find him gone this morning when she awoke, and when he’d placed the call to her father, she’d jumped at the chance to disappear into the bedroom.

  Talking to her dad anchored her back in the real world, the one she lived in full-time. This world, full of adventure, danger, and a shack-up with a devastatingly attractive guy, wouldn’t last. She couldn’t let herself forget that. Falling back to reality after the fantasy inevitably ended would be too painful.

  She pushed the unsettling thought away and focused on her laptop screen. This was her real life. Studying, writing, reading, thinking. Those were the things she did best. Men and serious relationships never worked out for her.

  What would Daisy think if she knew Ivy had even thought about getting involved with someone so far out of her own comfort zone? She’d say, “Hell yeah, girl, go for it!” probably. All the more reason for her to steer clear of Joe.

  She shook off her gloom when Joe came in, brushing snow off his shoulders and stamping his feet.

  “What’s the weather doing out there?”

  “Still coming down again. Not as cold as it was. Not as bad as a night walking a beat in Chicago.”

  On the drive, he’d been so closemouthed about his days as a cop. His bringing it up now surprised her a bit.

  “So, you were forced out of the police department in some way?”

  “Yeah.” The monosyllable hung in the air.

  Apparently he didn’t want to talk about it. Too bad. He had certainly broached a lot of uncomfortable subjects with her. Now he could reveal something that made him squirm.

  “I told you about Daniel,” she reminded him. “If we’re going to be cooped up together like this, we might as well get to know each other.”

  “I thought that’s what we were doing last night.”

  Okay, maybe he didn’t totally want to pretend it had never happened. She blushed. “I think we’ve gotten to know each other well enough in that way.”

  “I don’t. And you look cute with your glasses.”

  She touched the frames of her reading glasses, feeling her blush deepen. “You’re avoiding the subject. What did you mean, you were pushed out of the police department?”

  He sighed, flopping down on the couch. “You’re not going to drop it, are you?”

  “Nope.” She enjoyed being a thorn in his side a little more than she should.

  “You remember the La Villita shakedown?”

  La Villita. The name rang a bell. Where had she heard it before? “You mean Little Village, in South Lawndale?” she asked, naming one of Chicago’s many thriving Hispanic communities.

  “Yeah, it was in my district. It’s technically called Little Village, but most of the residents are Mexican immigrants, so everybody there calls it La Villita.”

  “Right. I remember some sort of police scandal there. Was that it?” Her brow furrowed as she tried to remember. “Something about immigrants?”

  “Bingo.” He tilted his head back and closed his eyes, as if he could shut out the past as easily as he shut out the light. “Officers were shaking down the illegal immigrants. Pulling them over for petty offenses like speeding or expired license plates, and then demanding money not to turn them in to the INS.”

  “Shouldn’t they send those people home?”

  Joe shot her a look that made her feel like she’d said something naive. “In some cases, yeah, sure. But it’s not always that easy. People move here and get married to American citizens, have children. Their children are citizens because they’re born here. You’ve got cases where husbands and wives or parents and children get separated by deportation. Sure, some illegal immigrants are criminals, but most of them are here looking for a better life. Besides, the cops shaking them down didn’t give a damn about enforcing immigration laws. They just wanted their money in return for looking the oth
er way.”

  “And they fired you because you wouldn’t do it?” she guessed.

  “Not that simple. Remember the reporter who broke the story? Rich Donaldson, with WQVT?”

  “Sure.” Rich Donaldson, a legendary local reporter, had broken the stories of many Chicago scandals throughout the years. Every public official dreaded seeing Donaldson showing up at their office with a camera crew in tow. “I remember now. He had an anonymous tipster on the police department—” She broke off as a thought occurred to her. “Were you the informant?”

  “Yeah, and everybody on the department knew it. They couldn’t prove anything, of course, but everybody knew I didn’t like what was going on. I was also one of the few officers in the precinct not on the take.”

  “So they fired you? Is that legal?”

  He laughed without humor. “No, it’s not legal. They didn’t technically fire me, anyway. They just made my life miserable. Made it clear I would never get a promotion, put me on desk duty, gave me every shit job in the precinct. After 9/11, the Special Weapons and Tactics unit went from part-time to full-time in the CPD and started training for terrorist attacks and mass casualty events, not just stand-offs and hostage situations. I wanted in and made my wishes known. My commander made it equally clear that it would never happen.” His gaze seemed to bore right through the ceiling, lost in bitter memories. “That one hurt. They knew how bad I wanted on SWAT.”

  “Your commander was in on it?” His rueful smile made her feel naive. Ivy had never known a world where good guys and bad guys routinely changed places, or weren’t even distinguishable from one another in the first place.

  “He didn’t do anything improper, which is how he kept his job, but his son-in-law did. The CPD is a family gig. You’ve got generations of the same family on the force. When you piss off cops, you piss off all their relatives and buddies, too. My tires were slashed in the parking lot. Somebody put a dead fish in my locker. On and on. It got to where there wasn’t any point in sticking around. Better to get out of there and do something with my life.”