LITMIR.BIZ

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him seven ways to Sunday—” But he was trained to do that. It was different with Caleb. These were men they were talking about, not cabinets. “But we’re not talking about me,” he pointed out.

      Emma shook her head as she laughed softly. “No, I guess we’re not.” She brushed a quick kiss against his cheek. She was going to worry until she saw him safe again. She couldn’t help it. She was built that way.

      “Watch your back, Big Brother,” she told him.

      “Always,” he said. Crossing to the door, he opened it then paused for a moment to look at Hannah’s brother. Lines of concern were etched deeply into his handsome, young face. “It’s going to be all right,” he promised the other man.

      The expression on Caleb’s face was half resigned, half hopeful.

      It echoed perfectly the sentiment Tate felt within his soul.

      The same two men he’d dealt with twice before were waiting for him in the hotel suite when he arrived with the briefcase of used hundred-dollar bills, arranged in nonsequential order, just as instructed.

      The bald man with the goatee opened the door to admit him before his knuckles could hit the door for a second time. Tate walked in, nodding at him and the equally bald African-American. On the latter, bald looked good. The same couldn’t be said about the man with the goatee.

      “It’s all there,” Tate told the African-American man eyeing the briefcase suspiciously as he placed it on the coffee table between the two men.

      The man flipped both locks at the same time, then spared him a glance. “You don’t mind if I see for myself, right?”

      It was a rhetorical question. Nonetheless, Tate chose to answer it in his own way. He quickly pressed the lid back down in place before the other man could look inside. Tate met the guard’s hostile gaze.

      “I’d expect nothing less,” Tate assured him.

      “Then what the hell are you doing?” the guard demanded hotly.

      Tate looked at the man with the goatee, then back at Waterford, the African-American. “I’m waiting for one of you to show me Jade.”

      “You’ve already seen her,” Waterford snapped. “Twice.”

      “You’re right,” Tate agreed amicably. “And now I just want to make sure that she’s actually here.”

      “He doesn’t trust you, Nathan,” the man with the goatee jeered.

      “Shut up,” Waterford ordered, obviously angry that his name had been used.

      Tate pretended not to notice the flare-up. “Well, do I see her?” he wanted to know, still keeping the lid down. Tate could feel his biceps straining as he continued to hold the lid in place. It had turned into a contest of strength, one that Tate was determined to win.

      Waterford did not take defeat easily. He looked as if he could snap a neck as easily as take in a deep breath.

      “Bring her in,” he instructed the other guard in the room.

      The latter was angry at being ordered around like that in front of a relative stranger, but he was also obviously afraid to oppose the larger man. Muttering under his breath, the man with the mousy goatee went to the back of the suite, threw open the door leading into the bedroom and barked “Get out here” to the lone occupant in the bedroom.

      A moment later, Hannah, her flame-red hair piled up high on her head, wearing a green gown that looked painted on, delicately glided into the sitting room.

      Each time he saw her, Tate couldn’t help thinking, she seemed even more beautiful than the last time. It almost made his soul ache to look at her, knowing what she had to have gone through. Was still going through, he amended.

      He had a gut feeling that Hannah was tougher than she looked. He sincerely hoped so, for her sake.

      “Satisfied?” the African-American barked, flinging his hand out and gesturing toward Hannah.

      Tate withdrew his hand from the briefcase’s lid. “Satisfied,” he replied. Tate took a step back from the table. He smiled and nodded at Hannah before turning his attention to the man he’d made his bargain with the day before. Tate looked into his eyes, his gaze turning almost hypnotic. “And nobody touched her.” It was both a question and a statement that waited to be confirmed.

      “Nobody laid a damn finger on her—or anything else for that matter,” the man with the goatee added when it was obvious that the client was waiting for more of a confirmation.

      Tate looked at Hannah, who kept her gaze lowered, looking down at the rug. With the crook of his finger beneath her chin, he raised her head until she was looking directly at him.

      “Is that true?” he asked her.

      Surprised at being addressed directly without any curse words attached, a beat still passed before Hannah nodded her head.

      “What are you asking her for?” the goatee demanded to know. “I said nobody touched her. I lived up to my half of the bargain,” he declared impatiently. “Where’s my money?”

      “Right here,” Tate said, placing the other half of the torn bill into the man’s outstretched hand.

      “What’s that for?” Waterford wanted to know, eyeing the single torn section suspiciously.

      “Insurance,” was the unselfconscious reply. “Now I’d like some time alone with the girl.”

      “Sure, knock yourself out.” The man with the goatee gestured toward the bedroom. “You paid for her, have at it,” he urged, and then he leered, “Sure you don’t want me to break her in for you?”

      It was a crude play on words. Words that quickly faded away in the heat of the glare that had entered Tate’s eyes.

      “What I want,” he began deliberately, “is for the two of you to make yourself scarce.” Tate looked from one man to the other. Neither seemed to grasp what he was telling them, or made any attempt to leave the room. “You can stand guard in the hall outside the suite’s door if it makes you happy.”

      “We’re not leaving,” the goatee growled.

      “I’m not telling you to leave,” Tate countered. “I’m telling you I want some privacy. There’s only one way out of this suite and it’s through that door.” He deliberately pointed to it. “You can both stand guard in front of it, or take turns—I really don’t care which you decide to do. But I don’t want to feel crowded while I look over what a briefcase full of hundred-dollar bills just got me. Understand?” he demanded.

      Waterford shook his head. “I don’t know about this,” he said skeptically.

      “You’re not leaving the hotel, just the room,” Tate argued. “We’ll still be right where you left us when you walk back in,” he assured them, adding in a voice that brooked no nonsense, “Those are my terms. If you don’t like them—” he made a move to reclaim the briefcase, his implication clear: he either got his way, or he would be on his way.

      The choice was theirs.

      The man with the goatee cursed roundly, adding a few disparaging words about having to put up with aggravating people.

      In the end, he grudgingly said, “Okay, we’ll be out in the hallway in front of the door. Right in front of the door,” he emphasized. “So don’t get any big ideas about making a break for it.”

      Tate deliberately looked at Hannah. “I assure you, any ideas I have have nothing remotely to do with the hotel door.”

      The men didn’t look completely convinced, but they walked out of the suite. Once on the other side of the door, they made enough noise that just barely stopped short of waking the dead.

      It was to let him know that they were right outside the door, as specified. Ready to stop

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