The hostility wasn’t there, but neither was the ease. Rowan’s intimate knowledge of the male psyche could fill maybe half a thimble, but Meriden was using the nonverbal tough guy act to cover something else.
Something, she suspected, that had nothing at all to do with her. “If you want me to come in, Sean, you have to open more than a beer.”
He shifted his weight, and just when she thought he was going to tell her to get out, he came over and sat beside her at the table.
“I lost someone close in a fire once,” he said bluntly. “Long time ago. It screwed me up for a while.” He thumbed an edge of the label on his beer. “Still does.”
The rawness of his voice told her not to ask who or how. “I just walked away from the only guy I’ve ever loved,” she heard herself say, just as abruptly. “He didn’t know, and then he found someone else.” She paused to take a drink. “My best friend, as it happens.”
Sean frowned. “She know you loved him?” When Rowan shook her head, he let out his breath. “Shit. You don’t do the girl thing.”
She let a little of her bitterness show through in her smile. “Not even when I should.”
They sat together in a companionable silence, during which Rowan wondered why she felt so comfortable with him. Old wounds and mutual states of general hostility toward the world aside, she knew almost zero about him, and he about her. After what he’d said about his past, she had no desire to commence excavations. Dansant knew him; maybe she could wheedle a little more information out of him.
“You said you liked working with the Frenchman,” Sean said out of the blue. “So what’s he like?”
That was a loaded question. “I don’t know. Okay, I guess. What did you think when you met him?”
“I’ve never had the pleasure.”
She blinked. “But he works downstairs, practically every night. You have to walk through the kitchen to get to the stairs.”
“He’s always gone by the time I get home from work.” He studied her face. “You like him.”
“He gave me a job and an apartment for nothing,” she reminded him. “What’s not to like?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded annoyed. “He’s French.”
Like that was an STD. “So in addition to being a bad-tempered jackass, you’re also a bigot?”
He didn’t like that. “Just answer the question.”
“What’s he like? Well, he’s French”—she glared at him—“tall, dark, gorgeous, talented, wealthy, and kind.” She thought for a moment. “In fact, if he liked women, he’d be perfect.”
Meriden actually choked on his beer. “What?”
“He’s gay.” She watched him as he shot to his feet. “Let me guess. You don’t like gay men, either. Tell me something, Meriden. Is there anyone you do like?”
“He’s not a fairy.”
“Don’t use stupid fucking slurs,” she snapped. “He told me he lives with a guy. He called him his partner—”
Meriden suddenly laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Yeah, he does. But the partner is straight.”
Now she was lost again. “You said that you’ve never met Dansant.”
“I know the partner.” He picked up his beer, walked to the window, and braced a forearm against the upper frame. “So now that you know he’s straight, you can do him.”
“I can do him?” It was her turn to laugh. “Sure. I’ll jump him behind the meat cooler right after my next shift.”
“Have a good time.” He sounded bored.
Rowan’s confusion evaporated. There was no reason for her to stay and listen to his garbage. He’d done her a favor, telling her that Dansant was straight. Maybe. She still couldn’t see how he’d come to that conclusion, especially if Dansant and his partner were being discreet.
Figuring she’d give it one more shot, she put down her beer, rose, and walked to stand beside him at the window. Below them, the streets were almost empty, with only a couple of late-nighters walking in pairs.
“Dansant’s okay. He’s a decent man, a wizard in the kitchen, and I like him a lot. The tall, dark, and gorgeous stuff still stands.” She hesitated, trying to put into words how she felt. “He helped me when he didn’t have to. I don’t just owe him for bailing me out of a tough spot. He’s kind of restored my faith in other people, and showed me that there are some decent ones out here.”
He turned his head. “Are you going to fuck him?”
How like a man, to reduce it all to sex. “Aside from that being none of your goddamn business whatsoever? No.”
“Why not?”
Now he sounded angry, which threw her off again. “In case you forgot, I do work for the man. Sleeping with your boss is about as smart as stealing from him. Dansant’s also way out of my league.”
“I’m not.”
He was jealous. Rowan almost laughed out loud. Jealous over her. “Then maybe I’m out of yours, Sean.”
She’d never uttered a better exit line in her life, and as she walked across the landing to her apartment, it worked wonders for her battered pride. But as she dropped into bed, Rowan realized something she hadn’t before: The two men in her life she was most attracted to had suddenly become attainable. And if she had to pick between them, she’d be in real trouble.
For now it seemed she wanted Sean as much as she wanted Dansant.
Gay. She thought the Frenchman was gay. Jesus fucking Christ.
Meriden grabbed his jacket, stomped downstairs, and unlocked Dansant’s office. After two arguments with Rowan in one day he was in the mood to trash the place, but settled for grabbing a Sharpie out of a drawer and leaving a few choice thoughts on the French fuck’s desk blotter. And oops, did his elbow knock over a nice neat pile of invoices so that they scattered all over the floor? Apparently it did.
He couldn’t go back upstairs until he cooled down, not when all that stood between him and Rowan was a bunch of stupid misunderstandings and a flimsy door. She was a smart-mouthed, demanding bitch. And she was the hottest damn woman he’d ever wanted to nail on the nearest flat surface.
He drove down to the river, and parked where he could watch the tugs. There were five phone numbers flashing in the back of his head; all of them belonging to women who would welcome him at their door no matter what hour he knocked. He could make one phone call and be naked between a soft pair of thighs in fifteen minutes. He didn’t owe Rowan Dietrich a goddamn thing.
Want to be my baby daddy?
Meriden swore and put the car in gear, squealing his tires as he reversed and took off. He drove the streets around the coffee shop for an hour, looking for solitary kids who fit Alana’s description. But the night was cold, and the only people on the street were the ones who were paid to be there.
He spotted a waste management truck parked at a corner, and pulled up behind them. The two men dumping cans in the back eyed him but didn’t stop working.
“Talk to you for a sec?” Meriden called out to the bigger of the pair as he approached.
“Free country,” the man replied. He sounded casual, but he held on to the empty can he’d carried from the curb, and his left hand dove into his jacket pocket, where Meriden was sure he’d tucked a handgun or a shiv.
“I’m a P.I.,” he told him, taking out his credentials and holding them out until the man got a good look at them. “Have you seen a girl about sixteen years old, short, thin, blond curly hair, blue eyes?”
“Can’t say I have. Runaway kid?”
Meriden nodded.
“I’m sorry for her folks. I got a daughter that age,” he added for clarification. “I’d tear apart the city with my hands if she were living out here.”
Meriden shared a grim smile with him. “You notice anyplace in the neighborhood where kids like to flop regularly?”
The man shook his head and turned to his partner. “Hey, Frankie, you said you saw some kid crawling out a boarded-up place last week when you were working Cleaver’s route. Where was that?”
“Ah, shit.” The smaller man’s face scrunched as he thought. “Maybe over on Fifty-seventh. Not my route,” he explained to Meriden. “I was filling in for another guy.”
He handed both men a business card. “If you spot her and get a chance, give me a call. Her father just wants her home safe.”
The men agreed, and then finished with their load and moved down the block.
Meriden drove over to Fifty-seventh Street, but two slow passes didn’t turn up any buildings with boarded-over entrances. It was a weak lead, but there were only so many buildings in Manhattan that were not being used; any that were empty were slated for renovation or demolition. It made his belly knot to think of a kid like Alana King sleeping in a building that might one day be torn down around her. But at least there was a chance she was sleeping indoors, and he wouldn’t find her body in some alley, frozen stiff from falling asleep on an icy night.
He also wondered why she had run. He knew from her file that she had some mental problems, but being Gerald King’s daughter meant she would have lived a very privileged life. King was a sick, twisted fuck, but from the way he talked about Alana, Meriden had no doubt that he loved her. Enough to kill for her.
So why had she run to the streets? What had happened to set her off? And why hadn’t she gone back home?
Meriden headed over to his garage. He hadn’t yet performed his own background check on Alana King, and maybe it was time that he did.
Chapter 12
Dansant noticed the change in Rowan almost at once. Before she had been impersonally friendly toward him, treating him no differently than any of the other men when they worked together. She shared her smiles and jokes with him, but she paid more attention to his cooking than his person.
After so many years of effortlessly drawing women to him like hummingbirds in a flower garden, he found her lack of interest disturbing. Even more puzzling was knowing that she was not indifferent to him. Under his influence, she had responded passionately, beautifully to his touch, and that made her indifference even more of a paradox.
