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  Patience relaxed back into her chair. “He sleeps with me. You don’t.”

  “Walter sleeps with me,” Dennie said. “Although I suppose it’s not the same. How am I going to survive without you around to pick me up when I fall?”

  “Don’t fall,” Patience said. “Or better yet, learn to pick yourself up. You underestimate yourself all the time, Dennie. You can do the tough stuff, and you can do it on your own. You just have to believe.”

  “Right,” Dennie said. “Believe. Piece of cake.”

  * * *

  “Don’t tell me it’s a piece of cake,” the brunette told her partner one week later. “We’ve been pushing our luck too long. This isn’t going to work. We have to get out. Please.”

  Brian Bond rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Sherée, I told you, this time it’s foolproof. This time, it’s legal. We can’t lose.”

  “No,” Sherée said. “I have a really bad feeling about this. I don’t think we should go.” She fidgeted a little, bending the card in her hand back and forth.

  Bond checked his watch to show her how impatient he was. He didn’t really need to check because he always knew what time it was; success was in the details. “We have exactly forty-six minutes to catch the plane for Riverbend,” he told her. “We are going. Move it.”

  “Did you hear me?” she asked. “Do you ever hear me? We’re going to get caught. We’ve got to stop this.”

  “Can we have this argument on the plane?” Bond tested the lock on his suitcase one last time. “You know you’re going. You’ve gotten cold feet before and you’ve gone, so why even bother talking about it? Now get your bag. We’re out of here.”

  “No, we’re not.” Sherée picked the announcement card up from the table. “You know your ‘Four Fabulous Days!’? Well, watch this.” She tore the card in half. “That’s you and me,” she told Bond, her voice quavering. “I’m out of here. You go and get caught. I’m staying out of jail.”

  She picked up her bag and walked out the door, and Bond watched her go with some surprise. He’d had no idea Sherée had any backbone at all. Not that it mattered. He could do this one just as well without her. After six months, she’d become a pain in the butt, always needing reassurance, always looking over her shoulder, always looking guilty. Some women just weren’t cut out for crime.

  He checked the mirror on his way out the door, smiling his best honest smile. He looked as if guilt never crossed his mind. It didn’t. “Trust me,” he said to the mirror, and the mirror beamed back the face of a towheaded farm boy, right out of Norman Rockwell.

  Brian Bond laughed all the way to the airport.

  Sherée had turned in her plane ticket for Riverbend at the airport counter, consoling herself that the hefty amount of money she’d lost on the exchange was really Brian’s since he’d paid for the ticket originally. It wasn’t much consolation, and the loss of the money coupled with the fact that she hadn’t a clue what to do next made her depressed, and she didn’t like being depressed. If she wasn’t happy, it must be somebody else’s fault, and that somebody else must be Brian who should have been taking care of her, and he really should be sorry about that, but she was pretty sure he wasn’t. This was so depressing, Sherée sat in the airport bar and stewed about it for a while.

  Eventually she noticed that this was not helping her situation in the slightest, and then she began to plan, a new experience for her. Walking out had been a good idea only as a threat, she realized. Taking care of herself held absolutely no interest at all for her. She was going to have to find Brian again and convince him to take care of her until she could find somebody else who could do the job better. It was stupid of her to have walked away without having another man to walk away to. Her only problem was, Brian was in Riverbend by now.

  She should never have cashed in that plane ticket. It just went to show you, somebody else should have been there making the decisions.

  Three hours later, Sherée got on the bus for Riverbend. By now Brian would have seen how wrong he was and be ready to apologize, or she’d make sure he was when she got there. Either way, at least she was doing something. Sherée leaned her head on the window and went to sleep, dreaming of validation and vengeance.

  Chapter 2

  Dennie went flying through the brass-framed revolving doors of the Riverbend Queen Hotel, her cheeks glowing from the April wind, and plowed right into a handsome, lanky blond in the middle of the red-flocked hotel lobby.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, and he smiled at her, a shy smile that might have warmed her heart if she hadn’t just given up men for the duration. He looked like her type: easy to enslave.

  “That’s all right,” he said. “It was my fault. Not lookin’ where I was goin’.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Brian Bondman. Pleased to meet you.”

  Dennie shook his hand once. “My pleasure.” She turned to go, but he held on.

  “You sure are a pretty sight comin’ through that door—” he began.

  Dennie tugged her hand back. “Thank you.” She turned to go again, but he’d sidled around her so she was face-to-face with him.

  “I sure would be willin’ to take you to dinner tonight to make up for this,” he said and ducked his head at his own temerity.

  This is an act, Dennie told herself. Nobody drops that many g’s naturally. It would be interesting to know why it was an act, but not very. “No,” she said, and pulled her hand away. “But thank you anyway.” Then she turned and headed for the brass-edged registration desk before he could leap in front of her and offer drinks, frozen yogurt, or breakfast. He had the look of a man who didn’t quit trying, all that aw shucks to the contrary.

  “I have a reservation,” she told the registration clerk. “Dennie Banks?”

  The clerk took her form when she’d signed it, handed her the key card to her room, and said, “Is there anything else?”

  This was it. Don’t waste a minute, she told herself. Dennie leaned forward. “Yes, I’m supposed to meet Janice Meredith here. Do you know—?”

  “She’s in the Ivy Room,” the clerk said. “Right over there beyond the bar.”

  “Could you hold my bag for me, please?” Dennie passed her carry-on over the desk. “I don’t want to miss her.”

  Be firm, she told herself as she headed for the restaurant. Be professional and firm and focused. Believe in yourself.

  Right.

  Alec had taken it all in from his well-upholstered seat in the mahogany and brass hotel bar, and he’d never been more delighted to see a hunch pay off. He’d been watching Bond case the lobby when the brunette had started up the steps to the revolving door. Bond saw her at the same time and moved to meet her, deliberately running into her as she came through the doors, and Alec thought, Nice touch. Anybody seeing them would swear it was an accident. The brunette had smiled at him and moved away almost immediately, but Alec knew they’d spoken. Bond had even faked disappointment as she’d walked away.

  Watching the brunette now, Alec sympathized with Bond; it wouldn’t be hard faking disappointment if this woman walked away from you. Glossy dark brown curls bounced on her shoulders, and her smile heated the lobby. She walked past him to the registration desk, and he watched her hips move under her fluid red dress. She had a great swing to her.

  Normally he’d wait until the con approached him; it was safer, less suspicious, but this was a woman any man would approach. In fact, he told himself, it would be more suspicious if he didn’t approach her, and the last thing he wanted was to be more suspicious. So when she handed her bag to the clerk and turned toward the restaurant next to the bar, he moved to meet her, just like any red-blooded American man in his right, if gullible, mind would do.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” he asked. “You hit that guy pretty hard.”

  She smiled briefly and stepped away, turning toward the restaurant, her red skirt flaring around her very nice calves. “I’m fine, thank you.”

  “You might want a brandy.” Al