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The crowd gasped. By some hand of fate, she managed at the last moment to correct herself. Sam’s heart stilled and a flash of déjà vu fisted his gut. In his mind’s eye ten years dropped away and it was his second week on the job as an NYPD rookie beat cop.
That woman had been a jumper, too, distraught over the breakup of her marriage, perched precariously on the Brooklyn Bridge. Sam had sweet-talked, he’d cajoled, he’d made promises he couldn’t really keep and he had sweated it.
The woman seemed to calm down. To grow peaceful and quiet. Sam believed he’d won. He’d held her in his hands for a brief moment, arrogantly thinking that he had saved her. Then she’d met his gaze with her sad, soulful blue eyes that were too big for her face and she’d simply let go, taking that one fatal step backward into the black abyss.
He’d had nightmares about her for weeks afterward, waking in the middle of the night sweaty and guilty. Cringing, Sam briefly closed his eyes, blocking out the memory.
No. He could not, would not, let it happen again. This time he was older, wiser, more experienced, less full of himself. He was being given a second chance. This time he would save her.
He bound into the building, his brain speeding ahead of him, mapping out rescue strategies. One of the elevators was at the ground floor.
“Hold the door,” he shouted, but the doors bumped closed just as he reached the lift.
“Dammit,” he cursed, frantically jabbing the up button repeatedly. He swung his gaze to the lighted numbers above the remaining elevators. None of them were near the ground floor.
Swearing again, he tore around the corner in search of the stairwell.
“Sir, sir, excuse me, sir.”
The lobby receptionist he’d ignored came chasing after him, her heels striking snap-snap-snap against the cement floor. She caught him at the stairwell door.
“Sir, you must check in at the security desk before you can go up.”
“NYPD,” he growled at the woman. “You’ve got a jumper on the eighth floor.”
Startled, she raised a hand to her throat. “Oh my goodness.”
“Call the fire department and tell them what’s happening,” Sam ordered.
She stood there stunned.
“Now!” he shouted and shouldered through the door into the stairwell.
He took the steps two at a time, the vein in his forehead throbbing from exertion. Less than a minute later he burst onto the eighth floor, chest heaving, sweat on his brow. People in the hallway turned to stare, but he ignored them.
Gotta save her. Can’t let it happen again.
He had a chance for redemption. He wouldn’t let her slip through his fingers, wouldn’t be responsible for sending someone else over the edge.
Sam rushed past several offices that he knew weren’t in the right spot. He zipped through a great room thronged with ribbon-thin models in various stages of undress. Any other time and he might have been tempted to ogle, but not today.
Designers and tailors and seamstresses bustled to and fro. Bolts of lush colorful fabric littered tables, with bows and lace and sewing supplies scattered about. Sam’s eyes darted around the room. Clearly, no one realized that a young woman, quite possibly one of their coworkers, was perched on the window ledge preparing to take her own life.
This was taking too long. He had to get to her before she jumped.
He flung open the door of the next office he came to, angling straight for the window. The sign on the door identified it as Isaac Vincent’s public relations office. The person Sam had come here to interview about a string of high-end home robberies worked in this very office.
Weird coincidence.
Except Sam didn’t believe in coincidences. But he had no time to piece the puzzle together.
The office lay empty.
Sirens shrieked. Thank God the fire department was on the way.
Pulse racing, he rushed to the window and poked his head out, just as his old childhood fear blindsided him like a blow to the brain.
Sam Mason was terrified of heights.
2
“HI, I’M SAM. What’s your name?”
Excuse me?
Very carefully Cass turned her head to meet the astute dark gray eyes of the obviously insane man sticking his head out of her office window and chatting her up as if they were at a singles meet-and-greet.
“Um, Cass Richards,” she replied because she’d been raised to be polite. What she really wanted was to tell him to take a hike. Staying on the window ledge was chore enough—she didn’t need him distracting her.
“Cass Richards?” There was a strange tone in his voice.
“Yeah.”
“Cass, listen to me, whatever is driving you out on the window ledge is fixable. Suicide is not the solution.”
Suicide?
What on earth was he babbling about? He thought she wanted to kill herself? Well, that was just dumb. What she wanted was to get back inside, find a blow dryer and a hot latte.
Cass started to reach up a hand to push her damp hair off her face, but the movement made her teeter precariously on her high heels. She glanced down again, saw firemen running around blowing up one of those big inflatable jumpy thingies stuntmen used in the movies and positioning it directly below her.
The building seemed to sway.
Horns honked. The crowd was shouting up at her, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying above the rumble of the fire engines and the wind whistling around the corner of the brownstone.
“Look at me, Cass,” Sam said, his voice low and soothing.
She snapped her gaze to his rugged face, grateful to have something, anything to look at besides the traffic below.
He pinned her to the ledge with his eyes. They were solid and deep. How could she fall as long as he was looking at her like that?
You won’t fall, his expression declared. I won’t let you.
And for some unfathomable reason, she believed the promise on his face.
“Let’s talk about it,” he gently cajoled.
“Okay.” Why not? Anything to get her mind off the fact that she was inches away from cracking her skull into multiple pieces.
“Is this about a man?” he asked.
Wasn’t that just like a guy to assume she’d want to fling herself to the pavement over some man? She was half tempted to tell him it was about a woman simply to see surprise spark his eyes.
“FYI,” she said. “I have absolutely no intention of jumping.”
“Good,” he said. “That’s very good. So this is just a plea for help. To get someone to listen. To have your pain heard.”
“Nooo.”
Who was this guy? And where in the heck had he come from? She hadn’t ordered a touchy-feely buttinsky psychologist to go. What she wanted was some big, strong strapping hero to throw her over his shoulder and walk her safely off this damned ledge.
She eyed him.
Under the circumstances she shouldn’t have noticed his short sandy brown hair, obviously styled by a discount barber, but the fashionista in her wouldn’t be stilled. A great haircut would go a long way in accenting his interesting cheekbones and some blond highlights would coax a bit of color into his desert gray eyes.
He leaned out the window. His shoulders were broad and his chest strapping. No matter what idealistic sentiment he might have just expressed in order to keep her from jumping off the ledge, clearly he was not by nature the sort of man who got in touch with his inner feelings or indulged in hundred dollar haircuts.
The set of his shoulders, the nonchalant way he was dressed in rumpled khakis and an untucked button- down blue chambray shirt told her he was a working class Joe. Salt of the earth, this one.
“What is it about, Cass?”
She raised the hand she’d fisted around the scarf.
“Ah,” he said. “I get it. You’re up here for a cause. Taking a stand against some political or economical or social injustice.”
“Nooo.”
Boy was he off base. She would have shaken her head but she was afraid the movement would make her even dizzier then she already was.
“I’m listening, Cass. You can tell me what’s bothering you.”
“Well, gee thanks for the concern, Sam, but nothing’s bothering me.”
“Then why are you on that ledge?”
He looked so sincere, so worried for her safety that she felt a little silly saying it. “I came out for the Hermès.”
“Pardon?” He appeared confused and she realized the problem.
“I’m talking about the scarf.”
“What about the scarf?”
“It blew off my neck.”
As Cass watched, his face changed from earnest to perplexed. “Let me get this straight. You climbed out on a window ledge for a scarf?”
“Eight stories really doesn’t seem that high until you’re out here.”
He was looking at her as if she was the most foolish woman on the planet and actually right now, that’s exactly how she felt.
“It’s a Hermès,” she explained.
“For a scarf?” he repeated.
“A very expensive scarf.”
“Lady,” he growled, all trace of the understanding, considerate, suicide-jumper-talker-downer vanishing, “you’re nuts.”
“Gee, that’s not very nice.”
“What kind of shallow, narcissistic, materialistic, egocentric…”
“You can give it a rest. I get the picture. If I’m a jumper then you’re all sympathetic and helpful but if I’m just…”
“Blond,” he supplied.
She glared. “I was going to say rash.”
“This is way past rash and well on the road to foolhardy.”
Cass sniffed. He was right, but she didn’t have to admit it. “Apparently we don’t share the same value system.”
“Hell,” he said. “I don’t think we even share the same solar system.”
“Be that as it may,” she said snippily, “I did come out here and now I’m too nervous to climb back in, so if you’d be so kind as to please go find a nice fireman or policeman to come rescue me, I’d appreciate it.”
“I am a policeman.”
“You don’t look like a policeman.”
“I’m a detective. I don’t wear a uniform.”
She groaned inwardly and rolled her eyes. Just her luck. She’d drawn a cop who was a bad dresser with an attitude to match.
He held out his hand. “Come back in.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Every time I try to move I get dizzy and start to lose my balance.”
He eyed the ground and then cussed under his breath.
What? Panic shot through her. Did he know something she didn’t?
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Then why are you cursing?”
“If it weren’t for you I’d be having Starbucks and Krispy Kremes right about now.”
“Shoo,” she said, but didn’t dare motion with her hands. She’d already moved around too much. “Go on. Go shoot your cholesterol through the roof. Sorry to ruin your day.”
“Hang on. I’ll come get you.”
“I don’t want your help.”
“Tough. You’ve got it.” With that, he grimly thrust himself out the window and onto the ledge.
She felt his movements vibrate straight up through the concrete precipice and she tensed. He had a pragmatic way about him, the aura of a man doing his duty whether he liked it or not.
She didn’t like being his duty.
He came toward her as casually as if he were walking his dog in Central Park instead of traversing a ledge no wider than a shoebox. She stood in awe. Where had he acquired such utter self-confidence? He looked as if he owned the world and everything in it.
Including her.
Hell, it had even stopped raining.
He wasn’t at all like the well-bred, well-dressed men she normally hung out with. Cass’s breath escaped her lungs in a sharp, inexplicable gasp. A shiver slipped down her spine and she had no idea if it was due to the danger she was in or to the man heading for her.
His face was rugged, chiseled. His mouth determined. His eyes incisive. He was the sort of man who made a woman feel safe.
Since when have you ever opted for safe?
Uncontrollably, her gaze fell to the street. Since now. Her knees weakened.
“Look at me, Cass,” Sam, the sexy detective, commanded.
The fire trucks were a swirl of red, the crowd a muddle of melted faces. Her fingers cramped from holding on to the wall and she felt as if she was coming unraveled at the seams.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, she raised her chin and met his eyes.
“Atta girl. Hold on. I’m almost there.”
She’d never been attracted to rough-hewn, macho types before. Give her suave and debonair any day. Except right now, she was mighty glad to have him.
To distract herself she imagined him in a tuxedo at one of Isaac Vincent’s exclusive parties, drinking champagne and making idle chitchat with supermodels and fashion designers.
Cass was creative, but no matter how hard she tried that was one image that refused to be conjured. This guy belonged at a bar called O’Malley’s or MacDougall’s with a mug of warm beer in front of him and a knot of buddies chalking pool cues and making off- color jokes about the waitresses.
But she could see him as a proud Scottish pirate at the bow of his sailing ship gazing out at the new land he was about to pillage. Suddenly, in her mind’s eye, she was a maiden in that faraway land being captured by her conqueror and made to service him in so many shameful, pleasurable ways.
A vision of their entwined bodies muscled out her fear. She pictured Sam’s heavy, potent hands caressing her heated skin with tender urgency…his clever gunmetal gray eyes assembling secret knowledge about her body. He noted what his touch did to her, what made her arch her back, what caused her to moan. In an intense and surreal flash of awareness Cass saw his hard-muscled body covering hers, guiding her to a fevered pitch time and time again.
A warm tingle gripped her and her mouth filled with moisture.
Was she perverted? Or was this a perfectly natural response to hovering on the verge of death? Perhaps it was preferable that one’s last thoughts should be centered on a marvelous sexual fantasy rather than the gruesome alternative.
By the time Sam reached her they were both breathing hard and when his eyes met hers, she could have sworn it was the devil himself peering deep into her.
The air around her solidified with a thick, masculine heat and Cass fought off the urge to squirm.
“Take my hand.”
She hesitated. Not because she didn’t want to be rescued, but for a split second there, she didn’t know which was more treacherous. Touching him or staying out here on the ledge.
His grip was hot and reassuring. She looked him in the eyes. His smile was tight, the outline of his lips white. He’d made the trip down the rain slick ledge look easy, but it was not.
Her legs, strained by the high heels, the cold wet wind and a big dose of fear, quivered precariously.
“One step at a time.”
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
A fireman on the street hollered something up at them through a bullhorn, but Cass couldn’t hear anything except the voice inside her head telling her that it was all over, that she was going to die and she better make the best of the short time she had left.
What would Sam do if she asked him to kiss her?
“Ignore the guy with the bullhorn,” Sam said. “Listen to me. I’ll get you out of this.”
She looked down and immediately swooned. Her knees crumpled and if Sam hadn’t had his fingers locked tightly around her wrist she would have been lost.
“Close your eyes.”
“What!”
“Close your eyes and listen to me.”
But she couldn’t. She was too panicked, too scared to trust a man she didn’t know. She kept looking down and down and down.
Her vision swirled. She cried out and grabbed for Sam’s shirt.
“Cass, no,” he shouted. “You’ll knock me off balance.”
But his warning came too late.
Together they tumbled off the ledge.
HER BUTT WAS IN HAS PALM.
Something very akin to excitement stirred his blood, accelerated his breathing, hummed his heartbeat.
They’d fallen eight stories locked in each other’s arms and the only thing Sam could think about was Cass Richards’s butt.
That cute butt saved him from his fear of heights, from his fear of falling, from darn near the fear of everything.
Her skirt was hiked up and his palm was splayed across her bare bottom. Lord love her, she was wearing a thong.
And it was the softest, sweetest bottom he’d ever held. She was a slender woman, not supermodel slim, but not fleshy either.
Except for that glorious fanny. It was full and kneadable and splendid.
And his body responded in a solely masculine way. Talk about unprofessional.
They landed, with a tight controlled bounce, on the giant airbag the fire department had inflated underneath the eighth floor office. They were positioned squarely in the middle—a textbook landing—and still a good ten feet off the ground and Sam’s hand was on Cass’s delectable backside.
It was a sensation he knew he’d remember for the rest of his life.
“Get your hand off my ass,” she snapped, and rolled away from him.
So much for pleasant dreams.
“Sorry,” he said, but he wasn’t the least bit contrite.
He deserved some small compensation for battling his dread fear of heights in order to rescue her. She had no idea how much that little trip had cost him. How hard he’d had to fake his bravery in order to force himself out onto that ledge.
Or how much landing alive in the airbag with her meant to him. He’d faced his fear and in doing so he’d saved her life.
Well, okay, technically the fire department had saved her, but if he hadn’t told the receptionist to call the fire department they both would have been wearing halos and playing harps by now.
Or the way your mind is working, wearing horns and dancing with pitchforks.
Right.
A fireman was already at the edge of the airbag, reaching out, helping her slide off. By the time Sam worked his way to the edge, Cass was standing on the street, surrounded by reporters, looking like a princess holding court.
Sam rolled his eyes.
He should have known. Once upon a time he’d been married to a prima donna princess for nine, very long, miserable months. He knew far too well how the species operated.
No one gave him a second look and he found himself pushed back with the rest of the crowd, inconsequential as froth on a mug of beer. She was the consummate PR professional, making opportunity out of a mishap—milking the media coverage for all she was worth, smiling to the bystanders, flirting with the cameramen, poised as a movie star.
She craved attention. That much was clear. Question was, how far would she go to get it?
It was only after she’d been whisked away in an awaiting limousine—he had no idea where that had come from, but prima donna princesses did have their minions—Sam realized he’d never gotten to tell her why he’d come to see her in the first place.
Someone had been stealing valuable jewelry from Cass Richards’s circle of affluent friends and Sam had to question if Cass really had been on the ledge after a scarf. It was a thin story. Could a guilty conscience actually have been the driving force behind her impromptu perch instead?
3
“CASS, DID YOU HEAR what I just said?”
“Huh?” Cass raised her chin, looking up from the antique Christmas plates she’d been sorting in the basement of her older sister’s quaint and cozy antique shop in Fairfield, Connecticut. She wiped the dust off Ten Lords a Leaping with a damp cloth—wondering quite incidentally what all the leaping was about—and blinked at Morgan.
“Is something the matter? You’ve been distracted all morning.”
“Just thinking about that fall I took off the eighth- floor window ledge.”
And about Sam’s big masculine hand on my fanny.
Damn, the sexual drought she’d been in was wreaking havoc with her imagination. Truth was she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. That low, steady, horse-whisperer kind of voice he possessed made you feel as if you could trust every single word he said.
Morgan shuddered. “I’d think you’d want to forget all about that. Isn’t that why you volunteered to help me out this weekend? To get away from the city and being reminded of what happened.”
“Yes, yes, you’re right. So what was it that you just asked?”
“Are you still seeing Marcos? I’m having a dinner party Friday week and…”
“Dumped him,” Cass said quickly.
“Really? Already? You’d only been going with him what, a month?”
“Believe me, a month was enough.”
“But he seemed so nice and his family is in the social registry and he’s so good looking and so…”
“Clingy.”
“You think any man who wants to be exclusive is clingy.” Morgan took a box cutter, slit the tape on a large cardboard box, pushed back the flaps and began carefully taking out rare antique books.
“He was talking the m word after less than a month of dating and we’d never even slept together. Now that’s moving way too fast for me.”
“He asked you to marry him?” Morgan looked up in surprise.
“No, not that m word. He asked me to move in with him.”
“I see why you had to dump him. Can’t have a guy who’d actually want to be with you.”
“Ha, ha. And this is going to make you feel bad for making fun of me, but after the news coverage of my unfortunate window ledge episode, Bunnie Bernaldo told me Marcos has been spreading rumors up and down Long Island that he dumped me and I was so distraught I would have thrown myself off the Isaac Vincent building over the breakup if Sam hadn’t intervened. Of course anyone who knows me knows what a crock of bull that is. But can you believe that? I would never throw myself off a building over a man. The loss of a great pair of shoes, now maybe.”
“Sam?” Morgan arched an eyebrow.
“The cop that helped me down from the ledge the hard way.”
“You’re on a first-name basis?”
Cass shrugged. “Well, that’s how he introduced himself. As Sam.”
“You like him,” Morgan teased.
“Come on. I saw him once and that was under duress.”
“Still.” Morgan nodded. “You like him.”
“Not that much. He was kind of a smart aleck when he heard about the Hermès.”
“Is he cute?”
“Children don’t scream in horror when he walks past if that’s what you mean.”
“Cass’s got a new boyfriend.”
“Shut up, I do not.”
She wanted out of this conversation. The sooner the better. Cass spied a very old, ornately carved wooden box perched on a highboy in the corner. She got up, dusted off her hands and crossed the room to pick it up.
“What’s this?”
Morgan swiveled her head in Cass’s direction. “Intriguing, isn’t it. I found it hidden in a secret drawer of an antique dresser I bought along with the shop.”
The box was intricately hand-carved with various patterns. Cass traced a finger over the carvings. They may have been symbols, she wasn’t sure, though they looked as if they were some kind of ancient hieroglyphics.
Was it a code? The idea excited her.
From the box emanated the faint scent of some rich, exotic spice. She held the box to her ear and shook it but neither heard nor felt anything inside.
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s open it.” Cass loved secrets and surprises and encrypted code games and this was just the thing that she needed to take her mind off sexy Detective Sam.
“We can’t.”
“Oh, Morgan, don’t be such a party-pooper. It belongs to you. Why can’t we open it?”
“There’s no key.”
“Let’s jimmy the lock.” She turned the box over and realized there was no keyhole at all.
Strange. A box with no opening.