Tempting Fate by Carla Neggers Page A

spa-inn, nor, certainly, the type to get lost.
    He seemed more the type who could have pitched her across her room and lied about it.
    She waited until he was out of sight. Then she returned to her cottage, pried the frying pan from her grip and picked up the phone again.
    This time she didn’t stop dialing until she’d finished. But it wasn’t Ira she called, or the police, or Pembroke security, or any of her friends, or, God knew, her father or grandfathers or her sweet aunt Sara. She called the one person she could always call when she found her house ransacked and a strange man in her garden, and that was her grandmother, Mattie Witt.

    Dani Pembroke wasn’t what Zeke had expected.
    He entered the rose garden, figuring that if he’d just robbed Dani Pembroke, it was where he’d head. But as he stepped through the iron gate, memories—dreams that were dead and done with—assaulted him. He pictured how the garden had looked twenty-five years ago, with Mattie Witt sitting in its overgrown midst, wearing her orange flight suit as she’d worked on the basket of her hot-air balloon.
    He’d been a fool to let the past determine his actions. He couldn’t afford to make that kind of mistake again.
    But there was a lot of Mattie in her granddaughter, in her dark good looks, her independence. And with her zest for a fight—an iron skillet, for pete’s sake—a flash of Nicholas Pembroke.
    Instinctively Zeke knew all those qualities were what Dani wanted people to see in her. She wouldn’t want them to see the mystery and vulnerability he’d detected behind her direct manner, the parts of her she held back, the parts that would remind people of her gentle, sensitive, lost mother. Her eyes, as black as Lilli’s had been blue, said she had secrets and knew you knew she had them but wasn’t going to tell you what they were anyway.
    There was a lack of self-pity about the owner of Pembroke Springs that Zeke could admire.
    And, given the circumstances, a hotheadedness that worried him.
    The rose garden covered two acres and was, in his view, the best part of the estate. There were fountains, gazebos, marble statuary, stone benches, low iron fences and dozens of beautiful, perfectly pruned rosebushes. Their fragrance filled the afternoon air.
    He noticed a discreet plaque dedicating the rosebushes to the memory of Lilli Chandler Pembroke. His throat tightened. He needed distance. Control. Squinting against the bright sun, he scanned the crowd meandering along the brick walks. He’d come to do a job. Time to get on with it.
    He went utterly motionless.
    Quint Skinner.
    There was no mistaking the bull-like physique, the cropped red-blond hair, the scarred face. Skinner had served with Joe Cutler. After he got out of the army, he’d become a journalist and hooked up with his old unit, discovering that morale was low and Joe’s sense of pride and honor had deteriorated. He’d seen Joe’s men die. And he’d seen Joe die.
    Joe Cutler: One Soldier’s Rise and Fall was Quint’s book. He hadn’t done much since.
    What the hell was he doing in Saratoga?
    Tucked between two teenage girls, Skinner edged out of the rose garden. A small pack was slung over one massive shoulder. Zeke would bet he’d find Dani Pembroke’s belongings in that pack. But there was nothing he could do. Not right now—not that made sense. Pulitzer Prize winner or not, Quint Skinner was perfectly capable of ransacking a woman’s bedroom and smacking her around. He was also capable of using a couple of innocent girls to get his ass out of a sling with Zeke.
    And it occurred to Zeke that Dani Pembroke just might not appreciate his efforts. The media would pounce on a confrontation between Quint Skinner and Joe Cutler’s brother in the Pembroke rose gardens. Zeke had already noted that Dani hadn’t reacted to his name. Seemed she had no idea who he was.