“Say when and I’ll be there.”
Now that sounded nice, she thought, knowing what he meant and how she would like him to mean it. She was debating pushing at the limits of their business relationship just a little when her cell rang. She pulled it out of her pocket and glanced at the screen. “Fayrene,” she told Sam before pushing the talk button. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“There’s a fire at the storage center.” Fayrene’s voice was frantic. “It’s the rabbits.”
Dellina went cold. “No,” she breathed. “Where are you?”
“On my way. I can’t get ahold of Ryan. He’s flown out to an installation site and won’t be back for a couple of days.” Her voice was thick with tears. “The rabbits.”
“I know,” Dellina told her. “We’ll get there in time.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
SAM FOLLOWED DELLINA’S frantic instructions as they headed into town. She was pale and shaking. All he’d been able to get out of her was, “It’s the rabbits.” A sentence that didn’t make sense. What rabbits? He’d never seen rabbits in town.
The closer they got, the more traffic clogged the streets. Dellina tapped impatiently on her armrest, then shook her head. “I’m getting out.”
He barely had time to slow the car before she jumped out and started running along the sidewalk. He swore, then pulled into the first parking space he found and sprinted after her.
As he did, he was aware of dozens of people running in the same direction. He also noticed the smell of smoke in the air. Seconds later he heard sirens. All of which made sense. What didn’t was a handful of people walking in the opposite direction with what looked like piles of white fur in their arms. Then there were two guys with giant rabbit heads tucked under each arm.
Sam caught up with Dellina at the corner. He grabbed her arm. “What’s going on?”
Her eyes were wide, her expression frantic. “There’s a fire at the storage place that stores all the rabbit costumes.” He must have looked blank because she added, “Every Easter families dress up in them and there’s a parade. It’s a tradition.”
Tears filled her brown eyes. “I used to walk in the parade with my parents and my sisters. We can’t let anything happen to the costumes. Do you have any idea how many memories are in those costumes? They last for years. We have to hurry. We have to help!”
Then she took off again. Sam stood on the sidewalk as the street filled with people carrying costumes. Armfuls, including the heads and giant rabbit feet. It was strange and funny and maybe a little moving.
He saw a woman in her late forties staggering with a pile of costumes that nearly went over her head. He jogged toward her and took the costumes from her arms. She wiped away the tears trickling down her cheeks.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “The fire is under control, but the smoke could damage everything. If you could just carry those to the park.”
“Sure.”
He held the costumes easily as the woman went off to help someone else.
He followed the moving crowd and found himself in Pyrite Park by the lake. Several deputies were there along with city officials. Order had been restored and people were laying costumes out on the grass so they could air out.
Sam put his down where directed, then stepped back to study the odd site of a couple of hundred rabbit costumes lying on dark green grass on a summer afternoon. Several people were checking tags and matching large heads with bodies. Others were doing the same with the feet. The scene was both funny and slightly horrific. Like a shot from a movie.
Sam helped several more people with their piles of costumes. He spotted Dellina and walked over to her. She stood with her arms wrapped around her body, looking shell-shocked.
He wanted to tell her they were just costumes and could be replaced. But he knew they were much more than that. Somehow these ridiculous bits of fake fur and plastic had become important—a part of a tradition. So instead of speaking, he pulled her into his embrace and held her close.
She leaned against him, pressing her cheek to his shoulder.
“It’s so awful,” she whispered.
“They’re all safe now. After they air out, they’ll be fine.”
“I know. It could have been much worse, but still...”
He kissed her forehead, then led her back to his car. “You live in a really weird little town,” he told her.
She managed a laugh. “I do and I love it. One day you’ll love it, too.”
Not enough to rush into a burning building and rescue rabbit costumes, he thought. Although God knew, he’d been wrong before.
* * *
SAM GOT BACK to the office an hour later. He headed directly for the locker room where he always kept a change of clothes. After stripping out of the ones that smelled like smoke and singed fake fur, he grabbed a towel from the stack and headed for the showers.
Score had been remodeled to the partners’ exact specifications. The offices were large, the colors neutral and the locker room was a combination of pro-sports-team efficient and five-star-hotel fancy. The big showers were kept stocked with high-quality products, the water was extrahot and there was plenty of room for the guys to congregate if they wanted.
So it was no surprise to step out of his shower and find Kenny and Jack lounging on the benches by the lockers. Sam finished drying off and walked to his locker.
“There was a fire,” Kenny said conversationally. “We’ve been getting calls. There are rabbits in danger. What do you know about this? Should we be worried?”
“Is Larissa involved?” Jack asked. “She has to be. Rabbits are just like her. Is she rescuing them? Am I going to have fifty rabbits in my house?”
Because whatever Larissa was involved with, she dragged Jack along. Sam found their relationship interesting. He knew they weren’t romantically involved. Larissa was the partners’ private masseuse, but she was Jack’s personal assistant. She also allowed him to stay emotionally detached while she got in the thick of things for him.
He’d often wondered how she kept her distance, emotionally. Every now and then he thought he saw something in her eyes, but then it was gone. He figured if Jack wasn’t worried, he wouldn’t be, either.
“There weren’t any rabbits,” he started, only to be interrupted by Taryn walking into the locker room.
He’d already pulled on briefs, but didn’t bother covering up. Taryn had seen it all before, with all of them. Sometimes, just to mess with her, they insisted on holding meetings in the steam room. Not that she cared about them all being na**d. Instead she objected to what the moist heat did to her hair.
“Someone set fire to a bunch of rabbits?” she asked as she approached. “And you saved them?”
Sam pulled on a pair of jeans. “Rabbit costumes,” he corrected. “There were rabbit costumes. Hundreds of them.”
His three partners stared at him blankly.
“Hey, I can’t explain it, either,” he told them. “They have a parade every Easter and people dress up like rabbits.”
Taryn frowned. “Bunnies,” she murmured. “I read about it in the Acorn handbook. It’s a tradition. Our girls will be in the parade next year.”A couple of months ago Taryn had agreed to help Angel with a special project. Fool’s Gold had its own version of scouting called Future Warriors of the Máa-zib. The youngest were Acorns. Even now, Sam couldn’t imagine Taryn sitting around with a bunch of little girls, but from what he’d heard, she’d been very popular with the Acorn set.
Kenny grinned. “So you’re going to dress up in a slightly crispy rabbit costume?”
Taryn wrinkled her nose. “Of course not. I’ll order one custom-made. Are they all right? The rabbits?”
“De-smoking out in Pyrite Park.” Sam shrugged into a fresh shirt. “The weather looks good. They’ll be fine.”
Taryn sighed. “My hero.”
* * *
KIPLING GILMORE FLEW down the mountain. Probably not his smartest move after so long away, but part of his need for speed was because of time spent partying and promoting and generally enjoying the end of a season that had included two Olympic gold medals.
Now he leaned forward and let gravity and aerodynamics increase his speed. He cleared his mind of conscious thought, allowing his body to react. The adjustments were automatic. Tightening, leaning, reaching for every advantage. In his game, failure was measured in hundredths of a second.
Serious training would start in a couple of days. Kipling was ready. He’d given up the late nights and the drinking. And the women. Now he would focus. The cold felt good, as did his body. His time in the gym paid off in quick responses. He was in control.
But he wasn’t alone on the mountain. His goggles impeded his peripheral vision just enough that he wasn’t sure what the blur was that raced across the side of the mountain. He was far enough away that it wasn’t a problem, but the guy on his left involuntarily jerked—and at sixty miles an hour, that could be deadly.
Kipling shifted out of the way, but it wasn’t enough. One second he was flying and the next he was falling.
For several heartbeats there was only silence and the world spinning and spinning. He knew he was in trouble, but he didn’t have time to consciously react. Trees came up hard and fast and when he hit there was a blinding light, followed by nothing at all.
* * *
DELLINA HAD KNOWN the panic would come. It was inevitable with a project this big. The trick was to hold it off for as long as possible. To stay in the moment and be focused on her list. Because in the end, good planning would save her.
Only she’d woken up that morning with what felt like a giant clock ticking in her head. They were less than two weeks away from the weekend and she didn’t have finalized menus or a completed schedule or goodie bags. She had to get the decisions made so she could lock it in with her vendors. Why didn’t Sam understand that?
She sucked in a breath and crossed to her front door. She pulled it open, glared at the handsome man standing on her front porch, then announced, “You’re not making this any easier.”
Sam’s eyebrows drew together. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m panicking. We have to make some decisions. There isn’t enough time.”
“What has you freaked out specifically?”
“Everything. Pretend it’s tax season.”
His frown deepened, then cleared. “Finance,” he told her. “Not accounting. I don’t do tax season.”
“Okay, whatever. I need you to make decisions.”
He stepped into her place. “Absolutely. Where do you want to start?”
“Goodie bags.”
She led the way to her small dining alcove. There she’d set up all the samples. There were bottles of lotion, scarves, barbecue tools, Lark’s book, an NFL computer game and a print of all three of the guys from Score. She picked up the print.
“You’d all sign the copies of this,” she said. “I wasn’t sure about leaving Taryn out, but she’s not a famous former NFL player.”
“She’ll be fine with it.”
She went through the items she’d chosen for the kids, then stood back as he walked around the table.
“We need more splash,” he announced
It was really good there wasn’t a decorative sword on the table, because she probably would have attacked him with it. As it was, she drew in a breath and spoke slowly.
“Can you define splash? I’m assuming you don’t mean an inflatable pool of some kind.”
Sam flashed her a grin that had her girl bits sighing. “You’re really stressed.”
“Thanks for the news flash. Yes, I am. Now do you have specifics in mind?” She held up her hand. “If you tell me you’ll know it when you see it, I’m going to have a very large man sit on you until you whimper like a little girl.”
The grin stayed in place. “You don’t know anyone who could do that.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows. “Have you met Kenny Scott? Because I’m pretty sure he could crush you like a bug.”
Sam’s good humor stayed in place. “Point taken. I’ll be specific. Mind if I use your computer?”
She thought about the state of her office and decided she wanted the information more than she cared what he thought about her lack of filing system. She motioned for him to follow her, then walked down the hall and into the spare bedroom.
There were the usual piles times five hundred. Invoices were scattered across her desk. As she really needed to keep track of those, she collected them and put them in her “superimportant” box.
“We’ll be talking about those later,” she told him. “When I get them figured out.”
“Billing issues from vendors?” he asked.
“Yes. I can’t get my books and estimates to balance with theirs. But not a problem for today. Find me something splashy.”
He sat in her chair and started typing. She blinked a couple of times when his first destination turned out to be Tiffany & Co. Before she could even ask what he was thinking, he’d brought up a picture of diamond earrings that made her think with that kind of cash she could get a new car.
“These are nice,” he said.
“Yes, they are.”
“Order them with gift receipts so if any of the women don’t like them, they can return them.”
She thought about the scarves she’d chosen and realized she should have had a clearer understanding of his budget.