A spear of late-afternoon sun cleared a corner of the
warehouse and cut through Morgan Swann's windshield. The
alley's Dumpsters, discarded food wrappers and bottles
disappeared in the sudden brilliance. She pulled the visor
down to block the glare, then slipped on her sunglasses. As
heat rose inside the truck cab, she rolled her window down a
crack for ventilation, but only a crack. She couldn't
afford to have someone reach in and drag her out.
"The last customer pulled away," she said as she
started the ignition and Bessie rumbled to life.
Her lone passenger and partner on this gig sat up. Joe
Calder slid his cap to the back of his head. He'd been
dozing, face covered against the light.
"Showtime," he responded as he buckled his seat belt.
Morgan shifted Bessie into Drive and a familiar lust grew
inside her as they moved forward. "I love stealing
cars!"
"You've gotta stop thinking that way," Joe
warned. "This is no time to get sloppy."
"Yak, yak, yak." She tapped her fingers and thumb
together to mime his mouth. "You sound like BB." The
office manager and Morgan's best friend. She braked,
then shifted into Reverse to guide the tow truck into the
far corner of the warehouse where the target sat, nose out.
The sunlight disappeared as they crawled backward into the
darkness. Joe reached over and removed her sunglasses so her
eyes could adjust.
"Guy in the office just perked up, Morgan. Move it."
"Yee-hah!"
She cozied Bessie up to the front of the Charger they were
after, then leaped out with Joe and dropped the T-bar to the
floor. She glanced toward the glass-walled office and sweat
broke out all over her body. The man inside reached low
under his desk and came back up with a tire iron in his hand.
"It seems he was expecting us," she said. Joe was
slower in getting the loops around the front tire on his
side, but their time was still excellent. In twenty seconds,
Morgan jumped back into Bessie's front seat.
Not a second too soon, either. The guy from the office moved
quickly now, dodging around racks of home-renovation
materials. The look on his face took fury to an all-new high.
"Get the hell in here!" she shouted, but Joe had
already bounced into his seat. She slammed Bessie into Drive
and wished the old girl accelerated faster. Diesel
wasn't quick enough sometimes.
The doors to the loading bay just ahead geared up to close.
A sudden clang and clatter told her the tire iron had hit
Bessie's back end. "Poor baby." She patted the
dashboard and jammed her foot to the floor.
Joe reached for the radio and BB responded immediately.
"Got the Charger?" her voice crackled.
"Yes."
"Any problems?" BB sounded suspicious.
As soon as Bessie broke free into the daylight, Morgan
turned left and gunned her to get the car out, too.
"No problems," Joe said with a wink and a thumbs-up
for Morgan. "ETA thirty minutes—I'm out," he
told BB, cutting off any further questions.
Morgan checked the side mirror. The Charger's former
owner had followed them into the alley. He stood in front of
the now-closed bay doors, fists raised and mouth working.
She heard curses a sailor might use. The end of the alley
was ten feet ahead while the deadbeat was over a hundred
feet behind.
Morgan rolled down her window and flipped him the bird. He
responded with another furious toss of the tire iron.
Joe looked out the back window. "He needs anger
management classes."
"He needs to pay his debts," she responded, then let
out a rebel yell as she cleared the alley and hit the cross
street.
Joe laughed. "You must've been a hell of a car
thief."
"I was a great car thief." Sweet adrenaline
pulsed and kicked her heart into high gear. "At least I
thought so until the day I got caught."
Joe smirked. "Like most criminals you figured you could
outrun the system?" He cast her a sidelong look.
"I was young enough to believe a smooth-talking jerk. If
it hadn't been for a judge who intervened on my behalf,
I'd have been up the brown creek without a paddle."
She shuddered to think what might have happened if she'd
maintained her connections to DeLongo's gang. A
starstruck girl in desperate need of attention, she'd
been far too easy to impress.
He gave her a curious glance. "Why are you telling me
this?"
"The first time one of the drivers found out about my
youthful indiscretions—" she chuckled at the phrase
"—he tried to blackmail me." Which had been nothing
to laugh at at the time. She'd been furious for trusting
him with what she considered her secret shame. To hell
with that.
"For money?" Joe blurted.
Clearly, he hadn't grasped the context of blackmail for
some men. She cocked an eyebrow at him until his
face went red and he swore under his breath.
"Not for money," he said, and shook his head.
"I learn from my mistakes. Since then, I've had this
particular conversation with any of the guys who hang around
longer than a few weeks. I'll never be put in a
situation like that again." She hated being vulnerable,
and keeping the secret of her criminal past had opened the
door to harassment. It had been only one in a long string of
life lessons.
With luck, she had learned everything she needed.
"Because of the help and support I got back in my teens,
I've now got a great life," she admitted. "I
couldn't ask for a job I'm better suited for. I love
the hunt and chase, the occasional surprise during a pickup,
and since repo is legal, I have the best of both
worlds." The adrenaline junkie inside her needed a
regular fix and this job provided it.
She thanked her lucky stars that she'd been smart enough
to see the hard, dark road she'd stumbled down. Life had
been damn fine ever since she'd been given a chance to
take the right path. Her volunteer time at the youth center
was her way of paying the judge's kindness forward.
A love life that gave her as much satisfaction as the other
areas of her life still eluded her. A couple smooth-talking
charmers had cured her of bad boys.
She hoped.
She wasn't sure she should test that theory and her
hesitation kept her lonely. Not that she ever admitted to
loneliness. With friends and coworkers Morgan cultivated the
image of happily single.
Joe lifted her clipboard off the dashboard to reveal her
newest copy of the World Courier. She blanched. She
didn't care if her partner found out she enjoyed the odd
bit of sensational tabloid gossip. It was the top news story
she didn't want Joe to notice. She'd misplaced the
paper in her haste to follow up on BB's brilliant
detective work tracking the Charger and she hadn't been
able to read more than the headline.
But Joe, all business, read the work order on top and
ignored the tabloid. "BB did a good job finding this
guy." Admiration rang in his voice.
"You've got a thing for BB."
"She's a fine-looking woman under all that
makeup." He watched the traffic from his side. "Nice
features. Warm eyes ."
"That was one of the longest speeches I've ever
heard from you." He was more astute than she'd
realized. "Most men don't notice her face." Or
her soft, vulnerable eyes.
"Most men aren't me." The finality in his tone
said the subject was closed.
Too bad. BB was her best friend and needed special care, so
Morgan pushed. "She's been hurt more than once, Joe.
She doesn't need a line of BS." Her tone
was just as final. Mess with BB and you messed with Morgan, too.
"That's fine, I don't hand out lines."
She studied his hard-edged profile. "See that you
don't." If she were a man, Joe's comments might
be different. He might point out BB's natural double
D's. Lush and round all over, BB had told Morgan
she'd developed early. Morgan suspected her friend's
full parade of makeup was more self-defense than enhancement
of her pretty features.
Still, Joe's quiet confidence and thoughtful
conversation stood out among the yahoos they had working the
rigs. Joe had only been with Five Aces Towing a couple
weeks. Maybe he was different. Maybe he did like BB for who
she was rather than the size of her chest. Her friend was
one of the warmest people Morgan had ever known. Fiercely
loyal, BB cared too much about people. Even when they
didn't care back.
Morgan could warn Joe about BB's decision to steer clear
of the drivers, but maybe, just maybe, Joe was different
enough to change BB's mind.
When they got to the office, she would let Joe go in ahead
of her. She wanted to catch up on her reading about Kingston
McRae. The memory of the headline she'd read earlier
taunted her.
Wealthy playboy Kingston McRae returns from parts
unknown after a mysterious and extended absence
She had an affinity for Kingston McRae and had missed the
stories about him. The playboy tycoon had been out of sight
for three months and twelve days. She felt parched for
information.
An "affinity" was a new, more adult way to admit she
had a secret, girly crush. The tabloid called to her and she
itched to get to page two where the story continued. Maybe
there'd be more pictures of the delicious Kingston McRae.
After they dropped the Charger off in the company's
impound lot, she drove two blocks to the office.
A squat square building, the offices of Five Aces Towing
looked like a circa 1940 gas station with scalloped overhang
and two-bay garage. The company had been headquartered here
since BB's uncle had started the business.
After an insecure childhood Morgan finally had the security
she'd always wanted. She made decent money and loved the
adrenaline that kept things just this side of reckless while
the necessity of recovery kept her on the right side of legal.
At fifteen, she'd been charmed by Johnny DeLongo. A
mistake she'd learned from. She could now spot a charmer
a mile off. He had impressed her with fast cars, fancy
restaurants and what her fifteen-year-old heart believed
were declarations of devotion.
Hah! She'd been fooled. Somehow, Johnny had recognized
that her love of fast cars could be turned to his advantage.
Before she knew it she was on the fast track to prison,
hooked on the rush that came with boosting cars. She was
only glad she'd been caught while she was still a minor.
The moment she pulled into her parking spot, Joe jumped out
and strode quickly for the door. She hadn't had to prod
him to go inside without her, so she picked up her paper and
settled into her seat. Kingston McRae, man about town,
bachelor playboy and all-around hunk o' man, looked hot
in every sense of the word. Tall, commanding, in charge. The
picture was clear and focused. The photographer must have
been in the front lines of the crowd at the movie premiere.
The pages of the World Courier have been bereft
without the handsome McRae. Seen here with starlet Jakeera
Sofia, McRae arrives at the premiere of her movie,
Teenage Terror, Friday night. Informed sources say
McRae and the lovely Jakeera are so hot for each other they
had sex in the limo. Is that a smudge of DNA on her lip?
This reporter's dying to know.
The idea of being alone with him in the back of a limo
flushed her with arousal. Her panties moist, she took a
guilty glance around the lot. She was alone, so she took
another moment to skim the article.
She should get a grip on this girly nonsense, but since
fantasizing about him had helped save her from falling back
into a life of crime, it was hard to let him go.
Right now, life was great. All she lacked was a sex life.
Her Kingston fantasies were her only release.
Seven years ago, she'd been jobless, broke and
downhearted, tired of the effort it took to stay on the
straight and narrow. Tempted to go back to car theft to make
a living, just in time, she'd stumbled across a picture
of Kingston McRae. The model on his arm had looked a lot
like Morgan: auburn-haired with a square face and green
eyes. Visualizing herself in a photo with McRae had been the
lifesaving technique she'd needed.
It had been easy to dream that his engaging, warm smile was
for her, that his feelings for her were true, ran deep and
strong. And if she could just hold on awhile longer, better
days were around the corner. Crushing on Kingston McRae was
her only flight of fancy, because life had taught her to
take care of her own business and to depend on no one.
Unlike her juvenile file, adult records were public and she
seesawed about going back to a business that had been
exciting but deadly dangerous. She let her dreams of McRae
play out—dreams were safe—and put her energy into finding a
good job in the real world.
A week after her fantasy life began with the playboy tycoon
she found Five Aces. But once she learned answering phones
wasn't as much fun as the hands-on recoveries, she'd
badgered BB to let her go out on a job. The other drivers
had laid bets she would cut and run when things got scary,
but car theft was something she'd been good at, and the
thrill of the chase made recovery a natural fit. She'd
never gone back to the phones.
Page two of the story said that an informed source reported
McRae had met this most recent starlet at a charity ball.
There was speculation about marriage, but so far, McRae had
avoided more engagements than any rich bachelor had a right to.
The man was prime, no doubt about it.
If she met him, just once, maybe she could let her fantasy
go and open her heart to someone more in her league. After a
night filled with dreams of him she woke overheated, the
sheet twisted, her heart pounding. Her emotions were raw for
the whole day as she struggled to tamp down her sexual nature.
She fought hard to keep her fantasy life separate from
reality. Most of the time she won the battle, but lately her
dreams had invaded her daytime thoughts.
The whole thing stemmed from hormones rather than
loneliness, so she ignored her need most of the time. But
she'd taken on more dangerous gigs, looking for another
kind of outlet. It was definitely time to do something about
the lack of sex before she went too far.
All she needed was to hook up for a night. Work out some of
her frustrations. Up until a couple of weeks ago, BB had
been a regular at a bar downtown. The two of them could have
a girls' night out.