“Know a more combustible mixture.”
“Yeah? What?”
“A scrupulously legal but ruthless businessman and a lady cat burglar.”
“There is that.”
“Yes.”
“Wanna go up in flames?”
“I thought you’d never ask….”
For Dallas’s first active experience with her work, Troy had deliberately chosen a job promising to be one of the more difficult waiting in the wings. The inborn caution that had made her hesitate all this time wanted, not for Dallas to prove anything, but for him to understand completely and believe in what she did. She knew very well that a part of his reserve was due to the dangers involved; she also knew that if she’d been a cop or firefighter, that reserve would have been the same.
It was perhaps, she thought in amusement, a bit much to expect a man to accept amicably that his wife was a cat burglar—even a semilegitimate one. But she felt she had to try.
However, she really hadn’t planned on their first midnight expedition together turning into a comedy of errors….
“Damn.” Troy wailed softly.
“What?” Dallas hissed as he crouched beside her outside a formidable wrought-iron fence. It was just past the witching hour of midnight.
“You’re not going to believe this. I don’t believe this,” she muttered. “I forgot my flashlight.”
Dallas tried to resist the temptation and failed. “You’re supposed to be the expert at this,” he pointed out maddeningly in a whisper.
She glared at him in the now-and-again cloud-shrouded moonlight. “I am. It’s all your fault; if you hadn’t distracted me by nibbling on my neck while I was getting the tools together—”
“With the prospect of five to ten staring me in the face, I didn’t know when I’d get another chance to nibble,” he defended himself calmly.
Troy ignored that. “I don’t suppose you brought a flashlight?”
“Sorry.”
“Fine pair of thieves we are,” she grumbled, glancing at her watch and waiting for Jamie to signal that the electrified fence had been switched off.
“Don’t remind me.”
“Business mogul caught hobnobbing with lady cat burglar: film at eleven.”
“Cute.”
“Don’t worry; it’ll be a first offense.”
“Oh, great.”
Troy fought back a giggle, reminding herself sternly that they were here to do a job. The Handie-Talkie clipped to her belt buzzed softly, and she thumbed on the mike.
“It’s off,” Jamie announced, still sounding amused—as he had ever since they’d gone over the plans at Dallas’s house. “Bon voyage, you two.”
Dallas grimaced as she responded with a soft “Okay” and replaced the device on her belt. “Does he have to sound so damn cheerful?” he muttered.
“He thinks it’s funny that scrupulously legal Dallas Cameron is about to break into a house,” Troy murmured.
Remaining heroically silent, Dallas gave her a boost over the fence, holding his breath until she had successfully negotiated the spikes and now-dead electrified wire at the top.
Troy, safely on the inside, watched him as he leaped easily and caught the base of two spikes, pulling himself up and over with an admirable economy of movement. As he landed with a soft thud beside her, she said approvingly, “You did that very well. A born thief.”
He swatted her on the fanny. “Any more editorial comments and I’m going to get violent,” he warned.
She sighed. “I knew I shouldn’t have invited you along: you’re spoiling the party.”
“Shall we get this over with, please?”
The first electronic camera was encountered about a hundred yards into the enclosure, sobering them both. It was panning back and forth slowly, like all the cameras around the perimeter of the place, calling for split-second timing in getting past undetected. Careful planning paid off; they got through, Troy thought, with at least an even chance of not having been seen.
Once past two layers—fence and cameras—of outer security, they encountered the final layer outside the house. And it was one that Dallas had not been looking forward to.
The dogs.
Never one to wait for trouble to find her, Troy halted at the edge of the trees bordering the yard and pulled a high-frequency whistle from her belt. “I hope we have the right frequency,” she muttered.
“You mean you’re not sure?” Dallas asked in alarm.
“Everything in life’s a gamble.”
“I don’t find that very comforting.”
Troy blew through the whistle, adding calmly,
“Not being reckless to the point of insanity, however, I took the precaution of making friends with these two a couple of weeks ago. Let’s hope they remember me.”
The dogs came bounding up seconds later. They were large, lean, and appeared as hostile as Dobermans were reputed to be. They were wearing spiked collars, and announced their presence with rumbling growls.
“Hi, guys,” Troy said cheerfully, stepping forward into the yard.
Dallas stepped forward also, irresistibly reminded of the night they’d met and the bored Doberman that had given him a bad moment while Troy had clung to the wall. These two animals were the opposite of bored: they were both alert and sniffed suspiciously at the two intruders strolling casually toward the house.
“Heel,” Troy said firmly, making a slight motion with one hand as she continued walking.
The dogs immediately took up position on either side of her, pacing along silently.
Dallas glanced down at the dog between him and Troy. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you, but they accepted us awfully quickly.”
“Be thankful they’re guard dogs and not attack dogs,” she murmured. “The latter don’t obey anyone but their handlers.”
Suddenly conscious of the silent yard and darkened house, Dallas lowered his voice. “I’m glad—believe me. Now, are you sure that the security guards aren’t on tonight?”
“Reasonably.”
“Troy—”
“I’m sure, I’m sure. The security guards went with the owner, his wife, and her diamonds. They’ll only be gone one night, and he’s depending on the dogs, the house’s electronic security system, and the perimeter cameras—which are tied in to TV sets in the gatehouse down there by the road. The single guard monitoring the sets is a mystery buff, and he picked up a nice, thick, bloodcurdling paperback this afternoon on his way to work.” She sent Dallas an amused look.
“Satisfied?”
“With your preparation—certainly,” he responded promptly. “It’s all the unknown factors—like sheer bad luck—that worry me.”
“Stop worrying. From here on it’s a piece of cake. That window up there on the second floor has a defective catch; it’s been temporarily disconnected from the security system. The safe is in the room across the hall: it’s wired, but the alarm can be bypassed without disturbing the rest of the system. And a five-year-old could get the safe open in nothing flat.”
Dallas shook his head slightly. “Where do you get all this information?”
“Trade secret,” she murmured, halting a few feet from the house to look upward to the second floor. Absently she held out a hand to him. “Let me have the rope.”
There was a moment of silence.
“I thought you had it,” Dallas said finally in a muffled voice.
She turned slowly to stare at him, fighting an insane urge to sink down on the ground and laugh herself silly. Then she sighed. Keeping her voice even with an effort, she said, “We’d better start searching.”
“For what?” he asked unsteadily.
“A ladder, dammit.”
NINE
FROM THAT MOMENT on the evening went rapidly downhill in a comical slide crossed abruptly with the shock of dangerous reality. Troy had no intention of crossing the no-man’s-land of cameras and fence more than once again, so she discounted her mind’s logical suggesti
on to go back to the fence and summon Jamie to bring a rope.
They looked for a ladder and found one in a simply locked outbuilding. Muttering to herself, Troy picked the lock with Dallas looking on interestedly.
The ladder made the Dobermans nervous, and they had to spend a few moments soothing the dogs. Then, having agreed beforehand that Dallas would remain—reluctantly—outside to keep the dogs calm, Troy went easily up the ladder to the second-floor window with the defective catch.
And found that the catch was defective, all right; it resisted her best efforts to unlock it.
After a frustrating ten minutes Troy leaned an elbow on the top rung and looked down. Dallas, who was holding the base of the ladder steady, and both dogs stared up at her. Torn between laughter and the wry realization that of course, nothing would go right just when she wanted him to see how smoothly everything could go, Troy ignored an impulse just to leave.
“The Fates are against me,” she hissed down to him.
“What’s the problem?” he whispered back.
“Name it. Just name it.”
“I could find a rock.”
Troy bent back to her task with determination.
“I’m going to get this thing open,” she muttered,
“even if we have to stay here all night.”
Twenty minutes later the catch finally gave with a rusty click, and Troy very carefully pried the window open. With a quick, reassuring wave to Dallas, she disappeared into the house.
Dallas leaned against the ladder and gazed down at his restless canine companions, then looked up at the suddenly clear, moonlit sky with a grimace. Great. Just great. All they needed was for the lone guard to decide to take a stroll and spot the ladder propped up against the side of the house.
Troy came back to the window. She made absolutely no sound, and only the dogs’ sudden attention sparked his own as Dallas looked toward the window. Elbow resting on the sill, Troy looked down at him with an indefinable expression on her face. “This has ceased to be funny,” she called down to him in a voice nonetheless filled with laughter.
“What now?”
“The safe isn’t where it’s supposed to be.”
After a moment Dallas said ruefully, “Sweetheart, can we please discuss some other occupation for you?”
Troy sighed. “I just wanted to warn you that this is going to take a while. I may have to comb the whole damn house.”
“This ladder is standing out like a peacock in a chicken coop,” he observed. “There’s not a cloud in the sky now.”
“Take it down and lay it up against the house,” she suggested. “I’ll sing out when I need it again.”
“Sure?”
“I’m sure.” She disappeared from the window a second time.
Dallas carefully let the ladder down and placed it against the brick wall, softly reassuring the two increasingly nervous dogs. He was fighting hard not to laugh; not even the seriousness of the situation could detract from his enjoyment of Troy’s comic despair.
She wasn’t gone long enough for Dallas to begin to worry. Nearly half an hour later, he heard her voice breathlessly commanding, “Catch!” and a neatly rolled painting dropped into his hands. Then, before he could do more than make a slight movement toward the ladder, he saw that she was coming out the window ladder or no ladder.
“Hey!”
“Now get ready to catch me!” she directed, still breathless as she clung to the outside wall and hung on to the windowsill, hastily pulling the sash down as far as possible without lowering it on her gripping hand.
“The ladder—”
“No time!” She lowered herself cautiously until her booted feet were nearly within his reach, then whispered, “Here I come,” and let go.
Dallas caught her with no problem, although the force of her fall caused him to stagger back and sideways in a crazy little step to avoid the inquisitive dogs. He immediately set her on her feet, accepting the need for haste without question.
Softly Troy commanded the dogs to stay, then led the way quickly and quietly across the yard and into the woods. “They’ll get restless in a minute,” she murmured, still moving swiftly. “We’d better be past the cameras, over the wall, and gone when they do.”
Both remained silent while they traversed the woods and eased through the camera-watched corridor. In fact, neither said another word until they were both over the fence and nearly a block away, where Jamie was waiting patiently in his car.
Troy spoke a few brief words to Jamie after handing over the painting so that he could return it to its proper owner the next day. Dallas saw the older man shoot a quick, searching look at her face, and he, too, was concerned by the oddly distant sound of her voice. But Jamie said nothing about his obvious worry, and neither did Dallas until they had gone on to his car and were heading for home.
“What happened back there?” he asked finally, quietly, very conscious of the distance she’d abruptly put between them.
She was silent for a moment, then stirred slightly. “The house wasn’t empty,” she said slowly; only her profile was visible to him in the darkness of the car.
“What happened?” he repeated tensely.
“I spent fifteen minutes dodging a guard,” she murmured in that oddly thoughtful, distant voice.
“An armed guard.”
Dallas felt a sudden chill as he thought of what could have happened to her. His hands tightened on the wheel, and visions of guards with nervous trigger fingers and guns fired hastily in darkness flashed before him.
“He didn’t see me,” she went on almost absently. “But he was heading upstairs toward that bedroom when I came out the window.” She toyed absently with the ski mask still tucked in her belt because she hadn’t thought they would need to cover their faces.
“Troy—” Dallas broke off abruptly, fighting the hardest battle he’d ever fought with himself in an effort to overcome instincts and fears. The natural instinct to wrap a loved one in cotton wool was one he could deal with intellectually; the very real fear for that loved one’s life was something entirely different. He had promised that he’d never ask her to be less than she was, and he meant to keep that promise.
But conflicting emotions and thoughts raced through him. He was proud of Troy, of her abilities and her cool courage. If they’d lived in the days when danger was a constant companion, he would have gloried in the sure knowledge of her fighting by his side. But they didn’t live in those days. Neither of them had to fight for survival, and both had already fought to achieve a certain success in their lives and their businesses.
The difference was that Troy was still fighting, and hers was a potentially dangerous fight. She didn’t fight to prove that she could, or to assert her competence as a woman. No, she had simply looked around years ago and seen an imbalance, an injustice that her particular talents and abilities were suited to combat. So she fought.
There was nothing wrong with that.
But it wasn’t right either, Dallas thought dimly, trying to untangle the chaotic threads of reason and emotion. Did he believe it wasn’t right because women weren’t meant to face the lions of life? They were the builders and givers of life, he reasoned, and it was ironic that life so often saw fit to challenge their basically gentle natures. But if challenged, they fought, and with a strength and courage usually hidden beneath soft exteriors.
The image returned of a woman with a baby on one hip and a rifle on the other, fighting for what was hers, soft eyes turned steely, graceful body taut. Women were born with the innate ferocity of the she-cat protecting her young, and they understood that even if their men did not.
Given a choice, though, Dallas felt, most would hand the guns over to their men and cuddle their babies close. Not because they were weaker than men, or less brave, but just because they were different. Nature had designed men and women to complement one another, not to be the same.
Dallas gradually focused his thoughts on the specific: Troy. She foug
ht her battle with a dedication that could never be belittled. And she balanced the baby and the gun, giving so much of her time to charities, then donning the tools of a dangerous trade and helping people in another way.
But how much, he wondered, could one woman be asked to give? Granted, she’d made the choice herself, and he had to respect that. She had spent five years balanced tautly on the brink of discovery…exposure…danger.
And she wanted to go on.
“Dallas?”
Yanked back to the present, he realized in surprise that the car was parked in his drive. Without a word he got out of the car and came around to her door, opening it for her.
Troy, her face still and a little watchful, accepted his help and then accompanied him up the walk, as silent as he. Once in the house, Dallas went immediately into the den and crossed to a built-in bar in one corner. He looked inquiringly at Troy, accepted her slight shake of the head as an answer, then splashed whiskey into a glass.
She slowly unfastened her tool belt and dropped it onto an end table, moving around to sit on the couch. Watching him and thinking that the black turtleneck sweater and slacks gave him a rakish, compellingly sexy air over and above his good looks, she heard her voice emerge in a neutral tone.
“You’re not going to ask me to give it up, are you?”
He shook his head silently, staring down at the glass in his hand for a second before draining it quickly.
“Why?” she asked.
“I promised,” he answered bleakly.
“And you wish you hadn’t.” It wasn’t a question.
Dallas set the empty glass down with controlled force, then crossed the room to sit down beside her. “And I wish I hadn’t,” he agreed flatly.
She looked at him gravely. “We can’t live with that between us.”
“I know.”
Troy waited silently because she knew from his brooding expression that Dallas had come to some conclusion, some decision about them. And she wondered what he would say and wondered if his words could straighten out the confused tangle of her own thoughts.
He reached for her hand, holding it firmly, and when he spoke, it was obvious that he was weighing each word carefully.