“What are your thoughts on this?” Mac asked Josh, who rocked back in his chair and shot him a narrowed glance.
“I’ve been backed into a neat corner,” he said.
“Really?”
“Really. Your grandfather has been reminding me how instrumental my grandfather was in starting Nice and Neat. He believes that makes me invested in the outcome.”
“And…” Harley leveled her gaze at him. “Your grandfather threatened to sic Miss Q on him if he doesn’t take the case.”
Mac glanced at his grandfather. “I’m surprised you’re playing the personal card here.”
“Why should you be? It’s one of the few cards I have to play today and I want you to take our case.”
Harley chuckled and Mac looked back at her, even more surprised by her amusement than he was at his grandfather pulling rank. Laughter brightened her eyes and softened the edges of her beautiful face, an unexpected and welcome change from sarcasm.
His grandfather returned her smile. “I want you all to give it some thought before you decide. We’ll pay your professional fees and expenses and in addition, we’re offering generous cash rewards for the recovery of any of the stolen items.”
“I appreciate cash bonuses as well as the next guy, Stuart,” Harley said. “But I see a problem.”
Josh leaned back in his chair, watching her as if he knew what was coming. All eyes fixed on her, waiting.
“We can run background checks on the Nice and Neat employees, but we can’t conduct an investigation any more quietly than the police. If we don’t explain ourselves when we ask questions, we won’t get the answers we need. Now you’re looking at inside surveillance.”
“Which dramatically increases the time it’ll take us to get information,” Josh said.
“Which decreases our chances of recovering the stolen items,” Mac added.
His grandfather waved a hand dismissively. “You’ll work it out. I have total faith in your abilities. That’s why I’m here.”
“Give us twenty-four hours to do some research and discuss the case, Mr. Gerard.” Josh rose, effectively bringing the conversation to an end. “I’ll call you tomorrow to let you know what we come up with. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” his grandfather said.
Mac stood. “I’ll walk you out.”
Leading his grandfather outside, he waited until they were in the parking lot of the upscale professional plaza that housed Eastman Investigations before saying, “I’m sorry they took Grandmother’s rings. I know how much they mean to you. And me, too. I’ll do whatever I can to get them back.”
To Mac, his grandfather looked much the same as he always did. His hair was whiter, his face more lined, but he still stood tall, a proud man with an easy smile. And when he slid his hand over Mac’s shoulder and squeezed, the gesture felt the way it always had—a vote of unfailing confidence.
“I know you will, Mackenzie. I’m counting on it.”
Mac watched his grandfather drive from the parking lot and disappear into traffic, while he considered the various ways to tackle this case. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the elegant diamond and platinum rings in his memory.
“My father used to say my engagement ring was as big as an ice-skating pond,” his grandmother had once told him. “So I’d ask him when he’d ever seen an ice-skating pond, since he was born and bred in New Orleans.”
“When had he?” Mac had asked.
“He hadn’t. He was only teasing me, dear. He could never decide if your grandfather had bought such a big diamond to prove his worth or because he liked to show off.”
This accounting was so different from the grandfather Mac knew that he’d asked curiously, “Why did he?”
She’d gazed lovingly at her rings with one of those expressions that usually warned Mac it was time to dodge a hug. “Your grandfather wanted an engagement ring to always remind me of how much he loved me. He said this was the biggest he could find and it wasn’t nearly big enough.”
Mac had been twelve at the time and remembered feeling uncomfortable with all the talk about love. But as an adult he remembered her words when he thought about his future—he, too, wanted to settle down with a woman he loved with the same devotion his grandfather had shown his grandmother.
And somehow his grandmother had known. After her funeral services, his grandfather had pulled Mac aside and pressed the rings into his hand. “She wanted you to have these, Mackenzie. You were her namesake,” he’d explained. “She wanted to look down from heaven and know you loved someone as much as I loved her.”
Mac had been touched by his grandmother’s regard, but he hadn’t taken her rings that day. He’d known his grandfather would appreciate hanging on to them a while longer and, as Mac crossed the parking lot, he realized his reluctance to give his ex-fiancée those rings should have been his first clue that all hadn’t been right in their relationship.
On some level he’d known his ex hadn’t been his special woman. Fortunately for them both, he’d finally figured out what the problem was before getting himself and a very nice woman involved in a marriage destined to suffer from the same nagging discontent that he’d felt in so many other areas of his life.
He’d spent his whole life maintaining the status quo—thirty-three years of living up to the standards of old-moneyed New Orleans families. He had the education, the portfolio, the toys, the power and the social status to prove it…and a restlessness that had refused to go away.
Until Mac had decided he’d had enough.
Part of his decision to point his life in a new direction was a need to be challenged—by his work and by his pleasures—a part of life he’d ignored for way too long. He’d left his job with the District Attorney’s office and washed his hands of the premeditated mating game he’d been playing since becoming marriage-marketable by society’s standards. He wanted the thrill of the chase and long, hot nights with women who weren’t focused on social standing, prenuptial agreements and gene pools.
What he’d gotten was a hard-on for Harley Price.
Yes, she was beautiful, intelligent and so accomplished as an investigator that his own inexperience had been hammering at his ego. But she was also cynical, impatient and so far removed from her emotions that she had to be the worst possible candidate as a companion to exploring life’s pleasures.
Get over it, she’d told him.
He’d been trying. And while Harley might be willing to live in this state of edgy limbo, he wasn’t. He needed to help his grandfather, not obsess about this woman. He wanted her out of his system, and all he had to do was convince Harley she wanted the same thing.
THE WEEKEND FROM HELL was barely over, and from where Harley sat—the driver’s seat of a friend’s car—the week was shaping up to be just as hellish. Not that there was anything wrong with the antique Firebird.
