between them, a silence filled with their mutual knowledge that she’d had a crush on him all through high school and that he’d known it and used her devotion to his advantage whenever it suited him. He hadn’t been cruel or thoughtless with her feelings. But he had taken her for granted, letting her do the homework he’d neglected, relying on her cram sessions to get him through exams, allowing her to cover for him when there’d been a school vandalism investigation. Back then, the one constant in his life was that she’d always been there, ready and eager to help, gazing adoringly up at him through her big dark eyes. She’d made him feel valuable, important. The buddies who’d believed they were so tough had mocked her as Little Miss Priss and urged Devlin to get into her pants already, but he’d actually liked and respected Mackenzie. She was a nice girl. He’d kept his hands off her because he knew she “loved” him and there was no way he was getting involved in heavy shit like that.
A good plan, even now. No doubt her crush was long over, but he was betting that she had remained the type of girl who took sex and relationships seriously. He never had and never could, as long as he continued in his present circumstances.
“Susceptible,” she repeated scornfully. “You have got to be kidding. High school was ten years ago. I’m not the innocent, gullible schoolgirl I was then.”
But she had covered for him. He wondered why.
Not because of the kiss. It had been even more fierce than he’d intended. Once he’d felt her mouth under his, sensation had taken over. Yes, his intentions had been manipulative and crude. But the emotion that had resulted was unexpected.
Blame it on auld lang syne. High-school reunion. Lost youth. A handy excuse, said the distant, stubborn, ethical part of him that refused to die.
“So then why don’t you call the cops,” he said, getting an idea.
Her head jerked up. “What?”
“Tell them there are two suspicious men prowling the area. You don’t have to leave your name.”
“But…” She blinked a couple of times, scowling deeply as the various scenarios hit home. He could tell when she figured it out. She inhaled with amazement, her mouth dropping open. “Those men aren’t the police.”
He ticked a finger at her.
“Who are they?”
Sloss and Bonny were in charge of a ring of thieves and petty criminals who fenced their goods at Cheney’s pawnshops. Devlin was supposedly one of their minions. For now Mackenzie would have to believe that.
“You don’t want to know.” He cut her off when she started to protest. “Trust me, the less I tell you, the better.”
“God, Devlin. What are you involved in?”
He shifted, becoming more and more aware of that uneasy, niggling voice inside him. Enough common decency was buried somewhere in there that he knew he shouldn’t be using Mackenzie this way. His being in her neighborhood wasn’t as complete a coincidence as he wanted her to believe. Ever since he’d seen the reunion invitation and class roster a month ago, he’d been thinking about her. Curiosity, he’d told himself, and nothing more. No way was he planning to come near her—that was too dangerous for both of them.
Yet here he was.
The irony was not delicious.
“I know, I know,” she said. “If you tell me, you have to kill me.” She laughed with a hollow sarcasm.
“That’s not even funny.”
Her face fell. She nipped at her bottom lip, then winced when that hurt. “Why do you want me to call the cops? I would think you wouldn’t want them anywhere near here.”
“They’ll do at least a drive-by and Sloss—” He tilted his head toward the street. “Those two will leave. Then I can leave.” He paused. “That’s what you want, right?”
“Yes, of course. But I don’t want you to get killed, either.”
“I’ll go out the back.”
“There’s not much cover back there. What if they’re waiting for you?”
Devlin had thought of that. Sloss was a bulldog—slow, thorough and unrelenting. He’d nose into every building and sniff out every avenue of escape before he was satisfied that Devlin had given them the slip. Even police intervention wouldn’t keep Sloss out of the way for long.
“Are you arguing for me to stay?”
Mackenzie looped the blanket over her shoulders, shawl-style. Her hair had dried into spikes and her nylons bagged at her knees and ankles. She looked like a punk grandma. “I guess you can sleep on the couch.”
“Thanks.” He let out a soft groan as he settled back. His ribs ached fiercely from Bonaventure’s vicious kicks. Judging by the stickiness where his shirt was plastered to his skin, the nasty thug had managed to draw blood, as well. After Bonny had caught Devlin supposedly stealing from the latest haul, he’d called in Sloss and they’d taken him to a waterfront warehouse and alternated between questioning and beating him. He hadn’t given up a single incriminating detail. After three months on this job, there was no way in hell he’d be made by two small-time crooks.
Mackenzie sat forward, rocking nervously. “Okay. I’ll make the call, if you think that will scare them off. But first you have to tell me the truth. How did you land on my doorstep? Were you waiting for me to come home?”
“No. This isn’t a social call, Mackenzie. I swear I wouldn’t be here if those two thugs hadn’t been breathing down my neck. I never meant to endanger you.”
“Yet you were ‘in the neighborhood.’ You knew my address.”
“I explained that. It was coincidence.” A slight exaggeration. He’d thought he’d lost Sloss and Bonny the first time, after he’d worked free of the ropes and slipped out of the warehouse while they argued over what to do with him. Getting out of their neighborhood had seemed like a good idea—until he realized that he had no money, no weapon, no ID and nowhere to go. It wasn’t as though he could walk into a pawn shop and cash out the ruby he’d managed to squirrel away.
He’d headed for Broadway, where there would be plenty of people around for safety. Because Mackenzie had been on his mind—he had to think of something pleasant and real to keep himself from crossing the line into the dark side—he’d thought of crashing with her as a last resort, but only if it had been a one-hundred-percent safe situation. By a twist of perverse luck, Sloss and Bonny had spotted him on Broadway, heading this way. Desperation had brought him running to Mackenzie’s door, minutes ahead of the pair of henchmen.
Devlin would have rather kept on going, but when he saw her on the street and knew she’d recognize him there was no other option.
If lady luck was shining on him, Sloss and Bonny had believed her when she’d spoken to them at the door and wouldn’t be back.
If not…Mackenzie would need watching. Now that he’d dragged her into this, he’d have to protect her. A complication he didn’t need, even though she sure was a sight for sore eyes. And a deadened heart.
She grimaced, still not trusting him. “You should have come to the reunion
