The Girl Who Knew Too Much(48)

“How much did she want?”

“The asking price was one hundred dollars.”

He whistled softly. “That’s a lot of cash to expect a reporter to come up with on short notice.”

“I told her I didn’t have that kind of money. She immediately dropped the price to fifty and, finally, to twenty bucks. In the end she agreed to negotiate. I got the feeling she’ll take whatever I’m willing to pay. I’m sure my editor will cover the expense, provided the end result sells newspapers.”

“I’ll take care of paying our informant,” Oliver said.

“That’s not necessary.”

“I said I’ll take care of it,” he repeated evenly.

“If you insist. I can’t believe we’re arguing about who will pay Daisy Jennings.”

“Neither can I.” Oliver was silent for a beat. “Doesn’t sound like she bargained very hard.”

“I think she’s desperate. And very nervous. She knows something, Oliver. I have to talk to her.”

“I’ll come with you to the meeting tonight.”

“I had a hunch you were going to suggest that.”

“It’s not a suggestion.”

“I’ll admit, I’d like to have you with me. But Daisy was adamant that I show up alone. Like I said, she is scared.”

“Don’t worry, she won’t see me.”

Irene thought about that. Then she smiled.

“Of course not,” she said. “You’re the Amazing Oliver Ward.”

“Not so amazing, not anymore. But I can still pull off a reasonably convincing disappearing act.”

She used one hand to hold her wind-tossed hair out of her eyes and turned to look at him.

“I believe you,” she said.

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea—except that in some ways you remind me of someone I knew a long time ago. If he made a promise, you knew he’d keep it or go down trying.”

“Yeah? Who was he?”

“My grandfather.”

Oliver winced. “I’m a few years older than you, Irene, but I’m not that much older.”

“Oh, for pity’s sake, I didn’t mean to imply that I thought you were elderly—just . . . reliable. Dependable. Trustworthy.”

“Like a good dog?”

“Where I come from, reliable, dependable, and trustworthy are all valuable things. They are also, I have discovered, rare.”

“How the hell do you know I’m all of those things?”

“You can tell a lot about a man by the people around him. Your friend Luther Pell trusts you. I doubt that he has many friends that he does trust.”

“Pell’s business enterprises drastically limit the number of trustworthy people he meets.”

She smiled. “Which makes it even more interesting that you and he are friends.”

Oliver watched her intently. “Some would say that the fact that my closest friend in Burning Cove has underworld connections is not a particularly good character reference.”

“I work for a newspaper that specializes in celebrity scandals and sordid gossip. I’m a little short on sterling references, too. Does that worry you?”

“No,” he said. “No, it doesn’t.”

He did not say anything else but she was intensely aware of the electric tension in the atmosphere between them. She was almost certain that he was going to kiss her. She did not know if that was a very good idea or a very bad one. She only knew that she wanted to find out what it would be like to kiss Oliver Ward.

“Irene,” he said.

She touched her fingertips to his mouth.

“Probably best not to talk about it,” she said. “Just do it.”

Heat flared in his eyes. His hand tightened around the back of her neck, and then his mouth was on hers.

It was a long, slow burn of a kiss. She went into it with no particular expectations, just a compelling curiosity. That, she concluded, was probably why she was blindsided by the sheer force of the desire that swept through her.

She had never been kissed like this. Oliver crushed her mouth under his as if he had been thirsting for the taste of her for a very long time, perhaps forever. He kissed her as if nothing else in the world was more important than that moment and the embrace, as if he wanted her more than he wanted his next breath.

If it was an illusion crafted by a skilled lover, it was a completely convincing one. She did not want to know the secret behind the trick. She wanted only to savor the magic.

A thrilling excitement made her head spin. She wound her arms around his neck and returned the kiss with a sensual abandon that stunned her. If she had been asked, she would have said she wasn’t physically capable of such a response. A small voice in her head whispered that Bradley Thorpe would have concurred with that opinion. But, then, Bradley Thorpe was a lying, cheating bastard, she reminded herself, and, in hindsight, a boring lover.