Nowhere showed promise. Damn it all to hell.
He had to dump this card fast.
At the far end of the park he burst into an opening, almost taking a header into one of four life-size sculptures. The area had been arranged as a garden with white concrete-looking statues of Roman-like figures.
This statue garden offered him a slim salvation. For now.
Sam quickly sized up each sculpture. Which one was the best hiding place? He shoved his shoulder against the closest concrete emperor. That heavy sucker didn't budge, which meant whoever owned these would probably send a crew out tomorrow to pick up the statues with a crane when the crowd wouldn't be a problem. But this emperor didn't have a cut deep enough in the folds of his robe or in the rocky-looking base for Sam to drop the small digital photo card into.
Get caught with the goods and he'd die for sure.
Best plan he had was to dump the package then come back later to retrieve his property. Or hope the feds miraculously showed up to save him if he got nailed by Starface's men.
Worst case, Sam would buy some time if Starface did catch him--a real possibility. He'd only give up the card if all other options disappeared. Letting the photos and video stored on this memory device fall into the wrong hands would unleash a mob war like none before.
He'd be the first casualty.
Sam eased over to a statue of a woman with a baby and long tulip leaves sculpted around the base. Deep crevices in the leaves would hide the small plastic case. Perfect.
"The park will close in ten minutes," screeched from a speaker on top of a pole.
"Take care of my booty," he whispered and made a bare flick of his fingers to toss the card into a deep fissure between a leaf and a stem.
He breathed a heavy sigh of relief for five yards and scooted between two large panel trucks. A quick glance past the other side and he started to move.
Strong fingers bit into his shoulder.
Sam froze, then turned to face the ugly mug of Dorvan, who appeared to be in the running for "Bone Breaker of the Year." Dorvan's shorter sidekick kept his back to the two of them, obviously watching the area so no one overheard them.
"Where's the memory card?" Dorvan asked casually.
"I didn't get it. Things fell apart at the meet." Sam licked his dry lips, wishing he could cause a disturbance, but he didn't trust the police not to shoot him in an altercation.
"Starface won't be happy."
"Swear I don't have the card." Sam figured the feds would be all over this place in another five minutes. "Tell you what. Give me a day and I'll come up with it."
A click sounded. Dorvan jabbed a knife tip into Sam's neck. Sam hissed at the sharp pain. His day was definitely going to shit.
"Let's go somewhere you can show me you don't have it." Dorvan jerked Sam along by his collar.
Not the response Sam had been banking on. A throbbing pulse hammered his skull. He would be searched, right down to body cavities.
"THE FESTIVAL OF Emperors has now ended and the park is closing."
CeCe heard sounds as if they echoed through a long tunnel. A male voice talking a minute ago about... what? Now, a bullhorn-type announcement. Her thoughts bounced around until she realized she'd reached the end of her physical limit for standing still but her concentration wouldn't be broken. Discipline came from hours of practice... and growing up in a cautious environment. She never dreamed she'd get so good at this when she took up yoga two years ago to use as a mental lifeline.
Or that her new skills would offer her a way to support herself and a chance at a new life in a new location.
Drawing the first deep breath in almost two hours, she flexed her fingers from their stiff position. Sharp needles of pain shot through her numb limbs with each move.
Click. Whirr. Click. Whirr. Click. Whirr.
What was that? She rolled her head to one side, paused, then to the other side and wiggled her toes. Her skin screamed for moisture, a shower to wash away the white powder coating. Step by step, she eased her body out of the deep Zen state she'd entered to perform her routine.
"I'm from the newspaper. You can talk now can't you?" a male voice said.
Oh, if he was a reporter the sound must have been a camera.
CeCe stretched her stiff face and cracked open her eyelids. She closed them again then forced the heavy lids to lift, squinting until her pupils adjusted to the fading afternoon light. The matte finish makeup made blinking a chore.
"Of course." She smiled. Her voice always sounded rough after a long state of calm, but she loved this job.
And loved finally being on her own at twenty-six with a chance at a normal life.
"I'm with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution." A fortyish man in dark slacks, white collared shirt, and an Atlanta Braves ballcap over short hair stuffed his camera into a green bag on the ground then pulled out a pad and pen. He had kind eyes that matched the photo on the media ID swinging from the lanyard around his neck. "Mind if I ask you a few questions?"
"Not if you don't mind me moving around while I answer." She shifted her weight, loosening up her leg muscles, and felt the crack in the top of her base give so she spread her feet on each side of the center to keep from damaging the area further. She had to find someone who could repair fiberglass this week.
CeCe tossed the baby doll statue to the ground so she could keep flexing her hands.
A woman walking by stopped short, stared in surprise at the doll, then at CeCe, then seemed to figure it all out before she shook her head and continued on.
Normal reaction when a person saw a statue move.
"No problem. You do whatever you need to do." The middle-aged photographer had a notebook out, pen ready in his stubby fingers. "I took a shot before you woke up. Is that what you do? Sleep?"
"It's more of a deep meditative state I learned in yoga." Hours and hours and hours of yoga that offered therapeutic escape and a way to survive. CeCe stretched one leg muscle, then the other.
"Have you done this a long time and do you work for a company?"
"No. I've been doing this for about a month. I contract from a company called Double Take. They're in Atlanta. Will this be in the paper for sure?"
"Yep. Be in tomorrow's. I'm going to take a couple more shots of you while you stretch."
"Sure." CeCe smiled inside, thrilled to show the owner of the company she was an asset. She'd get a copy of tomorrow's paper for the owner of Double Take. In this troubled economy, the newspaper article would be free promotion. Maybe get a couple copies she could send to her family in Canada. All at once her enthusiasm bottomed out. Her family hated any contact with the media and had always warned her about staying out of the public eye, but she was now officially a nobody and living an anonymous existence in a new country. She just had to be careful with her answers.
No one here would recognize her since she'd been hidden away most of her life and the only way anyone would know of her family was if they were in law enforcement or were a criminal.
She avoided both.
The reporter lowered the camera to hang from a strap around his neck. "What's your name and where do you live?"
"Cecelia... Caprice." When would that name come easily to her so she didn't hesitate each time to make sure she said her full name correctly? She'd better get used to it. Besides, Caprice was her true last name, the one she'd had at birth.
"I live in Marietta," she answered. Along with some sixty thousand residents, so no significant details shared there. In spite of her new freedom, she'd been raised in a cautious environment and taught to divulge only specific information when asked a question.
"Has yoga been a hobby of yours for a long time?" he asked over his shoulder then clicked his pen several times, muttering something before he squatted down to dig through his bag. "Hang on a minute."
A hobby? Hell, no, yoga had never been something as simple as a hobby. She'd first started ten years ago, as a way to survive her mother's death and deal with th
e dangers associated with her family. The discipline had kept her sane in a world where her every move was orchestrated and every word had to be thought out and edited before speaking. Impulsive had never been part of her vocabulary, which hadn't been easy as hormones had taken over her body.
She wanted impulsive, damn it.
CeCe kept stretching and squelched a frown at the word "hobby," which reminded her of Jeremy Sunn, her sexy neighbor. He'd hobbled over to where she'd been washing her dual-cab pickup truck and hosing off her statue base the day after they met at the mailbox and asked if she statue-modeled for a hobby.
What was it with men?
Just because she didn't sweat and grunt at her job didn't mean she wasn't working. Did Jeremy think owning a gym was a real job? An image of that ripped body sweating and grunting as he lifted weights in the gym sent a bead of perspiration trickling down between her makeup-caked breasts.
CeCe mentally whitewashed that picture before her camo makeup turned molten and puddled at her feet. She'd never seen him during the first two weeks she'd lived in the neighborhood, then he showed up one day, limping. He'd been hurt on the job but never explained how and she hadn't pressed him. Guys do stupid things when they get in a gym around other men. Jeremy might be embarrassed to explain how he got injured.
She'd decided to join his gym to do her daily yoga routines, but to be honest she suffered another hour of workout to see Jeremy a few extra hours a day.
For someone who had been a major flirt during that first meeting at the mailboxes, Jeremy was all business at his gym, polite to women and sharing a quick joke with guys. At first, she'd been grateful over the remote decorum he maintained there since she had to keep her distance from any man in public. But her gratitude slowly turned an evil green color when she noticed the other women ogling him and overheard their seductive comments about his beautiful body.
Yoga did little to smother her irritation.
CeCe had never enjoyed the freedom to flirt with a guy. Not if she wanted to see him a second time, which was why she made the most of her exclusive time with Jeremy when they were both home by asking him to help her around the yard and making him iced tea.
Anytime she was sure her brother wasn't expected to visit.
Her little adventure had been going great until she'd almost accepted a date with Jeremy after he'd spent yesterday afternoon planting pansies in her yard.
A breath before she'd screwed up and said yes, she'd heard a big sedan engine rumbling nearby that could have been her brother. In a moment of panic over her sibling catching her alone with a man, she'd rebuffed Jeremy with the excuse she had plans with her brother. Then her brother hadn't shown up after all. Talk about feeling like an idiot.
Jeremy had politely backed away.
But those vivid green eyes of his had dulled with the rejection. She hadn't seen him in a full day--a lifetime without his smile and rich voice.
She should have used her I'm-looking-for-a-husband spiel the first time they met, which usually obliterated any male interest for good and spared a man having to face her brothers.
The men in her family loved her but were so overprotective she was sure they'd forced one guy they hadn't approved of years ago to disappear. Yoga had become her life to combat loneliness, her only defense against curling into a ball of despair over feeling trapped. She doubted Jeremy would pass her family's test of "acceptable" men for her to date. They wanted her to find someone who was no threat, someone who would accept whatever she told him about her past and never dig beneath the surface to discover the truth behind the DeMitri family in Canada.
The minute any of them met Jeremy in person they'd know he wasn't a man to be easily fooled or controlled. They'd never find Jeremy selling furniture or running a grocery store. He ran his life and world by his own rules, a prime alpha male--not dating material as far as her brothers were concerned
She envied the hell out of him.
She'd have to bide her time another couple of weeks until Vinny--one of her three older and dangerous stepbrothers--left. He would, once she convinced him she was safe living on her own. When he went back to his wife and kids in Washington, D.C., she could finally accept a date without worry of interference. Until then, no dating and she couldn't let Jeremy know how much she wanted to be with him or what she'd really like to do with that buff body after hours in his gym, late at night with her favorite chocolate-amaretto sauce...
"Ma'am, did you hear me?"
"Huh?" CeCe blinked and stared, embarrassed. She'd forgotten the reporter.
"Sorry about that. I had a call from my wife."
She hadn't heard any phone ring.
He lifted his pad to write. "My last question was if you started yoga as a hobby."
"No, I committed myself to mastering yoga from the first time I tried it. Yoga requires dedication and discipline to reach a point of immersion so that you can stand without moving a muscle for hours." CeCe lifted one foot then the other, testing her muscle response before she risked stepping off the two-foot-tall base.
"I watched you earlier today and couldn't catch you moving at all. What's the longest you've been that still?"
"Two hours and fifteen minutes." She judged the distance to the ground where she wanted to land then moved her foot to take the step.
The base creaked. The crack shifted her balance. She lost her concentration for a second and wobbled but had almost recovered when a male hand appeared in her line of vision.
The hand had long male fingers and was attached to Jeremy.
What was he doing here?
What if her brother saw him this close to her?
CeCe was so busy looking for Vinny she lost her balance, flailing her arms.
"Careful." Jeremy caught her at the waist as she toppled forward. "I've got you."
That deep voice rumbled across her psyche with such assurance she fought off a sigh. Strong hands did have her.
She should have been relieved at his assistance, but her pulse ramped into high gear at being so close to Jeremy. Touched by him. Lean muscle filled out his six-foot-two body nicely.
Better than nicely.
She missed his warm scent she'd breathe in whenever he worked shoulder to shoulder with her in the yard. Smelling him this close was so much better. The women in the gym saw only a tall, blond male with sparkling green eyes. She saw the edge beneath his casual facade, the keen look in his gaze and the unyielding planes in his face.
This was a man with hidden layers and secrets.
Jeremy turned as he lowered her, handling her weight with an ease that confirmed he got plenty of return from his investment in a gym. She'd inherited her mother's five-foot-seven height, but not her mother's determination to keep her weight down.
Life was too short to pass up banana splits.
But she worried about his leg injury even though she'd noticed him adding a series of workouts on the leg exercise equipment this past week.
She stared up into a face that was a study in tanned skin over sharp angles. He'd been gifted with handsome lips that CeCe had felt only in her dreams. Heat swirled in those lightning green eyes, holding her prisoner.
Her lungs refused to expand.
Jeremy's fingers moved up an inch, touching her abdomen, and lit a slow-burning fuse for fireworks waiting to go off in her lower half. If he could do that just by holding her at the waist, she could only imagine what he'd feel like skin to skin.
What he could do with that sexy mouth.
When her feet touched earth again, she was close enough to get a whiff of his aftershave. He smelled masculine, virile... potent, something that could be called All Night Fantasy.
A wicked blend a man wore to lure a woman to a dark place.
She had a very dark bedroom and a few slippery fantasies to match.
"You okay?" Jeremy asked softly, then grinned.
Pure rascal.
What she wouldn't give for just one night with that grin.
When she
didn't answer, his smile softened into concern. "Did you get too warm up there? Your makeup is smudging."
Too warm? More like she might combust if she didn't get away from him.
The reporter's face popped into view over Jeremy's shoulder, reminding her she had an audience.
Not to mention Vinny might show up.
"What are you doing here?" CeCe jumped out of Jeremy's grasp, flinching over the pained look that chased across his face for an instant. He'd never ask her out again if she acted like a witch. "I mean, uh, I'm surprised to see you."
"I was in the area." Jeremy shrugged, but his eyes narrowed as though he was cautious, and who wouldn't be after the way she'd just acted?
Damn it, why couldn't life be simple? Her reaction wasn't her fault. Just a safety precaution to protect him if anyone was watching. She didn't want Jeremy to just disappear one day.
CeCe held up a finger for him to give her a minute, then turned to the reporter. "Do you have any more questions?"
"Can you hear anything while you're in this deep state?"
A flicker of some man's voice crossed her mind. What in the world had he said? Take care of my booty.
She pondered for a moment before answering. "Yes, bits and pieces. I probably hear more than I realize, but the words may not register until later. Anything else?"
"No." He handed her a business card. "This will be in tomorrow morning's paper."
"Thanks." When the reporter left she turned back to Jeremy. "Sorry. I didn't mean to sound unappreciative, but I'm slow to come out of that state so I may be weird the first few minutes." She couldn't get involved with him--yet--but she didn't want to run him off either. Yeah, she realized that might sound contradictory, but she really liked Jeremy. Enough that she didn't want Vinny and her brothers to hurt him.
Which meant no dating right now. Surely Jeremy would give her another chance in a few weeks.
She flicked quick glances around them, watching for any sign of an aggressive Italian male built for championship wrestling heading their way. Jeremy was just as beefed up as Vinny, but she doubted he could take on all three brothers, which was exactly what would happen if Vinny, the attorney in the family, sent out a call to arms.
"That's okay." Jeremy's face eased back into happy as if he accepted her ridiculous excuse for acting like a Chihuahua on acid. "I'll have to get tomorrow's paper."