Wonders Never Cease (Harlequin Super Romance) Read online

Ben reached out to draw her chin upward so he could read her eyes; he’d never met a worse liar. “But what?”

  “My source disappeared.”

  “Disappeared? As in Jimmy Hoffa?”

  A look of distress enveloped her features. “No. Heavens, no. I think she just decided to make herself scarce because she’s afraid of getting involved. People do that, you know. Even friends.”

  “Dorry Fishb—”

  She cut him off by thrusting herself against him and kissing his lips. Although he might have argued that a simple “Shush” would have worked, he couldn’t dispute the effectiveness of her method. Suddenly words lost meaning as feelings took over. Her lips were cold, but so very soft and sweet.

  The kiss may have started off as a device to stop him from talking, but it quickly escalated to serious exploration. He was about to deepen it—to part her lips with his tongue and taste her, when she suddenly dipped—as if her knees buckled. He lifted his head and locked one arm around her back.

  A shiver passed through her body. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Jill’s eyes were closed. In the shadowy light, her skin looked too pale, except for an unhealthy slash of pink at the top of her cheekbones.

  “A little dizzy,” she said softly. Opening her eyes, she looked at him, blinking her long curly lashes to focus. “Do you have that effect on every woman you kiss?”

  Ben tried not to smile but he couldn’t help himself. “You kissed me, remember?”

  A blush added to the scarlet glow in her cheeks. “How wanton! Mattie would never approve.”

  A group of smokers approached the door to reenter the building, so Ben stepped back. He took Jill’s hand and led her to a quiet corner a few feet away. She followed docilely, but he had the distinct impression something wasn’t right. “Maybe we should sit down and talk about this,” he suggested.

  She started to shake her head but suddenly stopped, blinking. With a faint moaning sound, she pulled her hand from his to place it at her temple.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “My head is spinning. Fresh air.” She pivoted and rushed through the open door, past two couples standing beside one of the rock columns of the veranda. Ben noticed Jill’s ex-husband and wife exchange an interested look.

  He ignored them as he hurried to Jill’s side. She hadn’t gone far. His first inclination was to pull her into his arms, but in the back of his head he heard a voice reminding him that she was a reporter searching for clues that could bring down this development, which the mayor claimed was the key to Ben and Czar’s future.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, keeping his voice neutral.

  Her shoulders rose and fell with a vocal sigh. A vapor cloud escaped in the chilly air. She wrapped her arms around her to disguise a shiver. “My stomach’s queasy. Must have been the crab puffs.” She glanced back at him. “Or nerves.”

  Ben was sorry he’d abandoned his water. “Maybe the champagne.”

  Her chin turned his way as if reading something in his tone. “I only had half a glass. It didn’t taste very good. Besides, I decided I was being the worst kind of hypocrite. I can’t drink Peter’s champagne while trying to put a stop to his project.”

  Another shiver rocked her. He unbuttoned his jacket, removed it and drew it over her shoulders. When the jacket slipped around her, she seemed to melt backward into his arms. He closed his arms around her. Her chilled flesh was a stimulating contrast to his overly warm body. Her scent was the sexiest perfume he’d ever smelled.

  “What kind of cologne are you wearing?” he asked. His tone seemed unnaturally husky. Could she hear the desire in his voice?

  She rolled her shoulders as if trying to absorb the warmth from the silk lining of the jacket. “I don’t remember. My mother sends me a new bottle every Christmas. No doubt hoping one of these wonder-smells will snag me a man.”

  Although her words were playful, her tone was flat, drawn. She leaned into him—not suggestively, but for support.

  “You need a cup of coffee and something to eat.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think my stomach…could we leave?”

  “Good idea.”

  She turned around and pressed herself to him in an apologetic manner. “This is terrible. I really did want to introduce you around.” He tried to pay attention to what she was saying but was distracted by the feel of her body against his—a perfect fit. “Most of the city council’s here…” She stopped, gulping in a breath of air. “I need to lie down.”

  Ben was at his best when there was a clear course of action. He knew how to make things happen in an expeditious manner; it was one of the reasons he was such a good cop. He could plow through obstacles—be it two gangs ready to hack up each other or an ex-husband ready to cast stones. If Czar had been at his side, the whole thing would have gone that much more smoothly.

  This is the last time we take her car, Ben told himself.

  JILL WASN’T SURE how he did it, but Ben Jacobs seemed to have more control over time than the Time God. Before she could get her thoughts together, he’d collected her things, retrieved the keys and was leading the way to her car, which was parked right beside the exit.

  He had to help her crawl into the car. “Damn dress,” she muttered, puzzled by the way the words seemed to hang on her tongue as if dipped in peanut butter.

  Echoes of the door closing pulsed in her head. “I need aspirin.”

  While Ben walked around to the driver’s side, she groped for the bottle she kept in the glove compartment. Her fingers felt too fat to work properly; the bottle eluded her. She was vaguely aware of Ben filling up the space beside her and watching her.

  “Need help?”

  Her tongue felt swollen. She nodded.

  He located the small white bottle and shook two tablets into his palm. “Two enough?”

  He smiled. Sorta. Jill liked it when he smiled. Too bad he didn’t smile more often. Maybe she’d tell him that. Someday.

  “Need water?”

  The yellowish-white pills seemed to glow eerily in the parking-lot light. Her stomach suddenly lurched, and she dropped the pills. “I need to go home,” she said, not liking the whiny sound in her voice.

  He adjusted the seat and the mirrors, put on his seat belt then turned the key. He took his sweet time exiting the parking lot. Jill’s increasing nausea made her snap. “This isn’t a little old lady’s car. It likes to go fast.”

  “Well, I don’t. Just sit back and relax.”

  Jill reached down between the seat and the door and pulled the lever that made her seat recline. Maybe lying flat would help ease her discomfort.

  “Which way?” Ben asked. The car crept to a stop. “Are your brakes always this squishy?”

  Jill lifted her chin and squinted. “To the…that way.” She pointed to the right. “Road goes straight out. Don’t get off. Can’t get lost.”

  He turned the steering wheel and stepped on the gas.

  “Last stop sign till town. The entrance booth closes at night.” Jill was proud to get so much information off in one breath. She felt terrible about not being a better hostess. She knew a lot about Yosemite, but for some reason none of the information was accessible to her at the moment.

  She was tempted to open the window for fresh air, but her body was racked with shivers. “Is my head still attached to my neck?”

  She saw him glance sideways, his gaze lingering at her neck. “Is it the dash lights or are you green?”

  Another serious wave of nausea made her groan. “I’m never going to eat crab again.”

  Ben stepped on the gas. The car surged forward.

  Jill closed her eyes. A bead of sweat formed on Jill’s upper lip, and her armpits tingled. She swallowed repeatedly, but the bile kept rising.

  She opened her eyes. The moon cast an eerie, disorienting glow. The trees were too tall and the rock fortress walls too far away. “Stop the car,” she said. “I’m going to be sick.”

  He seemed to h
esitate. The car didn’t slow down in the least.

  “I mean it, Ben. You have no idea how hard it is for me to admit that. Mattie’s Rule Number…something—never throw up on a first date.”

  “Your brakes are weak.”

  She heard his foot pumping the brake pedal, which slapped uselessly against the floorboard. They probably weren’t doing more than fifty-five but it felt like a hundred to Jill, whose vision was blurred with tears. Ben grabbed the emergency brake beside Jill’s left elbow.

  “Nooo,” she wailed. “Won’t that hurt the car?”

  She wrapped her hands around his but couldn’t stop him from pulling up on the leather-encased handle. An ugly screeching sound of metal against metal produced a halty braking action.

  Jill choked back whatever she’d been about to say. Suddenly she didn’t care if he dropped the entire engine in the middle of the road. She needed the car to stop. Now.

  Ben worked the hand brake like a pro while easing the car onto the wide gravel shoulder, where on a sunny day there might be a throng of tourists taking in the majesty of El Capitan. At least Jill could be thankful she wasn’t going to have to share this moment with a hundred tourists.

  As the car inched to a stop, Jill opened the door and leaned out, hoping she might be spared this humiliation by falling beneath the car’s still-moving tires.

  No such luck. Ben let go of the brake long enough to grab the material of his tux coat, which she was still wearing. The slight rending sound was followed by the noisy purging of her stomach.

  As the spasms stopped, the car rolled to a jerky stop. The engine continued to run. Kenny G’s expressive saxaphone crooned sweetly.

  A hand gently pulled her back inside the car from which she was hanging like a limp rag. Mortified beyond words, she wiped her mouth and nose with the only fabric at her disposal then shuddered when she realized it was the sleeve of Ben’s tux.

  She was dimly aware of Ben rummaging through her glove compartment until he found a blue-and-white kerchief she kept on hand for T-top days. He used it to wipe her eyes and whatever awful stuff was plastered to her cheek. She refused to look at him.

  “Here’s a mint,” he said, holding out a little white circle. “Feeling better?”

  “A…little,” she stuttered, between leftover hiccups. “I might live. Not that that’s something I’m proud of.”

  “Frankly, I’d call that providential vomiting,” he said cryptically.

  Jill looked at him. “What do you mean?”

  “If you hadn’t been sick, we might have gotten out of the valley before discovering the brakes were bad.”

  “My brakes are not bad,” she snapped defensively.

  “They don’t work,” he reminded her. “And that’s not a good thing when you’re going down curvy mountain roads in the dark.”

  A sudden image jumped into her brain: her little red car flying off a mountain curve, plummeting into the icy waters of the Merced River below. “Oh, no,” she whispered, a wave of panic cleaving through her.

  Ben made a sound of anger, but it must have been directed at himself because he very gently took both of her shaking hands in his. “It wasn’t even close,” he told her, his voice somber and reassuring. He leaned in and pressed a warm, sweet kiss on her forehead. “The emergency brake worked, and I’ve been trained in defensive driving.”

  Jill looked at him, wondering if she should confess her fears. “But I haven’t. If I’d have been alone…”

  He squeezed her hand. “But you weren’t.” He seemed to make up his mind about something and reached for the door. “You wait here. Keep the door locked and the engine running. We passed a service station a mile or so back; I’ll call a tow truck.”

  “No,” Jill cried, clawing at the sleeve of his fancy white shirt. “I’ll go, too. My towing card, my car.”

  She squeezed between his chest and the steering wheel to reach the lever that opened the trunk. “I keep a change of clothes in my gym bag.”

  He seemed to shrink back to minimize contact.

  I probably smell like eau d’ vomit.

  Despite the pounding in her head, Jill scrambled out of the car.

  “Jill, you’re not feeling well,” Ben said, getting out. “I’ll be right back. If you get scared—”

  She stopped rummaging through the black nylon tote bag in the trunk. “My cell phone,” she exclaimed. “It’s in the side compartment.”

  Ben appeared a moment later and handed her the slim pink and purple phone. She pressed a button. Even in the moonlight she could see it lacked sufficient signal to make a call.

  She handed it back to him.

  “The Communication God is on strike?” he asked.

  The warm teasing in his tone made her impulsively wrap her arms around him and squeeze. “You’re amazing. Not many guys would be this understanding. Thank you.”

  He went completely still, and Jill realized she’d over-stepped her bounds, again. He must think her a terrible tease. First she kissed him, then she hugged him in the moonlight.

  Briskly turning back to the trunk, she dug in the bag to produce sloppy sweatpants and an oversize flannel shirt. “Turn your back. This will only take a minute.”

  He stepped away—apparently to return her useless phone. “Shouldn’t you rest? Food poisoning can be a tricky thing.”

  “What if it wasn’t the crab?”

  The driver’s-side door closed. As she bent over to put on the loose navy pants, she heard the crunch of gravel beneath his shoes. When he spoke, the sound came from in front of her car. “What do you mean?”

  “What if my stomach problems and bad brakes are connected?”

  He didn’t say anything, but Jill sensed his doubt.

  “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s very real to me now. I’d go crazy sitting here. Can you imagine what I’d be thinking while you were gone?”

  “Tell me,” he said.

  She peeked around the upraised hood of the trunk. “That you were part of the conspiracy, bought off to make sure I didn’t find out the truth about the Excelsior project.”

  “Oh, really,” he said with obvious humor.

  Jill kicked off her satin slippers one at a time and drove her feet into beat-up running shoes. “Instead of calling for a tow truck, you’d call Peter, who would send his hit men to finish me off and dump my body in an abandoned mine shaft.”

  She removed Ben’s jacket and carefully laid it aside, then unzipped her satin gown and let it fall to the ground. Her fingers were thick and clumsy as she struggled with her heavy flannel shirt.

  Despite the stillness of the evening, she completely missed Ben’s movement until he suddenly appeared in front of her. “You have some imagination,” he said. His voice was low and husky.

  He brushed aside her fingers and took over the buttoning. Fatherlike.

  She lifted her chin to look at him. Her protest died on her lips. She didn’t understand the serious look in his eyes, but she could read the sexual tension behind it. Her lips parted in invitation but immediately pressed closed when her mind cried, You just threw up and you haven’t brushed your teeth.

  Ben finished buttoning then used his knuckle under her chin to keep eye contact. “Do you honestly think I’d let anything happen to you before I have a chance to get to know you better?”

  Jill wasn’t quite sure how to take that. “Does that mean once you get to know me better I’m on my own?”

  He smiled—right before he dipped his head to kiss her.

  Jill turned away. “I don’t think one mint will do the trick here,” she said, embarrassed beyond description.

  He ran the back of his cool, smooth hand along her cheek as if tracing her blush. “I think you’re afraid something’s happening between us and you’d rather not deal with it right now.”

  His frankness surprised her. Most men played games when it came to feelings. “Well, you gotta admit, my timing isn’t the greatest. We have this romantic night, and I puke my guts out.
”

  He lowered his head so their foreheads touched. His hands gently cupped her arms, moving slowly up and down. “I am attracted to you, Jill. Satin or flannel—doesn’t seem to make a difference. So a little food poisoning isn’t going to turn me off, either.”

  She looped her arms around his neck. The fine material of his shirt felt liquid beneath her chilly fingertips. One hand tested the solidity of his shoulder muscles; the other toyed with trim, baby-fine hairs at his neckline.

  His mouth pressed against hers, but before his tongue could gain entry, she turned her head away and sank against him. Suddenly the tension, her illness, problems with the brakes overwhelmed her. Tears filled her eyes and she pressed her face to his chest. “I’m a mess,” she blubbered. “This is crazy.”

  He soothed her with long, slow strokes against her flannel shirt and murmured soft words of comfort. “You’re right. It’s crazy to be standing out here freezing to death when we could be home in my hot tub.”

  Jill looked up. “The Mobrick house has a spa?”

  He shook his head. “It’s my house now, remember. I put one in.”

  He stepped back, but kept one hand on her arm as if afraid she might collapse. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”

  Jill looked down at her feet. Nylons with tennis shoes. What would Mattie say? She bent down and used a finger to slip her heel inside the worn shoe. After tossing her dress in her gym bag, she handed Ben his tuxedo jacket then closed the trunk. “Let’s go.”

  “SHOO.”

  Jill looked at the dog beside her. “Does he mean you or me?”

  Czar barked. A solid, throaty woof that made her flinch then laugh at her own reaction.

  “Both of you,” Ben grumbled, nudging her out of his way as he moved from stove to refrigerator. “Peppermint tea will work wonders on that stomach of yours, and even though you’re not hungry, I’m starving.”

  Jill scooted to safety behind the island, Czar at her heels.

  He gave his dog a dark look and said nothing. Jill wondered whether he regretted his invitation. Ever since the tow-truck driver had dropped them off at Ben’s house, he’d been acting different—uptight. Not that she blamed him. They been squeezed together in the cab of the truck for over an hour.