The Kane Cross (Cross 1)

Baxter looked out the window trying to gather his thoughts. "Oh crap! I'll be lucky to get back to Boston on Monday. Wait a minute, why were you in my house?" Anger took over. Was she a tabloid reporter who came for a story? Whoever she was, he had treated her like a whore.

She bit her lip for a long time. She looked like a scared animal. Finally after an eternity, she squeaked, "Tate."

"Tate? My sister Tate." His anger turned into something he rarely felt. Kasper and Doyle were far more familiar with humiliation, maybe not with regret.

Ivy nodded. "She arranged for me to stay here." She pulled out the envelope with all the details.

He took it and looked at it before throwing it on the coffee table and missed. "Dammit, Danielle."

"It's Ivy." She sunk into the sofa.

"I know that. My assistant, Danielle. I told her I was going to ski, and she never mentioned our houseguest."

"Maybe. Maybe she..." Ivy shook her head.

He needed to reign in his emotions. "What were you going to say?"

She looked at him. "Just that she might have thought you were planning to ski Vail."

The girl was smart, but there was something wrong with her story. "Aren't you a little old to be a student? And how do you know Tate?"

"Law school. I can only afford to go part time."

Every time he tried to push the blame, it bounced off her right back to him. "You're that friend."

"What friend?" She looked at him with a slightly cocked head.

He wished she wouldn't look at him, because memories of their time together made him want to get her out of her clothes and... Keep your wits, Bax. "Tate told me she had one friend she trusted." He frowned at the memory. "She said you never asked for anything."

She smiled. "Only some notes, but for the record she borrowed mine more often."

He frowned. "Until you asked for a ski vacation."

"It wasn't like that. She offered. I have a week off and for some personal reasons I said yes. If you're taking inventory she paid for my hotel room and arranged for me to fly here in a friend's plane."

"Jimmy's?" His friend hadn't mentioned his taxi service.

"Does he drink scotch and work nonstop?"

Baxter laughed at her simple description. "You just described me. He didn't seduce you?"

She flung her body off the sofa. "No! That would be you. I'm not a whore. I hung out with the girl in the galley. She's very nice. Your Dani is too."

"She's not mine. Danielle is my employee." He calmed down and identified the root of his anger. "You can't tell anyone about this."

"Why would I tell anyone I acted like a hooker?"

"I treated you like one. I'm sorry."

"It takes two. I could have set you straight, but then you..." She shook her head and walked into the kitchen.

He followed and turned on the fancy coffee machine. "What did I do, Ivy?"

His using her name jerked her head around from looking out at the snow. She sounded like she was retelling a story from long ago. "You kissed me. It was a very good kiss."

He cleared his throat. "I did a lot more than kiss you." His eyes raked down her body. Paying her for sex was one thing, but he paid her to sleep in his arms. "Fuck!" He hadn't paid her at all. Something nagged at the back of his mind. Maybe it was his worry about his sister. Poor Tate, so much for true love. He thought briefly of the cross in his suitcase.