Trust Me on This - Jennifer Crusie [52]
“Right,” Dennie said, a little breathlessly. “You’re planning on staying around until I’m ninety-six.”
“No,” Alec said, pulling her closer. “I am not planning on it. Hauling you out of trouble is the last thing a sane man would plan on. But I’ll be there just the same.”
Dennie seemed strangely calm. “You think?”
Alec took a deep breath. “I know. What do you think?”
“Oh, boy.” Dennie smiled up at him, a weak smile but a real one. “I don’t know what I think, but I know it feels awfully good to hear you say it.”
Alec traced her lips with his finger. “Well, that’s a start. The important thing is, you know you’re not alone in this.” On an impulse, he kissed her forehead, and then her nose, and then gravity took him to her lips, and the kiss there was soft and light and comforting and made him breathless. “You’re not alone, babe,” he whispered against her lips, and then she buried her face against his neck, and he wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly.
When she pulled back a few minutes later, her face was flushed, but she was Dennie again. “You really know how to get to a woman, Prentice,” she told him.
“It’s my charm,” he said. “Although you seem to be pretty resistant to it in general.”
“My defenses are down this afternoon.” Dennie snuggled closer. “God, you feel good.”
“Remember that,” Alec said, hating what he had to say next. “Because I have to change the subject here.” She looked up at him then, and Alec said, “I need your help to get Bond.” When she didn’t say anything, he went on. “Brian Bond is a real estate con. He regularly swindles people out of their savings. He’s bad, and he should be in jail, and my boss and I would like to put him there. But we need your help.”
“I thought you had that under control,” Dennie said, pulling away a little and frowning. “Didn’t Victoria—?”
“We hit a snag. Bond owns the land he’s selling.”
Dennie’s frown deepened. “So where’s the fraud?”
“He’s telling people it can be developed, and he’s selling it for about ten times what it’s worth.”
“Oh, yeah.” Dennie nodded. “The I’ve-got-the-EPA-fixed bit.”
Alec shook his head. “He doesn’t even tell them that. He says the EPA will be fixed, not specifically by him. He puts nothing on paper. He’s not breaking the law.” He scowled. “Except morally. By the time the people who have bought the land have caught on, he’ll be long gone. And even if they caught him, they probably wouldn’t have much recourse. They’ll have paid prime dollar for worthless swamp, but as long as he didn’t promise them anything different—”
Dennie broke in. “So where do I come in?”
“One of the selling points he’s been using on me is what a great place this would be for me to settle down. And he’s seen us together. As a matter of fact”—he paused, unsure of how she’d take the next part—“when I thought you were working with him, I told him you were the perfect woman. He thinks I’m crazy about you.”
Dennie nodded, and her curls brushed his cheek and derailed his train of thought again. “I am the perfect woman,” she said, “and you should be crazy about me. Get to the point.”
I am crazy about you, Alec told her silently and then jerked his mind back to the problem at hand. “We get engaged, we meet Bond for drinks, I get ready to buy the property for you, and you spoil the deal.”
Dennie blinked. “I what?”
Alec grinned. “You bat your eyes and tell me that you want a house, not a lousy piece of swamp. I tell Bond, no sale.”
Dennie nodded. “I get it. And then he promises us a house, which he can’t deliver.” She looked thoughtful. “Is he that dumb?”
“It won’t be the first time he’s sold something he didn’t have,” Alec said.
Dennie thought about it some more. “I’ll do it. On one condition.”
“Oh, hell,” Alec said, letting go of her. “Can’t you