Standing in the Shadows (McClouds & Friends #2)(65)

She slanted him a warning look. "It'll take as long as it takes, Connor, as you well know. Did Mr. Mueller arrive safely last night?"

"When I informed him that you would be unable to dine with him, he changed his plans," Dobbs said. "He will meet with you later this week when he passes through Seattle. Had he stayed, he would have been uncomfortably rushed to make his plane to Hong Kong."

Connor let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

"Oh. I see." Erin's voice was subdued. "I suppose that makes sense, although I'm sorry that I won't be meeting him today."

"Damn shame," Connor said. "Ain't that just too bad."

Nigel Dobbs gave him a freezing look. "Indeed it was."

"You two should have stayed here last night," Tamara said. "It would have been a pleasure to have you both at dinner."

"We wanted to stay in our usual love nest," Connor said. "I can't bear to leave this gorgeous woman unaccompanied." He wrapped his arm around Erin and gave her a squeeze. "I'd pine away without her."

Tamara raised her dark, perfectly shaped brows. "How very sweet," she said. "A model fiance."

"I try," Connor said.

"Keep trying," Tamara said.

"Ahem. Shall we?" Dobbs said icily. "Follow me, please."

Erin tugged at his arm, but Connor was frozen in place, staring at Tamara. "Have we met?" he asked.

Her smile widened, dazzled. "If you have to ask, then the answer is no," she purred. She placed her hand on his chest, and pressed. "Believe me, Mr. McCloud. If we had met, you would remember."

Connor followed them all down the corridor. Erin was freshly pissed off at him again for some reason, but hell, she so often was. He'd better get used to it and not let it block his concentration. Something was nagging him about the redhead.

He'd seen her somewhere. That prickling feeling on the back of his neck was a sure sign. But what Tamara had said was literally true: aside from his weird freak memory, he was a relatively normal flesh and blood guy. No way was he capable of forgetting that face or that body.

So what? So where? How? Damn.

He stared at Tamara's back as she marched ahead of them, heels clicking against the pavement. He deliberately unfocused his eyes and brain and threw out the net in his head, to reel in vague, half-formed connections, memories. They flashed by like silver fish, at the blinding speed of thought. The color of her suit jacket melted, blended like ocean foam. A vague pattern began to form. He was reaching for it, grasping—

The vicious elbow jab to his ribs took him by surprise. "Oof!" he grunted. "What the f*ck was that about?"

Erin's face was pink, her lush mouth compressed into a furious line. "Could you be slightly less obvious in your ogling, please?"

Then it sank in. Ogling. Tamara. His vacuous gaze while he fished in his mind, probably focused on Tamara's ass.

Whoa. This was beautiful. Erin was jealous.

His mood soared. He rubbed the sore spot on his ribs, grinning. "Sorry, sweetheart."

"You are vulgar and crass, and I am going to make you pay."

He swooped down and landed a smacking kiss close to her mouth before she had a chance to jerk away. "I can hardly wait, babe."

If Tamara Julian and Nigel Dobbs overheard their whispered conversation, they made no sign. Connor groped around in his mind for the ephemeral, half-formed pattern, just for the hell of it, but it was long gone, and the space in his mind that it had risen up from was now shut up as tight as a clam. Damn. Nothing to be gained by pounding around for it and wrecking his focus now. He'd have better luck just letting go of it, waiting for it to pop up later in some distracted moment while merging on the freeway, or taking a shower.

It was maddening to have lost it, but almost worth it just to know that he was capable of making Erin Riggs jealous. What an ego rush.

Dobbs and Tamara stopped at a handsome carved door. Dobbs unlocked it and waved them in. They entered a room with a long gleaming wooden table upon which were arranged several swatches of black velvet. Each had an object lying on top of it.

"Ms. Julian laid out the folders with the provenance information for you already," Dobbs said.

Connor felt the change in the quality of Erin's attention as he would have felt a dramatic shift of temperature. She pulled a tape recorder out of her purse, and walked the length of the table. In one swift, photographic glance, he took in a jewel-studded bronze shield, a big silver cauldron covered with relief panels, a bronze helm with a weird, stylistic bird perched on top of it, a bunch of shiny golden collars, bracelets, and brooches. "Testing," Erin said absently. "Testing," her sweet, low, recorded voice said back to her.

He was all alone in that room, with Dobbs and Tamara. Erin was elsewhere, all her energy focused down to a fine, cutting point.

He didn't like it. She'd forgotten that he existed. She was a thousand miles away, thousands of years away. Her eyes glowed with highly organized mental activity that he could not fathom. If he grabbed the redhead and French-kissed her, Erin would never even notice.

Detail oriented did not even begin to describe it.

Erin sank down onto a rolling chair and pulled herself close to the first object, the bronze shield. She flipped through the papers in the folder, and began to speak softly into the tape recorder. "… oblong bronze shield, first century B.C.E., decorated with red enamel, garnets and amethysts… vegetal style… British insular… arabesque motifs…"