Barefoot With A Stranger

by Roxanne St Claire

“Not what I was going to say. And newsflash: I’m not scared of your brother.”

  She shot a dubious brow up.

  “I’m not. That’s not why I left.”

  “So did you leave because I didn’t have a half million dollars you could steal?”

  For the first time, a flicker crossed his dark eyes. Shame. Remorse. Maybe a little regret. Enough to almost make her want to take back the comment.

  “That didn’t take long,” he said softly.

  She shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

  He gave her a direct look. “Would you like to know why I left, or would you rather share all the details of my life you’ve found online?”

  She felt her own flash of remorse for digging into his private life, but pushed it aside. “Yes, I’d like to know why you left when you found out who I was.”

  “You said you were visiting your brother in Florida, so I figured I better get down here overnight, get my marching orders from Gabe, and get on the road before your flight landed. Save us both that awkward moment.”

  She fought a smile. “When you find out the stranger you slept with is your mission partner. Definitely awkward.”

  “So how do you want to play this?” he asked. “Our secret or not? It’s your call, Chessie.”

  Chessie. So much for Francesca whispered in the heat of passion. She wished to hell that didn’t disappoint her, but it did. “I’m afraid it’s not our secret at all.”

  He just looked at her. “Who did you tell?”

  “No one, but I have to show you something.”

  He looked surprised when she stood and walked to the bedroom door. She heard his footsteps behind her as she headed to the dresser, opened the top drawer, and picked up the cracked device she’d had in her jeans pocket. Holding it in her palm, she showed him.

  “I found this on the bedrail in your hotel room when I was retrieving my clothes.”

  He looked at it and visibly paled beneath his tanned skin. “Fuck,” he whispered.

  “Yep. And with, it would seem, an audience.”

  He reached for it, but she shut her hand over his, trapping the bug between their palms. Electricity danced up her arm at the contact that felt both familiar and scary.

  “You’re going to leave, aren’t you?”

  “That’s not what I’m thinking.”

  “But you are. I can tell by the look on your face you’re planning your next move, which will be out and far and fast.”

  “How would you know that?”

  She managed a wry smile. “Forty-two addresses in thirty-eight years. And those are the ones that are registered.”

  His gaze tapered. “That’s some thorough background check you did.”

  “I’m nothing if not thorough,” she told him, freeing her hand.

  He took the bug and flipped it in his hand to see the other side. “You destroyed it?”

  “Yeah, I, um, might have freaked a bit when I found it and realized our, um, liaison had been overheard by…someone.” But who? Did he know?

  “We have to tell Gabe about our hookup now,” he said simply.

  Hookup. She closed her eyes and pretended it didn’t bother her.

  “And he’s going to pull us both from this assignment,” he added.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “Because if someone is following me, it could be dangerous for you if we’re together.”

  “Why the hell would someone be following you?”

  He just stared at her, a look she knew so damn well from her brother. Need To Know. Need To Know. Always the freaking Need To Know and she didn’t.

  Irritation ricocheted through her. “I was in that room, too, Mal. I’m involved whether you like it or not.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.” Sorry that he dragged her into this or sorry their hookup happened?

  She had to let that go. It was a hookup. “Does that device have a tracking system in it?” she asked.

  He turned it over and over in his hand. “I don’t think so. It’s pretty low-tech.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “Maybe one of the housekeepers puts it in the rooms and gets off on people…liaising.”

  He didn’t smile at the joke. “’Fraid not, Chessie. We have to tell Gabe and let him make the call.”

  “Do we, really?” Maybe Mal wasn’t afraid of Gabe’s wrath, but Chessie sure as hell wasn’t prepared for his…disappointment. And wrath.

  “Yes, we do. There’s no room for argument, because this could change everything.”

  She blew out a breath, knowing deep inside that arguing was futile. “Let me get some clothes on, and I’ll go with you. In fact, you should hang back and let me do the dirty work because I might be able to save your ass by taking most of the blame myself.”

  “Hell no.”

  “Excuse me?”

  His jaw clenched as he reached for the collar of her robe, easing her closer. “You’re not going to take any blame for what happened between us. You didn’t come on any stronger than I did.” His mouth was too close, his eyes too dark, and his touch too sure and strong.

  “I could have stopped you at any point in time. I’ll be sure to mention that to Gabe so you get extra bonus points.”

  “I don’t need bonus points,” he said.

  “What do you need?”

  He gripped the collar tighter, then let go, grazing her lower lip with a maddeningly slow touch. “More of you.”

  Speaking of hell no. But there she was, inching closer like he was a magnet and she was a helpless piece of horny metal. “Sorry, it’s called a one-night stand for a reason.”

  “He’ll split us up,” he said. “At the very least.”

  “I know,” she said, staring at his gorgeous mouth.

  He got closer. “Maybe was stupid, Francesca, but that was some damn good liaising.”

  “Really good,” she whispered.

  He lowered his head and put his mouth over hers, and it started all over again, just like last night. A low burn in her belly, a tight squeeze in her chest, and a crazy, lazy, dizzy sensation that made her head feel disconnected from the rest of her body. She let her eyes close and her hands grip his biceps, remembering how it felt when he laid her down and took ownership of her.

  He ended the kiss long before she was ready. “I’ll wait for you outside while you get dressed.”

  She managed a shaky breath. “I’ll just be a second. Then we’ll go to the hangman together.” As she walked away, she glanced over her shoulder to see him staring at her. “What?”

  “Gallows humor. I like that in a woman.”

  Great, just great. The embezzler with forty-two addresses and someone following him liked her. That was so not in her plan.

  Chapter Eight

  While Mal stood outside the villa waiting for Chessie, he examined the gadget in the sunlight. Pretty cheap quality, but effective enough if someone wanted to listen to him spill secrets to a lover. He knew who’d planted it, and it wasn’t a fucking Marriott maid.

  Drummand must have been laughing his ass off at him.

  But who’d tipped the son of a bitch off? Someone at the airport? On that hotel shuttle? At the registration desk? All three? He should have been on his game and watching everyone, not just the woman he wanted naked and in the sack. He had a brain and should have used it to realize she was genuine sooner than he had, and then he should have realized someone else was on his tail.

  But the only tail he’d been interested in was Chessie’s—Gabe’s baby sister. He didn’t even do a standard check of the hotel room for bugs, which would have tipped him off that someone had followed him to Atlanta.

  His only slim hope was that they didn’t manage to track him here after all that maneuvering he did to lose them—which was probably how Chessie beat him here in the first place. And hopefully, they didn’t know who she was.

  Which was ridiculous. Drummand had plenty of background on the former consultant, which likely included a dossier on every
person in his family.

  “Hey.” Chessie stepped outside into the sunlight, dressed in faded jeans with holes in the knees and the boots he distinctly remembered dropping to the floor in the hotel room last night.

  The memory fried his brain like he’d licked a finger and stuck it into the nearest socket.

  “Yeah, this is a good idea,” he mumbled as she closed the door behind her and slipped a bag over a bare shoulder. A loose, sleeveless top, practically see-through and cropped two inches above her jeans. The whole outfit showed way too much smooth, feminine skin that he knew tasted like sugar and sex. More fingers in sockets.

  “You’re staring,” she said, an echo of the accusation she’d made a few moments after they’d first met.

  You’re gorgeous, he’d replied then. And she still was, but everything was different now. “You’re…exposed.”

  She straightened her black-rimmed glasses, but that didn’t hide her eye roll. “You’ve seen it all before.”

  That was the problem. That one time wasn’t going to be enough.

  “And what the hell do you mean ‘this is a good idea’? Do you have even the slightest clue how my brother is going to react?”

  “I’m afraid I do.” He rubbed his jaw, anticipating the first blow as they headed toward the golf cart parked in the drive.

  She paused and looked around, the Florida sunshine, still strong in early December, bathing everything—including her—in a warm glow. Taking a deep breath, she tipped her face to the sun and closed her eyes.

  “What’s frustrating is now I’m ready to go,” she told him. “We have a plan, more or less, and a cause. A good cause. I think Gabe would be stupid to go all big-brother crazy and decide we need to be separated like a couple of teenagers who are too young to have sex.”

  He started to respond, then stopped. “You know we’re combustible.”

  He could have sworn she shivered in the seventy-degree sunshine. “Combustible,” she repeated on a whisper.

  “We’d never make it through Cuba.” Hell, they might not make it through this afternoon.

  “Without a liaise?” she asked, the hint of a smile threatening, but he couldn’t tell if it was for their dumb euphemism or just the idea of it.

  “Look, I’ve been in prison for four years and—”

  She held up a hand with a dry, sarcastic laugh. “I’m going to stop you right there. Because if you say that’s why you hit on me—”

  “Of course it’s not why. I’m just explaining that I’m…that you’re…”

  She slipped her lower lip under her front teeth, regarding him from behind those glasses, which were somehow as sexy as if she stood in front of him buck naked. “Continue,” she urged. “’Cause this really ought to be good.”

  How could he tell her that for the first half of their encounter he’d thought she was a spy and he was playing and testing and generally being a dick? And then, when he’d realized she wasn’t, then he was just…

  “Human,” he muttered. “I’m only human.”

  “Oooh, human. Well, that’s…a lovely compliment.” She strode past him, a whiff of something spicy in her wake, and climbed into the passenger side of the golf cart. “Can’t wait to hear you tell Gabe. ‘Well, buddy, sorry I banged your sister, but extreme humanism made me do it.’”

  Irritation clanged every nerve as he got behind the wheel. “Extreme attraction, Chessie.” He got right in her face. “Which I’m pretty damn sure went both ways.”

  She paled enough to confirm that it did, but recovered in a second, giving his shoulder a shove. “Move it, human. I’m sure he won’t mess up your attractive face too much.”

  Chessie stayed pensive for a few moments as they drove, checking out the natural beauty as if she were drinking it in, but something told him she wasn’t.

  “You going to tell me why you think someone is following you?” she asked.

  “No.”

  She gave a caustic laugh. “You sure you’re not a spy, Mal? ’Cause you sure act like one.”

  He stayed silent, pulling the cart in front of McBain Security. “All that matters, Chessie, is that Gabe doesn’t lose his shit so much over this bug and how you found it in my room—”

  “Can’t we say you found it in your room?”

  He shook his head. “I’d have told him by now. I won’t lie to him. It’d compromise the mission. What we can’t do is let him try to go to Cuba himself.”

  She considered that, her frown deepening. “Why can’t he? I mean, I know he can’t say, but how do you know? Why are you…” Her voice trailed off, and her eyes cleared with comprehension. “Compromise the mission,” she echoed. “Now that is not something you hear your run-of-the-mill prison guard say.”

  She was way too smart not to figure it out sooner or later. He just looked ahead and confirmed her guess with a quick close of his eyes.

  “You’re a spy.”

  “Not anymore,” he said quietly.

  She didn’t move for a moment, except that her chest rose and fell with a tight breath as this new information took hold. “I didn’t get that from my research.” She actually sounded a little disgusted with her failure.

  “I think that’s kind of the point of the job.”

  “Is that why someone is following you? Do you have classified information or…access to something? Why is it such a big deal that your room was bugged? And how’d they get a bug planted so fast in a hotel room that you didn’t even reserve?”

  “They’re good. And that’s a lot of questions you know I’m not going to answer.”

  “But we’re on a mission together,” she shot back. “We shouldn’t be strangers.”

  “Didn’t hurt us in that hotel room. In fact…”

  She leaned closer when he didn’t finish the thought, narrowing blue eyes at him. “If you say that was a big turn-on for you, Mr. I’m Only Human, I’m going to hit you harder than Gabe ever could. Answer my question. Why is someone following you?”

  He exhaled, slowly. “I honestly don’t know for sure. Anything I tell you would just be a guess.”

  “I’ll take a guess.”

  He shook his head. “You know I can’t do that.”

  She dropped back on the seat with a grunt of frustration. “Well, what about Gabe?”

  “He won’t tell you anything.”

  “But why can’t he go to Cuba?”

  He turned and gave her a get real look, which she accepted with a slight nod. The sister of a spy would be well trained to live with unanswered questions, and while he respected the fact that she knew when to stop asking, he also felt she was owed something. At least a reason for why they had to convince Gabe not to go to Cuba.

  “I will tell you this,” he said, reaching for her hand. “If he does go to Cuba, he will never come out alive. He made enemies. Deadly enemies.”

  She blinked at him, truly speechless, color washing over her fine cheeks. “Is he safe here?”

  “As long as he never steps foot in Cuba, yes. But I swear to God, Chessie, there’s a serious amount of money on his head, and if there’s one thing crooked Cubans like, it’s money.”

  She stared at him as that settled on her. “He trusts us enough to do this for him.”

  Mal nodded. “Though I can’t say what he’ll do once we find this child and prove he’s Gabe’s son.” Because Gabe Rossi would risk life and limb to get his child. They both knew that.

  “Then I know what we have to do,” Chessie said, her voice calm. “We can tell him about the bug, and we can tell him how and why I found it. But then we have to convince him to handle the fact that we were together and let us go on this mission and find his son. One, two, three, that’s what we’ll do.”

  “Francesca, the planner,” he whispered.

  “That’s me.”

  “I like it.” He leaned closer, feeling the need to seal the deal with a kiss, but she edged back and gave her head a quick shake.

  “Poppy,” she said under her breath.


  He frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “The maid over there is Poppy. She works for Gabe. She’s his eyes and ears around the resort, and I guarantee you she’s taking everything in right now, including how you almost…” She slowed her speech and scowled. “Were you just so overwhelmed with being human that you were going to kiss me?”

  He laughed. “Overwhelmed, yeah.”

  “Uh, excuse me.” The woman’s voice pulled them apart, and Mal turned to meet large, dark eyes under a furrowed brow. “Can I help…oh, Miss Chessie! I heard you were here. Didn’t know that was you, and I have to check everyone out, you know.”

  “Hello, Poppy.” Chessie climbed down from the cart and greeted the woman with an easy hug. “Nice to see you again. Have you met Malcolm Harris, Gabe’s friend?”

  She lifted a brow. “He has a friend other than Nino?”

  Mal smiled. “The list is short.” He shook her hand. “Hello, Poppy.”

  “Are you looking for Mr. Gabriel? Don’t bother going in the office, he’s not there.”

  Damn it, Mal didn’t want to put this conversation off any longer. “Do you know where we can find him?”

  “Yes, but…” A plump lower lip pushed out, and she tightened her mouth and looked from one to the other. “You’re his sister, and you’re his friend, right?”

  “Right,” they answered in unison.

  “Well…” She glanced from side to side, as if she suspected they were being watched. “I don’t know who else to tell because I tried to tell Nino, and all he does is tell me to mind my own business. Minding other people’s business is my job now, doesn’t he know that? Anyway, maybe you can help.”

  “What is it, Poppy?” Chessie asked, a note of impatience telling Mal she was as anxious as he was.

  “It’s Mr. Gabriel,” the woman said on an exaggerated sigh. “I simply don’t know what to do with him.”

  “What do you mean?” Chessie stepped closer, immediately more interested now.

  “Well, I know I’m supposed to be watching other folks around here and reporting back to him. That’s my job, you see,” she added to Mal, as if he hadn’t picked that up yet.

  “What about Gabe?” Chessie pressed.

  “He just hasn’t been himself since last time you were here, Miss Chessie. He’s not taking any new business. He’s always in the back of the house just slamming those iron bars around and doing so many of those push-up things it’s a wonder he doesn’t drop over dead.”