His pulse kicked into gear. The way she’d asked that question, it was as if it was already a done deal, as if she was ready to sign on. But he couldn’t assume that. He had to play it cool, play it out.
“Do you have a bikini?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I burn so I don’t do much sunbathing.”
“I’ve got a costume box, with bikinis in just about every size. If you found one you liked, you could even keep it after.”
She went back through the pictures of Brandon, looking at them more closely. “I’m not sure I’d want to keep it after. Besides, what if it was the one you like to wear?”
Was that lighthearted teasing or was her comment intended to belittle, to cruelly mock him? David couldn’t tell.
“Personally, I’m fond of my pink ballerina tutu,” he said lightly, choosing to believe she was teasing. “That and the chicken suit. As long as you stay away from those . . .”
She laughed. And then she held up a particularly buff photo of Bran. “Is this guy really a lifeguard here in town? He looks like he belongs on a movie set in L.A. How’d you talk him into doing this, anyway?”
“We’ve been friends since fourth grade. He got this summer job for me as a breakfast waiter at the hotel. He poses for me for free—for something called deferred payment. We have an understanding that if I make it big, I’ll pay him lots of money down the road. But I could pay you up front, if you want. Fifty dollars an hour is about all I could afford, with a two hour guarantee.”
She was suddenly intently studying the photos again, as if she didn’t want to look him in the eye. “That seems like an awful lot of money just for standing around in a bathing suit.”
“Professional models get more than that,” he told her.
She was silent.
“What I’d really like,” David said, praying that he hadn’t just screwed this up by talking about money, “would be to schedule a shoot with both you and Brandon. I’m going to want a bunch of individual shots of you, of course, but it would be good to get some of the two of you together. He can show you how it’s done.” Maybe she’d be more comfortable knowing she wasn’t going to be alone with David in his apartment studio. “He’s going to be Julian, your love interest in the graphic novel.”
“Just how graphic is this graphic novel?” she asked suspiciously.
“No,” he said quickly. “Not that way. Not at all. I’m targeting as wide an audience as possible. Some of the artists like to be, um, well, explicit. And while I imply certain relationships . . . I don’t . . . I mean, sure, I’ll show the two characters kiss, but . . .”
She looked down at the pictures of Brandon again. “So . . . you want to take pictures of me kissing your friend.”
“Well, yeah, I mean, a few shots, sure. Kisses are hard to draw, so . . .”
“Is he, like, unattached?”
David’s stomach twisted as he gazed at her. The question was posed so casually. Too casually. Oh, damn. This had happened too many times before. He and Brandon would be out somewhere, he’d meet a girl he really liked—and Bran would take her home. It was inevitable.
It was a pain in his ass.
Still, this wasn’t about him liking this girl. This was about convincing her to pose for him. This was about Nightshade.
“Yeah,” he told her, pushing up his glasses with one finger. “He’s unattached. A word of warning, though—one look at you and he’ll be hitting on you.” He felt like some kind of backward pimp, trying to entice her to come to his studio with promises of a roll with his friend, Mr. Incredible Pecs.
Mallory shook her head. “No way. A guy like this only goes out with the Susan Thornridges and the Mary Beth Blacklys.” She put the photos back in the envelope. “And even if he did ask, I wouldn’t go anywhere with him. I don’t need his kind of shit messing up my life, no thanks.”
“Well, then I’ll make sure I tell him to back off.” David was ready to promise her anything. Whatever it took. Brandon or not. Of course he preferred or not, but she would probably change her mind with one face-to-face meeting with his charismatic friend.
She stood up, brushing off the seat of her jeans. “I’m late. I’ve got to go.”
“How’s tonight?” he asked, reaching into his pack for one of his cards. “I happen to know that Bran’s got the night off. He could be at my place by nine. What do you say? Nine to eleven?” He wanted to drop to his knees and plead, but he knew he’d get further by staying at least relatively cool.
She took her time taking his card from him, but this time she actually read it. He’d written his summer address and phone number on it in clean block letters.
“The bathing suit stays on?” she asked.
“Swear to God,” he said. “If you want, you can bring your father along as a chaperone.”
“How about I bring my uncle?” she said challengingly. “He’s a Navy SEAL, in town on leave.”
David fumbled his sketch pad, dropping it onto the grass. A SEAL . . . “Really?” His voice cracked. “That’s so cool. SEALs are built like gods. Definitely bring him. Do you think . . . wow, do you think he’d pose for me?”
Mallory laughed. “No,” she said. “But I will. You just convinced me you’re for real, Sullivan. God, your dork index is off the charts.”
Yes. Thank God for his dork index, whatever that meant. David grinned at her. “Then I’ll see you tonight.” Oh, man, he had to get home fast and clean his apartment.
She scowled at him. “If I turn out to be wrong about you, I will kick you so hard your balls will come out your nose. Do you understand?”
David couldn’t keep from laughing, the image was such an intense one. “Absolutely.”
She glared at him one more time as if to prove that she was dead serious, then turned and walked away, heading back to work, carefully tucking his card into the back pocket of her jeans.
David waited until she turned the corner onto South Street, and only then did he do a victory dance around the tree.
She was his. She was his.
Well, on paper, anyway.
Eight
JUST KICK ASIDE the laundry, Kelly had said.
It seemed easy enough in theory. Execution, however, was slightly more difficult.
Because it seemed to Tom as if most of the laundry that was scattered about the room was underwear. Lacy, silky, completely feminine underwear.
It was on the bed, on the floor, on the chair in front of the computer, spilling out of the open top drawer of Kelly’s dresser.
Sure, there were jeans and shorts and T-shirts, too. But he had those things in his own laundry hamper. He was used to them. He could kick that aside, no problem—he had many times in his own room. But the bras and panties and pantyhose . . . Yikes.
And when he had actually tried to push the laundry gingerly aside with his foot, a pair of green satin and lace panties had caught on his sandal, the fabric decadently cool against his bare toes.
Kelly Ashton’s underwear.
That alone would have been too much to deal with. But when he’d leaned over to pull the green lace free, he’d found out something he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Kelly Ashton wore thong panties.
Tom sat at her computer now, head pounding, slightly nauseated from dizziness, breathing in the ghostly fragrance of her perfumes and lotions, still slightly shocked. Jesus, he didn’t want that image in his head—Kelly in her underwear was bad enough, but Kelly wearing that?
Forget about his head injury—that image alone was enough to make him dizzy.
And it was definitely not what he wanted to be thinking about when he had dinner with her tomorrow night, God help him.
Kelly Ashton had asked him to have dinner with her.
Down boy. It was only dinner.
Or was it?
He’d assumed that whipped cream comment she’d made this morning had been a joke. But what if she’d been only half kidding? What if she truly wanted . . .
&
nbsp; Don’t go there, dirtbrain.
Kelly Ashton probably wouldn’t have agreed to let him use her computer if she’d known that he’d sit here, ogling her underwear, imagining her naked and locked with him in heart stopping, gymnastically energetic sex.
Or maybe not energetic sex. Maybe sex with Kelly would be pulse-hammeringly slow. Devastatingly lethargic. Like one of those pseudo-erotic, black-and-white fragrance commercials on TV. Except there would be nothing pseudo about it. He would surround himself with her infinitely slowly, losing himself in her body as surely as he lost himself in her eyes. It would be the kind of sex where just one touch, just one of her fingers trailed lightly down the length of his arm, would be enough to push him over the edge and . . .
Christ, he had to get out of here.
Because that wasn’t going to happen. Not tomorrow night, not ever.
Even if she wanted it, he was in no position right now to begin anything with a woman like Kelly Ashton. He’d spent his entire life avoiding women like her—the sweet, the innocent, the nice women who deserved lasting, committed relationships with gentle, caring men—and Kelly was their queen.
But, sweet God, he wanted her. He’d always wanted her, even when it was illegal to want her. Back then, it was easy. If he had touched her the way he’d wanted to touch her, he’d go to jail. It was bad enough that he’d kissed her. He’d banished himself for that, forcing himself to face the hurt in her eyes as he left without any real explanation. Afraid to be alone with her, he’d written a note. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this.” He’d said nothing about her being too young, nothing about his fear that he’d be swept away by passion if he so much as faced her again.
He could still hear her whisper, “Meet me later tonight. In the tree house,” when he closed his eyes.
He’d wanted to. God, he had wanted Kelly more than he’d ever wanted anyone or anything. But his passion had terrified him. He’d taken only the time to scribble that note and put it where she’d find it before he’d taken off on his motorcycle, riding hard and fast until he’d run out of gas, until he’d stranded himself far from home.
Until there was no possible way he could make it back to Baldwin’s Bridge that night, to meet Kelly in her tree house.
But he was back in Baldwin’s Bridge now. And she wasn’t too young any longer. No, now the risks were far less well-defined, and mostly emotional.
But they were no less dangerous, because it was Kelly’s heart he’d be risking.
As Tom waited for the printer to spit out the second of his pictures of the Merchant, he glanced around Kelly’s room, trying to ignore the underwear.
Her bed was unmade. It was a colorful jumble of flowery sheets, an antique four poster complete with a blue canopy that matched the window curtains. It looked comfortable and cool, and he longed to crawl in, to soothe his aching head by closing his eyes and sinking back among her sweetly fragranced pillows.
Like a reverse Goldilocks and the three bears, he’d be there when she got home and . . .
Well, there you go. If he ended up getting kicked out of the Navy, he had a future writing scripts for porno flicks.
Jesus, what was wrong with him that he should be completely unable to stop fantasizing about Kelly this way? And the truly stupid part was that she wasn’t just some low-wattage babe he’d spotted in some trashy bar. The truth was that he respected Kelly. He admired her. She was brilliant and bright.
Back when they were both in high school, he’d loved to talk to her, to watch her brain work. She wasn’t afraid to disagree with him, although always politely, of course. She was one of the nicest, sweetest, kindest people on the face of the earth.
His instincts should have been to protect her, to revere her, to worship her from afar. To hold her in esteem, as she deserved to be—the way he did his grandmother, Mother Teresa, and Julie Andrews.
Sunlight streamed in through the curtains, through the French doors that opened onto a narrow balcony. It was pretty enough to look at, but completely idiotic when it came to Kelly’s personal safety. Any fool could climb up to the balcony in half a second. And the locks on the French doors were bush league. A four-year-old could have kicked them in.
Tom made a mental note to go back to Home Depot, get some proper locks. Dead bolts. After all, he wasn’t going to be in town forever.
Surely she knew. So why, then, had she asked him to dinner?
She was still attracted to him. He’d have to be a fool not to see it. But if he was a bad candidate for a love affair this morning, this afternoon he was even worse.
The fear that had grabbed him when he’d seen the Merchant at the Home Depot had lodged in his chest, solid and unmoving. What if he was crazy? What if he started seeing terrorists everywhere he went? What if, because of this, he really did have to leave the Navy?
Now, more than ever, he had to keep Kelly at arm’s length.
But now, more than ever, Tom wanted to lose himself in the sweet comfort of her arms.
God, he wanted her. And if she wanted him, how the hell was he going to keep turning her down?
The printer fell silent, and Tom shut down Kelly’s computer. As he crossed to the door, he had to shake another piece of silk and lace from his foot. Cursing, he took the pictures he’d printed out into the hallway, down the stairs, and into the dining room, only to find Charles and Joe smack in the middle of another argument.
“You’re wrong,” Charles said hotly. “That’s too obvious.”
“Keep it simple, stupid,” Joe countered.
Charles glared. “Who are you calling stupid?”
Pain knifed behind Tom’s left eye and his stomach churned. “Mother of God,” he ground out, and they turned to look at him. “I leave you alone for thirty minutes and you’re back at it. If you can’t get along without fighting, I don’t want your help.” He gazed sternly at his uncle. “I expected better from you,” he told Joe. “I mean, come on. Calling him names? . . .”
“Names?” Joe looked from Tom to Charles, clearly confused.
“Stupid, stupid,” Charles reminded him.
Dawn broke. “No,” Joe said. “It’s that expression. Tommy, you say it all the time. KISS simple. KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. I wasn’t . . .” He started to chuckle. “You thought I was calling Charles . . .” He looked at Charles, sitting at the table, taking a grim hit from his oxygen tank. “You thought it, too. I could call you a lot of things, Ashton, but I’d never call you stupid.”
Charles looked mollified. “Well, thank you. I think.”
“We were trying to figure out the best place near the hotel for a terrorist to leave a car bomb,” Joe told Tom.
Tom saw that, indeed, they’d spread out a huge map of the town on the dining room table.
Joe put one finger down on the map, directly on top of the circular drive that graced the front of the hotel. “I thought this Merchant fellow would just pull right up to the front doors, but Charles thought that would be too obvious.” He looked at his friend. “You went with us once, to take out the train tracks the Germans were using to send reinforcements and supplies to the front line. The Nazis were expecting sabotage. They expected us to sneak to some secluded part of the track, in the night. Do you remember what we did?”
Charles didn’t answer.
“We went in near the town, near the German barracks,” Joe reminded him. “They never expected us to come so close, so the tracks weren’t guarded there. It was Cybele’s idea—”
“Of course I remember,” Charles cut him off, suddenly looking every minute of his age. “You know I remember. God damn it!”
“Was this back in ’44?” Tom asked. He honestly wanted to know, but even more than that, he wanted to keep them talking. Who was this Cybele?
They both would have been impossibly young. Joe something ridiculous, like twenty, Charles barely twenty-four.
When Tom was twenty-four, he’d just finished BUD/S, the SEAL training program. He’d just been assigned to
his first team, and he’d taken part in some dangerous covert operations almost right away. But he’d been trained. Extensively and exhaustively, for years. He was strong and fit, both physically and psychologically. He was prepared to deal with damn near anything.
And despite all his massive preparation, there had been times down through the years when he’d been scared shitless.
Joe and Charles had had a few short months, at best, of boot camp before they were tossed into the fray. Fate had dealt them a hand requiring them to fight a very personal war from deep within enemy territory—one of the very things Tom had been trained so extensively to do.
But they’d had no training in covert operations, no experience—not much more than an intense conviction that what they were doing was right and necessary.
Tom had grown up knowing Joe and Charles had fought in the Second World War, but he’d never known exactly what that meant before this. Sabotaging German trains. Going in close to the German barracks. Cybele . . .
Of course, he wasn’t likely to find out any more details, since both were silent, neither of them answering his questions, Joe looking at him as if he’d said what he’d said only because he’d forgotten Tom was standing there.
His uncle sat down on the other side of the table as if he were suddenly feeling as ancient and ill as Charles.
“You want me to leave so you can keep talking about this?” Tom asked them quietly.
“No.” They spoke in unison, both vehemently.
“I’ve made a few phone calls,” Charles said, clearing his throat repeatedly, changing the subject. “I figured we’d need a few more computers if we were going to catch this terrorist. I ordered three. We can use the east wing for our HQ. I ordered more phone lines, too. I had to pay out my butt to get them to come on Friday. And that was the absolute earliest they could get here.”
“Whoa.” Tom was dizzy now for an entirely new reason. “Before you start spending any money, you need to know—”
“That your superiors don’t believe this man you saw is really the Merchant?” Charles fixed him with a gaze that was laser-beam sharp.
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