“If I needed…” His gaze dropped to the words on the page under the name Jadyn McAllister.
Professional interior decorator…residential and commercial…contractor’s assistant…equipment and furnishing…design assistant. Winner of the Markham Space Planning Award for interior design.
Adam just closed his eyes.
“I thought she could help you, man, but if you’re determined to do this on your own, you better be prepared to lose. And the loser has to—”
“I know what the loser has to do.” Adam slammed the paper back on the desk. “Can you take Holly Dillard on a guide test?”
“I have a better idea.” Zane gave a wry smile. “Why don’t you just hire Holly and then go find the unfair advantage you just gave up?”
Adam hated to admit it, but that was a damn good idea.
Chapter Two
“Hot coffee?”
Jane looked up at the waitress who’d handed her the menu, meeting soft green eyes and a warm smile. She stared for a moment, not quite focused because the white flashes of fury behind her eyes hadn’t yet subsided.
“You okay, hon?”
Hon. Well, that beat Jadyn, which still didn’t quite roll off her lips yet. No lie ever had been easy for Jane McAllen, and now she was forced to tell a whopper every time someone asked her name.
Use the name Jadyn McAllister. It sounds familiar, but not your own name. Never use any other name, especially not your real one.
At the echo of the warning, a fresh wave of dread rolled through her. Well, at least Adam “You’re Not What I’m Looking For” Tucker had made Jane forget her predicament for ten minutes.
“What I need is a good stiff drink,” she replied.
“No booze here, sweetheart, but plenty of comfort.” The woman’s eyes sparked with a sweet, maternal warmth as she flipped a long dark braid over her shoulder to reveal a name tag that said Brenda. “I can break a lot of rules and coerce the cook to make some creative menu substitutions, but the one thing you can’t do at No Man’s Land is drink. Made that rule thirty-five years ago when this place moved to neutral ground. No drinking, no fighting. Course, they go hand in hand. You want that, head to Baldie’s. You can get some mean cheese fries, but they’re not open for breakfast.” She grinned. “So what can I get you, hon?”
Other than cash and a phone call that said the coast was clear? Not much. “Coffee for now.”
Brenda pulled out an old-school order pad and flipped a few pages, but she was still studying Jane closely. “Cream and sugar?”
“I guess.” Jane exhaled slowly as the last of the adrenaline that had spiked settled in her system, then she looked up at Brenda. “Is there anything worse than a man who assumes he knows everything about you and misjudges you instantly?”
The waitress considered that, squishing a face that had probably passed fifty, but was attractive and approachable. “An ugly man who assumes he knows everything about you?”
That made Jane smile and remember Adam Tucker’s unexpected mix of sun-dappled hair and mountain-rugged features, and those haunting aquamarine eyes that coasted up and down her body as if he didn’t quite believe what he saw.
“Well, he isn’t ugly, that’s for sure. A condescending, assumption-making douche canoe, but he is hot as hell and built like a Greek god.”
Brenda gave a knowing nod. “There’s a few like that around here, but that’s the curse of being a military town. Lots of high-quality testosterone on the banks of this river, but that means the place is crawling with alpha men who can be as irritating as they are gorgeous.”
“So I discovered.” She flipped the menu open, then closed it again. “What do you recommend?”
“For someone with the blues? As much sugar and carbs as we can fit on a plate.”
“I like the way you think, Brenda.”
She started writing. “Get the HALO pancakes topped with snow and drowned in rocket fuel.”
Jane blinked at her. “Excuse me?”
“HALO—high-altitude low opening. It’s a stack of six cakes. Snow is whipped cream, and rocket fuel is Sam’s homemade maple syrup that’ll give you energy on the battlefield of life.” She recited the speech as if she said it two hundred times a day.
“HALO,” Jane repeated. “Another curse of the military town? Menu items named by the Pentagon?”
Brenda laughed. “You’re catchin’ on, sweetheart.”
Jane had done very little research when she’d chosen Eagle’s Ridge, Washington, as her temporary hiding place. Her “relocation planning” had been done for her when an FBI agent named Lydia Swann had escorted her to Miami International and shoved a ticket to Seattle, along with her own driver’s license, into Jane’s hand. Lydia had promised that they looked enough alike that she’d sail through security with it.
And she had.
Lydia had also given Jane a couple thousand dollars in cash and a phone she shouldn’t use to call anyone in Miami, but was to never let out of her sight in case it rang with the news that she could come home. Oh, and some final instructions: Don’t leave Washington but get as far off the grid as you can and trust no one until you hear from the FBI telling you it’s safe to return.
In Seattle, she got on a bus headed west to Walla Walla, but that was bigger than she’d expected, so she used the fake license to rent a car and drove to a place called Eagle’s Ridge, as far into the mountains and the southeast corner of the state as she could go.
She’d been there for a week and was running out of patience and money.
“So, is there a base nearby? Is that what you mean by a military town?”
“Oh, no, not a military base,” Brenda said. “It’s our history. And, I guess, our present.”
Brenda angled her head toward the row of windows that looked out over the river to the other side of town, all of it nestled in the shadows of a snowcapped mountain range. “Can’t go ten feet without bumping into someone who has served, is serving, or is planning to enlist. But that’s what the old coots had in mind when they staked their claim on Eagle’s Ridge back in 1945—a legacy of military men and women.”
Despite the woman’s world-weary tone, Jane could hear a note of pride in her voice.
“That’s interesting,” Jane said. “I’ve never heard of a town like that.”
“We are definitely unique.”
“I assume non-military folks are welcome, too?” Jane asked.
“Of course. Hikers, rafters, newcomers, passersby. Which one are you?”
“I’m going to…spend the summer here.” With luck, she’d be gone long before the summer ended, but she didn’t add that.
“Really.” Brenda eyed her with far more interest now, looking her up and down a little like Adam Tucker had, only without the curled lip. “Our tourist activities don’t usually attract someone so…” She searched for a word just long enough for Jane to brace for a little more judgment from the locals. “So sophisticated.”
She gave a dry laugh. “You’d think I’m the first person who’s ever worn heels and makeup in this town.”
“Not at all, but we do attract the earthier types. What brings you here, hon?” she asked with open curiosity.
Jane managed a casual shrug, because the only honest response to that question was: If I told you, you’d never believe me.
Less than ten days since it happened and Jane still wasn’t exactly sure how she’d gone from having a perfectly normal life as an interior designer for Miami Beach’s wealthiest residents…to a woman in hiding for her life.
“Oh, you know, the usual reasons a thirty-year-old picks up and starts over in a brand-new place,” Jane said.
“A man?” Brenda guessed.
“Yup.” A man would do nicely as her reason for running. It wasn’t a lie, really.
Sergio Valverde was a man. A man who apparently controlled one of the largest drug trafficking rings between South America and Miami. A man who wrongly believed that Jane was no interior designer, but a
mole who’d attempted to turn him in. A man making wrong—and evidently deadly—assumptions about her, because Jane hadn’t even known her client was a drug lord. She’d thought he was just a stupidly rich Bolivian with questionable taste in art.
“So what’s your line of work?” the waitress asked.
“I’m an interior designer,” Jane said. The FBI agent told her to keep her story as close to the truth as she could, so she wouldn’t get tripped up. “And if you know of any work around here, I’d be interested.”
She preferred to do the work she loved, which was why she had been excited when the nice man at the watersports company told her that they might have something in her field. And then she walked right smack into Adam Tucker.
So it was back to plan B.
From her handbag, she pulled out the local paper she’d purchased and pointed to the paltry Help Wanted section that had gotten her to the watersports company in the first place. They’d just advertised an “opening,” which had been enough to entice her to make a résumé at a local office supply store. Of course, it had no real references and displayed her new, made-up name since Lydia warned her not to use the driver’s license except to rent a car. Other than that, she was not to use it.
Oh God. She was so not cut out for this. And what happened, anyway? She got judged. Wrongly.
“There’s always jobs around here during the season,” Brenda said sweetly. “We just filled a slot, but there are lots of little restaurants and stores in town, just across this bridge.”
“I’ve been in town,” she said. “And I do need something since I’m living in a…” Seedy motel. “Hotel.” On cash, which could easily run out if the FBI took too long to keep their end of the bargain and put Sergio Valverde in jail.
“Are you staying at the Broadleaf?” Brenda asked, checking her out again and nodding as if she not-so-secretly believed that Jane looked like she belonged at that posh place in the middle of town.
“Uh, no.” She managed a weak smile. “The Hideaway Hotel.” Really, how could she resist with that name and seventy-nine-dollars-a-night rooms?
The Hideaway did earn her a curled lip. “Yeah, they have a lot of nerve calling that a hotel. So, yes on the HALOs?”
Jane puffed out a breath. “If they’re not priced by the Pentagon, too.”
The other woman laughed. “I’ll put an order in, dear. You relax and enjoy the view. Pretty sure you’re not getting one like this at the Hideaway.”
When Brenda left, Jane dropped back in the chair and let her gaze skim the restaurant décor, which was probably not the view the kindly waitress had meant.
Yes, the mountains were majestic, and the river was about a thousand shades of navy and gray with a few dramatic whitecaps in the wide expanse between here and the section of town on the other side. But Jane was an interior designer, and her interest would always be, well, the interior.
The beamed ceilings and local landscape paintings on the walls gave the place a real and rustic vibe that relaxed her as much as the comforting smell of fresh coffee and buttery biscuits.
Truth was, she’d been tense since the day she’d opened her door to greet Lydia Swann, a woman she knew only as the “friend” of one of Jane’s largest and most demanding clients. Her stomach still tightened when she relived the moment she’d looked at Lydia’s FBI badge and tried to follow the words spilling out of the woman’s mouth at lightning speed.
Only some of them had actually made sense at the time.
Sergio Valverde is an international drug trafficker… The FBI is closing in and nearly had him… Your life is in danger… We’ll get you out safely… Stay away…
Jane still couldn’t believe the Bolivian billionaire who’d hired her to redecorate his Miami Beach penthouse was a wanted drug kingpin. Okay, maybe she could believe that. He was loaded beyond description and pretty darn shady.
But then to learn that Lydia Swann wasn’t one of the many “hangers-on” in Sergio’s massive entourage, but an undercover FBI agent who’d infiltrated the operation and almost brought Sergio in on a sting that went south? Mind-blowing.
Not as mind-blowing, however, as the news that Sergio had been told a woman had turned him in and he firmly believed that Jane was the rat.
And apparently, Bolivian drug lords killed rats.
She lifted a thick ceramic mug, took a deep drink of coffee, and choked on it when Adam Tucker barreled through the front door. Speaking of rats.
“Hey, Brenda.” He marched to the counter, and half the heads in the place turned to watch. The female half.
But Jane’s blood boiled for a completely different reason. Who cared if a man stood at least six feet and filled out a T-shirt with mouthwatering muscles? Yes, his jaw was square, his eyes were piercing, and he probably had dimples if he ever smiled. But, hello?
You’re not what I’m looking for.
He leaned over the counter and called for the waitress again, who had her back to him pouring coffee. She merely held up one finger to tell him to wait, but he tapped the counter with palpable impatience.
He turned left and right, glancing down the long counter, then around the restaurant, scanning the place like a man looking for…her.
His haunting, stunning, impossible-to-ignore blue-green gaze landed right on Jane, and his strong shoulders fell a bit. In relief? Hard to say, because he blinded her with a smile so gorgeous, she forgot to check for the dimples.
A smile? Was he freaking serious? Before she could take her next breath, he called over his shoulder. “Never mind, Brenda. I found her.”
What?
She stared at him as he strode across the restaurant, threading the tables with ease, pinning her with an expression she couldn’t even begin to read. Without a word, he pulled out the chair across from her, sat down, and looked directly into her eyes.
“I screwed up.”
Not what she was expecting. “You don’t say.”
He flinched. “You’re mad.”
All she did was raise a brow.
“I had no idea, none whatsoever, that you were an interior designer. I thought you were interviewing for a job as a river guide, and so, obviously, I…you…guides are…” He searched her face, no doubt looking for help. “Lifeline, please. This man is drowning.”
She lifted a shoulder, trying to ignore just how damn good-looking he was when he wasn’t condescending, but it was impossible.
“You want me to drown,” he finally said.
“And there you go assuming you know what I’m thinking again.”
He dropped back in the chair and puffed out a breath. “Could we try again? Start over?”
“Or we could start right at the part where you say, ‘You’re not what I’m looking for.’”
He flinched like she’d hit the target. “Again, I thought you were a white water rafting and kayak tour guide. Am I right in assuming you’ve never even been in either of those vessels?”
Of course he was, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right about anything. “Vessels? Who calls a kayak a vessel?”
“A former Coastie.” He tipped his head at her frown. “A rescue swimmer with the US Coast Guard.”
Ah, of course. One of the many military men Brenda told her about. “I admit,” she said slowly, “I’ve not done a lot of, uh, kayaking.” Fact was, she couldn’t swim and would probably just as soon drop over Niagara Falls as get into white water for fun.
A half smile curled his lips. Oh damn. Yes to the dimples. “So I was not completely off base.”
“Oh, you were off base,” she assured him.
“And in my defense, you didn’t tell me that you were a decorator.”
“Designer.”
“A decorated designer, I mean, based on your very impressive résumé.”
“Are you sucking up to me, Mr. Tucker?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He leaned closer and moved his hand like he wanted to touch hers, but thought better of it. “I
need your help.”
“Remodeling your condo on the water?”
He raised a brow. “If that’s what you want to call a one-bedroom on the second floor of A To Z, but no, that’s not what I need. This isn’t about me.”
But something told her with a guy like Adam Tucker, it would always be about him.
“I’ve seen your résumé.” He inched closer, holding her gaze with the confidence of a man who knew that look got him whatever he asked for. “And I’m here to swear to you that you, Jadyn McAllister, are exactly what I need.”
For a long moment, she held his gaze, hating that the exchange made her a little bit dizzy. The way he said her fake name made it sound kind of pretty and alluring, so much so she almost wanted to get a little closer and hear him say it over and over again.
But that would be against the scant list of rules Lydia had fired off as she helped Jane throw clothes in a suitcase—because that frenzy couldn’t be called packing—for a trip she had never expected to make.
Make up a simple story and stick with it. Lie low, don’t make friends. And, for the love of God, do not trust anyone.
But what if her money ran out?
“Oh, is this your douche canoe?” Brenda set a pile of pancakes in front of her with a thud on the table.
Adam’s jaw unhinged. “Your…what?”
Jane smiled, nodding thanks to the waitress, who looked from one to the other with a wry smile before walking away.
“What’s a douche canoe?” he asked.
She tsked and shook her head, picking up her fork as she eyed the over-the-top pancake stack. “Why, it’s a vessel, of course.”
As she slipped her fork into a puffy cloud of cream, he reached over the table to stop her from taking the bite. “Will you help me?”
“No.”
He choked softly. “You don’t even know what I want.”
Oh, she knew what he wanted. And in any other place or time or circumstance, she might consider giving it to him, because Adam Tucker was hot.
Even his fingertips singed her skin.
“Can I tell you and then you can make an educated decision?” he asked, undaunted.
Adam (7 Brides for 7 Soldiers Book 2) Page 2