Serious Risks

by Rachel Lee

  Arlen was tugging on his jeans for the second time that morning when he peered out the window and saw that his cigarette-smoking, dog-walking friend was still down there, propped against the lamp post. And that was when his neck started prickling. That man had been out there for more than an hour and a half. Not even the dumbest dog would have found those bushes that interesting.

  Jessie came into the room, and he glanced at her to find her flushed from her shower, hair wrapped in a towel, robe wrapped snugly around her.

  “What does your neighbor across the street look like?” Arlen asked her in what he hoped was a casual tone.

  “Ordinary,” she answered absently. Coming over to the window beside Arlen, she followed his gaze down to the man across the street. “Oh, him? He’s not one of my neighbors. I don’t know who he is, but he walks his dog here from time to time. Probably visiting someone.”

  She turned away and made it two steps before she paused and looked back at him, her eyes suddenly huge. “You said someone had probably been watching me….”

  He wanted to kick himself for allowing her to make that connection. He’d been hoping she would think the question pointless and casual. Now it was too late to backpedal. Jessica Kilmer was no fool.

  He hauled her into his arms. “Jess, the reason I came over last night is that I was a little…worried, so I came over to check things out. I only planned to be here a short time because, well, frankly, I figured you’d be so mad at me you’d throw me out.”

  She tilted her head back and looked up at him with a faint frown. “I see.” Oh, God, she did see, and what she was seeing clamped a painful vise around her heart. He had come only because it was his job. He had expected her to throw him out, not to welcome him as she had. He hadn’t come for her. “Why…” She had to clear her throat to find her voice, and then she started again. “Why did you think I would throw you out?”

  “Well, hell,” he said impatiently, and ran his fingers through his tousled hair. Jessica might have smiled if she hadn’t been hurting so badly. “I stood you up, right? And you took your damn phone off the hook, which is what got me worried in the first place. I mean, I realized you had every right not to want to talk to me, but I couldn’t quite convince myself you would do something like that.” He gave a short laugh.

  “Anyhow,” he continued, “I got uptight, and I came over here to make sure you were okay. And, like a damn idiot, I left my car parked out front.”

  “So?” She looked up at him in perplexity, swallowing against her disappointment and hurt.

  “So if that guy is keeping an eye on you for some reason, I just threw a monkey wrench in the works.”

  “Oh.” She should, she realized dimly, be upset by this development. She should be frightened that somebody had been watching her, and might now watch her even more closely because of Arlen’s presence. Emotionally, however, she could cope with only one thing at a time, and right now she was barely coping with the knowledge that Arlen hadn’t come last night to be with her.

  She forced herself to turn away and pulled the towel from her head. Long, damp ropes of dark hair fell all the way to her hips.

  “You get along pretty well without your glasses, don’t you?” he remarked as she sat at her dressing table.

  “My eyes aren’t that bad.” She picked up a brush and started working at the ends of her long hair. “Everything’s kind of fuzzy right now, sort of like that cheesecloth blur they use on older actresses in the movies.” Every beat of her heart hurt. She couldn’t see him clearly, thank God, but she could feel him behind her, could sense the way he was focused on her. Why couldn’t he just go take a shower or something and give her a few minutes to cope with the death of a barely born dream?

  “Why did you take your phone off the hook, Jessie?” From the way she had welcomed him, he didn’t think she had been angry enough at him to do that.

  “I didn’t.” She compressed her lips, and her fingers tightened around the brush handle until her knuckles turned white. “I must have hung it up wrong. I was a little…upset.”

  Abruptly she slammed the brush down on her dressing table. “Sorry,” she said bitterly. “Next time I’ll make sure to hang it up right. If I weren’t such a damn fool, you never would have come to check up on me.”

  “Jessie?” He stepped closer, startled and confused by her anger and her words. “Jessie, what’s wrong?”

  “Wrong? Why should anything be wrong?” Her voice rose, and her lower lip started to quiver. “I spent the night with a man who just told me he didn’t want to spend the night with me.”

  “What?” Stunned, Arlen simply stared at her reflection in the mirror.

  “Forget it, Arlen. You gave yourself away. You only came over here because it’s your job.” Fighting valiantly against the tears, she bit her lower lip until it hurt. Pressure grew in her chest, so heavy and tight that she had to battle for breath.

  Seconds ticked away in utter silence before Arlen at last spoke. When he did, his voice was a low, hard growl, unlike any tone she had ever heard from him.

  “Damn you, Jessie,” he said harshly. “I just spent the night engaged in the most unprofessional conduct of my entire career. How dare you suggest I was doing my job!”

  Her breath wedged in her throat, and her heart slammed forcefully. Before a sound could escape her, Arlen turned away.

  “Where are your glasses?” he said curtly. “I’ll get them for you.”

  “Downstairs on the coffee table.” Her voice came out thin, squeezed past the lump in her throat. God, what had she done?

  He would undoubtedly leave very soon. Up until yesterday afternoon he had shown a great deal of resistance to the whole idea of any kind of relationship, and he was still wearing his wedding ring—which ought to make her feel a little like the Other Woman, but somehow didn’t. She just wished she could understand why he had stayed the night with her. If it wasn’t his job, then what was it? What had broken down his resistance and banished his objections?

  Her hand paused in brushing, and she stared at her slightly blurry reflection. It suddenly occurred to her that she’d given up quite a few romantic dreams last night. She’d always cherished visions of romantic dates, of—

  Suddenly angry at herself, she yanked the brush through a tangle and winced. Ridiculous. Experiences like last night and this morning didn’t grow on trees. She wasn’t naive enough to think that just any man could have made her feel the things Arlen had made her feel. Nor did she think his kind of patience and gentleness were found on every corner. Arlen’s lovemaking was worth a thousand romantic dinner dates.

  Grow up, Jessie, she thought angrily. Stop thinking like a romantic child. This is real life, and real life is never perfect. Whatever his reason, no matter why he had come to her last night, Arlen had given her an experience that was precious beyond words. And if he had used her, he had given back exactly what he had taken, unlike Chuck so many years ago.

  Closing her eyes, she drew several deep, steadying breaths. She prided herself on her practicality, on her realistic approach to life. Realistically speaking, she was going to hurt whether this relationship ended now or ended later. Like it or not, her emotions were involved with this difficult man. So, knowing that, why end it sooner? Why not seize the moment, seize the joys and pleasures he offered? Why not worry about tomorrow tomorrow? Just this once in her life, why not reach out with both hands for the day?

  “Jessie?” Arlen came into the room behind her and handed her glasses to her. “Do you have any phones besides the one downstairs?”

  She slipped her glasses on and enjoyed her first clear sight of him since yesterday afternoon. That chest was even more impressive than she’d thought. She had to draw yet another steadying breath, but this one eased the tightness in her throat and allowed her to take pleasure in looking at him.

  “Jess?” Arlen broke into her thoughts.

  She lifted her eyes to his, color flaming in her cheeks. “If you want me to pay att
ention, you’d better put a shirt on and button your jeans.”

  From puzzlement, his expression turned slowly into a smile that was laced with more than a little relief. He had been tempted to storm out a little while ago, angrier than he had been in a long time because of her accusation. During his few minutes downstairs, however, he had calmed down enough to remember just what it was he had done last night. He had made love to a vulnerable, inexperienced young woman. He owed her. He also owed it to her to make allowances for the fact that this morning she was apt to be hypersensitive and unusually emotional, and that she had plenty of justification for it—both his actions and the unknown watcher’s.

  Arlen bent over her from behind, cupping her breasts through her robe and kissing the curve between her neck and shoulder. “You’re quite a distraction yourself,” he murmured. “Jess, I hate to be a pain, but do you have any phones besides the one downstairs on the phone table?”

  His hands slipped from her breasts to her waist as he spoke, and Jessica felt that it was once again possible to breathe.

  “I have two other phones.” Her bright eyes questioned him. She might not have known him long, but she’d quickly realized he didn’t ask idle questions. “Why?”

  He straightened. “Maybe nothing. Where are they?”

  “There’s one in my study across the hall, and the other one is in the kitchen, in the corner between the pantry and the refrigerator. I can’t imagine why anyone would put a phone in there, but somebody did.”

  “Okay. I’ll be right back.” He spoke casually, but he could see she wasn’t buying it. That was the problem when you dealt with somebody as intelligent as Jessie. They weren’t easily misled or diverted. In his business he didn’t deal with too many summa cum laude graduates, but it occurred to him that the FBI might be wise to devise special methods for them. Casual obviously wasn’t making it.

  Jessica tried to restrain her curiosity, telling herself that Arlen was the agent, that he should be left to do what he felt necessary without her interference, that he would certainly tell her anything that affected her….

  She set her brush down and followed him to the study. She just plain didn’t feel that trusting this morning.

  It didn’t soothe her at all to find him kneeling beside her desk, staring at the telephone receiver as if it were a snake. Did he have any idea just how low his jeans were riding on his buns? Did he have any idea just how gorgeous his buns were?

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Just a minute, Jess,” he said. “Let me figure out the parameters of the mess before I shoot off my mouth.”

  She smiled faintly at that. “Mess, huh? Big or little?”

  “I’m hoping like hell it’s little, but the back of my neck is telling me it’s bigger than—” He broke off for lack of a non-obscene expression to use.

  “What does the back of your neck have to do with anything?”

  Realizing he had said something he hadn’t meant to, Arlen cursed under his breath. “You didn’t come up here last night after I called you?”

  “No.” Jessica stepped closer, and now the back of her neck was prickling. “Arlen, what’s going on?” But she had already guessed. Heck, she knew. She’d known at some level below conscious thought ever since he’d asked if she had any other phones. She just hadn’t wanted to know. Now she wanted him to look up and laugh and say her phones were out of order, but she knew he wasn’t going to.

  “This phone is hooked up to your modem, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me the setup.”

  She showed him how the modem was plugged into the phone connection in the wall, and how the phone was plugged into the modem.

  “Simple,” he muttered. “When you use the modem, is the phone disconnected in any way? Does the modem shut it down?”

  “No. In fact, you can pick up the receiver and listen to the modem if you want to. Once, I left the modem on by accident when I called a friend. As soon as my friend picked up her phone, the modem sent out its carrier signal, but I was able to talk to her right over it through the phone receiver.”

  Arlen straightened and pulled a Swiss army knife out of his front pocket. While Jessica peered over his shoulder, he pried at the handset of her phone.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I want to look inside.”

  With a soft pop the handset fell apart, and Jessie looked at a maze of wires and a few small metallic things that looked like thick buttons, or discs.

  Arlen lifted one of the round metallic cases. “What do you use your modem for, Jessie?”

  The question sounded casual, but she wasn’t buying it. “Mostly I have fun. Bulletin boards, that kind of thing. I have a few friends I communicate with. Sometimes I access the national forums for information of some kind.”

  “You don’t do any of your work on it, though?”

  “Absolutely not!” Jessica was appalled. “Arlen, the work I do is classified. I’d be breaking every regulation and—”

  “Okay. I had to ask.” He glanced up at her with a smile that failed to make it past the corners of his mouth. Then he put her phone back together. “Got any coffee?”

  “Sure.” She frowned at him, not liking the way he was trying to change tacks, but willing for the moment to let him. Arlen usually had a reason for what he did. “What would you like for breakfast? I’d better warn you, I’m short on really good stuff, like eggs and bacon.”

  “I haven’t eaten an egg in nearly ten years,” he said as he stood. “How about oatmeal?”

  There was oatmeal in her cupboard, and he insisted on making it himself in the microwave, while she toasted her usual English muffin.

  They ate at her small kitchen table. Jessica managed to restrain her impatience until he settled back in his chair with his second cup of coffee.

  “Okay,” she said. “What’s going on? Come on, Arlen, I’m going to scream. Do you think I don’t know you found out I was being bugged? For crying out loud, tell me. What tipped you off?”

  He frowned faintly and hesitated, but only briefly. “Well,” he said slowly, “I came down here to hang up the phone I thought was off the hook. Only, it wasn’t off the hook. I reseated it a couple of times and still got an empty, dead line. It could have been something wrong with just that phone, or it could have been that one of your other phones was off the hook.”

  “But they couldn’t have been,” Jessica objected. “I didn’t touch either of them after you called, and you couldn’t have gotten through to me if one of them had been off the hook.”

  “Precisely.”

  Jessica didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so grim. “Arlen, let me be perfectly frank here. I am not dumb. I am, however, running into some kind of mental stone wall on this. I don’t want to believe what my mind is telling me is going on here. So please, just tell me in so many words.” Maybe, just maybe, if he said it out loud her mind would stop trying to reject it, and then maybe she could get down to…what? Coping? How the hell did somebody cope with something like this?

  He shook his head. “The phone upstairs in your computer room was off the hook, as if somebody hadn’t reseated it in the cradle exactly the right way. Once I hung it up, the line reopened.”

  “Then…” Jessica’s voice trailed off as she realized that the obvious thing wasn’t possible. “Arlen?”

  “It appears,” he said flatly, “that someone was in this house last night between the time I called you to tell you I wasn’t coming and the time I called and found the line busy.”

  He had said exactly what she had feared, and he had made it real. Cold fingers of dread gripped her spine, and she wrapped her arms around herself. She wanted desperately to deny it, to argue with him, but not even in desperation could she believe for half a second that Arlen was the kind of person who could tell her something like that if he wasn’t absolutely convinced of its truth. “Why?” The word was a bare whisper.

  Arlen scooted his chair aro
und the table and sat right beside Jessica, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “Just to put a bug in your upstairs telephone. He bugged the one in the hall, too, but he missed the one by the fridge.”

  “You’re sure they’re bugs?” The words emerged as a jerky whisper. A stupid, dumb question. What else could they possibly be?

  “The Bureau uses the same kind.”

  Her eyes lifted to his, and he saw how hard she was trying to contain her fright. He touched her cheek, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Jessie, honey, he didn’t want to hurt you. That’s obvious. You were completely vulnerable, and he didn’t even wake you. You don’t have to be afraid of that.” Damn, if only he could make all this go away for her.

  “No,” she whispered. “I just have to live with the idea that some perfect stranger came into my house while I was sleeping…that he could come again, anytime he wants. That maybe next time…” She buried her face against his shoulder, and her hands clenched into fists. “I don’t think I can stand it,” she said tautly. “I don’t think I can stand it.”

  “You won’t be alone,” he promised rashly. “Jessie, I swear you won’t be alone.”

  She tugged back from him and laughed almost harshly. “Right. When the thing you most want is to get out of here before things get messy. You told me there was no danger in being a double agent, Arlen. This doesn’t qualify as danger?”

  The thing you most want is to get out of here before things get messy. It was a hell of an indictment, and there was more than an ounce of truth in it. Reaching out with both hands, he caught Jessie’s face between them and pulled her mouth to his. He kissed her hard, with passion and some of the emotional uneasiness he felt. “It’s already messy, sweetheart,” he said roughly. “It’ll probably get downright filthy, but I’m in for the count. You’ll have to throw me out. I told you, the Bureau will protect you.”