by Jillian Hart
But what motives could Brody have? He was here by chance, not by design.
“You could dig out the pizza stone.” She freed the pizza from its shrink-wrapping. “It’s in the bottom drawer beneath the built-in oven.”
“Sure thing.”
He sounded happy to please, digging through the bottom drawer as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do.
Her dad didn’t do anything in the kitchen. Uncle Mick, her favorite uncle ever, sat at the table and good-naturedly expected to be waited on.
Brody retrieved the stone and laid it on the counter as she read the instructions to find the right temperature for the oven and turned it on. “I’ve been on the road a long time. I’ve forgotten what a real home feels like.”
“I told you. It’s pretty boring here.”
“You don’t seem bored.”
How could he know? “It’s not a life people think is all that interesting. But I ride my horse every day. I watch the sun rise every morning. I go to bed at night on this land my great-grandfather homesteaded. And I feel…”
She dumped the pizza on the stone and turned away. It was dorky and she wasn’t going to say it.
As she grabbed the pizza stone, his big hand covered hers. Held on. The link she felt was like touching a live wire, a zapping vibration of emotion. Of understanding.
It was in his heart, and she felt it.
“Complete,” he finished her sentence.
The exact word she would have used. How could this be happening?
“It’s really something, what you’ve got here.” He removed his hand from hers and stepped away.
Taking a part of him with her. How could that be? It didn’t make any sense, but that’s how it felt. The deepest part of her being throbbed with too many emotions to name—loneliness and longing and loss mingled with hope and love and wishes.
Brody had done this, opened a door to a room in her heart, one she’d never known existed. Now it was all she could feel.
He crossed to the big bay window behind the table, and he somehow still had a hold of her.
A torrent of feeling flowed through her, as cold as snowmelt in a spring creek. And it was as if she could feel his loneliness. Feel how he longed for dreams, too. It was as tangible as the oven handle in her hand.
She slipped the pizza into the oven, the draft of heat attempted to dry the tears on her cheeks, but she feared nothing could. She swiped at the wetness with the backs of her hands and hoped the slap of her sandals on the floor hid the sound of her sniff. What was happening to her? Did Brody feel this, too?
He jammed his hands into his back pockets, and he stood as straight as a soldier. “Which horse is yours?”
“The dark bay is my Keno. Look, he’s lifting his head, watching the house. He knows tonight is Friday, and I’m not going to be taking him for a run until later, and it always makes him cranky.”
“He’s keeping watch for you.”
“Yep. We’re old friends.”
“I know how that is.” Brody could hear the affection in her voice. Feel it like sunshine on his skin. “A horse can be your best friend.”
“Keno and I have been through a lot over the years. It’s a bond I can’t explain. We grew up together. Keno is a part of nearly every good memory I have. We know each other so well.”
“It’s a good way to grow up.”
“It sure is.” She didn’t add how she’d loved her childhood. How one day she wanted to give that kind of life to her own children. To blond-haired little girls riding their horses in the vast meadows. “It’s a good way to live now.”
Longing. Brody didn’t know why he felt it so strongly within. His personal feelings had no place when he was on the government’s clock. He wanted to tell himself he’d do better pushing the line of questioning to find out what he needed to about Michelle. To uncover her as a clandestine participant in her uncle Mick’s money printing scheme.
But he knew beyond a doubt she was no criminal. His heart told him so.
“Ring.” Proud of herself, Michelle slipped the tiles from her tray onto the crowded board. “Ooh, and a triple score square.”
“Good, solid move.” Across the dining room table, pizza crusts on their plates pushed aside and forgotten, Brody studied her with unflinching eyes. A predator’s gaze.
Sure, he may have come up with a few good words, but he was probably just lucky. He didn’t know whom he was up against. She’d been playing since her sisters let her sit on phone books so she could reach the table.
“Take your time. No hurry,” she told him.
“A good player never hurries.” He winked at her. “It’s the secret to winning the game.”
“Sometimes a stall tactic means you don’t have a word to play.”
“Are you doubting me?” He quirked a brow in a challenge.
A challenge? She wasn’t afraid of him. “Show me what you’ve got, Mr. Scrabble Expert.”
A killer grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. He dropped two tiles on the board to spell gun.
“That’s the best you can do?” Boy, weren’t some men all ego? She pulled new tiles out of the bag and arranged them on her tray. Piece of cake. She was going to win hands down.
“I’m not through yet,” he said, fitting two more letters on either end. “Gunship. That means I’m ahead.”
Michelle’s jaw dropped. That was more than luck. Her admiration for him rose a notch higher. “You show some skill.”
“I tried to warn you.” He held up both hands as if he were innocent.
So, this was a serious game. Fine. She could rise to the challenge. She slid vow into place. “Top that, mister.”
“No problem.” He added loner to the board. “I need more tiles. Hand me the bag.”
Their fingers brushed, but it was more than the callused warmth of him she felt.
She’d been in love before, and it hadn’t felt like this. Being with Rick had made her feel happy. Being with Brody was overwhelming. Why was that? What was it about this man? She kept thinking about him, and she had to stop herself from dreaming about him.
“Having trouble?”
No. She pushed a c in front of rush on the board. Crush. That’s what she had. It was like she felt in high school, before Rick ever noticed her. That innocent hoping, that rush of longing for the ideal.
“Michelle, I think that move of yours proves than I’m superior.” He laid down the missing tiles to make the word superior. “And a bonus square, too.”
“This is war. Wait. Give me a minute.” She studied her letters. As if she’d let him win. “There. Take that.”
“Bride? And a triple score.” Brody quirked one brow. “Impressed, but I’m not intimidated.”
He was already moving his pieces into place. Wolf.
She took more tiles and organized them on her tray. She built romance.
Why did she keep coming up with the same theme?
Because she was enamored by the rogue Scrabble master across the table from her.
As if he could hear her thoughts, he frowned. Not an unhappy frown, but it was a thoughtful one. His tiles spelled out bachelor.
She studied her letters. She added three more. love.
He spelled freedom.
Wed.
Single.
They each wrestled in the bag for the last of the tiles.
“I’m ahead by two points.” Brody arranged and rearranged his letters. “Just thought you should know. You’re going to lose this match, Miss McKaslin.”
“Pride goes before a fall, Mr. Gabriel.” She sounded confident, but her tiles were an unfortunate combination of the dregs in the bag: ULASOMT
“Can’t do it, can you?” When his words could have been triumphant, they were low and rumbling and intimate.
She shivered down to her soul. There was only one combination. Her mind was blanking. Sure, she could use a word like mat or lout, but it wouldn’t give her enough points. The question was, did she want to save h
er dignity or win the game?
How could she let him win? There was no way Michelle Alice McKaslin lost a game of Scrabble to a man! Think, Michelle. Think.
“I just need a minute,” she said.
“Take five. Take ten. You still aren’t going to beat me.”
Did he say that just to provoke her? It worked. “Now I have no choice. Here it is.”
She pushed the letters onto the board, shifting them next to an E, until they spelled soulmate.
Could she be any more embarrassed? With the way Brody’s eyes were gleaming and the way he cleared his throat, she wondered if he had a better word.
He reached across the table and pushed a stray hair out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear.
A sweet and caring gesture. Everything within her stilled. Had he guessed? Did he know she had a crush on him?
Then he chucked her chin, just like her dad used to do when she was sad. A platonic gesture.
Oh. The open door inside her closed. She watched, swallowing hard to hide her disappointment, as Brody spelled his last word.
“For the win,” he said.
She looked down to see he’d spelled zero.
As in her chances of having him fall in love with a girl like her.
She smiled with all the dignity she had left. Nothing had ever cost her so much.
Brody couldn’t get the sick feeling out of his stomach as he headed up the flight of stairs to his temporary home above the garage. Tonight was going great.
Right up until he’d blown it.
He shouldn’t have touched her. It sure seemed to upset her. After he’d won the game, she’d offered him a gentle congratulations, adding that she never lost and it had been an honor to play with a player who challenged her. All the while deftly packing away the game.
He’d helped her—at least, he thought he did. He couldn’t remember. There was a moment in time where all he’d been aware of was the glide of her gold chain bracelet along her slim, sun-bronzed wrist. The swing of her hoop earrings against the delicate curve of her face.
The way she made him feel forever in a single moment.
“You gotta stop this, man,” he muttered to himself as he put his hand over his weapon, ready to draw it. Training, and ten years of habit, had him checking the apartment before he relaxed. Mick McKaslin was so far a no-show. Not at his house. Not on the McKaslin land. Not at his usual places in town.
Had someone tipped him off? The usual spotters were in place—airports, train stations and rental car agencies. Maybe they’d do a sweep of license plates at hotels. Try to track him down that way, unless he’d gone to ground. Either way, his mission was clear. He had surveillance to do on Mick’s place. Brody pulled out his cell and fired off a text message to Hunter. “Be here at midnight.”
He opened the blinds that had been closed tight against the afternoon sun. The sun had disappeared behind dark thunderheads blanketing the sky. A movement in one of the windows caught his attention.
Michelle. She was yanking at the cord of her blinds, which appeared to be stuck. She unraveled them, yanked on them, untwirled them some more and pulled again. The blind went unevenly down and she gave up, turning the vinyl slats closed against the coming twilight.
She’d taken the movie upstairs with her, and he figured she had a television in her room.
He felt oddly sad that she’d retreated from the living room instead of staying there with him.
And was that professional?
Not one bit. He’d better get his head on straight if he wanted this mission to be a safe one. Things could get out of hand quick.
There was a pickup lumbering up the driveway, kicking up dust in its wake. Pete McKaslin. Brody watched and waited while the man who’d greeted him with reserve early this morning stopped his truck and climbed out.
“Dad!” Michelle must have heard his truck because she darted out of the house. “Did you get supper while you were in town? I can put a pizza in the oven.”
“That’d be great, honey.” Pete gave his youngest daughter a reserved nod. “Smells like we’re gonna get lightning. Did you put up the horses?”
“I was just going to.” Michelle traipsed back up the steps and hesitated on the wide old-fashioned porch. “Do you want me to put coffee on for you, too?”
“Later, honey.” Pete opened the hood of the trunk. “I’ve got some trouble. Got to get it figured out. Now go do your chores, sweetie.”
Pete seemed out of sorts, his brows deeply furrowed and his frown intimidating as he bent over his work.
Nothing like a perfect opportunity. Brody couldn’t see an industrious farmer like Pete being involved in a counterfeiting ring, but he’d seen more unbelievable things. He’d keep an open mind.
“Want me to help troubleshoot?”
Pete looked up. “Hey, Brody. Glad to see you’re still here. The garage looks good.”
“I told Alice I’d do the trim first thing in the morning.”
“Sure do appreciate it. This time of year I’m working from dawn until dusk. Get behind on what needs done around here.”
“I appreciate the place to stay. Your son-in-law Zach said my bike will be ready about noon, so I’ll be out of your hair.”
“You ain’t in the way, son. You’re more of a helping hand than that brother of mine. Did he show up here tonight?”
“Nope. Is this the uncle Mick I’ve been hearing about?”
“That’d be him. Everybody loves Mick.” Pete’s frown returned and he stared at the engine. “Now this is a problem I can solve. I hope.”
“Need this for work tomorrow?” Brody understood.
“I’ve got hay to cut. It can’t wait. This storm’ll blow over, you can feel it, but might not be so lucky tomorrow night. You know something about mechanics?”
“Enough to get by on.” Brody gave thanks for the assignment where he’d worked undercover in a repair shop in Boring, Oregon. “What kind of problem are you having?”
“Overheating. Went to town this morning, got my son-in-law to open up his garage for me to check it out. Nothing. He changed my hoses, flushed out the radiator, replaced a fuse and such, but figured I might have to take it to the dealership. All those fancy computer chips they’ve got now days.”
“Yep.” Brody had to give high marks to the mechanic’s work he saw. Neat and very competent. “An electrical problem?”
Pete wiped his face, as though the thought of it made him profoundly weary. A farmer’s life was one of long hours and hard work, and it showed on this man who, by the look of it, had done it all his life. “Be right back.”
Brody leaned against the truck while Pete disappeared into the depths of the roomy garage. The rising wind gusted across his face, hot and humid and bringing with it the fresh scent of mown grass. Of drying hay. Memories, unbidden and unwanted, whirled up. Those when he was a boy, standing on the floor of the tractor between his father’s knees, while his dad drove the tractor through the fields, cutting hay beneath the summer sun.
“When you’re a grown man, this will all be yours, son.” His father’s voice, even in memory, was something he hadn’t let himself hear in a long time.
He closed off the memory, but it didn’t stop it. His father’s voice, the hot rush of summer wind, the faint scent of mechanic’s grease and hay brought it all back, as clear as that day twenty years ago.
“This land will be yours, son, and I’ll teach you how to take care of it. It’s a sacred thing, this land God made, and being a farmer is a great responsibility.”
A month later, when the second cutting of hay was growing thick and hopeful in the fields, his father hadn’t been there to cut and bale it. Brody’s family had been laid to rest in the small town’s cemetery, and Brody had never seen his father’s land again.
The darkness around him strengthened, drawing his attention to the family’s house, where the curtains had not yet been drawn against the coming night. He caught a glimpse of Michelle in the kitchen, the
phone cradled on her shoulder, as she opened the oven and slid in a pizza, like the one they’d shared for supper. Still talking, looking as graceful and elegant as goodness could be, she shut the door and swept from his sight.
It was as if a string linked his heart to hers. And as she walked away, she drew that string taut, pulling his chest wide open.
What was it about this woman? He’d been on hundreds of assignments. He’d dated women, trying to find The One, but no lady, no matter how beautiful or kind or successful, had a hold on him like this one.
Floodlights blinked on overhead, lighting up the entire concrete pad in front of the three-car garage. Brody whipped his attention away from the house just in time as Pete ambled into sight. There was an unmistakable air of integrity about the man, a hardworking, down-to-business attitude. No, he couldn’t picture Mr. Peter James McKaslin aiding and abetting his brother’s illegal activities.
“If you follow the wire, I’ll check the lead.” Pete cast his glance at the house, as if realizing where Brody had been looking and who he’d been looking at. “Know anything about electronics?”
“Some.” Brody reached into the engine compartment to separate the mass of wires and got to work. Testing the charge of each. Working methodically and slow, feeling Pete’s curious and finally approving gaze.
“You sure know a lot for a drifter on a bike.”
“I’m not a drifter on a bike.” Brody didn’t feel like lying to this man. Carefully saying as much of the truth as possible, he stopped to follow a negative wire back around to its fuse. “I’ve been gainfully employed for the last ten years back in Virginia.”
“Now and then I hear an accent. Got a decent job? Let me guess. As a mechanic?”
“No. You could call it white collar.”
Pete considered that. “Had yourself a fancy corner office?”
“It wasn’t a corner, but it was good enough. But I’ve put in my notice. I’m taking time to decide what I want to do next.”
“Wise. You made good money in that office?”
“I did.” Brody straightened up. “Here’s your problem. The fuse the mechanic changed blew again.”