Gideon still looked annoyed, but huffed, "Fine. We'll talk tomorrow then." He drew in a deep breath and they looked at each other. Now that the worst of the tension was past, Olivia could feel the sexual atmosphere that had been buzzing beneath the whole conversation begin to pulse.
Gideon wasn't a beautiful man; his features were too bold and harsh to be called handsome. But that same raw edge was pure masculine appeal. Olivia had been a goner since the first time she'd laid eyes on him at a crafts fair in La Jolla. He'd looked like a wolf among the sheep, strolling between the hand-woven floor mats and the scented candles. Then he'd stopped to look at Olivia's painted clay pots. Those blunt, strong fingers of his had traced the patterns she'd carved into the clay. He'd looked up, their eyes had met, and Olivia's life had taken a dramatic turn.
Then, six years later, everything had turned again.
And now it had been six months since she'd been together with him, six months since they'd been intimate with each other. And boy, right now it felt as if every longing she'd endured during those six months was combining to create one heck of a pull in his direction. A hot fire glowing behind his eyes told her he was feeling the same phenomenon.
But when he took a step in her direction, Olivia swiveled quickly. Every brain cell she could still access screamed that getting too close to this fire would singe.
There was so much they'd yet to work out. Let's say he hadn't been having an affair. Then why had it been so hard for him to tell her that? Why was it so hard for him to talk to her, period?
If she surrendered physically, she knew the rest of her would follow. They'd cycle right back into his silences and her fears. Therefore, with stiff, jerky movements, she walked toward the door.
His disgruntlement was palpable as he slowly followed.
She drew in a strengthening breath and pulled open the door. Pinning a bright smile on her face, she turned to face him. "Goodbye, Gideon. I'll call you."
"Goodbye, Olivia." His eyes were charcoal gray, almost black, and faintly sardonic as he walked up to her.
Olivia stood her ground — she felt she had to — even as he came to a hands-breadth of her body. She could feel his heat, could see the faint, dark stubble of his beard...and could feel her own heat as she reacted to it all.
She took a step back.
Gideon's lips curved and his voice came out a low, silky purr. "It's funny, isn't it? How some things don't need to be said at all?"
Indeed, his eyes admitted he was every bit as susceptible to her as she was to him. Seeing that nearly did Olivia in. A wave of incredible desire passed over her.
Oh, how she missed him. And he wanted her back.
But she wanted her marriage to work, if they could possibly put it back together. It was way too soon to get physical — and emotionally vulnerable.
So she swallowed and held her ground. "Those things need to come after," she said hoarsely.
For an instant, she saw a gratifying arrow of frustration flash across his face, but then he smiled. He smiled with confidence.
"We'll see," he said. Then chuckling softly, he turned and went out the door.
CHAPTER FOUR
In fine fettle, Gideon strolled down the walkway from Olivia's house on Green Ivy way. She didn't know a thing — at least not about his true profession. He had a chance. But his wide smile was already fading by the time he got to the door of his black Porsche. As far as chances went, had he gone far enough, divulged enough...given in enough?
He'd knocked Olivia off balance, to be sure, but which way was she going to tilt?
Gideon's frown reflected off of the roof of the car as he opened the driver's side door. Questions were quickly puncturing his brief bubble of optimism. Could he convince Olivia he was really communicating? For that matter, even if Olivia did tilt in his direction, was that going to help him find Anja?
Gideon's scowl had fully developed by the time he slid behind the wheel of his car. He stared broodingly through the windshield. Fine. Okay. Reconciling with Olivia was probably not going to find him Anja. But — so what? It was still part of his mission.
The same was true of the assignments he'd given Peter and Dash. They were all working the long shot angle. While everyone else in the agency was doing the conventional research, tracking for Anja's cell phone signal, looking up credit card charges and so forth, Gideon and his two agents were seeing if, by some slim chance, any of Anja's neighbors knew her whereabouts or where she'd hidden her research.
Gideon pressed his lips together and stuck his key in the ignition. It had better be a slim chance. The last thing he wanted was for Olivia actually to possess any pertinent information regarding Anja. That would be dangerous — and complicated. The Porsche's powerful engine roared to life. Gideon's mouth set in a grim, straight line.
So he was reconciling with Olivia strictly in order to rule out the possibility she knew anything.
Indeed, he only would be able to reconcile with her if she didn't know, and never found out, a thing.
~~~
New York City was an excellent place to lose oneself. On Friday night, Anja strolled from the crowded sidewalk of 42nd Street and into Grand Central station.
New York City was also an excellent place to lose things, she mused. Ignoring the wall of counters selling tickets to various cities around the country, Anja made a leisurely circuit of the large and echoing room. She could feel time tick, tick, ticking. Making the final and necessary modifications to her virus was imperative.
But first she had to make sure nobody could find her.
Whoever had been pursuing her with dogs was the most essential person to evade. That went without saying.
But eluding Gideon and his Agency at the same time gave Anja a great deal of satisfaction. They liked to tell her how to do her job. They thought they knew best. As Anja paced the length of Grand Central, she snorted softly to herself. How could they know best? They didn't even understand what she was working on. Sometimes it seemed as if Gideon refused to understand.
But very soon Anja would be free of them all, free to handle this situation as she knew would be best.
After making three slow circuits of the main room, Anja finally found what she'd been looking for. A female in her late teens was loitering near a trashcan. Her hair was cut short and spiky. Her make-up looked like it had come out of a discount drug store and her clothes did not appear to have seen the inside of a laundromat in several weeks.
In the same way that the female in dirty clothes pretended she wasn't loitering, Anja pretended she didn't notice her as she set her purse down on one of the wooden, built-in chairs. She turned her head suddenly as a blaring voice announced the departure of a particular train. Walking quickly, she left her purse behind, squinting as if she were trying to get a look at the notices displayed on the big boards. As if she were just turning her back on her Louis Vuitton purse for a minute.
But Anja spent a good ten minutes squinting up at the big boards. When she finally turned back to the wooden seat where she'd left her purse, it was gone. Gone also was the woman in dirty clothing.
Anja smiled. New York City was, indeed, a good place to lose things.
~~~
Gideon. Had she handled him right?
On Saturday morning, dressed in a Kimono-style dressing robe, Olivia took her quartz-encrusted mug of tea out to her back deck and leaned on the redwood railing. It was a misty morning, cool and gray, typical for spring in Southern California. As she stared at the dew resting on the rose blooms Brittany had planted for her, she acknowledged she'd wandered into treacherous territory the night before.
With her own husband.
Olivia took a sip of tea and gazed broodingly at the rose bush. Part of her couldn't believe Gideon had actually knocked on her door, conciliatory and full of sex appeal — and that she'd sent him away! Another part of her couldn't believe she was even considering getting back together with him. For six months he'd held his silence. Why believe he was going to change his wa
ys and communicate better now? And who knew if he was telling the truth when he denied having had an affair?
Olivia grimaced over her sip of tea. All right, she believed him about that. He hadn't been cheating on her. But there'd been something going on last August, something he was hiding...
And still was hiding.
Her instincts shouted it.
Olivia heaved a deep sigh and looked toward Anja's house. She wished she could talk the whole thing over with her clear-eyed, if cynical, friend. According to the phone message from Anja that Olivia had received on Thursday morning, there'd been some kind of emergency at the lab. Anja was going to have to work night and day to resolve it. Judging by the light that was still on over Anja's back porch door, she'd meant this literally. She'd apparently not even come home long enough to turn it off.
"Or else she was so tired when she finally dragged home she didn't remember to turn it off," Olivia murmured to herself. She straightened off the redwood railing. Maybe Anja was home. Maybe if Olivia went over and knocked on her back door, Anja'd come open it and then answer all of Olivia's burning questions.
As Olivia went down the three steps from the deck to her lawn, she saw Brittany was standing in her own backyard. Olivia hadn't noticed before because Brittany's two boys were actually being quiet, apparently held in thrall by the spectacle of a man dressed in house painter white overalls spreading drop cloths over the shrubs that grew adjacent to Brittany's house.
Olivia approached the rose-entwined fence between their yards. Standing there, Brittany looked far less enthralled than her sons. Quietly, Olivia asked, "You found somebody who'd work on Saturday?"
With her hands stuck in the front pockets of her faded jeans, Brittany shrugged. "Hey, and it was his idea, not mine. So now I'm praying he actually knows what he's doing. Says he works alone, no crew." Brittany leaned closer to whisper, "But he is cheap."
"Well," Olivia said. "Miracles do happen."
Brittany grunted and threw a worried look toward the painter. "Maybe."
"I'm going to see if Anja's come home yet," Olivia told her.
"Tell her she owes you a meditation session. My knees are still cramped from last Wednesday."
Olivia wagged her finger. "But your mind is clear."
"As clear as mud. One hour of meditation can be undone in thirty seconds by a determined two-year-old. Trust me on this one."
Olivia laughed and continued, mug in hand, to the gate, one of three gates that some neighbor-minded predecessor had installed in each side of her backyard fence. She opened it and went through.
Olivia had to admit that Anja's house had an abandoned air to it, even before she knocked on the back door and received no answer.
"Damn," Olivia muttered softly.
As if in answer to this utterance, a low growl sounded from the direction of the iron bench Anja had set to one side of the Mexican tile porch. Olivia widened her eyes and turned.
Beneath the bench crouched the ugliest dog she had ever seen. It had the rangy body of a pointer and the flat, intimidating face of a pit-bull. Its long canines showed as it lifted its lips to snarl.
Olivia stood stock still. She wasn't afraid of dogs, but on top of the warning snarl, there was something off about the animal, as if it were sick. "Uh...Brittany?" she called, as loudly as she dared.
This was apparently too loud, for the dog started to uncurl from under the bench. Its snarl turned into a bellicose bark.
Olivia stumbled backward. "Brittany!"
There was a high-pitched yelp from the dog as a rainbow-striped frisbee caught him on the flank. In two scrambling seconds the dog was down the side yard and gone.
"My word." Olivia gazed down at her favorite mug, now in shards on Anja's Mexican tile.
"Are you all right?" Brittany called. She must have been the source of the frisbee, acting quickly and with what tool she had at hand.
"I'm fine, thanks to you." Olivia put one hand to her chest. Her heart was still beating at a rapid clip. "Whose dog was that, do you know?"
"Never seen him before. Sean, you go back and watch the painter. Make sure he covers up the ferns." Now by the corner of the fence, Brittany turned to Olivia, frowning in concern. "It's an irresponsible idiot, however, who lets an aggressive animal like that one get loose."
Shana's voice interrupted whatever reply Olivia might have made. "Hey, what's going on out here?" She stood on her patio in a briefly-cut peignoir and peered from under a hand that shaded the low-slanting morning sun. "Did I hear barking?"
"You did. Some crazy dog almost attacked Olivia."
"No lie." Clutching her pink satin robe closed, Shana clip-clopped over to the fence in a pair of fluffy-topped mules. "Was it an utterly hideous-looking creature with a mushed-in face?"
"That's a pretty good description," muttered Olivia. She squatted to pick up the biggest pieces of her shattered mug.
"That animal has been slinking around for a few days now," Shana told them. "I would have fed it but it showed its teeth at me."
Brittany shook her head. "Bet ya somebody trained it to be aggressive, then ditched it when he couldn't handle it any more."
"Some people are crazy," Shana agreed. "Hey, be careful with that sharp stuff," she called to Olivia. "And what's that?"
"What's what?" Olivia straightened and looked about herself.
"That." Shana pointed and then, scowling, simply threw one long leg after the other over the low railed fence of Anja's backyard. "It looks like Yves Saint Laurent. Yes, that's exactly what it is." Shana bent, and from under the iron bench pulled a pastel print, silk neck scarf. "A hundred and fifty dollars of accessory thrown like a rag under the outdoor furniture," she remarked, disgusted.
"Anja must have dropped it by accident," Olivia guessed.
"Well, one certainly hopes it was by accident," Shana huffed, and folded the scarf. "I'll put it in her mailbox — No, the mailman's a pervert. Better keep it at home until I see Anja again." Shana held the scarf up and then peered past it toward Brittany's yard. A naughty smile curved her lips. "Ah. I see you finally got somebody to paint your house."
"Don't even think it," Brittany said, low.
Shana put on an innocent face. "Don't think what?"
"You know what. He's not here to satisfy your insatiable sexual urges. He's here to paint my house."
"My, my." Shana grinned and pressed the folds she'd made in Anja's scarf. "Getting a little territorial, aren't we?"
"Damn straight I am. I want the house painted this year."
"Hm. And I don't suppose it's relevant that he happens to be quite a stud?"
Brittany made a rude noise.
Shana laughed, then deepened her voice. "Don't worry about your precious painter. I have my own fish to fry." She batted her eyelashes. "Absolutely precious and oh-so-convenient. He's in escrow, right next door."
"Good God, Shana," Brittany exclaimed, at normal tone again. "You don't want to mess with your next door neighbor."
"Why ever not?"
Olivia, loosely holding the remains of her mug, interjected, "Your attention span isn't all that long, dear."
"And when you're through with him, you'll still have to live next door to each other," Brittany pointed out.
"Oh." Shana actually appeared to consider this problem — briefly. Then she waved a hand. "That house has already fallen out of escrow five or six times. He won't be living there long. And meanwhile — " She heaved a beatific sigh.
Brittany rolled her eyes.
Olivia laughed. "Well, I'm going to go throw this poor broken thing out..."
"Mmm, not so fast," Shana warned.
"You aren't getting out of it that easy," Brittany said, in apparent agreement.
"What?" Olivia stopped with her cupped hands full of broken ceramic.
"The man, darling," Shana purred, and drew the silk scarf under her chin.
"The one who looked like a gentleman gangster and who was seen entering your home yesterday evening,"
Brittany explained.
"Oh." Olivia grimaced. "You mean Gideon."
"Your ex?" Shana asked.
"Not my ex...exactly."
Brittany's eyes widened. "Don't tell me you're thinking of getting back together?"
"Well..."
"She is," Shana declared, reading Olivia's face.
"Well?" Brittany demanded. "Are you?"
Olivia would much rather have discussed this with Anja, who would at least try to deliver unbiased advice. "Okay...he did want to discuss reconciliation."
"Go for it," urged Shana.
"Are you crazy?" demanded Brittany. "The man is a crumb."
Behind Brittany, the painter dropped a paint can. Sean and Cam, Brittany's boys, shouted in delight. The women briefly glanced in the painter's direction, saw nothing drastic had occurred, and returned their attention to the matter at hand.
"You don't even know Gideon," Shana told Brittany.
"I don't have to know him," Brittany shot back. "All men are crumbs."
"Well..." Shana was clearly hesitant to disagree. "If you are going to boot him, Livvie, at least sleep with him first. You're long overdue, girl."
There was another crash from the direction of the painter. This time he'd dropped his electric sander. The boys were ecstatic. The women turned back to Olivia.
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Olivia exclaimed. To her distress, she could feel her cheeks turning red. "I'm not going to do either."
"Either what?" Brittany asked.
"Either boot him out of hand, or sleep with him." With a deftness born of her need to escape the conversation, Olivia managed to open the gate to her backyard with one hand, while juggling the mug pieces in the other.
"Then what are you going to do?" Shana wanted to know.
Damn good question. Olivia made it through the gate. "I'm going to...think things through." That sounded good, even if her brain was working at severely diminished capacity when it came to Gideon. All last night she'd...ached. It had been especially difficult because she knew she could have had Gideon's strong arms around her. She could have had — Oh, boy, best not to think about it.
Indiscreet Ladies of Green Ivy Way Page 5