She would never let it happen.
“Anyway,” he continued, “word from Alexander is no holiday, no vacation until this fucker is live. Thanksgiving or Christmas—we’re working straight through.”
“Whatever.” The rest of the team would be bitched out about that, but Phoenix wouldn’t say anything. Complaining revealed personal details. Not as if she had anyone to spend holidays with anyway. “What’s the strategy?”
“The team has an idea to float you. It would mean a new module for Christmas—a new, shiny to distract the players from the fact that their pre-ordered fancy new consoles haven’t arrived. With Easter eggs that can only be unlocked later, with the console.”
She didn’t reply for a minute, mulling it over, idly searching for a leper gif. “We’re looking at barely over seven weeks out.”
“I’m aware of the date.” Jared got up and poured more coffee from the pot on the windowsill. He was putting on weight. “Can you do it?”
“Is the team’s concept a good one?”
“God only knows.”
“Not God,” she chuckled, replacing Nedry with a sore-covered leper. “I will know.”
With a flourish, she cut the connection and set to putting the prototype through its paces. By the team meeting, she’d have a better feel for it. At least the challenge would put Fox out of her brain. If they ran with the concept, she’d be full out and too busy for a real-life lover. Especially one like that. She had a feeling Fox would not be the wham-bam, roll-over-and-fall-asleep kind of guy. Way too much intensity for that. Even a no-strings fling with him would be time-consuming, and she’d just run out of free time.
She had her priorities and her work was all of them. It had been the reason for every decision she’d made for the past three years, seven months and twelve days. Funny that she knew that number better than the last time she’d had real-life sex. That told her something right there about what was important.
Not a hot, random stranger.
Probably for the best.
* * *
The enticing Emily did not run past that afternoon. Fox figured she’d either skipped out on a second run, had gone the other direction or was dodging him. Possibly all three, cagey as she acted. He knew he hadn’t missed her because he’d moved his computer station to the windows overlooking the beach.
He’d taken the place for the view, after all, fogged in as it was.
All research about the denizens in Phoenix’s realm counted as legit time spent, so Fox spent the rest of the rainy day indulging his curiosity about the woman. In this arena, his sexual and professional interests coincided. He loved the discovery a new lover brought. Now that he’d determined to seduce the elusive Emily, that restless hunger focused in and fixed on her. He wanted to learn every little thing about her, from what everyone knew to those intimate revelations only he would dig out of her.
What would make her really lose control?
The full background check on her would take until tomorrow to return, but he’d accessed everything he could immediately find on her. No remorse there. Even his novelist cover would excuse a bit of internet curiosity about the woman he intended to talk into a hot and hopefully kinky affair. After years at this game, he’d developed a deft hand at not dropping too much of what he’d learned about people.
Women, in particular, thought a man knowing their preferences meant he’d paid attention to them. It never hurt his case to remember the little details. The fact that he kept those tidbits in carefully indexed files didn’t hurt them because they never knew it.
Miss Emily Bartwell turned out to be pretty much an open book. Wealthy, East Coast family, all the right schools, a very sweet newspaper photo of her as a sixteen-year-old debutante in a white dress and her dark hair in upswept ringlets so perfect they looked like they could cut glass. God, how he’d love to replicate that outfit with a much dirtier outcome.
One marriage, lasting two years and ending in an acrid divorce that nevertheless let her walk away with her inherited fortune intact, due to an iron-clad trust fund.
Turned out the awful paintings in the coffee shop were hers, but he wouldn’t hold it against her. She had a crappy website with a few on display, an outdated Etsy shop. More fascinating, “Bartwell” was neither her maiden name nor her ex’s name. She’d been born Silar Emily Stillwell and legally changed to her current name after the divorce. Sloppy to use her middle name, but typical for an amateur.
People didn’t like giving up the pieces of their old identities—a sentimentality that outed the ones in hiding every time. Emily, he decided, fit the profile. The asshole ex-husband no doubt. Everything pointed to it—the dog, her nervousness.
Fox constructed her story as he showered and dressed for the ill-fated date with Glory. Too bad there, as she’d be the perfect choice for an information source. Still, the cock wanted what the cock wanted. And only Emily with her perfect mouth, long legs and fascinating depths would do for him now. He would find other ways to pump Glory.
So, Emily had found this little island, changed her name to a family one and kept to herself. No need to work, with her financial cushion, so she painted, searching for her genius, no doubt. He could give her some tips on better covering her trail. She’d done okay for an amateur, if he was right. Glory might be able to give him the scoop on her friend. Most likely enough time had passed that the asshole ex had lost interest and moved on. The last restraining order dated back over two years and seemed to have been granted mostly to set her mind at ease, since he hadn’t uncovered any associated police reports.
The full check would tell him more.
So would Emily.
First, however, he needed to extract himself from the situation with Glory. Without any useful lies, either, since the odds were high of discovery. Very glad he’d snagged a bouquet of carnations from the little grocery that morning, he brought up Glory’s contact info in his phone and started the mapping app. At the time he’d been irritated that the store had nothing more glamorous than the dyed-gold carnations—not exactly romantic date material—but it seemed his luck had intervened.
Nothing said “I see you as just a friend” more than flowers meant for your gran’s Thanksgiving table.
Indeed, when Glory opened her door, her welcoming smile dimmed considerably at the sight of them. Perfect setup. For all that his profession required a certain amount of ruthlessness, Fox had never been a guy to hurt a woman’s feelings on purpose. He wouldn’t have wanted Glory mad at him, even if she wasn’t Emily’s friend.
“Thanks for having me over.” He slipped past her on pretext of taking off his wet jacket and took in the pretty cabin, while she hung it up for him and stuck the flowers in a vase. Family photos, all with Pacific Northwest backgrounds. Local girl for at least one generation, maybe more.
“I hope you’re hungry.” Glory handed him a glass of wine, her smile and voice insinuating much more. “I made my famous creamed chicken casserole.”
“Starving. I still haven’t figured out the Kapsucks’ oven.” He handed the wine back. “But I shouldn’t drink—have to drive back. With your winding roads, I don’t want to end up dead in a gulch.”
“I thought maybe you could...stay.” Glory closed the distance between them.
Dang, he’d hoped he could at least introduce the topic over dinner. “I can’t.” He tugged one of her curls in a friendly way. “But, as cliché as it sounds, I really hope we can be friends.”
Her face went blank and he mentally winced, bracing himself for the takedown he deserved.
“Oh. My. God.” Her eyes had gone calculating. “I know you were interested yesterday, so either you heard gossip about me—and that can’t be it because it’s all good, at least in the area you’d be interested in—or you met someone else.”
He gave her his most rueful grin. “I�
�m an ass. I know it.”
“But there is no one else to meet.” She emptied his wineglass into hers, drank a healthy swallow and studied him over the rim. “Who could you have possibly... No. No fucking way!”
Liking her better all the time, and wishing the wine thing hadn’t worked so well, as he could have had a glass or two, really, Fox stuck his thumbs in the loops of his jeans and waited her out.
“That witch! Emily Bartwell came over and checked you out, didn’t she? I should never have tipped her off. What I get for making assumptions, dammit.”
“Actually, I stopped by her house—meet the neighbors, you know.”
Glory gaped at him. “Did she let you in?”
No, she hadn’t. Not even a polite move toward doing so. “Not yet. We chatted outside.”
Now she snorted and sipped her wine, looking smug. “And she won’t either. I’m not surprised you’re going for it—Lord knows every other straight male and a few not-so-straight females in a hundred-mile radius have. Not a one has turned her head. Good luck. When she turns you down, I won’t harbor hard feelings.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
“Not at all. It will be interesting to see you try. I’ll start the betting pool in the morning.”
“I’m not sure that’s—”
“Can’t stop me.” She grinned, full of excellent cheer. “Come eat. I’ll even give you some tips on my girl. Not that they’ll do you any good.”
Fox followed her with interest. This game just got better all the time.
Chapter Five
“Go away,” Glory said the moment Em walked in the post office door. “I’m not speaking to you.”
Stomach clutching, Em stopped in the doorway, then stepped aside for Ethyl Gillican to go out, arms laden with packages. The elderly woman winked at her. Glory glared.
Totally out of her depth, she assessed her—former?—friend, who stood in front of the counter, arms crossed. What the hell had Fox told her? She’d blown the friendship, just as she’d feared, and without really meaning to.
You know you were in the wrong. Flirting with him like that. What the hell got into you?
Miserable, knowing she deserved to be, she nodded and turned to go.
“Is that my coffee?” Glory called after her. “You can at least give me that much, to make up for stealing Fox Mullins out from under me.”
Em made herself face the other woman, setting the coffee on the counter. It sang of her guilt—extra large, double cream, triple shot and with chocolate caramel. Glory surveyed it and raised her eyebrows.
“I’m sorry, Glory,” Em blurted. “I didn’t mean for it to happen. You called dibs and I messed up. You should have him and—”
Glory held up a hand, stopping her, then sniffed her coffee. “This is extra fancy.”
“I know it doesn’t change anything. I came in hoping you’d say you got it on the way you planned, but I guess you didn’t and I don’t know how the Girl Code covers this. Just tell me what to do. Should I call him? Yes! No—I’ll go see him and I’ll tell him that I’m not interested, which is the truth, and that he should...are you okay?”
Glory had turned red, apparently choking on some coffee foam and thumping her chest. Then she burst out laughing. “Dammit—you made me shoot foam up my nose! What the hell is the ‘girl code’?”
Em shifted from foot to foot, wishing she hadn’t come in. But you couldn’t call the damn post office, with their central 800 number bullshit, and she’d been fretting, even after working all night. She’d even skipped her morning run—and yesterday afternoon’s—for which Anansi had not forgiven her. It made her world complete to have everyone mad at her. This was what came of dabbling in thoughts of sexy men.
“Why are you laughing?”
“No, no, no.” Glory wagged a finger. “Girl code. Explain.”
“You know.” Em checked her ponytail. “The rules of friendship. Not stealing each other’s boyfriends. That kind of thing.”
“Ohh.” Glory nodded knowingly. Then made a face and shook her head. “There is no girl code.”
“There isn’t?”
“Well, sure, there’s friends and what you do and don’t do, but girls don’t have some special set of rules, Em.”
“I’m not sure about that.” Emily had spend a fair amount of effort, in her more social days, studying the cliques of girls and how their friendships worked. The rules had never been clear and seemed very situation-specific. She’d never quite figured it out. But Glory always acted like a friend.
“Trust me—high school was a long time ago. Besides, Fox wasn’t my boyfriend—only potential.”
“Aha!” Em pointed at her. “So there is a rule. Potential versus actual.”
Glory pursed her lips. “Okay, maybe. But it’s not as if you cheated and made me screw up my routine so you got head cheerleader instead.”
Em’s stomach unknotted a little. Glory was joking with her, then. Em held her hand up in a vow. “I would never stand in the way of you being head cheerleader.”
Glory snort-laughed. “That’s better. And what the hell do you mean, you don’t want him? Of course you do. He told me you said that if I cleared it, you’d go out with him, which was decent of you. Girl code points for you.”
“He told you that?” The embarrassed horror crept back in. She really couldn’t imagine why she’d behaved as she had. It must have been the scare. “I never said that.” In so many words.
“Well, I teased it out of him. Guilt is a wonderful thing. But he’s totally into you and you haven’t wanted to go out with anyone. For that reason alone I’d step off the dance floor for you.” Glory made a complicated hand gesture, a ridiculous bastardization of a gang sign. “Girl code, homie.”
Em suppressed the laugh and clung to being serious. “No, you’re right. I haven’t wanted to date and I still don’t. I’ll tell him that and you can have him.”
“And he’s picturing your long legs wrapped around him instead? No, thank you. Besides, as I told Fox, watching him go after you and you having a bit of fun will be even more entertaining—and that’s saying something.”
The realization hit her. “You started a betting pool. That’s why Ethyl winked at me.”
Glory widened her eyes and folded her hands under her chin, imitating a manic cherub. “Me? Nooo. Gambling in a federal post office would be against the law.”
Not that it had ever stopped her before. Glory ran betting pools on babies, tourist hook-ups and days without sunshine—or anything else interesting. She drew the line at predicting divorces, saying that brought bad luck. She got around the law because no one exchanged money. Bragging rights only. More than one person around town had framed certificates from their wins, including the odds they’d beaten.
And Ethyl Gillican held the grand prize.
“What did Ethyl predict?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Em narrowed her eyes. “Name your price to make this go away.”
Glory gasped, the picture of offense. “I cannot be bought.”
“Please don’t do this.” Em tried making the hand sign. “Girl code?”
“You need to practice that—I think you just told me to fuck myself in Italian. Which, now that I can’t have a certain hot redhead, sounds very appealing.”
“Okay, seriously.” Em tightened her ponytail. Too much coffee. “I’m really not interested.”
“I think you’re lying. Are you protecting me or being a big weenie?”
“Really. I don’t have time for him. I have—” She cut herself off, horrified that she’d nearly said something about her work. Even being tired and frazzled shouldn’t have pushed her into such a careless mistake. Fortunately, Glory didn’t notice the near-slip, looking
over Em’s shoulder with a speculative gleam in her eyes.
“Well, well, look who’s headed our way.”
She told herself not to look. Then called herself a coward. After all, she’d indulged in one pretty tame fantasy and spent the subsequent nearly twenty-four hours erasing the man from her mind. No matter what Glory thought, she wasn’t into him. She couldn’t afford to be. Here was her opportunity to make it clear to both of them. The fact that she looked about as appealing as a two-day-old microwaved dinner ought to help.
She looked. Fox crossed the street in a half jog, the breeze off the water catching his short coppery curls. If possible, he looked even better in jeans, with his narrow hips and strong thighs. He wore a deep green zippered UCLA sweatshirt and, spotting them, waved and flashed that oh-so charming grin.
That trigger inside that seemed keyed to him flipped back and forth in excitement.
“I think I get all the Girl Code points,” Glory murmured, “for giving that up for you. You so owe me.”
“I owe you nothing, because I’m not doing this.”
“We shall see.” Glory sing-songed the words. Em would have had to retaliate if Fox hadn’t burst through the door right then, filling the stale little office with the scent of rain and his intense personality.
“Please tell me it stops raining at some point,” he greeted them, nodding at Glory and turning his special smile on Em. Like chocolate under a heat lamp, she melted at the edges.
“It’s not raining,” she replied, taking control of the conversation. “This counts as something between mist and a drizzle.”
“Are you going to tell me the Tlingit have thirty-seven words for rain or something?” His eyes sparkled with good humor and he ran his hands over his damp hair.
“You’re the writer. Shouldn’t you know?”
“Ah, true.” His gaze traveled warmly over her. “Perhaps I need private lessons. Would you be willing to tutor me?”
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