He was starving; the tantalizing smell of prime Angus beef and salty, deep-fried potatoes made his mouth water. He settled himself into the seat across from her and then bent his head and concentrated on the meal.
“Thanks for taking care of me today,” she said softly, that gentle hint of Scotland back in her voice.
“Yeah, no problem,” he said between bites.
“I’ve been thinking.” She ran a finger around the edge of her French-fry carton, not meeting his gaze.
Please don’t think.
“Are you being nice to me just because you’re being paid to?” she asked.
Oh, hell. He put down his burger and wiped his mouth. “I’m not actually being paid, so...no, I don’t think so.”
She tilted her head at him. “Why aren’t you being paid?”
He couldn’t spook her. Had to maintain his cover. “Ah, because I’m doing a favor for my friend. Lee. He, ah, owns the security company.”
“And how do you know this Lee?”
Great. He’d just opened Pandora’s box.
Jacob crossed his arms and stared behind Isabel at the paneled wall and the old Orange Crush soda clock. “Lee was the team lead for my first few jobs in the Secret Service.”
“And...?” she prodded. She could really be a sharp cookie when she wanted to be. “What do you owe him?”
“Nothing. We’re friends—isn’t that enough?” Jacob concentrated on pounding the bottom of the glass ketchup bottle. “If I like somebody, I’ll do them a favor. No big deal.”
“Do you find that you ever get hurt that way?”
“You know, I’m trying not to take this whole line of questioning personally because I know you just got burned pretty badly,” he pointed out.
“Don’t show me any favors. Do something because you want to, or don’t do it at all. That’s my new philosophy.”
Where was this going? He raised an eyebrow at her. Maybe the breakup had affected her more than he realized. “Sure,” Jacob said. “Will do.”
“And I’ll do the same. With you, I mean. Nothing phony or pretend between us.”
He darted a gaze at her, but she was already staring at him. They both looked away. Then back again.
“Was Lee at your wedding?” she asked finally.
Whoa. He went very still.
But she didn’t move, either. She just waited patiently. Jacob carefully ran a French fry through the pool of ketchup he’d managed to coax onto his plate. Her question surprised him, but he didn’t feel so bad about answering. “I’m pretty sure Lee is the one who stayed and told everybody in the church to go home afterward.”
“That’s a good friend,” she said admiringly.
“Yeah. He is.” The details were kind of hazy at this point, though. “He did come back to my apartment later. I, ah, needed help with the bandages.”
“The bandages?”
“I’d punched a few walls. One of them turned out to be brick.”
She put her hand over her mouth. Her chest was moving up and down.
“Are you laughing at me?” he asked.
“Sorry.” She giggled once, and it made her seem young. She giggled again and it was...well, it was the most interesting sound he’d heard in a while. He even felt his face splitting into a grin.
“This is so inappropriate, I know,” she said between chortles. “But suddenly, I don’t feel as bad about losing my breakfast in a coffee shop in midtown Manhattan.”
“Are you going to eat that hamburger?” he asked, pointing at her plate. “Because if you don’t, I will.”
She broke into another fit of giggles, and then suddenly he was laughing, too.
Just...damn.
Back in the SUV, facing the road again, Jacob sobered. He couldn’t forget that he was walking a fine line, so many fine lines.
Maybe that part about Lee had slipped out because of where they were headed. He and Isabel each had damn good reasons not to be keen on wedding celebrations.
He just felt gentle with her. In a sense, she was a kindred spirit, phase two of his operation or not.
“Thank you for telling me that story,” she said softly as she buckled her seat belt. “And thank you for being kind today.”
“You think I’m kind?”
“You are kind,” she said. And then she went back to fiddling with the radio.
Jacob was more often accused of being insensitive. Or aloof. Intense was Eddie’s word. Jacob was pretty sure he got that from Rachel, who, now that he thought of it, had coined the term first. Eddie’s wife, Donna, was the one who’d really latched on to it of late, though.
She hadn’t been at Jacob’s wedding—almost wedding—but Jacob was pretty sure that Eddie had told her the lurid details. Hence her obsession with fixing Jacob up.
Isabel had seemed to respond to his intensity. Maybe she had some natural intensity of her own deep inside her, dying to come out. Maybe it had taken the shock of Alex dumping her for it to escape through that protective surface of hers.
And Rachel... Until today, he hadn’t thought of her in years. At this point, she was nothing to him. The thought of her stirred no feelings, one way or another. She’d been a drama queen—open and direct, the opposite of his mom. He’d mistaken that for intensity, and at the time, he’d craved it because it had been such a novelty to him—someone who wanted to pick everything apart and react expressively to it. After being brought up in a mostly silent home, where people tended to withdraw above all, it had been intensely appealing to find someone who thrived on emotion.
Jacob squinted to find the turnoff he needed. They were almost there.
Isabel stirred next to him. Stretched like a cat, totally not conscious of him. Comfortable in his presence.
And something about that just grabbed him and held on.
Don’t, he told himself. Let her be just a job.
He reminded himself of that over and over during the rest of the drive.
* * *
THERE WAS SOMETHING wonderfully freeing about sitting next to a man whom she didn’t need to give one fig about impressing. Isabel could put her head back on the seat. Let her hair down. Not worry that it was dark outside and the SUV’s engine was lulling her to sleep.
She’d forgotten how freeing it was to be on the road for a long drive. In her fantasies she could get in a car and drive all day, just get away from her life.
It felt like being in a fairy tale with him, nothing close to her everyday reality.
“Knowing Me, Knowing You” by Abba was playing on the radio. She found herself singing along about breaking up never being easy. She put her hand over her mouth and broke into laughter again. That had sounded terrible.
“I don’t care,” she said aloud. She felt tired of needing to put on a good front. Tired of living for tomorrow. She just wanted to laugh and sing and feel better now. “Do you mind if I turn up the volume?” she asked Jacob.
“Go for it,” he said.
She reached for the dial on the radio and bumped hands with him in the dark. Both of them gasped, sophisticated city dwellers that they were. “I bet you never had a client who sat in your front seat and sang Abba to you.”
That earned her a smile. Lights from a passing car illuminated his face.
“Nope,” he said to her, his gaze sliding sideways. “You’re my first, that’s for sure.”
She could grow addicted to his smile. There was something special about earning one from a gruff man. He didn’t give his smiles away like candy. He guarded and kept them. To earn one was a gift.
Jacob had really nice thighs. Maybe that was an odd thing to notice. But he had strength. Sometimes he turned his head, as if his neck felt stiff. It must be exhausting to be ever-vigilant. She was good at studying people—she�
�d always been aware of others more than most people she knew. Jacob also had a habit of watching all around them. His gaze moved from front to rear mirror to each side of the vehicle, probably checking to see that they weren’t being followed. Like in an American gangster movie.
He smelled good, too. The gum he chewed was minty. He’d offered her a piece, and she’d accepted it. She hadn’t chewed gum in ages.
Mostly, she liked watching the muscles in his cheek move as he subtly chewed. It was as though he set a rhythm for himself in his careful watching of the road.
An idle thought crossed her mind.... What if he took her in his arms and held her tight?
His arms were strong. Quite sexy. He was a protector, after all. She’d watched him put his gun in the glove compartment and lock it before they’d set out on the drive. She’d never had a bodyguard of her own before.
“We’re here,” Jacob said, steering the SUV into the circular driveway of an elegant residence with New England clapboards and irregularly set gables. “This is it. Your Vermont inn.”
In the moonlit evening, the renovated hotel set into the side of a large mountain was absolutely stunning. Light spilled from great windows onto the car park where they had stopped.
All that the place needed was a blanket of fresh-fallen snow, and the picture-perfect postcard would have been complete.
Jacob reached for the key but left the engine idling. “Why isn’t there any security?” he asked. “Where’s the perimeter setup?”
“My uncle comes with his own security force. The rest of the family does not.”
He looked at her quizzically. “Isn’t your uncle here yet?”
She shook her head. “He doesn’t arrive until the wedding tomorrow. He’s flying over from Edinburgh on his private jet. Knowing him, he’ll stay just long enough to hear the vows, then to toast the bride and groom and dance one short reel before he returns to his plane to work.”
Jacob seemed aghast. “So he comes for only a few minutes?”
“Maybe a couple of hours, but it is a big to-do. His security team will block off the inn and check IDs at the entrance. No one will be able to get into the inn’s reception area or the church tomorrow unless they’re a guest on Malcolm’s official list.”
He nodded slowly and shut off the engine. She supposed Jacob was used to this, escorting diplomats as he did.
Before they got out, she pointed to the small white-steepled church beside the inn. “That, I believe, is where the wedding is taking place.”
Just then, a shuttle van pulled up in the car park beside them. Isabel’s mum stepped out from the sliding door in the side. Then her two older brothers, followed by their wives and kids. They didn’t notice her and Jacob sitting inside the parked SUV beside them.
Isabel felt herself sinking lower into the seat. She didn’t want them to see her, not yet.
She glanced over to find Jacob staring at her, a funny look on his face. Did he think badly of her for hiding from them?
Abruptly she sat up. “Sorry, I’m not quite ready to reenter the world.” And she certainly wasn’t keen about facing any “innocuous” questions about Alex.
“What exactly do you expect from me tomorrow?” Jacob asked, his voice tight.
She wasn’t sure. No idea, really—unlike her usual self, she hadn’t thought any further ahead than the next moment in the car with Jacob.
She glanced at him, and he was openly scowling at her. The mood was ruined, and she didn’t want it to be ruined. She’d been enjoying herself too much.
* * *
JACOB WAS WORKING hard to stuff down his frustration. He had a much smaller window for cornering John Sage than he’d realized.
“We had a good drive together, didn’t we?” Isabel asked him.
That lovely, aching Scottish accent sounded like musical bells. Isabel’s smile—the real smile, the vulnerable her, not the successful cipher—flashed and then disappeared, melting away.
“Yes, we did,” Jacob allowed.
“As for tomorrow...well, I don’t know. I do know we’ll drive home together on Sunday....” She waited expectantly, her head tilted, hoping that he would chime in. She wasn’t treating him like an employee. It appeared they were on equal footing now. And why not? They knew too much about each other.
“I’ll be at the inn tomorrow,” he said. He had to be. If he was caught outside the security perimeter, he might never catch Sage.
From here on in he was present only to meet John Sage. That was his reason.
Maybe he’d veered a bit, tangled in Isabel’s spell. But it had been a tactical mistake, because here he was at the destination, with no solid footwork completed yet as to his real agenda.
“Right, then.” She licked her lips. “I’ll go check us in.” She opened the door, and in the dome light, he saw that her face had flushed. “Two rooms,” she specified. Needlessly, in his opinion.
“I’ll bring in the suitcases,” he said quietly.
She nodded, and with her bottom lip between her teeth, paused in the doorway. Her jeans hugged her hips in a way that made his groin ache. Her sweater clung to her stomach, to her breasts. Her warm breath seemed to puff and then hang in the air, as if there was a question...something else that hung in the air between them, too.
If he spoke, if he moved with the spell, he could take charge and continue this...physical attraction, or whatever it was, upstairs, in a room with a bed and a door. He could play the music she liked all night with her. She was barely breathing now, her breath coming in a whisper. Her eyes bright. Her lips slightly parted.
He was half-transfixed himself.
But then, that would be too much, too far, on the first night they’d known each other. It would be the wine stain ruining a beautiful tablecloth. And furthermore, once she woke from her dream tomorrow—if they made it that far—she would roll over in bed and look at him and instantly regret everything. Whatever gold they might have found would be turned to ashes. There was alchemy to love and relationships, and whatever that was, Jacob didn’t know the answer. He was just a guy with a badge and a gun and a mission to take bullets for diplomats.
He shook his head. “Good night, Isabel.” Formal words that covered all manner of sins. But she was polished and put together and great at recovery. In the end, she just nodded pleasantly at him as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t just turned her down and they’d really only been exchanging pleasantries.
“Go check in to your room,” Jacob said. “I’ll be behind you checking in to mine.”
* * *
WITH JACOB NO longer beside her, Isabel felt as if something was missing. By now she was used to him, the way he walked beside her, but slightly behind. The way he shined his torch on the path in front of her. Looked all around them with sharp eagle eyes as if he were searching for snipers.
Her intense, ever-vigilant protector was gone. She felt as if she needed to put her own cloak back on, her demeanor of poise and invulnerability and great care.
Centering herself, she turned to touch her fingers lightly to the polished wooden counter.
Inside the lobby, the air was warm and bright. She collected her room key, listening with politeness to the innkeeper’s standard spiel about breakfast hours and the location of the ice machine. He was all smiles and chatter, like a professional marketing manager. Everybody was professional these days. If she’d expected a cold, taciturn New England atmosphere, she wasn’t getting it. It would have to be enough to enjoy the green Vermont hills and the fresh air and the cows.... Oh, the cows. She’d noticed them on the drive up, spotted and white, with short horns. Nothing like her long-horned, hairy Highland cows.
A very bold idea was occurring to her. Something she had never done before. The idea, like a secret, was lighting a flame within her.
In the bustl
ing great room across the lobby, a huge, roaring fire blazed in a stone fireplace. All her many boisterous cousins were surrounding it. Drinking wine. Joking with one another. Catching up. She wasn’t part of that—not truly, not like this. She was usually set apart and above, but set apart and above with Alex, who was customarily bored by the whole thing in his lawyerly way.
What would it be like to dance with her earthy cousins, dance the reels with Jacob, letting herself cut loose? She’d seen his hands tap on the steering wheel when she’d played her music. She’d sensed he wanted to cut loose, too. Yes, it was necessary to have a certain decorum around her family just because of the role she aspired to, the leader of their clan of sorts, but something else was awakening inside her.
She wanted to dance. She wanted to loosen up. She wanted to chase away the rawness that Alex’s breakup had left inside her.
It wasn’t a matter of healing—of going back to the way she’d been before Alex had called today. In some respects, she would never be the same again, nor did she want to be.
She gathered her keys. Sidestepped her family by hiding for a moment beside a rack of tourism brochures. All the various sightseeing venues: Jay Peak! Skiing in Canada! Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream!
When the way was clear, she hastened back outside to Jacob, still inside his SUV, securing his weapon, it looked like. Rubbing her cold arms, she waited, her breath dancing in a jerky pattern, so unlike her usual manner.
She had never asked a man to go out with her before. But why not? Straightening her shoulders, she rapped on the cold glass lightly with her knuckles.
Jacob pressed the button to lower the window. His face was blank except for those two lines on his forehead, concentrating intently.
He wasn’t going to help her along or make it easy for her. She swallowed the lump in her throat.
“Er...I was wondering. Would you like to go to the wedding with me tomorrow?”
He stared at her. “As your bodyguard?”
“No, Jacob. As my date.”
* * *
JACOB HADN’T EXPECTED this at all. She was giving him an opportunity on a golden platter, and she didn’t even know it.
Scotland for Christmas (Harlequin Superromance) Page 7