Angel: A Linear Tactical Romantic Suspense Standalone

by Janie Crouch

  That at least got a smile out of her.

  “Second of all, driving you crazy might be my new favorite pastime. So don’t go thinking I feel cheated, because I certainly don’t.”

  “But—”

  He tapped a finger on her lips. “No buts.” He helped her down off the table, and they began walking back toward her house. “We’ve got time.”

  “You mean like time later tonight?”

  At least she sounded enthusiastic at the thought. But that wasn’t what he wanted. He had an early morning meeting tomorrow about the systems breach inside Collingwood Technology. He couldn’t miss that.

  He didn’t want to have sex with her and then need to leave immediately. When they slept together for first time, he wanted to be able to sleep next to her afterward. Hold her. Wake her up the next morning and hear those breathy little cries again. He didn’t want it to be rushed.

  He wanted to take her out on a date, take his time, show Jordan that she was worth taking time for.

  The rest he would have to figure out as he went along. So he didn’t answer her question about tonight.

  She was quiet for most of the trek back to her house, and he realized he didn’t know if that was usual or not for her. Was she normally chatty and quiet meant bad news, or the opposite? He basically knew nothing about this woman except for the fact that he wanted her with a ferocity that ate at him.

  When they got to her house, he stopped at his car. She was on the front porch steps by the time she realized he wasn’t right behind her anymore.

  She turned to look at him. “Are you going to buy condoms? I’m sorry I don’t have any here.” She shifted uncomfortably. “And there’s some . . . stuff we should probably talk about before we have sex.”

  “Why don’t we save the talk for another night.”

  She flushed so deeply in the porch light, he was actually a little concerned for her. “No. We definitely need to have it before things go any further between us.”

  That didn’t sound promising.

  But it was one of the things they could talk about when they went out on their date. Although seeing her standing on the steps where he’d kissed her so many times was playing hell on his plan to take things slow.

  He stepped away from the car and walked over so he could put his hands on her hips. She was three steps up, making her hips almost chest height.

  “I want you to come in,” she whispered. She grabbed his wrists and tried to take a step back, pulling him with her, but he wouldn’t budge. “I want to say this and get it over with and then for you to have your turn. Or for both of us to have a turn together. Whatever.”

  He sighed. “Not tonight.”

  “Why not? Let’s just get it over with.”

  He dropped his hands, eyebrows furrowing. “Just get it over with?”

  She flushed more. “I meant the conversation. Not the sex part.”

  Gabe ran a hand through his hair. This wasn’t going the way he’d wanted it to go. “Look, I have an early meeting tomorrow, and I don’t want to have to leave your house in the middle of the night to make it back to Idaho Falls on time. So a raincheck on both the conversation and the sex, okay?”

  “Oh. Okay.” She didn’t sound very sure of herself.

  Probably because he was being a dumbass and handling this all wrong by not making it clear he would like nothing more than to go inside and have sex with her in every position and on every surface in the house.

  He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not saying good night because I don’t want you. I do. But before we jump into bed, I want to take you out on a date first. How about that place Violet went tonight? New Brothers Pizza? Why don’t we go there on Saturday? You can even wear your pretty skirt again if you want to. I promise to behave.” At least for a little while.

  He didn’t know exactly what he was expecting, but all the color draining from her face and taking two steps backward wasn’t it.

  “No,” she said, voice barely audible in the night air. “I don’t want to.”

  “Another night then. Sunday?”

  “No.”

  He ran a hand over the back of his neck and told himself to be patient. “I know you like their food. I saw a couple of carryout boxes from there in your kitchen last time I was here.”

  “I don’t want to go.” Her voice was so soft he almost couldn’t hear her.

  “Fine. There’s like, what, five other restaurants in Oak Creek? If you don’t want pizza, then just pick one.”

  If anything, she got even paler. She was gnawing on that bottom lip again and actually wringing her hands.

  Did she not want to go out with him? Was that what was happening right now?

  “Jordan, what’s going on?”

  “I can’t go out with you.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  She shook her head. “It’s just not a good idea.”

  Was she seriously saying she wouldn’t go out with him?

  “My mouth between your legs seemed like a good idea thirty minutes ago. But you don’t want to be seen in town with me?”

  Now she crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t be crass, Collingwood. And it’s not like that. It’s not you. I just can’t go out with you. Leave it at that.”

  “Why?”

  Those slender shoulders stiffened. “It doesn’t matter why. I just don’t want to, and for the first time in my adult life, I get to choose what I want to do. Now do you want to come inside, or should we stand out here yelling like kids?”

  Anger lit through him, and he took a step away. He’d wanted to do things differently with her, show her she was worth treating with respect, and she’d just thrown that back in his face.

  “What are you, Jordan? One of those women who only want to be with a guy if he treats her like crap? Maybe I should call Allan Godlewski and let him know you are actually available.”

  Her entire body froze. Hands that had been crossed over her chest in temper now gripped arms as if to hold in the hurt.

  Fuck.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  Why had he said that? Jesus. Jordan had every right to say no to going out with someone for whatever reason she wanted. He knew she had walls, had issues, had concerns.

  “Jordan, I’m sorry—”

  “Thanks for the picnic, Collingwood.”

  He was up the steps in two seconds, his hands gently closing around her arms. He didn’t want to leave things like this. “Rainfall . . .” She flinched, but he continued. “I shouldn’t have said that. I lost my temper—”

  “No.” Those gray eyes stared at him coldly in the light from the lone porch bulb.

  “No, what?”

  “Last time you were here you told me that if I didn’t want you around, I could just say the word ‘no’ and you would back off. Was that the truth, Gabe?”

  He mourned the loss of Gabriel from her lips. “Yes, it was the truth. But—”

  “Then no.”

  He dropped his hands from her shoulders. He was a man of his word, even when he was an asshole.

  She took a step back from him. “Don’t come back.”

  She turned and walked inside the house. The door locked with a resounding click behind her.

  Chapter 8

  Jordan punched the security code that allowed her to enter the kitchen of Fancy Pants without setting off the alarm. Tears she refused to shed burned her eyes as she closed the door behind her.

  It was the middle of the night, just after two a.m., hours earlier than she would normally show up for work. She shouldn’t be here at all, but she didn’t have anywhere else to go. And she couldn’t stay at her house.

  It was time to leave Oak Creek.

  She leaned back against one of the counters, then covered her face with her hands and slid down it.

  There was nothing left for her here. For the past two months, since the night she and Gabriel had fought so bitterly, she’d put every second she wasn’t working at the bakery into The
Plan. And it had been working. She’d spent hours at her computer, figuring out the details and developing the security systems she was going to build.

  She’d thrown herself into it, using the skills and knowledge she’d gained from the web security and design classes she’d taken while in prison. She’d been limited to what she could actually do there—inmates weren’t given tremendous access to the internet—but she’d been able to learn the basics of coding and had worked out in her mind, and in her notebook, the systems she would build. Doing it that way took a lot of time and trial and error, but time was something she’d had plenty of. By the time she’d been paroled, she’d had complete systems developed in her head.

  All she’d needed to do was work them out on actual computer systems. She’d been making steady progress on the computer she’d bought. Once again, she’d had plenty of time, doing whatever it took to keep her mind off Gabriel.

  He had apologized. He left that night when she’d asked but had returned a couple hours later to say once again that he was sorry. She’d opened the door to him and told him she accepted his apology.

  But then shut the door in his face once more.

  It had been the hardest thing she’d ever done, leaving him standing there when everything in her just wanted to pull him inside, into her life.

  But she couldn’t do that. He’d meant his apology sincerely. That wasn’t the issue. But she couldn’t date him, couldn’t put him in the middle of this battle between her and the rest of Oak Creek.

  Not because she didn’t think he would fight for her, but because she knew he would. It was his nature. The Navy SEAL warrior in him.

  Then flowers had shown up the next day, a beautiful bouquet of stargazer lilies. She’d never had anyone send her flowers. She’d stared at them for hours. But it didn’t change the situation.

  Nothing was going to change the situation.

  So she’d ignored him, and by the time the last flower had died, Gabriel had stopped trying to contact her to apologize.

  And she had felt like the biggest bitch on the planet.

  She’d done the only thing she could do to stay sane—work on her programming. It was going to take months, years probably, before she was able to build and grow it to the scale she needed it to be, but that wouldn’t stop her from working on it every day until it was successful.

  And once it was, it would be enough to get her what she wanted. Needed.

  Six hundred twenty-two thousand dollars. The Plan.

  Then maybe, oh God maybe, she could try to have a real relationship with Gabriel.

  But who was she kidding? There was no way Gabriel was still going to be around, even if by some miracle he would ever be interested in her again after how she’d treated him. Maybe she was destined to only have the Allan Godlewskis in this world.

  But she had to do this. The Plan was the only way she’d ever be able to truly be a part of this community again.

  Or it had been.

  She wrapped her arms around her knees, curling herself into a ball. Now it looked like even that option was gone.

  Allan Godlewski and a bunch of his buddies had been back at her house tonight. Gabriel’s warning had kept them away for a while, but evidently copious amounts of alcohol and time’s ability to fade all things had provided them with enough courage to forget any warnings.

  She’d been awoken by loud yells and laughter. A few minutes later, rocks had flown in not one window, but nearly every window she had in her house.

  She’s been trapped in her bed by a couple of rocks flying through her bedroom window, scattering glass all over her floor. By the time she had gotten to a pair of shoes, gotten dressed—because she definitely wasn’t facing anybody in her nightshirt and pajama pants—and gotten to the shotgun by the front door, they’d been gone.

  It had taken a while for her galloping pulse to settle. Honestly, at that moment, she’d just been glad that they had left, that the little mob hadn’t decided to take any moves from the Allan playbook and offer to scratch her itches. They’d just run off into the woods. No permanent harm done.

  Until she’d gone into her computer room.

  Ironically, of all the rooms they’d targeted, this one had been the least vandalized. But one randomly thrown rock had hit her desk and destroyed the computer and, moreover, everything she’d poured her heart and soul into for the past two months.

  All her work was gone.

  The computer she needed to continue the work—or now, start over again—was gone.

  She was basically right back to where she had started the day she’d been paroled. Alone and with nothing.

  It was winter now, and although it had been mild so far, it was too cold to stay in a house with most of the windows broken. Jordan didn’t want to waste money on a hotel, even if one in town would let her stay, so she’d come here to the bakery.

  But this was just a stopgap. Something that would get her through today.

  She couldn’t fight the inevitable any longer. She would have to leave Oak Creek.

  Starting over somewhere else would be hard with her record and now having to pay rent somewhere else. But what were her other options? She couldn’t afford to get her house back to a livable standard. Wood over the windows wouldn’t work all winter; it would be too cold to live there.

  Plus, what was to stop them from coming back and doing it again? Or worse?

  Jordan stayed on the ground for a long time before finally forcing herself to get up. She might as well do something rather than feel sorry for herself. Sitting on the floor wasn’t accomplishing anything. She’d been wanting to reorganize the storage room to utilize the space more effectively.

  Maybe it could be a sort of parting gift to Violet. Jordan and her boss had been almost on opposite paths over the past two months. Violet had been working—training like a beast—to become fierce. A warrior. Being kidnapped and held by human traffickers had left a scar on her psyche, but Violet refused to ever be anyone’s victim again. She was fighting, growing stronger.

  Jordan felt like she was drowning, growing weaker. And tonight had just sealed it.

  She would miss Violet when she left. She wouldn’t miss nearly biting off her tongue every day so she wouldn’t ask how Gabriel was doing. But she would miss this place when she left.

  She squared her shoulders, put on her headphones, and cranked up Jimi Hendrix, charging into the storage room to get started.

  She hadn’t been at it very long when she opened the storage room door to drag out some bags of flour and salt that needed to be used soon—and shrieked. Violet stood there in some sort of Jiu-Jitsu fighting stance.

  She snatched her headphones out of her ears. “What are you doing here?”

  Violet relaxed her stance. “I happen to own this business and live on the premises. What are you doing here?”

  Shit. It had to look suspicious that she was in the bakery kitchen in the middle of the night. “I’m not stealing anything.”

  Violet rolled her eyes. “Jordan. It never crossed my mind that you would be stealing something.”

  She shrugged, then ran a hand over her eyes. “I just couldn’t sleep, and my house . . .” She didn’t want to drag Violet into this mess by explaining it all. “I just couldn’t be there alone right now.”

  “Ugh. I don’t want to be alone either.”

  “Why don’t you call Aiden? He’s got to be up for a booty call even if it’s the middle of the night.” And Jordan was only slightly massively jealous that her friend had someone like that she could call.

  Violet leaned against the counter near the sink. “Unfortunately, my boyfriend thinks he knows what’s best for me and that is for us to be apart for a while.”

  Jordan leaned on the counter next to her. “I don’t have very good luck with guys, so I’m probably not the one to give you advice.”

  Violet nodded and slipped an arm around her shoulder. The friendly gesture felt nice. Nobody had hugged her since Gabriel. She could
feel the tears welling up again.

  “I had an idea for a gougère pastry the other night,” Violet said. “Want to try to make it now? We’ll both be exhausted tomorrow together.”

  “Anything is better than facing my house alone.” But God, she was still going to have to figure out what to do about it. Maybe the light of day tomorrow would help it seem less overwhelming. She hoped so.

  She turned to Violet. “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter 9

  Jordan sampled their latest effort—was it variation three or four? After an hour of measuring, mixing, and tasting, they all blurred together—and none of them were quite right. Probably working on it in the middle of the night wasn’t the best idea. They’d finally left the new recipe behind and gone into the large walk-in cooler to get the supplies they needed for the day’s regular offerings when heat and a terrible noise exploded in the kitchen behind them.

  “What the hell?” Violet screamed as they both ran back out of the cooler.

  The entire kitchen was on fire.

  “What happened? Did the oven catch fire?” Jordan could barely hear herself over the roar.

  “I think something burning flew through the window.” Violet pointed over at the window by the door, where a breeze was now coming through, fanning the flames higher.

  “Where’s the fire extinguisher?” Jordan yelled.

  The smoke was getting thick, rapidly. They both pulled their shirts over their faces to try to help them breathe.

  “It’s by the back door,” Violet said. They looked at each other. There was no way they could get to the fire extinguisher through the flames.

  “There’s one out front, too, right?” Jordan ran for the door leading to the front of the house—but was knocked back almost onto her ass when she pushed on the door.

  What the hell?

  “What the hell?” Violet echoed her thoughts, rushing over to help push on the door. This door couldn’t be locked; there wasn’t a lock on it. Something was blocking it. They both pushed on it together but whatever was holding it wouldn’t budge.