by Rachel Grant
He turned his back on the view and studied her large, starkly furnished living room. Her building had a twenty-four-hour manned security desk. It wasn’t a luxury development, but still, the rent had to put her at the edge of her financial limits, and she didn’t have a credit card to help make ends meet. Was security more important to her than food? “How on earth did you find this place?”
“This condo is owned by a friend of Janice’s. When she heard I needed a place to live, she made some calls. It’s just outside my budget, but living alone, security was important, so it’s worth it.” She led him back into the air-conditioned room and closed the balcony door. “You complained about the heat. Doesn’t it get this hot in New York City?”
“Yeah. As soon as I’m done with school, I’m leaving.”
She smiled. “It must not be so bad. After all, you could have finished three years ago.”
He laughed. “But then I wouldn’t have met you.”
Her eyes lit with surprising warmth; then she spun on her heel and spread her arms to indicate the room. “So, this is the living room,” she said in a blatant change of subject.
The couch was a notch above junk but draped with a clean quilt and matching throw pillows. He suspected the end tables were cardboard boxes covered with sheets. But most startling was her dining set: an expanding oval table surrounded by six chairs. Made from a rich, red wood, with clean, modern lines, the table surface was smooth and pristine.
She could have purchased the table with the proceeds from selling Iraqi artifacts.
“Nice table,” he said.
Her face lit up. She touched a ladder-back chair with reverence. “Thanks. I just bought it. I saved for months.”
He considered her work attire: clean, functional, appropriate. Her plain skirts, slacks, and blouses were, in a word, cheap. But her frugal lifestyle could be a façade. If he stripped her down, would he find her wearing designer lingerie?
She was a smart woman who worked hard. She had a BA and a Master’s degree. A bad credit report didn’t fully explain why she appeared so destitute or why she was so alone.
He waited in the living room while she changed clothes in the bedroom, wondering if he should make a move to find out how expensive her lingerie was. His instincts told him he needed to build trust between them, but he was short on time. In one week, his cover would be blown.
He studied a photo of her underwater in full scuba gear with three other divers. Her face was hidden behind a mask and regulator, but her gray eyes penetrated the glass shield, clearly identifying her among the women in the photo. The air bubbles that surrounded the group and the light in their eyes made him conclude they all laughed behind their regulators. He couldn’t imagine the Erica he knew that happy.
She entered the room dressed in shorts and a tight V-neck T-shirt that showed off her cleavage and wouldn’t cover her midriff if she raised her arms. She looked sexy and warm and very different from the woman he’d worked with all week. He couldn’t help but hope she’d chosen the outfit for him. Perhaps he was making better progress than he thought.
He pointed to the photo. “You’re a diver,” he said. “Have you ever done underwater archaeology?”
She met his gaze without flinching. “No. I haven’t.”
Erica might be sexy as hell, but she was still a liar.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
THE WATERGATE. OF COURSE. Her rich, pretty-boy intern was staying—for free—at the Watergate. Erica wandered through the gigantic living room, looking for clues as to the condo’s owner.
She’d accepted Lee’s invitation for one purpose, and it wasn’t to watch a movie or learn more about Higgins Boats. She wanted to know if Lee could be working for Jake. They’d both invaded her life this week. Her office had been trashed. And, for an eager intern, Lee showed shockingly little interest in archaeology.
Could this be Jake’s apartment?
Jake knew her job at Talon & Drake—a company owned by a Menanichoch tribal member—was no coincidence. He knew she was looking for the artifacts and the new casino room was opening soon. Had Jake hired Lee to watch over her?
She circled the room. There wasn’t a photograph in sight; nothing to tell her who owned this place. Yet it looked lived-in, not like an apartment used only part-time. The only thing she knew for certain was the owner was a man. The furnishings, the organization, even the colors all indicated the place was inhabited by a bachelor.
In the guest bathroom, she searched the medicine chest, looking for prescription bottles with the owner’s name, knowing it was more likely they would be in the master bathroom. She wasn’t willing to jump into bed with Lee just to get access to that room.
She returned to the living room. Where was the owner? Why was he gone for the summer? And why hadn’t Lee mentioned his name?
Initially, she’d questioned the wisdom of coming here—if he really worked for Jake, she could be walking into a trap—but playing it safe was getting her nowhere. And Lee didn’t have any reason to think she was suspicious of him.
Then there was the fact that she didn’t want to be suspicious of him. He was frustrating, immature, and a complete slacker, but he was also funny, charming, and, well, enticing.
He walked down the hall toward her. He’d changed into shorts and a bright Aloha shirt decorated with vertical ribbons of red ginger flowers. All those years of karate had given him muscular legs that moved with masculine grace.
He’s twenty-five and a shiftless career student, she reminded herself.
Or he’s not.
His gaze swept her from head to toe, and his eyes lit with appreciation. She’d seen that look a dozen times and it still caused a flutter in her belly. She acknowledged there were other reasons she might end up in bed with Lee.
If only she could be certain he wasn’t working for Jake.
“Let’s eat out, then rent the movie,” he said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“There’s this great restaurant right around the corner.”
He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and minutes later, she was being seated inside a casual restaurant with a cozy, romantic ambience. One look at the menu and she began to panic. She had eighty-six dollars until next payday, and there was nothing on the menu less than twenty bucks.
The waiter arrived, and she started to order water, but Lee interrupted. “We’ll have a bottle of pinot noir and the crab appetizer.”
He and the waiter discussed the wine choice while she took an anxious look at the menu. The cheapest pinot noir was forty bucks a bottle, and the appetizer cost half that. The waiter left.
“Don’t worry,” Lee said, a cocky smile on his handsome face. “I’m buying.”
She gave him a stern look. “This isn’t a date.”
“Yes. It is.” The confident look in his green eyes caused another flutter, and she wondered how this Tetris champion managed to tempt her.
The answer came readily enough: dinner with Lee was more fun than any evening since she’d learned of her mother’s betrayal. Intelligent, funny, interesting; take away the slacker, and he was the full package. She sipped her wine, enjoying the warm buzz of good food and conversation. It had been far too long since she’d gone out for dinner with a friend. Then she wondered if Lee was a friend and honestly had no idea.
But he made it clear he wanted to be more, and she was dangerously interested. “Just because you paid doesn’t make this a date,” she said stubbornly as he signed the credit card slip.
He stood, stepped behind her, pulled her chair back, and bent low so his lips touched her ear, sending a shiver down her spine. “You know, ‘Thank you for dinner, Lee, I had a lovely time,’ is the standard polite response.”
She stood and grabbed her purse, disconcerted to find he’d positioned himself expertly behind her so she brushed against him and then had to crane her neck to look up at him. “That’s the kind of thing one says when fishing for a good-night kiss.”
“Try it later,
and we’ll see if it works.”
Oh God, she feared she’d do exactly that. Instead, she beckoned him with a curled finger to bend low and whispered in his ear, “Thank you for dinner, Lee, I had a lovely…meal.” The sexy, masculine scent of his cologne filled her with longing. She wanted to bite his earlobe. “And, just so you know, you’re not getting on base tonight. You’re not even at bat.”
“Dinner was just the first inning of a nine-inning game.”
She’d thrown down the gauntlet, and the determined glint in his eye caused a frisson of excitement to run through her. She should put a stop to this dangerous flirtation now, but instead enjoyed the tingle caused by the slight pressure of his hand on the small of her back as he guided her out of the restaurant.
When she settled on his couch half an hour later, she made sure she sat tucked into the corner, giving him as much space as possible. He, of course, sat right next to her.
On the screen, boats landed amidst gunfire and blood. The front panel of the boat dropped, and the occupants had no choice but to move forward, off the boat, marching up the beach without any sort of cover from the rain of bullets and explosives.
“That’s an LCVP. A Higgins Boat.”
She smiled. He didn’t care about the acronyms that governed their work on a daily basis but knew the obscure acronym for a World War II boat. “What does LCVP stand for?”
“Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel.”
“Oh. Of course. It was obvious.”
She knew from the media attention when Saving Private Ryan was first released that the invasion depiction was accurate. She tried not to cover her eyes from the carnage on the screen. This wasn’t violence for violence’s sake. This was a re-creation of an actual historic event. She flinched as bullets rained down, and Lee gave her leg a comforting squeeze.
The overactive air-conditioning and the intense action on the screen combined to give her goose bumps. One degree colder and she’d be shivering. She fought the urge to shift her position and lean against him for warmth.
He could be working for Jake.
Yet, she didn’t believe it. Jake’s style was direct. Threatening. His crew was the same. Lee was nothing like them.
She grabbed a throw pillow and hugged it to her chest. Lee paused the movie and fetched a blanket, which he spread over both of them, then pulled her against his side.
“You could just turn off the air-conditioning,” she said.
“Are you kidding? I’m thinking of turning it down to fifty.” He draped his arm around her, pressing her snug against him, then dropped a light kiss on her forehead. “Now hush and watch the movie.”
Warmth from his body seeped in, and a brief, sharp pain pulsed through her, as though she were sitting next to a hot fire after suffering frostbite. She’d missed this casual intimacy. For the first time since she’d walked out of that awful cell, she felt safe. Cared for.
When the movie ended, she extricated herself from his side, and stood and stretched. She caught the heat in his eyes as her shirt rode up to her ribs and immediately dropped her arms. It wouldn’t take much persuasion to get her into bed, but that would be a mistake.
“I should get home,” she said.
He stood and towered over her. “I’ll walk you.”
Relief mixed with a hint of disappointment. “Thanks.”
When they stepped out into the muggy night, warm air enveloped her but was a poor replacement for Lee’s body heat. It was at least eighty degrees at eleven p.m. She doubted she’d ever get used to the East Coast summer heat.
“We can take the long way home and walk through the Roosevelt Memorial,” he said. Perhaps it was the serious nature of the movie or his face half-hidden in shadow, but he seemed much older to her. And more appealing than ever.
She should refuse and suggest they take the Metro. Every minute they were together, she was playing with fire. But instead the truth slipped out. “I’ve never been to the FDR Memorial at night.” She was embarrassed to admit that in her months in DC, she’d made no friends to hang out with in the city at night, and the dark paths around the tidal basin weren’t safe for a woman walking alone.
He took her hand in a casual gesture and pulled her in the direction of the Kennedy Center. After a few steps, she tried to pull her hand away, but his grip tightened.
“Better hold on,” he said. “I have a long stride and forget to walk slower for shorties like you. Tug on my hand when I start going too fast.”
He sounded reasonable, but she didn’t buy his excuse. She faltered, and he gave her hand a comforting squeeze. She relaxed her shoulders and allowed herself to enjoy the simple pleasure of a hand to hold in the darkness.
THE FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT MEMORIAL was divided into four outdoor rooms, one for each term the man served as president. They entered the memorial from the first-term side and moved through the rooms in chronological order. Even though it was eleven fifteen at night, the park was full of visitors. Perhaps it was the isolation darkness provided or the controlled light and shadow, but whatever the reason, Lee had always felt this memorial was best viewed after the sun went down.
He watched Erica in profile as she studied the breadline sculpture, and saw the raw vulnerability she usually kept hidden behind an icy façade, a reminder that darkness could expose as much as it hid. He wondered if she had faced hunger or homelessness in the wake of her credit nightmare and wanted to hold her, to protect her. He forced the feeling down, crushing it with the suspicion he needed to keep in the forefront of his mind.
He walked away from her into the next section of the memorial, then waited for her to join him. They meandered through, talking about the quotes inscribed in stone, sharing their reactions. When they reached the World War II part of the exhibit they talked about the movie they’d just watched, Higgins Boats, and Thermo-Con. Once again her keen mind dampened his suspicions. He liked her. A lot.
She paused in front of the statue of Eleanor Roosevelt. “I love it that she’s here.” She looked at him. “Quick, what was Eleanor’s maiden name?”
She did love to test him. “Roosevelt,” he answered.
“Very good. Most men don’t know Eleanor’s history.”
“I’m a history buff.”
“I’ve seen little sign of that at work.” She said it saucily.
“I want to dig, not sit at a desk and work on boring reports.”
“I don’t care if JT Talon is your long-lost twin brother, you’ve still got to do the scut work, just like the rest of us.”
He nearly choked and was glad she didn’t seem to notice. He imagined a future where he could remind her of this moment when she’d come so dangerously close to the truth, but his stomach clenched as he recognized Erica would never forgive his lies.
She walked to the statue of FDR. “Want to know why I think they only made him slightly larger than life?”
“He looks big to me.”
“Yes, but Lincoln, Jefferson—their statues are huge. FDR is only a little bit big. I think it’s because of the way people remember him. He was approachable. Fireside chats and all that. He’s not a monolithic figure. He was great, but human.”
“You could be right. It also could be that this memorial is less formal than the others. No columns here.”
“But that too is a product of who he was. He would look odd in a Grecian temple.”
“The dog wouldn’t match,” he said, indicating the Scottish terrier who sat at the president’s feet.
She giggled.
He couldn’t believe it. Erica Kesling had actually giggled.
“No,” she said. “Fala isn’t dignified enough for Ionic, let alone Corinthian, columns.”
They wandered over to an area where lighted waterfalls splashed over flat rocks in a shallow pool. The muggy heat pressed down on him as he looked at the water. “God, I’d love to go swimming right now.”
She grinned. “There’s always the tidal basin.”
He faced the basin a
nd laughed. “No, thank you.”
Water splashed across his legs, and he turned to see she had slipped off her sandals and stood on one of the low, submerged stones. She kicked, and a spray of water hit his legs again.
He lunged for her in one broad step. Her eyes widened, and she stepped backward, slipping on the wet rock. He caught her waist and pulled her against him, stopping her fall. “I shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “You’d look damn good in a wet T-shirt.”
Her gray eyes matched the water that rushed over the stones. With a hand on the smooth, bare skin of her waist, he held her against him, while his other hand caressed her butt. “Bottom of the ninth and finally at bat,” he said and lowered his mouth to hers.
He expected her to protest. She didn’t.
He expected her to pull away. She didn’t.
He brushed his lips across hers, softly at first; then she slid her arms around his neck and opened her mouth to initiate a deeper kiss. Her fingers threaded through his hair as her tongue entwined with his, and she let out a soft hum that ran through him like fire. He pulled her snug against him and explored her mouth slowly. Thoroughly. For the first time, he enjoyed every facet of this undercover job.
“Mommy, can I play in the water too?” a young voice asked excitedly.
“No, honey. They’re being naughty,” a stern voice responded.
Lee managed to open one eye and saw the woman and her son walk away.
Erica broke the kiss and tucked her head against his chest. He could feel her body shaking with silent laughter.
He whispered in her ear, “Not nearly as naughty as I want to be.”
She looked up at him, laughter in eyes so bright they were almost blue. “And what kind of mother is she, letting her son stay up this late?”
“We should report her to Child Protective Services, preferably before she sics the park police on us.”
She stepped out of his arms and leaped back to solid, dry concrete. He waited while she slipped on her sandals, then reached for her hand.