Her vibrator? Shock quickly rolled through him, pushed out of the way by another hot wave of lust. A vibrator. Those naked images started piling up in his mind again, making him feel hard and hot and…
And stupid.
“I almost fell for that,” he said, shaking his head. “You almost distracted me.”
She opened her mouth.
“Don’t bother denying it.” He pointed at her. “As I’m certain you’re aware, I was talking about a blow-dryer. Give it up, sweetheart.”
When she opened her mouth again, he wagged his finger back and forth. “N-uh-uh-uh-uh. Those are the rules. Take them or leave.”
Making a disgusted sound, she threw up her hands. Then she marched over to another suitcase and from its depths removed the largest blow-dryer he’d ever seen, its nozzle as big as a head of cabbage. “Jesus,” he said, staring at it. “That’s not a hairdryer, that’s a weapon of mass destruction.”
If looks could kill, he would have been vaporized. “Don’t mock the hair tools,” she hissed, shoving the dryer at him. “I’m going to get you back for this. Just you wait.”
Yeah, baby, punish me by debarking. Then his family, his identity, and his health would be a lot better off. “Why don’t I give you directions to the nearest resort,” he offered.
She was a breath away from taking him up on it, he could tell.
So, relaxing, he smiled at her. Everything was going to be just fine. “Or I can tell you the quickest route back to the highway and the city.”
Angel bristled. “What? And let you win? I don’t think so—” She broke off, staring at him.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a darn minute.” She strode closer to him, her curly hair floating off her shoulders, her perfume floating through the air to dizzy him.
So dizzy that he didn’t see it coming.
“I know who you are!” she exclaimed, all angel crowded out by the devilish delight in her eyes. “The day just keeps getting better! This is where you’ve been hiding the last year. You’re the so-called ‘Trial Dog.’ You’re C. J. Jones, San Francisco’s most tenacious, most relentless, and most winning criminal defense attorney.”
Chapter 4
Angel lay on the skinny but surprisingly comfortable bed and listened to nothing. To her mind it was as loud as a dripping faucet, and the inky blackness of the little cottage was just another distraction from sleep. The dense surrounding woods made the whole place look and smell like a giant’s version of the Delancey Christmas-tree lot she visited every December, and the trees even muffled the sound of the nearby ocean.
“I’m a city girl,” she admitted aloud, because it seemed wise to make sure that it wasn’t sudden deafness that accounted for the thick silence.
After another few minutes of unrelieved quiet, she gave up on trying to sleep. She couldn’t, not with her mind fixed on the discovery that Cooper wasn’t the simple but suspicious resort manager she’d first presumed.
He was C. J. Jones! She gave a little bounce against the mattress, thrilled that she’d stumbled upon the elusive partner in the prestigious firm of DiGiovanni & Jones. Her menopausal editor, Jane, would have one of her notorious hot flashes when Angel called in with the exciting news.
When she called in from a pay phone. She sighed. It was inconvenient to lose her cell and all her other tools of civilization, but it was a fair price for the unexpected twofer. Two stories, one on Stephen Whitney and the other featuring the now-reclusive C. J. Jones.
She hadn’t broached the idea of interviewing Cooper yet. He’d managed to duck out of the room right after she’d made the I.D., muttering something about locking away her possessions. But he couldn’t get far.
What annoyed her was how long it had taken her to figure out who he was. But he had been wearing those sunglasses in the church—was it in order to remain anonymous?—and it wasn’t as if she’d been looking for him.
Or ever actually met him. Her previous contact with C.J. Jones had come in the form of what she’d read in the newspapers and then what she’d seen for herself a number of years ago. Early for an appointment at the courthouse, out of curiosity she’d ducked into a courtroom that was filling with an unusual number of onlookers.
She’d sat in the back row just as C. J. Jones began his closing argument in an infamous assault case. Within minutes, she’d been transfixed by his clipped voice and its leashed passion. He’d been heavier then, she remembered, his hair much shorter, his movements explosive.
Recalling that, it wasn’t as surprising that she hadn’t immediately seen him in the lanky, long-haired Cooper with his cool, calm air.
But it explained that prickly, tingly sense she’d experienced around him. Why, it was nothing more than her reporter’s intuition at work, trying to tell her to pay attention because it had already recognized the man.
She relaxed against the soft sheets, comforted by the rational explanation. Not that he wasn’t attractive enough to make a woman prickle and tingle. As a matter of fact, that day in the courtroom she’d developed the teeniest, tiniest of crushes on him. There was no shame in admitting it. She’d been young, impressionable, and, well, starstruck.
But she’d always been old enough and wise enough to put the story ahead of any female silliness. So she’d gone on to her meeting that day just as she would go on tomorrow, focused on the job.
Which led her right back to wondering why Cooper had left his job in San Francisco. She yawned, her eyes closing. Tomorrow she’d find out all she wanted to know about him.
The racket of the birds was loud enough to awaken her. Angel lay in bed, her eyes closed, and wondered if robins had made a nest under the eaves of her apartment building like they had last spring. But this wasn’t spring, and—
Her eyes popped open. And this wasn’t San Francisco anymore, Dorothy.
Sunlight had found a knife’s-edge opening in the drawn curtains. It was certainly past dawn, but beyond that Angel couldn’t guess. At home, she had her bedroom TV programmed to wake her at seven A.M. with the world and national news on MSNBC.
But without the customary rumble of the morning anchor announcing the time, she was forced to fumble for her watch on the wooden nightstand. In the dim light, she brought it close to her face to read the hands.
Nine A.M. Late, but not so late that there wouldn’t be coffee available, yes? Though at home the stuff would be auto-brewed, waiting for her the instant she opened her eyes, today she’d have to shower and dress before caffeine.
In an amazing ten-minute speed record, which attested to (a) her eagerness for coffee and (b) how much time she usually spent on hair care, she soon wore jeans and a T-shirt and was lacing up her Gatorade-green hiking boots. Without her precious blow-dryer and its “patented curl control” diffusor, it seemed safer to skip her usual daily shampooing. Instead, she went for a 1960s flower child look by tying a bandanna around her head.
The walk between her cottage and the main building passed in a blur of clean air and leafy scents. The guest accommodations were spaced among the immense redwoods and other semi-tamed vegetation, but the communal building sat at the head of an oval-shaped, grass-covered clearing. Unshadowed by trees, the outside of the door marked “Dining Room” felt warm beneath her hand.
Inside, she didn’t smell coffee.
But surely that couldn’t be right. She gazed about the empty room, taking in the simple picnic tables, the chafing dishes sitting on another long table against the far wall. As she walked farther into the room, an interior door beside the buffet swung open. A man stepped in.
Judd Sterling, Angel recalled. Family Friend. Close up he was definitely handsome, but even more interesting was the graceful way he moved—as if he’d found a current of air that she couldn’t see or feel.
She sent him the best decaffeinated smile she could muster up. “Coffee?” she asked. “I’m desperate for coffee.”
Smiling back in a friendly manner, he shook his head and pointed to her left.
Angel’s gaze followed his finger to a sign on the wall. “‘No’—” She swallowed her next word, grimacing. No talking.
Sorry, she mouthed. Taking a deep breath, she mimed gripping a mug. Coffee? she asked, just moving her lips.
He shook his head, giving her another warm, soothing smile.
She might have to strangle him. Caw. Fee. She exaggerated the movements of her lips, shifting her imaginary grasp so that she pretended to hold a handleless take-out cup rather than a mug.
Neither seemed to help. He shook his head again, but that might be laughter lurking in his gray eyes.
Listen, pal, she hoped her stomping footsteps communicated as she approached him, you don’t want to get between me and my ground beans.
Maybe he saw her annoyance, because when she was close enough to use her nails on him he slid out a small notepad and pencil, wrote, then passed the page to her.
Angel stared down at the words. Oh please, it couldn’t be, she thought. It couldn’t. It was his bad handwriting. Those neat block letters didn’t say…
“No caffeine?” she spoke out loud. So give her ten demerits, but they had to be absolutely clear on this.
He handed her another page with more of his neat handwriting. NO CAFFEINE, ALCOHOL, OR TOBACCO ON THE TRANQUILITY GROUNDS. ALL FOOD SERVED HERE IS ORGANIC.
Worse and worser. No coffee, no diet Pepsi, no nice five P.M. glass of pinot grigio.
And there would be bugs in her food! She’d eaten at a natural food restaurant in Berkeley once where her chopped salad came—free of charge, the waiter had tried to joke—with chopped caterpillars.
Judd touched her arm. Sunk in disappointment, it took a moment for her to notice his sympathetic expression and to realize he was directing her attention toward the chafing dishes. As he lifted each lid with a little silent ta-da!, Angel morosely inspected the offerings.
Gloppy, fiber-filled oatmeal. Scrambled eggs—from free-range chickens, she was sure. (Did anyone ever bother to find out exactly where those liberated chickens had been ranging?) Finally, he revealed some sort of cold dish that appeared to be tofu squares floating in unflavored yogurt.
Stomach going queasy, Angel averted her gaze. To her mind, if God had intended humans to eat tofu, he wouldn’t have made it resemble congealed kindergarten paste.
Stifling a sigh, she allowed the man to serve her some of each dish. Then she sat down on one of the picnic benches, turned her plate so that the tofu was as distant as possible, and resorted to a childhood method of dealing with unpleasantness—she pretended it away.
She was falling into a decent apricot-danish daydream when Judd set a steaming cup beside her elbow. Her hand made an instinctive grab for it, and though her sense of smell rebelled, her brain didn’t catch up quickly enough to stop her first sip.
“Ggh.” Her throat refused to accept what was swishing around inside her mouth. “Ggh. Ggh.”
My God, what can it be? Breathing in and out through her nose, she felt her face go red as her gaze lifted to Judd’s. Was he trying to poison her?
He grinned and held out a piece of paper that she snatched from him, even as she tried not to gag. YARROW TEA, it read. AIDS DIGESTION. YOU’LL GET USED TO IT.
Squeezing the note in her fist, she forced the pungent liquid down, then gasped in a breath of palate-cleansing air. “I’ll never get used to that,” she choked out.
She didn’t imagine anyone else could either. As a matter of fact, she had a sudden, sneaking suspicion the “yarrow tea” was a special concoction created just for her. Same with the awful, organic breakfast fare.
Her eyes narrowed. While Judd Sterling had a peaceful, benevolent air about him, there was someone else in charge of this whole operation. Someone who didn’t want her at Tranquility House.
Why, it made perfect sense.
Cooper Jones was planning on starving her out.
It was the stomach-turning breakfast that decided Angel’s first course of action for the day—well, that and the dearth of newspapers, apparently another Tranquility House no-no. Without anything worth eating or reading, the next logical step was to work on Cooper. Both the Stephen Whitney and C. J. Jones stories required his cooperation.
While it hadn’t gone well between them so far, she wasn’t really worried—she had a knack for making people comfortable. Her first journalism course had been Interview Techniques 101, and she’d never forgotten the professor’s three-pronged strategy for warming up a subject.
Conduct a short exchange of pleasantries
Proceed into some casual conversation
Conclude with a sincere compliment
The formula never failed to ease the initial stiffness between herself and an interviewee. So though she and Cooper might have gotten off to an awkward start, in no time at all she would have him eating out of her hand.
Though Judd couldn’t provide the other man’s whereabouts as anything more specific than SOMEWHERE AROUND, Angel set off to locate Cooper, taking the first path she found leading away from the cottages.
The trail meandered eastward, up rolling inclines of dry, nutty-scented grass and down into shady notches with trickling creeks and arthritic-looking oaks. A girl from hilly San Francisco should have been able to manage all the ups and downs with one high heel tied behind her back, but within ten minutes the new hiking boots were pinching and the warming air made her wish for shorts and a tank top instead of her long pants and T-shirt.
Pausing beneath a group of trees at the base of the next hill, she plucked her shirt away from her sticky torso and moved it back and forth to fan her skin. Though she’d yet to catch a glimpse of Cooper, or any other human life for that matter, she couldn’t suppress the hope that any minute now she’d stumble across civilization—specifically, civilization in the guise of a Peet’s Coffee Shop. As if jeering at her fancy, a blue jay on a nearby branch screeched down at her.
“Fine,” Angel retorted, scowling at the headache starting to throb at the base of her skull. “Give me a Starbucks, then, I’m not picky. Even that ulcer-inducing stuff they serve at 7-Eleven will do.”
From behind her, someone spoke. “Sorry, kid, but we don’t do trademarks around here.”
Cooper! Her first jolt of surprise dissolved as she recognized his voice. Okay, she reminded herself, willing the headache away, here’s your chance. Put him at ease.
“Well, hello, there.” Her back still to him, Angel mentally checked off exchange pleasantries, then moved straight on to casual conversation. “What’s that about trademarks?” she asked, turning to face him.
“For the hundred miles of Big Sur coast, you won’t find a single national chain—not fast food, bank, or supermarket.”
Under other circumstances, his words might have made her groan in disappointment. But now they barely sank in, distracted as she was by Cooper himself. His hair was damply slicked back, and instead of yesterday’s almost sloppy-sized designer suit, today his body was wrapped in exercise gear that clung to, well…well…everything.
Wow. She swallowed. Wow.
Those loose-fitting clothes had hidden a hard, sculpted body that was cut and rippled in the most intriguing places.
Suddenly aware she was staring, she felt her face go hot and dropped her gaze to her feet. “So, um…”
Oh God. Though she remembered she’d been bent on winning Cooper over, now the thread of their conversation was completely burned from her brain. Floundering, she returned to the top of Interview 101’s formula.
Conduct a short exchange of pleasantries
“Hello, there,” she said brightly. The greeting rolled off her tongue with a stomach-sinking familiarity. Hoping she wasn’t making too big a fool of herself, she continued her inspection of the dusty toes of her boots. “So, uh, whatcha been up to this morning?”
“It isn’t obvious?”
His amused tone made her glance up again and she allowed her eyes another moment of free rein. There was a big metal contraption leaning against his
right thigh.
His long thigh. His hard thigh. His long, hard thigh. The quadricep muscle seemed carved out of rock, and she followed it with her eyes as it curved from his lean hip to wrap inward at his knee.
South of Angel’s belly button, things clenched. It was her muscles, she realized as they tightened again, the ones that Cosmopolitan magazine recommended women routinely exercise in order to drive men wild.
Her face went hotter, but she couldn’t stop looking. His inner thigh was well defined too, she discovered, all firm as it led up to—
Eeek. She jerked her gaze up to his face, passing over the big plastic hat he held in one of his gloved hands as she tried remembering his last remark.
“Sure, sure, it’s obvious.” Assuring herself she sounded casual, possibly even intelligent, she made a vague gesture at the metal contraption against his leg. “You’ve been, uh, exercising with that, that thing there.”
His brows lifted. “It’s a mountain bike. But I’m betting you’ve seen a bicycle before.”
A bicycle? Angel blinked, then glanced downward again. Oh heck, it was a bike! And then, under her gaze, one of his big hands tightened on the handlebars, flexing a tendon running up his forearm.
She stood transfixed, that below-the-belt Cosmo area of hers contracting again. As a journalist, she considered herself a keen observer, but who had ever noticed that men had muscles like that in their arms? Sinewy, long muscles that—
“Angel?”
Jerked from her fascination, she shuffled backward, tripped on a root, and fell on her butt in the dirt.
In a blink he’d dropped the bike and the helmet and was squatted beside her. “Are you all right?”
“No.” Because on top of humiliation, now his hard thighs were near enough to touch. To stymie temptation, she lifted an inch and sat on both hands. “No, I’m not all right.”
He shifted closer. “Where are you hurt?”
Shaking her head, she scooted back, refusing to admit it was her pride, her professionalism, that was taking the hit. She was supposed to be thinking about the all-important story, for God’s sake, not the intriguing specifics of sexual differentiation.
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