In His Sights

by Justine Davis

  It took her a couple of minutes to get there, and when she opened the door she was tugging at the hem of a soft, gold sweater she must have just pulled on. He determinedly steered his mind away from visions of Kate undressing, and smiled at her.

  “Hi.”

  There was a moment’s hesitation, and he thought he saw a trace of color rise in her cheeks. That tiny sign that she wasn’t indifferent pleased him enormously, but even as he realized that fact, she had herself back in control.

  “Hello,” she said, just the slightest bit of puzzlement in her voice, as if at his unexpected appearance.

  He grinned as he held up the plastic bag. “Help. I was caught by the lure of fresh salmon.”

  Her expression cleared and after a moment, a glint of humor appeared in her eyes. “Fresh salmon is a powerful lure,” she said, and as if to prove it, she stepped back and gestured him inside.

  “So I discovered,” he said as he stepped into the house he’d only observed from the outside until now. “Problem is, I don’t have a clue how to cook it.”

  She laughed. “Culinarily challenged, are we?”

  “Only when it comes to fish. I can whip you up a mean lemon chicken or some great garlic roasted pork chops, and just about anything else. I can even bake bread. But somehow I never got the fish knack.”

  While he was talking he was looking around as much as he could without being too obvious. Her home was cozy, warm and everything he’d expected it would be. But there were surprises as well, such as the free-form glass sculpture on an illuminated pedestal, and the rough-textured, jewel-toned weaving that covered a large part of one wall above the big, dark green sofa.

  “A man who cooks,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Be still my heart.”

  “Thank my mother,” he said. “She made sure I knew my way around the kitchen. She hated to cook, and as far as she was concerned, the sooner we kids could take over, the better.”

  “And did you?”

  “We did. The deal was if we cooked, we never had to clean up after. Seemed like a cheap way to avoid washing dishes.”

  She smiled again. “Now I’m sure I’d like your mother.”

  Rand had a sudden, unexpected vision of Kate and his mom, giggling away like schoolgirls in the kitchen of the house where he’d grown up. It was crazy, they didn’t even live in that house anymore, but there it was.

  “That must have been an interesting thought.”

  Rand snapped back to his present surroundings, not even wanting to think about what his expression must have been to prompt that remark.

  “Just thinking about my mom,” he said quickly, telling himself it wasn’t a total lie. But the quick smile she gave him made him feel slightly uncomfortable, as if he’d tried to manipulate her and had succeeded.

  Stupid, he muttered to himself. Your job is manipulation half the time. Get back to business.

  “Let me see what I’ve got,” she said, heading toward what he assumed was the kitchen.

  He followed, but slowly, still looking around. The large armoire in the corner of the living room likely housed the television and stereo, if she had them, and he made a mental note to check at the first opportunity, see if any of them were particularly new or cutting edge or both.

  The kitchen, when he finally arrived there, was small but as warm and welcoming as the rest of the house. The cabinets were white, the counters covered in colorful tile in greens of various shades, and the centerpiece was a pot rack adorned with gleaming copper pots and pans. The refrigerator was white, while the other appliances had black glass fronts, and none of them looked brand-new.

  So, she hasn’t remodeled the kitchen lately, he thought, quashing the unrest that rose within him as he made himself look for signs of a recent jump in discretionary cash.

  “I think I have a cedar plank here somewhere,” she said.

  “A cedar plank?”

  He’d heard of cooking fish that way, but at the moment he couldn’t remember where. Which might have something to do with the fact that Kate had just bent to dig into a lower cupboard, and the sight of her trim, denim clad backside was making his fingers curl.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice muffled because she was reaching to the back of the shelf. “It comes out great if you grill it on the plank, with butter and dill.”

  She hadn’t, he found later, exaggerated. The rich, buttery salmon steak was beyond delicious. The crusty French bread he recognized from his trips to Turner’s grocery store, and was from a local bakery who clearly had the knack. She’d also steamed some fresh green beans and tossed them with some oil and vinegar and spices that he was going to ask her about, since they tasted so good.

  And for a while, just for now, he almost managed to put out of his mind why he was here and simply enjoy an evening with a beautiful woman he was greatly attracted to.

  He was pleased when Kate also seemed to relax, and the edginess he’d grown to expect in her seemed to fade. Maybe she was becoming more comfortable with him at last.

  Or maybe it’s the wine, he thought wryly, as she poured them both a second glass of the smoky Oregon pinot noir.

  Whatever it was, she did relax enough to tell him some stories about her times in big corporate America. Some of them she told with amusement at decisions that backfired in unexpectedly funny ways, such as the company that chose a name for a product to market in Japan, without realizing that the name sounded very much like the Japanese term for broken. Some tales were tinged with exasperation and frustration at the still solid presence of a glass ceiling for too many women, and how hard she herself had had to fight to get past it.

  No wonder you love Redstone, Rand thought. The only ceiling there was the limitation of your own ability.

  “Do you regret leaving? That world, I mean?” he asked her as he rose to help her clear the table.

  “No.” She said it quickly, and with no undertone of doubt or second guessing. “I realized that the money wasn’t worth being miserable for.”

  Then it couldn’t be worth it to her to steal, could it?

  The swiftness with which the hope rose in him at his own thought rattled him. He was beginning to question his ability to remain impartial about her. Hell, he was beginning to wonder if he had ever been impartial. And that way lay disaster, for his work. He might start looking for evidence to prove her innocent, rather than focusing on evidence to lead him to the culprit, whoever it might be.

  She looked at him curiously and he realized he’d been silent too long. He put the plate he’d been rinsing into the dishwasher and said the first thing that popped into his head. “I thought Redstone paid well.”

  “They do. Very well. But I was making a lot of money.”

  Get to work, he told himself. “It must hard after you’ve gotten used to being well off.”

  “I’m doing fine,” she said, a bit vehemently. “I just worry about Gram and Gramps. I can’t help them as much as I used to, as much as I want to.”

  “They already feel you do too much for them,” he said.

  “I could never, ever do too much for them.”

  She stood there, looking up at him, the light of pure determination in her eyes. And in that moment, he could no more stop himself from kissing her than he could have stopped breathing.

  The moment his mouth touched hers he felt her go tense against him. But she didn’t push him away, didn’t pull away herself, and he felt a flash of relief since he was half convinced he was already beyond stopping anyway. He’d never in his life had anything hit him as hard and fast as the taste of Kate Crawford.

  And then she was kissing him back, tentatively. He wondered briefly if she was mentally resisting, or was simply uncertain. He hoped it was the latter. He was about to start praying it was the latter.

  He felt her tongue flick over his lips, and a fierce heat shot through him. He leaned into her, putting his hands on the counter on either side of her. It wasn’t because he wanted to hem her in, but because he needed the supp
ort himself. And, he didn’t quite trust his hands not to follow his body’s urging to speed things up here.

  He felt her hands slip around his neck, felt her fingers thread through his hair. He deepened the kiss, probing, tasting, until he could feel his pulse hammering in his ears. He leaned harder against her, feeling the softness of her breasts pushing against his chest. His fingers curled against the tile of the counter, trying to dig through the ceramic as if it were still unfired clay.

  Then he lost the battle and one hand slipped to her waist and slowly, gently stroked upward. He reached the curve of her breast and cupped it. His fingers nearly shook with the effort to be gentle when his body was screaming at him that it wanted this woman now.

  He rubbed his thumb over the peak of her breast, felt a another rush of heat as it hardened in response. Then she made a tiny sound, deep in her throat, a needy, wanting sound that sliced through him.

  He knew he was on the edge of careening out of control. With a wrenching effort he broke off the kiss and took a step back. Or tried to; his legs were none too steady. The fact that Kate seemed to sway slightly, and reached for the counter for support, heartened him. This white hot was not something he wanted to be in alone.

  It wasn’t until much later that he realized he hadn’t even thought that he shouldn’t be in it at all.

  Chapter 15

  She was crazy. There was no other explanation. She simply had to be crazy. It was that or stupid, and she knew that didn’t apply. Of course, an IQ well above average didn’t necessarily mean you had any sense, as Gramps always said.

  And she clearly had no sense at all. None. Why else would she be sitting here on her porch on a sunny Sunday morning, letting her imagination run away with her? Letting the memory of last night overtake her, stopping her breath all over again, and making her heart speed up and her body heat at the thought of what might have happened if he hadn’t stopped.

  But he had stopped. It had only been a kiss. He’d kissed her, that’s all. So what?

  Okay, so he’d kissed her twice now. And both times sent her spinning into a realm of sensations she’d never visited before. So what? It didn’t make him any older, or her any younger. It didn’t change that he didn’t seem to ever stay in one place for long. It didn’t change that she wasn’t ready for any kind of relationship, and wasn’t the type for a casual fling. It didn’t change that she was buried in debt and he, judging by the things she’d noticed, was likely better than well off.

  So what? she told herself again.

  Maybe, if she repeated it often enough, she might even believe it.

  She realized she was hugging herself, both her arms tense and tight. No wonder, since she felt as if she was about to fly apart.

  Nothing had changed. The sooner Rand Singleton moved on, the better off she was going to be. That was the bottom line, and she’d better remember it. It didn’t matter what his kiss did to her, didn’t matter that she spent far too much time thinking about him. It also didn’t matter that her grandmother kept touting him, telling Kate what a great guy he was, and that she’d be a fool to let him get away.

  No, the longer he stayed, the more attached she would become, and the more it would hurt in the end, when he finally did leave.

  Forcing herself to abandon the futile pondering, she tried to decide what to do today. She thought about going in to work, but she had put in so many hours already this week that she couldn’t quite face that. There had to be other things around here that needed doing. She’d paid bills this morning. She’d done laundry yesterday, had just finished when Rand had arrived—

  Stop it, she told herself.

  What else? She’d vacuumed two days ago. She needed to run the dishwasher after last night’s dinner; she’d been too rattled after Rand had kissed her to—

  Stop it!

  There was some gardening she could do, she thought. That might be just the ticket. Get her hands dirty, dig, weed, whack away at some ubiquitous berry bushes, see some meaningful progress.

  Progress. Now that would be a nice change, she told herself. Decision made, she went inside to change clothes. It was still a bit brisk, but she knew she’d soon be too warm for a sweatshirt so she pulled out a T-shirt to put on underneath. Next came the freshly laundered, faded and garden-stained jeans she usually wore, and a scrunchie to pull her hair back out of her face.

  She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and went back outside. She opened the storage bench she kept on the front porch, pulled out her perpetually muddy rubber boots, her gloves, and her bucket of tools. Geared up, she was ready to start.

  It took effort, but she managed to keep her mind on what she was doing most of the time. She’d decided to tackle the encroaching blackberry canes first, since she had to watch what she was doing to avoid the thorns. Not that she was completely successful; as usual she was bleeding from several scratches before she was through. She’d also worked up a sweat despite the fact that it was only sixty degrees out, and had managed to get smears of dirt on her face as she pulled off the now too-warm sweatshirt.

  She reached into the bucket for the bottle of water. She took a long swig, then closed the top and turned to drop it back in the tool bucket. In the instant after the bottle left her fingers, she caught movement at the periphery of her vision. She glanced that way. And froze.

  A car was pulling into her driveway. Not just any car. Rand’s car.

  Her first reaction was so classically female she almost laughed at herself; all she could think of was that she was a complete mess.

  Well, this may just solve your problem, she thought with an inward chuckle. He’ll take one look at this and turn tail as fast as he can.

  He stopped in her driveway when he saw her out by the berry patch. She turned then, figuring she might as well give him the full picture of her disarray. He got out of the car and started toward her, carrying a flat package wrapped in green paper.

  You are not going to apologize for how you look, she ordered herself sternly.

  As it turned out, she didn’t have a chance to anyway.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” Rand said, smiling as he approached, smiling as if he didn’t even notice she was sweaty and dirty and clad in her grubbiest clothes. “I wanted to—You’re bleeding!”

  He shoved the package under his arm to hold it and grabbed for both her hands, apparently heedless of how dirty her gardening gloves where. He turned her arms to better see the angry marks.

  “Just scratches from the berries,” she said with a shrug. “It comes with the territory.”

  He frowned, glanced at the bushes as if he were contemplating mayhem, then back at her. “You should have somebody do that.”

  “I don’t mind. It satisfies my need to do battle with something.”

  He raised a brow at her. “Feeling a bit militant today?”

  “Maybe.”

  He looked at her steadily for a silent moment. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft, rueful.

  “Did you have as rough a night as I did?”

  Suddenly she was glad for the dirt on her face; at least she could hope it hid her blush.

  “Salmon didn’t agree with you?” She knew she was dissembling, but she had no idea what else to say.

  “The salmon was wonderful,” he said, never moving his gaze from her face. “And so was everything else.”

  She thought about pretending she had no idea what he meant, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it.

  “Yes,” she said softly. “It was.”

  She heard him let out a long breath, as if of relief. “I was awake all night, wanting more. Much more.”

  She remembered her own restless night, and felt her warm cheeks grow warmer. She was afraid he was going to pursue it, and right now she couldn’t think of anything she wanted less. But he didn’t. Instead he held out the package he carried.

  “I wanted to thank you for dinner.”

  “You brought it,” she protested.

  �
�That was the easy part.” He gestured at the package. “I hope you like it.”

  “I…thank you.” She tugged off her gloves, dusted her hands off as best she could, and took the package. It was a box about shirt-sized, but heavier. She got the wrapping off and lifted the lid. Her breath caught.

  “I thought about flowers, but…” His voice trailed off as if he were uncertain about the reception his offering was going to get.

  “No,” she whispered, staring down at the silver-framed portrait of her grandparents. “No, this is so much better.”

  She looked up at him, even knowing her eyes were brimming. He deserved to know how much this meant to her. And the smile he gave her told her she’d been right about his uncertainty.

  “You captured them,” she said. “The softness behind Gramps’s curmudgeonly exterior, and the humor and sparkle in Gram’s eyes. It’s all here. Thank you, Rand.”

  “You’re welcome. I just snapped off the shot one morning when they were sitting out on the deck. I didn’t realize what I had until I saw the print.”

  That he had realized at all told her a lot about him. Not everyone had that kind of perceptiveness. “It’s wonderful. I love it.”

  “I’m glad.” He glanced over her shoulder. “Now, why don’t I help you finish that?”

  “Oh, no, it’s an awful job, you don’t have to—”

  “Please. I want to. On one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “No more bloodshed,” he said, looking at her scratched arms.

  “I’m all for that,” she said ruefully.

  He pulled off his jacket, clearly ready to dive in and get started. She couldn’t think of a reason to stop him, and if she was honest about it, she didn’t want to.

  With his help, the job was done in a fraction of the time it would have taken her. And he managed to escape any major encounters with the thorns, except for an occasional puncture that had him saying he would never eat another slice of blackberry pie.

  “Speaking of pie,” she said, pushing an errant lock of hair behind her ear, “now that you’ve worked so hard, the least I can do is feed you lunch.”