The Perfect Solution

by Day Leclaire

  “Circumvent? You mean...”

  He didn’t pull any punches. “I mean I was a thief. I got caught. And I went to jail.”

  “Oh, Flynn. I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It was a life lesson I desperately needed. I wasn’t in for long, mainly because one of the companies I hit wanted to hire me to foolproof their system. And I chanced upon a liberal judge. After that, I went straight, worked off my debt and started my own company.”

  “That’s what you meant about working hard to earn your reputation, isn’t it? So now you’re one of the good guys?”

  “No.” His voice grew rougher still. “No matter how hard we try and convince ourselves otherwise, I’m no good for you, Jane. I wish to God I was. But I’m not.”

  “You could be,” she whispered. “If you wanted.”

  Silence.

  “Jane?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’d like to sit with you.”

  “I thought you wanted us to sit apart. Far apart.”

  “I’ve changed my mind. It’s not going to be pretty once the cops arrive, especially if they run my name. It might take a while to get hold of Vince and have him vouch for us.”

  Oh, Flynn! “Yes, please. I’d like to have you sit with me.”

  She could hear him creeping cautiously across the room. “Your perfume might as well be a homing beacon.”

  He settled down next to her and drew her into his arms. She looked up at him, not that she could see anything in the dark. “I really am sorry about setting off the alarm.”

  “Don’t be.”

  “Since we seem to be in a confessional mood, I have one of my own to make,” she admitted.

  “Tell me.”

  “You know when I said I don’t experiment on people in Salmon Bay anymore?”

  “I remember.”

  “There’s a reason.”

  “Which is?”

  She leaned into him, needing his warmth. “When I was sixteen I developed a truth spray.”

  There was dead silence for a full minute. Then Flynn began to chuckle, the sound dark and rich and filling the room with gentle tenderness. “I wish I’d been here to see it.”

  “No, you don’t.” She closed her eyes, shivering at the memory. “There were three divorces, two arrests and a change of paternity on at least one birth certificate. Not to mention various and assorted other tragedies like broken friendships and a few wrecked partnerships.”

  “What happened after that?”

  “I tucked my truth spray away and swore off using the town as my personal testing ground.”

  “That must have been a tough situation to deal with.” His sympathy settled around her, wrapping her as securely as his arms.

  “It didn’t help my social life, that’s for sure.”

  He hesitated. “I have a confession to make, too.”

  “Another one?”

  “Yeah. Another one.”

  “Let me guess. You’re glad I locked us down here?”

  His laughter stirred the curls at her temple. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Then what’s your confession?”

  “I’ve never sat in the dark with a woman before.” He eased her onto his lap and she snuggled close. “I’ve never just held a woman. Not like this.”

  “But... You’ve been with so many. Surely—”

  “All those others...” He shrugged. “We’d have sex and then one or the other of us would leave. Sometimes we’d sleep. But we never held each other. That would have been too personal. Too...trusting.”

  “I’m the first?”

  “Yeah. I just wanted you to know that.”

  Her head dropped to his shoulder and she shut her eyes against the unexpected rush of tears. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Anytime.”

  “Flynn?” She traced the back of his hand, feeling the power and strength of his grasp, remembering that power and strength stroking across her body. The care. The tenderness. The protective self-sacrifice. He’d told her the truth. She should tell him, too. “It’s...it’s the perfume.”

  “What?”

  “The perfume’s affecting you. That’s why you’re attracted. It’s not me.”

  His chuckle slipped through her, soft and intimate and deliciously warm. “Honey, I’ve been attracted to you since we first met. There hasn’t been a minute we’ve been in each other’s company—or out of it, for that matter—that I haven’t wanted to hold you like this. All that can’t be from perfume, pheromones or not.” He nuzzled her ear. “It’s you, Jane.”

  His words condemned her and the tears spilled free. She turned her head so he wouldn’t feel them. It hurt. Hurt worse than anything she’d ever felt. He didn’t know the truth and she couldn’t tell him the rest—tell him how she’d ruined her experiment, all because of feelings he refused to acknowledge. Not now. Not when the truth would send him away and she’d never see him again. So much for her precious honesty.

  This time when the silence fell, it remained unbroken.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “COME ON, JANE. You need to get out of the lab for a while.”

  “Not now.”

  “Think of poor Dipstick. He needs the exercise.”

  “Dipstick has free rein of the yard. He can run around all he wants.”

  “That’s not the same as walking down by the water. Think of how much he’ll enjoy that. Think how much you’ll enjoy it.”

  She dragged her gaze from her microscope. “You’re not gonna let me work, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’ll keep interrupting until I give up, won’t you?”

  “Count on it.”

  She sighed. “All right, fine. Let’s go.”

  “Great.”

  Leaving the lab, she hung up her coat on the peg outside the brand-new security door Flynn had insisted on installing. Next she slipped her glasses into the pocket. The clip from her hair followed and her mouth curled to one side. Flynn had certainly trained her well. Stepping outside, she slowed. “Oh, good grief. Have you lost your mind, Flynn Morgan? We can’t go for a walk. It’s going to rain.”

  “Nah. We have plenty of time.” He caught her hand in his. “Come on.”

  “I’m not dressed for a walk. And I’m not dressed for rain, either.”

  “Now, Jane. You can’t let Dipstick down at this late date.” He whistled for the dog, who immediately came charging across the lawn. “I thought we’d walk along the sound.”

  “Do you know how far that is?” she grumbled. “You really are tempting fate.”

  He shrugged. “I seem to do that a lot.” It wasn’t until they were as far from home as they could get that she discovered the real reason he’d insisted on the walk. “I’m leaving tomorrow,” he announced abruptly, his hand tightening around hers.

  Was he afraid she’d bolt? Surely he realized she had more gumption than that. She swallowed. Hard. “I suspected as much, considering tomorrow it’ll be two weeks since you arrived.”

  “There’s something we need to discuss before I go.”

  Uh-oh. “What’s that?”

  “Mick.”

  “Forget it, Flynn,” she said flatly. “That’s not a subject open for discussion.”

  “You must know he’s after something in your lab.”

  She shrugged. “My pheromone formulas, I assume.”

  “Why would he want them?”

  “Because he can sell or patent them.”

  He took a minute to digest that. “Why haven’t you already patented them? Wouldn’t that afford you some protection against anything Mick might do?”

  “Sure, if I were ready to go to patent. But I’m not.”

  “Why?” he asked again.

  She sighed, realizing he wouldn’t drop the subject until she answered. “It’s sort of like cooking. You have a basic dish you’re creating and you test any number of ingredients in differing amounts to discover which offers the most effective rec
ipe overall.”

  “So you have to do tests to discover which recipe works?”

  “Pretty much. When it comes to my formulas, there’s a huge range of combinations and components involved. I need to file a patent that covers all the applicable formulations. That’s the only way to get the broadest patent coverage possible. Otherwise, my competitors could simply change one small thing and get a competing patent.”

  Flynn swore beneath his breath. “Nothing’s easy, is it? So even if Mick doesn’t steal the formulas outright, he can change the recipe slightly and file his own patent.”

  “Which is why I have to test these formulas before I file. Patent infringement occurs a lot in this field.” Her mouth thinned. “It’s not going to happen to me.”

  “Okay. That makes sense. But what if Mick somehow gets his hands on your research? Can he get the jump on you? Could he just file as many combinations as possible and hang you up in court attempting to prove they’re your discoveries?”

  “Mick wouldn’t do that.”

  “Yeah, honey. I think he would.”

  “You shouldn’t make blanket statements about people you don’t know.”

  He looked away. “I know people, Jane. I know how truly rotten they can be. When it comes to greed or money or ego—especially ego—there’s no act too low or despicable.”

  She sighed. “You always see the worst in people. I really need to work on that with you.”

  A drop of rain slapped his cheek. “It’s too late for me. Let’s worry about you, instead.”

  “It’s never too late to change.”

  “Now, there’s something I will agree with you about. But first the person has to want to change.” He eyed her speculatively. “You’ve already said he attached his name to as many of your projects as he could. Do you really think he’s above stealing them if he has the opportunity?”

  “I guess not.”

  “Considering your past association, you might have trouble convincing a judge that he doesn’t deserve part ownership in your pheromone perfumes. Especially if he were able to compromise your computer files.”

  “Point taken. I’ll put your security suggestions into effect as soon as possible.”

  “There’s more—”

  “Well, I don’t want to hear it.” The rain began in earnest and Jane indicated a dirt path leading up a hill through the woods. “If we go over the ridge instead of around it, we can cut a lot of time off the walk back.”

  Dipstick took charge at that point. Leading the way, he snuffled through the brush, chasing imaginary rabbits. Jane used the excuse of the steepness of the hill to keep from talking. Once they reached the summit, Flynn started back in on her.

  “Something clued you in to what sort of man Barstow was. What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Come on, Jane. Tell me.”

  “What did you do to earn that bruise?” she countered. The rain came down in cold, hard sheets, soaking her dress and dripping from her hair. She had to practically shout to be heard over the pounding downpour. “It was a woman, wasn’t it?”

  “We’re talking about Mick.”

  “Now we’re talking about you.”

  “Jane—”

  “This conversation is over.” She shoved a branch out of her path and hastened down the hill before he could argue the situation. “If you want to review security measures before you leave to make sure Mick can’t break in again, fine. But I’m not discussing my past mistakes and that’s final.”

  “Slow down, honey. This path is getting a bit steep.”

  She waved him off. “If I slow down, you’re going to argue with me some more.”

  “No, if you don’t slow down, you’re going to—”

  Her foot caught on a root and shot out from under her. She landed on soft, damp earth. It cushioned her backside very nicely. Unfortunately, soft, damp earth on a steep downward slope in the pouring rain didn’t hold up well. She slid as though someone had glued rollers to her butt.

  Dipstick thought she’d discovered a fantastic new game. He charged along beside her, barking his encouragement. The one time she skidded to a halt, he jumped on top of her, sending her on her merry way again. She vaguely thought she heard Flynn crashing through the bushes behind her, but she couldn’t be certain over the noise of her shrieking. At the bottom of the hill, her heels caught a root stretched across her path. With all the grace of the world’s worst gymnast, she shot into the air, did a full midair somersault and landed flat on her back.

  Jane lay there, stunned, the air knocked clean out of her, rainwater running up her nose. A minute later, Flynn belly flopped down beside her. He looked like a mountain of mud with two gold eyes—two angry gold eyes.

  “Ouch,” he commented.

  “Am I dead?”

  “If you’re not, I can take care of it for you.”

  “What did I do wrong? I’m the one who fell. And it’s all your fault.”

  “I told you to slow down.”

  Tears joined the raindrops streaming down her face. “You asked me about Mick.”

  “I want you to realize what he’s capable of. I want you to think long and hard about how far he’d go to get his hands on your perfumes.”

  “I already know that!”

  He levered himself up on one elbow. He took one look at her face and swore. “You look like hell.”

  “I feel like hell.” She sniffed. “And my butt hurts.”

  “Do you think you can sit up?”

  “No.”

  “Are you injured?”

  “Yes.”

  He leaned over her, gently touching her arms and legs. “Where, honey? Aside from some scrapes and bruises, I don’t see anything too bad.”

  “I already told you. My butt hurts.”

  “I’d offer to kiss it and make it better—”

  “Don’t you dare! I was just kidding. You don’t have to kiss anything.”

  “Tell me what Mick did to you or I just might.” He settled her on his lap. “Truth time, honey. What happened?”

  Oh, what the hell. He’d told her about his past. It seemed only fair to return the favor. “Mick filmed us, okay?” She closed her eyes and dug her nose into the pile of wet, musty leaves plastered to Flynn’s shirt. “We were working on male pheromones at the time. He secretly filmed us making love during a pheromone test.”

  Slowly, Flynn lifted her face to his and a deadly light appeared in his eyes. “He what?”

  “He was recording our progress with the experiments on videotape, which I knew about. What I didn’t discover until much later was how he planned to try out a new pheromone experiment on me, the results of which he proceeded to immortalize on tape. The aborted results, I might add.”

  “Aborted because you discovered the camera?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where’s the tape now?”

  “I have it. That’s why he won’t pull anything, Flynn. If he does, I have the tape as evidence as to who worked on what. And none of my female pheromone research belongs to Mick. If he tries to claim anything that doesn’t belong to him, I hire a lawyer.”

  * * *

  THEY STRUGGLED HOME THROUGH the pouring rain. Jane’s dress clung to her, catching between her legs with every step she took and rubbing the tender skin of her thighs. By the time they trudged into her front yard, she was about as miserable as she could ever remember being.

  “Do you think we could go inside and shower?” Flynn asked.

  She turned on him. “You are not stepping one foot into my house unless you hose down.”

  He regarded her with surprising equanimity. “Fine. Where’s the hose?”

  She pointed to a hook on the side of the house. “Wash off from top to bottom.”

  “No problem.”

  He turned on the spigot and held the nozzle over his head, standing stoically beneath the gush of chilly water. Mud, leaves and sticks poured off him. She didn’t think she’d ever
seen him quite so...scruffy. A tiny giggle escaped and he shot her a sharp glance. She quickly pinched her lips together. It didn’t help. She tried to cover her mouth, but her laughter still leaked through the cracks.

  She was in serious trouble. She knew it even before she saw the warning blaze of gold or heard the growl rumble through his chest. Common sense urged her to run for the house as fast as her sopping dress would allow. Before she could act on that momentary spark of brilliance, he turned the hose on her, full blast.

  “Yuck it up now, blondie.”

  “Flynn!” she shrieked, covering her face. “Turn it off. It’s freezing.”

  “You think? Hell, yes, it’s freezing. But did I complain? No! I stood here and took it like a man. Turn around. Your backside is a lot dirtier than your front.”

  She spun around, screaming even louder as the stream of water shot straight up her dress. “That’s enough! That’s enough!”

  “Oh, no, it’s not.”

  He wrapped an arm around her waist and hauled her against him. Water poured down over the top of them both. He helped the mud along, his hands and on occasion the hose, dipping in and out of the various openings of her dress. Finally, she stood, clinging to him, shivering uncontrollably. But at least he’d washed away most of the debris she’d picked up on her downhill slide.

  “Shower,” she said, teeth chattering so hard she could barely speak. “Hot.”

  He turned off the hose and coiled it with more speed than skill. “You better have two bathrooms available or I’m coming in with you.”

  “Have two.” She lifted her dripping skirts and pelted onto the porch. Pushing open the front door, she hesitated. “Unzip me,” she told Flynn.

  “You’re kidding. Out here?” He slid her zipper down the length of her spine. “That’s almost as daring as making love on the front lawn.”

  “No one can see. The rain drove everyone indoors.” With a final nervous glance over her shoulder, she shrugged. The dress dropped in a sodden heap on the wooden planking. She scurried inside, peeking at Flynn from around the door. “Are you coming?”