“Good morning, Mr. Payne,” Norah called cheerfully as he descended the stairs. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes,” he lied, with an automatic smile. Actually, he’d barely slept at all—he’d been too busy keeping tabs on Emma to get a decent night’s sleep. Frankly, he hadn’t expected her to get started so early. He’d heard her rattling around in her room until the wee hours of the morning and had been secretly relieved when she’d finally—seemingly—settled. He scowled.
Clearly that had been a ruse.
“My father has laid quite a spread for breakfast this morning,” she told him. “Will you be joining us?”
“Your father?”
“I’m sure you met him yesterday,” Norah said. “He was the one who delivered the refreshments to your room after you checked in.” She smiled fondly, as though sharing a secret. “He’s meticulous about that. ‘Friendly service and feed ’em,’ that’s what he always says.”
Just compliment the cook, Payne remembered him saying. He just hadn’t imagined that the older gentleman was the cook. No doubt that little tidbit had been on the Web site, as well, he thought, irritated with himself for not researching things more thoroughly.
Furthermore, he’d also been surprised—and thrown off guard—when his tip had been refused. Frankly, he was used to his money talking—good service equaled a good gratuity. Bad service, bad tip. It was a simple enough system.
Worse, he was quite certain, given the speculative look Emma had given him once he’d closed the door, that she’d witnessed his fleeting misstep. No doubt she’d read some sort of emotional imbalance or some other such nonsense into his reaction as a result. Women were like that, he knew. Constantly speculating, digging and leaping to the conclusions about men—generally the wrong ones.
He was being surly and uncharitable, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Something about her and this entire situation had gotten under his skin, and between the flash-fire attraction, Garrett’s lie of omission and his limited choices when it came to whether to honor his word or let Emma Langsford have her brand-new start, he wasn’t what one could call chipper. He felt his expression blacken to match his mood. Actually, he’d never been chipper, but that was beside the point.
He passed on the breakfast and was almost out the door when a thought struck. “Norah, you haven’t seen Ms. Langsford this morning, have you?”
“Oh, yes,” she said. “She was out bright and early. She said she wanted to do some driving before she hit the local antique shops. She’s a lovely girl, isn’t she?”
Antique shops—his first plan of attack, as well. Dealers were typically a fount of information, particularly if a person was looking for a specific piece. Furthermore, dealers trolled the estate sales for treasured articles, and the chances of the pocketwatch winding up on sale in one of the local shops was a far more promising scenario than if it ended up with a private collector.
“You know,” Norah said with a speculative gleam and a cautious smile, “we like to pair our guests up for dinner. Would you be interested in dining with Ms. Langsford during your stay?” He could practically see the matchmaking wheels turning in her romantic mind.
Ah, Payne thought. His first turn of good luck. “Could you do that?” he asked, playing along, delighted, but not for the reasons she suspected.
She beamed at him. “Certainly.”
“Excellent,” Payne told her. “That’ll give me something to look forward to tonight.”
And it would. If by some chance he didn’t manage to find her today, then at least he’d be able to pin her down this evening and find out exactly how she’d managed to slip under his radar this morning.
Payne opened the front door and stepped out into the cold, bracing air. His breath fogged in front of his face and frost crunched beneath his feet as he made his way down the front porch steps. The Bug looked like an iced-over glittering insect in the bright morning sun. Despite the cold, the sky was more blue than gray, promising warmer temperatures later in the day.
Dreading the moment he would have to contort himself to get into the car, he fished the keys from his front pocket and hit the remote to unlock the doors. Grumbling under his breath—at least until he caught himself—he wedged his body into the car, turned on the ignition and waited for the engine to warm up before putting it into reverse.
The instant he lifted his foot off the clutch and felt the car lurch backward, he knew something was wrong.
Loud banging was never a good sound.
Summoning patience from a hidden, untapped source, he put the Bug back in to neutral, set the parking brake and climbed back out of the car. A quick trip to the rear of the vehicle revealed the problem.
“Determined, my ass,” Payne said, glaring at the flattened tires.
She was ruthless.
A muscle jumped in his jaw and his back teeth ground together until he felt certain the enamel would crack. It was well done, he’d give her that. If she’d sabotaged the front tires, he would have noticed instantly. Instead, she’d banked on him being too preoccupied with the idea that she’d beaten him out of the gate and, as such, she’d let the air out of both rear tires. And he could just imagine her gleeful, gorgeous face while she did it, too, the she-devil, Payne thought.
He was suddenly hit with the idiotic, immature urge to kick the car, a lamentable lack of control he would ordinarily never entertain. Only by sheer force of will did he manage to get his temper under control.
He stood stock-still, counted to ten, then to twenty and then he imagined the next best thing to being able to throttle her at the moment—and that was putting her firmly on her back. He’d never been into bondage, but found the idea of tying her spread-eagle to the bed posts in his room upstairs distinctly arousing.
Naked limbs, silken skin, pouty nipples and a thatch of dark curls between creamy, inviting thighs…
If it wouldn’t be such a crime to cover up that beautiful, sexy mouth of hers, he’d think about securing it with duct tape and then taking her six ways to Sunday. Until every ruthless, underhanded, vengeful impulse was wrung from her perfect little body.
He’d watched her yesterday, knew that she was every bit as tied up in this unholy attraction as he was. He’d had the privilege of watching those sugared-violet eyes turning a midnight blue, had watched her pupils dilate with need. She’d absently licked her lips, a silent, unspoken invitation, and Payne distinctly recalled his dick jumping in response.
That keen gaze of hers had gratifyingly explored every inch of him—and, for reasons which escaped him, had seemed particularly impressed with the size of his feet. It had been all he could do not to stand before her and preen like a damned peacock. He knew he owned a certain amount of sex appeal—he’d certainly never had a problem coaxing a woman into bed—but he didn’t think he’d ever been the subject of such scrutiny before or obvious…lust, for a lack of better explanation.
She wanted him.
Which was particularly nice, considering he wanted to lay her almost as much as he wanted to wring her delicate little neck. Let her keep up these petty, pointless games and he’d turn the tables on her so fast she wouldn’t know what hit her. And it would be him—in the sexual sense.
And they’d both enjoy it.
Payne backtracked into the house, explained his unfortunate circumstances and was vastly relieved when Harry, Norah’s husband, retrieved a portable compressor from the barn.
Three frustrating hours later he spotted the Hummer at Beauregard’s Antique Mall. She was in sight, Payne decided, his lips curling into an evil smile.
Time to let her see what she was up against.
“THIS IS LOVELY,” Emma said, handing the last pocketwatch in the case back to the clerk. She heaved a small disappointed sigh. “But it’s not exactly what I’m looking for.”
Looking a bit disgruntled, the clerk carefully returned the watch to its place beneath the glass. “Well, dear, I’m afraid that’s all I can show you here.
Perhaps you’ll have better luck elsewhere.”
He might as well have said, “You’ve wasted my time, so off you go,” and Emma could hardly blame him. He’d followed her around from booth to booth, opening up every case in this particular mall in search of “the perfect pocketwatch.” She’d made up a cock-and-bull story about trying to find one similar to the one her grandfather had worn and, initially, every proprietor she’d met up to this point had been thrilled to accommodate her.
But after she systematically culled each and every one, citing vague reasons such as this one’s too small, this one’s too large, the numbers are wrong, etc…their enthusiasm for the search had, admittedly, waned. It would be considerably easier if she could simply say that she was looking for a gold pocketwatch with the inscription “Lighthorse” on it, but Hastings had warned her against that tack, the theory being that if a dealer had managed to miss the connection to start with, it wouldn’t take long to put it together and the price would significantly go up.
It made sense, she supposed, but it didn’t make her job any easier. Her lips slid into a wry, satisfied smile. In fact, the only thing that had made her job easier today was not having Payne looking over her shoulder every minute.
“What was wrong with that one?” he asked, as though the mere thought of him had conjured him out of thin air.
Emma gasped and all but jumped out of her skin. Pressing her hand to her throat, she whirled on him. “You scared me half to death,” she accused, annoyed that she’d allowed him to sneak up on her like that.
Then again, that had been part of his training. Hell, for all she knew, he might have been following her for hours and she simply hadn’t known it. It was doubtful—she expected she would have felt a lingering presence—but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“Pity,” Payne remarked, that cool unflappable gaze honing in on hers.
“Pity you didn’t scare me to death, or pity that you almost did?” she asked, curiously unnerved by his calm demeanor.
“Whichever meaning suits you.”
Emma wandered farther down the display case and pretended to be interested in a plate full of Confederate bills. “Having any luck?” she asked lightly.
“It just changed.”
Meaning that he’d been looking for her instead of the pocketwatch, which was exactly what she’d been counting on. If she could keep him preoccupied with her instead of their treasure hunt, her chances of beating him to the watch would be greatly improved. She didn’t have any idea how long this little ruse would work, but she was going to take advantage of it while she could.
Letting the air out of his tires this morning was a bit on the drastic side, but the more she’d thought about it last night, the more she’d become convinced that she didn’t have a hope in hell of beating him if she simply let him run the show—his usual method of operation. She had to thwart him and if that meant pulling a few low punches, then so be it. He’d been a Ranger after all—a legendary badass. Her lips quirked. He could take it.
Furthermore, with Ranger Security behind him, he had a clear advantage that she didn’t possess. Her conscience had screamed the entire time the air had hissed out of the tires—instead of refuting her “ruthless” reputation, she was only confirming it—but, ultimately, she’d mentally muffled the scream by imagining how good it would feel to write out the checks for the past-due bills and pay for that first semester of college.
Clearly he had the money and the means to do what he wanted—had already gotten his post military career off the ground. She wasn’t asking for a handout, merely a hand-up, and this opportunity was too good to pass up. She’d be an idiot not to use every means in her limited disposal to make sure that she secured the outcome and thereby, her future.
She wasn’t here to make friends, dammit—she was here to win.
“Did you sleep well last night?” Payne asked her.
“Like a baby,” she lied, feeling him move even closer behind her. It appeared that now that he’d found her, he wasn’t letting her out of his sight. The idea sent a wicked thrill coursing through her and the hair on her arms stood on end.
She caught a hint of a smile in his voice. “You did a lot of rattling around for someone who slept like a baby.”
“I’m sorry if I kept you awake.”
Another lie. That had been the whole point. She’d catnapped, then made enough noise to intrigue him, then catnapped again. Finally, when she’d heard him get into the shower—a notion that all but made her melt—she’d hurried downstairs, snagged a muffin from Matthew, then let the air out of Payne’s tires and left.
Her hands hadn’t been altogether steady, but she’d gotten the job done and was actually sort of proud of herself for trumping Garrett’s ace on the first hand. Now it was only a matter of keeping it up. He’d be a helluva lot harder to beat the next go-round, she knew, but she’d planned for that and had packed a few accessories accordingly. She’d even borrowed a couple of wigs from her mother’s shop just for the occasion.
Knowing that she couldn’t disguise the Hummer, it was a good thing she could hide herself. Tomorrow she planned to park the Hummer in town and catch a bus to the rest of her destinations. As for how she was going to give him the slip to start with, she hadn’t worked that one out yet.
But she would.
“I guess I should be thankful you didn’t slash the tires,” Payne said conversationally.
Emma felt her lips twitch. “That would have been overkill. I just needed to slow you down. I thought I made it clear that I didn’t want you to follow me yesterday when I tried to avoid you.” She shrugged lightly. “You didn’t take the hint.”
“And I thought I made it clear that I didn’t have any intention of letting you avoid me. You don’t seem to have grasped that hint, either.” She detected a slight throb in his voice, one that made her skin prickle with an odd mixture of warning and desire.
“I’ve always been very fond of the direct approach,” Emma said, turning to face him.
“Fine. I’ll be direct. If you continue to sabotage me, I will make you eternally sorry.” His lips curled into a smile that never reached his eyes. “How’s that for direct?”
Emma’s breath had stalled in her lungs, but she managed to find it. “That’s pretty damned good. Let me be equally frank. I don’t like being followed and if you continue to do so, I will do everything in my power to thwart you, if for no other reason than to see that vein that’s currently throbbing in your forehead bulge. Follow me again and I’ll not only flatten your tires, I’ll climb up there and clobber you with them.”
He stared at her for a full three seconds before a startled laugh broke up in his throat. “You’ll cl-clobber me?”
She nodded.
Then he lost it, giving in to big, giant belly laughs that caused other patrons to turn and stare. It occurred to Emma that he’d probably never purposely allowed himself to attract that type of attention before. Was he cracking up? she wondered. Had she, of all people, managed to push him too far?
Still chuckling, his eyes twinkling with humor, Payne crowded even farther into her personal space, grabbing her arms and lifting her completely off the floor. Then he planted a long, slow, deliberate kiss that made her toes curl midair and her heart segue into an irregular ridiculously pleased rhythm. The kiss ended as abruptly as it had begun and he promptly set her back on the ground. Thankfully the counter was at her back.
“Clobber me, eh, Little Bit? Now, that I’d love to see.”
8
PAYNE WATCHED EMMA ANGLE the Hummer back into the parking lot at The Dove’s Nest. Within seconds, she’d swiftly exited the car and hurried up the steps before he could follow her. He could have of course, had he wanted to run, but he figured he’d done a good enough job today of rattling her.
Not to mention himself, but that was a thought for a later time.
Like never.
Self-examination wasn’t a favorite pastime of his and Payne had b
ecome an expert at avoiding it.
Though she had tried to alternately annoy and ignore him out of existence the rest of the morning and afternoon, Payne had continued to follow her. Granted trying to find the watch and keep up with her wasn’t going to be an easy feat, but he couldn’t think of any other way to handle things. He needed to know where she’d been—that was actually a handy perk for himself because he didn’t have to duplicate her efforts—and if she happened to stumble upon a vital piece of information, then he wanted to know about it.
Despite his late start and his search for Emma-the-pain-in-the-ass, he’d managed to cover a good bit of ground today. Though she didn’t realize it, of course, in a roundabout way, she’d actually done him a favor. In his ever-maddening search for her, he’d canvassed the stores she’d missed, so technically speaking, he was ahead of the game. He’d considered pointing this out to Mistress Logic, but was afraid he’d be provoked into kissing her again, so he’d decided against it.
With his world in relatively good order, he’d spent the rest of his day making sure that she was just as miserable and irritated as he’d been this morning. And if he enjoyed himself—immensely—in the process, well then that was all the better.
Payne felt his lips form a self-satisfied smile and strolled up the steps to the front porch. Norah’s sister and her large pig—once again garbed in matching ensembles, he noted with a wry twist of his lips—sat in a pair of wicker rockers on the far end of the porch. He mentally shook his head, wondering what would make a person want to own bacon for a pet, much less wrestle it into clothes? It took all types, he supposed.
“Good afternoon,” she called with a welcoming smile. “Having a good time in Gettysburg so far?” The ridiculous-looking pig snorted, seemingly echoing the question. Today the couple were outfitted in blue velour spandex, which did nothing to disguise their considerable girth.
Payne nodded. “I am, thanks.”
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