by Leslie North
It was getting dark now, the lights coming on overhead, making it harder to see, and she didn’t have a flashlight. She turned her cellphone onto light. Squinting, she reached out to pick up a piece of rubber and looked at it. Looking around, she found more small pieces. Had a belt gone out?
Looking down at her car, she straightened and hoped this was a simple fix. She loved her old Mercedes wagon. It had been her father’s when he’d been in college, and he’d managed to keep it well-maintained. When he won his seat in Congress the car—Ginny, she’d been named—had been retired to the garage in favor of something bigger. Ginny had become Anna’s on her sixteenth birthday, and she’d tried to be just as good as her dad about keeping it in perfect condition.
She started to wonder if she should call someone—a tow truck maybe—when a man’s voice came out of the dark. “Need help?”
She spun, heart racing. A guy stood on the sidewalk, a hat pulled low—one of those Hipster hats, she thought. You saw enough of them in some neighborhoods in D.C., and she let out a breath. He seemed big—imposing—but he wasn’t holding a gun or a knife. He was well-dressed—the jeans looked new and the dark coat looked like it was wool.
“It stopped.” She waved a hand at her car. “And I don’t have a clue what to do about it.”
The guy moved closer. For some reason, Anna’s heart kept pounding. She wasn’t usually this wary around strangers, but maybe it was the dark or his size—or the weird book she’d glance at—but she backed away.
The street seemed unusually empty—the lights dim as the day faded into the twilight that smeared everything into gray. No other pedestrians strolled past. Anna tightened her grip on her phone and grabbed a breath.
Car lights flashed over her. She turned to look up the street. The car pulled up and the window rolled down. Anna caught a whiff of garlic, and Gage smiled up at her. “Problems?”
Chapter 8
Gage had been intending to show up whether Anna wanted him to or not. Pizza and beer in hand would do the explaining. He wasn’t taking no for an answer about spending time with Anna. The last place he expected to see her was by the side of the road
She came over to him, waved at the sidewalk. “This nice man was just going to help me.”
Glancing at the empty sideway, Gage lifted his eyebrows. “Nice man?”
Anna spun, she turned back to him and pushed a hand into her hair. “He was…this guy…he just came up.”
Gage nodded. The hair was standing up on the back of his neck and he didn’t like any of this. A car breaks down—a guy shows up. Sounded like a setup to him. He forced a smile. “Why don’t I take you home. Before we go, you can call a tow truck to get you to a mechanic. If you need it, I know a guy not far from here who’s good.”
She bit her lower lip and nodded. Gage thought she looked pale and shaky, meaning she was either lying about this or there really had been someone who had spooked her. “That would be great.”
Walking back to her car, she ducked into it and came out with her purse. She locked her car, glanced up and down the street—she seemed nervous to Gage. Coming around, she climbed into his Honda. He could swear she gave a small shiver. But that might be the evening air. She had on a baggy, button-front shirt in a pale color, loose jeans and flat shoes of some kind—she didn’t look dressed for a night on the town.
“Were you going out for groceries?” he asked.
She grimaced and shook her head. “After you called—well, I suddenly wanted company.”
“Just not mine?” he asked and slanted a glance at her.
Her cheeks reddened. “I…I didn’t want to…I hate to have to be rescued.”
He glanced at her. “Well, I hate to eat alone. I was coming over to beg my way into your place. Looks like it was a good thing I did.” Pulling out his phone, he called his own auto club. They promised a tow truck would be there within a few minutes, and they lived up to the promise.
“Stay put,” he told Anna, and got out to handle the towing. Once they got the address for Anna’s mechanic sorted out, the tow company promised to keep Anna’s car overnight and get it to the mechanic first thing.
“No sense leaving your car on the street all night,” Gage said as he got back into his car.
Biting her lower lip, Anna shook her head. “You’re being so nice about this.”
He smiled. “Only so you’ll have dinner with me. Now, where’s your place?”
She gave him directions. Five minutes later, she pointed to her apartment building. “In here. There’s guest parking—so you can pull into one of those spots, or take my space. Do you think my Ginny will be okay?”
“Ginny?” He looked at her and blinked.
She smiled at him. “My car. It’s short for Virginia.” Turning, she waved to the guard. “She’s not on the streets, but I hate leaving her anywhere.”
The gate to the parking area slid back, and Gage drove inside. “It’ll be fine. I’ve used this service before. And how old is that clunker?”
“Don’t make fun of her—she’s given me good service. And…well, my dad named the car. It used to be his.”
Gage nodded. He had damn few things from his own father, and from how her voice softened, he was going to go with her having good memories of her dad. He’d dug into her background—her father’s death, how he’d been a member of Congress. Her mother still seemed to be social force in D.C., but for someone from that kind of background, Anna was remarkably casual.
Pulling into one of the visitor spots, Gage parked. He shut off the engine and glanced at her. In the dim lights, she looked pale and nervous, still, her hair a nimbus around her face.
He wanted to reach out, touch her cheek—smooth away that tight line between her eyebrows. But that wasn’t what he was here for. He needed information that she might not even know she had.
“You going to invite me up?”
She blinked at him. “Oh…oh, yes, please.” She got out and headed to the elevator bank. Bringing the pizza and a six pack of Miller with him, he followed her to the elevator. He nodded. “Good, no stairs.”
She gave a small groan. “No stairs for a month, but I swore to myself I’m going to get back to the gym.” She punched the elevator button.
They rode up in silence to her floor. She fumbled with her keys, and he watched her. She’d seemed so poised yesterday with a camera in her hands. It seemed that you took the camera away and she didn’t know what to do. Was that camera her shield—a way to keep herself distant from the world?
Getting her front door open, she called out, “Romeo, I’m home. Where art thou?”
Gage walked into her place, eyebrows lifted high and glancing around. Romeo? Ten seconds later a gray cat stalked in and sat down, facing Gage. The cat had to be twenty pounds. Large, green eyes fixed on Gage, and Gage gave the cat back the same assessing stare.
Seeming to decide Gage was okay, Romeo started to wash a paw.
“Nice cat,” Gage said.
“Don’t let the act fool you. Romeo likes attention on his own terms. You might not want to try to pet him—he’s pretty handy with his claws.”
“Oh, no trouble with that.” He wasn’t a cat person. Gage glanced around. He liked what he saw. Comfortable black leather couch, big screen TV on one wall, a lot of books in ceiling-high bookcases, a few pillows in bright colors.
The hardwood floors had been left bare and pale wood offered a nice warmth compared with the off-white walls. He glanced at a couple of photographs on the wall—black and white ones, famed with thin, black frames. Not the usual shots of famous D.C. landmarks, but these were all of people, with the landmarks lurked blurry in the background almost like dream images.
A lawyer sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a little girl stared down into the reflecting pool in front of the Washington Monument, an old woman fed pigeons near the Jefferson Monument. The people were the stars of the photos—their emotions seemed caught in the images, their expressions ones of struggle
, of people who endured.
Gage gestured to the photographs. “Yours?”
Anna nodded and headed into the open kitchen. A countertop separated the kitchen from the living room, and Gage didn’t see a dining room, so he followed her. She blushed again. Over the question, he wondered? Was she shy about her work? Was that why she had the photos here in her apartment and not in some gallery?
She turned to pull out plates and cutlery. He stared at her. “Are you serious? Pizza is meant to be eaten with the hands.”
She gave him a smile. “You’d shock my mother down to the soles of her designer shoes. Where the heck did you grow up?” She put a plate in front of him.
He put down the pizza and the beer and slid onto a stool at the counter. He’d always found it easier to get intel if you started off by sharing, so he told her, “A little town in Kentucky called Winchester. Right along the Tennessee border near the Daniel Boone National Forest. My dad liked to rebuild cars. He had a shop attached to the house, so my brothers and I learned how to work on cars at an early age. We also learned to eat pizza the way it’s meant to be eaten—with your hands.”
Anna opened the cardboard box and pulled in a breath. “That smells like heaven.”
A cat suddenly appeared on the counter. Anna swept up Romeo and deposited him back on the floor, telling him, “You had your dinner, buster. Twice over.”
Gage opened a beer and handed it to Anna. “What about you?”
She put it down without taking a sip and started dishing out pizza—onto the plates. He could see he was going to have a hard time convincing her of the using-fingers thing. “Virginia to start. I was born in Richmond, but we moved to D.C. after my dad joined Congress. And we just…well, stayed. It’s my mother’s playground, so to speak. She loves all that behind-the-scenes negotiating.”
“The woman behind the politician?” Gage asked. His stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten all day and that pizza did smell great.
Anna put out forks and knives. “She was the one who pushed Dad into it. I think he would have preferred to remain a college professor.”
Ignoring the silverware, Gage picked up a slice of pizza. Warm cheese dripped onto his fingers. “College professor? What did he teach?”
“English lit,” Anna replied. She cut into her pizza with her knife and fork and popped a small piece into her mouth.
“Don’t tell me,” Gage said. “You majored in English, too.” He waved at the bookshelves. “No wonder you work for a publisher. You have family around?”
She nodded. “My mother—Eloise.” She wrinkled her nose. “And a sister—Pauline. My dad…he passed early.”
“Eloise? Not the Eloise Middleton?”
She glanced at him. “You read the society pages?”
He didn’t, but Anna didn’t have to know that. He’d gotten the name from reading up on Anna’s background. “Sure. When I’m bored enough. But who hasn’t heard of that dame?”
She grinned. “Mom would have a fit to hear herself called that. She insisted that Pauline and I should call her by her first name—like she didn’t want anyone to know she was old enough to actually have daughters. She still manages to look like she’s in her forties. But, it was something my father never understood…or me, for that matter. She comes from old money, and she never lets anyone forget that, either.”
“That’s why the old car—the new apartment?” He waved at her sparse digs. “You doing everything the opposite of Mom?”
She grinned. “Oh, I love old things. But I like them to be useful.”
Gage leaned his elbows on the counter. “Speaking of old, I saw a photo of your boss on TV—what’s with him going missing? You think he’s trying to skip out on all the trouble from yesterday?”
Anna sipped her beer and shrugged. “I wish I knew. Coran’s not the most reliable at the best of times—he hates sharing his schedule, and since he owns the company outright, it’s not like he has to be accountable to anyone.”
“What do you do when he takes off like this?” Gage offered a smile. “Does that mean you get to take time off work?”
Anna smiled. “I wish. It’ll take the rest of this week to sort out offices, but it’ll be business as usual on Monday. We have deadlines we can’t miss. Meaning I need to set up another shoot for you.” She headed into the living room and came back with her tablet. Standing next to Gage, she put her tablet on the counter, pulled up a calendar and asked, “How’s next Wednesday?”
Gage reached out with his thumb to rub at the side of her face. She didn’t pull back. “Tomato sauce,” he said, and licked his thumb. “Tastes better on you.”
She blushed, and he reached up to stroke the side of her face. She didn’t pull back and her pupils blew wide and dark. Leaning closer, he cupped her chin and brushed his lips across hers.
She tasted like garlic and tomatoes and beer—all of it was good. Parting her lips, she let him deepen the kiss. She had soft lips. He let his hand trail down her back, wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. She fit herself to him.
Pulling back, he smiled. “I’ve been wanting to do that since I met you,” he confessed. Her cheeks reddened. He touched a fingertip to her face. “I love that you blush like that.”
“Curse of fair skin,” she said. “Gage—?”
She didn’t finish the question, so he asked, “Moving too fast?”
She shook her head. He stroked his hand down her arm. She made him feel more alive than he’d felt in a long time—but he couldn’t lose sight of the mission. His job was to stay close to her.
Pulling away, she grabbed another beer for him and for herself. “Let’s take this into the living room. But, remember, I have to be up early for work. That reminds me, are you on leave or something?”
“Yeah, something. Down time.” Gage picked up his beer and followed her into the living room. Out of habit, he stopped by the window and glanced out—it was ingrained now to scope out his surroundings. You didn’t walk into a room without checking the exits and the occupants. You stayed aware.
He glimpsed a shadow moving below in the street. Could be someone out for the evening air, but he didn’t like that the shadow seemed to be hanging around more than walking somewhere. Maybe it was nothing, but suddenly, he didn’t want to leave Anna alone.
She’d said some guy had stopped to help her—but the guy had faded away. That didn’t sound right. All of this smacked of trouble, and if he left her…well, he wasn’t going to see her end up like Nick.
Dropping the curtain, he headed over to the couch and sat next to her. “You need a ride to work in the morning?”
She shook her head and sipped her beer. She hadn’t moved away from him and that was good. She smelled good, too—spicy and flowery with that touch of garlic and beer clinging to her from the meal. Smells of home, Gage thought. They were both comforting and not all that familiar to him.
“I can call a friend tomorrow for a ride once I know Ginny’s at the mechanic’s—I want to make sure she’s in good hands.”
He put his beer down and put his hands on her waist. “How about you being in some good hands?”
She opened her mouth to answer, so he swooped in, kissed her hard. He caught her breath—and her tongue, sucked on it. She gave a moan. She brought up her hands and wrapped her arms around him.
Taking her up on the invitation, he slipped one hand under her shirt. She was even better than anything in any of his fantasies. He let the kiss linger, wrapped her up in his arms. Her skin heated when he stroked his hands over her. He heard the thud of a shoe coming off—one of hers. The other ones joined it.
Pulling back, he stared down at her. He touched a hand to the buttons on her shirt, but she put her hand over his. “Leave it on.” He lifted his eyebrows, but she simply grabbed his T-shirt and pulled on the hem. “This, however, can come off.”
Sitting up, he tugged it off. She ran her fingertips over his chest. Pausing, her hand stilled and her fingers splayed wide on hi
m as if she was taking up ownership, she looked straight at him. “The one thing these last couple of days have taught me is that I don’t want to reach the end of my life and have any regrets.”
He smiled. “Life flashed before your eyes?”
“Something like that.” She stood, unbuttoned her jeans and let them drop. Gage let his stare travel over her legs—she had great legs, long and lean and perfect. Looking up at her, he wet his lips and asked, “And what is it would you regret not doing?”
“This.” Grasping his shoulder for support, Anna straddled him. She’d dropped her panties along with her jeans and now he could feel her wet warmth right through his jeans. He gave a groan. She leaned into him and lightly brushed her lips across his.