Chapter Eleven
The email page disintegrated into black and gray boxes. On the keyboard, Jaeda hit Alt-Tab and toggled to the weather website in time for Teague to turn the corner of the desk.
“I see,” he said, pointing to the monitor at a cold front overtaking the system dropping precipitation. “It was supposed to be rain, but this line dropped the temperatures too soon. No wonder. Looks like it will pass tomorrow.”
She nodded. Tomorrow! “Probably around mid-morning.” The pressure was on.
He placed his hand on the mouse and shut the website page. “You’d better plan on staying through the weekend.”
She widened her eyes innocently and pouted. “But I don’t have any clothes.”
“Indeed. And it wouldn’t do for you to wear that stunning dress of yours the entire time. I won’t be able to put two sentences together during your entire visit.” He thought for a moment then said, “Why don’t we go back to bed and sleep on it? I’m sure we’ll come up with some idea in the morning after we’ve had a good rest.”
“Rest? Is that really what you have in mind?” Careful. Don’t push too hard.
A mischievous grin revealed clean, straight teeth as a glimmer lit his eyes. “Well, I suppose it’s true, we can sleep late in the morning.”
Danger is imminent. She got to her feet and ignored the chill the cold floorboards sent through her soles. Hurrying to the oriental carpet, she said, “Sleeping in on a Saturday morning? I guess it wouldn’t raise too many eyebrows.”
He laughed and pulled her close. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she stood on tiptoe and used the excuse of hugging him to search the snowy view outside. She couldn’t see far, but the lack of movement reassured her.
Don’t let your target out of your sight. Heck, she’d be reluctant to let him out of her arms. She pressed a kiss to his earlobe.
“Mmm. I’ll give you an hour to stop that,” he said.
In the same ear, she whispered, “Maybe we should find someplace more comfortable.” Away from all these windows. When he took a step back, she put up a hand. “But no carrying. You’ve carried me enough for one day. You’re going to give me a complex.”
Teague waggled his brows and grasped her hand. “Very well. Come with me. I have the perfect comfortable place in mind.” He half dragged her running from the room, and she had to fight the urge to giggle.
In his room, he turned a knob on the wall to make the gas fireplace produce larger flames. The heat felt wonderful. As she stood, staring into the fire, he approached from behind and slipped her robe from her shoulders while placing a kiss where her neck curved.
Watch your back. She spun in his arms and let the robe drop to the carpet. Letting her head fall backward while he worshipped her throat with his mouth, Jaeda tried to get her mind to stop racing. It wouldn’t.
Who was in danger? Her? What sort of danger? Did the agency suspect Teague would try to kill her?
He removed his own cover-up and drew her against his hard body. Sighing, she fleetingly decided that if this was his method for meting out death, she would go willingly and with a smile. She shook her head. Get serious.
No, her instincts told her he would not hurt her, and she trusted those instincts. They had saved her life and gotten her out of sticky situations many times.
So who? One of his employees? Perhaps Sutton or Mrs. Wilson?
His hands roamed everywhere, leaving her weak-kneed and panting. She let her hands do some exploring of their own, enjoying the textures and contours of his body even though her brain wouldn’t cease its analysis.
Mrs. Wilson made sense. Jaeda had left her coat unguarded twice. Once while she showered and again since entering Teague’s suite. The housekeeper could have found her gun, or the business card. Instinct told her she was way off on that one, too.
Teague cupped her mound. He wet a finger in her flowing juices and teased the nerve bundle so eager to come out of hiding. “You drive me crazy,” she drawled, leaning against his strength.
“You do the same to me, my love. You’re so beautiful. Perhaps if you weren’t so bloody brilliant, I’d stand a chance.” He dipped at the knees and scooped her off her feet. “I know you asked me not to, but I can’t help it.”
Her thoughts careened out of control. He had called her 'my love'. Did he mean it or were they words a man says in the heat of the moment? She smiled despite her worries. When he tossed her on the bed, she laughed in surprise. Then he flung himself next to her and hauled her on top.
They made love in a lighthearted spirit, laughing and playful to the end. She couldn’t remember having so much fun in the bedroom. Nor could she recall such physical repletion. The man was an artist at lovemaking.
Collapsing on her pillows, she drew the covers to her chest and sighed. He scooted off and padded to the bathroom. With water running in the next room, she came alert and bolted to the bedroom door. She checked the hallway to make sure the area remained secure, then sprinted the four steps to her room and grabbed her coat from the bed.
In Teague’s suite, she locked his door, shoved the coat under one of her pillows, and assumed her previous position.
“Are you as tired as I am?” he asked, turning off the bathroom light.
“Exhausted.” She draped the back of one wrist over her forehead for affect.
“Wore you out, did I?” He slid under the covers and put a possessive arm around her waist.
“You sound awfully pleased with yourself.”
“Inordinately. And you should be, too. You rocked my world.”
Wow. Now there was a compliment. Maybe she was cut out as an undercover lover, after all. “You sent mine into a wild tilt, too.” She wanted to ask him about the 'my love' comment but decided to play it out. She had to capture his heart. Pushing the issue or making something out of nothing would only sabotage her progress.
Danger is imminent.
She shifted onto her side. Placing one hand onto the lump of her gun, she draped the other on his arm at her waist.
* * * *
With mint smarting on her tongue from a brushing, Jaeda stood at a part in the dark draperies covering a large window. The sky turned from sooty black to smoky gray. The dawn broke in deadly silence.
Below, snow blanketed the earth in perfection, not a single flaw marring its pristine beauty. Flakes continued to spiral down, adding to it. Yet she sensed a disturbance in the sleepy peace.
She crossed arms over her middle and scowled. Despite her instinct that said Teague held no threat, to her at least, she had performed a thorough search of his room. He had no weapons, no documents, no communication devices other than a telephone in the bathroom, of all places, and not a single item related to his financial work. Was his job a cover?
Nothing in his wallet or the pockets of his pants and jackets hanging in his closet indicated he did anything other than make money and look good doing it. He hid no safe or compartment in the room. The carpet didn’t conceal any secret cubbies. His dresser and chest of drawers contained only clothing. And his closet, though impressive, offered no surprises.
She would have worried if the place had appeared too clean, which might indicate he’d purged the room of incriminating items before her arrival, but dust bunnies under the bed and a few wads of crumpled paper on his closet floor between some shoes proved otherwise.
From the woods, two thick, brown horses emerged pulling a large yellow sleigh. Caster sat at the front and held the reins in a single gloved hand while grasping the neck of his coat closed with the other. Bundled with a patchwork quilt in the back sat a tall blonde woman with an enormous nose and a shorter boy with the same hair color and clearly juvenile features. They cut across the large rear lawn, heading toward a place at the back of the manor. The sleigh sliced through the snow and left a long, straight track behind it.
A stirring in the bed made her turn. “Good morning,” she said in a hushed voice, reluctant to break the quiet.
He sat a
nd rubbed his lids then peered at her, blinking sleepily. “If I hadn’t seen you sleep with my own eyes, I might wonder if you did.”
“I slept,” she said, smiling and going to the bed. She perched on the edge of the mattress. “You were great last night.”
“You were magnificent.” He took her wrist and pulled her across his lap. “You are magnificent.”
Heat rushed to her cheeks. Jaeda slid a hand behind his neck and brought him close for a kiss so he wouldn’t see her blush. Well…and because she liked kissing the man. He added two extra pecks before straightening.
“Thank you for letting me stay.”
He extracted his legs from under her and swung them off the bed. Heading for the bathroom, he said, “Right. Like you had any other choice. Though I’m glad you did. Last night was a dream.”
She flipped onto her belly then adjusted the belt on her robe to get more comfortable. Propping her chin in her hands, she considered last night better than any dream she’d ever had.
Teague poked his head around the bathroom doorway. “You’re awfully quiet.”
“I’m not a morning person.” She didn’t need to tell him her quiet came from a tremendous sense of contentment. “I saw a sleigh. Caster was driving,” she called over the sound of running water.
He came into the bedroom, rubbing a hand towel over his face. “We don’t have much occasion to use it, but with ice under the snow, I imagine it moves along quite nicely this morning.”
“There was a woman and boy in the back.”
“Mrs. Chesley, my cook, and her son, one of the stable hands.” He turned on the television and switched channels to the weather.
“She didn’t look happy.”
Pointing at the screen, he flipped the towel over his shoulder. “I imagine not. Look at that. Eighteen degrees.”
She shivered at the idea of riding in an open sleigh in such a temperature. The fact that the manor’s population had increased by two made her uneasy.
He laughed, drawing her out of her thoughts. “It will be forty-four tomorrow. How’s that for a fluctuation?” Shaking his head, he strode to the bathroom. “That’s England for you.”
Laying her cheek on her palm, she stared at the mess of pillows attesting to their busy night. She adored how he walked about in the nude without a care, and how he talked of everyday matters as if she had been part of his life for years rather than hours.
A loud bang reverberated through the house. Her heart in her throat, Jaeda snatched her coat from under its pillow, retrieved her gun from the pocket, and ran for the door.
Chapter Twelve
“What was that? Jaeda?” Teague asked, still in his bedroom as she sprinted down the hallway. Jaeda didn’t slow. Taking the stairs two at a time, she followed the sound of a woman’s scream and a man shouting. Teague’s footfalls echoed on the steps as she raced toward the back of the manor.
Gun in hand, she burst through a closed swinging door and found the kitchen. The woman from the sleigh stood in the center of the huge room with water dripping from her hair and clothes. On the floor, a man knelt with most of his body concealed inside a tiny closet, his rear end and the soles of his shoes the only parts in view.
“I think I’ve got it,” he yelled, his voice hollow, like he spoke into a tin can.
Teague slapped Jaeda on the back with the door as he came through, and she tucked her gun into the pocket of her robe. Glad to see he had taken a moment to cover himself, she stepped aside and willed her pulse to slow.
A spout of water shot from the closet and barely missed the cook. She screamed anyway.
“No need to pierce my eardrums, Polly. It didn’t even get you that time,” said the man. He sat on his heels and glanced over his shoulder, the fountain of water knocking off his hat in the process.
“Good morning, Sutton. Mrs. Chesley,” said Teague with a nod of greeting to the shivering woman, his cheerful tone out of place.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” the butler muttered. He grabbed a wrench from a toolbox and disappeared once again.
“I’m drenched!” cried the cook. She darted an accusatory glance at her employer.
“I’ll be right back,” Teague whispered in Jaeda’s ear. His bare feet slapped pooling water as he went to help Sutton. “Let me give you a hand.”
Ice-cold touched Jaeda’s big toe. Backing a step, she held out a hand. “Mrs. Chesley, isn’t it?”
The cook sent her a miserable look, water eddying around her clunky black boots. “Polly.”
“Let’s see about getting you warm and dry, Polly.”
Mrs. Chesley moved through the deepening water and took her hand, her freezing fingers engulfing Jaeda’s and sending a chill up her arm. They made it to the cavernous ballroom-type space that housed the staircase when Mrs. Wilson, in pink fluffy slippers and curlers in her hair, came to a sliding halt at the top landing.
“Stay right there,” the housekeeper called in a shrill voice.
The cook wilted, her hair hanging limp against her cheeks and her soaking clothes sagging.
Jaeda’s heart went out to the poor wretch. “What happened?”
“It’s the freeze,” said Mrs. Chesley. “Froze that water line, it did. I always said it was too close to the outside wall.”
“But I heard an explosion.” She wanted to let go of the cook, but the woman clung as though feeding on her warmth.
“That was the pipe bursting. Scared me half to death, it did. And now look at me,” she said on a wail. “I’m likely to meet my maker, what with all this freezing water sucking the life out of me.”
Jaeda bit her lip to keep from smiling at the woman’s dramatics. When Mrs. Wilson arrived with a stack of towels, Jaeda relinquished the wet cook to the housekeeper’s capable care. The two women went up the staircase.
Glancing over her shoulder, Jaeda waited. The women disappeared upstairs and Teague didn’t join her. She gripped her gun. Leaving it in her pocket, she conducted a reconnaissance of the first floor. The floor plan she had memorized made it easy.
With the first level secure, she headed for the second.
“We’ve had our excitement for the day,” said Teague, stopping her before her foot landed on the first stair.
She wanted to be upset with him for interrupting her search, but his voice sounded too wonderful. It brought all manner of incredible memories to mind from the night. Her body responding against her will, she released her hold on the gun.
“Is Mrs. Chesley alright?”
Jaeda offered him a close-lipped smile. “Mrs. Wilson took her upstairs.”
“I’m sure she’s fine, then.” He took her hand and led the way up. “We’ve got the water stopped. Caster brought a heater from the stables and Sutton is tightening a new pipe in place. That one bursts every few years, so we always keep extra pipe in the storage room.” He gave her fingers a squeeze and ushered her into his room. “You were very kind to Mrs. Chesley. Thank you. She can be one for the dramatics.”
“No problem.” Jaeda held his hand longer than necessary, but didn’t care. He created an excitement in her she hadn’t experienced since high school. She wanted it to last as long as possible.
Releasing her grip, he moved toward the bed. “Is that your coat? You don’t like to part with it, do you?” He chuckled. Then he frowned and picked up a square of paper from the comforter. “What’s this?”
Jaeda closed her eyes and groaned inwardly.
“How did you get this? I didn’t give it to you.”
If she lied, he’d know it. The man was too observant. Shoving her hands in the pockets of her robe and running a finger along the handle of her gun, she slowly headed toward him.
“I’m serious, Jaeda. I need to know where you got this. Have I somehow been set up?”
Set up, yes. Think. Think. Think.
A flush rose up his neck and reddened his face. “You’d better start talking. Who gave this to you?”
A terrible sadness washed ov
er her. And it surprised her. She had never cared whether or not she made a target angry, but his anger at something she’d done tore a hole in her heart. More than that, the idea of disappointing him crushed her.
“I don’t know who gave it to me,” she answered honestly. I think the world of you.
“Then how did you get my business card? Did you go to my office and meet my secretary? Are you an American gold-digger?”
“No!” This was going badly. Please hear me out…once I come up with something for you to hear.
He waited, his stare boring into her.
She thought of everywhere she’d spent time last evening. Somewhere he might believe she’d found the card. Think. The club. The car. The study. Here. The desk in the study? Too obvious. The car? Maybe, but she’d be lying.
Tension rolled off him in waves. “You don’t want to tell me.”
“I really don’t.” Please don’t make me.
“Is it that horrible?”
Yes. “Depends on the perspective, I guess.”
“You leave me at a severe disadvantage. What else are you hiding?” He grabbed her trench coat by the collar and held it high. With his free hand, he searched the inside pocket.
Jaeda hid her relief at having the gun safely in her robe.
His hand came out empty and he sent it into one of the hip pockets. Still empty. With a determined twist of his lips, he found the other pocket. Opening his fist, he revealed two mangled paperclips on his palm.
She tried not to wince but failed, her lids flinching slightly.
“What the hell is this?” he demanded.
“Would you believe I needed something to clean my fingernails with?” What? The man was reducing her to amateur status but quick!
“Not for an instant.” He took a menacing step.
In a flash, Jaeda raised the gun, disengaged the safety, and trained it on him with both hands. “Stay where you are.” And don’t laugh at my tiny gun or I may shoot you for spite.
Code Name Desire Page 7