He saved the other text messages for later since they were personal. Three of them were from hi older sister, wanting his opinion on one thing or another, and one from each of his younger brothers. The four of them were in the middle of planning a surprise party for their parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary. Well, his event planner sister, Glenna, was really the one doing all the work. His job was to keep his two younger brothers from getting in her way.
“Thanks,” Alyssa said, her voice a full octave higher and sounding rather satisfied with herself. “No, change of plans.”
More silence. “Just in case,” she continued. “I thought I’d take him to the Beach Inn in Manhattan. Yeah, the one right on the beach.”
Sounded nice. Too bad he wasn’t in town for a vacation. Otherwise, he might actually enjoy being locked up in a beachside hotel with a woman he found more than interesting.
Noah punched in his password when prompted and listened to his voice mail. One of his buddies had called to tell him he’d scored four free tickets to the Nationals’ home game the following weekend. Free tickets on the third base line, cold beer and junk food. Since he expected to be home in a matter of days, he typed out a quick text accepting the offer and hit Send.
A tone from his BlackBerry signaled an incoming text message. Noah read the reply from Abbott: MAINTAIN STATUS QUO. BEST FOR CR SAFETY.
“CR” being Charles Rolston, no doubt. Confused, Noah sent a text back: IS CR IN OUR CUSTODY?
The reply was short and sweet: W/B IN TOUCH SOON.
Well, hell, that made zero sense. Who would be in touch? Abbott? Or Rolston?
This assignment had been fubar from the get-go. First he’d lost Rolston, and no one seemed to be upset by that fact. He’d have thought his ass would’ve been in a sling by now. But no, now he was supposed to “maintain the status quo”?
“Okay. I’ll check in later,” Alyssa said to her caller. “Tell Craig I’m sorry about the mix-up, but I’ve got ’er covered.” More silence, then, “All right. ’Bye, Perry.”
“Perry?” Noah asked her. He had a sudden intrinsic need to know all the players. Might make it easier to spot the bad guys that way, because right now, he apparently didn’t know squat.
Her usual smile faded and was replaced by a frown. “Perry Zellner. I thought you spoke to him when the federal prosecutor put you in touch with our firm.”
Shit.
“No, wait. You talked to Craig, didn’t you?”
He said nothing and held his breath.
Her smile returned as quickly as it had disappeared. “Yes, it was Craig. I remember because he handed the phone off to me to take your information and confirm the dates. Which I managed to screw up, anyway.”
He let out the breath he’d been holding, slowly, hoping she wouldn’t notice. “Not a problem,” he said.
“That’s nice of you to say, but really, it is my fault that none of the guys were available today. I had you on the schedule for next week. Not sure how that happened.” She shrugged her slender shoulders. “Must’ve gotten distracted.”
She said that as if distractions happened a lot. He couldn’t help noticing she couldn’t be more than twenty-five or so. In the hour he’d been in her presence, he’d learned she’d had at least three jobs—night supervisor for a rent-a-coputfit, a document clerk and a bodyguard. A bodyguard who answered the phone and kept the schedule? That didn’t make sense.
“How long has your company been in business?” he asked. Maybe they were a start-up and perennially short staffed.
She flipped on her blinker and took the next exit. “About twenty-five years or so. Why?”
“How long have you worked there?”
A few blocks away from the freeway, she turned into a well-kept residential area. An older neighborhood, filled with an eclectic mix of pre–World War II architecture, ranging from Mission Revival to Craftsman to Foursquare with the occasional Pueblo Revival thrown in for good measure. Or so he thought he remembered from the art history classes he’d taken in college.
“Almost six months.” She turned onto another side street. “Why?”
“Curiosity,” he said with a shrug. “You don’t look very old.”
She chuckled and cast him a sly glance. “Is that some clever way of asking me my age?”
His lips twitched. “I guess so,” he admitted.
She shrugged. “No biggie. I’ll be twenty-seven in two months.”
“And you’ve had three jobs since college?”
She looked at him, her brows drawn together in a deep frown. “How did you know I went to college?”
He flicked the light-blue-and-gold tassel hanging from the rearview mirror. “Unless this belongs to a boyfriend, I’d say you more than likely graduated from UCLA.”
“No,” she said, her tone sharp. “No boyfriend.”
For some reason, he liked hearing that she had no boyfriend. In fact, it sparked that legs-wrapped-around-his-hips fantasy all over again.
“Actually, it is mine,” she admitted. “And I’ve had more like a dozen different jobs.”
“A dozen?” he blurted. And he thought his youngest brother had had trouble finding his niche. Jason had bounced around for a year after college, but he’d eventually settled on law and was now in his second year of law school.
“Or more,” she added sheepishly as she turned another corner. “Give or take three or four.”
“Such as . . . ?” he asked out of sheer curiosity.
“Well, let’s see. I was a baker’s assistant, a loan officer, pet sitter, dog walker, document clerk, file clerk, receptionist, paper hanger. I really liked the benefits, so I did that for almost a year, but the summers were miserable. In college I was a school bus driver, cafeteria helper, cashier, fine-dining waitress, cocktail waitress—the tips were phenomenal for both of those.”
She slowed the car, made a left into a driveway beside a Pueblo-style duplex and cut the engine. “Oh, and a process server,” she added. “But I was shot at once, so I quit.”
Noah stared at her, this adorably sexy, resilient woman, and didn’t know what to think of her. He’d never known anyone quite like her. “When exactly did you fit in the training to become a personal bodyguard?”
She pulled the keys from the ignition and dropped them into her purse. She looked at him, a curious expression on her lightly tanned face. “Oh, I’m not a bodyguard. I’m the Primo go-to girl.”
CHAPTER 3
Alyssa left the kitchen door open for Chas. No sense ditching a couple of tough-looking numbers only to leave them the prize goose sitting in the driveway—should they actually have the ability to track down her home address so quickly. Which she doubted.
She stopped on the threshold and looked back to make sure he was coming. Satisfied once he exited the car, and with his garment bag in tow, she bee-lined a quick trip to the bathroom. By the time she washed her hands, she heard him moving around her living room.
He certainly was a nosy one for an accountant, she thought as she snagged her makeup kit and blow dryer from the cabinet before dashing into her bedroom. The guy might be the new object of her fantasies for, oh, say the next fifty years, but half the time he’d questioned her, she couldn’t shake the sensation she was being interrogated.
Oh, well. Maybe it was an accountant thing. Her experience with number crunchers wasn’t all that vast. Or pleasant. Most of them were nerdy and didn’t possess very good people skills.
She glanced around her bedroom, trying to remember where she’d put her weekender bag. Since she hadn’t had much of an opportunity to travel anywhere lately, it took her a few minutes to figure out where she’d last seen the bag.
She stood in front of the closet and frowned. Her duplex was an old Pueblo style built in the thirties with a lot of built-in cabinetry, and the closets were no exception. There were two drawers below and a cabinet above the actual closet space, which was enclosed by two sliding doors that never slid when she wanted them to.
/> She eyed the closet skeptically. She could attempt to stand on the drawer base, but she was barely tall enough to reach the cabinet. Even with the whole extra foot or so of added height, she’d struggle to open the cabinet doors. For all of three seconds she considered asking the hottest freaking accountant she’d ever encountered to help, but quickly discarded that possibility. No way did she want him anywhere near her bedroom. Or her bed, for that matter. She just might throw herself at him, and God knew he probably already thought she was two shots short of a martini.
“And a bartender,” she called out to him, remembering yet another short-lived job. She eyed the inexpensive desk chair with determination. It might work.
Crossing the bedroom to her writing desk, she leaned over it to peek out the window. She breathed a sigh of relief when she spied no sign of a dark sedan lurking outside.
Convinced they were safe for the time being, she rolled the rickety swivel chair to the closet. Carefully, she balanced on the seat and slowly straightened to her full height.
The chair wobbled, then settled. She went up on her tiptoes and gave the built-in cabinet door a yank. The door wouldn’t budge.
“Did you say something?”
The sound of a man’s voice in her bedroom startled her. The chair started to swivel and she lost her balance. She grabbed the door handle, but the chair shot out from under her. She let out a high-pitched squeal as she landed flat on her ass for the second time that day.
The chair crashed into the dresser. Several perfume and lotion bottles clattered and rolled. Luckily, Chas reached out to keep them from rolling onto the floor, or worse, her head.
“Uh . . . sorry,” he said.
Alyssa didn’t move, too stunned by the sight of the accountant in her bedroom. He took up all the space, and the oxygen, too, because she strugled to breathe. She rose up on her knees and rubbed at the spot on her rump that had taken the most abuse.
Something in his eyes immediately changed. If she wasn’t convinced she was nuts for even thinking along those lines, she’d have sworn she saw the first light of desire sparking in his get-lost-in-me green eyes. “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice husky and low and loaded with sex.
“Of course I’m okay,” she answered, annoyed with herself for being turned on by the sound of the man’s voice.
He moved around the dresser to extend his hand to help her up. “Are you sure?”
“I’ll live.” She grabbed hold of his hand and frowned. The most delightful sensation traveled up her arm and down to her breasts to settle right in her nipples. Damn if they didn’t stand right up and beg for some intimate attention.
Gently, she tugged her hand free before her entire body ignited into flames. White-hot, searing flames, the kind only hot, raunchy sex could extinguish.
Good grief, he’d only touched her hand. If he actually touched her breast, she’d probably explode.
He let out a long slow breath and dragged a hand through his hair. Maybe he was just as affected as she. Wouldn’t that rock her world?
She lost track of that delicious thought when she caught a glimpse of leather beneath his suit jacket. She peered closer, then stared in horror at the shoulder holster she hadn’t even known he was wearing.
A shoulder holster? What the . . .
“Where the hell did you get that?” she demanded, pointing at the gun tucked neatly inside said shoulder holster. “And how exactly did you even get it on a plane? Do you have a permit for that thing?”
His lips thinned, signaling his annoyance, but that was too damned bad. She wanted answers and his über good looks weren’t going to distract her. Much.
“Yes, I have a permit.” He looked directly at the offending chair. “Did you need help with something?”
She needed help, all right. Considering they were less than two feet away from her bed, she had a list of the ways he could help her right into a series of orgasms. But the truth was, she was just a teeny bit more interested in how he’d gotten a gun past airport security.
Not wanting to be rude, she took him up on his offer. “Yes, I do. Thank you,” she said, rubbing again at the sore spot on her tender bottom. She pointed to the cabinet above the closet. “I need my weekender bag.”
He easily retrieved the bag in question and handed it to her. “How did you get it up there?” he asked.
“Hissy fit.” She took the bag from him, remembering the third canceled weekend date with a guy who’d turned out to be married scum. “Not to change the subject or anything, but what kind of an accountant carries a firearm?”
He shrugged, then took a seat. On. Her. Bed. “One that’s being followed by men who want to keep him from testifying at trial.”
“I’ll buy that,” she said, stunned that her vocal cords continued to function. She was positive they’d been tangled by the sandstorm in her drier than dirt mouth.
He sat on her bed.
Her bed.
Oh, the fantasies that wouldn’t stop running through her head. Her very Southern, very proper Granny Belle would’ve taken a switch to her behind if she were till around to know the wickedly delicious thoughts her very improper granddaughter was thoroughly enjoying.
With great effort, she turned her attention to packing and started stuffing clothes into the bag. One never knew when an opportunity to spend time on the beach might occur, so she tossed her swimsuit into the bag, just in case. An extra pair of capris, shorts, blue jeans, a few tops, and undergarments followed. She was as ready as she’d ever be to spend the next couple of days alone with a man who had her libido standing up and taking notice.
Not until she had the bag zipped did she dare look over at the sex on a stick lounging casually across the very feminine rose-print comforter she’d gotten for a steal on eBay. Too bad they couldn’t stay here. She had very distinct ideas on what to do with his silk patterned tie and the lovely posts of her four-poster bed.
“I’m up for anything now.” She realized exactly how that must’ve sounded the instant her gaze landed on his, which had turned an even more brilliant shade of green.
He coughed, to smother a laugh, no doubt, but couldn’t hide the delightfully sexy smile curving his very kissable-looking lips. Damn, but the man just oozed sex appeal.
Heat crept up her neck and settled like little balls of intense fire in her cheeks. “Oh, I . . . I didn’t . . .” she stammered. “Oh, hell. Let’s get out of here. Please.” Good Lord, she needed to get a grip. At this rate every last one of her girl parts would be glowing in the dark before much longer.
The distinct sound of two car doors slamming snagged their attention. She looked at Chas, who put his finger to his lips. Quietly, he slipped off her bed and walked to the window, where he carefully peered through the slats in the mini-blinds. “Dammit,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
He backed away from the window and came back to her. Everything about him had turned intense and edgy—his body language, the sharpness in his gaze, even his face had changed before her very eyes. He was no less attractive for it, either. In fact, those girl parts she was so concerned with came instantly and vibrantly alive when he slipped his hand around the back of her neck. He urged her forward as if he were about to kiss her.
Anticipation zinged along her nerve endings—until he dipped his head to whisper in her ear. “It’s the same two guys that followed us from the airport. Just do what I tell you to, and I’ll get us out of here.”
Her body was torn between the air of danger swirling around them and the acute sense of intimacy his nearness caused. She needed her head examined. Who got all hot and bothered at a time like this?
Apparently she did.
He slipped his hand over her mouth. “Nod if you understand what I’m saying.”
His hot breath against her ear sent a delicious shiver rippling down her spine. Grateful for the silence, she nodded. She couldn’t have spoken if she’d wanted to since she had zero moisture in her mouth.
“Is there
another way out of here?” he asked her.
Slowly, she nodded her head, then motioned to the bedroom window. She then pointed toward the back of the house. The duplex was a two-bedroom, and the back bedroom served as her anything and everything room. The room’s sole purpose these days was to house her various projects, some finished, many not. Unlike her bedroom, the spare room had two windows, one of which opened on her neighbor’s driveway.
He dropped his hands and she instantly mourned the loss of h t as he stepped around her. He snatched her bag from the bed, then motioned for her to follow.
Her heart raced. Whether from the intensity of the situation, or the way he’d gotten all up close and personal with her, she wasn’t about to hazard a guess. Or maybe she didn’t want to know because then she’d have to face what that said about her.
She crept behind him, wondering exactly when she’d turned into a cat in heat. Maybe it was lack of nooky causing her so much trouble. It had been a while since her last relationship, provided a few late-night booty calls with a friend with benefits even counted as a relationship. Why else would she be seriously lusting after a guy she hardly knew?
Correction—she really didn’t know him at all. And what she did know confused the hell out of her. If ever a man existed who was a contradiction in terms, it was Charles Rolston. He didn’t behave like a guy with a possible price on his head, all because he’d done the right thing. Sure, he was essentially a rat. Why else would a couple of big scary dudes be after him? But he’d probably saved lives. Thousands of lives. Maybe that explained the air of confidence he carried. He was totally in charge of the situation, and that was sexy as hell.
He paused in the hallway and motioned for her to wait. Crouching low, he rushed into the living room for his own bag. The one where he’d had a gun hidden, she thought, narrowing her eyes. What else did he have in his carry-on garment bag of tricks?
A brusque knock at the door made her flinch and forget about the contents of Chas’s garment bag. Her racing heart stuttered and she struggled to remain calm. Hard to do when the sound of her own heartbeat was nothing short of deafening.
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