He nodded. His throat was drier than Mr. Mitchell’s math class back at his old school.
“Go pour yourself a nice tall one, then, and come back here. I have a proposition for you.”
He didn’t have a clue what that might be, but it sounded a helluva lot more positive than, oh, say, being fired. He strode out into the restaurant, loaded up a tall cup with ice at the machine, then filled it with Mountain Dew from the fountain. He drank down half of it in one long gulp, then topped it off again. After a brief hesitation, he filled another one with a different beverage. He took both back to the kitchen and offered Tasha the second cup. “I’ve noticed you sometimes like a Diet Dr Pepper in the afternoon.”
She took it, gulped down a large sip, then grinned at him as she lowered the container. “You see, this is exactly what I like about you. You’re a hard worker and you pay attention to the details.” She studied him for a moment. “You’re graduating at the end of the month with a high school diploma, right?”
He nodded.
“Do you have plans to go to college?”
He wished. But he merely shrugged, as if he couldn’t care less. Yet he found himself answering honestly. “I’d like to go, but I can’t afford it. I’m not even sure where I’m gonna live after graduation.”
“Do you plan to stay in Razor Bay or are you chomping at the bit to go home?”
“I’d totally like to stay. I like it here.”
He’d noticed before that she possessed the same kind of genuine interest in people that Harper Summerville did when she interacted with him and the other guys at the Village. Except for during his interview, however, Tasha had never focused it on him quite the way she did now. Her gray-blue eyes seemed to bore straight into his mind. “What, exactly, do you like about it?”
“It’s so...clean here. And quieter than anywhere I’ve ever been. Every time I look at the mountains and water, they just—I don’t know—give me this...still feeling. Like they’re smoothing my insides all out or something.”
She simply stared at him for a moment, and he wanted to kick himself. Where had that crap come from? Now she was going to think he was a complete ass.
“Oh,” she finally said, and he was shocked to see tears rise in her eyes. She dashed them away. “Good answer.”
His heart lightened, and a rare smile tugged at his lips. “Yeah?”
“Definitely. Drink,” she said, nodding to the mostly untouched cup in his hand. She took a sip of her own soda. “Is there a particular thing you’d take in college if you could?”
“Nah.” He shrugged. “I don’t really have a clue what I wanna do with my life—but I’d like to get my AA while I’m figuring it out. No one in my family has ever gone to college. It’d be beyond dope to be the first.” His mom wouldn’t give a shit, but his dad would sure be proud.
“Okay.” She set aside her drink and, with quick, efficient movements, used her fingers on the triangular dough to shape the slices. “This is my proposition. You know I tried to hire a cook.” Grimacing, she waved a flour-covered hand before saying dryly, “Forget I asked that—it’s a stupid question, considering he tried to blame you for all that house wine he knocked back. Of course you remember.”
“Yeah, kind of hard to forget that.” He’d thought for sure his ass would have been out the door that day, too, but Tasha had looked the hammered cook in the eye, said that he was a stone liar in the hardest voice Jeremy had ever heard out of her and told the man to get the hell out of her restaurant. Then she’d turned to him and apologized that the lying sack of slime had dragged Jeremy into his lies. As if that were somehow her fault.
He would have done anything for her that day.
But he gave himself a mental shake now and tried to concentrate on this conversation, not the one almost a week ago. “What does a drunk cook have to do with your mystery proposition?”
“I’d like to make you my new cook.”
He froze. “Huh?” His hand made a totally spastic movement, and he shoved his fingers into his back pocket to keep from looking like an oversized puppet being jerked around by a three-year-old. “I mean, I heard you, I just...” He shook his head. “Why me?”
“Because you’re smart, you’re levelheaded and, as I said before, you pay attention to details. I have a feeling you’d be good at it. I admire the way you’re not easily shaken—admire more that even when you are, you control your temper. That’s a rare quality in anyone of any age. In an eighteen-year-old guy it’s downright golden.”
He no doubt looked as stunned as he felt because she stepped closer and gave his forearm a comforting there-there pat as if she were an old Italian auntie.
“I’m not asking you to commit to it as your life’s work,” she said softly, as if maybe she was worried he felt trapped or something. “But it could be a bridge to get you through the next few years. I can help you find a place to live and pay you a livable wage.” Her lips developed an ironic slant. “Well, livable by Razor Bay standards, anyhow. And Jenny and I—and I bet Mary-Margaret, as well—can help you find funding for a community college to get your AA. Jenny, in particular, is brilliant at finding tuition money. She put herself through school without help from anyone and got her bachelor’s in hotel management in large part by hunting down a number of scholarships that were offered by Rotaries, clubs and other organizations. None of them tend to be huge, but if you put the work into getting enough of them, they can really add up.
“Which is all a long way of saying I can work around a school schedule if you’re up for both working and studying.” She tipped her head to thoroughly inspect his expression. “Are you interested? Don’t be afraid to say no if you’re not. It won’t affect your current job, and I know cooking isn’t for everyone.”
He finally shook off his shock and regained his power of speech. “No. Are you kidding me? That would be great.” He laughed out loud and didn’t even notice when most of the teen girls on the other side of the service counter turned to stare. “You wanna pay me to play with knives and fire.” He looked at the red wood-fired pizza oven with its brick-arched opening, at the gleaming stainless-steel and butcher-block work spaces, industrial appliances and the black-and-white tiled floor.
Then he looked at Tasha again. “I get to learn the secret of making the best pizza in the county—and maybe even the world,” he said in amazement, then smiled at her and shook his head. “Man. I can’t believe it. It doesn’t get much better than that.”
CHAPTER SIX
THE SUN WAS a spectacular flaming ball minutes shy of sinking behind the rugged peaks of the Olympic Mountains Sunday evening when Luc let himself into his studio. Tossing his keys into the wooden bowl on the coffee table as he passed by, he strode over to admire the panoramic scenery through the slider. Before he could lock on to it, however, a movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention, and turning his head, he spotted Tasha out on their shared terrace.
Or more accurately, he spotted her feet. Within hours of his move-in, she had thrown up a screen of live plants to divide the veranda, lining them up to march from the wall that connected their two units to within three feet of the balcony railing. Even with a little space between each one, it made a surprisingly effective barrier between her part of the deck and his.
So all he could see now was the end of a white wicker chaise lounge and its cushion in the same cheery blue-and-green patterned fabric she’d used to furnish a good part of his studio. Atop the cushion, he caught a glimpse of the long pale-skinned bare feet he still remembered as clearly as if seven years hadn’t passed since he’d last seen them.
He stared in bemusement, for they appeared to be performing a complicated seated dance, clearly the movement that had grabbed his attention in the first place. Her feet heel-toed across the cushion, bopping from one side to the other. Her toes pointed toward the fabric one moment, then arced back toward her shins the next as she segued into differing rhythms. Within the ever-changing patterns he caught here-and-
gone glimpses of the candy-bright polish decorating her toenails, the color of which he couldn’t determine from inside his studio.
Suddenly it seemed important that he learn what that color was, and he opened the sliding door.
Laughter and voices floated up from the street. In the bay, several boat engines rumbled softly while boaters followed the five-miles-an-hour restriction in the protected inlet as they steered toward the marina to put up for the night. This town had a laid-back, feel-good vibe that Luc could appreciate after all the cartel hot spots he’d lived in.
The terrace ran the width of the building, but wasn’t very deep, and since Tasha’s apartment was larger than his studio, so was her share of the outdoor space. It didn’t take Luc more than a few long strides to reach the improvised plant divider, and he rounded the end of it, only to stop dead at his first full-on sight of her. For a moment he simply stood there and stared.
Decked out in a Forties-style halter top and short-shorts, a glass of wine on the table next to her, she lounged against the not-quite-upright back of the chaise. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the lenses of her sunglasses, but her face was expressive as she sang in heartfelt, off-tune synchronization with the song playing through her earbuds. Firm arms raised overhead and shapely shoulders added sinuous moves as she undulated her upper torso side to side in counterpart to the rhythms of her head and feet.
Her toes, he took note, were painted a pretty orangey-pink.
Watching her in all her unselfconscious glory was like a slingshot straight back to the woman he’d met on that long-ago beach; she hadn’t had a shy bone in her body then, either. Now he couldn’t have stopped himself from grinning his appreciation if his eternal soul hung in the balance.
The temptation was sugar-sweet to stroll right up and say something suggestive in hopes that it might reignite the explosive chemistry they’d once shared. He managed to catch himself before following the impulse, because doing so would undoubtedly be the next best thing to shooting himself in the foot.
He’d found a dozen excuses and opportunities this week to show up wherever he knew she’d be. And if the dangerously-close-to-stalking-her thing lacked a certain subtlety, he’d tried real hard to make up for that by not pushing the our-attraction-is-off-the-charts button any and every opportunity he found.
But he had to admit the current enticement wasn’t an easy one to resist. He had only to look at her for the sexuality she radiated to start buzzing like static electricity along every neural pathway departing his brain. It triggered an all-consuming urge to reach for her.
Dammit, she had to be feeling the attraction, too, but it was pretty clear she’d rather swallow bleach than admit as much. So while he’d deliberately been putting himself in her path, he’d also been working overtime to tamp down his natural inclination to crowd her, trying real hard not to pull out every speck of sexual wizardry he could muster the way his instincts urged him to do. God knew he had enough trouble getting near her without pissing her off even more by coming on too strong.
If the way she kept her eyes averted now was anything to go by, she was still firmly entrenched in ignore-him-to-death/silent-treatment mode. So instead of moving in on her to try to charm a slow dance out of her, he managed to say quietly instead, “Listen, Tasha, can we talk?”
Her entire body jerked and, tearing the iPod buds from her ears, she cut loose a short, sharp shriek.
Jesus! Breath exploding from his lungs, it took everything he had not to clutch his heart to make sure it hadn’t seized like a blown engine. Machismo bred to the bone by his abuelo’s early cultural influence would never allow him to admit this aloud, but only years of conditioning—gained by surviving more situations than he could count where displaying a reaction could court a bullet to the back of the head—kept him from letting her see that her scream had damn near given him heart failure.
Some big fucking operative he was.
Stepping closer, he carefully dragged replenishing oxygen back into his lungs. And after softly exhaling, he started over. “I’m sorry,” he said soothingly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Hot color splashed her cheekbones. The orangey curls gathered atop her head quivered as she pushed more upright on the chaise, and it didn’t take a genius to see that she was all but vibrating with anger. “You come sneaking up on me and think I won’t be startled?” she demanded incredulously.
“That’s the thing, though, Tash—”
“Tasha! To you I’m Tasha! Or Ms. Riordan, if my first name is just too difficult for you to remember.”
Part of him admired the hell out of her in-your-face attitude. Another part, however, had to work overtime to fool himself into believing that her determination he no longer call her Tash didn’t royally hack him off. Shoving everything else aside, he said with careful neutrality, “The thing is...Tasha, I didn’t think I was sneaking. When I came around your plants and saw you chair dancing, I thought you had seen me as well but were just ignoring me as usual.”
“And had that actually been the case,” she retorted coolly, “a man would probably be smart to take the hint.”
“I’m a smart man,” he said with dogged good humor. “But more importantly, I’m a determined one.” He crossed over and sat uninvited on the lounge next to her hip. Her thigh was bare where her shorts hem ended, and blistering awareness pumped through his bloodstream at the warmth that promptly sank through his jeans at the feel of the shapely leg and hip pressed against him. Gritting his teeth, he shoved down the sensations it evoked—knowing damn well he’d be dragging them back up again once he was alone. He cleared his throat. “Determined that you’re finally going to listen to me.”
“Oh, you are, are you?” She scooted sideways, putting some daylight between them.
Now close enough to make out her eyes through the rosy-brown lenses of her sunglasses, he saw they were dangerously narrowed. He merely nodded, however, as if he’d encountered an expression all sunny and welcoming. “I am. I’m not trying to anger you or step all over your rights. But we need to clear the air. I am not a drug dealer, and frankly, I’m getting kind of tired of being called one.”
“Oh, well, then. We certainly wouldn’t want my pesky feelings to weary you.” The sun chose that moment to sink behind the mountains, and Tasha plucked off her sunglasses and shoved them atop her head, burying the temple tips in the riotous mass of curls. “How silly of me to think that if the Bahamian police said you were a drug dealer and a very large bag of heroin was found in your place, for which I was ARRESTED, that...hmm...you might indeed be a drug dealer.”
“I have explained, several times, that I’m an undercover DEA agent. And before you bring up my badge again, it is neither stolen nor a forgery.”
“Okay, fine. I accept that.”
The way her arms crossed militantly over her breasts suggested otherwise, and studying her warily, he looked for the catch. “You do?”
“Yes. Max said he checked with a friend in the DOJ, and he verified that you are an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration.”
He leaned into her. “Then we can be friends again?” And more? Much, much more?
“No.”
He reared back. “Why the hell not?”
“Don’t you use that tone with me, Diego,” she commanded, staring at him all slitty-eyed.
“My name is Luc,” he said stonily.
“Fine. Don’t give me that tone, Luc.” She sat even straighter yet, drawing her legs up and wrapping her arms around her shins. “You think because it turns out you’re not a crook, it makes it somehow easier that your job got me thrown in a foreign jail? Where the hell were you when I needed you? When I was rotting away in that black hole?”
“How many times do I have to say this—I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t fucking know!” Shit. Was that him shouting and swearing? He never raised his voice. To the contrary, he was trained to suck it up and compartmentalize his emotions.
Drawing a ca
lming breath, he held it deep for a moment, then slowly exhaled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. And I guess I told Max, not you, about the not-knowing-they’d-put-you-in-jail thing. But here’s the story, Tasha, and I swear on my madrecita’s grave that it’s true. When I was called away that night, I was told I was being relocated ASAP, because the people who monitor that sort of thing were hearing chatter about a second lieutenant in the drug cartel I’d infiltrated saying he was gonna take care of me once and for all.”
She gave him a shot to the biceps with the heel of her hand. “You put me in danger by taking up with me at the same time you were infiltrating a drug cartel? What kind of careless creep are you?”
“Dammit, that’s not the way it was!”
“Really? You sure as hell had that gargantuan bag of heroin hidden in the same room where you and I—” Cutting herself off, she avoided his gaze for probably the first time ever.
He reached out and stroked a fingertip along the heat that bloomed in her cheek, smiling sardonically when she promptly smacked it aside. “The case I was working on then was in South America. I was on a break—taking a much-needed R & R—when I met you.”
“Do you always drag heroin with you on R & R?”
“Man, you are just determined to see the worst in me, aren’t you?” He dug for patience. “The heroin wasn’t mine, Tasha. It was planted. The call I got that night? That was the special agent in charge of the cases I covered, saying he needed to see me. I thought it was for a quick update, but discovered when I got there that not only were they pulling me off the job, they were shipping me off to D.C. right away. I don’t know how Alvarez—the thug whose threats they’d picked up—found out I was in the Bahamas, but word was out that I was gonna get mine while I was there.
“I fought like hell to go back for you, Tasha, but my SAC had an agent on the door to make sure that didn’t happen. He promised he’d extract you himself, though, or I never would have let them hustle me onto the helicopter. As it was, I was going crazy in D.C. by the time I finally heard from him a couple days later. He told me I was set up, that the Bahamian DEU raided my place and found a kilo of heroin.”
No Strings Attached Page 7