by Tiffany Snow
Clark shot me a glance. “You know cars.”
I shrugged. “A little.”
“Why do I get the feeling there’s nothing that you know only a little about?”
I responded with a question of my own. “Who’s the real you?” I asked. “The really nice guy who bonded with me over Doctor Who and Chinese food? Or the smart-ass secret agent guy who buys and sells information to the CIA?”
He glanced at me, his blue eyes unfathomable. “Why do you care?”
I didn’t know the answer to that. “Is Clark your real name?”
He looked back at the road. “Does it matter?”
My lips thinned. “Fine. Don’t answer any of my questions. I don’t care.”
There was silence for a few minutes. I watched the road. The leather jacket smelled really nice and I huddled underneath it. It was only about an hour after sunrise, but the sky was so overcast, it looked dark still. I stared out the window, trying to recapture my earlier joy. It wasn’t until we were parking in my driveway that he spoke.
“You wouldn’t ask if you didn’t care,” Clark said. “And I can appreciate that. But I’ll be out of your life soon. So it’s really . . . unnecessary.”
I studied him. For some reason, his words struck me as sad. “Unnecessary for someone to care about you? Don’t you have . . . a family? A girlfriend? Friends? People who care about you? What do they think of the life you lead? Don’t they worry?”
The half smile he’d had faded entirely and his expression grew shuttered.
“It’s best for people in my line of work not to . . . cultivate . . . relationships.” Then he smiled and it was like one of my fake smiles, only done much better than I could do. It didn’t touch his eyes, which looked . . . empty.
I’d been right. It was sad. And I didn’t want to ask any more questions.
“Can I wear your jacket inside?” I asked. It had stopped raining, but my T-shirt was still soaked.
“By all means.”
I slung the jacket over my shoulders and hurried inside, not checking to see if he followed, though I was sure he did. The leather jacket was a nice one and I was sure he’d want it back.
Mia was still asleep, as early as it was, and after a steaming ten-minute shower, I felt more normal. I pulled on jeans, my favorite Firefly T-shirt—Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal—a long-sleeved button-up over that, and socks. My glasses were sadly water-stained so I had to take a few minutes to clean those up. I couldn’t stand any kind of smudge on my glasses.
My hair was half wet and half dry, so I just brushed it out and left it down since trying to wrangle it up into a ponytail in that state was a recipe for a tangled disaster. Twenty minutes after I got home, I was back in the living room, except Clark was nowhere to be found.
“Clark?” I called, wondering if he had left after all.
“Up here.”
I looked back up the stairs, my jaw hanging open. Surely he wouldn’t . . . I took the steps two at a time.
“This is impressive. I’ve gotta say.”
He was surveying my “storage room” with a look bordering between amazement and disbelief.
“You shouldn’t be up here,” I said stiffly. “I didn’t invite you to look through my things.”
“You were taking a while,” he said, picking up my handmade wand (willow, twelve and three-quarter inches). “I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Well, I do.”
Setting down the wand, he reached for something else. I felt like Yash, wanting to wring my hands at how he was touching my stuff. But instead of a collectible, he picked up a framed photo, half-hidden behind a display of Funkos.
“Who’s this?” he asked.
I knew what photo he had. It was the only photograph in the room. I didn’t have to answer, but I did anyway. “My mother, with me, when I was five.” I remembered the photo and the day we’d taken it. The circus had come to town so Mom had decided she and I should go. There had been a fake lion kids could sit on for a photo, and she’d stood beside me, an arm around my shoulders, as we posed. Both of us looked so happy.
Reaching for it, I took the photo from Clark and replaced it on the shelf. “Please don’t touch my things.” I turned and left the room without another word. I didn’t like to dwell on my mom’s death, even now.
I made a pot of coffee, carefully not thinking about my mother. Clark must’ve gotten the hint about prying through my home because he appeared a few moments later, taking a seat on one of the stools at the bar in my kitchen.
“Lana’s computer sent a lot of helpful information,” he said. “I forwarded most of it on to the CIA for analysis. With luck, we’ll be able to find more agents like her here in the US, just waiting for their orders to activate them.”
All of that was good and made me feel better about how things had gone down—at least I’d proven useful—but something he said struck me as odd and I turned toward him, carton of half-and-half in hand.
“Why just most of it?” I asked.
“Excuse me?”
“Why did you only forward on most of it? Why not all of it?”
His lips twitched. “Not much gets by you, does it,” he said. I thought that sounded like one of those rhetorical questions that didn’t need an answer, so I didn’t supply one. “No,” he continued. “I kept the file she had on you.”
My hands went cold. “What file? Why would she have a file on me?”
“She had the file because she was interested in everyone the government is interested in. You’re one of those people.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Why me? I’m from Nebraska and the only thing even slightly interesting about me is that I’m smart. Big deal. Lots of people are smart.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” he said. “Why would the government have a file on you? What’s so special about you?”
The coffee was done and I poured two cups. “I don’t think I’m special,” I said. “All my life, I just wanted to be normal. Like all the other kids. I didn’t want to freak out when my peas touched my carrots, or be obsessed with the rhythm of the rain hitting the window. When someone told a joke, I wanted to be able to laugh like everyone else, not five seconds later once I realized it was a joke.
“I don’t know what the file says and right now, I don’t care.” I faced Clark, placing his coffee on the counter in front of him. “I’d rather just forget it, go about my life as it was before all this happened. I was happy.”
“Were you?” His question seemed serious enough, and it made me pause. Had I been happy?
“I was . . . content,” I replied. “Happiness is an illusion, isn’t it? Fleeting, leaving you more unhappy in its wake for having experienced it. Isn’t it better to just be content? No high-highs, no low-lows. Just . . . an evenness to each day with nothing unexpected.”
“I don’t know. You looked pretty happy this morning.”
My gaze dropped to my coffee and my face got warm. Yes, I’d been ecstatic this morning. It was intoxicating, that kind of happiness. And dangerous, too. How long could it last?
“You know, I could use someone like you,” he said. “It’s always handy to have a computer and tech expert around.”
I took a careful sip of my coffee. “You’re offering me a job?”
“Maybe. Are you interested?”
“I work for Cysnet. Why would I want to change jobs?”
“Well, first of all,” he said, “it’s usually a bad idea to sleep with the boss.” He waggled his eyebrows at me. “Secondly . . . do I really need another?”
I wasn’t amused. “You’ve lied to me and used me from the beginning,” I said stiffly. “Used me in a very personal way, I might add. You tried to gain my trust and make me think you were interested in me in . . . that way.” I couldn’t say the word sexually. “Then you drop this bomb on me about who you supposedly really are and who you work for, and threaten my niece to make me do what you want. And now you think I’d
want to work for you?” I snorted in derision, then leaned across the counter toward him. “This might come as a shock to you, Clark, but if I quit Cysnet, I’d have a dozen companies and government agencies banging down my door to get me to come work for them. I don’t need you and your pity job offer, even if I am sleeping with the boss.”
The amusement had faded from Clark’s expression and his face was blank now, his eyes unreadable. “Fine,” he said, getting to his feet.
I expected more, but he said nothing else, just shrugged on his jacket and headed for the door. Tentatively, I followed. He pulled open the front door and for a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to say anything else. But he turned at the last second, nearly causing me to run into him.
“For the record,” he said, gazing down at me. “The reason I didn’t sleep with you wasn’t because I didn’t want to.” His gaze traveled over my face before coming to rest on my eyes. “Believe it or not, there’s still a part of me that’s not a complete dick.”
My eyes were wide at his admission, and it did kind of make me feel better. His eyes dropped to my mouth and I was abruptly reminded of the chemistry between us that had burned so hot for such a short time. I swallowed, scrambling for what to say, but before I could think of anything, he’d pressed a kiss to my cheek.
“And yes, my name is really Clark,” he murmured, his warm breath a caress against my skin.
Then he was gone, beeping the Porsche unlocked and pulling open the door. Before he slid inside though, he looked at me again. “By the way, your fish is belly-up.”
Well, crap.
He peeled out of my driveway and down the street in a flash of black metal and sleek lines. Yes, that suited Clark much more than the Honda.
I was about to go back inside when a familiar sight greeted my eyes and I paused. My Mustang was coming down the street, Lance behind the wheel. A grin spread over my face at seeing my baby. I’d missed her.
“Here you go,” Lance said, handing me the keys. “The boss thought you’d need your wheels back ASAP.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Do you need a ride back?”
“Nah, I’m good. An Uber’s on the way.”
“Okay then. Thanks again!”
I went back inside to finish my coffee and get to the paper first before Mia woke up.
18
“. . . and I saw Polly sneaking out of Walter’s room at five in the morning,” Grandma said. “Can you believe that? Last Wednesday, she was sneaking out of Franklin’s room. I swear, that woman gets around.”
“I thought Franklin died?” I asked.
“No, that was Frankie, not Franklin.”
“Ah.” Grandma was giving me the gossip from Viagra Wednesday in the retirement community, which turned into Walk of Shame Thursday.
“Betsy and I were having lunch Friday and she said she couldn’t sleep Wednesday night from all the noise going on in the room next door.”
“I thought Betsy had her own place?”
“She had to move into the main house when she broke her hip.”
Something occurred to me. “Grandma, what in the world were you doing up at five a.m.? You hate early mornings.”
Silence.
“Grandma, you weren’t sneaking out of someone’s house, were you?” The thought of my granny doing the Walk of Shame made me nearly laugh out loud.
“Don’t be silly,” she said with a snort. “I much prefer them sneaking out of mine. At least I know when the last time my bathroom’s been cleaned and my sheets changed.”
“Grandma!” I couldn’t help laughing, though. I’d come by at least some of my OCD honestly.
“You hush,” she said. “And put Mia on the phone. I want to talk to her. And be sure to feed that cold.”
“Fine, fine, but I thought it was starve a cold.”
“Feed a cold, starve a fever,” she corrected.
“Right.” Hauling myself up off the couch, I took the phone upstairs to what had become Mia’s room and handed it to her as she lay curled underneath a mountain of blankets. “Grandma wants to talk to you.”
But as I was shuffling back downstairs, the blanket I had wrapped around me trailing behind me like the train of a gown, I rethought the wisdom of letting Mia and Grandma speak to each other when I heard Mia say, “Guess what? China has a boyfriend.”
Great. Not only had I undergone the third degree over why I hadn’t called last Sunday and why I was calling tonight, which was a Tuesday, but I’d no doubt undergo another interrogation about Jackson the next time I called her.
And I’d have to talk to Mia about calling Jackson my boyfriend. We hadn’t discussed specifics like titles. I didn’t want him running for the hills the way the hero always does in the romance novels. He always comes back, of course, when he realizes he can’t live without the heroine, but why chance it?
Jackson was in the kitchen when I got back downstairs. “They didn’t have chicken noodle soup, but they had tomato,” he said, unloading a paper bag on the kitchen counter. I stood next to him, wrapped in a blanket and holding a box of tissues.
“I don’t know if Mia likes tomato,” I said, my voice all nasally. Then I coughed. “Ugh. I hate being sick.”
“If Mia doesn’t like tomato, then I’ll go get something else for her,” he said patiently.
“Okay. Thank you.” I shuffled back to the couch and let him take a bowl up to Mia, who was in bed watching TV to nurse her cold. The damn rain had made us both sick so now we’d missed two days of school and work with sore throats, coughs, and runny noses.
Jackson had been great. Once the publicity had blown over with the company and he’d explained to the board about Lana, things had quieted down. You could almost say life was back to normal, except normal had never been this good to me.
“It’s been a while since you caught up on your DVR,” he said, dropping some fish food in the tank for the newest iteration of The Doctor. “Want to watch Castle?”
“I don’t want you to get sick, too,” I said.
“I’ll be fine.” He settled on the couch next to me and pulled me over so I was half lying on his lap, then tucked the blanket around me.
We watched Castle for a while as the evening grew late and his fingers combed through my hair. I nestled closer to him, then noticed Mr. Happy was wide awake underneath my cheek. Smiling, I turned on my back to look up at him.
“Feeling amorous?” I teased.
“Well, your head is down there so it’s not like I could exactly help it.” His smile was soft and his eyes gentle as he looked at me. “But you’re sick and I’m sure making love is the last thing on your mind.”
“No, no, I feel a lot better,” I insisted. I pressed his palm against my cheek. “See? No fever. And I haven’t coughed in a while. I think the soup did the trick.”
He frowned slightly, feeling my forehead, too. “Are you sure? I don’t want you to have a relapse—”
“I think The Doctor would prescribe some TLC,” I said, shooting a look at my fish tank. Sure enough, this one was still alive. So far. “And multiple orgasms have been known to cure very serious illnesses. So really, you’d be doing me a favor.”
I got an outright belly laugh on that one. “All right then. Let no one say Jackson Cooper refused a woman in need.”
To my surprise, he scooped me up in his arms.
“What are you doing?” I squeaked.
“It’s called carrying,” he said, heading for the stairs. “It’s generally considered to be a grand romantic gesture.”
I grinned, looping an arm around his neck. “If you can carry me, blanket and all, up the stairs then I’ll certainly consider it a grand romantic gesture. Though your back may not appreciate it.”
He snorted, easily climbing the staircase. “Yeah, that blanket really sends it over the edge. I don’t think I can handle it.”
“Smart-ass.”
It turned out sex was good for colds, or at least for clearing the sinuses. And as we lay naked in b
ed together, those questions that had plagued me a week ago fluttered to the front again. This hadn’t been the second time we’d slept together—Jackson had come by the night Clark had left. We hadn’t talked much because we’d been tearing each other’s clothes off once he was two steps inside the door.
“So . . .” I said, drawing little circles on his chest with my finger. My head was against his shoulder as I nestled inside the crook of his arm.
“Yes?” he asked when I didn’t say anything else. His voice rumbled in his chest.
“Um . . .” I hesitated, trying to figure out how to put into situationally acceptable words what I wanted to know. “I was wondering . . .” And as usual, social etiquette failed me. “Are we just friends with benefits or is this a boyfriend/girlfriend thing?”
Jackson’s chest bounced a little as he chuckled. “Was that the tactful or blunt version?”
I sighed. “It’s the China version.”
He moved and I twisted so I could see him. “I don’t mind the China version,” he said with a soft smile. “And for the record, it’s whatever you want it to be.”
Frowning in confusion, I said, “But that’s not how it works. It’s supposed to be mutually agreed upon. Not dictated by one partner.”
“What I meant was that I’m very . . . taken . . . with you,” he said.
I stared, processing this, then a smile split my face. “I’m . . . taken with you, too,” I said. “But I’ve never had a boyfriend before.”
“Does that mean you do or don’t want one now?”
Stretching up, I brushed a kiss to his lips. “It means I do.”
His hands cupped my rear, readjusting me so I lay on top of him, my thighs cradling Mr. Happy. “Good. But I’m not giving you my letter jacket.”
“Fine with me. Just so long as I get to drive your car sometimes.”
“Deal.”
“Deal.”