He laughed but sobered too quickly. “I’m gonna be out of town a lot for the next few weeks.”
Ellie’s smile faded. “You are?”
“Dallas. It looks like the case I’ve been working on is going to intersect with something they have going down there. I’ll be meeting with the Special Agents in Charge there to sort out what we know and try to figure out where we stand.”
“Oh.” Ellie dug her heels into the duvet and pushed her way to the jumble of pillows propped against her headboard. “That’s good, though. Right? I mean, you can put your heads together and close the case faster if you do this, right?”
Jack remained silent for a moment. “They have a bigger case,” he said at last. “I’ll probably end up handing everything over to them.”
Disappointment rang clear. “Ah. I’m sorry.”
He drew in a deep breath. “Well, hell, it’s no big deal.”
He was selling, but she wasn’t buying. Ellie waited a moment to see if he had any better luck in fooling himself. When Jack didn’t say any more, she sighed. “It sucks, though. I mean, you’ve been working on that case for a while now, haven’t you?”
“I just…I was only tugging at strings. Dallas has the whole ball of yarn.”
An edge of bitterness crept into his voice, and Ellie wanted nothing more than to chase it away. “Yeah, but your strings are what could tie it all up in a bow. You should get credit for that.”
A soft snort followed by a low, husky chuckle told her he appreciated her efforts. “I’ll get credit for the assist. Don’t worry.”
Sliding her hand into her pillowcase, she let her fingernails rasp the poly-nylon shell of the pillow inside. “But you wanted the slam dunk.”
His laugh rumbled in her ear. “Basketball references…You are my dream girl.”
Basking in the warmth of his voice, she rolled onto her side. “I’m a woman of many, many talents, and don’t you forget it.”
“Not likely I will,” he grumbled. “What are you wearing?”
A laugh bubbled from her lips. “Would you look at the time….”
“It’s Sunday. Your boyfriend isn’t on TV tonight.”
“I DVR’d last week’s episode.”
“Call me back after you’re done.”
“It’ll be late.”
“Tomorrow’s a holiday.”
Ellie laughed. “Spoken like a government employee. Here’s a newsflash for you, Special Agent Rudolph. Most patriotic Americans don’t get Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day, and every other fake federal holiday off.”
“That’s a crime,” he grumbled.
“I know. I think I’ll write my Congressman.”
“Well, I doubt Dr. King would approve of this relationship segregation.”
“I don’t either,” she said quietly.
“Call me back. I want to say goodnight.”
“If I call you back, we’ll spend another hour on the phone.”
“My nefarious plot is uncovered.”
Ellie smiled at the ceiling. “You could say goodnight now,” she suggested.
“I like hearing your voice just before I go to sleep.”
Her heart danced a little jig. With closed eyes, she pressed a hand to her throat. The steady rhythm of her pulse strummed against her fingertips. “I’ll call you later.”
“Yes!”
He hissed triumphantly. One word. That’s all it took. Ellie mustered up her last ounce of resolve and tried to mold it into some semblance of a plausible threat. “Don’t gloat, or I won’t.”
“No gloating,” he answered quickly. “And Ellie?”
“Hmm?”
“You’re so much sexier than Wilma or Betty.”
Her laugh erupted in a breathy rush. “Thank you.”
“Any chance you have one of those cave girl dresses hanging in your closet?”
“Goodnight, Jack,” she purred into the phone.
“No! Call me back!”
Ellie pressed the button to end the call and tossed her cell onto the rumpled duvet. Moments later it vibrated, alerting her to a new message. Ellie smiled. ‘You are going to call me, aren’t you?’ popped up on the display.
Her smile grew wider as she rolled over and grabbed the remote control. Pointing it at the television atop her dresser, she murmured, “Good to keep him guessing.”
****
Jack groaned and groped, blindly trying to silence the bleating cell phone vibrating its way across his nightstand. He blinked at the pre-dawn gray seeping through the slats of the blinds, pressed the phone to his ear, and rasped, “Rudolph.”
Almost instantly his eardrum was assaulted by the blaring chorus of Sonny and Cher’s ‘I Got You, Babe’.
He shot straight up and yanked the phone from his ear. “Gah! What the hell?”
“Happy Groundhog’s Day,” Ellie chirped sweetly.
“Cruel woman.” He fell back onto his pillow with a groan.
“Good morning.”
He covered his eyes with the crook of his elbow. “Not morning. No yellow ball in the sky.”
“Hmm. And here I thought you liked waking up before the sun.”
Jack sucked in a deep breath. The silence hummed, and his senses awakened as if electrified. Ellie’s shallow breaths teased his ear. The memory of those same soft pants ruffling the hair on his chest started his blood pumping.
“I distinctly remember someone waking me up before the sun,” she persisted.
The low, husky timbre of her voice stirred all parts south of his hammering heart. “Yeah, but you’re not here right now,” he mumbled.
“Good morning, Jack.”
The smile in her voice soothed him. “Good morning, Ellie. How was the night shift?”
“Long, boring, lonely….”
“And you have today off?”
“I do.” She sighed, and he heard the rustle of fabric. He conjured the image of Ellie nestled in rumpled bed sheets on New Year’s morning.
His reverie snapped short when she asked, “How’s Dallas?”
“Frustrating, lonely, too far away from where I want to be.”
“Where do you want to be?”
He heard the coy smile in her voice and stifled a groan. “I want to be the one waking you up.”
“I haven’t been to bed yet.”
“Tucking you in, then.”
“You’re so versatile,” she cooed.
Jack stifled a groan and tucked his arm behind his head. “You have no idea.” He trapped the phone against his shoulder and gave his stomach an absent scratch, steadfastly refusing to stray any lower. “Were you able to clear the weekend after next?”
“I can’t wait to see you.”
Her voice was as soft and sweet as the wisps of a dream. “I can’t wait to see you.” Jack closed his eyes and sighed. “Goodnight, Ellie. Have sweet dreams.”
“Have a good day, Jack.”
“Started out pretty good.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
A soft blip severed the connection. Cupping his cell in his palm, Jack rolled onto his side and snuggled into the pillow. Just as he started to drift off again, the phone rang once more.
Jack frowned at the number displayed on the screen and quickly connected. “Can’t sleep?”
This time, Cher’s opening line was almost drowned out by Ellie’s laughter.
****
“You’re really going to be here tomorrow?” Ellie asked, tugging at a lock of hair above her ear.
“You think I’m lying?”
“I just keep thinking something’s going to come up, and I won’t get to see you.”
“Ah. You’re espousing the power of negative thinking.”
“It seems like forever.”
“Tell me about it,” he grumbled.
Ellie smiled at the petulance in his voice. “Maybe this is all just one of those elaborate government conspiracies. You tell me you’re coming to see me so I’ll clean my apartment, b
ut then you don’t show up.”
“Well, the President did announce a new initiative to clean up the nation’s cities. Maybe he wants to start one rental unit at a time.”
She grinned and wiped the stray specks of mascara from her bathroom mirror. “You’re not lying to me, right? If you stand me up after I scrub the tub, that’s the last you’ll hear from me.”
“Saturday is Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. How can I tell a lie?”
“That’s George Washington.”
“Lincoln was Honest Abe.”
“Washington couldn’t tell a lie. Remember, he chopped down the cherry tree?”
“What a crappy story. Seriously…a tree? The guy grew up to be Commander In Chief. He couldn’t find anything better to destroy?”
She rolled her eyes. “Spoken like a man.”
Jack chuckled. “I’m glad you remembered.”
“Oh, I remember.” Ellie blinked at her reflection, trying to place the bold stranger who stared back at her. Hyperaware silence stretched taut between them, sizzling like a live wire.
“I remember you too.”
“Tell me a funny story,” she said, desperate to ease the tension tingling along her spine.
Jack’s laugh, a low, husky rumble more intimate than a kiss, made her shiver. “A funny story?”
“Something funny about you. Something to prove you’re not so perfect,” she urged, desperation edging her voice.
His tone grew soft and sober. “I’m far from perfect, Ellie.”
“I know. But I need you to tell me something so I’ll remember that too.”
Jack drew a deep breath. “Maybe I should let you cling to your illusions.”
She hung her head and pressed the heel of her hand to her brow. “Please, Rudolph?”
The whispered plea must have been enough because Jack relented with a sigh. “When I was in the sixth grade, I was really scrawny. All the other boys seemed to shoot up and fill out over the summer, but I didn’t. I got pantsed nearly every day in gym class.”
Her laugh ended in a snort. “No way!”
“Would I lie about that?”
“God, I hope not!”
“Elfie?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be there to see you tomorrow. If it makes you feel better, I’ll let you pants me too.”
Ellie pressed both hands to the cool vanity top and raised her head, meeting her own gaze in the mirror. “Oh God…You are perfect, aren’t you?”
Be Mine
Turn right in two hundred feet. Turn right… Turn right…Recalculating….
Jack sneered at the disapproving tone emanating from the dash-mounted GPS. “I would turn right if there was a street there, but I’m not driving into that lake, lady. Who do I look like, Michael Scott?”
As the machine recalibrated its directions, Jack let off the accelerator. While Susie Garmin, the GPS, got her bearings, he drummed the steering wheel with his fingers and whistled The Office theme song. Reaching into the console, he fished two candy conversation hearts from an open box. He glanced at the messages printed on the pastel candies and smirked as he popped them into his mouth.
The GPS sprang to life again, spouting directions with renewed vigor. Jack’s foot landed a tad too heavily on the gas, and the compact rental leapt forward.
Turn left in two hundred feet….
“Gotcha.” The GPS repeated her instructions three more times before the easy left was completed. “I did. I did,” Jack growled through clenched teeth.
He drew a deep breath, trying to calm his scattered nerves. The heady scent of roses warmed by the car’s overtaxed heater nearly choked him. He dialed down the temperature with a flick of his wrist and smiled as he spotted the sign marking Ellie’s apartment complex.
“Finally,” he breathed.
The GPS issued another string of demands and he jabbed at the screen, effectively silencing his electronic Sherpa. “I can handle it from here.”
Jack glanced at the tissue-wrapped roses on the passenger seat and covered the bouquet with a protective hand as he swung a sharp right into the complex. He tapped the brake, slowing the car’s momentum enough to scan the building numbers. He spotted number seven and his smile made a break for it, flexing into a full-on grin.
“Lucky number seven,” he murmured.
Jack steered the rental into a spot marked ‘VISITOR’ and killed the engine. He pushed the door open with his foot and a stiff gust of February wind stole his breath. Grimacing, he cradled the bouquet in the crook of his arm, stuffed the box of candy hearts into the back pocket of his jeans, and groped for an enormous heart-shaped box of chocolates.
Jack wasn’t fool enough to think he could show up on her doorstep the weekend before Valentine’s Day without the goods. The minute his rental was secured, he tamped down his impatience and set the GPS on a course for the nearest flower shop. Unfortunately, the chosen shop ended up being miles away from the Little Rock airport and somewhere on the other side of the Earth from Ellie’s apartment.
Seven weeks had passed since they’d met. Six weeks crept by at a snail’s pace following his whirlwind trip to Little Rock on New Year’s Eve. Five weeks and six days of living with the memory of her perfume and the taste of her kiss on his lips. The forty-one-plus phone calls they’d shared since January second just weren’t enough. Jack wasn’t entirely sure he’d ever get enough. At the very least, he needed another taste, just to be certain.
He juggled the flowers and candy, shivering in the icy wind as he gathered his coat, laptop bag, and small duffle from the back seat. He hadn’t expected it to be so cold in Arkansas. Thoughts of Little Rock and the woman who lived there always made him feel warm.
Jack wrestled the straps onto his shoulder and tucked the coat under his arm as he sprinted for the wooden staircase. Crusty piles of snow clung to shaded spots of grass and in the corners of the exposed steps. He took the treads two at a time, his puffing breaths vaporizing in the chilly air.
At the top of the stairs, he ran a nervous hand over his wind-ruffled hair and tried to calm his breathing. Jack closed his eyes, ignoring the cold bite of the breeze whipping its way down the exterior corridor. He let the duffle and laptop bag slide to the floor at his feet. Pain shot up his wrist as his chilled knuckles rapped on the door. He winced and hid the box of candy behind his back, his gaze fixed expectantly on her door.
****
Ellie jumped like a scalded cat when she heard his knock. A nervous laugh bubbled from her lips and she smoothed her hand over the wavy curls that clung to her neck and winged over her ears. The pixie cut she’d experimented with over the holidays was finally growing out. Unfortunately, she was only an inch or two into the awkward in-between stage. She glanced at her reflection in the toaster and sighed, envisioning a plethora of headbands in her future.
Giving her head a shake, she tugged at the seams of her black pencil skirt and smoothed the bunched sleeves of her slinky red sweater from her elbows. Her heart beat a tarantella as she snagged the ugly gray blazer she wore for work from the back of a chair and stuffed it into the closet. A snafu with her kitchen staff may have kept her from leaving the hotel where she worked as early as she liked, but now she had the whole weekend ahead of her. A whole weekend with Jack.
She gnawed her lip for a moment, mentally reviewing her preparations. She’d dumped prepared Caesar salad into a bowl and stashed the cellophane bags at the bottom of the trash. The shrimp for her scampi were rinsed and waiting in a colander in the fridge. A pot of water stood at a low simmer on the stove. All she had to do was drop the linguine and start sautéing.
A sizzle of excitement shot through her as she reached for the door handle. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second before opening the door, clinging to the anticipation of Jack’s visit and terrified the reality might not live up to the hype.
Then she fell right into his big brown eyes, drowning in their depths. “Hi,” she managed to peep.
“Hey
.”
Ellie barely had time to blink when he thrust a bouquet of blood-red roses under her nose. She gasped, sucking down a huge gulp of fragrance. Almost immediately, her breath tangled in her throat. Tears prickled her eyes. She tried to fight them back, but the pungent aroma of hothouse flowers tickled her nostrils. She made the mistake of sniffing ever so slightly and was rewarded with an explosive sneeze. Then another. And another.
Jack’s jaw dropped when she waved a hand in front of her face. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She clamped one hand over her nose and mouth. It was no good. The sneezes came fast and furious. The next one made her double over.
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head, shooing him away with her free hand. “I’m ah-ah…achoo!” Ellie groaned her mortification.
“What?”
“’Lergic.” She gasped.
“Lergic? What’s that?” he muttered, frowning at her over the roses. “Oh! Allergic? Crap! Allergic!”
Ellie glanced up in time to see him back into the narrow hall and pitch the beautiful bouquet over the rail.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” He panted.
She waved him in with a limp hand. “Right back.” She wheezed.
Her heel caught in the low pile of the carpet and she stumbled away, catching her balance against the living room wall then beating a path to the bathroom off the hall. Ellie leaned against the hollow core door, letting her head drop back as she tested her traitorous sinuses. She caught her own wary gaze in the mirror and winced.
“Dammit,” she hissed.
She pulled a long streamer of toilet paper from the roll and gathered it into a wad, leaning over the sink to mop at the dark smudges of mascara beneath her eyes. “Great,” she muttered. “Very smooth. Very sexy.”
A heavy sigh whooshed from her parched lips. Another sneeze lurked deep inside. Ellie pinched her nostrils and tossed the sodden tissue into the trash. She glowered at her reflection. Her hair stuck out in odd clumps. Her cheeks and nose glowed bright red, and baleful green eyes stared back at her.
“Cripes. I do look like an elf,” she muttered, finger combing through a lump of tangled curls.
Unforgettable Heroes Boxed Set Page 105