That’s what she was afraid of. Him waiting right there, watching her. She turned and headed to the tree, toward the stool she’d used. But as she looked for her keys, all she really was aware of was Rafe, watching her. She dropped to her knees on the carpet, pushing a hand into the hole in the tree and groping around. But she didn’t feel anything.
“Any luck?” Rafe asked from behind her.
She stood and turned. “No.” She brushed her hands together. “Mary must have found them.”
“That’s possible,” he conceded. “I could call her, but I think she mentioned she was going out for the evening.” He moved off into the shadows past the tree. “I’ll look in her office and see if she put them in there,” he called over his shoulder.
He was lost in the dimness until a light flashed, spilling out into the hallway from Mary’s office. Megan heard shuffling, then a thumping sound, and she remembered him going into her loft to look for the “intruder.” Then, she’d been afraid he’d be hurt, that he’d encounter something dangerous, but now she was afraid for herself.
The light went out and she knew he was coming back. She took a tight breath. There was nothing remotely personal about what they were doing in here, but she felt an intimacy that was totally out of order, and crazy.
She moved back as he came closer. “No keys in there, unless she locked them up somewhere,” he said.
“I can probably get replacement keys from the car rental agency, but the loft keys—”
“It may already be closed.”
“Then I’ll call a taxi.” That wouldn’t help. Even if she got a cab, and borrowed money from Rafe to pay for it, she couldn’t get into the loft without the keys. “Never mind. I can’t get into the loft. The ring had all my keys on it.”
“Come on,” he said. “I need to lock up.”
She didn’t have much choice in the matter, so she went with him out of the center. He locked the doors then turned to her. “Use your phone to call the car rental company,” he said, and took out his own cell phone. “I’ll work on the loft.”
Before she could ask him what he thought he could do, he was already punching in a number. She found her earpiece, put it on and called the car company. She was aware of Rafe speaking, but didn’t follow his conversation while she went through the automated options at the rental center. But it was all for nothing. There was no live person to talk to, just a voice mail where she could leave a phone number for emergency towing. She left her cell phone number, just in case, then hung up.
She turned to Rafe, who was still on the phone. “Okay, you’re sure that he’ll be able to let her in?” He listened, then said, “Thanks. I’ll take it from there.” He ended the call and pushed his phone back into his pocket. “Okay, you can get into the loft. One of the tenants has an extra set of keys. Seems they were left so the cat could be fed if he came back and no one was there.” Rafe grinned at her, a very unexpected and endearing expression. “That cat came through for you, kid.”
“Remind me to give him extra tuna,” she murmured, looking away from the smile and the dark eyes touched by it. “I’ll call a taxi and get—”
“You don’t have to.”
She hesitated. “Why not?”
He glanced at his watch, then said, “I’m off in two minutes. I’ve got my car in the garage and I’m going that way.”
She knew it wasn’t a good idea to have him drive her home, but she couldn’t figure out why. “Oh, no, you’ve got things to do, I’m sure, and that’s an inconvenience.”
“No, and no.”
“Excuse me?”
“No, I don’t have things to do, except go home, and no, it’s not an inconvenience.” She hesitated for a long moment, and she saw his smile die. “I can assure you that my car is clean and acceptable.”
The words came out evenly, but she knew it was happening again—him being angry—and she hated it. “I never said that.”
“No, but that’s the problem, isn’t it?”
“No, that’s not it,” she said quickly.
“Then what is?” he asked, standing squarely in front of her, clearly not going anywhere until she answered him.
She couldn’t reveal the truth. How could she tell him that it didn’t matter if he was a guard or a CEO, that the reason she couldn’t take the ride from him was because he was handsome and he gave her ideas that she had no right having? “I...I don’t want to bother you,” she said, and knew how lame that sounded as soon as the words were out of her mouth. “And I’m sure you need to get back to work.”
The smile came back, a mere shadow of the former version. “I’m off now. I’m leaving. If you want to come, come on. If not...” He leaned a bit closer. “Call a taxi on that thing.” He tapped her earpiece. “And have a nice evening.”
She felt foolish and stupid, like some teenager with raging hormones. She hated the way she was aware of his throat at the open neck of his uniform shirt, of the pulse that beat there, and his slightly mussed hair.
A ride. Just a ride. That’s all this was about. “Okay, thanks,” she said.
“Good. Let’s get going,” he answered, and started off, back into the building and down the rear hallway. She kept pace, skipping once to keep up, and by the time they got out into the parking garage, they were side by side.
She looked at her rental car, where everything she needed was locked inside. No work tonight, except for what she could download on the computer at the loft from the company’s database. “I guess it doesn’t matter leaving the car here?”
“No, it’s secure.”
One slot over from her car was an oxidized blue compact that had seen better days. Right beyond it was an SUV with chrome and fancy rims. She followed Rafe toward the cars, and veered off to the passenger door of the old compact. When she looked up, she realized her mistake. Rafe was hitting an alarm button and the lights on the SUV blinked in response. She hurried past the blue car, but Rafe turned before she could totally cover her faux pas.
She didn’t say a thing, but knew her face flamed. Walking quickly, she reached the SUV, where Rafe held the door open for her. As she got in, she turned, and they were at eye level for a moment, inches apart. She hated the look in those eyes. All she could do was apologize, but before she could say anything, he closed the door, hard.
She sank back in the plush leather seat, put on her seat belt and stared at her hands, resting in her lap. She heard the rattle of keys, the motor starting, and then they were moving. At the security gate, Rafe spoke, but not to her. “Diaz, leaving,” he said into the speaker on the security panel.
“Did you take care of the lady at the center?” the voice asked.
“Yes, I sure did,” he said.
She thought she heard the man on the other end say, “Good job,” but then the security gate was raised.
They turned out of the parking garage and Megan focused on the early evening streets of Houston, and the thinning traffic. She took a breath, preparing to apologize. She couldn’t leave things like this. But he spoke first.
“We’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” he murmured.
Fifteen minutes before he could get her out of his car and get away from her. Her hands clenched in her lap, her nails biting into her palms. “I’m sorry,” she finally blurted.
He was silent for a very long time, so long that she wasn’t sure he’d heard her. Maybe he was simply ignoring her. Then he cast her a glance that she couldn’t read at all. His dark eyes were shadowed by the surrounding dimness, but she did see the set of his chin. He wasn’t happy.
“It’s nothing,” he murmured.
It seemed like everything at the moment. She didn’t want him to be offended or angry. She didn’t know what to do to change things, but she had to try. “Rafe, I made a mistake. I assumed—”
“Yes,
you did. And you were wrong.”
That stung, too, and she hated that it did. “Okay, I was wrong, so why don’t you shoot me like you were going to shoot that rat?”
He slowed for a light, and as the car came to a stop, he glanced at her. “I bet you thought I was stealing this when we got in it, didn’t you?”
“What?”
“Got you,” he said, and gave a sudden grin.
She tried to smile, to laugh, but she couldn’t. She was improbably close to tears at the moment, and she didn’t have any idea why. “That isn’t funny,” she muttered, blinking rapidly. “Not funny at all.”
He gunned the car away from the light and drove in silence for a few minutes. Then he unexpectedly reached over and covered her hands with one of his. “We both need to lighten up,” he said softly.
She closed her eyes tightly, feeling his warmth and strength. She stayed very still, trying to figure out why his touch was so reassuring at that moment.
Rafe felt her softness under his hand, and it felt right to just touch her. He kept the contact longer then he should have before he pulled back and gripped the steering wheel, holding on tightly to keep from touching her again. He was only vaguely aware of the way she moved a bit farther from him and spread her hands, palms down, on her thighs.
He tried to think of something to say, and ended up doing what he didn’t want to do—asking her about herself. “Didn’t you say you lived in Houston before?” As soon as he said it, he wasn’t sure if she’d told him that or if it had been in her personnel report. Or maybe Mary had told him. “Or did I get that wrong?”
“No, I grew up here.” She named an enclave of sprawling ranches and newer estates, but when she was a kid, it would have all been ranches. Ironically, his own property was in that area.
“How big was your ranch?”
“My ranch?” she asked, seemingly taken aback that he knew the area—another thing a common security guard wouldn’t know about, he thought. But there wasn’t bitterness in her voice this time. “A lot of acres. My dad built it from the ground up, and he worked it until recently.”
Her father worked a ranch? That didn’t fit with this upwardly mobile person. “He sold it off for development?”
“Oh, no, he and my mom still own it. But my brother’s going to run it, now that he’s married with kids.”
“Then I don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
“Two things.” Rafe kept his eyes straight ahead, even when she stirred in her seat and that fragrance drifted to him in the confines of the car. “Why aren’t you staying there while you’re in Houston, and why were you so afraid of a rat?”
“I hate rats,” she said without hesitation. But she didn’t answer the first part of the question. “I’ve always hated rats. I never understood how people made pets out of them.”
“Sort of like having a pet roach?”
She laughed softly, a wonderful sound that seemed to penetrate his being. “Yes, exactly.”
“So, why aren’t you staying at your ranch? Rats out there?”
“I’m sure there are. There used to be. One summer when I was a kid, maybe ten or so, I started sneaking out of the house and going to the stables. I’d climb up into the hayloft and read, and they couldn’t find me. Then one day it was raining and I was curled up there reading Pride and Prejudice, and lightning struck. For some reason, it brought the rats out. The next thing I knew, they were running everywhere, including over my bare legs and feet.” He felt her shudder. “I never did that again.”
“Why did you hide out like that?” he asked, almost able to imagine her as a ten-year-old, with pale blond hair hanging in braids, and a coltish way about her.
“You won’t laugh if I tell you, will you?”
“I won’t laugh,” he said, noticing that they were getting close to the loft area. He had to fight the urge to slow down so there’d be more time to keep her talking.
“Okay, my dad wanted me to be either a princess or a great equestrian, and since the princess thing was pretty much out unless I found a stray prince hanging around, it seemed that I had to do the horse thing.”
“No other choices?”
“No, not for Dad. Unfortunately, I don’t do horses. I tried it, but really didn’t enjoy it. And despite the fact that almost every little girl wants a horse, and falls in love with them, I didn’t. I wanted to read—far away from horses and cattle. That wasn’t what Dad wanted or expected of me.”
“So you hid in the loft with your books?”
“And got attacked by an invasion of rats escaping the storm.”
“Seems to me you needed a cat out there, a big, tough cat to attack anything that moved,” Rafe said, and had the pleasure of hearing her laugh again.
“Touché,” she murmured. “Maybe I should ship Joey out there.”
“From what I’ve heard, he’d just be back at the loft sooner or later.”
Megan saw the street for the loft and didn’t know if she was relieved or disappointed. She hadn’t talked to someone like this in a long time, and she’d told him about the rats, something that she’d never told anyone, not even Ryan. She had no earthly idea why she’d told Rafe any of it. “He’s a stubborn cat,” she said, trying to ignore where her mind was headed.
Rafe slowed when the warehouse came into sight, pulling to the curb between the old van and the three motorcycles. “Thanks,” she said as soon as the car came to a full stop. “What neighbor do I ask for the key?”
“Trig. That’s the name I was given.”
“Just who did you call to get Trig to do this?” she asked.
“The big man, the boss,” he said, and turned off the car.
“You called your boss?”
“I figured if anyone would know, he would.”
“You remember when I told you about that neighbor, the one who let you in?”
“The biker?”
“That’s Trig.”
“Okay.” Rafe was out of the car the next moment, coming around to meet her on the sidewalk, then escorting her to the warehouse entrance.
“You don’t have to do this. I can take it from here,” she said as she caught up with him at the call box.
He acted as if she hadn’t spoken. Pressing one of the buttons on the intercom, he was greeted with a “Yeah?”
“Trig?”
“Yeah.”
“Miss Gallagher from LynTech needs—”
He didn’t get to finish before the harsh buzzer sounded, and when he reached for the door, she saw it open. Before she could stop Rafe from going up with her, he turned to her with one hand on the door. “I’d like to meet this guy.”
Not eager to meet Trig alone again, she didn’t fight Rafe going in with her and up in the elevator. When the lift stopped, he tugged up the cage door, and as they stepped out, the door to the next loft opened. Trig appeared, huge as ever, in leather pants, a vest and nothing else.
“Hey, there, little lady,” he said as he came toward them. He smiled at Megan, totally ignoring Rafe. “So, you locked yourself out, did you?”
“I lost my keys,” she said. “I’m sorry to bother you.”
“Well, honey, I’ve lost keys to every place I’ve ever wanted to be in my life,” he said with a rueful smile, then reached past her and pushed a key into the lock. It clicked and he stood back, but he didn’t offer her the key. “Keys are such a boring way to get into things, don’t you think?” he drawled. “But when you’re in civilization, you try to be civilized, or at least give it a good shot.”
“Thanks for letting me in,” Megan said.
“No problem, lady.” Then he casually tapped her chin, and a huge skull ring flashed on his middle finger as he lowered his voice in what she was sure he thought was a seductive to
ne. “Any old time you want anything, you just pucker up and whistle for Trig. You hear, sweetie?”
Rafe came closer, and she felt his sleeve brush her arm. “We’ve got it covered now.”
Trig looked at Rafe as if surprised he was there. “You know, buddy, I can take it from here, if you’d like.” He eyed Rafe’s uniform. “I’ve done my share of bodyguard work, and if she needs one, I’d be more than glad to take over and protect her.”
Rafe wasn’t a small man, but this biker made him feel dwarfed at the moment. And protective. He put his arm around Megan, and knew in some region of his mind that it felt as natural as breathing to do so. But he concentrated on the man in front of them, and didn’t bother analyzing the way he startled Megan when he touched her, pulling her against his side. “Like I said, I’ve got it covered.”
He felt Megan ease a bit closer, and her arm went around his waist, bringing their hips together. His heart skipped slightly as her heat seeped into his being, but he focused on Trig, who shrugged his massive shoulders. “Hey, I didn’t know,” he muttered, holding up the hand with the massive ring on it, palm toward Megan. “You and him. Who would have thought it?” Then he grinned again. “But if you throw him back, remember I’m next door, okay? No harm done?”
“No harm done,” Megan said, her voice small and breathless.
“Cool,” Trig said, then winked.”You two go and have fun.”
Megan cringed at the suggestive words, and almost died when Rafe murmured, “That’s the plan.”
CHAPTER NINE
RAFE TURNED AND, still holding Megan, went with her into the loft.
The minute they were inside, Megan stepped away and reached out to close the door. She stood very still, made no move to turn on any lights, and Rafe could see her in the shadows. She was softly blurred, and he could have sworn she had her ear pressed to the door. “What are you doing?” he asked.
She cut him off, whispering, “Shh, just listen.”
There was no sound except for his own breathing. “What are we listening for?” he whispered back.
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