Packing Heat
Page 4
“And they let you out with it?”
“I wrote it on my underwear,” she said, which stopped him in his tracks—verbally.
Physically he’d gone into overdrive, his eyes dropping to her halter dress, and she knew he was betting she didn’t have a bra on under it. He was right, too. She’d never gotten the hang of the FBI dress code. Probably one of the reasons she hadn’t been promoted to field agent, but she just couldn’t bring herself to wear those ugly, boxy suits, and the shoes . . . Ick.
When she’d aimed her career at the FBI, she’d pictured herself more like a Bond girl—a smart Bond girl—than Eliot Ness. She wanted to wear gorgeous, designer clothes and never chip a nail or smear her lipstick while she was saving the world. The truth was, they’d stuck her at a desk and given her a computer, and she figured if they weren’t going to let her do what she wanted, they could take their dress code and—
“Earth to Mata Hari,” Cole said, less snark than heat.
She glared at him anyway.
“If you’re done centering yourself.”
She added pursed lips to the narrowed eyes.
“We were at the point where you went commando so you could pilfer government secrets on your thong,” he said, most of the way back to sarcasm, which was what she wanted.
And then she said, “I don’t wear a thong,” which was the wrong thing to say because he went back to picturing her in her underwear, which might not take the form of floss in his imagination, but probably involved black lace, considering the faraway look on his face and the heat pumping off him.
“Earth to Dirk Diggler,” she mocked, and when he only smirked a little, she added, “White cotton.”
He huffed out a breath. “You ruined the fantasy.”
“I’d’ve thought my being an FBI agent took care of that already.”
“In my fantasy you have a different job.”
“Used to leaving money on the nightstand?”
“I never had to pay for it.”
She snorted softly. “I saw your mug shot.”
“Ouch,” he said, deadpan. “Ever heard of the Bill Gates effect?”
“No, but I can tell you’re dying to enlighten me.”
“Not all women are interested in looks.”
“No,” she said, getting his inference, “apparently some women are future planners. Who knows when you might stumble across a computer nerd who’s about to get insanely rich off some revolutionary new piece of software.”
“Yeah, I kept a supply of blindfolds in the nightstand, right next to the condoms.”
Harmony rolled her eyes, not missing the undertone of insult beneath the sarcasm. “Suppose we agree that sex—past, present, and future—is out of bounds.”
“I don’t have any blindfolds with me anyway.”
They wouldn’t be necessary anymore—not that they ever were, but Cole Hackett the nerd would have appealed to a certain type of woman. Cole Hackett the ex-con had a wider appeal, as in any woman with a pulse who wasn’t a candidate for same-sex marriage would find him appealing. Except her, of course.
“We were talking about the kidnapping,” she said. “It appears Richard was snatched by members of the Russian mafia. The voice on the single phone call had a Russian-type accent. The call was traced to Los Angeles.”
“A lot of the computer crime that goes on now originates in Eastern Europe.”
“And those guys know how to cover their electronic tracks.”
“You sure it wasn’t bounced all over the planet?” he asked.
“The experts at the Bureau were sure.”
“So we’re heading to Los Angeles.”
She glanced over at him, then back at the road.
“I may not look like that pasty kid in the mug shot,” he said, “but my IQ didn’t decrease with my body fat percentage. You know as well as I do that giving them what they want is a death sentence for your friend. You’re planning to rescue him.”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “You’re just the backup plan. If this goes the way I want it to, they’re not getting their hands on one red cent.”
“YOU HAVEN’T ANSWERED MY SECOND QUESTION,” COLE said.
“I didn’t think it was necessary, you having that big IQ.” Not to mention big eyes, and hopefully a big stomach.
They were in a small town somewhere in western Pennsylvania, at an old farmhouse converted into a restaurant. It was a little mom-and-pop place, dingy but welcoming, with creaking wooden floors, mismatched furniture, and the kind of menu that was loaded with salt, saturated fat, and enough calories to put half the state into a food coma.
“Okay,” Cole said, “so I know what you want from me. Do you have any idea what the risks are? I’m good, but your friends in computer security at the FBI keep a close eye on their firewall. Anybody tries to get through, they make it their mission in life to track him down. And they love to make examples of people like me.”
“We’ve already had this discussion. I knew what the risks were when I took this assignment.”
“But you’re one of them, and I’m an escaped convict. I’m the likely scapegoat if things go wrong.”
Harmony sighed heavily.
It was turning out to be a lot harder to convince Cole to help than she’d expected. Because of his history with the FBI. Understandable, since the FBI had put him in jail—for good reason. There hadn’t been a lot of time to plan and prepare, but before she’d embarked on this course, she’d read his file. Not much there; from all outward appearances he’d been nothing more than a stupid kid who’d hacked into the Bureau’s system for kicks, and had the colossal bad judgment to do it at a time when every intelligence agency in the world was on high alert.
Except Cole certainly wasn’t stupid. Or judgmentally challenged. And he kept talking about doing the FBI a favor and being screwed over, and she couldn’t ask him what he meant. Not after she’d lied about having new evidence. Sure it had been a tiny little spur-of-the-moment white lie meant to nudge him closer to helping her. But that lie put her in an awkward position, because it implied she knew more about his predicament than she actually did.
So she’d just have to figure it out as they went along. It wasn’t like she hadn’t expected Cole to be uncooperative. And suspicious. She’d just have to keep an eye on him, and guard her words. Cole would learn he’d been played eventually, but timing was everything. If he found out now, he’d bolt, and she’d lose her only hope of buying enough time to find out where Richard was being held. If . . . when they freed Richard, the Bureau would have no choice but to commute Cole’s sentence. He’d still be angry, no doubt about it, but she imagined freedom—permanent freedom—would have a pacifying effect on his temper.
“Look,” she said, “I know you don’t trust me—”
“I just want to make sure I’m not being set up again.”
“Do you want me to make promises you won’t believe anyway? I’ve given you all the assurances I can.”
“And none when it comes to actually accomplishing your end of the job, except you have the kidnappers’ contact information written on your panties.”
A woman at the next table sucked in her breath and scowled at him.
“Can we try not to draw attention to ourselves?” Harmony said, keeping her voice down.
“In case you haven’t noticed, people have been staring at us since we walked in.”
Harmony glanced around the room. “It’s mostly women, and they’re staring at you.”
“Probably all that million-dollar software I’m going to write.”
Probably they were thinking she was the luckiest woman alive. “I doubt they’re interested in getting their hands on your software.”
He reached across the table and closed his fingers around her wrist, loosely. “What are you thinking about?”
She tried to pull away, but he moved his hand down to hers, twining their fingers. “They’ll stop staring if they think we’re a couple.”
Their dinner arrived, netting them more attention, out of curiosity this time, since the waitress brought enough food to feed half the town, including dessert, which Cole had told her to bring right along with the main courses. The good news? He took his hand back so he could eat. The skin-to-skin havoc was over, but it didn’t end the assault on her libido.
This time the attack came by way of her ears, which suddenly seemed to be connected directly to her nerve endings. He cut into a rare steak, put the first bite into his mouth and moaned, eyes closed, head falling back, a low, sexy sound that made her nerves vibrate like plucked cello strings.
Every woman within hearing distance broke out in a sweat. Harmony experienced an internal earthquake that nearly jolted her off her chair.
“You’re not eating,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those women who only eats salads and pretends not to be hungry all the time.”
“No.” She indicated the spread in front of him with her fork. Roast turkey with stuffing, pork chops, and the steak, with all the sides: buttered noodles, mashed potatoes, the vegetable of the day, and a small tossed salad with ranch dressing so thick it could masquerade as mayonnaise. And then there was the lemon meringue pie, Harmony’s favorite. Not that she was letting him know it. “You’re going to get fat eating like that.”
His voice dropped another notch, becoming impossibly deep, impossibly slow. Incredibly suggestive. “You could help me work it off.”
“Having sex burns less than a hundred calories. You’ve got about ten thousand there.”
“Who was talking about sex?”
She gave him a look. “You were.”
“Don’t ruffle easy, huh?”
Harmony wasn’t sure what she was feeling, but ruffled was definitely too mild a word for it. “Why are you trying to ruffle me?”
“Just having fun. It’s been a while.” He took her hand again. “Not that it’s such a bad idea—sex, I mean. We could keep pretending to be a couple. It would be a good disguise.”
“We don’t need a disguise. You’re here to strip bank accounts.”
“Okay, but it would give me more incentive to toe the line.”
“You actually want me to hold sex over your head.”
“Every woman gets around to it eventually.”
“I’m insulted for all womankind, not to mention personally. And you don’t need me to have sex.”
“Uhhh . . . I’m out of prison now.”
“I meant, if you want sex, you can get it from any woman here.”
“With you watching?” he asked, effectively shutting her up. The problem with that was that it left him alone with his thoughts, and his thoughts weren’t exactly comforting because he was thinking that he didn’t want sex from any other woman there. He wanted it from Harmony Swift.
That was troubling until he realized he’d only fallen back into his old pattern, afraid to approach women. He didn’t even like Harmony, and he sure as hell didn’t trust her. But he knew her now, he could talk to her, and that had always been half the battle for him.
He wasn’t that nerdy kid anymore, though. After eight years in jail he didn’t think he’d have any trouble breaking the ice with women, no gunfire necessary. Not that it was going to be an issue, anyway, seeing as he was stuck with Harm—with Agent Swift—for the next little while . . . And if she ever looked at him the way she was looking at the lemon meringue pie, they were both in real trouble.
Her tongue crept out to wet her lips. He focused on his meal. And changed the subject. “I do what you want, I get the new evidence, right?”
“Yes, but there are some ground rules.”
“Such as?”
She put her fork down, met his eyes. Making sure he heard her. “I’m in charge,” she said.
“Nope.”
“But—”
He stood, his chair legs screeching over the wooden floor when he shoved it out of the way and walked off.
“I have to pay . . .” Harmony half rose, then sank back into her seat, smiling at the other diners. “Sorry,” she mumbled, grabbing the lemon meringue pie before she went up front to pay the bill.
When she got outside, Cole was pacing in the cool evening air, keeping to the gloom at the side of the building. At least her speech about keeping a low profile had sunk in.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the takeout box in her hand.
“Dessert.”
“You’re going to get fat.”
“It’s a new diet,” she told him, “the irritation diet. I figure as long as I’m around you, I’ll burn enough calories to eat a pound of sugar every day.”
“You’re an FBI agent,” he said in his own defense.
“And you don’t trust me, I get it. But you have no idea what’s at stake.”
“Because you’re holding back. And you don’t trust me, either.”
“No, I don’t, so I’ll be running this show until you prove I can trust you.”
“But you don’t have to prove anything to me?”
“You can still go back to jail and serve out your sentence,” she said. But she wasn’t looking at him.
Cole turned and saw what she saw, two police officers heading into the restaurant.
“What’s it going to be,” Harmony said, “me or them?”
chapter 4
“STATE TROOPERS,” COLE SAID. “HOW DO YOU KNOW they’re looking for us?”
Harmony sidled over to the window, peering through a couple decades’ worth of grime and the dim lighting inside until she spotted the police officers, standing at the front of the place in a huddle of staffers. “They’re showing around a photo.” Probably hers since Cole bore no resemblance to his mug shot. Then one of the cops lifted his hand to about Cole’s height. Even from there Harmony could see one of the waitress’s eyes light up. “Uh-oh.”
Cole crowded close to look over her shoulder. “I thought you said they wouldn’t notify the local authorities that one of their agents defected.”
“This isn’t Russia; I didn’t defect,” she said, her voice rasping out on a soft wheeze because she’d just realized he was all but wrapped around her, a warm, solid, comforting hulk of a man who smelled like a man and felt . . . safe.
“Why else would they be here?”
“The warden. According to his file he has a pretty good relationship with the Pennsylvania State Police. He must have alerted them before the Bureau gagged him.”
“Great, a federal employee with initiative.”
“Hey, I’m a federal employee.”
“Not a recommendation in my book.”
“Maybe you’d prefer those two guys, and whoever they just called in as backup.” Harmony eased away from the window—and from Cole—turning back when she realized he wasn’t behind her. “Look,” she said, “this means the FBI isn’t the only agency after us. We’ll have to avoid the local police. I expected it, but not this soon.”
“Kind of complicates things.”
“Not really. Your choice is still pretty simple.”
“Is it?”
Harmony shrugged, but after the day he’d had she knew what he was thinking. Seventeen more years in jail couldn’t compete with wide-open spaces and restaurant meals. By the time he said, “We can’t go back to the car,” she’d already managed to suppress a self-satisfied grin. But she didn’t even pretend to agree with him, heading toward the Explorer.
“Their cruiser is blocking the drive,” Cole said, trying to muscle her off into the darkness.
“And the parking lot is completely surrounded by trees, I get it,” she said, ducking out of reach, “but if I don’t get my laptop we might as well give ourselves up.” She opened the rear passenger door just as the two cops came out of the restau
rant and shouted at them to stop, crossing the parking lot at a dead run.
Their hands were on their holsters, but they hadn’t drawn their weapons, and Cole wasn’t giving them the chance. He headed for the bigger of the two, walking calmly, hands spread to show he wasn’t armed. When the cop got close enough, Cole sucker punched him. The officer went down, not out cold, but definitely groggy. Which left officer number two. He was smaller than his partner, but he had a good sixty pounds and six inches on Harmony. What he didn’t have was a takeout container of lemon meringue pie.
Harmony opened the little takeout box, scooped out the pie, and hit the cop square in the face, all in one slick Three Stooges move that left him blind. And enraged. He swiped at the lemon in his eyes with one hand, swinging wildly with the other.
Cole slipped up behind the officer, wrapped a hand around the back of his neck, and had him folding in a boneless heap to the pavement.
“Pie?” he said to Harmony, his eyes on her mouth.
“I didn’t want to shoot him,” Harmony said, choosing to respond—at least verbally—to the professional criticism rather than the way Cole had watched her lick lemon meringue off her fingers. Her physical response was completely involuntary and absolutely inappropriate given the fact there was an unconscious police officer at their feet and a groggy one just a few yards away. Not to mention the whole convicted felon thing.
And on that note, Harmony hit the locks on the Explorer’s key fob and pulled out a duffel and a laptop case, slinging the latter over her head so the strap lay between her breasts.
“Not taking a chance on losing the computer,” Cole said. “A woman after my own heart. What’s in the duffel?”
“My clothes, and I don’t want to lose those, either.”
He took the duffel from her and said, “We can work on that. Do you have any idea where we are?”
“A small town in western Pennsylvania.”
“Not a lot of options.” He cocked his head and smiled. “But there are possibilities.”
He wrapped his hand around her wrist and took off for the street, putting as much distance between them and the state cops as he could.