by Lori Wilde
He reached out a hand and softly traced a finger around the neck of her blouse.
Her body trembled at his touch. She squared her shoulders, then took a deep breath and drew herself up tall. “At this juncture in your life, don’t you think it would be more constructive if you concentrated on changing your self-defeating behaviors rather than trying to seduce me?”
“Do you?” He dipped his head lower still until their lips were inches apart. Ooh, he loved it when she used big words.
“Yes.” She nodded her head vigorously. “I do. You’re using sexual overtures as a way to avoid dealing with your shortcomings.”
“Am I?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know I’m not just hot for you? Sometimes, Doctor, a cigar is only a cigar.”
“Are you trying to intimidate me with your sexuality?”
Is it working?
“You mean like this?”
Then he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulled her to his chest, and kissed her like he had been aching to kiss her since his lips had brushed hers that very first day at Carmichael’s.
Man, did she ever taste good. Like honey and dewdrops and sweet, sweet sin. Her breath hammered in his ear; her soft scent curled in his nostrils.
He shouldn’t have kissed her. Not even to scare her off. He was rock hard and growing harder by the moment. His veins filled with heated tension. It had been a long time since he had made love to a woman, and his body was well aware of that fact.
You can’t make love to Edie. You’re an undercover cop, and she thinks you’re a hapless screwup. You’re too set in your ways to be reformed. You’re rough-cut; she’s fine china. There are a hundred million reasons this won’t work.
“Jonah,” she whispered into his mouth.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Please get your hands off me. Please stop kissing me.”
It was a plea, not a request. From her responsive lips, he knew she wanted him as much as he wanted her, but the tone in her voice told him that she knew, just as he did, that their pairing wasn’t right.
Slowly, gently, he disengaged his mouth from hers and let his hands fall to his sides. Her green eyes drilled a hole straight through him, and he dropped into the luminous depths. He feared he was in jeopardy of losing his soul.
He almost kissed her again.
The phone rang. The damnable, blessed telephone.
“Excuse me,” he said to her and moved to pick up his cell phone. “Hello?”
“Jonah O’Neil Stevenson, do you have a woman in your house?”
“Aunt Polly.”
“Don’t you Aunt Polly me. Virginia Marston just called. Apparently, some crazed woman climbed her fence, sprinted across her backyard, and ran into your house. Are you up to your old shenanigans?”
“No, Auntie.” Jonah rolled his eyes to the ceiling.
“You know the road to hell is paved with S-E-X.”
“I thought you wanted me to give you grandnieces and nephews.” He couldn’t resist the urge to tease his aunt.
“Not like th-that!” she sputtered. “The moral way. Get married first.”
“Well, I can put your mind at ease, Auntie; I’m not having sex.”
At least not right now.
Jonah glanced over at Edie. She was studying him like a scientist at a microscope. He pressed the cell against his chest. “My Aunt Polly.”
“Jonah? Jonah?” Despite being muffled by his sweatshirt, Aunt Polly’s voice rang out across the kitchen. “Did you say something to me? Are you still there?”
Letting out a long-suffering breath, Jonah returned the phone to his ear. “I’m here.”
Edie silently mouthed, “I’m leaving. See you at work tomorrow.”
Jonah ached to tell her not to go. He wanted her to stay, but at the same time, he wanted her as far away as possible. Hell, he didn’t know what he wanted. The woman muddled his brain, skewered his thinking, scrambled his best intentions.
“We can’t have strange women climbing over fences to get to you,” Aunt Polly droned in his ear.
“No, ma’am.” He watched Edie turn and walk away. His gaze fixed on the hole in her pants, her round, firm buttocks peeping through, and felt himself grow hard all over again.
Damn Snookums for biting her.
Damn Aunt Polly for interrupting.
But most of all, damn himself for wanting Edie Preston more than he had ever wanted any woman in his life.
IF DR. BRADDICK KNEW what had gone on in Jonah’s kitchen, he would force her to abandon the project. If he knew the feelings raging in her heart, he would probably kick her out of the doctoral program altogether.
Edie groaned and sank lower into her bathtub.
What was she going to do?
Edie drained the water from the tub, got out, and wrapped a towel around herself.
Her attraction to Jonah threatened to ruin her dissertation project, but if she gave up her case study, what chance did she have of actually helping him and others like him?
More than anything, she needed to prove that Jonah was worth saving. In order to accomplish her goal, she had to keep her sexual feelings on a short leash. No matter how she might desire him, she simply could not act on those desires.
But one thing he’d said stuck in her brain and refused to let go.
How could she hope to understand her patients if she herself had never experienced darker temptations?
Take a walk on the wild side, he’d dared her.
Jonah was absolutely correct. She had no idea what it was like to let loose and really live. Despite being halfway through her Ph.D., Edie’s education had been sadly lacking. But if she did decide to broaden her horizons, it couldn’t be with Jonah.
Edie slipped into her bathrobe, then ran a comb through her hair. As she was padding to the bedroom, her cell phone rang.
Jonah, she thought immediately. But why would he call her?
Snagging it up on the second ring, she perched on the edge of the bed. “Hello?”
“Edie?”
“Yes?”
“This is Jules. Jules Hardy from the department store.”
“Hey, how are you?”
Jules Hardy was a busty, bubbly redhead who worked in cosmetics. Jules never lacked for dates and always had wild tales to tell about her adventures and misadventures as a young, single woman living la vida loca in the twenty-first century. Now if Edie ever wanted to take a walk on the wild side, this was the woman to teach her how.
“Listen, I’m in a bit of a pickle, and I heard you were studying to be a head shrinker.”
“Psychologist. Yes, that’s true.” Edie tucked a strand of wet hair behind one ear. “What can I do for you, Jules?”
“Well, I’d rather not get into the details over the phone. It’s kinda personal and involves my new boyfriend, Kyle Spencer. In fact, Kyle is the one who told me to call you.”
Edie tightened her grip on the receiver. Kyle Spencer. One of the men from the halfway house she’d gone to bat for with Carmichael. She gulped. “Is Kyle in some sort of trouble?”
“Kinda. It’s involved.”
Letting out her breath in one long expiration, Edie lay back on the bed. “Legal trouble?”
Was Kyle mixed up in the store thefts? Was that what worried Jules?
“I need to see you face-to-face. This is rather private. Can we meet somewhere?”
Edie glanced at the bedside clock. Ten minutes after ten. She usually went to bed at ten thirty. But someone needed her. Someone was in trouble, and she could help.
“Well...”
“Oh, please,” Jules said. “I really need your expertise.”
“All right.”
“Can you meet me at the all-night coffee shop off the interstate in an hour?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Thank you, Edie. You’re the greatest. I appreciate this so much.”
“You’re welcome.”
“See you then.”
J
ules rang off, and Edie switched off her phone wondering what in the heck she’d just committed herself to.
JONAH ARRIVED AT CARMICHAEL’S before dawn and slipped around the back to the freight entrance as he had every morning since starting this assignment. The security guard went off duty at four a.m., and the dockworkers didn’t arrive until six. For two hours, the inside of the store remained unguarded. If anyone wanted to steal a big shipment of goods, this was the time to do it.
After secreting himself in the shrubbery to the left of the loading dock, he pulled a doughnut from his jacket pocket. It was a little worse for the wear, squashed flat, the chocolate glaze sticking to the waxed paper wrapping, but he was too hungry to care.
He wished for a cup of strong coffee because he hadn’t gotten much sleep either, thanks to one Edie Preston.
Edie, of the impish face and infectious grin. Edie with the short, curly hair that made him think of fizzy ginger ale—light, bubbly, refreshing. Edie, who tended to stick that cute little nose of hers in where it didn’t belong for all the right reasons.
She cared about people. Truly cared. Jonah could honestly say he’d never met anyone quite like her.
Darn the woman. Why couldn’t he get her off his mind and out of his fantasies?
He waited.
A battered brown Chevrolet cruised by.
Jonah narrowed his eyes. It looked a lot like Harry Coomer’s car. He sat up straight. He knew that all the workers from the halfway house—Carl, Kyle, and Harry—had a strict curfew. They had to be in from midnight to six a.m.
If that was Harry, then he was out of the halfway house illegally.
The car turned around at the far end of the mall parking lot and looped back. The vehicle slowed as it neared Carmichael’s. The light from the street lamps swept over the front of the car as it drove past and caught the glint of something metal swinging from the rearview mirror.
Harry had a rabbit’s foot on a metal chain dangling from the mirror of his car.
It had to be Harry’s vehicle. Whether Harry was in it or not, Jonah didn’t know.
He held his breath and waited. The car looped around the parking lot once more, then disappeared.
Time ticked by.
Fifteen minutes. Twenty. Half an hour.
The car did not return.
Jonah stifled a yawn and shifted on the ground, his buttocks growing stiff from the cold.
And speaking of buttocks, he wondered about Edie’s dog-nipped fanny. For a few wonderful minutes yesterday evening, he’d held that dainty tush in his palms.
“Knock it off, Stevenson,” he growled under his breath. He was on a stakeout for crying out loud; he could not afford this distraction.
But he could not prevent his masculine imagination from exploding. He saw her. In his house. On his bed. Naked. The glory of her exposed for him alone. Her sweet lips pressed to his, her soft body held close.
Jonah gulped.
Then, as if his dream had sprung to life, he saw her. Not in his mind’s eye. Not in his fantasy. Not in his lingering memories.
There. In front of him. Not ten yards away from where he sat hidden in the bushes.
Edie Preston. With some curvy, red-haired woman he recognized from Carmichael’s cosmetics counter.
They were standing at the loading dock entrance, fumbling with the key code to the alarm system.
Jonah rubbed his eyes. Surely he must be seeing things. What was Edie doing here at this time of morning hanging out with this woman? And why were they attempting to gain unauthorized entry into Carmichael’s?
“OKAY,” JULES SAID, punching in some numbers on the keypad outside the freight entrance. The heavy metal doors jerked and rolled upward with a loud clang. Edie winced against the noise and cast furtive glances over her shoulder.
“When we get inside,” Jules continued, “there’s another control panel on the right wall that mans the security cameras storewide. All we have to do is deactivate them, and we’re free to roam about the store undetected.”
“And you have the security code to that, too?”
Jules nodded.
“How did you get these codes?” Edie whispered, tiptoeing in behind Jules who had switched on a flashlight.
They found themselves standing on the loading dock surrounded by towers of boxes. Jules hit a lever mounted at the wall, and the door fell closed behind them with a loud rattle.
“I used to date the manager before Mr. Trotter. Dave Highsmith. Dave gave me the codes so we could meet in the store after hours.” Jules slanted Edie a glance.
“I’m worried that when Trotter reviews the security footage, he’s going to notice the time-lapse and figure out someone shut off the camera for ten or fifteen minutes,” Edie mumbled.
Jules shrugged. “It’s a risk we’ll have to take. He has no way of knowing it was us.”
Edie shook her head. “Let’s just get this over with and get out of here.”
She hadn’t slept a wink. She’d been with Jules at the all-night coffee shop, planning this excursion and waiting for four a.m. to roll around.
Jules knew that the store’s indoor security guard’s shift ended two hours before the first dockworker arrived at six. After hearing Jules’ story, Edie knew they had no recourse but to break into the store. Not if they wanted to keep Kyle out of jail and Jules from getting fired.
From what Jules had told her, on the previous evening, Jules had hidden in the restroom until the store closed, to have a romantic rendezvous with Kyle, whose shift in the maintenance department ended an hour after the store’s closing time. According to Jules, they had made wild passionate love on the cosmetics counter, completely unaware that a new security camera had just been added to that department in the wake of the thefts.
When he got back to the halfway house, Kyle had learned from Carl, who’d seen the invoices, about the new cameras, and he’d called Jules in a panic. Since the security cameras were reviewed first thing every morning by Mr. Trotter, it was essential that someone get into the store before dawn and erase the incriminating footage.
Kyle couldn’t help because he was unable to leave the halfway house after curfew. Camera footage of Jules and Kyle in the store alone after hours was enough to raise suspicion about their involvement in the thefts. Kyle could be sent back to jail on parole violation, and Jules would be fired. And no doubt Edie would lose her job, too, since she’d laid her reputation on the line when she’d vouched for Kyle.
Edie groaned inwardly at the thought, which had been circling her head since Jules had poured out her tale of woe.
No job. No Jonah. No dissertation subject.
She’d been fortunate that Jules had come to her. Otherwise... Edie shuddered at the thought.
But before Edie and Jules did anything, they had to shut off all the security cameras so they wouldn’t be taped sneaking into the store. With only a pencil-thin beam of light to guide them, they made a beeline for the camera control panel.
Of course, if they got caught, it would mean much more than being fired.
What if her arrest got on the news? Dr. Braddick would have a cow. She envisioned her parents sitting around the television set, sipping their nightly herbal tea. She could hear the reporter.
“Now, for this late-breaking story. Former Girl Scout and doctoral student breaks into Carmichael’s Department Store at the Rascal Town Center strip mall amidst allegations of thefts. What made her do it? Details at six.”
Edie pictured herself behind bars, wearing a black-and-white striped prison uniform, and cringed. She couldn’t go to jail! Stripes made her look hippy.
“Jules,” Edie whispered, struggling to keep the tremor from her voice. “Maybe this isn’t such a great idea after all. Maybe we should just go to Trotter, come clean about what happened between you and Kyle, and let the chips fall where they may.”
“You don’t seriously think Trotter would be that forgiving, do you? He’s been looking for any excuse to can Kyle. And he’d l
ove to try and pin the thefts on us.”
“You’re probably right about that,” Edie agreed.
“We don’t have any choice. You can’t back out on me now.”
No, she couldn’t. Edie had promised, and she never broke her promises, but this still felt wrong.
“Psst.” Jules had already moved through the warehouse. She waved the flashlight beam at Edie. “This way.”
Before Edie could protest, Jules opened the door from the loading dock into the department store.
Light spilled in, illuminating the darkness and steadying Edie’s nerves somewhat. She scurried after Jules.
In a flash, Jules located the small camera mounted on the back wall and climbed up on the counter. After fumbling with the camera for a few minutes, she pulled out the memory chip.
Edie inhaled sharply and took a step backward, and a cold, bony finger poked her in the back.
Edie let out a shriek and immediately clamped a hand over her mouth.
A gun! Someone was jabbing her in the back with a gun.
Freaked out beyond sensibility, she leapt to one side, her arm raised reflexively in self-defense. She swung around hard to strike the man behind her.
Except it wasn’t a man.
It wasn’t even human.
Edie stared owlishly as a scrawny mannequin in hot pants and a halter top—would department stores ever stop putting out summer clothes in the winter?—clattered to the floor, her head and limbs disengaging in the process.
One arm whizzed over Edie’s head. A leg struck her on the thigh. The head rolled like a bowling ball down the bedding aisle and disappeared under a bed draped in a cute chintz comforter Edie had considered buying herself for Christmas.
To Edie’s ears, the resulting cacophony was deafening. She cringed and waited for mall security to show up with the police in tow.
“Jules?” she whispered loudly, but her new friend did not answer.
Oh crud, what now?
Then from the darkened aisle a man appeared.
Edie’s heart galloped, and her mouth grew so dry she could not speak. This is it, I’m going to be arrested.
Now she would walk that mile in Jonah’s shoes. Now she would be able to relate to him. Now she could empathize.