Kitabı oku: «The Cinderella Mission», sayfa 3

Chapter 3

“Live together?”

If Kelly’s horror-filled eyes were anything to gauge by, Ethan guessed he was being subjected to a crash course in “getting over himself.” His bruised ego would have to move aside. He had to convince her to move in with him so his Aunt Eugenie could orchestrate a makeover in a way that wouldn’t hurt Kelly’s tender feelings and he would be one step closer to securing the file on his parents.

Ethan reached to stop her chair before she backpedaled into the next cubicle. “Hear me out.”

She smacked his hand away. “If this is your idea of revenge for what I said this afternoon, it’s not funny.”

“Kelly, this afternoon was,” he paused, “surprising. It’s not exactly something I’d like to repeat. But no harm, no foul.”

“Really?” Suspicion stained her eyes.

He’d have to teach her to hide her emotions better. “You were absolutely right. We’re both professionals and I should have treated you as such.”

“Now you show that by suggesting we live together?”

Ethan opted to ignore her sarcasm. “Hear me out. You’re off office duty once you leave today.”

“But the computer intelligence—”

“I have secure link-ups at home. That summit ball is only two weeks away. We need every minute between now and then to trade services.”

“What services are you offering at your playboy bachelor pad?”

Her meaning sucker-punched him. Apparently he hadn’t hidden his attraction as well as he’d thought.

Kelly’s jaw tipped with a defensiveness that spoke louder than her words. “I mean, why not take the warm and willing woman up on her offer? After all, she announced it to a whole room of people.”

How could she see herself as nothing more than a warm and willing body? Who the hell had abused her trust?

Guilt pinched him. Hard. But damn it, her safety depended on her cover’s believability. He had to trust his Aunt Eugenie could pull off her fairy godmother role for him.

Ethan decided not to acknowledge the “warm and willing” comment and rolled out his excuse for getting her out of the office. “We’ll exchange language brush-up lessons for self-defense training.”

Her arms fell to her lap. “Oh.”

“And I don’t live in a ‘bachelor pad,’” he felt compelled to add. “When I’m in town, I live in the family home with my aunt.”

A grin crept over her face. “You live with your aunt?”

She laughed.

He was worrying himself cross-eyed over hurting her feelings and she was laughing at him.

Kelly clapped a hand over her mouth.

Heat inched up the back of his neck for the second time in one day—hell, for the second time in his life—thanks to this woman. “Kelly—”

Her laughter caressed the air with the same husky sensuality of her voice. “The great playboy of the western world lives with his aunt.”

Ethan bristled. “It’s a big house.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“I’m gone a lot. She watches over my stuff.”

“Makes sense.”

Her laughter faded. Silence fell. Kelly fidgeted with the paperweight. The vacuum cleaner silenced and he still hadn’t convinced her. He would have to play dirty. But then rules had never been his strong suit. “I thought you wanted to do whatever it took to get out from behind that desk.”

Her hand clenched around the paperweight. He’d won. He could see it in the sigh lowering her shoulders.

“Your aunt won’t mind a guest for two weeks?” Kelly offered a final token resistance.

Damn it, Kelly had been pushing his buttons left and right while he was trying to be Joe Sensitive. Well, not anymore. He’d maneuver her where he wanted her, damn it, mouthiness and all. He wouldn’t let his rogue feelings get in the way of his quest for that file Hatch had on his parents.

“Aunt Eugenie knows I work for the CIA, just not about ARIES. She doesn’t ask questions. I’ve already spoken to her. Do you want to follow me out there?”

“I don’t have a car. I take the train in—”

“Good.” His mojo was positively humming. “Then I’ll pick you up in the morning.”

“Well, I don’t know—”

“Be ready by seven. I want to get an early start.”

Kelly watched the morning sun creep over the Virginia suburban skyline from the comfort of luxurious leather in Ethan’s vintage Jaguar.

A really messy Jag.

She nudged the gym bag at her feet with her tennis shoe in a vain attempt to make room for herself amidst the piles of books on tape and empty coffee cups.

Over the hills and through the woods to Aunt Eugenie’s house they drove. Ice-laden trees and street signs sped past her window outside, while blues music swirled from the CD player inside.

Ethan had steamrollered her in the office the night before. Sure his plan sounded logical, but she could have come up with an alternative if he hadn’t been hogging all the air. How could a girl think when she could barely breathe? But she’d surrendered rather than risk spending more time alone with him in the intimacy of the darkened office. She’d waited to start her list of alternatives in the solitude of her apartment.

Three hours and two bowls of rocky road ice cream later, she’d decided his plan had merit, even if not for the reasons he thought. Regardless of her rampage in the office, she doubted her ability to work if she couldn’t think whenever he walked into the room. What better way to kill her infatuation than to spend more time with him and uncover his faults?

Ethan stopped for a light. A soda can rolled from under the seat.

Perfect. Her plan was already well under way. A much-needed smile pulled at her.

“What?”

Kelly peered out the windshield at the pristine yards of snow, all viewed over a sludge-covered hood. “Why in the world would someone own a car this expensive and never wash it?”

He adjusted the rearview mirror, an air freshener shaped like a pine tree swaying. “Lesson number one in field craft. Sometimes the simplest tricks are the most effective.”

“Having a car with Wash Me scrawled across the back is field craft?”

“Actually it is.” He turned another corner, downshifting. His legs flexed as he worked the clutch, brake and gas pedal. “Think about it. What happens if someone rubs away those words?”

“It leaves a big smudge,” she answered absently, admiring the impressive play of muscles beneath faded denim.

“And if someone tampers with other parts of the car…”

His words sank in, pulling her attention back to chilling reality. “Their handprints will be noticeable—or smudged.”

“Exactly. Sure, ARIES provides plenty of the high-tech gadgets. But sometimes simple works well, too.”

He existed in a world of constant threats and car bombs, and all for a higher good. How could she not admire him? Even his freshly shorn hair reminded her that every facet of his life bowed to the demands of his job.

Her plan was not going well at all. Time to dig deeper into his real life for those flaws.

“How long have you lived with your aunt?” she asked, envisioning some teenage rebellion that led him to being shuffled to another relative.

“Since elementary school.”

“That young?”

His hands clenched around the steering wheel. “My parents died in a car accident.”

How did she not know this about him? “I’m so sorry.”

“Me, too.”

Much more of emotion-tugging Ethan and she’d leave this assignment with a marshmallow heart. “I’m sorry for laughing earlier, about you living with your aunt, I mean. It’s really sweet that you stayed on to take care of her.”

“Take care of her?” Ethan snorted. “Better not let Aunt Eugenie hear you insinuating she needs help for anything. She’s sixty-five going on twenty.”

“Oh, okay.” Was his aunt some kind of socialite poster-girl for plastic surgery? Panic tickled her lungs. She might like herself just fine the way she was. That didn’t mean she wanted to spend the next two weeks with Ethan’s aunt questioning what he saw in such a quiet wallflower. “She knows this is just a working relationship, right?”

“Yes.”

Her panic faded. “Good.”

“But the servants don’t.”

“Servants?” Kelly pulled her gaze away from Ethan and looked out the window. Sprawling houses loomed on either side of the road—brick, columns, even the occasional turret. Plots of land acres large spread between gates and towering homes. With every block, the houses grew bigger and Kelly grew more uncomfortable.

“We need to protect the cover,” Ethan continued. “The servant network is tight in my aunt’s world. We don’t want them wondering and passing along their doubts. If we expect to pull this off, they need to think we’re a couple and we can use the practice.”

A couple? How had she gone from getting over him to pretending to be his girlfriend for two weeks? “What have they been told?”

“That you work for an embassy as a translator. I met you through a friend. We fell for each other, and you’re taking an extended vacation to meet my family.”

The sense of having been maneuvered washed over her and she didn’t like it. If he’d told her this the night before, she would have shot down his plan.

And he probably knew it. “When were you going to tell me?”

“I’m telling you now.”

Kelly stared out the window and counted passing houses to calm her temper. Of course she didn’t get to count very many since the yards were so darned big. No snowmen littered these lawns like in her Nebraska hometown.

She’d realized he was wealthy. But this neighborhood wasn’t just rich. It was filthy rich. Beyond-her-comprehension rich.

He obviously didn’t have to work. She recognized his thrill-seeking need, but he could have channeled that into any number of expensive hobbies. Instead of swimming with sharks in Aruba, he dodged bullets to make others safe.

Damn. He grew more admirable with each passing Mercedes.

“This didn’t have to be so complicated.”

“It isn’t,” Ethan insisted. “If anything, there will be fewer questions and more acceptance than if I’d just shown up at the summit ball with you. People would have been curious about you, which would attract too much attention. This gives everyone two weeks to become accustomed to the idea.”

“And afterward?”

“We break up.”

Breaking up with a guy she’d never gotten to enjoy. That depressed her as much as the loss of his longer hair, the lost chance to test the length and texture with her fingers.

Ethan turned off the road, pausing at a security gate to punch in a code. Kelly peered through the metal bars.

This wasn’t just a big house. It was a mansion.

A white-columned palatial home sprawled before her. Towering evergreens with snowcapped branches proclaimed age and heritage. An iced-over fountain bigger than most pools perched in the middle of a horseshoe driveway.

All of Ethan’s altruistic qualities aside, he came from a different world. He might as well reside on a different planet. She’d harbored dreams and fantasies about this man for two years, and yet she didn’t know the first thing about him.

No doubt, their break up would be completely believable.

Steering up the drive, Ethan thought through the round of introductions he would have to make—housekeeper, chauffeur, cook. Thought of all the times he would touch Kelly like an attentive boyfriend. Like a lover.

His great plan had a serious flaw.

Too late now. Bottom line, this would protect Kelly on a number of levels. Not only would she be better prepared by his aunt, but Ethan also fully intended to follow through on the plan to teach her self-defense. Who knew what their digging into foreign embassy workings might stir? All the more reason to have her close by where he could guard her.

At least her voice wasn’t tormenting him anymore since she’d started clamming up four blocks ago. The tension emanating from her had increased with the size of the houses. He dreaded the moment she would turn and look at him differently, when she wouldn’t be able to see past the stacks of money to the man anymore.

The house might be his but it wasn’t him, and for some reason it became important that Kelly understand that.

Forget front-door welcomes. He didn’t want her first impression of his home to be some three-story winding staircase and a cathedral ceiling. He sped past the horseshoe driveway and circled around to the back. Pulling into the five-car garage, he parked between his aunt’s Mercedes and the housekeeper’s VW Beetle.

Ethan shut off the engine as the door slid closed behind them. “Leave your luggage. I’ll bring it up later when I take you to the main house. First, we’re going to head upstairs to the apartment.”

“Where I’m staying?”

“No.”

“Your Aunt Eugenie has a suite over the garage?”

“No. I do.” The surprised lift to her brow brought a rush of victory. He’d find his footing with this complex woman yet. “I thought you could use the time to ask any more questions before you meet everyone.”

“You mean questions about how you set me up.” Her eyes probed him with quiet censure.

She couldn’t have already figured out why he needed her here, could she? Heaven help him if he’d been too obvious about the socialite polish.

He reached behind the seat for her laptop computer to give himself a reason to look away. “Set you up?”

“By not telling me about the real reason for coming here.”

He twisted forward with her laptop and lapsed into the foolproof method of answering questions with questions. “Suppose you tell me since you do such a good job at spelling things out.”

“Because even with everything I said yesterday, you still don’t trust that I can keep my head on straight while posing as a couple. So you’ve planned this ‘lover practice’ in front of your servants for the next two weeks.”

Lover-practice. Now that had a tempting ring to it. “Kelly, I’m not doing anything more than I said. We’re here to work through leads in hopes of finding Alex Morrow before someone tortures him to death. And maybe we’ll be able to stop the whole heist attempt before the summit so a room full of people won’t be in danger. And if that doesn’t work, we’re going to make damned sure we both have every tool available so no one gets hurt.”

So Kelly wasn’t hurt.

He ignored the nagging voice that insisted he was already hurting her by not being honest. But he’d abandoned scruples long ago in favor of winning, and he wanted that thirty-year-old file on his parents.

Kelly threw her door open. “Then let’s get started.”

Ethan led her up the stairs, punching in the alarm code onto the pad outside his door before pushing inside. As always, he made a quick sweep through his barnlike studio apartment. He held up a hand for Kelly to stop while he took the six steps in three strides up to his loft bedroom. Closing the door behind him, he jogged up another half set of stairs to the open gallery computer area. Loping back down, he nodded. “All clear.”

“Do you always check your own house this thoroughly?”

She thought that was thorough?

“Yes.” He tucked his hands in his back pockets and cruised to a stop in the seldom-used kitchen area.

Kelly trailed a hand along the back of a gray leather sofa, her gaze sweeping the sparse furnishings. “So you brought me to your bachelor pad, after all.”

“I’ve never brought anyone outside of family here.”

Her gaze snapped up to meet his. Solemn brown eyes studied him with confusion and an odd sort of expectation he knew he couldn’t fulfill.

Ethan turned his back on eyes that threatened to become as tempting as her voice. “If we’re going to work together, this is the only truly secure place.” He swept an empty pizza box off the kitchenette table. “You can set up your laptop here today. I’ll arrange something better by tomorrow.”

Shrugging out of her coat, she strolled through the cavernous room. Her tennis shoes squeaked on the bright tiles his Aunt Eugenie had ordered from Italy. She’d insisted he needed something lively in his dark world.

“There’s certainly plenty of space. My apartment would fit in here twice.”

“I like how open it is.” Easier to watch. Even at home, he never relaxed his guard, probably hadn’t slept through the night since he was five.

Ethan pitched his jacket over a kitchen chair. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out a can of orange juice for himself. “Want one? Or something more substantial—like a two-day-old burrito?”

He earned her genuine smile for the first time in twenty-four hours, a heady victory.

“No, thanks. I had breakfast already.”

Ethan elbowed the refrigerator closed and planned his next move for relaxing her. His computer system upstairs might not make a bad start.

Footsteps sounded in the stairwell. Ethan tensed a second before—

“Yoo-hoo, Ethan?” His aunt’s voice floated up the hall. Eugenie Williams charged through the door and across the room. The sleeves of her mummy-covered caftan, a souvenir of her latest trip to Egypt, fluttered from her open arms. “You’re early! Why didn’t you come into the house?”

“Because we’re early.”

“Like manners have ever mattered to you.” She folded him in a hug.

He dropped a kiss on her head. “You tried your best.”

A soft smile creased her round face. “I certainly did.”

Ethan couldn’t stop his smile in return as she stepped back. He loved his aunt, eccentricities and all. She’d been the only constant during his childhood after he lost his parents. He would never forget how she’d put her own jet-setting life on hold for him.

Well, not exactly on hold, but she’d carted him along on one extended field trip after another, giving him purpose, just as ARIES had done after Celia. “Aunt Eugenie, this is Kelly Taylor.”

She spun to face Kelly, stirring a drift of flowers and some kind of spice. No doubt his aunt had been knee-deep in aromatherapy this morning. Every time Ethan turned around, she sported a new mood-enhancing scent concocted by her masseur.

Eugenie studied Kelly with keen eyes, before nodding. “Ethan, go put her things in the Jefferson suite. And don’t blow out the candles the way you always do. I ordered a special blend of sweet marjoram, lavender and ylang ylang for serenity.” She flapped her hands to shoo him away. “Now scoot, so we can talk.”

The tension Ethan hadn’t even realized gripped him eased. There might be something to all Eugenie’s mood oils and fragrances after all.

He should have trusted his instincts, which had told him he’d made the right decision in handing Kelly over to Aunt Eugenie’s tutelage. The woman was a miracle worker. She’d actually made something halfway productive out of a screw-up rebel like himself.

This would come together. Aunt Eugenie would not only transform Kelly, but she would also be the perfect buffer for any awkwardness.

And while they worked on hairstyles, he could figure out who the hell had been following them.

Chapter 4

Kelly trailed Ethan’s aunt to the sofa. Not that she had much choice unless she wanted to stand in the middle of the room pinned by the woman’s curious eyes and the gaze of all those gold mummies on her muumuu.

Why didn’t Ethan hurry? She wanted to work, not chit-chat with his eccentric aunt. She would prove herself a worthy partner, not a woman who had to practice something as simple as pretending to be a girlfriend.

At least she wouldn’t have to pretend when she was alone with Eugenie Williams, since Eugenie knew Ethan and Kelly were working together. Kelly relaxed onto the sofa, grateful she didn’t have to hide her lack of polish for the next few minutes.

Her crush on Ethan, however, Kelly intended to keep well hidden around his aunt.

Eugenie swept across the room toward the gray leather couch, her steely bun twined on top of her head adding two inches of height. As she drew closer, the older woman’s vitality radiated through despite the tiny lines around her eyes.

Eugenie Williams sat.

Well, sort of. Just sitting seemed too ordinary a word to describe any motion from this woman. Her imposing presence made a simple stroll across the rug seem as if it deserved a diva spotlight.

Apparently Ethan had learned to command a room from a master.

Her caftan settled to rest around her, revealing strappy yellow sandals. Those snow-encrusted spike heels would have sent Kelly sprawling. “Tell me about yourself, dear.”

“Well…” Kelly couldn’t imagine anything about her upbringing on a Nebraska wheat farm that would be of interest to this woman. “I work with Ethan.”

“So I hear.”

Kelly searched for a safer topic. The woman might be a fountain of information for the quest to learn more about Ethan, but those shrewd eyes would be onto her in a heartbeat. Kelly tapped an edge of the woman’s caftan. “This is lovely.”

The pattern of Egyptian sarcophagi on silk stared back with eerie voids for eyes. “No, it’s not.”

“Pardon me?”

Eugenie fluffed her silver hair with her fingernails. “It’s a godawful eyesore I bought with the sole intention of shocking the Chanel right off those pastel suits worn by the country-club set.”

“Oh.”

“But it’s comfortable.”

Kelly snuck a quick glance at the door. Still no Ethan. “That’s important.”

“Essential. Life should be lived. Enjoyed.” She whipped the air with her bejeweled fingers. “Savored.”

Kelly agreed a hundred percent. She inched back farther on the sofa. “How wonderfully liberating not to worry what others think.”

“Oh, I do care. Very much.” Eugenie’s hands fell to rest on her lap. “I absolutely cannot tolerate the thought that someone might think I’m bowing to the god of status quo.”

Not much chance of that. “Where did you find this, uh, comfortable eyesore?”

“In Egypt, of course.”

Kelly’s soul soaked up the thoughts of travel. “Did you buy it at one of the street markets?”

“Oh, I like to tell most people I haggled with a vendor in the old Turkish bazaar. Ba Kum?”

Kelly searched her memory for the translation— “How much?”

“Excellent. Ethan always struggled with languages, no matter how many informal field trips I took him on abroad. Of course he did get an A on his volcano science project after our weekend jaunt to view one in Italy.”

Kelly smiled at the image. What had it been like for Ethan being brought up by this unconventional woman?

The answer came to her in a flash.

Fun.

No doubt spelling drills for Ethan hadn’t consisted of sitting in a straight-backed chair until his legs fell asleep. “So you got your deal on the caftan at the market?”

“Actually I bought this in the airport on my way home. I just said I like to tell people it came from a vendor. Without the story, my caftan has no allure for them.”

“Of course,” Kelly agreed, rather than admit she’d lost the thread of Eugenie’s reasoning back at the bazaar.

Where was she going with this rambling? Or was Eugenie Williams one of those people who just liked to talk? Either way, Kelly knew she didn’t stand a chance of stepping off the roller coaster. Not that she wanted off just yet. “What a, uh, fascinating concept.”

The older woman waggled a bejeweled finger. “Ethan didn’t tell me what a diplomat you are. Not one of his strong points, I might add. Diplomacy. I missed the mark in teaching him that one. But I did a fair job in showing him how to savor life.”

Kelly decided she would pass on hearing about Ethan’s exploits.

Eugenie twisted rings around her fingers with her thumb, one sapphire set in platinum, a double ruby and an emerald-cut diamond. “In the interest of savoring life, I want you to come with me to my spa.”

It sounded heavenly, but she didn’t have the time. The story of her life, but a price worth paying to rise to the top. “I’m here to work.”

“You can’t work for every waking minute. We’ll go after hours.”

“Thank you, but I really can’t—”

“We’ll have mud wraps and a massage. My masseur does the most wonderful relaxation therapy with river stones along the back to ground and center you.” Her eyes drifted closed, her fingers wavering down in front of her face as she exhaled deeply.

Kelly twitched her foot. How long should she wait for Ethan’s aunt to come to?

Eugenie’s eyes snapped open. “After that, we can indulge in a pedicure, and maybe even work in a hair trim.”

“A hair trim.” Realization trickled over her like the stinging bite and stench of the home perm solution her mother had squeezed onto her head in the eighth grade.

Kelly stared at the woman with a new understanding. She’d dodged her mother’s mall salon gift certificates often enough to recognize a makeover offer when she heard one.

Ethan had set her up again.

And that royally pissed her off.

Why hadn’t he just told her? She could have handled hearing she needed a new wardrobe to make this work. She wasn’t so socially inept that she expected to wear tennis shoes to an embassy ball.

But he’d obviously worried about hurting her feelings, and that reeked of a pathetic air she could not stomach. “So that’s why I’m here. For you to concoct a cover story. Like with your caftan, you’ll set up an allure to your social set so they’ll accept me.”

A part of her wanted Eugenie to deny it, but she knew better. Those extra IQ points carried the burden of being right quite often.

Eugenie’s bittersweet smile confirmed the scenario before her words. “Sadly, my dear, I’m afraid there are people in this world who don’t trust what their own eyes tell them. They can’t believe something has beauty or worth unless it conforms to their standards. I’m sorry about that. But most of all, I’m sorry you had to find out this way. Ethan should have told you.”

“Yes, he should have.” She couldn’t stem the anger in her voice.

“Remember, he is a man. And when it comes to second-guessing what women want, men can be the most clueless creatures since the Komodo dragon.”

Kelly couldn’t help but be affected by the woman’s whimsy. A snort of laughter slipped past her anger. “He should put you on the payroll for damage control, as well as makeovers.”

“My nephew can be an insensitive ass.”

“It’s not your fault. He’s just doing his job.” Her frustration redirected itself all onto one, all-too-deserving target. Ethan.

“Consider it a cover, like Ethan’s ever-changing hair length. We’ll drape you in Versace and diamonds. Then we’ll tell people your parents are Nebraska land barons.”

“They’re wheat farmers.”

“No, no.” Eugenie batted the air as if whipping up her story. “They launched an exclusive brand of hybrid organic wheat germ that’s all the rage in Paris.”

“Wheat germ? My father is somewhere right now cringing over his cholesterol-laden breakfast and doesn’t know why.” No doubt this woman would have her way. Kelly surrendered to the inevitable. “I guess I can live with Versace and the wheat germ. But no feathers.”

“I wouldn’t dare.”

The wicked glint in cerulean eyes so like Ethan’s made Kelly doubt the woman’s word. She picked at the hem of Eugenie’s caftan. “And no sarcophagi.”

“Brat.”

Kelly relaxed into the sofa with an exaggerated sigh. “Okay, then, maybe one chiffon diamond-studded turban.”

Eugenie’s face smoothed, no laughter in sight. She lifted a lock of Kelly’s hair from the sofa back. “Oh no, my dear. I wouldn’t cover this glorious mane for anything.”

Her hair?

She’d never thought of her hair as anything other than an obnoxious tangle. Kelly looked for signs that Eugenie might be flattering her just to win her point and found nothing of the sort. The woman meant it.

Not that it should matter in the least.

But it did. After years of waiting for even one affirmation from her mother, Kelly soaked up that single comment. If this woman ordered a torturous combo of a seaweed wrap and bikini wax, Kelly would be first in line.

Ethan, on the other hand, would pay big-time for his latest deception.

“It’s all about deception, Kelly. Make your attacker believe you can’t defend yourself.” Ethan stood across from Kelly on the exercise mat in his private gym. He hoped like hell this hand-to-hand combat lesson would end soon. He’d had enough of flipping, tripping and touching to last him two lifetimes. “Use your smaller size to your advantage by lulling him into a false sense of security. Then blast him with an explosive surprise shot.”

Security? He wanted the security of a mission in, say, Taiwan. Yeah, Taiwan, where he could kick butt against a pack of bad guys.

Instead, he was stuck in the mansion gym serving as Kelly’s personal trainer.

Much more body tangling and he would lose his mind. Please, Lord, he hoped she’d absorbed today’s self-defense lesson and they could move on to weaponry. He could use some time with his 9mm to blast holes in a target, a safe outlet for his frustration.

“Remember, Kelly, it’s all in the hips.” He did not want to think about her hips. “Lower your center of gravity so the power of your punch comes from your body and not just the body part.”

“Right.” She nodded, her ponytail bobbing. “Sling hips into the punch and follow through.”

“Good. Now roll out the moves we reviewed. Got it?”

“Got it.” A stray lock of hair whispered across her damp brow. Kelly braced her feet apart, her sweat pants pulling taut across her hips.

Ah, hell. Not her hips again.

He forced his eyes up to her face. Not that it offered his libido any relief. Her swept-back hair revealed high cheekbones models paid big bucks to create with implants.

The Nebraska State T-shirt showed a lot more than her bulky sweaters. Even a sweaty mess, she looked damned good inside that T-shirt—and felt good underneath it.

He wanted to crawl into a cold shower.

Not wise when he still didn’t know who’d followed them or why. His review of the security camera footage from when they’d arrived had revealed zip, nada, zilch. The tail could have been a fluke—except he didn’t believe in coincidence.