Kitabı oku: «Secret Service Dad», sayfa 3
Gone were the traditional Secret Service black suit, white shirt and black tie that enabled him to fade into a background. In khaki slacks and jacket, a gray polo shirt and casual leather loafers, he looked like a new and different man. If the old one had attracted her, this new one had her full attention. He certainly didn’t resemble the all-business man he’d appeared to be ever since they’d first met. Today she was seeing a side of him he seldom showed to anyone.
Judging from the way he behaved with his son, Mike Wheeler was strong on the outside yet tender beneath the surface. He could be protective and nurturing, she thought as she gazed at him. But not with her.
To her secret regret, almost every man she met treated her like a sister or a friend. They even laughed at her carefree attitude and the oddball ideas she came up with.
Most of the men she met never saw her as a desirable woman.
The look in Mike’s eyes when he thought she wasn’t noticing told her that, in spite of himself, he thought she was hot. And, to her growing surprise, his interest made her feel womanly.
The long and the short of it was that, even though she was thirty-five and had successfully established her independence years ago, Mike made her yearn for someone of her own to watch over her.
But Mike by profession was a lawman. She had vowed never to fall for a lawman and, like her own mother, take the chance that someday she would have her heart broken.
“Daddy!” Jake ran back to his father. “I’m still hungry!”
Charlie heard Jake complain. It didn’t look as if Mike had brought lunch with him. She bit her lip, made up her mind to put her musings aside and went to join him. It was only a friendly gesture she had in mind. What could happen? “Can I help?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t think to bring anything for lunch,” Mike said with a helpless shrug. “I guess I thought I’d find a food vendor here. I’ll have to take Jake back into town.”
“But Daddy, there’s the zoo!”
Mike tried to connect a zoo with lunch and came up empty. “What about the zoo?”
“You said there’s a zoo here, Daddy.”
Charlie rushed to explain. “I was planning on taking anyone who’s interested to visit my zoo later this afternoon. The animals aren’t as frisky as they are in the morning.”
Jake’s eyes lit up. “I want to go to the zoo now!”
Mike held Jake by an arm before he could start off by himself again. “You actually have a zoo of your own?”
Charlie looked offended. “You still didn’t believe me?”
Left unsaid was the implication he should have known she was telling the truth. Even if the truth in this case was something most people would never have believed anyway. But then, Charlie wasn’t most people.
“Right,” he answered dryly. “Face it. A zoo isn’t the sort of thing most people have in their backyard.”
Charlie silently gestured to the mutinous expression on Jake’s face. “Now that you’re here, it would be a shame to miss the tour.”
“Guess so,” Mike muttered. “But if there’s a choice between the zoo and Jake’s lunch…”
“How about a hamburger and some veggies?” She pointed to the picnic basket. “I have enough for all of us.”
“Jake?”
“No peanut and jelly sandwiches?”
“No, I’m sorry.” Charlie answered with a proper sad look on her face. “But I do have celery sticks filled with peanut butter.”
“Cool!” Jake grinned happily.
Charlie grinned back. Anything with peanut butter was obviously okay with him.
Mike took the plunge. “If your offer includes me, I’ll take the hamburger.”
Charlie hesitated, debating whether she should tell Mike the truth before he found it out for himself—the hard way. She couldn’t fib—she’d said hamburgers, but the truth was something different.
She rummaged in the picnic basket, found the celery-and-peanut-butter sticks wrapped in a plastic bag and handed them to Jake. With a calculating glance at Mike, she took out two round bundles wrapped in foil and handed him one. “I think I should warn you this is a different kind of hamburger.”
Mike unwrapped the foil bundle and stared at the green and brown contents. “It sure looks different. Is it really a hamburger?”
“It’s made from tofu and vegetables. I love animals too much to eat meat,” she added, looking horrified at the thought.
Mike grimaced. “No meat?”
“No.”
Mike hid his trepidation. Of course, a lover and collector of kangaroos and the Lord knew what else would never eat meat. He was afraid to ask if she had any chickens in that zoo of hers.
Since she was feeding Jake, eating a veggie burger without comment seemed to be the least he could do.
“Sure,” he said bravely. “May I pay you?”
Charlie frowned. “I thought this was a favor between friends!”
Mike hid a smile. Friendly. He was making some progress after all, but knowing Charlie, he wasn’t quite sure how much and in which direction—good or bad. “Er…okay. The next favor is on me.”
Ten minutes later, Charlie caught sight of Mike covertly rolling up the remains of the veggie burger in its foil wrapping. She hid a smile. She was willing to bet that after a visit to her zoo where he’d meet her pets, Mike wouldn’t order meat for a while either.
Mike gazed around the grounds. Women were packing the picnic baskets, younger children were on the verge of falling sleep, older children were playing games and the men were still drinking beer. “You haven’t taken any security precautions, have you?”
“No. Why would I?” Charlie asked. Mike was obviously back to looking at everything as though it were a threat. “This is my home and these people are friends.”
“Maybe so,” he replied. “But the fact remains you’ve invited a hundred people to visit you without a security check. To top it off, you have a zoo full of exotic animals that are probably worth good money. In my book, those are damn good reasons for having some kind of security precautions.”
With Mike reverting to the all-business persona who saw danger everywhere, Charlie’s pleasure cooled. “Don’t you ever let yourself relax?”
For a moment he looked surprised. “Not when it counts.”
“Ridiculous. I told you, most of these people are my friends.”
“Heck,” he answered as he searched the area for Jake, “with everyone wearing the same T-shirts, they all look alike. You’ve given anyone who doesn’t belong here a perfect cover.”
He covered his eyes with a hand and squinted into the sun.
“Looking for suspects?” Charlie covered the picnic basket with a small cotton towel and got to her feet.
“No. At the moment, I’m looking for Jake. See the green balloon moving over there? That’s Jake. I tied the balloon to his overalls. Best security idea I ever thought of,” he added with a satisfied grin.
Charlie swallowed a tart remark. Maybe Mike was human, after all.
“When does this tour of yours begin?” Mike asked. “I’d like to get Jake home before he falls asleep on his feet.”
“I was going to do the tour first,” Charlie said after a thoughtful glance around. “But maybe I’ll wait until after we have a few games.”
“That’ll wake everyone up, for sure,” he said dryly. “Are you really the only hostess of this shindig?”
“Mostly.” She took a whistle out of her pocket. “Kids’ games first, then it will be the grown-ups’ chance.”
“To make fools out of ourselves?”
“Don’t knock it, Mr. Wheeler,” she said with a sassy smile. “If you lightened up a little, you might even have some fun like a normal human being.”
Mike gazed after Charlie as she walked to the middle of the grassy area. He couldn’t help admiring her swaying hips, the inviting smile that lit up her face when she glanced back at him over her shoulder and the way her silken hair blew across her shoulders in the afternoon breeze.
Charlie was wrong about him, he thought as he smothered a smile. He was not only human, he was beginning to feel more normal by the minute.
Charlie was a handful, but it was her innate sensuality and the way that damned T-shirt strained against her breasts that made his body warm and his thoughts turn to subjects best left unexplored.
The attraction wasn’t only physical, he admitted wryly. To give the lady credit, there was her intelligence, her wry sense of humor and the unlikely way she managed to march to her own private drummer and still come up smelling like a rose that made him want to get closer to her.
What he didn’t approve of was the side of her personality that put her squarely in the middle of any trouble that came along. And he hated the way she managed to get him mixed up with her in her latest disaster.
Whoever the real Charlie Norris was, she was an intriguing bundle of womanhood that any red-blooded man could appreciate. Except that he had no room in his life right now for anyone but Jake.
Becoming involved with a woman, Charlie Norris in particular, would definitely be a mistake.
A voice came over a loudspeaker. “Attention, everyone! Attention! We’re about to start the mother-and-son relay races. Mothers, get ready!”
Mike watched as the balloon attached to Jake floated back over in Charlie’s direction. He smiled fondly and started to follow his son. It wasn’t strange the kid was attracted to Charlie. She had the kind of warmth and vitality that kids instinctively were drawn to.
He reached Charlie just as Jake slid to a halt in front of her. And was just in time to hear the words that made his head spin and the bottom drop out of his world.
“Miss Charlie, everybody here gots a mommy except me. Would you please be my mommy so I can race, too?”
Chapter Four
Mike’s smile faded. Of all the words his mind and certainly his heart weren’t ready for, it was mommy. Charlie Norris, of all people! The last woman who would fit the bill!
That was going too far and too fast, he thought as he ran his fingers through his hair and tried to put the smile back on his face. Oh, Charlie was attractive enough, he’d give her that. Smart, too. Maybe too smart for her own good. But maternal? Hell, he thought as he gazed at her over Jake’s head, of all the words that he could have used to describe Charlie, maternal wasn’t on the list. She was too flighty to be a responsible parent.
Except maybe when it came to that kangaroo she’d treated like a baby. As far as he was concerned, mothering an animal, no matter how admirable, didn’t count.
“Sorry about that,” he muttered. “I don’t have the slightest notion where that came from.” He put his hands on Jake’s shoulders.
With a quick shake of her head, she put out a hand to stay him. “Don’t worry, Mike. I understand. He’s only a little boy. Kids usually say what they think one minute and forget it the next. Besides,” she added with a grin, “I’ll only be his mother just long enough for the race.”
Charlie tried to hide her reaction to the look of panic that passed over Mike’s eyes. The way his clear blue eyes turned a deep gray spoke louder than anything he could have said. He obviously regarded her as the last woman he would care to have for Jake’s substitute mother.
She decided to let the incident pass. Being asked to play mommy may have given her a twinge or two, but she had the picnic to see to and a life of her own afterwards to enjoy.
She smoothed the little boy’s unruly hair away from his face. “You’re on, Jake, if it’s okay with your father,” she said, gazing at the virile man who often occupied her thoughts. Of all people to be Jake’s father! Why was the man she was attracted to so clearly not the man for her?
“I wanna go with Miss Charlie now,” Jake said stubbornly. He grabbed Charlie’s hand and tried to pull her along with him. “Bye, Daddy.”
Mike knew when he was licked. He let go of Jake’s shoulders. “Come right back when the race is over.” Too late. Jake and his temporary mother were already on their way.
He watched the two head for Charlie’s picnic blanket to pick up the batons for use in the relay race. Sure enough, she was quietly talking to Jake who, to Mike’s surprise, was listening intently and nodding his head. Whatever she was saying, it looked as if Jake was eating it up.
It sure couldn’t have been the celery-and-peanut-butter sticks Charlie had given Jake for lunch that had won the kid over, no way. Or the way she’d agreed to pretend to be his mother for the race. It had to be something more. Maybe Jake saw something in Charlie that only a child could see.
“You must have bribed him with the promise of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!” Mike called, eyeing his antsy son as they walked by him on their way to the starting line. “I’ll have to remember to do that for future use.”
“No bribe,” Charlie smiled. “I just explained we have something important to think about right now. Like winning the race. He can’t wait.” She paused to shake her head at Jake who was back to pulling at her hand. “He obviously isn’t into delayed gratification, is he?”
Mike had to agree. Delayed gratification was a hard enough concept for a grown man to understand; he was still grappling with it himself. And that included considering a possible affair with, of all women, Charlie.
Damn, he thought as he watched Charlie and Jake take their places at the starting line. The lady had to be smarter than he’d thought or she wouldn’t always manage to stay one step ahead of him so easily.
He eyed her skintight T-shirt, the cream shorts that barely covered critical parts of her anatomy and her long, slim legs as she jogged across the lawn. With a slender waist, those appealing legs and a body he would have loved to explore, she was clearly in a class by herself. She was, if he had his head screwed on right, a woman to avoid.
There was no doubt about it, his mind and his body weren’t going down the same track.
Nonsense, considering the way Charlie’s laid-back personality usually made him grit his teeth. He’d planned to leave as soon as the race was over, but he realized now he couldn’t do it. Not now, not here and not yet.
He was startled out of his puzzled reverie by the sharp, unmistakable sound of a starter’s pistol going off. A pistol, after he’d warned Charlie about the lack of security on the premises! Why couldn’t she use a whistle like any sane person?
He muttered every cussword he’d ever learned during his varied career, some of which he didn’t even understand, and started toward the race location at double time.
How in the hell did Charlie manage to keep coming up with the ideas that made his pragmatic mind blanch?
She’d overlooked hiring guards to screen the picnic guests.
She’d allowed the picnic attendees to wear identical T-shirts so that they all wound up looking alike.
Now, she’d actually allowed a starter’s pistol on the premises!
In his book, Charlie had managed to violate every security rule for public gatherings. She also took the cake for being irresponsible. In the process, she’d put his guts in a knot one more time.
Didn’t she realize there were crazies everywhere? he muttered as he ran through the cheering crowd. Hadn’t she been listening to him when he’d explained the need for security? Especially when most of the guests had to be government employees who attracted trouble like flies?
Hadn’t she learned anything from her experience at the shooting last week at Blair House?
A fine sheen of fear covered his forehead. A hard lump clogged his throat. He picked up speed and promised himself that when he caught up with Charlie, he’d wring her pretty neck.
He reached the halfway point in the race in time to see Jake cross the finish line and hand his baton to Charlie. Before he had a chance to get her attention, she grabbed the baton out of Jake’s hands and raced back up the slope as if a wind was at her sneaker-clad heels.
Mike swore and headed back to the starting line where the race had started and where it would end. She didn’t know it yet, but he planned on being there when she reached it. No way was the lady going to get away without listening to another—and this time, more emphatic—lesson on the need for security!
She was going to have to understand taking security precautions had to be number one on her priority list on and off her job. Number two, any type of gun was a no-no. Especially when she had his son in her custody.
Pumped up with his mission, he raced around the perimeter of the crowed. To his dismay, he reached the finish just in time to realize that if Charlie kept up the path she’d taken she was bound to collide with him.
Instinctively, Mike braced himself and opened his arms to catch her.
Charlie hit Mike’s chest hard enough to knock him down and take her with him. She put her arms around his neck, held on tight and, laughing helplessly, gazed down into his eyes. What she saw reflected there made her swallow her laughter.
This was just a harmless, unexpected embrace, an accident, wasn’t it? she asked herself as she stared into his blue eyes. So why did Mike look as if he’d never seen her before now?
“We won!” she said breathlessly and gave him a congratulatory kiss on his lips. Pulling back, she was surprised by the change that came over him.
“Sorry about that.” She eyed the deep, warm expression in his eyes and suddenly found she didn’t feel sorry. Not a bit. She not only liked being in his arms, but the changes in his body were getting more interesting by the moment. Instead of being angry, Mike was apparently turned on by her!
She’d have to think about this if she ever had a minute to herself.
Seconds later, she realized she was not only lying on top of him, he was holding her longer than he needed to. She felt the rapid beat of his heart, saw his eyes sharpen as he gazed at her. Her body reacted in ways no lady’s should—at least not in public.
It wasn’t just the race and Mike’s reaction that took her breath away, Charlie realized as she waited for her heart to settle down into its normal beat. It was more than that; it was her own unexpected sensual response to the warmth of his lips and to the strength of the muscular arms that held her.
Most of all, it was her bewilderment at the powerful look of desire that had passed over his face so quickly she couldn’t be sure she’d really seen it. For a split second, he’d actually looked as if he was about to kiss her back!
She had to be wrong. Knowing Mike and the way he kept scolding her for what he felt was her unorthodox behavior, she couldn’t even be sure the sensuous look had ever been there at all.
Hoots, whistles and sexual innuendoes filled the air. To her chagrin, their audience cheered. Someone shouted, “You go girl!” She wanted to fade into the landscape. How would she be able to face anyone tomorrow with a straight face? Including Mike?
Fat chance of disappearing into the landscape when the man who was holding her was as handsome and as sexy as Mike Wheeler. Because of the nature of his profession, this man had an aura of mystery about him that women found irresistible. She was all too aware that almost every woman watching would have loved to trade places with her.
She swallowed hard at the thought. As far as she was concerned, they were welcome to him. Only later, not just yet. Not before she had a chance to find out why Mike had looked as if he’d wanted to hold her in his arms forever.
She kept a teasing smile on her face and gently started to wiggle out of his embrace. “You can let me go now, you know, I really wasn’t going to fall. It was only because you grabbed me,” she said with a quick glance around. “What will everyone think?”
“I never thought you were going to,” Mike answered. “As to what people might think, I don’t give a damn.” He dropped his arms away from the soft warmth of her body, struggled to his feet and reached down to help her up. “Sorry…” he started to say, then stopped short. In his book, he had nothing to apologize for. It had been an accident, pure and simple.
On the other hand, while he wasn’t going to admit it, what he obviously needed was to have his head examined for holding on to Charlie in the first place. With or without an audience.
“Then why did you bother to catch me?”
“Damned if I know,” he answered as he shook his head to clear it. “Maybe I’ve been out in the sun too long.”
Mike felt like a fool. Why had he caught and held on to her? More to the point, how could he explain the urge to kiss her? How could he explain that if he had given in to the urge to really kiss her, he wouldn’t have been able to stop with one kiss?
He was an ass even to think about it!
This was Charlie Norris, the woman who drove him crazy, wasn’t it? The woman he’d vowed to keep at a safe distance while he tried to save her from herself?
Even as he denied knowing why he’d held Charlie in his arms long past the need to keep her safe, he knew the truth: he’d wanted to hold Charlie in his arms for months. First to shake her to get her attention, then to kiss her senseless.
Gazing into her eyes, he wasn’t really sure he knew which road to take. All he could remember was that he’d wanted to hold her and kiss her from the time she’d knocked him down at the royal wedding at Baronovia.
He gazed at Charlie in wonderment. Now that he held her by her suntanned arms she felt softer—and somehow smelled sweeter than before.
As for that kiss…Against all logic, after gazing into Charlie’s molten-blue eyes, the kiss was beginning to sound like a darn good idea.
“You’re a problem, you know that, don’t you?” he said as he gazed into the teasing eyes that managed to disturb him so.
“Who, me?”
“Yes, you. Beginning with the Baronovia caper and to today’s use of a starter’s pistol, you never seem to think or operate logically.” He didn’t add that he was more annoyed with himself for even considering kissing her than he was at her lack of good sense.
He swallowed hard. If he kept up thinking along these lines, he’d wind up compromising the all-business code by which he lived. Not even Jake’s late mother had had this effect on him.
A voice came over the bullhorn and saved him from hearing Charlie’s answer.
“Okay, folks. Now that the ladies have had their chance, how about a dad-and-daughter relay race?”
Mike dropped his arms. If he’d had a daughter, he would have welcomed the opportunity to break away from Charlie. As it was, he’d have to settle for feeling like a jerk and hoping she didn’t realize how close he’d come to making a fool of himself.
Falling for Charlie was out, he told himself one more time. He knew from experience he would wind up feeling like an idiot.
“Excuse me for a minute,” Charlie said when someone called to her. “I have something to take care of.” She disappeared into the crowd.
He looked around for Jake. Damn, where was the kid when he needed him? He intended to tell him they’d stick around only until after the zoo tour. For Jake’s sake, he told himself. If he’d been alone, he would have run for the nearest exit before she came up with some other harebrained idea.
Women like Charlie were dangerous to a man’s sanity, he thought grimly as he searched for the balloon he’d attached to Jake. Intentionally or not, they had a way of playing on a man’s good nature until he couldn’t think straight.
“Okay, all you husbands and significant others!” A voice shouted over the bullhorn. “Grab your partner and get ready for the three-legged race!”
Mike sighed with relief. He was home free. He was no one’s husband or significant other. As for picnics, or any other celebrations, he should have learned his lesson. Events, especially if planned by Charlie Norris, were out. Although he had to admit she was soft, sweet-smelling and, in spite of her foibles, utterly feminine.
He’d reckoned without Jake. No sooner had the announcement of the three-legged race faded away, than he heard his son’s enthusiastic voice beside him.
“Daddy! It’s your turn now!”
“I don’t think so,” Mike said firmly. “We’re leaving. I don’t have a partner and, even if I did, I’m not going to put my leg to a test.”
“Which leg is that?” Charlie asked innocently as she rejoined him. “I forgot.”
“The left one,” Mike answered automatically before he realized he’d laid himself open to Charlie’s maneuvering. Maybe she’d gotten the wrong idea about him when he’d caught her. Maybe he should have shown a little less interest when he had his arms around her. “That is…”
“Then there’s no problem,” she broke in with a sidelong glance at Mike’s leg. “Your father can use his right leg. I’ll use my left.”
To Mike’s amusement, Jake looked bewildered and glanced down at his own short legs. From the expression on his son’s face, Mike wasn’t sure the kid knew the difference between the left and right leg, and he sure wasn’t able to envision his father and Charlie tied together and hopping toward a finish line.
Besides, he reassured himself with a thoughtful glance at his son, the kid had to know even less about matchmaking.
Mike turned his attention to Charlie. She looked as cute and innocent as hell, but something about the look in her eyes told him he was being set up. “Your doing?”
“Who, me?” Her eyes widened, a smile lurked at the corner of her lips. “You may not know it, Mr. Wheeler, but we always have a three-legged race at our picnics. Sack races, too.”
Tongue in cheek, Charlie waited while Mike thought it over—to race or not to race. From the expressions that crossed his face, it was evident she was driving him crazy. She didn’t care. She wasn’t looking for any kind of relationship with him, short of a business one, that is. What she did want was to humanize the man, make him realize no one was perfect. She wanted to have him stop pointing out her shortcomings when it was obvious to her he had a few of his own.
Shortcomings! The word really turned her off. She might not see her job at Blair House in the same way Mike did, but she always managed to get the job done, didn’t she? What was wrong with getting it done in her own style and in her own way?
Even if it meant having Boomer, her pet baby kangaroo, hanging from her office coatrack while she baby-sat the little darling.
Maybe it was the nature of his profession, but Mike took himself and everything he encountered too seriously. He seldom smiled, but she had to admit that when he did his smile turned her bones to jelly. Too bad he didn’t smile more often.
“Come on, Mike,” she coaxed. “You don’t have a real excuse for not participating in the race. If you’re afraid your leg will bother you, I’ll even let you lean on me for support.”
Excited by the idea, Jake jumped up and down. “Do it, Daddy! It’s your turn.”
“Why?” Mike asked. The last thing he wanted was to lean on Charlie, or to make a greater fool of himself than he already had.
Jake waved a blue ribbon. “Because Miss Charlie and I won this in the relay race. It’s your turn to win a ribbon, too.”
Mike gave in. He had to. His manhood had been challenged in front of Charlie. “There’s no guarantee we’ll win, son.”
“You will if you have Miss Charlie for your partner. She’s lots of fun!”
Mike didn’t even want to think about being so close to Charlie. He gave in when he saw a challenging smile on his prospective partner’s face. “Okay,” he said, attempting to give in with good grace. Maybe three-legged races were the norm at picnics. It was the idea of being closely tied to Charlie that made him feel uncomfortable. “It had better be time for the zoo tour pretty soon,” he muttered under his breath. “I don’t know how much more of this ‘fun’ I can take.”
Jake whooped. “I’ll go get the rope!”
With Mike’s trouser leg wound up to his right knee and his good leg loosely tied to Charlie’s left leg, they lined up with the other contestants. As far as he was concerned, Charlie’s skin felt too soft and too warm for comfort and definitely took his concentration off the race. The soft sigh she gave when they were instructed to put their arms around each other while their legs were bound together was sensuous as hell and did nothing to cool his already awakened body.
If mere physical contact with Charlie was able to do this to him, Mike knew he was in deep trouble. He was tempted to run, not walk, to the end of the race, to head for home as fast as his car could take him before she came up with some other idea bound to make him look foolish.
“Ready?” To Mike’s discomfiture, the man in charge of the starting gun pointed it in the air and started to count. “One, two and three! Go!” The pistol went off.
Charlie took a firm grip on his shoulder. On the count of three, she was off like an arrow, dragging him with her. He swore under his breath and zeroed his attention in on the finish line. The damn thing looked as if it were at least a mile away.
With Mike holding on to her for dear life, her leg warm from rubbing against his, it was all Charlie could do to concentrate on the race. Maybe warm flesh on warm flesh hadn’t been the best idea she could have come up with.
“Are you sure you’re okay with this?” she asked Mike.
“A hell of a time to ask,” he answered between gasps of pain.
The arm that had held her so tightly to him began to slip off her shoulder. Four steps later, his footsteps faltered. The rope that loosely bound them together began to slip. When his bare leg tangled with hers, the friction ignited an electric current that ran up her leg and to points north.
“This should help,” she said when Mike began to mutter under his breath. He sounded so miserable her conscience began to bother her. She realized maybe this was neither the time nor the place to try to humanize the man. “Try to follow me. If we coordinate this, we can win.” She began to count out a cadence. “One and two and one and two and…Better?”
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