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“Caroline? Are you all right?”
Suddenly, she felt silly. She was sitting outside in the car. It wasn’t like the door had been jimmied open. It hadn’t even looked like anything had been moved—at least, not in the living room. “It’s probably nothing.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. What’s going on?”
She exhaled in relief. She was not a damsel in distress and she did not need a white knight to come riding to her rescue. But there was something comforting about the thought that a federal agent was ready and willing to take over if things weren’t on the up and up. “I just got home and it feels like there was someone in my house.” She winced. It didn’t sound any less silly when she said it out loud.
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, and she got a sinking feeling that he was going to tell her not to be such a ninny. “Where are you?”
“In my car. In the driveway,” she added. Cars could be anywhere.
“If you’re comfortable, stay there. I’m about fifteen minutes away. If you aren’t, I want you to leave and drive someplace safe. Understand?”
“Okay.” His words should have been reassuring. He was on his way over and she had a plan. But, perversely, the fact that he was taking this feeling so seriously scared her even more.
What if someone really had been in her house? It hadn’t looked like a robbery. What had they been after?
“Call me back if you need to. I’m on my way.” Before she could even respond, he hung up.
Wait, she thought, staring at the screen of her phone—how did he know where she lived?
She turned on her car—all the better to make a quick getaway—and cranked the AC. She knew she shouldn’t have bought ice cream at the store, but too late now.
She waited and watched her house. Nothing happened. No one slunk out. Not so much as a curtain twitched. It looked perfectly normal, and by the time Tom came roaring down the street, she had convinced herself she was being ridiculous. She got out of the car again and went to meet him.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” she began. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
Then she pulled up short. Gone was the slick custom-made suit. Instead, a pair of well-worn jeans hung low off his hips and a soft white T-shirt clung to his chest. He had his shoulder holster on, which only highlighted his pecs all the more. Her mouth went dry as his long legs powerfully closed the distance between them.
If she had been daydreaming about Agent Yellow Bird in a suit, the man in a pair of blue jeans was going to haunt her dreams in the very best way possible.
He walked right up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice low.
That spark of electricity moved over her skin again, and she shivered. “Fine,” she said, but her voice wavered. “I’m not sure I can say the same for the ice cream, but life will go on.”
He almost smiled. She could tell, because his eyes crinkled ever so slightly. “Why do you think someone was in your house?” As he spoke, his hands drifted down her shoulders until he was holding her upper arms. A good two feet of space still separated them, but it was almost an embrace.
At least, that’s how it felt to her. But what did she know? She couldn’t even tell if someone had been in her house or not.
“It was just a feeling. The door wasn’t busted, and nothing seemed out of place in the living room.” She tried to laugh it off, but she didn’t even manage to convince herself.
He squeezed her arms before dropping his hands. She felt oddly lost without his touch. “Is the door still unlocked?” She nodded. “Stay behind me.” He pulled his gun and moved forward. Caroline stayed close. “Quietly,” he added as he opened the door.
Silently, they entered the house. Her skin crawled and she unconsciously hooked her hand into the waistband of his jeans. Tom checked each room, but there was no one there. Caroline looked at everything, but nothing seemed out of place. By the time they peeked into the unused guest room, with the remaining boxes from the move still haphazardly stacked, she felt more than silly. She felt stupid.
When Tom holstered his gun and turned to face her, she knew her cheeks were flaming red. “I’m sorry, I—”
They were standing very close together in the hall, and Tom reached out and touched a finger to her lips. Then he stepped in closer and whispered in her ear, “Outside.”
For a second, neither of them moved. She could feel the heat of his body, and she had an almost overwhelming urge to kiss the finger resting against her lips. Which was ridiculous.
What was it about this man that turned her into a blubbering schoolgirl with a crush? Maybe she was just trying to bury her embarrassment at having called him out here for nothing beneath a more manageable emotion—lust. Not that lust was a bad thing. Except for the fact that she still had no idea what he did in his spare time or whether or not it broke any laws. And there was the unavoidable fact that acting on any lust would be a conflict of interest.
They were actively on an investigation, for crying out loud. It was one of the reasons she couldn’t read romantic suspense novels—it drove her nuts when people in the middle of a dangerous situation dropped everything to get naked.
She was not that kind of girl, damn it. So instead of leaning into his touch or wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him in tight, she did the right thing. She nodded and pulled away.
It was harder than she’d thought it would be.
When they were outside, she tried apologizing again. “I’m so sorry that I called you out here for nothing.” She didn’t enjoy making a fool of herself, but when it happened, she tried to own up to the mistake as quickly as possible.
He leaned against her car, studying her. She had met a lot of hard-nosed investigators and steely-eyed lawyers in her time, but nothing quite compared to Tom Yellow Bird. “Are you sure it was nothing? Tell me again how you felt there was something wrong.”
She shrugged helplessly. “It was just a feeling. Everything looked fine, and you saw yourself that there was no one in the house.” She decided that worse than feeling stupid was the fact that she had made herself look weak.
For some ridiculous reason, this situation reminded her of her brother. Trent Jennings had been a master of creating a crisis where none existed—and he was even better at making it seem like it was her fault. Because she’d been the mistake, the squalling brat who’d taken his parents away from him. Or so he was fond of reminding her.
That wasn’t what she was doing here, was it? Creating a crisis in order to focus the attention on herself? No, she didn’t think so. The house had felt wrong. Then something occurred to her. “Why are we outside again? It’s hot out here.”
“The place is probably bugged.”
He said it so casually that it took a few moments before his words actually sank in. “What?”
“I’ve seen this before.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, wondering if he was ever going to answer a straight question. “You’ve seen what before?”
For a moment, he looked miserable—the face of a man who was about to deliver bad news. “You have a feeling that someone was in your house—although nothing appears to have been moved or taken, correct?”
She nodded. “So my sixth sense is having a bad day. How does that mean there are bugs in my house?”
One corner of his mouth crept up. “They’re trying to find something they can use against you. Maybe you have some sort of peccadillo or kink, maybe something from your past.” He smiled, but it wasn’t reassuring. “Something worse than speeding tickets?”
The blood drained from her face. She didn’t have any kinks, definitely nothing that would be incriminating. She didn’t want people to watch when she used her vibrator—the thought was horrifying. But...
It would be embarrassing if people found out about her lapse of judgment in college. Although, since her parents were dead, she wouldn’t have to face their disappointment, and the odds of Trent finding out about it were slim, since they didn’t talk anymore.
But more than that...what if people connected her back to Vincent Verango? That wouldn’t just be embarrassing. That had the potential of being career ending. Would she never be able to escape the legacy of the Verango case?
No, this was fine. Panicking would be a mistake right now. She needed to keep her calm. “I stay within five miles of the speed limit,” she said, trying to arrange her face into something that wasn’t incriminating.
Tom shrugged. At least he was interpreting her reaction as shock and not guilt. “They want something on you so that when they approach you again and you say you’re not interested, they’ll have a threat with teeth. If you don’t want them to inform the Justice Department about this embarrassing or illegal thing, you’ll do what they say. Simple.”
“Simple?” She gaped at him, wondering when the world had stopped making sense. “Nothing about that is simple!”
“I don’t have a bug detector,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “And seeing as it’s Friday night, I don’t think I can get one before Monday.”
“Why not?” Because she couldn’t imagine this oh-so-simple situation didn’t justify a damned bug detector.
A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I’m off duty for the next four days. I’d have to make a special case to get one, and Carlson and I like to keep our investigations off the record as much as possible.”
She couldn’t help it—she laughed. She sounded horrible, even to her own ears, but it was either that or cry. This entire situation was so far beyond the realm of normal that she briefly considered she might’ve fallen asleep in her office this afternoon.
“The way I see it,” he went on, again ignoring her outburst, “you have two choices. You can go about your business as normal and I’ll come back on Monday and sweep the house.”
It was, hands-down, the most reasonable suggestion she was probably going to hear. So why did it make her stomach turn with an anxious sort of dread? “Okay. What’s my other choice?”
That muscle in his jaw ticked again, and she realized that he looked hard—like a stone, no emotions at all. The playful grin was nowhere to be seen. “You come with me.”
“Like, to your home?” That was it. She was definitely dreaming. It wasn’t like her to nod off in her chambers, but what other reasonable explanation was there?
“In a professional capacity,” he said in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring tone.
Caroline was not reassured. “If they bugged my house and I’m new here, why would your home be any less susceptible to surveillance?”
And just like that, his stony expression was gone. He cracked a grin and again, she thought of a wolf—dangerous but playful. And she had no idea if she was the prey or not.
“Trust me,” he said, pushing off the car and coming to stand directly in front of her. “Nothing gets past me.”
Four
They had been in the car for an hour and fifteen minutes. Seventy-five silent minutes. Any attempt at conversation was met with—at best—a grunt. Mostly, Tom just ignored her, so she stopped trying.
Pierre was a distant memory and Tom was, true to his word, breaking every speed limit known to mankind and the state of South Dakota. She’d be willing to bet they were topping out well past one hundred, so she chose not to look at the speedometer, lest she start thinking of fiery crashes along the side of the road.
There was no avoiding Tom Yellow Bird. This muscle car was aggressive—just like him. He filled the driver’s seat effortlessly, seemingly becoming one with his machine. She didn’t know much about cars, but she could tell this was a nice one. The seats were a supple leather and the dashboard had all sorts of connected gadgets that were a mystery to her.
Just like the man next to her.
The landscape outside the car hadn’t changed since they’d hit the open plains, so she turned her attention to Tom. They were driving west and he still had his sunglasses on. She couldn’t read him. The only thing that gave her a clue to his mental state was how he kept tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. At least, she thought it was a clue. He might just be bored out of his mind.
It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t thought of the Verango case in, what—ten years? Twelve? But that was exactly the sort of thing a bad guy would be looking for, because she didn’t have anything kinky hiding in her closet. And a vibrator didn’t count. At least she hoped it didn’t.
She liked sex. She’d like to have more of it, preferably with someone like Tom—but only if it were the kind that couldn’t come back to bite her. No messy relationships, no birth control slipups, no strings attached.
Not that she wanted to have sex with him. But the man had inspired weeks of wet dreams, all because he had an intense look and an air of invulnerability about him. And that body. Who could forget that body?
She wished like hell she didn’t have this primal reaction to him. Even riding next to him was torture. She was aware of him in a way she couldn’t ignore, no matter how hard she tried. She felt it when he shifted in his seat, as if there were invisible threads binding them together. And that wasn’t even the worst of it. Although he had the AC blasting on high, she was the kind of hot that had nothing to do with the temperature outside. Her bra was too tight and she wanted out of this top.
She’d love to go for a swim. She needed to do something to cool down before she did something ridiculous, like parading around his home in nothing but her panties.
And the fact that her brain was even suggesting that as a viable way to kill a weekend was a freaking huge problem. Because getting naked anywhere near Tom Yellow Bird would be a mistake. Yes, it might very well be a mistake she enjoyed making—but that wouldn’t change the fact that it would still be a gross error in judgment, one that might compromise a case or—worse—get her blackmailed. A mistake like that could derail her entire career—and for what? For a man who wasn’t even talking to her? No. She couldn’t make another mistake like that.
Rationally, she knew her perfectionism wasn’t healthy. Her parents had never treated her like a mistake, and besides, they were dead. And she couldn’t take responsibility for the fact that Trent had been a whiny, entitled kid who’d grown into a bitter, hateful man. She didn’t have to do everything just right in a doomed effort to keep the peace in the family.
Yes, rationally, she knew all of that. But her objective knowledge didn’t do anything to put her at ease as Tom drove like the devil himself was gaining on them.
Finally, Caroline couldn’t take it anymore. She had expected a fifteen-minute car trip to a different side of town. Not this mad dash across the Great Plains. It was beginning to feel little bit like a kidnapping—one that she had been complicit in. “Where, exactly, do you live?”
“Not too much farther,” he said, answering the wrong question.
But he’d actually responded, and she couldn’t pass up this chance to get more out of him. “If you’re spiriting me away to the middle of nowhere just to do me in, it’s not going to go well for you.” She didn’t harbor any illusions that she could make an impact on him. He was armed and dangerous, and for all she knew, he was a black belt or something. She was good at jogging. She had taken a few self-defense classes. She wasn’t going to think about how long ago, though.
That got a laugh out of him, which only made her madder. “I have no intention of killing you. Or harming you,” he added as an afterthought.
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t find that terribly reassuring.”
“Then why did you get in the car with me?”
She shook her head, not caring if he could see it or not. “I just realized that when I said something felt off at my house, you trusted me. Anyone else would’ve told me I was imagining things. I’m returning the favor.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
“I doubt you’ll let that happen.”
The car slowed as he took an exit. But he was going so fast that she didn’t get her eyes open to see the name or number of the exit. They were literally in the middle of nowhere. She hadn’t seen so much as a cow for the last—what, ten or twenty miles? It was hard to tell at the speeds they’d been traveling.
“Dare I ask how you define ‘not too much farther’?”
“Are you hungry?”
She was starving, but that didn’t stop her from glancing at the clock in the dashboard. The sun was low over the horizon.
“Do you always do that?” He tilted his head in her direction without making eye contact. At least, she assumed. She was beginning to hate those sunglasses. “Answer a question with an unrelated statement?”
She saw his lips twitch. “Dinner will be waiting for us. I hope pizza is all right?”
See, that was the sort of statement that made her wonder about him. He’d clearly said he was taking her to his house. Was he the kind of guy who had a personal chef? That didn’t fit with the salary of an FBI agent.
But she couldn’t figure out how to phrase that particular question without it sounding like an accusation. Instead, she said, “So that’s a yes. And,” she added before he could start laughing, “pizza is fine. Better if it has sausage and peppers on it. Mushrooms are also acceptable. Do you have any ice cream? Wine?”
“I can take care of you.”
Perhaps it was supposed to be an innocent statement—a reflection of his preparedness for emergency guests. But that’s not how Caroline took it.
Maybe her defenses were lower because she was tired and worried. But the moment his words filled the small space between them, her body reacted—hard. Her nipples tightened almost to the point of pain as heat flooded her stomach and pooled lower. Her toes curled, and she had to grip the handle on the passenger door to keep from moaning with raw need.
Heavens, what was with her? It had been a long day. That was all. There was no other explanation as to why a simple phrase, spoken in a particularly deep tone of voice, would have such an impact on her.
She locked the whole system down. No moaning, no shivering, and absolutely no heated glances at Tom. Besides, how would she know if his glances were heated or not? He still had on those damn sunglasses.
Instead, in a perfectly level voice, she said, “That remains to be seen, doesn’t it?” She took it as a personal victory when he gripped the steering wheel with both hands.
Silence descended in the car again. If she’d had no idea where she was before, she had less now. They’d left the highway behind. The good news was that Tom was probably only doing sixty instead of breaking the sound barrier. With each turn, the roads bore less and less resemblance to an actual paved surface. But she didn’t start to panic until he turned where there didn’t seem to be any road at all, just a row of ragged shrubs. He opened the glove box and fished out a...remote?
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer. Of course he didn’t. Instead, he aimed the remote at the shrubs and clicked the button.
The whole thing rolled smoothly to the side. She blinked and then blinked again. Really, her head was a mess. She was going to need a whole bottle of wine after this. “Be honest—are you Batman?”
He cracked a grin that did terrible, wonderful things to her body. Her mouth went dry and the heat that she had refused to feel before came rushing back, a hot summer wind that carried the promise of a storm. Because there was something electric in the air when he turned to face her. She wanted to lick his neck to taste the salt of his skin.
Maybe she would strip down. Her clothing was becoming unbearable. “Would you believe me if I said I was?”
She thought about that. Well, at least she tried to. Thinking was becoming hard. She was so hot. “Only if you’ve got an elderly British butler waiting for you.”
His grin deepened and, curse her body, it responded, leaning toward him of its own volition. “I don’t. Turns out elderly British butlers don’t like to work off the grid in the middle of nowhere.”
That got her attention. “I thought you said you had a home?” She looked around, feeling the weight of the phrase wide-open spaces for the first time. There was nothing around here except the highly mobile fake shrubbery. “I don’t see...”
Then she saw it—in the direction where the ruts disappeared down the drive, there were trees off in the distance. “This is a real house, right? If you live in a van down by the river, I’m going to be pissed. A real house with pizza,” she added. “And a real bed. I will walk back to Pierre before I crash in a sleeping bag.”
It wasn’t fair, that grin. His muscles weren’t fair, his jaw wasn’t fair and the way he had of looking at her—that, most of all, wasn’t fair. Especially right now, when it was pretty obvious to everyone—all two of them—that her filters were failing her.
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