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The truth hovering on her tongue, Pru almost told him no. The only business she wanted to discuss with him was a fascination that wouldn’t go away. But he obviously wasn’t prepared to hear that, so she had no choice but to agree. “Of course,” she said as if she’d never thought of suggesting anything else. “We need to talk about some of the problems you’ve been having here on the site and I thought the discussion would be less tense on neutral ground.”
It was a plausible excuse and one that Pru thought sounded darn good. But she saw in a glance that Murdock wasn’t buying it. He just looked at her and said dryly, “Thanks, but no thanks. You know how guys talk. We go off together and it’s going to be all over the site that I’m kissing up to the inspector. If you want to talk, we can do it right here in my office.”
Pru wanted to object—spending time with him on the job was not what she wanted!—but he didn’t give her the chance. Turning, he jerked open the door to his cracker box of an office and patiently waited for her to precede him. Ruefully accepting defeat, she gave in gracefully and stepped into the small, portable building.
Pru had been in her share of site offices and knew from firsthand experience that they were usually crowded and messy, with hardly enough room to turn around. Murdock’s was no different except for the fact that paperwork littering the desk that took up most of the available floor space was neatly stacked and organized.
Impressed, she lifted a brow in surprise, amusement glinting in her eyes as she turned to tease him about his neatness fetish. But the door shut behind him as he followed her inside, and in the blink of an eye he was right in front of her, so close she could practically feel the sharp breath he drew in in surprise. Between one heartbeat and the next, the playful words hovering on her tongue turned to dust.
Trapped between the desk at her back and Murdock’s hard, lean body in front of her, Pru felt her heart start to knock against her ribs. Still, she couldn’t move, didn’t want to. Lord, how could she have known just standing this close to him could turn her knees to water? Light-headed, her blood racing through her veins with an anticipation she couldn’t explain, she found herself holding her breath, waiting, waiting for his arms to slip around her. Somehow she knew it was going to be the best thing that ever happened to her.
But he didn’t touch her.
He didn’t dare.
The air suddenly thick with sexual tension, Murdock stared down at her, his hands curled into fists at his sides. He never should have let her anywhere near his office, he thought too late. It was too small, too private, and she was much, much too close. If he leaned the slightest bit toward her...
He’d be in big trouble. Because something warned him that once he gave in to the need to touch her, she’d be nearly impossible to walk away from.
Fighting the outrageous need to reach for her, he abruptly stepped around her to get to his desk, his jaw hardening when his arm accidentally brushed against her. Just as when he’d been forced to shake hands with her, heat stirred, stealing the moisture from his mouth, stunning him. And her. Again. Her face an open book, she met his gaze wide-eyed, hiding nothing of her thoughts. And what he saw in her eyes shook him to the core. Dammit, didn’t she know better than to look at a man the way she was looking at him? As if he was the next best thing to sliced bread and she couldn’t get over the wonder of him? God Almighty, couldn’t she see he was too old for her?
He reached the comparative safety behind his desk, but it didn’t help. There just wasn’t enough room in the small office to put any real space between them. And how the hell was he supposed to keep his mind on business when that perfume of hers was guaranteed to drive him slowly out of his mind?
With a jerk of his hand, he motioned to the sturdy metal chair angled across from his desk. “Sit down,” he growled, then settled into the old leather office chair that he’d used at every building site for the last twenty years. “All right, you wanted to talk, so talk. What’s the problem?”
Any hope that Pru had had that they might, for once, have a nice, friendly conversation died a swift death at his cool tone. His eyes were dark with distrust, his mouth set and unsmiling. He even glanced pointedly at the clock, silently reminding her that she was wasting precious time. It shouldn’t have hurt—she’d known getting past the hostility he kept between them like a shield wouldn’t be easy—but it did.
Sternly ordering herself not to be so sensitive, she met his gaze unflinchingly. “I think it’s time you told me what’s going on around here, don’t you?”
In the process of reaching for a pencil, Murdock froze. “Going on? What are you talking about?”
“I would think that was obvious,” she retorted. “I’m not deaf, you know. I’ve heard the stories about the project and all the problems you’ve had. The tool thefts, the vandalism, the unacceptable materials—”
He stopped her right there. “Pick any building site in this city and you’re going to run into some type of theft and vandalism. It just goes with the territory, especially in today’s world. As for problems with materials, I don’t know what you’re talking about. True, there was a mix-up with the cement, but it was within the acceptable limits.”
Pulling a piece of the foreign-made wiring she’d found earlier out of her pocket, she tossed it onto his desk. “This has nothing to do with cement. You’d better look at this.”
A licensed electrician, Murdock knew before his fingers ever closed over the small length of wiring that it wasn’t anything he’d ordered for the Fort Sam project. “Where did you get this?” he demanded sharply, glancing up. “I didn’t buy this.”
“Then why are your electricians using it all over the site?”
“They’re not,” he snapped. “Roy ordered all American-made materials for this job, including the electrical supplies, then inspected them himself when they came in. If there’d been a problem, he would have told me immediately and corrected it.”
“Then someone’s pulled a fast one on the two of you,” she replied. “Because right now the east wing’s wired with this and I can’t pass it until it’s changed.”
“The hell it is!”
“I’m sorry, Murdock, but it is. If you don’t believe me, go look for yourself.”
He was already on his feet, stepping around his desk. “All right, I will. Let’s go.”
Following her outside, his long legs quickly carried him to the east wing where the electricians had started roughing in the wiring the second the cement had been approved. Another shorter woman would have had a difficult time keeping up with him, but Pru’s legs were only a few inches shorter than his and she matched him stride for stride. So when he stepped inside the shell of a building and inspected the wiring that was already in place and soon to be concealed behind Sheetrock, she was right there with him.
“Son of a bitch!”
The softly snarled curse echoed like a scream in the empty building. Watching him closely, Pru slowly released the breath she had been unobtrusively holding, any doubts that Murdock might have known of the subterfuge vanishing when she saw the fury in his eyes.
“Have you checked the rest of this wing?”
She jumped when he turned on her suddenly, his blue eyes dark and piercing. She saw in an instant that he wasn’t mad at her, but at whoever did this. And she didn’t want to be in their shoes when he caught up with them. The fur was going to fly.
She nodded. “It’s all the same.”
He cursed again, a low, fluent damnation of the bonehead who didn’t know the difference between American and imported wiring. “What about the material that hasn’t been installed, yet?” he asked tersely. “Have you checked that?”
“No, of course not. I only inspect the work in progress and after it’s finished.”
“Then let’s go check it out.”
With her at his side, he hurried outside and crossed to the stockpile of supplies that were stacked high under sheets of protective plastic. Tossing the plastic out of the way, he found the wiring right where it was supposed to be. A single glance told him all he needed to know. It wasn’t made in the U.S.A.
Three
Stunned, feeling like someone had sucker punched him in a kidney, Murdock never knew how long he stood there staring in disbelief at the useless wiring. His teeth locked on a string of unprintable curses, he didn’t make a sound, but the rage building in him must have been apparent because Pru suddenly reached over and touched the tensed muscles of his forearm.
“It could just be an innocent mix-up,” she said hopefully. “Someone else’s order probably got delivered here by mistake. It happens all the time. You can straighten it out with a few phone calls.”
The lines bracketing his mouth deepening, Murdock knew the mistake couldn’t be explained—or corrected—that simply. Sure, screwups happened. But this project had had more than its fair share and each one hit him right where it hurt the most—in the pocketbook. If it didn’t stop, and damn soon, he’d be lucky to walk away from the job with the shirt on his back.
“I’ll take care of it,” he told her grimly. “And don’t worry about the east wing. It’ll be rewired, of course.” Letting out a heavy sigh, his eyes met hers. “It looks like I owe you an apology. Oh, yes, I do,” he insisted when she started to shake her head. “I did everything but accuse you of lying.”
“You’ve been under a lot of stress,” she said quickly, disturbed at the thought of him apologizing to her for something that was perfectly understandable considering their adversarial working relationship. “With everything that’s been going on around here, who can blame you?”
His lips starting to twitch, Murdock gazed down at her. “Let me get this straight. You’re making excuses for me being a jackass?”
Put that way, Pru couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
Her sexy laughter rolling over him like a heat wave, Murdock knew it was a sound that would haunt his dreams if he didn’t put some distance between them, and damn soon. Before the thought had fully formed, he took a step away from her. “Well, you don’t have to, but I appreciate your understanding.” His voice too husky, he took another quick step. “I’ve got to find Roy and see how this happened without anyone noticing. Thanks for your help.”
Leaving her with her own reports to file, he went in search of Roy and found him deep in a conversation with one of the plumbing subcontractors. He’d been Murdock’s right-hand man for more than five years. In all that time he’d never missed a day of work. He’d also never screwed up on a supply order. Murdock couldn’t believe he had this time, either. He was too dependable, too good at what he did. So what the hell had happened?
He was still asking himself that same question a few minutes later when the plumber went back to work. Roy turned toward him, took one look at his stony expression, and groaned. “Don’t tell me. We flunked another inspection.”
Murdock nodded. “The wiring in the east wing. It’s not American-made.”
“What? You’ve got to be kidding! It has to be. I ordered it myself.”
His words rang true enough, but it wasn’t what he said that concerned Murdock. It was his eyes. In his years in the construction business, he’d met his share of crooks and swindlers, and he’d become pretty damn good at spotting a lie in a man’s eyes. If Roy’s confused puzzlement was an act, he was in the wrong business. With that kind of talent, he should have been in Hollywood.
Just that quickly, a suspicion he hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge shriveled up and died, abruptly easing the tension that knotted the muscles at the back of his neck. Relieved, he expelled a short breath and asked, “What exactly did you order?”
“Just what you put in the specs.”
“That’s not what was delivered.”
“The hell it wasn’t! You know I always double-check the supplies when they come in, and everything checked out. I’ve got the receipts to prove it.”
“Then we’ve got a bigger problem than I thought,” he said grimly. Quickly and succinctly, he told him about what he and Pru had discovered when they’d inspected the cache of supplies. “If the correct supplies were delivered like you say, then that can only mean one thing. Someone stole the right wiring and replaced it with the imported so the theft wouldn’t be noticed. Someone who knew the foreign stuff would be worthless to us.”
Jerking off his hard hat to wipe his sweating brow, Roy shot him a hard look. “You think it’s one of the workers?”
“I don’t know.”
Glancing at the crew that worked around them, he didn’t want to think that someone on his payroll was responsible for the theft. He’d worked with most of the men on and off for years. He knew their families, had been to their homes, had even, on occasion, loaned a few of them money when they’d gotten themselves in a tight financial spot. He couldn’t believe any of them would steal from him, lie to him.
But a common thief wouldn’t know the difference between American- and foreign-made materials. And if he was a junkie looking for something to hock to get his next fix, he sure as hell wouldn’t go to the time and expense of replacing what he’d stolen. No, the problems he’d had from the first day ground had been broken couldn’t be blamed on a sticky-fingered stranger. Only someone who knew construction could cause this much trouble. And only someone who had it in for him would. Now all he had to figure out was which one of the dozens of the crewmen he considered friends was working against him. And why.
“At this point, we can’t rule out anyone,” he said tersely. “Whoever it is, they’d damn well better enjoy themselves while they can, because their days are numbered. I’ll nail them even if I have to go the expense of putting in surveillance cameras to do it.”
Hoping it didn’t come to that, he made a few phone calls and, within an hour, he had a fencing company at the site to fence the entire area. The M.P.’s were notified of the theft and promised to increase hourly patrols. It was some consolation, but Murdock was through taking chances. By the end of the workday, he watched in satisfaction as two Dobermans were delivered by their trainer and locked in the fenced area, just as they would be every night until the project was finished.
It was Friday night and he’d done all he could do. The increased security drew comments from some of the crew, but he only shrugged and explained that he was worried about vandalism because of some increased criminal activity in the area. The thief, whoever he was, had to know better; he didn’t reveal his identity by so much as a flicker of an eyelash.
“Hey, Murdock, you comin’ or not?”
In the process of locking up his office, Murdock glanced over his shoulder to find Bill Dancer waiting expectantly. If it had been anyone else but Bill, he would have told him to stuff it, he wasn’t going anywhere. But he and Bill went back a long way, to the days when they’d both been young and wild and reckless, and he was the oldest friend he had.
“Where, you old reprobate? You come dragging in late on payday and Tracy’s going to have your hide.”
Unconcerned, Bill just grinned, the laugh lines at the corner of his eyes crinkling. “Nah—the woman’s crazy about me. So, are you going to Charlie’s or not? There’s a game tonight.”
Murdock grimaced. He’d forgotten.
A popular sports bar on the north side of town, Charlie’s was the usual meeting place of most of the crew whenever the San Antonio Spurs were playing a basketball game that was broadcast on pay-per-view on cable. For the cost of a couple of beers, they could watch the game on a big-screen TV and eat all the free hors d’oeuvres they could hold. For a bunch of construction workers who could eat just about anyone under the table, that was too good a deal to pass up.
As big a fan as the rest of the crew, he normally enjoyed the games and those nights out with his men. But for the past two hours, all he’d thought about was getting home and stretching out on his couch in front of his own TV with a cold beer. Not really in the mood for company, he almost made an excuse and let Bill and the rest of the guys go without him. But the men weren’t stupid. They knew about the problems on site and had noted the added security. If he started avoiding them, they’d begin to wonder which one of them he didn’t trust. Morale wouldn’t be worth spit.
So it looked like he was going to Charlie’s. “Yeah, I guess I can make it. You’re not going to get us thrown out of the place again, are you?”
“Who, me?” His brown eyes twinkling innocently, Bill’s smile was devilishly wicked. “I’m an old married man. I wouldn’t do something like that.”
Murdock snorted, his lips twitching with amusement. “Yeah, right. Tell that to someone who doesn’t know you so well.”
“I can’t. Nobody knows me as well as you do.” Chuckling, he slapped him on the shoulder. “Tip-off’s at seven-thirty. See you there, buddy. I’ve got to catch Pru before she leaves.”
Surprised, Murdock swore, but it was too late. Bill was already hurrying to catch up with Pru.
“Hey, Pru,” he called out. “You got plans for tonight?”
Standing at her Jeep and digging in her purse for her keys, Pru looked up to see Bill sprinting toward her. Hoping Murdock’s hostility toward her wouldn’t spill over to his men, she’d spent the past few days making friends with the crew. She’d thought she’d been careful—she knew the dangers of working with a bunch of men and how easily it was for some of them to take her friendliness for a come-on when it was nothing of the kind. But now, as Bill’s words registered, it was obvious she’d gone too far. And he wasn’t the man she’d thought he was—he’d made no secret of the fact that he was married.
Disappointed that she’d misread him, she began, “Well, as a matter of fact, I—”
“Aw, come on, don’t say no,” he cut in quickly, anticipating her refusal. “Most of the guys are meeting at Charlie’s Sports Bar a little later to watch the Spurs game on TV, and I thought you might like to come along, too.”
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