Snagging a pair of spandex shorts from a drawer, she made her way to the shower. At least she was more relaxed now.
Okay, so maybe there was still a tiny bit of regret at refusing the job. But fantasies were a whole different ball game than really sleeping with the man. He was probably a jerk in real life. And even if he wasn’t, there was no way she could bring herself to do the things he would require of her as his mistress. She’d die of embarrassment. Wouldn’t she?
Her, a mistress. The idea was laughable, even if she wasn’t laughing. Part of her longed to try even if the idea was silly. Most of the men she knew thought of her as either a buddy or a business associate. It was a condition she was normally happy to go along with. She could, after all, pin and cuff a crazed fan without breaking a sweat, unarm complex security systems with one hand tied behind her back, and decode an encrypted message in two seconds flat. But when it came to personal interaction with the opposite sex, she was as clueless as a newborn kitten. The thought of her posing as some man’s mistress was ludicrous.
Now, take Crystal. She looked the part with her voluptuous figure and “oh-so-blonde” hair. Her sister oozed sensuality with every movement. The only thing they had in common was their brown eyes.
Crystal was built tall and slinky, while she was lucky to hit five-five. Her body wasn’t bad, per se, but it was sleekly muscled, the athletic type that intimidated most men. Especially when they found out she’d been an F.B.I. agent before opening her own security firm.
Before Danny had died.
A frown crossed her face as she scrubbed down under the steaming water. She hadn’t been responsible for his death, but she was responsible for introducing her sister to a man who lived with danger on a daily basis. A man whose chances of getting hurt or killed were high.
It hadn’t bothered Crystal at first. Twenty years old, and she’d fallen head over heels in lust with her sister’s partner the first time she’d met him. And Danny had returned the sentiments. But it hadn’t taken long for the worry to appear in Crystal’s eyes, for the fear to begin.
That was why Kate had left the agency to open Safety First. Deep down, part of her had hoped to lure Danny into the business, get him out of danger for Crystal’s sake. But Danny had loved working for the bureau, refused to take Kate’s offer seriously. And a little over a year ago, Danny had died in a bad drug bust. Now Crystal was a widow at the age of twenty-five, with a young daughter to care for.
Crystal needed her again, the same way she’d needed her when they lost their mother. Her sister had only been three years old then, and Kate had been nine. Their grandmother had tried, but she was too old to handle a lively toddler so the responsibility for her sister had fallen on Kate’s shoulders.
She hadn’t minded. It was her fault their mother had died, after all. She should have done something, stopped her father somehow. Because she hadn’t, Crystal had been left with no one to depend on except Kate.
Pushing the memories away, she climbed out of the shower, and dried rapidly, running her fingers through her spiky hair in lieu of combing it. Combing never helped anyway. Her hair did what it wanted regardless of how she tried to style the mess.
Pulling on the spandex shorts and top, she made her way to the kitchen. She was peering into the refrigerator when the back door opened and Sammy squealed her name.
Smiling, she lifted her niece from Crystal’s arms and gave her a big smacking kiss on the cheek before her gaze met her sister’s. “You’re home early today.”
Since Danny’s death, her sister occupied the other half of the duplex their grandmother had left them. It wasn’t an upscale area by New York standards, but it was a nice, older neighborhood, a safe place to raise Samantha.
“I know.” Crystal collapsed onto a chair as she answered Kate’s unspoken question. “I sent Howie home and locked the doors. It seems so useless to keep trying, Kate. I’m going to lose the boutique right when it’s finally starting to take off.”
“You aren’t going to lose it.” She lowered Samantha into the high chair she kept for the little girl and handed her a cracker to occupy her. “I’ll think of something. We can always take a second mortgage out on the house.”
“No. I won’t let you do that.” Crystal ran a hand through her wild mane of hair, then propped her chin on her hand. “Besides, I doubt any bank would loan us more with the boutique in default.”
Silently, Kate cursed her dead brother-in-law. He’d been a great agent but a lousy husband. If it had ever occurred to him to buy life insurance, Crystal wouldn’t be in this shape now. As it was, Kate had taken out a first mortgage on the house so Crystal would have the start up capital for the Crystal Palace, her fashionable clothing store.
“We still have time, Crys.”
Tears filled her sister’s eyes. “That’s just it. We don’t.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a letter. “A process server showed up at the shop today. I’ve got one month to come up with the back rent or I’ll be evicted. There’s no way we can come up with twelve thousand dollars by then. I may as well face it and try to find a job working for someone else.”
Kate’s heart sank as she leaned against the counter to read the letter. That boutique was not only Crystal’s dream, it had been the only thing that kept her going after Danny died. Kate couldn’t let her lose it.
Slowly she folded the letter. “Would they let you pay half now and half later?”
Crystal wiped her eyes. “Probably, but we don’t even have half.”
A wild, simmering heat stirred in the pit of Kate’s stomach as she abruptly reached a decision. She was going to take the job Marc Jergen had offered her. She was going to become the hunk’s mistress. “Let me worry about it.”
She pushed away from the counter, trying not to analyze the growing excitement that had her head reeling. She had to do this for Crystal. The bonus Jergen had offered would more than cover her sister’s back rent. Her own desires had nothing to do with her decision. Even if her heart was pounding like she’d run a marathon.
“I will not let you worry about it.” Crystal was looking at her with a combination of suspicion and dismay. “Kate, you’ve done enough. You don’t have to take care of me anymore. It’s time you lived your own life. You’ll be thirty-four on your next birthday. You should be married and starting a family of your own.”
“Not gonna happen.” She made her voice calm in spite of the images washing over her. Images of violence, voices raised in anger, helpless fear. Images of blood. “A husband is the last thing I want.”
“But why not?”
Kate turned her back to the room and rummaged in the cabinet for a boxed casserole, her breathing labored, hands trembling. “Because no man is going to do to me what our father did to our mother.”
Crystal was silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was low and hesitant. “It doesn’t have to be like it was for our parents.”
“You don’t remember what it was like. You were too young, thank God. I wish I didn’t remember. Can we change the subject?”
Crystal gave a resigned sighed. “Okay. Exactly where do you plan on getting six thousand dollars on such short notice?”
It had been too much to hope Crystal would let this slide. Kate cleared her throat. “A special job I was offered today. It comes with a big bonus.”
Her sister’s face went sheet white. “It’s dangerous, isn’t it? Why else would it have a bonus?”
“It’s not any more dangerous than the standard bodyguard job, Crys. It’s just the circumstances that are a bit unusual.”
“Explain.” Her sister got up and dug out the ingredients for a salad.
“Well, the client doesn’t think he needs a bodyguard, but his agent does. So I can’t tell him why I’m really there.”
Crystal ran a head of lettuce under the water tap. “What excuse would you use?”
Kate squeezed her eyes shut and prepared to tell her second lie in one day. “I’ll pose as his r
esearch assistant.”
“Must be a writer,” her sister commented. “Anyone I’d know?”
Heat suffused Kate’s cheeks. “Angus McLeod.”
“Oh—my—God!” Her sister collapsed in laughter against the edge of the sink. “The hunk! No wonder you’re willing to lie to him. Don’t think for a second I’m not aware that you hid the poster in your closet. You’ve got a bad case of the hots for this guy!”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Kate scowled. “I’m not the type to get the hots. This is simply another job.”
“Yeah, right. And Godzilla was just another lizard. Katie Marie Carson, you’re as human as the rest of us and it’s time you found that out.”
* * * * *
Kate eyed the white business card in her hand as she waited for someone to answer the phone, a tingle of excitement running through her. She’d decided to try Jergen’s home number first since it had been so late when Crystal and Sammy left.
She still couldn’t believe she was actually doing this. Butterflies tap-danced in her stomach as she stared at the poster on her open closet door.
The voice that came on the line was feminine but brisk.
“Jergen residence.”
“Marc Jergen, Please.”
“May I tell him who’s calling?”
“Kate Carson.”
“One moment.”
There was a light plink as the phone was laid down, and she heard the distant murmur of voices.
When Marc Jergen answered, he sounded excited. “Miss Carson? Please tell me you’ve changed your mind.”
“That depends.” Kate wound the phone cord around her fingers. “You know the bonus you offered me? Would it be possible to get half of it up front?”
“With no problem at all.”
Kate took a deep breath. “In that case, you’ve got yourself a bodyguard. I need a list of all the people he comes into contact with on a regular basis, with descriptions and relationship to Mr. McLeod, and a copy of his itinerary.”
“You got it. Where are you located?”
She could hear the scratch of a pen on paper as she spieled off her address.
“Great. I can be there in forty-five minutes. We’ll go over my plan while we’re at it.”
Kate dropped the receiver back into its cradle, her gaze once more on the poster. She was actually going to come face to face with her fantasy man.
A wicked smile tilted up the corners of her lips. Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time she’d ‘came’ face to face with him, but this time it would be in person. Hots? Crystal had been wrong about that one. What she had went way beyond a puny word like hots.
Her smile faded. How the hell was she going to handle the living breathing man when she nearly climaxed looking at his picture? Just thinking about being in the same room with him had desire rippling through her body.
He couldn’t possibly be as good as the poster made him look. There was no reason for the sudden case of nerves jittering up her spine. It was probably body makeup, trick lighting, and an excellent photographer.
Except she couldn’t make herself believe it. And soon she’d be alone with him.
She did some mental calculations and decided there would be enough of the bonus left over to buy some sexy lingerie. She’d need it to keep from blowing her cover. Maybe McLeod didn’t really want a mistress, but he was darn well going to get one.
CHAPTER TWO
Kate took one hand off the steering wheel of her plain blue rental sedan and wiped it nervously on her jeans as she followed the winding road along the coast of Maine. According to the map Jergen had given her, she was almost there.
Frantically, she went over the last conversation they’d had, making sure she remembered everything. Just dangle the mistress contract in front of McLeod’s nose when he tried to send her packing, and she’d be a shoo-in. She’d had to restrain the urge to giggle over that contract. Imagine, needing a contract to be a mistress. But according to Jergen, the only typical thing about Angus McLeod was his Scottish tendency to hate waste. Especially when it came to money. One look at the signed contract, with half the bonus already paid, would be enough to keep McLeod from tossing her out on her ear.
“You have to be strong,” Marc warned her. “When he sees the clause about you forfeiting the money if you leave, he’s going to try and scare you into doing just that. You have to understand, Angus’s bark is a lot worse than his bite. He acts tough, but he only does it to hide how sensitive he really is.”
“Why did he send the others away?”
“Well, with the first one, he asked her why she’d taken the job. She gushed and cooed and told him how wonderful he was, and that she’d always admired him. She didn’t last long enough to get in the door.”
He rubbed his forehead. “With the second one, he asked her if she’d read his books. When she said she loved them, he asked which was her favorite. She couldn’t come up with a single title. There wasn’t another candidate until now. You can expect him to give you the third degree, too. Be honest with him, Kate. At least about everything but the bodyguard part. There’s nothing Angus hates more than being lied to.”
She yanked her attention back to her driving, slowing as she located the huge iron gates that should be blocking the driveway to McLeod’s home. They weren’t. The gates were wide open, and she frowned. The security Marc had installed would be worthless if McLeod ignored it.
Putting the car in park, she got out and closed the gates behind her, making sure they were firmly locked. The hair on her neck prickled as she walked back to the sedan. She had noticed several cameras positioned above the stone supports for the gate, and she didn’t doubt for a second that her client was watching her.
The house was set back a good distance from the front gate, and Kate’s eyes widened when she saw it. Made from native stone, it looked like a miniature castle with turrets and towers. Perched high on a cliff with the setting sun as a backdrop, there was a foreboding air about it. Or maybe that was simply her nerves.
“I will not babble,” she muttered. “I can drop kick a two-hundred-fifty pound man across a fifteen foot room. I can shoot a flea off a fly’s back at a hundred paces. I can out-run an Olympic sprinter. Angus McLeod is only human. I simply won’t think about his body.”
Gathering her courage in both hands, Kate opened the car door and climbed out.
* * * * *
Angus crossed his arms as he stood in front of the closed circuit TV monitors, the anticipation of battle making him edgy and eager. If nothing else, Marc’s quest to find him a mistress had been entertaining. How many more women would his friend send before he figured out it wasn’t going to work? Angus couldn’t afford to have anyone in the house. Not when it disrupted his writing the way it did.
He had to admit, though. This one was different from the other two. For one thing, she wasn’t beautiful. Cute, maybe, in a gamin sort of way, but certainly not the type who would agree to be any man’s mistress. And definitely not his type, either. He preferred long blonde hair. This woman’s short hair was plain brown and looked like it had been styled with a cement mixer.
She also wasn’t dressed like a mistress. The others had worn slinky, revealing outfits designed to make a man’s blood reach the approximate temperature of the sun’s surface. This one was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt.
It had surprised him when she stopped to close the gates. And when she’d glanced casually at the camera, it felt like she was looking directly at him. There was something a little intimidating about that look, something that made him uneasy. He’d had to fight the urge to step back away from the monitor.
Now, he watched as she climbed out of the car then reached back in to grab a briefcase, the denim of her jeans stretching nicely over her rounded bottom. Maybe the woman wasn’t so dumb after all. He’d always been a butt man, and hers was magnificent, tight and compact. It brought out the connoisseur in him, made his palms itch to cup the warm flesh.
He
shook off the image as she stopped on the steps and stared blankly at the door. So, the little rabbit was nervous. And with good reason. He ate rabbits for breakfast.
His smile was feral as he headed for the front of the house. This one wouldn’t even take two seconds to get rid of and then he could get back to work in the peace and quiet he required.
Instead of waiting for her to knock, he yanked the door open and glowered at her. The action caught her with her fist raised, and she staggered a step before catching her balance.
“Mr. McLeod? I’m Kate—” Her words ended abruptly as she lifted her gaze to his.
He waited one beat, then two. What was wrong with the blasted woman?
“Well, spit it out, Lass,” he growled. “I dinna have all day.”
Her cheeks flushed the same rosy color as a sunrise over the Atlantic, and her throat moved convulsively. Fascinated in spite of himself, he saw her visibly get a grip on her reluctant tongue.
“I—” She shook her head and tried again. “I’m Kate Carson. I believe you’re expecting me?”
Leaning against the doorframe, he let his gaze wander leisurely down her body, then make the same trip in reverse. By the time he got back to her eyes, the rosy tint had deepened to scarlet.
“Ye dinna look like a mistress. Are ye sure ye know what ye’re about?”
Her chin lifted. “I assure you, Mr. McLeod, I didn’t take this job blindly. I know exactly what you expect of me.”
He stepped onto the wide porch, the rock cool under his bare feet, and walked slowly around her. “Oh? And what, exactly, were ye told tae expect?” She was small but solid, all her curves in the right places. If he really were in the market for a mistress, she might well tempt him despite her odd hair and funny little face.
Her head swiveled as she tried to keep him in sight. “That you like your space and don’t want to be disturbed when you’re working. That your hours are irregular.” She swallowed again, hard. “And that when you want me, you’ll let me know.”
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