by Lori Wilde
Her assassin was no simple do-it-yourselfer. The bug was military issue. She was familiar with the style. Cosmo had fully indoctrinated her in electronic spyware after they’d met at a spyware convention five years earlier where Marlie had been researching “KGB Killers Gone Capitalist” for comic book number thirteen.
All the breath left her body. She felt as if she’d been sucker-punched. Here it was, the very thing she’d spent half her life fearing. She’d been violated. Her home and her sanctuary encroached. Truly, there was no safe place.
Her initial impulse was to destroy the wiretap, jump up and down on it with both feet, and then slam it against the wall a few times before flushing it down the toilet. But Angelina stopped her.
Put the bug back. In case he’s still recording you. So he won’t suspect that you’re on to him.
Him. Or them. Whichever the case might be.
Her fingers automatically replaced the bug in the receiver while her mind raced. She had to get out of here. Had to find Mom.
She slammed the phone back in its dock, grabbed her purse, and rushed out into the twilight.
At that hour her neighborhood smelled of all those delicious “Honey-I’m-home” aromas. Sautéing onions, grilling meats, and roasting garlic mingled with the aromatic scent of delivery pizza called in by working moms too weary to cook.
Marlie eyed the Domino’s guy long and hard as he drove around the cul-de-sac. She’d seen him before. He’d brought many extra-cheese pepperoni pies to her front door over the past several months, but she’d never learned his name. He didn’t make eye contact as he motored past, and she hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath until his car turned off Oleander Circle.
Anxiety pushed at her like an open palm. Hurriedly, she unlocked the Prius’s driver’s-side door and tossed her purse inside. She was about to climb in when she noticed the tires.
Pancakes. All of them.
Four flats?
She bent to examine the tires. It couldn’t be a coincidence. They hadn’t been slashed. Someone had intentionally leaked the air out.
But who?
And why?
How long had they been flat? Minutes? Or hours? Or maybe even days?
She hadn’t been out of the house since her bowling league on Wednesday night. Had the assassin deflated her tires before he’d come to the door to minimize her chance of escape? Gulping, she cast another glance around the neighborhood.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Nine-year-old Jenna Knightly was twirling her baton in her front yard across the street, and two houses down from hers, a group of teenage boys were shooting hoops in their driveway.
Maybe it was just kids up to skulduggery.
Or maybe not. She wasn’t taking any chances.
Marlie marched inside the house, retrieved a Ziploc baggy from the pantry, slid on a pair of yellow kitchen gloves, and stalked back outside to remove the valve stem caps.
When she found the broken-off pieces of twig wedged against the valve cores, a fearful edginess curled around her heart. Seeing actual proof of sabotage made it too real. She’d been spied on, watched, and targeted. Marlie stuffed all four of the valve stem caps and the twig pieces back into the baggy.
“Gotcha, you bastard,” she muttered.
Except for the fact that the assassin had been wearing gloves when he’d shouldered his way into her house with his semiautomatic. It was a long shot that he would have put them on after he’d flattened the tires on her car.
Her temporary cockiness sagged. Marlie almost threw the baggy away, but it was her only hope of finding out who’d vandalized her tires. Besides, no prints at all would be a pretty solid indication this was indeed the handiwork of her assassin.
She returned to the house, went to her office, and wrote Cosmo a short note explaining that she desperately needed him to pull strings and find someone who could dust the evidence for prints and why.
And then she added a heartfelt note of apology for the way she’d acted when he’d told her he was moving to Maryland and taking the job with ONI.
If nothing else, maybe this would mend fences between them. Cosmo would do anything to help her, even if he was still miffed because she hadn’t supported his career decision. She realized how shortsighted she’d been. She didn’t know if Cosmo would even be able to get the valve stem caps checked for fingerprints, but he was the only person she trusted.
Slipping the note and baggy into an express mail envelope, she slapped the exorbitantly priced stamp on it—luckily she kept a supply of express mail packaging supplies on hand for tight deadlines—and then went outside to drop it into her letter box and raise the red flag, but before she got to that step a voice from the gathering gloom reached out and slid an invisible hand up her spine.
“Need a ride?”
He was lounging insouciantly with one shoulder propped against her garage door, his sneaker-clad feet crossed at the ankles, the picture of a classic bad-boy rebel. Sex, muscles, and attitude.
Where had his G.I. Joe posture gone? Was he trying to be provocative? Doing his best Colin Farrell imitation, all slouchy and sexy?
He didn’t move, just kept lounging as if he didn’t have the skeletal structure to hold himself upright. He didn’t say anything else. Just waited for her to answer his question.
Shadows cloaked his face. She could not see his eyes or read his expression, but the tilt of his head left no doubt in her mind that he was assessing her.
And in a very sexual way.
Marlie raised a hand to her throat. She hadn’t taken the time to change from her well-worn track pants and the white dress shirt he’d given her to wear.
“You need a ride?” Joel repeated in a deep-throated drawl that made her forget absolutely everything that had brought her to this point.
It was a defense mechanism and she knew it. The way her mind would semi shut down on information overload just as it had when she’d broken into his house. There were so many dreadful, frightening things to think about that all she could focus on was the moment.
On her breath. On this man.
Coming toward her.
He moved with a controlled, powerful, no-bullshit stride. The way of the warrior. The prowl of a protector. The gait of a guardian. He looked at once like both sinner and savior.
She could make out his features now. Slightly sinister but yet strangely soothing too. The hollows below his high cheekbones, his angular jaw, his tanned skin.
He was on the porch beside her, crowding her space, and Marlie gulped, disoriented by his nearness and the strange feelings he stirred. In such close proximity, he looked and sounded as dangerous as hell.
“You need a ride.” This time it was a statement, not a question.
She wanted to say no, to refuse his offer. She would call a cab.
It’ll cost you forty dollars to go out to North Padre, Angelina said. I’ve seen your wallet. You don’t have that kind of cash.
But she couldn’t get into a car with Joel. She knew next to nothing about him, and she didn’t take rides from strangers.
Which is more important? Your peace of mind or your mother’s safety?
He reached out a hand and cupped it under her elbow, but stopped just short of touching her. He didn’t have to touch her for Marlie to feel him.
He was that potent. That masculine. That decidedly male. Energy jumped off him in a thousand different directions.
His eyes met hers.
Trust me.
Wasn’t that what the devil said to Eve when he was tempting her with a juicy Red Delicious?
Think about Mom.
Marlie opened her mouth and said the thing she most did not want to say. “I need a ride.”
CHAPTER SIX
A minute later Marlie was clinging to the passenger-side door handle of Joel’s gas-hog SUV, preparing to fling her body out of the moving vehicle if he made any untoward moves. When she thought he wasn’t watching, she stealthily unbuckled her seat belt. J
ust in case she had to jump out on short notice. She might have been forced to accept a ride from him, but she wasn’t letting her guard down, no sirree, not for a second.
Finding that listening device in her telephone brought home just how susceptible she really was. How could she not have had Cosmo sweep her house for bugs before now? She was ashamed of herself.
“Could we drive by the post office?” she asked and held up the express mail envelope. “I need to overnight this.”
“Sure thing.”
He seemed affable enough. At least for now. But she’d keep a close watch on him. He detoured to the post office and dropped her package in the express mail box.
She gave him directions to her mother’s house on the shores of North Padre Island, but then the silence stretched out so long it unnerved her. All kinds of “what-ifs” crowded in until her brain felt like a Mini Cooper stuffed with college kids trying to break the Guinness Book world record for the most sophomores in a compact car.
What if Joel were a government operative sent to spy on her? What if he were actually a space alien in a very good disguise? What if he and the hit man were tag-teaming her and he was at this moment driving her to her death? What if . . . ?
Okay, she had to put a stop to this or she’d drive herself insane.
“What do you do for a living?” Marlie asked, as much to fill up the awkward silence as to find out more about him.
He was clearly the strong silent type, and she was shy around people she didn’t know. She could have let Angelina do the talking, but that tended to get her into trouble, as it had with Officer Kemp.
“What’s your guess?” He slid an assessing glance her way.
“You military?”
“What makes you think I’m military?”
“You have that tilty cock to your walk,” she said.
“Tilty cock?” Joel laughed.
“Cocky tilt, cocky tilt, cocky tilt. I meant cocky tilt.”
“Sure you did.”
Oh, God. Marlie’s face flamed. Distressed, she wanted to crawl into a fetal position on the floorboard and breathe her last.
His eyes gleamed with amusement and something else. Something dark and heavy and sensual. Marlie gulped. Was it desire?
For her?
Joel winked.
It was! Oh, geez.
He didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed to show that her statement, however misconstrued, had aroused his interest. She wasn’t accustomed to such unabashed masculine appraisal or approval, and she wasn’t certain how to handle it.
I do; let me at him, Angelina volunteered.
“I meant cocky tilt, I really did,” Marlie said, only making things worse. Why couldn’t she just shut up?
“That might have been what you meant to say, but what you did say was a classic Freudian slip.”
“Listen, buddy, you don’t even know me, so buzz off with your pop psychology.”
“Now you’re being defensive.”
“So what? I’m allowed to be defensive if I want to be. No law against it.”
He grinned at her, slow and teasing. “FYI, my cock is anything but tilty.”
She clamped her hands over her ears. “I’m not listening.” But she heard him anyway.
“Ah, come on, don’t let a little thing like a tilty cock upset you.”
The next words that shot out of Marlie’s mouth were pure Angelina. “Aren’t you lucky,” she purred. “Little cocks don’t upset me.”
Joel guffawed.
All rightee. There was officially no way she could make this any worse. Thankfully, he’d just turned onto her mother’s street.
“Third house on the left.” She pointed to her mother’s bungalow.
The air smelled of the winter sea. Overhead, gulls circled, making one last pass over the water before settling in for the night. A pelican, roosting on a piling, was busy gulping down a grouper. In spite of the lingering rush-hour traffic, they made good time, probably because he’d exceeded the speed limit by quite a clip.
Marlie had the door open before he’d even pulled to a complete stop. She wanted out of here and away from the source of her humiliation.
“Whoa.” He sounded jovial and neighborly and nothing else. “Where’s the four-alarm?”
“You don’t have to come in with me,” Marlie said in a rush. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for the ride.”
“What? Are you too ashamed to introduce me to your mother?” He grinned.
“No.” Marlie surprised herself by smiling back. At this point, she hadn’t known she had any levity left. “Too afraid my mother will play matchmaker.” Assuming of course that Mom was home and out of danger. “I’ve never brought a guy home before.”
“Never?” Joel arched an eyebrow.
“Well, Cosmo.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose. “But he doesn’t count.”
“Who’s Cosmo?”
“My best friend.”
“Why doesn’t he count? He gay or something?”
“No, he’s not gay. We’re just friends.”
“Men and women can’t be just friends.”
“Yes, they can.”
“Women think they can, but it’s usually that the guy has just settled for not having sex with the woman he wants just so he can still hang around with her and keep hoping her feelings for him will change. But they rarely do.”
Marlie opened her mouth to deny it but realized Joel was right. Cosmo had settled for friendship when she wouldn’t give him anything else.
“So how come you never brought a boyfriend home to meet your parents? You can’t tell me you’ve never had a boyfriend, because I’m not buying it. A woman as cute as you, guys are bound to be knocking down your door.”
Cute.
There was that word she hated.
She supposed Joel thought he was paying her a compliment. People often called her cute or adorable or cuddly. Elderly ladies had literally pinched her chubby cheeks. Marlie didn’t want to be cute or adorable or cuddly. She wanted to be tall and beautiful and striking. She wanted cheekbones like Halle Berry’s. She wanted a face like Helen of Troy’s. Not a Keebler elf’s.
Yeah, well, Angelina said, sinners in hell want ice water. Ain’t happenin’.
“Believe it or not,” Marlie said drily, “when you’re cute, guys are more likely to ask you to bake them cookies or babysit their dog instead of asking you out.”
“Stupid guys.” He shook his head.
She felt another flush rise to her face. Why did she have to blush so easily? Joel waited, saying nothing. Not really knowing why she did it, Marlie rushed to fill in the void and ended up spilling her guts.
“Mom’s pretty desperate for me to find the love of my life.”
“Anxious for grandkids, huh?”
“It’s more than that. She’s convinced I’m missing out on something spectacular by not being attached at the hip to some guy, yada, yada. She goes overboard with the matchmaking thing. She and Dad had this very special relationship. They were soul mates. If you believe in that sort of stuff.”
“You don’t?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I saw what happened to my parents’ fairy-tale marriage.”
“Bad divorce?”
“No, Dad died when I was eleven.” Why was she running off at the mouth? Telling him private things? This wasn’t like her. What was it about him that loosened her lips? Why didn’t she just get out of the car, tell him thanks for the lift, and sprint into her mother’s house?
“Tough break,” he said.
Was that sympathy in his voice? Surprised at his sincerity, Marlie raised her head and looked him straight in the eye.
Clam up, keep your lips zipped, don’t you say another word.
Maybe it was because she’d kept her feelings bottled up for so long and they just had to get out. Maybe it was the genuine expression of concern on Joel’s face that chipped away at her reserve. Or maybe it was that almost gett
ing killed had skewed her ability to keep her emotional distance.
Whatever the cause, Marlie couldn’t stop the words from spilling out of her mouth. “My father was murdered, and his death tore my mom to ribbons. I thought she was going to die from despair and loneliness. Either that or commit suicide.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
Joel didn’t ask for details. He simply reached out and touched her hand. Lightly, briefly, and then pulled away. The gesture surprised her. He seemed more the suck-it-up-and-buck-up type than a shoulder to cry on. Thank God, he moved his hand away before she burst into tears.
“What about you? How did his death affect you?”
Marlie snorted to keep from crying. She’d already broken down one time too many in front of him. “It makes me want to steer very clear of soul mates. Who needs that kind of heartache?”
“You don’t think it’s better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all?”
“Hell, no.” She hadn’t meant to sound so vehement, but she’d actually given this a lot of thought over the years. “I’m in the ‘can’t-miss-what-you-never-had’ camp.”
“No kidding?”
“What? You think it’s wrong that I’d choose to avoid pain when I know it’s an inevitable component of love? I think it’s a rather smart position.”
“No,” he said. “I think it’s a shame that you believe love isn’t worth the pain.”
“I suppose you’ve been in love.”
“Yes.”
“And you got your heart broken?”
“I got my heart broken.”
“Was it worth it?”
“Oh, yeah.” The way he said it made it seem as if he was remembering some very fine times. Marlie felt a twinge of jealousy.
“How many times have you been in love?”
“Just the once.”
“And you’re willing to try again? Don’t you think that once was enough?”
“I’m willing to give it another shot. Why not? That’s what life is about. Getting knocked down and slugging your way back up again.”
