by Lucy Monroe
“Then what in the hell am I doing here?”
“I want some information from you.”
The expression in the director’s eyes was not promising, but Hotwire wasn’t worried. “Claire Sharp has been attacked twice. I want to know if your men are responsible.”
“They’re not. I read their reports and although they searched her house and your hotel room, they never physically accosted her,” Ethan said.
“Not even four days ago at her college after she took a final?” Hotwire pressed.
Ethan ignored the singeing glare he was receiving from the director. “Not unless they left it out of their report.”
Hotwire turned to the two men in question and asked, “Were either of you watching her at the time?”
The younger agent nodded once.
“Did you see who went into the bathroom with her?”
He looked uncomfortable. “No.”
“Why?”
The look he gave his director was met with stony fury. The agent tugged at his collar and swallowed. “I thought she was taking her test. It was supposed to last over an hour. I decided to grab some food. When I got back, she was already gone and neither of you returned to the hotel that night.”
“She finished her test early,” Hotwire said with some pride. She was so damn smart.
“Yes, well. I didn’t know she’d been accosted in the bathroom.”
Hotwire nodded and then looked at the director. “Dismiss your men.”
Raymond did so with a flick of his hand. The two agents left.
Hotwire had been able to determine that neither was currently wearing the exclusive cologne Claire had identified with her first attacker. One thing about expensive cologne…being oil-based, it lingered on a man’s clothes, even when he wasn’t wearing it. There was not even a trace of the unique scent on either of Raymond’s men.
Besides, neither gave the impression of a man who would sweat with fear at the prospect of accosting a woman to gain information from her.
He focused his attention on Raymond. “I want you to leave Claire and Queenie alone.”
The response he got was pithy and foul, but he smiled anyway. “There’s a reason the FBI hires me for certain jobs. You don’t want to mess with me or my own.”
Nitro and Wolf gave Raymond identical looks of icy disdain as they nodded in agreement with Hotwire’s words.
“It’s a crime to threaten a federal officer.”
“So is hiring an assassin to kill someone your agency can’t touch.”
“You work freelance for the government.”
“Not as an assassin and you’d do well to remember that distinction. I have nothing in my past that wouldn’t bear scrutiny. We both know you can’t say the same.”
“Are you going to make the kill book public?” Raymond asked with a damn good poker face.
“Not at this time.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I want the bastard who attacked Claire nailed. If the kill book is necessary evidence, I’ll use it.”
“There is no point in me staying here any longer, then.”
“Not once I have your word you’ll leave Claire alone.”
“You would trust my word?”
This time Wolf’s snort was loud and derisive.
“No.”
“Then why ask for my promise?”
“Because then there can be no mistake in our understanding. If you screw with me, I’ll come after you with everything I’ve got.”
“You have my word.” Raymond then spun on his heel and walked away.
Hotwire pulled a memory fob out of his pocket and handed it to Ethan.
“What’s this?” the other man asked.
“The database from the kill book along with the results of the cross-reference search we did on it with the people your uncle saw during the last month of his life.”
“Does it tell me the name of the man who attacked Claire?”
“Yes.” Hotwire related the politician’s history and the name of the cologne Claire had smelled on her first attacker. “I want him locked up.”
“I’ll take care of it, but it might be a good idea to keep Claire out of sight for a while longer.”
“I will.”
“With what you’ve got and knowing who the civ involved is, it shouldn’t be too hard to gather enough evidence to neutralize him.”
“That’s what I figured.”
“I’ll call you when the arrest is made.”
Hotwire handed him a card. “This has my contact information in Montana.”
“Is that where you’ll be?”
“Yes.” He was going to take Claire to his home and convince her to marry him come hell or high water.
They were in the car on the way back to the airport when Nitro said, “So, what’s the holdup with you and Claire getting hitched?”
“She hasn’t said yes.”
“Why not?”
“She says it’s because I want to marry her for the wrong reasons.”
“And what would they be?” Wolf asked.
Hotwire would never admit this to anyone else, but he trusted Wolf and Nitro with his life. “I forgot the condom the first time we made love.”
“She’s not on the pill?”
“No. Her last lover was in high school.”
“You’re kidding.” Wolf whistled. “She’s twenty-eight, right?”
“Yeah.”
“That makes it what…ten years?”
“She didn’t think much of sex and she was too busy taking care of her mom to have a social life, then too busy trying to fit four years’ worth of school into three.”
“I guess.”
“So, the fact that you forgot the condom and are her first lover in a really long time made you feel like you had to propose marriage?” Nitro asked, having made no comment at all on Claire’s dearth of sexual escapades.
“I want to marry her.”
“Does she know that?”
“Of course she does. I asked her.”
“But she thinks you want to marry her because you forgot the condom and she might be pregnant, right?”
He thought over the last few days. “I think she knows I want her regardless.”
“Have you told her you love her?” Wolf asked.
Chapter 22
“W hat we’ve got is better than love.”
“What the hell are you talking about, better than love?” Nitro demanded incredulously.
“I can’t love her.”
“Why not?” Nitro asked.
“If you don’t, you have no business marrying her,” Wolf said.
He didn’t want to deal with Wolf’s assertion, so he focused on Nitro’s question. “I promised Elena that I would never love another woman as I loved her.”
Nitro shook his head. “Whatever pseudo promises you made to each other in the first flush of love don’t carry weight now. I’m sure you meant it when you said it, but neither of you realized she would die and you would have the rest of your life to lead alone.”
“I didn’t make the promise to her when she was alive.”
“What did you do, make an oath on her grave?” Wolf asked.
“You could put it like that.”
“But that’s stupid. You didn’t owe it to her to spend the rest of your life without love just because she died before you did.”
“I owed it to her because it’s my fault she died.”
“Bullshit,” Nitro snapped. “Elena chose to stay in a volatile situation for the sake of her belief in her cause.”
“I was supposed to go back for her, but I got sent out on another mission before I could and she was killed because of it.”
“You had no choice, but she did,” Wolf said with certainty. “She had connections. She could have gotten herself out of the country a lot sooner than she tried to, but she didn’t. She put her cause above you, not the other way around.”
Claire had said the same thing, or at l
east part of it.
Hotwire sighed, coming to terms with a truth he’d hidden from because it had hurt too much to deal with at the time. Elena’s duty had come before him, and he hadn’t wanted to face that because it meant she hadn’t loved him as much as he loved her. After all, he’d begged her to leave her country against the express orders of his superiors.
“That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t feel the same way about Claire as I did about Elena.”
“How is it different?” Wolf asked.
“For one thing, I’ve got about zero self-control when it comes to making love with her. I want her all the time and I can’t shut it off even when we’re working on the case.”
“That’s not a bad thing. I feel the same way about Josette.”
“I didn’t say it was bad. In fact, I told Claire it was better.”
“That’s what you mean by better than love?” Wolf asked.
“Yes, and you know, when I’m with her, I feel at peace with myself, not like I’m always trying to prove that I’m worthy of her affection. It feels good.”
Nitro and Wolf both gave him strange looks, and then Nitro asked, “What else?”
“The idea of her being pregnant with my baby is the biggest mental turn-on I’ve ever known. With Elena, I wanted all of her to myself. Neither of us wanted to have kids right away.”
“You think you don’t love Claire because you want her to have your baby?”
“Not like I loved Elena. There’s nothing selfish in what I feel for Claire. I want her to be mine, but most of all, I want her to be happy.”
“And let me guess…” Wolf said. “Claire isn’t perfect, but you don’t want her to be because you like her just the way she is?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“I feel that way about Lise.”
“Do you miss her right now, even though you only saw her a few hours ago and you’re going to see her again pretty soon?” Nitro asked.
“Damn right,” Hotwire said.
Both men looked at him as if expecting him to say something. “What?” he finally demanded.
“Just what do you call these feelings you have for Claire?” Wolf demanded.
“Do they have to have a name?”
“They don’t have to, but they do,” Nitro said.
“What? It’s not merely lust because as much as I want her, I like her, too.”
“Are you really that stupid?” Nitro asked with a frown.
“There are none so blind as those who will not see,” Wolf added with a smirk Hotwire wouldn’t mind wiping off his face with a fist if he wasn’t driving a car.
“You two are both starting to get on my nerves. I need your help figuring out how to convince Claire to marry me, and you’re busy mocking me.”
“Why don’t you try telling her you love her?” Wolf asked.
“I told you—”
“More than you’ve ever loved any other woman,” Nitro added, rolling right over Hotwire’s denial.
And suddenly he could see his blind stupidity in glaring Technicolor. Oh, hell. He did love Claire and he should have seen it ages ago, but he’d hidden from that truth as effectively as he’d hidden from the reality of his relationship with Elena. But instead of pain at the realization, he felt an overwhelming sense of rightness.
“I’m head over heels in love with Claire Sharp.”
Wolf laughed. “Smart man.”
“Finally, that computer brain of yours came up with the right equation,” Nitro said, a genuine smile warming his usually taciturn features.
“Well, hell…now I’m going to have to convince Claire.”
“It shouldn’t be too hard. She loves you, too.”
“That’s what she said, but I told her I didn’t love her. I don’t think she’s going to be a pushover to convince.”
“But you can do it.”
Of that Hotwire had no doubt and he was pretty sure he knew just the way to go about it.
Exhausted from shopping, Claire flopped down on the sofa in the living room. “I didn’t know buying a few clothes could be such a marathon sport.”
Eleanor laughed from her seat at the other end of the couch. “Mama and I have closed down more malls than you can shake a stick at.”
“Well, there’s no sense making the long drive into Savannah unless you plan to utilize your time wisely while there,” Felicia said.
Josette laughed. “That’s one way of looking at it. I suppose Claire and I are lucky you two didn’t decide to close the malls down today.”
“Well, you’ll pardon me for saying so, but it was obvious neither of you were used to the rigors of marathon shopping.”
Claire laughed at that. She was in pretty good shape, but Josette was more physically fit than any other woman Claire had ever known. Only Felicia was right—neither of them had been up to the other women’s weight shopping.
“I’ve got to say that I’ve been on easier twenty-mile marches through the jungle than shopping with the two of you,” Josette said.
“Now, this sounds intriguing,” Lise said from the doorway.
The other women greeted her with a warm welcome.
“Are you done writing for the day?” Claire asked.
Lise nodded, yawning behind her hand. “Yes. One more minute in front of my keyboard and my mind is going to melt.”
“Well, you’re just in time for some tea.”
As Brett’s mother spoke, a young woman who worked for the family carried a tray with glasses and a large pitcher of sweet tea into the room. When each of the women had a glass of the refreshing beverage in hand, she left.
Lise sipped hers with a look of bliss on her face. “I love southern sweetened iced tea. They just don’t make it the same anywhere else.”
“Of course not,” Felicia said complacently.
“It’s yummy, all right, but I keep expecting to be offered a mint julep,” Josette said with a smile.
“We’ll have them after dinner, if you like,” Felicia said.
Josette smiled, but Eleanor fixed Claire with her steady regard. “The more time I spend with you, the more convinced I become that you and my brother are meant for each other.”
“I concur,” Felicia said.
“I’ve thought so for a long time,” Josette said smugly.
Claire frowned at her. “You of all people should know why we aren’t.”
Josette had to know about Elena. Besides, Claire hadn’t told the whole story of her childhood to Josette, but she’d told her ex-roommate enough that the other woman should realize Claire could never fit into Brett’s family.
“Why is that?” Lise asked, and then blushed. “I’m always doing that, asking whatever pops into my mind without thinking if it’s something I should do first.”
“It’s all right,” Claire said. “I don’t mind, but you know Brett is still in love with his dead fiancée, and then there’s the fact that my background just doesn’t fit with his.”
“What do you mean by that?” Felicia asked.
“My dad committed suicide when he lost his job and we were faced with bankruptcy.”
“Your poor mother,” Felicia sighed.
“Yes, well, she didn’t exactly rise to the occasion. She became an alcoholic and died of liver cancer almost four years ago. We had a lot of trouble with the cops when I was growing up…mom was not a happy drunk.”
Felicia shook her head. “You had a difficult childhood, but you can’t think Brett cares about where you come from.”
“I was more concerned about how you would react to it…or Eleanor, being an elected official and all.”
“Oh, pooh. You’re the epitome of the American dream, Claire. You lifted yourself out of an ugly situation and have created a different life for yourself. I’m impressed, and anyone who isn’t can vote for the competition.”
Josette laughed. “I like that. You know, I didn’t know all of that, but it explains some things that used to confuse me. One thing I wan
t to know, though…how did you take care of your mom for so many years without learning a thing about how to cook?”
Claire burst out laughing. “Believe it or not, Mom was mostly a raw-vegetable-and-fruit vegan. We never ate meat and nothing got cooked except rice and potatoes. I don’t know how she ever justified the distilled grains in alcohol to herself, but she was fanatical about food. I learned to bake potatoes in the microwave and we had a rice cooker there at the last. But my real problem in the kitchen is the fact that I’m too easily distracted by what’s going on in my head.”
“Well, that explains it,” Josette said.
“I can understand that,” Lise added with a rueful smile.
Claire smiled at all of them, but focused on Eleanor. “Brett said you’d react this way to my past.”
“He knows me well,” his sister said, sounding pleased.
“He doesn’t understand you all are proud of him, though. He feels like he’s on the outside of your family sometimes, I think.”
“You can help him to see differently, can’t you, Claire?” Felicia asked. “He made his choices and he made a good life for himself, one to be proud of, but sometimes it takes an outsider to break through barriers built in the past.”
“You think I have that much influence with him?”
“I’m certain of it.”
“I’m sure you’re wrong about Elena, too. He isn’t in love with a ghost, but a flesh-and-blood woman,” Eleanor said with a significant look at Claire.
The men returned after dinner, and Claire was glad to hear that Brett had turned the information about the politician over to Ethan and the case would now be handled through official channels. She wasn’t so glad to hear that Brett planned to keep her out of the way until the perp was brought in.
“But I have to get back to work. They won’t hold my job open indefinitely.”
“Now that you’re done with school, it’s time for you to move on to a job more commensurate with your skills anyway, sugar.”
“That’s just it. I’ve got to start looking for one.” She wasn’t as enamored of the idea of going overseas, or disappearing to another state now…the freedom she’d thought she wanted didn’t seem nearly as alluring as trying to make her relationship with Brett work.
“You already have one if you’ll take it.”
