by Julie Miller
While Harris chatted with the maître d’ as though they were old friends, the guards surveyed the restaurant, not even acknowledging their boss when he escorted them both to a reserved table in the corner of the restaurant.
Grace’s grip on Logan tightened and trembled in a blend of nerves and excitement. “He’s more tanned in real life than he is in his pictures. But that’s him. That’s our man.”
Logan switched his watchful gaze from Mitchell to Grace. Her neck had rotated ninety degrees to keep the mobster in her line of sight. “Quit staring at him. Your eyes are bulging like a rock star just walked by.”
“This could be our first meeting. I should go over and introduce myself.”
Logan turned his hand and grabbed her wrist, instantly reversing their positions. “As what?”
That one stumped her. “I—”
He stared hard into those big green eyes, trying to reach that stubborn brain of hers. “You’re not ready. Backup’s not set. You don’t even have a fake résumé in place.”
When she blinked and finally relaxed in her seat, Logan released her.
But she hadn’t given up the idea. “This would be a chance to get that awkward first meeting out of the way. It’ll make the job interview go that much more smoothly. I could pretend I’ve mistaken him for someone else.”
“You can’t afford an awkward meeting at any time. And, right now, you’re exuding teenybopper instead of femme fatale. Mitchell won’t give you the time of day.” That last assessment of her acting skills finally washed the flush of excitement out of her cheeks. “Finish your dessert and let’s get out of here. Better yet, let’s just get out. The lesson’s over for the night.”
He signaled their waiter and asked for the bill.
“All right. Fine. Can’t we at least observe him for a few minutes? Maybe we’ll pick up something we can use.”
Logan did prefer firsthand knowledge of a suspect before he went under on a case. The FBI profilers were thorough in putting together dossiers on criminals, but he preferred choosing the time and place to run surveillance instead of having it chosen for him.
He considered the idea for the time it took him to fold his napkin.
Grace was too new at this. Too eager.
Just like Roy.
Hey, Pierce. I’ll take point on this meeting and you play backup. Roy had smiled with the smug arrogance of youth. You’re not the only smooth talker on the case.
But smooth talk didn’t stop bullets. And cocky young rookies eager to make their first undercover arrest didn’t see the whole picture. They didn’t notice the subtle signals from their suspect that they’d been made. They didn’t heed their partner’s warning to get out until it was too late.
“Logan?”
Grace’s soft, husky voice reached deep into his thoughts and pulled him through time and space from that bloody dock back to the Chez Dumond.
“Are you all right?”
He looked down at the wrinkled linen napkin crushed inside his fist.
Then he looked up. Through the dusky light of candle glow he saw her sweet green eyes. They were a mite too large for her face, but that only added to their unique beauty. Like shiny emerald mirrors they reflected a curiosity that showed intelligence, a concern that showed her heart.
For a moment he found a haven in those eyes. He found a place where death and violence hadn’t touched. He found a warm, welcoming place where his beat-up old soul longed to find a home.
And he knew that because those pretty, myopic eyes revealed so much, Grace wasn’t ready for an encounter with Harris Mitchell.
Shoving aside the lingering memories and foolish fantasies, Logan rose from his chair, buttoned his suit coat and circled the table to her side. Conscious of the unanswered questions in her eyes, he cupped his hand beneath her elbow and pulled her up to stand beside him.
“We need to leave.”
He guided her toward the front doors. “What just happened? Where were you?”
She wasn’t tough enough to understand the kind of hell guilt could put a man through. “I was just thinking.”
“About something awful, it looked like.”
She wasn’t nearly tough enough.
“C’mon. I have a long day planned for you tomorrow. You’ll need your sleep.”
As they reached the maître d’s station, Grace came to a sudden stop. “I forgot my bag at the table,” she said, already retracing her steps.
“I’ll get it,” he offered.
But for a top-heavy woman wearing three-inch pumps, she could move mighty fast. She was already leaning over her chair, her butt curved out in the aisle at an enticing angle before he’d excused his way past the couple behind them.
Logan saw it coming, but was helpless to stop it without creating a scene.
Harris Mitchell was crossing down the aisle behind the African-American amazon cum bodyguard. Maybe to take a private phone call, maybe to use the facilities. The why didn’t matter, only that Miss B-movie-queen Wannabe was about to make a critical mistake.
“Innocent, my ass.” Logan seethed, damning his own fanciful notions as much as Grace’s lying green eyes.
The bodyguard walked past. Grace straightened. She slung her purse over her shoulder and stepped back…right onto the instep of Harris Mitchell’s Gucci loafers.
She gave a tiny yelp as her heel slipped and she stumbled. Mitchell caught her square in his arms and held her against his chest.
A waiter with an oversize tray on his shoulder blocked Logan’s path. But the exchange of words was clear.
“Excuse me.” That was Grace’s breathy greeting.
“Not a problem.” The deep, faintly accented voice was Mitchell’s. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”
Of all the cheesy, cheap come-on lines. And Mitchell was supposed to be a player?
When the waiter moved, Logan could see this scene had gone from bad to worse.
Grace’s cheeks were flushed with heat. Her fingers batted around her temple as if she were self-consciously searching for those nonexistent glasses. She held on to Mitchell’s sleeve while he set her back on her feet.
And while her eyes were glued to the knot of Mitchell’s tie, Harris’s leering gaze was anchored a bit lower. Straight down the plunge of Grace’s blouse.
“Um, I…don’t think…” Grace was searching for words. “I mean, I would have remembered someone like you.”
She couldn’t see Mitchell’s reaction, but Logan did.
Warning signals sounded inside his head. There was that little ticking sensation at the base of his skull that had clued him in to danger more than once in his career. And then there was another feeling, something territorial. Something personal.
She didn’t need to become a femme fatale to snag this guy’s attention. He was already interested. His hands lingered a little too long on Grace’s arms, his eyes lingered way too long somewhere else.
Trouble was, Grace didn’t understand what Mitchell thought she was offering. He needed to get her out of there. Now. Before the whole undercover plan blew up in their faces.
“Honey?” Logan called before closing his hand around her upper arm. He couldn’t afford to startle her and give Mitchell another glimpse of that deer-in-the-headlights expression on her face.
Fortunately, she turned and gave Logan that startled glare. Carefully avoiding the use of her name, Logan smiled and pulled her to his side. Beyond Mitchell’s reach. “We need to leave now if we want to make an appearance at the Guggenheim reception.”
Play along. She tugged against his bruising grip, but he didn’t ease up until the light of understanding relaxed the self-conscious tension from her face and body.
“Of course. The Guggenheim.” Grace turned and batted those big greens at Mitchell. Her talents were getting ahead of her common sense again. Her voice was now smooth as molasses. “Sorry I stepped on your shoe.”
“Lucky shoe.” Harris smiled, finally lifting his gaze to Grace’s eye
s. “Enjoy the museum.”
Logan quickly turned Grace away from Mitchell, hoping the crook hadn’t gotten a clear look at her face. He would have followed her if it weren’t for the poke of what felt like a ladies’ beaded handbag in his back.
“Is there a problem, Mr. Mitchell?”
The bodyguard.
And no doubt her hand was on the gun inside her purse.
Logan forced himself not to react. He looked at Mitchell. Mitchell looked at him. Though Logan played the part of a dutiful escort and not an overprotective boyfriend, there was something more than a man-to-man exchange of casual greeting going on here. This was more like one man sensing a potential enemy and sizing him up.
Then dismissing him.
“I’m fine, Tanya.”
The purse disappeared and Logan turned and quickly followed Grace out the door, not giving Mitchell a chance to change his mistaken first impression of him.
HARRIS MITCHELL.
Oh, my God, Harris Mitchell. She’d seen…she’d touched—talked—to Harris Mitchell.
No. Grace groaned with embarrassment and let her chin sink to her chest. She’d babbled to Harris Mitchell. Crushed his foot like a klutzy idiot. She couldn’t even remember what color his eyes were because she’d been too addlepated worrying about what to say or think or to do that she’d never looked any higher than the pointy cleft of his chin.
No wonder Logan thought working with her was an impossible mission.
Seduce a man?
Hell. She couldn’t even talk to one.
When Logan strolled out the door and chatted with the doorman, she wasn’t fooled for a minute. He was pissed. His flinty eyes darkened like unbending steel and drilled holes into her.
He smiled as he slipped the doorman a tip to flag them a cab, but there was no smile for her. She was already backing up a step before he grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the curb, beyond the earshot of the doorman.
“I know what you’re going to say.”
“Really.”
She had a good defense for her actions, even if he didn’t want to hear it. “I was concerned about you. You looked so distant all of a sudden. I was trying to listen.”
“So you attempted to put the moves on Mitchell because you were worried about me.” His sarcasm rubbed salt into the wound of guilt and embarrassment that had already sapped her confidence.
“No. I mean, that’s why I forgot my purse. There was no ulterior motive. I really did forget it.” She shrugged helplessly, seeing her explanation was having no effect on his surly mood. Time to accept the blame for bungling her unexpected trial run at undercover work. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”
He nodded sharply, hearing only the last three words. “No you weren’t, were you?”
At last he released her arm. He snatched her bag instead. “All right, Gracie. Here’s rule number eight to put in your book.”
He fished out her steno pad and pencil and pushed them into her hands.
“Smart is sexy.”
She dutifully wrote the words.
“You’re book smart, Grace. But you need to get street smart. Fast.”
He stopped her hand as she jotted it down. “Now quit being an idiot. You don’t go anywhere near Mitchell until you’re fully trained. Got that?”
He was her partner, damn it! Not her superior. He had no right to chew her out like this. “Was I really so terrible—?”
“You got that?” he repeated, leaving no room for discussion.
“Got it.”
Until she could think of a way to fix the problem, she let Logan load her into the waiting cab, and said nothing more.
7
GRACE’S SALTBOX on the outskirts of Quantico had been the first item on her list of things to purchase once she was gainfully employeed by the Bureau after college graduation. A permanent home. A comfy place to return to each night that she knew would always be there for her.
After a childhood of moving from trailer to apartment to her mother’s current boyfriend’s house and back to a trailer, she’d wanted roots. She wanted the security of knowing what address she was going home to. The satisfaction of knowing she could take care of herself.
She’d decorated the three-bedroom structure herself in country colors, muted reds and deep blues and pale greens. She’d spent countless weekends scouring auctions and estate sales to find antique furniture and knickknacks. Her house had a sense of age and character that she’d always longed for.
But she found little comfort in the polished wood floors and china pitchers and handmade quilts tonight.
She was a failure. A hopeless failure as a field agent. A failure with men.
She leaned back into the checkered pillows that lined her denim couch and flipped through the pages of her steno pad. The answers had to be here somewhere.
She’d worked so hard to prove she was anything but a failure.
Her first encounter with Harris Mitchell had been a disaster. If he was looking to hire an accountant to provide comic relief at his business meetings, then she was his woman. But if he wanted another seductress to add to his collection, she didn’t stand a chance of getting hired and infiltrating his syndicate.
The men she knew best in her life had been the users and well-intentioned losers who had paraded in and out of her mother’s love life. She knew nothing about how to please a man sexually. Hell. At age twenty-six, she was just now beginning to learn about her own sexuality. And that was only because Logan had been forced to help her.
Logan.
She tucked her white fuzzy robe up to her neck and pushed her thick, black glasses up on the bridge of her nose. She couldn’t shake the chill that had stayed with her, despite a hot shower, a cup of cocoa and her flannel pj’s.
Logan Pierce was the real reason she was moping around the house after midnight. He was the real mystery she couldn’t comprehend.
She’d spent the past forty-eight hours trying to learn the crafts that he knew so well. Forty-eight hours of seeing every side of that man. Arrogant. Angry. Frustrated. Disappointed. Amused. Turned on. Extremely turned on. Suspicious. Sad.
And while each and every mood presented something new to perplex her, she found herself obsessing about that last mood of his. She pulled off her glasses and nibbled on the earpiece. How could a man so in command of himself, a man so in command of the world around him, suddenly look so hurt? So far removed from the world that she wasn’t sure he’d ever come back to her?
That night at dinner—and every time she mentioned Roy Silverton’s name—Logan’s remarkable gray eyes seemed to transform. The color dulled. The gleam of secret knowledge disappeared behind a veil of shadow.
She’d used his partner’s unfortunate death as a last-ditch means to goad him into working with her. But Grace was beginning to wonder if training her was an uncomfortable reminder of Agent Silverton’s first undercover mission. Did Logan think she was so incompetent that she’d end up the same way? Was he being so hard on her—and on himself—because he didn’t want to deal with another partner’s death?
Grace rubbed the fatigue from her eyes and put her glasses back on. When she’d been growing up and the chips had been stacked against her, she’d responded by getting tougher, working harder. She’d never complained because that hadn’t done her any good. She’d never succumbed to worry because that drained the energy she needed to survive.
She wouldn’t complain or worry now, either. She’d just add proving her abilities to Logan to her list of why she’d asked for this assignment in the first place.
She flipped to the page of cover lines they’d gone over today and settled in to do her homework.
Why do you carry a gun in your purse, Miss Lockhart? Grace practiced the responses out loud. “A woman alone isn’t safe on the streets anymore. Smart women carry them for protection.” She tried the next one with a sarcastic twist. “Once you’ve been mugged, you never leave home without it.” But sarcastic wasn’t exactly her st
yle. “As an accountant, I’m sometimes required to carry a large amount of money—”
The telephone chirped on the end table beside her. Startled, she waited for her heart rate to slow to an even beat and checked the time before answering. “Hello?”
Her cautious greeting was met with a loud, boisterous, “Gracie! It’s Mother. I hope I’m not calling too late.”
Grace’s night went from worse to impossible. “It’s almost twelve-thirty, Mother.”
“I know it’s late, but I just had to share my good news.”
Oh, God. Grace squeezed her eyes shut and prayed. She’d heard that line too many times before. Somehow Mimsey’s good news ended up being bad for them both. Just once, her mother deserved to have some good news without any strings attached.
Grace was used to the pattern by now. It was her turn to ask, “What is it?”
“I got the part. The part in Grant’s play! I’m going to be in an off-Broadway show!”
Her mother’s joyous enthusiasm was hard to resist. A cautious smile teased the corners of Grace’s mouth. “That’s wonderful. Is it the part you wanted? The aunt?”
“Yes! Isn’t that wonderful news? It’s like my career is starting all over again. The way I wanted it to all along.”
Grace let her mouth ease into a full-blown smile. “You deserve it. When do rehearsals start?”
“Next Monday.”
Monday? That was less than a week away. Grace’s practical nature took some of the curve out of her smile. “Will you be able to find an apartment by then? You can’t afford to stay in a hotel room indefinitely.”
Her mother seemed amused by her concern. “You always did worry about little things like that.”
“Do you need to borrow some money until your first paycheck comes in? Or did you sign a contract for money up front?” Grace picked up the cordless phone and began to pace. “I don’t want you staying in some dive in a bad part of town. I could call the New York office and see—”
