by Rachel Lee
And he was probably going to make darn sure they never had the chance. That had certainly been part of the speech she had managed to forestall. In fact, something about the way he had looked at her when he dropped her off here made her think that he was going to find a way of avoiding her as much as possible. He was going to put a professional distance between them somehow, because what was happening between them was troubling his conscience.
Which brought Jessica around to something even more troublesome. After just two short days and a few very short meetings, she felt a peculiar hollowness in the vicinity of her breastbone when she thought of never seeing Arlen again.
She couldn’t possibly feel an emotional attachment for a man she had just met—could she?
No, of course not. Love at first sight was a romantic myth based on hindsight, not foresight. An abiding love had to grow slowly, had to be nurtured gently. The first attraction was pure chemistry, nothing more.
But, oh, what chemistry!
Jessica sat up and crossed her legs, aware that her heart was beating a nervous tattoo in time with the butterflies flitting in her stomach. There was only one way to get the chance to know Arlen. Anything else would fail, she was sure. In her heart, she knew he was coming to see her tonight only so he could ask her one more time to act as a double agent if the opportunity arose. If she refused yet again, he would say goodbye and mean it. Arlen Coulter would turn and walk out of her life for good.
So what? she asked herself. Even if she did agree to become a double agent, even if Greg Leong actually asked her to pass classified information, what difference would it make? She would get to know Arlen better, and he would get to know her, but that wouldn’t transform her from an ugly duckling into a swan. She had her share of good points, but none of them made her attractive as a woman. Arlen might come to actually like her—people did like her—but he wasn’t about to fall madly in love with her. So why bother to take the risk in the first place?
Licking her suddenly dry lips, Jessica looked down at her hands and listened to the thunder of her heartbeat. It would be a double risk, really, being a double agent and exposing herself to the possibility of heartbreak. She didn’t know which frightened her more.
But perhaps there came a time when sensible, cautious, safe alternatives no longer sufficed. Perhaps there were times when one had to accept a dare. Perhaps that was the only difference between living life and living death.
And that was why she was going to go after Arlen Coulter.
During his senior year in high school Arlen had spent every spare minute of his weekends and evenings repairing cars. He worked out of the back lot of the tenement where he lived with his father, charged a little less than established garages and built up a thriving business. By the August before his senior year he was able to afford his heart’s desire: a Harley Davidson chopper, a marvelous chrome-and-black-metal machine that roared down the highways of upstate New York like a bat out of hell.
Motorcycles of any kind weren’t a common sight in the small agricultural town where he grew up. A Harley inspired fear and anger in the older folks, including his alcoholic father and Lucy’s parents. Going to hell was Lucy’s father’s opinion of Arlen after that, a downward step for Arlen, who up until that point had been ranked slightly above thieves and mass murderers.
Lucy had claimed to understand his love for his bike, but she would never get on it, and she begged him not to ride it anywhere her parents might see him. Within reason he’d complied, but after his return from the war he’d given up riding it entirely. Somehow, when he looked at his tiny daughter or at his wife’s stomach, swelling with their son, he had felt it was irresponsible to ride that bike. Irresponsible to take such unnecessary risks with his neck, his life and his livelihood. Two children and their mother depended on him, and in that moment of understanding he had shrugged off the last remnant of childhood.
Ever since, Arlen had cherished his bike the way a collector cherishes a priceless car. He moved it wherever the Bureau sent him, and kept it polished and in mint condition. Every couple of months he would pull it out of the garage, turn the engine over and listen to the full-throated roar. And then, after washing, waxing and tuning it up, he would wheel it back into the garage.
When Arlen arrived home that afternoon he was thinking it was time to take the Harley out again. Tomorrow morning, he decided. Maybe he would even ride it. If anything happened to him now, both Melanie and Andrew were capable of taking care of themselves. No more guilt on that score, Luce, he said silently to his wife’s portrait as he tugged off his tie.
Turning toward the bedroom, he paused midstep and stared at the couch. Some traitorous part of his mind presented him with a clear picture of how Jessica Kilmer had looked lying there just a few short hours ago. No, damn it, he didn’t feel guilty about that, either!
But he wouldn’t risk the chance of a recurrence. And he would be damned if he was going to waste any more time reminding himself of all the reasons why he couldn’t allow things to get out of hand again.
He changed into jeans and a black turtleneck pullover and tugged on his black boots. Maybe he would get the Harley out of storage tonight, he thought as he microwaved a frozen burrito. Maybe he’d ride it over to Jessica’s. The evening was dry, cool but not too cool. A good night for a bike ride.
By the time he peeled out of the Texan Self-Store parking lot, the sky was a carpet of stars. The Harley growled powerfully beneath him, a primitive, potent throb. Arlen wished for open, empty roads stretching ahead like ribbons in the moonlight.
Instead he drove directly to Jessica’s house, determined to make one more bid to convince her to act as a double agent if Greg Leong approached her again. He also, he thought uncomfortably, had to find a way to make sure that she didn’t feel he had used her this afternoon. It certainly hadn’t been his intent, but he could see how that might be difficult to believe. A man just shouldn’t get that intimate with a lady unless he wanted a future with her.
Jessica was in her kitchen making a fresh pot of coffee when she heard the motorcycle pull up in the driveway just outside the kitchen door where she usually parked her car. She recognized the distinctive growl of a Harley immediately—her college roommate’s boyfriend had owned one—and her first thought was to escape. She didn’t know a soul right now who owned a motorcycle, and no well-intentioned stranger would pull up to her back door like this. Her head full of disconnected images of violence drawn from movies, she hesitated just long enough for Arlen to reach the back door. The inner door was open, and he peered in through the screen.
“Jessica?”
She whirled around, hand flying to her throat. “Arlen! My word, you scared me!”
“Scared you?”
He almost scared her now, she realized. The FBI agent had completely vanished. At her back door stood an outlaw in snug jeans, motorcycle boots and a leather bomber jacket. His neatly barbered hair was wind tossed and wild, and there was a strange silver gleam in his gray eyes.
“Jessie? What’s wrong?” He pulled the screen door open and stepped into her kitchen, a frown knitting his brow. “What happened?”
“What happened?” she repeated. “What happened?” Indignation began to fill her breast, largely because she now felt foolish for being frightened. “I’ll tell you what happened!” She crossed the kitchen and poked her index finger at the center of his chest, which was right on her nose level. “I was standing here, minding my own business, when suddenly a motorcycle pulled up to my back door. Not my front door, mind, where most guests arrive, but my back door. And who, I wondered, could possibly be pulling up to my back door, unless he meant something…something…”
“Unsavory?” Arlen suggested, beginning to grin. “Something violent and bloody right out of a horror film?”
“Yes!” She tipped her head back and glared up at him. “No one, absolutely no one, expects an FBI agent to arrive on a Harley Davidson!”
“I’ll grant you that,” he
agreed, his grin broadening. “Used to be we had to drive four-door American sedans. These days they let us drive anything. Fools the KGB every time.”
Jessica blinked, forgetting her annoyance. “What fools the KGB?”
Arlen moved before he could stop himself and brushed a stray tendril of silky dark hair back from her cheek. “The KGB thinks all FBI agents drive four-door American-made sedans. There was a time when that was true, but not anymore.
“Sometimes it works in our favor. A few years ago a colleague of mine stopped off at a convenience store on his way to work, some little place on the Virginia side of the Potomac. He noticed a car with Russian embassy plates in the parking lot and got suspicious, because it was well out of the usual stomping grounds for embassy personnel. He followed the car for miles, and the Russian never suspected he was being followed because my friend was driving a Honda hatchback. Turned out the Russian was going out to pick up a drop from a spy, and because of that little incident we got tipped to quite a large espionage operation.”
Jessica searched his face. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m perfectly serious, Jessie. Truth is stranger than fiction. I’ve got loads of stories like that.”
“Tell me another one,” she suggested hopefully. She liked this side of him, she thought. She hadn’t realized before that he was a man who could see the ridiculous side of a job he clearly believed to be important. He was smiling that crooked smile right now, and it reached all the way into the depths of his gray eyes, easing a tension there that she only recognized now that it was absent.
“Well, I can tell you about the two would-be spies who called the Secret Service in the middle of a Saturday night to announce they had possession of a Top Secret document that they would be quite happy to give to the Secret Service for the sum of twenty thousand dollars. Otherwise they’d sell it to the Russians.”
Jessica’s eyes were huge. “What happened?”
“The Secret Service agent argued that he couldn’t possibly get twenty thousand dollars and talked them down to five thousand. Then he talked them into waiting until Monday to make the exchange, because he had to get to a bank for the money. The two guys agreed, and the agent called the FBI. We got the money and arrested the guys as soon as they made the exchange.”
“Unbelievable!”
Arlen shook his head, still smiling. “I can tell you even less believable things. Take the CIA employee who worked in communications but really wanted to be a secret agent. The CIA didn’t think he had what it took, so this fellow set out to prove he did. He sat down next to a perfect stranger in a Georgetown bar one night and offered to sell him a highly classified document.”
Jessica was shaking her head in disbelief. “And?” she demanded.
“And the guy he spoke to was an FBI agent from the Criminal Investigations Division.”
“No!” Jessica shook her head again. “No.”
“Yes.” Arlen chuckled. “Needless to say, the agent set up the exchange for the next day, and as soon as the document and money changed hands, we arrested the SOB.” Jessie looked cute, Arlen thought, as she stood there torn between disbelief and amusement. Finally her laughter won. It was when she laughed that he realized she wasn’t wearing a bra under that loose red blouse. His groin tightened.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” he said abruptly, his own humor fading. “I just never thought about it. I haven’t ridden that damn bike in over twenty years, and tonight just seemed a perfect evening to try it out again.”
Jessica moved around him and flicked on the back porch light so she could peer out through the screen at the huge black-and-chrome bike. “She’s a beauty, Arlen,” she told him sincerely. “Why haven’t you ridden in so long? Have you kept that same bike all this time?”
“I’ve had that same bike since I was seventeen.” He came to stand behind her and looked out at the Harley. “I haven’t ridden it since I came back from the war.”
“Why not?” Jessica twisted her head to look up at him over her shoulder.
He shifted uneasily. Some things just weren’t easy for a man to say out loud. “Riding a bike is a foolhardy risk for a man with a family.”
“And now your family’s grown,” she remarked.
“That’s right.”
She spun around and looked shyly up at him from beneath her lashes, unaware of how flirtatious she looked. “What does a lady have to do to get a ride on that bike?” Her heart practically climbed into her throat, but she had promised herself she was going to take this chance, that she wasn’t going to let this man walk away without at least putting up a fight to get his full attention. Darn, being a double agent couldn’t possibly be half this nerve-racking!
For a moment he didn’t answer. His eyes swept over her face, absorbing every detail, from the smooth, shell-pink of her cheeks to the long, thick lashes shadowing her bright brown eyes. Wasn’t he supposed to be restoring this relationship to a more businesslike level? Instead he felt he was entirely losing his grip on matters.
Finally he answered. “A lady needs a helmet,” he said, and immediately wanted to kick himself as his mind filled with a lush image of Jessica clinging to his waist from behind, her thighs pressed against his, her breasts crushed against his back as they roared down the road.
“You couldn’t be persuaded to overlook the helmet just once?” she asked.
Arlen shook his head, his eyes locked on hers. “Sorry. The law says you have to have a helmet, and I wouldn’t take the risk with you, anyway, Jessie. No way.”
She sighed, clearly disappointed. “I always wanted to ride on a Harley.”
“Tomorrow,” Arlen heard himself say. “I’ll get you a helmet and give you a ride over to MTI to get your car. How does that sound?”
The shy smile returned to her face. “You really wouldn’t mind?”
Yes, he would, some rational part of his mind pointed out. He would mind it a whole hell of a lot just as soon as Jessica was mounted on that bike behind him. Hell, he was minding it just thinking about how it would feel. “No trouble,” he said firmly. “Maybe we’ll even detour onto some country roads if the weather is nice enough.”
Jessica clapped her hands together in frank delight. “Fantastic!”
Her eyes were positively shining as she looked up at him. Looking into them, Arlen could feel all his resolutions weakening. Maybe he should assign one of the other agents to this case. Maybe he should walk out that door right now and never look back. And maybe he should just give up and thank God that Jessie Kilmer had walked into his life. Because, painful though it was, he couldn’t regret waking up from the numbness of the past few years. Conscience aside, job aside, everything aside, at this moment he was damn glad to be alive.
Jessica heard the hiss that always signaled the coffeemaker had finished brewing. Embarrassed to suddenly realize she had been staring at Arlen, she took a quick sideways step and hurried across the kitchen.
“Coffee’s ready,” she said brightly. “Would you like some?”
“Yes. Please.” Her back was turned toward him as she busied herself with the cups, and Arlen took a moment to collect himself. He should have come over here wearing a suit and driving the damn sedan, he told himself. Getting on the bike had been a big mistake, because it had made him feel young and hungry and a little sad, almost exactly the way he’d felt at seventeen. Restless and empty, as if he’d lost something important and couldn’t quite remember what it was. Luce had quieted those feelings; that was the main reason he’d married her.
“Why don’t we go sit in the living room?” Jessica suggested.
Arlen nodded agreeably and accepted the cup of coffee she offered him. Following her out of the kitchen, across the entry hall and into the living room, he listened to the clomp of his boots on her bare wood floors and wondered if he were suffering from some sort of midlife crisis. When Jessica perched on the couch he promptly took the armchair, setting a safe distance between them, a distance in which the coff
ee table served as a boundary.
“Okay,” she said and set her cup on the table.
“Okay?” he repeated questioningly. “Okay what?”
“Okay, I’ll do it.”
The cup paused on its journey to his mouth, and his gray eyes narrowed. “Spell it out, Jess. You’ll be a double agent for us if the opportunity arises? Is that what you mean?”
Twisting her fingers together, she nodded. “Yes. I will. If you’re sure there’s no real danger. I’m a coward, Arlen. I kid you not. If things get scary, I’ll fall to pieces.”
He leaned forward, placed his cup on the table and rested his elbows on his knees, hands dangling loosely between his thighs. “It’ll be nerve-racking at times, Jessie. I won’t kid you about that. But it’s not dangerous. Never, ever, has anyone been hurt while acting as a double agent for us. In fact, I’ll go even further than that. Foreign intelligence operatives have never, ever, harmed a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil.”
“Never?”
“Never.” His gaze was steady and unwavering. “These operatives aren’t thugs who’ve been dug up out of the gutter, you know. They’re the best their countries have to offer. They’re highly educated, politically savvy, very decent, very dedicated people.” He gave her his crooked smile. “In fact, the only difference between most of them and most of us is ideology.”
“You talk like you know them.”
“I know quite a few of them. In Washington we all attended the same parties, and we talked shop with one another.”
Jessica kicked off her shoes and curled her legs beneath her. “So there’s no danger at all?” she asked, feeling inexplicably disappointed. Good grief, she didn’t want to be in any danger—did she?
“What do you want me to say, Jessie? Nobody can guarantee the future one hundred percent. There’s always a possibility that things could be different just this once, but it’s a slim one. The thing you really need to understand is that the opposition stands to lose more than it could ever gain if it hurt you. In order to get Americans to cooperate with them, they have to be able to make them feel perfectly safe. How can they do that if they act like thugs? Who would ever spy for them?”
