Mission: Irresistible

by Lori Wilde

  “Would Adam hang me out to dry?” she asked. “He doesn’t seem the sort of guy who would do something like that.”

  “I would hate to believe it of him, but honestly I don’t know. The murder mystery theater is our best temporary solution. If Adam is just pulling a publicity stunt, we successfully nip it in the bud. If not …” He didn’t complete the sentence, leaving the rest of his unspoken words up to her vivid imagination.

  Cassie’s pulse spiked and a surge of excitement shot through her. Her exploits with the art thief last year had given her a taste for crime solving.

  “All I’m asking is for three days to locate my brother,” Harrison continued, “and straighten this whole thing out. It’s probably a simple misunderstanding.”

  “And what happens if we can’t find Adam or the amulet by Saturday?”

  “I’ll report it to the police and explain what happened. I’ll tell them I coerced you into going along with me. In the meantime, you’ll still have your job, and the guests will get a big kick out of playing sleuth. And if everything turns out okay, I’ll make certain you get that recommendation to the Smithsonian. Adam’s father is Tom Grayfield, the U.S. ambassador to Greece, and he has a lot of influence in Washington. He could pull strings.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Whichever way you decide to go,” Harrison said, “lie or tell the truth, you’re already in trouble.”

  That was true. Even though she wasn’t involved with the theft of the amulet, Phyllis was ready to hang her from the highest tree based on circumstances alone.

  “So what do you say?” He argued a good case, but she was still afraid to trust him.

  “I’m not sure I can.”

  She saw that he wasn’t a man accustomed to asking for favors. But she could also see he was very worried about his brother and his career. She was worried too. Empathy could do terrible things to a woman.

  “And if everything doesn’t turn out the way you foresee it?” Cassie murmured, bracing herself for the answer she did not want to hear.

  Harrison grimaced and shook his head. “Then we’re both royally screwed.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Royally screwed indeed.

  How had he gotten entangled in such an abysmal state of affairs?

  Impulsive behavior didn’t solve problems, it created them. Rational men thought before they spoke. Tonight, he had been anything but rational, and now he was paying the price.

  Following the disappearance of Kiya’s amulet, Ahmose Akvar had taken him aside and privately reiterated his earlier warning: If anything happens to the amulet, your visa will be rescinded and you will never again be allowed inside Egypt.

  Exiled.

  For Harrison, who had devoted his life to the study of ancient Egypt, banishment from his adopted country was unimaginable. To top things off, Phyllis Lambert had cornered him and issued a similar veiled threat, whispering that if she discovered he was covering for Cassie, she would report him to the head of the archaeology department at the University of Texas at Arlington, where Harrison taught as an adjunct professor. Hinting that she would make certain he lost his job.

  Thanks a lot, Adam. I hope you have a damn good reason for absconding with the amulet. Because if you’re not in trouble now, you will be when I get my hands on you.

  The guests had finally departed the museum after Cassie’s briefing. She’d concocted a spur-of-the-moment murder mystery tale so brilliant in detail, she’d mesmerized even Harrison. Her cock-and-bull story was one-third legend of the lost lovers, one-third reality, and one-third creative fabrication. Grudgingly, he had to admit the woman, however irritating, possessed an incredible talent for adapting to shifting circumstances.

  A skill he sorely lacked.

  He resented his need for her help. If he had his way, he would ditch her posthaste and go in search of Adam on his own.

  But other than Gabriel Martinez, who’d merely been given the white envelope from his brother, Cassie was the last known person to have spoken at length with Adam. And even though she professed otherwise, Harrison still wasn’t sure he could trust her.

  Was she lying to protect his brother? She claimed they weren’t lovers, and for some asinine reason he wanted to take her at her word.

  It was all too coincidental. The mummy stabbed, his brother missing, the lights going out, the theft of the amulet. Cassie had to have more information than she was letting on, whether she consciously knew it or not.

  “Hey, Harry, why so down in the mouth?”

  They were the last ones left in the building except for the armed security guards and the janitors. Phyllis Lambert had just walked out the door with one last ominous word of warning that they had better produce the amulet come Saturday night or there would be hell to pay.

  “Excuse me?” He scowled.

  Cassie slung her purse over her shoulder, and she was still wearing his jacket. “You look like your best buddy just ran off with your wife and squashed your favorite puppy under the tires of his jacked-up monster truck on their way out the gate.”

  “Colorful analogy,” he said. “If somewhat country-and-western-songish in nature. But I don’t have a wife. Or a puppy.”

  Or a best buddy.

  His friends were his colleagues. Outside of work he didn’t hang around with the guys. He didn’t enjoy shooting pool or drinking beer or yelling insults at football players on television. Harrison knew he was an odd duck, but he couldn’t help the way he was. He liked being alone with this thoughts and his books. His time was precious. He didn’t waste it on trivial pursuits.

  Or trivial emotions.

  Cassie rolled her eyes. “It was a joke, for heaven’s sake. Ha-ha-ha. Lighten up, dude. Do you always have to take everything so literally?”

  “I don’t know any other way to view the world.” Harrison held the exit door open for Cassie to walk through.

  “I take that as a yes.” She sighed.

  “You find my objectivity tiresome?”

  “Exasperating,” she said. “There’s no fun in logic.”

  “Maybe not, but there’s logic in logic.”

  She gave him a sidelong glance, and he did his best to ignore the suggestive look she angled his way. He wasn’t getting involved with her on a personal level. No way, nohow.

  “Then again, I’m guessing you’ve never been accused of having too much fun.”

  Harrison ignored the comment. Ignored her. Well, as much as he could. Ignoring Cassie was a bit like ignoring a major force of nature.

  The security guard locked the door after them and Harrison realized their cars, his ten-year-old Volvo and Cassie’s late-model Mustang convertible, were parked at opposite ends of the lot. He couldn’t distinguish shades of colors well, but he would bet the baggage claim ticket in his pocket that her car was a flaming “ogle-me” scarlet.

  “So what’s the plan, Stan? What’s on the agenda, Brenda? Where do we start to sleuth, Ruth?” She was jumping around, swinging her arms, acting like a nervous thoroughbred eager to shoot from the starting gate.

  “Are you always so hyper?”

  “Always,” she promised.

  “Remind me never to give you sugar.”

  “As if I’d remind you of that. Chocolate is my middle name.”

  “Explains the hyperactivity,” he muttered.

  “Anyway, what’s the scheme, Kareem?”

  “I’ve calculated that the best use of time would be to head for the airport tonight and check out this baggage claim ticket. Put our heads together and see if we can determine what might have happened.”

  She gave him a thumbs-up. “I’m with you.”

  “Whose vehicle should we take to the airport?”

  “Not mine, unless you don’t mind stopping for gas,” she said. “The empty light flashed on just as I was pulling into the parking lot this morning.”

  “You don’t fill up when your gas gauge gets to the halfway mark?”

  She squinted at
him, incredulous. “Good God, no. Do you?”

  Yes, he did, but Harrison wasn’t about to admit it when she was staring at him like he had just sprouted a second head. He had a momentary flash of insight into Cassie’s driving. He could just see her careening down the highway, talking nonstop on her cell phone, rock music blasting from the stereo speakers, her eyes everywhere but on the road. Anyone that drove around with their empty light flashing had to be an irresponsible driver.

  “Never mind,” he said, taking her elbow and hustling her toward the Volvo. “I’ll drive.”

  “Oooh, Harry.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I never imagined you were the forceful, take-charge type.”

  “Knock off the eyelash batting. It won’t get you anywhere with me.”

  “You think I’m flirting with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please, don’t flatter yourself. I flirt with everyone. You’re no more special than the checkout boy at Albertsons.”

  Harrison’s cheeks burned. She did flirt with everyone. “Just don’t do it with me.”

  “Don’t worry, chum. The last thing on earth I’d want is to ‘do it’ with you.”

  Dammit. She’d twisted his words.

  “Listen, since we’re forced to spend time together, could you please keep the sexual innuendos to a minimum?” he said.

  “Aww, whazza matter, Harry? Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

  When and why had she switched from calling him Standish and started addressing him as Harry?

  “Stop calling me Harry,” he growled. “I don’t care for that particular moniker.”

  “Harrison’s too uptight.”

  “I like uptight.”

  “I never would have guessed.”

  “You’re big on sarcasm too.”

  “When it suits me.” She stroked her chin with her thumb and index finger pensively. “Hank, then? You like Hank better?”

  “Hank is a nickname for Henry, not Harrison.”

  “Yeah, but I could call you Hank if I wanted to, right? It’s a free country.” She blithely waved a hand.

  “Don’t call me either Harry or Hank.” He gritted his teeth. “It’s Harrison. Just Harrison.”

  “Okay, Harry’s son.” She shrugged and grinned mischievously. “Whatever you say.”

  With a grunt of displeasure, Harrison thrust a hand in his pocket, plucked out his keys, and opened the passenger door so she could slide in. I won’t throttle her, I won’t throttle her, I won’t throttle her.

  She wasn’t worth a murder charge. That much was certain. Normally he was slow to anger, but there was something about this woman that rubbed him the wrong way.

  Unfortunately, his testosterone was shouting, “Wrong way, right way, who cares, just as long as she rubs you.”

  He slammed the door after she got in. Briefly, he closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

  Stay calm, stay cool, stay detached from your feelings.

  The chant soothed him the way chocolate chip cookies soothed a carboholic. He felt his anger lift as he mentally disengaged from the moment. With a cool inner eye, he watched himself walk around to the driver’s side and then ease behind the wheel.

  That was better. No pesky anger to muddle his thinking.

  “Hey, Harry,” Cassie said huskily, her voice a velvet stroke against his ears as he started the engine.

  “It’s Harrison.” He forced himself not to clench his teeth over her use of the unsavory nickname. Clenched teeth indicated irritation, and he wasn’t irritated. He was aloof, far above his base emotions. This flighty woman couldn’t touch him.

  “Anyone ever tell you that you’re really cute when you’re pissed?”

  “I’m not pissed,” Harrison denied, and told himself the sweat pooling under his collar had absolutely nothing to do with her frank teasing.

  “Coulda fooled me,” she said lightly. “Oh, by the way, we have to stop off at my apartment.”

  “Good grief, what for?” Against his better judgment, he glanced over at her.

  She had her stiletto sandals peeled off and her feet propped up against the glove compartment. He hated that she had her bare feet on his dash, but at the same time he loved the sight of her delicate toes, painted a light, pearly hue, wriggling in the dome light.

  “I can’t go to the airport dressed like this.” She blithely swept a hand at her skimpy Cleopatra costume. The skirt hem had ridden up when she’d sat down, exposing a long expanse of round feminine thigh.

  He swallowed hard. “You know, this is rather urgent. We’ve got less than seventy-two hours to find my brother and solve this mystery.”

  “I hafta go home and change. Hang a left at Seventh Street. My apartment is on the next road over.” She had a point about traipsing around in public in that diaphanous Cleopatra garb.

  “My brother’s missing,” he said. “Kiya’s amulet’s been stolen, and my life is unraveling before my very eyes.”

  And, he mentally added, I’m stuck with a free-spirited fruitcake of a woman.

  “It won’t take ten minutes, I promise.”

  He wanted to be adamant and say no, but Cassie was so damned irresistible with her perky, expectant smile and her goofy, yet strangely winsome ways, he found himself doing exactly as she asked.

  Five minutes later they were at her apartment.

  “To speed things up, I’ll just wait for you in the car.”

  “You’re gonna sit out here in the dark all by your lonesome?” she picked at him.

  He patted his dashboard. “I can listen to NPR.”

  “What is it, Harry? Are you just antisocial, or are you too scared to be alone with me?”

  “I’m in a hurry, that’s all.”

  “Prove you’re not scared of me. Come up to my apartment.”

  He gritted his teeth. Damn, the woman could vex a Zen monk. To prove her wrong, he shut off the engine and followed her up to the second-floor landing.

  It had been a long time since he’d been alone with a woman at her place, especially a woman as sexy as this one; maybe he was a little nervous. But he didn’t want her to know that. He tried his best to look composed and nonchalant, but ended up tripping over the doorsill because he was too busy watching her derriere sway.

  Cassie put out a hand to stop his forward momentum. “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, feeling like he was back in high school, standing at his locker next to the gorgeous prom queen who dated the first-string quarterback that used to beat him up on a regular basis.

  Would he ever stop feeling like a wimpy nerd when it came to women? Probably not. Especially with a woman like Cassie who could have any guy she wanted.

  She wrapped her hand around his bicep and her eyes widened with surprise. “Why Harrison, you dawg, you work out.”

  He shrugged and pushed up his glasses, unnerved by the teasing awe in her voice. “Now and again.”

  “Now and again doesn’t give a man muscles like these.” She squeezed his arm. “You’re hitting the weights at least three times a week. I should know. My identical twin sister is an Olympic athlete, and she’s a rock.”

  “I didn’t know you had a twin,” he said, mostly to change the subject, but also because he was fascinated to learn this tidbit. There were two of her?

  “But Maddie and I are nothing alike. She just won a gold medal in track and field, and me, I’d rather get forty licks with a wet noodle than sprint from here to my mailbox. We’re as opposite as twins can get.”

  Well, that was a relief. He couldn’t imagine two identical Cassies let loose on an unsuspecting world.

  “Have a seat,” she said. “I’ll go change.”

  “I don’t need to have a seat. It’s only going to take you a couple of minutes, remember?”

  “Suit yourself.” She waggled her fingers and ambled down the hall.

  “Hurry. We need to get a move on.” Harrison cleared his throat and tried not to fidget. No matter how hard he fought to block the
visage, he kept visualizing her slipping out of the silky white goddess toga-thingy she was wearing.

  “You can turn on the TV if you want.”

  “We’re not going to be here that long,” he called as she disappeared into her bedroom.

  He ended up plunking down on the couch because he didn’t know what else to do with himself. Cassie’s apartment was as harum-scarum as she was. The cluttered decor was in sharp contrast to his own austere living quarters, where everything was monochromatic and totally bric-a-brac free. His house contained no extras except for his home office, which was filled with neatly cataloged artifacts.

  No doubt about it. He would go crazy if he had to live in such chaos. He resisted the urge to get up and start cleaning.

  Knickknacks lay jumbled across every bit of available cabinet space. Porcelain kittens decorated a wall shelf. An overgrowth of ivy spilled from a plant stand and curled along the window ledge. In the corner stood three umbrellas, one of them open. Books sprawled on the bar between the living area and the kitchen, and a roll of unopened triple-ply toilet paper leaned against a bottle of extra-hold hairspray.

  Clearly, she had never heard the phrase “a place for everything and everything in its place.”

  There was a half-finished jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table and a three-quarters-empty glass of chocolate milk. In a tote bag beside the couch he spied a half-knitted afghan. Twinkle lights were stapled to the mantel, and Harrison didn’t know if they were left over from Christmas or simply part of her willy-nilly decorating scheme.

  He was beginning to see a theme emerging. Cassie had a difficult time finishing what she started.

  He glanced at his wristwatch. Ten-forty. Time was wasting. What in the world was taking so long?

  “Hurry,” he hollered, and when she didn’t respond, he took out his phone and tried to call Adam. Voice mail again. He left another message.

  “Harry?” Cassie’s voice drifted from the bedroom.

  He jumped as if he’d been caught doing something illegal. He closed his cell phone. “Uh-huh?”

  “Um …” She paused. “Could you come in here a minute? I could use a hand.”

  She required his help in the bedroom? What did that mean?