As Rebecca scuttled out of the room, Ian told himself he was being paranoid. Yet he had enough respect for Josh to take his worries seriously. The man was no fool, and those who had mistaken him for such, perhaps judging him by that lazy drawl or the way he had of strolling along with his hands in his pockets, were the sadder for it.
He turned to his computer and did a quick check. He could find no trace that anyone had accessed any of his files in the past half hour. That decided him. In this case Josh was being overly protective. Wasn’t that part of the Redstone legend, taking care of his people? Wasn’t that why they were consistently at the top of the national list of the best places to work?
I want you to have protection, Ian….
No. No way. He couldn’t tolerate it. He hadn’t even been able to tolerate his wife around all the time. His need for space, while Colleen had needed people and socializing, had driven her away after a mere ten months of trying to put up with him.
No, he was a loner, a borderline recluse, as Josh’s personal pilot, Tess Machado, had called him more than once. And he would stay that way, happily. He didn’t need a wife, or any woman to complete him. He had his work. That was enough.
“Thanks for getting here so quickly, Sam.”
“No problem,” Samantha Beckett told her boss.
Actually it had been a problem—when he’d called she had just stepped out of the shower, her hair dripping wet. But she’d have dealt with a lot more than wet hair to come running at his call, and she hoped he knew it. Joshua Redstone had done more for her and Billy than anyone ever had, and she owed him more than she could ever repay.
“How’s Billy?” Josh asked, as if he’d read her thought.
“He’s doing great. That new residential skills center is working well for him. He likes the people and he’s really happy.”
“That’s good to hear.”
Sam knew he wouldn’t take it in words, so she tried her best to put her thanks into her smile. If not for Josh, Billy would probably be locked in an institution somewhere, taken away by some bureaucrat who thought they knew better than she did how to take care of her little brother. Instead they’d stayed together, and she was able to afford to have him well looked after when she had to leave on assignment.
Speaking of assignments, she thought, why was the usually direct Josh taking so long to get around to the point?
She studied him, thinking as she often had that you’d never guess by looking at him that this former pilot had built a small airplane design company into an international corporation the scope of which she could hardly comprehend. But she also knew that was one of his strengths. Josh didn’t come across as a shark, not with that tall, lanky frame, sometimes tousled hair and that lazy smile. He was very unassuming and laid-back, but people who assumed he was as slow as his drawl didn’t discover the sharpness of his teeth until it was too late.
“This is an unusual one,” Josh finally said, sounding a bit uncomfortable. That in itself was odd enough for Sam to sit up and pay close attention.
“In-house, I gather, since you wanted to meet here?” she asked, gesturing at the restaurant they were sitting in.
He nodded, confirming her guess that the “unusual” case involved something or someone inside Redstone, and that he didn’t want to risk anyone seeing them meet. This despite the fact that the Redstone security team was low profile by intention. They reported directly to Josh, had their own office off-site, and other than those in the upper echelon, like Noah Rider last month, the majority of Redstone employees wouldn’t know any of them by sight.
“Undercover, then?” Sam asked, already running through logistics in her mind.
“Sort of,” Josh said.
Sam looked at the man across the table from her. It wasn’t like him to equivocate. For the most part, Joshua Redstone preferred plain speaking. Which made this hesitancy even more interesting to her.
“Would you like to just cut to the chase, sir?”
“I need you to bodyguard somebody who doesn’t want one.”
Well, that was blunt enough, Sam thought. “All right,” she said. “How far under?”
“What?”
“You want me to sleep with him?”
Surprise flared in Josh’s eyes, as she had intended. “You know better than that!”
“Yes, I do.” She grinned at him. “You just seemed a little vague about the specifics here.”
Josh let out a wry chuckle. “Now I know how the guys who go up against you and lose feel.”
“Is there any other kind?” Samantha said, her grin widening.
“Not many, I’d guess,” Josh conceded, returning her grin finally. “I have to say I knew what I was doing when I hired you for this job.”
“And the people at the Sitka Resort are eternally grateful you pulled me out of there, I’m sure.”
And no more so than I, she added silently, knowing she would have gone slowly insane working in such a routine-laden world, even if it was for Redstone.
“You weren’t happy,” he said candidly, and for a moment Sam marveled at the simplicity of it; one of his lowliest, most distant employees wasn’t happy, so he took steps to fix that. Amazing. “I’ll have Rand relieve you periodically, because I don’t know how long this assignment will be.”
Samantha nodded. She and Rand Singleton had worked together frequently, often taking advantage of the striking resemblance between them. With matching nearly platinum-blond hair and blue eyes, they were easily able to pass as brother and sister. She thought of him that way, too, as a sometimes bossy big brother.
“So who’s this guy who doesn’t want to be guarded?”
“Ian Gamble. He’s in R and D.”
Sam frowned. The name sounded vaguely familiar. “What’s he need guarding from?”
“He’s working on a very important, very secret project for Redstone Technologies. He’s close to success, and there are a lot of other people who would like to get there first. JetCal has already tried twice to get a mole in. Plus, there’s a possibility we have a leak.”
There was an undertone in his voice that was razor sharp, and if there was a leak, Sam didn’t envy her or him when Josh found out who it was. Which he would, she knew. She thought about asking what the project was, then decided if it made any difference in her task, Josh would have told her. Besides, her mind had already leaped ahead.
“People who might want to interfere with him or his work in one way or another?”
Josh nodded. “Or stop him from working at all. On the financial front, the Safe Transit Project could be worth billions to whoever gets there first.”
“That’s a lot of motive,” Sam said. “Why the resistance?”
“In part because he doesn’t believe he’s really in danger.”
“Naive?”
“Not exactly. Ian is…different. Brilliant, but a bit eccentric.”
Eccentric, in her experience, was a kinder euphemism for crazy. A vision formed in her head, a sort of Einstein-needing-Prozac image that had her smiling inwardly even as she calculated just how difficult this task might be.
“He has a very particular way of working,” Josh explained, “and he refuses to let anything or anyone intrude on that.”
“Even for his own safety?”
“Especially that. He agrees his work needs protecting but won’t have anything to do with a bodyguard. And I can’t say that I don’t understand. He needs space and time to let that incredible mind of his run.”
“He’s that smart?”
“Not in the traditional sense. He thinks outside the box, as they say. That’s why he’s so good at what he does.”
“Which is?”
“They call him ‘the professor,’ but he’s an inventor.”
Einstein suddenly shifted to Edison in her head. “We still have those?”
“A few,” Josh said with a grin. “Most inventing is done by committee nowadays, but Ian is a throwback. Lucky for us.”
; “And where did you find this one?”
It had become legend, Josh Redstone’s knack for finding gold in the most unlikely places. It seemed every employee had a story of how Josh found them in a place they didn’t want to be and gave them the chance to find the place they belonged.
“He was trying to market a new deicing chemical for planes that he’d come up with, and after he got turned down by all the big and small airlines, he came to Redstone Aviation. He’d already invented a new computer cable that reduced signal noise, and a fireproofing treatment for already existing roofs, but hadn’t been able to sell those, either.”
And on the strength of what would likely be seen in the business world as three failures, Josh had hired him anyway, Sam thought. Typical.
“They didn’t work?” she asked.
“They worked,” Josh said. “But Ian is in no way a salesman.”
Sam smiled inwardly. Not necessarily a bad thing in my book. “So Redstone took that off his hands?”
“And let him do what he does best.”
“Invent.”
Josh nodded. “And nobody else can quite follow the way his mind works, so he works alone. And lives alone.”
That could make things either easier or harder, Sam thought. “Not married?”
“Not for several years.”
Burned, or impossible to live with? Sam wondered. “How alone is he? A recluse?”
“No. He doesn’t socialize much, outside of Redstone, but he does get along fine inside. He works out in the gym with a regular group, that kind of thing.”
Something in Josh’s expression told her she was wasting her time trying to think of an approach. “You’ve already got this set up, don’t you?”
One corner of her boss’s mouth quirked upward. “I always did say you were perceptive.”
“So what’s the plan?”
“I hate lying to him, but I’d hate even more having to negotiate for his safety. Or go to his funeral.” Josh reached into his pocket and pulled out two keys on a ring, with a paper tag attached. He slid them across the table to her. “You just bought a house.”
Sam blinked. She looked at the keys, then at her boss. “Lucky me,” she said.
She picked up the ring, glanced at the tag, at the address scrawled on it.
“Let me guess,” she said. “The professor’s nearby?”
“Right next door.”
Already planning her packing, she lifted an eyebrow at him. “Did they want to sell?”
Josh’s mouth quirked. “They did in the end.”
“At twice market value?” she guessed, knowing how Josh worked. “Enough to set them up in a brand-new house with cash to spare?”
Josh shrugged. “The important thing was to get you close. So Ian’s got a new neighbor.”
Sam pocketed the keys with a grin. “There goes the neighborhood.”
Chapter 2
Adhesion.
That, Ian thought as he paced his living room, was the problem. The formula itself was working perfectly, it was the practical logistics of use that were being evasive.
He paused at the side window, his mind intent on the puzzle. No matter what they applied the explosive-sensitive material to, it started to peel away. Steel, aluminum, even plastic—after a month to six weeks under normal usage in a cargo hold or passenger cabin it always happened.
He turned, crossing the room once more, his path clear because all of the furniture was pushed up against the walls, leaving him lots of free space to roam as he thought.
They’d tried embedding the material in a plastic that could then be shaped, but the process greatly affected the efficiency and sensitivity of the product. They’d tried every known kind of primer, with little success. The problem was finding something that didn’t react with the active ingredient in the sensor medium. The only thing they’d found so far was lead, but lining an airplane with that was a problem for more reasons than just the weight factor.
He came back to the window.
He had to be overlooking something. There was some simple answer, he could just feel it. It was probably so simple he was looking right past it. He was looking—
He was looking at a rather incredible woman.
He blinked as his conscious mind finally registered what his subconscious had already known. There was a tall, leggy blonde next door, carrying a large box. Carrying it more easily than he would have expected, given its bulk. She was wearing faded jeans, a yellow tank top and a pair of wraparound sunglasses. Her pale hair was pulled back into some kind of knot at the back of her head and secured with what looked for all the world to be chopsticks. How did women learn such things? he wondered.
She really was very leggy, he thought. And very blond.
And she appeared to be moving in next door.
He frowned. Not his usual reaction to the sight of a beautiful woman, but his quiet, older neighbors had sold out and moved so quickly, barely pausing to say goodbye. True, they’d been longing for a place with less upkeep, but had been certain it would be years before they could afford the luxury town house they wanted. Obviously, something had happened to change that.
And the day after their moving van had pulled away a furniture truck had appeared, unloading several items. And now this woman.
She didn’t seem to have brought much. Maybe the rest of her personal items had been with the new furniture. Then again, probably not. It had been a delivery truck, not a moving truck. Yet what he’d seen her carry in amounted to less than his mother took on a weekend trip. Of course, his mother didn’t know the meaning of traveling light.
He supposed he could go over there and simply ask. Maybe introduce himself. Even offer to help, although it looked like she didn’t need it. It was what his mother would do.
But she, Ian thought rather glumly, would do it with ease and charm. He would fumble and stumble and feel thoroughly awkward about it.
The woman set another large box down on the front porch of the house, straightened, started to turn to go back to the blue pickup truck that was parked at the curb. Then she froze. And slowly turned her head and looked right at him.
Ian jerked back from the window, startled.
You can’t be sure she was looking at you, not with those dark glasses, he told himself.
And then she smiled and waved at him.
His heart did a crazy flip-flop. He told himself it wasn’t the smile that rattled him, although even from here it was a killer one. It had to be that she seemed to have sensed him watching. Such instincts, while he knew they existed, made his scientific mind wary.
He pulled back even farther, and with a discipline born of years spent learning to focus, he turned his mind back to the old problem.
And hoped he hadn’t just acquired a new one.
Sam took the last box straight inside, set it down and plopped herself down on the cushy couch that had been delivered just yesterday.
“Well,” she muttered to herself, “that’ll teach you to make assumptions.”
Obviously her Einstein image was now blown to bits. She hadn’t been able to see all of him, but already it was clear that Ian Gamble was anything but the wild-haired old man she’d been picturing. In fact, his sandy brown hair had looked thick and shiny and had that endearingly floppy quality that always made her want to touch.
She jumped to her feet. She wasn’t that rattled, she told herself. All she needed was a little readjustment of her perceptions. So he was younger than she’d thought. All that meant was he might be a bit more active than she’d figured. She could deal with that. In fact it would be easier. Stakeouts and long surveillances always made her crazy because she wasn’t used to sitting still for so long.
That thought cheered her, and she got up and went about the business of unpacking. Since she’d have access to laundry facilities here in the house, she’d been able to pack even lighter than usual. She usually lived in jeans and cotton shirts when she had the option, but she’d have to wear office clot
hing to convince Gamble she had a job somewhere. At least the Armani gown and the dressy clothes she’d acquired—at Josh’s recommendation and expense—in the course of other assignments could stay home this trip.
It didn’t take her long to empty the two boxes of clothing, and to set aside the dark jeans, sweater and knit cap she had selected in case she had to do any late-night recons. The bathroom was another, smaller box. The kitchen was the smallest box of all; her cooking skills were limited to coffee, scrambled eggs and packaged macaroni and cheese, so she didn’t require much in the way of gear. Into the fridge went the items from the cooler she’d brought from home, to save her from throwing the stuff out when she went back to her apartment. Then she unpacked the bag of items she’d picked up at the grocery store around the corner on her way here; she couldn’t order in every night. Well, she could, but not without drawing more attention from the neighbors than she wanted.
Lastly she took her two-inch Smith & Wesson revolver out of its case, along with a trim holster with a belt clip and an ankle holster. She’d spent yesterday sharpening her skills with the small weapon. Anything larger than the small gun would be harder to hide from Gamble, and she didn’t want to have to worry about it.
When she was done unpacking, she went back into the living room. She’d already seen that the windows on the north side of the house were the best spot to watch Gamble’s home. And smiled to see that Josh had already arranged to have the rather ornate floral draperies left by the previous owners replaced with pleated shades that allowed in sunlight from outside yet were semitransparent from inside, so she could see at least motion if not details without raising them.
Upstairs, the master bedroom had a window seat alcove that looked out on that same side. She suspected most of her in-house time would be spent there, since she could see the windows on the side and back of Gamble’s house, plus both the front and back yards. The yards themselves were an almost scary sight; gardening, it was clear, was not on the man’s list of priorities.
Which could be a good thing for her, she thought. A way to get closer. She’d have to watch for a chance.
One of These Nights Page 2
