by Christa Wick
"Home office?"
The question slid past her lips like a knife leaving a well-oiled sheath. An assassin's question, I wasn't sure how to dance around it. I just knew I couldn't have her that close -- not if I wanted to keep her outside the danger zone. I couldn't know she was three floors away or that the elevator was carrying her down to the garage. I couldn't watch one of the men in the office try to get close to her without squeezing his head between my knees until his skull cracked.
The only control I had concerning Mia was keeping her at a distance -- a physical distance because I couldn't yet manage an emotional one.
"That would be..." I fumbled for words as I passed her Keppler's coffee and put a lid on the espresso and cream before I finished. "Awkward."
She took the second coffee and turned to me, the green eyes almost hollow. Certainly the smile that rose to her lips was empty.
"I wouldn't have said yes even if you agreed to home office."
Looking at her again, I searched for the lie. If she were over me, why ask for home office? To hear me say "no" so she could be certain she was over me? Which meant she wasn't -- maybe.
Damn it, this was not how it was supposed to go. I didn't want to hear her empty or hurt or anything other than compliant. I couldn't keep an eye on her out at that farm, couldn't ensure her safety.
I shook my head, ending my indecision. My hands came up to grip her by the elbows. Absent the coffees, it was a position we had adopted more than once, usually naked. Me pulling her into my arms, my thumbs lightly indenting the pressure points on the inside of her elbows.
Control...dominance.
The blood that had turned to cold syrup in my veins at her flat smile and hurt gaze surged at last. My grip tightened then tightened again at the faint flicker of need that sparked in Mia's eyes. She wasn't lost to me, not yet. I could have her back at Stark International, where she would be protected. She'd roll onto a team, make new friends, meet someone...
I clamped down on the thought of her in someone else's arms. That only made me want to hold her in mine, to caress the silky brown hair, my fingers knotting in it as I angled her mouth to receive my kiss.
Don't go there, Stark.
You're here to protect her, keeper safe, not fuck her.
Definitely not that...
Another lick of my lips and I pulled her closer, the coffee cups pressing against my chest to warm the skin beneath. "Mia..."
She shook her head, her hands turning inward to press their backs against me as she twisted her elbows free. Another shake of her head set a tear loose, followed by a confession that tore through my chest.
"Last night was the first time in four months I didn't dream about you, Collin." She stepped back, one foot angling toward the exit. "It was the sweetest sleep I could imagine."
Chapter Eleven
Mia
I placed the coffee and deposit slips in front of Mr. Keppler, a grim smile on my face.
He took a swallow of coffee then smacked his lips. "That city slicker find you?"
I nodded, wondering just what Stark had said to my new boss.
Keppler swirled the cup in his hand, his good eye watching the steam come through the small hole in the lid. "Make you an offer you couldn't refuse?"
I took a sip of my espresso before answering, letting the heat relax my too tight throat so I wouldn't croak out my response. "No, I'm still yours."
That brought a smile to the old man's face. I, on the other hand, wanted to burst into tears. Stark's appearance had stunned me. His reaction to my asking for home office had almost crushed me. Why show up, in person, say any office I wanted and then reject the first one I asked for -- the only one I wanted?
Keppler slapped his hand on the counter, the sound coming out of his mouth half cackle, half old man giggle. "I told him. You're a James, been a James in Keeling since it was founded. You know you're home even if he don't."
I nodded, then ducked my head as I took another sip of coffee. I was the only James in Keeling. I had no family in the area beyond the loose, legal construct of Evan as my stepfather. I had no friends. I had a brand new boss who was retiring in three months. He knew my grandfather and father, but he didn't know me.
"Home..." I pushed the word out, rolled it off my tongue to catch its flavor.
Keppler looked up from the inventory sheet I had brought him that morning and smiled. "That's right."
The taste wasn't right, not yet. Still, it wasn't bitter, not like the words I'd exchanged with Collin in the coffee shop. It didn't burn, either. Pulling my phone out, I jiggled it at Keppler before grabbing a clipboard with a second inventory sheet. "I need to check if any of the roofers I called have left a message. Mind if I do it while I work in the stockroom?"
His bony hand shooed me toward the double doors in the back. I waited until I cleared them before I pulled John Gillie's phone number from my wallet and dialed. A few seconds later, his voice came over the line.
"Hey..." I paused, wondering for a second what the hell I was doing. "This is Mia...James."
He laughed, the sound so warm and indulgent it chased some of the knots in my stomach that Collin had tied. "Is there another Mia in town?"
"It's been six years, there could be a hundred of us." I laughed back, the smile on my face real. There was something about the man that was relaxing. He had the uniform, which meant he had authority, but he didn't seem too interested in using it.
"Nope, just you." His voice dropped at the end, the tone turning intimate. "You calling to take me up on my dinner offer?"
I hesitated, surprised by how quickly Gillie had taken control of the conversation. He didn't wait for my answer when I was slow to offer it.
"Tonight at the roadhouse, six thirty."
"Okay." I gulped a little air into my lungs, the stockroom suddenly hot and stale. My grip on the phone tightened. The tension moved down my arm to the spot on my elbow Stark had pressed just a few minutes before. I could still feel the exact placement of his thumb, his touch memorized from all the repetitions over those weeks in Dubai.
Sucking another quick breath in, I repeated my acquiescence and bid John a hasty good-bye.
********************
As scheduled, I worked until three. A quick stop by the country clerk's office calmed my fears about any liens on the horse farm, but revealed that Evan had taken out a mortgage for three hundred thousand dollars two years ago. With no ability to check on how close to default he might be, the worry hung heavy in the air around me as I prepared to meet Deputy Gillie at the roadhouse.
My closet gave me the most pause. I wasn't delusional as to why I had called Gillie. I needed to move on from Collin Stark. And if Stark was hanging around Keeling, he needed to see that I was doing just that. Which meant I had to try to attract Gillie -- but not too much because I didn't really know him and had only vague memories of Maddie's protective older brother who had been too cute for me to even dare having a crush on.
Beyond the dating implications of what I picked out, I didn't want Evan seeing me in designer labels. After almost an hour of holding up tops and bottoms and a few changes, I settled on jeans that would cover a pair of expensive black boots, my memory randomly slamming against images of the things I had done with Collin while wearing them. My tongue started to swell at one such image as saliva pooled along my gum line. Moist panties, moist mouth, the sensations driving my wetness became so real I could almost taste the salt of Collin's skin as I remembered sucking him.
I marched into the bathroom and held my face under cold running water until the need to touch myself while I allowed more images of Collin to invade my head faded.
When it had, I stopped fighting my closet and selected a dark amethyst cardigan over a silk shell in pale gray for the top. If I was lucky, Evan's ability to recognize quality fabric without a label was limited to southern textiles.
Harboring that hope, I moved on to make-up, my hands working on autopilot as I reproduced the old-time
Hollywood look I had adopted in Dubai. By the time I finished, tears swam in my eyes. I had to tilt my head back, a square of toilet paper at each corner to catch any leakage.
I swore at myself because it hurt to look in the mirror. My first attempt to glam up since Dubai, I couldn't decide what reflected back at me.
Beautiful, not beautiful...
Ordinary? Ugly?
From my teens until I left Keeling, "ugly" had haunted me, Evan reinforcing the idea every time my mother turned her back on him. College and the few lovers I had taken before joining Stark International had moved the needle to "ordinary, but unremarkable." For one brief period in my life that ended with the bomb in Dubai, I could look in the mirror and find "beautiful." Within weeks of that event, I could only muster "pretty," which quickly devolved to "tidy."
In the guesthouse, minutes from leaving to meet Gillie, all I could see was a painful facade of cosmetics. At best, "ordinary" lurked beneath them. Any practiced eye could see past the make-up, just as I had in staring at my reflection. Stark's eye was practiced, Gillie's not so much.
Biting at my lip to force the tears away, I reminded myself that a facade was all I needed until Stark was gone. After that, I could approach the mirror in increments, with less pressure until my mental skin became as thick as the physical one.
I held onto that thought as I drove to the road house, parked and went inside. Gillie had already secured a booth. Spotting me at the door, he met me halfway across the empty dance floor, his hand lightly grasping my elbow as he led me to the booth and tucked me in on one side. Memories flashed of him back in high school two grades ahead of me. He had a girlfriend then and a beat-up truck. He would always open the door for her, tucking her in or offering a stabilizing hand if she were getting out.
Forgetting all the feminist propaganda I picked up in college, I smiled at him as he sat down. He grinned in return and I felt a blush heat my cheeks.
"I have to say, I was surprised to hear you came back to Keeling."
"I told myself I wouldn't." My smile lost its elasticity, the corners held up by sheer will. Gillie started to say something but the waitress stopped at the table to take our drink order and give us menus.
"So why did you?" he asked after she left, his gaze on me instead of the open menu in his hand.
I pretended to study the entrees, the print blurring. "Mr. Keppler says it's because there's been a James since before Keeling was founded."
Gillie snorted softly but didn't press me for an answer. "You keep in contact with Evan while you were gone?"
"Hell no!" The outburst heated my cheeks. I pressed my lips together, closed my eyes and inhaled slowly. Sawdust, steak, spilled beer... I took another breath, the scents repeating. Looking at Gillie, I offered an apologetic smile. "I wish not keeping in contact with him was still an option."
He nodded. "I can't say I'm at all comfortable with you being out there."
"I know." My head bobbed and then I looked away.
My gaze landed on the hostess as she escorted an incoming diner to our section. Obviously a man by the shape of his lower body, I didn't look any higher until he refused the table with a hand gesture and pointed at the booth that would put him directly in my line of sight.
Seeing him sit down, I inhaled sharply.
Collin Stark.
Gillie's hand landed gently on my forearm. "Something wrong?"
My head jerked back in his direction. I offered up a closed smile as I shook my head. "Cramp in my leg. Haven't worn these boots in four months."
He took a look under the table, his hand brushing against my calf as he pinched a little of my jeans and lifted for a better view. Releasing the fabric, he grinned. "Look like the kind you don't want to get dirty."
Seeing the grin back on Gillie's face, I forgot about Collin for half a second and smiled. "They are exactly those kind of boots!"
Gillie glanced over his shoulder, his gaze cutting across Collin to the dance floor covered in sawdust. "That mean I'm not getting you out there for a dance or two?"
"Uh, yeah." I nodded like a maniac. "That and about a dozen other reasons."
Facing me again, Gillie winked. "Don't be so sure, Miss James. I don't need a badge and a gun to be persuasive."
Heat shimmered from my cheeks down to the top of my breasts. I had no doubt Gillie could have charmed a hundred women onto that dance floor. Less than two years ago I would already have been out there with him, my arms around his neck, my hips pressing against his. Maybe another six months would find us in that position. But not tonight, not with Collin Stark just a few feet away, his presence reminding me how ordinary, tidy, and unremarkable I was.
Giving my arm a little squeeze, Gillie retreated as the waitress rescued me yet again.
I ordered first, my attention sliding toward Collin as Gillie ordered. Stark seemed to be completely unaware that I was in the same section of the restaurant, but I knew that couldn't be the case. Even in some Podunk North Carolina town, Collin was too security conscious. Within seconds of entering the restaurant, he would have noted all of the room's points of access and he would have scanned the crowd, his expert eye picking out anyone who looked like they could be trouble.
He would have seen me and he had rejected the booth that would have put him out of my line of sight. Even if he couldn't be bothered to look my way, he knew I was there and wanted me to see him.
Douchebag...
With the waitress gone, Gillie reached across the table with both hands to capture my wrists. My attention snapped back to him. My lips rolled at the urge to pull my hands into my lap, but I didn't move them.
He tilted his head, his gaze moving all along my face. "Do you think you're back for good, Mia?"
"Depends on how things go." I shrugged as much as I could with him holding my wrists. "I thought I would try to start a consulting business online. I need to stay at the guesthouse to conserve my savings while I do that."
His brows lifted, his mouth puckering. "Ambitious."
"Hardly," I snorted. "Particularly as I want to work with charities. They have to nickel and dime their service providers to death."
"I see." His thumbs rubbed at the inside of my wrists. "Guess with the free housing being crucial to your plan's success, I'll have to work extra hard to make sure Evan's walking the straight and narrow while you're there."
"He has an insanely huge mortgage on the place from a couple of years ago." My head dipped as I finally pulled my hands away and into my lap. "He could be living off that instead of doing something illegal."
"Let's hope so." Gillie's torso gave a little jerk to the left. Reaching down, he pulled a cell phone from his pocket and glanced at it before catching my attention. "Sorry, give me a second."
I nodded as Gillie rose from the booth and walked toward the front of the restaurant. Alone, I tried to stare ahead of me, but a thirty-something female at the next booth met my gaze, her top lip curling up on one side.
I looked left, trying not to catch a glimpse of Collin but failing. This time he was looking at me -- sort of. His gaze seemed to be penetrating the table to where my hands still rested atop my thighs. I overlapped them, palm resting against palm, a thumb on one side of each wrist and the remaining fingers curling around the other. I squeezed at my wrists, forcing away the lingering sensation of Gillie having rubbed the flesh and the newer sensation of Collin's focus.
As if he had noticed the new tension in my body and new I was staring at him, Collin looked up, his blue eyes meeting and holding my green ones. I thought, in Dubai, that I had learned to read at least his basic mood, but his expression was one of impenetrable boredom. I would have welcomed genuine boredom. It was the emotions I had to guess at that tormented me.
Right -- so stop guessing, genius!
I forced myself to look away, first to where Gillie stood near the entrance talking on his cell phone then to the snarling female who had decided to go back to her food. As I waited, anger heated my body. For some
unfathomable reason, Collin wanted to infect my date with Gillie and thereby ruin it. He didn't want me, had exhibited that first with his ejecting me from his life then with his immediate dismissal of my request to return to the home office.
I pressed my lips flat against one another to stop the quiver threatening, then took a sip of my water to disguise the flattened lips. I wouldn't let him ruin the evening -- or at least I would make sure that neither Gillie nor Collin knew it was ruined for me. Stark might have my insides dancing on the end of a marionette's strings, but it would be my secret.
I forced myself to think of pleasant things as Gillie finally made his way back to the table. I had to dig deep into my past. My father had died too young for me to have many memories of him. Whenever I tried, I only managed little flashes of a visual.
Rooting around, I remembered my first riding lesson at four, my mother clutching her pearls as the farm's foreman put me up on the saddle. Pushing forty, Ray had first pitched hay for my grandfather at the age of sixteen. He had insisted there would be no pony for a James child. My first ride was on the back of a sweet-tempered three-year-old mare named Corabelle. By the end of the month, I was riding every day, bossing gentle Corabelle around the pen under Ray's watchful eye.
Hold that thought, Mia. Hold it right there.
I had to hold it right there. Going forward would bring me to Evan firing Ray and six years later, Corabelle's passing.
Back it up, Mia.
I smiled as Gillie slid into the booth, my mind on the sugar cubes and apples I had bribed Corabelle with when first seeking her friendship.
"Sorry about that." He looked down at the table's surface, as if seeking my hands. I hadn't removed them from my lap.
"One of the dangers of having dinner with a deputy," he continued. "Sheriff calls, have to answer it."
I nodded in understanding. "I hope everything's okay -- everyone's safe."
He gave me a wry smile and a weird head shake before he explained. "He heard I was having dinner with Evan Morris's stepdaughter."
My mouth popped open. I had been in the restaurant less than ten minutes when the call came in. I looked around the road house, wondering who would have recognized me and felt compelled to snitch.
