A Perfect Fit

by Sheridon Smythe

  Alex held up his hand, slanting her a dry look. “Why don’t we make a deal? For the duration of the present conversation, I’ll keep my hands and my eyes to myself, and you put the sarcasm on hold.”

  “And the sexual innuendos?”

  “You can keep making those.”

  “I—” She clamped her lips together at his wicked grin. Her fingers curled tightly around her fork. In a million years she wouldn’t tell him that even without the touching, looking, and innuendos, it disturbed her just being this close to him—looking at him. Aroused her, distracted her.

  “Okay, I’ll try.” She didn’t sound confident that she could do it, which made him keep on grinning. The man was impossible. “But I’m warning you, I draw the line at talking about their sex lives—”

  “You know about their sex lives?”

  Brooke smiled at his astonished expression. “It’s a small town, and a small factory. I’ve been told I have a knack for listening.”

  “So you’re Safe & Secure’s Dear Abby?”

  She shook her head. “No. Dear Abby gives advice, and I mostly just listen. I don’t think I’ve had enough life experience to be giving much advice.” When she saw his eyes light with interest, she hastened to add, “Don’t even think about interrogating me.”

  “You’re one of the supervisors,” he pointed out.

  “But I’m not under suspicion.” When he continued to stare at her, she scowled. “Think about it, Alex. If I was the guilty one, do you think I’d be here?” She laughed shortly. “I would never have returned when I left yesterday!”

  “Maybe, but here’s another scenario. What if you were in cahoots with the others at the factory? Wouldn’t it make more sense for you to be here, keeping an eye on me—distracting me—while they cleared away the evidence?”

  Brooke leaned back in her chair, staring him straight in the eye. Softly, she challenged, “If you really believe that, then why aren’t you storming the factory instead of pestering me?”

  “Because I don’t believe it, and I like pestering you.”

  “A typical ‘bad boy’ answer,” Brooke drawled.

  Alex looked surprised by her description. “I think my ex-wife would disagree with you. She thinks I’m boring, a workaholic with nothing on my mind but money.”

  “But that didn’t stop her from taking your money.”

  “So you’ve heard the rumors.”

  Brooke shrugged. “When you have money, you sacrifice privacy.”

  “Well, there’s a little twist to that rumor that most people don’t know,” Alex said, staring off the direction of the lake.

  “And I suppose you’re going to share such a well-kept secret with little ole me.” When he gave her a look that reminded her of their deal to lay sarcasm and seduction aside, Brooke relented. “Sorry, it’s a habit.”

  “The fact is, she didn’t take the money and run. I gave it to her.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I felt I owed it to her. I was boring, and I was a workaholic. No question about it.”

  “And are you obsessed with money?”

  He smiled faintly. “No, but since I worked all of the time, it stands to reason that I would make money.”

  Miraculously, Brooke felt the ever-present tension between them easing a bit. “So, you’re a self-professed workaholic. I didn’t know they took vacations.” She was probing, and he was likely to tell her to mind her own business, but he didn’t. Instead, he frowned, his azure blue gaze once again focused on the lake.

  “A few months ago, I began to get these mysterious headaches. The doctor seemed to think I needed a vacation.”

  “Sheriff Snider mentioned you were sick.”

  He glanced at her. “Sheriff Snider?”

  “The tall man standing by my car last night when you went bonkers and started waving at me? The one wearing the sheriff’s uniform and a big mean gun?” Ooops. Sarcasm again. Brooke bit her lip and tried to look sorry.

  “That’s two you owe me.” He continued to stare at her so long Brooke began to squirm. Finally, he said, “They’re right, you do have a talent for pulling out confessions.”

  Brooke bristled. “I don’t pull them out of people. They just start talking. Believe me, there are some things I’d rather not hear.”

  “Speaking of which, we got sidetracked, didn’t we? Tell me about the supervisors. You can start with Taylor Black.”

  “You know their names?” She wouldn’t have thought he’d known the location of the factory, much less the names of his supervisors!

  Alex steepled his hands, smiling at her shocked reaction. “If I were the jackass you think I am, then I’d keep quiet instead of telling you that I have their files in my briefcase.”

  “Including mine?” The thought unsettled her, although she couldn’t fathom why. Alex already knew things about her—intimate things—that would never be in her personnel file.

  She hoped. He could now easily and fairly scribble in the words big tease beside her name. Brooke cringed inwardly at the reminder and thrust the thought from her mind. She hadn’t thought about protection anymore than he had. They’d both been swept away by—

  “Brooke? Where did you go?”

  Absolutely nowhere she cared to share with him. “Um, I was thinking about Taylor Black. He’s a typical family man, and his wife works at the factory with him. He’s got one grown son, seems pretty happy most of the time.”

  “Nice house?”

  Brooke closed her eyes, trying to remember the last time she’d seen it, which had been...at a barbecue last summer. “Medium income range, two-car garage, above-ground pool. Nothing rich.”

  “Car?”

  “Cars,” Brooke corrected. “He drives a ninety model Cutlass, and his wife drives a station wagon they’ve had for years.”

  “Vacations?”

  “Nothing extravagant. They went on their first cruise this year, but I know they cashed in an insurance policy for that.”

  “How do you know?”

  She grinned. “Because Theo George works for their insurance company, and his sister works—”

  “At the factory,” Alex concluded with a chuckle.

  “Right on. Theo’s sister thought it was just a waste of good money.”

  “I guess gossip is a part of life in a small town.”

  “About as predictable as Treva’s menu at the cafe.” Brooke sighed, lifting her face for the light breeze that began to stir. “I think you can mark Taylor off your list of suspects. The man’s as honest as they come.”

  “How about Dixie Comford?”

  “Married, with children. Her husband works for the telephone company and makes decent money, and she’s a very good friend. I don’t think she would get involved with anything illegal.”

  To her relief, Alex nodded and left it at that.

  “Next?”

  “Leroy Coast.”

  “Nice family man, recently promoted to Level B Supervisor.” Her lips tightened briefly before she forced herself to relax again. “He’s a good, honest man, and he deserved the promotion.” It was the truth. But she had deserved a promotion, too.

  “I guess that leaves our most obvious suspect, Kyle Lotus.”

  She couldn’t help her spontaneous reaction. She stiffened, and those sharp blue eyes of his saw the movement. They narrowed in sudden speculation—or was it suspicion? Hoping to bluff her way out of it, she shrugged and said, “He’s the plant manager—as you probably already know.”

  “Married?”

  “Divorced.”

  “Children?”

  “No.”

  “House?”

  “Apartment.” Brooke knew she was fumbling, knew that instead of volunteering the answers, he was having to pull them out of her, and knew that her hot face was a dead giveaway, but she couldn’t help it. She did not want to talk about Kyle Lotus with Alex.

  “Is he the reason you’re in denial about us?” he asked softly.

  And no
w she knew why she didn’t want to discuss Kyle with Alex. Desperately, she pretended ignorance. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do.”

  Needing her defense, Brooke broke their no-sarcasm, no-seduction pact. Thrusting her chin out, she growled, “Since you’re so certain you know what you’re talking about, why don’t you tell me?”

  “Was he your lover?”

  Brooke’s jaw dropped at his outrageously personal question. But the thing that shocked her the most was the blatant jealousy in his voice.

  Even more amazing was the rush of pleasure she felt on hearing it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rosy, telltale flush on her face, evasive eyes, evasive answers...no, Alex decided, Brooke Welch wasn’t good at subterfuge. Another facet of her personality discovered and uncovered.

  And in the process of uncovering this facet, he’d discovered one of his own he hadn’t realized existed: that of jealousy. He tried to think of a single time in the past when he might have been jealous of his ex-wife and another man...and couldn’t. He’d always thought jealousy was a weak, useless emotion, a sign of insecurity.

  Yet there was no mistaking the identity of the emotion raging through him now. Perhaps it was the primitive surroundings that brought out his baser male instincts. Made him want to snatch her to his chest and growl out, “You’re mine, understand?”

  Oh, that would go over well, Alex thought with an inward chuckle. He suspected Brooke would squelch his macho feeling of ownership in a heartbeat, using that rapier tongue of hers.

  He watched her now as she stared at him in that arousing, defiant way she had, speculating on just how deep her involvement was with Kyle Lotus. Questions surfaced, questions he felt a burning need to have answered by the woman sitting across from him.

  “Tell me about him,” he commanded.

  She tilted that stubborn little chin higher and narrowed her eyes. “He’s good at his job, and generally well-liked. He’s handsome and outgoing, and he drives a cherry-red sixty-five model Corvette—totally restored.”

  Her beautiful amber eyes never wavered, but Alex detected an odd sheen in them.

  “He carries breath spray in his pocket, and keeps a spare key to his apartment taped above his door.” Her eyes darted to the lake, then back to his face, brighter than ever as she finished bitterly, “If you want to know the size of his penis, I’m afraid you’ll have to ask him—or one of his countless girlfriends.”

  If Alex disliked Kyle Lotus before, he came close to hating him now. “He hurt you.”

  Brooke shook her head. “Only my pride.”

  “How?”

  She hesitated, casting her gaze to her empty plate. “I guess I thought I was special.”

  “And you found out he was dating someone else?”

  “More than one.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Yes, ouch.” She met his gaze, her expression somber. “Getting involved with Kyle was a stupid thing to do.”

  “Because he’s your boss?”

  “Yes!”

  That single, sharply hissed answer made Alex flinch. He planned to override her fears about getting involved with the boss, but right now he had one last question to ask about Lotus. “Brooke...do you think Lotus is behind this?”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re asking me that question, knowing how I feel about him?” She laughed. “I can hardly be trusted to be unbiased!”

  “I trust you.” And surprisingly, he did. Brooke didn’t strike him as the vengeful type. Yes, she was hot-tempered, but there was a vulnerable sweetness about her anger that he couldn’t explain even to himself.

  “Why?”

  “Because you came back from town when you could have left me here. Because you didn’t send Elijah into town to explain everything—”

  “Jail can be a powerful motivator,” Brooke inserted dryly.

  “True, but we both know you could have told Sheriff Snider I was in the hotel room. I think it would have been difficult to convince him I’d been kidnapped if he had found me there.” When she dropped her gaze abruptly, Alex reached out and tilted her chin. He searched her face as he asked, “So why didn’t you?”

  For a long moment, she didn’t answer. Finally, she said, “I...don’t know.”

  ****

  Brooke spent the rest of the day cleaning the dusty cabin, stacking wood, and straightening the tiny shed where her father had kept his fishing equipment.

  Every step she took, Alex was right beside her, helping and generally keeping her tense and edgy. By the time night fell, Brooke didn’t have to pretend to be exhausted when she informed Alex she was going to bed early.

  To her surprise—and slight disappointment—he didn’t argue, and despite the heart-pounding knowledge that he lay stretched out before the fireplace on the other side of the door, Brooke slept soundly.

  She awakened early Monday morning, tiptoeing around the sleeping Alex. Once in town, she drove to her house, made a quick pot of coffee, and drank two cups while she dressed for work.

  Brandy normally made it to the factory by eight o’clock, and Brooke had every intention of beating the tech there so that she could replace Hugo before Brandy found it missing. She didn’t relish trying to explain to the technician why she had taken the test model.

  Twenty minutes later Brooke pulled into the parking lot at Safe & Secure and cut the engine. Her tense shoulders relaxed slightly when a quick scan of the parking lot failed to reveal Brandy’s green Toyota. Good. She’d made it.

  The lab where Brandy worked was located next to Kyle’s office, and had once served as a utility closet. Kyle had converted the room into a small lab six months earlier, hiring the twenty-four-year-old divorcée to test the condoms at random for quality and resilience. The weekly results of her testing were faxed to the Bradshaw Corporation.

  Another senseless Bradshaw demand, Brooke mused as she used her master key to open the door to the darkened room. Kyle had been furious over the new order, claiming the money that it cost to run the lab could have been put to better use, such as replacing old equipment, which would in turn increase production, or fixing the leaky roof...

  Brooke couldn’t have agreed more. She was doubly certain that Sonny, the janitor, would agree with Kyle’s assessment. He was the one who spent hours mopping water from the break room floor when it rained, and it was those rainy days when his arthritis pained him the most.

  Deciding against turning on a light, Brooke felt her way through the room in search of the metal table where she’d snatched Hugo last Friday from his exalted resting place.

  Her shin found it first.

  Swearing beneath her breath, she withdrew the plastic model from her pocket and used her fingers to find the screw sticking up from the table. When she found it, she spent another frustrating few moments trying to line up the threads to the bottom opening in Hugo.

  Finally, she got it. Turning Hugo around and around, she quickly began to screw the model onto the table top.

  The overhead fluorescent came on, blinding Brooke for an instant.

  She froze, her startled gaze focused on her hands where they clutched the over-sized penis. Slowly, she closed her eyes. This can’t be happening, she thought, wishing she had a deep dark hole to jump into.

  “Well, well, well,” Kyle Lotus drawled from the doorway. “If it isn’t our cool little tigress, Brooke Welch.”

  Hearing her name on his lips motivated Brooke. She finished the job and stepped away, her insolent gaze taking in the slim, blond-haired, blue-eyed man lounging in the doorway. He was dressed in a light gray summer suit, the blazing white of his shirt emphasizing his artificial tan.

  Kyle Lotus was a handsome man, but he couldn’t hold a candle to Alex’s raw sex appeal and candid personality.

  Finally she lifted her eyes to his face, trying not to remember how close she’d come to being another meaningless notch on his belt. Coolly, she said, “What are you doing here so early?
It’s not ten o’clock yet.”

  Her dig about his late hours hit pay dirt. He stiffened, his eyes narrowing to threatening slits.

  “Never mind about me. The big question is, what are you doing?” He nodded to Hugo, his leering smile making her skin crawl. “If you’re that desperate, I can give you some phone numbers.”

  Brooke closed her hands into fists, her temper rising. “Look, you little—”

  “Brooke!” Brandy exclaimed, appearing behind Kyle. Pushing him aside, she approached Hugo, throwing Brooke a conspiratorial wink. “Oh, good. You fixed him. You said you could do it, and you did. Thanks a bunch.”

  Kyle darted a suspicious gaze between the two before pushing away from the door. He gave his blond head a disgusted shake before disappearing.

  Brandy closed the door and locked it behind him.

  “Whew!” She wiped an exaggerated hand over her brow. “He’s been a bear lately, hasn’t he? I think this thing with Bradshaw has him in a tailspin.”

  Brooke tried to sound casual as she said, “Why is that?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I guess he’s worried about what will happen to the factory if something happens to Bradshaw.” She shrugged, glancing at Brooke with unconcealed curiosity. “So, now that he’s gone—what were you doing with Hugo?”

  “It’s a long story—and I promise to tell it to you sometime—but right now I’ve got to run. Thanks for sticking up for me.”

  Leaving Brandy openmouthed and staring after her, Brooke hurried from the room. She had a million things to do before she headed back to the cabin that evening. A shiver of anticipation stole over her at the thought of seeing Alex again.

  As she passed the break room, she heard the pounding of a hammer and the muted sound of male voices. Frowning, she backtracked and peeped inside.

  A man dressed in dingy coveralls stood balanced at the top of a ladder; he was replacing the water-stained ceiling tiles with new ones.

  Unsettled, Brooke continued along the hall past the small offices housing the supervisors. So Alex was having the leak fixed. If he thought to score brownie points, he would be sadly disappointed. Fixing the leak was something that should have been done a long time ago—without her prompting.