When she looked at him again, the tears had been vanquished, although a few droplets clung to lashes. “It’s not that big a deal. Colin and I had... I guess you could call it a fight. He told me I didn’t have to go, but I can’t—” Her voice broke. She squared her shoulders. “Sometimes I don’t know when to keep my mouth shut. It’s better this way.”
He wanted in the worst way to take her in his arms, but he was her boss, not her lover, not even her friend. What disturbed him was realizing he felt like both. He didn’t like knowing she had nobody here in Angel Butte.
“Was it over Ralston?” That he could understand.
But she shook her head.
He sighed. “I’ll go with you to meet the delivery guys.” He held up a hand when she started to speak. “I don’t want you opening your door when you don’t know who is on the other side of it. Then we’ll have a housewarming.” He smiled slightly. “Order a pizza.”
She looked, suddenly, absurdly young. Bewildered. “I don’t understand.”
“You don’t have to understand.” Oh, damn—he didn’t sound like a boss. He cleared his throat. “It’s in my interests to see that you settle happily into Angel Butte.” That was stuffy enough, he congratulated himself.
She continued to study him for an unnerving length of time, those dove-gray eyes soft but also more perceptive than he was comfortable with. At last she bit her lip and nodded. “If you really have time.”
“I have time.” He turned and punched the button. They both stared at the elevator doors as if they were the Rosetta stone. Same color but less absorbing. He heard faint dings from the elevator shaft. “You haven’t said anything you shouldn’t to me,” he heard himself say.
Her laugh was almost sad. “I will. Blake says—”
He almost heard the tires skidding as she stopped.
“What does Blake say?”
Cait shook her head. “He was easy to annoy.”
With a louder ding, the elevator doors opened. They both stepped into it. He pushed buttons.
“He in water systems?”
Her glance was startled and then wary. “How did you know?”
“I looked him up.” He shrugged. “Call me nosy.”
“Yes,” she said after a moment. “He’s really good at his job.”
“Is that damning with faint praise?”
He heard a little sound and realized she was trying to repress a giggle. But her lips were curved as she stepped out at her floor.
“Maybe,” was the last thing she said.
* * *
NOAH WAS AS good as his word, which didn’t surprise her. At four-thirty, he appeared in her office doorway.
“We should be going.”
Cait shut down her computer, collected her bag and let him escort her to her car. She was very conscious of the interest they were garnering by leaving together, but Noah seemed oblivious. He once again minutely inspected her car before letting her get in and promising to follow her.
She’d liked the town house right away. It seemed to be well built and had luxurious touches she appreciated. The entry and living room boasted gleaming wood floors, the bathrooms Corian countertops and molded sinks and the kitchen a granite-topped island and a copper backsplash behind the stove. Kitchen appliances, including refrigerator, were included, to her relief. She’d never owned a washer or dryer and would have to buy those, but otherwise she was set.
Noah had followed her into the alley, where she felt lucky to have a single-car detached garage. Cait took pleasure in using the remote control and watching the door rise. She’d never had her own garage before, either.
He pulled into the single parking space beside it and was waiting inside the fenced yard when she came out the garage’s side door with one of her big suitcases. “Do you have more?”
He ended up pulling the other large one and carrying the small case. As they crossed the yard, his gaze took in the deck with built-in benches and landscaping.
“I wish you didn’t have the distance to get in the house.”
Colin cloned. The thought of her brother hurt. It took an effort to make a clownish face at Noah. “Don’t rain on my parade. This is a nice place.”
A grunt was her only answer.
He did concede after a brief tour that, as rentals went, this one seemed fine. She teased him that he just didn’t want to admit how nice it was because Earl had built it.
The glint of humor in his eyes was the closest she got to an admission from him.
The front doorbell rang, and she stood back as two hefty men carried in the new sofa. When they asked where she wanted it, she made a hasty decision and they set it down, then went out for first the bar stools, then the mattress and springs. They put together the simple metal frame way faster than she could have, heaved the springs and mattress into place and departed as briskly as they’d come.
Aware of Noah watching from the bedroom doorway, Cait said, “There. Halfway to furnished.”
“Do you have a pillow? Linens? Towels?”
“I plan to go out this evening for the basics.”
He frowned. “I thought I was going to leave you safely tucked away for the night.”
The idea of going out again held no appeal, but sheets weren’t the only necessity she lacked. “I suppose I should have taken another hour this morning.”
“You don’t have groceries.”
“I’ll do that tomorrow. I can pick up a couple of cheap bowls, paper plates...” She shrugged. “I’ll survive until my stuff gets here.”
“You could have borrowed from your brother.”
“I...didn’t think to.”
Colin had clearly been stunned when he’d seen her suitcase that morning. His gaze had traveled slowly from it up to her face.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I told you. I can’t stay,” she had repeated. She’d known she was hurting him again but was unable to imagine what it would be like if she did stay.
His face had closed—bang—until it was hard and almost unrecognizable. She supposed it was his cop face, one she’d never seen. He didn’t say another word, only followed her back in, grabbed the larger of the two remaining suitcases and hoisted all of them into the back of her small car.
“Where are you going?” he’d asked.
“I’ll let you know.”
He nodded and went back in the house, leaving her to depart unescorted for the first time since Tuesday night.
Thinking about Colin now made her chest constrict painfully. She couldn’t imagine anything she could say that would undo the damage. The awful thing was, a small part of her still wondered. Hadn’t she read that no one in law enforcement believed in coincidences? In the moment when she’d told him about Hegland and their mother, she’d seen hate in his eyes for a man who, barely a week later, was murdered.
Not Colin.
But that sick fear lingered.
Not something she could tell Noah.
The doorbell rang again. “Pizza,” he said briefly and disappeared.
It turned out he’d ordered from Chandler’s, which did not as a rule deliver but, of course, did for the boss.
The cheerful kid had also brought thick stoneware plates, napkins and a liter of cola, as well as several glasses with “Chandler’s” in gilt on the sides.
It felt a little odd to open the box on the narrow breakfast bar and sit so close to Noah that his shoulder bumped hers. When she looked down, she couldn’t help seeing the way his dark trousers pulled taut over powerful muscles.
“How do you stay in shape?” she asked before she could think—and, gee, what was new in her opening her mouth too quick?—and felt her cheeks warm.
He lifted an eyebrow at her. “I run and lift weights
both. Plus, I’m remodeling an old house in my spare time.” His tone was dry. “Helps keep me active.”
“What I was really wondering was about health clubs.” Sure you were.
“Don’t use one. I have my own equipment at home. I hear good things about Newberry Square Athletic Club, though.”
“I enjoy classes,” she explained. “I think I need other people’s enthusiasm to motivate me. Plus, well, I was really enjoying kickboxing, and I’d feel silly doing it by myself.”
“Have you taken self-defense?”
“Of course I have! And the kickboxing isn’t because—” She abandoned a hopeless cause. “I’ll check them out.”
“You look like a runner.”
“I expect I’ll do more of that here. In Seattle, you either run on a treadmill, risk life and limb and the longevity of your knees running on sidewalks and cross too many city streets or you drive to a park. I might take up cross-country skiing, too. Since I don’t suppose running outside is an option in the winter here.”
“Some days.” He chuckled. “I run to the top of Angel Butte three or four mornings a week. You’re welcome to join me.”
She snorted. “Get real.”
His laugh deepened. “It’s a good workout. Great view when you get to the top. Then the easy part is going home.”
They both grabbed second slices of pizza.
She ate a few bites, washed them down with soda, then decided to tell him something that had happened at work.
“I think someone tried to bribe me the other day.”
“What?” Noah set down his pizza and turned those startlingly keen blue eyes on her.
“You heard me. It was...oh so smoothly done I’m not positive that’s what he was doing, but I think so.”
“Good God.” He shook his head.
“I take it you didn’t, well, suspect things like that were going on with my predecessor?”
He huffed out a breath. “Maybe. I wouldn’t be shocked. There was definitely an old boy’s club going on in Angel Butte. Rooting out the remnants of it isn’t making me real popular.”
“You mean with the old boys. There have to be a lot of newcomers who’d be outraged to know if things like that have been the norm.”
She found she could interpret his grunts, which expressed anything from indifference to, in this case, “maybe.”
“You going to tell me who?” he asked after a minute.
“Phil Barbieri.”
“Now that doesn’t surprise me.”
She knew what he meant. From what she’d heard, Phil was one of the most successful contractors in the county, surpassing even Earl in the number and breadth of projects he had going at a time. Unlike Earl, he went for government contracts as well as residential projects. He looked the part of a longtime member of that old boy’s club, too—a hefty, powerful body thickening at the waist, a broad, bluff face, weather-beaten and, she suspected, showing signs of too-frequent alcohol consumption. His complexion was red, his noise showing purplish veins.
“It’s the damn septic facility, isn’t it?” Noah said in resignation.
“Bingo. Phil does not want it placed out on Bond Road. I gather he has a lot of money already sunk into a projected development there.”
“Yeah, Phil has expressed himself to me.” One side of Noah’s mouth turned up. “Probably a lot more crudely than he did to you.”
“He wasn’t crude,” she conceded. “In fact, he was so delicate, I can’t absolutely swear I understood what he was saying. It was something to the effect that the builders liked having a good relationship with the planning department, and they knew how to take care of their friends in government. What’s good for me is good for them, and vice versa.” She wrinkled her nose. “I think that was the gist of it. Good is his favorite word, apparently.”
“He didn’t say, ‘You scratch our backs, we’ll scratch yours’?” Noah asked sardonically.
She laughed. “No, no, he was much too subtle for that.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
For all his amusement, she didn’t kid herself that the question wasn’t dead serious.
“Nothing,” she told him. “Nothing at all.”
After a minute, that too-sexy mouth curved again. “Good.”
“Can we label my tactics something else?” she begged. “Smart, maybe?”
Now he did laugh, stretching at the same moment. She heard a few bones crack and saw an impressive flexing of muscles.
“More?” she said hurriedly, poking the pizza box toward him.
“Nah, thanks. I’ll leave you some leftovers.” He frowned. “Are you serious about heading out this evening?”
“I really need sheets and a towel, if nothing else. I won’t worry about groceries until tomorrow. Thank goodness for the weekend.”
“Where are you going?”
“Walmart or Target. All I need is one set of everything, plus some basics like a can opener and a coffeemaker. I’ll eat out a lot until my stuff shows up.”
“All right,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll follow you over there.”
Indignant, she stared at him. “What? No. You’re not going shopping with me.”
“Wasn’t offering. I’ll just make sure you’re not being followed.”
She argued; his face looked like one of the Easter Island statues. Once he made up his mind, he was not a flexible man. What a surprise, Cait thought in irritation.
But also, she had to admit as she made the drive in the dark, there was a tiny bit of gratitude mixed in. She had no doubt that if Blake had been lurking down the street and was following her, Noah would have noticed. At least she could feel pretty confident Blake wouldn’t appear tonight in the bedding aisle at Target.
Noah, though, scared her a little, with his combination of unexpected charm, sense of humor and outright kindness, all coupled with the personality of a bulldozer. A big one, not one of the wimpy little machines gentlemen farmers bought as toys to push earth around their five acres. Noah was the leveling-forests kind.
So far, she hadn’t demonstrated any ability to stand up to men who wanted to push her around. Wrinkling her nose, she thought she’d probably still be okay if she weren’t attracted to him.
Unfortunately, that was a big “if.” Exasperated with herself, she found a parking spot only steps from the doors leading into Target.
As she locked her car and hurried in, it struck her that she was in trouble in more ways than one.
CHAPTER SIX
NOAH DID HIS damnedest not to think about Cait over the weekend, and he dodged her for most of the following workweek. Every time he saw her coming his way, he summoned his new mantra: Use Your Head. Usually followed by: For God’s Sake. Add an exclamation point.
There were a lot of reasons why any kind of personal relationship with her wasn’t smart, starting with the fact that, yes, she worked for him. Women employed at Chandler’s were off-limits, too.
It wasn’t only that, though. Cait McAllister had wounds that he could almost see, like the fading yellow of bruises. She was not up for casual sex, and that was all that interested him. The emotional crap wasn’t his style, and God knows he had never imagined a wife and family. He had neither the experience nor the skill set to make a success of either. He barely remembered the father who’d appeared and disappeared from his life until that last fishing trip when Noah was something like eight or nine. Mom had remarried about then, and his stepfather had been disgusted with the baggage she brought. He was never abusive, just tried to pretend Noah didn’t exist. Kind of like a man who’d reluctantly allowed the kids to get a dog but didn’t want anything to do with it and threw a fit if it tripped him or dug a hole in the lawn. Noah thought he’d been eleven or twelve—huge for his age and, predictably, clums
y—when one day he overheard him and Mom talking in their bedroom, the door not quite closed.
“Your ex must’ve been an even uglier son of a bitch than he looks in pictures, if the kid is anything to go by.”
Noah should have kept going, not waited to hear what his mother replied.
She clicked her tongue in that way she had. “You shouldn’t say that, Dennis!”
He remembered relaxing slightly, forming the intention of walking on.
Too late. Because she continued. “It does bother me that he looks so much like his dad, though. I wish he took more after my side of the family. There isn’t a single good thing he could have inherited from his father. Nothing,” she finished with vehemence, and even hate, which slid between his ribs like a switchblade.
Sometime that night, lying in bed unable to sleep, filled with an adolescent’s oversize hurt and anger, was when he formed the intention of finding his father someday.
Over the years, he didn’t quite forget how often his father had disappointed him, but he dwelled more on the few times Dad had taken him to see the Trail Blazers play at the Rose Garden, the summer afternoons getting stuffed on hot dogs while they watched a minor-league baseball team play their hearts out. His father had taken him camping, too. He sent a very occasional child support check for the next few years, the last from Angel Butte. By the time Noah set out on his futile quest to track the man down to an obscure town in central Oregon, he had grown up enough to know better than to expect much. Maybe all he’d wanted was to say, I needed you. Where were you?
He still regretted not getting the chance.
Noah knew what he was good for and what he wasn’t. He was a ruthless workaholic who didn’t have time for a serious relationship, never mind a family even if he’d wanted one. He had enough of a conscience to go out of his way to avoid hurting the women he used for sex.
One who bore her hurt so visibly was off-limits, all other issues aside.
This driving need to protect her—well, she was his, in a sense, just like the town was. That’s all it could be.
Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She GoesA Promise for the BabyThat Summer at the Shore Page 9
