Annie smiled, picturing the look on Cara’s face if she suddenly said, “Excuse me, guys, but Taylor and I have to go upstairs and have sex now….”
Instead, Cara had her “I’m dealing with the village idiot” look on her face. “Well?” she asked Annie.
“Well, what?” Annie said. “Were you talking to me?”
“I asked if it was all right with you if Jerry and I left now. We were hoping to catch a double feature.”
“Sure, I’ve just about had it myself,” Annie said, straightening up, reaching her arms over her head, stretching out her back. She stopped, midmotion, aware of Taylor’s dark eyes on her, aware that her sweatshirt was riding up, exposing several inches of bare stomach above the waistband of her jeans. With a quick tug, she pulled the sweatshirt back down.
“It’s getting late,” Pete said. “We have to go upstairs.”
Annie froze. Then laughed nervously. Upstairs? There was no way he could have read her mind…. Was there? “Why?” she asked.
If he noticed any suspicion or hostility in her voice, he ignored it. “I need to check out the security system on your top floors. I need to know what has to be fixed or added to make this place secure,” he said.
“I’ve got to lock this in the safe,” Annie said, motioning to the box that she’d brought in from the car.
“Well, we’re outa here,” Cara said, grabbing Jerry’s hand and pulling him toward the door. “See you on Monday, Annie.”
Annie started to lift the heavy box, but Pete was there. “I’ll get it,” he said, picking it up.
She raised her eyebrows and he smiled. “I think I can probably risk carrying it all the way to the safe,” he said.
Pete followed Annie down the hall and into the lab. “I’ve got the same alarm system upstairs as I do down here,” she said, returning to their conversation. “You know, the kind that doesn’t work real well? It also doesn’t work real well upstairs, too.”
Annie opened the door to the safe and Pete put the box on the shelf next to the crate containing Stands Against the Storm’s death mask. She closed the door tightly, spinning the combination lock.
“You know how the alarm system works,” she said. “So why do you need to look at it?”
“I need to do a window count,” Pete said. “As long as Marshall’s willing to foot the bill, you might as well let him upgrade your security.”
“How? By putting bars on the windows?” she asked. “Then what? A barbed-wire fence and a pair of Dobermans? No thanks. I have no intention of turning my house into a high-security compound.”
He shifted his weight, crossing his arms, still watching her steadily. This, Annie thought, is what it feels like to be a specimen under a microscope.
“Invisible bars,” Pete answered. “Motion detectors to start. We can go from there.”
“My neighbors are going to love this,” Annie muttered, following him up the stairs. “Every time a moth bumps against my window, the alarm’s going to go off. I won’t get any sleep—except when I’m in jail for disturbing the peace.”
She trailed along after him as he went from room to room, checking the windows and recording information in his little pocket notebook. He finally paused in front of two closed doors on the second-floor landing.
“What’s in here?”
“A linen closet,” Annie said, opening the door to reveal her haphazardly stashed collection of sheets and towels.
He pointed at the second door. “And here?”
“Stairs to the attic.”
Taylor opened the door, flicking on the light.
“There’s nothing up there,” Annie said.
He started up the dusty stairs. They creaked and moaned noisily under his weight.
Lit only by one bare bulb, the big attic was full of shadows—and junk. An old rocking horse sat in one corner with a broken television set. A collection of cross-country skis and poles and a child’s wooden sled were in another. Boxes and boxes and boxes of books and clothing and stuff were everywhere, some of their contents spilling out onto the wooden floor.
“Nothing up here?” Pete said, a glint of amusement in his eyes as he watched Annie climb the last few stairs into the attic.
She smiled sheepishly. “Nothing important,” she said.
But Pete’s eyebrows had dipped slightly down in the closest thing she’d seen to a frown on his face as he crossed from one window to another.
“You don’t have your alarm system connected to these windows,” he said, a note of disbelief in his voice. “Not a single one.”
“Well, it would’ve cost nearly double,” Annie explained. She moved toward a window, looking down through the dusk at the ground three distant stories below. “There’s no way someone would climb up here. I mean, they’d be crazy—”
“I’ve known some cat burglars who wouldn’t hesitate to scale seventeen stories for an easy target,” Pete said. “This would be a cakewalk.”
“No way.” Annie shook her head, glancing down again. The lawn was so far away. She couldn’t imagine climbing up this high. The shingles on the roof were slippery and some were loose. One wrong step, one misjudged placement of a foot, and there’d be nothing but air. Air and then the bone-breaking earth.
Pete reached up to lean his arms against the rough wooden rafter, the muscles moving under his trim black turtleneck as he looked down at her. “I guess you’re not a climber,” he said with a small smile.
“A climber?” she echoed, trying not to melt under his warm gaze.
“People are either climbers or not,” he explained. “The not-climbers are more comfortable on the ground. It’s not that they’re afraid of heights, they just have a healthy respect for gravity. Too healthy. As a result, they doubt the very existence of climbers.”
“I’m definitely a not-climber,” Annie admitted.
“Climbers were born knowing about toeholds, and wanting to touch the sky,” Pete said. “And climbing up to the attic of a three-story house wouldn’t even get them half the way there.”
“Which are you?” Annie asked.
Before he had a chance to answer, she launched herself at him, screaming like a banshee. His hands automatically came down to catch her, but he lost his footing, and he and Annie tumbled to the dusty attic floor.
His body responded instantly, his arms going around her, his fingers threading into the fine, golden-brown hair that he’d so often imagined touching. Silk. It felt like silk. Softer…. Oh, man—
“Oh, man,” Annie wailed, pushing herself away from him and scrambling to the stairs.
He heard her stumble in her haste, and then the solid slam of the door.
With a groan, Pete lay back on the floor, feeling as if he’d been run over by a truck. What the hell had just happened? She’d tackled him, out of the blue, for crying out loud….
He saw it then.
It was a small black shadow, flitting up near the eaves.
A bat.
Annie was afraid of bats.
She had leapt on top of him not from unrestrained attraction, but out of fear.
He tried to convince himself that the feelings flooding him were relief, nothing more. But he couldn’t contain the laughter that bubbled up, laughter mostly aimed at his own overinflated ego.
He pulled himself up off the floor and opened one of the attic windows. Gently he herded the tiny bat in that direction, until it noticed the obvious path of escape and disappeared into the cool night air. Pete closed the window and looked around, dusting himself off.
ANNIE SAT AT THE KITCHEN TABLE, her hands wrapped around her mug of tea, as if for warmth. She glanced up as Pete came into the room, meeting his eyes only briefly before looking away, embarrassed.
“You okay?” he said.
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m, um…a little freaked-out by bats.”
“A little,” he agreed, amusement lighting his eyes.
She looked up at him again as he sat down across from her.
A rueful smile slowly spread across her face. “You probably didn’t know what hit you,” she said.
“I was a little confused at first,” he replied with an answering smile. “I got the bat out of there and found where he must’ve gotten in. I stuffed a rag in the hole. It’s not a permanent fix, but it should keep him from coming right back inside.”
“Thanks.” She paused for a moment, then said, “Don’t tell anyone. Please?”
“That you’re afraid of bats?” Pete asked, surprise in his voice.
“Yeah. Cara doesn’t even know.”
“What difference does it make?” he asked curiously.
“I’m an archaeologist,” Annie said. “Bats and I tend to hang out in the same places. I would be teased mercilessly if my colleagues knew I was afraid of them. And I’m really okay around bats if I’m expecting them to be there,” she said. “It’s when I’m not expecting them that I suddenly become nine years old again.”
He was watching her with that funny little half smile on his handsome face, and Annie had an extremely vivid memory of the way his body had felt against hers. The man was all muscles, all hard, solid strength. But his hands had been so gentle as he touched her hair….
“Promise you won’t tell,” she said.
Her blue eyes were wide, watching him with such hopefulness, such trust and such innocence. She actually believed that if he told her that he wouldn’t tell anyone, then he wouldn’t. Pete had to look away, wishing he deserved that trust, knowing he didn’t. Not by a long shot.
“I’d think at least you would’ve told Cara,” he said. “You two seem pretty tight.”
She shook her head.
“Why not?” he asked.
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she met his gaze. “Can you honestly tell me that you don’t have some deep, dark secret that no one knows—not even your best friend?”
He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “I have way too many secrets,” he said.
“Well, good. You tell me one of your secrets,” Annie said, “and then we’ll be even. You don’t tell anyone that I’m a baby when I see a bat, and I won’t tell anyone that…you secretly watch old Doris Day movies whenever they’re on television.”
Pete raised an eyebrow. “How did you guess?”
Annie laughed. “Do you really?”
“How many secrets do you want me to give away?” he countered.
He was flirting with her, Annie thought with a sudden flash of pleasure. “Just one,” she said. “You know what I’d really like to know?”
“I can’t begin to guess,” he said.
“I want to know your real name.”
Pete stopped breathing. She knew. How the hell could she know?
“You do have a Navaho name, don’t you?” she asked.
He understood with a flash of relief. God, for a second there, he’d actually thought she knew he was undercover…. “Yeah,” he somehow managed to say.
Annie looked across the table at him. He was watching her, his face suddenly guarded, expressionless. She wondered if perhaps she was prying too deeply. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“Hastin Naat’aanni,” he said. His voice was so soft, it was almost a whisper as he spoke the language of his grandfather. “That’s what I was called.”
Intrigued, Annie leaned forward. “What does it mean?”
He stood up. “It doesn’t translate well,” he said, obviously hedging.
“Roughly, then,” she said. She stood up, too, testing her legs, checking to see that the wobble had truly gone away.
He turned to watch her closely, making sure she was okay. When had it stopped being annoying? Annie wondered. When had his presence changed from interfering to nice, to making her feel safe and protected?
“Roughly, it means ‘Man Speaking Peace,’” he said. His lips curled up into a sardonic smile; then he turned and left the kitchen.
“That’s a great name,” Annie said, following him down the stairs. “Who gave it to you? How old were you? Why were you named that?”
At the bottom of the stairs he stopped and faced her, bringing them nose to nose.
“That’s another secret entirely,” he said.
They were standing close enough for him to kiss her. It would take very little effort on his part. She wanted him to kiss her, she realized suddenly. She actually wanted him to. Was she crazy?
But he didn’t move.
“I’m going to use your phone,” he said, “to call Steven Marshall. He’ll authorize me to have your security system updated and rewired to include the third floor.”
Annie felt the first sparks of anger. But that was good—anger was better than whatever it was that she’d just been feeling. Wasn’t it? “But I don’t want my system updated,” she said, turning and going back up the stairs. “I’m happy with everything exactly the way it is.”
“Then you better get used to me camping out on the floor of your bedroom every night,” Pete said. He followed her back into the kitchen. “Because until we get motion detectors and a laser security system installed, that’s exactly where I’m going to be.”
“Oh, come on, Taylor,” Annie said. “You don’t really think I’m in any kind of danger, do you?”
“I’ve been hired to protect you,” he said evenly, crossing his arms and leaning against the door frame. His dark eyes watched her as she took a loaf of bread from the cabinet, and jars of peanut butter and jelly from the refrigerator. “What I think is irrelevant.”
Annie pulled a clean plate out of the dishwasher and set it on the kitchen table, then selected a dinner knife from the utensil drawer. She folded one leg underneath her as she sat at the table, opening the bread bag and pulling out two slices of thick, dark whole wheat bread.
“I don’t enjoy sharing my bedroom,” she said, frowning down at the chunky peanut butter she spread on one of the slices of bread. “Particularly since I don’t believe someone really wants to hurt me.”
“Maybe not,” Pete said. “But maybe you’re wrong. If I were you, I wouldn’t want to find out the hard way that I was wrong.”
He was watching her as if he were memorizing the way she put jelly on bread. “You hungry?” she asked suddenly. “Want a sandwich?”
Pete shook his head, a small smile playing about the corners of his mouth. “No, thanks,” he said. Then he added, “Is this your dinner?”
She shrugged, taking a bite. “Believe it or not, it’s healthy,” she said around the peanut butter in her mouth. “The peanut butter is natural—just a little salt added—and the jelly’s that all-fruit stuff. I got the bread at the health food store. You sure you don’t want some?”
“I’ll send out for something, thanks,” he said dryly.
“I still don’t think anyone would be able to climb up to the third floor of this house,” Annie argued after she swallowed a bite. “Even if someone managed to get up there, the neighbors would see them and call the police.”
Pete stepped into the kitchen, sitting down across from her at the table. “But what if someone could get up there?” he said. “What if they could gain access to your house that way? Then what? Your artifacts are locked in the safe. They’re secure. But the lock on your bedroom door wouldn’t keep anyone out.”
“I can take care of myself,” Annie said. “I’m not defenseless, you know.”
“So you could defend yourself,” Pete said. One eyebrow went up a half a millimeter. “With that plastic gun you had in the lab—the kind that says Bang! on a little flag when you pull the trigger? Very effective.”
Annie actually blushed, then couldn’t keep a smile from spreading across her face. “I was improvising,” she said. “Gimme a break. It was the middle of the night and the alarm system went off.”
“Look, I’ll make a deal with you,” Pete said. “Lock me out of your house. Then give me five minutes to get back inside without triggering your alarm system. If I can do it, then you stop complaining
about updating the system, and you let me sleep on the floor of your bedroom until I’m convinced the house is secure.”
Annie had started to take another bite of her sandwich, but she pulled it out of her mouth. “There’s no way you can get back inside in five minutes,” she said. “No way.” She bit down on the sandwich as if for emphasis.
“So is it a deal?”
“What do I get if you can’t do it?”
His dark eyes rested warmly on hers. “You get whatever you want,” he said. Even with his face expressionless, his words had a faintly suggestive quality.
I’m imagining it, Annie thought, turning away from him. I’m reading things that aren’t really there.
Nodding, she stood up, gesturing toward the hallway. Sandwich in one hand, she followed Pete down to the front door. He opened it, and looked down at her before opening the storm door.
“Lock the door and turn on your security system,” he said. “Then check the ground floor to make sure all the windows are locked.”
“Can I turn on the outside lights?” Annie said, peeking out into the already dark evening.
Pete shrugged. “Whatever you like.”
He pushed open the storm door.
“Hey, you better take your jacket,” Annie said. “It’s cold out there.”
His eyes shone with that inner amusement she’d come to recognize. “I’m not going to be outside that long.”
He vanished into the shadows.
Holding her peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in her mouth, Annie used both hands to quickly shut and lock the front door, activate the alarm system and turn on all the outside lights, including several spotlights that illuminated her stately Victorian house. She then went through the lab, and then the office, eating her sandwich and checking all the windows on the lower floor. They were all locked. There was no way he could get in that way.
Satisfied, she climbed the stairs. She would go into the kitchen, get the second half of her sandwich, then go down to the lab and—Oh, Christmas!
Hero Under Cover Page 7
