by Beth Ciotta
“Thanks.”
“Where’s Arch?”
“Sleeping. I guess,” I added. “I mean, it is awfully early.” Back into the fridge I went. Relax. He can’t know anything for sure unless you tell him or he catches you in the act.
Right.
I grabbed a carton of eggs, a roll of sausage and a pop-open can of biscuits. We were in the country. Might as well indulge in a Jimmy Dean breakfast.
“Would you care to join me?” I asked as he plugged in the automatic coffeemaker.
“You go ahead. I need a shower.”
“I can wait.” It was polite to say so, at least. I cursed my growling stomach, searched a drawer for a coffee scoop and settled for a tablespoon. “Besides, I should inhale at least one cup of caffeine before attempting to cook.”
“Didn’t get much sleep, huh?”
Avoiding eye contact, I spooned grounds and filled the reservoir with water. “Things on my mind.”
“Arch updated me on the family situation.”
“He updated me on the senator situation.”
“So we’re both up to date.”
Could things get any more tense?
“So what did you have in mind?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“When you said you could help me. How?”
I pushed the brew button and turned.
Beckett leaned against the wall, muscled arms crossed, sunglasses perched on top of his salt-and-pepper buzz cut. Former military. Former cop. Current secret agent.
Okay. He was attractive. He was…hot. But I was in love with Arch, so I was immune. Sort of. “I know what you’re thinking.”
He raised a brow. “Enlighten me.”
“You’re wondering what a girl like me could do for a guy like you.”
“You got me there, Twinkie.”
“I’m an expert on career crisis. Been there. Still there.”
He worked his jaw. “Who says I’m having a career crisis?”
“Arch.”
“He spoke out of turn.”
“He spoke out of friendship.”
He grunted, and I had to wonder about the dynamic between Arch Duvall and Milo Beckett. How did they meet? What prompted them to work together? What was the story with the rest of the team? I wanted to ask a dozen questions but didn’t. Beckett, unlike Arch, did not mask his feelings 24-7. “Don’t get bent,” I said, driven by my new mission to speak my mind. “He’s worried about you.”
Silence crackled with tension. Colombian java wasn’t the only thing brewing.
He pushed off the wall, moved into my personal space. It took some big honkin’ restraint not to back away.
“Here’s the thing, Twinkie. Friendship—any relationship, for that matter—is tricky with Arch.”
“Why’s that?” I asked even though I dreaded the answer.
“He comes from a family of grifters. Both sides. Did you know that?”
I nodded. He’d told me.
“Spent his entire life operating in the gray. Never been prosecuted. Know why?”
“Because he’s good?”
“Because he never attaches himself to anyone he can’t walk away from in a split second.”
My stomach flipped. Arch’s personal code. He’d told me that, too. I hadn’t forgotten. I just kept hoping that one day I’d be the one he’d want to attach to.
The lists I’d jotted in my journal niggled my brain. Arch’s cons. Beckett’s pros. I cursed the awareness sizzling under my skin when the wiser choice stroked a thumb over my heated cheeks.
“Food for thought,” he said, handing me a spatula and leaving me alone to stew.
EVEN THOUGH I’M A fairly optimistic person, it doesn’t take much to send me into a spiraling dive of self-obsessed worry. Mom used to call me moody. Michael, too. I prefer sensitive. Arch would say, You’re making this aboot you. To which I’d have to reply, Ya think!
Beckett had just warned me not to get too close or expect too much from Arch. He’d said nothing of company policy. There’d been no threat or ultimatum should I mix business and pleasure, just a gentle warning. If the going got tough, Arch would get going.
I’m thinking Beckett knows we’re involved and doesn’t want me to get hurt. Which is sweet, but I also think he has an ulterior motive. I think he’s attracted to me. I’d have to be an idiot not to see the signs. He hadn’t spoken to me as boss to employee, or even as friend to friend. Affection had sparked in his gaze and touch—desire. Criminy. I pictured myself in a hokey infomercial hawking a collection of Motown’s greatest hits. Seven CDs for just $24.99! A Marvin Gaye classic grooving in the background…“Let’s get it on.”
Oh, man.
Stupid of me to be surprised. I’d caught him checking me out a few times on the cruise. But I’d chalked that up to being in character. Tex Aloha was a womanizer. And, okay, maybe I’d sensed interest here and there from Beckett himself, but I thought he was just curious about Evie the entertainer, not attracted to Evie the woman.
Never in my wildest fantasy…Okay, that’s a lie. What woman hasn’t fantasized about being the center of two men’s adoration? But come on. A bad-boy grifter and a good-guy operative? That kind of thing happened to women like Nic or Gina, sultry beauties. Not Ivory-soap girls like me. Something was screwy with this picture. I imagined an overanimated TV personality jumping out of the pantry, shouting, You’re on Candid Camera! or You’ve been Punk’d!
Yeah. That would be my luck.
I peeked over my shoulder. No cameraman. No wacky emcee. Just wacky me.
You’re making too much of this, I could hear Arch say.
Maybe he was right. I wanted him to be right. Beckett’s interest was flattering but unwanted. I’m a one-man kind of woman, and Arch was all the man I could handle.
I placed sausage patties in the skillet and focused on cooking up something other than trouble.
Unfortunately I was distracted by the sound of footsteps overhead. Water pipes groaning—or was that me? Beckett in the shower. Or Arch. Or both. Two handsome men. Two hot bodies. Naked. Wet.
Erotic images exploded in my brain along with another Motown classic. When I get feeling, I want sexual healing.
The doorbell rang, startling me out of a racy fantasy. Cheeks burning, I hurried toward the insistent chimes. UPS delivering a package? Girl Scouts selling cookies? I opened the door.
Nic sporting a frown.
“What gives, Evie? I book a red-eye flight thinking you’re in some sort of personal hell. Thinking Michael and Sasha’s elopement freaked you out more than you admitted. Or that something horrific happened to someone in your family but you were in denial. Several scenarios played in my mind. Except the one where I pull up to your house and your mother greets me at the door, saying, ‘She’s staying at the Appleseed Bed-and-Breakfast with her boyfriend. But of course, you know about Archibald. Can you believe Evelyn’s dating a baron?’
“As in, a person of title? I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t because, as your best friend, I was supposed to know all about Archibald.”
First, I marveled that Nic was here. Second, I marveled how she’d nailed my mom’s Midwestern twang. Then again, she was a gifted actress. She was also pissed off. I didn’t blame her for being upset with me, but I also didn’t know how to fix it. “I…I…”
“Save it.” She shouldered her way inside, parked her suitcase by the blue medallion sofa. “So where is he?”
“Who?”
“Your boyfriend.”
An obnoxious noise screeched, long and loud.
We both covered our ears. “What the hell?”
“Oh, my God.” My nostrils twitched at an acrid smell. “The sausage!” I sprinted for the kitchen. My pounding heart stopped when I saw the flaming skillet. I bolted for the sink and nabbed an empty glass.
“Not water,” Nic shouted over the wailing alarm. “It’s a grease fire. Flour. Or salt,” she said, banging open cabinets.
Meanwhile the alarm screeched, t
he fire raged and the haze choked. I squinted at the back door, thinking I needed to get the skillet outside before I burned down the house. But just as I reached for the handle, someone yanked me away—Arch. And someone smothered the fire—Beckett.
“You okay?” Arch asked.
I coughed into a pot holder and nodded, cursing myself because I didn’t think of dousing the fire with a lid.
Beckett opened the back door.
Arch opened a window.
Nic stared.
As the smoke cleared, I saw what she saw, only I’d seen it before. Beckett wet and naked except for the towel around his waist. Arch wet and naked, his towel upstairs or on the stairs or in the living room…but not around his waist.
It reminded me of the times Nic, Jayne and I had flipped through Playgirl magazine, only this was the real deal with live models—one my lover, one my boss—both hoo-ha-tingling gorgeous.
Okay, this was awkward.
“Where’s the fucking alarm?” Beckett bellowed over the deafening screech.
“Up there, mate.”
Both men were in adrenaline-charged savior mode. Probably why neither one had commented on Arch’s naked state or the tall, gawking brunette.
I couldn’t blame Nic for staring. Arch had an incredible body, not to mention an impressive—ahem—appendage. Except, hello, her focus was on Beckett, who was balanced on the stool Arch had slid across the room. The towel shifted when he reached up and disconnected the alarm.
Silence reigned just as I squealed and covered my eyes.
“Flashing your package, mate,” Arch said with a smile in his voice.
“Look who’s talking,” Beckett said.
“Fuck sake. Where’s my bloody towel?”
Snap. The third in less than a month. This one spurred by adrenaline and absurdity. A chaotic, uncomfortable moment. Nervous laughter bubbled. I smothered the inappropriate response with a pot holder, my eyes tearing—and it wasn’t from the smoke.
Nic ripped the pot holder out of my white-knuckle grasp, handed it to Arch. “Here.”
He looked at the pot holder, at her, at the pot holder.
I held my stomach and gasped out, “Too hot to handle,” between stifled giggles.
She glanced over her shoulder at me and mouthed, “Lucky you.”
Beckett nabbed an apron from a hook on the wall and passed that to Arch. “Here.”
Arch tied the frilly thing around his waist and I collapsed into a chair. The harder I tried not to laugh out loud, the more my stomach hurt.
“Dinnae think we’ve met,” he said.
“Nicole Sparks.”
“Evie’s friend.”
“She told you about me?”
“Aye.”
“She told me about you, too. Sort of. Didn’t tell me about you,” she said, glancing at the government agent.
He secured the towel. “Milo Beckett.”
She eyed them both up and down. Lots of glistening skin and toned muscles. “Evie mentioned she was getting more adventurous, but hell.”
“Oh, my God,” I squealed, following her racy train of thought. “No!”
“Just happened to be showering at the same time,” Beckett said.
“Separate bathrooms,” Arch said.
“If you’ll excuse us…”
“We’ll get dressed.”
They walked out all confident and guylike, Beckett in his towel, Arch in the apron. I swiveled, caught a rear view and, noting he’d tied the sash in a bow, broke into hiccuping laughter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
DRESSED IN PLEATED khakis and a green polo shirt, Milo stepped across the hall and knocked on Arch’s door.
“Yeah?”
Invitation enough. He walked in and shut the door.
Wearing pin-striped trousers and a crisp white oxford, Arch stood in front of the dresser mirror knotting a Windsor tie. “Hell of a way to start the morning, yeah?”
Milo glanced at the man’s rumpled bed. He suspected his morning had started with bigger fireworks but held his tongue. He gestured to Arch’s getup. “Think Nicole’s going to buy this baron bullshit?”
“Think we should be as honest as possible withoot compromising any trade or Agency secrets, yeah? Dinnae see that we have a choice. She lives in Atlantic City. She’s Evie’s closest mate aside from a bird named Jayne. You hired Evie to sing at the club. You can bet her mates will come round. Which means they’ll see you—owner of a run-down bar, not keeper of a European noble.”
He’d come to that conclusion on his own. Not to mention, they’d probably run into Arch, if not at the club then at Evie’s apartment. If their affair was over, he was the Pope. No need to complicate matters beyond the existing clusterfuck. He blamed himself. He’d hired Evie. He’d complicated what was once a streamlined, tight-knit operation. He took responsibility, but he couldn’t say he was sorry. “Keep it simple.”
“Need to know.”
“So what do you know about Nicole Sparks?” Milo asked as Arch nabbed a matching suit jacket from the closet.
“Actress, model. Outgoing and outspoken. Since she showed up thinking Evie was in need, I’d venture profoundly loyal to those she loves.”
“Not easily shocked,” Milo added, remembering how she’d reacted to their state of undress. Unlike Twinkie, she hadn’t averted her eyes or blushed. She’d enjoyed the show. “She reminds me of Gina.”
“In demeanor and appearance, yeah? Tall, dark, built. Only her eyes are green and her skin tone…” He paused, looking for the right word.
“Café mocha.”
“Exotic combination.” He slipped a pack of cigarettes into his inner jacket pocket. “She’s thirty-eight and single, in case you were wondering.”
“I wasn’t.” He was considering how best to handle the woman, what to reveal and what to withhold. He walked to the door, digesting that last bit of info. “You’re telling me a dish like that isn’t hooked up.”
Arch shrugged. “According to Evie.”
He stepped into the hall, thinking she must be a ball-buster. Why else hadn’t a guy snatched her up?
“Interested?” Arch asked as they descended the stairs.
“No.”
“Because I thought I sensed interest—”
“No.”
“—from her.”
AFTER RECOVERING from my giggling fit, I’d had to contend with Nic’s odd silence as she took over the preparation of breakfast. At first I was relieved. If she didn’t ask details about Arch and Beckett, I wouldn’t have to lie. As it was, I was busted. What about when we returned home and I sang at the Chameleon Club? What if I lucked out and Arch shucked his personal code and committed to a serious relationship? He couldn’t pretend to be nobility forever, and surely Nic and Jayne would visit the club and see Beckett.
Busted.
After setting the table for four, I returned to the kitchen for a second cup of coffee. Nic spooned scrambled eggs and green peppers onto a serving platter. She didn’t speak. Didn’t even look my way. I couldn’t take it anymore. “Aren’t you going to ask me about Arch and Beckett?”
“No. I’m going to ask them. Maybe they’ll be considerate enough to tell me the truth.”
Ouch.
Guilt-ridden, I followed her into the dining room carrying a basket of hot biscuits and a tub of low-fat margarine.
The men entered, looking relaxed and handsome and impressed with the food. “Peppers and eggs,” Beckett said. “Great.”
“Bagels would have been better than biscuits,” Nic said.
“Tabasco said the only bagels he could find at the local supermarket were in the frozen-food section.”
“Sacrilege,” Nic said, then raised an expertly tweezed brow. “Who’s Tabasco?”
“I’ll get the coffee,” I said.
“I’ll help you,” Arch said.
Once in the kitchen, I whirled, wide-eyed, hands spread.
“Dinnae worry,” he said in a hushed voice. “We’re
going to tell her the truth.”
“Everything?”
“Need-to-know basis.”
“I’ve been on the end of that stick.”
Arch winked. “Love it when you talk dirty, love.”
Men. “What I mean is, when you only told me what you thought I needed to know about the last case, it only heightened my curiosity. I’m a pussycat compared to Nic. She won’t take your guff like I did.”
“Guff?”
“Nonsense.”
“I know what it means. Just never known someone to use it, yeah? Kind of like toodles and kaput.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
Smiling, he backed me around the corner toward the pantry.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I whispered, scowling but happy dancing on the inside. I dodged his embrace and nabbed the pot of coffee. “You bring the creamer and sugar.”
When we reentered the dining room, Nic was inspecting a business card. “Fraud investigators, huh?”
“We investigate hard-to-solve scams and turn the tables on the scammers.”
“Beat them at their own game, so to speak.”
“So to speak.”
Nic pursed her killer red lips. “Sounds smarmy.”
“Smarmy?”
“Yeah. Sleazy. Tricky. Crafty. Suspici—”
“I get the point.” Beckett shook his head. “You’re a skeptical one.”
“Learned the hard way,” she said.
“Not easily fooled,” Arch said as we both settled in our chairs. “Brilliant.”
Except that it had made her cynical and distrustful of men and long-term relationships. I wondered suddenly about Beckett’s broken marriage. Had he stomped on his wife’s heart the way my husband had stomped on mine? My gut said no. Then again, as proven with Michael, my gut was not infallible. Still, for a man in the deception game, Beckett was surprisingly square with Nic. He said nothing of the AIA, nor did he admit to being a government agent, but he did mention that he was an ex-cop with years of experience dealing with grifters. He admitted to running the club and explained it doubled as a cover. He mentioned Arch’s previous occupation—Who better to partner with?—and the fact that Chameleon operated at a low-profile status.
I poured coffee for everyone, soaking in the conversation, separating whole truth from need-to-know and committing it to memory so I wouldn’t screw up later on. Mostly I was grateful for a day of revelations. The fewer secrets, the better. Now Arch knew how I felt about him—sort of. Nic knew about Chameleon—mostly. I knew something sparked between Beckett and me, more on his side than mine—I think. I decided to ignore it, trusting that the pesky awareness would fade as my relationship with Arch strengthened. All part and parcel of adjusting to a new job and the dynamics of several new relationships. I told myself I was up to the challenge. The new and improved Evie. Now, if I could just get my mom to clear up the mystery of the bonds.
