Stripping Bare (Steele Ridge Book 7)

by Kelsey Browning

  “So this is like a professional follow-up call. The psychologist making sure no more of her clients, my friends, take a header off the Aurora Bridge. At least not until she gets her money.”

  Guess that answered the question of whether or not Lauren would believe Tessa was capable of completely unethical and abhorrent behavior. “I did not send that e-mail.”

  From Lauren’s side of the phone came another long inhale and an exhale with the force of a fuck you. “That’s right. You don’t care about anyone in Seattle, not since you left here to follow Jonah Steele.”

  Is that what people back there believed? That she’d run back to the North Carolina because of Jonah?

  She should probably feel ashamed that Lauren’s assumption held more than a little truth. Tessa had given herself three months to get Martin & Associates up and running. The same amount of time she’d set to convince Jonah that she was the woman for him. If she couldn’t make him see they could be good together, then she’d promised herself she would finally move on. Write off any type of relationship with him.

  But anything between her and Jonah was no one’s business but their own. “I would never compromise client confidentiality—not for money or anything else.”

  “I’m not your client anymore.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Privilege and privacy outlast the professional relationship.” Why was she arguing about this? What really mattered here was that Lauren believed Tessa was threatening her. “I called because I need to find out what’s going on. So far, I’ve found three e-mails that I didn’t send, each of them demanding money.”

  “Carson told me you were on his heels, too.”

  “Has anyone else mentioned receiving an e-mail from me?”

  “Besides Davey, you mean?” Lauren said, making it obvious she didn’t believe a word of Tessa’s denial.

  “Yes.”

  “Not so far, but if someone hangs himself, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  And the line went dead.

  Although Tessa was sick over Lauren’s obvious anger and hurt, right now she couldn’t do a thing to change her mind. Words alone weren’t persuasive. She had to find out what was happening here and put a stop to it.

  Badger must’ve sensed her mood because he trotted out to the balcony and scratched at her leg to be picked up. He burrowed under the hem of her cardigan and poked his head out far enough to watch for birds or squirrels. He felt it was his honor bound duty to protect her from anything feathered or furry.

  Tessa stared at her computer. Now that she was starting to think clearly, she considered her client files. Maybe the company that kept confidential medical and mental health records had been hacked. Why hadn’t she checked that earlier?

  She opened the website and scanned the DataFort homepage. Nothing about a security breach, but some companies tried to keep mistakes like that out of the public eye. Since DataFort was in Florida, she dialed the customer service number.

  Thirty minutes, four customer service reps, and a manager later, she’d heard the party line five times. DataFort denied all knowledge of their database and records being compromised. But that didn’t mean it hadn’t occurred. If she found out they were covering up that type of mistake, she would not only be changing record-keeping providers, but she’d be filing a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services.

  For now, the best she could do was change her account password to something complicated and cryptic. To memorize it, she repeated it aloud twice.

  That done, it was time to figure out who was blackmailing people and hurting them with their own secrets. And if DataFort wasn’t willing to give her information, then she’d have to go to someone who could out-hack anyone she knew.

  Good morning, Jonah Steele.

  The morning chill felt good against Jonah’s bare chest as he hurtled down the trail on his mountain bike. The trip up had been a sweaty bitch, but he loved summiting the ridge that overlooked the twenty thousand acres he’d bought to help save his hometown.

  From up there, he could see the Steele Ridge Training Academy, built from the former sports complex, and Tupelo Hill, his mom’s farmhouse. His oldest brother’s cabin was tucked deeper into the forest and was shielded from view.

  When Jonah cleared the last of the trees, his new house was sitting there like the glass-and-wood castle Reid accused it of being. Winter clouds reflected in the windows, and the cedars and hollies seemed to wrap the structure in their embrace. The house he’d designed and helped build, possibly to the annoyance of his general contractor, was pretty damn stunning. And it was the most constructive thing he’d done for himself since moving back here.

  He’d been so hot to move out of his mom’s place, have his own space. His privacy.

  Yeah, what he’d needed it for, he wasn’t completely sure, because he hadn’t done much entertaining of the female variety lately.

  Jonah took a slug from his water bottle, trying to wash away last night’s taste of Tessa’s mouth. But in comparison to the sweetness of her lips, the well water was bitter.

  If that little scene outside the bar wasn’t absolute proof he shouldn’t be within a thousand miles of Tessa, he didn’t know what was.

  What the holy fuck was she thinking, moving back to Asheville?

  Last night, he’d been too stunned, pissed off, and turned-on to ask her why she’d moved cross-country.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face, feeling the stubble that he hadn’t had the motivation to deal with this morning. Not after flopping like a hooked trout in his bed all night, thoughts of Tessa plaguing him.

  Maybe that was better than sleeping, though, because too often she slipped her way into his dreams. Dreams that were sometimes full of sweet kisses and tender touches. Others that were full of sweaty sex and dirty talk. Those dreams that left him feeling disgusted with himself in the morning.

  They’d started not long after she came on at Steele Trap, when he’d realized he was attracted to her, had feelings for her that had nothing to do with the past.

  As he lifted his bottle to his mouth again, he caught a blur of movement on the gravel road that wound its way from the county road through the property.

  A sporty silver Beemer. Apparently Tessa hadn’t tortured him enough last night.

  She got out of the car and walked toward his front door. She had a leather tote on her shoulder, and her dark curly hair was pulled up in what on another woman would be a haphazard ponytail, but on Tessa the hairstyle made Jonah think of carefree, breathless sex. Her deep pink blazer didn’t come down far enough to disguise the way her gray pants cradled her thighs and ass.

  And her ass was a Louvre-worthy work of art.

  One side of his mouth quirked up at the thought. Somehow, he didn’t think Tessa would appreciate him picturing her butt hanging on a museum wall. But it was exactly the kind of weirdo thought that kept him sane during the times when he felt anything but.

  Stop ogling her ass and act like she doesn’t affect you. Doesn’t arouse the hell out of you.

  But she did.

  It didn’t seem to matter how far apart he and Tessa were. He wanted her, which always made him feel like a complete piece of shit.

  After the night they had sex in his office, he’d been so desperate to rid himself of the feeling that he’d seen a hypnotist. Maybe they worked for other people, but after the session Jonah still hadn’t been able to control his thoughts of Tessa and the guilt that came with them. In fact, the only thing he’d come away from the session with was an unreasonable hunger for fried chicken.

  He’d eaten buckets of the stuff for weeks afterward.

  Now a part of him wanted to let her ring his doorbell, realize he wasn’t inside the house, and drive away. But he wouldn’t.

  His heart thumping, feeling as if it was about to jump up his throat and cut off his air, he mounted his bike and peddled toward his house. He skidded to a stop a few feet from where Tessa was stroking his cedar doorjamb.

&n
bsp; The sight of her slender fingers playing along the trim shot through him with the power of a fireball.

  She’s touching your house, dude, not your dick.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Hand to her chest, she whirled around. “Oh my God, you scared me. Where did you come from?”

  “Out there.” He waved toward the trees. “Look, if this is about last night, I’m sorry that—”

  “No, not about that,” she said, her words barely audible as her gaze arrowed in on his bare chest, which gave him a raging case of man nip.

  Self-consciously, he brushed at them with the shirt in his hand, pretending to wipe away sweat. His body couldn’t handle her showing up places unannounced. Even the chill in the air couldn’t cool him down right now. “Then what?”

  “Can we…could we go inside and talk?”

  “Sure.” He leaned his bike against the house and reached past Tessa to open the front door. She slipped by him, her scent trailing after her and making him squeeze his eyes closed in pleasurable misery.

  He kicked off his shoes on the porch and shrugged back into his shirt, the material clinging to his sweaty torso. He stepped inside behind Tessa to see her soaking in the great room. The ceiling soared three stories and one wall was constructed of massive glass panes. The view of prime North Carolina mountain landscape grabbed him by the heart and squeezed every time he gazed out at it.

  Home.

  The fireplace, an altar of river stones bisecting planks the color of wild honey, stretched the height of the walls. Rust-colored sofas were accented with some fluffy woolly pillows Evie had picked out.

  “Your house is gorgeous.”

  “Thanks. Want something to drink?” he asked, then made for the kitchen without waiting for her answer. He needed to do something safe with his hands. Now.

  She trailed him into the kitchen, another wide-open space with light-colored cabinets and open shelving above the countertops. “I don’t drink much coff…” She trailed off as he bypassed the one-shot coffeemaker and reached for a kettle to heat water for her tea.

  While the kettle did its thing atop his gas cooktop, he rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a pouch of loose leaf tea. He kept his hands moving—measuring out tea, finding the honey, grabbing a cup. Tessa settled on an acrylic and chrome bar stool and watched him.

  When he finally placed the cup in front of her and poured her tea through a strainer, her beautiful mouth was open. Just slightly, but her surprise was clear. “You remembered.”

  Yeah. She’d kept some in Steele Trap’s break room. When he moved in here, he’d special-ordered some without a clue as to why he was stocking Tessa’s favorite type when he wasn’t a tea drinker himself. And he sure never offered it to anyone else.

  Once, Reid had been looking for a bottle opener and had come across the tea. One sniff and he raised a smart-ass eyebrow at Jonah. “You drink this shit or bathe in it?”

  With restless fingers, Tessa fiddled with the cup’s handle, pushing it first right, then left, then back again. Finally, she said, “I need your help.”

  And that was the one thing Jonah had never been strong enough to deny this woman, regardless of what it cost him personally. But being this close to her, wanting to touch her but knowing he shouldn’t, made him want to reach for something stronger than caffeine, like one of those fancy-ass imported beers Grif stocked in his fridge.

  No. No beer around Tessa ever.

  He stayed on his side of the counter, keeping an expanse of cold stone between Tessa and himself.

  As if that would somehow block his feelings for this woman.

  “What’s up?” He propped a hip against the cabinet and sipped his now cold coffee, trying to project a casual don’t-give-two-shits attitude.

  “I got a call from Carson Grimes last night.”

  For the first time since he’d spotted Tessa in front of his house, Jonah began to relax for real. “That guy is a damn good developer. Few people can spot a bad line of code faster than he can.”

  Tessa’s mouth gave a little quirk. “Those few people being you, right?”

  “We all have our talents. Now what’s with the call from Carson?”

  She took a quick sip of her tea and frowned. “He thinks I’m blackmailing him.”

  Of all the things he’d expected Tessa to say, that came in about number four hundred thousand. “What?”

  With distress in her dark eyes, Tessa met his gaze. Then she reached into a side pocket on her tote and pulled out a couple sheets of printer paper and handed them to him. The first was a news story from the Seattle Times detailing the death of a bridge jumper. Jonah quickly scanned the text and froze when he came to the person’s name. David Sinchilla.

  He looked up at Tessa to find her expression of worry had turned to desperation.

  “What the fuck?” Almost in a trance of disbelief, he was flipping to the next page when his doorbell rang. He looked up to find Paula Smith, his mail carrier, flattening herself against one of his front windows. She gave another knock for good measure and waved at him.

  Tessa pivoted on her stool to check out the disruption.

  “I have to answer this,” he told her. If he didn’t, Paula would just stand there knocking and waving all day. She was like a mail-delivering Sheldon Cooper.

  Jonah pulled open the door and tried to smile as if his stomach wasn’t a churning mass of hellfire over Davey’s death. “Hey, Paula. Whatcha got for me today?”

  Far be it for the mail service in this small town to leave his envelopes and packages in the commercial-size mailbox he’d installed at the entrance of the property. But Paula took such pleasure in doling his mail out to him every day. Today she was wrapped up in some kind of navy blue scarf with bright green tassels. Above the knitted mass, her cheeks were a good-natured pink.

  “Well, this looks like your light bill.” She passed over a white envelope as if she were counting back his change from a twenty-dollar bill. “Bet it’s a doozy with all these windows.” Another envelope. “And Lordy if this isn’t another one of those black card offers. I think they’re just gonna keep after you until you let them give you one.” She winked at him, and he didn’t have the heart to tell her he already had one.

  The next envelope was a light yellow and had a row of hearts drawn across the top. “Now this one looks to be a birthday card, if I had to guess. Maybe from Aubrey?”

  “Thanks for delivering these,” he said, taking a step back inside the house.

  “Oh, that’s not all.” She bent and scooped up a box he hadn’t noticed resting at her feet. “This one didn’t come with a return address. Maybe there’s a card inside if it’s a birthday gift.”

  He took the package and tucked it under his arm. “Appreciate it, but I know you’re super busy with the holiday season and all. Don’t feel like you have to drive all the way up here. You can just leave mail down at the road.”

  She patted him on the arm and, if he wasn’t mistaken, felt him up a little. “Oh, it’s no bother at all. You need to know that the Steele Ridge postal service is going strong and eager to serve our patrons.”

  He wanted to shake his head at her blatant hint, but he couldn’t bring himself to disrespect a woman who was only a few years younger than his mom and, if rumors around town were accurate, was looking for her fourth husband. “Keep up the good work.”

  As she sauntered back to her Jeep, she gave him a flirtatious wave over her shoulder.

  When he returned to where Tessa sat at the island—in direct sight line of the front door—he was slightly dazed at the Paula whirlwind.

  “Now that’s personalized service,” Tessa commented, humor clear in her tone.

  “Small town.” Jonah shrugged off his embarrassment at having her watch that little interchange and dumped his mail on the countertop to pick up the papers Tessa had brought with her.

  “Have you been dating?” she asked.

  The pages slipped from his hold and floated to the ground by his
feet. “What?”

  “She mentioned someone named Aubrey, but it’s clear your mail person believes you’re totally on the market.”

  “She’s old enough to be my mother, and Aubrey is my niece.” He leaned down and snatched the papers off the floor.

  “Plenty of men date older women.”

  “I thought you were here because you needed my help, not because you want to hear about my personal life.”

  Tessa’s eyes lit with interest. “If you want to talk about it, I’m all ears.”

  “No head-shrinking, Tessa.”

  “That’s a derogatory term. You know that, right?” She tapped the side of her cup. “Besides, I don’t think shrinking a head as big as yours is even possible.”

  “Wait until you meet my brothers.”

  “I’d love to.”

  Aw, shit. He hadn’t meant it as an invitation.

  “They all live here in Steele Ridge, right?”

  It would serve Britt, Reid, and Grif right if he gave Tessa some family background and let her loose on them. “Lemme give you the rundown. Britt has a savior complex. Grif has delusions of grandeur. And Reid has some kind of egomaniacal disorder.”

  “You don’t say,” Tessa said mildly. “And your sisters?”

  “Well, Evie is the baby, so she’s spoiled. And Micki…” Yeah, this was all fun and games until it got serious, so he just finished by saying, “…is too smart for her own good.”

  “And where does that leave you?”

  Like hell he was going to take that bait. “It should be obvious. I’m the only normal one in the bunch.”

  Tessa’s snort wasn’t particularly ladylike, but he liked it. To his disappointment, she quickly tucked away her humor and her face became serious again. “About why I’m here…”

  She was right. They needed to get back on topic. “Why would Carson accuse you of blackmailing him?”

  Tessa pointed to the other piece of paper in Jonah’s hand. “Read that one.”

  He scanned the short note signed with Tessa’s name and looked up at her. “You didn’t write this.”

  Her entire body relaxed and she leaned an elbow on the counter. “How do you know?”