Something about her bothered him on a deep level. So Rusty kept his expression bland and deliberately looked away in dismissal. He did not look back to see how she took his subtle rejection, but he knew she wouldn’t miss it for what it was—a rejection.
“Wow dude, that was fucking harsh.”
He shifted his gaze to Ryan to find him looking at him with annoyance.
“She’s not my type,” was all he said, because she wasn’t.
She was obviously on the prowl and looked like she was also looking for uncomplicated sex. But Rusty was not deceived, there was nothing uncomplicated about the woman.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“For one? She’s too easy.”
“Damn, man!” Ryan had a look of disbelief on his face.
Rusty knew he sounded mean and harsh, but he honestly did not care. Easy women were off the radar for him. He knew firsthand the damage they could cause and was not going down that road. Hell no.
Suddenly, he’d lost interest in the club or in getting laid. He just wanted to go home. He blamed that on the woman sitting there with her sexy body and intriguing tattoo. He glanced at her and saw that there was some guy in deep conversation with her boobs. He felt his fist clench as the thought of going there and literally tearing the man’s eyes off of her breasts. It was ridiculous. He did not know her and what little he’d seen, he did not like.
“I’m ready to bust this joint. Wanna stay?” he said, shooting an apologetic glance at Ryan.
“Hell no, man. I came because you were lonely.”
Rusty smiled. “Say what?”
“No, it’s okay, dude. I get it. Most people need some hand-holding from time to time.” Then he coughed into his hands, “Damn shitbird.”
“That’s it, goddamn swab jockey! It’s going down tonight,” Rusty said with a cocky smile. “Let’s see how you hold up, old man.”
Since they’d moved into the Silver Shield HQ premises, both men found out that they had a number of things in common, like basketball. They had played several one-on-one games and it was their preferred method for settling disputes. Ryan was freaking awesome on the basketball court, but Rusty held his own too.
“Old man, eh?” Ryan said, getting to his feet. “We’ll see about that.”
As they drove back to HQ, Rusty felt the need to apologize. “I’m really sorry for dragging you out then ending the evening so abruptly,” he said with a sideways glance at the man sitting beside him.
“I’m not,” Ryan surprised him by saying.
“Really? Why?”
“Because I saw the way you reacted to that woman. You wanted her, bad.”
Rusty snorted. “You’re delusional, dude. What you saw was my disgust.”
Ryan laughed. “Deny it all you want, man. I know what I saw.”
Rusty ground his teeth and remained silent. He wanted to deny it so badly he could almost taste it, but he couldn’t. Just thinking about the woman had his balls tightening. His usually discriminating body had turned against him.
As he went through the security scan at the gate, Ryan’s earlier words suddenly echoed in his brain…
Someday you are going to fall so damn hard and when you do, it’s going to be so pathetic.
All of a sudden, he felt uncomfortable. He saw clearly the dark sensual pools that were the woman’s eyes, the tattoo that began at her neck and ended who knew where…he was kind of curious about that. But more than that, he wanted to confront her and let her know how harmful her behavior could be to those around her. Some poor fool might fall in love with her and get his heart broken. He didn’t think she was aware of the potential effect of the way she acted; at least, she didn’t look like she was out to wield her feminine power over the hapless male species. It was possible she just needed someone to point out what she was doing.
And it was possible that he was just crazy.
He shook his head to dispel the thoughts. He knew what his problem was. It was nothing but sexual frustration and a good sweaty round of basketball will get his libido back in shape. At least for a while. If that didn’t work, there was always the cold shower.
Chapter Four
A week later
The phones lines were ringing off the hook. Customer service had their hands full, fielding questions and trying to soothe irate customers. All the programmers had their eyes glued to their screens, searching for the offensive lines of code. There was chaos everywhere and it had been that way for an entire week.
Hope had the three screens in her office fired up and an additional screen added as well. She was carefully combing through the code to find out why their sites had suddenly begun acting up. She suspected some phishing software and was glad that they’d put some badass security in place, so at least their client’s info was intact. Still, they needed to find the offending code before things went totally crazy.
She peered at the scripts she’d written and saw nothing suspicious. Line after line, and it was all clean. Yet, she knew it had to be there somewhere. She placed a hand on the small of her back and stretched. She had no idea how long she’d been seated in front of the screens and her eyes were beginning to cross over.
“You need to take a break, Hope.”
She looked up to see her assistant looking at her.
“There’s too much to do, Derek. Maybe later,” she said, going back to the scripts.
She had no idea if it was a few minutes or a few hours later, but she was suddenly yanked up from her chair.
“Ow!” she yelled as she banged her shin against the table. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“You need to take a break. Now,” Jared said in a voice that brooked no argument.
Hope took a few steps back so she could scowl up at him. “Derek went to get you, right?” The treacherous bastard.
“He’s right and you know it. You’ve been at this since you came in this morning, which was what…six a.m.?”
A few minutes before six actually, but there was no way she was telling him that and giving him more ammunition to use against her. Hell no.
“You don’t understand,” she said, pushing her glasses up with one finger. She only ever used them when she was working on code, and even then, it was after she’d worked for several hours and her vision had begun to blur.
“What don’t I understand?”
Hope had no idea who was behind this hacking, but it was extensive. However, they had been able to keep it from spreading; all they needed now was to isolate the script and then get rid of it. And she was so close. She could feel it.
“Hope?”
She blinked and focused on Jared’s impatient face. He had asked her a question, what was it? Oh yeah…what he didn’t understand.
“I’m this close to finding the offending code,” she said, holding out her thumb and her middle finger, to show how close she was to solving the problem.
“Yes, I get that. But take thirty minutes or you’ll make yourself sick.”
She folded her arms and scowled at him. He was right. She knew he was right. And she hated it when he was right.
“Don’t look at me like that, you know I’m right,” he said with a smirk.
Hope sighed in resignation. “Fine, okay. Whatever. I’ll take a drive and when I get back, you better not get in my way. You too!” she said, shooting a glance at Derek, who she saw resting on the door jamb.
“I was just doing my job,” Derek said with a smile.
Hope did not return the smile. “Your job is to assist me, not to hamper me.”
“I know, and if you got ill from working too hard, I would end up with all your work and I know nothing about coding,” he quipped back.
She snatched her keys and her phone, stuffed them into her purse and slung it over her shoulder. “Damn traitors!” she muttered before marching out of the office.
As she pulled out of the parking space reserved for her, she heard her stomach growl. She needed to find food. She decided to d
rive to her favorite restaurant, a little Mexican place that served the best quesadillas in the entire city, as far as she was concerned.
Much later as she chewed on a piece of chicken, her mind drifted back to her experience at the club a week ago. She felt the familiar anger and frustration burning deep in her gut as she remembered the way the man had cut her dead. It would have been an extremely humiliating experience for her, except that she’d been busy thinking of a hundred and one ways to kill him. That had taken her mind off the embarrassment of giving a come on and having the subject treat her like trash.
That had hurt on so many levels.
It hadn’t been the snubbing that had cut her deep, although that in itself had been bad enough. What had made her so angry was the way he’d looked at her. She’d recognized that look. And even worse, she had recognized the feeling that had crept up her spine and spread to the rest of her. It had been the same way she’d felt each time one of her foster fathers or brothers did up his pants just before leaving her bedroom at night.
It was the feeling of shame.
And that damned man had made her feel that shame. The shame she thought she’d left behind when she’d finally begun to make something out of her life. It was a shame she’d carried about for almost her entire life before she’d begun going to therapy and had found out that she did not have anything to be ashamed about. She had been a victim.
Victim.
She mulled on that word as she ate her meal. She’d come to hate the word more than anything, mostly because it signified the utter helplessness she’d felt as a child.
But she was not a victim. She had seen herself through college. She had built a successful business and had paid off her college debts. She was not a victim.
Sure, she faced problems, but she always came up with solutions. Always.
“Hi, sweetie, you look like you want to murder someone.”
Hope looked up and smiled as an elderly woman pulled out the extra seat on her table and sat down.
“Hi, Mrs. Lawrie, when did you get back?”
Mrs. Lawrie was her closest neighbor and she’d been out of town for a couple of weeks visiting her daughter in New Hampshire.
“I came in last night. Heard you had a spot of trouble?”
Hope rolled her eyes, “Just some intruder trying to get into my house. Thank goodness the neighborhood watch insisted we install those alarms linked to the police department.”
“That’s strange. I’ve been living on that street for over forty years and I’ve never had an intruder,” Mrs. Lawrie said thoughtfully. “Wonder what he was after?”
“I would love to know that, but I haven’t a clue.”
“Hmm…well in my experience, the answers to riddles are usually very obvious and easily overlooked,” she said with a knowing look.
Hope supposed she was right, but she could not think of any reason why anyone would want to break into her house.
“It was probably some homeless guy,” she said with a shrug. “Anyway, enough about that. Did you have a good trip? How is your daughter?”
Mrs. Lawrie beamed. “Oh, it was wonderful! Samantha is doing okay and her kids are just darling.”
“Maybe I can stop over one of these days and look at pictures?” Hope asked.
“That’s so kind of you, Hope. I would be delighted.”
“Great!” Hope said, getting to her feet. “I’m so sorry to run off like this, but I need to get to work. I’ll definitely stop by.”
“Oh, you go on, dear. I’ll just rest a bit here and treat myself to some of Juanita’s delicacies.”
“Good for you!” Hope said with a laugh.
She’d forgotten that Mrs. Lawrie and the owner of the restaurant were in the same yoga class and were good friends. As a matter of fact, it was the older woman who had introduced Hope to the hidden gem.
As she walked out, she glanced at the slim watch on her wrist. She’d been gone an hour already. She felt more relaxed and ready to go back to work. As much as she hated to admit it, she had to agree that both Jared and Derek had been right. She’d needed a break.
She slid the key into the ignition and turned it on, when something struck her. The words Mrs. Lawrie had spoken suddenly took on a very different meaning…
The answers to riddles are usually very obvious and easily overlooked.
And just like that, Hope knew where the virus was hidden.
“Shit!” She put the car in reverse and sped back to the office. It was time to reclaim her servers.
**
Rusty walked into the bedroom of the guest house he occupied, dropped the duffel bag beside the bed and fell back on the bed, still in his boots. He was fatigued. He had just spent the most hellish week in New Mexico retrieving the kidnapped daughter of a businessman. The kidnap had taken place in Detroit and he’d gone all the way to New Mexico to get the young lady.
There had been four of them on the team, with Tamika flying in from New York City and Drew from Tampa. They’d needed to act swiftly and with stealth. They had retrieved the young woman and were already halfway into the United States before the kidnappers had realized what was happening.
Now that the high from the adrenaline was gone, he just wanted to remain in bed for another week. He was tired.
He loved his job and loved getting to help people, but on days like this, he wondered if it was finally time to retire. Drew, one of the operators had gone into semi-retirement, moved to Florida with his woman and opened a restaurant. Of all things.
Rusty shook his head. All his teammates had fallen, one after the other. First, it had been Ace who had bitten the dust. He and his partner, Sierra lived in Chicago. Then Drew had followed suit and then Tamika. Ryan was the latest, although he was yet to get his happy ending.
Rusty knew that the others expected him to be the next to fall. But what they didn’t know was that he was never falling in love with anyone. He was never going to give another human being that much power over him. It was as simple as that.
Unbidden, the image of the woman in the nightclub came to his mind. He cursed and got to his feet. For some crazy reason, he could not seem to get her out of his mind. All through the week, she kept popping up uninvited into his mind. He would need to conduct a damn exorcism if that continued for much longer.
He was going to have a shower and then sleep for the next twelve hours. He did not have time to be thinking about some chick that did not even fit his specs of the ideal woman.
**
Back in her office, Hope went straight for her computer and powered it up. Fifteen minutes later, she placed a call to Jared.
“We’ve found the code,” she said into the phone, still staring at the screen.
“Great. How did you find it?”
“It was hidden in the open. The tech support should have found it.”
And she needed to know why it had gotten past them. They were paying a small fortune to ensure that sort of thing did not happen and she’d just spent an entire week doing their job. It was not acceptable.
“Who heads that team?” Jared asked.
“Nora,” she said shortly.
The woman was really good at her job. Damn good. Which was the only reason Hope had not fired her before now. She’d been with them for about a year and though she was always pleasant and efficient, Hope was never able to become comfortable with her.
“She should have flagged it,” Jared said, sounding disturbed.
“I know, right?” Hope had her eyes on the screen, scanning each line of the foreign code. That was when she saw it. She gasped and then froze as a chill went through her spine. “Jared?”
“What’s up?”
“Can you come over here for a minute?”
Something in her tone of voice must have alerted him because she’d barely heard the dial tone before he came striding into her office. He saw the expression on her face and frowned.
“Hope? Is everything alright?”
She looked
at him, knowing the terror she felt was reflected in her eyes. Her chest felt tight and she was having a hard time breathing. She tried to speak but could not. Drawing in a deep breath, she tried again.
“I need…” Gasp. “You need…” Gasp. Why couldn’t she seem to draw in enough air?
“Hope…Hope, calm down. You need to calm down, now.”
She felt Jared’s hands at the back of her head as he pushed her head between her knees. She had not even been aware that he’d moved her chair back.
“Deep breaths now. Breathe deeply.” Jared’s soothing voice washed over her.
After several moments, Hope felt the pressure in her chest ease and she was able to breathe normally. Jared took his hand away from the back of her head and stepped back.
“Thanks,” she said, lifting her head.
“You’re welcome. Now tell me what brought about the panic attack. You haven’t had one in several years, right?”
Hope nodded. Remembering what she saw got her heart beating rapidly. She gestured to the screen of her computer. Jared moved to her back so he could peer at the screen.
“What?” he asked. She used her finger to point to the item that had triggered the panic attack. She knew the exact moment when he saw it. He went rigid and swore softly, “Shit.”
There, in the middle of the foreign code was a phrase: Remember November 29.
He turned to look at her and she read the worry in his eyes. In both their minds, there could only be one November twenty-ninth and it stood out clearly in their memories.
It was the day that their relationship had changed. Jared had taken her firmly under his wing. November twenty-ninth was a secret they shared between them, one they had never shared with anyone else. If someone was deliberately sabotaging their company and reminding them of an event they were sure no one else had witnessed, then it could not mean anything good, particularly for Hope.
“Do you still have the details for the security people?” Jared asked.
Silver Shield Security Box Set Page 78
