Читать книгу Pride And Pregnancy - Sarah M. Anderson - Страница 11

Three

For a while, nothing happened. There were no more mysterious flower deliveries—or, for that matter, any kind of deliveries. The remaining half dozen roses on Caroline’s desk withered and died. Andrea threw them away. People in the courthouse seemed friendlier—apparently, handing out scads of flowers made Caroline quite popular. Other than that, though, things continued on as they had before.

Before Agent Tom Yellow Bird had shown up in her courtroom.

She got up, went for a jog before the heat got oppressive, went to the courthouse and then came home. No mysterious gifts, no handsome men—mysterious or otherwise. No surprises. Everything went exactly as it was supposed to. Which was good. Great, even.

If she didn’t have Tom’s card in her pocket—and that electric memory of shaking his hand—she would have been tempted to convince herself she had imagined the whole thing. A fantasy she’d invented to alleviate boredom instead of a flesh-and-blood man. Fantasies were always safer, anyway.

But...there were times when she could almost feel his presence. She’d come out of the courthouse and pull up short, looking for his black muscle car with the silver stripe on the hood, but he was never there. And the fact that disappointed her was irritating.

She had not developed a crush on the man. No crushes. That was that.

Just because he was an officer of the law with a gun concealed under his jacket, with eyes that might be his biggest weapon—that was no reason to lust after the man. She didn’t need to see him again. It was better that way—at least, she finally had to admit to herself, it was better that way while his corruption investigation was still ongoing. The more distance between them, the less she would become infatuated.

Tom Yellow Bird was a mistake she wasn’t going to make.

It was a good theory, anyway. But he showed up in her dreams, a shadowy lover who drove her wild with his hands, his mouth, his body. She woke up tense and frustrated, and no electronic assistance could relieve the pressure. Her vibrator barely took the edge off, but it was enough.

Besides, she had other things to focus on. She finally finished unpacking her kitchen, although she still ate too much takeout. It was hard to work up the energy to cook when the temperature outside kept pushing a hundred.

Still, she tried. She came home one Friday after work three weeks after the floral delivery, juggling a couple of bags of groceries. Eggs were on sale and there was a recipe for summery quiche on Pinterest that she wanted to try. She had air-conditioning and a weekend to kick back. She was going to cook—or else. At the very least, she was going to eat ice cream.

She knew the moment she unlocked the front door that something was wrong. She couldn’t have said what it was because, when she looked around the living room, nothing seemed out of place. But there was an overwhelming sense that someone had been in her home that she didn’t dare ignore.

Heart pounding, she backed out of the house, pulling the door shut behind her. She carried the groceries right back out to the trunk of her car and then, hands shaking, she pulled her cell phone and Tom’s card out of her pocket and dialed.

He answered on the second ring. “Yes?”

“Is this Agent Yellow Bird?” He sounded gruffer on the phone—so gruff, in fact, that she couldn’t be sure it was the same man who had laughed with her in the parking lot.

“Caroline? Are you all right?”

Suddenly, she felt silly. She was sitting outside in the car. It wasn’t like the door had been jimmied open. It hadn’t even looked like anything had been moved—at least, not in the living room. “It’s probably nothing.”

“I’ll be the judge of that. What’s going on?”

She exhaled in relief. She was not a damsel in distress and she did not need a white knight to come riding to her rescue. But there was something comforting about the thought that a federal agent was ready and willing to take over if things weren’t on the up and up. “I just got home and it feels like there was someone in my house.” She winced. It didn’t sound any less silly when she said it out loud.

There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone, and she got a sinking feeling that he was going to tell her not to be such a ninny. “Where are you?”

“In my car. In the driveway,” she added. Cars could be anywhere.

“If you’re comfortable, stay there. I’m about fifteen minutes away. If you aren’t, I want you to leave and drive someplace safe. Understand?”

“Okay.” His words should have been reassuring. He was on his way over and she had a plan. But, perversely, the fact that he was taking this feeling so seriously scared her even more.

What if someone really had been in her house? It hadn’t looked like a robbery. What had they been after?

“Call me back if you need to. I’m on my way.” Before she could even respond, he hung up.

Wait, she thought, staring at the screen of her phone—how did he know where she lived?

She turned on her car—all the better to make a quick getaway—and cranked the AC. She knew she shouldn’t have bought ice cream at the store, but too late now.

She waited and watched her house. Nothing happened. No one slunk out. Not so much as a curtain twitched. It looked perfectly normal, and by the time Tom came roaring down the street, she had convinced herself she was being ridiculous. She got out of the car again and went to meet him.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she began. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

Then she pulled up short. Gone was the slick custom-made suit. Instead, a pair of well-worn jeans hung low off his hips and a soft white T-shirt clung to his chest. He had his shoulder holster on, which only highlighted his pecs all the more. Her mouth went dry as his long legs powerfully closed the distance between them.

If she had been daydreaming about Agent Yellow Bird in a suit, the man in a pair of blue jeans was going to haunt her dreams in the very best way possible.

He walked right up to her and put his hands on her shoulders. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice low.

That spark of electricity moved over her skin again, and she shivered. “Fine,” she said, but her voice wavered. “I’m not sure I can say the same for the ice cream, but life will go on.”

He almost smiled. She could tell, because his eyes crinkled ever so slightly. “Why do you think someone was in your house?” As he spoke, his hands drifted down her shoulders until he was holding her upper arms. A good two feet of space still separated them, but it was almost an embrace.

At least, that’s how it felt to her. But what did she know? She couldn’t even tell if someone had been in her house or not.

“It was just a feeling. The door wasn’t busted, and nothing seemed out of place in the living room.” She tried to laugh it off, but she didn’t even manage to convince herself.

He squeezed her arms before dropping his hands. She felt oddly lost without his touch. “Is the door still unlocked?” She nodded. “Stay behind me.” He pulled his gun and moved forward. Caroline stayed close. “Quietly,” he added as he opened the door.

Silently, they entered the house. Her skin crawled and she unconsciously hooked her hand into the waistband of his jeans. Tom checked each room, but there was no one there. Caroline looked at everything, but nothing seemed out of place. By the time they peeked into the unused guest room, with the remaining boxes from the move still haphazardly stacked, she felt more than silly. She felt stupid.

When Tom holstered his gun and turned to face her, she knew her cheeks were flaming red. “I’m sorry, I—”

They were standing very close together in the hall, and Tom reached out and touched a finger to her lips. Then he stepped in closer and whispered in her ear, “Outside.”

For a second, neither of them moved. She could feel the heat of his body, and she had an almost overwhelming urge to kiss the finger resting against her lips. Which was ridiculous.

What was it about this man that turned her into a blubbering schoolgirl with a crush? Maybe she was just trying to bury her embarrassment at having called him out here for nothing beneath a more manageable emotion—lust. Not that lust was a bad thing. Except for the fact that she still had no idea what he did in his spare time or whether or not it broke any laws. And there was the unavoidable fact that acting on any lust would be a conflict of interest.

They were actively on an investigation, for crying out loud. It was one of the reasons she couldn’t read romantic suspense novels—it drove her nuts when people in the middle of a dangerous situation dropped everything to get naked.

She was not that kind of girl, damn it. So instead of leaning into his touch or wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him in tight, she did the right thing. She nodded and pulled away.

It was harder than she’d thought it would be.

When they were outside, she tried apologizing again. “I’m so sorry that I called you out here for nothing.” She didn’t enjoy making a fool of herself, but when it happened, she tried to own up to the mistake as quickly as possible.

He leaned against her car, studying her. She had met a lot of hard-nosed investigators and steely-eyed lawyers in her time, but nothing quite compared to Tom Yellow Bird. “Are you sure it was nothing? Tell me again how you felt there was something wrong.”

She shrugged helplessly. “It was just a feeling. Everything looked fine, and you saw yourself that there was no one in the house.” She decided that worse than feeling stupid was the fact that she had made herself look weak.

For some ridiculous reason, this situation reminded her of her brother. Trent Jennings had been a master of creating a crisis where none existed—and he was even better at making it seem like it was her fault. Because she’d been the mistake, the squalling brat who’d taken his parents away from him. Or so he was fond of reminding her.

That wasn’t what she was doing here, was it? Creating a crisis in order to focus the attention on herself? No, she didn’t think so. The house had felt wrong. Then something occurred to her. “Why are we outside again? It’s hot out here.”

“The place is probably bugged.”

He said it so casually that it took a few moments before his words actually sank in. “What?”

“I’ve seen this before.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, wondering if he was ever going to answer a straight question. “You’ve seen what before?”

For a moment, he looked miserable—the face of a man who was about to deliver bad news. “You have a feeling that someone was in your house—although nothing appears to have been moved or taken, correct?”

She nodded. “So my sixth sense is having a bad day. How does that mean there are bugs in my house?”

One corner of his mouth crept up. “They’re trying to find something they can use against you. Maybe you have some sort of peccadillo or kink, maybe something from your past.” He smiled, but it wasn’t reassuring. “Something worse than speeding tickets?”

The blood drained from her face. She didn’t have any kinks, definitely nothing that would be incriminating. She didn’t want people to watch when she used her vibrator—the thought was horrifying. But...

It would be embarrassing if people found out about her lapse of judgment in college. Although, since her parents were dead, she wouldn’t have to face their disappointment, and the odds of Trent finding out about it were slim, since they didn’t talk anymore.

But more than that...what if people connected her back to Vincent Verango? That wouldn’t just be embarrassing. That had the potential of being career ending. Would she never be able to escape the legacy of the Verango case?

No, this was fine. Panicking would be a mistake right now. She needed to keep her calm. “I stay within five miles of the speed limit,” she said, trying to arrange her face into something that wasn’t incriminating.

Tom shrugged. At least he was interpreting her reaction as shock and not guilt. “They want something on you so that when they approach you again and you say you’re not interested, they’ll have a threat with teeth. If you don’t want them to inform the Justice Department about this embarrassing or illegal thing, you’ll do what they say. Simple.”

“Simple?” She gaped at him, wondering when the world had stopped making sense. “Nothing about that is simple!”

“I don’t have a bug detector,” he went on, as if she hadn’t spoken. “And seeing as it’s Friday night, I don’t think I can get one before Monday.”

“Why not?” Because she couldn’t imagine this oh-so-simple situation didn’t justify a damned bug detector.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “I’m off duty for the next four days. I’d have to make a special case to get one, and Carlson and I like to keep our investigations off the record as much as possible.”

She couldn’t help it—she laughed. She sounded horrible, even to her own ears, but it was either that or cry. This entire situation was so far beyond the realm of normal that she briefly considered she might’ve fallen asleep in her office this afternoon.

“The way I see it,” he went on, again ignoring her outburst, “you have two choices. You can go about your business as normal and I’ll come back on Monday and sweep the house.”

It was, hands-down, the most reasonable suggestion she was probably going to hear. So why did it make her stomach turn with an anxious sort of dread? “Okay. What’s my other choice?”

That muscle in his jaw ticked again, and she realized that he looked hard—like a stone, no emotions at all. The playful grin was nowhere to be seen. “You come with me.”

“Like, to your home?” That was it. She was definitely dreaming. It wasn’t like her to nod off in her chambers, but what other reasonable explanation was there?

“In a professional capacity,” he said in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring tone.

Caroline was not reassured. “If they bugged my house and I’m new here, why would your home be any less susceptible to surveillance?”

And just like that, his stony expression was gone. He cracked a grin and again, she thought of a wolf—dangerous but playful. And she had no idea if she was the prey or not.

“Trust me,” he said, pushing off the car and coming to stand directly in front of her. “Nothing gets past me.”