Читать книгу Every Move You Make - Tori Carrington, Tori Carrington - Страница 10

NOW THAT’S MORE LIKE IT.

Mariah drove back to the office feeling psyched and energized, mentally ready to deal with anything and everything, even the news about her latest ex and his wedding plans. Well, mostly ready, anyway. If the handsome man next to her made her think of hot and heavy honeymoons, it was solely because his case involved a missing wedding dress. And her reluctance to feel in any way attracted to him had nothing to do with his lack of skill with a gun in a state where it was almost a requirement that a person know how to handle one, and own at least one or two…or ten or twelve. Her reluctance was because, let’s face it, he was as far away from her type as it was for a man to get.

If a little part of her mind reminded her that what she thought was her type appeared not to be her type…well, she was ignoring it.

“Anything happen while I was away?” Mariah glided into the office on triumphant wings, holding the door open for Zach behind her.

George looked up from where he was idly playing a game of Spider Solitaire on his computer, appearing not to have budged more than an inch since she’d left him a couple of hours ago. “Nope.”

Mariah looked to their visitor, feeling her stomach bottom out again, like it did every time she glanced his way. She figured it was probably the effect he had on most women, simply because of his tremendous looks. “Zach Letterman, meet my cousin George Clayborn. George, Zach.”

Zach crossed the office and offered his hand. George glanced at it, raised his brows then got to his feet to give Zach’s hand a shake. “How do you do?” George said.

Zach appeared not to know how to respond, and didn’t.

Mariah rounded her desk, happy to find most of the damage from the morning’s drenching of her chair had dried out. Still, she repositioned the plastic bag she’d laid across it earlier before sitting down.

“Did Buckley come over to take a look at the roof?”

George nodded. “Yeah. Said he’d come by with the materials in a couple of hours and patch it up.”

“Did you get an estimate on what it would take to redo the entire roof?”

“He said he couldn’t get to a job that big for two months anyway, so the patch is all he can swing now.”

She noticed Zach eyeing the hole above her desk. He grinned at her. “Do something to anger the gods?”

The gods? “I figure if I had, I’d be toast right now.”

He chuckled then pulled a nearby chair closer to the front of her desk.

“Did you get Ray?” George asked.

“Of course. Don’t I always?”

“Oh.” Her cousin looked around on top of his desk and lifted his clean blotter. “Justin called. He wants you to call him back at this number.”

ZACH HAD NEVER SEEN anyone go so pale. Where moments before Mariah’s face had been full of color and her eyes had danced with excitement, now she looked as if someone had just hit her in the stomach.

“A client?” Zach asked, referring to the caller.

“An ex.”

The way she said it made it sound as if she had a whole battalion of exes. Zach squinted at her.

“He, um, just got engaged.”

“Ah,” he said, as if that explained everything. “To you?”

“No,” she said a little too curtly. “Not to me. The word never even came up while we were dating.”

“And that was?”

“Five days ago.”

Zach lifted his brows. “Fast worker, your ex.”

“Fast workers, all three of my exes. Only not with me.”

She made busy with her hands as he watched.

Zach silently pondered the striking woman not three feet from him. If he bought what she was trying to sell him, he’d think it didn’t bother her one iota that her latest ex was engaged to someone else. In all honesty, he couldn’t say it bothered her in the way one might expect. She didn’t appear heartbroken, on the verge of tears or particularly sad that the man she had dated was about to bite the big one.

She did, however, appear highly agitated. As if she could go after another four Claude Rays, on foot if necessary, to expend the energy that radiated from her. An energy that intrigued him, drew him in, made it impossible for him to look anywhere but at Mariah Clayborn. The woman was fascinating.

He absently rubbed the back of his neck. What was he thinking? He was supposed to be focusing on the case. His first case. And here he was entertaining ideas of how he and Mariah might expend some of that primo energy she exuded.

“So, the case,” he said slowly.

She blinked at him as if having forgotten he was there. “The case? Oh. Yes.” Talk about your grimaces. Mariah wore one that could go up against the best of them. “The case of the missing wedding dress.”

He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “Where should we start? A trip to Hobby Airport?”

She picked up the telephone receiver, dialed information, then dialed the airport, consulting a fax that resembled the fact sheet he had folded in his front shirt pocket.

Zach looked over at George, noticing the way he tuned in to the goings-on without really appearing to. George glanced at him and Zach grinned.

“It’s not there,” Mariah stated.

Zach turned toward her. “What’s not where?”

“The bag with the dress in it. It never made it to Hobby.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh-huh.” She handed him a notepad in which she had written an address in Alabama. “But it may be here.”

“Here, as in…?”

“Here as in the Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, Alabama. According to the airline supervisor I talked to, that’s where all the lost luggage in the universe piles up until it’s either claimed or auctioned or sold off after ninety days.”

Zach scratched his chin, thinking a couple of pieces of his own luggage probably had ended up there over the years. “A kind of graveyard for dead baggage.”

Mariah smiled. “Yes. Something like that.”

“So when do we go?”

Her soft brows lifted. “How do you mean?”

He glanced at his watch. “My client renews his vows in less than a week. He’s willing to pay us whatever it takes to retrieve the dress posthaste.”

“Us?”

“He’s covering all expenses.”

“Ah.”

Zach grinned. “Unless, of course, you want to sign off on the case.”

“No, no. Of course not.”

Zach could tell that’s exactly what she wanted to do. And it surprised him how much he wished she wouldn’t. He was highly attracted to her and he’d like to see what it would be like to kiss that saucy mouth of hers. He couldn’t do that if she sent him packing.

The telephone at her elbow rang. She glanced at the display showing the number of the caller, the ashen color returning to her face.

She reached back and picked up what looked like a duffel bag. “Let’s say we go now.”

“Just like that?”

She nodded, barely looking at him as she headed for the door. “Just like that.”

MARIAH SECURED both her tray and her seat in the upright and locked position then rubbed her arms.

“Cold?”

She glanced at where Zach Letterman seemed to take up the air of half the plane, his knees jammed against the seat in front of him, his shoulders nearly topping the back of the chair.

She cleared her throat. “Um, yes. A little. But we’ll be landing soon, so it doesn’t matter.”

“Here.” He gestured to a nearby flight attendant, who immediately stepped to him, a solicitous smile on her pretty face.

Mariah grimaced and watched as Zach Letterman charmed another willing female. The strange thing about it was that he didn’t even appear to be trying. He looked a woman’s way and she was all smiles and readiness. She’d witnessed it first at the airport when the desk clerk had practically drooled on the counter separating her from Zach. Then she’d seen it at the airport coffee shop, where he’d stopped off for some caffeine and the Wall Street Journal.

“No, it’s not for me,” Zach told the pretty blonde.

The blonde definitely looked disappointed, not that Mariah could blame her. To have the perfect excuse to touch Zach ripped out from under you…well, that would be enough to make anyone frown.

“Thank you,” Zach said, accepting the plastic-wrapped blue blanket.

Mariah watched the flight attendant reluctantly make her way back to the front of the plane.

She cleared her throat. “Thanks, Zach, but no, really, that’s okay…”

Mariah’s words trailed off as she watched him make quick work of the plastic then begin to cover her with the nappy cotton. The back of his fingers skimmed her bare arm, making her feel like the plane had hit an air pocket as her stomach bottomed out. “I…um, can do it.”

His eyes scanned her face, making a whole different sort of goose bumps dot her flesh.

“Thanks,” she said.

She’d never seen a guy grin with his eyes before. But if anyone could, Zach Letterman was the man. A pure knowing seemed to lurk in the meadow-green depths, inviting her in, robbing her of both breath and words.

“You’re welcome,” he murmured, then he returned his attention to the Wall Street Journal.

Mariah puffed out a long breath and settled the blanket over the upper part of her body. She turned to look out the window. Why was it that whenever he looked at her she found it suddenly impossible to breathe?

She shifted and made a face. P.I., her butt. If the man next to her was a private investigator then her name was Cindy Crawford. She surreptitiously watched him turn the page of his newspaper, her gaze lingering on his long, thick fingers and the springy dark hair that dotted the backs. He struck her as a man used to traveling. He barely looked at the flight attendant who offered a drink and a snack, while she had spotted the attendant the instant he began serving the passengers fifteen rows up. She never took her eyes from him for fear that he would miss her. Okay, so she wasn’t a frequent flier. This was her third time on an airplane and, admittedly, she didn’t much like being so far up off the ground. There was something…unnatural about it.

But it was more than Zach’s comfort with airplane travel that fueled her suspicions. Take the gun incident. Investigation training usually required the investigator to take at least one course in the art of using a firearm. She knew things worked differently up North, but she didn’t think they worked that differently. Then he had avoided answering her question on what had led him to be a P.I.

She made a face. Okay, so she hadn’t shared her reasons, either, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a licensed P.I. She was.

Maybe he just didn’t get out in the field much.

Still, a niggling part of her suspected that Zach Letterman knew as much about being a P.I. as she knew about weeding a flower garden, which was basically limited to whatever she saw when she tuned in to Martha Stewart. And that wasn’t all that often.

Her gaze slowly slid back to Zach’s handsome profile. While he lacked experience in the private detecting arena, she’d guess he had a whole lot of experience in other more intimate arenas. He was the type of male who would know exactly what a woman wanted from a man. And would be able to give it to her.

Zach folded his newspaper and slid it into the pocket in the seat in front of him. His gaze met hers and, as usual, her stomach bottomed out—especially when his eyes darkened, an unmistakable attraction lurking in the green depths. In fact, for a moment she thought he might even kiss her. She caught herself licking her lips in preparation.

“So what do we do once we get there?” he asked.

“Hmm?” Mariah slowly blinked, his words taking even longer to register. “Oh. We rent a car and drive the forty miles from Huntsville to Scottsboro to visit the Unclaimed Baggage Center.”

The gleam in his eyes turned into a grin, making Mariah’s own mouth suddenly go dry. “I’d gathered that. I meant, will we be checking into a hotel?”

Checking into a hotel? With what had to be the most attractive guy she’d come across since she used to pin up pictures of rodeo stars on her bedroom walls?

“No. No, I don’t think a hotel will be necessary.” She swallowed hard and wished she could pull the little blue blanket up over her head. “If luck is on our side, we’ll find the bag and be on the next flight back to Houston.”

“And if luck isn’t on our side?”

“Then we should be able to ascertain that the bag isn’t in Scottsboro, and be on the next flight back to Houston.”

He glanced at his watch, making her crane her neck to look at the sleek crystal as well, completely forgetting that she wore a watch of her own. “Well, then, we’d better make quick work of getting to the center, because the last flight out to Houston is at six.”

Mariah’s eyebrows shot up.

He seemed to notice the move. “I asked back at Hobby.”

“Oh. Good. Good.”

That was a P.I. move, wasn’t it? Either that or he was a man used to being prepared.

The question was, prepared for what?

Okay, what was it with her today? Her thoughts seemed to bounce all over the universe and back again. Then she remembered Justin’s announcement and collapsed against the chair and frowned. So, this was what being a reject did to you. It made you look, feel and act like a fool.

Or maybe being a fool was exactly the reason she couldn’t land a forever guy to begin with.

SO MARIAH CLAYBORN WASN’T the chatty type. As Zach watched her climb out of the rental car outside the Unclaimed Baggage Center, he told himself he should be thankful. He wasn’t much for small talk himself. In fact, he told himself he should be glad she wasn’t asking him too many questions. He’d decided early on that he was going to keep his real reason for being in Texas, and working for Jennifer Madison, to himself. Yes, while the entire P.I. business intrigued him, he had no intention of making a living as a P.I. He reminded himself that he was down here strictly to get the feel for the territory so that when he returned to Indiana he’d be prepared for the task of opening satellite offices of Finders Keepers.

He was, however, used to letting other people do the talking. Ask a couple of questions, and most people went off on long tangents that usually left him knowing more than he’d like.

But with Mariah, he found he didn’t know nearly enough. She’d been quiet ever since they’d left her office in Houston. Throughout the drive to the airport, the plane ride, then the drive to Scottsboro, the few questions he had asked had received little more than one-word answers.

Zach rubbed the back of his neck as he closed the cab door, watching Mariah lead the way to the door of what looked like a retail store about as big as a city block. While he didn’t consider himself a ladies’ man, he certainly thought he knew a whole lot about women. And one of those things was that they loved to talk. All you had to do was find the key word. Shopping usually did the trick. But he’d tried no fewer than ten of the regular conversation words on Mariah and she hadn’t bitten on a one of them. Not even politics had gotten more than a small smile from her.

He shrugged and followed after her. Okay, so she wasn’t interested in idle conversation. It was a new one for him, but Zach could handle it. Well, he could if there wasn’t the whole P.I. angle to think about. He’d like to get to know more about the business. And he’d like to get to know a whole lot more about Mariah Clayborn.

They talked to a clerk who told them that the type of baggage they were talking about wouldn’t be on the sales floor yet, but back in the warehouse behind the store. She made a phone call then walked them back to a large door. “Go on in. You’re expected. You’ll find James somewhere in the piles.”

Piles? Zach scanned the countless objects for sale, the place looking like a garage sale lover’s paradise, then stepped through the door the clerk held open. He immediately saw what she was talking about. Everywhere he looked were mountains of luggage. Big pieces, small pieces, expensive pieces, cheap pieces. All things that belonged to somebody somewhere and held cherished memories from their trips.

“Oh boy,” Mariah said, next to him.

“You can say that again.”

“Oh boy.”

Zach jerked to look at her and grinned. “I meant figuratively.”

She smiled back. “I know. I thought it deserved two.”

“Ah.”

Zach couldn’t quite put his finger on why, but whenever Mariah smiled, he either grinned or grinned wider, and an inexplicable heat slinked through his abdomen, making him want to touch her. It didn’t matter where. To tuck her wild hair behind her ear. To run his finger down the smooth column of her throat. To circle her right breast where the soft cotton of her T-shirt draped enticingly over the small mound.

“Hello!”

Zach heard the greeting, but was at a loss as to where it had come from.

“I take it you’re Miss Clayborn?”

It seemed to take Mariah a great effort to tear her gaze away from him. The heat he felt sizzled, knowing that she was as compelled by him as he was by her.

“Um, yes, that would be me,” she said finally.

A middle-aged guy with thick glasses popped up from behind a pile of suitcases nearest to them. Zach raised his brows.

“James, at your service,” he said, wiping his hands against his striped, short-sleeved shirt, then offering his hand. “Would either of you like some Starbucks?”

“No, thank you,” Zach said.

Mariah shook James’s hand. “You’re the one I talked to?”

“No. That would be Sally. I don’t sound like a woman to you, do I?”

Zach suppressed a chuckle. The guy in front of them definitely didn’t look like a woman.

Mariah cleared her throat. “Sorry. I was calling from the Houston airport so I really couldn’t make out much about the voice with all the background noise.”

“Airports. Hate ’em,” James said, offering his hand to Zach.

Zach nodded in complete agreement as he gave James’s hand a brief shake.

“So you all are looking for a wedding dress.” James pushed up his glasses again and peered around him. “Someone else here on the same errand. You’d be surprised how many of those things end up here.”

“Wedding dresses?”

“No, people looking for them.”

“Ah.”

“Found one the other day.” He kicked a suitcase out of the path and called out to another guy nearby, telling him to keep the pathways clear. “Wouldn’t be able to find your way out without the pathways,” James explained.

“By ‘found,’ do you mean people or wedding dresses?”

“Wedding dresses, of course.”

Zach tuned in on where Mariah was going. “And by the other day, which day, exactly, do you mean?”

“Two days ago.”

The right timeframe.

“Where is it? The dress, I mean?”

James motioned toward the far corner of the room. “Right where I directed the other guy who got here about twenty minutes ago looking for a dress, too.”

“Ah,” Zach said again, barely hiding his amusement.

Mariah laughed.

James stared at them both, having missed out on the joke.

“Sorry,” Mariah said. “I was just wondering if, you know, the guy looking for the dress actually plans on wearing it.”

James’s brows hovered above the dark rims of his glasses. “You don’t mean…you aren’t saying…” He let out a deep breath. “Oh Lord, I hope not. Either way, I don’t care, though. I’m a firm believer in the don’t ask, don’t tell policy. But now that you’ve said that, it’s put…well, an image in my head, you know? And that’s one image I could do without.”

“You and me both,” Zach said.

Zach took Mariah’s elbow and steered her toward where James was leading the way down one of the paths he’d mentioned. Little more than two feet wide, the path wound around mountains of varying sizes and colors. A Louis Vuitton here, a knockoff there. A khaki duffel bag in the way of the path, a package of skis at shoulder level, ready to decapitate anyone who wasn’t watching where they were going. How did all of this stuff come to be lost?

“James, what happens to all this?”

He shrugged. “Well, the airline does extensive tracking for ninety days. Sometimes the owners themselves find their way here, but not often. If they do, or the airline matches up the bag with the passenger, they regain their things. Otherwise, we sell the stuff in the front room. We also hold auctions. We wouldn’t have room otherwise. We have a Web site, you know. Sell stuff there, too.”

The older man stopped and scratched his chin, considering the piles in front of him when they came to a fork in the path. He looked one way, then the other, then pointed to the right. “This way, I think. Yes, yes. This way.”

Zach gazed down at Mariah, who was looking at the baggage with as much curiosity as he. “Lose anything recently?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “No. But it looks to me as though it wasn’t for lack of the airline trying.”

“I’ve lost no fewer than three bags over the years.”

“Do a lot of traveling, do you?”

“Yes.”

“Work related?”

Zach rubbed his chin. P.I.s traveled, didn’t they? Sure they did. “Yes. Don’t you?”

“This was my third time on a plane. And, this trip aside, my travels have been strictly personal. I haven’t had much call to travel out of Texas yet, you know, for the job.”

“Personal? That one trip wouldn’t have had anything to do with your exes, would it?”

She winced, making him wish he hadn’t said anything. “No. It was for my mother’s funeral. I was eight.”

Zach felt lower than the bottom of his shoes. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged, obviously trying to pull off a nonchalance he was sure she didn’t feel. “That’s all right.”

He cleared his throat. “My mother died when I was nine.”

Her big brown eyes widened. “Your father?”

“Out of the picture. I don’t even know where he is. Not that it matters. He wasn’t around long enough to make an impression.”

Zach grimaced. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d volunteered the information. He didn’t think he’d told anyone in his adult life how old he’d been when he’d lost his mother. Yet here he had known this woman for only a few hours and he’d shared the information with her as easily as he did the time.

“I guess it’s my turn to say I’m sorry.”

He mimicked her moves and shrugged his shoulders, knowing the casualness he was going for fell far short of the mark. “That’s all right.”

His response brought a warm smile to her face. He discovered again he liked it when she smiled. He liked it a lot.

“Here we are,” James said, coming to a halt and breaking the quiet moment. The older man scratched the top of his head. “At least this is where I think it is.” He looked around. “But where’s the other guy?”

Fifteen or so jumbo suitcases were stacked behind Mariah. Zach squinted, trying to make out whether or not one of them had just moved. Then suddenly the entire stack began to teeter precariously.

He calmly reached out and touched her arm. She blinked up at him, her tongue darting out to moisten her bottom lip. Then he yanked her into his arms, away from where she’d been standing, where the cases were now hitting the floor one at a time.

“Dang nab it!” James shouted.

Zach had never actually heard a person say the words in the flesh and, despite what had just happened, he fought a smile.

“If I’ve told the kid once, I’ve told him a thousand times, you’ve got to stack these bags carefully.” He eyed where Mariah had curled her hands into the front of Zach’s shirt, the side of her head resting against his chest.

Zach could hear the thump-thump of his own heartbeat. He wondered if Mariah could hear it, too. The soft smell of sunshine—Texas sunshine—filled his nose, and the feel of one-hundred-percent Mariah Clayborn filled his arms. The heat that had earlier taken up residence in his abdomen dropped to his groin. His condition was not helped any by the shifting of Mariah’s hips.

“You okay?” James asked her.

Zach looked down to find her staring at the man as if just realizing he was there. She pushed away from Zach so fast she nearly toppled them both over. Zach caught her and chuckled.

“I’m fine,” Mariah said, squaring her shoulders and looking everywhere but at Zach. “Where did you say this damn suitcase was?”