Dangerous Secrets (2 page)

She blinked. “Well…,” she began.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” he said hastily. “I’m a solid citizen—just ask my accountant and my physician. And I’m perfectly harmless.”

He wasn’t, of course, he was dangerous as hell. Ten years a Delta operator before joining the Unit. He’d spent the past decade in black ops, perfecting the art of killing people.

He was sure harmless to
her
, though.

Charity Prewitt had the most delicious skin he’d ever seen on a woman—pale ivory with a touch of rose underneath—so delicate it looked like it would bruise if he so much as breathed on it. That was skin meant for touching and stroking, not hurting.

“Ms. Prewitt?” She hadn’t answered his question about going out. She simply stood there, head tilted to one side, watching him as if he were some kind of problem to be sorted out, but she needed more information before she could solve it.

In a way, he liked that. She didn’t jump at the invitation, which was a welcome relief from his last date—well, last fuck. Five minutes after “hello” in a bar, she’d had his dick in her hand. At least she hadn’t been into pain like Consuelo. God.

Charity Prewitt was assessing him quietly and he let her do it, understanding that smooth words weren’t going to do the trick. Stillness would, so he stood still. Special Forces soldiers have the gift of stillness. The ones who don’t, die young and badly.

Nick was engaging in a little assessment himself. This morning he’d been bowled over by little Miss Charity Prewitt. Christ, with a name like that, with her job as chief librarian of the library of a one-traffic-light town, single at twenty-eight, he’d been expecting a dried-up prune.

The photographs of her in his file had been fuzzy, taken with a telescopic lens, and just showed the generics—hair and skin color, general size and shape. A perfectly normal woman. A little on the small side, but other than that, ordinary.

But up close and personal, Jesus, she’d turned out to be a knockout. A quiet knockout. You had to look twice for the full impact of large light-gray eyes, porcelain skin, shiny dark-blond hair and a curvy slender figure to make itself felt. Coupled with a natural elegance and a soft, attractive voice—well.

Nick was used to being undercover, but most of his jobs involved scumbags, not beautiful young women.

Actually, this one did, too—a major scumbag called Vassily Worontzoff everyone on earth but the operatives in the Unit revered for being a great writer. Even nominated for the friggin’ Nobel, though, as the Unit knew well but
couldn’t yet prove, the sick fuck was the head of a huge international OC syndicate. Nick was intent on bringing him down.

So on this op he was dealing with scumbags, yeah, but the mission also involved romancing this pretty woman—and on Uncle Sam’s dime, to boot.

Didn’t get much better than that.

“All right,” Charity said suddenly. Whatever her doubts had been, apparently they were now cleared up. “What time do you want to pick me up?”

Yes!
Nick felt a surge of energy that had nothing to do with the mission and everything to do with the woman in front of him.

“Well…” Nick smiled, all affable, utterly safe, utterly reliable businessman, “I was wondering whether you wouldn’t mind going now. I found this fabulous Italian place near Rockville. It has a really nice bar area and I thought we might talk over a drink while waiting for our dinner.”

“Da Emilio’s,” Charity said. “It’s a very nice place and the food is excellent.” She looked down at herself, frowning. “But I’m not dressed for a dinner out. I should go home and change.”

She was wearing a light blue-gray sweater that exactly matched the color of her eyes and hugged round breasts and a narrow waist, a slim black skirt, shiny black stockings, and pretty ankle boots. Pearl necklace and pearl earrings. She was the classiest-looking dame he’d seen in a long while, even in her work clothes.

“You look—”
Perfect. Sexy as hell
. He bit his jaws closed on the words. Ireland, roughneck soldier that he was, could say something like that, but Ames, sophisticated businessman, sure as hell couldn’t. Even if it was God’s own truth.
“Fine. You look just fine. You could go to dinner at the White House dressed like that.”

It made her smile, which was what he wanted. Her smile was like a secret weapon. She sighed. “Okay. I’ll just need to lock up here.”

Locking up entailed pulling the library door closed and turning a key once in the lock.

Nick waited. Charity looked up at him, a tiny frown between her brows when she saw his scowl. “Is something wrong?”

“That’s it? That’s locking up? Turning the key once in the lock?”

She smiled gently. “This isn’t the big bad city, Mr. Ames.”

“My friends call me Nick.”

“Okay, Nick. I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to walk around town. This isn’t New York or even Burlington. The library, in case you haven’t noticed, is full of books and not much else besides some scuffed tables. What would there be to steal? And anyway, I don’t remember the last time a crime was committed in Parker’s Ridge.”

The elation Nick felt at the thought of an evening with Charity Prewitt dissipated.

Parker’s Ridge housed one of the world’s most dangerous criminals. An evil man. A man directly responsible for hundreds of lives lost, for untold misery and suffering.

And he was Charity Prewitt’s best friend.

A
date
. She, Charity Prewitt, was actually going out on a
date
! Charity hadn’t been out on a date in…God, she couldn’t even remember the last date she’d been on.

There were ten bachelors in Parker’s Ridge, not counting Vassily, of course, who was fifty-four years old and horribly scarred from his time in a Soviet prison camp. Each and every bachelor within a radius of forty miles had asked her out, repeatedly. Each and every bachelor was lacking in something important—teeth, a faculty, a job. Certainly all of them were lacking in a sense of humor.

And the surrounding towns weren’t too much better. Most of the bachelors there were bachelors for a good reason. And one date was more or less enough to figure out what that something was.

Charity might even have gone further afield, but ever since Mary Conway had gone on maternity leave and then quit when her child was a preemie with problems, Charity had been more or less on her own in the library. The retired chief
librarian, old Mrs. Lambert, would come in for an emergency, but she was seventy-four and almost deaf. And the town council kept putting off budgeting for another librarian. So Charity was more or less
it.

Plus, of course, Uncle Franklin and her ailing aunt Vera required her constant presence and help. Charity had a range of about forty miles and desirable bachelors—even only bachelors that weren’t repugnant—were not exactly thick on the ground in that radius.

So being asked out by Mr. Nicholas call-me-Nick Ames, who was the most handsome man she’d ever seen—and who clearly had all his own teeth, all his own limbs, and seemed to be independently wealthy—well, it was like Christmas a month early.

He’d come in that morning to do some research on the area, saying he was thinking of making some investments. Charity had been impressed by how much he knew about the area already, but she supposed that businessmen had to be well informed. He’d let discreetly slip that he’d retired early after some very good years with a brokerage firm and was looking to open an investment firm of his own.

He was so outrageously handsome. Charity kept sneaking glances at him while he wasn’t looking. Tall, with midnight black hair, deep-blue eyes surrounded by ridiculously long lashes, a straight narrow nose, and a firm mouth.

Hard body.

Wow.

In Charity’s experience, businessmen were soft and pale. All that time spent behind a desk, making money. Or losing it, depending. Nick Ames didn’t look like he had wasted much time losing money.

He had all the visible accoutrements of prosperous busi
nessman-dom. The elegant blue suit—Armani was her guess—the glossy shoes, the expensive leather briefcase, the manicured nails, the flat, expensive watch.

But that was where the resemblance to a typical businessman stopped. Underneath the elegant suit was clearly a very strong, very fit body, with amazingly broad shoulders. So at odds with the amount of time he must spend analyzing data, clipping articles, and peering into his crystal ball—or whatever it was stockbrokers did.

It was a lovely evening. Very cold—but that was a given for November in Vermont. The snowstorm all the weather forecasters had been talking about was still holding off and the night sky was bright with brilliant cold stars. Charity loved these clear frozen nights, and it was a good thing, too, she often thought, since moving somewhere warm was out of the question. Even a long weekend in Aruba was out of the question. Certainly as long as Aunt Vera was so sick.

To her surprise, Mr. Ames—Nick—took her elbow, as if she could have problems navigating the broad, even sidewalk stretching out before her or needed guidance in the small town she’d grown up in. Still, it was really nice. Men rarely took one’s elbow anymore.

Uncle Franklin often took her arm when she accompanied him somewhere, but it was for balance. Nick Ames certainly didn’t need to hold her arm for balance.

Up close, he seemed even taller. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder, even with heels. He seemed broader, too, the shoulders incredibly wide beneath the rich dark-blue overcoat with the hand stitches. Cashmere. Uncle Franklin had one just like it.

For a fraction of a second, Charity wondered what she was doing—going out for dinner with a man she didn’t know.

She’d surprised herself. He’d asked and she knew she should say no to dinner, perhaps yes to a drink in town, and then…her mouth opened and
yes
simply plopped out.

Of course, that he was handsome as sin and had a killer smile might have something to do with it.

Manners, too. He’d positioned himself on the outside, next to the curb. It had been years since she’d seen a man deliberately place himself between a woman and the street. The last man besides Uncle Franklin that she’d seen doing that had been her father, always instinctively courteous with her mother. That had been over fifteen years ago, when they were still alive.

She and Nick walked down the block and he turned her right, onto Sparrow Road, with a gentle nudge of his hand. Halfway down the block, he stopped right outside a big black luxurious car. A Lexus, she thought, though she wasn’t sure. The only thing she was sure of was that it probably cost the equivalent of a year’s salary of a librarian.

He walked her around to the passenger door, unlocking it electronically with the key fob, and helped her into the passenger seat as if she were the queen of Parker’s Ridge.

A second later he was in the driver’s seat and helping her pull the seat belt over and down. To her astonishment, once the latch clicked, he didn’t pull back but leaned forward and planted a soft kiss on her mouth.

Charity stared at him. “What—”

He’d already put the big car in gear. He looked over at her and grinned, teeth white in the darkness of the car, as he slowly pulled out of the parking space. “I figure we’re going to spend the entire evening wondering whether we’ll have a good-night kiss, so I thought I’d just cut right through that. We’ve already kissed, so we’re not going to obsess about it. It’s already done.”

She folded her hands in her lap. “I wasn’t going to obsess about a kiss.”

That was a lie. She’d been obsessing about it since she’d accepted the dinner invitation. If she was perfectly honest with herself, which she usually was, she’d been obsessing about kissing him since she’d laid eyes on him this morning.

He was right, though.

It had only been a chaste little kiss—a buss, it would have been called a century ago. But it had definitely broken the tension. They’d kissed. They could now have an easygoing dinner together.

Smart man,
she thought.
No wonder he’d become rich.

He drove sedately out of town. Too sedately, actually. To her surprise, he kept to the speed limit even outside the city limits. For some reason, some feather-brained bureaucrat somewhere had declared a speed limit of thirty-five miles an hour within a ten-mile radius of town. No one in town was crazy enough to respect the speed limit, except Mr. Nick Ames. He was driving the powerful car as if he were carrying a carload of eggs over bumpy terrain.

He braked to a complete stop at the intersection between Somerset and Fifth, where on a clear day you could see into Canada.
No one
stopped at that intersection unless a car was coming, which you could see from miles out in every direction. Parker’s Ridgers simply slowed down a tad, but they never stopped.

Nick Ames stopped while the light was yellow and waited patiently for it to cycle through yellow, red, then green.

It was nice being in a car with a careful driver, but Charity found herself pressing her right foot to the floor, wishing he’d do it, too, silently urging him to go just a little bit faster. There was a thin line between safe driving and poky driv
ing and he crossed it several times. Poky driving in Parker’s Ridge, where you had to work really hard to get into a fender bender, was overkill.

Getting to Da Emilio’s wasn’t easy. There were several turnoffs and very little signage. The locals got there easily enough, but it was hard for out-of-towners. Nick Ames didn’t seem to have any problems, though. He drove straight there.

The parking space outside the restaurant was nearly empty. It would fill up later, but for now the only patrons were those here for a pre-dinner drink. He drove into the first empty slot and killed the engine.

She smiled at him as he turned into the parking lot. “You have either a good sense of direction, an excellent memory, or both.”

He turned to her, big hand draped over the steering wheel. “Both, actually. I think they’re the same part of the brain. I also have a really good memory for faces. I don’t often get lost.” He looked down at her bare hands. “You might want to put your gloves back on, it’s really cold outside.”

“Yes, Mom,” Charity said with a roll of her eyes, but it was wasted. He’d already rounded the car and was opening her door, helping her out.

The little kiss had somehow changed the chemistry of the evening. From being a nice thank-you gesture, the invitation to dinner had turned into a real date. Sex was in the air—pleasantly so. Nothing overdone, just little sparks flying about in the crystal-clear air.

Charity drew in a long, delighted breath. The air was pristine, smelling of a hundred miles of pine trees and the delights wafting from the air vents of Emilio’s kitchen. The smell of a wonderful evening.

Her life lately had been a little gray. Not gray, really, just a little…unchanging. Routine. She didn’t like to admit to herself just how much of her time and energy was taken up with Aunt Vera and Uncle Franklin. By the time Friday rolled around, after she’d put in five full days’ work at the library, checking in on her aunt and uncle two, three times a week, doing whatever was necessary for their comfort and safety, she only had enough energy to do household chores over the weekend.

Slowly, without noticing it, she started going out less and less, going to fewer movies and concerts. The one thing she made an exception for was Vassily. When he called, she always had the time and the energy.

Nick opened the door for her and ushered her in with a hand to her back. A woman could get used to those old-fashioned manners.

Da Emilio’s was, as always, warm and welcoming, with a huge roaring fire in each room. A cozy bar area beckoned off to the right and Nick steered her toward it. The portly maître d’ came up to them. Nick stopped and murmured, “Reservation in the name of Ames,” to him, but the maître d’ didn’t pay any attention to Nick at all. He just barreled on toward her.

Charity sighed and braced herself.

“Signorina Chaaariteee!”
She was enveloped in an embrace of big hard arms and a big hard belly. A hug fragrant with Versace and garlic.

“Sergio.” Charity smiled at him when he finally released her. Emilio’s brother-in-law was a much more outgoing personality than Emilio himself. He made a very good maître d’.

“Welcome, my dear. Where have you been? Why have you
not been eating here?” He held her at arm’s length and looked her up and down critically. “You’re looking
magra
. Too thin. Have you been eating enough?” He frowned and shook his head. “What am I saying? Of course not. Emilio!” he called while taking her coat and—clearly as an afterthought—Nick’s.
“Vieni qui subito
!”

Some customers walked into the door but Sergio ignored them. “Emilio!” he bellowed.

Charity winced, glancing up at Nick. He looked amused, totally relaxed.

“Emilio’s going to be delighted to see you, Miss Charity. Why, just the other day he mentioned you. Anna came home for the weekend and—”

“Charity!” Emilio came out from the kitchen, a tall, lean, handsome man. His food was so good, Charity couldn’t understand how on earth he managed to keep so trim. Probably because he worked so hard. He’d landed outside Parker’s Ridge over twenty years ago, a good-looking young Italian student from Bologna, hitchhiking his way through the States after college, eventually bringing his fiancée and his sister and her husband over from Bologna.

God knew why he’d elected northern Vermont to settle down in, but Parson’s Ridgers were grateful he had. It was the most successful—and best—restaurant in this part of the state.

Emilio folded her in his embrace, then held her at arm’s length, looking at her critically, just as Sergio had done. “You haven’t been—”

“Eating enough,” Charity said on a sigh. “I know, Sergio already told me. But I am, you know. We’re not all fortunate enough to have Silvia’s figure.”

At the mention of his beloved wife, who handled the ac
counts and ran their family ruthlessly and well, leaving him time to create, Emilio smiled. Silvia weighed thirty pounds more than Charity did and every ounce was composed of drop-dead curves that were magnets for male eyes.

“This is true,” he said proudly. “Still, you should be eating more.”

Charity refrained from rolling her eyes. It was time to change the subject. Emilio was perfectly capable of keeping this up forever if she let him.

“But enough!” Emilio held up an imperious hand and the waiter Charity would swear had been across the room materialized in a second by his side. Without turning around, Emilio said, “Dario, two glasses of our finest Prosecco and some hot antipasti.” In the blink of an eye, the waiter disappeared again.

“Come, sit down.” Emilio led them to the nicest part of the bar area—comfy armchairs upholstered in brilliant red brocade ranged around an antique door that served as a coffee table, just to the side of the huge roaring fire.

Emilio sat with them, as if he had all the time in the world, though it was coming up to dinnertime and the restaurant was starting to fill up.

“How’s—” Charity began, but Emilio ignored her. He swiveled and stared at Nick, a frown between his heavy black eyebrows.

“So,” he said, showing acres of white teeth in what was not quite a smile. “You’re dining with Miss Charity. Are you a colleague?”

Nick was sitting back, relaxed. “No, not at all. An acquaintance. Charity did me a favor and I asked her out to dinner to thank her.”