Mission: Irresistible (8 page)

“So what’s the plan, Stan? What’s on the agenda, Brenda? Where do we start to sleuth, Ruth?” She was jumping around, swinging her arms, acting like a nervous thoroughbred eager to shoot from the starting gate.

“Are you always so hyper?”

“Always,” she promised.

“Remind me never to give you sugar.”

“As if I’d remind you of that. Chocolate is my middle name.”

“Explains the hyperactivity,” he muttered.

“Anyway, what’s the scheme, Kareem?”

“I’ve calculated that the best use of time would be to head for the airport tonight and check out this baggage claim ticket. Put our heads together and see if we can determine what might have happened.”

She gave him a thumbs-up. “I’m with you.”

“Whose vehicle should we take to the airport?”

“Not mine, unless you don’t mind stopping for gas,” she said. “The empty light flashed on just as I was pulling into the parking lot this morning.”

“You don’t fill up when your gas gauge gets to the halfway mark?”

She squinted at him, incredulous. “Good God, no. Do you?”

Yes, he did, but Harrison wasn’t about to admit it when she was staring at him like he had just sprouted a second head. He had a momentary flash of insight into Cassie’s driving. He could just see her careening down the highway, talking nonstop on her cell phone, rock music blasting from the stereo speakers, her eyes everywhere but on the road. Anyone that drove around with their empty light flashing had to be an irresponsible driver.

“Never mind,” he said, taking her elbow and hustling her toward the Volvo. “I’ll drive.”

“Oooh, Harry.” She batted her eyelashes at him. “I never imagined you were the forceful, take-charge type.”

“Knock off the eyelash batting. It won’t get you anywhere with me.”

“You think I’m flirting with you?”

“Yes.”

“Please, don’t flatter yourself. I flirt with everyone. You’re no more special than the checkout boy at Albertsons.”

Harrison’s cheeks burned. She did flirt with everyone. “Just don’t do it with me.”

“Don’t worry, chum. The last thing on earth I’d want is to ‘do it’ with you.”

Dammit. She’d twisted his words.

“Listen, since we’re forced to spend time together, could you please keep the sexual innuendos to a minimum?” he said.

“Aww, whazza matter, Harry? Get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

When and why had she switched from calling him Standish and started addressing him as Harry?

“Stop calling me Harry,” he growled. “I don’t care for that particular moniker.”

“Harrison’s too uptight.”

“I like uptight.”

“I never would have guessed.”

“You’re big on sarcasm too.”

“When it suits me.” She stroked her chin with her thumb and index finger pensively. “Hank, then? You like Hank better?”

“Hank is a nickname for Henry, not Harrison.”

“Yeah, but I could call you Hank if I wanted to, right? It’s a free country.” She blithely waved a hand.

“Don’t call me either Harry or Hank.” He gritted his teeth. “It’s Harrison. Just Harrison.”

“Okay, Harry’s son.” She shrugged and grinned mischievously. “Whatever you say.”

With a grunt of displeasure, Harrison thrust a hand in his pocket, plucked out his keys, and opened the passenger door so she could slide in.
I won’t throttle her, I won’t throttle her, I won’t throttle her.

She wasn’t worth a murder charge. That much was certain. Normally he was slow to anger, but there was something about this woman that rubbed him the wrong way.

Unfortunately, his testosterone was shouting, “Wrong way, right way, who cares, just as long as she rubs you.”

He slammed the door after she got in. Briefly, he closed his eyes and swallowed hard.

Stay calm, stay cool, stay detached from your feelings.

The chant soothed him the way chocolate chip cookies soothed a carboholic. He felt his anger lift as he mentally disengaged from the moment. With a cool inner eye, he watched himself walk around to the driver’s side and then ease behind the wheel.

That was better. No pesky anger to muddle his thinking.

“Hey, Harry,” Cassie said huskily, her voice a velvet stroke against his ears as he started the engine.

“It’s Harrison.” He forced himself not to clench his teeth over her use of the unsavory nickname. Clenched teeth indicated irritation, and he wasn’t irritated. He was aloof, far above his base emotions. This flighty woman couldn’t touch him.

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re really cute when you’re pissed?”

“I’m not pissed,” Harrison denied, and told himself the sweat pooling under his collar had absolutely nothing to do with her frank teasing.

“Coulda fooled me,” she said lightly. “Oh, by the way, we have to stop off at my apartment.”

“Good grief, what for?” Against his better judgment, he glanced over at her.

She had her stiletto sandals peeled off and her feet propped up against the glove compartment. He hated that she had her bare feet on his dash, but at the same time he loved the sight of her delicate toes, painted a light, pearly hue, wriggling in the dome light.

“I can’t go to the airport dressed like this.” She blithely swept a hand at her skimpy Cleopatra costume. The skirt hem had ridden up when she’d sat down, exposing a long expanse of round feminine thigh.

He swallowed hard. “You know, this is rather urgent. We’ve got less than seventy-two hours to find my brother and solve this mystery.”

“I hafta go home and change. Hang a left at Seventh Street. My apartment is on the next road over.” She had a point about traipsing around in public in that diaphanous Cleopatra garb.

“My brother’s missing,” he said. “Kiya’s amulet’s been stolen, and my life is unraveling before my very eyes.”

And
, he mentally added,
I’m stuck with a free-spirited fruitcake of a woman.

“It won’t take ten minutes, I promise.”

He wanted to be adamant and say no, but Cassie was so damned irresistible with her perky, expectant smile and her goofy, yet strangely winsome ways, he found himself doing exactly as she asked.

Five minutes later they were at her apartment.

“To speed things up, I’ll just wait for you in the car.”

“You’re gonna sit out here in the dark all by your lonesome?” she picked at him.

He patted his dashboard. “I can listen to NPR.”

“What is it, Harry? Are you just antisocial, or are you too scared to be alone with me?”

“I’m in a hurry, that’s all.”

“Prove you’re not scared of me. Come up to my apartment.”

He gritted his teeth. Damn, the woman could vex a Zen monk. To prove her wrong, he shut off the engine and followed her up to the second-floor landing.

It had been a long time since he’d been alone with a woman at her place, especially a woman as sexy as this one; maybe he was a little nervous. But he didn’t want her to know that. He tried his best to look composed and nonchalant, but ended up tripping over the doorsill because he was too busy watching her derriere sway.

Cassie put out a hand to stop his forward momentum. “Are you okay?”

He nodded, feeling like he was back in high school, standing at his locker next to the gorgeous prom queen who dated the first-string quarterback that used to beat him up on a regular basis.

Would he ever stop feeling like a wimpy nerd when it came to women? Probably not. Especially with a woman like Cassie who could have any guy she wanted.

She wrapped her hand around his bicep and her eyes widened with surprise. “Why Harrison, you dawg, you work out.”

He shrugged and pushed up his glasses, unnerved by the teasing awe in her voice. “Now and again.”

“Now and again doesn’t give a man muscles like these.” She squeezed his arm. “You’re hitting the weights at least three times a week. I should know. My identical twin sister is an Olympic athlete, and she’s a rock.”

“I didn’t know you had a twin,” he said, mostly to change the subject, but also because he was fascinated to learn this tidbit. There were two of her?

“But Maddie and I are nothing alike. She just won a gold medal in track and field, and me, I’d rather get forty licks with a wet noodle than sprint from here to my mailbox. We’re as opposite as twins can get.”

Well, that was a relief. He couldn’t imagine two identical Cassies let loose on an unsuspecting world.

“Have a seat,” she said. “I’ll go change.”

“I don’t need to have a seat. It’s only going to take you a couple of minutes, remember?”

“Suit yourself.” She waggled her fingers and ambled down the hall.

“Hurry. We need to get a move on.” Harrison cleared his throat and tried not to fidget. No matter how hard he fought to block the visage, he kept visualizing her slipping out of the silky white goddess toga-thingy she was wearing.

“You can turn on the TV if you want.”

“We’re not going to be here that long,” he called as she disappeared into her bedroom.

He ended up plunking down on the couch because he didn’t know what else to do with himself. Cassie’s apartment was as harum-scarum as she was. The cluttered decor was in sharp contrast to his own austere living quarters, where everything was monochromatic and totally bric-a-brac free. His house contained no extras except for his home office, which was filled with neatly cataloged artifacts.

No doubt about it. He would go crazy if he had to live in such chaos. He resisted the urge to get up and start cleaning.

Knickknacks lay jumbled across every bit of available cabinet space. Porcelain kittens decorated a wall shelf. An overgrowth of ivy spilled from a plant stand and curled along the window ledge. In the corner stood three umbrellas, one of them open. Books sprawled on the bar between the living area and the kitchen, and a roll of unopened triple-ply toilet paper leaned against a bottle of extra-hold hairspray.

Clearly, she had never heard the phrase “a place for everything and everything in its place.”

There was a half-finished jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table and a three-quarters-empty glass of chocolate milk. In a tote bag beside the couch he spied a half-knitted afghan. Twinkle lights were stapled to the mantel, and Harrison didn’t know if they were left over from Christmas or simply part of her willy-nilly decorating scheme.

He was beginning to see a theme emerging. Cassie had a difficult time finishing what she started.

He glanced at his wristwatch. Ten-forty. Time was wasting. What in the world was taking so long?

“Hurry,” he hollered, and when she didn’t respond, he took out his phone and tried to call Adam. Voice mail again. He left another message.

“Harry?” Cassie’s voice drifted from the bedroom.

He jumped as if he’d been caught doing something illegal. He closed his cell phone. “Uh-huh?”

“Um . . .” She paused. “Could you come in here a minute? I could use a hand.”

She required his help in the bedroom? What did that mean?

In his head, he heard the sound track from one of those cheesy soft-core porn movies that came on Cinemax late at night. Not that he watched them. Much.

Dow-shicka-dow-now.

“Harry?”

“Ulp . . . er . . .” Jeez, he was sweating. He adjusted his glasses and shifted uncomfortably on the couch.

“Please,” she coaxed in that breathless way of hers that could turn a man’s insides to soup. “I’m in something of a pickle.”

Dow-shicka-dow-now.

This was sounding more and more like a bad script for some X-rated flick. Why was his heart knocking like a jalopy engine? He hadn’t violated his personal code of ethics.

Well, as long as you didn’t count sexual fantasies.

“I need you . . . ,” she wheedled.

His instincts urged him to hit the door at a dead run. If Cassie had hanky-panky on her brain and she intended on seducing him, there was no way he could resist. But why would she choose this moment to come on to him? Particularly when she didn’t even seem to like him very much.

Hell, who could know why the loopy woman did anything?

“Harry,” her voice drew him.

Mesmerized, Harrison left the couch and edged down the hallway.

Her bedroom door stood slightly ajar as he approached with the mind-set of a warrior going into battle. If she was stretched out naked across the bed, giving him a come-hither look, he would retreat.

Um-hmm, yeah, sure. Uh-huh.

He would!

And when was the last time a delicious woman threw herself at you? Yep, never. Dream on, Romeo. If Cassie is buck naked on that bed, with lust for you gleaming in her eyes, you ain’t about to turn tail and run.

He reached the door and hesitated.

“Could you possibly hurry it up? I’m in something of a compromising position.”

Holy jeez, she
was
trying to seduce him.

The hairs on his arms lifted. He felt simultaneously panicky and thrilled and immediately tried to squelch the feelings. But they were unsquelchable.

Are you a man or a mouse, Harry?

Aw hell, now she had him calling himself by that atrocious nickname. Conflicted, he just stood there.

From inside the bedroom he heard a thumping noise.

“Did you leave?” Her voice sounded faraway and a little tremulous now. Like she was sad or in trouble or both.

And that’s what got to him. The lost-little-girl quality in her voice and the notion that she needed him.

Emboldened, he marched into her bedroom.

Only to learn she was nowhere in sight.

He glanced around at the unmade four-poster bed covered by a canopy of some sheer girly-looking material. At least ten different pairs of shoes littered the floor, along with a blouse or two. A plaid miniskirt was thrown over the television set perched on a wicker dresser in the corner.

Talk about your lurid Catholic schoolgirl fantasies.

He jerked his head away, desperate for something less provocative to stare at. Three curio shelves lined the north wall, all three stocked with a variety of scented Yankee candles, and even though they weren’t lit, the scents were still potent. The cacophony of aromas assaulted his nose. Peach parfait, freshly laundered linen, hazelnut coffee, pineapple-coconut, summer rose garden.