Operation Tropical Affair: A Poppy McVie Adventure (Poppy McVie Series Book 1) (16 page)

I steeled myself. “This really isn’t a good time,” I said with emphasis, willing him to take the hint. “Perhaps we can discuss our donation to your cause another time.” My eyes locked with his.
Please, just go with it, Noah. Walk away.

Noah eyed Dalton, assessing him. His eyes shifted back to me and held for a long moment.
Please, Noah. Take the hint.
 

He held up his hands and backed away.
 

“Forgive me,” I said.
 

My words hung in the air as Noah disappeared in the crowd.
 

I turned and caught sight of Maria, staring at me through the crowd.
 

“Let’s get a drink,” I said and steered Dalton toward the bar.

We were steps away when Maria materialized out of nowhere. “Where have you been hiding?” she said to Dalton, a wicked grin on her face. I opened my mouth to speak but she had him by the arm. “I’ve been hoping for a dance.”
 

I watched as she led him to the dance floor and pressed her body against his. He twirled her around while she shook her fanny and made an ass of herself. What was she thinking? Like he’d go for a gold-digger like her.
Wait, what do I care? I don't like him in that way. Sure he's hot but.... But he’s
my
husband.

When the song finally ended, he gave her a polite thank you and what looked like goodbyes for the evening. He took me by the arm and practically dragged me out the door and into the car.

“What’s going on?”

Dalton kept his gaze forward, his eyes on the road. “She knows something. I’ve been doing this a long time. I can tell. She’s suspicious.”

“Why? What did she say?”

“That kid,”—
kid?
—“you said he knew about her operation, that he had some evidence? What does he know?”

“I—”
Crap.
“I’m not sure. You told me not to talk to him again.”

He glared at me. “And since you’ve been here, you’ve followed my every order?”

I frowned. “Is that steam coming out of your ears?”

We headed into the downtown area. “You need to fix this. Make sure this situation is neutralized.”

“Neutralized? What the hell are you suggesting?”

He pulled the car to the curb at a busy block in town. “Go talk to him. Find out if she knows who he is. We need to get a handle on this.”

“Right now? The butterfly garden isn’t open at this hour. How do you expect—”

“You’re going to lie to me now?”

I stared into those eyes. Those beautiful eyes. The same eyes that looked at me with loving sympathy when I’d sobbed into his shirt. “No, I’m not.” I got out of the car. He drove away before the door was shut.

The lights were on in the tree house and I could hear the slow, melancholy sound of a Joni Mitchell tune on the guitar. I ascended the staircase and sat down in one of the rattan chairs. Noah strummed his guitar without looking up, made no acknowledgement of my presence. I waited till the end of the song.
 

His eyes turned on me. “So are you a cop or something?” His words were laced with sarcasm and thrown at me with the same inflection as I had asked him that first day. He reached for his bottle of beer and tipped it up. I watched his movement for any sign of his intentions.
 

“Fish and Wildlife,” I finally said.

“I suppose that guy’s your partner then?”

“Yes. We are undercover as a married couple.”

His lip curled up in a sarcastic grin. “Yeah, I figured.”

“All right,” I said, half relieved, half annoyed. “How’d you figure?”

“Well, for starters, when you first arrived at the butterfly garden, you were wearing a wedding ring.” He exaggerated a nod. “Yep, first thing I noticed. Then it was gone. But there was something about you. I just couldn’t make you for a player. Too…”

“Young and innocent?”

“Something like that.” His eyes traveled down my body and back up again. “Then your kung fu moves on the guard up there in the hills. And c’mon. Got lost birding?” He rolled out of the hammock, pushed a stack of magazines to one side of the coffee table, and sat down on the edge facing me. He reached up and ran a finger through my hair. “This is fiery red, not dumb blond.”
 

“All circumstantial,” I said. I couldn’t tell if he was mad and toying with me, or amused and flirting with me. Either way, I was totally turned on.
 

“Ah, but the true tip off, the crème de la crème, the icing on the cake, the—”

“All right already.”

“Only feds call the middleman the buncher.”

I closed my eyes. “Damn.”

His hand caressed my cheek. “It was so adorable.”

I suck at this.

“I didn’t realize you weren’t working alone.”

“Yeah, about that—”

“You and your husband—” he leaned in and kissed me on my neck, just below my ear “—looked awfully into each other on the dance floor.”

My breath caught in my throat. “It’s my job. That’s my cover.”

He moved farther down my neck.

I shook my head. “I thought you’d be angry with me.”

“Angry?” He pulled back and looked into my eyes. “I don’t know if I can keep my hands off you.”

I smiled, relieved. I cocked my head to the side and matched his intensity with my gaze. “While we’re being honest, what’s your story?”
 

He sat back. “What do you mean?”

“I think you want your friends to believe you’re a trust funder, but I don’t buy it.”

He flashed an innocent smile.

“At first glance, this is a modest tree house. But ocean front property? I bet you own it. You’re not Isabella’s neighbor, you’re her landlord.”

He kept his expression the same, but I saw the slightest flinch of acknowledgement.
 

“And the Chateau Montelena Estate Cabernet Sauvignon—nice taste by the way—that wine retails for nearly two-hundred dollars. Trust funders don’t spend that kind of coin on wine. They go to Europe, ski the Alps. You earned your money.”

He wouldn’t nod, but I knew I was right. I placed my hand on his thigh and slid it forward as I leaned in. “But the true reveal, the final blow, the…” I paused. “Damn, I can’t think of another idiom.”

He grinned and shook his head. “Go on.”

“Financial lingo. Hedging? Selling futures? My bet is Yale, left before you even graduated to take on Wall Street. Am I close?”

He ran his fingers through my hair. “I knew you were a natural red.” He held my head in his hand, gently pulled me toward him, and nuzzled the soft spot right above my collarbone, then worked his way up my neck, leaving a trail of kisses that made me shiver with desire.
 

He pulled away from me again, leaving me breathless, his hazel eyes mischievously assessing me. “So we know each other’s deepest secrets.” He grinned. “Now what do we do?”

“Anything we want,” I said and practically launched out of the chair into his arms, hungry for his lips on me, his tongue. I tugged at his T-shirt and yanked it over his head.
 

He wrapped his arms around me and spun us around. He surprised me with his strength; he held me with his left arm as he knocked the magazines to the floor. He lay me down on my back on the coffee table and slowly crawled on top of me, taking his time to enjoy the curves of my body, working his way back up to my neck. He buried his head in my hair and whispered in my ear, “God, you’re hot.”

I grabbed onto him, shifted to my hip, and rolled to straddle him. The table tipped and we fell to the floor with a thump, me sprawled on top of him. The table slammed to the floor with a bang. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I said. I pushed myself up on my hands but kept my body pressed against him.

He laughed, rubbing the back of his head. “Wow, you are feisty.”

I had nothing to lose. “Yes, I am.” I ran my hands down his chest to the button on his jeans.
 

He shoved the table out of the way. “Let’s wreck this place.”

I lay in his arms. “I’m sorry I lied to you,” I said. “I had to. It’s my job. Even though, obviously,” I sighed, “I’m not very good at it.” I shifted so I could see his eyes. “But it was for the greater good.”

“Most honorable.” He kissed the tip of my nose. “And you are good at it. I’m just really good at reading people.” He gently stroked my hair. “I used to swindle people for a living.”

“What? I don’t believe that.”

“Even if it was legal, that’s what I did.” He pushed himself up on the pillow. “But I wasn’t always like that.”

I propped myself up on my elbow. “I bet I know one thing for sure; you’ve always liked insects.”

His grin was laced with nostalgia. “When I was a kid, I loved bugs. My Uncle Frank got me this really cool ant farm for Christmas one year. I’d watch them for hours. Fascinating, you know, how industrious they are. My father hated it, of course. Said it was a waste of time.
 

“One day, he was angry because I didn’t have my homework finished or something, I don’t remember. He was always mad at me for something. Anyway, I’ll never forget how he stomped around my room in a rage and knocked it off my dresser. I swear it hovered in mid air, you know that defining moment, and I was helpless to stop it.” He winced at the memory. “It was like time froze, just so I’d have to endure that agony. Then it smashed on the floor and shattered. Sand and dirt flew everywhere. The ants skittered around in circles. They didn’t know which way to go. Their entire world had been destroyed in an instant, shattered to bits. My father stomped his foot right in the center of it, smooshing them to death.”

“He made it clear. Nothing else mattered but perfect grades. I was going to business school. It wasn’t an option. He didn’t care whether that’s what I wanted to do. My dream of being an entomologist was pointless to him. I couldn’t have hobbies, play sports. Nothing that wasn’t an
approved
extracurricular activity.” His eyes traveled down my chest. “Girls were most definitely off limits.”

He paused as though he wasn’t sure he wanted to tell me any more of the story. He turned to look me in the eyes. “Yes, I went to Yale. Got a job in the secondary mortgage market. I was exactly what my father wanted me to be.” He shook his head with disgust. “I was a selfish sonofabitch. I wanted to make money. Lots of it. And I did.”
 

“What happened? What changed?”

“One day, this guy Mark, asked me to go for a walk. We were friends, I guess. As good of friends as two guys in finance can be. He wanted to get out of the office, tell me about an opportunity he didn’t want overheard. Funny part about it was, I’d just bought this new suit, custom tailored. Three grand. Mark shows up in the same suit and gives me crap about finding my own style.
 

“Anyway, we walked to the corner of the block. There was this tiny park there, you know, a patch of grass, one tree and a bench. He was telling me about this company that was over leveraged, how he could take over, liquidate, some mom and pop outfit that held a patent of which they didn’t realize the value. We got to the bench and there was a homeless man sitting there feeding the pigeons. Everything he owned in the world was in the bag on the ground next to him, but he was sharing what he had with the pigeons. I don’t know why. The joy of their companionship maybe, maybe to feel like he was helping.”
 

His eyes turned glassy with the memory. I didn’t want to interrupt his story. So I waited.
 

“Mark wanted to sit on the bench, but he wasn’t going to sit down next to some stinking homeless man—his words—so he walked up to him and told him to move along, get a job. The man didn’t flinch, didn’t acknowledge Mark.”

He paused again. Closed his eyes.

“What’d Mark do?” I asked.

“He kicked a pigeon. Sent it flying into the tree trunk. It flopped around on the ground, its wing broken. The old man looked up at Mark. There was no fear in his eyes. Just pity. Pity for Mark.” He clenched his teeth together and I was sure it was to hold back a tear. “The old man got up. Mark thought it was because he’d intimidated him into leaving. Mark plopped down in the seat without a second thought and starting talking strategy, about a partnership.” He shook his head. “The old man shuffled over to the base of the tree and drove the heel of his boot down on the bird, putting it out of its misery. Then he poked around in his bag and pulled out a spoon and right next to where Mark sat, the old man dug a grave for that bird.”
 

“Wow, that’s…” I didn’t know what to say.
 

“And I sat there next to him. In the same damn suit.”

I gave him a moment before I asked, “What’d you do?”

“I went back to the office, packed up my things, and walked out. I’ve never been back.” He shifted and met my eyes. “I like it much better here. Don’t you agree?”

“Yeah,” I said and as if he’d been cued, Clyde bounded up the side of the balcony. “You’re in good company.”

Noah got up and tossed a biscuit to Clyde. While the little visitor crunched away at it, Noah adjusted the pillows we’d piled up on the floor beneath us and eased back into place, his arms around me. “What made you want to be a wildlife cop?”

“Hold on. You don’t just volunteer at the butterfly garden, do you?”

He grinned. “Don’t go changing the subject. I asked
you
a question.”

“Fine.” I thought of my dad, but I couldn’t go there. Not right now. “I can’t stand to see animals being hurt. And I love being outdoors. I can’t imagine a job in a city, in a cubicle somewhere. It’d be the death of me.”

“No kidding. Tell me about it.”

“I just don’t understand how anyone can hurt an animal the way these criminals do and think nothing of it. The horror, the tragedy of it all. It’s mind-boggling. I always wondered how these people can be so heartless. I’m starting to see it’s more about the human capacity for denial. That combined with plain ignorance. I mean, anyone who’s ever had a dog ought to see that animals have feelings. They feel pain.” Clyde finished his biscuit and bounded across the room and jumped up and down at our feet.