Sexy/Dangerous (8 page)

The computer booted up with no problem. Max clicked on AOL and hoped Kaitlin was one of those lazy folks who kept their password stored on the computer. As the sign-on dialog box appeared, Max smiled. Sure enough, the password was stored. All she had to do was hit Enter, and AOL did the rest.

Because the government was paying her to be nosy, she felt not an ounce of guilt reading the young
woman’s sent e-mails. Especially when she read one in particular:

Max shook her head and said aloud, “Miss Kaitlin, I got over being called tall and ugly a long time ago.” For a moment she let herself remember the hell that had been middle school, where the boys and many of the girls called her everything from Geoffrey the Toys ‘R’ Us Giraffe to Andre the Giant.

Brushing aside the memories of those haters, she scanned all of Kaitlin’s recently sent and received mail, but none of the other messages pertained to her, nor did she see anything that might link Kaitlin to the e-mail Adam had received about his mother or the appearance of Robinski. Satisfied for now, but still no closer to any answers as to who the men threatening Adam might be, she signed off, then shut down the computer.

Max put everything back the way she’d found it, hit the light switch, locked the door, and returned to her own room. After removing her boots and turning off her own light, she climbed into the new bed and snuggled beneath the crisp, new, lilac-colored bedding. It was only ten-thirty, early for her to be turning in, but
she was tired and glad to be finally sleeping in a bed again.

It took her a while to doze off, though, because Adam Gary kept floating across her mind. His parents were relatively well off financially, so she assumed he’d received some kind of counseling after the terrible attack. Having been trained in intelligence, she knew that the mind could be a tricky entity, especially in response to trauma. She just hoped he’d find a way to see himself clear because he needed light to quell the darkness encasing him.

Jan Kruger was furious. Not only had Vlad Oskar not gone to Michigan as he’d been assigned, but he’d sent an underling in his place, an underling who’d not been properly screened and apparently could no longer be found. According to the heavily sweating Oskar, it had been six hours since he last made contact, and repeated attempts to rouse the agent via his mobile phone had been unsuccessful. “So where do you think he is?” Jan asked, turning cold blue eyes on the short, brown-eyed Oskar staring back at him from the monitor on his laptop. Jan was in a hotel suite in Chicago, and Oskar was in his car in Miami.

“I don’t know,” Oskar said tightly.

“Did he arrive?”

“Yes. I spoke with him as he drove up to the house’s gate. After that, nothing.”

“You were supposed to go personally.”

“I know,” he said, and took a moment to wipe at the moisture gathering above his thin upper lip. “But the woman selling the plane components we need said I had to do the deal today or she’d sell to another customer.
I had no choice but to send someone to Michigan in my place.”

Jan didn’t respond. He knew the components were necessary for reprogramming the computers in the planes he’d purchased in Copenhagen. Finding someone on the black market who dealt in quality merchandise like the female dealer in Miami had not been easy. However, the understanding didn’t diminish the danger they all might be facing if Oskar’s man was in the hands of the police. “Keep trying to contact him, and stay in touch.”

“I will,” Oskar promised, then quickly signed off.

Jan stared distastefully at the blank monitor screen. Oskar might have been telling the truth about the components, but Jan was convinced he hadn’t gone to Michigan because he’d been afraid. Oskar had been recruited and brought on board by one of the old Afrikaners, named Rand, whose money was helping to finance the operation. Jan had had misgivings from the very beginning about Oskar’s suitability, but kept his mouth shut because technically Rand and his wealthy fellows, all of whom had been prominent members of the Nationalist Party before the collapse of the old ways, were in charge. As a result, they were at their homes in Durban and outside of Pretoria while he was here cleaning up Oskar’s mess.

Jan made a few calls to his moles in an attempt to find out if the missing man had been taken into custody, as he suspected. He was promised an answer as soon as possible, but in the meantime was left to wonder if their plan was already starting to unravel. He placed one more call, to a person who boasted of being a member of Adam Gary’s inner circle. The contact had promised to deliver the prototype—for a price, of course—but
Jan trusted him about as much as he trusted Oskar. Jan was a man of discipline and order, but he could feel the reins slipping from his fingers. To counter that he’d have to move up the schedule because he refused to allow all the work they’d put into this be for naught. He checked his watch. He’d come to Chicago on behalf of the South African government to attend a United Nations fund-raiser, and he needed to get dressed. After he returned, he’d place a call to Oskar and hope the sweaty little man had better news.

Adam awakened to the smell of bacon frying. He remembered Max saying something about breakfast this morning, so he got up. Usually he’d be out jogging by now, but the anticipation of food and Max’s company overrode all else.

When he entered the kitchen, she was spooning fat yellow scrambled eggs into a bowl. The kitchen smelled amazingly like his mama’s kitchen when he was growing up. “Smells good in here.”

“Morning,” she said, smiling. She was wearing a Dallas Stars T-shirt, shorts, and sandals. “Toast will be up in a second. Do you want orange juice?”

Adam looked over at her and wondered if Benny had any idea how lucky he’d been to wake up to her every morning. “Orange juice is fine. But I can get it.” He went to the big new fridge and opened the door. It was filled with everything from butter to apples. Shaking his head, he grabbed the juice carton and closed the door. “There’s a lot of stuff in there.”

“You can’t be the next Lewis Latimer on an empty stomach. Gotta keep you fed.” The toast popped out of the new four-slot toaster nice and brown. She put the
four slices on a plate, slapped some butter on them, and came to the table.

Intrigued by her reference to Latimer and the sway of her walk as she moved around the kitchen, he asked, “What do you know about Lewis Latimer.”

“Other than he perfected the filament in Edison’s original lightbulbs?”

He grinned and took a seat at the table. “Yeah.”

“That he doesn’t get the credit he deserves.”

“Bingo.”

She inclined her head royally and sat.

Enjoying her, he filled his plate with the eggs, grits, bacon, and toast. After waiting politely for her to do the same, he dug in. Just like yesterday’s dinner, the food was great. “You’re a good cook. Not many women cook anymore.”

“I enjoy it, but my mama thought my sister and I would never learn.”

“There’s another one of you?”

She grinned. “Yes, I have a sister named JT.”

“Which stands for?”

“Jessi Theresa.”

“She do security work, too?”

“No, she’s a sports agent. Basketball clients, mostly.”

Adam stopped and stared. “Really?”

Max smiled. “No conventional women’s work for the Blake girls. My mama thinks it’s genetic.”

“How so?”

“Both of my great-great-great-grandmothers were pistols. One, Grace Atwood Blake, organized a wagon train of mail order brides and took them to Kansas City back in the late 1800s. She was also one of the first African American lady bankers.”

“Wow,” he said. Savoring his grits, he wondered how he was going to convince her to stay and cook for him for the rest of his life. “What about your other grandmother?”

“Granny Loreli was a gambler.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope, and family history says she was real good at it. She and my grandmother Grace were close friends and eventually two of their children married each other. That’s where I get my green eyes. Supposedly, Granny Loreli had green ones, and they’ve been popping up every other generation or so since.”

He checked out those compelling eyes. A man could drown in them, he realized, and to keep from doing so, he shifted his attention down to his plate. “So what did their husbands do?”

“Loreli’s husband, Jake, was a pig farmer, and Grace’s husband, Jackson, was a Texas lawman. I guess being with the police is in my blood, too.”

Adam was impressed by her stories. There were many African American families who could relate the proud facts of their ancestral history, but unfortunately his wasn’t one of them. His mother Lauren was adopted, and his biological father, Craig McDonald, killed in ’Nam, had been abandoned at birth on the streets of Chicago and grew up in foster care. But apparently Max Blake was a descendant of some remarkable women. No wonder she was so vivid.

Max watched him discreetly while she ate. In spite of their on and off head butting, she still thought he was gorgeous. The sexy angles of the thin moustache curving down his mouth to merge with the close-clipped hair that rode up his chin to the razor-cut sideburns enhanced
his features. His lips were fine, he was fine, and he was watching her. She let him look, and the power in his dark eyes touched her in much the same way the heat of his body had teased her yesterday on the patio. She could feel the temp rising in the quiet kitchen. Every once in a blue moon she ran across a man whose presence was impossible to ignore, and Adam Gary appeared to be one. But in her line of work, playing midnight twister with the client was not only highly unethical, it could be dangerous.

“Can you pass me that marmalade, please?” she asked.

He handed her the small jar. Their fingers brushed and the current crackled.

Max wanted nothing more than to roll all over the floor with this man; find out if that mouth was as wonderful as it appeared, run her hands up and down those strong arms and play Shakespeare’s two-backed beast until neither of them could walk, but, Adam Gary was a client; Chandler had sent her to protect the doctor, not to play doctor. “So, do you have any idea who Robinski might be?” She thought turning her mind back to the job was way safer than letting it go in the direction it was headed.

Adam observed her over his cup of coffee. Seeing her delicately suck some of the marmalade off the tip of her finger after slathering the sweetness on her toast made his manhood harden like a pipe. “No idea,” he replied in a calm voice. “I had a couple Eastern European countries that wanted to send some of their graduates over to observe.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I was knee deep into the prototype at the time and
didn’t need the distractions, so I told them, no.”

“How’d they contact you? Snail mall, cell, e-mail?”

He watched the tip of her tongue catch a stray piece of marmalade from the corner of her bottom lip. “E-mail.”

“Did they know you were working out of this house?”

“I don’t think so. I’d just published the first article with my preliminary findings about the prototype, and the journal listed my e-mail address. They contacted me a few days after that.”

“Who else have you had contact with? Foreign contacts.”

“The Saudis, the Russians. The Israelis, the Japanese, and the Chinese.”

“Popular man,” she said. “They all want the same thing?”

“Yep. Me and my lab.”

She poured herself more juice. “When was the last time you heard from any of them?”

“A few days before the conference in Madrid. Got a call from a man who wouldn’t tell me his name, but he said he could arrange for me to go straight from there to a lab in a secret location. Offered me stupid money.”

“Accent?”

“Yeah. Australia? New Zealand?”

She looked surprised. “Good grief, how many dogs are in this hunt?”

“I don’t want to know.”

“Any luck on fixing the problem with the prototype?”

“Nope. Not yet.”

“Well, keep me posted.”

“Will do.”

They concentrated on finishing breakfast but in
reality were back to silently checking each other out again. The cracks in Adam’s celibacy vow were widening like fissures in thin ice. Although he knew he shouldn’t, he wanted to smell the perfume on her skin again and wondered what it would feel like to trace his finger over the soft curves of her luscious mouth. How would she react if he placed slow, heated kisses along that elegant neck then down to the hollow of her throat? He knew firsthand that her breasts were small, the way he liked, and thinking about pleasuring them set off more cracks and fissures.

Seemingly unaware of how she was affecting him, she pushed her chair back and stood. His eyes followed her as she moved away to pour more coffee. Over his own coffee cup, he savored the way she walked and the lean, lithe lioness air she exuded. Lioness was a good description, he reflected, because he was hard as a lion in heat.

Max was very aware of Adam, so much so that she wanted to fan herself. Standing at the sink, she looked
over her shoulder and saw him still watching her with such cool intensity the heat of it forced her to turn away and close her eyes until the ripples passed.
Lord!
She was going to have to rethink that whole ice water thing. The voice in her head said:
All right, Blake. He’s a man, nothing more, and you’ve been dealing with men all of your life. Pull it together, girl!
She drew in a deep breath, released the death grip she had on the edge of the sink, and turned back to face him with her refilled cup in her hand. He had the nerve to be smiling.

“Something funny?” she asked.

“No ma’am,” he replied with eyes that lied. “Just enjoying the morning.”

The idea that this tough cookie of a woman could be flustered by him was as surprising as it was fascinating. He was certain she’d felt the temperature rising in the room just as he had, and the fact that she’d turned away so quickly spoke volumes. He studied her for a few more silent moments, then stood. “Thanks for breakfast.”

Max shook off the fantasy of him taking her naked on the tablecloth, and asked, “What do you want for dinner?”

“Whatever you cook will be fine, but I am a carnivore, so no vegan stuff.”

“Understood.”

In the silence that followed, what they both felt remained unspoken, so he said, “I’ll see you later, Ms. Blake.”

She nodded. “Later.”

When he left the kitchen, Max realized her heart was racing.

The rest of the morning was a whirlwind of hammers,
saws, ladders, and paint as the workmen arrived and began their day.

Benny arrived promptly at nine. He strolled in with a starry-eyed, sleepy-looking Kaitlin. Max wondered if the girl knew the buttons on her blouse were askew. Kaitlin’s fingers waggled a good-bye at Benny then she floated up the stairs to her room.

Benny watched her departure then gave Max a smile of welcome while he took in all of the activity. “Looks like a three-ring circus,” he shouted over the noise.

“I know. Are you ready to get to work?”

He yelled back, “Lead me to it. You want to play poker tonight?”

Max grinned. “Yeah.”

Outside, they spent a few moments discussing the logistics of the operation. The property stretched a mile and a half in each direction, so Benny had his work cut out for him, but he promised that when he finished installing the motion detectors with their halogen lights and mini video cameras, Max would be able to access real-time pictures of every inch of the place from either her handheld or laptop.

Pleased, she left him to do his thing, with the dogs tagging along. She took out her phone and put in a call to the Bureau office in Grand Rapids. When the agent picked up, she was told that Robinski’s fingerprints belonged not to a computer repair salesman but to a former KGB operative now working for an Eastern European energy cartel.

The female agent said, “The only thing on his person besides a fake driver’s license and the gun was a picture phone.”

Max was confused. “So, he was just here to take pictures?”

“No clue. We’re going to hold onto him for a while and see if he tells us anything. He is on the no fly list, though, so he’ll probably end up being kicked over to Immigration, then deported. If you need additional bodies out there, just let us know. That property has enough trees where we could easily hide a couple of agents in a car for a few days.”

“I’m hoping that won’t be necessary but it’s good to know I have backup if I need it.”

“The county sheriff’s a good guy, too. Call him. If anything jumps off, he’d be able to get his people there faster than we would.”

“Okay.”

She and the agent spent a few more moments talking, then Max ended the call and went back inside. So Robinski was here to just take pictures? Of what? Whom? Adam undoubtedly. She was glad Benny was on the case, because something told her things were getting ready to heat up.

Speaking of heat, she spent the rest of the morning thinking about Adam even though it seemed that a woman like her had no business being attracted to a brother with an IQ in the stratosphere. His client status notwithstanding, she had a GED diploma and a two-year police academy degree; that was it. Everything she’d learned over and above that had been up close and personal in the school of life: Marines, Homicide, black ops for various government agencies, and now Myk Chandler’s group, NIA. A Texas girl with her “around the way” background rarely crossed paths with the Brainiac Brothers of America, let alone be around one fine enough
to want to hitch herself to his rocket and ride it to Saturn. But she did, and anybody with a lick of sense knew that was a real bad idea.

At noon everybody broke for lunch. Benny and Kaitlin drove into town for burgers and fries, while the workers ate in their trucks or relaxed down on the beach. Alone in the kitchen, Max put together two ham and cheese sandwiches bulging with tomatoes and lettuce. One would be for herself and the other for the Man in the Basement.

With his sandwich, some chips, and a glass of lime Kool-Aid chilling on the tray she was balancing, Max rapped on the lab door and called out, “Lunch, Doc.”

To her surprise, he didn’t yell back about being left alone, he simply opened the door. His presence rolled over her like the warmth of a June day. “Lunch,” she said again, all the while wondering if there was something she could ingest to quell her growing attraction to him.

He took the tray. “Thanks.”

“I forgot to ask you about food allergies. Do you have any?” Max was hoping idle chitchat would keep her from thinking about what happened at breakfast.

“Not that I know of.”

“Just checking. Don’t want to feed you something I shouldn’t.” The chitchat didn’t help; she found herself staring at his mouth longer than she should have, then caught herself and raised her eyes to his amused ones.

He said, “Appreciate the concern.”

Max couldn’t remember a man ever making her dizzy, but looking up at him made her feel just that. “All righty, then. I’m going to leave you to your lunch. I’ll see you later.” Waving good-bye as she walked off, she called back, “Dinner’s at six.”

Adam watched the sweet rhythm of her retreat, felt more fissures open up, then shaking his head, quietly closed himself in again.

Dinner that evening made Adam sure he’d died and gone to heaven. The barbecued chicken, coleslaw, and baked beans were as good as any he’d ever tasted. He’d spent the afternoon closeted in the lab, and having dinner on the patio made him feel like a prisoner given early release. His enjoyment was increased by having her seated across the table from him. “Another great meal.”

Max saluted him with her glass of lime Kool-Aid. “Thanks.”

“You have a thing for green Kool-Aid, don’t you?”

“I do, and it’s a love that reaches all the way back to my childhood. My sister JT is a grape girl. I prefer this.”

“Who’s the oldest?”

“She is by about fifteen months.”

“Is she as fierce as you?”

Max studied him. “In her own way, yes.”

“You two must have been rough on the brothers growing up.”

Her smile was bittersweet. “Not really. We were both as tall in high school as we are now, so there weren’t any dates. Boys preferred the petite cheerleader types.”

He nodded his understanding. “The tall girls at my high school didn’t get asked out much, either.”

“Which did you date? The giraffes or the poodles?”

He dropped his head. “Poodles.”

“Pitiful,” she chuckled softly. “The story of my life.”

“It wouldn’t be poodles now, though.”

“Yeah right.”

“No,” he laughed. “I’ve learned. Tall ladies have their own special élan.”

“Oh, now you speak French, too?”

“French, Italian, Portuguese.”

Max sat back. His eyes were working overtime. “You are lying.”

He grinned. “You’re right. The Italian part is a lie.”

Her amused eyes met his. “Braniacs aren’t supposed to be charmers.”

He drew on his drink. “No?”

“No. You’re supposed to be this schlump of a brother with taped Coke-bottle glasses and a pocket protector.”

“But I’m not,” he stated.

“No, you aren’t,” she said more quietly than she’d intended.

The vibe they’d set in motion at breakfast kicked in again, big-time.

He told her, “You are the most fascinating woman I’ve met in a while.”

“Like maybe you get out a lot.”

He threw back his head and laughed.

Max liked the rich sound of his laugh. He didn’t do it enough for her, though. Grinning, she said, “Sorry. Were you being serious?”

“I was.”

Their shared grins filled them both.

Max said, “You’re pretty fascinating too, Doc.”

“Good. Glad I’m making some kind of impression.”

“Oh, you are. Believe me.” In order to keep from jumping across the table on him, Max turned her head and looked out toward the lake’s calming water and
reminded herself that playing footsie with the client was a no-no.

Adam studied her elegant profile and wondered how much longer he was going to be able to keep his desire for her to himself. The celibacy vow was gone, blown away, leaving in its wake a stirring need, not just for any woman, but for this one. He had always prided himself on his discipline and work ethic, but for the first time in his life, neither attribute ruled. The unconventional Max Blake had reduced or elevated him, depending on one’s point of view, to just a regular everyday brother trying to get next to a sister who made him ache at the sight of her. Adam found the realization startling and humbling. Wanting to hear her sigh when he kissed her, wanting to feel the softness of her skin beneath the soft slide of his hands, was suddenly as important as finding a solution to the problem plaguing his prototype. By all rights, the prototype should be the only thing on his mind, but his well-ordered life had been tossed out of the window the moment she showed up in his doorway wearing a Stetson and those green snakeskin boots.

As if she could feel his thoughts, she turned her head and met his eyes, saying, “This is the part where I ask what you’re thinking about, but I already know.”

“Do you?”

She nodded. “And it’s a bad idea to mix business with pleasure, especially in a situation like this.”

“So, the answer is no?”

She allowed a small smile to show. “Let’s just say I’m going to hold out for as long as I can.”

“Good plan, but a flawed one.”

“Oh really?” she asked, amused. “Why so?”

“Because there’s nothing a man enjoys more than a challenge.”

“And that’s what you think I am?”

“I know that’s what you are.”

“A woman likes a challenge, too,” she tossed back, “especially one determined not to succumb. Better bring your A game.”

“Oh, I will. Don’t worry.”

Max was certain the umbrella over their heads was smoldering. The confident way in which he was studying her made her ask, “Got a little bit of playa in you, do you?”

“Enough.”

“Who’d’ve thought?”

“You just watch out.”

Max’s nipples tightened shamelessly. Even though she was sure her discipline would carry the day, in reality all she could think about was how he’d feel against her in bed. “Oh, I plan to.”

They assessed each other for a few silent moments longer, then she said, “I’m going to take the plates back inside, then the dogs and I are heading for the beach. Care to join us?”

Adam’s eyes shifted to the dogs lying quietly on the edge of the large patio. As he had mused earlier, he knew he was going to have to come to terms with his issues surrounding them. “I—”

“Hey Doc?” Benny called from the doorway. “You mind if we play poker here tonight?”

Adam turned. “Nope.”

Benny grinned. “Good. Game’ll start around eight.” He disappeared.

Max checked her watch—six-thirty—then looked down into the eyes of the man who’d stated his intention to seduce her and to whom she had given a tacit okay to do so. “Are you going to play?”

“Probably not. You?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. We’ll see.” She began gathering up the paper plates and cups, telling herself that resisting Dr. Gary the Mack would be easy. “What did you decide about the beach?”

“I’ll take a rain check.”

“Okay.” She studied him.

He studied her.

She finally said, “See you later.”

He nodded, and she took the dinner leavings into the house.

When she returned, she called the dogs and the three of them left to hit the beach.

Adam sat and watched her toss the Frisbees while his need to know absolutely everything about Max Blake grew stronger. He had no idea why this particular woman should move him in ways others had not, but she had, to the point of distraction.

Around seven-thirty that evening Benny’s poker players began arriving, bearing chips, salsa, beer, and all the other munchies associated with such a gathering. Most of the men invited were from the contractors working on the house, and Max greeted them with a smile. Benny’s date for the evening, a tall blonde with blue eyes, was introduced as Gretchen. Max wondered if Kaitlin knew that Benny had moved on. The answer became apparent when Kaitlin showed up downstairs dressed in a killer red dress and shoes.