Soft Target (7 page)

“What’s this?” she asked, pointing at a far corner.

Without thinking, he put his hand on the small of her back and leaned across her. “That’s where the controls go, by the back door. That way, you don’t have to leave the door open to disarm it, and you can slam the door if someone comes at you from the lot. Speaking of, I’m going to talk to Carl about cleaning out the undergrowth back there. Okay?”

“You’ve given a lot of thought to this,” she whispered.

Right now he was thinking about how long she’d let him touch her, and how close her ass was to his knee.

“You smell good,” he mumbled. Crap, had he said that out loud?

Her skin tinted pink, making her glow, and he wondered if she did that all over.

“I smell like Nate. I had to borrow his shampoo this morning.”

She did
not
smell like her brother. She smelled like fresh air and sunshine, like the times he’d spent in his mother’s garden. He wanted to stay here, with her.

And then Shelby would show up dragging his diplomas and talking about his shooting and his skill at hiding behind junior agents. And Maggie would send him packing.

Gray dragged his fingers clear and pushed the manual across the drawing. “This will tell you how to arm the system. I’ll be back before closing, and Max will stay until I get here. You’ll be safe.”

She wasn’t moving, and he didn’t want to.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Did I say that yesterday? Thank you for helping me.”

He wondered what she’d do if he admitted to cleaning fingerprint dust off every surface and staying up here in the dark, sleeping in his chair in the hopes the asshole who had scared her would come back? She’d scold him, he was certain, but maybe, just maybe, she’d hug him. Everything in him wanted her in his arms.

If he didn’t leave now he was going to test that theory, and then he’d never go. Still, he couldn’t resist leaning forward and filling his lungs with her sweet scent. “I have never
once
commented on Nate’s shampoo.”

“Flirt,” she teased as she pushed him away. His chest tightened. Again, it had little to do with pain and almost everything to do with her. His imagination raced, gathering fantasies as it went.

“Don’t you have an errand?” she asked.

Was he imagining the husky timbre of her shaky voice? The way she rubbed her fingers? Did they tingle like his shoulder did? How long had it been since he’d felt this way? When had Shelby stopped making him feel this way? Had she ever?

Shelby.

“Yeah.” He sighed and stood. “I’ll be back as soon as I can manage it.”

Forcing himself not to look backward, he walked through the open door and to the truck. While the engine warmed up, he leaned across the cab for his aspirin. Washing them down with water, he held his breath—half-hoping Maggie would come to the back door.

Chapter Seven

Once on the road, he dialed the number he’d found in the Rolodex. “Carl? It’s Gray Harper, I’d like to hire you to clear the undergrowth from the back lot at Orrin’s.”

“Why isn’t Maggie calling me?” Carl asked over the roar of a mower. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine, and I’m calling you because I’m the business manager. Do you want the job?”

“Sure. Of course. But I can’t start for a few weeks. It’ll have to be after the auction. I’ll talk to Maggie about—”

“You’ll talk to
me
,” Gray said. “Come by the office and we can work out specifics.”

Gray hung up and thought about the young man who was already on the suspect board tacked to the wall in his guest bedroom. There were four others with him. Casey Martin from the florist, Max, Rhett, and Nate. Gray had written and erased Nate’s name a dozen times before finally leaving it up in the name of objectivity. The boy he’d known would never do this, but a lot could change in ten years.

Despite his suspicion, Gray hoped it wasn’t Rhett. The man reminded him of Ted Brooks. Poor Ted, who’d—
Pay attention, Harper.
No more chasing Ted’s ghost down a dark hallway and trying to drag him back to life.

Rhett doted on Maggie. She’d hugged him. Could he be misinterpreting her affection? On the other hand, was Gray misinterpreting it? Maybe Maggie and Rhett
were
dating. Maybe the friendly puppy act covered some hot affair.

Gray’s imagination and suspicion put Rhett at the table for Sunday lunch—laughing with the group, watching the game. Did Maggie sit next to him? Did he help her in the kitchen?

The bitterness on his tongue surprised him. Gray told himself the questions were necessary. It was his job. They went to motive. He was being responsible, not jealous. Besides, Rhett had brushed off Tiffany’s matchmaking. He hadn’t been interested in dating Maggie.

Just because the man was stupid didn’t make him guilty.

Casey could be faking the FTD orders just to see Maggie every Monday and watch her fall apart. Max could be doing it to spend every waking moment with her.

And Carl, with his dogged insistence on dealing directly with Maggie.

Then there was Gray’s sneaking suspicion that someone had been in
his
house. It wasn’t something he could prove, but he’d feel better after Jim’s crew finished installing an alarm system at the house.

Gray moved Carl to the top of the list. Now he just had to prove it without humiliating the young man. Losing his partner, that last raid, had taught him that being right wasn’t always the end goal. He’d learned lots of things. Pain, guilt, loyalty, humility...

He was still cataloging the lessons when he parked in front of the Airport Holiday Inn. Shelby was waiting on him, her copper hair bright in the sunshine caught by the breeze. Even from a distance, her perfume overwhelmed his taste buds.

He walked across the parking lot, avoiding her embrace and attempted kiss. “Hi, Shel. Where are they? I need to get back.”

“After two years, you can spare an hour for lunch.”

“Fine.” He held the door for her and ignored the dread pooled in his gut.
C’mon, Harper. Maybe it won’t be that bad.

She walked in front of him into the dining room. “I went by your apartment and most of your stuff was gone.”

I should’ve asked for her key. I shouldn’t have worried about sounding cold.

“Nate’s offered to let me stay out here and finish my recovery, and I wanted familiar things with me.”

“Diplomas?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.

“You know I’ve hated those frames for years. There’s someone here who does custom ones.”

“There’s someone who does them in Chicago, too,” she sniped as she looked over the menu.

He gritted his teeth and waited while she ordered a brunch platter with fruit. He wasn’t sure why. She never ate it.

After ordering a BLT, Gray stared across the table, unsure what to say, and remembering their first date. During that hour, they’d discovered a shared background as military children and growing up while bouncing around the world. From there, they’d built a relationship based on work and shared social obligations. Shelby was like lightning in a bottle. Smart, self-assured, driven, she had been the perfect girlfriend for an upwardly mobile agent. She wasn’t the perfect girlfriend for whatever he was now. Still, it hadn’t always been dreadful. Maybe he could get through this.

“How are things?” he began. Let her talk. That was safe.

“Good. Remember that handwriting analysis seminar from December? One of the agents I met there called. There’s an opening in her division. Art fraud in the DC office. That’s a hop directly past San Francisco and Denver.”

He couldn’t blame her for the focus on the DC office. It was every agent’s goal, if they were honest. If he was
honest
,
it had been his too. He and Shelby had spent lots of time discussing which cases would get more notice, what office had the best promotion record, and which supervisors went to specific parties or trainings. Career paths were more like an endless ladder, hooked to other ladders by a series of scaffolds. Climb, lateral move, climb again. The higher you went, the more the faces changed, your friends shifted, distance grew. You lost sight of your foundation. Gray had accepted that as part of the game, until Bob and Jeff had ridden with him in the ambulance, calming him while he fought against panic and pain.

“I think I should focus on getting back to Chicago first,” Gray said. “Bob’s holding my spot. He’s done a lot for me.”

“As he should. Any supervisory agent would love to have you on their team. Bob’s just serving his own interest.”

Daily hospital visits and Friday dinner parties didn’t strike Gray as self-serving.

“Do you even like art?” He couldn’t remember her setting foot in a museum. Her idea of art was a center mass pattern on a target.

“I’m sure I can learn between now and then.” She shrugged. “At least enough to talk about it.”

She could, too. When she focused on a case she saw connections that escaped other agents, even him. And, except for Jeff, there was no one more clever at interrogations. On more than one occasion Gray had watched Shelby in interviews, shaking his head as her suspects answered her questions, fooled by her good looks and soft drawl. It had been a thing of beauty to watch her sit across the table and smile—much like she was doing now.

Their food arrived, and he looked out the dining room window, squinting against the sun’s glare. His headache had subsided to a dull throb, and it would probably help to eat something, but he didn’t want it. He wanted to get on the road.

Gray took a bite of his sandwich and forced himself to chew the rubbery bacon. “How are Bob and Amanda?”

“Planning their wedding and the parties that go with it. I’ve heard she’s a big hit with the higher-ups.”

“Heard? You’re not going?” It wasn’t like her to stay home. It was always about connections.

“With whom?” she asked, between bites. “Bob and Amanda have each other. Jeff’s got Karen—”

“I thought it was Kelly.”

“She was last month, I think. And there was a Tracy in there somewhere,” she said. “You know Jeff. But still, Gray, you know what it’s like for female agents solo at those parties. Standing around, getting ignored by jealous wives and guys worried about a harassment complaint. Or, worse, fending off a guy who’s had a few too many.”

“You should find a date,” he said.

“I thought I had one,” she chided. “You even packed your bike. For a minute I imagined you’d finally listened to me and sold it. It’s amazing that two-wheeled death trap didn’t kill you.”

The gunshots didn’t kill me either.
“I like my bike.”

She smiled her suspect-fooling smile again. “Are you going to eat your sandwich?”

“No,” he said, opting to eat his fries instead. “How’s everything else?”

“You won’t believe what this newbie did the other day. We were in a briefing, and he—”

Not even the fries were appetizing now. “What else?”

She blinked. “What did I say?”

“Picking on the new agents just makes them feel worse, and then they do stupid things because—”

“But that’s what we
do
, Gray. Senior agents rag on junior agents. People laughed at us when we first started.”

Junior agents, like Ted, who’d been so eager to prove himself. “I don’t want to do it anymore. It’s disrespectful, and I think it pushes them to take risks.”

She gauged his reaction and shifted again. “How are your parents?”

“I finally got my mother to quit apologizing for
coddling
me,” Gray grumbled. “How could you say that to her?”

“Tough love, baby,” she said, winking. “You were up the next day, weren’t you?”

Yeah, he’d been up, pacing in the middle of the night because he didn’t have anyone to talk to. With his parents in his apartment, he’d been able to discuss books with his dad, and his mother was always awake and the kettle was always warm. It was a connection he’d needed, something that helped him remember who he’d been.

“You sent them away without me saying goodbye,” he said, still shocked when he thought about it. After all he’d been through, goodbye was important to all of them.

“You needed to focus on getting better, getting back to work, regaining your routine. Even your quack therapist told you that.”

What his therapist had told him was that almost dying was bound to reset certain priorities. Gray had thought the woman was nuts. The FBI had been his priority since he’d heard an agent from the Omaha office talk at a college career fair. Escaping claustrophobic, small-town Nebraska had been his goal for longer than that. How could he want anything else?

Ted had been the same, from what Gray could remember of their one-sided conversations. The kid had talked
all
the time. He’d been eager to make good, to make his parents proud, and excited about
everything
—being an agent, his new apartment, his girlfriend. And he’d given it up. How could Gray dishonor that sacrifice? Did he want to?

He waited until only the fruit was left on her plate. “I need to get back.”

“Okay. Let’s go upstairs.” She stood. “Don’t look at me that way. I couldn’t very well lug everything around.”

Gray put enough cash on the table to pay their bill and leave a tip, he hoped, before following her to the elevator. He kept at her elbow, willing her forward, until she reached her room and opened the door. His diplomas were propped against her suitcases.

“Are you leaving tonight?”

She blinked. “With you, yeah. I’ll stay for Nate’s wedding and help you. Then we’ll go home, and you’ll be ready to get back to work”

His stomach fell as the door closed behind him. “No. You need to move on.”

She dropped to the edge of the bed. “Explain this to me. We were talking about our future, about getting
married
. Then you got shot, and I did what agents do for each other—I kicked your ass when you needed it. And I did what Bureau wives do—I stayed by you and helped you. After three months of waiting there, a few more weeks here won’t matter.”

He sighed. “Technically
you
were the one talking about marriage. But you’re right. A few more weeks won’t matter.”

Her frown deepened as his meaning dawned on her. “It’s been two years, Gray. Everyone’s expecting it.”

“I don’t give a shit about everyone’s expectations.”
Not anymore.

“And I’ve been trapped long enough, waiting on you to give a shit.”

“Make up your mind, Shel. Are you my wannabe fiancée or a hostage?”

And just like that, they were back to the same argument. He’d changed and she hadn’t. And she didn’t understand. How could she? Nothing had happened to
her.
But she wanted the old Gray back, and he was gone. It was like wearing a suit that was too tight.

Regretting his harsh words, he ran his hand back through his hair and rubbed his scalp. “We want different things.”

“What is it you think you want?” she asked.

“I have no idea,” he confessed. “But I want a chance to find it, and you deserve a guy who wants the life you want. Someone who takes one look at you and knows there’s no other woman for him.”

“Have you met someone?”

“No.” He snorted.
Not after two days.
“Of course not.”

He picked up his diplomas and forced himself not to grimace at their weight or his awkward hold. She was still on the edge of the bed, statue-like. “Goodbye, Shelby. Good luck, and be happy.”

Back in the parking lot, he eased the package into the truck’s passenger seat and then swallowed more aspirin. This time he chased them with antacids as he climbed behind the wheel. He’d been wrong. That had sucked.

Shelby’s cloying fragrance flooded the cab, forcing him to roll down the windows as he merged onto the highway and sped toward Fiddler.

Orrin’s was open when he arrived. Despite the early hour, several tables were occupied by couples enjoying a day off. The guys lifted their beer bottles in casual salutes. He waved back, recognizing many of them from church or from happy hour yesterday, and they went back to laughing and joking. Gray went to the corner of the bar and claimed a vacant stool. All he wanted was to lay his head on the cool, polished oak. Unpleasant memories, harsh words and brutal truths balled together to make him ill. And his clothes reeked. He should have gone home to change, but he couldn’t wait to get here.

“Did they finish installing the alarm?” he asked, trying to focus.

Maggie nodded. “All done. What do you want to drink?”

“Water, please.”

“You look like hell,” she said as she handed him the bottle. “Where have you been?”

“To Boise, and I’m fine. I just have a headache.”
That feels like someone is yanking my spine through my skull, and I’m not sure if it’s aspirin or guilt chewing a hole through my stomach. If I start drinking, I’ll get shit-faced and end up sleeping here.
Visions of Maggie filled his unruly brain. He wondered if she had tan lines and if she tasted as sweet as she looked. Did she moan the same way she laughed—deep and husky?