What She Doesn't See (18 page)

A smile teased one corner of his mouth.
“They’re always different.”

She was glad he’d stepped away from the
brooding persona. She liked this side of him much better.

“Different keeps things interesting, I
guess.”

He grunted. Deciding that was the only answer
she was going to get, Alex moved down the hall to check out the
bathroom and bedrooms. The same scenario. Mountains of clothes,
detergent boxes, and bottles. Tons of stuff.

She saved what would likely be the worst for
last. The kitchen.

Taking the short hall back to the living
room, she wove through the dining room and its boxes upon boxes of
cheap china and on into the kitchen.

She froze.

“I take it that’s not supposed to happen,”
Murphy suggested. He stood so close behind her the sound of his
voice made her shiver.

Walter Brenner still sat at the kitchen
table, slumped over a nearly empty bowl of what had at one time
likely been cereal.

Poor bastard.

“Definitely not supposed to happen.” She dug
her phone from her pocket and called the landlord. “Hey, the body’s
still in the house. I can’t touch this place until he’s out of
here.”

The landlord had assured her that the funeral
home had been here and gone already. She listened impatiently as he
now explained there had been a mix up and the funeral home was on
the way. Alex shoved her phone back into her pocket and let go a
breath of frustration.

“What now?”

She glanced at Murphy. “Now, we wait.”

Alex decided to focus on the vic rather than
try and make conversation with her shadow. Mr. Brenner dressed
well, khaki slacks and a navy polo. His hair had gone gray and
thin, leaving his pate bare. He was a little pudgy around the
middle. His skin was wrinkled from too many years in the Miami sun,
though he looked a little pale just now since the blood had settled
in the lower portion of his body after he’d ceased to breathe.

He’d lived alone. His wife had died years
ago. No kids. No close relatives that the landlord knew of. He’d
been dead less than twenty-four hours. The UPS guy couldn’t get him
to the door to sign for a delivery this morning. The two were on a
first name basis since Mr. Brenner ordered so many items from the
Home Shopping Network. There was a delivery practically every
day.

Alex pulled out a chair and sat down on the
opposite end of the table from the poor man. Rigor mortis had
settled in his muscles, but the worst of what was to come hadn’t
started yet. She wondered again as she studied him, was this how
she would end up?

So maybe focusing on the vic wasn’t such a
good idea. “Have a seat, Murphy.”

“I’ll stand. Thank you.”

“Suit yourself.”

The man was too uptight. The memory of
Hitch’s silly laugh and crooked grin poked into her thoughts. Maybe
her mother was right. Maybe she would end up all alone if she just
kept walking away.

She was allowing
them
to get to her.
All the people, like Mr. Brenner, who’d died alone...

Dying was bad enough. But dying alone, that
really sucked.

The question was: could she—did she even want
to—do anything about it?

The thought of exploring options with Murphy
had her shivering again.

“Are you cold?”

Before she could protest, he’d removed his
jacket and draped it around her. His scent, the body heat that had
trapped in the fabric, surrounded her.

She closed her eyes and prayed the funeral
home would hurry.

Late that evening, well after dark, Alex made
it home. Her tail was dragging.

The cleanup at the Brenner location had taken
forever. So much stuff. So many trips to the recycling center. If
not for Murphy’s help, she would still be there. She owed him. He’d
asked to use her shower. How could she say no?

As Alex unlocked her front door, Murphy
retrieved what looked like an overnight bag from his fancy car.

“Let me go in first,” he said before she
could even open the door.

No matter that she was utterly exhausted, she
held up her hands in surrender as he hurried to check the
house.

“Clear.” He stepped aside for her to come
in.

“Thanks.” With a sigh, she dropped her keys
and purse near the door and headed straight for her room. “There’s
a shower in the hall bath,” she called over her shoulder. “You
should find everything you need.”

In her bathroom, she closed the door and
leaned against it. She was too tired to trust herself around him.
She turned on the water in the tub and stripped off her clothes.
She wanted to soak away the day… and the building need for the man
in the other room. She slid beneath the water and closed her
eyes.

Whether it had been half an hour or
forty-five minutes, a knock snapped her from that half sleep, half
awake place. The idea that he was on the other side of that door
and she was naked in a tub full of chilly water irritated her.
“What?”

“I ordered Chinese. Do you have an ETA on
when you’re coming out of there?”

She opened her mouth to tell him to go away
and her stomach rumbled. “Fifteen minutes.”

He said something but Alex didn’t hear it
over the sloshing water as she climbed out. While the tub drained,
she dried her body. As soon as her hair was dry she donned sweat
pants and a tee. The food had arrived. The spicy scents wafted
beneath her bedroom door. With a big breath for courage, she exited
her room.

Murphy had spread the boxes of entrees and
sides on the table. While she surveyed the choices he grabbed a
couple of beers from her fridge. Alex was starving. She loaded a
plate with rice, chicken, and vegetables. Her mouth was
watering.

Alex curled up in her favorite chair while
Murphy prepared his plate. When he’d taken a seat on the sofa, she
asked. “Have you been sleeping in your car the past two
nights?”

“Three.”

She felt a little bad about that,
particularly after he’d worked so hard today. “The least I can do
is offer you my extra bedroom.” He was CIA after all. She owed her
cooperation to her country, right? And he was protecting her.
Wasn’t he?

“That’s not necessary, Alex. I’ll be fine in
my car.”

She stared at him as he spoke. Had she ever
met a man more sexy? No. Definitely no. “Don’t be ridiculous.
Second door on the right. No one’s slept there since Shannon and I
had a slumber party for my birthday last year.”

“If you insist.”

He devoured the rice with chopsticks as if
he’d been eating with them his entire life. When he licked his
lips, she almost gasped.

“Well.” She stood. “I’m beat. Goodnight. Lock
up when you’re ready to call it a night.”

She hurried to the sink and rinsed her plate.
Another three seconds and she would have escaped before he joined
her.

Standing next to her, he rinsed his plate.
She told herself to go but her feet wouldn’t cooperate. As if he’d
heard her inner struggle, he turned to her.

“Do I make you nervous, Alex?”

“Of course not.” She tugged at the hem of her
tee. “Why on earth would you make me nervous?”

“I never get personally involved with any
aspect of an operation. That kiss last night was an anomaly.”

Alex laughed. She wished it sounded a bit
more natural. “I offered you my spare bedroom, Murphy, not my
body.”

He moved closer. “It’s not you I’m worried
about.”

He leaned down slowly, giving her time to
dodge but she didn’t move.

Her heart stumbled as his lips brushed hers.
He tasted her bottom lip, making her tremble. He touched her cheek
with his fingers, trailed those blunt tips along her jawline as he
teased her lips with his tongue.

By the time he kissed her, she was breathless
and weak-kneed.

Then he drew away. “Goodnight.”

She grabbed at the counter to stay vertical
as he walked away.

If his goal was to keep her off balance, he
was doing one hell of a good job.

Saturday, July 26

Alex woke the next morning to the immediate
realization that something was wrong.

There was an unfamiliar odor in the air.

There was sound, which she slowly recognized
as a television news channel.

She threw back the covers and sat up.

Not only had she awakened to odd goings-on in
her home. She’d dreamed about sex. With
him
. Hot, wild
sex.

They’d kissed. Twice. She groaned and climbed
out of bed. She padded down the hall and through the living room.
He was in the kitchen—beyond that door, cooking or something. She
wasn’t ready for that side of Wyatt Murphy. She wasn’t sure she
would ever be ready for anything other than the tense control freak
she’d come to know him as. Even his kiss had been controlled.

She hurried to the bathroom to wash her face
and brush her teeth. Fifteen minutes later she was presentable in
jeans and a tank. Buying more time, she made her bed. When she
entered the kitchen, he was propped against the counter drinking a
cup of coffee.

She stopped short of her destination, the
coffeemaker. Where was the jacket? The tie? The top three buttons
of his shirt were even open.

Blinking furiously, she growled a good
morning and darted around him to get herself a cup of coffee.

“I borrowed bacon and eggs from your
mother.”

Alex almost spilled the coffee she was
pouring. “You went up to my mother’s?” Oh hell. Now Marg would
grill her about him spending the night. Letting Murphy stay in the
house had quite possibly been a huge mistake. The only person who
knew about their arrangement was Shannon.

“I did,” Murphy said in answer to her
question. “She was on her way out to a meeting.” He jerked his head
toward the fridge. “There’s fresh orange juice, too. She squeezed
it herself.”

Marg? Squeezing orange juice? She didn’t even
like orange juice. And since when did she stock bacon and eggs?
Maybe her decision to join AA was the first step toward major
changes in her life. Go Marg!

Once Alex got over the initial shock, she had
to admit she was starved. She couldn’t pretend disinterest.
Silently, they prepared their plates and sat at the table. The
quiet continued, other than the crunching of bacon and scrape of
silverware across stoneware.

Alex refused to consider how this CIA man,
this uptight hard-ass could behave so
domestically
. Not to
mention, how he could so easily turn her knees to jelly with
nothing more than a kiss. She didn’t want to know that he could
cook. She didn’t want to see him without the trappings of his day
job. She wanted to button his shirt.

Her gaze kept drifting to those nice lips.
Whenever he licked them, she had to restrain the need to lick her
own hungrily. He was so proper, so controlled that watching his
tongue glide over his bottom lip was incredibly intimate.

She liked his fingers, too. Long,
blunt-tipped. The memory of how they’d felt on her skin had heat
stirring her blood. His sleeves were rolled up and his forearms
were well muscled. He would be so strong.

Her throat felt dry and breathing was
difficult. She hadn’t had a reaction this powerful to a man in a
very long time. She stood, unable to bear another second. “That was
great. Thanks.” She moved to the sink with her dishes.

Unfortunately he did the same.

Her heart executed a strange little maneuver
when she got a whiff of him. How could a guy who’d cooked a greasy
meal smell that damned good? It just wasn’t right.

“You know my being here is about the mission,
right?”

She couldn’t help herself, she had to look up
at him. He was standing so close. The scent of him... the pull of
his proximity and those eyes—intense, watchful. The whole package
made her weak. No matter what he said, she recognized that he was
as attracted to her as she was to him. Whoever he was trying to
convince, it wasn’t working.

“Yeah, I know,” she managed in response.

He nodded and for one fleeting instant his
gaze dropped to her lips. Her breath locked in her lungs and she
had to refrain from pressing her palms against his chest, just to
see if his heart was pounding as hard as hers was.

How could he cast such a spell so quickly and
seemingly effortlessly?

“Thanks again… for breakfast.” Her voice
sounded breathless.

“Thank you,” he countered, that watchful gaze
studying every feature of her face. “Sleeping in your guestroom was
far more comfortable than in my car.”

She nodded. “Good.”

What now? This was the first Saturday in
weeks that she didn’t have to go to work. There was no way she
would survive the day cooped up in this house with Murphy.

She had to put some distance between them.
Instead of offering to do the dishes, she strolled over to the
front window and stared out at the morning. Across the room, dishes
clinked and silverware rattled as he cleaned up. Maybe he’d needed
to distract himself as well.

Unable to resist, she dared to look over at
him. How could a man doing dishes look so incredibly sexy? Perfect.
Right down to the very last detail.

As if sensing she was watching him, he
glanced back.

She jumped. “Is that really your car or just
part of the cover?” She blinked at the absurdity of her question.
It was the only thing she could think to say. She was standing at
the window and the car was right there in her driveway.

“It’s mine.”

Her tension eased and she was able to breathe
again. “Nice.”

He turned back to the sink, but continued,
“My work is dangerous. The way I see it, why not enjoy life? It
could end tomorrow.” He shrugged. “I live for today.”

She had basically the same motto. Life was
short.
Live it like you mean it
.

Despite her best efforts, she couldn’t help
staring at him as he dried his hands. Damn he was handsome. But not
the type a smart woman got involved with.