What's in a Name? (33 page)

“
Murphy bed in the
wall. Used to be mine.” He raised his eyebrows in
question.

Looking at him stilled some of the
quivering inside her. “I think I’d like having you closer.” As if
she was going to be able to sleep. Maybe she should find a book
herself, but getting up was too much of an effort.

“
Turn over,” Blake
said.

“
Why?”

“
Stop questioning
everything I say. A little faith, Sweetheart, a little
faith.”

She complied and felt his warm hands
kneading the muscles of her shoulders and neck. She groaned—almost
cried—as tension left her. His fingers, nimble and strong, moved
down her back, finding knots and releasing them. Then to her legs,
her calves, even her feet. She and the mattress merged into a
single entity.

* * * * *

Blake came out of the bathroom and
stumbled back into bed. An empty, cold bed. Again. He looked at the
clock. Three. Holy crap, would the woman never get a decent night’s
sleep? He could use one himself. Swearing under his breath, he
trudged down the hall, following a shaft of yellow light coming
from under the office door.

He caught himself before flinging the
door open. Took a deep breath, counted to ten, tapped, then entered
the room. Kelli looked up from the monitor. Even from across the
room, he could see shadows like tea bags under her eyes. She gave
him an apologetic smile.

“
I woke up—I was
dreaming about matching all kinds of files and suddenly it came to
me. I was making things too hard—doing it all
bassackward.”

He scratched his head. “It’s three
o’clock in the morning. I need it simple. What did you figure
out?”

“
There was too much
data to go through.” She picked up a sheet of paper. “Instead of
looking at Hollingsworth Industries, or Thornton’s corporate files,
I went back to CompSecure.”

“
Your company?” He
sank onto the edge of the recliner, leaned forward and clasped his
hands between his knees.

“
Yeah. I was an idiot
to miss it. If Hollingsworth was looking for Casey, he had to be
looking for something I did for CompSecure. So instead of trying to
look at thousands of his files, I can look at something closer to
fifty.”

“
I got it. Look at
your files, see if they match his, instead of looking at his to see
if they match yours.”

“
Simple, isn’t it?
What an idiot I’ve been. I never went back to the jobs I did before
Charles died.”

He noticed the lack of hesitation when
she mentioned her husband’s death. Had the pain been buried a
little deeper? He hoped so and dared to hope it might be because
she was opening her heart to him.

“
I don’t have all the
details of my jobs here—I’m not sure I remember every single
company I worked for. I have to go back to Spokane, to EnviroCon. I
can reconstruct a lot from memory, but the details might
help.”

He sat up with a start. He wasn’t
letting her out of his sight. “What’s there? I thought you wanted
to stay away.”

“
My personal stuff.
CompSecure’s business records. Computer files. I always made
copies.”

“
Now that you have a
plan of action, can’t it wait until morning? Or can I help so
you’re done faster? Sweetheart, you’re going to collapse if you
don’t get some uninterrupted sleep.”

“
I’m too fired up to
sleep.”

Not surprised, he went to the desk,
picked up some files and rested a hip on the cleared surface. “Let
me look. I’m familiar with a lot of Hollingsworth’s holdings. Maybe
some of the companies you worked for will ring a bell with me.” Now
that she’d laid it out, it did seem much simpler and he gave
himself a mental kick for not thinking of it himself.

She looked up, her gray eyes, rimmed
with red, showed a single-minded determination that burned straight
into his heart. “I guess. But do you know how to work Brian’s
coffeemaker? I could use a cup.”

“
This is going to be
an all-nighter, isn’t it?”

“
Depends. Maybe we’ll
get lucky and make a connection right away.”

“
How long have you
been at it?”

“
Not long—maybe half
an hour. I’ve been trying to recreate my client list from memory.
I’m sure I’m missing some.”

He shivered and realized he was wearing
only his boxers. Kelli had on the t-shirt she’d slept in. He
touched her arms and they were ice cold. He gave them a brisk rub.
“Go put something warmer on. I’ll make the coffee.”

Only the rich coffee aroma kept Blake
from dozing to the lulling gurgles of the coffeemaker. His cell
phone, plugged into its charger, sat on the counter. He reached for
it, turned it on and saw he’d missed a call while the phone had
been charging. A glance told him the coffee hadn’t finished
dripping into the carafe, so he punched the button to listen.

A man’s voice, vaguely familiar.
“Blake? Vance Griffith. Look, I know it’s Saturday, but I’d like to
talk to you about joining us. Dwight agrees you’d be great. Maybe
dinner? And feel free to bring your cousin. Call me.”

He ignored the number Griffith had left
the day before. He wasn’t going to return the call. He might be
having doubts about his job, but giving it up for politics—that was
the greater of two evils, as far as he was concerned. Maybe the
greatest of all evils.

He deleted the message and put the
phone back on the counter. While he waited for the coffee to
finish, he wondered what it was about Kelli that had made him cross
the line from the casual relationships into this unfamiliar
territory of love.

Not her looks, although she was more
than pretty. Not the way she kept him in a state of arousal—sex
with her was nothing like anything he’d experienced before and she
was so much more than a way to scratch his itches. He wanted to
protect her, but that wasn’t it. She didn’t need his
protection.

That must be it. Her strength. He
couldn’t imagine any of the women he’d dated doing what Kelli had
done to survive. He could see them fighting off someone for a taxi,
maybe. Or finagling theater seats. Looking good at a cocktail
party.

At last the coffee was done and he
poured two mugs. After adding milk and sugar to his, he took a sip.
Maybe he’d wake up a little and stop trying to make sense out of
something that needed no explanation. He loved Kelli. Period. What
difference did it make why? He picked up the mugs and shuffled down
the hall.

He set one mug on the desk by Kelli’s
hand. “Hot and black.”

“
Thanks,” she said
without looking up.

“
I take it you haven’t
found anything.” He picked up the papers. “You want me to read
these off and you cross-reference them? Or do you want me to take
half? With your laptop, we might be able to go twice as
fast.”

She picked up her coffee and inhaled,
then sipped. He watched her eyes close, then open in surprised
pleasure. “Good.”

“
Hey, don’t look so
shocked. I admit I have a limited repertoire in the kitchen, but I
know how to make coffee.”

“
But you don’t own a
coffeemaker.”

“
Actually, I do, but
it’s behind a door on the counter. Something the decorator called
an appliance garage. Besides, even though I’m good, Starbucks is
better. And there’s one in the office building lobby, so why
bother?” He sipped from his own mug, feeling the caffeine sweep
away more cobwebs. “Let’s get to work. You have a job for
me?”

She looked almost embarrassed when she
raised her gaze to his. “I don’t know why I never asked you to help
before … I guess I thought—”

He cut her off. “That I couldn’t
possibly have your skills?”

Her face reddened and she lowered her
eyes. “Not exactly—it’s that I’ve always done everything on my own.
Charles had his work, I had mine. Our professional lives didn’t
cross.” Her eyes misted and he knew she was thinking of the
non-professional side of her late husband.

He jumped in, trying to ignore the
hollow feeling that he’d been cast aside for a memory. “Well, it
appears my ass is on the line here along with yours, so whatever
skills I have are at your disposal.”

Kelli swiped her eyes with the back of
her hand. “You had the right idea about splitting the work. You can
take my list and compare it to Hollingsworth’s holdings. Mark the
ones that might match. I’ll do the same for Thornton. You can use
the laptop. There’s a folder called H.I. on the desktop. I’m still
doing searches on Mr. Thornton’s philanthropic ventures. There are
a lot of them.”

He crossed the room to the table by the
recliner where Kelli had left the laptop. He raised the cover and
found a picture of a bowl of chocolates as her desktop wallpaper.
He smiled and made a mental note to get her a box of Godiva
truffles as soon as things calmed down. He clicked open the H.I.
folder and picked up the list of companies Kelli had given him.

He gave a low whistle as he glanced
down the list. In addition to an assortment of corporations, she’d
worked for local government agencies and some major financial
institutions. For some reason, he’d expected to find her working
for small businesses, not so many heavy hitters.

“
You must have been on
the road a lot,” he said, immediately wishing he could suck back
the words. Her road trips had triggered the chain of events leading
up to the convenience store shooting, and he kicked himself for not
thinking before opening his mouth.

“
Not really.” Without
looking, he knew she hadn’t taken her eyes off her monitor. “I had
the occasional meeting and one or two jobs where they wanted me on
site, but most of the time I had access to their computer systems
from home. That way I could be with Lucas.”

Her voice softened at the mention of
her son’s name. There was still pain there. He cleared his throat.
“I think I need to work at a table. Whoever decided to call these
things laptops obviously never tried to work with one on his
lap.”

Kelli sniffed the air. A hint of smoke
wafted through the room. Great. Wonder Chef must be trying to toast
a bagel. She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the clock on the
monitor. Seven-thirty. Breakfast might not be a bad idea. She’d
accumulated copious data on Thornton’s endeavors, but without more
details, she was stuck. Remembering the companies she’d worked for
wasn’t enough. Her files would give her access to employee lists,
company bank accounts and phone records—a smaller pool of things to
compare than trying to look at everything and everyone Thornton
dealt with.

With a sigh of frustration, she pushed
away from the desk, picked up her empty coffee mug and padded
toward the kitchen. Sunday morning. She’d bet this town had a place
where you could get homemade waffles, fresh eggs fried in real
butter and sausage that hadn’t come wrapped in plastic. Probably
called Mom’s. And she’d bet it wouldn’t take much persuading for
Blake to take her there.

God, what a domestic thought. She must
be exhausted. She rounded the corner into the kitchen. Blake was
slumped over the laptop, soft snoring sounds coming from his
mouth.

“
Geez, Windsor—wake
up. You’d better not be drooling on my laptop.”

His head jerked and she bit her cheek
trying not to laugh at the confused expression on his face as he
tried to get his bearings. And then—she knew exactly when—he knew
where he was and he saw her and the expression on his face had an
entirely different feeling building inside her belly.

“
I smelled
smoke—thought you might be cooking.” When he gave her a perfect
imitation of her head shake, she laughed out loud.

Blake got up, stretched, sniffed and
poked his head outside the kitchen door. “Looks like someone’s
burning leaves up the road.”

She stepped toward him and rested a
hand on his shoulder. “Does this town do Sunday morning
breakfast?”

“
Mmph.” He placed his
hand on top of hers. “Lucille’s.”

Well, not too far off. Lucille was
probably someone’s mom. “As long as you’re not cooking, maybe we
could grab a bite?”

Blake’s eyes widened. “You’re hungry?
You want to go out? In public? With me? Give me five minutes.” He
started toward the bedroom.

“
Take fifteen. I need
a shower.”

Sitting in a vinyl and Formica booth an
hour and a half later, Kelli pushed her plate away and refilled her
white ceramic coffee mug from the thermal carafe on the table. A
cross between a Denny’s and a diner, Lucille’s had met all her
expectations, down to the waitresses wearing frilly aprons over
their black skirts. And little white caps, too.

Blake extended his mug and she topped
it off. He added cream from the metal pitcher, tipped in sugar from
the glass container, his spoon clicking against the mug as he
stirred. Then he set the mug down, rested his elbows on the table
and leaned his chin on his fists. His brown eyes held a relaxed,
almost dreamy quality and she felt—normal.

Her cell phone vibrated. So much for
normal.

She fished the phone out of her jeans
pocket and glanced at the display. Jack Stockbridge. Her heart rate
skyrocketed and a clammy trickle of sweat dripped down her
back.

She pressed the button. Blake was
already motioning for the check.

“
God, Jack, are you
all right?”

“
Fine, Kiddo. I can’t
talk long. The cops showed up with a warrant for the
office.”