The Agent Page 3

  She watched him tread lightly down the stone steps and disappear into the darkness beyond. After closing the door and sliding the dead bolt home, she stood for a moment, feeling a wrenching sense of loss.

  An unwelcome question danced its way into her mind.

  If she’d asked him, would Tully have stayed?

  Chapter 3

  When Natalie opened her eyes on Sunday morning, she was shocked to see that it was after ten o’clock and the sun glowed brightly around the edges of her window shades. Most days she could barely sleep until eight.

  Something about Tully’s thorough inspection of her house had made her feel safe and secure enough to rest.

  She threw back the sheets and stood up, stretching and yawning. When she padded into the bathroom, she thought she caught a whiff of Tully’s woodsy soap still lingering, so she inhaled more deeply. A tiny shiver rippled through her.

  “Stop it!” she said to her reflection as she finger-combed her angled blonde bob into some semblance of order. She’d cut off her long curls about a year before on her fortieth birthday and it was amazing how liberating that had been. She had realized she’d only been keeping it long because her ex liked it that way.

  Craving coffee, she threw on jeans and a white T-shirt and headed down the stairs to the kitchen, barefoot and braless. Once the coffee maker was up and running, she started to open her email app but stopped before touching the envelope icon on her cell phone screen. Looking out at the soft spring light slanting through the pale green leaves of the woods behind her house, she decided not to risk ruining her peace quite yet. Instead, she fixed herself a cheese-and-veggie omelet, which she ate at her sun-dappled dining table while she tried not to remember how it felt to be so perfectly in sync with Tully on the dance floor. Or the flare of heat in his eyes as she lay across the solid bar of his thigh in the final dip.

  She took a long swallow of orange juice and pushed her plate away. Might as well face the realities of today. Bracing herself, she tapped the email icon. She skimmed down the list but saw no unfamiliar email addresses. The knot of tension in her neck eased.

  She was scrolling through the wedding photos friends had shared on social media when the doorbell shrilled through the silence, making her nearly drop her phone.

  She walked to the door and checked the video monitor that the alarm guy had recommended she install.

  “Oh my God!” Her hands flew to her hair to smooth it when she saw Tully standing on her front porch, holding a corrugated cardboard box and staring straight at the video camera. She realized how ridiculous she was being since she had on no makeup, no shoes, and—oh, hell!—no bra.

  Disarming the alarm, she pulled the door open. As a cowgirl might say, Tully looked like one long, cool drink of water in a black T-shirt, faded jeans, and well-used brown cowboy boots. She wanted to drink him in to slake the heat sizzling through her veins.

  “Mornin’,” he said. “I brought security bars for your sliders.” He held up the box as his gaze skimmed over her casual attire, making her nipples tighten under the thin cotton of her shirt. “I should have called. My apologies. I was worried about you.”

  “No need for apologies. It’s nice of you to be concerned.” She stepped back to let him in, and there was that faint hint of the woods again as he moved close to her. It stroked over her nerve endings like a touch, and his sheer size made her feel fragile and feminine. “I was being lazy after all the excitement yesterday.”

  “Weddings are harder on the ladies than the gentlemen,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes. “Let me just install these bars and you can get back to your lazing.”

  “Can I offer you breakfast? Or maybe that would be brunch by now.” She followed him into the dining area, enjoying the way the worn denim hugged his tight butt and muscular thighs. A girl could look, after all.

  “Thanks, but I ate earlier.” He flipped open the end of the box and pulled out the hardware. “I’d take a cup of that coffee I can smell, if you have extra.”

  “How do you like it?”

  He knelt in front of the sliders. “Straight-up black.”

  That didn’t surprise her. He was a straight-up kind of man. She filled a mug and carried it over to the dining table behind him. As he worked on attaching the hinged bar to the door frame, the muscles of his back bunched and released in a display that made her want to lay her palms against them.

  “Your coffee is on the table behind you,” she said, forcing herself to back away from the unsettling view. She perched on the sectional sofa so the table was between her and Tully.

  “Thank you kindly,” he said with that faint cowboy drawl of his.

  “Where are you from originally?” she asked.

  “Western Pennsylvania,” he said, still working. “Why?”

  “Because you sound like you’re from Wyoming or something. And you wear cowboy boots.”

  He chuckled. “I worked on a cattle farm after school, so I got in the habit of wearing boots back then. Maybe I picked up some of Farmer Hollinger’s speech patterns since I spent a lot of time with him. He was a real live cattleman.” His tone was nostalgic and admiring.

  “I’ve noticed that FBI agents and pilots often sound a bit like they’re from the West.”

  “My boss at the FBI sometimes called me a cowboy but he didn’t mean it as a compliment.” His tone was dry.

  “I see.” Her curiosity got the better of her. “Is that why you decided to start your own consulting firm?”

  She heard a metallic click and a small grunt of satisfaction. “No, that decision came after I spent a summer working for a large international security firm between my first and second year at business school. Starting at the bottom again was not to my taste.”

  “I can’t see you sucking up to the boss, I have to admit.”

  “Oh, it was way worse than not sucking up. Of course, now I have to deal with two partners who have no hesitation about expressing their opinions.” Another click and he straightened, the span of his shoulders and the length of his legs outlined against the bright window. “Luckily, I can express mine right back and they can’t fire me.”

  She laughed, picturing Tully, Derek, and Leland squaring off in a huge office at the top of a Manhattan skyscraper. “I’d love to be a fly on the wall at one of your partners’ meetings.”

  “When they get too rowdy, I just pull out my six-shooter and fire a couple of shots at the ceiling. That quiets ’em down.” He dusted off his hands and took a swallow of coffee. “Ah, that’s good stuff. Your bars are installed. You just flip them up to open the doors and back down to brace them.” He fixed her with a serious look. “Remember to flip them down as soon as you come in through the doors. People get careless about that.”

  “I promise. What do I owe you for the bars? I know I can’t afford to pay the hourly rate for your time.” She gave him a teasing smile.

  He leaned his hip against the table so his thigh muscles flexed underneath the jeans and took another swig of coffee. “This was my idea, so it’s on me.”

  “Seriously, buying security bars was on my to-do list for the day. Please let me reimburse you for those.” Gifts always came with strings attached, no matter how hard it was to see them. Although she was grateful to Tully for making her home safer.

  “This fine cup of coffee is all the payment I need.” His tone said the discussion was over. She wondered how often his partners heard that tone and whether it shut down whatever they were arguing about.

  “You’re very nice to do this for me.”

  A shadow darkened his gaze for a moment. “‘Nice’ is not a word I hear very often.” He took another gulp and pushed away from the table. “I’ll just wash this and let you get on with your day.”

  She leaped up from the sofa to step between him and the kitchen. “Please just leave it on the table. I don’t expect my guests to wash their dishes. Especially when the guest has been so helpful.”

  She tried to think of a reason to prolong
his visit. His presence unsettled her because it stirred longings that she didn’t want to feel. Yet at the same time, he made her feel protected. The combination was potent, so maybe it was better that he left now.

  He put the mug down on the table. “I’ll sleep better knowing you have the bars, so they benefit both of us.”

  It was just a figure of speech but she had a vision of him tangled in bedsheets—his chest and shoulders bare—thinking about her in the dark. Which sent a streak of arousal down into her belly. She swallowed a gasp at her unexpected response while her eyes flew to his. He must have seen something of her reaction in them because his gaze turned hot.

  Just like that moment on the dance floor, they remained suspended, staring at each other before she dragged her attention away from the blaze in his eyes. She scooped up his mug and held it in both hands as though it could shield her from the attraction flashing between them.

  His eyes were still locked on her when she glanced up again. With slow deliberation he reached out and brushed a strand of her hair away from her face, sending delicious tingles flickering through her.

  She caught her breath and stepped back. “You’ve been great. I don’t want to keep you any longer. It’s your day off.”

  He gave a tiny shake of his head before he lowered his hand. “And yours. Have a good one.” He spun on one boot heel and strode toward the door. “Make sure you arm the alarm system after me.”

  “I will. Thank you again!” She made it to the door as he was jogging down the steps. He lifted a hand in farewell without looking back.

  She felt like an idiot. Even worse, a sexually frustrated idiot.

  Tully settled into the Maserati’s leather seat but sat with his hands on the wheel. His body was coiled tight with physical tension. He was tempted to blow off work—it was Sunday, after all—and drive the extra thirty minutes west to the barn where he boarded his horse. The thought of flying across a field at a full gallop battled with the pile of projects that waited for him at the office. With a huff of frustration, he punched the ignition button and said “KRG” to his voice-activated GPS.

  But his overactive conscience couldn’t stop him from thinking about Natalie as he drove.

  He shouldn’t have surprised her on a Sunday morning but he’d been concerned. She didn’t seem like the kind of woman who was scared to walk into an empty house after dark. In fact, until last night, he had thought her elegant poise was impossible to ruffle. Whatever story Natalie’s customer had told her must have been bad because it had really spooked her.

  So he’d barged in on her relaxed Sunday morning like a bull in a china shop. If she had been out, he’d planned to leave the security bars on her front porch so she could install them herself. The ones he had brought were a hell of a lot stronger than what she would have gotten at the local hardware store.

  What he hadn’t planned on was Natalie looking like she’d just gotten out of bed, with sleepy bedroom eyes, rumpled hair, and breasts clearly outlined by her thin T-shirt. Even her slender bare feet with their pale pink polish had made his cock twitch. When she’d turned to lead him into the house, all he could think of was filling his hands with the tempting curves of her nicely rounded butt.

  He had to admit that since the wedding activities had forced them to be a pseudo-couple, he might have had a few fantasies about seeing if he could get past that cool, controlled exterior to see what smoldered beneath. He thought he’d made progress after that dance, when their bodies had moved together so perfectly, almost like making love. Except that at the end, his cock still ached.

  Last night, when she’d asked him to inspect her house, his cock had been hopeful again.

  And this morning, when he’d seen her nipples harden so they pushed at the fabric of her shirt, he couldn’t stop himself. He’d given in to the impulse to touch her silky hair and brush his fingertips over the soft skin of her cheek. Her blue eyes were lit with the same arousal he felt, yet she’d backed away, her rejection clear.

  He shrugged as he turned onto the highway that would take him back to Manhattan. He probably wouldn’t see her much now that Alice and Derek were off on their honeymoon trip around the world. Dawn and Leland’s wedding plans were still in the preliminary stages, so there’d be no reason for them to be together anytime soon.

  He’d just go back to his fantasies. Only this time he could add a few more lust-enhancing details.

  Chapter 4

  After running her routine Sunday errands while trying not to think about the brush of Tully’s fingers against her cheek, Natalie tromped up the stone steps of her front porch with a couple of plastic bags in her hand. A flash of white tucked under the doormat caught her eye—probably a flyer for window replacement or a cleaning service. She bent and yanked the paper out from under the mat, unlocked the door, and went inside.

  When she got to the kitchen, she set the bags down and flipped the paper open to find two lines typed on it:

  Beauty is only skin deep. What’s underneath your skin?

  The muscles in her throat tightened. She dropped the paper on the counter as though it were a snake rattling its tail.

  It had to be from the same person who had sent her an email every day since Tuesday. They were all on the theme of beauty, which she had assumed was a reference to her hair salon. She had tried not to think about them since she didn’t want a shadow hanging over her pleasure in Alice and Derek’s wedding, but the messages were seared into her brain.

  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. No one sees beauty in you.

  Pretty is as pretty does. What you do is ugly.

  Beauty is power. But who has the power now?

  A thing of beauty is a joy forever but you won’t be around that long.

  She had deleted the first email without paying much attention to it, assuming it had some kind of malware attached, although there was no apparent link to click on.

  The second one made her stop and check the sender’s address but it was not one she recognized.

  The third email made her go back and dig the other two out of the deleted list so she could see if they were from the same address. They were not, which made her nervous. Whoever was sending them was hiding their identity.

  When the fourth one arrived—on the morning of the rehearsal dinner—her stomach had knotted. The short message with no greeting, no closing, and no recognizable source radiated menace. That was when she’d checked all the locks on the windows in her house and called a locksmith to upgrade the locks on the hair salon’s front and back doors, something she’d meant to do for years.

  She had considered calling the police, but Natalie knew from experience how little they could do when a threat was not immediate and clear. At the salon she’d heard far too many stories of how useless restraining orders were against ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands.

  Furthermore, how could she convince the police that a few sayings about beauty constituted a danger to her? The anonymity and frequency were sinister but the threat was only implied.

  Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t gotten a message on Alice’s wedding day. Someone had known she wouldn’t be checking her email that day. She braced her hands on the counter, closed her eyes, and concentrated on breathing in and out slowly as fear turned her knees to jelly.

  The ice maker in her fridge dumped new cubes with a muffled clatter. Her knees functioned just well enough for her to jump sideways while her heart tried to wrench itself out of her chest.

  She had to do something, or she would be a basket case before it got dark. After that, she wouldn’t be able to sleep. In the old days, she would have spent the night at Dawn’s apartment, but her friend had moved into Leland’s penthouse in the city.

  She looked down at the sheet of paper with its words that weren’t quite a threat but sent claws of terror ripping through her.

  Maybe the chief of police would believe her. After all, his wife came to the Mane Attraction every week for a mani-pedi. But what could he do? Sen
d a patrol car by every hour?

  She needed someone who could help her figure out how to stop the messages because she couldn’t live in fear every time the ice maker did its job.

  And she knew who that someone was.

  Tully shoved the rolling chair back from his desk and walked over to the wall of windows that faced the Hudson River. A tugboat wrestled a barge upriver against the swift current while a couple of graceful white sailboats tacked back and forth behind it.

  He’d knocked off a couple of proposals and modified the antikidnapping training program for the Hazeltons to include protecting their three golden retrievers. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. The changes had been a pain to work in, but how could he fault the family for worrying about their beloved pets?

  However, he still had more to do than he had expected because his mind kept drifting away to the electric charge of having Natalie in his arms when they’d danced. And her nipples under that flimsy white T-shirt she’d had on this morning.

  His cell phone vibrated on his desk, making him turn away from the view to pick it up. He glanced at the caller ID.

  Natalie.

  Anticipation shot through his veins. Maybe she’d changed her mind about what sizzled between them. “Hey, Nat. Are the security bars giving you trouble already?” he joked.

  “No . . . no, they’re fine. Something’s happened. I need your help.” He could hear panic making her voice tremble.

  “Are you in immediate danger?” His tone was harsh but he had to know how bad the situation was.

  “No, I don’t think so. I have the alarm set and the doors and windows locked. I have my pepper spray. And I have you on the phone.”

  His level of concern eased slightly. “That’s all good. Now tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’ve been getting these weird email messages every day for almost a week . . . except yesterday.” Her breath hitched before her voice went on. “They’ve all come from different addresses and have just a short message in them, always something about beauty. Sort of a reference to my salon.”