Deep Breath (11 page)

11:30
A.M.

Who in the world was Harry van Zandt? That was the only thing Georgia wanted to know.

The fact that he had gone to Waco. The fact that he wanted her to research an auction house cataloging team. Where was he coming up with this stuff? It was like she was playing a part in a spy novel.

Yes, okay, he’d been Army and possibly covert at that. But Finn had a similar background. He’d gone into private investigation after his discharge. Yet she’d never known him to be so…She couldn’t even think of a workable word.

Reckless
came to mind but implied a lack of caution she hadn’t seen in either Finn or Harry. Granted, his middle-of-the-night exploits were proactive and definitely welcome; she would never have thought to return to the ranch.

They just weren’t anything she was able to reconcile to his involvement here. He’d been pulled in off the street against his will, making it hard to figure out why he was acting as if he’d been enlisted from the beginning, as if this—as if she—were the reason he was here.

At least he had saved her from having to do something about the desk. Upon news of Duggin’s death, that had been her first thought. Getting to the study. Getting to the drawer. Getting to the dossier.

Getting her hands on the file before the desk was sold or put into storage. Breaking into the general’s house as she’d done had been an admitted act of desperation—one undertaken because she’d been, uh, desperate.

Why Harry had put himself at risk to do the same she couldn’t fathom. It was almost as if his interest was personal, as if there was another agenda here of which only he was aware—a thought that brought her back to square one.

Who in the world was Harry van Zandt?

And who in the world was she, doing everything he said?

Well, she wasn’t doing everything. She hadn’t shopped for a dress. She hadn’t booted up his laptop. She’d never ordered the room service pancakes while he’d laid down like a sheikh and waited to have them delivered.

What she had done was charge an hour’s worth of Internet time in the hotel’s business center to his room.

That way he couldn’t revisit her keystrokes—she wouldn’t put it past him to have such a program installed—or check into her cookies or browser history to see where she’d been surfing on the World Wide Web.

Her first Google search term, in fact, had been Harry van Zandt. She’d found an interview with a man of that name who’d served during World War II, but nothing on the man she’d curled up against before falling asleep last night. The man even now sprawled out upstairs in the very same bed.

She’d ended up spending most of her allotted time reading about the TotalSky scandal. Having lived with the aftermath of the project for more than half of her life, she thought she knew all there was to know, and was surprised at the obscure details she’d uncovered.

Like the passing speculation that the People’s Republic of China had a finger or two in the pie. The parts that had failed on the satellites had been Taiwanese, not Chinese, leaving Georgia scrambling to make the connection.

Then there was the fact that she found no mention of Paul Valoren beyond his years of association with Stanford. And that left her to wonder if her suspicions about him were a big waste of time.

For the last half hour, however, she’d been trying to make sense of the previous twenty-four by pounding out her frustrations on a treadmill in the hotel gym. All she’d managed to do was exhaust herself, so she shut off the machine and headed to the locker room.

While showering, she decided she might as well buy a dress for the auction before returning to the room. She hoped she would have no need to wear it. Harry asking her to research the cataloging team was a pretty clear indicator that he had something other than a steak knife up his sleeve.

Another of his covert, middle-of-the-night sneak attacks, no doubt. Except this time he had let her in on the initial planning stage. Meaning it would probably go down during daylight, whatever it was. She didn’t think cataloging was an after-hours sort of operation.

And listen to her. Talking about operations and initial stages and plans going down. That might be the life Harry enjoyed leading, his idea of a thrilling vacation. It was not hers. She wanted…

She wasn’t even sure anymore. She’d been on her own for so long, content, no worries, no stress, no responsibilities beyond taking care of herself. And then her father had dropped this bomb into her lap from his deathbed. And nothing else had existed since.

It wasn’t a healthy way to live.

She knew that even without Finn reminding her constantly. Her brother was more pragmatic when it came to their father’s case, telling her that neither of them could have forced him to fight the conviction. That what she needed to do—what they both needed to do—was respect his decision to accept his fate, whatever his reasons for doing so.

Part of her understood the logic of Finn’s stance. But it wasn’t her stance. And it wasn’t her logic. If it was, then she probably wouldn’t have found herself breaking and entering, and now keeping company with a man of a like mind.

She soaped up the rag and scrubbed the sweat from her body, letting the stinging spray pummel her skin as she rinsed. It wasn’t that she particularly enjoyed the pain, but it did remind her that she was an entire body of limbs and muscles, that she was more than the parts that had been working overtime since Harry walked into her life.

It was wrong—she knew it, she felt it—that she was thinking about him in the way that she was. About his body, and the way he had touched her, and how being with him made her heart race and being away caused her to miss him.

How could she miss someone she didn’t even know? How could she feel as if she’d known him forever? How could she be thinking about wanting to know him better after this? Blame it on the circumstances, that was all she could do.

He had ridden in like a knight in shining armor even though she would never describe herself as a damsel in distress. She was more like…a knight of a different color. One capable of rescuing herself, but not too proud to turn down the help—or to admit to the need.

Funny, but she’d never thought before that her quest would be easier with the burden shared. It always seemed like her responsibility. The only person who even knew to help was Finn, and he did enough by taking care of her.

But now here came Harry when she couldn’t have been more ill-prepared. No, this adventure had not been his choice. Yet here he was, going above and beyond the call, taking chances, plotting, scheming, following through.

What was a girl to do when faced with a Prince Charming hero packaged like a marble statue, who kissed like he’d been saving up for her all of his life? Long term, she couldn’t even begin to say. For now, she would simply do what he’d asked and see about buying a dress.

Having finished with her shower, she toweled off, pulled on her clothes, and blew her hair most of the way dry. She dropped the towels she’d used into one bin, the complimentary gym shorts and T-shirt in another, and made her way to the boutique.

It was almost noon, so she wasn’t sure if the personal shopper who’d assisted her last evening would be working today. She hoped so; she hated shopping, and the woman had been incredibly helpful.

She also had a better eye for what worked with Georgia’s height, shape, and coloring than she could ever have figured out on her own.

“Good morning. May I help you?”

Georgia returned the salesclerk’s smile as the slender young woman met her just inside the door. “Hi. I was here yesterday—”

“Ms. McLain.” A second female voice cut off the clerk’s and caused Georgia to turn. “How wonderful to see you back so soon.”

Kim. That was her name. Georgia shook the personal shopper’s hand. “I’m fine, thanks. Not quite as spiffy-looking as last night.” She glanced down at her jeans and T-shirt, which showed the wrinkles of being packed away. “I just finished working out.”

Why she’d been struck with the urge to explain away her appearance, she had no clue. She’d never given a second thought to the way other women saw her, and hated feeling as if she’d just entered a twilight zone of female competition, as if needing to prove herself worthy of Harry’s interest.

But Kim was nothing but pleasant and professional, setting Georgia at ease. “How did the Indirie work out for you?”

The Indirie?
Oh, the dress. “It was perfect, thanks so much. Now I need another one. This one for tomorrow.”

“What sort of occasion?” Kim asked, a studied look on her face as she began scanning the shop’s wall displays and circular racks. “Will one of the others you tried on work, or should we start from scratch?”

Georgia sighed. She really, truly knew nothing about dressing up. And blue jeans were all she knew about dressing down. “Well, it’s not a party. It’s…a business situation, but nothing big and corporate. I don’t need a power suit or anything.”

At that, Kim’s brow arched. “I have something that should work perfectly. Why don’t you find a dressing room, and I’ll bring you a few things? Though, this one I’m thinking about may be all you need.”

And that was exactly why Georgia was placing the fate of her wardrobe in this woman’s hands. She returned to the same dressing cubicle she’d used last night and stripped down to her panties and bra.

Kim breezed through the saloon-style doors and down the short hallway three minutes later. She hung two or three outfits on the display hooks outside of the dressing room gate before handing Georgia a suit that had her eyes widening.

“Oh, wow.” She held the hanger, afraid to touch the fabric. It was a sort of jade green, but textured to look as if it reflected a rainbow of colors—colors that reminded her of carnival glass. “This is gorgeous.”

Kim stood with her arms crossed, admiring her choice. “It’s a nice retro look. The fabric is going to do great things with your skin.”

Georgia laughed. “If I don’t destroy it first.”

“It’s indestructible. Trust me.” She stood in the hallway while Georgia dressed. “The skirt is longer than the one on the Indirie, but most of the attention will be drawn by the top. And you definitely have the body to show it off.”

Georgia wasn’t sure about the latter, but she could definitely see why the jacket would turn heads. It hit just beneath her waist, the front closing with four matching, fabric-covered buttons. She checked her reflection, loving the way the skirt fit. Loving even more the fit of the top.

The collar was wide, a portrait collar, Kim told her. The top points spread to her shoulders, while the lower section of the lapel dipped into her cleavage. Way down into her cleavage. And as broad as the collar was, it left the largest portion of her chest bare.

She liked it. A lot. Until last night, she hadn’t worn a dress in forever. And the little black thing certainly reminded her of that, the way it clung to her curves.

But this suit was different. It was elegant and classy and the sexiest thing she’d ever seen. The color, the cut, the cloth. The way it showed off the body she usually forgot about, the body Harry seemed to appreciate.

She couldn’t wait for him to see her wearing it, and gulped at the thought even more than she did at the price. “What about shoes? Can I wear the black ones with this?”

Kim held up a finger. “Wait right there.”

Georgia was having too much fun looking at herself to even think about moving. And yes, she admitted, half the fun was having someone to dress for—even if it was only for the auction and only one night. She didn’t care. She wanted this. And even more than wanting, she needed the buzz.

The shoes Kim brought back were a strappy slingback style colored a caramel gold. They couldn’t have been a more perfect compliment to the carnival glass effect, and the polish on her toes looked great.

“You can charge this to the room, too?” she asked, reveling in the girly girl feeling for just a moment more.

“Of course,” Kim replied. “You look amazing. Your husband will definitely approve.”

“Oh, Harry’s not”—she stopped herself from saying ‘my husband’ and scrambled—“hard to please as a rule. But I think you’re right. This should catch his eye.”

She thought about that on the way back to the room, her arms full, her heart buzzing with excitement. About catching Harry’s eye. She wondered if he was married, divorced, engaged, or involved. Silly her, making out with a man whose current romantic situation had never crossed her mind.

Again with the circumstances. She would never have pulled a first date into a dark closet were it not the fate of everything she’d worked for hanging in the balance.

That explained last night, but she wasn’t doing so well explaining away this morning when she’d barged into the bathroom and nearly tripped over her tongue. He’d been wearing nothing—
nothing
—but a towel.

And even then it looked as if he hadn’t fastened it well, that one wrong step and he’d lose it. Not only that, he’d been wet. And clean. She’d wanted to sniff him all over and lick him all up.

Neither did it explain her imagination running wild last night while they’d been in bed. She’d agreed to his no-contact rule because she’d wanted him near. But if he’d pressed, she would have given in. It had been a long time since she’d wanted a man the way she wanted Harry van Zandt.

And she didn’t quite know what to do about that.

2:00
P.M.

“Hi, honey. I’m home.”

At Georgia’s greeting, Harry looked up from shoveling a last monstrous bite of syrup-and-butter-soaked pancakes into his mouth.

He was sitting on the far bed propped against the headboard, the room service tray in his lap. The tracking receiver picking up the signal from the transmitter in Georgia’s boots sat wedged between his thighs beneath it.

She’d been on the hotel’s first floor for so long in what he calculated to be the business center, the gym, and the boutique, that when his food had arrived, he hadn’t checked to see if she was on the move. He’d simply dug in.

Bad spy. Bad.

She slid open the closet door, hung up the bag from the boutique, and tossed a second containing a shoebox on the floor. Then she bounced into the room, stopping, her smile sliding away when she saw his plate empty of food.

She twisted her mouth to one side. “I never ordered your room service.”

“So I woke up to notice,” he said, watching her deflate and wondering why she did. If his comment had kicked the wind from her sails, or if her own forgetfulness was the cause. He couldn’t say he didn’t find the latter interesting…

“Sorry. I did go shopping, though.” She rocked back on her heels, tucked her fingers in her back pockets. “I got a suit for the auction. And shoes.”

He nodded toward the laptop case he’d opened after waking. “Yeah, but you didn’t boot me up.”

This time she crossed her arms over her chest and glared down. “You have two hands. And judging by that plate, they both work just fine.”

Grinning, he tossed his fork to the tray, grabbed up the napkin, and wiped his mouth. “So, are you going to show me what you bought?”

“You mean what
you
bought?” She shook her head. “You can see it tomorrow. I don’t want you thinking this is any more than a loan.”

He wondered what she would think if she knew it all went on an expense report in the end. “It’s not about ownership either. I just like seeing you in a dress.”

“Then you can see me in one tomorrow.”

“And after that?”

She frowned, perched on the end of the other bed. “What do you mean?”

“Best I can tell, you live out of a duffel.”

“And?”

“Hangers, remember?” he teased to distract her. “Where are you going to keep the new clothes?”

“Oh. That.” She pushed up from where she’d been sitting, crossed to where he’d left his laptop case in one of the side chairs, and set it on the table between.

Harry scrambled to shove the tracking device into his pocket, using the tray as a shield as he got off the bed. He carried the dishes out to the hallway, walking back in time to see Georgia bend over and plug in the laptop and high access cable, her heart-shaped bottom playing wicked games with his body and mind.

He wanted to kick his own ass. He should not be having this much trouble keeping his head on what he was here to do—and off the woman he wanted. He watched as she straightened and turned on the machine. The light from the screen flickered in her eyes.

He clamped his jaw tight. She was the means to an end, nothing more. The way she looked in the clothes paid for by the Smithson Group didn’t matter. Where she stored them was no worry of his. His only concern right now was prepping for this evening.

Instead, he was standing and staring like a fool unable to put one foot in front of the other, enjoying her shopping excitement. Even enjoying her ire at having him point out that she’d bailed on booting him up. “Guess that means I’m not going to like the answer.”

“Actually, I don’t have an answer. Or my answer is that I don’t know. Finn was just reminding me yesterday that I need to get my things out of his guest room.”

“Why’s that?”

She pulled the laptop around to face the wall rather than the window and sat in the closest chair. “He’s moving in a month or so.”

“What does he do?” he asked, even though he knew.

“He’s a P.I., but he says he’s burned out and is giving up his business in Houston. I honestly think he’s planning to do nothing but be a beach bum for awhile.”

“You live with him?” Again he asked knowing that she didn’t live anywhere at all. He wanted to hear her talk about herself, to see what he might learn about who she was from her self-perception.

She shook her head, but didn’t look up from the computer screen. “I keep a few things there and stay when I’m not on the road.”

He leaned against the wall behind her. “Where do you stay when you are on the road?”

“Motels, campgrounds.” She looked over her shoulder, frowned at his hovering. “I’ve been known to sleep in the back of a rental.”

“You don’t have a car?”

“I did until a few years ago.” She turned back around, launched a browser window. “I had a rental while my insurance company fought with the one covering the guy who had hit me. It took weeks, and I got spoiled having everything but the fuel handled for me.”

“Uh-huh.”

She waved him off. “It’s not practical, I know, but it works for me. It’s not like I have a bunch of other expenses or responsibilities.”

“Seems a strange way to live.”

She snorted, pulled up Google. “And throwing all this hair and makeup and clothes and shoes money at a cause you know nothing about isn’t?”

“Then tell me about it. Your cause.” He knew a lot of the details. It was the emotional component hanging him up. This truth she was so desperate to reveal. What was it, what would she personally gain? Was there any of it he could use?

“I thought you wanted this cataloging team research done,” she said, putting him off as he’d expected her to.

He returned to the bed, plopped down on the end, leaned back on his elbows. “Actually, I did it myself while waiting for breakfast.”

“You mean lunch.”

“Yours is over there, by the way.” He jerked his chin toward the covered plate on the top of the dresser. “Just a club sandwich. I wasn’t sure when you’d be back.”

She glanced at the tray, smiled briefly, but ignored the food. “If you planned to do the research yourself, why ask me to?”

He shrugged. “So we could compare notes. Right now, I want to hear about your cause.”

“Right now, we should compare notes. It’s getting late.”

“We’ve got time.”

She sat back, her brows drawn as she looked over, her glare not so much about anger as curiosity—an observation she proved right when she asked, “Who the hell are you?”

He chuckled under his breath. It was a natural reaction to her frustrated demand, but one that was also part of his cover as a guy eating lunch in a diner who’d been hijacked into criminal service.

He thought that, then he realized that he really hadn’t considered his two identities as separate for quite awhile. He was Harry and he was Rabbit, helping Georgia and working for the Smithson Group at the same time.

And so he said, “No one in particular. I just figured that since I’m up to my earlobes here, it would be nice to know what I’m doing this for.”

She sobered, spoke softly. “You don’t have to be doing this at all. I told you yesterday just to drop me off when we hit Dallas.”

“You knew I couldn’t do that.”

“Sure you could,” she insisted. “You don’t know me or Finn. Even Charlie gave you the out. You don’t have a real stake in any of this.”

“I do have a stake. I have you.” And even as he said it, he knew it to be true.

He didn’t know why, he didn’t know when, but in the last twenty-four hours she’d become someone he cared about more than was wise. Her gustiness, her fearlessness, her loyalty—each added another layer to a complexity he was certain would take decades to mine.

And the fact that he wouldn’t be around that long and would never have the chance to know her well didn’t stop him from wondering what it would be like if he did, if things were different.

“Harry, listen.” She turned in her chair to face him. “I’m beyond appreciative of everything you’ve done, but I really ought to finish this up on my own. It’s not fair to involve you further.”

“Because I said I had a stake in the outcome?”

She fidgeted. “It’s more about saying you have me. You don’t want me. Trust me on that.”

He wanted to ask so many things and none of them had anything to do with his mission or her quest. He settled on saying, “We’ll have to agree to disagree on that.”

She rolled her eyes, asked, “About tonight? The cataloging team research? Are you going to tell me what you’ve got up that magical sleeve of yours?”

He grinned. “Besides a steak knife?”

“Yeah. What were you going to do with that anyway?”

“Carve off a chunk of shoulder or loin if I got the chance.”

“Eww,” she said, and shuddered. “Yuck.”

“Hey, if it would have gotten everyone out of there right then and kept us from having to go through all of this, I would’ve been the first to fire up the grill.”

“You’re gross.” She paused. “Though I must be just as sick.”

He pushed back up into a sitting position. “Why so?”

“I was just thinking if that had happened, I would have had to stay there and deal with the cops and the media.” She picked at a scar on the desktop. “I might not have been able to get away in time for the auction.”

The push and pull of her priorities flashed in her eyes. He watched with interest, uncertain if either finally won. “Would that have been such a bad thing?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, obviously being here now is important because of your brother and the others,” he said, ramping up to press harder for more of the emotional details. “But if Finn were safe and sound, how important would it be that you got your hands on the lockbox?”

She averted her gaze, huffed out her impatience. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you and my brother had been talking.”

“He’s not in favor of your quest?”

“He supports me. He just doesn’t share my…obsession.”

He could have pulled a mouthful of teeth with less effort than this. “Your obsession with…”

She fought responding. He watched the battle as she shook her head, heaved out a long heavy breath. And he wondered why she carried such a burden alone, why she kept it a secret if it was this heavy.

Finally she got up, moved from the chair and the table to the door that opened onto the balcony. She pulled it open, stepped outside. He followed, settling into one corner as she gripped the railing.

“My dad went to prison when I was still sixteen. Finn was a year younger. And it wasn’t for some minor misdemeanor with local consequences.”

“Yeah. I know.” Now they were getting somewhere.

The look she gave him said he didn’t know a thing. “He went to prison for a crime committed against the United States government, Harry. TotalSky wasn’t small potatoes. We’re talking large-scale reverberations. Hell, Finn and I kept waiting to get hate mail from the great beyond.”

“Did you? Get hate mail?”

She shrugged it off. “I only saw some of it. Nanny Caro made sure Finn and I were kept out of the public eye. She did a great job protecting us from the backlash. We probably never knew half of what happened.”

He knew the answer because of the prep work he’d done, but it seemed like a question the Harry van Zandt he was pretending to be would ask. “What about your mother?”

“I only remember her in snatches.” She rocked back and forth, pulling and pushing on the railing. “Like mental photographs, I guess. She died when I was five. Caro came to take care of us then, and when my father went away, she was made our legal guardian.”

“Wow. That had to be tough. Doing most of your growing up with both parents gone.”

“It was. But it wasn’t. It was just the life I had. Caro was a great mother. And she didn’t do so bad as a father either.” A smile took the edge off her angst. “You should’ve seen her throw a football.”

“What did Finn think about that?” he asked as the sound of car horns drifted up from the street.

“He loved it. Think Jennifer Aniston with meat on her bones and muscles in all the right places.”

Like you, he wanted to say, but didn’t. “Bet your house was a popular place.”

“Nope.” Her hair flew into her face when she shook her head. “Caro wouldn’t have it. No parties. Friends, sure, but she kept us on the straight and narrow.”

“Sounds like your father picked the right woman to take care of his kids.”

“Honestly? I think she loved him as much as she loved us. After he was incarcerated, she worked through his attorney to sell our house, and the three of us moved across the country to be near him.”

“Tough age to pull up roots.”

“Seeing him regularly helped a lot. As did being in a new place where no one knew who we were. What I hated was that he couldn’t see Finn’s football games, or be there on Christmas mornings.” Her voice softened, broke. “Those were the times I got angry that he hadn’t fought harder to clear his name.”

Good. This was getting close to what he wanted to know. He turned, leaned his forearms on the railing. “You weren’t angry over what he’d done?”

She shook her head vehemently. “He did nothing. He wasn’t guilty. Yes, he worked for TotalSky. And he was involved in working on the satellite contract they won from the government. But he would never have made a deal to buy the parts he was accused of buying illegally.”

“And you think there’s something in this missing dossier that will clear his name.”

“He told me where to find it. He told me not to let it fall into the wrong hands. I have to believe he knew if it did, the truth would stay buried.”

“Why didn’t he fight the conviction?”

“The evidence was too compelling, even if it was circumstantial. And he refused to mount a real defense. He said if he took the fall, the story would go away, the country would forget.”

“But if he knew where to find this dossier and knew it would clear his name…”

“I don’t know. I just…don’t know.” She wrapped her arms around her middle and rocked back and forth. “I probably won’t know until I get my hands on it and can see exactly what the files says. But, no. I’ve never understood why he chose to be a martyr when he had so much waiting for him at home.”