Pass Interference (15 page)

Tyler tensed at the obvious edge of bitterness and resentment in his voice. She couldn’t embarrass herself by telling him she had seen it as an opportunity to please her father, hoping that it would soften his attitude.

Maybe if I hadn’t gotten drunk each time and made a fool out of myself and sometimes him, too.

“You’re not getting screwed over as you put it, Chad,” she said in a tired voice. “You’re being let off the hook. Now you can get your own date, someone who really wants to be with you.”

Should she have said that? A dark flush spread across his face, although he didn’t say a word, just clenched his fists. She looked over at Rafe, who stood there calmly, watching Chad.

“We square now?” Rafe asked. “You understand the situation has changed?”

“You think you’re such hot shit,” Chad sneered, “just because you were one of the boss’s bright boys on the field. If you fuck this up, whatever is going on here, you’ll be out on your ass. Keep that in mind.”

He looked at his clenched fists for a moment, as if ready to throw a punch. Then he just turned and strode heavily from the office.

“Well.” Tyler just stared at the now-empty doorway.

She wasn’t sure what else to say after that. She’d always had the feeling Chad would be happy to get her between the sheets but otherwise saw her as a gigantic pain in the ass.

Rafe gave her one of his penetrating looks. “Was there something between you and Sinclair that I should know about?”

“Are you kidding?” She flipped a hand in the air. “I’ll never understand why my father chose him as my official escort but that’s all there ever was. He doesn’t appeal to me any more than Dewey from Tequila Sunrise.”

“That the name of the guy who trapped you in the restroom?” Rafe asked.

She nodded.

“I’m definitely putting his name at the top of the list, Tyler,” he instructed. “Chad’s, I mean. And Ed’s, too.”

“I hear you, although you’d think Chad would be able to get enough women on his own without pushing me into something. I mean, as good-looking as he is and all.”

Rafe lifted an eyebrow. “You really think he’s good-looking?”

“Oh, can it.” She flipped a hand at him. “The man does not appeal to me at all. Why do you even care, anyway?”

“Just making idle conversation.”

“Okay.” Tyler shrugged. “I guess he could be the one, only to what point?” She shivered at the thought.

“You have a history with him. Maybe he wants more,” Rafe suggested. “Maybe he’s got a thing for you and wants you to turn to him for help.

“As if.”

“After all, like Chad said, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to hook up with the owner’s daughter.” He watched her through narrowed eyes, studying her face.

Something ugly raced through her for a moment. “Is that why you’re doing this, Rafe? To curry favor with my father? I know it’s not because you think I’m the love of your life.”

“Let’s leave the personal out of this,” he said in an uninflected voice. “I’m more concerned right now to find out if Chad’s your stalker.”

“You can find out, right?”

“I’m going to do whatever it takes to nail this guy, whoever he is.” He glanced at her phone. “None of those texts you read while you were waiting happened to be from our stalker, did they?”

She sniffed at him. “Wouldn’t I have told you if they were? I’m irritated, Rafe, not stupid.”

“Just checking.” He paused as he picked up some more folders from his desk. “About the calls, not the stupid part, so don’t get your panties in a wad.” He stuffed his laptop and other things into a big messenger bag and zipped it up. “Come on, we can go. I’m done here.”

She stuck her phone back into her pocket and hooked the strap of her purse over her shoulder. Rafe stopped her just as she reached the open doorway. He surprised her by cupping her chin in his warm palm and tilting her face up to him. “He’s right about one thing. You look a hell of a lot better without all that war paint you insist on wearing.” He dropped his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”

Tyler’s skin tingled where he’d touched her, the feeling spreading to all her nerve endings, and her damn pulse took off at a gallop. She was stunned both by the gentleness of his touch and by his words. Everything she felt for him, everything she’d kept tamped down all these years bubbled to the surface.

She smiled to herself as she rode down in the elevator with him and followed him out to the parking lot. Yup. This cluster fuck might have a silver lining after all.

* * * *

They stopped at Rafe’s house on the way back. He hustled them in and out in fifteen minutes. He really didn’t want her presence imprinted on it anywhere. This job was irritating him enough as it was. Then a quick stop at a grocery and a deli and they were at her town house.

“I’m going to set myself up in the den,” he said after he hauled all his stuff inside. “Then I’d appreciate it if you’d show me where I’m going to bunk down.”

This is a bad idea
, he said to himself, not for the first time. A very bad idea. Being alone in a house with Tyler Gillette spelled ten kinds of trouble. The woman had made it overtly obvious that she wanted to have sex with him. He was just as determined it was never going to happen. Screwing the boss’s daughter might not be the worst thing he could do, but it was right up there in the top five. Especially this boss and this daughter.

Tyler tossed her purse on a chair in the great room. “Knock yourself out. I’m going to fix myself a cup of coffee. You want one?”

“Sure, but I’ll get it in a few. As soon as I’m set up.”

“Fine. Whatever.” She stomped off to the kitchen.

Okay, he knew she wasn’t happy about this. In her place, he wouldn’t be either. No one wanted to live with a threat hanging over their head or have their privacy invaded this way. He’d have to find some way to make her okay with this. A pissed-off woman could create a dangerous situation, much more dangerous than him getting naked with her.

He’d had to go open his mouth about her situation and tell her father. It had been the right thing to do. He knew it. It was a sure thing she wouldn’t take the kind of precautions necessary on her own, not when she lived her life on the edge the way she did. The last thing he’d expected was for Kurt to insist he do this himself.

That insane attraction—no, more than that, something he refused to identify—that ignited the first time he’d seen her still simmered beneath the surface, ready to erupt. It was always there, in her eyes, in the looks she gave him, in his reaction to her. Now he was going to be living here with her for the foreseeable future, and how the hell was he going to handle that? Because no matter how he looked at it, they were just two very different people, with no future between them.

Just keep it in your pants
, he told himself.
Use your famous discipline and you’ll get through it.

Tyler’s town house wasn’t at all what he’d expected. He’d been prepared for ultramodern with uncomfortable furniture and bizarre colors. It was, in fact, the opposite. She’d chosen polished wood furniture with lots of warm colors. The den had an intimate, welcoming feel to it. Honey-colored wood shelves lined two walls and a matching carved desk sat in front of a small bay window that looked out on a manicured yard. The desk chair and the big armchair next to it were upholstered in honey-colored leather but neither looked as if they were used very much. Not a shock. Tyler didn’t impress him as a work-at-your-desk kind of person.

He moved aside the small laptop sitting on the desk. If Tyler needed to use it, they’d figure it out. He set his own up, along with his external hard drive, and stacked his working folder beside it. He needed the password to Tyler’s Internet, and he wanted to dump his suitcase. He looked for her and found her on the patio that ran off both the great room and the kitchen. She was standing under the overhang, drinking coffee and staring off into space.

“You okay?” he asked.

She jerked, startled, and coffee sloshed over the rim of her mug.

“Damn!”

She shook the liquid off her hand. Holding the dripping cup away from her, she carried it inside to the sink.

“Sorry,” he said, following her back into the kitchen, fascinated by the flash of her purple fingernails as she cleaned the mess with paper towels.

“Aren’t you afraid you might stab yourself with those?” he asked. When she gave him a questioning look, he indicated her nails.

“Oh. Well.” She looked at the nails and then back at him. “A girl can’t have too many weapons.”

“I’d think the color itself would be a killer.” The moment the words were out of his mouth he wished them back. How she looked and dressed was really none of his business. And he wasn’t here to make snarky comments, just to do a job. Besides, today she was dressed like, well, a normal person. And what was up with that?

When she turned to him, he waited for one of her usual comebacks, but for one very brief moment she was completely unguarded, the look in her eyes one of someone who was so lost she needed a roadmap to find her way home. Well, hell. Something plucked at him and it wasn’t the tentacles of sex. Then she blinked and it was gone.

“Sorry,” he told her, and he actually was. “I was out of line. Paint your nails any color you want. And I’m sorry I startled you.”

“What do you need?”

“The password to your Wi-Fi and a place to put my suitcase. In no particular order.”

“I’ll show you to your room first so you can get, uh, settled.”

Before she could move, they heard the familiar staccato drum beat from her cell phone. Tyler’s face turned pale. She put down her coffee mug and she pulled the phone from her jeans pocket with a shaking hand. Staring at Rafe, she held it out.

“I-I can’t answer it.”

“No problem.”

He took it from her and pressed Talk, then held it to his ear, listening. At first, he heard nothing, then the faint sound of heavy breathing came across the connection. When Tyler opened her mouth to say something, he held a finger to his lips and shook his head. He wanted to see how long it would take before whoever this was either said something or hung up. He kept his eye on his watch, timing it. After exactly sixty seconds a voice whispered, “Bitch.” Then the call was disconnected.

“D-did he say anything?” Tyler’s face was nearly white.

“Just heavy breathing.” He didn’t want to tell her what was said. She was upset enough as it was. “Look. Changing your number hasn’t done any good, so we need to try something else. I’m going to call the Lone Star office and see if they’ve had any luck finding the source of the phone. Where it was bought. Anything.”

“What will that tell them? How does that identify the person?”

“Sometimes people are stupid enough to purchase them at a location right near where they live, or where they work. If we’re lucky enough to get that information, we can move forward from there.” He spoke as calmly as possible. “Meanwhile I’m here so no one will get to you. Let’s get my belongings put away and I’ll get to work on this. I know this sounds stupid but try to relax for the rest of the day.”

She managed a weak smile. “Okay.”

She led the way up the curving staircase. Watching the flex of muscle in her nicely curved ass didn’t do one damn thing to keep his libido in check. He thought it a good thing she was in front of him and couldn’t see his unruly cock pressing hard against his fly to get out. God! This whole thing was going to be harder than he thought. And speaking of harder—

“This way.” Thank God her voice interrupted his train of thought.

He followed her down a short hallway to a door on the left and into a large and pleasant bedroom. A comforter in yellows and greens covered a king-size bed. The headboard had similar carving to the desk downstairs and matched a long dresser against one wall. He recognized the wood now as mesquite and figured she’d bought it from a Texas artisan.

“No television,” she said, interrupting his thoughts. “Sorry. But feel free to use the one in the great room. I hardly ever do”

“Because you’re home so little?” Hell. He needed to put a muzzle on it. He wasn’t going to make this pleasant with all his edgy little remarks. “Sorry.”

Her eyes widened at his apology but then she moved on through the room.

“Closet.” She pointed. “En-suite bathroom. Linen closet. All the comforts of home.” She turned back to face him. “My room’s across the hall. If you, uh, ever need me. For anything.”

Oh, he needed her all right, but it was a need he wasn’t about to give in to.

“I notice you don’t have any Hawks memorabilia in the house.” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

Her smile disappeared and her face became a hard mask. Whoa!

“What for? To remind myself that the team comes first, way ahead of me, where the famous Kurt Gillette is concerned? The team is the child he gives all his affection to.” The words dropped out of her mouth like icicles. “I don’t need crap around to remind me.”

He wrinkled his forehead. “If you hate it that much, why do you go to the special events?”

“It’s a condition of my trust. My father set it up for me when I was twenty-one with only one stipulation. I must attend all the team special events and the community ones like the fundraiser this Saturday. Otherwise I’m cut off, and I happen to enjoy my lifestyle.”

He studied her face. Searching for—what? “Pardon my crass suggestion, but you could always go to work. I happen to know you went to college, even though you chose not to finish.”

That same flash of pain he’d noticed the other night swept across her face but in a second it was gone.

“Then I wouldn’t have time for all the fun I’m having,” she reminded him.

He was sure she meant it as a joke, but the look in her eyes held anything but humor.

“Make yourself comfortable,” she went on. “Feel free to use the coffeemaker and raid the refrigerator, although there isn’t usually much in it.” She looked at him. “Go ahead, say it. Because I never eat at home, right?”

“I’m not saying a word.”

She snorted. “That’ll be a change. But the answer for two hundred dollars, Alex, is because I hate to cook for myself.”

“Maybe I’ll cook for you while I’m here.” Now why the hell did he say that? This wasn’t a social gathering. He gave himself a mental kick. This had to be all business, all the way, even if it meant ordering pizza every night.