4

“MR. WEATHERFORD IS quite right, dear,” Aggie confirmed, much to Charlie’s mortification.

“Jay, please,” the object of her irritation demurred humbly.

Charlie seethed.

Aggie beamed approval at him, before turning her attention back to Charlie. “Goldie’s father left a sizable amount of money to his son, Peter, but it was to Goldie that he entrusted the business. Peter was amiable enough, but a bit…dim, if you get my meaning. Anyway, Peter originally owned forty-nine percent of the company, but sold his shares to Goldie to help finance his son’s auto-racing career. It never took off, of course.” She grimaced. “Neither did his daughter’s country-music career, for that matter, but it didn’t keep Peter from trying, bless his heart. He died six years ago. Pancreatic cancer. He made Goldie promise to take the kids under her wing, to take care of them, and though Goldie tried, they wanted no part of her. They were too busy burning through what was left of their father’s estate.”

Given everything she’d just heard, Charlie was eternally thankful that she wasn’t the one working for the Betterworth family after all.

She cast an arch look at Jay. “Your clients sound quite charming.”

She caught a fleeting scowl of agreement before he could stop it and something about that one moment of shared opinion pleased her more than anything in recent memory. It was ridiculous, of course. He was The Enemy. And yet she couldn’t deny the insane burst of pleasure, the warming of her heart, the sudden spike in her pulse any more than she could deny the air moving in and out of her lungs.

“We share the same goal, Ms. Martin,” he said smoothly, then turned his attention back to Aggie. “I have every confidence that I’ll find your dog before anything terrible happens to her,” he said. So sincerely, in fact, that it took Charlie a moment to be annoyed at his gall.

She worked for Ms. Aggie. If anyone should be reassuring the older woman, it was her.

Charlie leaned forward. “Finding dear Truffles is my top priority, Ms. Aggie. I promise to have her back to you by the end of the week.”

From the corner of her eye she saw Jay’s especially sexy mouth twitch with repressed humor. So she amused him, did she? Well, he wouldn’t be laughing long, the overconfident, unfortunately good-looking ass. He was so assured of his own success he didn’t consider her a threat at all. She was so wearily used to this sort of mentality that she should be immune to it by now, and yet she found that she wasn’t, that being discounted still stung. Particularly by him, which was as annoying as it was baffling, but there it was.

Ms. Aggie’s face blossomed into another smile, her eyes crinkling predictably at the corners. “I am certain that, between the two of you, Truffles will be home where she belongs in no time at all.”

Charlie’s answering grin froze again. She sincerely hoped that Ms. Aggie wouldn’t insist that she work with Jay Weatherford, though technically, as her boss, the woman was within her rights to do so.

“Of course she will,” Jay said, managing to say the right thing without exactly agreeing with Ms. Aggie.

That was a nice skill. One that, admittedly, she’d never mastered. If she’d ever had a brain-to-mouth filter, it must have malfunctioned long before she learned to talk. Though she possessed enough tact to see her through social situations, constant effort was required to keep from saying precisely what she thought. Prevaricating didn’t come naturally to her and, while she could recognize various shades of gray, her world—with her own personal code of ethics—was primarily viewed in black and white. She wasn’t so stubborn that a well-reasoned argument couldn’t make her change her mind, but those instances had been few and far between. She frowned.

Perhaps she needed more intelligent company, she thought, momentarily struck by the sudden notion. She blinked, forcing herself to focus. That was a thought for another day. Right now she had more pressing issues.

Like how to get some important answers out of Ms. Aggie.

“Ms. Aggie, I know that you went over the details of the abduction quite briefly with my boss, but I wondered if I might get you to recount the incident to me.”

“I’m quite interested in that, as well,” Jay remarked. “In fact, that’s the reason I came to see you today.”

“Of course,” Ms. Aggie said. “I want to help in whatever way I can and am completely at your disposal.” She paused, seemingly collecting her thoughts. “Truffles isn’t exactly on a schedule around here, but I do let her out for a little while in the afternoon so that she can play. She likes to annoy the cat and frighten the birds and is forever digging holes in the flowerbeds, which annoys Mr. Hanover to no end,” she added as an aside. “She’s a tiny little thing, but is still a dog and enjoys doing the things dogs do. I let her out about two o’clock yesterday afternoon—it was right after her snack—and I had forgotten my knitting. I went back into the house, was only away for a couple of minutes, and when I returned to the backyard, she was gone. Vanished. I marshaled all of the staff and we searched for an hour before I finally admitted to myself that someone had t-taken her.” Ms. Aggie’s voice quavered.

“There’s no way she could have wriggled under the fence?”

Ms. Aggie collected herself and shook her head. “The entire back of the property is surrounded by a brick wall. It’s eight feet high and there are no gates. The only way in is through the front entrance and there are security cameras scanning that area all the time. In addition to having Burt man the front gate, an alarm sounds here in the house each time someone enters the driveway.”

And there was a lovely wrought-iron fence all around the front of the house, Charlie remembered. She’d noticed it when she’d approached the estate because it was very elaborate, with curved branches and leaves and strange podlike features she’d never seen before. It had belatedly occurred to her that it was meant to look like cocoa trees. It was quite lovely and quite secure.

“So no one goes in or out except by the front gate?” Jay asked.

“That’s right. Goldie liked her privacy.”

And by controlling the access and limiting the points of entry, she could better monitor who was allowed in and who wasn’t. She’d built her very own fortress here, Charlie thought. Modern-day, of course, and there was no moat, but it was a fortress, nonetheless.

So how in the hell had someone managed to snatch the dog in less than two minutes from a place that was seemingly impenetrable? Charlie imagined that scaling the wall could be done from the other side to avoid detection, but then how to get back over carrying the dog? Especially in such a short amount of time? She needed to get a look at that fen—

“I’d like to inspect the property, if you don’t mind, Ms. Aggie,” Jay told her, beating Charlie to the punch.

The older woman nodded her approval.

“Afterward I have a few more questions I’d like to ask you, provided you can spare the time.”

“Of course, dear. Meanwhile why don’t I have Smokey take your things up to your room?”

Charlie watched his affable smile atrophy and knew a moment of fiendish glee. There you go, Boy Genius, she thought. Wiggle off that hook. He cast a fleeting glance in her direction and, though she realized it was impossible, she had the distinct impression that he knew precisely what she was thinking, knew that she was relishing his discomfiture.

“That’s most kind of you,” he said, to Charlie’s near slack-jawed amazement. She’d been certain that he’d refuse, that he’d insist on getting his own accommodation. “It will certainly make investigating a much simpler affair if I’m here instead of somewhere in town.”

“That’s exactly what I told Ms. Martin,” Ms. Aggie said, evidently glad to have her logic validated once more.

Wonderful, Charlie thought, stifling the urge to groan. Now she looked ungracious. She aimed a slightly sick smile at him and noted the smug twinkle in those especially blue eyes. They were unpolluted by any other shade and reminded her of the morning glories that grew on the trellis next to her front porch in the summer.

Too late Charlie realized she’d made another tactical mistake—she shouldn’t have looked at him. Because she couldn’t seem to make herself look away. She was too busy puzzling out the various incongruities she saw there. Curly eyelashes in such a dramatic face, the almost lush mouth above his sharp chin. It shouldn’t fit…and yet it did.

He was truly extraordinary.

Not the best-looking man she’d ever seen, but definitely the most appealing. At least, to her. Unbidden, an insidious vine of desire snaked through her, curled around her nipples and tightened deep in her womb. The sensation was so intense it stopped just short of being painful, left her shaken but hypersensitized, as though something long dormant had suddenly awakened.

With dawning horror Charlie realized it was her libido.

Oh, hell.

JAY WAS USED TO QUICKLY changing circumstances and was accustomed to having to modify his plans in a split second, so adjusting to being pitted against a rival agent and staying in the same residence as said rival agent barely registered on his radar.

If only he could say the same thing about her.

Somehow, in the mere span of fifteen minutes, she’d managed to become the most intriguing and most infuriating woman he’d ever met. To complicate matters even more, there was a constant sizzling awareness of her, a low hum of attraction that vibrated annoyingly along his nerve endings and, much like sonar, continually pinged his groin. His very blood itched, for lack of a better description, making him briefly wonder if he was allergic to her, but considering it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant sensation, he didn’t think that was the case.

He’d be better off if it were, that was for damned sure.

Being anything more than professionally interested in her was unforgivably stupid, insanely reckless and just plain ignorant. In truth, though he’d originally thought staying at the Betterworth estate was a bad idea, he was quickly able to isolate the advantages.

Furthermore, she’d expected him to balk, and simply thwarting that smug little notion of hers held entirely too much appeal. She’d been waiting for him to object, had practically scooted to the edge of her seat in anticipation of it, the she-devil. The look on her catlike face when he’d done the exact opposite was something he’d likely enjoy for days to come.

But ultimately, staying at the Betterworth estate held multiple advantages, not the least of which was that he’d be able to keep an eye on her. Any lead she managed to get would be one that he’d get as well because that was obviously what Ms. Aggie wanted. He grimaced. The flip side was that he’d be forced to share, too. Nevertheless, he thought he had a better chance of giving her the slip than vice versa. His years of military training provided him a certain advantage, he felt sure, and he could evade and divert with the best of them. The old “friends close and enemies closer” adage would most definitely hold true in this situation.

Of course, it was the keeping her closer part that worried him the most, particularly considering this bizarre preoccupation he had with her. Had she been less interesting and half as attractive, no doubt this wouldn’t have been an issue.

For instance, it would have never occurred to him to want to suck on her pointy little chin or feel her plain, unadorned nails digging into his back. He wouldn’t have noticed the snug way her especially ripe breasts rounded mouthwateringly beneath her sweater or found the sleek curve of her jaw nearly as erotic. It wasn’t so much the curve as the smooth, pale skin, contrasting deliciously with her hair. He wouldn’t have taken any note of her long lashes or the shadowed crescents they painted beneath her eyes when she gazed at her little notebook.

For whatever reason, he liked that she worked in pencil, that she was willing to correct a mistake rather than scribble over it and start again. He’d always preferred a pencil, as well. A good old-fashioned number two, just like the one she’d been using. In fact, if he examined her too closely he imagined he’d find a lot of things he liked about her—beyond the obvious—and that was damned dangerous. He couldn’t afford to like her. He had too much riding on this first assignment to blow it by letting the head beneath his belt take control.

With any luck, Ms. Aggie would put him in a room as far away from Charlie Martin as possible. No doubt he was going to need the distance.

FROM HER VANTAGE POINT in the library, Aggie Tippins watched Charlie Martin walk the eastern fence line of the front yard and, through another window, Jay Weatherford do the same thing along the back. She humphed under her breath.

“What’s that noise for?” Smokey asked from behind her. His voice made something in her belly tighten and release, the feeling as startling now as the first time it had happened more than a year ago when she’d hired him.

“I’d hoped they’d work together,” she said. She sighed and gestured out the window. “Clearly that’s not going to be the case.”

Smokey’s chuckle mimicked his name. “Just because they have the same goal doesn’t mean that they’re going to work together,” he told her. “They work for different agencies and for different people. They’re competitors, not teammates.”

She turned to look at him, struck again by the still-broad shoulders, the work-worn hands, the handsome lined face. “So it would seem.”

“Yet you’re disappointed.” It wasn’t a question. He knew how she felt, had had a way of peering right into her head from the day he arrived here.

Though Aggie had loved her late husband, they’d married too young, before either one of them had figured out who they were meant to be. Instead of growing up together as most couples did who had made the same mistake, she and Curtis had grown up and apart, like a tree with two trunks. Their lives had run parallel with a few common branches—their children, for instance—but, sadly, never together. Had they met even a year later she knew without a doubt that they would have never dated, much less married.

Did she regret her life with him? No, of course not. How could she when the very best part of her—her children—had come from it? And she couldn’t say she’d been unhappy, because that wasn’t true either. Aggie had never been one to count on anyone else to make her happy, so she’d never expected that.

But she could say that she’d never felt fulfilled, or even really understood. Curtis had loved her, just as she’d loved him, but it was an easy sort of love that hadn’t demanded much more than common courtesy, mutual respect and the occasional obligatory night in the bedroom.

Smokey, though… He’d immediately understood her in a way that had been as terrifying as it was thrilling. One look into those dark, wise eyes and she’d felt laid bare and exhilarated, like a tightly budded flower opening for the first time.

He’d left her breathless—breathless at her age, when the idea of romance should have been a distant memory, a forgotten idea. He made her want things she’d long ago accepted were lost. She’d actually considered trying to manufacture a reason to fire him just so she could end her torment, but ultimately she could never bring herself to do that. She could never be that selfish.

“It would make things so much easier if they did work together,” she said. “Two heads are better than one, which was part of the reason I hired Ms. Martin.”

Smokey laughed softly, his low chuckle sending a shiver down the backs of her legs. “You hired Ms. Martin because you needed to do something to help bring that little dog back. You needed to act, to participate in finding her.”

She smiled, acknowledging the insight. “True. But I also thought a different set of eyes would be good, as well. And the more eyes the better, as far as I’m concerned. She may see something that Jay Weatherford doesn’t. Women often do, you know,” she added lightly.

“I know you do,” he said. A strange undercurrent in his voice impelled her to find his gaze once more. A beat slid to three, then he cleared his throat. “In any case, I think you’ve done the right thing,” he said. “By hiring her,” he added at her confused look. “Either they’ll work together and find Truffles or they’ll be so determined to outdo one another that you’ll get more than their best effort and one of them will find her.” He took a step forward, his gaze soft and earnest, and for a split second something passed between them. Something sweet and poignant. “Try not to worry, Aggie. It wasn’t your fault.”

Aggie’s chest tightened and her eyes instantly watered. “That’s a nice thing to say, even if it isn’t true.”

“It is true,” he insisted earnestly. “It could have happened to any of us who took her out. Would you have blamed one of us the way you’re blaming yourself?”

Probably not, she inwardly conceded, but it hadn’t been a member of the staff—it had been her. And she’d managed to lose Goldie’s most treasured possession, the little Yorkie that had become more dear to her than she would have ever imagined. It was strange how that had happened. She’d always been fond of Truffles, of course, but the dog had uncommonly bonded with Goldie.

Though she’d always heard the term “dogged her footsteps,” she’d never witnessed it personally until Goldie had gotten the tiny Yorkie. Wherever Goldie went, Truffles had followed, and when Goldie had finally found herself confined to her bed, Truffles had stayed with her, curled up against her side. Aggie had been the only person who could get the animal to abandon her mistress long enough to eat and go to the bathroom. And Aggie had been the only person who could get Goldie to eat, as well. To outsiders she might have been merely the housekeeper, but in that final month she was a nurse as well, one devoted friend caring for another.

It was Aggie and that little dog who’d watched over their beloved Goldie, seeing her grow ever frailer and weaker by the day. It had been heartbreaking, one of the most difficult things she’d ever had to do, watching her friend move a little closer to death with every breath. But the shared adoration of their Goldie had led to a unique bond between her and Truffles and, when Goldie finally passed, they were left to grieve and endure together.

And they had, though it had been rough going the first few weeks. Truffles had often whined at Goldie’s door and routinely gone looking for her in her office, but the dog finally seemed to accept that Goldie was gone and had settled her affection solely onto Aggie. The comfort that loyal little animal had provided was simply…indescribable. There was something about feeling her nose nudging her hand, her silky hair beneath Aggie’s palm that had made the world bright enough to keep looking for more light.

And now she had lost the little creature.

“Where would you like me to put Mr. Weatherford’s luggage?” Smokey asked, interrupting her before she could sink further into despair.

“The Sapphire Room,” she said, her gaze narrowing speculatively.

Smokey laughed again, the cheerful sound like balm to Aggie’s aching heart, and she looked up at him once more and smiled. “They might not want to work together, but I’m most certainly not going to make it easy for them not to.”

Admiration glinted in his dark gaze and clung to his grin. “That’s crafty.”

Aggie lowered her lashes and straightened her cuff, trying not to appear too pleased at the compliment. It was harder than it should have been. “I prefer to call it strategy.”

His grin widened, further melting her heart. “You would,” he said with a shake of his head, laughing under his breath as he turned and left the room.

Mercy, Aggie thought, feeling her heart rate settle once again into a more normal rhythm. I’m too old for this.