Along Came Trouble: A Loveswept Contemporary Romance (44 page)

Sean had been working for her brother since the summer, and in that time he and Caleb
had grown thick as thieves. He spent hours every week in Caleb’s office, a solid panel of pine muffling the mingled sound of their voices as they bent their heads over some obscure security challenge and Katie tried to get her work done at the reception desk a few feet away.

Then he would come out, fix her with that blue stare, nod like a robot, and leave.

She’d tried being nice to him, reminding him they’d gone to high school together and sat by each other in Algebra II and Trig. She’d tried ignoring him. She’d tried glaring at him and even, one embarrassing day, flirting with him. Nothing made a difference.

He didn’t speak to her. Not at all, not ever, not under any circumstances. It was extremely weird, and it drove her nuts.

Caleb was way too casual about it.

Don’t send me to Louisville with him
, she’d begged.
He hates me
.

No, he doesn’t
, Caleb had said.
I’m positive he doesn’t hate you. You two just need to work it out between you
.

She didn’t know how to work it out, but she refused to let Sean get to her. This job was the big chance she’d been waiting for—her opportunity to get out of Camelot and see new places, rub elbows with interesting people, become somebody independent of Levi and Caleb. Her
own
somebody.

Judah Pratt saw her potential. The singer-songwriter had asked for her specifically. And okay, yes, maybe Judah’s interest in her was largely carnal, but an opportunity was an opportunity. She’d only been in his Chicago apartment for half an hour when it arrived: he’d announced that he would hire Camelot Security, but only if he could have Katie.

He’d said it just like that, too.
Only if I can have Katie
. A week later, the memory retained the power to send shivers skittering up her spine.

Or it usually did. It was a little hard to get swept up in her Judah fantasies with Sean sitting next to her, emanating stony disapproval of … something. Her being assigned to work with him. The way she breathed. Her boots. Who knew?

“Katie?” Caleb interrupted her reverie.

“What?”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“Sure.” She rewound her brain, hoping to locate some phantom memory of what he’d said when she wasn’t paying attention.
Nada
. “What did you say?”

“When did you stop listening?”

“Uh, payroll?”

“Never mind. The upshot is, you’ve still got your old job when you come back.”

“Yeah, but after I completely blow your socks off, you’ll need someone else to do my old job.”

“Please don’t try to blow my socks off. Be safe.”

“Right, right.” She turned into the gas station. “I’ve got to go.”

“One last thing.”

“What?”

“I want you to keep your distance from Pratt.”

“Caleb—”

“No, I’m serious. Sean, I need your help here. Keep the guy away from my sister. I don’t trust him not to take advantage.”

Katie pulled to a stop beside a pump, her blood boiling. There was overprotective, and then there was stifling. She loved Caleb and all, but she wasn’t about to let him smother her to death.

Sean had turned to look at her. He had the most astonishing eyes. Dark, dark blue, with thunderstorms in them.

She lifted her chin. “That isn’t necessary,” she told Caleb.

“I think it is.”

“No, it isn’t. If Judah wants to take advantage of me, I’m all for it.”

Sean blinked.

“Katie,” Caleb said, a note of warning in his voice.

“Stop. You don’t want to have this conversation any more than I do, so just drop it, okay?”

Sean got out of the car. Katie watched him go, uneasy but resolved. It was hard enough to defeat her own internal censor. She didn’t need two men dog-piling on to judge her ability to make decisions about her own freaking sex life.

Not that she had a sex life.

“Believe me, I would love to drop it,” Caleb said. “But I don’t think I can.”

“Try. I’m a grown woman. I have condoms. I think I’ve got this under control.”

Sean tapped on the passenger-side window and pointed toward the gas tank. Katie popped the fuel door for him, and he swept one open palm in the direction of the gasoline options. “The cheap stuff,” she said, loud enough for him to hear her through the window. He nodded and turned his back on her.

“I don’t imagine you care,” Caleb said carefully, “but I think your sleeping with Judah is a bad idea.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“It’s unethical.”

Now
that
was just unfair. Six months ago, Caleb had asked Katie if she thought it would be unethical for
him
to get involved with a client. She’d thought about it and told him no—that it depended on the situation, and in the situation he and Ellen had been in, it was fine.

She’d come to the same conclusion about this Judah job. It would be one thing if Judah were traumatized by fear, quaking in his boots and relying on Katie to keep him safe, but that just wasn’t the case. She was along for the ride. Why not make the ride a little more enjoyable—especially when Judah had made his interest in climbing aboard more than clear?

Maybe it wouldn’t be the smartest move of her life, or the most romantic, but “romantic” wasn’t what Katie was looking for from Judah. If she had to pick one adjective to describe what she was looking for, it would be “torrid.”

Or “inadvisable.” She’d never had inadvisable sex before. She’d had Levi, the high
school sweetheart who’d given her every single one of her firsts: first kiss, first sex, first orgasm, first wedding, first abandonment, first divorce.

Considering that Levi had walked out on her almost two years ago—two long, transformative, sexless years—and the ink had finally dried on her divorce papers a few weeks back, “torrid and inadvisable” sounded like just the ticket. Katie wanted to throw herself headlong into new experiences, skate the edge of recklessness, flirt with disaster.

All while behaving safely and responsibly, of course. No need to get Caleb’s panties in a twist.

Her brother was silent. He seemed to be waiting for a reply to a question she wasn’t sure she’d heard him ask. She tried out another “Mmm-hmm.”

“I didn’t even like the guy,” he said.

“I noticed that.”

“You can do better.”

Judah had unruly black curls and huge, dark eyes. He had a low, sexy voice that she loved to listen to when she was tired, lonely, and in need of a glass of wine.

And maybe it was starry-eyed of her, but she felt as though she already knew him from his music. When he’d said he wanted her on the case, she’d hoped it was because he shared that feeling of familiarity, and their deep, instant connection would lead to awesome conversation and multiple orgasms.

But really, she’d settle for a less-than-mystical experience if it meant she finally got some action.

“I don’t think I want to do better,” she said.

“Fine.” Caleb sounded resigned. “I’ll stay out of it. But I’m going on record as strongly disapproving.”

“Got it.”

The gas pump shut off with a hollow mechanical thump, and Sean turned to the machine to wait for a receipt, shoulders hunched against the January chill. The wind ruffled his short
blond hair and turned the tips of his ears red. He had to be freezing his ass off out there.

Katie was hoping Louisville would be warmer than Camelot had been lately. It was only a four-hour drive, but Kentucky was the South, right? Gray skies and freezing rain had been haunting central Ohio for so long, she could hardly remember what the sun looked like.

All week, she’d been dreaming of Kentucky bluegrass. Totally unrealistic, given the time of year and the fact that she was about to spend the weekend in some dank, beer-piss-smelling nightclub, but she couldn’t turn the daydreaming off. Her mind had a mind of its own.

“Let me talk to Owens,” Caleb said.

“What for?”

“None of your business.”

“Is it about work or my personal life?”

“Also none of your business.” His voice had gone all clipped. She wasn’t getting anything else out of him.

She tried anyway. “C’mon, Caleb. It’s my phone.”

“Put him on.”

“Yeah, fine. Okay.” She jimmied the phone out of its cradle and leaned way over to open the passenger-side door a crack. “Caleb wants to talk to you.”

Sean took the phone, and she closed the door, not wanting any more cold air to get into her toasty car than necessary. He walked ten feet away and lifted the phone to his ear.

She imagined what he’d sound like if she could hear him. He had an unusual way of shaping words. Every syllable came out perfectly enunciated, as if he had nothing better to do than tumble the sounds around his tongue.

She liked listening to him talk. Yet another reason it chapped her hide that he wouldn’t speak to her.

After a minute, he disconnected the call and folded himself into the car. He was too tall for a compact. Too broad, too. He brought the cold air in with him, and she could feel the chill coming off his black leather jacket and soaking into her right shoulder.

“You good to go?” she asked, putting the car in gear and releasing the emergency brake.

He nodded, eyes straight ahead.

“You wanna drive?” They’d already begun rolling toward the exit. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

If he thought she was funny, he didn’t show it. Instead, he waved her on, settled back in his seat, and closed his eyes.

Sean Owens: World’s Most Boring Copilot.

One of her favorite Judah songs came up on the stereo, so Katie cranked the volume and started to sing along, bouncing gently up and down in a low-key car dance.

Caleb couldn’t spoil this for her, and neither could Sean. Nervousness be damned—she was on a mission. She had sixty miles left to drive, a job to do, a future to claim.

Plus, if everything went according to plan, she was going to get laid this weekend.

This trip was the single most exciting thing to happen to her in a long time.

Read on for an excerpt from Ruthie Knox’s

About Last Night

Chapter One

The Pigeon Man was usually here by now. Tuning out her companion’s self-serving story for a moment, Cath double-checked the LED display suspended over the station platform. Ten minutes until the train. In this woman’s company, it would feel like a lifetime.

Resigned to her fate, Cath crossed her legs and relaxed back against the bench. At least she could enjoy the unseasonably cool morning—the first break all week from the miserable July weather that had been tormenting London.

“… and they told me it was the most brilliant way to add a tactile element to protest action they’d ever heard of. I happened to mention you wanted to put the piece in your exhibit, but they didn’t know who you are,” Amanda said, her prep-school English accent turning the statement into an accusation.

Cath perked up. “I’m with the V and A. They know the V and A, right?” She was a small cog, but she worked for a big machine. Surely even Amanda’s hard-core activist cronies had heard of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s world-renowned collection, even if they hadn’t heard of the upcoming exhibit on the history of hand knitting that Cath had been hired to assist with.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Amanda said dismissively, and Cath spotted the sun gleaming off the bald pate of the Pigeon Man as he made his way up the steps. He took his place in front of the map kiosk and fixed his eyes on the ground. Calm today, then. When he didn’t talk, the Pigeon Man could pass for normal. It was when he launched into agitated conversation with a stranger that he began thrusting his head forward in a bird-like manner and his beady eyes and beaky nose took on greater prominence.

He pulled a candy bar out of his pocket, and she remembered it was Friday. He was often late on Fridays, no doubt because he stopped at the newsstand to buy himself some end-of-the-week chocolate.

The thought caught her up short. Shit, did she really know the habits of the train station regulars that well? She did a quick survey of the sparsely populated platform. Emo Boy was wearing his favorite pair of skinny jeans this morning, and Princess had gotten her roots touched up.

Sadly, yes, she did.

“The next person who comes up the steps will be an older lady carrying a purse the size of a bus and a bakery bag with a croissant in it,” Cath said.

“What?”

“It’s a prediction.”

“You’re clairvoyant now?” Amanda asked, her pert nose in the air.

“Sure.” Cath was beginning to see how her pathetic store of knowledge might come in handy. “I know who’s coming up the stairs next, and I know you’re going to do the right thing and give me that straitjacket for the exhibit.”

Thinking of the exhibit reminded her that she and her boss, Judith, would be pawing through sweaters from storage this morning. Cath rummaged through her bag for her antihistamines, freed two from their hermetic blisters, and swallowed them with a sip of water. Curatorial work could be sneezy. She’d learned to arrive prepared.

As she slipped her water bottle back into her bag, Bus Purse came into view, right on schedule.

Amanda frowned and straightened up, trying to get a better view of the steps. “You can see down to the high street. That’s how you knew she was coming.”

“You’re closer than I am. Can you see down there?”

The frown deepened. “Well, you must be using a mirror or something. It’s not as if you’re capable of magic.”

“Wanna bet?” Cath answered, warming to the challenge.

Magic had never been her specialty, but she wanted that straitjacket. It had been featured in a widely covered protest demonstration Amanda and her buddies had staged outside the prime
minister’s residence a few years ago, and it would look fabulous on display, the perfect visual complement to the story the museum’s exhibit would tell.

Unfortunately, Amanda had a stranglehold on the thing, and Cath had known her long enough to understand she got a kick out of stringing people along.