Christie Ridgway (5 page)

“If you’re interested in knowing everything about me, GND,” he said, “you’re about ten years too late.”

GND. If he wanted to slice her through with anything more than his chilly look and those flat words, then that was it. It was the nickname he’d given her before she’d left him, before they were lovers, before they

’d ever even kissed. It reminded her that first he’d been the sulking boy she’d made smile and that once she’d been his pesky Girl Next Door.

The one who had grown older, fallen in love, then run away from him. The one who was perfectly willing to run again, leaving behind the Merlot and the cheese straws, as well as her oldest best friend and her very first boyfriend.

Not to mention any chance she’d get a decent rest that night.

Ten minutes after his favorite bar closed and kicked his reluctant ass out, Finn pulled slowly up to his grandmother’s. Thank God it was legal in California to drive with only one 20/20 eye. Losing his license after losing so much else would have flattened him. Gram had left the icicle lights on for him, and he checked over his surroundings in their silvery glow. It was dark next door, and Bailey’s Passat looked as if it was as long asleep as the rest of the neighborhood.

With grocery bag in hand, he opened his door, climbed out of the SUV to come around the front of his car, then froze. In Finn’s business, the goal was to thwart an assault before it ignited. To that end, the men and women he worked with talked openly about their sixth sense—that combination of instinct and training that made them aware when something was out of sync. Hours of drills coupled with innate self-confidence taught them to rely on their ability to foresee danger in order to take quick preventive action.

While Finn had good reason to doubt the strength of his own sixth sense, he couldn’t deny that it was screaming at him now. He gripped the bag tighter, but kept his back turned.

“What do you want, Bailey?” Every hair on the nape of his neck said she was standing directly behind him.

“Well…I…”

He was going to turn right, he decided, walking past her to head straight into the house. Trading old times with Bailey would be like pulling a thin scab off a new wound. Though the hurt she’d given him was ten years gone, he had recent injuries he was doing his damnedest to heal.

“I’m not—” he started, turning.

It was the glitter that did him in. With it dusted across her cheekbones and sparkling in her hair, she looked like something that had been dipped in the Milky Way before landing on the driveway beside him.

That had always been the way of it between them. Finn with his feet in the gutter, Bailey looking as if she hovered above the ground.

With his willpower weakened by two whiskeys and a chaser of beer, how could he walk away?

Still, this was going to be her show. Drawing the liquor bottles in their brown paper wrapping closer to his side, he leaned his hips against the car and said nothing.

She didn’t either, not at first. But he doubted she possessed the deep well of patience he’d developed over the years that he’d stood post.

To prove him right, she cracked in less that sixty seconds. “Hey, look,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For tonight, at the store, of course.”

Well, of course. She wasn’t apologizing for stamping her size sixes all over his heart and soul ten years ago, and he’d be dead before he let her know he cared about that. Before he let her know
anything
, damn it.

Be cool, Finn. Ice
.

“I was naturally curious,” Bailey went on. She’d put on a parka over her sweater and jeans, but the very tip of her nose was pink with the cold.

He lifted his free hand to his eye patch. “Everyone is.”

“Oh.” Her hand reached out, as if she would touch him, but then it dropped. “I’m sorry for that too.”

The glitter in her hair framed her fine-etched features as she continued to study his face. She’d been petite as a child, and though she’d grown taller during adolescence, it hadn’t been much. He’d been endlessly fascinated by all the femininity contained in that small body of hers. “I…lost the original and fake eyes aren’t that comfortable,” he heard himself offer.

Damn. He hadn’t meant to volunteer a scrap.

Though instead of the pity he dreaded, his admission caused her to aim a cheeky little grin his way. It curved up the pink fullness of her baby-doll mouth. “Oh, be honest, Finn Jacobson. Admit you also like the whole Jack Sparrow pirate look-alike thing.”

“I’m taller than Johnny Depp.” And no one had been cheeky with Finn since his injury. Hell, since years before that.

“Oh yeah.” She was still razzing him. “And you have lots more muscles too.”

“What? So you ambushed me to issue compliments?”

Her teasing smile died, as did the sparkle in her eyes. “Finn…”

He wouldn’t regret his refusal to play. “What is it you want, Bailey?”

She gave a shrug. “I’m trying to be sensible, okay? I’m guessing we’re both here for the holidays.”

He nodded.

“My mother said your grandmother’s been sick.”

Finn tightened his grip on the bottles again. “She’s on the road to recovery. I’m here to see to that.”

“My mom and Dan are having some…problems, so I’m working at the store for them until the twenty-fifth. Not a day later, but still I’m sure we’ll be running into each other from time to time.”

He nodded again, but offered nothing more.

Her mouth turned down. “Do you have to make this so hard?”

“What do you mean? I’m not doing anything.”

“You are too!” She stepped closer, so that the toes of her soft suede boots were an inch away from his own scarred black leather.

“How?”

“Oh, please.” Her small hand wrapped his flannel-covered sleeve, and his forearm went steely at the touch. “I know you, Finn Jacobson, and—”

“Do you?” Suddenly it was too much. Her unexpected return home, the glitter on her beautiful face, the way he couldn’t ignore her touch. So much for ice.

He grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand off his arm, using the movement to yank her closer against him.

The sides of her parka parted and the white sweater she wore underneath met the buttons of his shirt.

“What the hell is it you think you know about me?”

Her eyes went wide and her pouty lips parted. He silently cursed himself for the loss of control, but he wasn’t letting her loose. Though his sixth sense was screeching at him like a parrot now, because he was trained to prevent attacks, not initiate them, the Princess Next Door didn’t have a clue who he’d become, and he needed to make that clear.

Maybe then she’d avoid him. Maybe then he’d find peace.

“What do you think you know, Bailey?”

She was breathing fast, and he could feel her small breasts rising and falling against him. He pressed his hips against the cold metal of the car so that she wouldn’t know what that small movement was doing to his cock. He hadn’t been this close to a woman who wasn’t a nurse in months, so it wasn’t his damn fault, but he didn’t want her to guess she was getting any more out of him than annoyance.

“What do you expect I do for a living?” he demanded.

She licked her lips, and he tried forgetting what they’d tasted like. “I don’t know. Do you…work on cars? Motorcycles?”

He released a short laugh. “I work
around
cars and motorcycles, I’d guess you could say.”

“Nice. Good.”

The light glinted off her wet lips, and he couldn’t look away from them. “Yeah. It would fit your expectations if I’m a dirt-under-his-fingernails grease monkey, wouldn’t it? And that years ago I knocked up some chick and had to marry her.”

She blinked. “You’re married? You have a child?”

“Three. Their names are Cobain, Grohl, and Novoselic.”

Her mouth pursed. “You named them after Nirvana band members? Now how come I don’t believe you?”

“Which part are you suspicious of, Bailey?” Not the notion he changed oil for a living, he bet. She’d run away from him ten years ago because she thought he wasn’t good enough for her.

“Make your point, Finn.” She struggled to get free of the shackle of his fingers, but he didn’t let go. “Tell me what you want to say and get it over with.”

How could you fucking leave me? How could you walk away without a word and leave that raw,
gaping hole in my chest behind?

It was hurting like it happened yesterday, but he knew that was because of Spencer. It was Spencer who had ripped him open again.

“I’m a Secret Service agent.”

Bailey had been struggling to pull away again, but now she stilled. “What?”

“I went to college, got a degree in criminal justice, then joined the Secret Service.” He gave a shake of his head. “Your obvious shock isn’t flattering, GND.”

“But…but…” Now she was shaking
her
head. “Rules, Finn. You were never good with rules.”

“Still a struggle.” Especially with the ones he made for himself. Regarding her. “However, I like the sense of purpose.”

“But…the
Secret Service
?”

“It was Tanner Hart who introduced the idea to me.” He didn’t bother reminding her of the Hart family.

There was a San Diego thoroughfare named after Walter Hart, Tanner’s grandfather, who had been a World War II ace. Tanner’s father and uncle had distinguished themselves in Vietnam, his brothers in Afghanistan and Iraq. A family peopled by famous military men. “Tanner and I met that summer I was twenty. Later, we entered the Secret Service Academy together.”

“I didn’t know…no one said.”

If Finn had to guess, it would be that she’d never bothered to inquire. “Gram is quiet about it. The service likes us to keep a low profile. When asked I most often tell people I have a government job.”

She stared as if seeing him for the very first time. He let her look, enjoying the idea that he’d knocked for a loop the girl who’d once knocked him on his ass and left him for dead.

“So, sweetheart, you don’t know me so well after all, do you?”

She rubbed at her forehead with her free hand, and he realized he was still holding her other one. He couldn’t seem to let it go. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Tanner. Tanner was involved with—”

“Don’t mention it if you see him.” Finn dropped her wrist and shoved his fingers in his pocket. It was time they both went to bed.

But she was frowning now and rubbing her forehead as if coaxing a memory to the surface. “That assassination attempt.”

Finn took a step around her. “As I said, don’t mention it if you see him.”

She caught his elbow in her own viselike grip and turned him toward her again. “Finn?”

Secret Service agents were known for their flat, cool stares. He could still do it one-eyed. “What now?”

Her gaze cataloged every feature of his expressionless face. Then her hand tightened on him as she spoke. “What did that have to do with you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, Finn,” she whispered.

He didn’t like that odd gleam in her eyes, or that she was touching his arm again, or the fact that he wanted to bury his face in her blond, glittering hair and lose himself in her scent. Damn those whiskeys!

“There’s nothing more,” he ground out, wrenching his arm from her grasp.

“There’s more. I know you, Finn.”

She didn’t, goddamn it. No one knew him anymore, least of all himself. He’d been a damn fine agent, dedicated to the job, one who never wearied of the constant training and the constant stress of searching for that one face in the crowd. Cool and collected in his dark suit and his dark glasses. But his usual detachment was so damn hard to find and hold on to now.

“You were there,” Bailey said. “Somehow. Somewhere. I’m trying to think…I’ve seen the video.”

“The whole damn world has seen the video.” Though the Secret Service had studied the tape over and over, it had also played for months on the news channels, the entertainment channels,
everywhere
.

“Until then I didn’t know that the Secret Service had a Dignitary Protection Division.”

Finn half turned, looking off down the dark street. “Besides the president and family and the vice-president and family, we’re charged with protecting foreign dignitaries visiting the U.S. Prince al-Maddah was assigned some of our best agents.”

“And the agents saved him.”

Seeing red, he rounded on her. He couldn’t help himself. “Is that all you remember?”

Her eyes went big again, but he couldn’t bleed the bitterness from his voice. “An agent lost her life, Bailey. An agent on
my
detail.”

“A woman,” she said.

“Ayesha Spencer. She was twenty-five years old and her name was Ayesha Spencer. When the murderer took his first shot, she did exactly as she’d been trained to do—stood tall and made herself a target for the gunman—then took a bullet in the neck, above the protection of her Kevlar vest.”

“Like I said, I’ve seen the video. She was a hero.”

“But green as grass and wholesome as apple pie to boot,” he couldn’t stop himself from muttering, though he managed to stop the next words from rolling out.
Shouldn’t I have sensed something was
about to go down?

Hell!

He was supposed to be icing all this emotion over, but the feelings continued boiling up inside him.

The Secret Service had an in-house team of shrinks who’d have happy hard-ons if only he’d let them out in a session, but that wasn’t going to happen. He could take care of himself. Service training involved learning to discern warning signs of severe stress, and he’d self-diagnosed himself just fine, thank you very much.

He’d prescribed the cure too. These few weeks with Gram, getting her well again, and then he’d be as good as before too.

“So you were there,” Bailey said. “Where, Finn?”

“You’ve watched the video,” he answered, suddenly too tired to avoid talking about it any longer. “The Service kept my name out of the press, and it’s mostly my torso caught on film. I’m the one you see shoving the prince into the limo. At the same time, I glanced over my shoulder to check if the enemy was closing in.”

“Go on.”