Hard to Handle (7 page)

That made her giggle as she took the black stationery and looked closely at both sides. It had his contact information, and a website for Fortis Consulting, the front company used by field agents while working a case. If she was inclined to look it up, the unsophisticated site described the firm as simply providing security solutions and protective services to small or medium-sized companies.

“Okay, enough smart remarks, Blunt,” Sam said. “I'll take her home and connect with you later back at headquarters.”

“Sure thing, boss. Nice to meet you, Kaylee. Take care of that ankle.”

“Thanks, Raymond. Nice to meet you too,” she replied politely.

The two men nodded to each other, and Sam got behind the wheel and started up the truck.

“Where to, ma'am?” he teased, with a quirk of his lips. Kaylee giggled again. It was a really nice sound and made him smile wider. She gave him an address in East Harbor, right next to the marina.

Sam wasn't familiar with all the Baltimore neighborhoods, but knew that one was pretty high end. He looked over at his passenger, thinking he would check her identity later, if Raymond didn't do it first.

“How are you feeling?” he asked after driving in silence for a few minutes.

“My ankle is sore, but I think my pride hurts the most,” she told him, her face turned away as she looked out the window.

“You looked like you were in a rush when you left the building,” he commented. “Do you work at the
Journal
?”

“Yeah, I'm a staff writer. I was just running late to do an errand. Nothing important.”

They lapsed into silence again for the remainder of the drive. When he drove up to her building, Kaylee directed him to the underground visitors' parking. The security guard on duty checked his driver's license before opening the garage doors. Sam noted her prudent actions; by having him use the indoor parking versus something outside, she ensured his identity was documented before allowing him up to the apartment with her.

Pretty
and
sensible, he thought.

“This is a nice building,” Sam said as they stepped out of the elevators on the fifth floor. He carried her bag and held her firmly around the waist while she held on to his shoulder to hobble forward without putting weight on the right foot.

“Thanks,” she replied briefly.

At her apartment, the door had a keyless lock. Sam politely looked away as she entered the access code into the key pad. Inside, large creamy marble tiles in the entranceway led toward rich, darkly stained exotic wood floors throughout the space. As he helped her farther into the unit toward the main living area, Sam had the impression of simple furnishings with clean, modern lines and neutral, richly textured materials.

“Over on the couch would be fine,” Kaylee said after they had passed the high-end kitchen and a powder room.

Sam slowly helped her lower onto the tailored sofa so her right leg was stretched out straight on upholstered light grey wool suiting fabric. He gathered a few of the pillows on top, tucking two under her calf and one behind her back against the sofa arm to ensure she could recline comfortably.

“How is that?” he asked, stepping back to check his work.

“This is perfect,” she replied with a sigh. “I can't thank you enough for your help. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't been there.”

“You can thank me after I've finished the job,” he teased. Her eyes widened with confusion. “That ankle needs to be wrapped, and I want to make sure you can move around on your own.”

“Honestly, I'll be fine,” she insisted, sitting up straight. “See, I can already move it around a little. You've done more than enough already. I'll just call one of my friends for help if needed.”

“Do you have a tensor bandage or first aid kit?” he asked, walking back toward the kitchen.

“There's a kit in the guest bathroom, near the front door,” she told him.

“Okay. Any freezer bags?” Sam continued, looking around the neat, organized space. The only thing on the granite counter was a complicated-looking espresso machine and a paper towel holder.

“In the third drawer, next to the sink.”

“Painkillers?”

She let out an audible sigh. His back was to her, and he grinned a little.

“The last cupboard, on your right.”

Sam followed her directions, getting all the necessary supplies together. He could feel Kaylee's eyes on him, watching his actions the whole time. Fifteen minutes later, he was kneeling on the floor next to the sofa, inspecting his work. Her swollen ankle was wrapped with a roller bandage and had a cold compress pressed on it, and she had two aspirins and a glass of water within easy reach on the coffee table.

“Okay, now you can thank me,” he declared.

Kaylee raised her eyebrows, assessing him with those rich brown, gold-flecked eyes.

“Okay. Thank you for your high-handed, stubborn assistance,” she said with a sugary-sweet smile.

Sam chuckled easily.

“You're welcome, darling.”

The endearment hung in the air, inappropriate for their brief acquaintance but accurately reflecting the easy connection. Kaylee looked down at her wrapped foot, but Sam's gaze remained fixed on her very pretty face. Something about this petite stranger pulled at him, stirring up an odd mix of affection, protection, and attraction. Now that she was patched up and comfortable, he should say his good-byes and leave, get back to work, close out the Clement Media investigation. But Sam found himself lingering, looking for another opportunity to tease her, put another smile on those very sweet lips.

Kaylee looked up at him again, and they glowed with awareness. Then she glanced down at his mouth.

Shit. He liked her. A lot. And the realization hit him hard and deep in the gut.

Sam's phone vibrated with a message, breaking the tense silence. Kaylee looked away again. He took it out of his pocket to read the note from Raymond.

“I have to get back to the office,” he said.

“Of course.”

“Do you need anything else before I go?”

“No, I'll be fine.”

Sam took a business card similar to Raymond's out of his pocket and put it on the coffee table next to the aspirin.

“Send me a message to let me know how you're doing. But don't hesitate to call me if you need to,” he instructed as he stood up.

“You don't have to—”

“I know,” he interrupted. “I want to.”

Kaylee looked up at him with surprise, and he felt a tangible connection between them.

“Okay,” she finally replied.

Sam smiled, transforming his usually stern expression into one that was boyishly charming. Kaylee grinned back before he walked silently out of her apartment.

CHAPTER 7

“Jason Holt isn't very good at corruption,” Sam said.

It was close to six o'clock that evening as he and Raymond reconvened in a meeting room on the ground floor of the
Baltimore Journal
building. Their client, George Clement, was joining the meeting by video conference from his corporate head office in Washington, D.C. The grainy digital image clearly revealed the angry determination on his face.

“We have now confirmed three instances where Holt has accepted bribes, in cash, for influence at the
Journal
,” concluded Sam. “The good news is that he appears to have acted alone, and we have not found any signs of wider-spread corruption.”

“Sir, we've sent you a final report with all the details,” Raymond added. “But as you suggested when you hired us on Friday evening, he has been compensated for directing newspaper coverage toward, or away from, certain stories. As far as we can tell, all three bribes appear unrelated and opportunistic. He was paid in cash, but there was plenty of evidence, between his messages on his personal cell phone, banking transactions, and purchase records.”

“How much was he paid?” George Clement asked.

“We're not certain, but we estimate somewhere between twenty- and forty-thousand dollars in the first two cases,” Sam explained. “We intercepted the cash for the third payment late this afternoon. It was fifty thousand.”

“As you'll see in our report, the first two were with local businessmen who paid to have articles written for extra publicity,” Raymond continued. “The last is not as clear.”

“Mr. Clement, on Friday, you suggested the briber was somehow connected to city hall, maybe the comptroller's office?” Sam questioned.

“Yes, based on the information I was given,” George confirmed.

“The challenge is that all the communication to Holt was done through an untraceable mobile phone,” explained Sam. “We know he received a call from that unregistered number on Thursday afternoon, and he called back on Friday. There were several calls between them on Monday, with a final text message at four twenty-seven
PM
saying, ‘The package is on its way.'”

George Clement sighed with obvious frustration.

“Sir, do you have any idea who at city hall may be involved?” asked Raymond.

“No,” George stated. “I only know that Jason pulled a writer off a story after she questioned city employees. I just assumed someone there was involved.”

“Maybe,” Sam mused, stroking his short beard. “But it would have to be someone pretty high up and very ballsy. They would have done some pretty fast research to know that Holt could be bought.”

“Or they had worked with him before,” suggested Raymond.

Sam nodded at the possibility. “In either case, we'll start with what Holt knows.”

“I've asked my chief editor at the
Journal
, Mark McMann, to handle the dismissal,” George explained. “He's asked Jason to stay for a late meeting, and I'll ask Mark to question him about who paid the bribe.”

“Okay. While this concludes our original mission for you, Mr. Clement, we would be happy to start a new assignment, pursuing the identity of who paid Holt. In which case, one of our agents can assist with his questioning.”

“Thank you, Sam. You and your team have delivered the results I needed, as promised. And I appreciate the offer, but let's see what Mark discovers, then I'll decide what to do next. I have your number if I need it,” George said before they ended the meeting.

Sam and Raymond began to pack up the various computers and devices for their makeshift control center.

“I have one of the analysts at headquarters running a security check on all the other employees at the paper,” Raymond noted. “Should we hold on that until we get further instructions from Clement?”

“How long will it take to complete them?” asked Sam.

“A couple of days, at least.”

Sam thought for a moment. “Let's limit it to just the writers and editors for now. It would be helpful to have them completed if he wants to look further into the situation.”

On Tuesday, just before six o'clock in the evening, Sam was tapping lightly at Kaylee Stone's apartment door after being announced by the front doorman. She opened it wearing a black tank top and grey pants in a soft, jersey fabric. Her face was fresh and clean of makeup, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail.

“What are you doing here?” she asked after waving him in and limping toward the kitchen.

“I told you earlier in my text message that I would check on you,” Sam reminded her, shutting the door and following her slow path.

“I thought you meant with a phone call or something,” she explained with a sigh.

Sam shrugged. “I was in the neighborhood.” She raised her brows with obvious skepticism. He shrugged. “How did you make out through the day?”

“My boss wasn't in the office today, so I was able to work from home,” Kaylee explained as she eased carefully into a dining room chair.

“Are you still in pain? Maybe we should take you to the medical center, or your family doctor,” he suggested, bending down on his haunches to look at her still bandaged ankle, now visible below the hem of her pants. It looked much less swollen.

“It's tender but not too bad. I'm sure it will be fine in a couple of days,” she told him.

Sam straightened his back to look up at her from his low position. She looked sweet and comfortable in her casual clothes, yet with a hint of sensuality simmering just beneath the surface, as though enticing him to uncover it. And there was no doubt he was enticed. Thoughts of her had continuously disrupted his attention and focus over the last fourteen hours.

What about Kaylee, exactly, had captured his attention? At twenty-nine years old, Sam met pretty women all the time. He had a great appreciation for the wide variety of feminine attributes that made them all uniquely attractive. He enjoyed their company when it was mutually convenient, but moved on once the connection ran its course. His relationships in their various forms had all been effortless and uncomplicated. Yet the incessant feeling in the pit of his stomach was telling him that Kaylee was anything but that.

Even now, as they looked at each other for longer than was polite or casual, Sam knew he was well off his game.

“So, how did you develop such a good bedside manner?” she asked with a teasing smile. “On-the-job training?”

Sam chuckled. “You could say that. People occasionally get injured in my line of work. Knowing what to do in a pinch comes in handy.”

“That sounds intriguing. What exactly do you do?”

Sam slowly straightened up until he was standing.

“Security consultant,” he told her, walking toward the kitchen. “Can I get you anything? Something to drink?”

“Hmmm. Coffee would be great.”

“I could murder a cup myself. Okay, let's see if I can figure out this machine,” Sam added as he inspected the fancy and obviously expensive espresso machine. There were four glass mugs stored on top.

“It's easy, fully automatic,” Kaylee explained. “The beans are already loaded, so you just need to press the green button.”

He shot her a sheepish look, then followed her instructions.

“How do you take it?”

“Black,” she answered. “But there's cream in the fridge and sugar in the cupboard.”

Sam took out both for his brew, and walked back over to the dining table with both.

“Thank you.”

They savored the rich flavor for a couple of sips.

“Security consultant. Is that like a bodyguard or something?”

He smiled. “Or something.” Kaylee raised her brows at his evasiveness. “It's a little more complicated.”

“Very intriguing,” she said in a dramatic whisper, her eyes twinkling. “So, shouldn't you be guarding someone or something right now, instead of babysitting me? Not that I don't appreciate the attention. And the coffee.”

“No need to be concerned. I'm between assignments right now,” Sam told her with a charming grin. “You can appreciate the attention, guilt free.”

Her lips split into a wide smile, and she burst out laughing. It was a soft, rich, genuine sound, revealing the sweetest dimples in her cheeks. Sam could not hold back his own deep laughter.

“Are you always this charming?” she asked when they had both quieted down.

He shook his head, chuckling again. “No, not at all, actually.”

“Really? Then you must be a natural. You're pretty good at it.”

Sam rubbed at his stubble-covered jaw, hiding another grin. They shared another few moments of fleeting glances and knowing smiles.

“Any plans for the evening?” he finally asked while standing up and gathering their empty coffee mugs.

“I was going to go dancing, but I'm open to other suggestions,” Kaylee quipped with an impish shrug.

“How about dinner? We could order something in.”

“Okay, dinner it is,” she agreed. “There's a pretty good Chinese restaurant nearby.”

She placed the order, requesting her usual, and Sam nodded at each without any additional suggestions. He helped her get settled on the sofa, where they chatted about their backgrounds until the food arrived. Kaylee was great at asking questions, so it was mostly about Sam and his move from Britain to the United States two years ago. His condescending anecdotes about “Yanks” had her doubled over with laughter.

“Was it difficult, relocating to a new country?” she asked when they were both finished eating and sitting on the living room sofa.

He shrugged. “Not really. I traveled a lot in Europe and had worked here for a few months prior to that,” Sam explained.

“Doing the same thing? Security work?”

“Law enforcement.”

“You were a police officer? That doesn't surprise me,” she acknowledged, looking him over with an assessing eye. “Do you miss home? Your family?”

“It's just my mum and dad. They're still in Scotland, outside the tiny village near Inverness where I grew up.”

“A country boy?”

Sam nodded. “Dad still runs the farm, mostly growing vegetables and raising sheep. At one point, when I was about four, we had some cattle. I remember watching my father milk the cow every day and really wanting to try it. Then one morning, Dad was doing a fence repair or something, and I decided I could do the milking on my own.” He smiled at the memory. “I got the bucket and stool he always used and set it up beside the nearest cow and I started tugging away, squeezing like how I had seen him do it. But nothing happened. I was only at it for a few minutes, until Dad came up behind me and he said: ‘Little Mac, that's not a cow. And, son, that's not a teat.'”

Kaylee's eyes opened wide.

“Turns out I was giving the bull a good time,” he finished, and she burst out laughing. “I swear that bull had his eyes on me for weeks after.”

“He fell in love!” she gasped, pressing a hand to her chest while trying to catch her breath.

“Seems so,” he admitted while chuckling.

“Do you still have magic fingers?”

Sam stretched out one of his large hands between them, turning it back and forth for examination.

“They're not as soft anymore, but I haven't had any complaints.”

He held his breath as Kaylee brushed her fingers along his palm. The light touch sucked the breath out of his body.

“I guess some like things more rough,” she teased softly. But the second the words came out, soaked in sexual innuendo, her eyes widened with awareness. She immediately sat back from him and tried to get up on her still sore ankle.

“Hey,” Sam said, immediately reaching out to steady her with a light hold on her arm. But Kaylee shuffled away farther, moving until she was standing beside the sofa, holding on to the arm for balance.

“Sorry, I shouldn't have said that,” she stammered, looking down at her feet. “I was just joking around. It was stupid.”

“I know that, Kaylee,” he replied, staying a couple of steps back from her with his hands in his pockets. “Don't worry about it.”

She let out a deep breath, clearly still embarrassed.

“Thank you for dinner,” she added, still not looking at him. “And everything else.”

Sam nodded, sensing her withdrawal and feeling really disappointed.

“Would you like me to go?” he asked, preferring to speak directly.

Kaylee finally looked straight at him. Her rich brown eyes glittered brightly with mixed emotion. But she didn't reply right away. Sam took a step closer, as though drawn by the intensity between them.

She let out a deep breath. “I think that's probably a good idea.”

“Okay,” Sam told her with a soft, patient smile. “I had fun.”

He intended to walk past her in front of the sofa, toward the front door, but Kaylee looked up the moment their shoulders were adjacent. He was struck by the vulnerability and disappointment on her face and could not resist the urge to reach out.

“Kaylee,” Sam whispered in a low voice, not sure what exactly to say. She leaned forward, closer, and he did the same until they were so close they were almost touching.

Sam paused, waiting for a sign that she wanted him to stay, and very aware that she had just told him the opposite. Her eyes flickered over the features of his face before dropping to his lips, but still he resisted the urge to kiss her. He raised his hand up, the same one she'd brushed so gently only moments ago, and stroked the back of his fingers along the line of her cheek. They both gasped at the spark that flared from the touch, and Sam slowly leaned close until his lips touched hers.