Midnight Kiss (17 page)

But Elise was having a hell of a time accepting that Mrs. Castle could have had a hand in deciding to pursue the high-risk loans that had eventually crumbled the foundation of the sixty-year-old bank.

“Mrs. Castle?” Elise cleared her throat and tried to speak more loudly. “Did you understand what I told you earlier about the auction?”

“Of course I did, dear. Would you like a piece of candy?” She held out a bowl filled with the kind of old-fashioned ribbon candy they used to sell at general stores.

“No, thank you. I just want you to be aware that on
January 4 the bank will have a new owner. Simpson Finance.”

The woman’s eyes closed for a moment, and her smile finally faded. “Yes, I know. Simpson Finance. They took over a bank in Lincoln last year, and they’re still up and running. It’ll be fine, I suppose. It’s time for me to retire. I just worry about my little Johnny.”

Little Johnny? “Yes, well… I’m sure he’ll land on his feet. He seems like a smart…boy.”

“Oh, he is.”

A smart boy who was old enough to be a grandfather himself. Elise straightened her spine. This woman was the president of the bank and there were rules to be followed. Ninety years old or not, Mrs. Castle was going to get the spiel.

“Starting tonight, our forensic accountants will begin reviewing every account at this bank in an attempt to give the purchasing financial institution the most accurate account of bank assets—”

“Oh, I should hope so.”

“I should warn you…” Elise swallowed the sour taste in her mouth. She felt like she was threatening someone’s nana. “That any serious discrepancies will be turned over to federal prosecutors for further investigation and possible criminal charges.”

“Well, I’ve nothing to worry about there, my dear. Of course I don’t.”

“Your customers’ accounts are safe, up to and including the maximum amounts insured by the FDIC, and we will be here from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. to assure every one of your customers of the safety of their deposits. However, once you are escorted from the premises, you will not be allowed to return unless
you’re under the supervision of Mr. James or one of his team.”

She paused and searched Mrs. Castle’s face for some sign that she understood the permanence of all this. But Elise could make out nothing beyond the powdered, papery skin and the deep lines that framed her mouth and eyes.

A small, tasteful Christmas tree glowed behind her, the halo of white lights making the whole scene that much more surreal. Just as Elise decided that nothing was getting through to her, Mrs. Castle sighed.

“I suppose you’d better find me a good box, then. I’ve got to start packing.”

Hoping the woman’s gray eyes were simply watery with age and not grief, Elise nodded as she stepped out into the hall to call for a box. In the relative quiet of the hallway, she took a moment to remind herself that this was one of the happy endings. Yes, she was firing this sweet old lady, and John Castle would lose his job, as well, but the rest of these people would start the new year with a paycheck. So when a junior team member hurried over with a box, Elise forced herself to walk calmly into Mrs. Castle’s office and help her begin to pack. She could do this for her, at least.

Then the long hard work of combing through the accounting would begin.

I
T ALWAYS FELT GHOULISH
taking over someone’s abandoned office. Elise had refused to take Amelia Castle’s office, so she’d been left with John’s instead.

Seven hours into the takeover, she was too tired to sit down, so she stood at the black window and stared out. The cold glass poured icy air over her face, helping to rouse her a little. Blinking lights lit up the neighborhood beyond the parking lot. Wreaths hung on the doors. Most of the windows were dark now, but the houses still looked cozy.

Families were in those homes, exhausted from the holidays. Happy and tired. Elise wished she were at home. Better yet, she wished she could go back two days to Christmas itself and curl up on the chair in front of her little fireplace. Or best of all, she’d return to a previous Christmas where she could be with her dad. She missed him so much.

The one place she didn’t want to be during the holidays was here, at this bank, stuck in close quarters with Noah James.

“Someone’s funneling money out of this bank.”

She jumped in shock and knocked her head into the glass. “What?”

“Are you okay?”

She waved an impatient hand as she turned toward
Noah. He stood in the doorway like an avenging financial angel. Hopefully he couldn’t see the forehead print of makeup she’d left on the glass behind her. “What did you say?”

“There are discrepancies. They’re small but consistent.”

“Seriously? Someone’s embezzling from
this
bank?”

“Money is missing.”

“How much?” she demanded.

“The individual amounts are small enough not to draw attention, but I don’t have a definite figure yet.”

“So, not a lot. Come on, Noah. Even I can tell these people are apple-pie, small-town folks.”

“Small-town folks are no different than you big-city types, Elise. Some are good, some bad.”

“Do
not
try to tell me old lady Castle is a bad seed. For God’s sake, I thought she was going to make me a sandwich!”

He shrugged, the hardness of his face not even hinting at softening. “If not Mrs. Castle, then her son. You don’t really think she’s been running things, do you?”

Elise frowned down at her coffee cup, feeling suddenly exhausted. She liked these people. The old woman who still came to the office every day. The son who’d come in to help carefully pack up his mother’s office. They were real people. Good people. Elise
needed
them not to have dark, hidden sides. It was just too damn close to Christmas to deal with that kind of crap. “She claims to still be in charge of day-to-day operations.”

“John Castle says he started taking over some responsibilities in 1998.”

“Regardless, I don’t believe the Castles were stealing money from the bank.”

“When did you grow a heart?”

She snapped her head up and glared. “Excuse me?”

“And a soft one at that.”

“There’s never been even a hint of suspicion about their business practices. They’ve filed every report we’ve asked, taken every measure we’ve suggested and—”

“There’s a hint now. I’m heading over to the other branches to make sure everything is running smoothly, but when I come back, I’m going to concentrate my efforts on those missing funds.”

“Fine.” She closed her eyes. He thought
she
was heartless? He was an ice-cold bastard and always had been. “But you’re wasting your time.”
I hope.
“Wanna bet?”

She rolled her neck, trying to ease some of the strain from it. It was one in the morning, and though she’d started sending team members back to the hotel in shifts, she was going to be here until 6:00 p.m. the next day. “Sure. I’ll take that bet, if only to teach you a lesson in humility. And
heart.
How much?”

“Oh, I didn’t say anything about money, Elise.”

Her weariness vanished like a popping bubble, and her head snapped up. He’d said her name like a dare, as if he meant to demand something from her. A forfeit. A prize. A kiss.

Ridiculous. His face didn’t hint at anything more than anger.

His gaze dipped for a split second, brushing over her mouth.

“Um…”

He just stared, ignoring her uncomfortable squirm.

“Not money?”

He raised his eyebrows. “No.”

This uncertainty pissed her off. Elise set her jaw. “What, then? Are you going to lay your manly pride down on the table as a prize?”

His eyebrows lowered. Two spots of pink burned into his cheekbones.

Oh. Elise took a deep breath and replayed her words in her mind. She couldn’t stop her face from heating. “I mean…not your…I meant…”

“My pride, huh?” he said roughly. His gaze slipped down her face, and for one frightening, exhilarating second, she was sure he was glaring right at her mouth. Then he smirked. “Yeah, sure. Why the hell not? I’ve managed to restock. Pride, it is.”

Elise’s mind spun, and by the time she’d righted herself, the doorway was empty and Noah was gone. She pressed her fingertips to her mouth and cursed. Kissing that man had been a horrible, awful mistake. Even two years later she couldn’t quite believe she’d done it.

This was going to be one hell of a long week, and with Noah James around, she wouldn’t get one second to relax. He’d make sure of it.

E
XHAUSTION FELT LIKE
anger. At least it always had to Noah. He’d been working for more than twenty-four hours without a break, and he’d been awake much longer than that. Now as he stared at the man standing before him in the parking lot, all Noah wanted to do was yell.

He didn’t.

“Sir, the bank is closed for the evening, but it will open again at eight tomorrow morning, just like always. I promise you that your money is safe.”

The middle-aged man waved a pillowcase around and screamed that he wasn’t going to let the government steal his hard-earned cash. Noah tuned him out and watched the tirade turn to clouds of white in the frigid night. Man, it was cold. His own breath froze against his lips like dry ice. He wanted to be anywhere but here, being yelled at by a stranger.

Maybe exhaustion wasn’t anger, maybe it was just a need to escape. Or maybe it was irritating introspection.

He stifled a yawn.

A security guard approached the door from inside the bank, and Noah waved him off before returning his attention to the irate customer. “Sir, I understand your frustration, but the bank closed two minutes ago. Not
because we’re shutting it down, but because of normal business hours. If you’ll—”

The bank door opened, and Noah turned to snap at the security guard, but found himself scowling at Elise Watson. Well, what the hell. She deserved a scowl too.

“It’s all right, Mr. James. Let him in.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” She must be as exhausted as Noah. The rest of the team worked in shifts, but the team leaders often refused the breaks. She’d ordered Noah to take a break at 10:00 a.m. today. He’d ignored her. And he knew for a fact that Elise hadn’t let up once.

Unlike Noah, her weariness didn’t look like anger. As the muttering, hunched customer pushed past her without a word of thanks, Elise’s face looked soft and sleepy, as if she didn’t deserve a scowl at all. Damn.

She held the door open and Noah slipped inside before locking it behind him. A glance at the teller line showed Lara smiling and speaking calmly to the man, but he shook his head and waved his pillowcase around. The teller began counting out bills.

“He called a half hour ago,” Elise explained quietly. “Told us to have his money ready to go. It’s only seventeen hundred dollars. I don’t want him losing any sleep over it.”

“Or God forbid, taking his story of government hooligans to the local news.”

When she tilted her head up and met his eyes, Noah felt his heart stop. And when a slow, tired smile crept over her face, his heart started again with a crazed rhythm.

“Exactly,” she said softly. An innocuous, everyday
word that sounded impossibly sexy coming from Elise’s mouth.

For a long moment, Noah couldn’t recall what the hell they were talking about. Then her smile faded and she looked tired again.

“You should go back to the hotel,” he said. “Get some rest.”

She shook her head. “The team…”

“There’ll be here for another two hours, and they’ve already had a full night’s sleep.”

Her eyelids moved slowly when she blinked, but she glanced around and shook her head again. Noah didn’t know why he felt protective. Elise could take care of herself, and this wasn’t the toughest case they’d ever worked. But she looked so…vulnerable. Elise Watson,
vulnerable?
Man, he really was tired.

“Come on. We’ll both call it quits,” he offered. “Have you eaten dinner?”

She shot him a guilty look.

“Lunch?” The last customer scurried past, still glaring with righteous suspicion, despite the fact that they’d willingly handed over his money. “All right,” Noah sighed as he locked the door behind the man. “Grab your stuff. We’re leaving in two minutes.”

“But I need to—”

“They’ve got your cell number, Elise. They’ll call if they need you.”

The lobby hummed with quiet work as the last two tellers counted out their money drawers. Lara laughed at something one of the loan officers said. There were no crises in the offing. No swelling tension.

“I’ll buy you a beer,” Noah said.

“Two minutes,” she said over her shoulder as she hurried away.

The surge of triumph and anticipation that flooded his blood was something Noah chose to ignore, because he did have his pride, damn it, even if it had been so thoroughly battered and bruised by Elise two years before.

He checked in with the guys working the computers in the back room. He called the men in charge of supervising security at the other two branches. He looked over the latest numbers in the forensic investigation. And his heart never once settled back to its normal beat.

Exhaustion made him angry. Or maybe it just made him need…something.

“O
H, MY
G
OD
,” Elise groaned. “Oh, God, that is so good.” Pleasure swarmed over her in little pinpricks of relief. Eyes closed, she moaned as she pressed the bottle of golden joy to her cheek.

Noah cleared his throat. “You really needed a beer.”

“You have no idea.” She took another long draw of the bottle, but she was already anticipating the margarita she was going to have next. It wasn’t her fault. She’d settled on a chile relleno, so the margarita was required by federal law.

She let her head fall back to rest against the booth. They were alone here for all intents and purposes. The only people staying at the hotel were working for her, and at the moment they all seemed to be either working or winding down in their rooms. If there was anybody
else here, they were hidden by the six-foot-tall walls of the booths.

“Thank you so much for pulling me out,” she sighed. “Sometimes when I get tired, I just get more and more focused, until I can’t see at all. That’s probably what happened in Madison….” Elise regretted the word before it left her mouth, but Noah didn’t seem to notice her hesitation.

“That was a tough job.” He took a swig from his own bottle. Elise watched the muscles of his throat work, strangely fascinated by the rough look of his jaw. He needed a shave. His light brown hair was sticking up where he’d run his hand through it. He looked more like a bank robber than a federal employee. It didn’t help that he’d slipped off his jacket and loosened his tie. As she watched, he began to roll up the sleeves of his plain white shirt.

She wouldn’t stare at his hands. She wouldn’t. Lusting after his hands had gotten her into trouble that first time. His fingers were long, but not slender and pretty. They ended in blunt lines and square nails, and his hands were so
wide.
Something about the sight of them made her weak and stupid.

She dug a fingernail beneath the label on her bottle, determined to distract herself. “You know, that was my first takeover.”

“I remember. It must have been an awful way to start. That one was hard even on the veterans.”

Lately, she’d been thinking a lot about Madison, and it wasn’t only because she’d worked closely with Noah on that trip. The Madison job had been close to Christmas, too, and the weather had been brutally cold. But there the similarities ended. The Madison
bank had been too far gone. There hadn’t been one interested buyer. And Elise and Noah and the rest of the team had been in charge of laying off ninety-three people only two weeks before Christmas. Some of the employees had been angry, but most of them had been terrified.

One of Elise’s most vivid memories was locking herself in the bathroom stall to cry. The other one involved Noah James and his hands. And that straight, unyielding mouth of his. It was softer than it looked. That knowledge only added to the general feelings of sorrow that still clung to her thoughts of Madison.

She sighed hard. “Do you remember the senior teller? She’d just bought her first house. She kept whispering ‘What am I going to tell my kids?’”

“It was bad,” Noah said softly. “But this trip…this trip is better.”

“I’ll drink to that,” she answered, clinking her bottle softly against his and averting her eyes from his fingers curved around the glass. They both finished off their beers just as their dinner arrived.

“Two more beers?” the waitress asked with a wink.

Noah nodded, but Elise shook her head. “A margarita on the rocks for me. And…” The tension still shrieked in her shoulders. “Two shots of Patrón?”

Noah raised his eyebrows in a challenging look, but he didn’t say no. She hadn’t planned on anything more than a tension-breaker, but she was now wondering what Noah James would be like after a few drinks. She couldn’t quite imagine it. A picture of him loose and happy flashed through her mind, and Elise couldn’t stop her snort of laughter.

He’d just opened his mouth to take a bite of his bacon cheeseburger, but he lowered his food. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Frowning, he muttered something like “Nothing, my ass,” and Elise had to stifle another snort.

Then the drinks came. And the shots.

Half an hour later, Elise was laughing so hard that tears leaked from her eyes. “Shut up,” she gasped.

“And the last ones out of the hotel were Tex and some woman twice his age—”

“No!”

He put a hand over his heart. “I swear to God, he stood in the parking lot wearing nothing but his boots and a pair of boxers, completely unselfconscious. As soon as the fire alarm stopped blaring, he started introducing everyone to his ‘friend’ Jeannie, who, by the way, was wearing a bathrobe and a wedding band and not much else.”

“Who was she?”

“I have no idea, but she raced back in with Tex as soon as the fire department gave the all-clear. And that was our trip to Lubbock. Those Texans really know how to run a bank into the ground.”

Still smiling, Elise sipped the last dregs of her margarita and resisted the urge to order another. The shot had been too much. The second round of tequila had been way over the line. She needed some sleep. She needed to regroup. What she did not need was to get sloppy drunk with Noah James.

But she had found out what Noah was like under the influence…he was exactly the same: controlled, quiet and handsome as hell, though he did smile a little more.

Those occasional smiles were killing her.

She remembered now what had led her to kiss him in the first place. Watching his hands. A few drinks. A few of those rare smiles and she’d been melting all over. Just like she was now.

But at least now she knew better. A few smiles did
not
mean that Noah James wanted to be jumped. What a shame. It was the least he could offer for being so stubborn on every single job.

The last time they’d worked on the same team, he’d publicly defied her orders that he discipline one of his team members. They’d fought that out in her office and reached a tentative truce, but…

Elise frowned. “Hey, did you tell Michael Valdez he could fly home tomorrow?”

“Yes. The bulk of his duties are over and his mom is having surgery.”

“Don’t you think you should’ve at least run it by me?”

“I meant to. I got distracted by the embezzlement.”

“The embezzlement.” She rolled her eyes. “Why are you always such a pain in the ass?”

“Why do you think I’d make up missing funds?”

“That’s not what I meant. It’s just…everything. I feel like you’re always fighting me, and I don’t know why.”

“The flight was canceled, Elise. I had nothing to do with that. What should I have—”

“You stole my promotion,” she bit out. Silence followed her words. Even the quiet music playing in the background seemed to pause. Elise held her breath
as Noah leaned back and picked up his empty beer bottle.

He rolled it in his hand. “That was a lateral move, not a promotion.”

“It was
my
job.” She leaned forward to glare at him, but her anger only made him smile.

“Obviously it wasn’t.”

“Everyone knew how much I wanted it.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I didn’t know anything about it. I just knew I needed to get the hell out of D.C.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, so it had
nothing
to do with me?”

His gaze flew up to meet hers, and her breath hitched at the brightness in his pale blue eyes. Hot emotion flamed in their depths, but she couldn’t decipher it. “Nothing at all to do with you,” he murmured.

He was lying. He was lying, but she didn’t know what she’d done to make him so mad he’d interfere with her career. “Damn it, Noah. I don’t know why you did it, but I
needed
that job.”

“You didn’t need it as much as I did.” His jaw was so tight that his mouth hardly moved when he spoke, and Elise was tumbling through anger and confusion. What had she ever done to him? She was the one who’d left Madison humiliated.

“I needed it,” she said again, “because the rest of my life was going to Colorado. My boyfriend took a job in Boulder in June. Or should I say
ex
-boyfriend? He broke up with me because I couldn’t move with him!”

Her words rang in the small confines of the booth. She’d raised her voice. Maybe she’d even yelled.

Noah’s eyes narrowed slightly. He cocked his head and studied her face while she tried to control her breathing. “So,” he said thoughtfully. His eyes narrowed further. “Was this the same boyfriend you had when you kissed me two years ago?”

Elise gasped and sat up so quickly that her elbow banged hard into the edge of the table. “Excuse me?”

“Because he didn’t seem that important to you then.”

“You… I can’t believe you’d bring that up. I—”

“And since you were both willing to choose a job over the relationship, I can’t pretend to be prostrate with regret. Sorry, Elise. I guess that relationship wasn’t meant to be.”

Her mind spun like a top, buffeted from all sides. She was outraged and insulted and hurt. But she was also reeling because he was throwing her own lie back in her face and she didn’t know how to respond. She hadn’t had a boyfriend when she’d kissed Noah. She’d made that up to save face, but now it seemed like a juvenile response to an adult situation.
Oh, sure, I’m dating someone, too.

So on top of everything else, she now felt stupid and small.

Elise grabbed her purse and slid out of the booth. “Charge it to Room 207,” she growled.