Money Shot (3 page)

She gaped at him with perfect sincerity this time.

“Most people ignore kids who look like that,” he said, pointing his chin toward the girl behind the register. “Or worse, they don’t see them at all. But you? You called her by name.”

“Well, sure,” Goose said stupidly. “What else was I supposed to call her?”

“It was enough that you thought to call her anything.”

“Enough for what?”

“For me to decide you might be deeper than your lip gloss, Agent di Guzman.”

“Goose.” She frowned at him, stung. “If we’re going to insult each other, we ought to be on a first-name basis.”

One pale brow headed for the ridge of stubble that served as a hairline. “I thought your name was Maria.”

“People call me Goose.” She shrugged. “From di Guzman. Or maybe from the fact that I was an incredibly tall, awkward teenager.” She gave him a smile that invited him to share the joke, but he didn’t return it.

“I’m not insulting you, you know.”

“You just called me shallow.”

“I said I suspected you were shallow.” His eyes drifted north, to her perfectly acceptable—if, okay, impractical—beret.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“I also said I was wrong.”

She gave up trying to work up an appropriate hauteur. The guy did brutal honesty better than most. She suspected it wasn’t a choice so much as a case of his simply being wired that way. “So, Rush.” She took a moment to appreciate the irony of calling this fiercely deliberate man Rush. “Tell me about the Radical Agrarian Party.”

“Not much to tell.”

She treated him to a stern dose of his own silence, which he acknowledged with a smile so faint she felt more than saw it. She couldn’t have enjoyed a victory more if she’d battled a chess master to checkmate.

“My aunt—” He tipped his head toward the counter and lifted a brow.

“Lila?”

“Yeah. She thinks I spend too much time alone.”

Goose put on an expression of polite disbelief. “You?”

His lips twitched. “She likes to arrange outings for me.”

She indulged in an expectant silence until he cleared his throat and said, “Volunteer opportunities, mostly.”

She maintained her silence with an almost vindictive glee.

“With kids,” he said. He shifted. Cleared his throat again. “She thinks they’re a good warm-up.”

She took pity on him. She was, as he’d noted, a basically kind person. “For?”

“I think she’s working me up to something more age appropriate. Interaction with my peers, maybe.”

He said it with a heartfelt resignation that had a reluctant smile curving her lips. “Poor baby.”

“Thank you.”

They shared a moment of companionable silence. Then she said, “So how does this tie you to the Radical Agrarians?”

“It’s a long story.”

She let her smile grow. “I’ve got all day, Rush.”

 

GOOSE
. HOW could a woman who looked like this let people call her
Goose
? And she wanted to know about the Radical Agrarians. Crap.

“I’m a party of one, which you already know,” Rush said as she settled in across from him with every appearance of comfort. She crossed those long, slender legs again, one booted foot tick-tocking casually in the air as if her chair weren’t as miserably uncomfortable as his. Why the hell Lila had chosen to furnish her shop with furniture two-thirds normal size, Rush would never know. The woman was nearly as tall as he was. “None of the others are old enough to vote.”

“I see.” She tapped glossy lips with pretty pink nails. “And the point of launching a party with supporters who can’t actually go to the polls is what now?”

He tore his eyes from those pursed, candy-colored lips.
Jesus, Rush, focus
. He wasn’t what you’d call articulate on a good day. How was he going to explain exactly why he’d signed his name to those stupid papers if he was wondering what her lip gloss tasted like?

“Don’t you remember being sixteen?” he asked, a little desperately.

Something flared in her eyes, and recognition caught in his chest like a clenched fist. Rush had seen it before, that sharp intensity of sorrow and grief. Over and over, he’d watched battle-hardened soldiers collapse under the weight of it like a house of cards. But this woman—this shiny woman with her silly hat and her dark sad eyes—she just smiled around it.

“Well enough to know that there’s a pretty good reason we don’t let teenagers vote,” she said.

“Point taken. And yet you can’t deny that a sixteen-year-old is fully capable of adult thoughts and ideas and emotions.”

“I wouldn’t deny it. But I would argue that he’s entirely without an adult’s capacity for patience, reason or delayed gratification.”

“But should we keep him locked into the
child
box just because he isn’t quite ready for the
adult
box?”

She studied him. “You think not.”

“I don’t think anything.” He spread his hands, at a loss to explain himself much further. “I just—for one afternoon—challenged some kids to go beyond complaining and into problem solving. They’re going to inherit a complicated world in a few years. Better for us all if they hit the ground running.”

“So the Radical Agrarian Party was an experiment,” she said slowly. “A forum for teenagers to act and think on an adult level. A way for them to participate in the democratic process, to float their ideas about how to make our nation a better place and get actual, real-time feedback?”

“Exactly.” He took a moment to envy the verbal dexterity that allowed her to sum up another person’s jumbled thoughts into a few perfect sentences. “All it took was a couple hours and signing my name to a few pieces of paper.”

“Whose idea was it to put offing the governor with a flaming pitchfork into the bylaws?”

“I believe that one was unanimous.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Guy’s kind of an ass.”

Her lips twitched with what he suspected was the first genuine amusement she’d shown all day. “And how will the kids feel about their little experiment putting you under investigation by the Secret Service?”

“Sobered, I hope.” He dropped his hands to his lap. “Only the young and foolish bait the government on purpose.”

“And you?” she asked. “How do you feel about it?”

“Being under investigation?” He met those dizzying, grief-drenched eyes. “I’m starting to see the upside.”

 

“ARE YOU?” Goose’s stomach clenched with an uneasy mix of nerves and heat, but she sent him her standard look of speculative assessment. The one she generally followed up with regretful dismissal. “That’s . . . flattering, really, but—”

“Why do you do that?” he asked.

She frowned. “Do what?”

“Flirt when you aren’t interested. Smile when nothing’s funny.” He watched her with eyes the color and texture of flint.

“I—”

“I’m not coming on to you, Goose.”

She snapped her mouth shut. “Then what was all that about seeing the upside of being the target of a federal investigation?”

“Just being honest. You’re attractive, sharp and clearly good at what you do. You’re messed up as all hell, but I seem to like that.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re excused.” He leaned in, put his palms flat on the table. The crazy urge to lean in to meet him seized her, and suddenly she
wanted
. Wanted to touch the hard plane of that cheek, the unforgiving slice of that mouth. Wanted to put her lips on the long line of his throat and pull the scent and the vital warmth of him into her lungs. Absorb the sharp sting of his honesty and the hot slap of his interest.

She reared back from it, from the punishing heat of her own want. Oh God. Not this. Not now.

“The sad fact is,” Rush went on relentlessly, “I like you. You want to investigate me, fine. I’ve got nothing better to do. Lila’ll be thrilled to see me interacting with somebody my own age. Go ahead. Follow me around, ask me questions, interview my neighbors. My life’s an open book. Start reading. But don’t expect me to pretend I don’t see what you are.”

She stared at him, the air driven from her lungs. Her blood beat madly in her temples, pooled hot and dangerous between clenched thighs. She barely recognized her own voice when she said, “And what I am?”

His hand opened on the table between them, his fingers long and tanned. Every cell of her body yearned toward him like a flower leaned into the sun. “You’re a lot of things,” he said softly. “Complicated. Beautiful. Harsh.” He closed his fingers into a fist—a somehow regretful gesture—and disappointment came down on her, crushing and shameful. “But mostly? Mostly you’re just sad.”

“Sad?” She summoned up a light laugh. “How positively gothic of me.”

“There you go again,” he said. “Laughing when nothing’s funny. That can’t be good for you.”

Her chuckle died on the vine. He rose and glanced at a silver watch Goose suspected could launch the space shuttle if necessary. “Last ferry’s at four,” he said. “Nice meeting you.”

She jumped to her feet on a breathless spurt of panic. She could wonder later why this curt dismissal hurt her. For now, she simply had to stop it. “Rush.”

He turned back, nothing but polite interest in his stony face. She hesitated, took her time arranging the camel-colored wool of her coat over her arm. He waited.

Finally she said, “I’ve got a job to do here. I’ll get it done faster with your cooperation.”

“You’ve heard my conditions.”

She swallowed even as her body burned with a treacherous heat. “Honesty. Nothing less.”

He studied her while her stupid heart galloped around in her chest, then nodded once. “Best get started, then.”

Relief buzzed through her, hot and startling. What the hell? She’d known the guy half an hour. When exactly had his approval come to mean something to her? She cleared her throat and stepped forward, near enough to shake hands if she wanted to. A good, friendly distance. Professional.

“So. Any chance you can point me to the Ranger Station?”

“The Ranger Station?”

“Yeah. Apparently it includes quarters for summer staff that are vacant for the season. My boss arranged for me to room there while I’m on Mishkwa.”

“I live at the Ranger Station, Goose.”

“Oh.”

“Alone.”

“Well.” She had a near-hysterical urge to laugh. “I won’t be a bother. I’ll stay out of your hair, promise.” Oh God. He didn’t
have
hair. And what little he had, she wanted to be in so badly she could taste it. What was
wrong
with her?

“What if I want you to bother me?” His eyes were hot and silvery, and her knees went weak. Ridiculously, shockingly, girlishly weak.

“Well.” She patted his arm. It was like tempered steel under her hand, and her palm tingled with a completely inappropriate appreciation. She withdrew it hastily and dredged up a friendly smile. “I’m sure we’ll manage to keep things professional.”

“Honesty, Goose.” He shook his head. “This won’t work without it.”

“I’m doing the best I can,” she snapped. “There’s a fucking lot of pheromones flying around here, though. Give me a break.”

She broke off, aghast at her language. Her tone. Her
honesty
. Oh God. She was falling apart. She was. She was sixteen again and racing heedlessly into a firestorm of raging desire. Again. And Rush was going to watch it happen. How could he miss it when he was staring at her with flat, unreadable eyes, likely as startled by her outburst as she was?

Then he smiled. Slowly. It moved over the stern, unforgiving bones of his face like the rising sun moved over a cliff, transforming rocky harshness into breathtaking beauty.

“Let’s go.”

She blinked, still stunned by the smile. “Go?”

“Next door.” He shook his head at her beret. “You’re staying on Mishkwa, you’ll need decent gear. Ben’ll figure you out. Come on.”

He seized her hand in his, and a heady sizzle shot up her arm straight to the base of her skull. He marched toward the door, and she stumbled along behind him.

“Oh, and Goose?”

“Hmm?”

“For the record? When I do come on to you, you won’t have to wonder.” He sent her a look over his shoulder, his eyes molten silver. “You’ll know.”

She smiled brightly—perhaps moronically—at him. “Oh. Right. Um, thanks.”

He grinned at her. Actually grinned.

“Just being honest.”

RUSH WAS enjoying the feel of Goose’s hand in his—damn, how long had it been since he’d held a woman’s hand?—when Lila pushed through the swinging door from the kitchen. Goose yanked free of his touch like he was on fire.

“Rush? Before you go?”

Right. Lila had wanted to talk to him about something. Which was why he was here in the first place.

“Sure.” He turned to Goose. “Mishkwa Island Outfitters is right next door,” he said. “Ben Barnes is the owner. Tell him I said you needed gearing out. I’ll be over in a few.”

“It was lovely meeting you, Lila,” Goose said with a bright smile. “And you, Yarrow.”

“You, too, dear,” Lila said, returning the smile with a beatific one of her own. Yarrow grunted. Then Goose shot out the door with a haste that bordered on insulting, all expensive fabric and exotic perfume. Lila turned speculative eyes on Rush. “So . . . she seems nice.”

“For a woman who thinks I may be gearing up to assassinate the governor.”

Lila gave this an airy pass. “You walk around all day armed to the teeth,” she said. “What did you expect?”

Rush didn’t really feel like getting into the Radical Agrarian thing, so he just said, “You needed something?”

Lila sighed. “Oh, it’s nothing, but I thought you should hear it from me. It seems my dear neighbor Mr. Barnes has his shorts in a knot over the compost again.”

Rush glanced automatically toward Ben’s place next door. Midsixties with the build and endurance of a guy thirty years younger, Ben ran an outfitter in the summers and built birch-bark canoes by hand in the winters. A pretty straightforward guy for the most part, but not overly patient with Lila’s kookier endeavors. Probably didn’t help neighborly relations at all that Lila had the
kooky
market pretty well cornered.