The Pint-Sized Secret (6 page)

His gaze clashed with hers. Though there was a teasing glint in his eyes, she couldn’t help thinking he was dead serious when he asked, “So, where do you put all that money, Brianna?”

She forced a lighter tone into her voice. “Maybe I gamble,” she suggested. “Maybe I have a thing for expensive jewelry and it’s all socked away in a safety-deposit box.”

He laughed as if he found the responses every bit as absurd as she had intended. “And maybe you just don’t see the point in spending a lot on a place where you spend so little time,” he suggested mildly, giving her choice a surprisingly innocent spin.

“Exactly,” she said, seizing the explanation. “Now, if you don’t mind, I really do have work to do, and I’m sure you have better ways to spend your Saturday.”

“Actually this suits me just fine. I said I’d help and I will. What needs to be done first? Don’t be shy. I’ve done my share of hard labor. I spent one backbreaking summer in the oil fields at Dad’s insistence. I survived that. I can survive whatever chores you’d like to assign me.”

Daunted and admittedly a little intrigued by his persistence, she tested him by pointing to the hall closet. “The vacuum’s in there. The mop’s in the kitchen. All the floors need doing.”

“You’ve got it,” he said willingly, then caught her arm when she would have headed for the stairs. “There’s just one catch.”

She bit back a sigh. “I should have known. What is it?”

“I take you out for a nice, leisurely lunch when we’re finished.” Before she could protest, he added, “Topped off by some decadent, gooey dessert.”

Brianna laughed at his triumphant expression. Clearly he was convinced he knew exactly how to tempt her. And the sorry truth was, he did.

“How did you know my weakness for decadent desserts, Mr. Delacourt?” she demanded, trying hard to imply that he’d obviously been poking around in highly classified documents to learn that tidbit about her nature.

He winked. “Sweetheart, I know more about you than you think, and what I don’t know, I intend to find out.”

Threat or promise? Brianna wondered, suddenly nervous all over again. But there was no backing out now, not when he was already turning on the vacuum and attacking the carpet with a vengeance. She’d just have to keep her guard up. Unfortunately, that was rapidly getting to be easier said than done. Jeb Delacourt had a nasty habit of surprising her in ways that made him more and more appealing.

He, however, considered this to be a very clever way of getting to poke through all the rooms in his chief suspect’s house. It gave him plenty of time to check out her possessions, to determine if she was living beyond her means.

Unfortunately, he had to admit all of the evidence pointed to the opposite. If anything, Brianna’s lifestyle appeared spartan. The furniture was comfortable, but not new or expensive. There were a few pictures on the walls, but most were prints, not originals. The china closet held an assortment of elegant dishes and crystal, but the sets were by no means complete, suggesting that what she did have had been wedding presents. The dust he found on them when he ran a finger over the surface of a plate suggested they were seldom used.

So what
did
she spend her money on? Was she just a very frugal woman? Was she simply salting it away for retirement? He certainly hadn’t believed for a minute her deliberately taunting remarks about throwing her money away on gambling or investing in jewels.

Just when he was concluding that perhaps his suspicions were unfounded, he came to a locked door. He tried the handle twice to be sure the door was locked and not merely stuck. Why would a woman who lived alone need to lock a room? What did she keep hidden behind that door?

As with most interior locks, this one could be picked in a heartbeat, but not with Brianna just down the hall. If she found him inside that room, no explanation he came up with would be good enough. He decided to try an innocent game and see how it played out.

“Hey, Brianna,” he called.

She poked her head out of the room he already knew was her home office. When she saw where he was standing, did her complexion turn pale or was that his imagination? She took a step toward him, then seemed to force herself to stop.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Do you want me to vacuum in here? The door seems to be stuck.”

“Leave it,” she said readily, perhaps even eagerly. “There’s nothing but a bunch of junk in there. I use it for storing boxes I haven’t unpacked.”

The explanation made sense on the surface, but it didn’t satisfy Jeb. Why lock a room if the only things in it were junk that hadn’t been unpacked? His imagination, already stirred, ran wild. He began to envision boxes stuffed with…what? Hundred-dollar bills? Jewels? Stolen equipment? A spy’s home computer hookup?

He needed to get a look inside that room, but it was impossible today. Resigned to leaving it for another time, he merely waved an acknowledgment to Brianna, switched the vacuum back on and moved down the corridor as if he’d accepted her explanation at face value. He noticed that only when he was well away from the mysterious room did she retreat into her office once more.

A half hour later he was finished with the vacuuming and mopping in the kitchen when a brainstorm struck. He poked his head into Brianna’s office.

“Okay, boss,” he said with a mock salute. “I’m done. What’s next?”

She glanced up distractedly as if she’d almost forgotten he was there. Her blue-green eyes seemed to take a moment to adjust. “What?”

“Anything more for me to do?”

“No, I think you can get time off for good behavior,” she said with a smile that almost seemed genuine. “Thanks for the help, though.”

“You ready to go to lunch then?”

She shook her head. “Not just yet. I want to go over these reports one more time. You can go on, if you have other things to do.”

She was still trying to get rid of him, he thought with something that bordered on irritation. If his ego were one iota weaker, he’d be insulted. There was no time for that, though, because he had a plan and she had just played right into it.

“I don’t mind waiting. In the meantime, why don’t I get started on some of those boxes for you?” he suggested.

“Boxes?” she repeated blankly.

Bingo, Jeb thought. There were no boxes in that spare room. He’d guessed as much. How would she handle it if he persisted?

“In the spare room,” he reminded her. “I could at least get them unpacked and you could put the stuff where you want it later.”

“Absolutely not,” she blurted.

For an instant there was unmistakable panic in her eyes. But she covered it quickly. A polite mask slipped back into place. He had to give her credit for putting on a terrific act, when it was obvious that he was too close to some secret she didn’t want to share.

“I just meant that you’ve already done way too much,” she said in a rush. “If I haven’t needed what’s in those boxes by now, then it’s probably not important.”

She dropped her pen on her desk and stood up, brushing at imaginary lint on her jeans. “Maybe we should go to lunch. I’m sure I’ll be able to work better after I’ve had something to eat. I missed breakfast completely.”

Jeb seized on the remark, which directly contradicted what she’d told him earlier about her whereabouts. Had he just caught her in another lie? “I thought you told me you’d been out to breakfast with a friend.”

Bright patches of color flared on her cheeks. “True.” she said, clearly improvising. “But I didn’t feel like having anything more than coffee.”

Jeb didn’t believe her tortured explanation for a minute. But why lie about something so innocuous? Where had she really been so early in the morning on a Saturday? Had she been getting together with a contact to reveal more Delacourt secrets?

Rather than exonerating her as he’d begun to hope he was going to do, it seemed he was accumulating more and more circumstantial evidence against her. Lies on top of lies. A secret room. And behavior that he could only describe as edgy. She wasn’t forthcoming about even the simplest things. There had to be a reason for it, and he doubted he was going to like it.

He met her gaze evenly, watched as her chin lifted a defiant notch.

“Do you want to go to lunch or not?” she asked, her gaze unflinching.

“Oh, I definitely want to go to lunch,” he responded. There were too many things about Brianna O’Ryan that fascinated him.

Unfortunately, not all of them were suspicious.

From the moment he’d shown up in her office, she had suspected that he was after something. She had worked at Delacourt Oil for months without catching more than a glimpse of him. Now he’d paid a visit to her office, taken her to a very public event and shown up on her doorstep, all in one week. She doubted it was because he’d suddenly found her irresistible.

Since he was impossible to shake, she knew she’d better confront him directly—and soon—or she would make herself crazy wondering. She vowed to make it the first topic of conversation once they reached whatever restaurant he’d chosen for lunch.

But instead of heading for some casual outdoor café suitable for their attire, Jeb stopped his fancy sports utility vehicle in front of a gourmet deli in a No Parking zone.

“I’ll be right back,” he promised, darting from the car before she could question him or point out the likelihood that he was courting a ticket. Maybe such mundane things as parking tickets didn’t matter to the very rich.

He returned much faster than she’d anticipated, and he was carrying a huge picnic hamper. “Since it’s such a beautiful day, I thought we’d go to a little park I know. Okay with you?”

“Sure,” Brianna said, more charmed than she cared to admit. She’d figured him—all of the Delacourts, for that matter—as see-and-be-seen types. Of course, she was hardly dressed for one of Houston’s best restaurants or country clubs and, after his efforts with the vacuum and mop, neither was Jeb. Maybe this was all about protecting his image, rather than taking her on some romantic little excursion.

Thoroughly frustrated, she sighed heavily. She was usually good at reading people. Why couldn’t she get a fix on this man? Probably because he didn’t want her to, she thought wryly.

“What?” Jeb asked, glancing at her as he wove through heavy Saturday traffic.

She forced a smile. “Nothing.”

“It didn’t sound like nothing.”

“Just relaxing. You know what they say—taking a deep breath and releasing it not only cleanses the lungs, it also restores the spirit.”

“Is that so? I must have missed that. It sounded to me like the sigh of someone with a whole lot on her mind.”

Brianna chafed at his easy reading of her moods. “Isn’t that pretty much what I said?” she retorted testily.

“Not really. So, what has you stressed-out?”

She wondered what he would think if she blurted out that he was the problem, he and his motives for seeking her out. Instead, she said, “Too much to do, too little time. Isn’t that what keeps most of us all churned up?”

“Not me,” he claimed. “I’m a pretty carefree guy. Probably has something to do with running. After you’ve gone five miles in the morning, it’s pretty hard to worry about anything else. It’s a great stress reducer. You should try it.”

Brianna laughed. “I wouldn’t make it around the block.”

“Why not? You look as if you’re in pretty good shape.”

She winced at his less-than-dumbstruck reaction to her body. “Thanks, I think.”

He regarded her with amusement. “We’re not talking about beautiful,” he noted, “which you are. We’re talking about fitness. Don’t you have to be in good shape to go hiking and climbing around prospective oil sites?”

“I suppose,” she conceded. “I never thought much about it. I just do it.”

“It’s not a job for a desk-bound weakling,” Jeb pointed out. “Do you ever get to a gym?”

“Never,” she admitted. When would she fit that in? During one of the six or seven hours she now managed for sleeping? The closest she came to having a real fitness program was climbing up and down the stairs to her office at Delacourt Oil headquarters at least once a day. It was great for the thigh and calf muscles, to say nothing of her cardiovascular system. She was hardly ever breathless when she reached the fourth floor, but she was usually very grateful that her office was no higher.

“Maybe we’ll go running together one morning,” Jeb suggested. “You could come out to our beach house for the weekend. That’s the best place for a morning run.”

Brianna ignored the casual invitation to spend a weekend with him, refusing to take it seriously. Instead, she concentrated on the supposed purpose of such a visit. “I’d never keep up and you’d be frustrated.”

“Darlin’, seeing you in a pair of running shorts might frustrate me, but your pace wouldn’t bother me one bit,” he teased. “Think about it. I’ll bet once you got started, you’d be hooked for life.”

Brianna doubted it, and decided to change the topic. “You mentioned a beach house. Has it been in your family for a long time?”

“Years,” he said. “My brothers and Trish and I love it, but my mother hated it. She would never have set foot in the place if she hadn’t enjoyed mentioning its existence so much. She felt it gave her a certain cachet to be able to say she’d spent the weekend at her beach house. Dylan bought it from my parents a few years ago. Now it’s pretty much a weekend bachelor pad.” He glanced at her. “I was serious a minute ago. We could go sometime.”

A whole weekend with the man, when she could barely keep it together for a few hours? Not likely. Brianna shook her head. “I don’t think so, but thanks, anyway.”

“It’s a big house, Brianna, a place to relax and get away from everything. I wasn’t suggesting anything else.”

She didn’t believe him for a minute. Jeb was a very virile male. If he invited a woman away for the weekend, it wasn’t to take walks on the beach and play cards. She met his gaze, though, and for once his expression was absolutely serious.

“You’ve obviously spent too much time listening to all the office gossip,” he scolded mildly. “If I’d done half of what I’ve been accused of doing, I’d never be able to drag myself into work.”

“What’s the old adage? Where there’s smoke there’s usually fire.”

“I date, Brianna. I’m single. Why shouldn’t I? But I don’t engage in casual affairs. There are plenty of women who like to imply otherwise for reasons of their own.”

“Such as?”

“You’d have to ask them that. Maybe it’s as simple as hoping that a little talk will make it so.” He shrugged. “Those are the ones I never see again, so it pretty much backfires if that was their intention.”

She had a feeling he was giving her a rare glimpse into his head, maybe even into his heart. “If they’re so willing, why not take what they’re offering?” she asked.

“Sex is easy. Too easy. Relationships are hard and, in the end, they’re the only things that matter. I guess I’m holding out for something that matters.”

Brianna shivered. She’d never met a man who actually believed that before. Most were all too eager to accept easy sex. If Jeb was actually telling the truth—and she had no reason to doubt him—it said a lot about his character. He wasn’t the kind of man who would run when the going got tough. He wouldn’t abandon a wife and an injured child when they needed him the most.

She might not understand his motives, she might be concerned about all this sudden attention—but one thing was clear. Jeb wasn’t a thing in the world like Larry. Which was too bad, because as much as she would like to have a man like that in her life, Jeb Delacourt was still the last man it could be.