Surrender to Temptation (Agent Lovers Series Book 1) (22 page)

“Hey!” Jennifer shook the water out of her hair and glared over the table at her friend.

“You looked like you needed a little cooling off.” Liz grinned boldly at the couple. An instant later, she dropped the bucket onto the patio tiles and ran away screeching as Jennifer and Chris chased her through the backyard.

She darted back and forth on the grass like a rabbit, trying to escape her pursuers. By constantly changing direction, she managed to keep from being caught for a while. But as her lead got smaller, she cut off in a wide arc toward Gray and, with one great leap, found safety in his lap. “You have to protect me!” She laughed and clung to him, warily keeping her eyes on her approaching pursuers.

“You’re going to drag me into this now too?”

Despite the cold shower that had soaked his T-shirt and jeans, Chris smirked as he delivered his threat to Gray. “Hand her over, or you’re next!”

Gray’s answer was a deep, hearty laugh. He was clearly enjoying having Liz’s arms and legs wrapped around him. Jennifer pulled on one of Liz’s arms, which she’d wrapped tightly around Gray’s neck, and swore loudly. “Let him go! It’s your turn! Help me, Chris!”

“As long as she is clinging to him like a leech, we don’t stand a chance.”

“So then we’ll just have to throw him in too.” Jennifer made another unsuccessful attempt at prying Liz loose from Gray, but all the pulling and tugging didn’t help. Liz remained parked in Gray’s lap, where she sat snickering at them.

“You wouldn’t dare throw me in the pool,” Gray declared happily. He’d all but forgotten about his anger toward his brother, but those feelings came rushing back a moment later.

“Do it! Throw him in with his clothes on. He’s used to that,” Jeff called from the pool. He laughed at the glare Gray threw him.

“If
I
land in the pool with my clothes on,
you
will never get out alive!” Gray warned him.

“Oh, no! I’m shaking in my boots!” Jeff laughed again and climbed out of the water, unable to pass up the opportunity. He sauntered over to the small group and squatted down behind Gray’s chair. Liz was still clinging tightly to Gray, and she winked over his shoulder at Jeff and grinned. No trace of fear.

“You’re already wet. Why don’t you just let them throw you into the water? They’ll be satisfied and the hunt will be over.” Jeff reasoned with Liz in the same tone one would use with a stubborn child. “That way, you’ll spare Gray from showing what a bad swimmer he is. He was never very good at it, and he was always trying to get me to teach him.”

Liz leaned back and looked at Gray in wide-eyed amazement. He suddenly looked as though he’d been sucking on lemons.

“You? A lousy swimmer? That thought would never have occurred to me.” Without answering her, Gray took Liz’s arms from his neck, stood up and pressed her into Chris’s arms.

“Excuse me. I have to attend to some urgent business that can’t be put off any longer.” Then he ran after his brother, yelling, “Stop right now so I can give you the beating you should have gotten a long time ago!”

Chris shook his head. He’d seen this altercation between the Blackwood brothers coming. In fact, given what he’d learned about the brothers’ relationship that morning, it seemed that the blow-up between the two was long overdue. Years overdue.

Chris ran a hand over his chin. That morning was the first time that Gray had gone into detail about his relationship with his brother. Even though they had known each other for years and had become good friends, Gray rarely spoke about personal issues or problems. Chris understood and accepted that. After all, there were things in his life that he didn’t want to talk about either.

Jeff shot past Chris for a second time. Gray right on his heels.
If Jeff would just quit taunting his brother with sneering laughter, he might have a chance of getting away
, thought Chris. But Jeff’s laughter was obviously costing him precious energy and robbing him of the air he needed to breathe. It didn’t surprise Chris that Jeff’s lead was shrinking.

In the farthest corner of the yard, between two small, fuchsia-colored ornamental bushes, Gray finally got close enough to dive for Jeff, and he tackled him to the ground like a football player. After a brief, fierce scuffle, Jeff lay face-down on the grass, his cheek pressed against the short stalks of grass. Gray sat on his back, pinned his brother’s arms with his knees and calmly crossed his arms over his chest.

“I’m waiting for an apology from you!”

“You’ll…have…to…wait…a…long…time,” came Jeff’s muffled reply.

“Yeah, well, we’ll just see about that!” Gray put the flat of his hand against the back of his brother’s head and pressed it firmly, so his face went deeper into the dirt. Then Gray bent over so that his mouth was only inches from Jeff’s left ear. “Do I hear an apology now?” He sounded as calm as if he were asking the time.

“Humph!”

“Was that a yes?”

“Humph!”

He eased the pressure on the back of Jeff’s head and lifted his face out of the dirt so he could get some air. When Gray didn’t hear an apology, he said, “I’m waiting!”

“Even if you hold my face in the mud for hours, you won’t get an apology from me!” Jeff spit grass out of his mouth and gasped for air.

“Fine, then we’ll save that part for later.” Gray jumped to his feet, pulled Jeff up from the ground and threw an arm tightly around his neck. Then, holding Jeff in a headlock, he dragged him with fast, determined steps toward the pool. “Let’s see if a refreshing bath will change your mind, or at least improve your disposition.
Now
we’ll see which one of us is an embarrassment in swimming.” With one quick move, Gray flung his brother away from him and into the water. But at the last second, Jeff grabbed his jeans and pulled Gray in with him. Gray hadn’t counted on Jeff’s speed, and he swore loudly as he plunged headfirst and fully clothed into the pool—for the second time in one day.

When he resurfaced, his brother greeted him with happy laughter. To be on the safe side, Jeff had put some distance between them and had taken up a position at the other end of the pool, from which he was keeping a wary eye on Gray.

Liz walked over, slid into the water and swam over to Gray with just a few strokes. She kissed him gently and ran the tips of her fingers over the deep frown lines on his forehead. She looked at him questioningly. “What was all that?”

Instead of answering, Gray turned to the side and threw Jeff a glare that promised revenge in the near future.

“Hey!” Liz took his face in both hands and gently forced him to look back at her. “That back there…,” she nodded toward the ornamental bushes without breaking eye contact. “That wasn’t just joking around, was it? How come? You’re brothers, after all.”

“No one wants a brother like him!” Gray said angrily. “He provokes me wherever and whenever he can. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember! I’d just had enough.”

“But I provoke you too.”

“That’s different.” Exasperated, he ran his hand over his face. “Jeff’s not like you. He does it for no reason. You have your reasons…” He sighed. “Even if I don’t really understand them.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Liz asked warily.

“Don’t get me wrong, Liz. Women aren’t easy for men to understand. You’re just wired differently. We
have
to be more indulgent with you.” The words came out sounding completely wrong.

“Oh really? We’re
wired
differently? And what about you? You think men are so easy to understand? We didn’t ask for your help, but you and Chris have taken over every decision about our lives. Neither of us wanted to move in here! We never had the
choice.
So we had to do something that would get us thrown out. The countertop didn’t do the trick, but we thought your car would. It all seems pretty understandable to me!” She looked at him resentfully.

“Of course it does. That’s because you’re a woman!”

She shouted angrily and struck the water so that it splashed him in the face, then swam to the ladder and climbed out of the pool. Cursing Gray and men in general, she ran toward the house and disappeared inside, ignoring him as he called after her.

“Liz, please come back! We’re not finished!” He slapped his palm on the water in rage. With an irritated look, he turned to his brother. “Perfect! This is all your fault!”

“
My
fault? Who was it that said women had to be indulged? That was all you.”

“Can I help it if she misunderstood me?” Gray looked around for back up. When he saw the ominous expression on Jennifer’s face, it occurred to him that he might have expressed himself poorly. She squatted down so she could get closer to him and leaned in with a look that clearly reflected her displeasure.

“The next time you want to play the knight in shining armor, ask if the person actually wants your help.
We
don’t! And we made that clear from the beginning. We could have recuperated very nicely in our own homes. Ever since we got here, you and Chris have treated us like small, immature children.” She stood and looked at him, grim-faced. “If you really think you can constantly ignore what other people want without there being any consequences, well then you aren’t as smart as I thought!” Despite the wet clothes that clung to her body, Jennifer whirled around with perfect grace and disappeared into the house with her head held high.

Chris stayed back so that Jennifer’s rage wouldn’t be directed at him too. As far as he was concerned, it was perfectly fine if only one of them bore the brunt of their anger.

He held out his hand to Gray and pulled him from the water. “That was sure to happen at some point, my friend.” Together they went back to the patio.

“I know. We should go check on them and make sure they aren’t up to something new. They’re certainly pissed enough to try something again.” Gray slipped off his wet things, dropped them carelessly on the tile and wrapped a towel around his hips. Chris nodded and followed him up the stairs to the second floor, the monitoring bracelets in his hand.

At first Jeff stayed in the pool, out of his brother’s direct line of fire, but eventually he got curious and climbed out of the water.
Why do they want to put those monitoring bracelets back on the women?
He followed Gray and Chris into the house. Liz and Jennifer impressed him as being very level-headed. Maybe somewhat brash and wild, but still quite reasonable. So, why the bracelets?

He took the stairs up a floor and discovered his brother and Chris listening intently at Gray’s bedroom door. Quietly, Jeff took a place next to them and pressed his ear, like theirs, against the door.

***

“So now what do we do?” Jennifer asked.

“I want to get out of here as quickly as possible—order from our boss or not! Who does he think he is…” Liz threw the towel she’d just dried off with onto the floor, “Talking to me like that! Just because I slept with him? I’m not going let him imply that I’m some kind of idiot!”

“Me, either! We had good reasons for our behavior. This is exactly how I was afraid they’d act if we got involved with them.”

“Don’t rub my nose in it!” Liz said. When Jennifer was right, she was really right. “Are you coming?” She didn’t bother to explain where, but Jennifer didn’t need an explanation.

“Of course! But we don’t have a car. How are we supposed to carry Brutus and Furball? I doubt Gray will loan us the BMW, especially after the mess we made of his Mercedes.”

“He doesn’t need to. Once we’re gone, they’ll be happy to send our pets back along with our things. We just have to get out of their reach and go convince Townsend to drop the order.”

“And how do you plan to get away from here? Hitchhike?”

“Yeah, right!” Liz shook her head. “I’ll just borrow the keys to Jeff’s Harley. They’re right in his jacket pocket.”

“Don’t you think they’ll suspect something, now that we’re barricading ourselves up here and avoiding them like the plague?”

“Hm…” Liz crossed her arms over her chest, pursed her lips and stared for a moment at the beige carpet. As she sank her feet into the thick pile, she considered their options. Then she looked up again with a smile. “We’ll just cozy up to them. For a couple of hours we’ll keep our distance and stay just friendly enough so they don’t guess we have something up our sleeves. Toward evening we’ll unthaw a bit more, and if they feel any distrust at that point it’ll disappear. Then as soon as they’re asleep, we’ll take off.”

“I
hope
they won’t expect anything! The last thing I want to do is stay here until the doctor gives his okay.”

“We’ll just have to play it by ear.” Liz pulled open the top drawer of the dresser, fished out some clean underwear and turned back toward Jennifer. “How do you feel about going down now and getting some lunch? Maybe we’ll even get a chance to grab the keys.”

Quickly the men abandoned their listening post, ran back down the stairs and huddled in the backyard.

“They want to steal my Harley! Do something!” Jeff demanded.

“No worries! Nothing will happen to your motorcycle,” Gray said.

“What did Jennifer mean about the doctor giving his okay?”

Sooner or later Jeff would find out, anyway, Gray realized, so he decided he might as well tell him now. “Liz and Jennifer were both seriously injured on their last job, including getting bruised ribs. Since I wanted to keep their families from learning about what they were doing, I brought them here to recover. I didn’t ask them whether or not they wanted to come here. It was authorized and approved by Townsend.” He went on to summarize the events that had led up to the women staying at his house.

“Well, of course, if
Townsend
signed off on the whole thing, who could question it?” said Jeff. “Welcome to the Middle Ages! You know, that’s one messed up stunt you pulled. What kind of a job did these two do exactly?” Jeff looked from his brother to Chris.

“The same kind Chris and I used to do, and that you still do.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Those two are in one of Townsend’s Special Forces units?” He looked from one man to the other in disbelief.