Authors: Kyra Jacobs
“Yeah, she’s Frankston’s secretary. She and Grace worked pretty close together.”
A grin played at his lips.
“Don’t even think about asking me to get her number for you.”
His eyes widened in mock surprise. “I would never—”
“Liar! You would too. It’s written all over your face!” I snorted, then added in a mumble, “Besides, the way she drives, I’m surprised you haven’t pulled her over yet.”
“So am I.” He waggled his eyebrows, then jotted down her license plate number on the corner of a separate sheet of paper.
Men.
We stuck around a while longer, identifying a few more employees returning from their lunch breaks. After a ten-minute lag in traffic, Nate decided he’d seen enough. He backed his car out onto the main road and headed back toward town.
“So, do you always spy on unsuspecting businesses during your lunch break?”
He glanced over at me, a smirk on his face. “Now, that’d be a conflict of interest, don’t you think?”
I narrowed my eyes. “Why do I get the feeling you’re the kind of guy who doesn’t always follow the rules?”
“I follow most of them. Let’s just say that I like to think outside the box sometimes.”
Just my luck—I’d partnered with a rogue officer. But as long as he covered my back, what he did at work wasn’t truly any of my concern. Or was it?
Nate pulled his cruiser to a stop in front of Marissa’s salon, and I made to leave.
“You ready for this?”
“Sure.” Ready for some answers? Yes. Ready to take a flying leap out of my comfort zone? Hell no.
He read through my bluff and gave me a grin. “You’ll do fine. Get in and get out. How hard can it be?”
* * * *
“How hard can it
be
?”
I was still in my room an hour later, standing half-naked in front of my full-length mirror, a mountain of clothes tossed onto the closet floor beside me. Where was Grace when I needed her? And why did I have to be so damned wardrobe challenged?
After what felt like an eternity—a painful eternity at that—I settled on a pair of black slacks and a silky fuchsia, long-sleeved blouse. I fluffed my hair, touched up my makeup, and splashed on touch of perfume. Then I slid into my open-toed sling-blacks, stepped over a sleeping Brutus, and headed out the door.
A
job
, I kept thinking as I drove. I’m on my way to apply for a
job.
But I already had a job. And clients. Would I be able to pull off working two jobs at the same time? I sure as hell couldn’t let my business go. No, I needed something to come back to once Grace returned to work.
Because someday she would return to work. She had to.
I pulled into Maxwell Office Solution’s parking lot and steered toward the front of the building, hoping for an open visitor’s parking space. As luck would have it, I found an empty spot halfway down the first row. I turned the engine off and peered out the windshield at the architectural marvel that loomed before me.
Had it been located downtown, the building would have no doubt taken up a city block. Its entire facade was made of alternating steel and black glass, giving Maxwell a sleek, yet intimidating aura. I tried to imagine working at such a place, being a worker bee in this fancy hive. The thought had my stomach in knots.
Cubicle land just wasn’t for me.
My gaze shifted from the building to my keys, still dangling from the ignition. Part of me wanted to restart the car. To just throw it into reverse and get the hell out of Dodge. The other part knew I’d never be able to live with myself if I wussed out now. The mental battle raged on in my head until the ringing of my cell phone distracted me.
“Hello?”
“You didn’t call to tell me you were done.”
I sighed. “Because I haven’t dropped it off yet, Nate!”
Silence. “But, it’s almost four o’clock.”
I glanced down at my dashboard clock and grimaced. It
had
taken me an awfully long time to change my clothes.
“You’re getting cold feet.” It wasn’t a question.
Cold nothing—my feet were two solid blocks of ice frozen to the floor of my car. “No, of course not,” I answered, doing my best to sound light-hearted. “I just…couldn’t find anything to wear. And Brutus was absolutely no help in the matter.”
“Really? Did I mention that I’ve got a remote spy camera on his collar?”
“You
what
?”
He chuckled. “I’m just messing with you. There’s no camera on there. Not yet, anyway.”
“Real funny, Steele, real funny. I gotta go—I have an application to turn in.”
“That’s my girl. Call me when you’re done.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
I hung up and cast one last glance in my review mirror. My eyes focused on the stranger looking back at me, and I prayed my disguise would be enough to fool them. For all our sakes.
Chapter 12
“So, Miss Future Maxwell employee, how did your walk go?” Nate set a box from Pizza King on the table, then stooped down to give his pooch a belly rub. Since I’d seen him last, he’d swapped his uniform out with a black t-shirt and button-fly jeans that fit him oh-so-nicely.
Not that I noticed.
I reached into the fridge and grabbed him a beer, and a Coke Zero for myself—me and alcohol were still on the outs. “For the most part, it went pretty well. But man, when your dog’s done, he is
done
.”
Nate gave a hearty laugh. “How far from home did that happen?”
“About three blocks,” I said, and threw Brutus an ominous look. “He weighs more than he looks.”
“Holy crap, you carried him that whole way back?”
“Carry him? No,” I said, setting our drinks down. “Drag him? Maybe.”
Nate took a seat at the table and offered his dog a sympathetic look. “Sounds like she won the battle of wills this time, buddy.”
Brutus whimpered and settled in at his feet.
The celebratory pizza had been Nate’s idea. The preemptive calorie-burning walk had been mine. It worried me that I was thinking about calories again. Usually that only happened when there was a new guy in my life. And right now there was no such thing.
“Well I had to do
something
with all that nervous energy.”
Nate cracked open his beer and raised it in a toast. “To your future career at Maxwell Office Solutions. May it be safe, successful—”
“And brief.” I winked.
“And brief.” He winked back, then downed a third of his beer.
“How long do you think it’ll take them to pick who they want to interview?”
Nate’s cell phone buzzed loudly somewhere below the table. He shifted to retrieve it from his jeans pocket. “Not sure, really. A few days, maybe a week at the most.” He flipped the phone open, glanced at it for a moment, then flipped it shut. “Shit.”
“Is something the matter?” I asked with a mouth full of pizza, curiosity winning out over manners.
He re-pocketed the phone and took a long draw from his beer. “No, it’s just…” He sighed. Drained the rest of his beer and snagged what was left of his piece of pizza off his plate. “Yeah, I gotta go.”
“What,
now
? But you—” I heard the disappointment in my voice and hoped it wasn’t as obvious to him. “Haven’t finished your pizza.”
“I’ll finish it in the car.” He raised the slice with a nod in my direction. “Congrats again, and thanks for the beer. We’ll have you in there in no time.”
I started to get up, but he motioned for me to stay put. “Sit. I know the way out. Enjoy the ’za, and call me when you hear from Maxwell.”
He headed for the front door, Brutus trailing close behind.
“Nate?”
He paused to turn his head back in my direction, blue eyes preoccupied. “Yeah?”
I hated the thought of being alone again, and fought the urge to ask him to stay. But I hated the thought of getting mixed up with a handsome, rogue cop even more.
“Thanks for the pizza.”
* * * *
Tuesday came and went without me hearing a word from Maxwell. Or from Nate.
So did Wednesday. And Thursday.
While I hated living in a perpetual state of anxious limbo, it couldn’t have happened at a better time. Because for some unknown reason, nearly all my clients went on a needy binge that week. They asked for updates, they asked for modifications. A few even requested quotes for expansion. I worked my tail off to keep caught up, just in case I got the call from Maxwell and the ball finally started rolling.
I headed to Metzler mid-morning Thursday, burned out on work and desperate to find some semblance of normal. In my purse I carried the latest edition of
Cosmo
and a few bottles of nail polish. It didn’t matter that my best friend was sleeping the fall away. I was running low on self-esteem, which meant I needed some girl time, and I needed it now.
An hour later, I was at Grace’s side, halfway through the magazine and waiting for her first coat of Passion Pink to dry. “Oh, Grace, here’s one for you and Matt.
Nine New Positions to Make Him
—”
“Jessica?”
I bolted upright. “Sharon! How, uh, are you?”
I moved to flip the
Cosmo
shut, and in my haste bumped the nail polish bottle. Thick, pink liquid poured out onto the table, then proceeded to spill down onto the leg of my favorite pair of jeans. “Crap!”
Sharon set her purse on a chair and hurried across the room to grab a handful of paper towels. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you! It’s just…your hair!”
“My hair?” I grabbed the towels from her and dabbed at my ruined jeans. Then it dawned on me that Sharon hadn’t seen me since my Monday transformation. No one had, except for Nate and a handful of my neighbors. “Oh, my
hair
.” I looked up and offered her a sheepish grin. “I just felt like doing something a little different.”
“A little different? Jessica, it’s…
dark
.” She took the soiled paper towels from my hands and handed me a few more clean ones. “But nice, of course. Has your mother seen it yet?”
“Nope. Figured I’d surprise her.” Technically, I’d hoped to get this undercover stuff done and over with so I could go back to looking like me and not have to surprise her. It would also keep me from having to answer a million questions about my new look.
“I’m sure you will,” Sharon said, and continued to stare at me like I was John Lennon back from the dead. “Did all this…” She waved her hand in the general vicinity of my head. “Have anything to do with that policeman you’re seeing now?”
Blast that infernal mothers network. “Oh, well I—”
“Policeman you’re seeing?” came another, deeper voice from the doorway. Matt stopped in his tracks. “Damn, Jess! What did you do to your
hair
?”
My visit to Metzler had suddenly turned into an impromptu meet-and-greet session. I threw him a dirty look and made a mental note to go back to my usual mid-afternoon time slot. “I decided to do something a little different with it for
me
, thank you very much.”
He shrugged. “Whatever floats your boat. So, who’s this cop you’re dating? Anyone I know?”
You could say that.
“No.”
There I was, lying again. But I couldn’t admit that he did—it would only have Sharon calling my mom that much faster. I crossed the room, discarded my remaining paper towels, and sighed at the sight of yet another nail job gone awry.
“So, what are
you
doing here, anyway?”
“I always swing by on my lunch break to peek in and see how Grace’s doing.” His gaze shifted to our sleeping beauty, and the playful grin tugging at the corners of his mouth faded. “I keep hoping one of these times I’ll walk in and she’ll be sitting up, waiting for me.”
Poor Matt. He looked like a little boy whose puppy had run away: sad with a side order of terrified, but topped with a healthy dollop of hope. He walked over to Grace, kissed her forehead, and whispered sickeningly sweet nothings in her ear. Sharon and I stood back and watched, hoping to see a sign of recognition appear on her face. Or any sign at all to indicate she’d heard him. But none came. After a few minutes, Matt sighed, and walked back over to me.