Hot as Hell (17 page)

“Is this the part where we get on a plane and leave?” Dex asked in a tone that suggested he was only half joking.

“Follow me here.” Noah sat the whole way up. The lazy sensuality that weighed him down disappeared in a flash. He was wide awake and in full business mode.

She loved him this way. Well, any way, but especially when he went after a task with a determination that did not allow for failure. It was just a shame he did not use that same skill on her.

“The evening of the murder, we were all in the dining hall then out on the patio for a party. That means—”

She understood where he was going and thought it was brilliant. “Who wasn’t there?”

“Exactly.” Noah swiped a small resort-provided notepad off the nightstand. “We figure out who isn’t accounted for and start there.”

Gray loosened his grip on the window. “Guess that makes you two innocent.”

Noah winked at her. “Innocent might not be the right word to describe us.”

“At least we didn’t kill anyone,” Lexy pointed out.

Noah just smiled. “There are hours left in the day. Give us time.”

T
wo hours later they had reviewed all of the resort employee information in the brochure stuck in the desk and pieced the rest together by using Dex’s laptop and the spa’s website. With the help of a hiking schedule that listed every guest’s progress, they had a list of everyone else on the grounds.

That was the easy part. Putting names with faces took much longer. Now they had to go through the pages of information and account for each person’s whereabouts during a short span of time when Noah was too busy ignoring the resort’s menu and Tate’s annoying presence to concentrate on the company.

Dex and Gray left earlier with a promise to stay out of trouble and jail. They were on the lookout for a fast-food fix, leaving Noah alone with Lexy.

They sat next to each other on the bed with their backs balanced against the headboard. The documents he had recovered from her room the night of the murder were spread out over her legs. The only thing Noah saw wrong with the arrangement was the fact they both still had clothes on. Then there was the part where Lexy focused only on the written lists in front of her.

He could have his jeans and T-shirt off in a second. Taking off the slim new cotton dress Lexy threw on before going to rescue Gray would not be much of a bother, either. Noah had been there when she scurried around the room trying to find something to throw on to get to her brother fast. He knew how little she had on under the bright blue dress. A tiny pair of white cotton undies. Nothing else, which is exactly what he could think about. Nothing else.

But all of her earlier talk of secrets and sneaking around clicked a switch on in his brain, one he could not turn back off no matter how many times he shut his eyes and tried. He knew the tenuous peace he now shared with Lexy could break apart into a thousand little pieces the minute he refused to fess up to some stupid detail about his past. If she got mad, he was sleeping alone. Possibly forever.

For a guy who prided himself on fast thinking, he had been slow to accept the inevitable. If he wanted to keep her—and he absolutely did—he had to open up the parts of his life he wanted to close off forever. He had to feed this insatiable need she possessed. The same one that washed over her at the most inconvenient times. Not that there were many convenient times, but she did have a habit of picking the worst.

He thought about the blackmail threats. The e-mails appeared to have no relationship to the murder, but Noah knew better. Coincidences, while fine in movies, happened rarely in real life. Putting the pieces together in a way that made sense would take longer.

That was a project for another time. There was no need to worry Lexy with that problem. Not when they had a murder to solve.

Work contracts and promises prohibited him from talking about much of his time in the military and working for the government. But he could share something. If he made her understand the regrettable years from his past, he could salvage something of their future together.

If not…well, he did not want to think about that option.

He searched his brain for a logical way to start the conversation. When that failed, he went for blunt. “I don’t talk about my marriage.”

“What?” she asked without looking up from the documents in front of her.

“It was an absolute failure.”

The papers rustled when her hand jerked. She pretended to keep reading, but he knew she concentrated on listening and nothing else. The pretense of her being relaxed failed when her neck straightened and eyes darted from the page to him and then back again.

“I’m not someone who fails at anything.”

An electric charge filled the air and a new alertness came over her. She lowered the papers to her lap.

“Karen wanted this fairy-tale life with a man who always agreed with her, never yelled, and did not suffer from any faults. I was the wrong guy. I couldn’t give her anything like that.”

Lexy looked up at him with a searching gaze. “You wouldn’t be able to give anyone those things.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“No human could live up to a standard with those prerequisites.”

That sounded a slightly less insulting. “I guess so.”

He wanted to pile up the blame and drop it on Karen’s doorstep, but that was too easy. Whatever she needed, he was too young or too something to provide it. That was the added burden that fell on him whenever Lexy complained about their relationship and insisted he bore the brunt of the responsibility. He had failed before and knew about the fallout.

As a guy without a sense of normal when it came to a home life, he tried the best he could. Knowing how it
should
be was the problem. How
not
to be a husband was ingrained on him from an early age. The rest of the rules he made up as he went along. And despite all his efforts, he kept getting it all wrong with Lexy, the one woman with whom he had to get it right.

“Why did you marry her?” Lexy asked the question without any judgment.

He had asked the same one in his head a million times. Meeting Lexy, learning all about her, and sharing the days and nights by her side, he saw that the life he had with Karen was destined to fail. It took years and a whole bunch of aging and maturing to come to terms with that reality. But why he had plunged in in the first place and ever believed it could last with Karen, he did not know.

“I think the
idea
of marriage appealed to me. You come home to someone. No dating rituals. No games.”

“That’s sort of an idealized view.”

He did not see it that way. “Seemed rational enough to me.”

“So, guaranteed sex and a hot meal.” Lexy chuckled.

“Both good things.”

“Joint bank accounts and family picnics.”

To a guy who never had any of that, it sounded pretty good. “That’s a bit simplistic, but yeah.”

She reached out and took his hand. “You wanted to belong.”

“Don’t girly it up.”

She squeezed his fingers, and not in a sweet love gesture. She was trying to strangle the blood out of them.

“Hey!” He covered her hands with both of his to prevent losing a finger or two. “All I mean is that I thought marriage was this thing I was supposed to do. I found a woman I cared about and did it.”

“Cared? That’s sort of a lukewarm reaction.”

“Works for most guys.”

The pressure on his hand eased up. Her touch went back to being gentle. “What about love?”

Talking about a woman he thought he once loved with a woman he actually loved is just not what he envisioned for his evening activities with Lexy. “What about it?”

“A very guy reaction.”

Good thing he was a guy then. “I cared about her as much as I knew how to care for anyone at that point in my life.”

“What does that mean?”

This theory came to him just before he proposed to Lexy. The romantic views of love never really moved onto his radar screen. He still was not convinced about the whole puppies-and-flowers routine. But he knew about fear now.

As a man who had dodged bullets for part of his life, loving a woman ranked as a much riskier proposition. Losing Lexy taught him about spinning out of control and being physically sick with panic.

He used his guy words to explain. “A man doesn’t know shit about love until he falls for the right woman.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

He seriously considered shaking her. “You, Lexy. I mean you.”

“If you’re thinking you might get lucky later…” she put her head on his shoulder. “You’re gonna.”

He decided right there and then that he needed to fess up to his past sins more often. “How lucky?”

“Depends on whether or not you keep talking.”

Now there was an incentive. “I really liked Karen’s dad. I know that doesn’t explain anything, but I did. Sometimes I think I missed him more than Karen when the whole thing fell apart.”

“Ah.”

The sound rumbled against his arm. “Is that female code for something?”

“You were looking for a family.”

There had to be some other topic—any other topic—they could discuss but this one. Hell, he’d be willing to eat a meal in the resort dining room if that meant the informal psychological study of his motives could end.

“Sounds like psychobabble to me,” he muttered, hoping she’d get the hint.

“Maybe, but it’s obvious psychobabble. You wanted a real father, and she came with that.”

That was his Lexy, intuitive and clear. She analyzed the situation and came to a conclusion that made sense to her. With that done, maybe they could—

“That explains the marriage and, for the record, I’ll be fine with us never talking about Karen again.” He leaned down and kissed the tip of her nose. “Now, there was some talk about me getting lucky?”

Lexy lifted her head off his shoulder. “Not so fast.”

His good mood crashed. “But you said—”

“We’re not done.”

His body certainly thought the talking portion of the program had ended. “Damn, woman.”

“I appreciate you opening up and giving me a peek into what’s happening in that big head of yours.”

“Is this your idea of foreplay?”

“Everything you said explains the marriage, not the man.”

He noticed how he did not get a single point or
atta boy
for running on about Karen. A woman should give a man credit for something that big.

“I’m the same man you agreed to marry.”

“Stop ending the conversation by circling around it.” Lexy’s fingertips softened her rebuke. They danced over his shirt as her legs shifted on the bed. “There’s so much more to your life, to you, that you refuse to share.”

Would it kill the woman to accept half a story? Just once he wished she’d be satisfied with what he could say or wanted to say and leave it at that.

He thought about telling her that. Let her sit on the defensive for a while and see how much she liked it. But he wanted to have sex again some day, and he saw hope flicker in her eyes. Her mouth opened a little as if she were anticipating the next bit of news. The reactions were small but significant. He had to keep going until she reached whatever level of satisfaction she needed before she could wear his ring again. He sure hoped she got there soon.

“Some of the work I did is classified.” He chose his words with careful precision.

“I’m not asking you to break the law.”

She kind of was. “What are you asking?”

She had an answer ready and fired back. “What shaped you? Other than your family and your early marriage, what made Noah into Noah?”

“Gum and a lot of beer.”

The punch landed on his forearm, but bounced off. “Anything else?”

He sighed. “You aren’t going to let this drop?”

“You started the conversation. I’m just going along.”

Right
. Deciding to move forward meant telling the parts that sucked. The aspects of him that were not all that attractive or easy to explain.

“Noah?”

He tapped the back of his head against the headboard. On the fourth beat, he started talking. “After I got out of the military, I did some work for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Contract stuff. Most of it covert.”

“There’s an ominous name for a government agency.”

“It’s no worse or better than any other. It performs a service. Not one I always understand, but I followed orders.”

Something sparked in those intelligent eyes. “What kind of orders?”

The kind no one wanted to receive. The kind that made you aware of which side of the law you walked on. “I did some work on men I knew while in the military.”

She sat up, but stayed close, with an arm wrapped through his. “You managed to say a whole bunch of words that meant nothing.”

“Impressive, huh?”

“Not really.”

It was worth a shot
. “These guys figured out that drug-running paid more than the military. That factor outweighed their integrity and the government benefits. They got lured, then got sloppy. Got in way over their heads and thought no one knew.”

“You knew.”

“The government knew.”

“And?”

“I infiltrated and brought them in.”

“Sounds like undercover work.”

Some of the men called it disloyal. Noah knew acting was the right thing to do, but he negotiated his retirement after. Seeing decent young men go to hell and off to jail was not what he signed up to do. “Something like that.”

“Can’t imagine the men took your work and the results very well.”

“I got that point when they shot at me.” Outrage burned on her face, so he rushed to calm her down. “I’m fine.”

“Are you?”

“I shot back. Believe me, I won that battle.”

Her hand moved to cover his heart. “But you learned something.”

“Yeah, to duck.”

“You learned not to trust.”

Women and their dramatics. “See, again, you’re making this into a woman thing.”

“How does a man see it?”

“I did my job.”

“Do you always do your job?”

“Yes.”

“Even if it involves Mexico or a parrot.”

Not the most subtle dig for information, but he appreciated the effort. “The former arose out of a night of too much drinking with some buddies. It started in San Diego, then crossed the border. We were fine until that point. Some contract work with the Border Patrol led to the latter.”

“Classified?”

And unimportant compared to what he had shared. “Mostly.”

She leaned up and kissed him. “Thank you,” she said in a whisper against his lips.

“For?”

“Trusting me with that information.”

“Trust was never the issue.” Not on his part. Her trusting him to tell her what was relevant did continue to be an issue for them, but he was not about to risk her goodwill by bringing that up.

“You could have told me about any of those incidents months ago and we would not be sitting here.”

He still did not quite understand why he had to tell her the information now. Why was talking about his past the litmus test? “It doesn’t matter any more today than it did then, Lexy.”

“It matters to me, but I don’t want to fight with you.”

Finally, they agreed on something. “That’s a nice change.”