Troublemaker

CHAPTER 14

BO LAY IN BED, CURLED PROTECTIVELY ON HER SIDE like a shrimp, so tense every muscle in her body was aching. She’d been rash, she’d been stupid, and the whole incident was her fault. She knew to keep her distance from him, to not let him see in any way how attracted she was to him. The kiss wasn’t even the worst part. Yes, she’d kissed him back, as hungrily as he’d been kissing her; while that had been a huge mistake, it was one she could handle. The worst part was getting angry at him because he’d had a target tattooed on his chest.

Even a fairly thickheaded man would figure out a woman would get so angry at a tattoo-one that was like daring someone to shoot him-only if she cared-and Morgan wasn’t thickheaded. She was beginning to fully appreciate how intelligent and cunning he was to have muted his personality to the extent he had so she wouldn’t be uncomfortable with him. She’d seen flashes of the unmuted Morgan before, but tonight more of the power of his personality had come through loud and clear.

She wanted to sleep, needed to sleep. But her senses were too on edge, her mind racing as she zigzagged between remembering everything that had happened, how it had felt when he’d touched her, how he’d tasted-and then all the reasons why she should never let it happen again. Tricks, of course, went back and forth between the two bedrooms, jumping up on the bed to nuzzle Bo, then after a few minutes jumping down and trotting to the other bedroom to presumably treat Morgan to the same “I’m happy so no one is going to sleep” routine. Occasionally she’d hear the deep murmur of his voice as he tried to get Tricks to settle down in one room or the other, but good luck with that. Or maybe he was telling Tricks “Good girl” because she’d almost gotten him laid, Bo thought resentfully.

Finally, on about the fifth or sixth return, Tricks licked Bo on the arm and then curled up on her bed on the floor. “Please just go to sleep,” Bo muttered, though why it mattered she couldn’t say. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep even if Tricks hadn’t been partying.

For whatever reason, having Tricks back in her room and no longer trotting back and forth allowed Bo to relax. She couldn’t change what had happened; she simply had to make certain it didn’t happen again. Once she got that thought firmly fixed in her mind, she dozed off.

Tricks woke her up at the normal time by laying her muzzle on the pillow and staring at her. The message was plain: it’s morning, and you haven’t fed me yet.

She gave Tricks a hug, then lay there for a moment longer. The morning brought a return of mortification. She didn’t want to get up and face the day, she didn’t want to face him. She wanted the whole situation to just go away, which was such a juvenile thought that she mentally slapped herself, got out of bed, and got on with her normal routine.

She hadn’t heard him walk by her open door, but he was downstairs, and just coming in from outside as she went down the stairs. He was dressed in one of his regular tee shirts, this one dark green, and khaki cargo pants. He had a cup of coffee in his hand, which meant she’d been so sound asleep that she hadn’t heard the coffeemaker. Evidently Tricks had also been tired enough after her back-and-forth exertions of the night before that she hadn’t alerted Bo to Morgan’s activity.

Morgan, however, looked rested and alert and completely comfortable. It wasn’t fair.

“Good morning,” he said, going to the coffeemaker and punching the brew button. It began hissing and spewing, and coffee was streaming into a cup for her by the time she reached it.

He leaned against the cabinet in what she had come to realize was his habitual position-he was a lounger-and said, “I’m sorry about last night.”

Thank goodness she wasn’t holding the cup of coffee yet, or she might have dropped it. Of all the things she’d imagined him saying, that wasn’t on the list, not even at the bottom. She sighed in relief and said, “Thank you.”

“I didn’t intend to put you in an uncomfortable position. I’m a guest in your home, and I want you to feel safe with me here. No matter what a great little ass you have, whether or not anything happens between us is your call, not mine.”

If three sentences could have been better constructed to shatter her thought processes, she didn’t know how. A reassurance, a-he thought she had a great little ass?-and then another reassurance. All she could think was: he liked her ass.

She reached for the coffee, halted, glared at him. “Don’t notice my ass.”

“Too late. I’m a man; of course I noticed your ass.”

She backed said ass against the cabinets to protect it from being stared at and finally got the cup in her hand. “So much for reassuring me and making me feel comfortable.”

“Well, hell, I figure you have to know you have a great ass, unless you’ve spent your life in a convent.”

Truthfully, she’d never considered her ass. She mulled over what he’d said as she swallowed some coffee and finally realized-“You’re flirting with me.”

A tiny smile quirked the corners of his mouth. “Guilty as charged. I figure you could use a little flirting. Want me to take Tricks out?”

Jerked back to Earth by the question, she looked at Tricks, who was standing by the door staring at both of them as if they’d lost their minds because no one had yet taken her outside.

“Crap,” she muttered. “No, I’ll take her.” She needed away from him for a few minutes, and Tricks wasn’t the only one who liked routine. Routine would ground her, give her a break from feeling jerked first one way and then another.

She stepped out into the cool, bright morning and stood sipping her coffee as she watched Tricks. Okay, now what? The subject was officially out in the open, and disarmed, so to speak. He said it was her call, and then he flirted with her.

She felt like a teenager, though that wasn’t quite accurate because even as a teenager she’d been wary. But she’d still been excited by the possibilities opened up by flirting; if she hadn’t been, she would never have gotten married. Since that bad decision, though, she’d deflected any male attention with a bland indifference, and she’d been so good at it that she couldn’t remember exactly when she’d last been on a date. Perhaps she hadn’t had a real date since her divorce, and that was years ago. She hadn’t missed it, hadn’t worried about it. She liked how her life was. She liked her privacy, the calm, the sense of control.

So why was her heartbeat getting all fluttery at the idea of Morgan flirting with her? Because she was attracted to him, that was why. Her brain knew he was temporary, but her body and hormones didn’t.

The way she saw it, she had two options: she could keep him at a distance, or she could have a fling with him and wave good-bye when he left. Keeping him at a distance would be less wear and tear on her emotions, while having a fling would make her physically very satisfied.

Hands down, she’d opt for protecting her emotions, every damn time.

Tricks finally did her business and got tired of sniffing around, and was ready for her breakfast. When Bo opened the door to let her back inside, the smell of bacon frying hit her in the face and almost made her drool. Really, were there any smells on earth better than bacon and coffee? Well, maybe the new car smell, but that was debatable. She stopped dead, staring at the scene in the kitchen. Morgan had a towel slung over his shoulder while he stood at the cooktop using a fork to flip the strips of bacon sizzling in a skillet. He glanced over his shoulder at her. “I was hungry, so I thought I’d get started. I can do bacon and eggs and throw some bread in the toaster. That okay with you?”

“Wow, you’re really trying to get on my good side, aren’t you? Yes, thank you, bacon and eggs sounds great.”

He pointed the fork at her. “You could have been gracious enough to leave off that first sentence.” Then he flashed a grin at her. “Even though it’s true.”

That grin was a shock, transforming his face with roguish charm. Morgan being charming was also a shock, though she’d seen a bit of it when he’d kissed Miss Doris’s hand. In his real life, he probably had to swat the women away. Again, she felt as if he was letting her see more of the real Morgan-or maybe the real Morgan was feeling well enough to make the effort.

Nevertheless, she appreciated both the effort and the food. Cooking wasn’t something she enjoyed, though she did enjoy the end result. It was nice to have a hot breakfast that she hadn’t cooked, nice to work together in comfortable silence. She fed Tricks, then set the table and got everything ready while he dealt with the food. Within ten minutes, they were sitting down at the table.

Last night, she wouldn’t have thought she would ever feel comfortable with him again, yet here she was, sitting beside him and making small talk as he asked what was on her agenda for the day, when the kids would be taking Tricks for another practice ride before the Heritage Parade, how the Emily/Kyle situation was shaping up.

She was wary and on guard, but that morning set the pattern for the days that followed. April slid into May, and the days began warming in earnest, with the cool mornings and evenings becoming only fond memories. Bo stayed as busy as possible when she was at home, working like a fiend on the tech-writing projects and stopping only to take Tricks for walks or to prepare meals. The best thing she could do for herself was keep her interactions with Morgan to a minimum, which wasn’t easy considering they were living in the same house-and, despite everything, they were becoming friends.

How could they not? If friendship had been impossible, if he’d been a jerk, she couldn’t have tolerated having him around all the time even though she was being paid to house him. But he wasn’t a jerk. They talked about various things; he’d been to a lot of places and seen a lot of things. He had a different take on almost any item that was on the news, and conversations with him were simply interesting.

When she was in town, all the goings-on kept her distracted. The Emily/Kyle situation was on track to being resolved. Mr. Gooding had agreed in principle to the town’s conditions, though Kyle was reportedly pissed off about the whole thing and his sister Melody was going out of her way to say nasty things about Emily. Emily kept her head and ignored Melody, and her lawyer was getting the papers ready to be filed.

There were also the parade practices with Tricks, who still refused to ride without Bo also being present. She resigned herself to being in the parade. The kids promised they’d figure out a way so she could sit mostly hidden, and she had to take them at their word. Any more practices were impossible because now the kids were tied up with decorating their float and they had no spare time.

Sometimes Morgan went with her to work when he got too bored staying at the house. She could only imagine how that must be wearing on him; he was accustomed to living a high-adrenaline life, jumping out of planes and getting into firefights. He seemed to enjoy the small-town quirks, such as the parade and the divorce drama. Whenever he was at the police station with her, visitors would appear, usually bearing food as the whole town seemed to be on a mission to fatten him up. For whatever reason, he was getting acquainted with a surprising number of the townspeople, somehow becoming part of the warp and woof of local life.

One afternoon when she collected the mail there was a letter addressed to Morgan Rees, plain white envelope, no return address.

The letter had to be from Axel because no one else knew he was here, or the name he was using. When she thought about it, snail mail was the safest way to contact Morgan-no data to trace.

He lifted his eyebrows when she handed it to him. “He wasted a stamp to tell me there’s no progress? He must be afraid I’ll jump ship if I don’t hear something.”

“Maybe there’s progress, but nothing definitive yet.”

He tore open the envelope and scanned the single sheet of paper, then wadded it up and did a three-point shot to the wastebasket. “No progress.”

She didn’t know if she was disappointed or not. She wanted him gone, but she also knew she’d miss him when he left. “Would you jump ship?”

“Only if I had a good reason.”

She didn’t ask what would be a good reason, but evidently boredom wasn’t on the list.

He started going on her walks with Tricks. He always took his Glock, because warm weather = snakes. She had done the same but saw no reason to take her pistol if he was armed, so instead she took only her long, sturdy stick. She might not be able to shoot a snake, but she assumed he could.

At first he couldn’t make the whole trek with her, because the hill was too much for him; instead he’d wait at the bottom for her and Tricks to return. Tricks always bounded to him in a paroxysm of delight, as if she hadn’t seen him in days instead of less than half an hour. By the fourth walk, he was going partway up the hill. By the seventh, he was keeping pace with her. His rate of recovery astounded her, but of course he’d been in phenomenal shape to begin with, so he didn’t have as far to go as the average person would have.

Unfortunately, working like a fiend on the tech-writing projects meant that there were inevitably lapses when she didn’t have any to work on because she’d already finished them. She couldn’t manufacture projects out of thin air. Very occasionally she’d been able to pick up a last-minute job when something happened that prevented the tech writer already lined up from doing the work, but for the most part the work was something scheduled ahead of time.

Her options then were to sit in her room or watch television with Morgan. She watched television.

She’d always been an on-off watcher; sometimes there would be a program that she liked and watched, but for the most part it was something she’d have on while she read, or worked on a tech project. With the schedule Morgan had had while he was operational, he hadn’t had the opportunity to watch much beyond sports and news-or the interest, truth be told. He liked hockey better than basketball, football better than baseball, but shortly after coming to stay with her he developed a passion for women’s fast-pitch softball. Thanks to her satellite system, he got to watch a lot of women’s softball; because she didn’t have a preference for anything else, she found herself also watching softball.

With his move upstairs to the guest room, the sofa had ceased being a bed and returned to seating. Morgan sat on one end, she sat on the other, and Tricks on her special blanket snoozed contentedly between them. She always rested her muzzle on Bo’s thigh and turned her butt to Morgan, but he was okay with that; he knew where he was in Tricks’s hierarchy of affection.

On the day she got home and found he’d cut the grass for her, she could have hugged him. She didn’t because she was smarter than that, but the impulse was there.

Damn it all, she wasn’t just attracted to him; she liked him.

Now that he was stronger, Morgan made it his mission to walk the hills around Bo’s place, getting the topography set in his mind. He wanted to know all the possible routes anyone could take to approach the house; the surrounding hills and mountains were rough going, which was reassuring. There were bluffs, impenetrable underbrush, streams and rivers. From a strategic point of view, he liked that.

He knew it was unlikely anything would actually happen here, but his training said to prepare for the unexpected. He was the bait in the trap, but the rat was never intended to actually get the cheese. The act of looking for his location would trigger the trap.

Still… shit happened.

If it were just him, he wouldn’t mind, but he had Bo to consider.

The simplest approach usually had the highest degree of success. The more complicated a plan became, the more details could go wrong. In this case, the simplest approach would be to come up the driveway. The very length of the drive itself was part of what made it the most likely; anyone could get far enough from the road to be out of sight from both road and house.

He couldn’t turn the house into a bunker; it simply wasn’t feasible to bury the entire house, or reinforce walls and windows and doors. Nor was it feasible to dig an underground escape tunnel, not when weighed against the likelihood of anything actually happening, how long it would take, how much it would cost.

There were real-world, more reasonable approaches he could take.

He didn’t talk it over with Bo because he knew she’d kick up a fuss-either that or come to the not unreasonable conclusion that he hadn’t told her everything she should know about the level of danger. He and Axel had definitely downplayed that part of the situation, but neither of them had exactly lied.

Logically, the townsfolk would be fine. Only an idiot would try to take him out in town, where there would inevitably be a bunch of witnesses and someone to interfere. No, if trouble came, it would come here, to Bo’s house.

There were commonsense measures to take that wouldn’t involve turning the house into a bunker. He called a security company and made an appointment for a salesman to come out, listen to what he wanted, and give him a price. Because he wasn’t stupid, he waited until the day of the appointment to tell Bo.

She was working at her computer, but at his words she swiveled her chair around to face him. “You did what?” she demanded, annoyance in both expression and tone. “Don’t you think you should have talked this over with me first?”

“No,” he said baldy. “I knew you’d balk, just like you’re doing now.”

“I already have a security system.”

“You have an alarm on the doors and windows. You need more.”

Some of the things he liked best about her were that she was logical and reasonable and organized. Unfortunately, that meant she immediately came to the logical and reasonable conclusion he hadn’t wanted her to reach. “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked, her dark eyes narrowed. “If you can’t be traced here, why do I need beefed-up security?”

“Because things can always go wrong. What I’m thinking of is stuff you should have anyway, such as security cameras. You live out here by yourself; you need to be able to see what’s in the yard before you take Tricks out at night. You need motion-sensor lights. I’m paying for this, and I’m putting it in. If you don’t like it, after I’m gone you can have it taken out.”

She glared at him and finally muttered, “Don’t be so damn reasonable. Give me something I can argue against.”

He knew better.

She had to leave for town before the salesman got there, which frustrated her to no end. She was still scowling as she drove down the driveway. At least Tricks was smiling at him from her normal seat in the front of the Jeep.

The security salesman was the usual sales type: friendly, gregarious, with a knack for overselling. It was his bad luck that Morgan was immune to overselling.

He took the guy on a walk around the property, telling him exactly what he wanted, and where: cameras that covered all of the house exterior, no blind spots, with monitors in the most-used rooms of the house; motion sensor lights; driveway alarm. The driveway alarm was problematic; the best was a buried sensor probe, and that worked on a line of sight, which meant that putting it at the beginning of Bo’s driveway, close to the road, simply wouldn’t work. There were too many hills, trees, and curves in the way. If he had unlimited time and money, and government resources to work with, he could get something that worked, but he didn’t have those three things, so he had to settle and have the probe located at the farthest line of sight, which unfortunately was about seventy-five yards. It would have to do. If anyone approached at night-again, the most likely scenario-they could well turn off their headlights and drive close enough to set off the alarm.

He ignored the salesman’s efforts to sell him a maintenance and service contract. He wanted the system, not their monitoring-and he wanted it installed as soon as possible.

Installation was an all-day project, which meant Bo was there for the first part of it. The cameras were installed first, and she was impressed by the clarity of the images on the monitors; he let her choose the location of said monitors because it was, after all, her house, and he wanted her involved so she’d stop glaring at him.

Then she had to go to work, which pissed her off all over again.

He was grinning as he waved to her on her way down the driveway.

“You think you’re so smart,” she muttered when she got home, still disgruntled. The fact that he was cooking supper-nothing fancy, just grilled steaks and baked potatoes, with a stab at a salad for her-evidently held no sway with her.

“Want me to drive down far enough to set off the alarm, so you can see how it works?”

“Yes.” There was no hesitation at all.

So he drove down far enough to set off the alarm, then reversed back to his usual parking spot. When he got out of the Tahoe, he could hear Tricks barking her head off.

He went back inside. “Impressed?”

“It’s loud, I’ll give you that. Tricks went nuts.”

“She’ll be a good backup alarm, then, in case we both happen to sleep through it-not likely, but I guess it could happen.” No way would either of them sleep through the ruckus Tricks was raising, running around the house looking for the very loud intruder.

Morgan wasn’t completely happy, but he definitely felt better prepared in case the shit hit the fan.

Three days before the Heritage Parade, Bo said, “The divorce goes before Judge Harper today. Fingers crossed there’s no problem.”

Morgan thought seriously about going to town with her, just for the entertainment value, but he had something he wanted to do, so he said, “Want to leave Tricks here with me, in case you get tied up dealing with the Goodings?”

She looked at the golden with regret. He knew she liked having Tricks with her, and God knew the dog was always happier with Bo, but there were practical matters to consider such as Tricks’s need for regular outside trips. He was a handy dog-sitter, and Tricks would be more comfortable.

“Okay, thanks. I’ll call if I’m going to be late.”

She left, and Tricks did the staring-out-the-window-and-looking-forlorn routine. Leaving her to it, Morgan opened the door to the storage area beneath the stairs and spotted the treadmill Bo had mentioned to him. It was folded up, had wheels for ease of moving it, and wasn’t blocked by too much other junk. He moved some boxes around and rolled the machine out. The activity pulled on the scar tissue in his chest but-not much. As soon as he built up his stamina some more, he’d start with the weights.

The treadmill was a decent one, electric, had an incline; he could get a good workout on it. Going up and down the hill with Bo and Tricks on their walks was good, but he wanted more.

Intrigued, Tricks came over to inspect the machine, giving it a good sniffing, then she got her ball, went to the door, and stood there looking from Morgan to the door and back again. He didn’t obey her hint fast enough, so she went to him and swatted his knee with her paw, which was her signal that she really really needed to pee and he’d better hurry.

“You’re a pushy little shit, you know?” he said conversationally. She didn’t care as long as she got what she wanted. She bounced out when he opened the door, dropped her ball, and took off running.

He was anxious to get to the treadmill, but he was well aware that Tricks had to have her fun time before she’d consent to pee, so he threw the ball. Then he threw it again. And again. On the fourth time, he said sternly, “Young lady, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble if you don’t take a piss this time.” He didn’t know what trouble she’d be in, but it sounded good. He threw the ball, and Tricks went after it. He could have sworn that she kept a weather eye on him as she retrieved it. She trotted back, still watching him, then paused and bumped her butt on the ground. If she’d held the pose a little longer he might have bought it, but all she did was a quick bump, then she was up again, trotting to him with her tail jauntily waving, certain she had fooled him.

A laugh exploded out of him. All he could do was pet her and praise her, laughing the whole time, because, holy hell, she’d just pretended to pee. And she was so gleeful that she’d fooled him, as if she’d played the best joke ever.

Evidently she’d been lying about needing to pee too; all she’d wanted was to play.

He gave up, surrendered, mentally waved the white flag. He was seriously in love with this dog.

He took her back inside and finished setting up the treadmill, then went upstairs to put on his running shoes. Maybe he was being too optimistic to think he’d actually be running much, but he sure as hell was going to find out.

Going back downstairs, he stood on the side rails of the treadmill and attached the safety clip to his shirt. He set the workout he wanted; nothing fancy this time, just a steady fast walk on a few degrees incline, to see where he stood now so he’d know what he needed to do. Tricks came to lie down beside the treadmill, resting her muzzle on her paws.

He turned on the treadmill and stepped onto the moving belt, found the pace.

As soon as the belt started moving, Tricks lifted her head, her ears perked up and her eyes bright with interest. Then she got up and trotted away; evidently she was already bored.

Morgan monitored himself: Legs, good. Breathing, good. Heart rate, good. Of course, he’d barely gotten started, but overall… not bad.

Tricks reappeared, tennis ball in her mouth. Damn it, now she wanted to go outside. He said, “Sorry, princess-”

She all but danced to the front of the treadmill, and let the ball go.

It shot between his feet and across the room, and she darted after it.

Morgan swore at the top of his lungs as he tried to avoid the ball and keep his balance on the moving belt. For a split second he felt like one of those cartoon characters slipping on a banana peel, with feet and arms going in four different directions. He grabbed the bars and caught himself just before his head made contact with the control panel, but his feet kept going. He gathered himself, braced his weight on the bars, and did an in-air half-jack. His feet landed on the side rails.

Having retrieved her ball, Tricks trotted back to the front of the treadmill while he still stood there spread-eagled over the moving belt, and let it go again.

“Shit! Fuck!” he growled in exasperation and shut the machine off.

When the belt slowed to a stop, he got off the machine and glared at the dog who was back at the front, gently waving her tail as she gave him a quizzical look. It made no sense to her that he’d stopped her new game almost as soon as it started.

Morgan sat down on the floor, and she immediately came to him to be petted. The bad news was that he obviously wouldn’t be able to get on the treadmill if Tricks was anywhere in the house.

The good news was that at least he hadn’t killed himself.