One Night in Weaver...
Considering how hot her cheeks felt, she probably resembled a summer tomato. And she had been wearing her bra and panties when she’d crawled out of his bed. “I didn’t bolt.”
He deftly twisted the ends of the bag into a knot. “That’s what it looked like to me.”
“I didn’t even know you were there.”
His lips twisted. “Yeah, I got that loud and clear when you nearly face-planted on my living room rug in the middle of me kissing you.”
“I meant when I left.”
“Bolted.”
She ignored that. “You weren’t in bed with me. You weren’t anywhere in your apartment at all.” She lifted her shoulder as if it was of no consequence. As if his absence that morning hadn’t heavily factored into her many reasons for regretting her behavior that night. “I figured you’d left.”
“I was sitting on the patio.”
She studied him for a moment. “My recall of that night is admittedly limited. But I certainly haven’t forgotten that it was the beginning of January. There was at least a foot of snow on the ground. The average high that time of year is below 30 degrees. And you want me to believe you were out on your patio. At four in the morning.”
“It happens to be the truth. But if you don’t want to believe me, you can always talk to my neighbor, Mrs. Carson. Old woman’s always looking out her windows watching what’s going on.” He shrugged. “I was awake. I wanted a cigarette. I was outside. Sitting in a chair, freezing my ass off, smoking said cigarette, when what to my wondering eyes did appear but one doctor skidding her sweet way across the icy parking lot below me like the hounds of hell were on her heels.”
He tilted his head slightly. “Convenient to have a friend in the sheriff’s department. After I saw you make a call on your cell phone, it took less than three minutes for that cruiser to arrive.” His lips kicked up in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “You stood under the streetlight, stomping your feet to keep warm, but you kept stealing looks back at the apartment building and shaking your head. Face it, Dr. Templeton. You bolted. And ever since then, you’ve avoided me. I haven’t even seen you running in the park lately.”
She flinched. His description of that night—that morning—was too detailed. Too accurate. “I told you already. I was embarrassed.” She lifted her hand quickly when he began to smile again. “Not because you’re a security guard at Cee-Vid.”
His expression didn’t change. “Say whatever it is that helps you sleep at night.”
Irritation was building inside her. “I’d make a pretty poor therapist if I judged people by their career choices.”
“I didn’t take you home that night because I wanted to have my head examined. And that’s not why you went with me, either.” He planted his hands on the top of the table and leaned closer. His blue eyes were laser-sharp and uncomfortably shrewd. “You were drunk. We both wanted to get laid. Whether it worked out or not is beside the point. I would still be the guy you want to pretend you never went home with.”
“I think you’re the one with issues about a person’s career.” Sitting while he stood was unnerving, so she rose, lifting the trash bag by the knot and carrying it over to the door. She would drop it in the bin out back when she locked up and left. “Have you considered talking to someone about that?”
When she turned back to face him, he was sitting on the table, his arms folded across his wide chest. He looked amused. “You offering up your professional services?”
“Not mine,” she assured with a lightness she was far from feeling. She crossed back to the table and grabbed the towel and bottle. “It would be unethical.”
“Given our...personal connection.”
“Yes.”
“Pretty unsatisfying, if you ask me.” He pushed off the table.
She squeezed the towel in her fist. He suddenly seemed to tower over her. And every time she pulled in a breath, it carried his enticing scent. “Why is that?”
“I don’t get to avail myself of the services of the town shrink.”
She had to forcibly restrain a shiver when he reached out and slowly tucked some loose strands of hair behind her ear. His hand fell away just as slowly, fingertips grazing her earlobe along the way.
“And I am stuck thinking about the way you felt in my arms, still wishing we’d have had a chance to finish what we started.” His gaze dropped to her lips.
She swallowed. Hard. “Seth—” But she stopped, unsure of what she wanted to say. Or do. All she knew was that a huge part of her wanted him to just take the matter into his own hands so that she wouldn’t have to.
And how much of a coward did that make her?
His expression suggested that he knew exactly what she was thinking. “See you around, Doc.” He turned to go.
Annoyed with herself and her own paralyzing inhibition, she took a step after him. “Wait.”
He stopped and looked back.
She reached out, only to forget she was still holding the squirt bottle, and knocked him with it, accidentally spraying the front of his shirt.
Dismayed, all she could do was stare as the droplets immediately began leaching the fabric of its black color. “Oh, sugarnuts! I’m so sorry.”
“Sugarnuts?” He let out a bark of laughter. “What the hell kind of curse is that?”
“The kind I didn’t get sent to my room for when I was a girl. I’ll pay for a new shirt.”
He plucked the squirt bottle out of her hand. “I’m glad it wasn’t a loaded gun.”
She made a face and followed him to the bar as he replaced the bottle where he’d gotten it. “I don’t own a gun.”
He pointedly looked at his spattered shirt. “Good thing. Being shot in the gut has never been a goal of mine, even when I was in the army.”
She blinked a little. Her father had been in the military once upon a time and Seth, with his unshaven jaw and his tumbled hair, didn’t exactly smack of the discipline that still ruled her father even all these years later. “I didn’t know you were in the army.”
“Not something we ever got around to talking about.” He rounded the bar again and picked up the plate with his unfinished pie. “Always an adventure with you, Doc. Try not to hurt yourself before you get home.”
“What about your shirt?”
“Think I’ll live.” He was heading for the breezeway leading back to the restaurant. “I have a closet full of ’em.”
“If I can’t replace your shirt, maybe I can buy you dinner.” The words came out in a rush, surprising them both if the silence that followed was any indication.
He glanced back at her, one eyebrow lifted. “What was that?”
She swallowed, stiffening her spine a little. “You heard me.”
His eyes narrowed slightly, which only served to emphasize how dark and thick his eyelashes were. “A bleach-stained T-shirt isn’t worth dinner.”
“I know,” she managed, albeit a shade breathlessly. “But a, um, a gentleman might be worth it.”
He let out another short snort of laughter. “Just because I like my women conscious doesn’t make me a gentleman.” He spread his hand. “But I’m not gonna turn down a meal that doesn’t involve my own microwave.”
“Great.” She rubbed her damp palms down the sides of her jeans. “Uh...great. Any place you’d like to go?”
A faint smile was playing around his lips. “You don’t ask guys out very often, do you.” It wasn’t a question but an observation.
“Never,” she admitted. “Clearly, it’s just another thing at which I excel, like ruining a man’s work shirt.”
His long fingers splayed against the bleach spots across his abdomen. “Why don’t we start with lunch? Tomorrow. In the new park out past your office. Willow Park, I think it’s called.”
She wasn’t sure whether to feel elated or deflated. “I haven’t been there. I usually go to the community park right here downtown even though it’s farther from my office.” The park was just across the road from Colbys, in fact. It’s where she ran every weekend with Sam. It’s where he ran, though admittedly, she’d done her level best the past few months to avoid him, just as he’d accused her of doing.
He shrugged. “Just a suggestion. Thought you might relax more if you weren’t worried about encountering a lot of people you know.”
Now she definitely felt deflated. And indignant. “Because you’re a security guard?” Her voice was tart. “You’d be less worried about that if you knew how many student loans I am still paying off. And as it happens, I’m not free tomorrow during lunch. But I am for dinner. I’ll pick you up. Seven o’clock if that works for you.”
His voice, however, was smooth. And amused. “Seven’s fine.”
Still buoyed by indignation, she nodded sharply. “Good.”
But after he disappeared back through the doorway to the restaurant side of Colbys Bar & Grill, she couldn’t shake the vague sense that, while she’d finally found the nerve to ask out a man she was admittedly interested in, he’d been the one who’d gotten exactly what he wanted.
She shook her head sharply. Because it was already late and only getting later the longer she dawdled there, she quickly went about upending the chairs on top of the wiped-down tables. Then she swept up the bits of confetti on the floor, unloaded the dishwasher and steeled herself to go through the doorway to the restaurant to let Jerry know she was ready to leave.
Fortunately, only the cook was left. He was sitting at the counter nursing a cup of coffee.
Even better, there was no sign of Seth.
Which left her a solid twenty hours to get used to the idea that everything she’d believed for the past three months where he was concerned had been wrong.
And to get accustomed to the idea that she had done something she’d never done before in her life.
Asked a man out on a date.
Chapter Three
“So you didn’t sleep with pretty boy Seth Banyon.” Samantha Dawson sat on the bed in Hayley’s room, watching her paw through her closet for something to wear that would be appropriate for her dinner with Seth that evening.
“No. Thank God.” She pushed through a few more hangers. “I need to go shopping. The only things I own are suits and blue jeans.”
Sam laughed and made a point of looking at her watch. “And more sexy shoes than anyone I know. But I don’t think you’re going to have time for a shopping spree, Hay. You’re supposed to be picking up the guy in a half hour.”
“A half hour!” Aghast that she’d spent so much time dithering over what to wear, she grabbed the next hanger and pulled off her dove gray suit. “Why didn’t you say so?”
Sam propped her head in her hand, watching her with amused eyes. As usual, because she wasn’t working out, she was wearing her uniform. “Strangely enough, I figured you were still in possession of your typical perception of time. You going to finally sleep with him?”
“Sam!”
Her friend shrugged. “What? It’s a valid question.”
“I don’t intend to sleep with him.”
“Ever?”
Busy slipping her pencil skirt up her thighs, Hayley choked on a laugh. “You don’t really expect me to answer that, do you?”
“Well, yeah,” Sam retorted as if it were obvious. “Gotta live vicariously through someone, don’t I?”
“Jane’s getting married. You want to envy someone’s love life, she’s a better bet.”
“Hell, no. Married sex? Marriage, period? No thank you.” Shuddering comically, Sam pushed off the bed and pulled on the suit jacket, turning this way and that as she stood in front of the mirror. To say it clashed with her dark green uniform was an understatement. But Sam filled out the bust of the jacket better than Hayley did.
Resigned to the fact that she’d never possess the figure with which Sam had been blessed, Hayley returned to the closet to select a blouse. “I know it’s a wild theory, but there are some who believe that being married to a person you love actually enhances sex.” She started to slide the blouse over her head.
“Married people just say that so they’ll feel better about what they’ve sacrificed since the vows.” Sam removed the jacket and held it out. “Ditch the blouse,” she advised.
“What?”
Sam wagged the jacket. “Bad enough you’re wearing a suit. You don’t need to button up in a blouse, too.”
“I figured we could go to China Palace in Braden. It’s the only place around that uses linen tablecloths. But I’ll probably know half the people there, so I’m not going without a blouse.”
Sam shrugged. “Suit yourself. No pun intended. I’m sure pretty boy will be impressed to go out with a woman dressed for the office.” Her wicked smile took away any sting and she pulled open Hayley’s bedroom door. “I’ve gotta get back to the station.” She’d only dropped by for a few minutes during her break. “Let me know how it goes.”
After she’d shut the door behind her, Hayley looked at herself in the mirror. She did look as if she was heading in for a day of work. The suit and blouse were nearly identical to the ones she’d shed shortly before Sam had showed up. Even adding a pair of multi-strapped black pumps wasn’t going to change that fact.
“Sugarnuts,” she muttered and whipped the blouse back over her head. She’d twisted her usual ponytail into a low chignon and the pins were already starting to come loose thanks to her hurrying. She didn’t want Seth thinking of her as a therapist.
She wanted him thinking of her as a woman.
But she didn’t have the nerve to go sans blouse entirely. She found a lacy black camisole that had never seen the light of day—because it was meant to be an undergarment—and buttoned her jacket up over that. She yanked the pins out of her hair, raked her fingers through it and checked her reflection again.
“You look manic,” she told herself and reached for the brush to smooth out her messy hair.
“Hayley, dear.” Her grandmother opened the door, an imperious look in her eye. “Your phone is out here ringing. Shall I answer it for you?”
Hayley tossed the brush on the bed. “I’ll get it, Vivian.” Addressing her grandmother by her given name was something that made them both more comfortable. Hayley because she’d never met the woman until six months ago. And Vivian because she wasn’t fond of being reminded that she was old enough to have several grown grandchildren. Which made little sense, because she’d come to Wyoming to end the estrangement with her family.
“Men like women in dresses, dear.” Vivian followed Hayley into the living room. “Once you catch them, then wear a suit.” The older woman patted the nubby silk one that she herself was wearing. “But until then—” she waved her hand expressively “—wear a dress. Allows them to think they’re in charge or something. Men need their delusions.”
“I think I’ll be fine,” Hayley said confidently, despite her own dithering over her clothing, and snatched up her ringing cell phone from the table by the front door. She quickly answered when she saw the number displayed. “This is Dr. Templeton.”
“Sorry to bother you at home, ma’am. But you did say to call if he showed any change.”
She easily recognized the caller’s voice. Which meant the “he” in question was her newest patient, Jason McGregor. “That’s all right, Adam. And I did say to call anytime. What’s happening? Is he asking for me?” It would be a first. Ever since Tristan Clay requested she take on the case, Jason McGregor had steadfastly refused to interact with her in any meaningful way. That hadn’t stopped her from spending several hours each day with him for the past week and a half, however.
“No, ma’am. But he’s tearing up his room, so I figured I’d better call.”
“He hasn’t hurt himself, has he?” Jason’s room at the safe house had more amenities than Tristan Clay had initially wanted to provide. She knew her patient was a prisoner. That his quarters were a cell disguised as a modestly comfortable room being monitored every single minute of every single day. It was no different than the military prison where he’d been before Tristan had him transferred into his custody.
And although she might not know the finer ins and outs of what all Tristan and his highly confidential Hollins-Winword actually did—she preferred not to know, actually—she did know that her patient was suspected of having killed his two partners. Tristan was trusting her to either help the man work through his memory loss surrounding the incident, or debunk his condition altogether.
Everyone around Jason seemed to believe he was dangerous. Hayley was still withholding judgment on that. She simply didn’t know enough about the man yet.
“He’s trying to bang up the place pretty good, but he’s not showing any signs of injury,” Adam answered.
At least that was something. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she promised and disconnected the call. “A patient,” she told her grandmother, who was still standing right beside her.
“Oh, Hayley. What about your date?”
To hear Vivian’s tone, canceling was akin to dissing the Queen of England. Hayley scrolled through her cell phone history until she found Seth’s number. “The date’s just going to have to wait,” she said as she headed back into the privacy of her bedroom.
Her call was answered after only a few rings. “It’s Hayley.”
“Chicken out already?” His voice was deep.
“I’m not chickening out.” She tucked the thin phone against her shoulder and yanked her hair back into its customary ponytail. “I have a patient emergency.”
“Yeah. That’s what they all say.”
She caught the reflection of her narrowing eyes in the mirror and hastily smoothed out her face as if he could see through the phone to her severe expression. “I don’t make up things when it comes to my patients.”
“So you make up things when it doesn’t?”
“You’re toying with me.”
“If you unwound a little, you’d be quicker to recognize when a person’s joking.”
Tension that she hadn’t even realized she was feeling released inside her chest. She exhaled and pushed her feet into leather ballet flats. They weren’t on her list of favorites, but they were comfortable and no-nonsense and she’d quickly learned that where her newest patient was concerned, no-nonsense was key. In one of his rare verbal offerings, he’d warned her to save both her coddling and her feminine wiles. The fact that she’d offered neither was immaterial. “I am sorry, Seth.”
“I’ll make sure you make it up to me.”
“Ha ha. Another joke.”
His voice dropped. “No, Doc. That’s a promise. Obviously this is going to take some work.”
She smiled even though a shiver was dancing down her spine. “I guess we’ll see. I’m afraid dinner will probably have to wait until after Casey and Jane’s wedding this weekend.” She had several group sessions that met during the week in the evenings. And Friday would be busy with the wedding rehearsal and the dinner Casey and Jane were having out at their place. “I don’t expect to have any free time until next Sunday at the earliest.”
“Guess it will be back to the microwave for me. When I die from malnourishment, drop a flower on my grave.”
She laughed softly. “I’ll do that. Good night, Seth.”
“Good night, Doc.”
Still smiling, she slid her phone into the side pocket of her briefcase, which usually doubled as her purse, too, and went back out to the living room.
“All work and no play isn’t going to keep you warm at night, dear,” her grandmother cautioned.
Even though Hayley felt certain that Vivian hadn’t left the house all day except for the morning walk she usually took, her grandmother was still dressed in a Chanel suit with jewels sparkling at her ears and throat. In six months, Hayley had never seen her grandmother dress differently. She seemed to have an endless array of designer clothing and priceless jewelry. Undoubtedly the benefit of having been married once upon a time to a steel magnate. “That’s why I have an electric blanket,” Hayley assured her grandmother. “Don’t wait up. I might be late.”
“I wish it were for a different reason.” Vivian’s acerbic voice followed her out the door.
“Me, too,” Hayley murmured as she hurried to her car. “Me, too.”
* * *
Ten minutes away in the observation room that overlooked McGregor’s cell, Seth slid his cell phone into his pocket. Beyond the monitors and the bulletproof glass, the disgraced agent had finally stopped throwing his furniture around and now stood motionless in the middle of the room, staring down at his feet. They were bare below the pale blue medical scrubs that he wore. When it came to acting, the guy was doing a good job of looking as if he was losing his marbles.
Not that his behavior changed Seth’s mind at all about McGregor’s involvement in his partners’ deaths.
He glanced at the young man sitting in front of the monitors. “Thanks for keeping me in the loop, Adam.” Strictly speaking, Seth had no official need-to-know where the safe house’s “guest” was concerned. But Seth had helped Adam get into Hollins-Winword a while back and loyalty stuck. “Does Dr. Templeton ever check the log?”
Adam shook his head. “I tried showing it to her because Mr. Clay said she was in charge of everything with McGregor except security, but she didn’t want to see it. Says her only interest is in her patient. Not the comings and goings of his keepers, since we never interact with the guy.”
The only people who did interact with McGregor, according to Adam, were Hayley and, even less frequently, Tristan. Tristan’s meetings with McGregor were recorded. Audio and video.
Hayley’s, however, were not. She’d evidently dismissed the warnings that being observed during her sessions was for her own safety and insisted that her patient’s privacy be honored. Her only concession had been to carry a panic button whenever she was alone with McGregor.
“Well.” Seth scrawled the exit time in the log next to his equally indecipherable signature. “Enjoy the grub.” He’d brought Adam dinner from one of the diners in town.
“Already am,” Adam said around a bite of his roast beef sandwich.
Seth left the safe house and drove his truck well out of sight before pulling to the side of the road. He’d planned to make his usual quick stop at the place to check on things and be home at his apartment in plenty of time before Hayley came. But witnessing McGregor’s temper tantrum had waylaid him. And even before he’d heard her voice on the phone, he’d known that Hayley would be canceling on him.
His conscience didn’t particularly bother him.
Just because he’d considered the possibility of gaining inside information from her about what McGregor revealed during their private sessions didn’t mean Seth was acting on it. She had limited knowledge of those involved with Hollins-Winword and there was no reason for her to know he was anything other than what she believed him to be: a lowly Cee-Vid security guard.
So he sat there off in the distance on the side of the road and waited until her car arrived. She parked in the driveway of the ordinary-looking ranch-style house situated in the middle of a half-dozen other ordinary-looking houses, got out, walked up the sidewalk and knocked on the front door. A few seconds later, the woman who lived in the house with her real-life husband opened the door as if greeting a friend, and Hayley disappeared inside.
In his mind, Seth followed her movements. Through the living room filled with ordinary furniture. Probably greeting the husband, where he’d be parked on his recliner, watching sports on television after having spent his day in the drugstore where he was the pharmacist. Through the kitchen, which was usually filled with the warm scent of something the pharmacist’s stay-at-home wife was baking, and down the stairs to the basement. Then through a steel security door as thick as Seth’s thigh and down another flight to the very depths below the house where she’d be greeted by a guard just like Adam who didn’t hide the fact that he was armed the way the couple upstairs did.
And even though Hayley had the trust of Tristan Clay, for security purposes she would still have to surrender that sleek briefcase she carried and be wanded and patted down before she’d be allowed into the heavily locked room with her patient, the panic button tucked into her pocket.