No Strings Attached
“I thought your SOP was to bribe the desk clerk to disavow any knowledge of you checking in.”
“Yes, sir, and I did that. But Alvarez could offer a bribe as well for ten minutes in my room and who’s to say the guy won’t double-dip in that bowl of guacamole? Shit.” He surged to his feet. “I need to get Tash out of there.” She had told him her best friend called her that shorter version of her name—and he’d thought at the time how much it suited her.
“Sit down,” Paulson said in a voice that brooked no argument. “The only thing you have to do is board the helicopter that’s going to be here in—” he glanced at his watch “—seven minutes and get your ass to D.C. for debriefing and reassignment.”
“Not gonna happen until I get her out. Sir.” He headed for the door, surprised at his own adamance. He loved his work, particularly the thrill of relying on his wits and the adrenaline rush of having to stay on top of his game at all times. New cases were usually right up his alley since beginnings were inherently more dangerous and exciting due to his lack of familiarity with the players’ quirks. Plus, as much as he enjoyed the company of women when he had a little downtime to spend with them, once he was back on the job he pretty much forgot them. If it had been any other female, he likely would have been perfectly comfortable leaving Tasha’s extraction to a DEA team.
The young agent stepped in front of him, blocking his way out, and Luc went chest to chest, nose to nose, with him. “Get out of my way, kid.”
“Sorry, sir. I can’t do that.”
Luc had to admit that putting his professionalism on the line for a woman—especially one he’d known for only two days—was unlike him. Yet he found himself compelled to do exactly that and he was fully prepared to go toe-to-toe with the guy in his way.
“Stand down, Bradshaw,” Paulson said, coming up behind him. His voice softened. “I’ll extract her myself,” he promised. “But you are getting on that chopper.”
He stepped back from the young agent, but his willingness to argue must have shown on his face as he turned around, for Paulson’s hardened. “This is not up for discussion, Lucas. I’ll call you in D.C. to let you know she’s okay. But you are leaving in—” he consulted his watch again, then looked up at the sound of a helicopter coming in low “—now.”
“No, sir. I’m not.”
“Then turn in your badge, Bradshaw. Because I won’t tolerate an agent who refuses orders from his superior officer.”
He didn’t have his badge with him, of course, but he opened his mouth to say Paulson could have it. Then he thought about what he was doing. His SAC had just told him he’d personally take care of Tasha himself and Luc sure as hell had no reason to doubt he’d do exactly that. “Fuck.”
And the next thing he knew he was running, hunched against the strong wash of the rotor blades, toward a chopper that was lightly settling on the back lawn. Minutes after that, he was winging away from his old case, headed for a new one.
But instead of his usual anticipation over the prospect of a new case, his thoughts were back with the woman he’d left behind.
By the time Paulson called late in the evening two days later, Luc was climbing the walls. “Hey,” he barked into his satellite phone when he saw his SAC’s name on the readout. “What’s going on with Tasha? Is she okay? Did she understand why I didn’t come back when I told her I would?”
“First things first,” his SAC said. “You were set up. The Bahamian DEU raided your hut not long after you left to meet with me and found a kilo of heroin.”
His blood iced over as he thought of the only person besides himself who had been in his beach hut. He didn’t want to believe it but— “Do you think it was Tasha?”
“No—although we thought that when we got there and found her gone.”
“Gone?” He sat down hard. “As in not there?”
“Generally what that means, son. Sources reported she flew out on the last plane to Nassau that night. We ran her through all the databases, but she’s not in any of them.”
“So she just fucking left, when she said—”
Paulson’s impatient voice cut him off. “You think you can focus on the case here, Bradshaw?”
He shoved aside his disappointment over Tasha’s defection as well as another emotion that felt suspiciously like hurt. “Yes, sir. I’m just trying to figure out when the hell Alvarez had the opportunity to plant anything. Tasha and I had just gotten there that morning.” He’d already had reservations on Andros and had talked Tasha into going with him because he’d heard the tiny resort was very private—and because he’d just wanted her to come with him.
“And you stayed in the whole day?”
“Yes.” Then he shook his head. “No. Shit. We went snorkeling that afternoon.”
“So he had a window of opportunity.”
“Yes.” Then his brain kicked in. “Jesus, he’s not the brightest star in the galaxy. If I were actually the drug dealer he thinks I am, I’d likely give up somebody a lot higher up the food chain than me to save my own ass. I doubt Morales would be happy to hear Alvarez set that scenario in motion.” His adrenal glands began pumping juice into his sytem over the thought of what he could do with this situation. Because... Oh, yeah. This could work. “Can you get your hands on a replacement kilo?”
“Huh?” There was a moment of silence. Then, “You can’t possibly be thinking about taking it back to Morales—can you?” The words were negative, but the tone...
Yeah, baby. His SAC was considering it.
“I am thinking that. It’s a fucking twofer, sir. Think about it. Alvarez will be gone the minute Morales learns what he’s done.” One way or the other, unfortunately, but the guy should have thought about all the potential consequences before he tried framing him. “More than that, it’ll likely cement my position in the cartel, which gives us the opportunity to close the case faster than we thought we could. We need to do this.”
They disconnected a short while later after Paulson promised he’d check with the director about another kilo—with the caveat that it was by no means guaranteed they’d get one. But Luc refused to entertain the idea, because he was deadly determined to see this case through.
Unfortunately, it didn’t keep him from gnawing over Tasha’s defection. What had made her decide to catch the night flight back to Nassau after all, when she’d assured him she would wait?
He went around and around on it but eventually had to shelve the whole damn mess. “Get over it, chump,” he said, his mood black. Chicks dumped guys—it happened all the time, even if he’d only rarely experienced it himself. There sure as hell wasn’t anything he could do about it. She clearly hadn’t been as into him as he had been into her.
“Well, your loss, sweetheart,” he finally growled aloud. And shoving his wallet into his back pocket, he went off to find something to distract him from the pointless what-ifs pinballing around in his brain.
* * *
“SO WHAT WAS THE CASE?”
“What?” But he shook his head to bring himself back to the present and told his half brother a condensed version of what had gone down that day. Then he simply stared at the big deputy for a moment.
“Christ, Max,” he finally said. “I was blown away to see her in your dining room last night. Then when I followed her out to the backyard, she was beyond pissed, which I don’t get, ’cause like I told you, I thought she’d run out on me. Yet she was furious with me.” Remembering her parting words, he rolled his shoulders. “And maybe with reason.”
Max’s eyes narrowed. “What reason?”
“Last night she said that thanks to me, she’d spent two nights in a Bahamian jail.”
“So either there was a failure to communicate between the two countries’ drug enforcement agencies, a clerical screwup—or somebody lied to you, Slick. I don’t know the players, but I know Tasha. And I gotta tell you, if there was any lying going on, I doubt it was her.”
“Yeah.” Luc doubted it, too, because she knew just enough about his cover to get things wrong—and they were things she shouldn’t know at all. Plus, she was crazy furious with him, which she’d have no reason to be if she had taken off.
He met Max’s eyes and didn’t doubt his own eyes were every bit as hard as his half brother’s. “And you can take it to the bank that I will get to the bottom of this. But first,” he admitted, “I have to convince Tasha that I’m not a drug dealer. Then I need to get her to talk to me long enough to learn exactly what happened that night so I can figure out where to go from there.”
CHAPTER THREE
TASHA HEARD THE street door to Bella T’s open while she was scrubbing down the kitchen. “We’re closed,” she called, which everyone and their brother should already know because—hello!—Razor Bay. Monday. Labor Day weekend now behind them.
On the other hand, it hadn’t even occurred to her to lock the door while she was back here cleaning. So on the off chance it was some out-of-towner looking for a slice, she came out to give him/her the bad news. But seeing Tiffany, the young woman who had worked for her since the day she’d opened the restaurant’s doors, Tasha frowned in bewilderment. “Hey, girl. What are you doing here on your day off?”
“I parked in my spot behind Bella’s to run some errands,” the plump, flawlessly-made-up brunette with the sunny smile, even sunnier disposition and easy way with people said. “But when I was cutting between the buildings to the street I saw...” Her words trailed away, and for a second she appeared unusually hesitant. Then she tipped her head inquisitively, gave Tasha a penetrating look and suddenly asked, “Do you and that good-looking new Bradshaw brother have something going on that I should know about?”
“What? No!” Oh, God, was it written on her forehead that she and Dieg—Luc—had had crazy wild sex one night a hundred years ago? “Why would you think so?”
“Because I saw him heading upstairs a minute ago,” Tiffany said with a vague wave toward the end of the building where the outdoor staircase ran up to the living quarters. “And he was carrying a big duffel bag like he’s moving in.”
“What the hell—?” Tasha peeled off her rubber gloves, tossed them on the service counter and headed for the door. “Lock up for me, will you?”
“You got it, boss.”
Her heart pounded with an emotion she didn’t want to examine too closely, but she was never so rattled that she forgot to give her aqua-white-and-green-painted building a ritualistic pat as she rounded its corner. Bella T’s was the realization of a dream she’d held since she was twelve years old—except better, because not only was the pizzeria a reality, but she owned the building that housed it, as well. Well, okay, she and the bank owned it, but one day it would be hers alone. And she never, but never, failed to show her appreciation when she transitioned from her work space on the street level to her home upstairs. This was likely the most well-loved inanimate object in Razor Bay.
And she intended to find out what the hell Luc Bradshaw was doing in it.
She took the solid wooden stairs up to the second floor two at a time and burst through the unlocked exterior door, but then stopped dead and stared down the narrow hallway that ran along the building’s back wall as the door bounced off the inside wall. Down near the far wall, Luc stood in front of the studio apartment that her longtime renter, Will, had recently vacated, the aforementioned duffel bag at his feet. At the sound of her less-than-subtle entrance, he spun away from fitting a key in the door lock, his right hand reaching toward the small of his back before suddenly freezing.
That got her moving again. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded as she strode up to him. She thrust out a hand. “Give me that key!”
“Taking your questions in order,” he said dryly, “I’m moving in, cariño. And no.”
She stepped up until they stood nearly nose to nose. “What do you mean, no?”
“It’s a fairly self-explanatory word, princesa mia. I’m not giving back the key. I signed a contract that says I’m the proud owner of this studio apartment for the next ninety days.” He flashed that charming white smile of his that creased his cheeks into not-quite-dimples. Seven years ago its power had rendered her stupid.
She was neither charmed nor made stupid by it this time around, however—not by the smile or his damn Spanish endearments. Back in another lifetime she’d made him explain what those sweet nothings meant, but she’d long since put them out of her mind. And she assured herself firmly that hearing them now left her cold.
Luc himself, unfortunately, did not. From the moment they’d met on that long-ago dawn-cooled beach, she’d felt the heat of the sexuality he exerted with such apparent ease. And much as she might wish otherwise, she still did. He was just so damn...male. And so flipping effortlessly carnal and attractive in his plain navy T-shirt and worn Levis that she spared a second to regret the sullied white apron she had tied around her hips and her old, faded, shapeless T-shirt that stuck messily to her skin in the all places where she’d splashed herself. Which, face it, in her zeal to clean the kitchen, were many. And once again she didn’t have on a speck of makeup. She had to quit letting him catch her looking so undone all the time.
Seriously? Are you listening to yourself? She stepped back and stood tall. Luc Bradshaw was nothing to her. It didn’t matter what he thought of her appearance.
Then, belatedly realizing what he’d just implied, she addressed the real issue here. “You’re Will’s college roommate?” That couldn’t be right; he had to be a good five years older than her former tenant.
“Okay. Sure.”
Oh! He didn’t even try to make her believe it. “You so are not. How did you get him to tell me that you were?”
He rolled his muscular shoulders in an unrepentant shrug. “I may have flashed my badge and told him it was a matter of national security.”
She gaped at him in disgust. “God. You just lie as naturally as the rest of us breathe, don’t you?”
It wasn’t a question, but he took a large step forward that somehow had her backing against the end wall. Propping his arm above her head, he leaned close and looked down at her, making her aware of the heat that pumped off his body, even though they weren’t actually touching.
“The idea, before I thought better of it, was to check out my half brothers without them knowing who I am. And I had no idea you owned the joint—I just liked that it wasn’t a hotel room and it was in Razor Bay. But as for lying,” he said in a low, rough voice, “I’ve got a job that takes me to places where I sure as hell better be good at it. Being fond of staying alive and all.”
She made a rude noise. “Of course—oh, silly me to have forgotten for a moment that you’re a low-life drug dealer.”
He blew out a breath that wafted across her face, and damn his hide, it smelled minty fresh, when by rights it ought to carry the stench of brimstone and lies. “I’m not a drug dealer, Tash,” he said in the mellifluous voice she remembered, the one that was almost as deep as his half brother Max’s. “I’m undercover DEA.”
Cold fury pumped through her veins, and, slapping her hands to his chest, she shoved him back. “You do not get to call me Tash as if you and I are friends,” she said through gritted teeth. “And do me a favor and skip the I’m-really-just-a-poor-misunderstood-good-guy routine, because I’m not buying it.” She thrust out a hand. “Let’s see that contract,” she said, conveniently ignoring the fact that she had a copy filed in her own place.
He turned back to the door and manipulated the key still stuck in the dead bolt. The lock clicked softly, and Luc opened the door and waved her in.
“I’m not going in there with you,” she said—and watched something in his face change that gave her another quick glimpse of the dangerous, determined man she had seen before in a faraway thatched-roof hut nestled on a white-sand beach.
“You are if you want to see the contract,” he said flatly, his right biceps flexing even rounder and harder than it already was as he lifted his bag and hauled it inside. “Everything I own is in my duffel—I’m damned if I’ll empty it out in the hallway.”
“Fine,” she said ungraciously, and, folding her arms over her breasts, she followed him into the studio.
Both apartments above Bella T’s opened onto a narrow veranda that ran the width of the building and looked down on Harbor Street. They boasted sweeping views of the bay and Hood Canal, plus the Olympic Mountains that made it not a canal at all but rather a spectacular fjord. Luc struck Tasha more like a leather than a wicker kind of guy, and he looked big, dark and out of place, too tough to take up residence among the cheerful white furniture and the beachy blues, greens and beiges she’d used to decorate the compact studio.
He dropped his duffel on the end of the bed in the alcove and reached for its zipper. A moment later he pulled out the contract and carried it to her. “Have a seat,” he invited, waving a lean long-fingered hand at the grouping of an overstuffed love seat and two wicker rockers.
She carried it instead over to the tiny drop-leaf table in front of the big window and took a seat on one of the two chairs tucked in on either end.
She cursed her stiff-necked pride and the impulse to follow him in here to try to make him as uncomfortable as she felt. It had been a mistake. The truth was she already knew that Washington State favored tenants in contract disputes, that basically if she as landlord tried to evict, even with a good, solid reason, the tenant could stay in her rental free of charge until the dispute was resolved—which would take a helluva lot longer than ninety days. And she didn’t have a good reason to evict Luc. She sure wished now that she hadn’t allowed Will to find his own replacement and then exacerbated the mistake by leaving him to fill in the contract. She really regretted barely even glancing at the thing before scrawling her signature across it. Her only excuse was that she’d been so relieved at the prospect of three months’ rent money coming in while she worked to find a more permanent tenant.
Bella T’s had just concluded its second summer in business, and for a new restaurant in an industry where the majority of new ventures closed before their second year, it was doing remarkably well. But the pizza parlor was in a resort town that garnered most its income in the summer months. She was fortunate that she got quite a bit of local business, which helped her to escape many of the seasonal issues. But there were still definite lull periods. So until she had a couple more successful years under her belt and was confident she’d nailed down the most efficient ways to stretch her income throughout the entire year, not just in the months that she made good money, she appreciated the added security of collecting rent.
A small brown leather folder landed on the table next to the contract, and she looked up at Luc. “What’s this?”
“My DEA badge.”
She made a rude noise and nudged over the top flap, exposing a mostly gold badge of a spread-winged eagle with Department of Justice written in gold on a black ribbon across its torso and Drug Enforcement Administration and Special Agent circling the U.S. in the body of the badge beneath the bird of prey. It looked very official, but she shrugged and pushed it back toward him with one finger. “Big deal. People fake these things all the time.”
The short gritty noise that came from deep in his throat sounded suspiciously like a dog’s growl. “Jesus, you’re a hard sell. It’s the real deal. Here.” He shoved a driver’s license–sized photo ID toward her. “Here’s my ID.”
She yawned. “Again. Could be forged. How would I know the difference?”
He thrust his fingers through his hair and stared at her. “Look, we need to have an honest heart-to-heart about that night. There are a number of discrepancies and I’d like to figure out what the hell happ—”
“I have nothing to say to a man who lied to me about who he was.” She scooted her chair back from the table and rose. “The contract is solid,” she said smoothly. “But I’d like you to reconsider and find yourself another place.”
“Not gonna happen.”
She blew out a quiet breath. It wasn’t as if she’d really believed it might. “Whatever. Just stay the hell out of my way.”
“Sure,” he said with the oughtta-be-patented smile that had likely left a trail of discarded undies in its wake.
And she knew that probably wasn’t going to happen, either. “I expect first and last months’ payment by 5:00 p.m. today,” she said and left through his veranda slider.
Seconds later she had stalked down the decking to her own slider and let herself into her apartment. She closed it firmly behind her. Then, as an afterthought, locked it tight.
She needed a few minutes to pull herself together before she went downstairs and finished polishing up Bella’s kitchen. But as she paced from room to room trying to burn off the head of steam she had going, she had a nasty feeling it was going to take her a lot longer than a few minutes to work this itchy nervous energy out of her system.
Because how on earth was she going to survive three months of having Luc Bradshaw living right next door?
“Shit,” she whispered, scraping her hair away from her face as she stopped in front of the window to stare blindly out at the water and mountains. “ShitshitshitshitSHIT!”
Then she blew out a breath and tried to think. Swearing and wearing a path in her painted wooden floors weren’t doing jack on the make-me-feel-better front. Only one thing could do that, and she headed for the kitchen counter, where she’d dropped her cell phone.
Screw the cleanup—she’d get it done before opening time tomorrow or, who knew, maybe even later today if she could get a handle on this awful restlessness. But that was something to worry about later.
Right now, she was in dire need of the moral support that only girlfriends could supply.
* * *
LUC HEARD MUTED sounds coming from the apartment next door. After about fifteen minutes, Tasha’s front door slammed, followed seconds later by the outer door closing and the faraway clatter of footsteps growing even fainter as they progressed down the exterior staircase. He ambled out onto the veranda, leaned casually on the railing—and watched as she appeared on Harbor Street below and strolled toward his end of the building. She glanced up, and his heart gave a hard thump as their gazes clashed.
Ah, man. Scrubbing his knuckles over the sudden tightness in his chest, he stared down at her. It hadn’t been enough that she’d stood in front of him in her work clothes, her gorgeous skin all flushed from her obvious exertions and her thin T-shirt clinging to her breasts and diaphragm in little peekaboo patches transparent enough for him to see that she wore a blue lace bra beneath it? The girl knocked his socks off without even trying.
She had sure as hell put some effort into her look for someone now. Her pale eyes were made up all smoky-sultry, and her mouth—God, that lush, siren mouth with its top-heavy upper lip—was painted a soft, sheer red. She had on a short flirty skirt and a next-best-thing-to-spray-paint little girlie tee that clung to her and had a neckline cut low enough for him to see the upper curves of her pale breasts.
Her eyes narrowed. Then she looked away as if he were invisible and sashayed down the block.
Luc leaned farther over the railing, possessiveness sounding low in his throat. Who the hell was she dressing up for?
He pulled himself up short. “Jesus, get a grip.” Really, it was no skin off his dick if she had a boyfriend. It had been a million years since she and he had—
Best not to go there, man. Anyway, it wasn’t as if he weren’t anxious to get back to his own life, to his work. He should probably avoid civilized company altogether. Hell, he’d nearly pulled his gun, which he likely shouldn’t even be carrying here in Razor Bay, when Tasha had crashed the outer door against the wall. He was a guy who needed the buzz of living by his wits, of playing the game right up to the final rush of taking down the bad guys, of putting one more power-happy drug kingpin out of business.