Serious Risks Read online

  She searched his face, more because she was hungry to look at him than because she thought she would discover some hint that he was being less than honest with her. He wasn’t a conventionally handsome man, but she wouldn’t have found him attractive if he had been. “Okay. It’s not dangerous.”

  “You won’t be doing this alone, Jessie,” Arlen said, hearing an uncertain note in her voice. “The only time you’ll be on your own will be the next time Leong approaches you—if he does. Once he’s introduced an agent to you, they won’t take you by surprise again. Each and every meeting will be arranged in advance and designed to gain your confidence.”

  “How can you know that?”

  He couldn’t hold still for another second. Conflicting impulses pulled at him, tugging him this way and that, and there wasn’t a one of them he could heed—because, damn it, he was on a case, and he needed this woman to act as a double agent. He could neither reach out and haul her into his arms nor stride from the house and ride his Harley into emotional oblivion somewhere out on the interstate.

  Arlen rose to his feet with a quickness that deprived the movement of any nonchalance. Watching him pace around the living room, Jessica was reminded of a caged lion. She had sensed his tension the instant he had walked through her door, and she had the distinct impression that he was growing less relaxed by the minute.

  “I can be sure,” Arlen said in answer to her question, “because once the agent is introduced to you, one of his primary tasks is going to be getting your complete trust. He’s going to want you to feel as safe as a baby in a cradle around him, and he can’t achieve that if you get surprised in any way. He’ll know, though, that you aren’t going to pass classified information to someone you don’t trust.”

  Jessica folded her arms beneath her breasts and shook her head. “It’s absurd to discuss trust and treason in the same breath.”

  His mouth framed one of his crooked smiles, but he never paused in his restless circumnavigation of her living room. “I doubt that’ll be the last absurdity you encounter.” He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and paused before the fireplace to study the framed miniatures on the mantelpiece. “Are all these folks your family?” They were all old pictures, many from around the turn of the century, but there was no other common thread to them.

  “None of them are family. I picked them up in various antique shops.”

  Why? He almost asked the question, then caught himself. An investigator’s natural curiosity could too easily lead him to ask questions that shouldn’t be asked. Which reminded him. Turning, he faced Jessica.

  “There are two things I wanted to tell you,” he said.

  She watched him draw up in some inexplicable way. It was almost as if he somehow closed up on himself to become the clone again. Suddenly his rough motorcycle clothes looked like a costume, and Arlen Coulter looked every inch the FBI agent.

  “First,” he said, “Vicki Grier called the Bureau this afternoon to report that Barron had been investigating your missing document just prior to his death. She reported it stolen.”

  Jessica sat up straighter. “She did? How did she know? She didn’t come with Barron when he talked to me, and he was convinced it was just mislaid.”

  “Evidently he had a few doubts about that, because he started writing a report that concealed none of the facts, and that included all your statements about being sure it had been there the night before. Grier came across the report this afternoon when she was looking through Barron’s office for some other paperwork. She called us right away.”

  “Did you tell her I have the report?”

  Arlen shook his head. “I don’t want anyone to know you’re involved with the Bureau except possibly on a personal level, remember? I didn’t say a thing about it. You call her on Monday and tell her you found it. At this point, she’s certainly not going to believe you mislaid it, so don’t worry about it. And she’ll keep quiet about the incident because I asked her to.”

  Jessica was dismayed to realize her main reaction to all of this was jealousy. Vicki Grier was a lovely woman with hair the color of sun-drenched honey and a figure Jessica could have achieved only through major plastic surgery. She was also unattached and closer to Arlen’s age. “You’re sure she’s trustworthy?” As soon as the question escaped her, she felt like a jealous vixen and was embarrassed by it.

  Arlen noticed that Jessica’s bright eyes seemed to dim a little, but that was none of his business, so he didn’t ask. A professional distance. He would keep it if it killed him.

  “On this, at least. Otherwise she wouldn’t have called the Bureau. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for her to disclaim all knowledge of the missing document, since it’s apparent that Barron hadn’t told anyone about it before he died. Which is another odd circumstance.”

  “It sounds as if Barron may have been involved in this somehow,” Jessica said.

  “Well, that’s what’s odd about it,” Arlen admitted. “On the one hand, he was writing a report that would seem to indicate he was on the up-and-up. On the other, he didn’t mention the missing document to his assistant.” He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets, reminding himself not to talk too freely. Details of any investigation were confidential.

  “The other thing,” he said, “is that we did a BI—background investigation—on you.”

  “Me?” Startled, Jessica stiffened. “What kind of background investigation?”

  “Something like what you had to go through to get your Top Secret clearance, but we didn’t go into as much detail, since your clearance record contained most of your past history. A credit check, Jess. That kind of thing.”

  “Did you find out anything interesting?” she asked.

  His smile didn’t quite edge past the corners of his mouth. “Depends on what you mean by interesting, Jessie. I learned that you invested a huge portion of your savings in this house, and that some people could conceivably think you might be strapped for cash.”

  Jessica gasped. “That’s not true!”

  “I didn’t say it was. I said it could be construed that way. That may be one of the reasons you’ve been targeted—they think they might have a lever.”

  She was outraged. “You mean these…these foreign agents can find out about my finances? About things like that?”

  “All they have to do is check with a credit bureau. Any car salesman can do that on the PC at his desk, Jess. What makes you think the KGB or any other intelligence group is going to be able to do any less?”

  He spoke reasonably, but he understood her distress. Most people didn’t think about things like this, even when they went to buy a car or a house. It never occurred to them that anyone could find out these kinds of intimate details, or that the information could be used for unsavory purposes.

  She looked up at him, and there was something almost hurt in her expression. She had lost a little of her innocence. “Do you think that’s why Greg Leong approached me? Do you think I’m strapped enough for cash to sell out my country?”

  “God, no, Jess!” He shook his head. “Of course I don’t. I’m just telling you what may be behind this recruitment attempt. That’s all. They may think you might be interested in making a little money, that’s all. They’re always on the lookout for something like that.”

  He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. “Want to hear an ironic story? At least, I’ve always thought it was ironic. Probably the most ironic case I’ve ever worked on, and I’ve worked on more than a few.”

  Distracted from her unhappy realization that there was no such thing as privacy, Jessica nodded. “Sure.”

  “A naval officer in the Washington area found himself seriously short of money. The details don’t matter, but he needed twenty-five thousand, and he needed it fast. He happened to know a naval attaché at the Soviet embassy, so he arranged to meet the guy for lunch. And he asked the Soviet to set up a meeting for him with a KGB official.”

  Arlen shook h
is head. “Would you believe that the Soviet offered to lend the American the money? Would you believe he told the American, ‘You really don’t want to sell out your country for money.’” Arlen shook his head yet again. “It’s small wonder the other side thinks Americans will do anything for a little money. They see us do it all the time.”

  He looked down at her sitting there all curled up, arms folded beneath deliciously full breasts, feet tucked up under her. His groin stirred, and some traitorous portion of his mind reminded him that this delectable morsel of a woman had welcomed his advances only a few hours ago. Upstairs there was a white satin comforter…. Hell! He still didn’t know what she looked like with her hair down. He couldn’t possibly be contemplating that degree of intimacy with a woman whom he’d never even seen with her hair down.

  Oh, yes, he could, some undeluded corner of his mind acknowledged. The problem was that he was a gentleman, and a gentleman didn’t take liberties like that with a lady. And Jessica was a lady.

  Having succeeded in making himself feel guilty, he was able to pick up his jacket and pull it on.

  “I’ll come by in the morning,” he said, moving toward the door. “Is nine too early?”

  “No.” Disturbed by his abrupt departure, she unfolded herself and rose to her feet. “Nine is fine. But I can call a cab, Arlen,” she said, making the offer even though she didn’t want to. “You don’t have to go out of your way.”

  He managed a fleeting smile. “No problem, Jessie. It’s my fault your car is at MTI. Besides, I promised you a ride on my bike. See you in the morning.”

  He was gone before she could say another word. Whatever had gotten into him? she wondered. The silent, empty house offered no answer.

  Chapter 6

  Jessica stared at her reflection in the full-length mirror and acknowledged glumly that no amount of wishing would make her look really good in jeans. There was simply too much of her to ever achieve that long, lean look for which jeans were meant. Still, she couldn’t very well wear anything else on a motorcycle. She compromised by selecting an oversize blouse that would cover her below her hips. Sins that couldn’t be banished could be hidden. Her hair, as usual, she pulled into the severe chignon she’d been wearing since she turned sixteen and discovered a need to be taken seriously.

  The March day was turning into one of those spectacular days that were so common this time of year in central Texas. The sun was warm, steadily burning off the night’s chill, and the temperature promised to hit a perfect seventy-five or eighty degrees.

  A perfect day for a picnic, she thought. It had been years since she’d gone on a picnic. There was no point in going on one alone, and these days all her friends were married or getting married or living together. There was, she freely admitted, nothing as boring as somebody else’s twosome, and nothing as boring to a pair as a single friend. But, oh, how nice it would be to go on a picnic.

  Nice or not, however, she didn’t have the nerve to suggest it. She’d used up every bit of her nerve and self-confidence last night when she had asked Arlen to give her a ride on his bike.

  Arlen was resigned, after struggling with himself half the night, to the intimacy he was going to have to endure with Jessica today. He had, after all, promised by implication to take her out riding in the countryside today, and the weather obviously wasn’t going to give him a convenient excuse.

  Standing on her back porch, looking down into her smiling, eager face, he decided there could be far worse fates than spending a chaste day with Jessica. There was, for example, the fate of spending a gorgeous Saturday alone with himself.

  “Why don’t we go on a picnic?” he heard himself suggest out of the clear blue sky. Coulter, you’re losing your mind, he told himself. But he watched the smile widen on her lovely face, and saw the color bloom in her cheeks, and some part of him decided he wasn’t losing his mind, after all. Hell, maybe he was finally becoming sane. “A picnic would be nice, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll need to stop at the store,” she said in what she hoped was a cheerfully brisk tone. She absolutely didn’t want him to guess how much that simple invitation meant to her.

  “No problem,” he said. “What do you like to take for a picnic, Jess?”

  “Cheese and crackers?” she suggested tentatively. “I don’t know. Whatever sounds good to you. They have a nice deli at Corbett’s.”

  “Let’s go look, then.” Taking her elbow, he drew her down the steps to the Harley. She looked good, he thought in spite of himself. She fairly glowed with health and vitality, and her hair shone in the sunlight. He noted the oversize blouse and, with the wisdom of a man who’d been married for better than twenty years, he knew immediately why she was wearing it. The understanding tugged at him in an uncomfortable way. Damn it, he found himself thinking, this was the lady he’d twice lost his control over, something he hadn’t done in better than a quarter century. This was the lady he’d all but made love to on his couch yesterday because she was so damn sexy. And she believed… Hell’s bells, he couldn’t even complete the thought, it made him so damn mad.

  Grabbing up the helmet he had bought first thing this morning, he turned and settled it on Jessica’s head. It was one of the souped-up helmets with a faceplate and chin guard, and he’d selected it because riding a motorcycle was dangerous even when driven by skilled hands. If anything happened, that helmet would be Jessie’s only protection, and he wasn’t going to risk her lovely face.

  “Does it feel okay?” he asked her as he straightened it and reached to fasten the chin strap.

  “I guess.” She laughed, a small, breathless sound. “I’ve never worn a helmet before. I don’t have any way to judge.”

  His mouth pulled into one of his crooked smiles. “It should feel snug, but it shouldn’t hurt.” He tugged on it a little.

  “Snug,” she said, “and it doesn’t hurt. It’s okay, I guess.”

  He showed her where to put her foot, warned her about the hot exhaust pipes and helped her onto the bike. Jessica sat on the broad saddle and reached behind her, trying to hang on to the metal backrest.

  “Uh-uh, Jess,” Arlen said. Reaching around, he tugged at one of her hands and guided it to his waist. “Hang on to me,” he said. “I want to know exactly where you are. And when I lean, lean with me, even if your instincts say to go the other way.”

  “Okay.” Excitement and a little fear had her heart fluttering wildly, and her mouth was getting as dry as a bone. She couldn’t remember ever having done anything this daring before.

  When Arlen had strapped his own helmet on, he kick-started the Harley, then settled back onto the saddle. “Hang on, Jess,” he shouted over the bike’s roar.

  Obediently, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his waist. She tried to hold on loosely, but as soon as the bike started to roll forward she tightened her grip and pressed herself snugly up against Arlen’s back.

  Yep, he thought, it was going to be sheer hell. Jessica’s thighs embraced his intimately. He tried not to think about which part of her anatomy was cradling his tush. How, he wondered, could a man of forty-two be so damn horny? He was sure he hadn’t been this consistently hot since his early twenties.

  The Corbett’s Supermarket wasn’t far, and it was with relief that Arlen pulled into a parking slot. How the hell was he going to handle this all day? Five minutes had just about turned him into a raving maniac. He would have to call off this outing.

  But Jessica was smiling brightly when he helped her out of her helmet, and her eyes were glowing with excitement. He doubted he’d seen a happier face since first thing on Christmas morning when his kids had been little. Nope, he was just going to have to rely on good sense and self-control to get him through this one.

  “That was fantastic!” she enthused as he reached out to steady her. Swinging her leg over the bike wasn’t hard, but her foot slipped.

  He caught her. It was either that or let her fall to the pavement. His hands snatched her right under
her arms, and he hauled her up against his chest. Hard met soft, and the world spun away with dizzying speed.

  “Jessie…” Her name slipped past his lips on a barely audible sigh. He looked down into her brown eyes, eyes that seemed to glow with their own inner light. He felt his body tightening, swelling, hardening, for her, even as something deep inside seemed to open wide to the warmth of her light. God, she was soft…so soft.

  With a boldness that astonished her even as she did it, Jessica reached up and captured Arlen’s head, slipping her hands into his soft hair, tugging his head down to her. Intuitively, she understood that he had to know that she wanted this, too, that he wasn’t somehow taking advantage of her. “Please,” she whispered.

  A car’s backfire jolted him back to reality. They were standing in a parking lot, for crying out loud, and he’d forgotten that simply because he was holding her. This lady was dangerous. Carefully he set her on her feet and stepped back.

  He also realized he had given her the right to demand his kisses. He had given her the right yesterday on his living-room couch. And somehow he didn’t want to take it back. Damn it, she was making him feel desirable. Desirable and alive.

  “Later, bright eyes,” he heard himself say. Reaching out, he cupped her cheek briefly, gently. “Let’s go get our picnic.”

  Later. Jessica hugged the word, felt her heart leap at the promise. Then Arlen took her hand, and she was sure she was walking on air. What had happened to all his resistance? What had changed his mind? Glancing sideways and upward, she studied his profile as they entered the store, but there was nothing there to illuminate the change.

  Arlen grabbed a hand basket from the stack just inside the door. “Crackers and cheese,” he said. “What about some wine? Do you like wine? Any particular kind?”

  Jessica, who’d had a glass of wine exactly twice in her sheltered life, both times in the company of her girlfriends, thought it sounded romantic, but she frankly didn’t like wine. “Get whatever you like,” she said.