LITMIR.BIZ

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their unusual steely color warming. “You could try bribing me with another piece of that peach pie. Maybe a cup of coffee to go with it? I’d probably support you for president.”

      She grinned. “Whoa now! Don’t tell me you’re still hungry.”

      He nodded, smiling, though his expression faltered a bit, leaning toward sadness. His cynicism and professional distance seemed to desert him all of a sudden. He looked vulnerable to her, almost lost, before he turned away, pretending to focus on the empty birdhouses.

      Vanessa could sense his hunger, but it wasn’t for food. It appeared to be a soul-deep need she wasn’t sure she knew how to feed, but she wished she could try. Her grandmother had warned her time and again that she took things too much to heart, that she shouldn’t think she had to try to fix everything and everybody.

      Maybe, like old Billy, this man just needed someone to show him they cared and that he had a place in the world. She could do that much, surely. It had worked wonders for the bear.

       Chapter 3

       C lay felt the change in Vanessa’s attitude since telling her about his real reason for being here. It wasn’t anything abrupt, just an obvious softening. He would have thought it might intensify that eagerness to please she had exhibited earlier, but somehow it had the reverse effect.

      Now she seemed more at ease with him, and as if she were trying to take him under her wing or something. The odd thing was, he didn’t mind.

      They sat in her grandparents’ den where earlier he had used the fax to send the information to McLean. The child had been in bed for hours and the older folks had retired at ten, leaving Clay and Vanessa alone.

      “We’ll go into town in the morning,” she was saying, verifying the thought he’d just had. “You’ll need to meet the chief, the council and our local force. Jurisdiction’s not much of a problem, because we keep the lines of communication open.”

      “Cooperation, that’s the new byword, isn’t it? That’s what my team is all about. We have agents from six different diciplines and so far, it has worked out to our advantage.”

      “Things are improving at the top levels, but also on the local scene,” she said.

      He leaned back in his chair and watched her dark eyes shine as she continued in earnest, obviously proud of her role in law enforcement.

      She had beautiful eyes, large and black fringed, beneath perfect eyebrows. Her voice had a quality about it that fascinated him for some reason he couldn’t quite explain. He could listen to her forever. Why had he ever thought she talked too much?

      “Generally speaking, we go by North Carolina laws here on the boundary, but we have our own court system, our own police and everything. As I’ve told you, I spoke with the chief already and touched base with the sheriff. But even though you and I are already on it and will handle it anyway, protocol dictates that we be invited to run this investigation. It’s a formality I think we should observe.”

      Clay nodded, attempting again to focus his attention more closely on her words instead of her mouth. It was bow-shaped, naturally rosier than her skin, not too full or bee-stung, but refined, sort of ethereal. Malleable. Kissable. With a sharp shake of his head, he yanked his thoughts back to the business at hand. “It will be your op, Vanessa, but I agree. You should go by the rules, even the unwritten ones, whenever possible.”

      And so should he. Especially that one about not coming on to fellow agents, Clay decided.

      He had a great deal of respect for her already. She was determined to share all she knew in order to help him understand how things were done here. Listening to her and getting her personal perspective sure beat having to research all of that.

      She should be the one to set things up, show him how she interacted with local law enforcement, which she would certainly get plenty of if she took the job with COMPASS. Cooperation was the cornerstone of success in a multilevel investigation.

      Along with the politics, she continued to salt in local customs and unwritten rules the Eastern Band lived by. She bragged about the tribe’s success in establishing the current constitution, their thriving new compost business and the added revenues from Harrah’s casino. A woman so proud of her community, she glowed with it.

      “And that,” she said, clapping her hands once as she leaned forward, facing him over the ottoman, “is enough of local history for now.”

      Clay leaned forward, too. And he kissed her.

      Surprised at first, she stilled, then slowly began to participate. Her lips tasted exactly the way he’d expected, soft and generous, flavored with peaches, which he now loved, and hot, sweet coffee.

      For all of two blissful seconds, she responded, opening to him like a flower to rain. Suddenly she backed off, breaking the kiss, her dark eyes wide.

      “I didn’t mean to do that,” she rushed to say, touching her fingertips to her bottom lip. “Really!”

      “You didn’t do anything,” Clay said with a gusty sigh of regret. “I did.” He sat back, hands carefully clasped in his lap. He wished he’d grabbed a sofa cushion to better hide the evidence of his feelings. “And I didn’t mean to, either. I apologize, Vanessa. It was…just an impulse. A mistake.”

      “Yeah, huge error,” she breathed. “We’d better not do it again, huh?”

      Clay released a self-deprecating chuckle and shook his head. “No, unfortunately. Better not.”

      She scooted back in her chair and tucked her feet under her. “If I kissed you—seriously, I mean—you might think I was trying to persuade you to choose me for that team of yours.”

      “No, I wouldn’t. But you could think I was offering the job in exchange for sexual favors. Which I am definitely not doing,” he added with emphasis.

      “No sex on the table, huh? Well, flattering to know the thought occurred to you somewhere along the way. But you’re right.” Her lips turned up at the corners. “Boy, we sure know how to gum up a situation, don’t we?” She sighed. “Okay. No kissing. No sex. We should just forget this happened.”

      Fat chance of that. Clay could not believe what he’d done. Mercier would fire him on the spot, probably see he never worked in the field again if he found out about this. But he then remembered how Mercier had met his wife on an op in France. That was different, though. Solange had been a civilian.

      Same deal with Joe and Martine Corda. Then there were Holly and Will Griffin, who actually were fellow agents and partners on some assignments. Their getting together had almost caused a serious flap and they still had problems to iron out because of it. No, no good precedent in favor of his pursuing Vanessa Walker existed. He had to leave her alone. Besides, he wasn’t looking for a relationship. Never had, really. Bad time to start.

      His own composure was so rattled right now, he had the urge to run out of here and down the mountain as if his pants were on fire. In fact, that was close to the truth. But despite the wrongness of it all, he wanted nothing more than to crawl across that damn ottoman and kiss her again, harder, longer and without stopping.

      “Well, I guess I’ll say good-night now,” she said, hopping up from the chair and pulling the lapels of her jacket together. But not before Clay saw the beads of her nipples, erect as they could be, showing through her shirt and bra. No way he could hide his response to her. So with as much aplomb as he could muster, and without standing, he simply said, “Good night, Vanessa.”

      Clay’s cell phone chirped at five o’clock in the morning, waking him. He fumbled around on the nightstand for it and answered. It was Mercier. “Don’t you ever sleep?” Clay asked, rubbing his eyes. “What’s so urgent?”

      Ten minutes later he was dressed and knocking softly on Vanessa’s door. When she opened it, he almost forgot why he was there. He watched, breathless, as she hitched the thin strap of her nightgown back onto her smooth, bare

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