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“Luigi’s and Wong Fu’s even deliver,” he added helpfully.
“I may survive,” she said. “Thanks—” She lifted a brow at the place where normally she would have said his name. He didn’t miss the hint.
“Ian. Ian Gamble.”
She held out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Ian.” No macho posturing here. His handshake was firm but not crushing. “I’ll replace the sugar.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said.
“Okay, then I’ll buy the ice cream one night.”
“I…uh…”
He looked so startled it disconcerted her. He was a reasonably attractive man—well, okay, more than reasonably—surely he’d had a woman ask him for a casual date before. Hadn’t he?
He was, she knew, only thirty-two, hardly old enough to be of the mind-set that women simply didn’t ask men out.
“How about tomorrow afternoon?” she asked, thinking perhaps a Sunday afternoon might seem less threatening. “Besides,” she added, “that way you can show me where it is.”
That practicality seemed to convince him, and he nodded. “Okay. If it can be late afternoon, I’ve got some work to finish up.”
“Work? On Sunday?” He shrugged. She looked at the two computers. “Are you some kind of dot com guy or something?”
He laughed. It was as nice as his smile. “Not hardly. I’m just a…researcher.”
Had he hesitated over using the word inventor? And if so, why? she wondered. Because it was too hard to explain to strangers?
“You work at home?” she asked.
“No. I work downtown.”
“So do I.”
As if the need to be careful had just come back to him full force, he asked, “Where did you move from?”
“An apartment so small I could barely breathe,” she said, with total honesty. She never spent much time in the place she’d moved into after Billy had settled into his own new home, because she was on the road so much for Josh. But when she was there for more than a few days, it seemed cramped. She had the feeling that by the time this was over, she’d miss the extra room. This house wasn’t huge, but it was three times the size of her apartment.
“This will be worth the extra drive,” she added, and he seemed to accept the implication that her apartment was closer to her work.
“It’s a nice neighborhood. Quiet.”
“Good. I’ve already picked out my favorite reading spot, up in the window seat,” she said, figuring she’d supply the reason now, in case he noticed and started to wonder why she was up there so much.
“You read a lot?”
“Not as much as I’d like. That’s why I’m planning on more.”
He smiled at that, the understanding smile of a fellow reader. She gestured around at the living room office. “Do you read anything but work?”
“I try, but like you, not as much as I’d like. I read history, mostly. But now and then a good mystery will keep me up nights.”
“Me, too,” she agreed, knowing she meant it in a totally different way than he did.
She’d about pushed the limits of the cup of sugar, she decided. “I’d better get back to my unpacking. And I’ve got to get my friend’s truck back to him yet today. Thanks again for the sugar.”
She felt his gaze on her all the way down the walkway, and then heard the door softly close.
Ian felt exhausted. He’d only spent five minutes with the woman and he was worn-out. He sank down on the couch, fighting the urge to pull the pillow into place and lie down. What the hell was wrong with him? Had he become so reclusive, so withdrawn that a short conversation with someone was such an effort for him?
After a moment he discarded that notion. It wasn’t just someone, it was someone like Samantha Harrison. Life and energy simply radiated from her, and that kind of person always had this effect on him. Because he was so much the opposite, he supposed. He was always one step back from life, an observer rather than a participant. People like her lived life to the fullest, with passion and еlan. People like him just stood back and watched, admiring but not partaking.
And sometimes wishing they could be different.
Chapter 3
It wasn’t just a Monday morning, it was a rotten Monday morning. Rebecca was really starting to get on Ian’s nerves. When they’d first assigned the intern to him, he’d thought she might be a help with all the paperwork and reports tracking the progress of the project. And he couldn’t deny she was efficient at that. Too efficient, perhaps. She had too much time left to hang over his shoulder, too much time to poke her nose into new work that wasn’t ready to be added to the logs yet.
He’d tried telling her he worked alone; he couldn’t tolerate somebody hanging around so closely. But she’d told him she was just so excited she couldn’t help herself. One time he’d snapped at her, and the sight of tears welling up in her eyes made him feel like such a jerk. She was barely more than a girl, after all. So now he found himself making up things for her to do, just to get her out of his way for a while. Like now, when he asked her to track down a new cartridge for the printer, when he knew a simple shaking of the current one would keep him going for a couple of weeks. He didn’t care, he just needed her out of here so he could concentrate.
It didn’t work.
He swore under his breath as his mind insisted on returning to yesterday, a Sunday afternoon unlike any he’d had in years. Samantha was filled with such energy, such a passion for life it put him in mind of his mother, which did little to explain his wary fascination. He and his mother—and his father, for that matter—did not see eye to eye on much of anything, except that they loved each other and shared the wonder at how on earth they had wound up as parents and child.
A simple walk down the street for an ice cream, something he’d done countless times before, had somehow been turned into an adventure. Being new to the neighborhood, she’d seen and asked about things he took for granted. But he was glad. It let him relax and answer questions instead of trying to think of things to say. At one time he’d been perfectly able to carry on a conversation without strain. Once again he wondered how he’d come to this.
The Martins’ multicolored Victorian-style house had earned a grin, the Bergs’ cheerful border collie, a croon and a pat, and Mrs. Gerardi’s lavish formal garden had rated a stop and look.
“Gorgeous, but a bit too tidy for my taste.”
“You ought to love mine, then,” Ian had said wryly.
She’d laughed, that lively and musical sound. “I noticed.”
“I don’t have the time,” he’d said, then added frankly, “or the knowledge.”
“I do. I love gardening, and there’s not much to do around my place. Too much concrete,” she’d said with a grimace. She’d turned a smile on him then that made his breath catch. “So why don’t I tackle your yard? You’d be doing me a favor, letting me putter.”
“You want to work on my yard?” He’d gaped at her but hadn’t been able to help it.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Samantha had said, sounding utterly enthused.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Rebecca’s voice said in his ear now, sounding utterly meek.
Ian snapped back to the present. For a moment he just stared at his assistant, who was looking at him as if she’d been talking for a while. He hadn’t heard a word.
“Mind?” he asked, hoping the ploy would work. It did, sort of. She repeated enough that he was able to get the gist of her request but with an expression on her face that clearly indicated she was wondering about his sanity.
“I know you said last week’s data wasn’t ready yet, but I thought since I have some time I’d enter it, anyway, and then I can make any changes you want later.”
Sometimes her eagerness wore on him, Ian thought. Maybe it was simply her youth. She made him feel much more than just thirteen years older than she was. He wondered how old Samantha was. Younger than he, he guessed. But not as young as Rebecca. And her enthusiasm didn’t wear on him in the same way. For all her lightheartedness, he sensed in Samantha depths that weren’t shown to the world. She’d had shadows in her life, he thought. She—
“Well, Professor?”
Yanked again back to the present, he resisted the urge to again snap at her for calling him that. He shouldn’t be angry at her. She was always so nice to him, bringing him lunch when he forgot to eat, tidying his office, making sure he remembered a jacket when it was cool.
“Go ahead,” he said, rather sharply.
And just leave me alone.
Even as he thought the words, he realized they had become a mantra. He’d even stopped adding to do my work to the phrase. And for the most part, people were doing just that. Leaving him alone.
For the first time he wondered if maybe he’d gone too far into isolation.
“Hey, Professor, how goes it?” Stan Chilton’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Data ready yet?”
He’s your boss, Ian reminded himself, albeit with jaw clenched. You can’t punch out the head of research and development, even if he is the one who started that damned “Professor” thing.
And the man was nearly as bad as Rebecca, hovering, flitting around the edges until Ian thought he was going to lose it. Odd, Stan hadn’t always been that way. But it seemed everybody was strung tight over this particular project—even Stan, who, while bright enough, was more of an administrator than anything. His talent lay in the research, not in the development. Along with his computer skills, which were legend around the division, paperwork and organization, things that were an anathema to Ian, were Stan’s pride and joy.
And without him, you’d be stuck doing that, Ian told himself. So with a sigh he reined in his temper and set about updating Chilton, which in essence meant telling him that in hard data they were exactly where they’d been the last time he’d asked.
“So far, so good,” Sam reported.
“He doesn’t suspect?” Josh asked.
“No.” She lifted a shoulder to hold the phone receiver against her ear as she finished pouring icy soda water into her glass. “I’ve got a good watching post for when he’s in the house at night, and a way to stick close to him on weekends. The only problem is transit between here and Redstone. Right now I’m following him in and then back home, but I don’t think that’s going to work forever.”
“You think he knows you’re following him?” Josh asked.
“I told him I work in the same direction. But he works unpredictable hours, and that makes it tricky for me to match his schedule without him getting wise.”
“Shall I have somebody else do the tail, so you can be less obvious?”
“That would be a good idea, for the interim.”
“The interim?”
“I still don’t like him driving alone. Too much could happen. If somebody was really prepared, they could grab him before we could get to him.”
“Unacceptable,” Josh said. And she knew he meant it.
“I’ve got a way around it, but I think I need to wait a bit. He needs to know me better, get used to me being around.”
“It’s your call.”
She understood what trust and faith were implicit in those words. Josh didn’t need details, he trusted his people to do their jobs. Never once had he even hinted that she was any less capable than any of the men on the team, or that she needed backup. Josh had hired her, Draven had trained her, and she carried her share.
“I’ll arrange for someone to track him in the meantime,” Josh said.
“Thanks. Have you heard from Draven?” she asked, now that the head of her section had come to mind.
“This morning. He’s wrapping up in Managua and will be headed back the end of the week, with the package.”
Way to go, she thought. They’d all wondered if they would be called in on that kidnap situation. Should have known better, with Draven on it.
“How’s Billy?” Josh asked.
“Fine. I just got back from the school. I’m able to see him every day now, as long as our boy is in the lab. It’s working out well.”
She knew Josh had somebody on the inside watching—his longtime and rather spookily omniscient assistant, St. John, she suspected—ready to call or page her if Gamble left unexpectedly. That left her quite free during the frequently long work hours the professor put in, hours she put to good use visiting her brother and catching up on her sleep.
“I’d like to stop by and see him,” Josh said.
“He’d love that. You know you’re always Uncle Josh to him.”
She could almost see him smiling, and there was no denying the genuine pleasure in his tone when he answered. “He’s a special kid.”
“Yes,” Sam said quietly. Her little brother was a very, very special kid. And it took a man the caliber of Josh Redstone to realize that.
After she’d hung up she sat still for a moment, thinking once more how lucky she was. If Josh hadn’t pulled her out of her old job, who knows where the restless streak she’d been born with would have led her. Her parents, had they lived, would have been aghast at her work now, at the danger of it, the very thing that kept her exhilarated and buoyant.
But they would have been pleased that she’d taken care of Billy. Not that there had ever been any question. Her sweet-natured, always happy brother was considered handicapped by some, but to her he was the base of her world, the center that kept her sane.
And sometimes the single thing that kept her restless streak from becoming a reckless one.
Ian nearly drove through his garage door.
He wasn’t really accident-prone, just sometimes he got to thinking and lost track of what he was doing. Fortunately his reflexes were fast enough to keep him out of trouble most of the time, but there was a reason he always bought used cars.
Thinking had nothing to do with it this time, however. When he pulled into his driveway and saw Samantha in his garden, wearing only a bright-blue tank top and cutoff jeans that bared too much of those long legs for his equilibrium, he completely forgot what he was doing. That is, driving.
He stopped a fraction of an inch away from an expensive repair job on both garage door and already recently repaired car. Samantha looked up then and gave him a cheerful wave. She held a small pair of clippers, he saw then, and other gardening tools were in a small bucket on the ground beside her. She had on those dark, wraparound sunglasses, and a lime-green baseball-style cap, with her long, pale hair pulled through the back in a makeshift ponytail.
And the three-foot section of garden in front of her had been reclaimed. It wasn’t anything drastic, just…tidier. The profusion of color his parents had loved was still there, it was just that you could see it all now.
Slowly he got out of his car and walked toward her. It was still warm out, even though it was after five, and he could see that she’d been at this a while, as she’d worked up a sweat. She seemed utterly unconcerned about it, which he thought was nice. He also saw a large bottle of water beside a tube of sunscreen in the tool bucket. She was careful, he thought. And wise. With her fair skin she could truly suffer from too much sun without protection.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said as he stopped before her. “I wasn’t going to start this until Saturday, but I got off a bit early today. I only did a little, until you could see and approve.”
“I do. Approve, I mean,” he amended hastily. “It looks just like it used to, when my mother was here.”
“She planted the garden?”
He nodded. “Most of it. They’re both big on bright colors and the exotic, so she added that to what was already here.”
“She got both,” Samantha said with a grin. “What a great place. I presume the bird of paradise was her pet?”
“And the lilies, I think.”
