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“But that’s what I do. I investigate through the computer. Some agencies would call me an information specialist.”
“You work for my agency, April. I employ investigators who can work behind a computer and in the field.”
Could she help it that she was more comfortable with binary and circuitry than she was with English and humans?
John heaved a sigh that drove the alarm indicator in her head right off the gauge. The man was gearing up for an argument. She recognized the raised brows, the stiff neck and the squared shoulders as surely as if the word A-R-G-U-M-E-N-T had been tattooed across his forehead.
She took a judicious step back. Unfortunately, her sweater caught the edge of his in-box as she did. John came halfway out of his chair in a vain attempt to catch it, but the whole tray toppled off the desk with a clatter.
“No, no, don’t get up,” she said, sinking to her knees to collect the scattered papers. “I’ve got them.”
She could feel his gaze on her as she gathered the various documents and envelopes and quickly restacked them. By the time she returned the tray to his desk, her cheeks were hot and John was watching her with an expression of resignation that only made her blush burn hotter.
Backing away to minimum safe distance, she took a calming breath and another crack at appearing nonchalant. But John still looked resigned, which meant he wasn’t buying her act.
“Do you know what a nibbie is, April?”
A nibbie? Definitely not the question she’d expected. A change of tactic, then, so he could try to make his case for getting her off the computer. “Yes.”
“Would you mind explaining the term to me?”
“Nibbies are teeny-tiny tufts of fabric that ball up on sheets. It’s a casual term. You might have heard them called piles or pills.”
He shook his head. “These…nibbies are a big deal?”
“To some people, I guess.”
“Well, I suppose that fits. Wilhemina made a point of saying that whoever I sent needed to know what a nibbie was. She called me obtuse when I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about.”
Under any other circumstances April would have smiled at John’s indignation. Most people wouldn’t consider calling the man anything but sir. Then again, most people weren’t his wife’s sister, a formidable woman who was more than up to the task of handling her sister’s equally formidable husband. But April couldn’t even rally a grin. She’d walked right into this one.
“Sort of like the Princess and the Pea,” he said, grinning at his own cleverness, which in April’s mind only supported the accusation of obtuseness.
She only shrugged, afraid to open her mouth and step in any further. Personally, she couldn’t see what the big deal was. She’d never noticed whether she slept on sheets with nibbies or not. The only time she was horizontal in a bed was when she was fast asleep, unconscious of nibbies, piles or pills. Unconscious enough to be unaware of anything else that might take place in a bed, either.
He leveled that steely gaze on her. “Sounds to me like you’ve got a good bead on the subject. You’re the right person for this case.”
“And what exactly is this case?”
“Inside surveillance.”
A moment passed before she managed to speak past the alarm shrieking in her head. “Inside surveillance? You want me to go…undercover?”
“As Rex Holt’s in-house marketing assistant.”
Undercover? A laugh sprang unbidden to her lips, along with a denial that she managed—barely—to squelch before it actually popped out of her mouth. Good thing, too, because butting heads with John would only make him dig in his heels.
She started to pace. She didn’t sit still well on the best of days, but with John springing fieldwork, no, undercover fieldwork on her…
Glancing at the most recent Mooney family portrait that included a stoic John, a smiling Paula, their daughters, sons-in-law and seven grandchildren, she clasped her hands behind her back and forced herself not to pace, although the urge to move was physical.
She was manic at the best of times but when she got nervous…April Stevens aka April Accidentally had learned to curtail her actions rather than risk knocking anything else off John’s desk, or heaven forbid, the étagère, which housed all sorts of sentimental items.
John knew more about her than anyone on this planet. Surely he could be reasoned with. “Wow, real undercover work,” she forced herself to say lightly. “Why don’t you take the case? You live to go out in the field and it’s been a good year since you’ve gotten out of this office.”
“Aside from the fact that I don’t know a damned thing about nibbies, I promised my wife that I’d get you out from behind the computer. She said you’ve been holing up since you and Jeff broke up. She thinks you’re pining.”
“I’m not pining.”
Man, she should have known she’d wind up back here despite diversionary tactics. The planets must be aligned, because short of quitting her job and moving to Canada, April couldn’t seem to avoid John and Paula’s attempts to force her to get social.
“I appreciate the concern, John, but what is it you don’t understand about hard work? I like working hard. I’m good at my job. Where’s the problem?”
“You’re good at the computer end of your job. You don’t have enough experience in the field. And like Paula pointed out, you need to make time for a life.”
“I have a life. A good one. You know how active I am in the adoption society—”
“More time spent behind the computer.”
“If memory serves, I just took off a morning last week to attend the preschool graduation of one of your little rug rats.”
“A real life. You barely come out from behind the computer for holidays. When was the last time you were out with friends? Or on a date?”
April could hear Paula’s arguments as though she were actually broadcasting them through her husband’s mouth. “I was just out with the girls a few weeks ago for Marietta’s bachelorette party. I’m sure every female in this place will corroborate my story.”
“What about a date?”
“I haven’t met a guy I’m interested in.”
She wouldn’t mention that if she happened to meet one she’d run in the opposite direction.
“Cut me a break, April.” John spread his hands in entreaty. “What am I supposed to do? This is Wilhemina we’re talking about here. Paula’s on the warpath. She wants me to help her sister and she wants you out from behind the computer. This is a straightforward job. You pretend you’re this guy’s assistant and keep your eyes on him. You can handle this. Getting out of the office will be a challenge.”
Challenge? Oh, John was right about that. She inhaled deeply and tried to appeal to reason. “Send Sherry. She’s much better at this sort of thing.”
“Sherry’s married. We don’t have any idea how long it’ll take in-house security to complete their investigation. It makes more sense to send single you.”
“Just because I don’t have a husband doesn’t mean I don’t have important things going on in my life, you know. I happen to be in the middle of an adoption search.”
A bald lie, since she’d just reunited Dawn Conover with her birth sister and hadn’t been assigned another search yet.
“Bring your laptop. You can work your search into your cover. An occasional break will keep you fresh.”
“Sherry will blend in much better.”
His dark gaze settled on her thoughtfully. “You’ll blend in just fine. Don’t borrow trouble.”
John didn’t have to define borrowing trouble, and while April appreciated his confidence in her abilities, the simple truth was that jumping into new situations was not one of her strengths, at work or in her personal life.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t been nicknamed April Accidentally for no reason. She was high-strung by nature and whenever she got nervous, accidents were the likely result, which didn’t make her prime undercover material.
Of all the crosses she might have to bear in life, April considered this one tame, if rather unfortunate. She accepted her flaws right along with her strengths and coped with them.
“John, this isn’t a good idea.”
He arched a grizzled brow at her. “Is the sex part making you uncomfortable? I was sure you could handle it.”
Before her breakup with Jeff, April might have been able to handle glory holes and bedding companies. But now…
“The sex does bother me a little, to be honest.” Unwilling to elaborate on the reason why, she quickly added, “I’ll have to be close to spy on this guy and you said everyone in the company has sex on the brain…shouldn’t you send a man?”
“I told you, I checked him out. He’s okay. This is a baby-sitting job, April, plain and simple. All you have to do is make sure Rex Holt doesn’t make contact with any rival manufacturers. This is not difficult stuff.”
“A baby-sitting job?” She tried not to sound panicked or resentful and didn’t think she succeeded on either count. “Since when have you had baby-sitters on your payroll?”
John steepled his hands before him and looked at her over his fingertips. “This is the perfect job for you. Wilhemina needs a professional in place and she trusts you. She asked me to send you specifically, if that makes you feel any better. If anything unusual catches your attention, you report it. Should any questions be raised about this guy’s integrity, you’ll be able to testify that he conducted good business on the road.”
Both Wilhemina and John had lost their minds, April decided. It wasn’t that she wasn’t well trained or competent, but just the thought of heading into the field made her adrenaline pump so hard she could barely hear past the rush of blood in her ears.
“I know you’ve said Wilhemina’s people exhausted the computer angle, but give me a crack at it. They’re not as good as I am. I can track those posts. I’m sure of it.”
“We’re not being hired to investigate. We’re being hired to baby-sit. Wilhemina wants you. Besides, who else in this firm will be able to hold his own with nibbies, piles and pills?”
“Nibbies, piles and pills, oh my!” She pushed off her perch on the chair arm and started pacing again. Babbling was not a good sign, it usually indicated another step toward panic. If John had been paying attention, he’d have noticed.
He wasn’t. Or perhaps he was just ignoring the symptoms.
April could have appealed to him to send someone else. If she was pathetic enough, she might just wear him down and she wouldn’t have to make excuses to Wilhemina until Easter. But that would mean standing up for herself and she wasn’t so hot at standing up for what she wanted on the best of days. And especially not with John.
So she scowled instead.
He scowled right back.
Whoever lasted the longest would win.
Unfortunately, John had the edge. If he was determined to send her to the Luxurious Bedding Company how could she possibly refuse him? Besides being her boss, John Patrick Mooney was also the closest thing she had to a father. He’d come into her life at a time when she’d desperately needed a friend, after her adoptive parents had died tragically in a ski-lift accident during a long-anticipated second honeymoon.
Learning of her situation through their church, John and Paula, whose own daughters had been either married or attending college at the time, had opened their home to April so she could avoid toughing out four years of foster care until reaching eighteen and adulthood.
A very decent thing to do, considering the circumstances of their first meeting.
She certainly hadn’t meant to trip John as he welcomed her into his home, but she’d nearly sent him sprawling right through the decorative glass door. The poor man had still been sporting the goose egg a week later when she’d moved in.
Fortunately, he hadn’t held the accident against her. He’d taken her under wing through the ups and down of her high school years, including her decision to pursue her birth parents.
Though she’d been unable to locate her birth parents, April had found a family with the Mooneys. They’d become her family-by-love, as she liked to call them. She’d become a friend to John’s daughters and Auntie April to the grand-kiddies. Aside from occasional bouts of too much concern for her well-being, they were perfect. She honestly didn’t know what she would do without them.
No, she wasn’t going to practice her standing-up-for-herself skills with John. And he knew it.
Leaning back in his chair, he stared at her with dark eyes that saw right through her.
“Why are you so worked up about this job? What’s the real problem? I can’t help unless you tell me.”
Busted. April clasped her hands behind her back and stared hard at the Mooney family portrait. The last thing she needed was a case that would put her in direct contact with sheets—which would invariably lead to thoughts about what couples did between them.
But she couldn’t tell John that now, could she? Telling the truth would mean admitting she’d sworn off relationships that involved sex for the rest of her life because she was a disaster in bed. Bonafide hopeless. Evidenced by the fact that Jeff had nearly aspirated during their last sexual encounter, in the very whirlpool tub he’d sworn would help her relax.
In all fairness, April couldn’t have known he was going to lick her there. He’d been underwater, after all, and if she’d known he’d been perched so precariously on the bench, she would never had jumped, no matter how ticklish she might be.
But she hadn’t known, so she had jumped and Jeff had lost his balance, cracked his head and almost drowned.
Bum luck? Not exactly.
She’d had three lovers in the space of six years and enough near-misses to come to the conclusion that April Accidentally was simply too high-strung to have sex. She could barely stay in one place long enough to run a background check on a suspect.
She worked in front of a computer all day, true, but she didn’t sit, she stood, with the keyboard taped to a treadmill no less. The only time she ever got horizontal was while sleeping.
She simply couldn’t handle another romantic encounter that wound up with some form of CPR, or worse yet, a body. Jeff had claimed she was being ridiculous, accidents happened—especially to her, she’d silently agreed—and had refused to let her break up with him.
But that was a refusal more easily made than kept. April had broken off with him and sworn off men—for their protection and her peace of mind. After serious soul-searching, she’d made the decision to give up the one thing that she’d wanted all her life—her very own family. She’d never have a husband or children. She’d never even have an orgasm, for goodness’ sake.
But this was all need-to-know information that John didn’t need to know. Not only didn’t he need to know, she was fairly certain he wouldn’t want to know. The idea of his own daughters having sex had him waxing poetic about storks flying around with pink and blue bundles. She had no intention of admitting any of this. Not even to get out of this case.
April had handled losing her beloved adoptive parents to tragedy. She’d handled the defeat of sealed state records after an exhaustive search for her birth parents. She’d handled accepting that her future didn’t include her own family or happily-ever-after or mind-blowing orgasms.
She could handle going undercover to spy on Rex Holt. Even surrounded by sexy bedding and a slew of raunchy e-mail posts.
All things considered, life could be a lot worse.
She met John’s searching gaze and forced a smile. “I don’t have a problem with the sex. No problem at all. I’ll go undercover as the in-house marketing assistant.”
And try not to get nervous, cause accidents or think about the family she’d never have and all the sex she was missing.
2
To: Rex Holt (mailto:consultant@luxuriousbedding.com)
Date: 7 Mar 2003 08:55:41-0000
Subject: Interoffice Relations
Weekly group sex sessions will promote teamwork between departments!
Studies prove that sex promotes closeness and cooperation; group sex will offer a budget-friendly method of improving interoffice relations. The confidentiality clause of the P&P manual will protect all parties from personal repercussions.
Rex Holt frowned at his computer screen, right-clicked his mouse button and forwarded this and the accompanying 162 e-mail posts to the Luxurious Bedding Company’s president, Wilhemina Knox. Contemplating group sex as a viable support skill wasn’t exactly how he’d planned to start off his Monday morning. While he could live with the thought of two women pleasuring a male co-worker, the flip scenario made him cringe.
He found the effects of the sexy Sensuous Collection and these suggestive posts far too distracting for his taste. Trying to concentrate on work when his blood was maintaining a constant temperature somewhere between simmer and boil was proving damned difficult.
