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She released a long, slightly wistful sigh, then pushed herself to her feet. She had a small steak in the fridge. She’d bought it on sale yesterday, and she had planned a special dinner for herself tonight. The steak, a baked potato and a crisp salad—a real treat considering her limited food budget. A feast for one, of which she intended to savor every bite. Without once thinking about Teague.
Okay, so maybe the latter was improbable, she thought ruefully, opening the refrigerator door. But she’d try to enjoy her meal anyway.
* * *
“Great party, huh?”
Looking up from the single can of beer he’d been nursing for the past half hour, Teague nodded in response to Mike’s shouted question. Then he leaned closer to his friend to ask, “Does it mean I’m getting old if I say that I wish they’d turn the music down a little?”
“Yeah. That’s exactly what it means,” Mike said with a laugh, leaning against the arched doorway that separated the living room from the formal dining room of the home in which the party was being held. The house was owned by Pete Schram, a lawyer who did some work for the FBI, and Pete’s girlfriend, an up-and-coming fashion designer who answered only to the name of “Z.” Z liked to entertain, and Pete indulged her by cohosting parties at least once a month. Teague had dropped in on a few, finding them always loud, frenetic, cheerful, exhausting. More so the latter tonight, since he was already tired, anyway.
He shouldn’t have come, really. Not after the week he’d put in on the job. But he’d found himself contemplating an evening alone in front of the TV, followed by turning in early, and that had made him feel even older than his wish that someone would turn the music down. Besides, if he’d sat at home, he’d find himself thinking too much about Dani, which was a bad habit he’d gotten into lately. He really needed to spend some time with another woman.
“Hey, isn’t that Kelly Something-or-other over there? The one you went out with a couple of times last spring?”
Looking in the direction of Mike’s nod, Teague spotted the curvy blonde smiling back at him from the other side of the room. “Callie, not Kelly. And yeah, she and I have been out a few times.”
Memorable times, he added silently. Callie’s one goal in life was to have a good time, making sure everyone around her did, as well. He’d always had fun with Callie, but that had been the extent of their relationship. She had a well-known aversion to permanent commitments, and he hadn’t been looking for anything more than someone to relax with between assignments. They had served each other’s purposes quite well while they’d been together.
Maybe tonight was the time for them to reconnect. He had a couple days off, and she looked amenable. Callie would keep him too occupied for a few days to think about…well, anyone else.
Or would she? Sending her a smile in return, he turned slightly away, breaking the eye contact. No need to rush into anything this evening. Especially since he wasn’t at all sure he wouldn’t be thinking about someone else even if he was with Callie.
“So, aren’t you going over there?” Mike prodded.
“I don’t think so tonight. I’m just back from that mess in Texarkana. I’m thinking about going home and crashing.”
“Oh, man.” His friend studied his face with a frown. “You’re thinking about her, aren’t you? The princess.”
It wasn’t the first time Mike had brought Dani up since Teague had carelessly mentioned her that afternoon at the office. Mike seemed to think Teague was developing a thing for Dani, despite Teague’s assurances that he wasn’t that masochistic.
“I’m just tired,” Teague argued. “Didn’t you just agree that I’m getting older?”
“Not that old. And you haven’t been acting quite right since that day I caught you grinning to yourself about something the princess said.”
“Stop calling her that, okay?”
“You were the one who described her that way,” Mike reminded him. “Hot, but high maintenance, I think you said. Have you changed your mind?”
After a momentary pause, Teague shrugged. “Well no, not exactly. But she’s not so bad, really.”
“Oh, yeah?”
Teague gave his friend a repressive frown. “This isn’t junior high, Ferguson.”
“And yet you’re still standing here mooning over the hot girl. So the difference would be…?”
Teague made a suggestion that would have gotten his mouth washed out with soap, had his stepmother heard it. Mike merely laughed.
“Hey there, sexy. It’s been a while.”
Both men turned in response to the throaty drawl. Callie had strolled to their side of the room, accompanied by a tall, slender brunette who was eyeing Mike in blatant approval. Cleavage prominently displayed, Callie touched Teague’s shoulder with a perfectly manicured hand. “So where have you been?”
“Oh. You know. Around.”
She laughed huskily, and he remembered just how that laugh sounded in a dark, steamy room. “Yeah. Me, too. So, maybe we’ll end up in the same place again sometime soon?”
“Yeah, maybe we will.” He knew it would only take a word from him for that “sometime soon” to be that very night. If he’d had any sense at all, he’d have said that word right then, before she found someone else to have fun with that evening. But instead he made a lame excuse about wanting something to drink, and he wandered off to the bar, leaving Mike to entertain the women on his own.
* * *
Dani had just finished an assignment for a Monday-morning class when someone rapped on her door Sunday afternoon. Closing her notebook, she crossed the room and looked through the peephole, thinking her caller might be Mrs. Parsons.
Seeing Teague in the hallway instead elicited her usual reaction; she ran a quick hand through her hair and glanced down to check that her chocolate-colored top and khaki pants were reasonably neat. For some reason Teague always made her conscious of her appearance, though she’d tried to put less emphasis on that during the past year.
She opened the door. “Are you hungry again?”
He chuckled. “No. Bored.”
“And what am I supposed to do about that?”
He gave her an enticing look similar to the one that had earned him a cup of hot chocolate and a sandwich just over a week earlier. “I thought maybe you’d like to go see a movie with me.”
“Oh. I—”
“It’s not a date,” he assured her. “I won’t be making any moves on you during the movie or afterward. I won’t even buy you popcorn, if that makes you feel any better. I just hate going to movies by myself and all my other friends already have plans.”
It was hardly the most flattering invitation she had ever received—and yet it had the result of making her feel relatively comfortable about accepting. If Teague really didn’t see this as a date, or a preliminary to anything of the sort, then there was no real reason she should turn him down, right? If her own imagination got away with her during the evening—well, that was a problem she would deal with at the time.
“Okay,” she said, because she could use a couple of hours of relaxation herself. “What movie do you want to see?”
He looked both pleased and a bit surprised that she’d accepted so easily.
“Just as friends,” she reminded him.
Holding up a hand in an I-swear gesture, he nodded. “I hope you like action movies. I don’t do tear-jerkers.”
“Neither do I. Give me an action movie any day.”
His smile widened. “My kind of friend. How does the latest superhero film sound to you?”
“From what I’ve heard, it’s got enough eye candy to keep us both entertained. Let me get my bag.”
She heard him chuckle as she turned away, and if there was a hint of smugness in the sound, she chose to ignore it.
Chapter Four
“Wow. I hope I never do anything to annoy you.”
Snapping his seat belt, Teague looked at Dani in surprise. “Why do you say that?”
Strapped into her own seat, she exaggerated a shiver. “The look you gave that woman over the back of your seat. I could almost feel the cold waves coming off you. It’s no wonder she got up and nearly fell over herself trying to move to another part of the theater.”
“She was kicking my seat. And text messaging through the first ten minutes of the movie. All that beeping wasn’t driving you crazy?”
“Well, yes. And she was kicking my seat, too. I’m glad you got her to move. I’m just impressed that you did so without saying a word. All you had to do was turn and look at her and she bolted. Do they teach you that glower in FBI training?”
He laughed and shrugged. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just glared at her the same way anyone else would. She got the message that she was annoying us, so she moved. Which made it much easier to concentrate on the movie after that—not that there was much plot to keep up with,” he added wryly.
“No. But it was entertaining, anyway,” she agreed. She didn’t bother to argue with his assertion that he didn’t look any more dangerous than anyone else. But he was wrong. As charming and friendly as Teague could be, when he turned serious, there was a definite air of danger around him.
They talked about the movie for a couple more minutes, and then Teague asked, “Are you hungry? Because I could go for a burger.”
“Yeah, sure. A burger sounds good.”
He chose a locally owned restaurant that he swore made the best burgers in town. Since she’d never eaten there, she told him she would judge that after she’d had one.
“I like the pepper jack burger, myself,” he advised as they slid into a booth. “With seasoned fries on the side.”
“Hey, Teague.” A chubby bottle-blonde set a large glass of iced tea in front of him with a flirty smile. “Where’ve you been?”
“Around. You’re looking good, Annie.”
She patted his cheek. “Sweet talker. What can I get you to drink, hon?”
Realizing the server was talking to her now, Dani replied, “I’ll have the tea, thank you.”
“Coming right up.” Leaving a menu with Dani, Annie sashayed away.
Dani looked at the selection of burgers and other casual food on the laminated menu. “Not a lot of low-cal options here.”
“No. That’s not why people come here. Everyone deserves to be bad every once in a while, don’t you think?”
She wondered if he was only talking about food, then decided she was trying too hard to read between his lines. “I suppose so. I’ll have the mushroom Swiss burger.”
“Good choice. The onion rings are superb here. They make them with sweet onions and serve them with ranch dip.”
Sighing as she thought of how many salads she was going to have to eat to make up for this meal, Dani said, “Then I’ll have to order them.”
“Good. You can have some of my fries and I’ll take some of your rings. That way we get the best of both.”
Setting the menu aside, she nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”
She was actually having a good time, she decided as they chatted a bit more about the lightweight film, of which the special effects had been the only particularly notable feature. It was nice being out with a man who seemed to want nothing from her but companionship. Friendship.
She was under no pressure to try to impress him or please him. If, for some reason, he decided not to ask her to join him for another outing, she wouldn’t have to interpret it to mean that something was lacking in her.
She wouldn’t date him, because he was just the kind of man who just might make her return to those unhealthy habits—but she could be his friend. She was taking a bit of a risk in letting him get even that close.
Since she couldn’t deny the attraction she felt for him, she would have to be very careful.
No problem, she assured herself, and then crossed her fingers beneath the table.
During the next few days, Teague came to some very interesting conclusions about Dani. Her trust issues went even deeper than he had originally realized, and he had an uncomfortable suspicion that her wariness was based on experience. Had some jerk hurt her…? Physically, in addition to emotionally?
She’d told him once in passing that she’d taken six months of self-defense classes when she’d first moved to the area, stopping only when her schedule had gotten too hectic. Even that fit into the pattern of a woman who had learned the hard way that she had to prepare to defend herself.
That would explain her preference now for dating men she could so easily control, he mused. And the way she got all prickly when it seemed that anyone was getting a bit too bossy, the way she had when he had made a comment one evening in the elevator that she should be careful when coming in by herself late at night. She had informed him in no uncertain terms that she was fully capable of watching out for herself.
They had been together a couple more times since their movie outing. Once to share a pizza and watch a football game on TV. Another time to play a board game with Mrs. Parsons, who had been so pleased at having company that she’d giggled like a schoolgirl all evening.
He and Dani talked quite easily, now that he’d convinced her he thought of her only as a friend. Their conversation consisted mostly of small talk and teasing. He kidded her about being high maintenance and dating guys she could lead around by the nose—to which she cheerfully admitted. She ribbed him about his job as an agent and made good-natured “007” jokes at his expense.
Anytime the subject got a bit too close to her past relationships, she cut him off abruptly. She asked very few questions about his own past, maybe so as not to encourage him to inquire about hers.
He tapped on her door on a Wednesday afternoon a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. She opened it with a distracted expression that, along with her ultracasual sweatshirt and grubby jeans, told him she’d been studying.
“Test tomorrow?” he asked, recognizing the look by now.
She nodded. “Big one.”
“I won’t keep you, then. I just wanted to give you this.”
She lifted her eyebrows in question when he pressed a brown paper bag into her hand. “What is it?”
“Two bananas and a pear.”
She laughed in surprise. “Um…okay. So, why?”
“Because I’m going to be extremely busy for the next few weeks and I’m not sure I’ll be home to eat them before they go bad. I’d hate to see them go to waste.”
“Trust me,” she said. “They won’t go to waste.”
“Good. I hope you enjoy them.”
“You want to come in for a few minutes? I can make hot chocolate.”
He shook his head with regret. “As tempting as that sounds, I have to pass. I’ve got to work tonight.”
“Work? That’s what you’re going to be doing for the next few weeks? I thought maybe you were finally getting away for that vacation you’ve been talking about taking.”
“I wish,” he muttered, thinking of the unsavory assignment he was about to dive into.
She searched his face, then spoke lightly, “Do I have to warn you again to be careful?”
“Probably not a bad idea.”
“Then I will,” she said, her smile just a little strained now. “Be careful, okay? I don’t have that many friends around here.”
