Flirting with Disaster & Fanning the Flames Page 3

  Isabelle groaned, then immediately wished she could take the sound back. It revealed too much. The man should mean nothing to her. She latched on to her only excuse. “He interrupted my work.”

  “Woman. No wonder you can’t get laid. Did you see him?”

  Isabelle frowned. Yes, she’d seen him. He’d been tall. Lean. With short, dark hair just turning a bit gray at the temples. And if she thought about it, he’d had a pretty great face. A strong nose and dark eyebrows over intense green eyes. And lips that looked soft to the touch against all that masculinity. “Hmm,” she replied.

  “Hmm, indeed. Aren’t you always saying you wish you could get home delivery of someone like him?”

  No. Not someone like him. Someone like him but in no way associated with law enforcement. “He was fine. Do you think his story was legit?”

  “About the judge? Are you kidding me? It’s been in the local paper all week. That man threatened to blow something up. You know the judge lives on the next road down the hill.”

  Isabelle shrugged. “I guess I haven’t been reading the news.”

  Jill got plates from the cupboard, but Isabelle didn’t get up to help. She knew from experience that Jill would only wave her away. Jill’s work was her art. There were sauces to be smeared and rosemary sprigs to be placed just so.

  “You haven’t met the judge?” Jill asked.

  “I don’t think so. You know how I am.”

  “Hermit-y?” Jill tossed out.

  Isabelle nodded. She wasn’t ashamed of being a hermit. And she had damn good reason to avoid a federal judge.

  “Well, his daughter is the one who writes that advice column. Do you know her?”

  “Dear Veronica? Really? She seems damn cool, but I’ve never met her. Have—?” Her words were cut off by the doorbell.

  Jill disappeared into the front room. For a moment, Isabelle had a hopeful thought that maybe Jill’s girlfriend had dropped everything and flown in to try to make things work. But no. The military wasn’t that big on romantic gestures, even for a lieutenant colonel.

  Then the door opened, and Isabelle heard a man’s voice. His voice. She jumped up and stared at the kitchen doorway in alarm. If she stayed hidden, she didn’t have anything to worry about. He couldn’t know she was here. Unless he’d followed her tracks through the snow. But what did he want?

  She crept closer to the doorway, carefully keeping behind the wall. There was a living room and a short hallway between her and the front door, but his voice was deep, and she heard it rumbling as he spoke to Jill. Just a follow-up visit, hopefully. If this was really all about the judge, then—

  The door closed, and Jill’s footsteps started back toward the kitchen. But she wasn’t alone. There were two sets of footsteps, one heavier than the other. Isabelle froze, her brain taking too long to respond to the change in situation, and she’d only just realized she should sneak back toward the couch when Jill stepped in. And he followed.

  Jill’s chin jerked back in shock as she caught sight of Isabelle and did a double take. Tom Duncan’s nice dark eyebrows rose at the way she was huddled against the wall.

  Isabelle stared up at him as she realized she’d pressed herself into a corner between the kitchen countertop and the doorway. It looked as if she’d been doing exactly what she had been. Hiding and eavesdropping. Damn it. She glared in defense at the man’s questioning look.

  Jill cleared her throat. “Look who decided to join us. I told him yesterday that he could stop by for dinner. Tom, you remember Isabelle.”

  “Ms. West,” he said.

  “I didn’t tell you my name,” she responded. Jill glared at her, but she ignored it.

  His surprised eyebrows finally dropped, and he nodded. “It’s my job to find out these sorts of things.”

  “Just out of innocent curiosity?” Isabelle countered.

  “No, it’s more about protecting the target. What if you were the cousin of the defendant?”

  “Hmm.”

  “I told him your name,” Jill said. “Regardless, he’s staying for dinner.”

  He finally smiled, transforming his face from hard to handsome, but the look was all for Jill. “I really hope your offer was genuine, but I guess I’m here even if it wasn’t.”

  “Of course it was genuine! Don’t pay any attention to Isabelle. She’s in the middle of a project. She’d much rather deal with her two-dimensional people.”

  Isabelle didn’t deny it. “They’re simple,” she said. “Real people are way more trouble.”

  Jill hurried back to her task. “But we’re much more fun, aren’t we?”

  “Some of you.”

  “It doesn’t matter. There’s no paint here, so you’re not being interrupted. Now,” Jill tossed over her shoulder, “pour Marshal Duncan a glass of wine.”

  “I’d better not,” he said. “I’m not on duty right now, but I’m still the supervisor in charge. And it’s just Tom, please. Eating the neighbor’s food isn’t part of my official duties. Speaking of... That Stroganoff was delicious. The whole damn house was jealous. Pardon my language.”

  Jill roared with laughter at that. “Please. I expect fouler language than that before this bottle of wine is gone.”

  “Okay,” Isabelle volunteered, filling her glass again. “I’ll get to work on that.”

  “All right, but bring the wine to the table.”

  Isabelle did as she was told, but when she got to the table, she noticed that there were only two settings. She shot a resentful look at Tom, but he’d been invited and Isabelle hadn’t, so she didn’t bare her teeth at him before she grabbed another place setting from the sideboard. She even poured him a glass of water just before Jill brought all the plates to the table, one balanced on her forearm with ease.

  “Let’s eat!”

  Tom pulled out Jill’s chair, but Isabelle plopped into hers before he could get to her. That was when she noticed the streak of yellow paint down her shirt. Damn it. She didn’t normally care, but she didn’t want to feel at a disadvantage around this man. Plus, her supply of unstained shirts was dwindling. She had to start remembering to wear an apron. Or maybe a smock. Like a kindergartner.

  She touched her mouth, hoping she hadn’t accidentally nibbled on a brush earlier when she’d been trying to find the will to paint. She glanced up at Tom and found him watching her fingers. His eyes rose to meet hers before she looked quickly at her plate.

  “Wow,” he said a moment later. “This is good. Really good. I can’t say I’ve ever enjoyed cabbage before, but...wow.”

  “Wait till you try the pork,” Isabelle said while Jill grinned across the table at him.

  He popped a piece of meat into his mouth and closed his eyes, giving Isabelle the chance to study him for a quick moment. Shit. He really did have a nice face. And despite her current hatred of all law enforcement, she’d had her attraction to the men in that field hard-wired into her from an early age.

  His firm jaw bunched and flexed as he chewed, and when he opened his eyes, they were dark with pleasure. “You know what? Maybe I will have a glass of wine. If there’s any left? This meal deserves a toast.”

  “Tom,” Jill said as she leaped up to open the second bottle, “you’re my new favorite person. Why don’t you just move in here and I’ll feed you every day.”

  “Don’t tempt me, because I might.”

  Isabelle watched them grin at each other as Jill poured him a glass. All right. So, Jill liked him. But Jill liked almost everyone. She was terrible at being a hermit. In the summertime, she sometimes offered lemonade to hikers when they passed by. If any hikers had the nerve to show up at Isabelle’s door, she told them to use the hose for water.

  “To new friends,” Tom said, tapping his glass to Jill’s. Isabelle hesitated a moment, but when he reached forward, she tapped his glass before taking a healthy gulp of wine.

  “So where are you from, Isabelle?”

  The wine soured in her throat as she swallowed hard. I
t might raise his suspicions if she spewed it all over the table at such a seemingly innocent question. Instead of choking, she cleared her throat. “Washington State,” she said.

  “I thought I heard an accent.”

  Her heart beat harder, but she shrugged. “My parents were from Cincinnati. I must’ve picked it up from them.” Okay, a Cincinnati accent wasn’t quite the same as Chicago, but her accent was subtle enough at this point. She waited to see if he’d press harder, but he didn’t.

  “I lived in Oregon for a time,” he said instead. “I miss the moisture.”

  “And the oxygen?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve gotta say, even coming from Cheyenne is a change here. I notice it every time.”

  “And how often do you come to Jackson?”

  She’d tried to make it a friendly question, but she could tell by the way his eyebrow twitched up that she’d gone too far toward flirtation. The wine had blurred her boundary between politeness and leering, apparently. Oh, well. If there was a chance he didn’t know who she was, she had to be less hostile. She went all in and smiled.

  “It depends on the court schedule,” he finally said. “Most of us are based out of Cheyenne, since places like Jackson and Mammoth don’t need a full-time marshal. Sometimes I’m out here once a month. Sometimes once a quarter. But this time I’m getting my fill.”

  He sounded sincere. Believable. He had good reason to be here, and he wasn’t even new to town. So maybe everything he’d said had been the truth from the start. A rush of near painful relief rolled over her at the mere chance that he wasn’t here for her.

  Isabelle sat back in her chair and watched as he and Jill talked. He had a nice smile and a deep, rough laugh that made her feel bad she’d been rude to him for no reason. It was a bit of guilt, yes, and maybe a little affection for his looks, but mostly she regretted drawing attention by being suspiciously hostile. That had been dumb. But she’d been caught by surprise, and it wasn’t as if she’d been trained by the witness protection program in how to avoid discovery.

  She’d tried her best to erase her identity, yes. But they’d been basic choices. She’d gone to Seattle first, smart enough to use cash and not credit cards only because she’d been exposed to cop talk at the dinner table. But everything else had been one terrifying blind choice after another. She’d never even lived on her own before. She’d never had to choose an apartment or buy a car, much less make contacts to buy a new name and social security number.

  First there’d been Seattle, then a smaller town a year later. And finally she’d moved to Jackson.

  That had been it. No one asked questions. No one even noticed her. She was average in almost every way. Average height, average build, average brown hair color, mildly average face. Aside from that, the only noticeable things about her were her size D breasts and odd career. She’d found it fairly easy to keep those under wraps.

  She’d made friends with Jill right away. It had been impossible not to. Not only was Jill irresistibly friendly, but she also always brought food. Isabelle had been hanging out at her place within days.

  Aside from a few brief affairs and a few more one-night stands, meals with Jill had been the extent of Isabelle’s social life for years. She had a PO box in town, so the mail carrier never bothered her. She couldn’t get pizza delivered, so there were no wild pizza-boy scenarios acted out. And the only other neighbors were separated from her and Jill by the deep, shadowed forests of ponderosa pines and aspen.

  She liked it that way. She reveled in it. She felt almost safe. But things had changed last year. After dozens of trips to the library over the years to pick up interlibrary loans of rare, specialized anatomy books, one of the librarians had started a conversation. An interesting conversation. And Isabelle’s bubble of isolation had finally popped.

  Lauren Foster was a good friend now. And Sophie Heyer, another librarian. Those two women had pulled Isabelle further out of her comfort zone by insisting on girls’ nights out every other Sunday.

  But there hadn’t been much room for men. Not enough room. Her lies wouldn’t accommodate a long-term relationship, and neither would her heart. So she’d had a man for a week or a month at a time here and there, but never more than that.

  Maybe that explained why she found herself watching Tom as he spoke, wondering if those lips would taste as good as they looked. Or if those shoulders were as wide as they seemed.

  She shook her head. She needed more wine. Or less. Or she just needed to get laid. But definitely not by a US marshal.

  But it didn’t matter tonight. Tonight she was full of wonderful food and less afraid of why he’d shown up on her doorstep. There was more wine, dessert was waiting and nobody was asking anything about her father. She’d be able to paint tomorrow. She could feel it.

  As if the universe was offering a reward for her new good mood, Tom unbuttoned the left sleeve of his shirt and began to roll it up as he told Jill a story about a fugitive who’d fallen into an icy creek.

  “The thing was, he wouldn’t come out.” His wrist was exposed first. The same tan color as the back of his hand, dark against the white cotton of his shirt. “His lips were turning blue. He couldn’t stop shaking. He couldn’t even speak anymore. But he refused to come out.”

  Now the start of his forearm, slim but much harder than hers, muscles visible even at rest.

  “None of us wanted to go in after him. It was probably twenty-five degrees in the sun, and the creek was solid ice around the banks. We just stared at each other across the water, waiting for someone to break. I mean, this guy was going to die, and the office kind of frowns on that.”

  Now the thickest part of his forearm, the rolled cuff starting to tighten up around it. He was just as tan here, but the light from the wrought-iron chandelier skimmed his skin and caught on the hair of his arms, glinting golden and bright.

  “So what happened?” Jill asked.

  He grinned. “I broke. I had to do it. I was the senior officer. And holy shit, it was cold. So cold it felt like fire at first. The numbness set in pretty quickly, but that was only the skin. Deeper, in the muscles and joints, it hurt. And then when I hit a deeper pool of water...” He shook his head and turned the sleeve up one more roll. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Jill nodded solemnly. “Can you still have children?”

  “I doubt it. Then again, they do freeze sperm, right?”

  After she stopped laughing, Jill pointed at Tom. “A hero like you deserves dessert. I hope you like cherry pie. It’s Isabelle’s favorite.”

  Isabelle laughed. “You make me sound like a bad ’80s sex joke. But I do love cherry pie. Almost as much as Jill does.”

  A faint wash of pink appeared on Tom’s cheeks. Was he blushing? That was cute as hell. Maybe he wasn’t used to women joking about sex. But Isabelle had discovered that freedom was the best thing about getting older.

  She’d felt a touch of it when she’d turned thirty. She’d suddenly felt less like a big kid blindly feeling her way through the world and more like an adult. Then at thirty-five she’d realized she was at that age when so many women really started to worry. That they were too old now. That they hadn’t married or had children. That this was their last chance to really live.

  Isabelle didn’t feel as though this was her last chance. She felt as though she was finally free. Capable. Happy with herself. Comfortable with her body. And allowed to say anything she wanted to out loud, even if it made a grown man blush. Maybe especially if it did.

  She loved it. She couldn’t wait to be forty. She was going to own that shit. And then at fifty, when strangers would stop hinting that it was time to settle down and have some babies, and just start looking at her with pity? That would be glorious.

  So she grinned at Tom Duncan and took an extra-large piece of pie and didn’t bother stifling her moan of pleasure at the taste. Tonight she was almost sure she was safe, her mouth was sweet and tart with juicy red cherries, and tomorrow she would
paint. She had every reason to moan.

  * * *

  ISABELLE WEST WASN’T only a mystery. She was also a distraction. First, there was that threadbare shirt, pale blue but marred with paint, and stretched too tight across her breasts whenever she reached for her glass. The shirt looked old enough to be turned into rags, and he’d been very afraid that one of those buttons was going to give way at any moment. So afraid that he’d constantly found himself checking to be sure it was still closed.

  Then there was her glare, suspicious and narrow and almost as distracting as the smile she’d finally settled into toward the end of the meal. The cool smile was as interesting as the glare, as if she had a secret to go with every emotion.

  Curiosity paced inside his brain like a caged lion. Who was she? Instincts weren’t everything, but Tom had learned to trust his own, and he would’ve bet quite a bit of money that she wasn’t a criminal. But she wasn’t innocent, either. Innocent women didn’t press themselves into a corner to hide and listen the way she’d done at Jill’s house.

  “I’d better get going,” she said drowsily from the couch. She was curled up with the last of the wine and didn’t look as if she wanted to leave. “I’ll be painting for hours tomorrow.”

  “At least it’s not summer,” Jill said. “You can sleep until eight and still get the morning light.”

  “So true. And I’m going to sleep like a baby tonight. A drunk baby.”

  Tom stood. “All right, drunk baby, come on. I’ll walk you home.”

  Her languidness vanished in an instant. “I don’t need you to walk me home,” she snapped. “I’ve walked home a hundred times in the dark.”

  “I’m sure you have. But this time, there might be an armed fugitive hiding in the woods. And I’m leaving anyway. I can either walk you or I can follow behind you. Your choice.”

  “Walk her home,” Jill cut in. “Isabelle, put your prickliness away and be nice. Maybe you’ll like the feeling.”