Zane put a single finger on it and slowly moved it farther away from her. Wow, that single-finger thing was sexy. In a tempting I-could-be-running-this-same-finger-all-over-your-body kind of way.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “You can cover it next time.”
She lifted a brow. “What makes you think there’ll be a next time? I understand what you’re trying to do here, I really do. But this is an FBI case. You and your two friends from Dallas don’t have any jurisdiction out here.”
Alyssa expected something witty and charming out of Zane. Instead, he stood up, reminding her just how tall he was. “It’s obvious there’s some kind of overlap between the missing girls and our missing police chief. It’s also obvious we can help each other, regardless of our lack of jurisdiction. But if that’s not something you’re interested in, fine. You do your thing. We’ll do ours.”
“You know that if I see you again in an official capacity, I’m not going to be able to ignore the whole jurisdiction thing. I can’t.”
She felt crappy for going down that road. But the truth was, Alyssa had no idea if she could trust Zane. Even if she could, there was no way she could let him get involved in this case. Not when her instincts were screaming this thing was going to get freaky. He was a cop from Texas. He wasn’t ready to deal with her world. Unless he was freaky himself. In which case, she definitely didn’t want him involved.
Zane’s mouth quirked. “What makes you think you’ll ever see me again if I don’t want you to?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but he was already pushing open the glass door of the diner with its tinkling bell and stepping out, leaving Alyssa with the craziest sensation that he was right about her never seeing him again if he didn’t want her to. For some crazy reason, that left her feeling disappointed.
Alyssa didn’t know she was up and moving until the two waitresses behind the cash register caught her eye, making her slow.
“Damn, girl,” Edna said. “Don’t walk after that man. Run!”
Alyssa tried to stop herself, knowing it was a stupid idea, but her feet refused to listen. Before she knew it, she was running across the diner parking lot. Then she did stupid one better and jumped in front of his SUV to force him to stop.
“I’m staying at the Westin near the airport, off West Century Boulevard. Room 381,” she said, breathing harder than the limited exertion dictated as Zane opened his window. “You should stop by in the morning, so we can figure out how we can make this work.”
He was silent for a moment, then smiled. And just like that, her breathing suddenly seemed easier. “See you in the morning, then. If you want, you can pay for breakfast.”
Alyssa nodded and watched him drive away, wondering why she was disappointed she hadn’t gotten a first-date kiss. Then she caught a movement out of the corner of her eye and turned back to find the two waitresses, the short-order cook, and half a dozen customers standing there with big smiles on their faces and their thumbs up in the air.
Yeah, she should have gotten that kiss.
* * *
Alyssa was so tired by the time she got back to her room she almost skipped the mandatory check-in with her boss. But she did the right thing and yanked out her phone to send him a text, asking if he wanted to Skype. If she didn’t, he’d be calling her nonstop for the rest of the night, interrupting what little sleep she hoped to get.
Pulling out her agency-issued laptop from the bag she kept it in, she clicked on the Skype icon and waited for her boss to connect. Her computer buzzed less than a minute later. She opened the call to see her oh-so-chipper boss staring back at her. Damn, it was like four o’clock in the morning in DC. She could see kitchen cabinets behind him, so she knew he was still at home, but sheesh, did the man ever sleep?
Obviously, he did. Just not when his agents were about to go into unknown situations completely on their own. Which was frequently.
Alyssa pretended not to notice the sigh of relief he let out when he saw her in one piece. Within the agency, Special Agent in Charge Nathan McKay had the reputation of being a tough man to work for, even bordering on scary. When it came to the standards he set for his team and the effort he expected from each of them, it was probably a well-earned reputation. But when it came to caring about his agents and doing anything and everything necessary to protect them, there was no one she’d rather work for. He was one of the senior federal agents in charge of the joint FBI-CIA task force she worked on known as the Special Threat Assessment Team—aka STAT—and he’d hand selected every member of the team. He’d gone to the mat for each of them on more than one occasion. He treated them as more than just people who worked for him. He treated them like family.
“Everything go okay tonight?” he asked, moving his head a little to the side like he could somehow get a better view through the laptop camera that way. “Did you find anything worthwhile?”
“Yeah. I think I might have gotten lucky.”
Alyssa had to hold in the laugh threatening to slip out. Talk about a Freudian slip.
Nathan stood at his kitchen counter, looking at her expectantly from behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “And?”
Crap, she’d been so busy thinking about Zane and that kiss she didn’t get she’d zoned out for a second. But hell, she’d chased him down like some woman in a romantic comedy. The least he could have done was lean forward with an offer. It’s not like she would have actually accepted.
“Alyssa?” Nathan prompted. “Everything okay?”
“Sorry.” She gave him a small smile. “I was just trying to get my thoughts in order. Anywho, tonight was…different. I was at the club and saw this extremely rich, extremely creepy guy blatantly setting up two girls for an abduction. He had four Neanderthals with him, and it was obvious they’d done this before. Everything was matching the profile for the other abductions, so when Mr. Creepy split with one of his Neanderthals, I was all set to follow the other three out the back with the girls when things got interesting.”
Nathan picked up his coffee mug and took a sip. “Define interesting.”
“It turns out I wasn’t the only one watching Mr. Creepy. There were three SWAT cops there, and while two of them stuck with Mr. Creepy, the other one took it upon himself to rescue the girls.”
“By himself?”
