“I’ve been called worse.”
“Didn’t your momma ever warn you about stranger danger? I could be some deranged psycho chick and you….well, you could be my boring accountant. I’d hate to have to stab your eyes with the toothpick from a fruity drink.”
His chuckle filled the line and eased her tension. He had a unique sense of stifling her unease and, what was odd, calming people. That was one of her specialties. “I’m not worried.”
“Ryker. How about we keep things professional, and I forget you ever sent this…phone.”
“You could, or you could finally, at least, have a face to put with my voice. One drink. If I’m inappropriate, you get up and leave. If I scare you, spray me with mace, and then get up and leave. If I turn out to be the accountant, poke my eyes out, and then leave. I won’t even put up a fight.”
Harper chewed her bottom lip and clenched her eyes closed as she searched for the energy in his words and thelocation. Nothing. She was nuts for even considering it.
“My momma is gonna be mad if you make me a statistic. I can see it now. My story will be used in an updated training video on whatnotto do when taking calls.” She clutched the phone tighter in her hand. “If I’m going to do this, then I pick the place.”
“Where did you have in mind?”
“The Thin Blue Line beach bar.” An off-the-wall outlandish location, but a scream in that bar would cut the cop response time to mere seconds, killing the need to write out her obituary before having to leave work. No way was she leaving that job up to her sisters. They’d paint her as a boring spinster cat lady. She was allergic to cats. No obit for her, not with cops within arm’s reach. Did they carry guns into bars? She was about to find out.
“The cop hang-out?”
“Take it or leave it, Ryker Cage.”
“You’re a smart woman taking precautions. I’ll meet you on the back deck at seven.”
“You got a thing against a crowd of cops?”
“Let’s just say, in my line of work, I stay off the radar.”
What the hell did he do? A hit man? A mobster? Did Florida even have a mob? Oh God, was he in a gang? And why washe even in town? Warning bells triggered in her mind. Why would she even think this was a good idea?
“Wait, Ryker, I…” The line disconnected and the phone went blank. She shrugged and tossed the phone into her purse, along with the note and the pepper spray.
“Smart, Harper,” she chided herself. “I wasn’t only getting personal information from a client over the phone, in two hours, I’d know his face.” She should be kicking her ass when, in reality, she was already three steps ahead, running a mental inventory of her closet in her head. What did one wear when meeting Mr.-Sexy-Voice-Potential-Killer-Mob-Boss? Shoes for a quick exit or shoes to impress?
Harper picked up her phone and dialed Patricia’s extension. “I need coffee, and lots of it.”
“Sure.”
Harper hung the phone up. She had some digging to do. If she was even thinking about meeting up with the stranger, she’d know everything about him before she left. Twisting her hair up into a bun, she slid her pen through the strands to hold it in place and devoted the next three hours into decoding exactly who was Ryker Cage.
Chapter Two
Ryker glancedat his watch and grinned as he booted up the computer. His fingers flew across the keyboard as he entered the encryption into the secure access site. She was smart not to trust him. He sat back and laced his fingers behind his head, watching Harper do one search after the next on the internet. She’d find only what he wanted her to see. Their mainframe had been an easy mark for an online predator. Ithadbeen. It wasn’t anymore. He’d fixed that little bug. He owed her that much and more.
He sat forward when a website he hadn’t been expecting popped up. He hovered his fingers over the keyboard, ready to kill whatever dirt he’d missed. If she knew his real interest in her, she’d becalling him much worse. The guilt still bothered him from his deceit, but having her close enough to watch was worth the betrayal.
She’d lied about her outfit. Her jeans had hung loosely on her hips, her concert tee stretched tight across her breasts, and she’d been wearing flip-flops into work. He knew; he’d been watching. Someone had to.
A knock sounded on the hotel door. A female voice called from the hall. “Room Service.”
“Just a minute,” he hollered back. Stepping away from the computer for even one second could cost him. He gritted his teeth and squeezed the back of his neck. He’d forgotten he had ordered dinner.
Ryker got up from the laptop, grabbed his gun, and headed for the door. He peered out of the peephole to find a woman, dressed in a standard hotel uniform, standing behind a food cart. Some of the tension in his shoulders eased. No one even knew he was in town, at least no one who mattered.
Ryker shoved the gun into his waistband and lowered his shirt to cover it up. He flicked the lock and pulled the door open.
A petite woman with long, black hair and a forced smile greeted him. She wasn’t one of the employees he’d ever seen before.The name on her badge read Camille. Ryker’s brows dipped, and he frowned. Uncertainty clouded him, and an unshakable unease skirting his spine had him reaching behind his back, resting his hand on the butt of the gun.
As if sensing his unease, Camille smiled and lifted the lid to show him the plate. Steam rose from the hot food just as his stomach grumbled. He was acting paranoid. No one knew he was at this hotel. He hadn’t even used one of his normal IDs to check in. He used a special one just for this assignment.
