“Did you get her name?”
“No. Like I said, Clayton made the booking. I might have a picture, though? We usually snap a couple on the cruises for the website.” Andy hesitated for the first time and glanced over his shoulder. “I’m not sure I should be showing them to you. I mean, she didn’t sign a waiver or anything.”
It was the sort of moral qualm that just begged to be overruled.
“Look, I’m not going to use it,” Jacob said. “I just want to find her. Besides, who’s going to know? Come on. You can trust me.”
Just in case his charm wasn’t enough to seal the deal, Jacob pulled his wallet out. After a quick bit of mental arithmetic weighed how much he wanted the picture and how much a reporter would want the picture, he pulled out a hundred and tucked it into Andy’s palm. He thought the bit of subterfuge sold it more than the bill itself.
“Hold on,” Andy said. “I’ll need to go check the computer. Be right back.”
He loped off inside. Jacob leaned against a rail and looked down to check that Fozzy was where he’d left him. He was, and he seemed happy enough. The dog had splashed a full dish of water into a puddle on the ground and was watching other dogs stick their nose in the empty dish.
So, the dog was a dick. Jacob liked him a bit more for that.
His phone buzzed in his hand, and his sister’s name appeared on the screen when he looked down. Crap. He’d forgotten to call her, hadn’t he? Jacob hesitated and then banished the call with an auto-texted promise to call back in five minutes. She gave him five seconds and called back again. Jacob rejected the call and set it to “Do not disturb” as Andy came back from the restaurant. He was carrying his phone and gestured apologetically over his shoulder at the girl behind the bar.
“Sorry,” he said. “I have to hurry. The manager will be in soon. Can I get your number?”
Jacob raised his eyebrows at him. Andy just widened his eyes and looked innocent. “To text you the image.”
“That all?”
A slow hot smile spread across Andy’s face. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and took a quick look down Jacob’s lean dark-clad body. “Not necessarily.”
Andy was no Simon, but it was nice to be appreciated. It was also nice to get his own way without feeling guilty about his manipulation. Jacob delivered his number in packages of three digits at a time while Andy tapped it into his phone. After a second he hit Send. Jacob checked his messages, and there was the unfamiliar number and a picture thumbnail.
“Thank you,” he said and handed over another hundred.
Andy took the cash and tucked it into the pocket of his tight jeans. “Call me sometime,” he said. “If you need anything else.”
He turned, jogged back into the restaurant, and dodged the wet cloth the bartender chucked at him. Jacob tilted his head to the side and watched him go. Andy had long legs and a tight ass in black jeans that fit a lot better than Jacob’s did. In Jacob’s imagination he had ink in the small of his back to match his arms and scrollwork over lean hips.
Nice view and no urge to chase after it at all. He hoped that whatever it was with Simon—and no, he wasn’t giving it a damn name—it was going to wear off eventually. Otherwise he and his hand were going to have to get married.
He shook his head and started through the maze of tables—all carefully arranged to look unarranged—and down the stairs to the Riverwalk. He flipped through his phone as he walked and pulled up the picture that Andy had sent him.
The mystery woman was tall and toned, elegant in black lace and with a ribbon woven through her dark hair. The breadth of her shoulders and the defined muscle suggested martial arts, and the fact she showed them off in a strapless dress betrayed confidence.
When his sister played soccer semicompetitively in school, she spent most of her time trying to hide her muscles, as though someone would revoke her girl card if they saw them. Clayton’s mystery woman clearly didn’t care who saw them. So the flats were an off note. A woman with those shoulders, in that dress, would expect her partner to deal with her height. Maybe she just preferred flats, of course, but a manipulator recognized a manipulator.
And he was pretty sure he’d recognize that particular manipulator if he saw her again. The photo caught her profile. It was partially obscured by the artful sweep of wavy dark brown hair, but it was distinctive. She had warm-looking tawny skin, a Roman nose with a dinted bridge, a faintly weak chin, and the hint of a very good fake smile. It was a fairly striking face.
He saved the photo, got to the bottom of the stairs, and collected Fozzy from the tree he’d been tied to. The dog looked unenthusiastic at having to walk again, but grunted and grumbled along at Jacob’s heels as they headed away. Tourists sat at tables outside the restaurants and took selfies with the sun and Christmas decorations in the background. A bride and groom posed on one of the bridges and held each other while they tried not to squint as their pictures were taken.
Jacob wrapped the leash around his wrist and sidestepped a jogger. The sweating girl gasping out a thanks as her ponytail flapped past. He opened his contacts. The missed call from his sister sat there accusingly. Jacob skipped it and found Tuscan Bloom’s number.
It was lunchtime, and the money he’d put up for nuisance orders had just run out. The florist he spoke to that morning had to have been ready for a break. He paused between the jostle of tourists and the wedding guests and tapped the number with his phone.
A man answered it. Jacob felt his shoulders relax. He’d thought his setup would work, but the best laid plans of mice and fools… and all that.
“Yes,” he said. This time the voice belonged to his tutor at his university, a burned-out adjunct who stalked through life like a White Rabbit in a panic about being late. It wasn’t an impression—Mr. Norman had been German and sang baritone—but the irritated timbre, the confidence that what he was saying was too important for pleasantries was borrowed. “This is Ryan. Called from PeaPod. Our account number is 20043. My assistant was on with your company earlier this morning regarding an arrangement we wanted sent out?”
He paused abruptly and sighed heavily when the florist didn’t immediately take up the thread of the conversation.
“Well?” he snapped.
“Sorry,” the man said. Jacob could hear the click of a keyboard. “It’s been a hectic morning. We’ve had a lot of orders come in. Just give me a second.”
