Agent out of Time (The Agents for Good) (4 page)

“I think your mother’s issues are all self-made and nothing that you need to worry about genetically speaking, but in some ways you follow in her steps to closely.”

“I don’t drink to excess or do drugs!” Deshavi exclaimed.

“No, but you don’t care for yourself in other ways. There are many ways to rot one’s soul. After your father’s death both you and your mother internalized your grief and let bitterness grow. I know this because I did too. I still struggle with it and am often depressed by it and other things. You and your mother didn’t resist the bitterness, but instead you’ve let it shape you into who you are today. I have money Deshavi, enough money to take care of you for the rest of your life and if I thought it would work I’d give it all to you so you would just stop doing whatever it is that you’re doing when you’re not here in the mountains, but I don’t think your there yet.”

There was silence for a moment, while I reflected internally at how surprised I felt inside that she was still sitting here with me.

Her voice was somewhat faltering at first, “There are times….times that I want to stop, but then there’s times when I need the excitement, as bad as I need my next breath of air.”

I nodded, at least she was being honest with me. That was at least something, actually for her that was a lot. Time passed by and I decide to change the topic.

“I surprised you today didn’t I?”

I felt her smile, “Yes, you did! I would never have imagined that strict moral consciousness that you are at heart setting up a lunch date, with a man who just moments before was in open lust over me. What’s gotten into you grandfather?”

I shook my head, “Not sure. It felt right so I went with it.”

“Do you think this man can cure me of my bad taste in men or something?”

“No, only you can make that decision.” I responded soberly.

“Then what do you hope to gain by this?”

“I guess I hope you’ll change, as he’s someone worth changing for.”

“Have a high opinion of him don’t you?” She asked.

“Yes I do.”

There was a pause and then she asked, “What do you think is going to happen?”

I paused myself from answering for a moment and then I let her have it, “I think you’ll break his heart just as you have mine so many times.”

She stood up abruptly throwing my arm to the side and for a moment it looked like she was going to slap me, but she thought better of it and stormed off into the house, slamming the door behind her hard. Alone again, I stared out into the darkness listening to the sounds of the night.

Anger was good. It meant that she still wanted to please me and now I had brought up what I considered to be the failure to which she could earn my displeasure. Competitive soul that she was, she would now avoid Trent like the plague, not wanting to make my words be fulfilled, but lured by her thirst for the forbidden she’d go after him anyway. If something bad happened the guilt would be hers alone and I hoped it would be enough to help drive her to change.

Chapter Three

The Dotted Line

Deshavi was gone, when I arose in the morning, but her stuff was still there so she had only gone outside and not left altogether. She came in as I was making breakfast. She looked decidedly moody and without asking I made enough breakfast for two.

She glared across the table at me, after I sat down, but I paid her no attention.

“What would it take to get all your stash of money?” She asked sullenly.

Now this I hadn’t expected, but I should have. What to do? I decided to play along.

“No more stealing.”

“Agreed.”

“No more whoring.”

“Agreed.”

“A lifelong married commitment to one man, with a baby in your arms no sooner than nine months after your wedding.”

I could hear her teeth grinding, as she nodded and then asked, “Anything else?”

Her tone said that she thought I had already asked for far too much from her.

“The man has to be Trent.”

Her eyes smoldered anger at me, “Why him?”

“Two reasons. For one, because he’s man enough to tame you and not be dominated by you. I like him is the second reason. You two will make beautiful babies together, which I look forward to holding in my arms soon.” I added at the last just to see the flames go higher in her eyes.

“Well what do you say?” I asked.

“Yes!” She gritted out. “But I want it in writing!”

I nodded and got up to fetch some paper and a pen. Sitting back down I wrote it all out and then slid the paper across the table to her with the pen. She glanced down at the sheet of paper as she read it.

Her eyes shot up to mine, “Thirteen and a half million!”

I nodded.

She picked up the pen and signed the paper and then slid it back to me.

I signed the paper and dated it.

Triumphantly she declared, “You’re a fool! I can be married, have a baby and be divorced inside of two years!”

I glanced up and met her eyes. “That very well may be, but to do it you’re going to have to show me first what kind of pathetic excuse of a mother you would be to deprive your newborn child of the love and positive nurturing influence of a father, that even you were ill equipped to do without at the age of three.”

She visibly winced with the impact of my words and the cocky look fell off her face entirely.

She reached for the paper, but I removed it out of her reach.

“Too late, it’s signed. Now I believe you have some work to do to ensure the inheritance of your fortune. Trent is at his grandfather’s place. Good luck with your hunting.”

I stood up and the deeply shaken sight that Deshavi now was, glanced up at me forlornly, “Where are you going?”

I held the paper up, “To hide this where not even you could find it, let alone steal it.”

I unhooked a plaid coat from off the door hook and shrugged into it. Folding the paper neatly I stated with emphasis. “Remember Deshavi, no babies until well after the wedding night.”

She truly looked pathetic now, as she sat there trapped by the very document she had just signed. It always paid to consider all the angles thoroughly before one signed something important. She had been too focused on the money to consider all the angles that could make the agreement binding.

I read the emotions of alarm that suddenly coursed across her face, as the meaning of my words became real to her. In order to snare Trent she’d have to do it without her feminine bedroom wiles and she had a limited window of opportunity in which to work in.

“Daylight is wasting, and Deshavi I think you know that birth control is not an option on the table with which to work around this obstacle you’re faced with in order to gain the prize.”

She nodded knowing exactly what I had meant by the statement of no babies or she forfeited everything.

I closed the door behind me triumphantly. She still had a few things to learn before she outfoxed me. This deal might cost me my fortune, but it was a small price to pay for a settled and well trapped granddaughter.

Deshavi sat there at the table staring at the closed door. What had she done?

She’d made a mistake, that’s what! She’d been suckered by a one and a three and a bunch of zeros. To complete it all she was locked into a commitment that she wanted no part of, but that she had to participate in, if she wanted the money. Sure, Trent was a hunk in every imaginable way, but he was dangerous to!

He made her nervous and she’d seen enough to know that he wasn’t going to be as easy to manipulate as others had been. Her grandfather truly had gotten the best of her this time. Thirteen and a half million!

She’d never thought it was that much. Was it worth being Trent’s woman and bearing his children though? He’d have a say over the money to, no doubt, unless she could get grandfather to give it to her under the table. He’d probably have to do that anyway, because if Trent found out what she was up to he wouldn’t be happy. He might even get mad enough to walk away!

In some ways she couldn’t believe she was even entertaining the bonds of this agreement, but she knew something had to change. That last time had been much too close! She’d had all her bases covered and yet that Russian thug had almost had her. It was time to get out and this was looking to be the best option financially speaking.

It was a good option in one other respect as well. It offered her a chance despite everything that had happened in the past to do and be something that she knew would please her grandfather. That was still important to her.

Now what sort of strategy would work best in toppling Mister Trent into the bonds of matrimony? A direct upfront approach was best, as she doubted that he would respect anything else. Before she had employed raw animal appeal, when she had been taunting him, but that wasn’t the kind of behavior that put a ring on your finger, it was only good for getting oneself laid. She had to avoid that at all costs, because as good as birth control may be, it wasn’t perfect.

She could count on her grandfather to hold her to every stipulation of their contract to the letter of the law, so she would have to win the ex-seal through charm and be honest with him. That is as honest, as she could afford to be of course, which wasn’t very honest at all. In fact what she had to do was lie very convincingly, with only enough truth added in to make it seem believable.

Chapter Four

Seduction Begun

Deshavi slid off her mare to the ground and looked around Ted Rogerson’s homestead site. She didn’t see anyone moving around the cabin. She tied her mare off and did a little scouting. She found Ted dozing peacefully in the sun, a bottle of whiskey beside him. She backed away quietly, careful not to disturb her grandfather’s friend. She heard a chink of stone against metal and located the direction it had come from quickly, as it sounded out again.

It would seem that Trent was doing the role of an archaeologist today. She made her way towards Ted’s perpetual dig site. She saw Trent down in a narrow trench swinging away with mattock. Admiringly she watched as his muscles rippled across the wide plain of his back and shoulders with the swing of each stroke of the mattock.

He was already aware of her, that she knew. Being the top predator that he was he’d probably smelled her on the breeze. His strong masculinity was one of the things that bothered her the most about him. Usually she picked weaker prey, but this time she felt like the prey.

His eyes flickered up to her, as she sat down on the edge of the ditch he was in the process of digging out. It wasn’t much past nine a.m. in the morning, but he was already drenched with sweat and filthy. She’d never been attracted to him before more so than she was right now strangely enough. That was another thing she feared about him. He seemed to have the ability to overwhelm her, when it was she that should be doing the overwhelming part.

“Having fun?” She asked, as she gazed skeptically upon his task at hand.

He leaned back against the dirt wall behind him; his hands supported on his mattock handle and admitted, “Yes, actually I am.”

She nodded and gave a shrug as if to say, ‘Whatever floats your boat.’

He stood there quietly and watched her and it began to grow awkward.

“I suppose you’re wondering why I’m here?”

He didn’t say anything, but his gaze said he was interested in her answer. She didn’t know what to say, nothing sounded right.

“Did your grandfather put you up to this?” He asked.

She nodded, “You could say that I suppose.”

He shook his head disgustedly. “I suppose you do everything he asks you to?”

Deshavi shook her head no, “Very little actually.”

“Then why are you here?” Trent asked.

“Perhaps, because I want to be with you.” Deshavi responded in an intimate fashion.

Trent’s gaze was judging, as he weighed her sincerity of statement, “And why is that?”

Her eyes drifted down him admiringly and her response was a simple raising of the eyebrows.

“Is that all you look at in a relationship?” Trent asked sarcastically.

“I’ve never known there to be much of anything else worth going for.” Deshavi responded defensively.

His hand closed around the back of her knee and he tugged her off the edge of the bank she’d been sitting on. She landed hard in the ditch on her backside. Breathing heavy, as a result of the unexpected movement on his part she pressed back against her side of the ditch away from him, completely unsure of his motives all of a sudden. She actually felt threatened.

The ditch was too narrow to avoid him, when he reached out and pulled her to her feet. He took her hands before she could object and folded them around the handle of a shovel.

His eyes met hers and she relaxed a little when she saw a glint of humor in the depths of his, “Someone very wise once told me that the only relationships worth having were those that went deeper than just the surface of the skin and that to get those relationships in place, hard work is required to both build and maintain them. Perhaps you’re past failures with relationships were because you didn’t work hard enough at them.”

He stepped away and moved down the ditch from Deshavi and grabbed up another shovel along the way.

She stared incredulously after him, “You’re expecting me to dig in the dirt in order to be with you?”

He didn’t answer and she looked around, as she grappled with what to do. This was crazy! She stared at the shovel in her hands.

“You can’t ask me to dig up the remains of my relatives, let alone evidence that they might not of been the first ones on this continent!”

Trent straightened up and turned around to face her, “Hey I didn’t make you sign anything to be here. If you want to go, then go.”

He turned back around to his work. Deshavi glared spitefully at his back for a moment. Her gaze shifted to the shovel handle in her hands. Thirteen and a half million was beginning to look like too little of a reward for putting up with this man! Muttering darkly to herself she turned to the loose dirt on her side of the ditch and began to throw it out with the shovel.