Over the Line (8 page)

“Oh my God. Turks and Caicos. A private island. I can. Not. Wait. Seriously. Just Simon and me, on a private beach, doing unspeakable things.” She giggled and took her own long drink of wine. “I guess my parents would be super-pissed if we just eloped at this stage.” She looked back toward the main house, which was hidden behind a thicket of trees.

Beth settled back into her chair and took another sip. “I won’t tell if you want to do a skip. You can take the Audi.”

“No, she cannot. That’s my baby.” James came out with cut-off BDU pants on, and nothing else. Beth saw two tattoos on his torso that she hadn’t noticed before. One small one on his far left-hand side above his hip bone, and the other higher, slightly farther in on the right. She wanted to jump up and take a closer look, but that would seem strange, especially since she was supposed to be intimately familiar with his body.

Sadie jumped up and hugged him for a good few seconds. “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said.

“And yet it seemed as if you and Beth were planning an escape without me. You can’t have missed me that much.”

“I did… It’s just been so… I don’t know, full-on with Mom and Dad. You know how they get. Especially with no one to deflect the attention. Even Maisie hasn’t done anything horrific in a while.”

James smoothed a tendril of hair back from his sister’s face. “It’s going to be fine. We’re going to have a great night, and the wedding is going to go off without a hitch and you’ll love every second of it. I promise.”

Sadie took another slug of wine and got up. “I’m holding you to that. Anyway. Tonight, it’s just drinks at the JibJab downtown. Eight-ish?”

“We’ll be there. Now are you going to tell me about the e-mails?”

Sadie seemed to collapse in on herself as her shoulders slumped and she sat back down. “No?”

“Not an option. Maisie was openly sobbing on the phone, her e-mails upset her so much.”

A flicker of concern etched across her face. “I didn’t know. She didn’t let on that she was scared.” She placed her hand on James’s arm. “It’s dealt with. I told Dad’s office and they’re handling it.”

“When did you tell them?” James withdrew his arm from under her touch, leaned back and crossed his arms.

“A few months ago.”

“And did they stop?” he asked.

“No. That’s when Maisie started getting them.” She sat back in her chair and suddenly seemed resigned to the inevitable. She took a deep breath. “Okay. They started very benign. I didn’t know the e-mail address, but because I didn’t know half the people Mom and Dad had invited, I e-mailed back to be polite. Just basic things like what the dress code was for the rehearsal dinner. Then they got a little more personal. Asking me if I was sure I wanted to get married. Asking me if I really knew my fiancé. Telling me that people were saying he’d tricked me into marrying him.” She shrugged. “I mean it was just crazy stuff. I asked around about the e-mail address but no one recognized it. I sent it to Dad’s office and they told me they were investigating, but you know how they are. It’s just not as high a priority as other things they have to deal with. So far, the IP addresses were from hotspots in coffee shops and places like that. Short of staking them all out, there wasn’t much they could do. Especially since there wasn’t an actual threat in any of them. They just told me not to tell anyone about them.” She took a sip of wine.

“But they kept coming. Then they started going to Maisie, too. She doesn’t know that Dad’s office is looking into it, so I made her promise not to tell anyone about it. Obviously she doesn’t follow orders as well as I do.” A small smile appeared on her face, just for a second, and Beth wondered if she was talking about orders from her father’s office, or orders from her fiancé. That smile certainly wasn’t about the e-mails.

“Maisie got an e-mail this morning that suggested that someone was following you when you went shopping for her bridesmaid dress. Did you know about that?” James leaned forward.

“Oh God. No, I didn’t. Following us?” Sadie rubbed her hands up and down her bare arms as if she’d felt a chill.

“We just need to keep it close this weekend. Neither you nor Maisie leaves the property alone. Let’s just get through the wedding, and if the e-mails still come after that, you have to get Dad to take it seriously. Deal?”

“Deal.” She got up from her chair and finished her wine.

Beth and James got up too, and Sadie gave James a hug. “So glad you’re here, Squirt. I’ll see you both later. So lovely to meet you, Beth.”

“Likewise. And thanks for the wine. See you later,” she replied, raising her glass.

As soon as Sadie had rounded the corner, Beth said, “Squirt? I like that name.”

James donned some sunglasses, settled back into the chair that Sadie had vacated, and poured more wine into her glass. “You can call me whatever you like, baby.”

“What do you think about the e-mails?” Beth asked after taking a sip.

“It’s hard to say without actually seeing them. Sadie broke a lot of hearts when she was younger. Could be an ex, or it could be about Simon, or Dad. Difficult to say. I’ll ask Simon about it tonight.”

Beth nodded, and then changed the subject. “Okay, let me see your tattoos. I didn’t notice them before.”

He stretched back in the seat so she could get a look. They were black and gray bullet holes. Like the decals some people put on their computers. She reached out and touched one. It felt the same as her thigh. She traced the other one, on the other side of his body, and moved back. She couldn’t read his expression with his shades on.

“You’ve been shot, too?” Her heart dropped at the risk he’d taken when he saved her.

He inclined his head.

“Twice?”

He nodded again. “Two different tours.”

“Wow. You are some bad luck bunny.” Thank God he hadn’t been shot again when they’d been together. Thank God.

“Until you came along. For a second back there in Afghanistan, I thought the third time would be the charm. But you shot the bastard before you passed out. The PJ had to wrestle that sidearm from your hand when he loaded you into the chopper. You were virtually dead but you held onto that gun like it was a baby. I guess we saved each other.”

“Oh, so you admit that now? So really you owe me, too?”

“Ha, ha. No. Nice try, though.”

“I can’t believe you’ve been shot twice. And your parents still think you’re a desk jockey?”

“Only Sadie knows what I do. You know, just in case someone has to make that call. She’s listed as my next of kin. I can’t go shirtless in front of my parents, but that rarely happens. You know, unless I get caught making out with a girl in the pool.” He took a sip of wine.

“It sounds like that happens more than one would think,” Beth said, tipping her glass toward him for a refill.

“When I was a kid. I mean, who wouldn’t use this place as a teenager?”

“Truth,” she said, clinking her glass against his. She took a drink and imagined James as a teenager, enticing young women into his pool. She smiled to herself. “What’s the JibJab?”

“It’s a bar in downtown D.C. Sadie must be on a nostalgia kick. We used to go there as soon as we were able to fake reasonable IDs.” He smiled as if remembering their exploits. “It’s actually pretty nice. A rooftop bar overlooking the mall. It was closed for about ten years for security reasons, but it reopened a few years ago. It’ll be fun to check out the old stomping ground again.”

“Dress code?”

“A little more upscale than your average pub.”

“It’ll just be Sadie and Simon, and us two?” She really didn’t want to spend any more time than necessary with Director Walker or anyone who would report to him. She didn’t want him remembering her, or trying to get to know her. If possible she wanted to fade into the background of this whole weekend.

“Probably. Unless they invited any other friends. But I doubt it. They don’t live around here anymore, and most of the family guests will arrive tomorrow for the rehearsal dinner, and then everyone else will just be here for the reception after the ceremony on Saturday.” He swirled the wine around in his glass as he spoke, concentrating on it as if he was conducting a scientific experiment.

Beth mentally went through her new wardrobe and picked out some floaty black pants that had slits down each side from just above the knee, and a wraparound white cotton blouse. She wished she’d brought some nail scissors so that she could just trim the ends of her hair. Maybe she’d look for some in the pool house. It seemed pretty well-equipped.

Maybe she’d ask James to help. She closed her eyes and imagined him touching her hair.

Yup. She jumped up. “I’m going to look for some scissors and get ready.”

“Kitchen drawer,” he replied.

* * *

The sun had dropped behind the trees when James left the pool and headed into the house. The light was on in the bedroom, so he went to his bag in the closet and unpacked his tuxedo and the other clothes he’d bought at Nordstrom. He hung them up on the opposite side of the closet from Beth’s new clothes. She’d left her bag open on the floor, and her sultry perfume rode on the air in the small room.

He touched her new clothes—silk, cashmere, cotton, linen—and imagined how they would look and feel on Beth. Where they would touch her skin. Where they may gape a little and show a glimpse of underwear.

He stepped away. He had no idea why he was torturing himself so much. This was so unlike him. He worked twelve-hour days in a mainly male career field. He hadn’t dated in a year or so, but also hadn’t even seen any woman in that time that he was interested in. It was crazy that he was acting like a hormone-crazed teenager just in the presence of her clothes.

Shaking himself out of it, he grabbed a handful of dress socks and opened a drawer to shove them in. A flash of jewel colors stopped him in his tracks. Of all the drawers in the whole closet, he had to open the one with her underwear in it. He hesitated, looking at them, oh so tempted to be the creepiest person on earth and touch them. Instead he slammed the drawer shut as if it had been filled with rattlesnakes. He threw his socks in the drawer below and heard Beth in the kitchen.

“Did you find the scissors?” he asked, striding out into the main room. He stopped in his tracks at the sight before him.

She was side-on to him, looking in a drawer. She wore black pants that made her legs look miles long. They were tight around the hips and thighs, and flared toward the floor. She shifted onto her other hip as she rummaged in the drawer and he caught a flash of leg up to her thigh. Jesus hell. Who would make pants with slits in them? Surely they were designed to torture him.

“Not yet. Am I looking in the right place?” She turned to him with a helpless look on her face. He slow blinked, grateful for the dimness of the room now the sun had disappeared. Her top was a white shirt that tied at the side, as if it had wrapped itself around her and was hugging her body. Like he should be.

He was never going to survive the night.

“Should be in there somewhere. It’s been a while since I’ve stayed here. Maybe there’s a pair in the knife block next to the stove?” He padded toward her in his bare feet, feeling strange because she was dressed and he was still half naked. Strange? Maybe something else.

She spun around to locate the knife block and her pants billowed slightly, showing the length of her other leg. He suddenly felt as if he was in some kind of alternate reality. As if he was living in proximity to a movie star, someone he lusted for but couldn’t have. But he could have her. He was just waiting for the perfect time to make his move. If there was such a thing.

He needed a drink.

“Ah-ha. Found them,” she said, brandishing them.

He smiled and reached for a beer from the regular fridge. He remembered the time he’d unknowingly stored beer in the wine fridge, only to find that the ideal temperature for wine did absolutely no favors for beer.

He popped the top and leaned against the counter. “You look fantastic, by the way,” he said.

“Oh, this old thing?” She laughed and twirled. And then she stopped. “I’ve left the tags on. You know, so we can take them back.”

“We’re not taking anything back, Beth. These clothes are yours for being here when we should be climbing, and yeah, the casual racism of my mother.”

She frowned. “We’ll talk about returning the stuff later. Let’s see how clean I can keep everything. Can you help me?” She held up the scissors.

He put his beer down and said, “Sure. What do you need?”

“Just a tiny trim.” She turned her back to him and pulled a couple of pins from her hair. Her dark brown mane tumbled down past her shoulders, her waist, and stopped in the middle of the small of her back.

“Shit, girl. I’ve never seen hair like this before. It’s crazy long.” He couldn’t help himself but to run his hand down its length, feeling the heat from the sun, or the hair dryer or however it had stopped being wet.

She passed a brush and the scissors over her shoulder and said, “Can you just take off a few stray ends? It didn’t occur to me to do it before I went rock climbing. I figured I’d wear it up the whole time. But these clothes make me feel as if it needs a little tidying. Do you mind?”

“Not at all. But I have to say I can’t see anything untidy about it.” He slid the brush down her hair, and had to bend to reach the ends. “Okay, this isn’t going to work. I know. Turn around.”

She turned to face him and he effortlessly lifted her onto the counter. For a second he paused, hyper aware of being between her legs. Devastatingly aware of how easily he could lean in and feel her. He glanced up, and watched her mouth fall open, so slightly. It was almost an acceptance of a kiss to come. Almost.

He stepped back and swallowed. “If you scoot back, I can reach you from the other side, and I’ll be at a level with the ends of your hair. Is that okay?” He went around the island as she shuffled toward the other side of the counter. He put his hands gently on her shoulders and pulled her back a little more. She leaned back, bracing her hands on the edge of the granite.

“How’s that?” she asked.

“Much better. Although, I’m thinking that I’d never cut it as a hairdresser.”