She pulled her lower lip into her mouth and gnawed on it with her teeth. After a pause, she shook her head.
He resisted a sigh. She was a shitty liar. “Going to actually need the words, Kylie,” he said, holding her gaze, knowing it was next to impossible to hold a lie while looking someone in the eyes and speaking at the same time. At least for someone like Kylie. Him, he could look into the eyes of a saint and give a good run for his money.
But Kylie didn’t hold the eye contact. She looked away as she spoke. “There’s nothing else you need to know.”
Right. He didn’t believe her, of course, but he knew better than to push a woman who’d dug her toes in the sand. Instead, he scanned her list and stilled. “Your boss is on here.”
“Gib? Yeah,” she said. “But I marked him not a possibility.”
“You’ve marked them all not a possibility,” he said dryly. “But let’s start with Gib. Why isn’t he a suspect in your eyes?”
“Because we grew up together,” she said. “My grandpa taught him everything he knows. He considered Gib one of his own, even gave him a place to stay when he needed it.”
“So Gib would know exactly how important the thing—er, penguin wood carving was to you, right?” he asked. “Not to mention what it must be worth.”
“It’s not Gib,” she said stubbornly. “He’s been good to me, very good to me.”
He didn’t like where this was going. “How good is very good?”
“What do you mean?” she asked suspiciously.
Joe’s instincts were razor sharp and they’d gotten that way because he was a master at studying people. He’d been in Reclaimed Woods several times. He’d seen little to no sexual tension from Gib aimed at Kylie, but he still had to ask. For the case, he told himself, and absolutely not for personal knowledge. “You and Gib a thing, Kylie?”
“What does this line of questioning pertain to?” she asked.
Him being jealous, which was asinine. “Motive,” he said. Look at him showing off his lying skills . . .
“No,” she said. “In the past, Gib and I have never been a thing.”
She spoke with 100 percent honesty. But there’d been a hesitation there that told him he was definitely still missing a piece of this puzzle. “And how about the present or the future?”
She crossed her arms. “I don’t see how this is relative.”
Shit. She had a thing for Gib. He studied her for a minute. “I’m going to ask you that one again. You and Gib going to—”
“None of your business,” she said with surprising finality. “Drop it, please.”
That would certainly be the smart thing to do. “Fine. But he stays on the list.”
“Whatever. Now what?” she asked.
“You go to work, and so do I. I’ve got a surveillance job to get to.” To save time, he began to load up, sliding his comms case into one of his cargo pockets for later. He laced up his boots and unlocked his weapons safe to start strapping on weapons. Glock on his right hip. Knife clipped to the inside of a pocket. Cell phone in front pocket. Sig strapped to a leg. Giants cap on backward, flak vest strapped across his chest and back, and a fucking partridge in a pear tree.
He looked up and realized that Kylie’s eyes had darkened as she stared at him. He was male enough to smirk but smart enough to keep it on the inside. “I’ll get back to you once I make my way through this list. I’ll start tonight after work.”
“What? No,” she said. “I want to be involved. We’re partners in this.”
“I work alone, Kylie.”
He was surprised when she stared him down. “Not this time,” she said.
“Listen—”
“Do you want that mirror for Molly or not?” she asked.
He felt the muscle in his jaw tick. She had balls, he’d give her that. Her courage was shockingly attractive too. “You know I do,” he said.
“Then I’ll see you later. Partner.”
Shit. He was so screwed.
Chapter 5
#FranklyMyDearIDontGiveADamn
After the meeting with Joe, Kylie went to work, but for once her heart wasn’t into her dream job. Her thoughts were on her missing penguin. And also on how Joe had looked strapping on his weapons, because holy cow. For years she’d harbored her not-so-secret crush on Gib because he was handsome, steady, and—let’s face it—safe.
But Joe. Nothing about Joe said safe, and yet the inexplicable yearning she had for him said a good part of her didn’t care. She hadn’t taken many risks in her life, if any. That needed to change, and if that change included more time with Joe’s incredibly sexy mouth on hers, she was thinking that wouldn’t be a bad thing. His mouth. His body . . . And with that thought, she stupidly overmilled the tabletop she’d been working on for weeks. Trying to correct the mistake, she ended up with a huge splinter jammed in her right palm. “Dammit!”
She flipped off the machine and stared at her palm and then the wood, now rendered unusable.
Not good. Hand throbbing, she called her supply source to get more wood and received bad news. More mahogany lumber would put her overbudget. By hundreds of dollars. Worse, it would take two weeks to arrive.
The whole thing was a costly rookie mistake that would probably also cost her the client.
Both over herself and the day so far, she spent an hour trying to dig the splinter out with her left hand, which only made things worse. Finally, bloody and frustrated, she ran upstairs to Haley’s office.
“Help,” she said and held out her hand, palm up.
“Oh my God, what the hell did you do?” Haley asked. “Stab yourself with a pocketknife—repeatedly?”
“I was just trying to get out the splinter,” Kylie said.
“With what, your pocketknife?”
“Hey, I get a lot of splinters,” she said in self-defense. “And we have a saying in the shop. Mark ’em and take ’em out on our own time—after work. So I was in a hurry.”
“You’re all a bunch of barbarians,” Haley said and brought her into a patient room. She poured some sort of antiseptic over Kylie’s hand and then directed a mobile bright light over her entire palm and went to work with a set of tweezers.
“Ow!” Kylie said.
Haley snorted but didn’t stop working. “You’re okay stabbing yourself repeatedly with your pocketknife, but you’re flinching over my tweezers?”
Kylie sighed. “It’s different when someone else is the one poking around—Ouch!”
“Done.” Haley held up her tweezers, revealing a splinter a good inch long.
“Wow.”
“Yeah, and you’re welcome,” Haley said. “You owe me a bag of Tina’s muffins.”
“Thought you were on some sort of ridiculously strict diet. Something about a bikini and summer season ahead . . .”
Haley sighed. “I just don’t know how I went from being sixteen years old and eating pasta for every meal and wearing a size zero to being twenty-six, drinking kale, and debating wearing a T-shirt to the pool.”
“Well, I think you look great,” Kylie said honestly.
Haley hugged her. “Thanks. And I’m over myself. I really do want—no, make that need—muffins.”
After Kylie was bandaged and had paid the bill in the form of the promised muffins, she was headed back to Reclaimed Woods via the courtyard when she was waylaid by a call from her mom. They talked every few weeks, with just long enough between calls to grow the fondness.
“Hey, baby, thanks for the birthday gift certificate to Victoria’s Secret and Charlotte Russe!” her mom said happily. “New fancy undies and club dresses, here I come! However did you know?”
Kylie had to laugh. “Because it’s all you ever want every year.”
“Well, it was very sweet. Thank you. How’s work? You with your cutie-pie boss yet?”
“Mom.” Kylie pinched the bridge of her nose. “No.”
“Good. I mean, he’s a decent guy, but he’s not The Guy. I know you don’t want
to hear this from me, but you need someone who pulls you out of your shell.”
Kylie grimaced. “I’m not in a shell.”
“You’re so far in your shell, you can’t even see out of the shell.”
Kylie rolled her eyes. This was a common refrain between them. Her mom felt Kylie didn’t have enough fun in her life, and Kylie thought her mom could do with a little more life and a little less fun. “I’ve gotta get back to work.”
“See? All work. Come out with me sometime. We’ll have a drink, loosen you up a little bit, and find you someone to light you up.”
“Mom, a man isn’t going to solve all my problems.”
“Well, of course not, silly. But he’ll sure help you forget about them. Just think about it. Call me once in a while.”
Kylie sighed, shoved her phone away, and went back to work. Problem was, now she was short the wood she needed for her table, her hand hurt like a bitch, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that though Joe had agreed to partner with her on this, he apparently planned to work his way down her list.
Without her.
She knew that was just his usual lone wolf mentality, but it felt a little bit like he’d told her that she wasn’t wanted. She’d hired him and he’d taken over, and it was yet another rejection.
Man, she was really on a roll.
But she wasn’t going to be set aside that easily. She’d been texting with Molly. Nothing happened at Hunt Investigations that Molly didn’t know about, and according to her, the guys were all up to their eyeballs in work at the moment. Topping things off, they’d gone out on an unexpected big bond bounty hunt that needed to be handled today due to a court deadline.
Which meant that Joe wouldn’t even think about starting on her list until he was back. The hours crawled by until late afternoon when Molly texted a heads-up that the team was coming back into the office.
“Is there anything else I need to know?” Joe had asked.
Yeah, but not that she planned on telling him about. Or anyone. She turned off the planer she’d been using and quickly cleaned up. Vinnie tried to help by picking up wood scraps and spreading them everywhere under her feet so that she kept tripping. Trying to distract him, she tossed him one of his own toys. “Fetch,” she said.
He gave a bark of pure joy, went after the toy, and . . . took it back to his bed. She sighed and continued to close up. She’d just finished and grabbed Vinnie to go when Gib poked his head in and smiled.
“Hey,” he said. “Everything okay?”
“Sure,” she said. “Even though right about now would be a really great time for someone to tell me that I’m Princess of Genovia.”
“Who?”
“Never mind. What’s up?”
“I thought maybe we’d do dinner,” he said.
She froze. Was he asking her out? She actually wasn’t sure. “The kind of dinner where we’ve both been working late and you’re hungry so I go get us takeout?” she asked, which they’d done a million times and definitely wasn’t a date.
“No,” he said. “The kind of dinner where I take you to a restaurant.” He smiled and ran a hand over the sexy scruff on his jaw. “I think it’s about time, don’t you?”
She waited for the burst of excitement to hit, but . . . it didn’t. She wasn’t exactly sure when or where or how, but the painful crush she’d had on him forever now didn’t seem quite as painful. Suddenly, wanting Gib felt like the safe option.
And for whatever reason, safe was no longer what she craved. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I can’t tonight. I’ve got plans.”
“With Joe?”
“Yes, but it’s not what you think.” Instead of using the carrier, she tucked Vinnie into the large pouch of her hoodie sweatshirt—his favorite place to be—and rose to go, but Gib grabbed her hand.
“I really am sorry about the party last night,” he said. “I honestly didn’t know Rena would be there.”
“It’s okay. It doesn’t matter.”
“No, I think it does.” He reeled her in closer and bent a little to look into her eyes. “I’ve made some mistakes with you, Ky. I’m trying to fix them.”
“What kind of mistakes?” she asked curiously.
“For starters, the kind of mistake that had me letting you leave last night.”
She stared up at him, into the eyes of the man who’d been the only one she’d wanted for as long as she could remember—aside from Justin Timberlake. “Why?”
He looked confused at the question. “Why?”
“Yeah, why were you hoping I’d stay when we haven’t really seen much of each other outside work?”
“Because I realized something.” Holding her gaze, he pulled her in to him. “That I wanted to do this.” Then he leaned in, lowered his head, and brushed his mouth over hers. His lips were warm and very nice, and though she froze at the contact, her brain didn’t.
Gib was kissing her!
She was still stunned when he pulled back and smiled at her. “Think about it,” he said.
And then he walked away, leaving her staring after him. Hell had frozen over. The fat lady had sung.
Because Gib had just made a very real pass at her.
She should be doing cartwheels. Why wasn’t she doing cartwheels? She locked up and left, more confused than ever. She’d planned to sit on a bench at the fountain in the courtyard where she could see to the second floor and the entrance of Hunt Investigations. She’d thought to lie in wait for Joe to leave his office, and then waylay him. But five minutes into her wait, Molly sent a text.
He’s delayed thirty minutes by a meeting with Archer.
Great. Head still spinning, Kylie headed into the pub for a drink. She stepped up to the bar next to Sadie.
Sadie smiled distractedly, but didn’t say anything.
“You okay?” Kylie asked.
“Good question,” Sean said from the other side of the bar. “I just asked her the same thing.”
“And?” Kylie asked.
Sean slid Sadie a look. “She told me not to mistake her silence for weakness, that no one plans a murder out loud.”
Kylie laughed.
Sadie didn’t.
“Okay, so . . . whose murder are we planning?” Kylie asked her when Sean moved off.
“Still up for debate,” Sadie said, reaching over to pet Vinnie’s head. He’d stuck it out of Kylie’s sweatshirt pocket. “I’m having a late lunch and thinking it over.”
“What is that you’re having?”
“Fruit salad.”
“That’s funny,” Kylie said, “cuz it looks like a sangria.”
“Huh. Weird.” Sadie sipped her “fruit salad.”
Kylie laughed. “Okay, so you had a bad day too.” She sighed. “Adulting never looked so hard from the other side.”
“It’s not our fault,” Sadie said. “Monopoly gave us all these false expectations. Like, why can’t I buy property? Where’s my get out of jail free card? Or my two hundred bucks for passing Go?” She fed Vinnie a pretzel. Vinnie loved pretzels. Actually, Vinnie loved all food. Well, except for pickles, which Kylie had discovered by accident when he’d eaten her lunch the other day, every single bite except for the pickles that he’d so thoughtfully left on the floor for her to step on.