“Let me get you something.” She ran to the kitchen, wet a clean dish towel, returned with it, and proceeded to dab at the sauce in his lap. Which proceeded to arouse him. He had the feeling she was “dabbing” that way on purpose.
Score one for Willow. He cursed silently to himself. He hadn’t thought far enough ahead.
He cleared his throat and grabbed her hand before things got sticky. Her eyes glistened with triumph. She knew very well what she was doing.
“Water isn’t going to be strong enough. Do you have a stain stick?”
He knew very well she did. And he’d also moved it slightly from its regular spot earlier, when he’d sneaked in and replaced “his” strands of hair. It would take her a while to find the stain remover and buy him time. As Jack, he would have died from embarrassment being so worried about his pants. Con, though, was a different matter.
“Oh, of course! Stay there! I’ll go get it and be right back. Don’t move.”
Yeah, he could hardly wait for her to return and rub him with the stain stick. In retrospect, he should have leaned over and dragged his sleeve through the sauce. She dashed off toward the laundry room, which was out of sight of the living room.
Jack grabbed his water glass, rushed to his man bag by the door. Got the glass with Aldo’s DNA out, poured the water from his glass into it, stashed the glass from dinner in the bag, and returned to his chair. He returned the glass to its spot on the table, pulled a packaged disinfecting wipe from his pocket, cleaned his wineglass of all DNA, and smiled. Sometimes the spy’s life was just too much fun. Besides, Jack had always loved a good prank. And, oh yes, he was pranking Willow, big-time. And planned to take things a step further if he got the chance.
Willow had left the child gate open when she rushed through to the laundry room. Spookie came bounding out, barking happily to see Jack.
Perfect timing! Jack jumped up, grabbed the dog treat from the counter, cuddled Spookie, and fed it to her. “There, girl, I’m glad to see you, too.”
Willow returned to find them fast friends, Spookie sitting happily at his feet as Jack continued to wipe his pants with the damp towel.
“Spook, what are you doing here?” Willow’s tone was total mom voice.
“She escaped your gate. Don’t scold her, Willow. She and I have made friends. I gave her that treat I brought her and she warmed right up to me.”
Willow’s eyes narrowed. She looked just the slightest bit suspicious. “How’s the stain coming out?”
“Stubbornly.”
Jack had turned his chair to face sideways to the table. He sat with his legs apart, feet firmly planted on the floor.
“Let me see.” Willow boldly came up and kneeled between his thighs, wielding the stain stick.
Oh, shit. He had an exceptional view down her shirt to her naked breasts. As she wielded that stick like a pro and rubbed him all the right ways, he rose to the occasion and her nipples budded up, adding to his agony.
He was certain she knew what she was doing as she massaged the stain remover into his crotch, lightly touching his family jewels as she lifted the fabric of his pants away from his skin to more vigorously attack the stain. Resting her hand against his inner thigh, temptingly close to his balls.
All innocent, and incredibly erotic to a man who’d been way too long without his wife.
She rubbed and dabbed. Clung to his thigh with fingers that innocently massaged. Leaned in so close she could have kissed his lap, until he thought he might start panting.
Okay, he’d screwed up with this maneuver and given her the tactical advantage.
However, if the way her pupils were dilated when she looked up into his eyes was any indication, she was feeling things, too. “There. That should do it.”
No, that didn’t do it. And no, he wasn’t going to lose his resolve and do it.
“I think this is the best we can expect. Hopefully the cleaner will have more luck.” Looking at him like that, she was so totally tempting and begging to be kissed.
Jack leaned down, feeling as if he could simply fall into her kiss when Spookie barked and pawed his leg, begging to be picked up and saving him from certain temptation.
Willow frowned at the dog. Yeah, she was trying to tempt Jack into a roll in the hay. Not today, damn it.
“You belong back in your room,” she said to the dog.
“Oh, she’s fine. I like dogs.” He reached down and scratched Spookie behind the ears.
Willow rose slowly and set the stain stick on the tablecloth. “Let me just clear the dishes and make some coffee to go with dessert.” She shot Spookie a warning look, grabbed the offending plate and her own, and headed for the kitchen.
Jack gave an inward grin, grabbed the two wineglasses and the pea salad bowl, and headed for the kitchen with Spookie on his heels. All the DNA was long gone from that wineglass, but he was going to give Willow a scare anyway. In the kitchen, he set the salad bowl on the counter and went to the sink.
“Just set those on the counter,” Willow said.
Maybe it was only him, but he detected a note of worry in her tone.
“I’ll hand wash them later,” she added.
He set them on the counter, pushed up his sleeves, and turned the water on. Before Willow could stop him, he rinsed his wineglass thoroughly, making a show of running the dishcloth around the rim. “You cooked; the least I can do is help clean up.”
Willow spun around from where she was loading the dishwasher and grabbed the glass out of his hand. “No, absolutely not. You’re my guest. No helping out.”
She grabbed his shoulders, spun him around, and pointed him to the living room. “Please, go make yourself at home. I’ll just be a minute in here. I want to get some of the pans soaking. The rest can wait.”
He hesitated.
“I insist,” she said.
Oh, what the hell? He would have liked the pleasure of running the pea salad down the garbage disposal, but he acquiesced.
He watched her from the living room as she grabbed the drinking glasses and set them aside. He imagined she was just itching to get his glass wrapped up and mailed off to Drew’s DNA lab. Well, the joke was on them.
His phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket. The screen lit up with a video security feed from the guesthouse. You had to love a smartphone. He’d programmed it to alert him to any intruders.
Oh, look, there was Kennett creeping around the place.
Jack remotely armed his defense mechanisms. If Kennett so much as pried open the door, he’d be a dead man. Which would make Jack’s job that much easier.
The equivalent of an anvil would drop on Kennett’s head—the horseshoe Aldo had hung above the door for luck. And not the actual horseshoe, a replica made of tungsten, which was twice as heavy as lead or steel. Jack had had Emmett overnight it to him and hung it himself for luck just this morning.
Kennett being killed by a symbol of luck seemed like poetic justice and great irony to Jack. It would look like a total accident. And Kennett would look like a jealous bastard. Job well done, Jack.
But the Rooster didn’t try the door. He got out a jackknife and used it to pin something to the guesthouse door. Jack got the feeling that whatever motivated Kennett to pin his missive to the door wasn’t honorable.
Willow walked into the room, carrying two apple dumplings covered with sauce. Jack didn’t like large mounds of cooked apple. Call it an idiosyncrasy of his. And he was willing to bet the piecrust that covered the dumplings was laced with cheese. The thought made his stomach turn. Jack began to reassess his long-held belief that he liked cheese. For a guy who professed to love cheese there were many applications of it that he outright detested. And Willow had just exploited every one.
He quickly cleared the screen of his phone before Willow reached the sofa.
“Something important?” she asked as she handed him a bowl with a beautifully done dumpling and a paper napkin.
The dumpling looked as if it had come rig
ht out of an issue of a cooking magazine. Willow’s pastries were always things of beauty. This one even had a sprig of homegrown dried lavender artistically laid on top of it.
He’d love to photograph it. But he wasn’t eating it. No way.
She stood over him with the other dumpling for herself in her hand, silhouetted and backlit so that he could see her curves through her shirt. Her dark nipples budded and bounced enticingly near his face, begging him to reach up and stroke them.
Her voice was a gentle purr. Her perfume wafted toward him, heavily laced with pheromones, no doubt, because every pore in his body reacted to her.
He had to get the hell out of here. Now. Before he did something really stupid and reckless. Because he was losing his will to fight temptation. And he had to get rid of that note Kennett had left and do possible damage control before anyone else saw it.
“Those look delicious and tempting.” He nodded toward the dumplings, but he was thinking of her breasts. “But I have to run. Emergency work situation. Big PR problem for a client. Damn the cell phone era. We’re never out of touch.”
She kept smiling, but disappointment clearly clouded her face. He wondered whether she was more disappointed that she wasn’t able to seduce him or to get him to eat the cheese-infested dumplings?
She straightened. “I’ll just wrap this up for you.”
He watched her walk off toward the kitchen, his body aching and his heart constricting.
He was doing the right thing, wasn’t he? Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
* * *
Willow watched Con’s taillights as they disappeared down her driveway. Part of her was achingly disappointed—she’d scared him off, failed to seduce him, and she’d been looking forward to a good tumble and release. She wouldn’t hear her tiger chuff, but at least she had his glass.
That man was Jack, her Jack. He had to be.
How convenient that he’d spilled his dinner in his lap. She’d taken a few liberties with the cleanup. She would have loved to take about a dozen more seductive, indecent liberties. She almost had him when she stuck her breasts in his face as she delivered the dumplings.
But business called. Spy business?
She was still wondering what Jack was up to in Orchard Bluff. If Con was indeed Jack. Which she was convinced he was. Other than seeing her, what could he be up to? What could possibly happen in Orchard Bluff?
It really didn’t matter now. As disappointed as she was by Con’s sudden departure, she now had her proof.
She ran to her bedroom and grabbed the packing box she’d stuffed with popcorn for packing cushion earlier. She took it to the kitchen and carefully, lovingly, put the water glass Con had used in the collection bag, wrapped it in packing paper, nestled it among the popcorn so that no damage would come to it, taped it up, and put the mailing label on it.
Then she grabbed her coat and keys. Drew had given her instructions on where to take the package and who to see to guarantee it would go out immediately.
You had to love spies and their networks that never slept.
* * *
Back at the guesthouse, Jack deactivated the deadly horseshoe. He would have done it before he left Willow’s, but it only took him a minute to get back. There wasn’t time for anyone else to accidentally spring the trap.
Unlike Kennett and his SMASH ilk, Jack abhorred collateral damage. He didn’t tolerate it. Which made his kills harder to orchestrate and carry out.
Jack got out of the car in front of the guesthouse and walked to the door. Sure enough, there was the knife with the note pinned beneath it to the door.
The Rooster had a touch of the dramatic in him.
Jack pulled the knife out of the obviously once crumpled and now smoothed out note. Kennett was recycling either paper, or threats, or both. Very eco friendly and organic farmer–like of him.
Jack whipped out his penlight and shone it on the note.
Huh. That geometric design Willow had talked about—the Flower of Life. SMASH’s calling card. Obviously Kennett’s copy.
Jack mulled over the various meanings of Kennett’s message to him. It could be, You’re a dead man.
It might mean, I know you’re Sariel.
Or it could be, I know you’re the SMASH assassin who’s after me and I have your number.
Most likely it meant at least two out of the three. Kennett had good reasons to kill him: One, he thought Jack was out to kill him, guilty on that count; Two, killing a rival SMASH assassin, if that’s what Jack turned out to be, would prove Kennett’s worth and prowess to RIOT and maybe get him off the shit list; and finally, killing Sariel would cover up his initial mistake.
None of this boded well for Jack.
Jack shrugged. Fine with him. This was now out-and-out war.
He’d wanted to kill Kennett quietly, staging a small accident that would allow Kennett to keep his dignity here in the community. Nothing that aroused the citizens of Orchard Bluff to the danger that had been in their midst. Hell, he’d been willing to let them bury Kennett in the local graveyard.
Now, however, a bigger, better plan formed in Jack’s mind. He was going to blow Kennett to kingdom come. In his bomb shelter. The irony appealed to Jack.
But first he had to get into that bomb shelter and scope it out. He had the feeling it was the Rooster’s command center.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Shiloh burst into the shop on Tuesday morning with pink cheeks and her clean apron in hand just minutes before they were scheduled to open. Willow watched her push her way through the cluster of women that had begun forming at the door fifteen minutes earlier. Holding their steaming mugs of coffee and tea in the crisp October air, they looked like an innocent lynch mob ready to pounce on Willow. But why? That was the question Willow wasn’t really sure she wanted to know the answer to. She had a bad feeling, a really bad feeling, about what was in store for her once she opened.
“We’ll open in five.” Shiloh’s breath rose in a puff through the air, coming out in energetic bursts with her words. “Just give us five.”
Shiloh slammed the store’s door behind her, locking the crowd and her frosty breath out with a decided click. She leaned back against the door as if to brace it against a marauding mob of women. “Have you looked outside? What’s going on out there? Why are the town’s big six gossips out there, waiting to pounce?”
“Yeah, I’ve seen it. Lettie arrived a quarter of an hour ago. She came with Dottie Lundgren.”
“Jeez,” Shiloh said. “What did you do to upset the Town Grump?” Her tone indicated Willow was in big-time trouble.
“No idea.”
Shiloh glanced over her shoulder out the small window in the door. “That group is out for blood. Individually, they’re good at terrorizing. As a group”—she shuddered—”they’re like watching a Saw movie. They’re scary and they have psychological torture down to an art form.”
“I’ve been up since dawn turning sugar, butter, sea salt, and cream into sweet salted caramel. We’ll kill them with kindness and sugar if they cause any trouble.” She looked past Shiloh out the window at the group of gossipy women at her door. “I have no idea why the Visigoths are attacking. They should be at Ada’s having their morning coffee, not taking it to go. Isn’t coffee supposed to calm the savage beasts?”
What in the world was going on out there with those six? They never varied their morning coffee routine. Willow had a bad feeling. Strange things had been happening since Con had come to town. She thought she was the only one who’d been affected. Now it looked as if someone had put something in the apple crop. The entire town must be going crazy.
Shiloh winked at Willow. “That rumor that the Food Network is featuring your candy on one of their shows hasn’t been resurrected again, has it?”
Willow laughed and shook her head. “You’re not still blaming Ada for that? She was just joking that we could use a visit from a Food Network star to perk things up around here and boost sales. I don’t kno
w who overheard, misheard, and started the brushfire by spreading the rumor. I wish I could find the culprit. I’d hire them to do my advertising. Never hurts to have a bigmouth on your side.”
“Odds are it was one of those six.” Shiloh frowned. “Something has them going.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m as perplexed as you are.” Willow peeked out the window again. “What do you think they want?”
“Besides sweets? No idea. I know what I wanted—a decent parking space. They took every one. I hate parking on the street. I almost parked in the Villa’s lot. But you know how Aldo hates it when you park and don’t buy a lasagna.”
Willow peeked out the window again. “I hope this isn’t some kind of prank.” Which immediately made her think of Jack. Jack loved his pranks. “It’s not even Halloween yet.”
“What makes you think it’s a prank? Let’s flatter ourselves and think your caramels have finally caught on epically.” Shiloh grinned at her.
Willow couldn’t help but smile. There was a reason she kept Shiloh around.
“How was your dinner with the mysterious Con?” Shiloh switched topics abruptly as she tossed the apron over her head and tied the strings around her waist. She watched Willow as closely as a mother looking for a child’s lie as she waited for her answer.
Something in her tone made Willow suspicious. It was less, How was your evening with Con, hint, hint, wink, wink, did you do the deed? and more, Something is rotten in Orchard Bluff.
Willow answered with a certain amount of hesitancy and evasive action. “Fi-i-i-ne,” she singsonged, stringing the one-word answer out.
Shiloh pursed her lips and shook her head. “You’re hedging, boss. I need details.” Her tone still wasn’t as light and youthful, eager, spill-the-details Shiloh-like as Willow expected out of her.
Living with Jack had made Willow something of an expert at detecting lies and cover-ups. Shiloh either knew something, suspected something, or was trying to cover something up. None were good scenarios.
The ladies outside grew louder. Willow put a tray of freshly made sea-salted lavender caramels into the refrigerated glass display case. “Why do I have the feeling I’m in for the Orchard Bluff inquisition?”