Midnight Man

  There won’t be a next time. The sharp words were on the tip of her tongue when she heard a car horn tooting impatiently outside. She glanced at her watch and started.

  “That’s my taxi. I have to go.”

  “Taxi?” The smile disappeared, wiped out instantly. “What taxi? Why are you taking a taxi? What’s the matter with your car?”

  Good question. Suzanne sighed. “I don’t know. It’s at the car hospital. It was making these…these wheezing sounds and stalling at traffic lights. My car’s a real lemon and it’s always at the garage. I took it in yesterday and they said it should be ready by tonight.”

  “Choking, stalling. Sounds like the carburetor went. Who’s ’they’?”

  “The garage. Owned by a real creep named Murphy.” Just saying the guy’s name made her angry. Sully Murphy was a big fat lazy slob who used his bulk to intimidate her into spending a fortune every time her car fell apart. Which was often.

  The taxi driver put his hand on the horn and kept it there.

  Suzanne pulled uselessly at the door handle. “I have to go now.”

  John was frowning down at her, his big hand still on the door. She sighed. “John, I really need to get going or I’ll be late for a work appointment.”

  “What’s the name of the garage?”

  “Why on earth do you want to know—“ His frown deepened and she threw up her hands. “Okay, okay, it’s Murphy’s Rental and Repair. On 14th and Burnside.”

  “Give me the keys to your car. I’ll make sure you get it back today and I’ll make sure they did a decent repair job. This is no weather to be driving around in a car with a faulty carburetor.” He took his hand off the door and held it out, palm up. “I’ll park your car out front.”

  Suzanne hesitated, but the truth was, she had a busy day ahead of her and it would be helpful if someone could pick the car up for her. And maybe Sully Murphy wouldn’t try to snow John with arcane mechanical details in an attempt to cheat her, as he usually did with her. He sure wouldn’t try to intimidate John.

  Not and live.

  One thing she’d learned—when it came to cars, it was still very much a man’s world. If John showed up, Murphy would probably give her a big discount. Maybe treat her better from now on, thinking she had some muscle behind her.

  “Okay.” She dug in her purse and dropped the keys into his outstretched hand. “Tell Murphy I’ll stop by tomorrow to pay. And thanks.” The taxi driver was playing ‘shave and a haircut’ on the horn. “I really, really have to go now.”

  John followed her out, flipping up his jacket collar against the cold dampness. He kept a big hand on her elbow down the sidewalk right up to the taxi. He gave the taxi driver a long look as he opened the back seat door for her. But before she could climb in and slam the door shut, he stepped in front of her. She looked longingly at the cab then back up at him.

  “I need to get in,” she said. Low sullen clouds spat a few drops. “The meter’s running and it’s starting to rain.”

  “In a minute.” He ignored the rain, which started to fall, harder and faster by the second. “I have to go out of town today and I won’t be back until late. But we have to talk. Tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow. Great. She could handle tomorrow. She just couldn’t handle today.

  He pulled a pad from the inside pocket of his jacket and scribbled something down.

  “This is my cell phone number, just in case you need me.” He held it out to her. She took it and their hands touched. His skin was rough. She remembered his hand touching her…Trembling, she jammed the scrap of paper into her planner. “Okay.”

  He nodded grimly and stepped aside. “Where are you going?”

  “What—now?”

  “Yeah. Now.”

  “Downtown. Salmon Street. What are you doing?” she hissed as she slid in.

  John ignored her, and laid a big arm along the top of the roof and rapped his fist sharply on the metal. The taxi driver buzzed the window down. “Yeah? You want something, bud?” he asked, bored.

  John bent down and flipped the sun visor, looking hard at the taxi driver ID, and then transferring that hard look to the driver. “Listen up, Harris. The lady wants to go downtown to Salmon Street. She doesn’t want to take a tour of Portland’s suburbs and she wants to be there in ten minutes. Is that clear?” He had on his warrior face and it wasn’t a face you talked back to.

  “Yessir,” the taxi driver answered, wide-mouthed. John stared at him for another long moment then slapped his hand on the roof and stepped back.

  “Okay, then.”

  The driver took off like a bat out of hell and Suzanne didn’t have the courage to look back. But she could see perfectly well in the driver’s rear view mirror. John stood smack in the middle of the street, big as a mountain and looking just as immovable. He watched, scowling, in the rain as the taxi pulled away.

  Men.

  * * * * *

  Women.

  Why the hell hadn’t she asked him to drive her, if her car was in the garage? Why call a taxi when she could call him? He’d gladly drive her to freaking Iceland, if she asked.

  He knew why she hadn’t asked. For the same reason she kept trying to slither away from him.

  Jesus, he’d handled that badly. He’d meant to smooth Suzanne’s ruffled feathers, reassure her that he was an okay guy, not some crazed sex maniac, because that was what she obviously thought. It was true that he’d been obsessed with the idea of taking her to bed since he’d first laid eyes on her, but he wasn’t an animal.

  The way she’d watched him, warily, those big blue-gray eyes wide open, ready to jump if he so much as moved, would have made him angry if he didn’t know that he deserved her wariness. He was the one who’d acted like an asshole, ripping her clothes off and taking up her against a wall. Now it was up to him to make up for it.

  He needed to make this right. He needed to find a way to make this right. But hell—just seeing the woman sent him into overdrive. Damn, but she’d looked pretty this morning, and even more desirable than last night, though he wouldn’t have believed such a thing possible.

  Still elegant, still graceful, still achingly feminine but now he didn’t have to speculate about what her breasts looked like, tasted like. How soft her mouth was, how smooth her skin was, how it felt to be deeply buried inside her. He knew.

  He wanted more. More of the same, only in a bed this time, with hours at his disposal to kiss that pretty mouth swollen again. He’d do it right next time, make sure she was ready, and maybe go down on her first. Make sure she was wet, and then enter her slowly. She’d been surprisingly tight.

  She carried the signs of his lovemaking. Lips slightly bee-stung, a dewy sexy softness to her.

  He’d given her a hickey.

  He could remember every second of his mouth on her neck, the taste of her. He’d sucked hard at her skin while coming. It had felt as if the top of his head was going to explode and he was lucky he hadn’t taken a bite out of her.

  He’d wanted to. He still did.

  He wanted to bite her, kiss her, suckle her, penetrate her. He wanted it all, every single thing she could give, and more. But if he didn’t play his cards right, he was never going to get into her pants again. Right now it looked like he had better hopes of becoming a ballerina than of taking Suzanne Barron to bed. She was shying away from him as if he were the Antichrist.

  He knew what the problem was but he didn’t have a clue what to do about it.

  It was a problem he’d had all his life, though it hadn’t made much of a difference in the Navy because the Navy was full of men just like him.

  But out here in the civilian world, it was a real problem. If he hadn’t been so good at his job, it would have stopped him from making his business a success.

  There were two kinds of people in this world. Those whose thoughts and emotions were on a dial and those whose emotions were on a switch. He was a switch man himself and had spent his entire lifetime among switches.
br />   Something either was or wasn’t. Had happened or hadn’t. You either could do it or couldn’t. It either worked or it didn’t. You were either happy or unhappy.

  Dial people were different. Their emotions ran up and down a scale and you had to guess at what point they were and try to coax them to go in the direction you wanted.

  Commanding men who risked their lives in battle required a working knowledge of human psychology. John knew he was a good leader. He’d worked hard at that. But there were limits to what he could do.

  His men were just as susceptible as the next man when it came to women problems, family problems, and money troubles. But soldiers had less slack to fart around. If his men had troubles John had to know—right now. He couldn’t put up with bullshit and they didn’t give it to him. If one of his men had a problem, John tried to help him resolve it. If it couldn’t be solved, and it affected a man’s performance, that man was out of the Teams. The soldier knew it, he knew it, everyone knew it.

  John wasn’t used to pussyfooting around or cajoling.

  He’d almost lost the Western Oil contract because of his nature. The CEO, Larry Sorensen, had invited him to dinner at his house and to his golf club the next day. John knew he was being tested and he’d damned near failed the test. Sucking corporate cock wasn’t his style.

  Dinner had been pure unadulterated hell, with Mrs. CEO trying to plant her foot in his crotch under the dinner table and Mr. CEO trying to talk art, about which John knew exactly zero.

  And the golf club episode—that had been right up there in his all-time personal list of crappy things he’d had to do in his lifetime. Worse, much worse, than an underwater incursion through the sewers of Jakarta on a hunt for a nest of tangos.

  He’d had to endure Sorensen trying to bond with him while trying to smack a little white ball into a hole, just about the most useless activity the mind of man has ever invented. All of that while riding a golf cart—a golf cart for Christ’s sake!—around the course.

  Sorensen was at least fifty pounds overweight—all of it pure flab—and he still couldn’t be bothered to walk a few miles. To top it all off, Mr. CEO talked the whole time about how his shrink had told him to ‘get back in touch with his manhood’.

  John wanted to tell the guy that getting back in touch with his manhood was going to take a lot more than tumbling his secretary once a month.

  This wasn’t his scene. He’d written off the contract until the Venezuela episode showed Sorensen and the entire Western Oil Board that actions were more powerful than words, any time.

  John was good at action. Bad at words.

  It had never bothered him before. Action had got him everything he’d ever wanted from life. Until now. Action wasn’t going to get him back into Suzanne Barron’s bed. Maybe not words, either.

  But whatever it was that was going to work, he’d find it.

  He’d never failed a mission yet.

  Chapter Five

  “Men!” Todd Armstrong said in disgust, leaning back and crossing his perfectly creased linen trousers. They were in Todd’s elegant office in a steel and glass high-rise which he’d manage to make look like a boudoir. Todd’s tastes were unerringly fine but classic. He could spot a Louis Quatorze at a hundred paces and he knew every auction house in the continental United States.

  They made a great team. Suzanne had a natural affinity for modern design and Todd had a magic touch when it came to traditional design. Together, they buzzed. Todd kept her from being too starkly post-modern and she restrained his natural tendency to go for the Sun-King-in-Versailles-on-acid look.

  “Bad date, sweetie?” Suzanne asked.

  Todd’s lips pursed. “I’ll say. The date from hell. Listen to this one.”

  Suzanne sat back, prepared to be amused. Todd’s forays into the wild world of dating were legendary.

  “Here we are in that new Thai place—you know it?“

  “The Golden Tiger?” If it was new and trendy, Todd had been there. Suzanne had just read the food review in The Oregonian and knew that it was just a matter of time before Todd would go to The Golden Tiger himself and report back to her.

  “That’s the one. Tacky decor but the food is to die for. At least the meal wasn’t a total write-off. So anyway, here we are. Food’s good. My date’s cute. Hugh Grant haircut, Versace suit, tight buns. I thought it was really going to work out. And then all through the chicken satay I listen to him telling me how much he hates his mother. I’m told in excruciating detail exactly how much. Though if half of what he told me is true, he’s got a point. Then he starts recounting in even more excruciating detail all about his hobby, which is?” Todd leaned back and watched her, head tilted.

  She tried to think of all the things Todd might find boring. “His tax write-offs.”

  “Noooo. That was Tuesday’s date, with the CPA.” Todd shuddered delicately. “This is worse.”

  “Genetically modified organisms?”

  Todd laughed. “No. That’s actually sort of interesting. Try harder.”

  “Republican politics.”

  He held his hand up and waggled it. ”Close,” he said, “but no cigar. Dutch voting patterns.”

  “Wow.” Suzanne sat back and thought about a date spent discussing a castrating mother and Dutch politics. “Pretty dire.”

  “The whole evening was about as much fun as rolling in glass.” Todd sighed theatrically. “I’m going to give up dating for Lent.”

  Todd, giving up dating. Suzanne laughed at the thought. “Lent’s not for another three months. And anyway, you’re not Catholic. I don’t think you get any brownie points for giving things up for Lent unless you are. Still, not dating for a while might not be a bad idea. Why don’t you give yourself a little rest? Maybe—I don’t know—maybe a week’s respite?”

  “Maybe,” he answered, doubtfully.

  Suzanne hid a smile. She knew Todd, and knew his romantic nature. He was perennially on the lookout for the man of his life. He was absolutely convinced that his soul mate was waiting for him at the next nightclub, or restaurant or cocktail party. Todd could no more stop dating than he could stop eating or breathing.

  “So,” she said, putting down her cup of tea after taking a sip. Delicious, perfect tea, a special blend Todd had imported especially from England. Served in the perfect teacup. Villeroy and Boch’s Vieux Luxembourg. Set out on the perfect silver tray. Christofle. Placed on the perfect coffee table, made out of a 16th century monastery door. Working with Todd was a pleasure in every possible way. “Are we ready to face the Dragon Lady this afternoon? Tell you what. You bring the chair and I’ll bring the whip.”

  “Sorry, sweetie.” Todd sighed. “I think you might have to go into the Dragon Lady’s lair all by yourself. My accountant says that if I don’t stop by his office today, he’ll report me to the IRS himself. So Marissa Carson is all yours. You can be the one to convince her that, no, that much red in the bathroom will make it look too much like an internal organ and that those 80 yards of blue shantung she ordered on special consignment from Beijing cannot be dyed yellow.”

  “And that you can’t tear down a load-bearing wall because it bothers your—what’s that dog’s breed? Lapsang souchong? The one that’s all hair and yaps constantly?”

  “Llhasa apso.”

  “Right.” Suzanne winced, remembering trying to argue Marissa Carson out of that one. “And as much as you’d like sun in the sun room in the afternoon, which is when you get up anyway, the sun does rise in the east, has done so for many, many years and no, there’s not much you can do about that.” Marissa Carson was impossible. Suzanne turned to glare at Todd. Who was going to leave her alone with a woman not even Prozac could tame. “Thanks a bunch for dumping me. Who knows what crazy new idea Marissa’s hatched in the meantime?”

  “She’s just back from New York,” Todd said contemplatively. “And crazy about the Met’s new production of Aida. I shudder at the thought. It probably means that now she’s into—“


  “Elephants,” they said together and Suzanne laughed.

  She sipped her tea, relaxed for the first time in twenty-four hours, and contemplated Todd. He was such a pleasure to look at. He wasn’t much taller than she was, beautifully made, with fine features, long silky blond hair and deep green eyes. He was so good-looking that people often underestimated him.

  She smiled at him and he smiled back.

  Todd was such a great guy. They got along really well and had done so since the moment they’d met. They meshed so easily that Todd could finish her sentences. He knew her decorating style so well all she had to do was give a vague word picture, make the most basic of sketches and he could see her entire decorating scheme complete in his head. He had a fine sense of irony that offset her tendency to be too serious and she in turn kept him grounded.