one level. He didn’t have to think twice.
“Do you have plans for tonight?” he asked, slipping smoothly out of best-friend mode and into low-scale, friendly seduction. The difference was subtle, but there was a difference. “Because I don’t have any plans for tonight and I’m starving. What do you say we go grab some dinner? I know this great seafood place right on the water in San Felipe. You can tell me about growing up in New York over grilled swordfish.”
“Oh,” she said, “I don’t think—”
“Do you have other plans?”
“No,” she said, “but—”
“This is perfect,” he bulldozed cheerfully right over her. “If we’re going to work together, we need to get to know each other better. Much better. I just need to stop at home and pick up my wallet. Can you believe I’ve been walking around all day without any cash?”
Hoo-yah, this was perfect. They were literally four blocks from his house. And what better location to initiate a friendly, low-key seduction than home sweet home?
Syd had to hold on with both hands as Lucky quickly cut across two lanes of traffic to make a right turn into a side street.
“Don’t you live on the base?” she asked.
“Nope. Officer’s privilege. This won’t take long, I promise. We’re right in my neighborhood.”
Now, that was a surprise. This neighborhood consisted of modestly sized, impeccably kept little houses with neat little yards. Syd hadn’t given much thought to the lieutenant’s living quarters, but if she had, she wouldn’t have imagined this.
Sure enough, he pulled into the driveway of a cheery little yellow adobe house. A neatly covered motorcycle was parked at the back of an attached carport. Flowers grew in window boxes. The grass had been recently, pristinely mowed.
“Why don’t you come in for a second?” Lucky asked. “I’ve got some lemonade in the fridge.”
Of course he did. A house like this had to have lemonade in the refrigerator. Bemused and curious, Syd climbed down from the cab of his shiny red truck.
It was entirely possible that once inside she would be in the land of leather upholstery and art deco and waterbeds and all the things she associated with a glaringly obvious bachelor pad. And instead of lemonade, he’d find—surprise, surprise—a bottle of expensive wine in the back of the refrigerator.
Syd mentally rolled her eyes at herself. Yeah, right. As if this guy would even consider her a good candidate for seduction. That wasn’t going to happen. Not in a million years. Who did she think she was, anyway? Barbie to his Ken? Not even close. She wouldn’t even qualify for Skipper’s weird cousin.
Lucky held the door for her, smiling. It was a self-confident smile, a warm smile…an interested smile?
No, she had to be imagining that.
But she didn’t have time for a double take, because, again, his living room completely surprised her. The furniture was neat but definitely aging. Nothing matched, some of the upholstery was positively flowery. There was nothing even remotely art deco in the entire room. It was homey and warm and just plain comfortable.
And instead of Ansel Adams prints on the wall, there were family photographs. Lucky as a flaxen-haired child, holding a chubby toddler as dark as he was fair. Lucky with a laughing blonde who had to be his mother. Lucky as an already too-handsome thirteen-year-old, caught in the warm, wrestling embrace of a swarthy, dark-haired man.
“Hey, you know, I’ve got an open bottle of white wine,” Lucky called from the kitchen, “if you’d like a glass of that instead of lemonade…?”
What? Syd wasn’t aware she had spoken aloud until he repeated himself, dangling both the bottle in question and an extremely friendly smile from the kitchen doorway.
The interest in his smile was not her imagination. Nor was the warmth in his eyes.
God, Navy Ken was an outrageously handsome man. And when he looked at her like that, it was very, very hard to look away.
He must’ve seen the effect he had on her in her eyes. Or maybe it was the fact that she was drooling that gave her away. Because the heat in his eyes went up a notch.
“I’ve got a couple of steaks in the freezer,” he said, his rich baritone wrapping as enticingly around her as the slightly pink late-afternoon light coming in through the front blinds. “I could light the grill out back and we could have dinner here. It would be nice not to have to fight the traffic and the crowds.”
“Um,” Syd said. She hadn’t even agreed to go to dinner with him.
“Let’s do it. I’ll grab a couple of glasses, we can sit on the deck,” he decided.
He vanished back into the kitchen, as if her declining his rather presumptuous invitation was an impossibility.
Syd shook her head in disbelief. This was too much. She had absolutely no doubt about it now. Lieutenant Lucky O’Donlon was hitting on her.
His motive was frightfully obvious. He was attempting to win her over. He was trying to make her an ally instead of an adversary in this task-force-coupling from hell. And, in typical alpha male fashion, he’d come to the conclusion that the best way to win her support involved full-naked-body contact. Or at least the promise of it.
Sheesh.
Syd followed him into the kitchen, intending to set him straight. “Look, Lieutenant—”
He handed her a delicate tulip-shaped glass of wine. “Please, call me Lucky.” He lifted his own glass, touching it gently to hers, as he shot her a smile loaded with meaning. “And right now I am feeling particularly lucky.”
Syd laughed. Oh, dear God. And instead of telling him flat out that she had to go and she had to go now, she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t have any plans for tonight, and—God help her—she wanted to see just how far this clown was willing to go.
He continued to gaze at her as he took a sip of his wine.
His eyes were a shade of blue she’d never seen before. It was impossible to gaze back at him and not get just a little bit lost. But that was okay, she decided, as long as she realized that this was a game, as long as she was playing, too, and not merely being played.
He set his wineglass down on the counter. “I’ve got to change out of my Good Humor man costume. Excuse me for a minute, will you? Dress whites and grilling dinner aren’t a good mix. Go on out to the deck—I’ll be there in a flash.”
He was so confident. He walked out of the kitchen without looking back, assuming she’d obediently do as he commanded.
Syd took a sip of the wine as she leaned back against the counter. It was shockingly delicious. Didn’t it figure?
She could hear Lucky sing a few bars of something that sounded suspiciously like an old Beach Boys tune. Didn’t that figure also? We’ll have fun, fun, fun indeed.
He stopped singing as he pushed the button on his answering machine. There were two calls from a breathy-voiced woman named Heather, a third from an equally vapid-sounding Vareena, a brief “call me at home,” from an unidentified man, and then a cheerful female voice.
“Hi, Luke, it’s Lucy McCoy. I just spoke to Alan Francisco, and he told me about Admiral Stonegate’s little bomb. I honestly don’t think this is going to be a problem for you—I’ve met the candidates he’s targeted and they’re good men. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is I’ve found out a few more details about this case that I think you should know, and it’s occurred to me that it might be a good idea for the grown-ups—assuming Bobby’s part of your team—to meet tonight. I’m on duty until late, so why don’t we say eleven o’clock—twenty-three hundred hours—at Skippy’s Harborside? Leave a message on my machine