She turned and glared at him, stung by the way he was continually making fun of her. “Will you stop? It’s not permanent. I’ll be moving on to some other department in a month or so.” It was her father’s brilliant plan that she should sample each area of the business to get a solid foundation in the company. “In the meantime, I can handle it.”
“Can you?” An expression of wary skepticism crossed his handsome face. “You give every indication of hating every minute of our precious time together.”
“I do not.” She bit her tongue. If she wasn’t careful, this could turn into a silly shouting match. A new tack was called for. She took a deep breath and started on one. “But you left town before I did. Why did you come back?”
She’d heard the cover story, that his wife had died and left him with their baby, so he’d returned to where his extended family could help him take care of the child. But she had her doubts. And wasn’t he hunting around for someone to baby-sit his daughter? That pretty much gave the lie to that excuse.
No, Kurt McLaughlin had an agenda. She was pretty sure she had a clue what it might be, too. And she could bet it had something to do with ruining things for the Allmans. After all, that was the pattern set over a hundred years ago by their great-grandfathers. The McLaughlins were always supposed to win, and the Allmans were always supposed to end up with their faces in the dirt.
“Okay, I’ll tell you why I came back,” he said slowly, turning his face and staring at the wall. “Believe it or not, I came back because I love this old town.”
“What?” She gaped at him.
Chivaree was not one of those adorable little towns people wrote songs about. Things had improved lately, but it was still a windswept, dusty place that the interstate bypassed years ago. People didn’t flock to Chivaree. People cashed in their chips and headed out for brighter lights as soon as they could scrape together the carfare.
From what she’d heard, he’d spent a good number of years in New York City. She’d noticed that his voice still had a nice Texas drawl, but it was subtle. So he hadn’t gone completely citified.
“It’s true,” he went on, his voice low and gravelly. “And when things seemed to fall apart for me out there in the big world, the only thing I could think of was coming back to Chivaree. Coming home.”
Coming home to heal was the feeling implicit in his voice.
For just a moment, she believed him. He sounded so sincere, and there was some sort of emotion in his face, a hint of pain, deep down. For just a flash, she bought it.
But she stopped herself quickly. He was smart, all right. He was giving her exactly the story that was most likely to touch her heart and make her believe. He was playing with her heartstrings in a very disturbing way. She had to get out of here before she fell for this stuff.
He’d turned back, and was pulling off his tie and loosening the neck of his shirt, pulling open buttons as though they were snaps. Darkly tanned skin with just a hint of chest hair appeared before her horrified gaze.
“Is it just me,” he said huskily, his eyelids drooping, “or is it getting hot in here?”
Her pulse was racing. One moment, he set out the emotional trap. Now, the physical one was laid out in front of her, just waiting for her to step into it. And darn it all if her own traitorous body wasn’t swooning like a lovesick puppy, even as she disdained the obvious way he was approaching her.
Turning away abruptly, she quickly changed the subject. “I’m not hot at all,” she said with an emphasis he surely couldn’t miss. “But I am hungry. For food,” she added quickly. Glancing back, she was chagrined to see that his eyes were gleaming wickedly.
“Are you?” he responded.
She turned back to face him, chin-high. “Desperately. I skipped lunch to get those preliminary sketches out to the art department.” She grimaced. “I wish I had my purse.”
“Why?” He pretended to look about the car. “Is there a food machine here I missed?”
“No, I’ve got a candy bar in it.”
“Hmm.” He plunged a hand down into the pocket of his crisply tailored slacks. “Look what I found. A roll of peppermints.”
“Oh.” She looked at them longingly. She really was hungry, and her mouth was so dry.
“Here.” He offered the roll to her after he’d popped one into his own mouth. She hesitated, but hunger overcame her inhibitions.
“Thanks,” she said shortly, taking a mint and sighing as the sparkling sugar did its work.
“You see?” he said softly, as he watched her. “I’m even willing to share my last meal with you.”
She started to say something. It was surely going to be a scathing retort, something that would knock him back on his heels for good. Unfortunately, the words themselves were lost to history, because the breath she took in to help facilitate her clever words shot what was left of the peppermint right down her throat. Now, instead of putting him in his place, she was choking.
“Here.” A man of action, he took matters in hand immediately, giving her a couple of sharp thumps on the back. When that didn’t seem to dislodge the little intruder, he turned her quickly and wrapped his arms around her from behind for the Heimlich maneuver.
“Hey,” she protested with a cough, before he got in a good thrust. “Stop! I’m okay.”
He relaxed, but for some reason his arms didn’t remove themselves from around her waist. “Are you sure?” he said, his voice just a bit husky, and his face so close to hers, she could feel his warm breath on her neck.
“Yes, I’m sure.” She pushed against him, but he didn’t release her. “Kurt, let go!”
Turning her head, she met his gaze. And then something magical happened. It wasn’t just that she suddenly noticed the golden flecks in his green eyes. It wasn’t even the electric sizzle that began to spread everywhere his body was touching hers. But suddenly she was filled with a longing so deep, so overwhelming, it took her breath away. She wanted to be kissed. She wanted to be kissed by Kurt McLaughlin.
“Oh,” she said softly, like a woman in a trance, her gaze fixed on his generous mouth. She tilted her head, her own lips parted, a yearning coursing through her. And for just a moment, she was sure it was going to happen.
And then he was pulling away, leaving her tottering off balance and feeling as though he’d thrown cold water on her. Feeling like a fool.
At least he didn’t laugh at her. Shooting back his cuff, he looked at his wristwatch, suddenly all business.
“Oh, dammit, it is getting late. I’m way overdue for picking Katy up. We’d better get some help so we can get out of here.”
Reaching behind her, she steadied herself with a hand on the railing. What was he saying? “Get some help?” she asked him, still breathless and embarrassed. “What are you talking about?”
Flipping back the tail of his suit coat, he pulled out something that had been attached to his belt. Staring openmouthed, Jodie saw a cell phone in his hand.
“I’ll just make a call,” he said innocently. “Hope the battery is still good. If so, we’ll get out of here in no time.”
She shook her head and blinked to clear her mind, then gave a sound of outrage. “You mean you’ve had that with you this whole time?” she cried. “Why didn’t you say so when I asked?”
“You never actually asked if I had one—you just assumed I didn’t,” he murmured. He opened the phone and began punching in a number. “Hi, Jasper? Sorry to bother you, but we’ve got a problem here at the office. I’m going to have to ask you to come back in and help me get out of the elevator.”
Murder. That