Troubled Waters

Heath reached back through the open front door and grabbed a two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew.

Tracie realized she’d been outmaneuvered. She tried one last protest. “Neither of us will get any sleep tonight if we drink that.”

Turning the bottle so she could clearly see the label, Heath corrected her. “It’s caffeine-free.” He gave her another one of his bothersome grins that told her he knew he’d won. “Where can I put this?”

With a sigh, Tracie led the way to her kitchen.

THREE

Heath wished he knew how to set Tracie at ease. She ushered him through the house like a museum tour guide who hadn’t learned her lines yet.

“This is my living room. Sorry about the mess.”

“You weren’t expecting me,” Heath assured her, taking in a room that wasn’t so much messy as cluttered, with built-in oak cabinetry halfway installed along the outside wall, piles of books awaiting the finished shelves and a solid-looking window bench stained but not varnished between the ceiling-high bookshelves. “Besides, it looks like the mess belongs to your handyman, not to you.”

Tracie looked up at him and blushed. “I’m the handyman.”

Glancing back over the cabinetry, Heath took in the solid craftsmanship. “I’m impressed. It looks like you know what you’re doing.”

“I don’t, really.” Tracie tucked a few tools discretely on a shelf.

Heath noticed the brand name of the drill just before she set it aside. Gerlach Tools—his family’s business. Fighting back the urge to look closer and see what line the drill came from, he continued on as Tracie led him through the room to her kitchen. No, it wouldn’t do at all to give away that much of his identity. If she knew who he really was, she might ask how he got into the military, and he didn’t feel at all confident that he could maintain his cover story if she began to ask him personal questions. Too much of his real-life history didn’t match up with his cover story. The last thing he needed was to blow his cover.

Heath learned all manner of interesting tidbits from Tracie about life in the Coast Guard. He found out what to do when the copier jammed up, whom to call when a toilet backed up and how best to lie low when Jake got fired up. But he couldn’t seem to steer their conversation toward anything personal, not without Tracie heading him off, going silent or even leaving the room to check the porch light or investigate imaginary noises in the basement.

He ran into a little more success when he brought the conversation around to the topic of the diamond smugglers. It seemed she was as intrigued as anyone about how they’d run their operation under everyone’s noses for so long.

“None of the men we’ve captured will tell us anything—where the diamonds are coming from, or how they’ve been transporting them. The boats we captured contained a small number of stones—a few handfuls. Nothing like the reports we’ve heard from gemologists. They claim these fake rocks have taken over a major niche in the market. People have been paying top dollar for them for years, thinking they were getting real diamonds of superior color and clarity.” She tossed a pizza crust to Gunnar before helping herself to another piece.

Heath smiled, glad to see her enjoying the food he’d brought. Tracie looked like she’d skipped too many meals. He tried to keep his tone casual, to keep her talking about the smugglers without getting suspicious of his curiosity and clamming up. But as he’d suspected, the woman who’d worked so hard to keep him at a distance had a flood of thoughts and theories pent up inside her. As she began to trust him, her dam began to crack.

“What I don’t understand,” she continued after she’d washed down a bite of pizza with a swig of soda, “is why no one figured out something was wrong a long time ago. I mean, we no sooner discover these smugglers than multiple gemologists come forward and announce these fakes have been out there for over a decade. Granted, the diamonds were excellent imitations—chemically and optically identical to real diamonds. But how could synthetics sneak by so long on the national market? And why can’t the Feds figure out where they got them from? You don’t just buy diamonds out of thin air. Somebody had to sell them. Can’t they follow the trail?”

“I believe the FBI is on the case now,” Heath said, trying to distance himself from the very organization he worked for. “I should hope we’d have answers soon.”

Tracie let out a snort. “Not soon enough for Tim,” she said, winging a pizza crust through the air and watching Gunnar leap artfully to catch it. Her scowl faded and she grinned at the dog, but when she glanced over at Heath, she immediately blushed. “I probably shouldn’t give him people food, but when he gives me his sad-eyed begging look, I can’t very well turn him away. He’s my very best friend in the world. I don’t know what I’d do without him.” She clamped her mouth shut after that profession, which was the closest thing to personal information he’d learned all evening. She sat silently fiddling with her napkin while Heath finished the last piece of pizza.

When the two-liter was empty, the pizza box contained only crumbs and Tracie had carried their glasses to the sink, Heath realized he was going to have to pull out all the stops in order to keep from being evicted.

“Could you do me a favor?”

“What?” Tracie looked back at him from the sink, her tone unabashedly suspicious, and he could almost see the wheels turning in her head as she tried to invent a reason to make him leave.

Heath looked pointedly at his injured arm. “Could you take a look at my arm? The wound is on the back, on the underside, and I can’t see it very well myself.”

Concern crossed her features, but she chased the look away with one of distrust. “Why?”

“To see if it’s getting infected.”

“Can’t you go to the doctor for that?”

“I could, if I wanted to waste half a day driving to Ashland and sitting in a waiting room.” He approached her slowly until he stood beside her at the sink.

“You’re supposed to be on medical leave anyway.”

Heath could have reminded her that medical leave was voluntary, but instead checked their catty back-and-forth. “Tell you what—you take a look at it for me, and if it’s getting infected, I’ll call the doctor tomorrow.”

“I guess I can’t turn down an offer like that.”

The way she smiled at his suggestion, Heath wondered if she’d stoop to lying to him to get him to call the doctor the next day. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. If his ruse worked, he’d distract her from wanting to get rid of him and convince her to get close to him, instead. Jonas seemed to think it was the only way for him to learn her secrets. And Jonas was the boss.

Heath hurried to peel off the long-sleeved shirt he wore before Tracie could change her mind.

Tracie nearly gasped at the sight of Heath in a snug black T-shirt, but swallowed her exclamation while struggling to keep her expression unaffected. She’d already guessed the man worked out, but his well-developed muscles still took her by surprise, especially at close range. He was a powerfully built, handsome man. She focused her attention on the injury on his arm.

White tape secured a thick gauze bandage to his right triceps muscle on the underside of his arm toward the back, a place where it would have been nearly impossible for him to examine it himself. She tentatively reached for the dressing. “Do you want me to peel this back?”

“Yeah, go ahead and take a peek.”

Stepping closer, she tugged gently on one corner of the tape. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“That tape’s nothing compared to what’s under it.”

“I suppose not,” Tracie peeled back the tape and winced at the sight of the wound underneath. “Oh.” She couldn’t suppress her reaction.

“That bad?”

“It’s like something took a bite out of your arm.”

“It did. Does it look infected?”

“Not really. It looks like it’s healing.” She peered a little closer, close enough to smell the scent of the antibiotic that covered the injury. Another smell teased at her nose—something masculine and slightly spicy. She breathed a little deeper, then realized she was probably sniffing Heath’s aftershave. Self-conscious, she took a half step back.

“I guess you don’t need a doctor after all,” she noted, smoothing her hand over the tape, barely daring to press down lest she hurt him. “There.” She slid one fingertip around the edge of the bandage to be sure it was secure. “You’re all set.”

“Thanks.” He turned slowly to face her. He stood too close, and his expression was intense, his eyes smoldering.

Tracie felt overwhelmed. It had been such a long day. Her nerves had been shot long before he’d shown up on her porch with pizza, and her mind was still muddled from dinner. Talking to him had eased a weight off her shoulders. It had made her feel closer to him, too. Now he stood mere inches from her with a look on his face she’d never seen before, yet somehow she knew exactly what it meant.

She took a deep breath and tried to clear her thoughts, but instead found herself breathing in more of the faded scent he wore. “You smell good.” The words escaped from her mouth before she even realized she’d been consciously thinking them.

“So do you.” His fingers touched her hair where it hung past her chin.

About to deny it, she realized what he was referring to. “Oh, my shampoo.”

“It smells fruity. Strawberries?” He leaned closer to her, his nose nearly brushing her temple as he inhaled her scent.

“No, passion fruit,” she blurted, and immediately blushed. There was no way she could let whatever was happening between them continue. He was getting too close. She took a step back. “Sorry. You just smell so much better than Trevor.”