Slowly, she nodded as she pulled into the turn lane that would take them back the way they’d just come. “Dammit,” she said, smacking the steering wheel. “What do we do now?”
Good question. Finding Rolston needed to remain his number-one priority. Instead, he was driving around Los Angeles in a beat-up Honda with a cute, sexy blonde at the wheel, and a pair of hired guns on their tail. He didn’t know how to begin to put that information in his field report.
“Never mind.” She laughed suddenly, the sound more nervous than joyous. “I don’t know why I’m asking you. You’re the client.”
The client? Not exactly.
“Not even the FBI could get my address that quickly.”
Actually, they could, but he kept that truth to himself.“I live like ten minutes from here,” she continued. “If I have to play bodyguard until you testify before the federal grand jury, I at least need clean underwear.”
Red lace. That’s what he imagined. A dark red lace thong and one of those bras that barely covered her nipples. One he could easily push aside to expose her breasts. His gaze dipped to the anatomy in question, and the view had him pulling in a long, slow breath in an attempt to regain control of the situation.
He cleared his throat.
She shot him a curious glance, then turned her attention back to the freeway on-ramp. She easily merged into traffic, this time driving only a few miles over the speed limit. “You know,” she said, “you don’t look like a Charles to me.”
Probably because he wasn’t. “Oh, yeah?” he asked, his tone loaded with enough caution that she cast her gaze in his direction again. “Who do I look like, then?”
She shrugged. “I dunno.”
With her attention back on the cars ahead of her, Noah breathed a quiet sigh of relief. God, he was a lousy liar. He’d never have made it as a spy for the CIA. Good thing he’d followed in the footsteps of the Sebastian side of the family and joined the FBI.
“No, you’re definitely not a Charle
s, even with the dark suit,” she said. “A Chuck, maybe. Or Charlie.”
Not even close. Noah Sebastian Temple, fourth-generation FBI on his mother’s side, and named after his great-grandfather, Noah Sebastian, an agent handpicked by J. Edgar Hoover himself in the 1920’s. On his father’s side, he was third-generation chef. Well, not really, more like a pretend sous chef, since the Bureau forbade moonlighting. But, he did occasionally spend time at Temple’s, his father’s Washington, D.C., restaurant, just to keep his skills sharp.
“Don’t call me Chuck,” he said. “Chuck is a cut of beef.”
She giggled. “How about Chaz? Or perhaps you prefer the Scottish version, Chay?”
A long look out the back window assured him they weren’t being followed. “What are you? A walking dictionary ?”
She laughed again, a sound so sweet he’d swear his heart hitched. “I was a document clerk at the hall of records downtown for a while. A lot of names crossed my cubicle.”
Document clerk, rent-a-cop night supervisor, bodyguard. Interesting.
The chorus of a Beach Boys song suddenly blared inside the small car. Alyssa reached into the ashtray, filled with loose change and a hands-free device for her cell phone. She quickly slipped on the small unit and pressed the button.
“Hello?”
Noah took another long look out the back window to make sure they still weren’t being followed, then fished his BlackBerry from the inside pocket of his jacket. He powered up and within seconds he had notifications of two e-mails, half a dozen text messages and a voice-mail message.
“No, he’s here,” Alyssa said. She glanced in his direction, then turned her attention back to the freeway.
He zipped through his text messages and answered two from his immediate supervisor, letting S.S.A. Abbott know about the current situation and how he’d lost Rolston before ever setting foot in Los Angeles.
“We were being followed. I lost them, though.” A hint of pride crept into her voice.
He saved the other text messages for later since they were personal. Three of them were from hi older sister, wanting his opinion on one thing or another, and one from each of his younger brothers. The four of them were in the middle of planning a surprise party for their parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary. Well, his event planner sister, Glenna, was really the one doing all the work. His job was to keep his two younger brothers from getting in her way.
“Thanks,” Alyssa said, her voice a full octave higher and sounding rather satisfied with herself. “No, change of plans.”
More silence. “Just in case,” she continued. “I thought I’d take him to the Beach Inn in Manhattan. Yeah, the one right on the beach.”
Sounded nice. Too bad he wasn’t in town for a vacation. Otherwise, he might actually enjoy being locked up in a beachside hotel with a woman he found more than interesting.