to her.
He stared back. "Well?" she finally demanded when he didn't say a word.
"That's just damned stupid."
She blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me, sugar. You love working with kids, so that's what you ought to do. Listening to your aunt and trying to please
her is just damned stupid."
"But I'm good at my job in the Bureau."
"So what? You've got more than one talent, don't you? You can be good doing a lot of different things."
He got up to pay the bill and then made a phone call, but all the while, he never took his gaze off the parking lot. Avery looked over at the waitress who blew a bubble twice the size of her face and then leaned on the counter and stared at him.
Five minutes later he hung up the phone. "Come on. We need to get going."
She followed him to the car. He was about to open the door for her when she asked, "What are you good at doing?"
"Lots of things."
"I know you worked for the CIA. What was your talent then?"
He didn't deny it. "Shooting. I was a good shooter. No, that's not true. I wasn't just good. I was great. Eyesight of an eagle."
"Anything else you're good at doing?"
"Yeah," he drawled. He put his arm around her waist and began to slowly pull her toward him. "I'm real good at a couple of
other things too."
"Like what?"
He drew her closer and put his lips to her ear. "If things go the way I plan, you'll get to see firsthand," he whispered.
"Oh, brother," she answered breathlessly.
Could he feel her goose bumps? Probably, she thought as she sighed and turned to look into his eyes.
Smiling gently, he kissed her warm, soft mouth, taking his time coaxing a response. She was becoming impossible to resist.
The dazed look in her eyes made him feel arrogantly pleased with himself. "We'd better get out of here before I get carried
away and show you right now."
He opened the door for her and then got behind the wheel. They drove out of the lot and once again headed toward Denver.
We need to put some distance between us and that diner," he told her. "The waitress will remember you."
"You think so?"
"Yeah. You're definitely memorable."
"News flash, sugar," she drawled, trying to imitate his sexy southern accent. "Bubble Gum was staring at you."
He shrugged. "It's going to take us at least another hour or more to get to Tyler's cabin. If I see a store on the way, we'll stop
and get some supplies."
"I doubt anything will be open this late."
"And that's important because?"
"Shame on you. You're going to break in?"
"They'll never know I was there."
She didn't try to dissuade him. She was too busy thinking about his earlier remark. What would happen if things went the way he planned?
Thirty miles down the road, they found a fishing tackle/grocery store. It was dark inside.
John Paul's skills seemed endless. He got the door unlocked without making a scratch, charmed the black Doberman guard
dog, and shopped to his heart's content. She helped him carry two gallons of milk and four grocery sacks to the car.
He calculated the expense as he sacked the items and left four twenty-dollar bills sticking out from under the cash register.
"How long are we going to be staying at Tyler's place?" she asked when they were once again on their way. "We've got enough food for a month."
"We'll stay at least one night, maybe two," he answered. "Tyler told me there's a little town about fifteen miles from the cabin.
I've got Theo checking on a couple of things, and when I find out what is going on, we'll decide what to do."
"I'm not going to miss that trial."
"I understand. May I ask you something?"
"Yes?"
"Is Skarrett the reason you can't have children?"
"Yes," she said. "A bullet hit just right, but you know what? I would never have had children anyway. I wouldn't take the risk
that what's wrong with Jilly is genetic. So, you see, it doesn't matter."
"Yeah, it does," he argued. "Skarrett took that choice away from you. That's what matters."
He couldn't keep the anger out of his voice, but she didn't become upset. What he'd said was true.
She changed the subject to a less stressful one, talking about silly things that had happened to her when she was growing up.
He told her stories about his life and his family, and when he talked about his father, she laughed several times.
"People really call him Big Daddy?"
"Yeah, they do. You'll like him," he predicted.
He was assuming she would meet his father someday. She'd like that. She wanted to know about his family and his home and
his work. She wanted to know everything about him. Before she could continue the conversation, they saw two pairs of headlights coming up the road toward them.
He swerved onto a side road and turned his lights off.
They silently waited until the cars passed by.
"When you asked your brother-in-law to help, were you worried he might tell the FBI where we're going?"
"Because he's with Justice?"
"Yes."
"Family comes first, sugar. Always."
"Still…"
"He won't tell, and he will help. I told him what I needed done, and he agreed."
"Good. I'm glad we can trust him."
They waited in the dark for a few minutes before he felt it was safe for them to go.
Avery's mind wandered and then circled around and around what he'd whispered in her ear. Maybe if she stopped staring at
him, she could think about something else. It had been such a long time since she'd been intimate with a man, and she thought
she had become an expert at blocking those thoughts and urges.
She had been an expert anyway, until he came into her life. Now the floodgates were wide open, and all she could think about was touching him. Everywhere.
For thirty more minutes she battled to think about something other than sex. She mentally balanced her checkbook, then
calculated how long she could stay in her apartment without a paycheck coming in. Three months or four? If she got fired.
She started tapping her foot on the floor. Who was she kidding? Of course she was going to get fired. They couldn't arrest her
for being insubordinate, but would Carter charge her with hindering an investigation?
John Paul put his hand on her knee. "How come you're so jittery?" Then, before she could come up with a good lie, he said,
"There it is."
He pulled onto a dirt road. His night vision was better than hers. She hadn't even noticed the little curve. "You're sure?"
His hand was still on her leg, and she wasn't inclined to move it. She stared straight ahead, pretending to watch the road as she thought about ripping his clothes off him.
Was she turning into a slut? She shook her head. No, she was simply having normal urges, like any other woman, but because
she hadn't had those urges in so long, she wasn't handling herself well.
"What are you thinking about?" he asked.
Sex, damn it. I'm thinking about sex. "Nothing much."
"Yeah?"
Even his voice was sexy. Threading her fingers through her hair, she realized how tense she was, and how horribly unsure of herself.
They drove around a bank of trees, and then the road flattened into what she thought might be a field. It was impossible to tell in the dark. She began tapping her foot on the floorboard again. She was nervous about being alone with him in the secluded cabin.
He pulled up to the steps in front. When he turned the motor and the lights off, it was pitch black. She couldn't even see her hand in front of her face.