Isaac had been in the Boston vicinity only twice, and both times had been for pass-through trips on his way overseas--the kind of thing where all he did was walk across a tarmac at Otis Air Force Base down on Cape Cod.
That being said, as Grier hung a left off something called Charles Street, he didn't need to have had a guided tour of the city to know they were in prime real estate-land. The town houses on both sides of the hill they went up were all pristine brick with glossy black shutters and doors. Through clean windows, he could see interiors that were antiqued up to within an inch of their lives and had enough crown molding to crush a king's head.
Clearly, he was in the natural habitat of the blue-blooded Yankee.
As ancient Saturday Night Live sketches of Dan Aykroyd doing Kennedy impressions about "chowdah" rolled through his head, Grier took a left into a small square that was demarcated by a wrought-iron fence and brick lanes on all four sides. In the middle, its little park had graceful trees with tiny buds already showing, and the surrounding walk-ups were the best of the best in this bestest-ever neighborhood.
So not a surprise.
After she parked her Audi parallel to the fence, they both got out. She hadn't said much on the trip here, and neither had he. But then again, he wasn't a big talker to begin with--and she had a fugitive for a passenger. Not exactly a so-how-about-this-weather? kind of gig.
The house she indicated was hers was a bow-front on the corner and had white marble steps up to its black front door. Fluted black planters the size of Great Danes sat on either side of the entrance, and the brass knocker was as big as his head. One light glowing on the third floor; several on the exterior. And as he surveyed the area, there appeared to be nothing out of place--no unmarkeds trolling by, no sounds that were wrong, nobody suspicious lurking.
As they walked over the uneven bricks of the street, he wanted to reach out and steady her, given her heel situation--but he didn't dare. First of all, she probably still wanted to slap him . . . and second, he had palmed up both his guns inside his windbreaker on a just-in-case.
He was always careful with himself. Having her in tow? He took vigilance to a whole new level.
Besides, Grier handled the trip to her front door just fine, in spite of the fact that she was walking in stilettos and had been attacked by some drugged- up asswipe.
Too bad they hadn't met in a different world. He would have really liked to--
Yeah, right. Take her on a date?
Whatever. Even if he had gone the law-abiding, I'm-not-an-assassin route, they were from opposite ends of the spectrum: he was all farm boy and she was all fabulous.
And he really had to cut the double-think when it came to how attractive she was.
Her security alarm went off the moment she opened the way in and he was glad, although he didn't approve of her letting riffraff like him in the house. And how was that for fucked-up?
As she punched in her code at the ADT panel, he looked down at the soles of his combats--which were caked with chunky mud and fuzzy sod. Bending down, he unlaced them, slipped them off, and left them outside.
Her black-and-white marble floor was warm under his socks--
Looking up, he found her staring at his feet with an odd expression on her beautiful face.
"I didn't want to track in," he muttered, shutting the door and locking it.
After he took off his windbreaker, he got out the Star Market bag with his life savings in it and they just stood there: her in her black designer coat and her soiled purse that had one strap hanging loose; him in his sweatshirt with a load of dirty money in his bloody hand and two guns she didn't know about in his pockets.
"When was the last time you ate," she said softly.
"I'm not hungry. But thank you, ma'am." He glanced around, looking into a tall-ceilinged room that was painted a rich red. Over the regal marble fireplace was an oil painting of a man sitting up straight in a gilded chair with a pair of old-fashioned spectacles perched on his nose.
It was so quiet here, he thought. And not just because there weren't any sounds.
Peaceful. It was . . . peaceful.
"I'll make you an omelet, then," she said, putting her bag down and starting to shrug out of that coat.
He stepped up to her to help, but she moved back. "I've got it. Thanks."
The dress underneath . . . Dear God, that dress. Modest and black had never looked so sexy, as far as he was concerned, but then that was more about her than the design or the fabric.
And those legs. Fuck him, but those legs with the sheer black stockings . . .
Isaac snapped his man-whore back into place with a reminder that it would be an open question whether someone like her would let him so much as wash her car--much less allow him take her to bed. Besides, would he have any clue what to do to a woman like her? Sure, he was good at raw fucking --he'd been begged for repeats enough times to have confidence on that front.
But a lady like her deserved to be savored--
Damn him to hell. He had a feeling he was licking his lips.
"Kitchen's in the back," was all she said as she picked up her bag and walked away.
He followed her down the hall, taking note of the rooms and the windows and the doors, noting escape routes and entryways. It was what he did in any space he went through, his years of training with him sure as the skin on his back. But it was more than that. He was looking for clues about her.
And it was weird . . . the peaceful thing kept at it, which surprised him. Old-fashioned and expensive usually meant tight-assed. Here, though, he breathed deep and easy--even though that made no sense.
In contrast to the rest of the house, the kitchen was all about the white and stainless steel, and as she set to work pulling out bowls and eggs and cheese, he put his money down on her counter and couldn't wait to get out of the room: Across the way, there was a wall of windowpanes that were probably six by eight feet apiece.
Which meant anyone with a pair of eyes could go all looky-looky on them.
"What's in the back?" he asked casually.
"My garden."
"Walled in?"
Her arms full, she stepped up to the cooktop in the granite island. "Security conscious?"
"Yes, ma'am."
She went over, turned on an exterior light, and canned the inside ones--which gave him a perfect view of the back without a lot of hassle. God, she was smart.
And her garden was surrounded by a ten-foot-high brick oh-no-you-don't that he totally approved of.
"Satisfied?" she said.
In the darkness, her voice took on a husky quality that made him want to track her body through the room and ease her up against something so he could get under that black dress.
Man, her question wasn't one she wanted to ask him tonight.
"Yes, ma'am," he murmured.
When the lights came back on, there was a faint touch of red in her cheeks--the sort of thing he might not have noticed if he hadn't made it his business to stare at her as much as he could. But maybe the color was just her being keyed up because of everything that had happened tonight.
No doubt that was it.
And the fact that he'd noticed at all made him less than impressed with the male species: Somehow, even in the midst of great chaos, even when it was tacky as hell, men still managed to get the hots for a female.
"Sit down," she told him, pointing with her wire whisk to a stool under the lip of the island, "before you fall down. And don't even try the I'm-fine, clear?"
Man . . . total hots for this woman.
Complete hots.
"Hello?" she said. "You were just about to sit down over there?"
"Roger that."
As she returned to the cooktop and got cracking--literally--he did as he was told.
To keep his eyes off her, he looked over her purse, which she'd left next to where he'd parked it. What a goddamn shame something so nice and expensive had been trashed. There was dried mud all over the leather and that handle had been really mangled.
Idiot meth head.
Rising up, he went over to the sink, pulled a paper towel free, and got the thing damp. Then, resettling, he went to work, trying to get the mung off.
When he glanced up, she was staring at him again and he stopped what he was doing to hold up his hands. "I'm not going to steal from you."
"I didn't think you were," she said in that quiet voice.
"Real sorry about your purse. I think it's done ruined."
"I have others. And even if I didn't, it's just stuff."
"Expensive stuff." And on that note, he leaned over to the island and pushed his money toward her. "I need you to take this."
"And I need you not to go on the run." She cracked another egg on the rim of the bowl and split it using only one hand. "I need you to follow through on what you agreed to do when I got you bail."
Isaac ducked his eyes and resumed his largely unsuccessful cleanup routine.
She let out an exhale that was just a syllable or two away from being a curse. "I'm waiting. For you to answer me."
"Wasn't aware there was a question, ma'am."
"Fine. Will you please stay here and stick with the system?"
Isaac rose up and headed back to the sink. As he snapped a clean Bounty off the roll, the truth leaped out of his mouth. "My life isn't my own."
"Who are you running from?" she whispered.
Maybe she'd dialed down the volume because the lawyer in her was knee-jerk discreet. Or perhaps she was guessing right: The types who were after him could hear and sometimes see through even solid walls. Glass ones like the kind in this kitchen? Piece of cake.
"Isaac?"
There was no response that he could give her so he shook his head and went back to wiping the mud off her bag . . . even though she was probably just going to throw the damn thing out in the morning.
"You can trust me, Isaac."
His reply was a long time in coming. "It's not you I'm worried about."
Grier stood on the far side of the island, the Humpty-Dumpty eggs scattered around and drooling on the granite, a red bowl full of yellow yolks and transparent whites ready to take a beating.
Her client was absolutely huge as he perched on her stool, his busted-up hands taking care of her Birkin. And yet in spite of his size and the regard he was showing her bag, she wanted to crack his head on something hard. The solutions were so clear to her: Stay in the system, come clean with whatever military agency he'd bolted from, sort out the repercussions, do the time . . . start over.
Whatever he'd done could be redressed.
Society could forgive.
People could move on.
Unless, of course, they were stubborn assholes determined to flout the rules and go it alone.
She picked up a final egg and slammed it against the bowl's rim, shattering the shell. "Ah, hell's bells."
Isaac's eyes lifted. "It's okay. I don't mind a little crunch."
"It's not okay. None of this is okay." She bent over and fished out the little white specks with her fingernail.
When things looked acceptable in the bowl, she heard herself say, "Would you like to have a shower before we eat?"
"No, ma'am," was his quiet, unsurprising response.
"I have clothes you could change into." That got his eyebrow to peak briefly even if he didn't look over at her. "My brother's. He used to stay here with me sometimes--not exactly your size, of course."
"I'm good. But thank you, ma'am."
"You need to lose the `ma'am' crap. We were over that the minute you got into my car."
As that brow went up again, she grabbed a block of cheddar and started grating. Hard. "You know . . . you remind me of him. My brother."
"How so?"
"I also want to save you from what your choices are doing to your life."
Isaac shook his head. "Not a good idea."
True enough. God knew she'd failed once at that already.
Shaking the cheese from the grater, she put the thing aside and diced up some Canadian bacon. As they both worked at their tasks, it didn't take long before the silence got to her . . . but more to the point, it wasn't in her nature to quit.
Which suggested that if she'd been born a car she'd be in the demolition derby.
"Look, I can try to help with more than just the charges against you. If you're--"
"I got most of the dirt off." He lifted the purse while meeting her straight in the eye. "But there's nothing I can do about the strap."
"Where are you going to go?"
When he didn't reply, she sliced off a chunk of sweet butter into the pan and fired up the burner. "Well, you can stay here for the night if you want to rest up. My father's had this place wired so tightly not even a mouse could get in without triggering the system."
"ADT is good. But not that good."
"That's just the dummy system." That got both his brows to pop and she nodded. "My father was in the military. The Army, actually. When he got out, he went to law school and then . . . well, he's kept current, let's just say. Current and protective of me."
"He wouldn't approve of my being here."
"You've been a gentleman so far and that, more than what you wear or where you're from, has always been what's mattered to him. And to me, by the way--"
"I'm leaving this money behind when I go."
Lifting the pan off the heat, she tilted its flat face, sending the butter on a little ride that was ultimately its undoing. "And I can't accept it. You must know that. It would make me an accessory." She thought she heard a soft curse, but maybe it had only been an exhale. "After all, I'm willing to bet that cash came from fighting. Or was it drugs?"
"I am not a dealer."
"Which means it's the former. Still illegal. By the way, I looked into your background." She did a rewhisk on the eggs and then poured more than half of them into the pan, a quiet whoosh rising up. "There was nothing except for a newspaper article from five years ago about your death. It came with a picture of you, so don't bother denying it."
He went utterly still, and she knew his eyes were on her sharply.
For a moment, she wondered exactly what she'd welcomed into her home. But then, for some reason, she thought about him taking his combat boots off and leaving them by the front door.
Time to get real, she thought. "So are you going to tell me what branch of the government you work for or should I just guess?"
"I'm not with the military."
"Really. So I'm supposed to believe that you fight like you do and secured your apartment as you did and are on a fast track out of town just because you're some kind of casual street thug or low-level mob enforcer? I don't buy it. Incidentally, seeing you in that ring was how I knew for sure--that and the fact that you called off your own dog next to my car when I was attacked. You were utterly in control of yourself and the situation with that druggie, not some sloppy, emotional bouncer type doing a save-the-day. You were a professional--are, actually. Aren't you."
She didn't need him to say a word because she knew she was right. And yet, when there was no comment, she glanced up, half expecting him to be gone in a breath of air.
But Isaac Rothe, or whatever his name was, remained seated at her island.
"How do you like your eggs?" she said. "Hard or soft?"
"Hard," he bit out.
"Why am I not surprised."