“From the deli?”
She turned a little toward him. “Yeah, is it good?”
“Mustard or mayonnaise?”
Wincing, she confessed, “I got the mustard.”
Damn, she was cute. Too fucking cute for a woman always armed—though he doubted she was packing right now. Assuming she’d slug him if she knew his thoughts, he smiled. “They’re both terrific, but that’s my favorite.”
Suddenly, out of the blue, she blurted, “I met someone today.”
Angry, anomalous emotion surged through his system. He held perfectly still and said, “Oh,” in a way he hoped sounded unaffected.
“Yeah.” She turned more, and now her knees were against his thigh, but she didn’t seem to notice. “You know anyone named Remmy Gardner?”
“Should I?”
“Eh, I figure if you’d met him, you’d remember. Big guy, good-looking, muscular, blond hair and brown eyes. Early thirties.”
With every word out of her mouth, he clenched a little tighter. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“What about Russ King?”
That one he knew. “I’ve seen him with Worth a few times. An influential businessman.” A prick. Birds of a feather and all that... “They’ve invited me to poker.”
“Turned them down, didn’t you? Like me, you’d recognize them as trouble.”
Very slowly, Hunter sat forward again. “He gave you trouble?”
She eyed his new posture, not with alarm but curiosity. “I haven’t met King, but Remmy works for him, and now that I’ve met him, I figure they’re both up to something.”
Hunter searched her face but didn’t see any fear. They could have been talking about dinner still. “So this Remmy character did something?”
“It was just a feeling, you know?” Leaning a little closer, she confided, “I think maybe he was scoping me out.”
A hundred different scenarios stampeded through his brain. It took a lot of concentration to stay nice and polite, and to ask with a civil tone, “Care to explain that?”
Licking her lips in thought—and tormenting him without realizing it—Jodi said, “He supposedly had a business proposition from this Russ King guy. I don’t know, there were other vibes going on. Tension, I mean, between Remmy and Worth.”
She ran down the exchange for Hunter, and he had to agree. Something wasn’t adding up. “Worth rehired you?”
Waving that off, she went back to Remmy. “It was like he wanted me to take the job, but he was also worried about it.” Visibly puzzling over that, she added, “And then he’d look at me in a certain way, like—”
Her long, confused pause had him prompting, “He found you attractive?”
She made a face. “I wouldn’t say that.” Showing her discomfort with the idea, she rolled a shoulder, flashed him a quick glance and said, “Like maybe he thought he could score.”
“Because he found you attractive.” When her mouth screwed to the side, he said, “Jodi, you do realize how pretty you are, right?”
“You think?”
The naked vulnerability he saw made him want to find this Remmy asshole and annihilate him. “Very pretty.” Hunter got an awful suspicion. “You were flattered by his attention?”
Absently, she shook her head, not really in denial but more from confusion. “Sometimes how he’d say something was different, too. We were talking—mostly me insulting him, like I do—and he’d smile about it.”
Yeah, Hunter assumed many men would be both amused by her biting manner, and equally challenged by it.
He certainly was. “How did he say it?”
Getting into her explanation, she scooted closer.
Was she even aware of doing it? He wasn’t sure—but he didn’t mind that she was drawn to him. He hoped it meant she felt safe with him...though he didn’t yet know what she feared.
Only that she wouldn’t run from it. Jodi was the type of person who’d prefer to face her demons head-on.
Like him.
With her so near, he picked up the light floral scent of her shampoo and lotion, and the earthier scent of her tanned skin, again being warmed by sunshine. He saw the striations in her fascinating eyes and he felt that ever-present vitality.
All of it, a turn-on.
“When I first pulled up and asked you if you were free for dinner? The way you said I’m free. It was different. It meant something, right?”
Good God. No way could she be that naive. Not at her age. Not with her bold attitude.
When he didn’t reply, she surged on, her anxious gaze holding his captive. “It was lower and sort of darker and I think... That is, it meant you were thinking things besides dinner, right? Because that’s exactly how Remmy would sound every so often.”
“Low and dark?”
Exasperated, she straightened. “I’m not explaining this well, am I?”
“Actually, you are. Remmy was flirting with you, and why wouldn’t he? You have mirrors. You know how you look.”
Her brows shot up at that.
“Add your appearance to your balls-to-the-wall attitude, and I’m sure guys are hooked.”
Her brows leveled out as her smile lifted. “Balls-to-the-wall?”
“Bold. Even pushy sometimes. A take-no-prisoners arrogance.” He watched her fingers idly stroking the back of Turbo’s neck. The dog was in heaven, his head on her leg, his body leaning into her. “So this Remmy person. Did you flirt back?”
The question earned a snort. “God, no. I don’t flirt with anyone. If he was flirting, I didn’t much like it. I hate to admit this, but it made me jumpy.” Again, she rushed on. “Normally I wouldn’t be. I can handle myself. But we were behind Worth’s showroom and there wasn’t anyone else around.”
Disliking that image, Hunter raised a hand to stall her long enough for him to ask an important question. “Why the hell were you behind the showroom with him?”
“I was doing my job but he followed me! That was reason enough for me to put up my guard, right? But then he was all over the place, trying to schmooze me one minute, sort of warning me the next and trying to coerce me—”
What? Hunter fought back another surge of anger, this one more warranted. “Back up to the part where he warned you. You mean like a threat? And how did he coerce you?”
“Tried to coerce me,” she stressed. “It was so weird, Hunter. I think he had an assignment or something, one that involved me, but he didn’t much like doing it. He wanted me to agree to landscape for Russ King but didn’t want me to check out the dude’s house without him. When I insisted, he told me to just look at it from my truck, and not to linger. Isn’t that strange? Why try to get me to take a job only to act like he was afraid of me doing it? And then the way he’d suddenly look at me, smile or lower his voice.”