Eventually practicality won out, and I responded, “As long as there are other women giving in to your charms, I’ll pass.”
He feigned an arrow being shot into his heart. “Ouch! I guess I know where I stand.”
“Mhmm. Your boots straddle the line between horny frat boy and touring rock star.” I lifted my glass. “Even down to the use of frou-frou drinks to soften your targets.”
“Ah, but my conquests come with information to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare.” Did he really start a statement with a sexual innuendo and end with a quote from the Preamble? He leaned on the counter with his elbows.
“How patriotic. I’m sure there are fireworks each time your interrogation techniques triumph. Next time remind me to wave a flag,” I snapped. He was cute, but he could be such an ass.
He smoothed a lock of my hair behind my ear. “Maybe you don’t like to think about what you’re missing, Q,” he whispered, leaning closer to the ear he just uncovered.
I turned out of his arms and stepped away from him. “Believe me, I’ve surveilled enough of your missions to know exactly what I’m missing.”
“Aww, Q, that’s work stuff.” He picked up his drink and tilted it toward me. “You know what they say, ‘All work and no play…’ ”
“Puh-lease.” I snorted. “I’ve never seen your boy show up dull.”
His eyes shone with just a little pride. “I didn’t know you paid attention to my job performance. Do you have any review comments? Areas for improvement?”
“Just tell me what the device needs to do,” I said, refocusing the conversation. The time we spent together would help me to create a useful prototype but would be detrimental to my self-control. My attraction to Jackson might be infuriating, but I intended to be the woman who was miraculously still standing—or lying in the throes of passion—at the end of the story, so I couldn’t let myself be the throwaway distraction now. The sooner Jackson saw me in a long-term role, the better.
Regardless, I savored our time together. Most of the time, I didn’t get to work directly with the agents. But Jackson and I had found a connection that worked to his advantage in the field and made my inventions shine. I doubted Mansfield knew we met outside of work, but I savored our clandestine assignations.
Once I got the basic requirements for the device, Jackson would slip out as he had come in. He’d wait until I became focused on the plans I sketched, then I would look up, and he would have disappeared. Tonight, I anticipated his exit. “I could give you a key, you know,” I called out to the porch. “It might make it easier for us to meet.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” he drawled. His footsteps paused at the door. “Goodnight, Q.”
When Jackson said “goodnight,” it was as if the word had lips that skimmed mine in the darkness and sent shivers up my spine. Even though I couldn’t see him leaving, I brushed my lips with my fingers, trying to capture the imaginary kiss we’d shared.
Chapter 3
Sending Smoke Signals
After Jackson had left my house, I did a little research and had an outline for a device I thought would work for the job he described. Not always privy to specifics of events, locations, or targets, I worked with an outline of requirements and a tight timeline. This made Jackson’s clandestine meetings even more valuable to me because I had a head start.
“A metal disk, about the size of a quarter,” Jackson had described, “with an adhesive side that can be attached to wood, paper, or metal.”
“Does it need a permanent bond?” I asked.
“No, just long enough to make the reaction.”
“Okay. What reaction?”
“It’s up to you. But it needs to create a diversion. It should cause everyone’s focus to shift to it.” He squinted at my notes. “Oh, it can’t damage anything it is attached to.”
“No explosions,” I noted. “How do you see the diversion being set off? Is it a manual thing? A timer? Remote?”
“I need it to be on a timer but with the possibility of immediate use with a switch or a button or something.”
“Okay.”
“And it needs to be stable enough for me to put it with my pocket change as I go through the metal detector.”
“You carry pocket change?” I’d chuckled. “Somehow it ruins the image of a stealthy, international agent if he jingles as he walks.”
I laughed about the possibility of Jackson jingling across a ballroom or casino as I arrived at the lab around ten to eight. It gave me enough time to visit the coffee pot and put my lunch in the refrigerator before the meeting started. I set my purse and jacket in my office and made a beeline to the break room when I was stopped.
“H-h-hello, Q,” breathed Bob, one of the talented engineers I worked with in Properties. The unofficial leader of the group we’d nicknamed the Killer-Bs, Bob, with Bill and Barry, specialized in weapons of mass destruction and gadgets for surgical strikes. The Bs enjoyed the perks of playing with explosives and biological poisons without the pesky treason charges. Most of their best ideas came from comic books.
Bob’s respiratory problems, irritated by some pollen or the humidity or a sinus infection, caused his breathy voice. He stood tall and lanky, his receding hairline obvious, and he wore thick glasses with outmoded frames. His plaid cotton shirt tucked into pants that rode too high. Behind him, Bill and Barry, the other two-thirds of the Bs, peered over the cubicle wall across from the break room, then ducked back down when I noticed them.
“Hi, Bob. Beautiful morning,” I offered, wondering if I should be alarmed by his friends’ eavesdropping over the wall.
“Huh, I guess so—if it weren’t for the ragweed.” He wheezed through an open mouth to recover from speaking.
“Oh, allergies bothering you again?” I grimaced in sympathy for him.
“Yeah, seems to always be something.” His shoulders rose and fell with his shallow breaths. “B-but I have something to ask you.”
Bill and Barry’s heads popped up from behind the wall again and then dropped. A part of me wanted to roll up a magazine and play Whack-A-Mole the next time they emerged.
“What do you need?” I gave a welcoming smile, even though I’d prefer an invisibility cloak at the moment.
“My g-grandma—she’s loaded, you know—invited me to a f-fancy art show this Saturday night. She says if I go alone, she’ll d-disown me.”
Behind Bob, the Bs’ heads rose above the wall again.
Gulping air for courage, or maybe just oxygen, Bob asked, “W-would you want to go with me?”
Although it felt a little like having a conversation with Darth Vader sans helmet, and despite having sworn I would never, never go out with one of the Killer-Bs, I pitied the guy. I mean, I didn’t want to be responsible for his grandmother disowning him. Blame it on empathy or my good mood from being with Jackson the previous night, but I took another look at him and squeaked, “Sure.”
In response Bill and Barry gave each other a high five and knocked over one of the shelves in the cubicle as they climbed off the desk they must have been perched on. The crash rang out across the laboratory, turning everyone’s attention toward us.