Twisted in Tulips (2 page)

“He didn’t get anything, and I’m not hurt. Just…” She held up a trembling hand. “Just shaken.”

“I’ve told you to take self-defense.” Lori marched over and took the extra suit. After laying it on the desk she began undressing Misty. “I’ve offered to teach you myself.”

“I know.” She shrugged out of the suit jacket like an obedient child. “I didn’t need it before today.”

“I’m going to teach you now.” Lori slid the clean jacket up her arms and circled her to fasten the buttons. “Today would’ve turned out different if you’d listened.”

“The guy is in jail.”

“Not forever. Besides he’s not the only desperate man out there.” She unzipped Misty’s skirt and let it fall to the floor. Kneeling at Misty’s feet with the spare skirt, she commanded, “Step.”

Courtesy of years of dance lessons Misty felt no embarrassment at being undressed and redressed by her best friend. She was embarrassed the need existed though. Misty obeyed again and found herself being zipped into the clean skirt. Having the soiled suit off cleansed her mind a little and restored her sense of strength.

“Not all men are creeps either.”

“Excuse me?” Lori stepped back and surveyed her face and hair before nodding approval. “You say that as if one has caught your eye.”

“No, but a man did save my shoes.”

“Pardon me?”

“He helped me.”
A tall block of unshakeable danger and power
. “Took my attacker out in a few seconds. And though staying to talk to the cops pissed him off…”
Big time
. “He stayed.”

He had told them absolutely everything, including the details of where and how she’d lost her phone and other shoe and the people he’d seen jumping out of the way as he barreled down the sidewalk to get to her.

“Sounds like an honorable man.”

“He saved my shoes.”

Lori eyed her feet. “Clearly the shoes are the important thing here.”

“I love my shoes.”

“Then he’s a true hero.”

“Yeah. And dark and honorable.”
And wounded.
She’d tried to thank him, but he’d refused to listen. She knew his name because she heard him give it to an officer, but had no way to contact him. Maybe she could track him down, send a thank-you gift or something.

“Well, if you ever see him again thank him for me.” Lori shoved the soiled suit into a bag and put it in the armoire. “In the meantime, you have clients coming in ten minutes. Get yourself together.”

“You’re bossy.”

Lori shrugged as she pulled the door open. “If you run late with this couple then I run late because I have them after you.”

“You could take them first.”
I could have more time to settle down.

“Nope. Trevor is coming down.”

“Trevor’s here.” Trevor, Lori’s man—he was more than a boyfriend but hadn’t quite made it to fiancé yet—stepped into the doorway with a smile on his face.

As always, his appearance was perfect—from his neatly coiffed hair to his precisely knotted silk tie to his expensive suit to his shined dress shoes. He could walk onto the pages of a magazine at any moment he was so handsome and perfectly put together.

“You’re early.” Lori kissed him warmly. A satisfied smile curled her lips when she stepped back. “Everyone’s schedules are off today.”

“I had an interview.” He waved a file folder Misty hadn’t noticed. “He never showed.”

“Oh. Ouch.” Lori’s tone confirmed what Trevor’s reputation suggested. He shouldn’t be left waiting.

“Yeah. I’ve left him a voicemail.” Trevor shrugged. “Clearly he didn’t want the job as badly as he suggested on our phone interview. So far he hasn’t returned the call to make excuses.”

Misty’s attention snagged on the boldly printed name on the label. Jace Nichols. He’d been the man who saved her. If he’d had an appointment with Trevor… No wonder he’d been checking his watch constantly, though subtly, while answering police questions.

“He saved my shoes.”

“What?” Trevor asked.

Lori chuckled. “She’s had a rough morning.”

Misty’s brain wasn’t functioning at full speed, but she was aware of enough to wave Lori off. “Maybe something got in his way. Something he couldn’t walk away from.”

Trevor studied Misty for a long moment before asking quietly, “Are you okay, Misty?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Lori put in. “She was attacked this morning by a guy wanting drug money. I think her own lateness is putting her on guard for others.”

“I am standing right here, and I’m okay.” Or would be. Her hands had almost stopped shaking. Her belly had mostly calmed.

“I’m glad you’re okay, but unless my appointment was the man who attacked you I’d have expected a phone call if he was caught up.”

“That folder.” Misty pointed to the file. “Is it about the man you were interviewing?”

“Yes. Jace Nichols. Former military.”

“I think he’s the man who stopped my attacker. Do you happen to have a picture of him?” Knowing how thorough Trevor was in his vetting of employees it wasn’t a stretch to ask. He probably had the man’s life history in the innocuous-looking folder. If he was the man who’d helped her, getting Trevor to offer him a second interview could be her way of thanking him. Even if he didn’t know she was behind it.

He flipped the folder open and revealed a picture of Jace Nichols. Square face. Blond hair. Wide, but not bodybuilder-wide torso. Serious, hazel eyes. Eyes that had been full of anger that morning rather than the stone-washed stare from the picture.

“Is this him?” Trevor asked. “Is saving you why he missed our appointment?”

She nodded. The picture didn’t show the hook he sported instead of a hand, but the man from the picture had been the man who’d ridden off on a three-wheeled Harley. “He acted when no one else would.”

Chapter Three

I am assuming from your absence this morning and your lack of a phone call that you are no longer interested in the position.

Jace had known stopping to help that woman,
Misty Morgan
, would cost him the interview, and likely any chance at a second shot. Masters’s words on his voicemail confirmed it. Rather than dwell on the close-mindedness of yet another person, he’d turned his phone off and headed to the gym. Swimming laps, lifting weights, pounding a punching bag and sparring with a fellow black belt had eased the edge of his anger.

Minimally.

Now, dinner and a beer later, he was still enraged that Misty, just another gorgeous woman who was no doubt used to getting by on her looks, didn’t see how wearing skimpy suits invited trouble or screwed up lives.

“You could’ve blamed her much more effectively if you’d gotten her number, man.”

Jace cut a glare across the table, looked at the closest thing to a friend he had in town. Kyle was good company to share a beer with, but he didn’t have much substance. He would have gotten her number without giving a thought to how she dressed. Hell, he’d have gone after her number just because of her body in those clothes.

“I want nothing to do with a woman who begs for that kind of attention.” A sexy woman who chose provocative business suits and sashayed her hips when she walked and teased with her legs in stilettos.

“You think all women who know how to dress for their body style are inviting creeps to go after them?”

His belly flip-flopped at the thought of her. That had happened multiple times through the day, and he didn’t like it. “Doing it without knowing how to defend herself is plain stupid.”

Then again, with her looks few would expect anything different.

“Do your fellow man a favor.” Kyle took a drink of beer and then smiled. “Keep your theories to yourself just in case a gorgeous woman overhears and decides to cover up.”

“I’d rather have a passably pretty woman with a brain in her head.”

“Wow. You’re a regular prince. I wonder how you’ve failed to find the right woman.”

“You’re assuming there is a right one.” Jace wouldn’t argue that a lot of married people loved each other, but there were more who didn’t. So desperate to not be alone they signed up for online dating services with false track records or jumped into marrying the first person they had basic chemistry with.

Hell, he’d had basic chemistry with Misty that morning, not that it mattered. She’d been attractive. His body had reacted to her once the pressure of saving her let off. He’d had the chance to stand by and listen to her retell her version to the cops. She’d apparently fought pretty hard in the moments she’d been out of his sight, but that didn’t make her
right
.

“What good is life if you assume there isn’t a woman out there who can fill every need you have?”

“There are a lot of women who can do that.”

“Emotional needs.”

“I have no emotional needs.”

“Yes, you do.”

Jace raised his hand to motion the waitress for another beer. He wasn’t drunk enough to get into an emotionally philosophical bar discussion. For a year Kyle had only been interested in random stranger sex. The new attitude didn’t make sense. “You suddenly into emotions?”

“We all need emotions. We just don’t talk about them.”

“Because we’re men.” And it served no purpose to talk about the kind of woman he’d consider spending his life with. She didn’t exist.

“Then as a man, why didn’t you have steel ones big enough to call Masters about a second chance?”

“I don’t beg.” He’d been aware of Masters’s one-shot theory when it came to his security guys. He had to respect that given the seriousness of the technological advancements to be protected at Blue Chip.

“It’s not like you’re blaming an alarm clock for oversleeping, Jace.”

He’d known going to help the woman, Misty, would ruin his chance. It had been half the right thing to do. He nodded a silent thanks for the waitress when she brought another beer.

“You aren’t going to call?”

“No.”

I am assuming from your absence this morning and your lack of a phone call that you are no longer interested in the position. I expect a large sense of duty from my security team and lateness is the first sign that’s lacking. Good luck in your endeavors.

Like that last line invited a call.

“Oh come on.” Kyle insisted passionately as if he was somehow involved. “The very thing the man says he values most is the thing that sidetracked you. He deserves to know that. You owe it to your reputation to make sure he knows that.”

“No.”

“He’s not as hard ass as you’re making him out to be,” Kyle tried again.

“Masters made his point clear.” Leaning back in the booth, Jace scanned the hole-in-the-wall bar he’d come to favor. With its dark wood and large bar commanding a huge space in the middle of the floor and regulars who knew each other, it reminded him a little of the bar in a sitcom he used to watch on TV. There was even a fat man perched on a stool at the end of the bar regularly. The best part was that no one cared about Jace’s hook. “I don’t need to worry about close-minded people and their views on what’s important.”

“You’re bitter.”

“Realistic.” He lifted his hook and rotated his arm at the elbow. The clasp like hook glinted in the light. “Once he’d seen this he’d never have trusted me with his security.”

“You lost that through no fault of your own.”

“I was the commanding officer.”

“Who pulled two men out of the building before they lost more than an arm.” Kyle hardened his voice, as he always did on the rare occasion Jace allowed himself to talk briefly about his last mission. “You have the Purple Heart to prove you were heroic.”

And the discharge papers to prove how they view me.
He wished he hadn’t had them put the Purple Heart on his license plate. Irritated, like he was every time he thought about it, he chugged a healthy portion of his beer and slammed the glass back to the table. “Damn it, I don’t care about being a hero. I just want to get a job that doesn’t bore me and live my life.”

“Says the man who rescued a woman from the clutches of danger when no one else considered it.”

“Civilians suck.”

“Not so much that you’ve given up on them.”

Jace closed his eyes and inhaled more of his beer. The temporary darkness wouldn’t offer escape and he’d have to drink several more before he came close to making himself forget every truth Kyle forced him to face, but he didn’t like getting that drunk.

Kyle whistled long and low. “Well, hello beautiful.”

Whoever the woman was who’d entered, she represented everything he’d been talking about. A woman who showcased her body for men to attract them and make them turn stupid. Curious if he was right, Jace opened his eyes and turned to follow Kyle’s leering appreciation.

His heart lurched. His dick saluted. His rage bellowed.

Dressed in a suit much like she’d worn that morning, though maybe an inch longer in the skirt, the blonde he’d been cursing all day slid onto a bar stool beside a man who couldn’t tear his lecherous stare from her ass. If she noticed the direction of the man’s eyes and thoughts she didn’t care. Every man in the place watched her and she was as oblivious as she’d been that morning.