Distinguished Service & Every Move You Make (Uniformly Hot!) Page 20

  But it was more than Zach’s comfort with airplane travel that fueled her suspicions. Take the gun incident. Investigation training usually required the investigator to take at least one course in the art of using a firearm. She knew things worked differently up North, but she didn’t think they worked that differently. Then he had avoided answering her question on what had led him to be a P.I.

  She made a face. Okay, so she hadn’t shared her reasons, either, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a licensed P.I. She was.

  Maybe he just didn’t get out in the field much.

  Still, a niggling part of her suspected that Zach Letterman knew as much about being a P.I. as she knew about weeding a flower garden, which was basically limited to whatever she saw when she tuned in to Martha Stewart. And that wasn’t all that often.

  Her gaze slowly slid back to Zach’s handsome profile. While he lacked experience in the private detecting arena, she’d guess he had a whole lot of experience in other more intimate arenas. He was the type of male who would know exactly what a woman wanted from a man. And would be able to give it to her.

  Zach folded his newspaper and slid it into the pocket in the seat in front of him. His gaze met hers and, as usual, her stomach bottomed out—especially when his eyes darkened, an unmistakable attraction lurking in the green depths. In fact, for a moment she thought he might even kiss her. She caught herself licking her lips in preparation.

  “So what do we do once we get there?” he asked.

  “Hmm?” Mariah slowly blinked, his words taking even longer to register. “Oh. We rent a car and drive the forty miles from Huntsville to Scottsboro to visit the Unclaimed Baggage Center.”

  The gleam in his eyes turned into a grin, making Mariah’s own mouth suddenly go dry. “I’d gathered that. I meant, will we be checking into a hotel?”

  Checking into a hotel? With what had to be the most attractive guy she’d come across since she used to pin up pictures of rodeo stars on her bedroom walls?

  “No. No, I don’t think a hotel will be necessary.” She swallowed hard and wished she could pull the little blue blanket up over her head. “If luck is on our side, we’ll find the bag and be on the next flight back to Houston.”

  “And if luck isn’t on our side?”

  “Then we should be able to ascertain that the bag isn’t in Scottsboro, and be on the next flight back to Houston.”

  He glanced at his watch, making her crane her neck to look at the sleek crystal as well, completely forgetting that she wore a watch of her own. “Well, then, we’d better make quick work of getting to the center, because the last flight out to Houston is at six.”

  Mariah’s eyebrows shot up.

  He seemed to notice the move. “I asked back at Hobby.”

  “Oh. Good. Good.”

  That was a P.I. move, wasn’t it? Either that or he was a man used to being prepared.

  The question was, prepared for what?

  Okay, what was it with her today? Her thoughts seemed to bounce all over the universe and back again. Then she remembered Justin’s announcement and collapsed against the chair and frowned. So, this was what being a reject did to you. It made you look, feel and act like a fool.

  Or maybe being a fool was exactly the reason she couldn’t land a forever guy to begin with.

  * * *

  SO MARIAH CLAYBORN WASN’T the chatty type. As Zach watched her climb out of the rental car outside the Unclaimed Baggage Center, he told himself he should be thankful. He wasn’t much for small talk himself. In fact, he told himself he should be glad she wasn’t asking him too many questions. He’d decided early on that he was going to keep his real reason for being in Texas, and working for Jennifer Madison, to himself. Yes, while the entire P.I. business intrigued him, he had no intention of making a living as a P.I. He reminded himself that he was down here strictly to get the feel for the territory so that when he returned to Indiana he’d be prepared for the task of opening satellite offices of Finders Keepers.

  He was, however, used to letting other people do the talking. Ask a couple of questions, and most people went off on long tangents that usually left him knowing more than he’d like.

  But with Mariah, he found he didn’t know nearly enough. She’d been quiet ever since they’d left her office in Houston. Throughout the drive to the airport, the plane ride, then the drive to Scottsboro, the few questions he had asked had received little more than one-word answers.

  Zach rubbed the back of his neck as he closed the cab door, watching Mariah lead the way to the door of what looked like a retail store about as big as a city block. While he didn’t consider himself a ladies’ man, he certainly thought he knew a whole lot about women. And one of those things was that they loved to talk. All you had to do was find the key word. Shopping usually did the trick. But he’d tried no fewer than ten of the regular conversation words on Mariah and she hadn’t bitten on one of them. Not even politics had gotten more than a small smile from her.

  He shrugged and followed after her. Okay, so she wasn’t interested in idle conversation. It was a new one for him, but Zach could handle it. Well, he could if there wasn’t the whole P.I. angle to think about. He’d like to get to know more about the business. And he’d like to get to know a whole lot more about Mariah Clayborn.

  They talked to a clerk who told them that the type of baggage they were talking about wouldn’t be on the sales floor yet, but back in the warehouse behind the store. She made a phone call then walked them back to a large door. “Go on in. You’re expected. You’ll find James somewhere in the piles.”

  Piles? Zach scanned the countless objects for sale, the place looking like a garage sale lover’s paradise, then stepped through the door the clerk held open. He immediately saw what she was talking about. Everywhere he looked were mountains of luggage. Big pieces, small pieces, expensive pieces, cheap pieces. All things that belonged to somebody somewhere and held cherished memories from their trips.

  “Oh, boy,” Mariah said, next to him.

  “You can say that again.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  Zach jerked to look at her and grinned. “I meant figuratively.”

  She smiled back. “I know. I thought it deserved two.”

  “Ah.”

  Zach couldn’t quite put his finger on why, but whenever Mariah smiled, he either grinned or grinned wider, and an inexplicable heat slinked through his abdomen, making him want to touch her. It didn’t matter where. To tuck her wild hair behind her ear. To run his finger down the smooth column of her throat. To circle her right breast where the soft cotton of her T-shirt draped enticingly over the small mound.

  “Hello!”

  Zach heard the greeting, but was at a loss as to where it had come from.

  “I take it you’re Miss Clayborn?”

  It seemed to take Mariah a great effort to tear her gaze away from him. The heat he felt sizzled, knowing that she was as compelled by him as he was by her.

  “Um, yes, that would be me,” she said finally.

  A middle-aged guy with thick glasses popped up from behind a pile of suitcases nearest to them. Zach raised his brows.

  “James, at your service,” he said, wiping his hands against his striped, short-sleeved shirt, then offering his hand. “Would either of you like some Starbucks?”

  “No, thank you,” Zach said.

  Mariah shook James’s hand. “You’re the one I talked to?”

  “No. That would be Sally. I don’t sound like a woman to you, do I?”

  Zach suppressed a chuckle. The guy in front of them definitely didn’t look like a woman.

  Mariah cleared her throat. “Sorry. I was calling from the Houston airport so I really couldn’t make out much about the voice with all the background noise.”

  “Airports. Hate ’em,�
�� James said, offering his hand to Zach.

  Zach nodded in complete agreement as he gave James’s hand a brief shake.

  “So you all are looking for a wedding dress.” James pushed up his glasses again and peered around him. “Someone else here on the same errand. You’d be surprised how many of those things end up here.”

  “Wedding dresses?”

  “No, people looking for them.”

  “Ah.”

  “Found one the other day.” He kicked a suitcase out of the path and called out to another guy nearby, telling him to keep the pathways clear. “Wouldn’t be able to find your way out without the pathways,” James explained.

  “By ‘found,’ do you mean people or wedding dresses?”

  “Wedding dresses, of course.”

  Zach tuned in on where Mariah was going. “And by the other day, which day, exactly, do you mean?”

  “Two days ago.”

  The right timeframe.

  “Where is it? The dress, I mean?”

  James motioned toward the far corner of the room. “Right where I directed the other guy who got here about twenty minutes ago looking for a dress, too.”

  “Ah,” Zach said again, barely hiding his amusement.

  Mariah laughed.

  James stared at them both, having missed out on the joke.

  “Sorry,” Mariah said. “I was just wondering if, you know, the guy looking for the dress actually plans on wearing it.”

  James’s brows hovered above the dark rims of his glasses. “You don’t mean…you aren’t saying…” He let out a deep breath. “Oh Lord, I hope not. Either way, I don’t care, though. I’m a firm believer in the don’t ask, don’t tell policy. But now that you’ve said that, it’s put…well, an image in my head, you know? And that’s one image I could do without.”

  “You and me both,” Zach said.

  Zach took Mariah’s elbow and steered her toward where James was leading the way down one of the paths he’d mentioned. Little more than two feet wide, the path wound around mountains of varying sizes and colors. A Louis Vuitton here, a knockoff there. A khaki duffel bag in the way of the path, a package of skis at shoulder level, ready to decapitate anyone who wasn’t watching where they were going. How did all of this stuff come to be lost?

  “James, what happens to all this?”

  He shrugged. “Well, the airline does extensive tracking for ninety days. Sometimes the owners themselves find their way here, but not often. If they do, or the airline matches up the bag with the passenger, they regain their things. Otherwise, we sell the stuff in the front room. We also hold auctions. We wouldn’t have room otherwise. We have a website, you know. Sell stuff there, too.”

  The older man stopped and scratched his chin, considering the piles in front of him when they came to a fork in the path. He looked one way, then the other, then pointed to the right. “This way, I think. Yes, yes. This way.”

  Zach gazed down at Mariah, who was looking at the baggage with as much curiosity as he. “Lose anything recently?” he asked her.

  She shook her head. “No. But it looks to me as though it wasn’t for lack of the airline trying.”

  “I’ve lost no fewer than three bags over the years.”

  “Do a lot of traveling, do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Work related?”

  Zach rubbed his chin. P.I.s traveled, didn’t they? Sure they did. “Yes. Don’t you?”

  “This was my third time on a plane. And, this trip aside, my travels have been strictly personal. I haven’t had much call to travel out of Texas yet, you know, for the job.”

  “Personal? That one trip wouldn’t have had anything to do with your exes, would it?”

  She winced, making him wish he hadn’t said anything. “No. It was for my mother’s funeral. I was eight.”

  Zach felt lower than the bottom of his shoes. “I’m sorry.”

  She shrugged, obviously trying to pull off a nonchalance he was sure she didn’t feel. “That’s all right.”

  He cleared his throat. “My mother died when I was nine.”

  Her big brown eyes widened. “Your father?”

  “Out of the picture. I don’t even know where he is. Not that it matters. He wasn’t around long enough to make an impression.”

  Zach grimaced. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d volunteered the information. He didn’t think he’d told anyone in his adult life how old he’d been when he’d lost his mother. Yet here he had known this woman for only a few hours and he’d shared the information with her as easily as he did the time.

  “I guess it’s my turn to say I’m sorry.”

  He mimicked her moves and shrugged his shoulders, knowing the casualness he was going for fell far short of the mark. “That’s all right.”

  His response brought a warm smile to her face. He discovered again he liked it when she smiled. He liked it a lot.

  “Here we are,” James said, coming to a halt and breaking the quiet moment. The older man scratched the top of his head. “At least this is where I think it is.” He looked around. “But where’s the other guy?”

  Fifteen or so jumbo suitcases were stacked behind Mariah. Zach squinted, trying to make out whether or not one of them had just moved. Then suddenly the entire stack began to teeter precariously.

  He calmly reached out and touched her arm. She blinked up at him, her tongue darting out to moisten her bottom lip. Then he yanked her into his arms, away from where she’d been standing, where the cases were now hitting the floor one at a time.

  “Dang nab it!” James shouted.

  Zach had never actually heard a person say the words in the flesh and, despite what had just happened, he fought a smile.

  “If I’ve told the kid once, I’ve told him a thousand times, you’ve got to stack these bags carefully.” He eyed where Mariah had curled her hands into the front of Zach’s shirt, the side of her head resting against his chest.

  Zach could hear the thump-thump of his own heartbeat. He wondered if Mariah could hear it, too. The soft smell of sunshine-Texas sunshine-filled his nose, and the feel of one-hundred-percent Mariah Clayborn filled his arms. The heat that had earlier taken up residence in his abdomen dropped to his groin. His condition was not helped any by the shifting of Mariah’s hips.

  “You okay?” James asked her.

  Zach looked down to find her staring at the man as if just realizing he was there. She pushed away from Zach so fast she nearly toppled them both over. Zach caught her and chuckled.

  “I’m fine,” Mariah said, squaring her shoulders and looking everywhere but at Zach. “Where did you say this damn suitcase was?”

  4

  WHOA, COWBOY.

  Mariah could swear she was shaking. She eyed the avalanche of suitcases, then Zach Letterman’s wide, hard chest, and swallowed hard. The problem was she wasn’t sure what bothered her most-that a few measly suitcases were to blame for her shaken demeanor, or Zach Letterman.

  Definitely Zach Letterman.

  She covertly lifted her hand. Definitely shaking. She smacked the hand back to her side and made a fist.

  Okay, so for those few moments it had felt good to be pressed against his hard male length as if she was a damsel in distress and he the brave hero. Even if he’d only been protecting her from suitcases. She’d breathed in the crisp scent of his shirt, felt his large hands pressing against her back, and felt…different somehow. At least different from the way she’d felt with any other guy. She was used to the smell of chewing tobacco and sweat. But somehow she got the impression that when Zach sweated, he smelled like cologne.

  It didn’t make any sense, really. All her life she’d been around real cowboys. Men who hiked up their pants and puffed out their chests and made it their m
ission in life to play the role of heroes. Yet whenever any of them had tried to help her, she’d shunned them. Felt insulted. Had even broken her leg in three places once in her haste to show she could take care of herself. Her horse had rolled and caught her underneath.

  Yet let a few bags fall to the floor and she was hopping into a Yankee’s arms and batting her lashes as if she wasn’t capable of tying her shoes right.

  “I’ll be darned,” James said, breaking into her mental musings.

  Zach moved up next to the man and Mariah moved to the other side. Before them sat no fewer than fifteen suitcases, all hanging open and gutted, their contents mixing with the next.

  “I take it this isn’t the way to go about searching for bags,” Zach said dryly.

  “Heck no, it ain’t.” James kicked a few steps forward. “All the stuff gets mixed up then.” He threw his hands in the air.

  Zach looked down at something he’d taken out of his front pocket. “Blue canvas suitcase with blue leather straps.”

  Mariah noted that all the suitcases that had been opened matched that description.

  “The guy,” James said.

  “The guy? What guy?”

  He waved his hand. “You know, the one who got here just before you looking for a wedding dress.” He looked around and Mariah followed his gaze, finding no other person in sight. At the far end of the warehouse, a door clanged. She couldn’t say for sure, but she’d have chanced a guess that the man in question had just left the building.

  Zach frowned and glanced at her. “I don’t have a very good feeling about all of this.”

  Mariah had to admit she felt the same way, but she wasn’t about to admit that to him. It reeked too much of the damsel-in-distress situation. “We’re talking about a wedding dress here.”