by Julie James
Seven
NICK RANG THE bell to Huxley's wood-frame duplex. As he waited on the front steps, he took a look around. Despite the blizzard that had hit earlier that week, the steps, walkway, and front sidewalk were shoveled pristinely. The yard had not one speck of litter, and the evergreens in front of the porch were shaped in a neat row of perfect triangles.
Definitely Huxley's place.
He rang the bell again and waited a few more seconds before trying the door. Huxley had said to come in if he didn't answer, in the event he was indisposed. Nick pushed open the front door and entered the quiet house cautiously. He instinctively reached for the gun holstered in the shoulder harness underneath his jacket, then caught himself. From the sound of things, whatever had gotten ahold of Huxley could not be stopped by bullets.
Nick paused in the entranceway. "Huxley? You alive?" There was a staircase to his left leading upstairs, and a dark hallway in front of him. No lights appeared to be on anywhere inside the place. He checked the bathroom to his right. Empty.
Then came a feeble voice. "In here."
Following the voice, Nick cut through the hallway, the soft thud of his footsteps on the hardwood floors the only sounds in the house. The hallway opened into a spacious great room and kitchen area that looked like something out of a Pottery Barn catalog. There, he spotted Huxley.
Or at least, what he thought was Huxley.
The well-groomed agent he was used to seeing in three-piece suits and sweater vests sprawled facedown across the beige sectional couch, with one hand limply clutching a garbage can on the floor next to him. Far from a three-piece suit, he was dressed in a navy sweatshirt and checkered flannel pants. Strangely, he wore only one sock.
Nick slipped off his coat and came around the couch. Huxley weakly lifted his head. His eyes were glazed, and the hair on the left side of his head shot up into the air in a blond Mohawk.
"I wouldn't get too close," Huxley warned. The effort of holding up his head proved too much, and his face fell back into the pillow.
Nick took a seat on the far opposite end of the sectional. "Wow. You look awful." He peered more closely. "What's going on with your hair?"
Huxley spoke into the pillow, his voice muffled. "The stomach pains came on when I was in the shower. I had to get out ASAP. Mid-shampoo."
Nick nodded. "And the missing sock?"
"In the laundry. I puked on my foot."
"Oh."
With painstakingly slow movements, Huxley rolled himself over. He groaned and his head lolled against the pillow. "The good news is, I haven't thrown up for twelve minutes. Before that I only made it nine."
"I don't think it's like labor contractions, Seth. Whatever you've got doesn't look like something that will pass quickly. Could it be food poisoning?"
"Doubtful. I have a fever. One hundred and two."
"The stomach flu, then."
"It appears so."
Before Nick could say anything further, there was a knock at the door.
Huxley closed his eyes. "That's probably Jordan. I called her right after you and left a message saying we had a problem."
Oh, they had a problem, all right. A couple of them. For starters, Eckhart's party was that night and his partner clearly wasn't anywhere near up to par. Second, there were about five thousand jokes Nick wanted to make about Huxley's hair, and he wasn't sure he could hold back much longer.
"I'll get the door." Nick cut through the hallway, working through their options. He grumbled to himself, realizing that they only had one at this point. This was supposed to be a simple assignment. A consulting job, Davis had promised. And now he was stuck.
He said a few Brooklyn-flavored curse words under his breath as he opened the front door.
Nick blinked at the sight of the woman standing before him. He'd expected to find the stylishly dressed and designer-clad sophisticate he'd met five nights ago. Instead, Jordan stood on the porch wearing a black ski jacket, black body-hugging leggings, and pink snow boots. She had her long hair pulled back in a high ponytail, with a few layers framing her face. She wore not a speck of makeup, had rosy cheeks from the cold, and her blue eyes sparkled in the winter morning sun.
Interesting.
This was a new side to Jordan Rhodes. Without the designer clothes, it was a good thing for him that she was still blond with ne'er-do-well relations, or he might be in danger of thinking she was quite cute. And given that his role in the Eckhart investigation had just expanded about tenfold, he didn't need to be distracted by cuteness right then.
Seeing him standing in Huxley's doorway, her eyes widened in surprise. "Agent McCall."
Nick raised an eyebrow. "Nice boots."
She leveled him with a glare. Apparently the boots were a taboo subject.
"You said that if I saw you today, it meant that something had gone really wrong with the undercover operation," she said.
He stepped to the side of the doorway. "I think you should probably see for yourself." He shut the door behind her, and they stood in the small entranceway. "But I warn you—it's a little disturbing." He led her down the hallway and into the living room, where the death-warmed-over version of his partner lay on the couch.
"Oh my gosh, what happened?" Jordan asked.
Shivering, Huxley mustered a faint smile. "I guess I look as bad as I feel."
"It's mostly the hair," Nick offered diplomatically. "It's ... ridiculous."
"I can't deal with a comb right now. Too heavy." Huxley sighed wearily. "I'm a little under the weather," he explained to Jordan.
"That seems to be putting it mildly," she said. "You're shaking—are you cold?"
"It's the fever."
She spoke under her breath to Nick. "Is there a reason he's wearing only one sock?"
"He puked on his foot."
"Oh." She turned back to Huxley. "Can we get you another sock? Maybe a blanket or something?"
Huxley sat up, looking pained by the effort. "That's okay," he groaned. "I'm heading upstairs. If you two would excuse me ..." He clutched his stomach. "I think this is going to be a rough one."
Jordan watched as Huxley clung to the railing and dragged himself upstairs. When she heard a door shut, she turned back and saw that Nick had moved into the kitchen. She followed him and watched as he began opening cabinets, searching for something.
"I know Huxley. He has to have it somewhere," he muttered to himself. "Ah—got it." He shut the cabinet door and held a bottle out to Jordan.
Hand sanitizer.
"Don't say I never got you anything," he said.
Despite herself, Jordan smiled. "Thanks," she said, taking the bottle from him. She poured an extremely generous amount onto her hands and made a mental note to touch as little as possible inside the house.
Upstairs, she could hear the faint sounds of Huxley groaning. "Should we do something?" she asked Nick.
"I think he'd probably prefer to be alone right now."
She nodded. She said the words first, needing to get it out there. "He's not going to make it to the party tonight, is he?"
"No, he's not. And that's a shame, because I know how badly Huxley wanted this. But he's shivering, he looks terrible, and he can't stay out of the bathroom for more than twenty minutes."
Jordan felt bad for Huxley. Aside from his obvious physical discomfort, she knew how much he'd put into this investigation. But selfishly, she had other issues on her mind at that moment, like the fact that this had been her one chance to get her brother out of prison. "Does this mean we're scrapping the plan for tonight?"
Nick leaned against the counter opposite her, stretching out his tall, leanly muscular body. He wore a navy crewneck sweater, jeans, and a gun harness that made him appear even more dangerous than he had that first night in her store. She took note of his strong, angular jaw, which was once again dark and stubbled.
It wasn't the worst look she'd ever seen on a guy. She wouldn't go as far as to say she liked it or anything, but she suppo
sed some women found this sort of overt ... manliness attractive.
"We're not scrapping the plan," he said. "This may be our only chance to nail Eckhart. But this development with Huxley means we need to make certain adjustments."
"Such as?"
His green eyes held hers. "Looks like you've got yourself a new date this evening."
Balls.
"I had a feeling you were going to say that, Agent McCall."
He shook his head. "No more Agent McCall. From this point on, I'm Nick Stanton, a self-employed real estate investor," he said, referring to the cover story they'd planned to use with Huxley. "I own several multiunit apartment buildings on the north side of the city that I rent out mostly to college students and recent graduates. We met when I came into your store to buy a bottle of wine for my property manager, Ethan, who just got engaged to a girl named Becky, an advertising executive originally from Des Moines who used to live in one of my buildings. You helped me pick out the perfect bottle of wine, and I was so entranced that I didn't pay any attention to what I bought." He scratched his jaw, putting on a show of trying to remember. "What kind of wine was it again, sweetie? Something French I'd never heard of."
Jordan noticed that he was going off the script a little. "A gamay?"
Nick snapped his fingers. "A gamay—that's it."
"With Huxley it was a carménère from Chile. And he picked it out."
"Well, Huxley knows a lot more about wine than I do. Since I don't have time to learn, my character is going to be more of a novice." He grinned. "Your character finds this refreshing in contrast to all the stuffy wine snobs you usually meet."
"But my character probably won't emphasize that fact tonight, since most of those stuffy wine snobs will be at this party," she threw back.
The two of them looked over as Huxley stumbled his way into the living room and sank onto the couch.
"I overheard you talking. You'll take my place, then?" he asked Nick.
"It's our only option at this point."
Huxley shook his head dejectedly. "Three years working for the FBI and I've never had to take one sick day. Today of all days, this happens." He leaned back against the pillows and looked Nick over. "You're going to need a suit."
"I have several suits," Nick said, appearing offended.
Huxley did not seem impressed. "A real suit." He held up his hand, cutting off Nick's objection. "No offense, but Men's Wearhouse or whatever isn't going to cut it tonight. You want to blend, remember? Every person at the party will be checking out the guy walking in with Jordan Rhodes. You need to look like someone they would expect to see her with."
"Hey. I would date a guy who wore a suit from Men's Wearhouse," Jordan said indignantly.
Nick sized her up. "Huxley's right. I better get a new suit."
Jordan folded her arms across her chest, on the defensive. "You two are way off base with these assumptions about me."
Nick turned to face her, taking the bait. "Okay, I'll eat my words right now if you can honestly say that you've dated anyone in the last three years who wore a suit from Men's Wearhouse."
Jordan stared him in the eyes, wanting to prove him wrong like nothing else.
But.
She sniffed reluctantly. "Just to be clear, it's not a criteria I have. True, I tend to meet mostly men who have white-collar jobs. And if they want to spend their money on expensive suits, well, that's their business."
Nick shrugged. "You don't have to explain yourself to me, princess."
Jordan's eyes widened in surprise. She stepped over to him, pulling herself up to her full five foot five inches. "Listen, I don't know who you are, or where you came from, but nobody's calling anybody a princess around here."
"Brooklyn."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm from Brooklyn." The edges of Nick's lips curled up in a grin. "Your majesty."
Jordan stared him in the eyes for another moment, and then turned to Huxley. "Doesn't the FBI have some sort of top-secret vitamin shot they can give agents in these circumstances? Something that can get you up and running by tonight? Anything?"
"Sorry. I'm afraid you're stuck with Nick."
Lovely.
"Trust me, I'm not exactly thrilled about it, either," Nick said. "No offense, but being cooped up in a van for seven hours sounds more fun than hanging around with some elitist wine crowd." He glanced at his watch and swore under his breath. "We don't have a lot of time to pull this all together. Now that I'm taking your place, I need to find a backup man and get him up to speed," he said to Huxley. "And I need to go shopping, too."
He was so bent out of shape about the darn suit. Because of that, Jordan was tempted to hold her tongue and let him figure things out by himself. But like it or not, for Kyle's sake, the two of them were in this together. So she pulled out her cell phone.
"I'll take care of the suit." She scrolled through her contacts list, found the person she was looking for, and dialed.
A man's voice on the other end answered. "Please tell me you're coming in to shop. We've been dead this whole week because of the blizzard."
Jordan smiled. Two years ago she'd discovered Christian, a personal shopper at the Ralph Lauren store, and he'd never let her down no matter what the fashion emergency. "Are you working this morning? I need a man's suit. Fast."
"No problem. I'm at the store already."
"Perfect. He doesn't have a lot of time to shop, so do me a favor—pull some suits in advance. Shirts and ties, too. Nothing too trendy, something classic. I need a size ..." She looked expectantly at Nick.
He didn't look thrilled that she was taking charge, but he didn't object either. "Forty-four long."
She repeated the information to Christian, who sounded intrigued.
"You've never sent me a man before," he said. "This forty-four long must be special."
"Oh, he's special all right. And he'll be there in fifteen minutes."
"Wait," Christian said before she hung up. "I'm dying here, Jordan. You've got to give me something. Who is this mystery man?"
She hesitated for a second, then realized she had to bite the bullet and start the lies at some point. Might as well cut her teeth on Christian.
"His name is Nick. He's ... my boyfriend."
ON THEIR WAY out, Nick held Huxley's front door open for her. "Boyfriend, huh? I didn't realize we had taken things to that level."
"Oh, I'm sorry—this is my first undercover operation," Jordan said. "I'm a little unclear about the rules. Are we seeing other people in this fake relationship?"
He followed her down the steps to the sidewalk. "You expect me to make this decision on the spot? I'm a man, Jordan; I can't be pressured into these kinds of things."
She flashed him a sweet smile. "Lucky for you, it will all be over soon. Tomorrow you can have a fake freak-out over commitment issues that will lead to our fake breakup. After that, I think our characters will need some very real time apart." She began walking toward the street.
Nick caught her by the sleeve of her coat. "I think we need to make sure we're clear on something. You may be used to ordering your personal assistants around, or the minions at your wine store, but this is my investigation now. Which means that I'm in charge here—only me."
She pulled out her cell phone and cocked her head innocently. "Should I cancel the suit, then?" When he glared at her but said nothing, she smiled. "I'll take that as a 'Thank you, Jordan. I appreciate you helping me out in a pinch like this.' "
She headed in the direction of her car, but Nick caught her by the sleeve again. "Where are you going? You're coming with me to the Ralph Lauren store."
"Why would I go?"
"Because I've got about eight hours to make sure this undercover op is successful, and you need to fill me in on everything you told Huxley on Thursday. Particularly the description of Eckhart's office."
Jordan pushed up the sleeve of her coat and looked at her watch. "It's after nine. We'll be cutting it too close if I go down
town with you. I'm supposed to open my store at ten and I need to go home and change first."
"Can't you get someone to cover for you?"
"Unfortunately, no," she said. Martin and Andrea—one of the two associates who worked at DeVine Cellars—were both set to cover the store that evening while she was at Xander's party, and her other sales associate, Robert, was out of town that weekend. Plus, they were having a closeout sale on several wines her distributors were unloading at bargain prices and she needed to get shelf talkers in place before the store opened. "Is there another time we can talk?"
Nick looked over at her car. "Does that Maserati come with Bluetooth?"
For over a hundred grand, about the only things it didn't come with were ejector seats and a parachute. "Yep."
"We'll do this by phone. I have your number."
Of course he did.
They separated at the street and climbed into their respective cars. Immediately after starting hers, Jordan pushed the button that warmed the tan leather seats. Like good wine and great shoes, heated seats on a February morning were at the top of her most-prized list of luxuries. She let the car idle for a minute before easing it out of its tight parking spot. Heading in the same direction as Nick, she took the one-way side street toward Lake Shore Drive and caught up with him at a stop sign.
She saw him glance at his rearview mirror, spotting her behind him. A few seconds later, her cell phone rang. When she answered, his whisky-rich voice came through the car's speakers.
"So I've been thinking about your question. My character has decided he doesn't want to see other people."
"What made you change your mind? Let me guess—the Maserati."
He chuckled. "Our cover story is that my character has been smitten from the moment he met you. He's not about to let another man get anywhere near you."
"Your character sounds a little possessive. Is this something my character should be worried about?"
They came to a stop at the light that would take them onto the Drive. Nick's voice was low, even smoother than the car's engine. "I think your character secretly likes it. You've been dating boring, uptight guys for too long. You've been looking for something different."