Nick and Joe came into her darkened room and told her to get some rest. They would take turns staying awake. She didn’t know if Nick slept or if he got any rest at all. The only thing she remembered was the exhaustion that overtook her.
She woke up at daybreak and dressed in her jogging clothes, a snug-fitting, blue-and-white-striped spandex top that didn’t quite cover her belly button, blue spandex shorts, socks, and her comfortable but worn-looking white Reeboks. After securing her hair into a ponytail, she went into the bedroom to begin her stretching exercises.
Nick came into the bedroom as she was coming out of the bathroom. He took one look at her outfit, and his heart slapped a beat.
Every curve of her body was evident. 'Jeez, Laurant, does your brother know you wear stuff like that?'
She began her waist bends and didn’t look at him when she answered, 'There’s nothing wrong with my clothes. I’m not going to church. I’m going running.'
'Maybe you ought to put a big T-shirt over…'
'Over what?'
'Your chest.'
The shirt wasn’t going to cover her amazing long legs. He was having trouble taking his eyes off them. 'And long pants,' he muttered. 'This is a small town. You’re going to shock folks.'
'No I won’t,' she assured him. 'They’re used to seeing me run.'
He didn’t like it, not one little bit, but who was he to complain? If she wanted to dress like a… runner… ah, hell, what was the matter with him? He had no business telling her what to wear. Even if they were in a relationship-which they weren’t, he quickly qualified-he still wouldn’t have the right to tell her how to dress.
Nick had already put on his running clothes, a faded navy blue T-shirt, gym shorts, white socks, and his battered, used-to-be-white running shoes. While she stretched her legs, he slipped his gun into the holster at his hip and pulled the T-shirt down to cover it. Then he picked up a small earpiece and tucked it in his right ear. Moving in front of the mirror above her dresser, he pinned a circular disc to his neck band just above his clavicle.
She was retying one of her shoelaces when she asked, 'What’s the pin for?'
'It’s a microphone,' he answered. 'So no dirty talking today. Wesson will hear whatever I say, and just for the record, Jules, I still think this is a badass idea.'
The voice inside his ear spoke back. 'Duly noted, Agent Buchanan, and it’s sir to you, not Jules.'
Nick mouthed the word 'jackass' to himself and then turned to Laurant, 'You ready?'
'Yes,' she answered, and for the first time since he’d come into the bedroom, she looked into his eyes.
'I wondered how long that was going to take.'
She didn’t bother to pretend to misunderstand. 'You noticed?'
'Now you’re blushing.'
'I am not.' Shrugging to cover her embarrassment, her voice dropped to a whisper so that Wesson, hopefully, wouldn’t hear her 'I don’t think we need to talk about what happened…'
'No, we don’t need to talk about it,' he agreed. Then he grinned an adorable lopsided grin and added, 'But I’ll bet we’re both gonna be thinking about it all day long.'
He was staring at her mouth, and so she stared at the floor.
'Let’s go,' he said.
Nodding, she brushed past him. On the way down the stairs, he said, 'I want you to stay directly in front of me, and don’t worry, I’ll slow down to keep pace with you.'
She laughed. 'You’ll slow down? I don’t think so.'
'I’ve been running almost every morning since I joined the FBI. We agents have to keep in top shape,' he told her.
'Uh-huh,' she agreed. 'Then how come you told me you weren’t a runner?'
'No, I didn’t say that. I told you I hated to run.'
'You said it was bad on the knees and that you were going to complain the entire time.'
'It is bad on the knees, and I do plan to complain.'
'And how many miles do you run every morning?'
'About a hundred, give or take.'
She laughed. 'Is that right?'
Joe was standing in front of the living room window, looking outside through the crack in the drawn drapes.
'Nick, I think you better have a look at this. We’ve got a situation here. You might want to reconsider running today.'
Laurant beat him to the window. She peeked out and then said,
'It’s all right. It’s just the boys waiting for me. We run together every morning.'
Nick looked over her head and saw seven young men cluttering the sidewalk in front of her house. There were two more jogging in place in the middle of the street.
'Who are they?'
'High school kids,' she answered.
'And they run with you every day? Why the hell didn’t you mention them to me?'
He sounded incredulous and angry. 'Don’t get upset. It’s no big deal. I’m sorry I forgot to mention them. The boys are on the track team at Holy Oaks High School… well, some of them are,' she explained. 'And they don’t really run with me, at least not around the lake. They all peter out by the time I hit the path. Then they wait for me to come back and…'
'And what?' he demanded. Before she had a chance to answer, he muttered, 'Wesson, are you getting this?'
'I’m hearing you loud and clear,' came the staticky reply.
'And what?' he asked Laurant again. 'They wait for you to come back around the lake, and then what?'
'And they jog home with me. That’s all. They want to stay in shape during the summer so that when school starts, they’ll be in top form.'
Nick glanced outside again and noticed another boy running down the street to join his friends.
'Oh, yeah, they’re serious runners all right,' he remarked sarcastically. 'Especially the kid eating the donut. He’s definitely headed for the Olympics.'
Joe got a glimpse of himself in the hall mirror. His hair was sticking up every which way. He hadn’t bothered to comb it since he’d gotten out of bed, or rather, since he’d gotten off the sofa, and he self-consciously tried to pat it down as he said, 'Uh… I don’t believe any of those boys dragged themselves out of bed and came over here to run, Laurant. No, I’m pretty sure running isn’t on their minds.'
'Then what did get them out of their beds this early in the morning?' she asked, exasperated.
Nick answered. 'Hormones, Laurant. Raging hormones.'
'Oh, for heaven’s sake. At this time of day? Boys their age have a whole lot more on their minds besides sex.'
'No, they don’t,' Nick argued.
She looked at Joe who sheepishly nodded. 'They really don’t,' he agreed with Nick.
Nick jerked his thumb toward the window. 'At that age, I didn’t think about anything else but sex.'
Joe nodded. 'I’d have to agree with Nick again,' he said. 'It’s all I ever thought about. Mostly I thought about how to get it, and when I finally did get it, then I thought about how to get it again.'
She didn’t know whether to laugh or be angry. The conversation was ludicrous. 'You’re saying that every second of every waking hour that’s what you both were thinking about when you were teenagers?'
'Pretty much,' Nick said. 'So we know where they’re coming from and what they’re after. Maybe I ought to go outside and have a little talk with them.'
'Don’t you dare.'
Nick came up with a better idea. He’d intimidate them. He pulled his T-shirt up over his gun and tucked the material behind it so that the weapon was clearly visible.
Joe watched him. 'That ought to discourage them.'
As Nick was opening the front door for Laurant, he smiled and said, 'Maybe I ought to shoot a couple of them.'
Laurant rolled her eyes as she went past him, ignoring his scowl. Waving to her entourage, she jogged across
