like an old man, shuffling and slow.
He looked through the peephole and saw Special Agent Mike Peters standing next to someone he thought he’d never see again. He swung open the door with a tired smile.
“I’m sorry to bother you, sir, but this woman insisted that I tell you she was here.”
If Aggie Johnston was beautiful in a designer dress, she was absolutely enchanting in jeans and a plain white T-shirt, her hair tucked under a baseball cap. Her face had the clean scrubbed look of a college coed, except for the enticing pout of her lipsticked lips that drew attention to her understated sensuality.
“You’re quite a surprise,” Mercer said, catching her green eyes.
“I came over with some dinner.” She held up a plastic bag emblazoned with Chinese dragons and characters. “The next thing I know I’m being felt up by this guy. What’s going on here?” She paused when she noticed the bandage on Mercer’s cheek. Her voice softened. “Oh, my God, what happened to you?”
Mercer turned to Agent Peters. “You frisked her?”
The big FBI agent looked sheepish. “I had to make sure she wasn’t armed.”
“Lucky boy. I think if I’d tried that, she would’ve torn me limb from limb.”
“Mercer, what happened to you?” Aggie cut in impatiently.
“You might as well come in. I’ll tell you all about it.”
He moved aside to let Aggie enter, tossing a wink at Peters as she crossed the threshold.
“I didn’t expect this.” Aggie eyed the tall atrium. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you. Come on upstairs. I’ll fix you a drink.” He followed her up the staircase, his eyes luckily at the level of her tight backside as she took the steps with long-legged grace.
She paused in the library, scanning the titles, her fingers running along the spine of one of the twenty-eight volumes of Denis Diderot’s eighteenth-century
“It was a gift,” Mercer defended himself quickly. “I swear to God I never read it.”
In the bar, Aggie ran her hand along the massive mahogany bar top, surveying the delicate woodwork that made up much of the room. “This is more what I expected from you. Masculine, overbearing, and dedicated to alcohol.”
“Your father must have a higher opinion of me than I thought to give me such a glowing review. I assume he told you how to find me?”
“Actually, I sneaked your address out of his Rolodex.” Aggie put the bag of food on the bar and sat on one of the stools, cocking one leg so it rested on the seat with her. Her pose unintentionally rucked her jeans into the juncture of her thighs. Mercer had to drag his eyes away from the alluring sight. “The estimate of your personality is all mine. Now, are you going to tell me why you’re limping and have a bandage on your face?”
She had been teasing Mercer since the moment she entered the house, but there was real concern in her voice that softened her jibes.
Mercer ducked behind the bar. He’d offer her a drink, but he felt it more important to put a little distance between himself and Aggie Johnston. The physical barrier of the bar, he hoped, would help him build a psychological barrier between them. In his chaotic life, the last thing he wanted was to succumb to the attraction he felt building toward her.
“White wine all right?” he asked, reaching for a bottle in the fridge.
“I’d prefer a stinger.”
Mercer cocked an eyebrow in approval as he reached for the brandy and white creme de menthe. “After I dropped you off last night, I stopped at a bar just up the street to have one more for the ditch.”
He set the drink in front of her and dribbled a healthy shot of brandy into a snifter for himself. There was an ashtray on the bar, used primarily by Harry White, which Aggie took as de facto permission to smoke. She left the pack and the gold Dun-hill next to her drink.
“I left a couple of hours later, pretty mixed, I might add. Anyway, a guy tried to mug me as I was walking home. He did a good number on me, as you can see.” Mercer touched the bandage on his cheek. “This was from a pistol whip.”
“Jesus!” Aggie exclaimed. “What happened? How did you get away?”
“I didn’t. I ended up killing him.” Mercer waited for a squeamish reaction from Aggie, but he remembered that she was Max Johnston’s daughter. It would take more than the death of a criminal to rattle her. “I’d left the bar with a couple of beer bottles. I smashed them against his head, and the next thing I knew, I’d stabbed him with the broken neck of one. I passed out and came to in the hospital with a nurse cleaning blood off my face.”
Aggie was silent for a moment; this was not one of those stories that demanded some immediate soothing response full of feigned emotion. At last she asked, “Are you still in pain?”
“Only when I laugh.” Mercer smiled. “Actually, the worst part about it was the high-grade hangover all morning.”
“If you were the victim of a mugging, why is there an FBI agent guarding your door and pawing your guests?”
“I didn’t know he’d be pawing, I swear, but he’s there as a favor to me. I thought there may have been someone else involved in the attack. I’m just being a little paranoid about possible revenge.”
Mercer mixed enough fact with fiction to make a credible story, but again he underestimated Aggie.
“My father has always liked you, and he knew I had a crush on you, so whenever he heard something about your career, he’d tease me about it. Your boyfriend did this or your boyfriend did that.” Her tone was flippant and self-mocking as she mimicked her father. “My crush was pretty transparent when I was younger. He told me all about what you did before the Gulf War, leading a team of commandos into Iraq to evaluate their uranium-mining facility.
“He also told me that there are some people in this world who, no matter how hard they try, can’t get out of the way of danger. He said you were one of them. I know you don’t believe that you were the victim of a mugging, and you know that I know it, too. I’ll leave you your cover story and let it drop, but next time you don’t want to tell me something, just say so. Deal?”
Mercer was inordinately pleased at the prospect that he would have a next time. In fact, he was mystified that she was here in the first place. He asked her why.
She lit another cigarette, more out of nervousness than nicotine addiction. When she spoke, her eyes were downcast. “I said some things last night that I shouldn’t have, burdened you with a lot of skeletons from my closet. I’m a little embarrassed.”
Apologies didn’t come easily to Aggie, that was plain to see. Her shy, elfin smile exposed beautiful white teeth and turned the corners of her eyes into creased points. But when she looked at him, her emerald eyes were almost imploring, exposing herself as surely as if she stood naked.
She laughed, cutting the sudden tension. “Just because I’m here and I apologized doesn’t mean I don’t hate what you do for a living.”
“I promise not to rape the planet until after you leave.”
They ate the Chinese food and talked for hours. They steered well clear of talking about themselves, in an unspoken understanding that too much had been said the night before. Despite the adversarial nature of their beliefs, they were highly intelligent and well-informed people. Even when their companionable discussion turned into debate, both enjoyed it immensely. By nine-thirty, they were sitting on the leather couch, their bodies almost, but not quite, touching. And just before ten, Aggie made the first move, reaching out to take Mercer’s hand. He was speaking when it happened, and his voice caught.
He paused, looking at her face. Her eyes had gone glassy smooth, and her pupils were dilated twice their normal size. Her mouth invited. Mercer read her expression expertly, cupping his hand behind her head and lifting her slightly so their lips would meet.
At that instant, Harry White’s graveled voice echoed through the house. “Hey, Mercer, you home? I thought you were going to Tiny’s to watch football today.”
The moment was lost immediately.
He moved away from her quickly. To delay would have meant he never would have stopped. “Harry,” he bellowed with frustration, “your timing sucks.”
