8. Nicholas
8
NICHOLAS
Her long, slender legs ate up the ground like she was a professional runner. I’d never been particularly fascinated with legs before. I preferred a woman’s breasts to any other part of her body, but something about this woman’s legs really did it for me.
I watched through my binoculars as she ran back up the steps to the house and let herself inside. She glanced around outside once as if she felt me watching her.
“That’s right. I’m here,” I chuckled to myself.
“Yeah, that’s not creepy.”
I jolted at the voice beside me, spinning around and throwing a punch that missed as Rae ducked and put up her guard. I let out a deep sigh, pissed that she’d snuck up on me and I hadn’t noticed. “What are you doing here?”
“I knew you’d come out here and I was interested.”
“Why?”
“Because there’s so much I don’t know about her. It’s not very often that I can’t dig up information on someone. I don’t like it.”
“So, you followed me out here?”
“Well, it was either that or stay home. This sounded so much better. Besides, Cash said you have a week off. That’s not a lot of time to dig up information on this woman. So, what are we looking at?”
“We aren’t looking at anything. She’s not a job.”
“No, she’s better than that,” she grinned, getting down on her belly to lay beside me. “She’s a fascination. Or an obsession.” She snagged my binoculars and stared through the windows at the woman inside. “Ooh, nice. Very nice.”
“What’s nice?” I asked in irritation.
“Oh…Is that a tattoo? I guess you’d have to see up close.”
“Is she naked?”
“Now she is. Damn, I can appreciate a nice body. Very toned. I see why she’s living with this guy. He must get a lot of?—”
I snagged the binoculars from her hands, earning me a glare. “We’re not stalking her.”
“You’re right. You’re just laying outside the house she’s staying in, all for the purpose of discovering more about her. It’s intel gathering.”
“Precisely,” I said, lifting the binoculars to my face. She was drinking a bottle of water and she was fully dressed in her workout clothes. Rae was trying to rile me up.
Rae chuckled in my ear. “Gotcha.”
I lowered the binoculars again and glared at her. “You didn’t get me because I wasn’t looking for anything.”
“Right. I said all that stuff about the tattoos and how she was naked. You weren’t curious at all.”
“Is there some point in you being here?”
“I already told you, I’m bored.”
“Go be bored somewhere else,” I muttered, getting back to the view inside the house. She walked up the stairs, pulling her top over her head. I instantly went hard at the sight of her gorgeous body, even from this distance. There was no denying that I was attracted to her. But what was it about her that had me following her all the way to Wisconsin?
There was nothing I could hope to achieve. She was clearly a shady character if she worked with Rafe. I was former military and a former police officer. That had to be against some kind of code. Then again, I was lying on the ground outside her house, watching her like a creep.
“Did you find anything yet?”
I rolled over and spotted FNG rushing toward me with a hiking pack on his back. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I came to find out what was going on. Same as you, right?”
I frowned, but nodded. “Right.”
“Yeah. Right,” Rae choked out a laugh.
FNG skidded onto his belly, grabbing the binoculars from my hands. “So, what’s she doing? Oh…holy—” He instantly dropped them, shoving them in my face. “I don’t think I should see that.”
“Why? Afraid Honey will divorce you?”
“Something like that. So, what did you find out so far?”
“Nothing. She’s living here. That’s all I know. I just arrived.”
“If it were me,” Rae said in a bored tone, “I would wire the house. And if you had really good friends, maybe some of them would have brought along the equipment you needed. But that’s just me.”
“I’m not spying on her.”
“Why not?” FNG asked.
“Because she’s a person.”
“Right, but you’re spying on her right now. What’s the difference?”
“The difference is…it’s an invasion of privacy,” I snapped.
“Um…so is looking at her in the shower.”
“She’s in the shower?” I lifted the binoculars and zoomed in, but I couldn’t see anything since she was behind closed doors.
“FNG, you take the back. I’ll take the front,” Rae ordered.
“We’re not doing this,” I argued.
Rae got up, running through the brush. I chased after her and FNG, knowing I had to stop them. This was going too far. A minivan was parked not even a quarter mile from the house.
“You took the company vehicle?”
“My husband does the work on them. Do you know how easy it was to sneak this bad boy out?”
“You got Duke involved?”
She cocked her head at me. “I never said I got him involved.”
“You stole it? Rae?—”
“Relax. I thought you stalked people for a living.”
“I don’t stalk people,” I argued as she tossed a pack at me. I caught it, dropping it to the ground. “That was one time. She was my ex-wife!”
“Not according to Fox,” she grinned.
“Oh, we’re listening to Fox now?”
“Hey! I got it!”
I spun around, shaking my head at what I was seeing. Fox was dressed from head to toe in camo, carrying a bag of bright yellow Funyuns. “What are you doing?”
“Stalking your woman. Isn’t that what we’re all doing here?” he asked in confusion.
“No,” I said, stomping forward and snatching the bag out of his hands. “We’re not stalking anyone!”
“Really? But Rae said?—”
“Hey, don’t put this on me. I may have mentioned what was going on. That didn’t mean you should all follow me up here.”
Fox shot her a funny look. “You said, Fox, you should come with me. Nick is gonna stalk this lady. And I did.”
I slowly turned and faced Rae. “Why are you doing this to me?”
“Doing what?”
“You know what,” I said angrily.
“Oh! You mean Fox,” she grinned. “Yeah, I thought it would be good for you. A bonding moment. You haven’t really had a chance to get reacquainted since you joined the company.”
“There’s a reason for that,” I muttered.
“Anyway, we came prepared. We’ll know everything about her in a very short time.”
I grabbed the bag she was holding and tossed it on the ground. “I don’t want to find out everything about her. At least, not like this.”
FNG snorted. “Oh, man. He’s in love with her!”
“How can I be in love with her? I don’t know her,” I retorted.
Fox wrapped his arm around my neck, digging his knuckles into my skull. “I just knew it. My little Tatum is all grown up.”
“Tatum?” FNG chuckled.
“Get off me!” I snapped, shoving him away. Straightening my shirt, I stepped away from them. “I don’t need help. I’m not wiring her house and I’m not allowing any of you to spy on her.”
“But…we came all the way up here,” FNG said sadly.
“And you’re going to turn around and go home.”
Rae snorted. “Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”
She grabbed the bag off the ground and went back to work. FNG joined her, followed by Fox.
“I said, this isn’t happening.”
“Fox, you can get the roof.”
“Yes!” he said, pumping his fist into the air.
“Nobody’s getting the roof.”
“FNG, when we’re all set, you can take first watch.”
“Nobody’s taking first watch,” I snapped. “It’s not happening. This is not how you stalk somebody!”
They all turned and stared at me.
Sighing, I relented. “Look, if I want to keep an eye on her, I’ll do it myself. This is just creepy.”
“You were looking in her shower not five minutes ago,” FNG reminded me.
“Well…that’s over. Seriously, I need you all to go.”
“But—”
“No! Enough is enough. Pack your shit and go home.”
FNG kicked the ground like a kid who just got kicked off the team. “Fine, but if you need us?—”
“I know where you are,” I grumbled.
His face lit up as he turned to Fox. “Wanna see if they have any shawarma?”
“Ooh, and maybe some pig’s tail? That was really good.”
They were off without another word, but Rae hung back, watching me in that way that made me uneasy.
“You know they’ll be back tonight.”
“I know,” I sighed.
“Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better do it fast.”
That was the problem. I hadn’t figured anything out yet.
As Rae walked away, I went back to looking through the binoculars, hoping to catch a glimpse of my dark-haired beauty. She wasn’t in the bedroom and the bathroom door was wide open. No sign of her there.
I went room by room, searching for her, but there was no sign of anyone in the house. She’d escaped.
The hunt was on, and I wouldn’t stop until I found her.