Chapter 10
Chapter 10
D arren smiled as Babs approached, the heart stopping smile she was beginning to associate with him. He stood and reached for her coat, holding it aloft so she could slip her arms inside.
Outside the weather had turned even colder. What was sleet when they arrived had now turned to a fine sheen of ice. It wasn’t quite white knuckle driving, but almost. Babs sat on her hands, trying ineffectually to warm them as the heater blew cold air for most of the drive.
When they finally arrived back at the resort, they both breathed a sigh of relief. Babs was so relieved to have arrived without incident she temporarily forgot the pending roommate situation, at least until Darren took her hand to help her navigate the icy lot. Her stomach did the fluttery thing his touch evoked and remembrance came back with force. Oh, right, we’re going to the same room. No biggie, just me and this gorgeous, amazing guy who gives me all the flutters sharing a sleeping space.
“You’re still shivering,” Darren noted.
“Yes, I’m brr,” Babs said. How much was being cold and how much was nerves she had no idea. Right now they felt equal. They stepped into the elevator, only the two of them, and Darren opened his coat, pulling her inside the circle of his warmth.
“I run hot,” he explained.
I’ll say you do, she thought, followed quickly by, do not blurt that out loud, for the love of all that’s good. It was coming, though, she could feel the words bubbling through her like lava. The surprise of meeting him had short circuited every filter she’d ever had. She hadn’t been this clumsy around a man since she was a pre-teen, maybe not even then. But before she could let the phrase fly, they reached their floor. He let her go and waited for her to precede him. Similarly, he unlocked the door and held it for her, allowing her to go first. He helped her with her coat and hung it in the closet for her. Babs stood aside, both appreciative of his polite manners and distressed not to have anything to do with her hands. They twisted nervously in front of her. Darren hung up his own coat, faced her, and took a breath.
“This is usually the part of the night where I get some sense of what to do next, some signal about how to proceed. But everything has been thrown off by the fact that we’re awkwardly sharing this room tonight. So I want you to know I’m in no way pressuring you or expectant that this is anything more than a platonic roommate situation. Just so we’re clear. I would feel horrible if I thought you were uncomfortable in any way.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that,” Babs said. “It’s good to know the gentleman thing goes all the way to the core. On the other hand, there’s this.” She stood on her toes and kissed him, and he kissed her in return, so well she forgot to breathe for a minute and had to gasp.
“Never made a woman forget oxygen before,” he said.
“I find that hard to believe,” Babs replied. “Also, maybe we should sit because my legs have forgotten how to do their thing, too. Apparently you affect all my autonomic responses.”
They perched on the edge of her bed. He cupped her face, his thumb smoothing over her jaw. “Where’d you come from, Babs? I wasn’t looking for this today. All I wanted was a nice, non-lonely Christmas, and instead I get the best present ever.”
Uh-oh, she was about to blurt more things. This time there was no stopping it. “I’m really bad at math, I mean, really. I failed ninth grade algebra. My parents had to hire a tutor. It’s embarrassing how bad I am at it. To the point where there should be some sort of brain damage to explain how bad I am at it. And I…”
He interrupted her with another kiss. “It’s not working,” he whispered when the kiss was finished.
“The kiss? Because I could try again. I’m positive I have a better one in me,” she said, leaning forward hopefully as she clutched his lapels.
“No, that’s working remarkably well, I think. I meant whatever you’re doing, trying to tell me all your pretend faults in a bid to chase me away. I can’t think of anything you could say to accomplish what you’re trying to accomplish.”
Babs could think of one thing. She opened her mouth. He preempted her again with a kiss, and she returned it, thankful for the timely reprieve.
They reached that point of no return. Some semblance of reason returned to Babs’s brain but skittered away again before she could latch on to it. Instead she latched on to him, drawing him closer, crushing his shirtfront in her clenched fingers. He shifted, preparing to push her back onto the bed when her phone buzzed with a text.
She squirmed away from him, reaching for her phone. “I have to take this, sorry.”
“Really?” he asked. “I didn’t even hear it.”
“Sorry, it’s work.”
“Work? Now?” He sat up and shuffled his fingers through his hair, dislodging it further in a remarkably attractive way.
Babs straightened and read the text from Ridge.
Need you now.
“I’m so sorry, but I have to go,” she said, smoothing a hand over her head. She could only imagine how it looked. If his was any indication, it was fairly obvious they’d been making out, especially because her lips felt red, swollen, and chafed. Unable to stop herself, she reached out and rifled her fingers through his ridiculous mane of hair. If she hadn’t seen for herself up close it was real, she might think it was an elaborately expensive pelt. “It’s like a fat mink is perched jauntily over your eyebrows.” She pressed her lips together and stood. She didn’t want to leave, but maybe it was for the best. Maybe she would find her mojo again and stop blurting the worst, most embarrassingly random things.
“Work?” Darren repeated as if maybe he hadn’t heard her embarrassing mink gibberish. “It’s after midnight. What work could you possibly do?”
“Trust exercises,” Babs said. She was adept at lying. It was a good thing she only tapped her vast resources to cover for her job and nothing else, otherwise she’d be uncomfortably well suited to a life of crime.
“That makes zero sense,” Darren said.
“I know, but I’m merely a cog,” she said, leaning forward to give him what was supposed to be a perfunctory kiss goodbye but instead morphed into something else when he reached for her and pulled her into his lap. Only the fact that she still held her phone clutched in her hand gave her the ability to pull away. “I really have to go.”
“You are very work oriented,” he noted but he was smiling.
“It’s a hazard. And you are an amazing kisser for a geologist.”
His smile widened. “Tip of the iceberg, baby.” He brought her hand to his mouth, kissed her palm, and let her go.
“See, that was sneaky because somehow that makes it harder to go,” she said.
“Shoo,” he replied, making a fluttering motion with his hand.
She backed toward the door, bumped it, and eased outside, not daring to breathe until she was safely on the other side.
Once she was safely out the door, she sprinted down the hall to Maggie and Ridge’s room, knocking once. The door was ripped open by Amelia who blinked sleepily at her.
“If you’re helping, we must be in crisis mode,” Babs said.
“Nah, but Ethan’s out of the room and it seemed less lonely to be here than in my room. You have a little something there.” She pointed to Babs’s chin.
“What?” Babs asked, wincing when she touched her tender skin.
“Traces of my brother’s lips, apparently,” Amelia said, wagging her brows as she moved aside and opened the door, granting access to what was now Grand Central, if the machinery and hum of activity were any indication.
Blue sat at the computer, his usual spot, fingers moving furiously. Maggie sat beside him scanning a stack of material. Babs moved closer and reached for a computer. She wasn’t technically Maggie’s assistant, but basically she was Maggie’s assistant. They had worked so closely together over the last few years that they developed a sort of shorthand. While LuAnn and Ellen often got pulled to help Ethan, Ridge, or Blue, Babs was almost always with Maggie.
“I need the…” Maggie began.
“Got it,” Babs said, her fingers typing as quickly as Blue’s.
“Can you bring up…” Maggie started.
“Here,” Babs said, turning the computer to face her.
“Where’s the…”
“Tab twice.”
“We’re going to need the….”
“Tab again,” Babs directed.
“Good, okay. Here.” Maggie handed her a stack of work she had already tabbed. Babs began entering, corresponding to the database she and Maggie had already been keeping. It was one of the reasons their team worked so well, not only because they’d formed a cohesive, symbiotic system, but because they were solely focused on one target at a time, delving into the minutia. Maggie was good at research, at indexing and cross referencing all the information they compiled. More often than not it was Maggie who compiled and categorized the research and Babs who did the typing. Blue wrote software on the fly, adding whatever they decided they needed for each case. In an information age, they were the keepers of a treasure trove, able to delve so deeply into a target’s life that by the time a case wrapped up, they knew more about him than anyone else, likely more than a spouse or parent, even. Anything could be important, from internet browsing preferences to cologne choice.
Ethan and Blue must have gathered new Intel, if the amount of information was any indication. They worked three solid hours while Ridge and Ethan were who knew where doing who knew what. It was possible someone said, but Babs was too immersed to remember. At four, they sprang into the room, bringing their post-mission high with them. By that point Amelia was asleep and everyone else was flagging. Ethan went to the bed to wake her.
“Want me to carry you?” he offered.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she croaked.
“Yes, in fact, I would,” he agreed, slipping his arms beneath her and cradling her close.
“Looks like there’s going to be a lot of that going around tonight,” Ridge noted as he bent and lifted Maggie who had apparently fallen asleep sitting up beside Babs without her notice.
“Is she okay?” Babs asked. She had never known Maggie, a night owl, to fall asleep on the job before.
“She’s fine, fighting a bug or something,” Ridge said.
Babs and Blue stood and stretched. “If Darren asks, we were doing trust exercises,” Babs said before the assembled group could diperse.
“Oh, I am going to have fun with that,” Blue said with what might have been an ornery snicker that was ruined when it ended on a yawn.
They parted outside the room. Babs stumbled blindly and silently back down the hall toward her room. Darren was asleep. Babs both wanted and didn’t want him to wake, but it was a moot point. He didn’t stir as she changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth, washed her face, and slipped into her own bed, pulling the blanket high to try and block the tempting sight of the unconscious man across the way.