Chapter 4
Chapter 4
T he next morning Jones couldn’t find Gum Lady anywhere. At first he thought maybe it was coincidence she was never where he was, then he realized it was on purpose. He strolled by the pool, taking note of who was binge drinking and would later be a problem. So far he’d clocked three men and one woman to tell the staff to keep tabs on. By now he wasn’t expecting to find Gum Lady, so of course he did. If she hadn’t flinched, he might have strolled right on by. As it was she was covered head to toe—in fabric, in a hat, in sunglasses. Of course she would be that person hiding from the sun in tropical paradise. He didn’t let on he saw her at first, as she flinched and tried to shrink even farther into her cover up. It amused him, that flinch. Jones had always been the guy sent in to ease people when he was a SEAL. If his baby face didn’t soothe them, his calm happy-go-lucky demeanor did. But now Gum Lady was unnerved, probably the first time in his life he’d ever managed to make anyone uncomfortable. He shouldn’t be amused by that, by her, but he was. Especially if she was a spook. They weren’t easily unnerved.
He plopped into the empty lounger beside her and put his feet up. “’Sup, Gum Girl.”
Her narrow eyed little scowl didn’t waver as it zeroed in on his face. “Congratulations, I’ve never heard another adult human say ‘sup before.”
“Do you not believe in slang? In your world, does everyone talk like the True Grit remake with no contractions?”
“Indubitably, you are correct,” she said, enunciating each word carefully. She switched her focus to stare out over the pool, effectively ignoring him.
Jones snorted a laugh, staring at her closed up profile. She was amusing, for a sourpuss. “So, the CIA,” he said, repressing another laugh when she flinched.
“Could you not?” she asked, pressing her index finger to her lips in the universal SHHH signal. “Not exactly public information.”
“Agreed, and yet you told me.”
“Melon-induced delirium,” she said. She closed her eyes and rested her head on the back of the chair. “The sun, it’s burning my retinas, even through the glasses.”
“If you don’t like the sun, why come to a tropical paradise?” he mused.
“I don’t always get to pick my locale,” she said.
“Right, right, because of the CIA,” he said.
“For a security guy, you are seriously bad with secret information,” she said.
“I could say the same for you,” he said. Was she really a spy? She seemed so…ordinary. But those were usually the best ones, everyman types who could blend anywhere. Though she wasn’t exactly blending, layered up and hunkered down as she was.
“I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m on vacation.” One square inch of her ankle was exposed to UV. She leaned forward, hastening to cover it.
“Yes, you seem intensely relaxed,” he said. “Like a Chihuahua on uppers.”
She turned to scowl at him, applying more zinc to her nose as she spoke. “Why are you badgering me? Do I look like a security risk to you?”
“No.” She looked…well, she looked kind of cute with the white stripe down her nose, every skin cell covered under layers of some kind of cloth. Like someone’s adorable little granny. “Is there some medical reason you fear the sun? Leprosy, perhaps?”
“I burn, peel, and freckle, not necessarily in that order,” she said, hunching farther under her sombrero-sized hat.
“What’s wrong with freckles?” he asked. They were a touchy subject for him, since his nose had so many.
“Nothing, if you want to look like you should be perpetually stuck singing, ‘All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.’”
“A lot of adults have freckles,” he said, tone turning defensive.
“Okay,” she said, and now her tone was patronizing.
“There is something seriously wrong with you,” he said. He had tried to give her the benefit of the doubt, but she was irredeemable. Who didn’t like freckles? Crazy women who criticized fruit and feared sunlight, that’s who.
“There is something seriously wrong with this resort,” she groused, giving her towel a hard tug. “I ordered a drink fifteen minutes ago. And where is it?”
“I’m not in charge of drink service,” he returned grumpily. Jones was not a grumpy person. The fact that he snapped at her was proof positive of the effect she had on people.
“In a resort of this caliber, everyone is in charge of everything. Absolutely no detail is off limits to your attention. If a guest has a need, it’s your job to see that it’s taken care of.”
He squinted at her, annoyed because a little part of him agreed with her. People were paying a fortune to stay in this resort, so much that probably their thoughts should be attended to before they spoke them, like Minority Report but without the crime. And, as head of security, Jones was senior management. He should make sure people were happy, entertained, and well taken care of. But he was a trained soldier, a former SEAL. He hadn’t left his adventurous life to cater to spoiled adults. And he especially didn’t want to try to make her happy, a losing battle at any time. “That’s not my job,” he belligerently insisted. “And you are not a nice person.”
“I am not paid to be nice,” she hissed, adjusting her ugly, oversized hat.
It was on the tip of his tongue to retort that she didn’t get paid at all, rich and entitled as she was. Then he remembered she might be a spook; she might make even less than he had in the Navy. Maybe this was her one shot at luxury. Maybe he should cut her some slack, give her a break. He eased forward and lowered his voice to a soft whisper, hovering a centimeter from her face. “If you want a daiquiri, princess, get up and get it yourself.” Then he yanked off her ugly hat, tossed it onto an empty chair, and stalked away, fuming—at her, at life, and at the sun, which actually was so potent it burned his retinas through his glasses, too.