Chapter 16
It had been two days since their date, and Jack hadn’t seen or heard one word from Andrea. He tried not taking to heart, but it was harder with every passing day he didn’t see her. He had even stopped by the bar but was told she wasn’t working.
Jack wasn’t convinced that was true, but he had no proof of the contrary, so he just accepted it and left.
The next step was to try her at home. He hadn’t meant to push her further away by being so blunt about his feelings.
And they had been his real feelings, not acting.
He was attracted to her. Not just physically but mentally too.
She was funny and caring. Nothing at all like what he was prepared for. For a woman infiltrating bases and stealing intel, he’d expected a different kind of person. He should hate her for that. Loathe the very air she breathed, and yet he didn’t. Jack didn’t feel any hostility toward her at all.
Instead, he liked sparing with her verbally. He liked making her laugh, and damn it all, he wanted to kiss her more than his next breath. He was so fucked.
Jack groaned when he saw his phone ringing and the name come across the ID.
“Hi, Nick,” he answered in his usual cheerfulness, though he was feeling anything but cheerful at the moment.
“What’s your status?” Nick asked in a clipped tone. He wasn’t happy with him.
“I’m still working on getting close to her.” It wasn’t a lie; she was avoiding him again.
“What do you mean you’re working on it?” Nick spoke calmly. He didn’t have to yell. The iciness in his voice was enough to tell Jack he was walking on thin ice.
“She’s guarded, sir. It’s taking longer to break through her defenses.”
“I hired you because you can seduce any woman. I need you to get that information from her now. Or did I hire the wrong man for the job?”
Being pulled from this assignment was the last thing he wanted.
He couldn’t take another man flirting with Andrea to get answers from her or if that failed, torture.
“No, sir. I’ll get what you need.” He would double his efforts to get what he needed from her.
Anything to appease Nick and get him to back off. The man was not a patient fellow.
“Good, because I’m tired of waiting, Jack. Get into the house and get some cameras in there. I want to see everything. Get a hold of her phone so we can see who she talks to and texts. I want to know everything about this woman.”
“Sir, I don’t—”
“Don’t tell me you’re getting soft, Jack.”
“No, sir.” Everyone was counting on him to get the mission completed. He wouldn’t fail them.
“Good. I don’t think I need to remind you what this woman has done to our country.
Why WITSEC is protecting her is beyond me.
She’s a criminal who belongs behind bars.
The longer it takes her to confess, the more opportunity she has to plan another base attack.
I won’t allow that to happen. Now get me some results, or I’ll find someone who will.
” Nick hung up without waiting for Jack’s reply.
Jack didn’t like the idea of spying on Andrea like that. Invading her privacy. Funny, that idea hadn’t bothered him before. He’d done plenty of surveillance over the years, and it had never bothered him. It was only with Andrea that it did.
Jack was debating what to do next when there was a knock on his door. Who could that be? No one had come to his house since he’d moved in. Jack walked over, opened the door, and just stood there.
“I need you,” Andrea said looking like a drowned rat.
Her hair was soaked and plastered around her face, and her shirt clung to her skin.
Water droplets ran down her bare legs under her shorts to her sandals.
Bright pink nail polish adorned her toes.
Despite the humidity in the air, her nipples peeked through her shirt as if begging for his attention. “Did you not hear me?”
“Oh, I heard, but I can’t decide if you are a fantasy or this is real. It’s not every day a soaking wet woman knocks on my door, telling me she needs me.” He almost chuckled when he heard a soft growl coming from Andrea.
“I’m not a fantasy, and I have a real emergency,” she replied through gritted teeth. “I need your help. There’s a leak in my house, and I can’t fix it.” She held her hands out to her sides as if to emphasize her point that she had been trying.
Water fantasies were going to have to wait. “Alright, keep your shirt on; I’m coming. Or don’t keep the shirt on.”
Andrea ignored him and led him to her house and straight into her bathroom. Not that he needed a guide. He could hear the rush of water and see the flooding already on the floor.
“Where’s your water line?” he asked, all business now.
“In the crawl space.” She pivoted on her heel and led the way back outside to a little door on the side of the house.
“How about tools? A wrench?”
“Yes.” Andrea ran toward her garage and came back a moment later with a bag full of tools.
Using the flashlight on his phone, Jack shimmied into the hole that was not built for a man his size or as broad shouldered, but he managed to squeeze through.
Jack army-crawled over the dirt and through what felt like hundreds of spider webs, hoping he didn’t cross any other more predatory animals down here.
He had his knife, but that wasn’t going to do him much good against a gator. With limited light, it took a few minutes to find the water line and even longer to situate himself to adjust his frame to turn off the water.
“There; that should do it.”
“Do what?” Andrea’s voice sounded far away.
“Stop your house from becoming a water park,” Jack responded as he came out of the hole. He was eager to get back out into the fresh air and not be in the bug-infested ground. He looked down at himself and saw he was covered in dirt and cobwebs.
Jack brushed himself off as he went back into the house. “So what happened?”
“My bathroom sink had a drip. I decided to tighten the bolt to see if that would help—”
“—And instead you got a shower.”
“Exactly. The whole elbow came off. I tried to put it back on—”
“—But the force of water wouldn’t allow it.”
“No, so when I couldn’t fix it myself, I came to you.”
“I’m glad you did. Much longer and this place would have been floating down the street.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” she denied but chuckled.
“No, but it would have ruined a lot of your stuff. Good thing these houses have tile floors and not hardwood. You came to me quick enough it shouldn’t be too bad of a cleanup.”
“No, thank you for that. I should have known to turn the main off. I don’t know why I didn’t.”
Jack placed a comforting hand on Andrea’s shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. We all forget to do certain things when under stress.”
They both stopped in the entry of Andrea’s bathroom. The floor had about half an inch of water on it that was working its way through to her bedroom.
“Do you want me to stay and help you? I can help with the floor or put the elbow back on.”
“I hate asking for help, but yes, please stay. If you’ll work on the sink, I’ll get to cleaning up.”
Andrea started setting down towels around him to soak up the water. Jack picked up the elbow that had been tossed on the floor next to the toilet and shimmied under the sink, not caring he was getting soaked.
“Aren’t you worried about getting wet?” Andrea asked.
“It’s water; I won’t melt.” He paused in his work and cocked his head to the side so he could look up at her. “Unless that was a backward way of asking me to take my clothes off.”
“No,” she sputtered. “I was just—never mind. Get your clothes wet, I don’t care.” Andrea avoided his gaze, tucking her chin to her chest and walking away. He could hear her in her bedroom setting down more towels.
“I’m actually surprised you came to me instead of one of the other neighbors.”
“Well, they are on the older side. I’d have worried they’d slip on the water and break a hip,” Andrea admitted with a grimace.
“But you didn’t worry about my health, ouch,” Jack mumbled as he went back to work.
“You’re most robust than they are.”
“Thanks?”
“That was a compliment.”
“If you say so.” Jack finished tightening the bolt and stood up. Andrea had swapped out towels for her mop, pushing water toward the towels. “I’m actually surprised to see you again after our dinner since I haven’t seen you in three days.”
Andrea paused in mid action and looked up at him.
Her gaze was unreadable. Had he pushed her by asking about it?
Was he giving his own feelings away by asking?
He shouldn’t have said anything. Just accept her speaking to him again as it was and not press for details, but he wanted to know if she was only talking to him now because of the leak or because she had wanted to see him.
“I’ve been busy with work.”
“Funny, I’ve gone to your work, and I never saw you there.”
“No, I was there; I was just avoiding you.”
Ouch. “Was my company that repugnant you had to go through such drastic measures?”
Andrea let out a loud sigh. “No, but we had a deal. If I agreed to go to dinner with you, you’d leave me alone.”
He hadn’t make any such deal. “No, I didn’t.”
“Alright, so I was hopeful.” She looked at him sheepishly.
Again ouch. Never had he met a woman so repelled by his presence. There was not interested, hard to get, and then there was Andrea. “Would it be so bad to hang out and be friends?”
“I have rules.”
Jack took a step closer to her. “Rules are meant to be broken.”
“Not mine,” she said firmly.
“And what is this rule, don’t live your life?
” Andrea didn’t say anything just glared at him.
“Take a chance in life, Andrea. What do you have to lose?” She glanced away, looking thoughtful.
He could work with that. That meant she was somewhat flexible.
He just had to push her a little more. “You enjoyed yourself that night, didn’t you? ” he supplied, hoping she would agree.
“I did,” she commented quickly.