But she woke up a bit when her gaze wandered higher, and she saw the face of the man who was holding the sign. He looked plenty rested and was in no way rumpled, something that made Bridget feel even more disheveled than she already was. His hair was the color of imported milk chocolate, flecked with flashes of gold in the glare of the fluorescent lights overhead. Lights like that always made her hair look brassy, she couldn’t help thinking. And instead of travel-worn and disarrayed locks like hers, his hair was expertly cut and styled, not a strand out of place. He was dressed in the sort of suit most field agents wore—dark, nondescript, the kind meant to draw no attention—with a white dress shirt and plain blue tie. In spite of that, the man had drawn quite a bit of attention, Bridget noticed, because a trio of women standing nearby were all gazing at him with something akin to longing.
Which wasn’t exactly surprising, Bridget had to concede, since the man was, in a word, gorgeous, his features chiseled and powerful and jagged, as if sculpted by the ferocious hands of an irascible artist. Instead of making him look dull and inconspicuous, the blandness of his clothing only made more appreciable his virile good looks. But his eyes, she decided as she drew nearer, were without question his best feature yet, because they were seductively hooded and breathtakingly blue. But not the kind of blue one normally saw on people. They were a dark, midnight blue, reminiscent of a twilit sky, that silky mix of purple and sapphire that slipped in just before complete darkness overtook everything.
As she drew to a stop in front of the man, she noticed he was tall, too, something that came as no surprise at all. But at five-seven, Bridget didn’t have to tip her head back to meet too many male eyes. For this man, though, she had to tip her head way back, because he easily topped six feet.
She told herself not to be intimidated by him—yeah, right—and did her best to sound efficient when she told him, “I’m Special Agent Bridget Logan.”
He dipped his head forward in acknowledgment and gave her a quick once-over, the kind of appraisal any agent would give anybody, simply because it was in every agent’s nature to do so. But Bridget couldn’t get a handle on what kind of impression he formed about her, which was more than a little disconcerting since she had a real knack for reading people. It was something else that had benefited her in her quick climb up the Bureau ladder. As soon as he finished his silent assessment, he tossed the sign with her name on it into a trash can to his left, making the shot effortlessly without even looking.
“Sam Jones,” he told her by way of a greeting. “Special Agent Samuel Jones,” he then corrected himself, as if he needed to make the distinction. As if he needed her to know he needed to make the distinction. “I’m with the Portland field office. Welcome home, Logan.”
His welcome was as warm as the rest of him—namely not warm at all—but that was just fine by Bridget. She wasn’t all that pleased to be home, truth be told. Yes, she rarely made it back to Portland these days, but she spoke to everyone in her family regularly by phone. And although she missed them, she’d been too busy to feel homesick. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Portland. On the contrary, she loved being able to call the city her hometown. But she had things to do, places to go, people to see. She had a career to build. And returning here had been a giant step backward in that regard.
“Special Agent Logan,” Bridget corrected his identification of her. She needed to make that clear to him, too. “So just what am I doing home, anyway?”
“You’re needed for a job,” he told her.
“That much I gathered,” she replied, biting back the duh with which she’d almost punctuated the statement. Exhaustion, she told herself. She always got cranky when she didn’t get enough sleep. “What I want to know is why me?” she elaborated patiently.
Instead of answering her, Sam Jones—or, rather, Special Agent Samuel Jones—bent to pick up the larger of her two bags, leaving the small one for Bridget. An equal opportunist, she thought. She liked that in a man. Not that she liked this man, mind you, she hastily backpedaled. But he clearly wasn’t a coddler, and she respected that. She wasn’t a coddler, either.
He tipped his head toward the exit doors. “Car’s just outside. You’ll be briefed on the assignment when we get to the field office. You’re expected ASAP. I’m expected to be the one to get you there.”
He was obviously no-nonsense, too, something else Bridget admired. Still, a little information up front would have been nice.
Without awaiting a response from her, Samuel Jones began to make his way to the exit, so she hastily retrieved her other suitcase and followed. Involuntarily, her gaze fell to the elegant expanse of his broad shoulders as he cut a swath easily through the crowd, and she noticed how much taller he was than everyone else. He turned his head once, to glance at something that must have caught his eye, and even his profile made her want to sigh wistfully. And seeing as how Bridget Logan didn’t have a wistful bone in her body, that wasn’t exactly a reaction she welcomed.
Fatigue, she told herself again. She was only acting like a boy-crazy preteen because she was tired and crabby and hungry. She hadn’t been boy-crazy even when she was a preteen. She’d been way too focused on school, and way more interested in changing the world than in thumbtacking pictures of River Phoenix and Leonardo DiCaprio to her bedroom wall. Once Agent Jones dropped her at headquarters and took off again—and once she got some decent sleep and a decent meal—she wouldn’t give him a second thought.
They walked in silence until Jones halted behind a black, commonplace, four-door sedan—government issue, natch—and thumbed the key bob to open the trunk. He hefted her suitcase inside, reached for the one she held out to him and repeated the action, then thumbed the key bob again to unlock the car doors. He didn’t stride to the passenger side to open the door for Bridget. And again, she grudgingly saluted him for it. He was obviously the kind of man who assumed a woman in her job could take care of herself. And she could.
So it made absolutely no sense that Bridget should feel slighted by his gesture. Or lack thereof. For some strange reason, though, she did. Boy, she really did need to catch up on her sleep.
After folding herself into the passenger seat and strapping on her seat belt, she turned to face Agent Jones again. “So how much do you know about this case I’m being assigned to?” she asked.
He looked over at her, his stony facade cracking just enough that she could see he thought she was nuts for asking such a question. “I know everything about it,” he told her in a tone of voice that likewise suggested he thought she was nuts.
Or maybe he thought she was stupid. It certainly wouldn’t have been the first time she’d received such a reaction from a male agent. Not that that made it any easier to tolerate now. She arched her brows in surprise and resentment at his tone, but before she could speak, he continued, this time sounding mildly disgusted.
“You think I’m just the errand boy they sent to pick you up, don’t you?” he asked curtly.
“Well, aren’t you?” she asked.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “How old are you, Logan?”
“Twenty-five,” she told him crisply. Actually, she was mere months from her twenty-sixth birthday. Then, just as abruptly as he had, she asked, “How old are you, Jones?”
He clearly hadn’t expected the rapid-fire retort. Nevertheless, he told her readily enough, “Thirty-two. I have ten years in at the Bureau. Seniority, one might say.” And before she had a chance to remind him that seniority was earned by more than just years, he continued coolly, “Look, Logan, I know all about you, all right? Hell, it’s been hammered home to every agent here in Portland how fast and furious the homegrown Girl Wonder rose through the ranks at Quantico. But I, for one, suspect a lot of that was due to Daddy Logan’s influence, both in Portland and elsewhere. Must be nice having an old man worth millions pulling strings for you. Me, I wouldn’t