The last vestiges of sleep were nudged aside by the return of her customary common sense. The gorgeous male specimen was probably her new upstairs neighbor. She’d recalled seeing a moving van two days ago, but although she’d been too busy at the clinic all day Friday, she recalled hearing Netta and a couple of the younger, single Cole Harbor residents speculating on the social, and marital, availability of the Cougars’ new football coach.
Still, she hesitated and did another quick once-over as he turned around, his back to the door. He didn’t have that spit-and-polished FBI look, she decided. At least not through the fish-eye lens of the peephole he didn’t. In the flesh could be a different story.
She ran her hands through her hair in a vain attempt to smooth the tangles, then opened the door. The peephole didn’t do him justice. As up close and personal as the safety chain allowed, she couldn’t help noticing his blue jeans were exactly as she’d imagined them, hugging a masculine posterior she found way too intriguing to be written off as her professional medical opinion.
“Can I help you?” she asked, managing to keep her tone cool and remote. The last thing she needed was for him to suspect she considered him a mouthwatering example of masculine perfection.
He turned around and locked the clearest, most startling gaze she’d ever seen on her. Maybe it was the exhaustion, but she could swear this man, a total stranger, with the sexiest pair of lilac eyes she’d ever had the pleasure of gazing into, could see clear down to her soul.
Dangerous, she thought the second he flashed her a breathtaking grin. Way too dangerous, especially for a woman with something to hide.
2
AT FIRST GLANCE, SHE WAS exactly what Chase expected. Dr. Destiny Romine had the look of an upper-middle-class professional from an upper-middle-class family, the only surviving daughter of a brilliant neurosurgeon and world-renowned psychologist, both dead before their time. She did not look like the Bureau’s last hope to bring down a murdering agent. Even dressed in a thin cotton robe and peering at him through the small gap in the door allowed by the safety latch, there was something about her that exuded elegance.
And not just elegance, class, he thought, unable to take his eyes off her. Sex appeal. Lots of it, too.
“Can I help you?” she asked again, pulling his thoughts away from a very interesting and far too dangerous path for a guy in his position.
Despite the slightest hint of irritation, her voice was even more silky-smooth than he’d imagined.
“Sorry to bother you so early,” he said, taking advantage of the chance for a closer second look. The FBI photos hadn’t come close to capturing an earthy beauty that belied her privileged upbringing. Nor had the photographer managed to seize the exact way her green eyes flared with color in the early morning sunlight or how tiny flecks of gold highlighted her irises. “I was hoping I could use your phone.”
She flicked that intriguing gaze over him, as if he was nothing more interesting to her than a lab specimen. He wondered what she’d think if she knew she was simply a means to an end for him.
“My phone?”
“Mine’s out,” he lied easily. The first of many, he suspected. “It was supposed to be hooked up last week before I moved in, but it looks like it didn’t happen.” How many more lies would he tell to this woman until she finally gave him what he wanted?
Chase knew the answer…as many as necessary.
Her gaze slipped away, darted around the area, then zeroed in on him again. “And you are?” she asked, her sable eyebrows lifting quizzically.
He extended his hand, but she continued to stare at him through the small opened space between the door and the jamb. What he could see of her expression gave absolutely nothing away. She didn’t so much as budge the safety catch, either.
He shrugged and dropped his hand. “Your new neighbor,” he said, hooking his thumb upward to the apartment over hers. “I’m the new defensive back coach for the Cougars.”
His second quasi lie. He was the Cougars’ new coach, and no one, not even the administration at Cole Harbor High knew his true identity, or his reason for being in town.
Small towns put a lot of stock in gossip. He was counting on Cole Harbor fitting the stereotype of down-home southern hospitality, even if it was part of the Atlantic coastal region where the people tended to be slightly more cautious than their inland counterparts.
A wry twist transformed her mouth into the semblance of a brief grin a half second before she closed the door. Relief shot through him at the rattle of the chain sliding off the security rail.
First rule of undercover work, sell your cover.
And she’d just bought his.
“Come on in.” She swung the door wide and stepped back to let him into her unit. “You’re Coach Bracken.”
He nodded. “Call me Chase,” he said, stepping into her apartment. “And you are…?”
He let his voice trail off, while his eyes took in everything, mentally cataloging the layout of her unit, which was similar to his own but smaller. Dr. Romine’s apartment hosted only a single bedroom while his larger upstairs unit held two bedrooms and a minuscule dining area in the kitchen visible from his living room. From the look of things, the good lady doctor took her meals at the breakfast bar that separated the kitchen and small living area. Thanks to the building plans tucked inside his closet, he knew the remaining unoccupied unit next door to Dr. Romine’s was identical, only reversed.
Her gaze slid to the red digits on the VCR’s clock—it was a few minutes past ten—then back to him. “Dee. And shouldn’t you be at football practice at this hour? I thought it was Hell Week.” She remained near the door, her hands disappearing into the side pockets of her robe.
Cursory interior surveillance achieved. He turned and gave her a smile. “Next week,” he supplied. “The Cougars are just starting to condition in gear this afternoon.”
Upon entering her living room, he’d immediately surveyed most of her uninspired kitchen, her equally sterile bathroom and a portion of her bedroom with only a rumpled double bed visible. He didn’t have to look again to recall that the tangled sheets of the bed had been the only sign that a living, breathing person resided in the downstairs apartment. From what he’d seen already, not so much as a decorative throw rug covered the hardwood floors. Serviceable off-white miniblinds, rather than frilly, feminine lace curtains covered the windows; the blinds blocked out the hazy morning sun. There weren’t any boxes stacked along the walls to indicate she was moving.
She’d lived here a long time. Where were all the normal trappings a person carried with them from place to place, the ridiculous souvenirs people collected and displayed? There wasn’t so much as a cheap framed print from the local five-and-dime hanging over the institutional-looking sofa. The walls were as bare and vacant as the unit next door.
The reports indicated Destiny Romine had resided in Cole Harbor a little over two years after finishing her residency in L.A. She’d played it smart and had taken the government up on their offer to forgive a large portion of her student loans in exchange for practicing medicine in the small seaside town for two and a half years. According to the bank statements he’d reviewed, she also worked two weekend shifts a month at the Berkeley County Hospital for extra cash. He also knew that at the age of fifteen she’d been left virtually penniless when her parents died and that her then eighteen-year-old brother, Jared, had raised her. It was that bond, the one forged between Dee and her brother when they’d had no one but each other to depend on following the unexpected death of their parents, that practically guaranteed Chase would be the agent to stamp a big red Closed on the Bureau’s most