“Sure, mow any of the lawn that’s open—once.” Heat sizzled up her neck and her spine went stiff. “I need to get back to my team. We have a lot of work to get done today.”
With that, she whipped around, leaning over to pick up her fallen cap. She placed it firmly back on her head, tucking stray strands around the edge. All the while, she felt his gaze bore into her as she walked away. It took willpower not to glance back and look at him one last time. Tension coiled in her until the lawnmower started up again. She relaxed a bit, then realized her team had stopped work to watch the encounter. They were both grinning. Well, great. No respect from The Terminator...she could take that. But the people she would count on to follow her directions were another matter. If she didn’t have their respect, it was going to be a long summer.
She tried to play it cool as she joined them. Hoping they couldn’t sense her pulse racing or her stomach churning, she shrugged nonchalantly. “He’s the new handyman, but it seems he doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
“He looks pretty competent to me,” Tyrone said. “Like he’s been in the military. Or maybe he’s a spy. The way he flattened you on that ground in two seconds was amazing. Whoo-hoo!”
“Well, she did ambush him,” said Amber, grinning. “He didn’t even see her coming.”
Both Amber and Tyrone laughed as Heather clenched her jaw. “I was only trying to catch up with him.”
“Well, you caught him all right.” Noting his boss’s somber expression, Tyrone raised his brows at his coworker.
But Amber wasn’t paying attention. “A spy, hmm? Yeah, I dig that. A real hot one.”
Rick Slater might be hot, but Heather didn’t feel in the least like smiling. “A spy for what?” She couldn’t help but be sarcastic. “Protecting the country from invasive plants?”
Although spy was going a little too far, Heather could believe Rick had been military at some time. Probably an officer. He held himself with an authority that had bothered her. Considering her husband, Scott, had been killed in Iraq, she had no desire to get to know any man who was former, current or future military.
She only hoped the little show The Terminator had given Tyrone and Amber by making her look silly hadn’t damaged her relationship with her team.
CHAPTER TWO
RICK KEPT GLANCING over to see what Heather Clarke and her team were doing as he finished mowing the lawn area around the mansion. He’d enjoyed annoying her just a little. She was plenty bossy for someone so young. Young. Yeah, she was, no matter the tempting curves she’d hidden under that baggy sweatshirt, curves he’d felt beneath him when he’d had her on the ground. No sense in thinking about that or about her at all.
No sense in thinking about anyone, not when he was here to do a job.
He had to redirect his mind back to his mission.
Mowing the lawn was simply part of his cover, though he had carefully adjusted the mower higher as Heather had suggested. He didn’t want to be a grass destroyer. He snorted at the idea and remembered how Heather had glared at him when she’d made the accusation. Hmm, her narrow, makeup-free face had pulled into the cutest expression, and her blue eyes had gone all steely, when she’d been irritated with him...
There his mind went again, off in the wrong direction.
Raising the blades, he rode the lawnmower to the far side of the mansion, stopped and turned it off. Then he dismounted and walked along the flower garden that bordered the building. The task gave him the opportunity to covertly inspect the area where he’d found a man’s footprints early that morning. Though he hadn’t seen any signs of a break in, he was certain someone was sneaking around the grounds. If only he could figure out why. Whoever had left those tracks beneath the windows probably was up to no good, as Ben Phillips feared.
Strange things had been going on at the Flanagan estate for the past several weeks—a broken window, random diggings, tampered locks. Phillips had grown concerned, as he should have been, considering the family had quite a collection of century-old stained glass in the house, in addition to pricey antiques and a butler’s pantry filled with silver service. Also, there was the safety of the staff and the bed-and-breakfast guests to consider. With the tourist season about to heat up, Phillips had hired Rick to secure the estate and investigate the source of the trouble. And to stop it from going any farther, of course. Because Phillips had fired the last handyman/groundskeeper, he needed someone to do small repairs around the place—hence Rick’s cover.
But Rick had now been all around the mansion and the other buildings on the property, and he hadn’t seen anything more to clue him in as to what was going on. Figuring he needed to change tactics, he left the mower outside the coach house. Built to house carriages drawn by horses and walled with the same kind of fancy paneling as the house, it was now a combination garage for his employer and storage area for equipment. There was even a small shop area to make repairs. And upstairs, the second floor apartment that had been inhabited first by a carriage driver, then a chauffeur, was now Rick’s temporary digs. He’d only brought along some clothes and a bunch of books—the mysteries and thrillers that kept him company at night. The challenge of figuring out who did what and why had entertained him since he’d read the Hardy Boys as a kid. Undoubtedly the reason he’d been drawn to this particular job.
Rick was used to temporary digs. He’d never had a real home, not even when he was a kid. His dad had been military, and Rick, his brother, Joe, and their mom had moved from base to base all over the world with him. Their parents were retired now and living in Florida. And Joe had settled in to a job at the Pentagon.
Sometimes Rick wished he’d been smart enough to get out before the horrible attack that had turned his dreams into nightmares. When terrorists had attacked his team on a special mission in Afghanistan, two of his men had lost their lives. He and Keith Murphy had barely survived. He’d relegated to memory every detail of the event and the deaths of the men he’d called friends.
Afterward, he’d never felt the same about being a lifer. When his tour was over, he’d left the army. Still, Rick wasn’t settled, inside or out.
Guilt over his men’s deaths lingered, always just below the surface.
He hadn’t yet found any reason to want to remain in civilian life.
And he didn’t know if he would ever call any place home.
The only reason he’d come to Wisconsin had been to reconnect with Megan Anders, an old girlfriend, the daughter of a commissioned officer. He’d dated her off and on for a couple of years, and the last he’d heard, she’d settled in Milwaukee. Unfortunately, he’d had no clue she’d gotten married since he’d last seen her. Still, he liked the area, and having nowhere else to go, had stuck around, taking a job with Lake Shore Security, the company that had placed him in his current undercover job.
Getting to know the other employees on the estate was essential. It was day two and he’d barely met any of the help, so Rick decided to go inside the mansion and get cozy with them. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to any of the three full-time staff alone. Maybe he could get something out of one of them that would put him on the right track. The only person on the property who knew his real mission was the housekeeper, Cora, who’d been with the Phillips family for decades. He assumed that she was loyal and would keep his identity to herself, or the owner wouldn’t have told her who he was.
He
