Irish, huh? Maybe the hairy beast had some redeemable qualities, after all. “He was too big and too smart for his previous owners. But he suits me.”
Sam tried to move his head so he could actually look at Jessica, but apparently the dog didn’t feel the connection of their Irish roots. The growl in his throat became a deafening bark and a flash of sharp, white teeth. Sam forced his body to relax and resumed his prone position on the grass. “He seems well trained.” He’d worked with K-9 units before, but had never been on the receiving end of such training. No wonder the perps usually surrendered without much of a fight.
“He is.”
“I didn’t show up by chance, Miss Taylor.” He heard her feet shift their solid stance on the wooden floorboards, the first flinch in her protective armor. He’d called her by name. Better retreat a step. Even up the playing field. “I’m Sam O’Rourke. The clerk at the convenience store up on the Highway 50 intersection gave me your name and directions. If you let me have a chance, I can explain why I’m here.” Silence. Damn, she was a hard nut to crack. “Do you need the dog and the gun both?”
“I don’t know yet.”
It was hard to be charming with his face pressed to the dirt and a wolfhound-shepherd beast sitting on his shoulder. Kerry had been right. He’d always done better with a more direct approach.
“Look, I can see this was a mistake. The guy at the store said your regular help wasn’t able to put in enough hours and that you were desperate for an extra hand around the place.” He looked around slyly and noted the overgrown patches of grass taking over the gravel parking lot and driveway, the dead branches of stately elms that needed trimming, the rust on the red-and-white metal storage barn, the tarp-shrouded load in the back of a pickup truck waiting to be unloaded. The man hadn’t lied. “But he must have been mistaken. If you let me up, I’ll go back into town and find work somewhere else.”
“You’re looking for a job?” She sounded skeptical. She might be stubborn, but she was smart. Deceiving her wasn’t going to be easy. “Why didn’t you call first? Where’s your car?”
Technically his Kia was in a garage back in Boston. But the junker he’d picked up in Chicago had been easy enough to abandon at the side of the road outside Kansas City to establish his cover. “Until I earn enough money to fix it, it’s sitting in the shop. I’m driving cross-country from Boston to San Diego. Sort of a sabbatical. It broke down on the highway.”
“What kind of sabbatical?” she asked, her voice still filled with doubt. “You don’t look like a professor.”
“That’s my business.”
“Not if you want to work for me, it’s not.” Was she considering his proposition? “I’ll let you sit up if you explain who you are and don’t make any sudden moves.”
It wasn’t much of an offer, but he’d take it. “Deal.”
She whistled—a bold, brassy tomboy whistle. Unexpected. Interesting. Irrelevant. “Harry, come.”
A tremendous weight lifted as the dog immediately obeyed her command. The jet-black beast trotted up the steps onto the porch and cuddled at his mistress’s side as if he thought he was a lap dog. Minding her warning, Sam slowly rolled over and sat up. He spun around on his bottom to face her, brushing bits of grass and gravel dust from his shirt and jeans. His arm had actually started to go to sleep beneath the dog’s lucky guess at pressure points. Sam massaged at his shoulder and arm, easing the tingling rush of reawakening.
Using the massage as an excuse, he didn’t say anything for several moments, giving himself his first opportunity to size up the woman who was going to make his mission a success. The stock of her Remington rested on the generous curve of one denim-clad hip. The woman up on the porch was a far cry from the sophisticate he’d seen in the new-paper’s black-and-white photograph.
A hole in one knee broke the long line of leg that might be the most distinctive feature of her tall, subtly masked body. While the woman in the photo had worn a strapless evening gown that managed to look classy and seductive at the same time, this woman on the porch was a nature girl. No upsweep of long hair. No jewelry beyond a watch. And not much skin to catch the late September sun. Her modest blue Taylor Construction T-shirt looked as if it belonged to one of her brothers that had shown up in his research. The short sleeves hung past her elbows, and the collar rode high at the neck. The hem was loosely tucked into the waistband of relaxed jeans.
Body camouflage. She could be plump or thin or anywhere in between, but the outside world would never be able to tell. Sam wondered if Kerry would have hidden her fair-skinned attributes in the same way if she’d survived her rape. Damn. He didn’t need to go off on a tangent like that.
Suddenly the enormity of all he had lost seized his throat. Sam squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head to choke the emotions back down. He couldn’t let Jessica Taylor see how much he had at stake in this at-gunpoint job interview.
When he was in control of himself again, he turned back and lifted his gaze up to hers. He knew most of her stats by heart. Age: twenty-nine. Height: five-eight. Weight: 140. But the stats didn’t do her bright-blue eyes justice. And to say her hair was brown was to miss the whole point of subtle auburn highlights and a loose, face-framing style.
Stats couldn’t tell him word one about what was going on inside that head of hers. And whether or not she could help him.
“Okay, Mr. O’Rourke.” She nudged the air with the point of her gun. “Talk to me.”
“I’m looking for some work to tide me over ’til the end of September, maybe mid-October. I like to get a feel for a place. And, hopefully, make enough money to fix the car and pay my way until the next stop.” He braced his elbows on his bent knees and nodded back toward the road. “The clerk in Lone Jack said you were looking for some help. Seven miles straight down the road didn’t seem like a terrible hike. So I took a chance.”
“Ralphie, the clerk, likes to look out for me. My regular hand is one of the neighbor kids. Now that school’s back in session, he can only work Saturdays and some nights after football practice.” Was she opening up to him? She might be talking more, but the gun made it hard to tell whether or not he was making progress. “He’s the one who almost ran you off the road on the way in. Derek Phillips. He’s a sweet kid.”
“He’s a road hog.”
“He’s eighteen years old. What do you expect?” Okay, so clearly she was protective of her hired help. Or teenagers. Or this one in particular. Did that mean he could rule out a young man as her attacker? She did have a younger brother. Maybe the kid was just a reminder of him, and therefore she considered him safe.
She definitely didn’t consider him safe.
Sam thought the conversation had died with his speculation. She stood in silence long enough for him to become annoyingly aware of the sharp gravel digging into his backside. “Can I get up now?”
“No, I—”
He got up anyway, slowly unwinding his legs and pushing to his feet.
“I said no!” She lifted the shotgun to her shoulder and had her finger on the trigger guard again.
Sam put up his hands in surrender and slouched his weight to the side. But he didn’t retreat. He didn’t want to scare her, but he wanted her to know he meant business. He had
