The Specialist Read online

  Only an idiot would want to nurse a bud of romance between her and Brian Payne, knowing that the inevitable first frost of the relationship would leave her brokenhearted, broke and wretched. And Emma was many things, but an idiot wasn’t one of them. So, though she’d winced inside, she’d woken him up and shown him to the door, firmly convinced that all would go according to her plan.

  That part had been wrong, she thought, smiling up at Harry as he slid a stack of hotcakes and sausage in front of her. But the day wasn’t over yet and she still had a few tricks up her sleeve.

  He might have won this battle, but he hadn’t yet won the war.

  “Fine,” Emma relented, as though she actually had a choice. “I’ll wait on you to move your car.”

  “How about you ride with me today?”

  “Sorry,” she said sweetly. “I’m claustrophobic.”

  “Then I’ll ride with you.”

  No, he wouldn’t, Emma thought, but didn’t say anything. She could argue with him, but that would only turn her on, and then she might actually relent. Better to let him think he held the upper hand, then show him otherwise later.

  After breakfast, Payne made a point to go and tell Matthew how much he enjoyed it before walking outside where she’d been waiting on him. She climbed into the Hummer and let it warm up while he descended the steps.

  “I’ll be right back,” he told her as he opened the door to the Bug.

  Making a point to look stoically resigned to his presence, Emma merely nodded. The instant he moved the car, however, she put the Hummer in gear and spun gravel, shooting out of the driveway. Payne’s thunderous expression filled her rearview mirror, making a long peel of laughter bubble up in her throat. She powered the window down and twinkled her fingers at him as she drove away without him.

  He followed her, of course, but the priceless look on his face was worth her petty act of defiance. Just because he was used to giving orders didn’t mean she had to take them.

  The sooner he learned that, the better off he’d be.

  “YOU’RE A PIECE OF WORK, you know that?” Payne remarked. He leaned against the building she was about to go into, but didn’t follow her.

  “I try,” she said. With her hand poised on the doorknob, she frowned at him. “What? Do you have some sort of psychic way of knowing that the pocketwatch isn’t in this store?”

  He dumped a package of peanuts down his throat and chased it with a drink of soda. “No.”

  She cocked her head, seemingly exasperated. “Then why aren’t you following me?”

  “I thought you didn’t want me to follow you.”

  Emma looked heavenward, releasing a small put-upon sigh. “That hasn’t stopped you in the past. So why aren’t you following me now?”

  “Because I went into that particular shop yesterday while I was looking for you and I already know that it’s not there.”

  She blinked at him, annoyed. “Then why the hell did you let me drive over here?”

  “I would have stopped you if I’d been in the car with you,” Payne told her.

  Her eyes widened. “You’re still pouting because I left you?”

  “I’m not pouting,” Payne said through suddenly clenched teeth. He didn’t pout, dammit. “I’m just saying that since we’re both looking for the same thing, it would go a whole lot faster if we’d simply combine the search.” And, yes, it had been particularly maddening when she’d driven off without him, but given what he’d witnessed over the past few days, he didn’t know why he’d been surprised. She’d merely been acting in character.

  He was the one who’d slipped out of it.

  “Then what happens when we both find it, Captain Logic?” she asked, smiling as though he were an imbecile. “Are we going to build a fire and sing ‘Kumbaya’?”

  “Whoever puts their hand on it first gets it,” Payne told her.

  And he fully intended to let her find it first, then buy it from her for Hastings’s price. Emma wanted to complete the mission—to best him—and get the money. She could have all three and he could fulfill his favor for Garrett.

  He would have his freedom, Emma would have her new start, and if it cost him a little cash, then so be it. He inwardly shrugged. It’s not like he didn’t have the money, and in this case, he didn’t mind spending it. A telling truth lay in that insight, but Payne didn’t care to explore it. Instead, he studied Emma and tried to gauge her thoughts.

  Several beats passed while she weighed her decision. “Let me think about it,” she finally told him. She grimaced. “Right now I need to find a little girl’s room.”

  He nodded, pleased that she hadn’t discounted the idea outright. He’d fully expected her to, but clearly she recognized that she was spending too much time trying to avoid him and not enough time looking for the watch. That was progress, Payne thought, settling in outside the store to wait for her.

  Ten minutes later, cursing hotly under his breath, he realized he’d been had. He strolled around the store, looking for her and when the search came up empty, resigned himself to asking the clerk where she’d gone.

  “She asked to use the bathroom. I don’t know where she went after that.”

  “Is there a back door?”

  “There is, but she couldn’t have gone out that way. We’re unloading a truck right now, and it’s backed flush against the door.”

  Then she had to have come out the front door, right past him. As implausible as it seemed, she’d somehow managed to walk right by him without him realizing it. This was freaking unbelievable, Payne thought, as he stalked out of the shop. A stabbing pain developed behind his right eye and he was suddenly hit with the insane urge to lean his head back and howl. How in God’s name had he allowed this woman to get so far under his skin that he couldn’t even keep track of her? He’d tailed terrorists with better success, dammit.

  Payne paused outside the door, forced himself to concentrate. Who’d come out? he wondered. He thought back. A man, mid-forties with a balding pate. An older lady who’d walked with a cane and a younger petite blonde. That’d been it. Emma hadn’t—

  A younger petite blonde…

  A wig, Payne realized. She hadn’t needed to pee—the ruthless witch had needed to go get into disguise. Payne stood there, astonished. A slow disbelieving smile spread across his lips and, if he hadn’t been so damned annoyed, he’d be impressed. Ruthless and resourceful. With his luck, she was going to find the pocketwatch before he did and then she’d disappear without so much as a backward glance.

  For some reason, the idea of never seeing her again was a lot more distressing than losing this infernal contest. He frowned, forcing the thought from his mind.

  At any rate, his plan was crucial to him finding it first. He was trying to do the right thing, dammit, trying to be noble. And she was thwarting him at every opportunity.

  Actually, a little voice spoke up, the noble thing to do would be to bow out completely, but for whatever reason, Payne simply couldn’t do it. The idea of losing was so foreign to him, he couldn’t even entertain it. Furthermore, the favor would only be fulfilled if he won—if he delivered the pocketwatch to Garrett. Freedom lay in that plan and God knows he needed it. In fact, he needed that freedom from obligation as much as Emma Langsford needed Hastings’s money.

  Would she see it that way? Payne paused, consideringly. To be fair, yes, she probably would. But that wouldn’t stop her from trying to complete her task any more than knowing she needed the money was making him give up his.

  His lips twisted. He supposed that made him every bit as ruthless as she was.

  Determined to find her once again, Payne made his way back to where they’d parked and breathed a silent sigh of relief that the H2 was still there. Knowing where she’d been helped narrow things down, so rather than take off on a fool’s errand, Payne put his pragmatic mind to work and determined that she had to be one of three places.

  Naturally, he found her in the third. His lips quirked as he wat
ched her blow the long blond hair out of her face while she pored over another display case. He noticed that she’d changed sweaters as well. This morning she’d worn a pale green cable-knit—now she sported an Ole Miss sweatshirt.

  Heat detonated in his loins as he watched her and he was suddenly hit with how arousing this little cat and mouse game between them had been. Aside from being annoying, it was damned fun. She was a worthy adversary, an equal, he realized with a start, wondering if he’d ever met a female counterpart before. He instinctively knew he hadn’t.

  Payne spotted a bathroom in the back and calculated the time it would take to get her in there. He quietly stole up behind her, slid his fingers against the back of her neck and heard her gasp. The sound made his dick jerk hard against his jeans.

  “Another point for you,” he said silkily, glad that he’d taken the time to hit a drugstore before finding her. “Want to claim your prize?”

  Emma turned around. Her gaze was guarded, but dark with a desire he knew matched his own. “What’s that?”

  “Me,” he said, bending down and sliding his tongue over her bottom lip.

  She whimpered, torn. “Payne.”

  “You know you want me.”

  He threaded his fingers through hers and tugged her toward the bathroom. The second the door closed behind them, he flipped the lock, tugged the wig off and went for the snap at his jeans. She shucked her own, not bothering with her shirt. A second later, he sheathed himself in a condom, picked her up and backed her against the wall.

  Half a second later he was inside of her and his world brightened immensely.

  She laughed, seemingly as relieved as he felt to be holding her, taking her. “Oh, God, Payne. This is crazy.” She nipped at his neck.

  He pumped harder, back and forth, back and forth, letting a newer, better tension take hold. “I can’t help it,” he confessed. “When I see you, something inside of me snaps and I’ve got to have you.”

  She kissed him, pulling his tongue deep into her mouth and sucking it, mimicking the blow job she’d given him last night. He felt his legs weaken as the beginnings of climax gathered force in his loins.

  “I know what you mean,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about licking you all over since I ran into you at the airport.” He felt her clench her feminine muscles around him, holding on to him. “You’re big and strong and so damned calm I want to shake you up, to make you lose it,” she growled.

  She certainly had a way of doing that, he thought. He pounded into her greedy body, pushed and pushed until he was certain someone was going to hear them. But he didn’t give a damn. She was hot and tiny and for the moment, his, and he wanted nothing more than to lose himself inside of her.

  Emma pumped and flexed harder against him and he knew she was close, knew that the same madness that was pounding through his veins had entered hers, as well. Her body suddenly went rigid and she clamped around him over and over again, triggering his own orgasm.

  It blasted from his loins with enough force to blow the end out the condom, but at the moment he didn’t give a damn. He locked his knees to keep them from giving way and held her around him while the last contractions of her own release milked his.

  Breathing hard, he kissed her cheek and settled his forehead against hers. “God, woman, you’re going to be the death of me. Don’t hide from me again,” he told her, meaning it in more ways than he should. “It’s insulting.”

  12

  “YOU KNOW, I’m starting to wonder if the damn thing even exists.”

  “The pocketwatch?” Payne asked.

  Emma nodded, scooping up a handful of grain and letting the strawberry roan nibble from her palm. Dubbed Cinnamon, Emma and the horse had become fast friends over the past couple of days.

  Much like she and Payne, she thought, a soft smile curling her lips.

  “I’ve wondered that myself,” he said. Looking oddly in his element, he was currently stroking Lazarus, the dappled gray Harry had told them he’d saved from the slaughterhouse.

  Ever since the bathroom incident, when Payne had told her to stop hiding from him, Emma had given up trying to give him the slip. There’d been a desperate, almost vulnerable quality to his order that had made something in her heart stir and, while she firmly intended to get to the pocketwatch before him—even if it meant she had to wrestle him for it—she fully believed that he was a man of his word. He’d said whoever put their hand on it first won. She mentally shrugged.

  Simple enough.

  It was a waste of both of their time to duplicate efforts and, since they’d combined forces over the past couple of days, they’d covered considerably more ground. They’d canvassed every antique and hole-in-the-wall shop in the area, had cross-referenced the owners of said shops with the names on the list which had been provided by the auction house, thereby ruling out a few of those so-called leads.

  Today they’d interviewed half a dozen people who’d bought watches from that auction and planned to talk to the others tomorrow. After that, they’d have exhausted every lead and would either have to concede defeat—a prospect she didn’t even want to entertain—or start again from scratch.

  Emma knew from Norah that Payne had only booked himself into The Dove’s Nest through Friday. A quick peek at his plane ticket last night when they’d stopped by his room for another condom had confirmed an early Saturday morning return flight to Atlanta. He’d turned his back to take a call and the ticket had been lying on the dresser in plain sight, so technically she hadn’t been snooping. She’d merely been curious.

  At any rate, the same sick feeling she’d experienced when she’d discovered that little tidbit had returned every time she’d thought about it since. Even now her stomach churned with dread and angst, a miserable cocktail which could only mean guaranteed heartache when this week was over.

  Though he hadn’t spent the whole night with her—a result of her none-to-gentle approach to waking him up and throwing him out the first time, she imagined—she and Payne had spent practically every minute together since. They’d fallen into a smooth rhythm of sex, meals, good conversation and searching for the pocketwatch, which had come so easily to them that it was downright eerie. And with every second spent in his company, Emma could feel herself losing ground, fighting on a slippery slope she had no business being on in the first place.

  Bu Payne was…fascinating.

  He was not just smart, but brilliant. Factor in his extreme sense of honor, that almost unshakable facade, his substantial sex appeal and a twisted sense of humor only a girl with an equally twisted sense of humor could appreciate and you had the recipe for the perfect man.

  Or at least he would be if he wanted to be any woman’s perfect man.

  Which he clearly didn’t.

  Emma knew that she got to him on a physical level. Aside from him routinely dragging her into bed—or the nearest bathroom as the case may be—she could tell that this “thing” they had was out of the realm of his experience, too. She couldn’t walk near him that he didn’t touch her—a brush of his fingers over the back of her neck, his hand at her elbow or his fingers tangled in hers.

  Furthermore, given the odd little looks he gave her, she knew that something was at work in that practical mind of his. She got the impression that he didn’t know quite what to make of her, that he was trying to put her in a neat little category, but couldn’t find one that fit. She’d watched flashes of respect, admiration, desire and exasperation light up those cool wintry eyes and she’d be lying if she said they didn’t affect her. Emma let go a shuddering breath.

  Brian Payne affected her on a molecular level.

  She could feel him in her very blood, in her bones, knew instinctively when he was near. The mere sound of his voice made a thrill of warm joy bolt through her, one that made her throat go tight and her heart melt with ever-growing affection.

  Was she in love with him? Not yet…but if she didn’t find that pocketwatch and get away from him soon, then no d
oubt she would be.

  And no amount of self-preservation would save her.

  Payne sidled closer to her, slinging an arm around her shoulder and offering a smile. “Getting cold?” he asked.

  Emma shook her head. “Not really. You throw off heat like a blast furnace, so I can always snuggle up next to you.”

  “Why don’t we go back upstairs and you can snuggle on top of me?”

  Emma chuckled as a dart of heat landed squarely in her womb. “I’m beginning to think you’re addicted to sex.”

  “Funny,” he said, drawing her closer. “I’m beginning to think I’m addicted to you.”

  Unexpected delight bloomed in her chest. She turned and grinned up at him. “I’m a hard habit to break,” she teased. “But no worries. Come Saturday you’ll get to quit me, cold turkey.”

  A flicker of something—regret, maybe?—danced in his eyes, but it was gone so fast Emma was inclined to believe that she’d imagined it. He quirked a brow. “What happens Saturday?”

  She swallowed a disappointed sigh. “You go back to Atlanta. I saw your plane ticket,” she confessed. Not sheepishly, though. That wasn’t her style.

  He inclined his head, continued to study her. “What about you? When are you going back?”

  “I’ve got an open-ended ticket, but I imagine Hastings will call me home when you leave. I think he wanted to win the bet more than he wanted the pocketwatch.” She shrugged, trying to appear unconcerned. “Once you exit the scene, the bet’s over.”

  He gave her one of those long unreadable looks, the kind that made her feel like he was peering directly into her head. “Maybe we’ll find it before then,” he said, not offering to stay longer.

  She hadn’t expected him to, of course. He had a life and a business to go back to—one that he evidently enjoyed. It wasn’t his fault that her life sucked and that she wasn’t equally anxious to return to Marble Springs. All she had waiting for her was more work for less pay and a longer sentence at the Hefty Hog.