A Fare To Remember_ Just Whistle_Driven - Vicki Lewis Thompson [45]
“I can call in a favor,” Mario said.
Rachel remained silent for the rest of the trip. After Mario pulled up in front of her building, he handed her a business card with his cell phone number inked at the bottom. “You call me next time he’s at your place.”
After an instant of hesitation, Rachel snatched the card. She offered Mario money for taking her Uptown, which he refused, then promised to call him unless her common sense got the better of her, which she didn’t figure had much chance of happening.
Determined not to waste the entire day thinking about Roman or what she might discover if she followed him on one of those mysterious mornings when he left her at the summons of his pager, she headed toward the gym. On the short walk over, she couldn’t help thinking about her mother, her sisters—the poster women for trust issues.
She supposed the fact that their father had left them high and dry when Rachel was only ten should have explained the plethora of neuroses shared by the Marlowe women, but Rachel hated to think that she was such a textbook case of deep-seated issues. Wasn’t like every relationship she’d ever had imploded because she didn’t trust her man. Okay, maybe a few. But not…oh, what was his name? Sean? Yeah, Sean. She’d dumped him because she didn’t like football. And the man had been entirely obsessed with the game. Of course, he had played right guard for the Hurricanes at the time they’d been dating—hence the shirt she was wearing today—but that was no excuse for him to spend from ESPN’s College Game Day on Saturday morning until the last whistle on Monday Night Football in front of the tube.
Yeah, that one hadn’t been about trust.
Unfortunately, she decided as she yanked on the door to her gym, he’d been the only one.
Rachel exchanged greetings with the receptionist in the too-tight sports bra, waved her ID card under the barcode reader, and, after scoring a bottled water from the vending machine, jumped on the first empty tread-mill she saw, the one with the broken distance meter. She groaned, but opted to use the clock on the opposite wall as her gauge. Not that she had anything pressing to do today. In fact, her life seemed incredibly up in the air—and she suspected it would remain that way until she figured out just what Roman was hiding from her.
And Lord knew when that would be.
A WEEK. ROMAN SNUGGLED closer to Rachel and lamented the fact that he’d only managed to stay away from her for a measly seven days. In his younger years, he would have cursed his lack of willpower. Now that he was older and wiser, he knew he was playing with fire, auburn-haired, green-eyed fire. Recklessness hadn’t gotten him to where he was in business. But taking chances with Rachel had invigorated his life to a level he hadn’t experienced in years.
“Was that your pager?”
Roman glanced at the bedside table. The annoying cube of technology was completely still and silent.
He rolled over and caught a momentary glimpse of panic in Rachel’s dark-green eyes.
Odd.
“Duty’s not calling just yet. Why?” he said, slipping his hands over her bare belly and inhaling the musky, sweaty scent of recent, delicious sex. “Anxious for me to go?”
She forced a smile. Forced. What was that about?
“Of course not. I guess you’ve been here a little longer than usual. Call me Pavlov’s dog, but the longer you’re here, the more I expect you to leave.”
He chuckled, but her instincts weren’t far off. He knew the pager would likely go off at any moment. His operation had been at a virtual standstill until last week, when new data had started to filter through. The Agency, the code name for the covert group of the highest level agents from various organizations under Homeland Security had sent word that a contact from a separate, even more secret division would soon provide needed information for his case. In all honesty,