Man In Control. Diana Palmer
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You could hardly take your eyes off him, that day I stopped by your office.”
“He’s handsome,” she said with deliberate emphasis.
His eyebrow jerked. “Looks don’t get you promoted in the Drug Enforcement Administration,” he told her.
“You’d know. You’ve worked for it half your life.”
“Not quite half. I’m only thirty-three.”
“One foot in the grave…”
He glanced at her. “You’re twenty-five, I believe? And never been engaged?”
He knew that would hurt. She averted her gaze to the window. Until a few months ago, she’d been about fifty pounds overweight and not very careful about her clothing or makeup. She was still clueless about how to dress. She dressed like an overweight woman, with loose clothing that showed nothing of her pretty figure. She folded her arms over her breasts defensively.
“I can’t go through with this,” she said through her teeth. “Three days of you will put me in therapy!”
He actually smiled. “That would be worth putting up with three days of you to see.”
She crossed her legs under her full skirt and concentrated on the road. Her eyes caressed the silky brown bird’s-eye maple that graced the car’s dash and steering wheel.
“Margie promised she’d meet me,” she muttered, repeating herself.
“She told me you’d be thrilled if I did,” he replied with a searing glance. “You’re still hung up on me, aren’t you?” he asked with faint sarcasm.
Her jaw fell. “She lied! I did not say I’d be thrilled for you to meet me!” she raged. “I only came because she promised that she’d be here when I landed. I wanted to rent a car and drive!”
His green eyes narrowed on her flushed face. “That would have been suicide,” he murmured. “Or homicide, depending on your point of view.”
“I can drive!”
“You and the demolition derby guys,” he agreed. He accelerated around a slow-moving car and the powerful Jaguar growled like the big cat it was named for. She glanced at him and saw the pure joy of the car’s performance in his face as he slid effortlessly back into the lane ahead of the slow car. He enjoyed fast cars and, gossip said, faster women. But that side of his life had always been concealed from Jodie. It was as if he’d placed her permanently off-limits and planned to keep her there.
“At least I don’t humiliate other drivers by streaking past them at jet fighter speed!” she raged. She was all but babbling, and after only ten minutes of his company. Seething inwardly, she turned toward the window so that she wouldn’t have to look at him.
“I wasn’t streaking. I’m doing the speed limit,” he said. He glanced at the speedometer, smiled faintly and eased up on the accelerator. His eyes slid over Jodie curiously. “You’ve lost so much weight, I hardly recognized you when I stopped by to talk to Jasper.”
“Right. I looked different when I was fat.”
“You were never fat,” he shot back angrily. “You were voluptuous. There’s a difference.”
She glanced at him. “I was terribly overweight.”
“And you think men like to run their hands over bones, do you?”
She shifted in her seat. “I wouldn’t know.”
“You had a low self-image. You still have it. There’s nothing wrong with you. Except for that sharp tongue,” he added.
“Look who’s complaining!”
“If I don’t yell, nobody listens.”
“You never yell,” she corrected. “You can look at people and make them run for cover.”
He smiled without malice. “I practice in my bathroom mirror.”
She couldn’t believe she’d heard that.
“You need to start thinking about a Halloween costume,” he murmured as he made a turn.
“For what? Are you going to hire me out for parties?” she muttered.
“For our annual Halloween party next month,” he said with muted disgust. “Margie’s invited half of Jacobsville to come over in silly clothes and masks to eat candy apples.”
“What are you coming as?”
He gave her a careless glance. “A Drug Enforcement Agency field agent.”
She rolled her eyes toward the ceiling of the car.
“I make a convincing DEA field agent,” he persisted.
“I wouldn’t argue with that,” she had to agree. “I hear that Manuel Lopez mysteriously blew up in the Bahamas the year before last, and nobody’s replaced him yet,” she added. “Did you have anything to do with his sudden demise?”
“DEA agents don’t blow up drug lords. Not even one as bad as Lopez.”
“Somebody did.”
He glanced at her with a faint smile. “In a manner of speaking.”
“One of the former mercs from Jacobsville, I heard.”
“Micah Steele was somewhere around when it happened. He’s never been actually connected with Lopez’s death.”
“He moved back here and married Callie Kirby, didn’t he?. They have a little girl now.”
He nodded. “He’s practicing medicine at Jacobsville General as a resident, hoping to go into private practice when he finishes his last semester of study.”
“Lucky Callie,” she murmured absently, staring out the window. “She always wanted to get married and have kids, and she was crazy about Micah most of her life.”
He watched her curiously. “Didn’t you want to get married, too?”
She didn’t answer. “So now that Lopez is out of the way, and nobody’s replaced him, you don’t have a lot to do, do you?”
He laughed shortly. “Lopez has a new successor, a Peruvian national living in Mexico on an open-ended visa. He’s got colleagues in Houston helping him smuggle his product into the United States.”
“Do you know who they are?” she asked excitedly.
He gave her a cold glare. “Oh, sure, I’m going to tell you their names right now.”
“You don’t have to be sarcastic, Cobb,” she said icily.
One thick eyebrow jerked. “You’re the only person I know, outside work, who uses my last name as if it were my first name.”
“You don’t use my real name, either.”
“Don’t I?” He seemed surprised. He glanced at her. “You don’t look like a Jordana.”
“I never thought I looked like a Jordana, either,” she said with a sigh. “My mother loved odd names. She even gave them to the cats.”
Remembering her mother made her sad. She’d lost both parents in a freak accident during a modest vacation in Florida after her high school graduation. Her parents had gone swimming in the ocean, having no idea that the pretty red flags on the beach warned of treacherous riptides that could drown even experienced swimmers. Which her mother and father were not. She could still remember the horror of it. Alexander had come to take care of the details, and to get her back home. Odd how many tragedies and crises he’d seen her through over the years.
“Your mother was a sweet woman,” he recalled. “I’m sorry you lost her. And your father.”
“He was a sweet man, too,”