Justine Davis - One of These Nights

She had to go down to the sidewalk then up the walkway to the house; there was no way she could cut through the overgrown honeysuckle that grew along the property lines between the houses. It had to be at least six feet tall and incredibly thick. That, she thought, could be a problem if she needed to get over there in a hurry. All the more reason to pursue that, she thought.

She paused for a moment before knocking on the front door. First impressions counted, and never more than in this kind of work. She debated between sheepish, shy or harried, decided on a combination of the first two, with a touch of flighty blonde just to see if it would work.

She knocked. Waited. Knocked again. Finally the door swung open.

Samantha Beckett took her first close-up look at Ian Gamble and immediately abandoned her plan. There was nothing naive or absentminded about those vivid green eyes, and the wire-rimmed glasses he wore did nothing to mask an intelligence that fairly crackled. His hair was lighter than she’d thought, almost a sandy blond on top, but it was as thick and shiny as it had seemed from a distance.

He was tall, she realized. At five foot nine herself, she noticed that. He didn’t tower over her, but if she looked straight ahead she was looking at his nose, not his forehead as often was the case. And he was lean, not pudgy, as she’d half expected someone who spent their days in a lab to be.

I’ve got to work on my preconceptions, she told herself. And, she added silently as she realized he was looking at her rather quizzically, I’d better say something here.

“Hi,” she said.

Well, now that was clever. Get it together here, Beckett. You’ve done this before, what’s your problem?

She tried again. “I’m Samantha. Samantha Harrison.” She and Josh had agreed that while it was very unlikely, there was just enough chance Gamble might stumble across her name or someone else who’d seen it in connection with Redstone to make a cover name wise. So as she usually did, she used her mother’s maiden name. “I just moved in next door.”

After a moment of hesitation that made her wonder, he nodded. “I saw.”

At least he didn’t try to deny he’d been watching, she thought. After the way he’d jerked back when she’d sensed his gaze and looked over at his window, she’d half expected that.

“I know this sounds like an old joke, but I really am out of sugar, and if I don’t have it for my morning coffee, it gets pretty ugly. I’d really like to avoid another run to the market if I can. I’m kind of beat.”

His mouth quirked slightly. At first she thought it was in amusement, but then she got the oddest feeling it was in self-consciousness. Or embarrassment.

“You moved alone?”

In another man she might have thought this a not-too-subtle way to find out if she was married or otherwise attached. But there was nothing of subterfuge in his eyes, and she realized on a sudden flash of insight that he was uncomfortable because he hadn’t offered to help her.

“Just me, but all I had to do was my clothes and personal stuff, so it wasn’t bad.” She gestured with the mug. “Except I was out of sugar and didn’t realize it until I unpacked the coffeemaker.”

“Oh,” he said, as if suddenly remembering why she was here. “Uh, sure, I’ve got some sugar.”

“Thanks,” she said, handing him her mug.

He took it, then hesitated, and she wondered if he would just leave her standing on the porch while he went to the kitchen. That wouldn’t do; she needed to see the inside of the house. She knew the layout, thanks to Redstone’s research department, who had miraculously dug up the original plans from when the tract had been built twenty-five years ago, but she needed to see how he had it set up, to know where he worked, slept, watched TV, whatever he did.

At the last second he pulled the door open. “Come on in.”

“Thanks.”

She stepped in after him, but instead of following him toward the back of the house, where the kitchen was, she stayed near the door. At least, until he was out of sight. Then she swiftly went to the windows that faced her new residence; first thing she needed to know was what he could see. Her living room was on almost a direct line with his, so that was out for stealth. She noted that he’d have to lean out to look past his chimney to see her bedroom window; another point for it being the prime observation post. She turned back to the interior.

She’d noticed the chaos, but only peripherally in her focus on the windows. What was supposed to be the living room clearly was serving as his office. Judging from everything he had here, none of the bedrooms would have been big enough. Two computers, a door-size table piled with papers, a lower table covered with what looked like computer printouts, and two huge bookcases crammed with books, notebooks and pieces of equipment whose function she could only guess at.

On a normal surveillance, she’d be looking for places to plant bugs or cameras. But Josh had been quite clear on that; Ian was one of them, an innocent victim of his work at Redstone, and he was to be protected, not treated like some kind of suspect.

She walked to the other side of the room, where an arched opening led to what was supposed to be a den, according to the floor plan. This, at least, looked almost like what it was supposed to be, although there were piles of papers and books here, too. There was a television in one corner, and a leather couch that looked, from the pillow and blanket tossed to one side, as if it had been the scene of more than one night’s sleep.

So, did he sleep on the couch for the traditional reasons, a tiff with a significant other that Redstone didn’t know about? There was no sign of a feminine hand in this place, and rare would be the woman who could look at all this and not want to do…something.

More likely, she thought, as she heard footsteps and dodged out of the room and back into the entryway, he got so involved in his reading or work that he crashed here on the couch because it was closer. That fit with what Josh had said about him.

Of course, it could simply be that the bedroom was full, too, she thought, stifling a grin.

“It’s a bit lumpy,” he said apologetically as he handed her the mug, now nearly full with indeed lumpy sugar.

“No problem,” she assured him. “It’ll still dissolve just fine.”

He seemed a bit more at ease now, and she wondered if she could stretch this a bit.

“I and my bleary, morning eyes thank you.”

He managed an actual smile. A nice smile. In fact, a very nice smile. It changed his entire face, from that rather somber, serious mien to something that could pass for the proverbial boy next door. Which he was, in a way, she thought, smiling back at him.

“Have you lived here long? I don’t know the neighborhood at all,” she said, hoping to draw him out.

“Almost all my life. My parents bought this place when I was seven.” He frowned slightly. “I didn’t even realize the Howards had put their place on the market.”

“They didn’t, actually. A friend who knew I was looking for a place out here put us together.” She didn’t want to over explain and draw his curiosity, so she asked, “Your parents don’t live here now?”

This time the quirk of his mouth was almost a grimace. “They don’t live anywhere. They’re never in one place long enough. They visit here now and then, but live? No.”

“They travel?” She knew that already, but schooled her features to friendly interest.

“In the extreme,” he said. “The old phrase the jet set was invented for my parents. When I was a kid, every summer we were off to some exotic place. Now that they’re retired, it’s constant.”

“Sounds like fun,” she said, as if she hadn’t had her own experiences of round-the-world travel since she’d joined the Redstone security team. Of course, her travel was hardly for pleasure, and often she barely got to glimpse whatever exotic part of the world she was in.

He lifted one shoulder. “It’s okay, if you don’t mind not having a home base.”

She thought about that for a minute, then shook her head. “No, I’d have to have someplace to claim as home.” She grinned at him. “Or that would claim me, at least.”

He grinned back then. A quick, flashing grin as lethal as any she’d ever seen. And she’d seen a few. Again she had to reassess Ian Gamble.

Who hadn’t, she realized, told her his name.

“So tell me, where’s the best pizza, Chinese takeout and ice cream?” she asked, knowing full well those were his weaknesses.

He blinked. And the grin widened. “Luigi’s, Wong Fu’s and The Ice Cream Factory. All within walking distance, if you like to walk.”

“Hallelujah.”

“Luigi’s and Wong Fu’s even deliver,” he added helpfully.

“I may survive,” she said. “Thanks—” She lifted a brow at the place where normally she would have said his name. He didn’t miss the hint.

“Ian. Ian Gamble.”

She held out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Ian.” No macho posturing here. His handshake was firm but not crushing. “I’ll replace the sugar.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said.

“Okay, then I’ll buy the ice cream one night.”

“I…uh…”

He looked so startled it disconcerted her. He was a reasonably attractive man—well, okay, more than reasonably—surely he’d had a woman ask him for a casual date before. Hadn’t he?

He was, she knew, only thirty-two, hardly old enough to be of the mind-set that women simply didn’t ask men out.

“How about tomorrow afternoon?” she asked, thinking perhaps a Sunday afternoon might seem less threatening. “Besides,” she added, “that way you can show me where it is.”

That practicality seemed to convince him, and he nodded. “Okay. If it can be late afternoon, I’ve got some work to finish up.”

“Work? On Sunday?” He shrugged. She looked at the two computers. “Are you some kind of dot com guy or something?”

He laughed. It was as nice as his smile. “Not hardly. I’m just a…researcher.”

Had he hesitated over using the word inventor? And if so, why? she wondered. Because it was too hard to explain to strangers?

“You work at home?” she asked.

“No. I work downtown.”

“So do I.”

As if the need to be careful had just come back to him full force, he asked, “Where did you move from?”

“An apartment so small I could barely breathe,” she said, with total honesty. She never spent much time in the place she’d moved into after Billy had settled into his own new home, because she was on the road so much for Josh. But when she was there for more than a few days, it seemed cramped. She had the feeling that by the time this was over, she’d miss the extra room. This house wasn’t huge, but it was three times the size of her apartment.

“This will be worth the extra drive,” she added, and he seemed to accept the implication that her apartment was closer to her work.

“It’s a nice neighborhood. Quiet.”

“Good. I’ve already picked out my favorite reading spot, up in the window seat,” she said, figuring she’d supply the reason now, in case he noticed and started to wonder why she was up there so much.

“You read a lot?”

“Not as much as I’d like. That’s why I’m planning on more.”

He smiled at that, the understanding smile of a fellow reader. She gestured around at the living room office. “Do you read anything but work?”

“I try, but like you, not as much as I’d like. I read history, mostly. But now and then a good mystery will keep me up nights.”