“Thank you, Gage Halifax.”
Her phone beeped, and she pushed the button to silence it. She looked toward the living room. “That’s his evening tuna alarm, but I guess he’s too shy to come out from under the sofa while we have company.”
“That’s my cue to go.” I took the last swig of my wine and stood. “Um, Kat.”
I nodded my chin in the direction of the kitchen corner where I’d set up the cat’s box and blanket. There, curled on top of it, was Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants. He blinked his eyes open and stared sleepily at us, yawned, stood, and arched his back to stretch it. Then he strolled to the center of the kitchen.
“I’m afraid to move,” Kat whispered. “He might run away.”
“Maybe, but he’ll be back. I’ll leave as quietly as I can so you can feed him.” I smiled at her. “He trusts you, and you’ve both got this.”
“Before you go,” she whispered, “I have another favor to ask.”
Please let it be to help her get over this terrible, aching need she has to—
“Can you tell me where to buy a Christmas tree?”
I swallowed hard, once again struggling to keep my focus.
“It’s my first year in the city,” she said, “and I have no idea where to buy a tree, so if you could recommend a place…”
Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants yowled loudly and impatiently.
“I’ll do you one better,” I told her as I eased toward the front door so I wouldn’t startle him. “I’ll show you.” I ran through my schedule in my head. I was booked for the next two nights, damn it. “Does Thursday night work for you?”
She nodded. “Thursday night.”
It was the neighborly thing to do, that was all. I was not trying to seduce 6B into a fling, and I would repeat that to myself as often as necessary until I was convinced.
CHAPTER 5
KAT
Did 6A just ask me on a date? The front door closed behind him, and I missed my chance to clarify how to classify our plans. Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants yowled again, conveying that he cared very little about human problems and very much about cat dinner.
The cranky cat didn’t run away when I went to the fridge for his tuna or when I set the bowl in front of him. When he was finished eating, he licked his chops, wandered back to his box blanket, kneaded it a few times, then curled on top of it and went back to sleep.
“Wow,” I whispered to myself. “Six A was right. He knows his way around charming cats.” I ignored all the bad puns about pussies that popped into my head like I was a thirteen-year-old boy. “Get it together, Hartmann.”
In order to do that, I needed to figure out whether the thing with 6A was business or pleasure. And now that my mind had gone there, I really,reallywanted it to be pleasure. That was probably a reason to feel a twinge of guilt for doing the bait-and-switch conversation starter, getting his guard up on an unimportant topic so he wouldn’t notice when I started asking about the information I really wanted. But I couldn’t argue with success. Gage had satisfied my curiosity about his meeting with Roxy Energy. It was close enough to their MO with other companies they’d tricked into becoming fronts for their criminal operations to ring true. And I’d gotten the cute story of the wedding bet out of my little ruse.
I checked my phone. Still no response from X. In the absence of her providing evidence either way of his character, I had to go with my gut regarding the guy next door. That was less of a crapshoot than it would be for someone who didn’t tangle with liars and bad guys for a living. My well-honed instincts told me I could trust him, and damn it, that’s what I was going to do.
If it turned out my bullshit-o-meter was totally out of calibration and 6A was lying about his involvement with Roxy Energy, my boss would be furious. A good defense attorney would frame this scenario as me inviting him into my apartment and interrogating him without an agency directive, then asking him on an outing to further entrap him. But the truth was, while I had been hell-bent on interrogating the man, everything else I’d done was because… Well, because he was kind, he cared about his neighbors and the neighborhood, and he loved sports, the environment, kids, and animals. And he was hotter in only a bath towel than any man had a right to be. That last part might have been an argument for my judgment being clouded, so I wouldn’t mention it to anyone else.
But unless X herself demanded I stop seeing 6A, I was going to keep our Thursday night appointment. I was going to start calling him Gage. And I was going to enjoy this long-lost but familiar feeling of genuinely liking—and lusting after—a man, even if he was the do-gooder next door.
CHAPTER 6
GAGE
I’d just put my computer to sleep when I heard a commotion in the hallway outside my office door. Men’s voices, loud and boisterous. I’d know them anywhere, even from a distance. A few seconds later, my former boss and my brother stood in my doorway.
“No,” I said, and pulled my gear bag off the floor and into my lap.
“How can you say no when we haven’t asked you a question yet?” Rex asked.
“Whatever involves you two sounding like that at six on a Thursday night is a hard no. And neither of you work here. How the hell did you get in the building?”
