Between The Sheets (20 page)

A scanned newspaper clipping about a very handsome young Rex as the captain of the high school football team.

A photo of Rex with a shaggy black-and-white dog, a strange mix between a black lab and sheepdog. They were both standing in a forest stream and Rex held a fishing pole. On the bottom of the image were scrawled the words Rex and Ralph the Mutt.

April gave it a whirl. She typed Ralphthemutt, all one word, using his keyboard. Sure enough, she'd no sooner hit Enter than the screen collapsed and she was staring at Rex's desktop.

The dog he'd grown up with, which only underscored what a sentimental man he was.

And made her heart ache more.

But adrenaline saved her, fueled her efforts even though she was physically exhausted. Maneuvering easily through his files, she scanned his organizational system for his work on the Luxurious Bedding Company project, the data she'd been inputting for the past few weeks, his remarks on the supervised shopping experiments he'd conducted in Tampa.

Rex was organized and meticulous, keeping several copies of his work updated in different places on his hard drive and then backing up the drive to the Web and CD. Given that this information was the crux of his work, his thoroughness didn't surprise her.

She glanced at the Web sites he had bookmarked in his Favorites folder, popped into his Recent History folder and found an accounting of every site he'd surfed in the past week.

No visits to any rival bedding manufacturers. In fact, not much activity…she double-clicked on his temporary Inter
net files, and
bingo,
his temporary folder overflowed with files.

Only a man who didn't have anything to hide would leave such an obvious clue to his online whereabouts. And as she scanned the names of the sites he'd visited, most of which were pages to the research foundation he'd told her about, April knew exactly what kind of man had left this trail.

A man who'd said he wanted to help her.

For the first time in weeks, April felt focused. She knew what she had to do. The idea gathered speed in her head as she thought about how she'd been surveilling Rex to see if he was involved in anything nefarious, how in-house security had been investigating him and the company employees.

She forwarded a copy of his browser history to the J.P. Mooney Investigators' server for safekeeping, erased all evidence of her transmission and powered down his system. Retrieving her cell phone, she hid in the bathroom to make a call, not caring that it would still be well past bedtime in the time zone she dialed.

The phone only rang three times before a groggy voice answered, “Hello.”

“Wilhemina,” she said. “This is April. I need to access your network. The same permissions your system administrator has. Will you authorize security to give that to me tonight?”

“What's happened, my dear? What have you found?”

“Something that will lead me to your stalker.”

It was an outright lie. April didn't have anything more than the firmly rooted belief that she could find the evidence that she needed. It was enough. She was done second-guessing herself. She would be able to find what she was looking for.

She
knew
it.

“If you arrange access for me now, I'll have something
concrete before your alarm goes off to wake you up for work.”

To Wilhemina's credit she didn't miss a beat. “Done, my dear. Just give me time to make a phone call. Does this have to do with Rex?”

“Yes. I've found out what he was doing online and it has nothing to do with rival bedding manufacturers. I've forwarded the evidence to John. I'm afraid it won't be admissible.”

“We won't need it in court, just for the board. I promise,” she said confidently. “Just out of curiosity, does John have any idea what you're doing?”

“Not yet.”

Wilhemina laughed, a delighted sound that told April she understood the significance of that statement completely. “Go for it, my girl.”

“I'll be in touch with your security people through the night. I might need access to their investigation. Will that be a problem?”

“Not at all. Do what you need to do. I'll be waiting to hear what you find. And, April?”

“Yes?”

“Good work.”

“Thanks, Auntie Wil.”

April disconnected with a smile and headed back out to her laptop to await Wilhemina's access. It had been that easy. Wilhemina hadn't even questioned her stepping into the investigation. She believed that April could help.

John, on the other hand, would likely fire her the instant he found out she'd disobeyed his orders. But she'd have to worry about that later. Right now she had a stalker to track and a man's name to clear. The man she loved.

R
EX AWOKE
to find dawn paling the sky beyond the bedroom window. The restraints were still hanging from the bed frame where he'd left them after freeing April. He'd fallen asleep with her wrapped in his arms like they had every night since their first in Atlanta. He'd enjoyed waking up to the feel of her warm body curled around his, her cheek resting on his shoulder, her fine hairs teasing his nose every time he inhaled.

This morning he awoke alone.

He didn't hear the shower running and the bedroom door was shut. Given the events of the previous night, Rex wouldn't take her mood for granted. Slipping out of bed, he dragged on sweats and headed into the suite.

He hadn't made it into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee when he noticed her laptop missing from the bar. A look around revealed her luggage piled high in the hallway.

Disbelief stopped him in his tracks. His mind was gearing up and he just stared, trying to register, yet not wanting to accept the implications of those packed bags.

He hadn't convinced her to take a chance.

Even after last night, after loving her until he hurt, after baring his soul, he still hadn't convinced her.

“April?” Defiance spurred his voice past a tight throat.

She emerged from the bathroom, dressed in her traveling clothes—comfortable jeans, sweater, sneakers. She looked
pale and drawn, the slight droop of her shoulders making him guess she hadn't slept much.

“I showered out here so I didn't wake you.”

“You're leaving.” Not a question that needed an answer but a statement.

“I've got to go home, Rex. I need some time to sort things out before we can make decisions about the future.”

“How long?”

“I—I don't know.”

“What about us?”

She spread her hands in entreaty. “I don't know.”

He didn't either. He might have an ability to read people but he wasn't a mind reader. Her beautiful violet eyes were shuttered against him, her expression so reserved she seemed to be holding it together by sheer will, an expression that emphasized the miles of distance she'd thrown between them.

“I need some time to think and to straighten some things out.”

“What things?”

“I can't tell you right now. I promise I will, but I can't just yet.”

Was she telling him the truth or simply making an excuse to get out that door?

He honestly didn't know, but believed her capable of either. She'd been confused last night, conflicted. He'd wanted to calm her fears, but was too emotionally invested himself to focus on her. He'd pushed. Maybe too hard.

Something about the way she stood so tense—a hundred and ten on the nervous meter—told him that backing her into a corner right now would only send her out that door even faster.

A wild urge to restrain her again hit him, to tie her up
until he could convince her to stay. But the night had passed and in the blinding morning light, he couldn't use the Fit to be Tied Restraints to avoid facing the truth.

Their relationship was only beginning. He didn't have much more than sex in his arsenal to convince her to tackle whatever was holding her back.

Sex obviously hadn't been enough.

She'd shuttered her heart tight and he stood there without massage, without sex, without any way to reach it. And that look of inevitability she couldn't quite hide told him he'd never stood a chance anyway. Her mind was made up. She wouldn't stay.

So he stared at her, unsure of what to do next. Did he simply let her walk out that door, and out of his life?

“Wilhemina will be sending Charles's assistant to help you,” she said. “She'll have him here in the morning. Will you be okay until then?”

He'd expected to work this project alone all along and found her concerns ironic. Why was she worried? For herself, because she didn't want to feel guilty for leaving? Or for him, because she cared?

A knock on the door ended any chance to pursue the answer.

April moved past her bags and pulled open the door.

A bellboy stood in the hallway, spiffily uniformed and totally unaware of the intensity of the encounter he'd just walked in on. “Someone called for bags to go down.”

“These here in the hall, please.”

Rex's mind raced for some argument, something to stop what was happening. As soon as that bellboy finished loading that cart, he'd leave, and April would go right behind him, along with any chance to convince her otherwise.

All he could come up with was a solid understanding that
he wouldn't accept this. She may walk out that door, thinking she was off the hook, but
they
weren't over. Not by a long shot.

“I'll be right down,” was all April said as she tipped the guy and partially closed the door behind him.

Then she turned to face him. Again, he got that sense it was taking everything she had to hold herself together. All his questions evaporated, all the uncertainty, and, yes, the hurt. He knew what to do.

Covering the distance between them, he reached for her and wrapped her in his arms before she could back away.

Instinctively, she molded against him, just like she'd done so many times, her body fitting against his in all the right places, warm, yielding, perfect.

She might walk out that door, but he knew she hadn't bargained on just how determined he could be.

Stubborn, his mother always said. Like his father and grandfather. An Irish thing then.

She pressed a slip of paper into his hand. He glanced down at it, read a telephone number with a Dallas area code.

“It's my cell phone number. As soon as I get everything straightened out, I'll call you, but…but I wanted you to have my number if you needed me.”

He heard the tears in her voice, didn't understand what the problem was, knew it was big. “April, if you can't make it back for the Phoenix run, you have to promise you'll make time to go yourself. Soon,” he whispered into her hair, promising himself that he wouldn't have to wait long until he could hold her again. “Harold has your name. All you have to do is call him and tell him I sent you.”

Nodding, she broke away. She forced a smile but he saw the glint of tears in her eyes, knew she was coming apart. She knew it, too, apparently, because she grabbed her coat
from the back of a dining room chair and headed toward the door.

But she didn't leave. She paused to look back at him. Just a glance, to capture his image maybe or reassure herself that he was really going to let her go.

Those tears still shone in her beautiful eyes. “Rex, I'm sorry to run off like this. I'll call.”

“I'll wait.”

She lifted her hand to open the door and her sweater pulled back from her wrist…

She was wearing the wristband.

Rex stared into her face, no less beautiful for its guarded expression, and knew.

She cared. The walls she'd thrown up and that wristband only proved how much.

“Take care of yourself, okay?”

“You, too,” he said.

Then she walked out the door, as changed from the woman who'd walked into his life only a few weeks ago as he was from the man who'd gotten shocked when they'd first shaken hands.

 

R
EX STOOD
in the reception area of J.P. Mooney Investigators, Ltd. biding his time while he awaited his eleven o'clock appointment with the owner. The offices were like a thousand others Rex had been in during his career—up-scale, well-appointed, professionally designed to make clients feel welcomed and confident in whatever services the firm offered.

With one important distinction—April worked here.

An eventful week had passed since she'd left him in Denver and his research had yielded up some interesting facts about what had been taking place behind the scenes of the
Luxurious Bedding Company and led him right back to Dallas, where he'd first met her.

After gathering enough information to get a rough idea of what was going on, he'd confronted Wilhemina, who'd answered his questions and given him a few more pieces to the puzzle. Now he'd come to John Patrick Mooney for a few more.

An administrative assistant opened the office door. “Mr. Mooney will see you now.”

“Thanks.” Rex inclined his head at the pleasantly smiling woman as he passed and entered the office.

The man who sat behind the desk, so at ease—or displeased maybe—that he didn't stand to greet his visitor, measured him as shrewdly as Rex measured him.

“So you're Rex Holt,” he finally said. “Awfully ballsy of you to show up after you cost me my favorite investigator.”

“I did, sir?”

John Patrick Mooney motioned toward the door that was closing behind him with a thick finger. “She walked right through that door, dropped her resignation letter on my desk and thanked me for eight good years. Said she was going into business for herself.”

Leaning back in his chair, he hooked his hands behind his head and stared Rex down with a very no-nonsense gaze. “Do you mind telling me what you did to her, Holt?”

Rex decided right then that he liked John Patrick Mooney, not only because he could hear echoes of April in the man's dry wit, but because he got straight to the point.

“I made her fall in love with me, sir.”

Mooney exhaled heavily. “I knew it. I've got four daughters. I've seen the look.”

Rex could empathize. With his sisters, he knew firsthand that falling in love could be an event.

“Wilhemina told me to expect you, so sit down.”

Rex sat in the chair in front of the desk and faced Mooney squarely. “Wilhemina explained that she hired your firm to conduct inside surveillance while I was out on the road. Unfortunately, until her security people officially close their investigation, she can't tell me anything else without conflict of interest so she sent me to you for some answers.”

“What do you want to know?”

“You sent April, sir. Why?”

“That's a personal question.”

“I have a personal interest in her.”

“I thought you wanted to know about how our end of the investigation wrapped up?”

Rex knew that his answer counted, that John Patrick Mooney would base his decision to be forthright on whether or not Rex produced a satisfactory answer. “I do, but only because I need to understand the part April played in it.”

“And what the hell difference does that make?”

“It may be the difference in whether or not she takes a chance on me.” He could be equally forthright. “I'm in love with her. I need to understand what's holding her back from getting involved in a relationship with me.”

“You're that sure she has it for you?”

Rex smiled. “I have four younger sisters, sir. Trust me, April has it bad.”

Mooney snorted. “All right. I'll fill in the blanks. To make a long story short, April went rogue. I sent her to do an inside surveillance job. I'm sure Wilhemina told you that this was just a precaution for the both of you. You were never a serious contender as a suspect.”

Rex nodded.

“April went in to watch you, to see who you interacted with and make sure you didn't contact a rival bedding manufacturer while you were on the road with the company secrets. She wound up in such a crush to prove you were innocent that she solved the damned case.”

“Industrious of her.” He couldn't contain a smile.

“Yes, it was, wasn't it?” Mooney steepled his hands before him and frowned. “She asked me to let her investigate, told me she could find a trail to who was sending the posts on the computer. I'm sorry to say I refused her. Wilhemina didn't ask us to investigate and I was afraid to pile on too much responsibility. But it turned out all she had to do was get inside their network to figure out what the idiots in security couldn't.”

“And that was what exactly?”

“No
person
was stalking the employees with those posts and covering up corporate espionage. There was a worm running loose in the system. A damned computer virus type of thing. Who'd have guessed?” He shook his grizzled head, and Rex saw what appeared to be Mooney's first smile of their acquaintance. “Leave it to April.”

She certainly had a gift, one that Rex suspected she didn't fully appreciate. “Wilhemina wasn't free to share how that worm got into the company network as it apparently involved several of her employees. How much can you tell me?”

“I don't have any conflict issues. Wilhemina's marketing director was surfing porn sites at work.”

“Charles Blackstone.”

“Right. He picked up something from one of the sites—one of those new bugs that hides in the system and kicks out posts and files to everyone in the e-mail address book.
The worm was scanning the files and attaching itself to any keyword that had to do with sex.”

Rex laughed. “The Sensuous Collection files certainly qualified. But a company the size of the Luxurious Bedding Company shouldn't have had that problem. Their network should have been protected.”

Mooney smiled. This time a real smile that couldn't be mistaken for anything else. “It was. But the network administrator had apparently known Blackstone was a porn puppy and had been tracking him online. She let the worm run loose to blackmail him into getting involved with her. From what Wilhemina said, he wouldn't give her the light of day otherwise.”

Rex had sensed something off between Jacqui and Charles, but he hadn't even come close to guessing the truth. “I imagine they were both offered severance packages.”

“You got that right. This nonsense was about the last thing Wilhemina needed right now. She's been having a hard enough time trying to keep her people focused on business dealing with the launch. But you'd know more about that than I would.”

“The Sensuous Collection has had quite the effect on the staff,” he agreed. “But I'm sure Wilhemina intends to get her people back on track to get the launch off the ground.”