Sweetest Risk Read online

  Another drawer joke? “No.”

  “He rolls them.”

  “He does not.” Graham isn’t a rolling guy. He’s a shove them on top of each other and slam the door closed guy. A woman can tell these things.

  Cammie nods her head. “Yes, he lines them up in a row.” How did she learn this? She’s been checking out his drawers.

  “Boxers or briefs?” I ask, ignoring the fact Cammie is breaking a lot of protocols by knowing how someone folds their underwear. Housekeeping shouldn’t open any drawers in an occupied room.

  One of her eyebrows raises higher, but she pretends to lock a seal over her lips and throws away the key. “I guess you’ll never find out.”

  “I guess not.” Under no conditions am I going to enter someone’s room and then look through their underwear drawer. “No, I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later?”

  The housekeeping staff gets out of work two hours before I do, but Cammie normally stops to say goodbye when her shift ends.

  The rest of the day goes by fast, and I spend most of the time at the reception desk. Day-to-day management of the bed-and-breakfast is a busier job, but it’s been quiet. Before long the alarm on the desk reads 3:10. There’s at least two hours and fifty minutes before my favorite guest will be home, but the next alarm will sound in about an hour and a half to make sure we’re prepped for the dinner rush.

  It means I have time to waste. The worst expression I heard when I worked retail in college was, “If you have time to lean, you have time to clean.” It was the most annoying thing in the world, but now that I’m older and the boss I get it. There’s a stack of papers at the bottom of the front desk and I’m sure no one has touched them in ten years.

  I can busy myself with shredding while I wait for him to come back. Not that I plan my day around Graham’s schedule. That would make me a stalker. This is a convenient coincidence I’m helping to facilitate. There’s a difference. A big fat line in the sand. It’s like four feet wide, but don’t measure it, just trust me on this one.

  The radio hanging on the side of the desk squawks. “Front desk honey momma,” the voice calls and I shake my head while reaching for the walkie-talkie. I don’t know whose great idea it was to give ourselves codenames and I’m not sure how I ended up with front desk honey momma as my moniker. I thought if I ignored the name they’d move on but after three months that has not happened.

  “What’s up?”

  Tim, one of our younger maintenance guys, speaks again. “There’s a huge water leak coming out of room 112. You’ve got water gushing out a wall down here. You better check it out.”

  It’s the same gut instinct reaction I imagine you’d have if somebody said the garage was exploding or your car was burning. My heart kicks into triple overtime and I clutch the hand radio and race down the hallway to check on room 112. Water problems are one of the worst issues you can have, especially in these older buildings. It can cause hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage in a few unchecked minutes.

  “Get someone to the basement to shut off the main valve,” I yell into the walkie-talkie while running in the right direction. Yes, the guests won’t have water, but it’s quicker to turn off the whole building while we figure out what’s happening in the one room than risk more damage to the wood.

  I skid to a stop when I reach room 112, which happens to be Mr. GQ’s room. But that’s not my first clue something has gone wrong. There’s also the lack of extreme water gushing from any walls and the carpet is bone dry. Tim eyes his feet as he stands in the hallway looking like he’s about to get in trouble.

  “I’m sorry, but she paid me ten bucks,” he says with one shoulder slumped up to his ear before walking down the hallway like he’s an Olympic speed walker going for the gold.

  The door to room 112 swings open with a small creak from the hinges like we’re in a horror movie. Probably and early indication of my fate if I step inside this room.

  “Hurry and get in here,” Cammie says peeking her head out from the edge of the open doorway.

  I go into his room, but only for the sole purpose of making sure she gets out. Even as her friend I can’t overlook this. It’s unethical.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, flailing my hands around in front of me because when I get upset, I talk with them. A flailing hand helps to get the point across. For regular people, not always Cammie.

  “Now that I’ve got you in his room you have to look.”

  “Cammie, I won’t paw through his stuff. It’s against the law. Total invasion of privacy.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll give you we shouldn’t open any drawers, but it’s like the police, if you can see it with the naked eye, it’s legal.”

  I spin around his room doing whatever I can to get her out of here. If that means I have to play along for a few minutes, then fine. “There, I’ve looked. Let’s go.” My twitchy elbow flicks out and knocks something off of the dresser as I come to a stop.

  “Oh crap,” Cammie utters.

  On the floor at my feet is a can of white shaving cream, except there’s something wrong with the bottle. The bottom of the can has fallen off and rather than create a huge mess on the room’s carpeting, the bottom lies on the other side exposing a fake compartment.

  “Cammie, don’t touch it,” I try to pull her back as she reaches for the can but she dumps the contents into her hand.

  “Look at this,” she says holding up a small three-inch device and a picture of the bed-and-breakfast. It was taken from the outside, in the spring with trees full of leaves. “He’s not only hot. Graham Kinney is a spy.”

  “He is not.” Who would jump to that career choice right off the bat? I mean okay normal people don’t walk around with false bottom shaving cream cans and USB drives and pictures of the bed-and-breakfast I’m working at, but I can think of a lot of things he could be rather than a spy.

  Like a serial killer.

  Or better, a land developer from Clearwater here to bulldoze over the old place and build a new fancier hotel in its place.

  Nobody would go to spy first.

  “Only a secret agent would walk around with this stuff.”

  “I’m a security and surveillance expert, actually, although I wanted to be one as a kid,” a deep male voice thunders, walking into the room and stopping behind my back. It’s one of those out-of-body experiences when you’re aware the person is inches from you, but you don’t dare turn around and check.

  Cammie’s face pales and she drops the canister and USB to the ground, the picture floats slowly landing on top.

  Oh shit.

  3

  “What?” Cammie sticks her hand over her ear and looks into the hallway with wide frantic eyes. “I’ll be right there.”

  I reach out to grab her but she dashes by making her way out the door and leaving me alone with only my red hands and one pissed off looking GQ model who is definitely a spy.

  “Um, it’s not what it looks like.” I hold my hands up letting him see I didn’t take anything, but it doesn’t make Graham’s face soften.

  His lips form a straight line only broken when he speaks. “That’s interesting, because it looks to me like breaking and entering.”

  Bile tumbles around in my stomach, threatening to come up and land on the floor next to the broken bottle of shaving cream. “I swear it’s not that. There was a suspected water leak on the radio and I came in to check, but then Cammie left. Now you’re here and there’s no shaving cream on the floor so that’s good. Carpet is expensive.”

  As the words tumble out of me in a jumbled mess, he closes the door behind him without turning around, locking the two of us in the tiny space.

  “I realize you probably want to call the police, but I’ll lose my job and I swear we touched nothing.”

  His eyes fall to the fake container of shaving cream and an eyebrow perks up.

  “That? I swear, I nicked it with my elbow,” I rattle off, recreating the move as I talk. “And it jumped off the co
unter and opened. We did not think you were a spy.”

  Graham shakes his head dangerously slow, but his lip twitches as if he’s fighting a smile. “I’m not a spy. I’m here helping a friend on a short-term contract.”

  “Oh, well whatever this is, you don’t need to explain. It’s your own personal business and if anyone asks, I was never here. Obviously, there’s not a water leak.” The sooner I can get out of the room the better, him knowing me on a first name basis isn’t such a great thing anymore.

  “Is this all you saw?” he asks moving a step closer in my direction as I take one to the left trying to evade. What? There’s more?

  My head nods like I’ve had too many expressos. “I promise we didn’t even look at any of it.”

  Graham appears less than convinced and I berate myself for finding his chiseled jaw hot even as we’re standing off against one another in his room and my future depends on his decision. His long thumb caresses the edge of his jaw, rubbing at the light stubble and making me wish it was my skin he was touching. Why am I such a hussy?

  Get a grip on yourself, Tara. My word, woman, you could go to jail.

  “I’ll tell you what,” he says leaning against the closed door, still blocking my escape from the room. “I won’t call the police on one condition.”

  Hope soars. “Anything,” I agree before giving it a thought. Jail is jail. I’ve never been and I don’t plan to start now.

  “You’ll go to dinner with me.”

  I pause, not breathing. Everything in the room comes to a slow crawl.

  “What?” I’m forced to ask because this man doesn’t make sense. Why would he want to go to dinner with me in exchange for not calling the police? I’ve clearly done something in his room. What if I compromised his spy business?

  He nods, waiting for me to process the information. “I figure with your breaking and entering and now me blackmailing you, we’ll consider it one bad deed fixes another.”

  There has to be more to what he’s asking. No one would let me out of the situation without wanting more than dinner. He could ask me for a month’s free hotel room stay or meals in the restaurant, but asking me to dinner? That doesn’t sound a good deal in his favor at all. I’d be the one winning.

  “Okay,” I agree with his blackmail demands even though I’m not one hundred percent sure that dinner with me is the only thing I’ll have to pay. Sooner or later my agreement will end. Hot or not, I’m not that kind of girl.

  He smiles, making my trepidation grow. It’s much too big for a man who caught me snooping through his room. Graham leans over, never taking his eyes off me, and picks up the picture, USB drive, and fake can of shaving cream from the floor slipping the smaller of the items in his pocket, twisting the bottom back on the can, and replacing it on the dresser. “And you forget you ever saw this and your friend, too?”

  “I promise. I’ll make sure she tells no one.” If she hasn’t already told half the housekeeping staff already. “When are we doing this dinner?” Fingers crossed he says next year. Although it’s almost Christmas so next year isn’t as far away as I’d like.

  “Now.”

  My face pales over the time constraint, hoping this deadline isn’t part of his blackmail requirements. “There’s no way I can go now. I’m still on shift. I can’t leave the bed-and-breakfast.”

  If I left to go with him now, I would lose my job because I left my posts. I can’t leave the facility unless there’s a fire or I hand the keys over to Dwight at the start of the night shift.

  “Fine. We’ll eat in the dining room and talk. You can do that. Right?”

  “Sure,” my agreement this time takes longer. At least he can’t kill me if we stay inside where people are. Right? It’s usually fairly empty in there when we’re not serving food, but there’s staff around somewhere. I’m sure I could scream loud enough to gather attention before he finished the deed, depending on how you learn to kill someone in secret agent school.

  As expected, the dining room is empty when we walk into it, the blue wallpaper and carpets match the blue china. I lead Graham to a table in the middle of the room so we can be seen from every vantage point possible. No sulking in dark corners for us.

  He looks around, realizing what I’ve done. “Smart choice.”

  “Thank you.” His easy compliment fills me with a little more hope. You don’t compliment someone you’re about to kill. Would you? And also, I like the praise. It’s wrong on so many levels, but he’s just so cute. It’s a girl thing. When a cute guy compliments you, it’s thrilling. That and I need therapy.

  The whole situation is so epically wrong.

  The two of us stare at one another, neither speaking until I’m sure I’m going to go insane. How does someone sit at a table so quiet? If he is a secret government agent, that must be his superpower.

  “So, tell me about yourself.”

  Graham chuckles. “Contrary to popular rumors, I am not a spy. I’m here on a short-term assignment helping Ridge Jefferson,” he mentions the town’s leading security specialists. They have signs all over saying they’ll install your home security system, but most town residents are sure they’re a group of secret government operatives, so admitting this isn’t helping his defense of not a secret government like job.

  “We’re not spies,” he deadpans. But a spy would most never admit to being one.

  “Why only a short-term contract?” Pelican Bay is a small town and I’ve only been here about six months but the number of beefy hot guys wandering the streets is in a much higher proportion than what I would expect in a town this size. They are either putting something in the water or Pelican Bay Security has a lot of employees. Why would Graham only be here for a short time?

  “Personal choice. I usually work more on the West Coast with a friend, but he recently met a woman and that part of the country gets too small with their lovey-dovey antics, so I branched out for a few months.”

  “Do you have something against couples?” This does not bode well for me and the spy.

  “No, not per se, but I don’t want to see people all kissy face either.”

  I laugh, taken off guard by his comment. “I’m sorry,” I say trying to gain control of myself. “Is just that you’re so… manly, the words kissy face should never come from your mouth.”

  Graham smiles shaking his head. “It’s the truth.”

  “Where do you live when you’re on the West Coast?” I can’t help myself. Being nosy is part of my personality. A good manager should learn about the guest as part of running a hotel. Especially in a small town. All my teachers in high school told me I should become a journalist because I pester until I get the whole story. Ask enough questions and people eventually cave and tell you what you want to know. Right now, I want to know everything about the GQ spy.

  “Hotels, bed-and-breakfast, whatever’s available.”

  “You don’t have a place?” He seems like a guy who would live in a rustic old cabin in the woods somewhere. His mile-long driveway booby-trapped against intruders and James Bond type evil villains.

  “No, I haven’t had one place I wanted to stay long enough.”

  “Well, how did you become not a spy?”

  His eyes close to a sliver, but he answers. “Just so you understand, I expect reciprocal questions for every one you’ve asked me and I am keeping count.”

  Oh no.

  “I joined the military right out of high school, and it has a way of giving men particular skill sets which comes in handy for different professions post service.”

  I run over his words in my head. “You said a lot of words without saying much at all.”

  Graham smirks. “I know. Now tell me about you. Where did you come from? Why are you here? How long do you plan on staying?”

  He reminds me of a child trying to get in all of his questions at one time, and I wait until he finishes before I answer them altogether as quick as possible.

  “My family is from Southern California. T
hey’re one of those families always up in your business. Like stop by for a pop-in once a day annoying. I needed space after college so I came to Pelican Bay to manage this place. I have no idea how long I’m staying. A while.” Once it’s August and I go back to eating dinner rolls again, those alone will be enough of a perk to keep me here.

  “You needed room from your family, so you moved across the country?”

  He caught on to that, did he? “I turned down a position in England, so when you think about it, I could be a lot further away.”

  “Why aren’t you sure how long you’re staying?”

  A question I can’t answer in one quick summary. “It’s cold here and my dream is to own my own bed-and-breakfast rather than manage one for someone else, but I haven’t figured out all the steps in between here and there yet.” But I plan to. People might think I’m running behind everyone else, having finished my bachelor’s degree at twenty-six. But it took me a while to decide what I wanted to do in life and with the cross-country move, I’m just getting started.

  “Why do you have a picture of the bed-and-breakfast in the fake shaving cream can,” I whisper across the tables so no one else hears. Better to get the question out of the way now because there was no way we were going to have this no-food meal without me asking that question. It’s the important one.

  “Who knows what story you and your friend concocted back in my room, but I promise the real truth isn’t as good. I would never stay somewhere I didn’t think safe, so I had to do recon before agreeing to make this my short-term residence.”

  “And then you kept the picture in a can on your dresser?” Something about his story doesn’t quite add up to what it should. “And what could be unsafe about the Pelican Bay bed-and-breakfast?” There’s like four thousand people and the town logo is a pelican. This is not New York City here.

  I’ve heard a few stories of things that have happened in this town, but they all seem way too crazy to be true. Car bombings don’t happen except in the movies. And there’s no way a dog rescued someone from a kidnapping.