Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle, Pauline Jones [top 100 novels of all time .txt] 📗

He chose the quickest way to shut me up. It was a good choice. I wasn’t going to have fax with him, but I sure liked kissing him on the mouth. And beside his mouth. And along his cheek…

When we came up for air, I asked, trying to sound severe, “How did you get in?”

“I picked your lock. After making sure your dog wasn’t here.”

“Knocking is hard on the knuckles.”

“And they belong to my country,” he pointed out. “I’m not allowed to bang them against just anything.”

There was that sense of humor again. If he didn’t stop coming around I’d start believing Congress was spending too little and that love could last. And if I wasn’t careful I was going to get romance writing fantasy mixed up with my reality. Not good.

I quit stroking the strong column of his neck. A girl who’d recently been to church and almost been killed several times this week, should be resisting temptation, not offering blatant invitations to the author of it.

I realized “temptation’s” heart was beating as hard as mine and asked huskily, “Did you have a reason for breaking and entering or were you just polishing up your skills?”

His grin turned wry. “Actually I did.”

He slid off and helped me upright. I needed the help. Our tussle had not only turned my body rubbery, it made my arm hurt.

“I need a favor.”

“Okay?” I had a feeling it wasn’t fax he was requesting, but I tried to look attentive and alert.

“It seems that Dillon was right on about the connection between Howard, your round-headed man, and the Mitchell kid. There’s been some major pilfering going on in their guard unit. And either Mitchell and Howard had a falling out, or Mitchell found out about it and got killed to silence him. I suspect the latter, he had a clean record and Howard didn’t.”

“How awful.” I shivered and Kel put his arm around my shoulders. I warmed myself against the furnace of his body. It was a government sponsored perk I’d helped pay for.

“It’s a royal mess. Right now they’re trying to find out what’s missing, but with half the unit on its way to the Gulf it’s not going to be easy. Howard made sure the records were all screwed up. A lot of dangerous armament could be missing and in the hands of our enemies.”

“Wow.” I thought about the weaponry I’d seen on Fox News the past few weeks. It was scary to think of it in our hands, let alone the bad guys. “How did I get mixed up in stuff like this, Kel?”

“You drove into it. What I’d like to know is where Mrs. Carter fits in? There has to be a connection between her and the others besides PT-PAC or the drug angle.”

I didn’t have a clue how or where a retired schoolteacher fit into a puzzle made up of round-headed crooks and missing smart bombs. Luckily Kel’s question appeared to be of the rhetorical variety. Almost absently he stroked my hair, a slight frown pulling down his brows and a distant look in his eyes.

“If only I knew what she was trying to tell me the night she was killed. You were right about her purse. Other than the matchbook, there wasn’t anything worth killing her for.”

“Oh! But there was.” I gave him an apologetic look. “It fell out in Rosemary’s car. I put it in my coat pocket meaning to give it to you and then forgot. It didn’t seem that important. It was just a repair claim ticket for a typewriter.”

His look of hope faded. “Oh.”

“No, I think it was the clue. I had this sort of idea, so I went and picked it up myself just a while ago.”

Hope looked good dawning in his face once more. “And?”

“Over there on the floor. I found stuff where the cord is usually stored. When you take them in, they make you keep your cord so they don’t lose it, you know.”

He abandoned me with a bump. I didn’t mind. Really. I mean, this was national security. I wasn’t even a national treasure. So I was cold without the spy hugging me. My country would be a safer place because of it.

He gathered the sheets I’d dropped when he grabbed me and started studying them with an intensity that said more than words how serious the situation was.

He looked up.

“Where was the typewriter?”

“At Kenyon Business Machines.”

“Really.” I could tell that interested him, but he didn’t tell me why. Very close-mouthed these spies. Of course, I was only a helpful citizen and not the press, so why should he tell me anything? “Didn’t you say you had a fax machine?”

I knew exactly which fax he was interested in. I pointed to my desk.

“I’d like to get my people working on this right now. There’s a clock ticking in my head. I can feel it. Time is running out on this one, Bel. Fast.”

“My fax is your fax, if you promise the CIA will reimburse me the money I paid for the typewriter?”

He grinned. “Our money is your money.”

Truer words were never spoken. Or more ignored by the guardians of it. “Help yourself.”

I figured he needed a little privacy, so I slipped into the kitchen and rounded us up something to drink. My arm was still throbbing from our wrestling match, so I tossed down a couple of aspirins before I rejoined him.

“Thanks. Do you mind if I hang around for a bit? They want to send me something in a few minutes.”

He might as well have asked me if I wanted to keep breathing. I handed him the drink with a hand surprisingly steady, considering it had just hit me that I’d like him to hang around forever. I sank down on the couch, my thoughts spinning in a dazed way. How had this happened?

Pride. That was my downfall. I’d been so proud of staying heart whole, so proud that I