A Breath Away. Wendy Etherington

you?”

      She turned the doorknob but didn’t look back. “Of course not. I’m just tired.”

      After leaving her client, she checked briefly on David and Mo, then shut herself in the guest bedroom.

      Okay, maybe she was going soft. But then maybe she just needed a break from Tremaine’s magnetism. He knew way too much about her. She probably should have expected his craftiness, but the day had had so many twists and turns it was no wonder she was dizzy. Not to mention she was out of practice with sophisticated intrigue.

      Most of the people she defended her clients against these days were angry or overly devoted or just plain crazy. Plus, her primary goal was preventative protection, which involved an entirely different kind of smarts.

      Closing her eyes as she lay back on the bed, she fought to put Tremaine out of her mind. He’d occupied every minute of her thoughts all day. She needed a break—along with a healthy dose of perspective.

      Her partner, Frank, would be arriving soon. He’d help serve as a buffer between her and Tremaine. He’d have fresh ideas and the professional distance she couldn’t seem to hold on to.

      Was that why she’d put off her client’s confession regarding his dodgy history? Was she so desperate for balance that she’d stalled receiving vital information? Or was she afraid she’d hear something that would push her irrevocably to either accept or reject him?

      Before this case, her opinion of him had been anything but positive. Since she’d met him she’d budged little. But her conscience niggled. What if she was wrong about him? What if she’d sneered at a man who had value way beyond the shallow box she was determined to keep him in?

      You’re still thinking about him.

      She mentally worked through cleaning and loading her pistol, hoping to bore herself to sleep. As she drifted, her parents’ faces hovered before her.

      She remembered her dad teaching her to change the beer tap and how to bluff at poker. He used to wear Old Spice cologne and would pull her into his lap during late-night card games, long after she was supposed to have been asleep.

      She’d been a night owl even then.

      She remembered her mom’s perfectly manicured hands reflected in the mirror as Jade sat at her dressing table. Momma had liked Jade’s hair—which she’d brushed and braided constantly—long. Once in high school, after they’d argued about her curfew, Jade had cut it off really short, and her mom had cried.

      Jade had kept it long—though not waist-length—ever since. No doubt there was psychological funny business in that decision, some leftover sense of guilt for hurting her now-dead mother.

      As always, her dream came back to that hot June day when a group of terrorists had decided to use a parade to assassinate the mayor of New Orleans. As grand marshal, her dad had been right beside him, her mother on the other side. The three of them, plus the mayor’s bodyguard, had died in the shooting.

      Jade hadn’t been there. She’d been in calculus class at Tulane. She hadn’t said goodbye to them. She hadn’t appreciated or loved them enough. And then they were gone.

      The NSA had seen her pain and with stealth tactics and subtle training, turned it into controlled fury. At the tender age of nineteen, she’d started a new life of intrigue and danger—all in the name of revenge.

      She jolted awake at the knock on the door.

      Her hand automatically jerked to her holster as she sat up and blinked the dreams and the past away.

      “J.B.?”

      Frank.

      “Coming.”

      She unlocked and opened the door, then immediately sank onto the end of the bed. She rarely dreamed, so the cobwebs were hard to bat away.

      Her partner dropped onto the bed beside her. He wore his usual baggy jeans and button-down shirt—today, baby blue. His face was scruffy, and his sandy-brown hair looked as though he’d run his hands through it at least a thousand times.

      But the crinkles spreading out from his dark-brown eyes betrayed his sharpness—if you took the time to look. He was only ten years older than her, but he had what people romantically refer to as an “old soul,” so he acted more like her father than her brother.

      “What’s up with the locked door?” he asked.

      “With Light-fingered Tremaine on the case, I figured the precaution was necessary.”

      Frank glanced at the door. “Not much of a lock.”

      “Don’t I know it.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “What the hell did you do last night? You look terrible.”

      “I reworked the Ace One security program.”

      “No kidding? You got the bugs out?”

      “Yep.”

      All thoughts of sleep gone, she leaped to her feet. “You’re a freakin’ genius!”

      “You had doubts before?”

      “Did you tell Mo?” Mo had taught Frank—who’d been previously technologically challenged—everything he knew. She wasn’t sure how thrilled his teacher was liable to be about his student excelling quite so thoroughly.

      “Oh, yeah. I told him.” Frank smiled. “He’s pissed. We had fifty bucks on who’d break it first.”

      “Can we test it here?”

      “You really think there’s going to be a full-scale assault on the penthouse suite?”

      “I’m not as worried about them getting in as I am about him—” she nodded toward the living room, where, presumably, their client was waiting “—getting out.”

      “Certainly a bigger issue. I’ll get it installed. We can probably consider this a fairly definitive test.”

      “I can’t think of a better situation.”

      “He’s the best.”

      Curious, Jade angled her head. “You really think so?”

      “Near as I can figure.”

      “You met him?”

      “Slick.”

      “In spades. What did you find out research-wise?”

      “More than you, I bet.”

      “Cute.”

      “You wanna put fifty on it?”

      Recalling Tremaine’s evasive answers and, worse, her reaction to him, she shook her head. “Not particularly.”

      “I think he considers me a rival for your affections.”

      “How do you figure that?” she asked casually, though sweat prickled at the small of her back.

      “Just got that sense.”

      “How long have you been here?”

      “Ten minutes.”

      She rolled her eyes. The man was a master. How could she forget? He’d taught her, after all.

      There was no telling what Frank had gotten from Tremaine in ten minutes—added to what he’d researched. When he saw them together, he’d really get a troubling picture.

      She’d already briefed her partner on the suspected cause of their client’s shooting, so he’d dug much further back in Tremaine’s life.

      “Let’s hear the dirt,” she said.

      “He’s an orphan.”

      Despite preparing to be cynical, her heart stuttered. Guess the old money, vineyards and real estate he’d told Lucas about were part of his cover. “No kidding?”

      “Mom