One of These Nights. Justine Davis

a sneaking suspicion Josh also thought having the young woman around might loosen him up a bit. In any case, he didn’t want Josh to think he’d made a bad decision when in fact it was mostly Ian’s own problem.

      “No, not at all. I’m just not used to her yet, and she’s anxious to do it all now.”

      “Keep trying with her,” Josh said.

      Keep Trying. One of the Redstone mantras, Ian thought as he headed back to the lab. Along with Hire the Best and Let Them Do Their Best, and Redstone Likes Happy People. To the outside world, he was sure they all sounded like idealistic dreamers, but everybody on the inside knew it was for real. Because of one man, Ian thought as he keyed in his pass code for entry to the lab. One man with a vision, and the determination to make it happen. Josh had—

      Ian stopped dead in the doorway to his office. Rebecca was in his chair, at his computer.

      “Looking for something?” he asked.

      “Oh!” She jumped, spun in the chair, her hand pressed dramatically over her heart. “You scared me.”

      Normally it would have been time for an apology, a statement saying he hadn’t meant to scare her. But Josh’s warnings were still echoing in his mind, and he stayed silent, simply watching her. He’d learned it was a rare person who could allow such silence, and Rebecca definitely wasn’t one of them.

      “I was just leaving you a note.”

      Her voice still sounded tight. Again he waited, and something odd flickered in her eyes.

      “I need to leave early,” she said hastily. “I have a doc—er, a dentist’s appointment.”

      If she’d only been leaving him a note about that, why was she so flustered? Had she been doing something else? Trying to access his files on the computer? The screen was as he’d left it, blacked out, but if she’d been here long enough…

      As Rebecca scuttled out of the room, Ian told himself he was being paranoid. Yet he had enough respect for Josh to take his worries seriously. The man was no fool, and those who had mistaken him for such, perhaps judging him by that lazy drawl or the way he had of strolling along with his hands in his pockets, were the sadder for it.

      He turned to his computer and did a quick check. He could find no trace that anyone had accessed any of his files in the past half hour. That decided him. In this case Josh was being overly protective. Wasn’t that part of the Redstone legend, taking care of his people? Wasn’t that why they were consistently at the top of the national list of the best places to work?

      I want you to have protection, Ian….

      No. No way. He couldn’t tolerate it. He hadn’t even been able to tolerate his wife around all the time. His need for space, while Colleen had needed people and socializing, had driven her away after a mere ten months of trying to put up with him.

      No, he was a loner, a borderline recluse, as Josh’s personal pilot, Tess Machado, had called him more than once. And he would stay that way, happily. He didn’t need a wife, or any woman to complete him. He had his work. That was enough.

      “Thanks for getting here so quickly, Sam.”

      “No problem,” Samantha Beckett told her boss.

      Actually it had been a problem—when he’d called she had just stepped out of the shower, her hair dripping wet. But she’d have dealt with a lot more than wet hair to come running at his call, and she hoped he knew it. Joshua Redstone had done more for her and Billy than anyone ever had, and she owed him more than she could ever repay.

      “How’s Billy?” Josh asked, as if he’d read her thought.

      “He’s doing great. That new residential skills center is working well for him. He likes the people and he’s really happy.”

      “That’s good to hear.”

      Sam knew he wouldn’t take it in words, so she tried her best to put her thanks into her smile. If not for Josh, Billy would probably be locked in an institution somewhere, taken away by some bureaucrat who thought they knew better than she did how to take care of her little brother. Instead they’d stayed together, and she was able to afford to have him well looked after when she had to leave on assignment.

      Speaking of assignments, she thought, why was the usually direct Josh taking so long to get around to the point?

      She studied him, thinking as she often had that you’d never guess by looking at him that this former pilot had built a small airplane design company into an international corporation the scope of which she could hardly comprehend. But she also knew that was one of his strengths. Josh didn’t come across as a shark, not with that tall, lanky frame, sometimes tousled hair and that lazy smile. He was very unassuming and laid-back, but people who assumed he was as slow as his drawl didn’t discover the sharpness of his teeth until it was too late.

      “This is an unusual one,” Josh finally said, sounding a bit uncomfortable. That in itself was odd enough for Sam to sit up and pay close attention.

      “In-house, I gather, since you wanted to meet here?” she asked, gesturing at the restaurant they were sitting in.

      He nodded, confirming her guess that the “unusual” case involved something or someone inside Redstone, and that he didn’t want to risk anyone seeing them meet. This despite the fact that the Redstone security team was low profile by intention. They reported directly to Josh, had their own office off-site, and other than those in the upper echelon, like Noah Rider last month, the majority of Redstone employees wouldn’t know any of them by sight.

      “Undercover, then?” Sam asked, already running through logistics in her mind.

      “Sort of,” Josh said.

      Sam looked at the man across the table from her. It wasn’t like him to equivocate. For the most part, Joshua Redstone preferred plain speaking. Which made this hesitancy even more interesting to her.

      “Would you like to just cut to the chase, sir?”

      “I need you to bodyguard somebody who doesn’t want one.”

      Well, that was blunt enough, Sam thought. “All right,” she said. “How far under?”

      “What?”

      “You want me to sleep with him?”

      Surprise flared in Josh’s eyes, as she had intended. “You know better than that!”

      “Yes, I do.” She grinned at him. “You just seemed a little vague about the specifics here.”

      Josh let out a wry chuckle. “Now I know how the guys who go up against you and lose feel.”

      “Is there any other kind?” Samantha said, her grin widening.

      “Not many, I’d guess,” Josh conceded, returning her grin finally. “I have to say I knew what I was doing when I hired you for this job.”

      “And the people at the Sitka Resort are eternally grateful you pulled me out of there, I’m sure.”

      And no more so than I, she added silently, knowing she would have gone slowly insane working in such a routine-laden world, even if it was for Redstone.

      “You weren’t happy,” he said candidly, and for a moment Sam marveled at the simplicity of it; one of his lowliest, most distant employees wasn’t happy, so he took steps to fix that. Amazing. “I’ll have Rand relieve you periodically, because I don’t know how long this assignment will be.”

      Samantha nodded. She and Rand Singleton had worked together frequently, often taking advantage of the striking resemblance between them. With matching nearly platinum-blond hair and blue eyes, they were easily able to pass as brother and sister. She thought of him that way, too, as a sometimes bossy big brother.

      “So who’s this guy who doesn’t want to be guarded?”

      “Ian Gamble.