For Her Eyes Only

He glanced at a plain silver watch on his wrist. “Until midnight, you do.”

She slid her hand from the door. “You have to be kidding.” She regarded his clear, direct gaze and realized he wasn’t.

“Have you eaten yet?” he asked.

“Eaten?”

“Yes. Supper.”

She thought of the granola bar she had stashed in her backpack. With the meager amount of money she had left, she didn’t have enough to splurge on little extras like food.

“Do you want to, you know, go catch a bite?”

“A bite?”

“Yes.”

She crossed her arms under her breasts. On another woman, the move might have been provocative. Not with her. Like everything else about her, her breasts were small. Nonetheless, she watched his gaze skim the front of her shirt, the darkening of his eyes telling. Her nipples hardened beneath the thin, soft cotton, and a slow, arousing shiver tickled her spine. “Let me, um, get this straight. Isn’t that how they say it? You’re telling me you’re with the INS. But you’re not taking me to the airport. You can’t. At least not until midnight. But you want to take me out to dinner. Is that right?”

He cleared his throat. “Yes.”

She glanced at her digital watch. “It’s only seven. Where were you planning on taking me?”

A glimpse of a grin played around his full lips. “I know this nice place that serves great French food.”

She raised a brow.

“In Baltimore.”

Her burst of laughter surprised even her.

There was no playing with this guy. He was as straight as they came. If she asked him how many times a week he took his suits to the cleaners, he’d probably not only answer her, but answer her accurately, down to the time of day he took them in.

She wondered if those same painstaking characteristics would make him thorough in his lovemaking, as well. He’d take his time. Explore every crevice and hollow. Make sure he was giving more pleasure than he was taking.

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Sorry, but I’ve already eaten.” She grasped the door again. “Thank you, though.”

She climbed into the car, half expecting him to stop her. He didn’t.

She rolled down the window.

He leaned over, his hands tucked into his pants pockets. “Mind if I ask where you’re going?”

“No, I don’t mind. But even you’d have to agree I’d be stupid to tell you.”

He nodded. Her gaze was riveted on his mouth. While everything else about him bespoke discipline and order, his lips hinted at a passion she didn’t think even he knew the depths of. She remembered the firm, silky feel of them against hers. His initial hesitation. Then his soft groan, and the confident pressure of his mouth as he returned her instinctual kiss. She could almost still taste him there, on her tongue.

She started the car’s engine. “You’re not going to follow me, are you?” The thought both excited and scared her, but not for the reasons she would have thought. While Jake McCoy posed a threat to her freedom to find Lili, she got the distinct impression it was an altogether different autonomy he threatened.

Then again, one night with this man who looked at her in a mixture of wonder and desire might not be such a bad idea.

“Probably,” he answered.

She settled on excited.

“Okay. Guess I’ll be seeing you on the road, then.”

“Yeah. On the road.”

3

THE NERVE-GRATING CHIRP of the cell phone filled the otherwise quiet interior of the car. Jake fumbled in his jacket pocket then pulled it out. McCoy Place, the display read. He reached over and chucked the phone into his glove box. Until he saw what was going to happen over the next few hours, there was no point in talking to David. Michelle Lambert and her intentions took priority over a hiking trip. He glanced into the back seat, where all his new gear was tucked neatly into an oversize blue nylon backpack. The manager of the sports equipment store had told him everything he’d bought was top of the line. A sleeping bag no thicker than his linen bedsheets was guaranteed to keep him warm when the temperatures dipped below freezing, and dry when it rained for days on end. He leaned forward and stared at the sky. It definitely looked like rain.

He put both hands on the steering wheel and zoomed in again on the rusted Ford two car lengths ahead of him in the right lane. He was sure there was a law against the amount of exhaust the tailpipe was spewing out. And the wire holding her back bumper in place looked ready to snap. His gaze trailed to the open driver’s window. Every now and again, tendrils of Michelle’s curly hair trailed out and whipped in the wind. Like now. He watched her run her fingers through the unruly mass, casually gathering it on the other side of her head.

Jake adjusted the car’s interior temperature. It was the first time he’d ever turned it past the sixty-seven-degree point. But that didn’t bother him. What did was the irrepressible urge he had to turn the damn air conditioner off and roll his windows down. To feel the early evening air skim through his short-cropped hair like a woman’s fingers.

He smoothed the front of his jacket and focused on the overhead sign coming up. Welcome To Pennsylvania. He’d driven this route before many times. Up through Maryland to Penn State, then either west to Pittsburgh or Cleveland or east to New York or Boston. When possible, he preferred driving to flying, and often times he got there faster on these shorter routes. They had yet to make a business-class airplane seat with enough leg room to keep him happy.

He relaxed a bit. The Pennsylvania turnpike was the only direct route through the mountainous state this far south. Not even he would attempt navigating off the four-lane thruway.

Off to the west, the sun was sinking toward the horizon, thin summer clouds throwing off shades of pink and purple. The vibrant colors made him think of the woman in the car ahead of him. Of her provocative nature. Of her small, round breasts. Her great legs. Her chattiness. His mind wandered, and he let it. As his doctor told him last week, there was no safer sex than mental sex. No one ever got pregnant or contracted an STD by indulging in fantasy. And sex with Michelle Lambert was—and would stay—nothing more than a harmless fantasy.

Images of rumpled bedsheets, an empty wine bottle and a Do Not Disturb sign on the door conjured a scene that made him squirm in his seat. She would be a talker in bed, that one. Pleading with him to touch her just so. Knowing instinctively just where to touch him. She would be insatiable….

Whoa.

Jake made a quick steering correction, then stared at his lap. The last time he’d gotten a woody just thinking about a woman was when he was a teen. And he’d never indulged in fantasies about an overtly sexy, attainable female. While Farrah Fawcett had been his brother Marc’s angel of choice, Kate Jackson always had been his favorite. Trim, neat, ordinary. Watching her in her high collars and conservative slacks had really flicked his switch.

Why, then, was he lusting after a woman who was a puzzling combination of Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn and va-va-voom Raquel Welch? One that went in for plunging necklines and short, short skirts? Didn’t make any sense at all.

The wind caught Michelle’s dark curls again, jerking Jake’s mind to those bedsheets. They would be white and crisp, a contrast against all that inky black….

Tearing his gaze from the car in front of him, he pushed the button to turn off the air, then rolled the windows down.

JUST KNOWING Jake McCoy was behind her made Michelle feel erotically appealing. She’d never had a man literally pursue her before. Okay, his reasons weren’t exactly what she’d like, but she’d bet his job wasn’t the only thing on his mind.

She turned down the radio station cranking out rock and roll oldies, then gazed into her rearview mirror. She spotted Jake and his dark Caprice immediately. He never let more than two cars separate them and stayed for the most part in the left-hand lane, except to let others pass. How charitable of him. She caught herself smiling, then cleared her throat. She should be thinking of what lay ahead of her in Akron, Ohio, south of Cleveland. Instead she watched Jake. Noticing the way he held his hands on the steering wheel in the traditional three o’clock position. His correct, upright posture explained part of the reason his suit appeared barely wrinkled.

One hand on her own wheel, she reached down and plucked off her shoes, then slid them under her seat. Her speed let up a bit, and she instantly compensated. Jake did the same behind her.

The radio announcer told her it was eleven. Would Jake do as he’d said and take her into custody at midnight? He appeared to be a man of his word. Then again, if he’d thought her a real threat, he’d have stopped her from leaving D.C.

She focused more prudently on the road. It was completely dark. The only lights were her headbeams, which illuminated the monotonous, seemingly endless white lines that separated her lane from the next.

If Lili were with her right now, she’d be giddily trying to count those lines.

Michelle bit into the flesh of her bottom lip. It often seemed that everywhere she looked, everything she did, she imagined what her nearly four-year-old daughter would see or do in the same situation. Her absence was like a colossal hole, always present, forever threatening to swallow her up, bogging her down in the details.

What was Lili doing right now? Had she had her bath? Had she eaten? Did Gerald know that a certain name brand of baby care products irritated her sensitive skin? Or that he had to comb her hair just so to get out the tangles? Was she scared?

Michelle dragged in a deep breath. While she was fluent in English, Lili only knew a few basic words, and then only when used in conjunction with French. Would constantly being surrounded by the foreign tongue confuse her?

Oh, how she missed her daughter. Missed tasting her skin when she kissed her temple. Tickling her round, hard belly. Smiling at her rambunctious laugh. Missed playing hide-and-seek with her and Julianne, her frazzled stuffed pet elephant and constant companion.

She reached out and took Julianne from her backpack, running her thumb along her nubbed belly, then lifting the toy to her nose. After nearly eight weeks of sleeping with the animal, it smelled more like her than Lili. But every now and again she swore she could make out her daughter’s sweet, little-girl scent.

The sign ahead was blurry. She blinked, realizing that fog wasn’t to blame for the haziness, but tears.

Stuffing Julianne in her temporary home, Michelle pressed her foot down on the pedal, watching as Jake dropped farther and farther back. Indulging in a bit of escapist flirtation was one thing. Allowing it to derail her plans was another entirely.

OKAY, SHE WAS finally making her move.

Jake flicked off the cruise control and eased his foot onto the gas pedal. He was mildly surprised she hadn’t tried to shake him before. Then again, she might think being so far away from D.C. put them at the same disadvantage. Smart woman.

He easily caught up with her Ford, pulling parallel with her in the left lane. She flashed him a wide smile, making that peculiar weightless sensation more acute. He saluted her. But before he could put his hand back on the wheel, she slammed on the brakes then turned off the exit ramp to her right.

Letting rip a string of hardly used curses, Jake pulled to the shoulder of the road just on the other side of the on ramp, then flicked on his hazards. With his gaze glued to the rearview mirror, he slid the top button of his shirt open, leaving his tie to cover it.

Before Michelle had made her move, he’d kept a close eye on the road signs. This particular exit had no rest facilities, and the next exit was twenty-two miles down the highway. Michelle would soon realize she had no choice but to get back onto the turnpike.

At least he hoped she’d realize that.

After five long minutes with no sign of the battered Ford, he jerked the car into reverse. Traffic was sparse, and he ignored the honking of horns from what little there was. He finally backed up far enough to exit, then raced toward the tollgate. The guard remembered Michelle—probably no other cars had exited since hers—and said he thought she’d gone east. Jake paid the toll then headed in that direction as well, scouring the dark farmland surrounding him. Nothing. No lights. Nobody driving. Nothing but a long, lonely stretch of two-lane road.

He drove for exactly three miles then stopped. He’d been had. It was as simple as that. He suspected that the instant she saw him turn off, she’d doubled back and was already well down the turnpike by now.

Then again, what she could be looking for could be here somewhere.

Trusting his first instinct, he turned around. He could only hope he was right.

On the turnpike fifteen minutes later, he saw that he was.

He pulled onto the shoulder then cruised to a stop behind Michelle’s disabled Ford. The back left tire was flat. He climbed from the car and buttoned his jacket, careful of passing traffic as he made his way toward the driver’s side.

No Michelle.

He leaned inside the open window. She’d left the keys inside. He used them to unlock the trunk. Why wasn’t he surprised that there was no spare? A tractor and semitrailer roared on by, the resulting gust of air plastering his suit to his body. He stared down the road after the truck. Just then, it began to rain.

MICHELLE CLIMBED DOWN from the monster-size truck cab then slammed the door. There was a loud grinding of gears, then the trucker rolled slowly away from her, leaving her standing at the side of the road in the rain.

She shivered. It wasn’t that she was unaccustomed to male attention. But the way the trucker had come on to her made her want to scratch something—that is, if she’d had any nails left with which to scratch. In France, men—no matter how old or attractive—at least hinted at the promise of or openly boasted of an ability to satisfy a woman. This guy had been moderately handsome, but he’d made it sound as if she’d owed him one. As though even if she wouldn’t enjoy a sexual liaison with him, he didn’t care one way or another, just so long as he could cop a feel.

Completely unlike Jake, who would probably never come on to a woman unless he were sure his attention was welcome.

She turned toward the lights on the other side of the tollbooth not too far away.

At least this exit included life of some sort. The one she’d pulled off in the hopes of losing Jake had been completely dead. She spared a glance behind her, half expecting to see the dark Caprice bearing down on her. Hiking her backpack a little higher on her shoulders, she headed in the direction of the tollbooth. She hoped they could direct her to a bus station or even a nearby train station, any place where she could curl up on a chair out of the elements, then continue on in her trip toward Ohio.

She hadn’t counted on that flat tire. Then again, she hadn’t counted on much of what had happened to her during her trip. She’d known when she’d bought the car that it didn’t have a spare. It’s how she’d gotten the dealer to go down thirty dollars on the price. She’d figured she’d gotten the better part of the deal, since the spare had been as bad as the rest of the tires. But even that would have been better than what she had now, which was nothing.

Headbeams illuminated her from behind. She stepped farther onto the shoulder as she walked. The way her luck was running, someone would hit her from behind, and she’d be stuck in an American hospital for the next month or so. Or, worse yet, in a cast up to her neck on the next plane to Paris.

She stepped up to the tollbooth. A woman in her forties eyed her critically. “Pedestrians aren’t allowed on the turnpike.”

“My car, it broke down—”

The attendant leaned forward and frowned. “I can’t understand your accent, miss. Pass that by me again.”

Michelle grimaced. “Is there a bus or a train station nearby?”

The woman apparently understood her. She leaned back and crossed her arms. “Nope. The nearest bus station is about twenty-two miles east, at the last exit.”

Merde. She’d have to be careful, or the next thing she knew, she’d be arrested for loitering outside the tollbooth. “I don’t suppose there’s a cab service here?”

“Excuse me?”

Michelle shook her head. “Nothing. Thanks for your help.”

JAKE FLASHED his high beams, then passed another eighteen-wheeler. He glanced at the truck cab. Michelle could have been in any one of the dozen or so such vehicles he’d seen in the past five minutes. Or in one of the cars, which easily doubled that number.

“What are you doing, McCoy?” he muttered to himself.

He gripped then released the steering wheel. His reasons for following her in the first place were shaky at best. And now that she had lost him…well, there was very little point in continuing without more information or an official reason for doing so. And since he had neither, he’d be better off turning tail and starting on the long road for home.

What had he been thinking? Or, more accurately, which body part had he let do the thinking for him? He grimaced. He’d never done anything so irresponsible in his life. When he was younger, he’d opted out of stealing candy bars from Obernauer’s general store while Marc was busy stuffing his pockets full. Not because he was afraid he’d get caught, but because it was just plain wrong. Later, when Connor had surprised him with a stripper on his twentieth birthday, he’d handed her money rather than slip it in her G-string, and had kept his gaze carefully focused on a point just past her toned, undulating waist.

Why, of all times, he’d chosen now to let his hormones get the better of him, he didn’t know. Especially since Michelle was nowhere near the type of woman he was usually interested in.

It stood to reason that that’s exactly the reason he did find her so intriguing. But that didn’t help him any now.

He slowed down to exit the turnpike so he could head in the other direction when the muffled chirping of his cell phone caught his attention. He reached over and fished it from a box of Kleenex in his glove compartment. He didn’t recognize the number spotlighted in the display. Pulling onto the shoulder of the exit ramp, he clicked it on.

“Jake? It’s Michelle.”

He didn’t need to be told that. Just her saying his name made his pants a little tighter. He closed his eyes and exhaled silently. It was weird, this physical reaction to her call. More acute than the first time he’d given his number out and the girl had called him.

Michelle told him where she was, then paused before saying, “Can you come get me?”

He knew how very much it must have taken her to call him. He also knew he shouldn’t be feeling half the relief he was, either.

He glanced through the windshield at the tollbooth just ahead. He made out Michelle’s silhouette instantly. She was leaning against the side of the booth, the toe of one platform shoe on top of the other as she plugged her opposite ear.

“I’ll be right there,” he said, then flicked off the phone.

Within moments, he was pushing open the passenger’s door and paying the toll.

“That was quick,” the guard said, openly interested.

He didn’t answer her. He was more interested in Michelle as she climbed into the car and quietly closed the door. He pulled from the booth.

An air of defeat seemed to cling to her damp shoulders. Her sensual mouth was stoically unmoving, offering no babbling commentary on what the past half hour had held for her. She looked like a woman who had faced one too many disasters for one day and was ready to pack it in. He remembered who she was, who he was, and realized that the moment she’d called him, she’d done just that. She’d given in.

He fought a fierce urge to reach out and touch her. Pull her closer to his side.

“You about ready for that bite?” he asked instead.

She slowly turned to look at him. “Bite?” she repeated. “Oh, yes, food.”

“I don’t know about you, but I could eat a horse.”

Michelle smiled. “Gerald used to say that all the time. Used to drive me nuts. Especially in the beginning, when I didn’t know he didn’t mean it literally. But why would anyone want to even joke about eating a horse? I mean, yes, I get the whole size thing….” She let the words drift off, her gaze traveling the length of him, then back again. The color in her cheeks made her eyes seem to sparkle.

He smiled at the reemergence of her chattiness, then wondered why the mention of size had caused her to look him over so thoroughly. “Gerald, your…ex-boyfriend?” He caught himself before he said ex-husband.

“Lover,” she said, avoiding his gaze and crossing her arms. “And sorry, I don’t frequent restaurants that serve equine animals.”

“I’m afraid it’s not an invitation.”

Michelle closed her eyes, then looked at him. “Is it past midnight already?”

He nodded once.

“Then I’m suddenly very hungry. Ravenous, even. But I think I’ll leave any horse they might be serving for you.”

4

MICHELLE WELCOMED the vibrating hum of the hair dryer as she fluffed her freshly washed hair with her fingers. Her limbs felt rubbery. Her shoulders unbearably heavy. The long, hot shower had helped. So had dinner beforehand. At least what little she’d been able to make herself eat of the traditional American fare of meat loaf and mashed potatoes, the only selections available this late to her and Jake at the greasy spoon next to the motel. Even the tall, quiet INS agent who sat outside the bathroom door had appeared to lose his appetite as they sat across from each other. A pregnant silence had filled the air between them like so many unsaid, useless words. Unsaid and useless because Michelle knew that no matter what happened, Jake would be taking her to D.C. in the morning and putting her on the first flight to Paris.

She switched off the dryer and stared at the warm plastic in her hands. The steady drone of rain outside the slatted windows made it sound as though someone were taking a shower in the bathtub behind her.

She would be returning to France. Without Lili.

The thought that she might never see her daughter again caused a tightness in her chest that made it nearly impossible to breathe. What was she going to do without Lili crawling into her bed on rainy nights like this one, complaining about her inability to sleep, though she usually dropped right off once she’d curled her warm little body against Michelle’s? She supposed her life would come to resemble what the past eight weeks had held for her. Emptiness.

She caught a glimpse of her haunted eyes in the mirror, then reached out to wipe a small circle of steam from the surface.

A sound from the bedroom caught her attention. She realized Jake McCoy must have switched off the television. The tinny sound of voices was gone.

Jake McCoy.

Instantly, the tension in her chest unwound and snaked lower. She wasn’t sure what it was about this man that affected her so. It could be his awkward way around her. His solicitous grin. The way he blushed—actually blushed!—when he found out they would have to share the one room left at the motel and when she caught him looking at her breasts. Or when she curiously eyed certain parts of him. Whatever it was, the attraction she felt for him was strong enough to, if not fill the hole left by Lili’s absence, at least distract her from it a bit.

She cursed at herself in French. Six weeks in America and she was already beginning to overanalyze like an American. What was it with these people that made them question every feeling, every action, as if seeking a deeper meaning that wasn’t there? She was used to going with her feelings. If it felt good, she did it. And the prospect of making love with Jake McCoy felt very good indeed. It held all the promise of complete and total escape, at least for a few brief, precious hours—enough to get her through the night and on into the morning, when her situation might not look so dim.