Leverage

Shelby approached the lady at the cash register. “Hi, excuse me—”

“Oh, my goodness. Honey, you’re not from around here. I would remember that hair anywhere.” The woman’s voice wasn’t unkind, but it was loud, drawing the attention of pretty much everyone at the diner.

Shelby sighed. Remarks about her hair weren’t uncommon. It was red. Not a sweet, gentle auburn, but full-on red: garnet, poppies, wisps-of-fire red—Shelby had heard all the analogies. If she’d been born a few centuries earlier, she would’ve been burned at the stake as a witch just for her coloring.

Shelby tended to forget how much it grabbed people’s attention when they first met her. “Um, yeah. It’s really red, I know. I was wondering—”

“You couldn’t get that color out of a bottle, I imagine. Especially not with your skin coloring. Your hair must be natural.”

See? This was case and point why Shelby tended not to want to talk to people. Because really, did she have to go into her natural coloring with someone she’d known for less than ten seconds? Shelby didn’t want to be rude, but neither did she want to talk about which side of the family her coloring was from.

And Shelby was sure that question, or something very similar, would be the next inquiry from the cash register lady.

“Yeah.” Shelby remained noncommittal about the hair. “I’m looking for somebody. A pilot. His name is Dylan Branson. He was supposed to meet me here.”

“Oh, yeah, honey, he’s right over there.” The lady gestured toward the corner, and Shelby looked over. Great, it was the balding guy in the bad polo shirt. Shelby thanked her and headed that way before the woman could ask any more questions about her hair.

Dylan Branson was eating what looked like meat loaf at his table and had just put a huge forkful into his mouth when Shelby walked up to him.

“Hi, Dylan Branson, right? I’m Shelby Keelan.”

The man looked over at Shelby and his eyes bulged. He held his hand up in front of his mouth, rapidly chewing, and began standing up.

“No, don’t get up. I didn’t mean to interrupt your meal.”

Shelby sat down across from him. Of course, the polite thing for Branson to do would’ve been to wait until she got there and then eat together, rather than shoveling food in right when he was supposed to meet her. But whatever. Shelby just hoped Megan’s husband was a little more considerate than his brother.

And for the sake of her friend, Shelby hoped he was a little more handsome, too. Not balding and portly, like Dylan here. But maybe follically challenged didn’t run in the Branson family, just this one brother.

And he was still chewing. How big of a bite could he have taken, for goodness’ sake? The look he was giving her over his moving jaw was clearly confused.

“Take your time.” Shelby smiled. She didn’t want him to choke or anything. That wouldn’t get her to DC very quickly.

“Oh, honey, not Tucker,” the lady called out from behind the cash register, pointing to the man eating. Then she looked past Shelby to the booth beyond her in the corner. “Dylan Branson, shame on you. You knew this young lady was looking for you. You should’ve said something.”

“I would’ve, Sally. But I wanted to see if Tucker would actually choke on the meat loaf while trying to talk to her first.”

The deep voice came from the booth behind Shelby. She didn’t need to look up to see who it was. She knew. The dark-haired, sexy-as-sin Calvin Klein model.

Chapter Three

The attraction punched him in the gut. Dylan had been punched enough times to know clear and well what it felt like: it stole your breath, caused you to wonder which end was up, made your whole body tingle.

Of course, it was usually followed by agony. But in this case it might be worth it.

Striking was the only word for Shelby Keelan. Her red hair fell around her face and shoulders in long wisps and curls that had escaped from the loose braid she seemed to have attempted at some point. Her eyes —now looking at him rather than Tucker—were a clear emerald green with a hint of gold in them.

But, for the love of all things holy, it was her freckles that were killing him. Scattered across her nose, her cheeks, her forehead. They were quite possibly the most alluring thing he had ever seen.

Shelby Keelan wasn’t a traditional beauty, but she was striking.

From his corner booth where he could see the main entrance, kitchen entrance and emergency exit—old habits died hard—Dylan had seen her come in. He’d been almost positive who she was from that moment, and then her brief conversation with Sally had confirmed it.

He should’ve said something when she sat down at the table near his booth and started talking to Tucker, but he couldn’t resist seeing how that played out. Poor Tucker still looked as if he was going to have a heart attack.

Shelby Keelan sat in her seat at Tucker’s table, her green eyes zeroed in on Dylan. She did not look amused.

“Confused strangers are the top entertainment around here, I take it?”

Uh-oh. Dylan stood, giving Shelby his most charming smile. “Not usually, I promise. I just couldn’t resist seeing how Tucker was going to react.”

Tucker was still staring at Shelby. “I, uh, I mean, I’m not Dylan Branson.” He finally got the words out, much too late to be helpful.

Dylan walked over and slapped Tucker on the back good-naturedly. “I think she caught that much, Tuck. Ms. Keelan is dropping off some items for me to deliver.” Dylan looked over at Shelby and held out his hand for her to shake. “I’m Dylan Branson. A pleasure to meet you.”

Shelby stood and grasped Dylan’s hand. Dylan shook it, then kept it, glad when she didn’t snatch it away, and led her over to his booth. “Let’s leave Tucker to finish his meat loaf.”

A huge crash of thunder shook the windows in Sally’s diner. “I can’t take off in this anyway. I’ll need to let Megan and Sawyer know I’ll be delayed for a few hours.”

Shelby looked out the window at the rain now pouring down and nodded. “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.”

“Maybe you’ll let me buy you dinner to make up for my rude behavior. Since we have some extra time before I can fly in this.”

Shelby didn’t look convinced, but Dylan wasn’t going to let it go. The way he saw it, this situation was the best of all worlds: a chance to spend some time with a gorgeous woman, but one who would only be around for a couple of hours. Once the weather cleared and she gave him the codes, they’d go their separate ways. No complications.

But for now he could just enjoy her; her company and her beauty.

“Unless you’re in a hurry and just need to drop everything off and run.” Dylan gave her another smile. “But I hope that’s not the case and you’ll have dinner with me.”

She gave him a confused look, but then nodded. “Okay, dinner. A chance to redeem yourself.” One of her eyebrows arched as she looked at him.

“Deal. Let me contact Megan and Sawyer to tell them about the storm.” Afraid he might yell at Megan for not preparing him for how beautiful Shelby was, Dylan just sent a text to Sawyer.

Shelby in pocket, but storm will delay flight. Will contact with updated ETA soon.

Dylan received a reply just moments later from Sawyer.

Roger that. I’ll inform Burgamy.

Good, let Sawyer handle Burgamy. Dylan wanted as little communication time with his ex-boss as possible. He caught the attention of the young waitress who brought them both menus. Shelby began looking through it, but Dylan didn’t even need to.

“Already know what you want?” Shelby asked him.

“Yeah. Sally’s chicken pot pie is my favorite. I usually get that.”

“That sounds good. Perfect for a rainy night and to recover from my near-death experience a little while ago.”

As far as Dylan knew, most people didn’t have near-death experiences around Falls Run. He hoped she wasn’t talking about poor Tucker. He wasn’t that bad. “What happened?”

They both ordered pot pie and sweet tea then Shelby told him about the car that had driven her partially off the side of the road. It sounded as if the driver never even saw her.

“Wow, first almost being run off the road, then almost having to have dinner with Tucker. That’s a double whammy.”

She laughed and relaxed back against the booth. Her eyes sparkled with genuine amusement. Dylan assumed he was forgiven.

“Yeah, the roads around here can be dangerous even for someone who’s driven them for years,” he continued. “And somebody not paying attention? You’re really lucky.”

“I thought the same thing after my pulse settled down to something below two hundred beats a minute.”

The waitress brought them their iced tea.

“So you and Megan went to college together? Were you close?”

“Well, sort of. Megan was so young when she was at MIT, child prodigy and all that, so she’s younger than me. Plus, I’m not a real outgoing person, so I tend to keep to myself. But we banded together a little bit because we were both females in an overwhelmingly large group of men.” Shelby took a sip of her tea. “So she married your brother?”

“One of the two, yes. Sawyer. The playboy of the family. It was amazing how fast he fell.” Dylan chuckled at the thought.

“And now they have a new baby on the way. I’m happy for Megan. I know back in college she always felt concerned she’d never really fit in anywhere.” By the way her face lit up, Dylan could tell Shelby authentically cared for Megan.

The waitress brought their food and they began to eat. “So how many siblings do you have?” Shelby asked between bites.

“I’m thirty-five and the oldest of four kids. Sawyer is the youngest. Cameron is a couple of years younger than me and our sister, Juliet, is sandwiched between Sawyer and Cameron.”

“Anybody else married?”

“My other brother, Cameron, to a woman he was involved with a few years ago. They reconnected recently.” Dylan didn’t mention that Cameron and Sophia had reconnected when Cam had taken Sophia hostage while working undercover. That would probably come across as a little weird. “Juliet just got engaged to our longtime family friend Evan. They work together.”

Again, mentioning that Juliet and Evan had fallen in love after living through an attack by a crazed stalker probably would be an overshare. Love in the Branson family tended to be less than traditional.

And that was part of the reason Dylan tried to stay as far as possible from it.

“How about you?” Shelby peeked over her pot pie at him.

“Married once, a long time ago. But not in the cards for me any longer.” Dylan definitely did not want to talk about that. “You?”

“Nah. Haven’t found anyone yet I like more than my pets.”

Dylan laughed. “I don’t blame you. Are you a dog person? Please, not cats.”

“Both, actually.” Shelby smiled at him and began telling him a story about some trouble one of her dogs had gotten into. Dylan matched that story with one of a dog he once had. Soon they were both laughing so hard they could hardly eat.

They were still talking about all sorts of things—her job as a programmer, his as a pilot, her cats that tended to act more like dogs—as they finished their meal, ordered some of Sally’s pie and finished that.

Dylan couldn’t remember feeling this comfortable and attracted, hell, this invested, in a woman in a long time.

He found himself wishing this was more than just a meeting to pick up some data from his sister-in-law’s friend. That he and Shelby had more time to spend with each other. But glancing out the window, Sawyer realized the storm would be passing soon. He needed to get the codes to Omega.

The thought of Omega brought all the memories flooding back. All the reasons why Dylan couldn’t—wouldn’t—get involved with another woman.

Tension began to fill Dylan’s relaxed body as he realized spending too much time with Shelby was not a good idea. Her smile made him think of things that just weren’t in the cards for him. He didn’t have it in his heart to love another woman. Burying Fiona and their unborn child, knowing their deaths were his fault, had killed something inside Dylan. He would be wasting time, both his and any woman in his company, by pretending he had anywhere to go in a relationship.

Not that Shelby Keelan had said anything about wanting a relationship with him, for heaven’s sake. They were just enjoying a meal together, relaxed conversation. But attraction was fairly crackling between them. Their hands kept touching on the table as they each made some point in a story. He could even feel Shelby’s smaller foot next to his leg under the table.

She wasn’t being forward, they just had a connection. And Dylan hadn’t tried to keep it in check, like he normally would’ve—not that he’d felt this way about a woman in a long time. Since he’d known he and Shelby would only be together for a couple of hours before she gave him the codes and left, Dylan had deliberately left their natural chemistry unchecked.

He wasn’t sure he would’ve been able to stop it even if he wanted to.

But his plan was backfiring. The more he talked to Shelby, the more he wanted to keep talking to her. Her acid wit kept him laughing, her intelligence kept him intrigued, and those freckles...

Those freckles were going to be his undoing. Even right now it was all he could do not to reach across the table and begin kissing a line from one freckle to the next. Starting with the ones on her nose, over to her cheeks and down to the one big one he could see where her jaw met her neck.

He’d have to concentrate on that one especially.

Dylan realized he was inching closer to Shelby across the table and forced himself to lean away, shifting his weight all the way back in the booth, away from her. What the hell was he doing? This was more than mere attraction, it was almost as if Dylan was drawn to Shelby.

Well, that was unacceptable and Dylan needed to get himself under the control he was so well known for. He couldn’t believe how close he was to asking Shelby out. To asking her to spend more time with him once he returned from Omega. Hell, to seeing if she wanted to wait at his house for the twelve hours it would take him to deliver the codes to Omega then get home, if he made the round trip as fast as possible.

And that scared the hell out of him.

Shelby wasn’t the type of woman Dylan could get involved with. She wasn’t a one-night-stand type of girl; that was already obvious. Plus, she was Megan’s friend.

He’d let things step over the emotional line with Shelby because they only had a couple of hours. Well, a couple of hours were up. It was time to end this attraction right now. While he still could.

Get the codes. Deliver the codes. Get out.

Shelby was talking about pets. Finishing an entertaining story about how the mama cat had taken a puppy to raise as her own when the puppy’s mother had died. Shelby’s green eyes had softened while telling it and Dylan had been totally caught up in the story. But now he stopped her, almost abruptly.

“You know, it looks like this storm is making its way out of the area. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you, Shelby. But if you’ll just give me the codes, I’ll be on my way for delivery.”

It was rude and came out harsher than Dylan intended. He saw confusion wash over Shelby’s face and then self-doubt. Damn it, she was trying to figure out what she had done to initiate Dylan’s borderline rudeness. He hated how Shelby drew back and made herself smaller in the booth seat across from him. The smile that had lit her features for almost their entire conversation died.

Dylan hated it, but steeled himself against the apology he found on his lips. It was better this way. Cleaner. But the disappointment in Shelby’s eyes actually hurt him. It had been a long time since anything involving a woman had had the power to hurt Dylan. Why should being a jerk to someone he’d only known a couple of hours be able to?

Even if she was the most engaging and fascinating person he’d met in a long time. And the first person who didn’t make him want to excuse himself as soon as possible so he could get back to his house, alone.

All of which was just more proof he needed to get away from her as soon as possible.

Dylan could recognize the crookedness of his own logic though he didn’t plan to do anything about it. He couldn’t do anything about it. All he could do was just get away from Shelby before things went any further.

Shelby’s brows were furrowed. “Um, I don’t understand.” Her tone was uncertain.

Dylan rubbed a hand down his face. Damn it, he was making a mess of this. “I think you should just go ahead and give me the codes. Then you can head on back home, or whatever, and I’ll take off as soon as I have a chance. All I need is a break in the storms and I’ll be fine.”

Shelby frowned and shook her head. “But I can’t.”

“You can’t leave Falls Run tonight? Well, there’s a motel down the street. I’m sure it’s not full.” Dylan almost offered to walk her over there, but that was a terrible plan.

Get the codes. Get out.

“No, I mean I can’t give you the codes.”

“You don’t understand, Shelby. It’s okay. Megan knows I will deliver them straight to her at Omega. She should’ve told you I could be trusted, but we can call her so you can talk to her about it yourself. You’ll just need to give me the drive, or disk or whatever the codes are on.”

“No, you don’t understand. I can’t give you the codes because they’re in my head. I’m what you’re supposed to deliver to Omega Sector.”

Chapter Four

You would think she’d just told him she had a nuclear device in her back pocket the way he was acting. Shelby watched from the booth as Dylan went over to pay Sally at the register for their meal.

Shelby tried to think through their conversation to figure out what had happened, where it had gone wrong. Shelby certainly wouldn’t be surprised to figure out it was something she had said. It always tended to be something she’d said.

But things had been going so well with Dylan tonight. Laughing and talking with him had been easy. Not full of those awkward pauses that tended to populate Shelby’s conversations. Especially ones with really hot guys.

Not that she tended to have too many of those.

Everything seemed to be going great, and then Shelby had watched as Dylan Branson just shut down right in front of her eyes. The light flirting, the laughing, the lack of awkward pauses they had enjoyed the whole evening—totally gone in a split second. The emotional temperature in the room had dropped twenty degrees in just a moment.

Generally, Shelby was always looking for a way to get out of conversations, to find a way to return to her natural solo state. But with Dylan she hadn’t felt the need to withdraw. They both seemed to be enjoying the conversation. Enjoying each other. So, yeah, his abrupt termination of everything hurt. More than Shelby expected.

Not that she’d been expecting Dylan to ask her to go steady or anything, but they’d been having a good time and then: pow! Right in the middle of a sentence he was suddenly finished with her.

See, this was why Shelby avoided people whenever possible.

And then when she told Dylan she had to go with him on the flight? She thought his eyes might bug out of his head.

She hadn’t been sure how to respond. When it became clear Dylan wasn’t going to elaborate, Shelby had tried to explain. “I have to go. The codes are in my head.”

“Well, then write them down or something.”

Write them down?

“Do you think Megan and I are idiots?” Shelby asked. “If I could just write them down, do you think I would be here with you right now?”

Dylan had shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

Shelby had struggled to keep her temper under control. How could this even be the same man she had been talking to so comfortably just ten minutes before? “Well, I wouldn’t. If I was able, I would have already used that newfangled thing called the internet to send the codes to Omega. I have to go.”

Dylan shook his head. “How big can the codes be if they’re in your head?”

Shelby had just sat back and glared at him. “Big.”

At that, he stood up, took the bill the waitress had brought a few minutes before and gone over to pay. The restaurant looked to be closing up soon.

Shelby didn’t want to explain to him about her photographic memory of anything having to do with numbers. Fifteen minutes ago she wouldn’t have minded talking about it, almost had mentioned it when they were discussing her job. But that was when she was talking to good Dylan rather than jerk-face Dylan, who had somehow taken his place. She really wasn’t interested in telling him much of anything now.

Maybe Shelby should mention to Megan that schizophrenia might run in her husband’s family.

When Dylan didn’t immediately return, Shelby looked over at him. Through the window she could see he had stepped outside. He was on the phone now, obviously not happy with whomever he was talking to. Shelby hoped it wasn’t Megan.

Shelby also wished she knew what she had done to turn Dylan so hard and cold. Besides just existing and needing a ride. Which was why she was even here. Although that obviously hadn’t been explained to Dylan.

Shelby finished her tea as she watched Dylan talking on the phone outside. Another storm had come up and lightning played through the night sky. Shelby didn’t think they could take off in all this anyway. Maybe she should drive or look into taking a commercial flight. She could live through being surrounded by all the people at an airport and on an airplane if she had to.

Plus, how much worse could it be than being in an airplane with someone who seemed annoyed by her very existence?

Shelby got up and headed toward the door. She would just go her separate way from Dylan Branson. And hope when she met Megan’s husband, Sawyer, that he didn’t have the same temperament as his brother.

Shelby opened the door. Dylan’s back was to her as he spoke on the phone. “Yeah, I get it. She’s needed, too. All I’m saying is that this should’ve been made more clear to me, Burgamy.” Dylan turned around, looking at Shelby while listening to the other person on the phone. “Yes, crystal.”

Dylan disconnected the call without saying anything further. Good to know he was gruff with everybody, not just Shelby. They stood for a moment, not saying anything. Lightning flashed around them again.

“Look, I’m not sure what exactly happened here.” Shelby gestured toward the inside of the restaurant. “But obviously there was some sort of misunderstanding. You weren’t expecting me or whatever. And that’s fine. I’m just going to make other travel arrangements.”

Dylan rubbed his eyes wearily. “No, that’s not going to work. DC is too far to drive.”

“I can see about a commercial flight.”

“By the time you got to an airport big enough, that would take nearly as long as driving. Listen, I’m sorry I was abrupt before. I just didn’t have all the information.” Dylan shrugged. “I can fly you to DC. But since this storm seems to have stalled out right on top of us, it’s going to be a few hours. Probably three or four.”

Four hours? Shelby looked at her watch. It was after 10:00 p.m. She didn’t relish the idea of sitting in her car for that long, but surely Sally’s diner was going to close soon. Shrugging, Shelby turned toward her car.

Dylan touched her arm. “Look, the airfield is out near my house. Why don’t you just come stay at my place, get a few hours of sleep, then we’ll be ready to go when this series of storms passes.”

Shelby moved away from his touch. “Uh, no, thank you.”

“Why?”

“Are you kidding me?” Shelby’s voice was pretty loud. A couple leaving the closing diner looked over at Shelby and Dylan. Dylan waved, but Shelby ignored them.