Read The Enemy Within (Daughters of the People Series Book 3) for Free Online Page B

you
want.” She stood and noted the way his gaze followed her movements, almost as
if he couldn’t help looking. His words from a few days before floated through
her mind. Would you believe me if I said I can’t help myself? It
appeared he really couldn’t. It pleased her, inexplicably, irrationally. “Would
you mind driving?”
    “I don’t mind.”
He picked up the keys from his desk and crossed the room to stand beside her.
“Probably for the best anyway, since I brought the truck.”
    She pressed her
lips together to stifle the humor tugging at her. A strong man with a truck
indeed. “I appreciate that.”
    He opened the
door and placed a hand on the small of her back in a touch that warmed her
through and through. “Figured you’d want to get that furniture in as soon as
possible.”
    She let him
escort her through the building, and noted with uncharacteristic spite that
Laura had abandoned her post. “You figured correctly. I don’t mind sleeping on
the floor once in a while, but it gets uncomfortable night after night.”
    They entered the
elevator and he punched the main floor’s button with a roguish grin that made
her blush. Why had she brought up sleeping around him, of all people?
    She blew a
silent breath out when he let it go and forced herself to carry on a natural
conversation with him that did not include anything related to sleeping
or beds or the attraction sparking so brightly between them.
     
    * * *
     
    Bobby took her
to a chichi deli a block away from his office and insisted on paying for their
lunch. After they placed orders for a turkey sub each, they found a table off
to one side, away from the windows and the lunch crowd streaming in.
    Indigo sat down
across from Bobby. “You know, I was supposed to treat you as a thank you for
helping me today.”
    He shrugged.
“Yeah, but I’m the man.”
    She looked up
from the sandwich she was arranging in meticulous portions across the butcher’s
paper that held it. “What does that have to do with anything?”
    “This isn’t
Tellowee where Daughters run amuck and bully and coddle their men into
submission.” He grinned at her. “This is America and I’m the man. Here, when we
take beautiful women out, we pay.”
    She paused with
one quarter of her sandwich halfway to her mouth. He thought she was beautiful.
After all this time and all the things that had passed between them, the
heartache and disappointment and anger, he still thought she was beautiful. A
gooey warmth nudged at her heart, right where her resolve was supposed to be.
How was she supposed to fight him off when he said things like that?
    He raised his
eyebrows and pierced her with a look that seemed to see right through her. “No
rebuttal?”
    “I’m not letting
you pay every time we go out.”
    “You say that
like this is an official date.”
    She gave him a
quelling look. “Besides, this lunch was my idea.”
    “Still the man.”
When she started to speak, he nudged the plastic basket holding her lunch with
a  finger. “Are we gonna argue or eat?”
    “I wasn’t
arguing,” she said primly. “I was clarifying.”
    “Uh-huh.” He
took a bite, chewed thoughtfully as his eyes lingered on her. “How did you like
working on the Sandby borg site?”
    “It was fun,
right up until the robbery. Dr. Lindberg, the man in charge of the dig,” she
said when he raised a questioning eyebrow, “he was a lot of fun to be around. A
bit of a rascal, too, but only around his wife. I think they’ve been married
fifty-five or six years now, and are still very much in love.”
    He glanced down
at his sandwich, hesitated, then took a bite of it almost mechanically. She
nibbled at her own sandwich as the silence dragged on between them. Why had she
mentioned the l-word around him? No matter what had passed between them, he
deserved better than to have her prod an old wound. She sipped from her bottle
of water, searching for a safer topic. “How did you meet Hiro and