BULLETPROOF BRIDE Page 8

  She cut the seal on the first bag, withdrawing a bundle of fifties. "Run them through the counter, rebundle, then the money goes into a locked bin. The vault teller also fills the ATMs." She stacked the bills in the machine and pressed the button. "We have two. One at the drive-through and one in the lobby."

  Gabe removed his Buddy Holly glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Why are you so patient with her?"

  Tessa jerked her gaze to his. "I beg your pardon?"

  "The pit bull in pearls. Lucille tried to torpedo all your ideas last night." He folded the glasses beside the tray. "I'd tell her to take a flying leap."

  She busily repackaged the money. "She's going to be family. One can stand up for oneself without resorting to rudeness."

  "Your fiancé is a man of few words."

  "Unlike some people, he's quiet, but he's a wonderful person. He's compassionate, intelligent and treats me with respect. His father died three years ago, and he takes care of his mother. He's also a very talented musician. Evenings and weekends, he gives free violin lessons to underprivileged kids."

  "A paragon of virtue."

  "Don't make fun of him!"

  He held up his hands. "Hey, I wasn't. He seems like a decent guy. I wonder, though—" Gabe studied her face. "When he kisses you, does your heart race?" He stepped closer and she edged away. "Your skin tingle? Your body quiver?" He took another step and she again edged away. "Like it did when I kissed you?"

  Her back hit the wall. All those things were happening to her right now. Horrified by her uncontrollable reaction to him, she went rigid.

  "Do you want to crawl inside him and live there?" he murmured, planting both palms on the wall on either side of her head. He lowered his face a whisper from hers.

  How could she stand here and discuss her fiancé's attributes, all the while yearning to kiss another man? She was disgusting. "Congratulations, a new record. You managed to behave for two whole hours." She forced in a shuddering breath. "You promised I could trust you."

  Gabe froze. "You're right. You can. I won't kiss you again." One corner of his mouth quirked in a lopsided smile as he stepped back. "Until you ask."

  Gripping her hands together to hide their shaking, she turned away. "The Dow Jones will hit five million first."

  His husky laugh embraced her. "Never say never, Houdini." He cut open the last canvas bag to hand her another pile of bills.

  "I assume Trask has the vault log and a master list of teller endorsement numbers. When his secretary takes her lunch break, we can search his office."

  She whirled. "If we're caught, I'll get fired, arrested, or both!"

  "You forget who you're dealing with. In this situation, I am the law. Besides, everything will be legal."

  "Talk about the fox guarding the henhouse."

  Gabe's lips turned up in that heart-stopping grin. "There you go. Take that sassy mouth and turn it on Lucille."

  "I'll work things out with her my own way." She snatched the pen from her jacket and logged them out, then shoved the pen back in her pocket. "We can't search Trask's office. I always take new staff to lunch their first day. My policy is well-known and any break in routine will raise questions. Trask is out more than he's in, so we'll have plenty of opportunity." She glanced at her watch. "It's noon, we might as well eat."

  "Okay. We'll discuss tactics and you can tell me about the other employees." With a flourish, he swooped up his glasses. "After you, boss."

  Tessa turned on her pager as she led Gabe toward the bank of elevators. "The cafeteria is in the basement, but I have lunch in the courtyard when the weather is nice."

  After choosing their meals, they strolled out to the courtyard in the center of the six-story building. Relishing the ripe-apple scent of late autumn, Tessa led Gabe to her usual table in the corner, sheltered by maple trees. She brushed crisp orange and red leaves off the glass tabletop before depositing her salad. "I can't believe nobody else is taking advantage of this beautiful day."

  His movements smooth and economical, Gabe slid into the seat across from her. "Getting outside feels great, doesn't it?" He removed his glasses and set them on the table. Closing his eyes, he leaned back and turned his face upward. Gilded bronze by the warm sun, his tanned features radiated peace and strength.

  Her heart leapt, then flipped over. Heavens, he was gorgeous in spite of the ridiculous disguise. Desire saturated her limbs, quickly followed by the odd, disconcerting feeling that her fate was irrevocably sealed. Just like when she'd tried to get away from him in the car, the warehouse, then the cabin, there was no escape. She gulped iced tea, the cold burn helping rein in her panic. "You said you wanted information about our coworkers?" she choked out. "What do you need?"

  His eyelids floated up, and his smoky, sensual gaze caressed her face. "Do you really want to know what I need, Tessie?" he asked, his low voice sliding over her like warm silk.

  Suddenly she couldn't breathe.

  "Hello, Tessa."

  She jerked her startled gaze to the sandy-haired man striding across the courtyard. "Hello, Peter," she managed to say. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gabe thrust his glasses back on.

  Peter stopped at their table. His pale, haggard face looked as if he hadn't been sleeping well. "I thought I'd find you here. Enjoying your lunch?"

  "Yes. Would you like to join us?"

  "For a minute." He took a seat beside her.

  She gestured. "This is Gabe Bond, our newest teller. Gabe, Mr. Peter Richards, senior vice president."

  "Hi," Gabe twanged out in his nasal nerd voice.

  "Welcome, Mr. Bond. Did you come to us from another bank?"

  Gabe shook his head. "No, I worked at Moore's pre-owned car emporium. You know, Come to Moore's, where Moore means less?" He snorted out a high-pitched laugh.

  Peter's lips twitched into a pained half smile. "Miss Beaumont is the best, you're lucky to be working under her."

  Gabe tossed her a surreptitious wink. He grinned, displaying his buckteeth. "I'm going to enjoy working under Miss Beaumont very much."

  Tessa congratulated herself on her restraint for not kicking the living daylights out of him under the table.

  Peter's brows dipped. "Ah, yes…" He cleared his throat as he turned to Tessa. "You've recovered from your ordeal? I was sorry to hear what you went through. When they catch this criminal, he deserves to be strung up by the, er, hanged."

  "I'm fine, thank you, and I heartily agree."

  Gabe choked out something between a laugh and a cough.

  "Will I see you and Dale at the banquet this weekend?"

  "We'll be there."

  He rose. "Good. I hope to see you also, Mr. Bond. The banquet is an opportunity to get to know your co-workers better."

  "I'll have to consult my social calendar," Gabe whined.

  With a friendly wave, Peter departed.

  "Very chummy with the VP," Gabe commented in his normal voice as he scooped up his thick turkey sandwich.

  She'd met Peter shortly after joining Oregon Pacific. He'd taken an interest in her, becoming a mentor as she moved through the ranks. Before she'd started seeing Dale, he'd asked her out, many times. She'd always refused to mix work and dating. Peter had accepted her decision and they remained friends, often lunching or catching a movie. "Peter makes a point to know all his employees. His brother Neil is the other VP and their father, Donald, is the company president."

  "Nothing like a little nepotism to get ahead in life."

  "He looked stressed. I hope nothing is wrong. Neil and Donald don't get along since Donald remarried, and Neil's daughter has health problems. They seem like a nice family."

  "Appearances aren't always what they seem. Speaking of, the report came in on Gregson. Real identity, Greg Fielding, a minor player with a rap sheet a mile long. Definitely not FBI. So we still don't know the police connection." He took a drink of his Coke. "Tell me about this shindig."

  "The annual employees banquet. A dinner dance held at t
he Chantal Ballroom as a morale booster every October."

  "A chance to rattle some cages and see what shakes loose." He laughed. "Sounds like a load of fun."

  She shook her head. "Don't you take anything seriously?"

  "Life's too short, Houdini. That serious stuff will give you ulcers, gray hair and wrinkles."

  "And a family, stability and security."

  "No such thing." A shadow of raw pain etched Gabe's face. "The sooner you learn that, the better off you'll be. Look out for number one. That's the only way you'll make it in this world."

  Her heart fisted, sharing his pain. She fought the urge to clasp his hand and offer comfort. "That sounds like a lonely way to live."

  "It does the job." He smiled, but his eyes had lost their usual shine. "Let's finish up. I'm anxious to get back under you again."

  Annoyed by his continual baiting, but more annoyed with herself for caring about him so much, she stabbed a tomato slice with unnecessary force. He wanted under her? Fine, she'd put him under her.

  They returned to the office in silence. As Tessa entered the lobby, Darcy Griffin, one of her tellers, called out, "A man is holding for you on line two."

  She hurried to her desk. "Tessa Beaumont speaking."

  A click echoed in her ear. The line went dead. Frowning, she held out the receiver and stared at it.

  "Problem?" Gabe spoke up behind her.

  "A customer probably got tired of waiting. I'm sure they'll call back." She gave him a saccharine smile. "Since you're so anxious to work under me, I'll get you started immediately."

  For the rest of the afternoon, Tessa assigned Gabe every menial, despised job in the office. To his credit, he performed each awful chore cheerfully, without a single complaint.

  At five o'clock, she exited the vault. Not sure why, she stopped. The eerie feeling of being watched crept over her. She glanced around. A well-dressed businessman and a tall, dark-haired teenage boy were the only customers. Everything else was quiet. Shrugging off the heebie-jeebies, she entered her office, where she'd sent Gabe to examine each of Darcy's nearly four hundred transaction slips for a nine-dollar discrepancy.

  "How's it going? Enjoying working under me?" she trilled.

  He glanced up, flashing his lightning grin. His eyes twinkled. "Ah, sweetheart, you know how I love it when you're masterful with me."

  She pretended to ignore the suggestive comment, and the resulting wash of heat. Gad, he was impossible! "It's closing time."

  An hour later, all the tellers had balanced out and left. Tessa set the timer on the vault, turned on the main alarm and then exited, locking the front door behind her. Gabe waited up the block in the yellow Pinto. He didn't want anyone to see them leave together. Dodging the evening commuters on the crowded sidewalk, she hurried along. Once she passed Gabe's car, he would follow her around the corner so she could slip inside.

  Once again, a stranger's intent gaze crawled over her. She stopped to peer into a store window, watching passersby in the reflection. Nothing odd, only the usual crowd of tired people hurrying home after a long workday. She continued on, catching a glimpse of Gabe's angry scowl in the side mirror as she scurried past. Her nerves jittered. She'd never seen him angry. Was someone following her after all?

  Safely around the corner, she stopped in front of the courthouse. Gabe pulled up and she climbed into the Pinto.

  "Of all the idiot—" His low voice shook with controlled fury. Nostrils flaring, he clamped his lips shut and stared out the windshield for several heartbeats. "Somebody out there wants to punch your ticket, and you stop to look at shoes?" He jerked his head in her direction, his cold gaze drilling into her.

  "I wasn't. I thought…" Uncertain, she trailed off.

  "That you needed a matching purse?" he snapped. "I told you exactly what to do. You'll damn well do it, or else."

  This was a different Gabe, one she didn't recognize. She should tell him what she suspected. But she didn't have anything concrete, only a creepy feeling. She'd been under a lot of pressure, and stress triggered anxiety.

  When Tessa didn't answer him, Gabe rammed the Pinto into gear and stomped on the gas. His heart was pounding like a jackhammer, cold rage churned in a greasy ball in his gut, and his chest was so tight he could barely breathe. What the hell was wrong with him? He never lost it. Ever.

  He flicked a glance at the mute woman in the passenger seat. When she'd stopped to look in the store window and presented her back like a neon target, the possibility of anything happening to her had made him grip the steering wheel so hard he'd nearly broken it.

  She wasn't in any real danger; he didn't think the counterfeiters would risk undue attention by whacking her in public. If he had any doubts, he wouldn't allow her out.

  So what was his problem?

  He'd never let work, or anything else, get under his skin. His picture was in the dictionary under calm, cool and collected. His usual MO was to shrug and stroll on. Emotional involvement of any kind had no place in his life.

  But here he sat, shaking like a raw recruit in his first firefight.

  Control kept him sane, kept him alive. But his control was slipping.

  And Mr. Calm, Cool and Collected was scared spitless.

  * * *

  Chapter 7

  « ^ »

  The next morning, Tessa flicked an uneasy glance at Gabe as he parked the Pinto in front of the courthouse. The heavy gray clouds glowering on the horizon mirrored his unusually sober face.

  Dressed in a powder-blue polyester leisure suit and hot pink shirt, he returned her puzzled stare with narrowed, inscrutable green eyes. "Don't stop for any reason today. If the world comes to an end, you keep walking. You're not offering your brains for target practice on my watch, is that clear?"

  A chill skittered up her spine, and she shivered, gulping down a lump of fear. Had he seen something yesterday after all?

  Gabe jerked his gaze away and rammed on the nerdy glasses. "Get going." The rough edge to his satin voice told her she only imagined the tenderness in his expression.

  As she scurried around the corner, the weight of someone's attention prickled along the back of her neck, making her feel like a hunted animal. Prey. Safely inside the bank, she heaved a sigh of relief and flipped on the lights. It had to be tension. She was one big raw nerve. A minute later, she let Gabe in the door, more reassured by his presence than she had a right to be.

  His alert gaze probed the corners and roved over each cubicle. "Nobody else here yet?"

  "I arrive early to review the schedule, check memos, and answer the phone if anyone calls in sick. Trask stops by around ten, then has meetings the rest of the day."

  "What about his administrative assistant?"

  "Lorna usually slips into her chair at nine, but the other employees arrive at eight-thirty, and expect me to be here. The executives on Trask's floor trickle in then as well."

  "Perfect time to search his office."

  She chewed her lip. "I don't have a key."

  His five-hundred-watt grin flashed, banishing the storm clouds from his face. "Who needs a key?"

  Her stomach churning, she followed him as he bounded up the stairs to the fourth floor and strolled down the gold-carpeted hallway to Trask's office as if he owned the place.

  He tucked his glasses in his jacket pocket before bending to study the doorknob. He extracted a leather case from inside his blue jacket, and chose a slim metal tool. His competent, graceful fingers slid the pick into the keyhole. He jiggled the knob and popped the lock with a twist of his wrist.

  "You've done that before."

  "Who me? I've never been to Trask's office."

  She shot a nervous glance down the hallway. "Keep your day job, Mr. Bond," she whispered. "You'll never make it as a comedian. Let's get this covert operation over with."

  He swung the door wide with a flourish. "After you."

  The butterflies in her stomach morphed into jumbo jets as she entered the dark room and crept pas
t Lorna's desk to the inner office. She tested the brass knob. "This is locked, too."

  Gabe again made short work of the lock, and she tiptoed into Trask's huge office behind him. The thick gold carpet swallowed up the sound of their footsteps. He eased the door shut. "Open the blinds, I don't want to use the light." His low voice vibrated through the darkness, jolting her charged nerves like lightning dancing along a high-voltage wire.

  The breath she didn't realize she was holding exploded out of her in a silent rush, and she commanded her frozen feet to walk to the bank of windows on the far wall. She groped for the wand that slatted open the ivory vertical blinds.

  He let out a low whistle. "That's quite a view."

  Sometime in the last few minutes, the glowering sky had split, and sheets of rain poured down. The Willamette River bisected the city, dark water churning under five bridges starkly silhouetted against the gray horizon. Lighted windows from surrounding multistory office buildings strained to break the gloom.

  She glanced at her watch. "We've got less than twenty minutes."

  "Okay, you check the file cabinets for the vault logs."

  "But I can get legitimate copies by submitting a request."

  Gabe shook his head. "We don't want to alert the perps." In seconds, he picked open the file cabinet. "I'll search Trask's computer for the endorsement codes. We need to know who processed the checks we intercepted."

  "The computer is password protected and has a security program."

  His smile as broad as a kid at the circus, he slid into Trask's plush leather chair and leaned back. Linking his hands in front of him, he cracked his knuckles. "Want me to approve your promotion and give you a raise while I'm at it?"

  "Why do I bother?" She wiped her sweaty palms on her black wool skirt. "You act as if you're at a cocktail party. Doesn't this scare you at all?"