Barbara Dunlop - Too Close To Call

She couldn’t know his secret already. Could she?

He gazed into her clear blue eyes for signs that he was caught.

She stared back, poker-faced, not giving a thing away.

Jordan had never been any good at mind games. He much preferred the straight-ahead approach. Like a wrestling match on the floor of the office—winner got the promotion.

He wondered if she’d go for it.

“Friday at ten,” said Ashley.

“I have an appointment on Friday.” In Alpine, Alaska. Running his company. Wally had only convinced him to do this much because he was the closest thing Jordan had to family.

“So, cancel,” she said.

“It’s not that simple.”

The storm was forecast to last most of the week, so there was no hope of Jeffrey making it back to save the day.

Forget the possibility that Jordan would be caught before Friday, his employees back home were depending on him. The airline wasn’t going to run itself.

She smirked, and shrugged her slim shoulders. “Then don’t show. I don’t mind.”

Then she nodded at the stack of papers, leaning slightly forward in her chair. “I hear yours is set in Alaska.”

“Arctic Luck,” said Jordan, then immediately wondered if he’d made a mistake. Jeffrey had distinctly told him not to share any information with Ashley.

“What’s the title?” she asked.

“What’s yours?” he returned, not about to get caught out a second time.

She smiled, revealing straight, white teeth and giving those blue eyes a luminescent glow. A shiver of attraction shot to life inside him. He quickly quelled it. That was the last thing he needed.

“Kissed In California,” she replied.

His gaze subconsciously shifted to her full lips. But he quickly blinked his way back to her eyes. Bottomless. Amazingly beautiful.

His brain might know she was off limits, but his libido appreciated what his libido appreciated. There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do about it.

“Cute title,” he said into the silence.

“It’s a cute concept.”

“Going to tell me about it?” he asked.

“Not on your life.”

“Spoilsport.”

“You expect me to make this easy for you?”

“Definitely not.”

“Good.” She paused. “I’d hate for you to be disappointed.”

It was his turn to grin. “I’m not so far.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“It means I can’t wait to see what your medical series is all about.”

“Detective series,” she corrected.

Jordan’s grin widened.

“Don’t get all smug on me. I gave you that one.”

And she had. He had no doubt.

This was a woman completely in control, completely sure about what she wanted, where she was going and what she was doing.

Jeffrey had her all wrong. She wasn’t dangerous. She was intriguing. Sharp and prickly, but definitely intriguing.

“Stop that,” she said, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Stop what?”

“Does the bedroom eyes thing actually work in New York?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

A challenge glittered in the depths of her irises. “Don’t mess with me.”

That challenge called to him. It made him envy Jeffrey for getting to work with her all the time. Okay, so Jeffrey got to work against her all the time. But it was probably still stimulating as all get out.

She sighed in exasperation and threw up her hands. “What now?”

“You’re not what I expected.”

“What are you talking about?”

Oops. “I mean, this isn’t what I expected.”

She sat back. “You thought I’d just roll over and play dead as soon as I heard you were showing up?”

Jordan didn’t chance answering this time.

She shook her head. “Not on your life, Jeffrey. You just hang on to your New York hat, because I am going to blow you so far out of the East River.”

Jordan couldn’t help the grin that crept out.

She straightened, and her skirt hiked up showing off an inch of shapely thigh. Her full lips were pursed. And those crystal blue eyes pinned him with a challenge worthy of a wild lynx.

Too bad all that pent-up intensity and emotion was working against him instead of for him. If he ever had a choice, he’d want her on his team. She could probably survive quite nicely in the Alaskan bush.

“Exactly how are you planning to blow me out of the East River?” he asked, wondering if he could fake her into divulging a little more information. Though, if he was honest, he wasn’t doing it so much for Jeffrey’s sake at this point, as he was trying to best her for the gratification of his own ego.

“With skill and talent,” she responded smoothly. “And hard work.”

“You don’t think I’m willing to work hard?”

“I want it more than you do.”

“Maybe.”

Her eyes widened, and she looked momentarily confused.

Oops. Not a Jeffrey answer. “I mean, I’m sure you think you want it more than I do. But, you know me, Ashley—”

“That’s right. I do. And I’m not going to let you undermine me this time.” She pinned him with a knowing look.

This time? Jordan needed to talk to Jeffrey.

“Then you know I never back away from a fight,” he said. That seemed like a safe assumption about Jeffrey. And, it was true enough for Jordan, too.

“Back away?” she scoffed. “I’m sure you’ll do your usual end run.”

Jordan wasn’t sure he liked the sound of that. It made Jeffrey, him, sound rather conniving. He was definitely going to find out what Jeffrey had done to this woman.

“I promise you.” He looked her straight in the eyes. “Whatever’s happened between us in the past, this time you’ll see me coming.”

SEE HIM COMING?

What did he mean, see him coming? L.A. studio executives, Jeffrey Bradshaw in particular, were not known for their frontal attacks. Nobody got ahead in this business by giving the competition a chance to mount a defense.

Ashley shut her office door and leaned hard against it, closing her eyes.

What was the matter with her? She’d started off planning to pump Jeffrey for information, but ended up practically throwing down the gauntlet. Talk about an ill-advised frontal attack. Jeffrey knew more about her plans than she’d ever intended to divulge.

But—she took a deep breath—she hadn’t come away completely empty-handed.

She crossed to her desk, adjusted the opaque blinds to block the midday sun from streaming through the picture windows and clicked on her Internet link.

Arctic Luck, Alaska.

“You’re slipping, Jeffrey,” she muttered to herself.

What was in Arctic Luck, and why would it make a funny television series?

After fifteen minutes of surfing, Ashley had her answer, at least to one of her questions.

Nothing was in Arctic Luck. Nothing at all.

Well, according to the National Forest Service, it had ten unserviced campsites and several miles of grizzly-infested hiking trails. You could catch pike and Arctic grayling in the local lakes—when they weren’t frozen solid. And, one of the citizens had made the Anchorage Daily News two years ago when his dog team chased off a bull moose during a dogsled race.

As to how Jeffrey planned to make that funny and marketable to a broad demographic, she had absolutely no idea.

Her odd couple/sexy/mismatched buddies/action/fish out-of-water/detective series had to be better than husky dogs and moose. After all, how could a person possibly make a moose sexy?

Not even Jeffrey. Who, well, speaking of sexy…

Ashley closed her eyes again.

Something had happened to Jeffrey while he was away in New York. He suddenly oozed sex appeal. He looked like he’d spent the entire year at the gym and in a tanning booth. She sure didn’t remember that rugged, outdoorsy, hardened appearance from last year.