Justine Davis - One of These Nights

After a moment he discarded that notion. It wasn’t just someone, it was someone like Samantha Harrison. Life and energy simply radiated from her, and that kind of person always had this effect on him. Because he was so much the opposite, he supposed. He was always one step back from life, an observer rather than a participant. People like her lived life to the fullest, with passion and élan. People like him just stood back and watched, admiring but not partaking.

And sometimes wishing they could be different.

It wasn’t just a Monday morning, it was a rotten Monday morning. Rebecca was really starting to get on Ian’s nerves. When they’d first assigned the intern to him, he’d thought she might be a help with all the paperwork and reports tracking the progress of the project. And he couldn’t deny she was efficient at that. Too efficient, perhaps. She had too much time left to hang over his shoulder, too much time to poke her nose into new work that wasn’t ready to be added to the logs yet.

He’d tried telling her he worked alone; he couldn’t tolerate somebody hanging around so closely. But she’d told him she was just so excited she couldn’t help herself. One time he’d snapped at her, and the sight of tears welling up in her eyes made him feel like such a jerk. She was barely more than a girl, after all. So now he found himself making up things for her to do, just to get her out of his way for a while. Like now, when he asked her to track down a new cartridge for the printer, when he knew a simple shaking of the current one would keep him going for a couple of weeks. He didn’t care, he just needed her out of here so he could concentrate.

It didn’t work.

He swore under his breath as his mind insisted on returning to yesterday, a Sunday afternoon unlike any he’d had in years. Samantha was filled with such energy, such a passion for life it put him in mind of his mother, which did little to explain his wary fascination. He and his mother—and his father, for that matter—did not see eye to eye on much of anything, except that they loved each other and shared the wonder at how on earth they had wound up as parents and child.

A simple walk down the street for an ice cream, something he’d done countless times before, had somehow been turned into an adventure. Being new to the neighborhood, she’d seen and asked about things he took for granted. But he was glad. It let him relax and answer questions instead of trying to think of things to say. At one time he’d been perfectly able to carry on a conversation without strain. Once again he wondered how he’d come to this.

The Martins’ multicolored Victorian-style house had earned a grin, the Bergs’ cheerful border collie, a croon and a pat, and Mrs. Gerardi’s lavish formal garden had rated a stop and look.

“Gorgeous, but a bit too tidy for my taste.”

“You ought to love mine, then,” Ian had said wryly.

She’d laughed, that lively and musical sound. “I noticed.”

“I don’t have the time,” he’d said, then added frankly, “or the knowledge.”

“I do. I love gardening, and there’s not much to do around my place. Too much concrete,” she’d said with a grimace. She’d turned a smile on him then that made his breath catch. “So why don’t I tackle your yard? You’d be doing me a favor, letting me putter.”

“You want to work on my yard?” He’d gaped at her but hadn’t been able to help it.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Samantha had said, sounding utterly enthused.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Rebecca’s voice said in his ear now, sounding utterly meek.

Ian snapped back to the present. For a moment he just stared at his assistant, who was looking at him as if she’d been talking for a while. He hadn’t heard a word.

“Mind?” he asked, hoping the ploy would work. It did, sort of. She repeated enough that he was able to get the gist of her request but with an expression on her face that clearly indicated she was wondering about his sanity.

“I know you said last week’s data wasn’t ready yet, but I thought since I have some time I’d enter it, anyway, and then I can make any changes you want later.”

Sometimes her eagerness wore on him, Ian thought. Maybe it was simply her youth. She made him feel much more than just thirteen years older than she was. He wondered how old Samantha was. Younger than he, he guessed. But not as young as Rebecca. And her enthusiasm didn’t wear on him in the same way. For all her lightheartedness, he sensed in Samantha depths that weren’t shown to the world. She’d had shadows in her life, he thought. She—

“Well, Professor?”

Yanked again back to the present, he resisted the urge to again snap at her for calling him that. He shouldn’t be angry at her. She was always so nice to him, bringing him lunch when he forgot to eat, tidying his office, making sure he remembered a jacket when it was cool.

“Go ahead,” he said, rather sharply.

And just leave me alone.

Even as he thought the words, he realized they had become a mantra. He’d even stopped adding to do my work to the phrase. And for the most part, people were doing just that. Leaving him alone.

For the first time he wondered if maybe he’d gone too far into isolation.

“Hey, Professor, how goes it?” Stan Chilton’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Data ready yet?”

He’s your boss, Ian reminded himself, albeit with jaw clenched. You can’t punch out the head of research and development, even if he is the one who started that damned “Professor” thing.

And the man was nearly as bad as Rebecca, hovering, flitting around the edges until Ian thought he was going to lose it. Odd, Stan hadn’t always been that way. But it seemed everybody was strung tight over this particular project—even Stan, who, while bright enough, was more of an administrator than anything. His talent lay in the research, not in the development. Along with his computer skills, which were legend around the division, paperwork and organization, things that were an anathema to Ian, were Stan’s pride and joy.

And without him, you’d be stuck doing that, Ian told himself. So with a sigh he reined in his temper and set about updating Chilton, which in essence meant telling him that in hard data they were exactly where they’d been the last time he’d asked.

“So far, so good,” Sam reported.

“He doesn’t suspect?” Josh asked.

“No.” She lifted a shoulder to hold the phone receiver against her ear as she finished pouring icy soda water into her glass. “I’ve got a good watching post for when he’s in the house at night, and a way to stick close to him on weekends. The only problem is transit between here and Redstone. Right now I’m following him in and then back home, but I don’t think that’s going to work forever.”

“You think he knows you’re following him?” Josh asked.

“I told him I work in the same direction. But he works unpredictable hours, and that makes it tricky for me to match his schedule without him getting wise.”

“Shall I have somebody else do the tail, so you can be less obvious?”

“That would be a good idea, for the interim.”

“The interim?”

“I still don’t like him driving alone. Too much could happen. If somebody was really prepared, they could grab him before we could get to him.”

“Unacceptable,” Josh said. And she knew he meant it.

“I’ve got a way around it, but I think I need to wait a bit. He needs to know me better, get used to me being around.”

“It’s your call.”

She understood what trust and faith were implicit in those words. Josh didn’t need details, he trusted his people to do their jobs. Never once had he even hinted that she was any less capable than any of the men on the team, or that she needed backup. Josh had hired her, Draven had trained her, and she carried her share.