Justine Davis - His Personal Mission

“Hey, beautiful, how about lunch to celebrate?”

Startled out of her reverie, she glanced up at Russ Langer, who was leaning against the doorjamb of her office. Funny, she thought. In the same way Ryan seemed to project his carefree mind-set, Russ projected self-assurance. She made herself use the term, even to herself, when what she was really thinking was cockiness. But she had to work with the guy, and thinking all the time he was a cocky jerk could lead to her actually saying it out loud, and she didn’t want that.

Besides, he wasn’t really a jerk, he was nice enough. And when he worked, he was good at it. It was simply that he was handsome beyond belief—and he knew it. She guessed he always had. She wondered yet again what it must be like to be able to slide through life simply on your looks.

“Well?” Russ prompted when she didn’t leap to say yes to his offer.

“Sorry,” she said, standing up and grabbing her phone to stuff it back in the capacious bag she called a purse. “A call just came in. I have to meet a…relative.”

“We just finished a long one. Somebody else can go. We deserve a break.”

“The family of a missing girl deserves a break,” Sasha said pointedly.

Russ sighed. At least he’d learned that about her—nothing could distract her from helping someone who needed her particular talents.

“Want me to come with?” he asked as she reached the doorway, and him.

“No, I’ve got it. You go get your lunch, take your break.”

His gaze narrowed over impossibly perfect cheekbones, as if he wondered if she’d meant the words as a slam. And perhaps, on some level, she had. She couldn’t picture Russ ever skipping a meal or forgoing a break—even though he was right, it was deserved, the Novato case had been long and hard—to jump right into another case.

But he had offered, she reminded herself, and smiled at him. “I’ll call you if it turns into something and I need the help. Thanks.”

Appearing mollified, he nodded and moved aside so she could pass. She caught a whiff of expensive men’s cologne. At least Ryan only smelled of soap and shampoo, she thought, much preferring the simplicity. It made the times when they’d gone out to dinner, when he had put on something, seem more special somehow. And his entire approach less…practiced.

God, woman, you are being ridiculous, she told herself as she walked through the building, a converted Tudor-style home that had once been known as “the purple place” for its odd paint job. Thankfully it no longer looked like a misplaced San Francisco row house, and blended in nicely with the others like it in the neighborhood that had once been residential gone seedy but was now a successful business area. Again, mostly thanks to Redstone, who had bought it specifically for a headquarters for the foundation; when Josh took an interest, the business world listened.

She walked out to her little yellow coupe, parked in the small courtyard they’d turned into a parking lot to avoid destroying the lovely garden they’d reclaimed from the front of the building. And every step of the way, she continued her self-lecture.

Just because the guy called out of the blue doesn’t mean anything’s changed.

She hit the button on her key, and the brightly colored car chirped and unlocked itself obediently.

He’s got a problem, that’s all, something he knows you’re good at. He’s probably got a steady girl by now, anyway, one who isn’t so picky.

She yanked open the driver’s-side door and tossed her big bag on the seat.

You’re acting like you’ve been missing him all this time.

She got into the car and jammed the key into the ignition with more gusto than was needed. She hurried to start the car and head out. She needed to focus on driving.

So she could stop thinking about the irritating fact that her last thought had been true.

Ryan watched Sasha thread her way past crowded tables back to the booth he’d managed to snag because he’d once bussed tables here. She was still the most amazing woman he’d ever seen.

She’d laughed when he’d told her that once, saying she had a mirror, thank you, and knew she wasn’t beautiful. Striking, she could manage, she’d said. With the sense of a guy who’d just been asked if something made a woman look fat, he’d stumblingly answered, “That’s what I mean. No, I meant…You’re not…I mean, you are, but…different.” He remembered that drowning feeling as he gave up and muttered, “You make it hard to breathe.”

To his amazement her laughter had turned to a genuine smile. And she’d told him that was the nicest compliment she’d gotten in a while.

Things hadn’t changed, he thought as he watched eyes lift and heads turn as she went by, a spot of bright, mobile color in the sunny yellow sweater she wore. It was, he knew, her favorite color, usually paired with black, “for contrast” she’d told him. She had a huge bag in the same colors slung over her shoulder; the bag was different, but the size the same as he remembered.

She’d cut her hair; that was about the only real change. And the short, sleek bob, longer at the front and sides than in the back so it moved every time she did, suited her. He usually preferred long hair, but there was something about the bare nape of her neck…

And then she was there, and he belatedly stood up, remembering his mother telling him a gentleman always did when a lady arrived. He thought such things ridiculously old-fashioned, but Sasha had also once told him she was an old-fashioned kind of girl, so he figured it couldn’t hurt.

She smiled at him.

Score one for Mom, he thought as Sasha slipped into the booth opposite him.

Suddenly he couldn’t think of a thing to say. He’d rehearsed in his head what he’d tell her about Trish, but he’d somehow forgotten to work on anything else. Desperate, his gaze landed on the brightly colored bag.

“Still carrying your life around, I see,” he said, then groaned inwardly at the lameness of it.

“You never know,” she said, as she always had when he’d teased her before about seeming to need a ton of stuff with her at all times. “Besides, it’s a special bag. It was made for me by a friend.” He looked more closely as she went on. “It was knitted, then washed in really hot water to shrink it. It’s called felting.”

“Shrink it?” he said, eyeing the thing that seemed the size of a large briefcase skeptically.

“It’s perfect,” she said, her voice taking on an imperious tone he hoped was teasing. “It’s solid, sturdy, but nice and soft to the touch.”

She stroked a finger over it as if to demonstrate. It was a simple motion, and he had no explanation for the sudden hike in his pulse rate. He studied the bag for a moment, more to give himself a moment to collect himself than out of real interest, but when he did, he noticed the intricacy of the pattern.

“It looks like the geometric screen saver Ian uses.”

Sasha laughed. “Maybe that’s where she got the idea.”

“She?”

“Liana Kiley.”

His head came up then. “Liana? Our Liana?”

Sasha grinned. “I love the way you Redstone people are. Yes, your Liana. I figured you’d know her, given she works in your neck of Redstone, as it were.”

He did know Liana. She worked for Lilith Mercer, who was cleaning up a mess left by the former head of the R&D division, a task he’d been involved in periodically, including some time spent with the pretty redhead. She was relatively new to Redstone, but that she was a perfect fit had become clear very early. Ryan liked her. And not just because she liked computers and was pretty good with them; she was a genuinely nice person.