Merry and Bright Read online

  “Scott.”

  “Give me until noon, okay? Just a few hours, Maggie. If I don’t have answers by then, you can go to the police. We’ll go to the police.”

  “Fine. Noon.” She walked out of his office, knowing that somehow she needed to get a look at his computer—alone.

  Jacob found Maggie walking the hallway, lost in thought. “What are you doing?”

  “The average person walks the equivalent of five times around the equator in their lifetime. I’m just doing my part.”

  “Maggie.” She was clearly tense again, as she’d been before last night. He’d had great success at unwinding her then, getting her to relax, turning her into a pile of boneless jelly.

  She’d done the same for him.

  And that had been great, but it’d gone deeper for him. It’d always been deeper for him. Walking away was going to hurt, big time, and yet that’s what the plan had been.

  She looked at him with those gorgeous, heart-and-soul eyes, and voiced his thoughts. “I know I said I wanted a one-time thing.”

  “Technically, it’s been a three-time thing, at least for me. For you, it’s been more like a six- or seven-time thing—”

  “My point,” she said, blushing, “is that I lied, and not just because I need your help now. I do need your help, but I just want you to know I lied because you scare me.”

  That was just convoluted enough to make sense, and he linked his fingers with hers. “Well, we’re even there. You scare me too. How can I help, Maggie?”

  She stared up at him, her heart in her eyes. “I need Scott preoccupied for a few minutes so I can snoop on his computer. Any ideas?”

  “Yes.” He pulled out his cell and called the crane operator, who happened to be in the lot still loading his equipment. “Dan? I have a favor . . .”

  Two minutes later, Scott got word his Mercedes was blocked in by a crane, and he went running out of the building.

  Maggie helped herself into his office, locked the door behind her, and went immediately to his desk. One touch to the mouse had all the computer windows flickering to life. It took her a moment to grasp what she was seeing, and when she did, her heart stopped, then kicked back into gear when someone knocked.

  “Maggie?”

  At Jacob’s voice, she ran to the door to let him in, then locked it again behind him.

  “No one saw me,” he said, looking around at the neat office, at the pad sitting on the floor. “What is that?”

  “Magnetic couch. When you flip that switch on the desk, it floats in the air, but duck because anything metal in the room goes flying through the air. Look at this.” She pointed to the screen. “Scott’s been busy.” One window had Maggie’s picture and bio up, along with the stats and ingredients on her body cream, with the surprise and critical element Scott had alluded to, and it wasn’t a thickening agent. The second window revealed a heart rate and pulse monitor. The third was the GPS system, with a grid map of the city, the highlighted portion blinking in on downtown, specifically Sixth Street. More specifically, this building.

  Here.

  As it all sank in, the heart rate and pulse monitored on the screen picked up speed, beeping, beeping, beeping in rhythm to her own.

  “It’s you,” Jacob guessed, his voice low, calm, and furious.

  “Yes.”

  “How? Why? ”

  Leaning forward, she clicked on the files just behind her picture and bio. “Scott and Tim added an ingredient to my lotion. They let me think it was a texturing element but they lied. It’s atom-sized transmitting microchips. It’s genius, really, if you think of the implications. A heart patient, for instance. With the micro-transmitters in place, it would assist doctors in treating their patients. You could change a dose without ever having to see the patient, or even just monitor someone from long distances, allow them to live their lives, calling them in only when they were in danger, or—”

  “Maggie.”

  She broke off and sighed. “Okay, I know. Gross invasion of privacy.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes, of course. Not to mention completely illegal. But why the secrecy? Why didn’t they just tell me? It’s amazing.”

  “Gee, I don’t know, maybe because of the illegal part?”

  “Well, there’s that,” Scott said, coming into his office, twirling his keys on his fingers. He saw the computer windows up and his mouth tightened. “And for what it’s worth, I wanted to tell you all along.”

  Tim shoved him aside and came in behind him. “But I didn’t. And as for the so-called stalking—about which, FYI, I prefer to use the word surveillance—we simply needed the vial back, before you figured out what we were up to.”

  “But you gave it to me,” Maggie reminded him.

  “Yes, and once we realized what it could do, how intrusive it was, we needed that vial back before you understood what we’d done.”

  Maggie shook her head. “So the tire—”

  “Was to slow you down so Scott could get to your apartment and retrieve the vial. We’d tried your office but it wasn’t there.”

  “We didn’t mean to scare you,” Scott broke in, with apology in his voice. “But we knew we had to destroy it, before it got into the wrong hands. Now that you know what it is, you can understand that, can’t you?”

  “What hands could it have fallen into?” she asked. “I didn’t even know what I had.”

  “No, but others did. Alice, for instance. She was here working late the night we discovered what we’d done.”

  “Alice is just an intern. She wouldn’t—”

  “Don’t be naïve,” Tim snapped. “This stuff is worth millions. People have died for far less.”

  At that, Jacob shifted closer to Maggie and reached for her hand. “No one’s dying.”

  “Oh, no, don’t worry.” Scott lifted his hands. “We don’t want to hurt you, either of you. We just want the lotion back, Maggie, that’s all.”

  Slipping her hand into her pocket, where she had the vial, she shook her head. “I used the last of it this morning, it’s all gone.”

  “You’re lying.” Tim didn’t look quite as congenial as his brother. “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to hand it over.”

  “No, here’s what we’re going to do,” Jacob said evenly. “We’re going to leave. Come on, Maggie.” He pulled her with him around the desk, heading toward the door, but two things happened simultaneously. Tim stepped in front of the door, which opened, hard enough to knock him to his knees.

  And then Alice entered. She lifted a gun and pointed it directly at Maggie.

  10

  “New plan,” Alice said, with a sweet smile, the gun on Maggie, whose heart had all but stopped. “I get the lotion. Any objections? None? Good.”

  “Alice, what the hell is this?” Scott demanded.

  “Oh, I forgot to mention. See, I need the lotion to catch my lying, cheating, soon to be ex-boyfriend in the act. Hand it over.”

  No one moved, and Alice shook her head. “Okay, listen up, people! I’m PMSing and hormonal, and when my grandma discovers I’ve borrowed her heat, she’s going to go postal. So hand over the lotion pronto or I start taking out kneecaps, Soprano-style.”

  Tim pointed at Maggie. “She’s got the vial.”

  Maggie gasped. “I do not.”

  “Yes,” Scott said. “You do. We know you do because you clearly used the lotion and now you’re trackable. You’re on that screen right there, sending us your signals, see?” To show Alice, he twisted the computer screen around, pointing to the heart monitor. “This is Maggie.”

  Alice squinted at the screen. “How do I know?”

  “Look at the history.” Tim leaned over his brother and clicked a few keys on the keyboard. “See, look. She’s all work and no play during the day. Now look at her nights—quiet, every single one. Typical boring scientist life—”

  “Hey,” Maggie said.

  “Sorry, but it’s true—” Tim broke of
f with a frown. “Wait a minute.”

  “What?” Alice demanded, staring at whatever they were looking at. “What’s that?”

  “She had sex.” His fingers sped over the keyboard. “Here in this building.” His head whipped around so he could look at her. “Jesus, you had sex here? ”

  Maggie did her best not to look at Jacob. “You want to discuss my sex life, now? With a gun on us?”

  “Alice,” Tim demanded. “Put the gun down.”

  “Not until I get that lotion!” Alice was looking quite unstable. She gestured the gun toward Maggie. “Hand it over.”

  Oh, God. If she handed over the lotion, someone might be able to eventually reproduce it, and that couldn’t be allowed to happen. “Did you know Mary Stuart became the Queen of Scotland when she was only six days old?”

  Alice cocked her gun. “Maggie, I swear to God, those quirky little facts were cute, oh . . . never. Okay? So please, shut up and give me the lotion.”

  “Honey,” Jacob said, squeezing Maggie’s fingers, giving her a long look. “Give her what she wants. Give her the lotion.”

  Maggie stared at him. Honey?

  “The jig is up,” he said quietly. “So just give her the lotion. Honey.”

  Honey. Of course! The honey lotion in her lab, the one he’d slathered on her and lapped off her breasts. “Right,” she said, trying not to be disappointed that he wasn’t calling her honey. “You’re right. I’ll go get it, but you’re coming with me.”

  “Fine,” Alice said, through her teeth. “But do it fast. While you’re gone, Scott’s going to make me a copy of the software required to go with the stuff.” She waved at the windows. “Because I’m going directly to the asshole’s apartment, putting the lotion on him, and catching him in the act of fucking his lab partner, and I’m doing that today, so hurry the hell up.”

  “Go,” Tim said to Maggie and Jacob. “Quickly.”

  “And remember I can see your heart rate on the screen and your location, so no running away. And no more sex. No one gets any more sex until I get sex!”

  “Maybe we should add Midol to the lotion,” Jacob murmured into Maggie’s ear, as they ran into her office, where she grabbed her honey potion. Turning back, she saw Jacob hitting 9-1-1 on his cell.

  “She’s got a gun—”

  “Just get the honey lotion in a vial.”

  She did just that, her gaze on Jacob speaking quietly and quickly to emergency dispatch, looking so big and tough and . . . hers, dammit. If something happened to him she’d never forgive herself. She put a stopper in the new vial. “Okay, let’s do this. But once she leaves with this vial, you’re out of here. It won’t fool her for long.”

  “We’re both out of here.”

  “Deal.” Her voice cracked a little, and she dropped her gaze, staring at his chest. “I couldn’t handle it if anything happened to you, Jacob. I really couldn’t. Listen, I know I totally took advantage of you with that whole Mr. Wrong thing—”

  “Whoa. There were two of us making that decision. I wanted you, too.”

  “We’re different.”

  Irritation flashed across his face. “We’ve discussed this, Maggie.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Did you know if you had enough water to fill one million goldfish bowls, you could fill an entire stadium?” he asked.

  She blinked. “Um, what?”

  “Yeah. And if you flew from London to New York by Concorde, due to the time zones crossed, you would arrive two hours before you left.”

  She let out a low laugh. “What are you doing? Did you look those up for me?”

  He held up his hand. “One more. I don’t want this to be a one-time thing.”

  Her amusement vanished as fast as it’d come. She swallowed hard but the sudden lump of emotion wouldn’t go down. “Jacob.”

  “It’s so much more for me. It’s always been more. I’m not sure exactly when it happened, whether it was the way you look at work when you’re concentrating, with your wild hair and fascinating brain, or how you make me smile all the time, or maybe it’s that you always have a pen behind your ear—”

  “What? I don’t—”

  Reaching over, he pulled a pen out from behind her ear.

  “And your neck?” he whispered. “Always smells amazing. And then there’s the way you look first thing in the morning, when you open your eyes and see me.”

  She let out a surprised laugh. “That was once.”

  “Yeah, but we can fix that. And then there’s your laugh, that goofy, self-conscious laugh. It melts my damn heart every time. So you should know, it’s not just a one-time thing, not anywhere close. I’m in love with you, Maggie.”

  Before she could respond, Alice screamed through the walls. “Why is your heart rate going up? Goddammit, are you getting naked?”

  Maggie couldn’t hear anything past the roar of her own blood in her ears, and those three words still echoing between her ears.

  He loved her.

  Loved her . . . “Jacob—”

  “Maggie!” Tim yelled. “She’s going to start shooting. Get back in here!”

  “Come on.” Jacob led her back into Scott’s office, and Maggie, her heart still racing over what Jacob had just said, handed the vial over to Alice.

  “Wait.” Tim was staring at the vial.

  Maggie froze. Obviously, the color was off, and he knew it. She locked gazes with him, holding her breath.

  “You had a lot left,” he finally said.

  “Yeah. I did.” Crap. Maggie turned to Alice. “You know how illegal this is, right?”

  “Yes, because waving a gun in your face isn’t illegal at all.” Alice jammed the vial into her pocket and pulled out a fistful of cuff ties from her other. “Look, I’m sorry, all right?” She cuffed Scott to his filing cabinet and Tim to the desk. Then she came up to Maggie and Jacob, and after a hesitation, hooked them together. “For you,” she whispered to Maggie. “Because he looks to be a keeper, someone you’d never need this lotion for.”

  Jacob didn’t say a word but there was a muscle ticking in his jaw.

  “Don’t do this, Alice,” Maggie begged her. “It’s not too late to—” She broke off when Jacob jerked his arm—and therefore hers as well—hitting the button on Tim’s desk that activated the magnetic couch.

  The couch shot straight up from the floor, coming to a hover about two feet above the carpet, causing a handful of objects to instantaneously fly through the air as if hurled by a slingshot—like Scott’s phone, which nearly hit Tim, and . . . the gun, which was yanked right out of Alice’s hands.

  It slapped hard to the couch and stuck there.

  “Dammit!” Alice yelled as Tim used his leg to trip her to the floor. Still attached to the filing cabinet, he slid down and sat on her.

  “Hey!” she yelled, struggling. “I’ll sue you for sexual harassment!”

  “I’m gay,” Tim informed her dryly. “I’m more likely to sexually harass Maggie’s hottie than you, trust me.”

  Maggie stared at her “hottie”—the one who loved her—her free hand clutching her heart, because it had only just now started beating again. “Did you did mean it?”

  Jacob’s eyes softened, and some of the tenseness left his body as he lifted his free hand and cupped her face. “Yes, I meant it.”

  “Oh, God. I love you, too.” Her throat was so tight she could hardly speak. “For so many reasons. You say what you think and you do what you say, and you’ve got more logic and common sense in your pinkie than my last five dates combined.”

  “Hey,” Scott said, insulted.

  Maggie ignored him. “I think you’re the smartest, funniest, sharpest, smartest man I’ve ever met.”

  “I could have said what I thought and what I feel,” Scott muttered to Tim. “I could be solid and loyal.”

  Jacob pulled Maggie close. On Scott’s desk, her heart monitor was still going nuts. With her free hand, she pulled the vial Tim had given her out of he
r pocket and smashed it to the floor. “That was the last of it,” she told her soon to be ex-bosses. “I realize you can make more, but if you do, know this—I’ll turn Data Tech over to the FDA, the DFA, the CIA, and the DEA, and whoever else will listen to me.”

  “You’re bluffing,” Tim said. “Your work is your life. And without us, you won’t get funding.”

  “I’ll wait for the right funding, I’ll find it eventually.”

  “It could take years.”

  “Maybe.” She looked at Jacob. “But I’ll wait. My life is no longer just my work.”

  His eyes were full of affection and heat, lots of heat. “I like the way you think,” he said, as pounding footsteps came down the hallway just outside the door.

  Knowing it had to be the police, Maggie linked her fingers with Jacob’s. “This is going to get messy, and might take some time to sort out. After which, I’m going to be unemployed.” She winced. “Merry Christmas to me.”

  “I love messy. And I love you. As for the unemployed at Christmas, don’t worry, I have an in with Santa. Have you been naughty or nice?”

  “Nice.”

  “Well, we’ll have to work on that,” he murmured, just as the police burst through the door.

  It took several hours to sort everything out, but eventually, Alice ended up in jail, Tim and Scott lawyered up, and Maggie and Jacob were free to go. Maggie walked out of the room where she’d been questioned and found Jacob waiting for her.

  He looked into her face and slowly held up a little bough of mistletoe over his head.

  She couldn’t help but smile when she looked at him. “What’s that?”

  “A hint of what I want from you.”

  “And after the kiss?”

  “More.”

  “More?”

  “I want it all, Maggie. And I’m hoping you do, too.”

  “Yes.” And she walked right into his waiting arms.

  BAH, HANDSOME!

  1

  Outside the weather was as the song went—frightful. Inside, Hope O’Brien looked down at the huge box of Christmas decorations she’d dug out of the cellar of her bed-and-breakfast inn and thought maybe this would be the year that Santa brought her something she needed. Money to meet her bills for the month would be nice, or lacking that, maybe an orgasm.