The Favour

“I’ll take them home and run a match with my own profile. After that, I’ll contact prospective lovers according to how well they match up with me.”

For a moment, neither one of her sisters said a word.

“You don’t think it will work?” Sierra finally asked.

Natalie drank some of her martini, then said, “I’ve no doubt that you’ll probably get an accurate profile of the parties involved. But what you’ve described is a very…cerebral process. And taking a lover—well, it’s a very physical thing. There has to be a certain…chemistry. I’m not sure you can predict that with a quiz.”

Rory leaned forward. “I’m on the same page here as Nat. Did you ever give this quiz to Bradley?”

“Well, yes,” Sierra replied.

“How well did his profile line up with yours?” Rory asked.

“Almost perfectly.”

Rory turned her hands over, palms up. “There you go. A perfect match, but no chemistry. Your relationship has remained platonic. That’s not a recipe for success in a love affair.”

“The up side is she’ll be right there at a table with them. She could shake their hands,” Natalie pointed out.

“Right,” Rory said.

Natalie turned to Sierra. “The important thing is not to over-think this whole thing. You have to learn to trust your feelings. If an electric shock goes up your arm and right down to your toes, then you might want to move that candidate to the top of your list—no matter what the quiz results tell you.”

“Or if you look into his eyes and your knees turn to jelly, he’s another prime candidate for a lover,” Rory said. “The first time I met Hunter, it was his eyes. He looked at me as if he were the Terminator and I was his prey. I lost every thought in my head.”

Sierra drew in a deep breath. “I don’t usually have that kind of reaction to men.” Except to the stranger she’d just kissed in the bar.

“Then it’s high time you did,” Natalie said.

“And under no circumstance should you take a lover unless you do,” Rory added.

“One thing more,” Natalie said. “Once you’ve found a candidate, I want the name so that I can run a check on him.”

Rory shot Sierra a sympathetic glance. “That’s what comes of having a sister who’s a cop.”

“And if your experiment works, Rory will press you for an interview so that she can write the whole thing up in Vanity Fair. That’s what comes from having a sister who’s a journalist.”

For the first time since she’d pushed her way through the front door of the Blue Pepper, Sierra felt some of her apprehension ease. Oh, the nerves were still dancing in her stomach, but she was going to go through with her plan, and she felt much better that she was doing it with her sisters’ approval. And Harry’s. Raising her martini, she said, “To chemistry.”

“To chemistry,” her sisters repeated.

“And to Harry,” Sierra added as she touched her glass to theirs.

3

THE BEATLES ratcheted up the rhythm on “Yellow Submarine” just as the first raindrops splattered against his windshield and the cars in front of him slowed to a crawl. Ryder slammed on the brakes and hit the button to put the top up on his car. Then, cutting into the far-left lane, he gained a dozen car lengths before those vehicles also came to a halt.

The skies opened up with a vengeance. As the minutes ticked away without even a trickle of movement in any lane, the Beatles ended their song, and the last hope Ryder had of getting to the Blue Pepper by five o’clock evaporated. Mark Anderson was going to have to wait.

He wasn’t pleased because his intuition told him that Mark needed more than advice. But something had come up that had made time tight for Ryder today.

Jed Calhoun had called him late last night, and he could hardly refuse to do a favor for an old friend. Especially when that friend was in trouble. He and Jed had worked for the government in a special-operations unit, and the man had saved his life.

According to Jed, the last job he’d done for the government had gone wrong, and he’d become the scapegoat. Clearing Jed’s name was just the kind of job that Ryder liked. So today he’d settled his old friend on the houseboat he kept on the Chesapeake. Jed’s safety would be assured there until they handled the problem.

And if the trip to the houseboat had allowed him to get in a little fishing, well, a man had to recharge somehow.

He fiddled with the radio dial, switching to an all-day news station that offered traffic updates. But he spotted the medevac helicopter overhead before the announcement was made about the fifteen-car pile-up about a mile ahead.

Leaning back, Ryder willed his tension to disappear. His two years in the special operations unit he and Jed had served in had taught him the value of channeling frustration away. No way was he going to lecture himself that he wouldn’t be in this situation if he’d stayed in the city.

For the time being, there was nothing he could do. An accident would take time to clear. The emergency vehicles would be slowed down because of the rush-hour traffic and the weather.

For five minutes, Ryder focused on relaxing both his mind and his body, something that his afternoon of fishing hadn’t quite accomplished. Try as he might, he couldn’t quite clear his mind of two problems. First of all, with every minute that ticked by, his intuition was telling him that Mark needed him. Spurred by his thoughts, he reached for his cell, punched in the number that Mark had given him and left yet another message on his voice mail. Mark hadn’t been answering his cell since Ryder had taken his call the night before. Not a good sign.

That done, his mind drifted to his second problem—the other person who’d been haunting his thoughts—Dr. Sierra Gibbs.

How often had he thought of her in the past twenty-four hours? Too often. How much did he want to kiss her again? Too much. How many times had he reached for his phone to call her? Too many.

Ryder shifted into a more comfortable position, tucking his hands behind his head. What exactly was it that had kept her in his thoughts for a night and most of the day? Not the fact that she was beautiful. Of course, he’d been attracted by that. He was a man. But his fascination with Dr. Sierra Gibbs went deeper. First of all, there was her response when he’d kissed her. She was so generous, holding nothing back. And there was the innocence he’d sensed beneath the passion. That had certainly pulled at him too.

Dr. Sierra Gibbs was a puzzle: nervous, passionate, innocent, honest. Those eyes couldn’t lie. Maybe it was the honesty that drew him the most. And dammit, he’d always liked puzzles.

Most women, he could figure out. His mother, who’d left him for a man who’d promised money and didn’t want a kid, had been easy to peg. And his aunt, who’d taken him in and loved him unconditionally until she’d died, he’d come to understand too, and he still mourned the loss.

And then there’d been the women he’d dated—well, he’d had an understanding with them. Any relationship he’d ever had with a woman had been simple and uncomplicated and based on mutual pleasure. Mostly, they’d parted as friends. And when he’d had regrets, they’d been temporary.

But none of those women had ever touched him the way that brief meeting with Sierra Gibbs had.

As ridiculous as the idea was, he couldn’t rid his mind of the suspicion that the woman was actually thinking of taking a lover based on that to-do list. Perhaps she already had. The thought of that had been gnawing at him all day. He didn’t like the idea one bit. If she was going to take a lover…

With a sigh, Ryder reached for his phone again. In his experience, the best way to solve a problem was to face it head on. Maybe his life was due for a bit of complication. He punched in the number that he’d memorized from her card the night before.

SURVEYING THE MESS on her usually neat desk, Sierra was chewing on her bottom lip when the phone rang. “Yes?”

“Dr. Gibbs?”

“Yes.” She recognized the voice immediately. She’d been thinking about him all day. Daydreaming about him. A part of her had been wishing that he’d call. Another part of her, the old Sierra, had been hoping that he wouldn’t. She’d gotten over the first two hurdles of her plan—opening the letter and telling her sisters—but now that she was faced with implementing it, the old fears and insecurities had resurfaced. She was back to feeling like Jane Eyre again. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the man I met in the Blue Pepper last night.”

“To be a bit more precise, this is the man you kissed in the Blue Pepper last night. Is it raining there yet?”

“No.” She could hear the grin in his voice, and picturing it made her remember his mouth. When her knees weakened, she sank into her chair. How could he have this effect on her?

“I didn’t expect you to call. What do you want?”

“For starters, I want to kiss you again.”

Sierra’s breath caught in her throat as the little thrill moved through her. She swallowed as a burst of panic followed in its wake. “I…think the kiss was a mistake.” As soon as the words were out she bit her bottom lip. Oh, yeah. Timid little Jane was back all right.