Undercover Bachelor

“How is it you signed up to travel alone?”

Her gorgeous violet-blue eyes suddenly glistened with tears. “At the last minute, my best friend got sick and couldn’t come. I live with my grandmother, and when she heard that Leslie was ill, she wanted me to cancel, but I’ve been waiting for this trip forever.

“I earned all the money myself and graduated with a four point average. Because of that she finally said I could go on the tour if I promised to stay by my teacher the whole time. She doesn’t trust boys my age at all.”

Gerard stifled a groan. This was a complication he would never have anticipated.

“A friend of my cousin’s went on the trip with Mr. Bowen last year. She said he was so nice, I assumed he would take care of me. But I signed up too late to get in his group. You don’t mind if I sit with you, do you, Mr. Smith? I’ll be good and leave you alone. I promise.”

The tremor in her voice brought out an unbidden, protective instinct in him he hadn’t felt since long before Simone’s death. It put him at odds with his initial appraisal of her and the situation. “I’ll do what I can to help.”

“Thanks so much,” she whispered.

Right now those moist, ingenuous, lavender-blue orbs were looking at him with an expression akin to gratitude, nothing else.

Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe he’d just imagined that she’d been sending out signals earlier. To be honest, he didn’t know what to believe, but he felt it would be cruel to disregard her request when she’d worked so hard all year for this trip.

“You’re welcome. Let’s go next door so you won’t miss hearing the instructions.”

By tacit agreement they walked toward the exit. As if to prove she wouldn’t be a nuisance, she didn’t say another word and simply followed him from the other side of the tables. By the time they’d entered the small, semidark auditorium down the hall, the film had already started.

“Hank?” a female voice called out. He looked to his right and saw Fran Ashton who was sitting with her group. She patted the aisle seat next to her. She’d been waiting for him. If he sat by her now, she would assume the attraction was mutual.

Oddly enough, the clear message in her eyes irritated him even more than it had the other night. Deciding that now would be the time to let her know any interest he had in her was purely professional, he placed a hand at the back of Whitney’s waist to guide her in Fran’s direction.

He’d made the physical gesture without thinking, but when he felt the younger woman tremble in reaction to his touch, he realized his mistake and just as quickly removed it.

“Miss Ashton?” he murmured quietly so as not to disturb the others around them. “The auditorium is full. Do you mind if one of my students sits with you?”

The other woman looked chagrined, but she couldn’t very well refuse his request. “No.”

“Thank you.”

To his relief Whitney brushed past him to sit down without protest. In the process, he felt the imprint of her voluptuous body. Though the contact was accidental, it ignited sensations he hadn’t felt for a long time.

Dry-mouthed, he leaned over enough to murmur, “I’ll see you in front of the Global Airlines’ counter on Sunday morning. Six-thirty a.m. sharp.”

“I can’t wait. Thanks again,” she said softly. Her lips came dangerously close to his cheek where he felt her breath. Their intimate exchange quickened his pulse.

Needing some air, he left the auditorium in a few swift strides. It was his job to stay until after the film to answer his group’s questions, but for the moment he craved a little privacy.

What in the hell was he was going to do with Whitney Lawrence for the next ten days? He’d all but promised her she could sit by him throughout the tour.

Roman’s comment about this assignment being a challenge had turned out to be much more prophetic than either of them knew.

“Hank? Wait up!”

He heard his name called and turned around to discover Donald Bowen on his heels.

Gerard had been using ingenious ways to get to know his target better. It pleased him that the other man was the one to seek him out. Gerard was making progress.

“Hey, Don.” Whether the other man liked the abbreviation or not, Gerard had decided to go with it.

Donald flashed him an easy smile. “You weren’t leaving, were you?”

“No. I just wanted to get a drink. How about you?”

“Actually I’ve been waiting to talk to you.”

“Go ahead.”

“Sandy McGinnis, the woman STI sent over tonight, just informed me that you have a student named Whitney Lawrence from Union High who wanted to be assigned to my group. Apparently she was disappointed when she found out mine was full.”

“I had no idea,” Gerard lied, wondering where this conversation was going.

“Was it the tall blonde you brought in late? The one who sat down next to Fran?”

Like every other male on the premises, Donald Bowen had noticed Ms. Lawrence, too. “She’s the one,” Gerard murmured, his senses suddenly on full alert.

“When Sandy assigned her to you, she didn’t realize that you only had boys in your group. She shouldn’t have put a female student with you.

“My group is made up of three girls and three guys. I’ve already talked to Mike Sargeant, one of my boys. He’ll be happy to trade. If you want, I’ll talk to your student after the film and tell her she’s been switched to me.”

Donald Bowen never did anything without a hidden agenda. Already briefed on the man’s history, Gerard couldn’t figure out why Whitney’s name had even come up, or how she fit into his schemes. The welfare of one student would be the last thing a foreign agent would care about.

Unless he used his female students in some capacity to help pass along information without their knowing it.

But Donald Bowen already had several of his own female students signed up for the tour. Why would he be concerned over what an unknown student from a different part of the state did or didn’t do, especially when the other three girls were available?

As Gerard pondered that question, the thought briefly entered his head that Ms. Lawrence might be an accomplice coming on the scene to help him out. But he as quickly dismissed the absurd notion.

Though Whitney Lawrence could be taken for a full-grown adult, she was only a high school senior. When and where would she have been recruited by Donald Bowen to help him do his dirty work? It didn’t make sense.

The more he thought about it, the only reason he could account for the agent’s interest in Ms. Lawrence was the fact that despite her young years, she was easily one of the most attractive women Gerard had ever seen or met in his life.

If that were true for him, it would hold equally true for Donald Bowen who was a man and had eyes in his head. On or off the job, he probably went through women as a matter of course. He wouldn’t worry about compromising a few willing female students in the process.

One lustful glance at Ms. Lawrence and Donald Bowen had decided to manipulate the situation to his advantage in order to assuage his desires on the tour.

To Gerard’s shock, he felt a distinct distaste at the thought of the other man exploiting her for any reason.

“It’s okay, Don. I’m taking her under my wing so you won’t have to worry about it.”

The man’s smile faded. “Look, Gerard,” he said in a confiding tone. “You don’t understand because you haven’t been a chaperone before. Her parents could cause a lot of trouble if they find out she’s the only girl in the company of a bunch of guys. You can’t guard them all the hours of the day and night, if you catch my drift.”

Catch my drift?

That was a rather obsolete idiom a foreign agent might have learned twenty years ago, but it didn’t fly with Gerard. The man’s hair and bone structure put him in mind of an Eastern block type. Yuri would know his nationality at a glance. Maybe Gerard could arrange for his good friend to fly to Geneva to verify his theory.