Nessa Dimmick sat behind the wheel of the nicest car she’d ever been in, much less driven. And to think that as long as she was on this job, the car was hers! It was her first job since getting her PhD, and therefore her first real job ever. Actually it was more of a short term assignment than a job. And even if it didn’t have a good sized check attached to it, which it did, she would want to do the best she possibly could.

The perk of working side-by-side with a hunky Navy SEAL was just a cherry on top.

She hoped her palms weren’t leaving sweat marks on the steering wheel, but the guy sitting in the passenger seat was not helping. She knew she would be teaming up with a soldier, but she didn’t expect a fitness model with a face to match his perfect body. In his work pants and button-up plaid shirt, he looked like the poster boy for the Carhartt catalogue.

At least Baron didn’t seem very comfortable in his seat either. As he worked on his phone to get the right map and worked to set up various surveillance apps, he cast frequent glances at the road and at Nessa.

“Not used to being in the passenger seat?” she asked him.

“Never had a pretty lady drive me around before.” He gave her a half smile, and added, “I hope that doesn’t sound sexist.”

“You don’t have much of a filter, do you?” Nessa felt for him with the surprise that was dropped on him about having to work with a partner. As far as Nessa was concerned, surprises were the absolute worst.

Baron shrugged, still wearing that half-smile of his.

“We never had to filter in the SEALs. We never worked with women, but that didn’t stop the Navy from giving us tons of training in sexual harassment. It came up so frequently we joked about the only way we knew how to kill the enemy was to shame them to death for their insensitive behaviors.”

Nessa chuckled. Now that she was getting used to him she could tell it would be a fun assignment, and that he wasn’t always attacking her, just speaking more bluntly than anyone she knew. She was actually kind of anxious to push him to see if she could get him to say more of what he didn’t plan on saying.

“If we’re going to be partners, we should get to know each other. Tell me about yourself.”

Baron let the cell phone fall into his lap as he looked through the windshield. “Not much to tell. I grew up in Bloomington, Illinois. Became a SEAL. Came home, helped my folks sell their business, and now I’m here. What about you?”

“You can’t just skip over years as a Navy SEAL like that,” Nessa objected.

Baron became thoughtful and she wondered if she had gone too far. Maybe his propensity to blab what he was thinking didn’t apply to his years as a soldier.

“I was in for eight years. I had a lot of great experiences … and I had a lot of experiences I can’t talk about because it’s language that isn’t appropriate to use around a lady. And mostly classified.”

“Fair enough,” said Nessa, more curious than ever. She’d have to work that info out of him little by little.

“What about you? Where’d you come from and how’d you get involved with Sutton’s group.”

Compared to Baron and his Special Forces background, hers was as dry as week-old bread. “I’m from Nevada. Went to school in Reno, then came to Caltech for my doctorate.”

“Caltech?” Baron’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I don’t know a lot of about universities, but isn’t that a pretty big deal?”

The reaction from this big, tough, accomplished man made Nessa’s ego swell. It also made her imposter’s syndrome flare up a bit. Yeah, she’d done very well at a top school, but would it translate to the real world and was she worth the money Sutton Smith was paying her? “Yeah. Top ten in the nation.”

“Top ten, like overall? Or top ten in one random category, like Left-handed Frisbee Golf Studies?”

Nessa laughed at the thought of any of her fellow doctorate degree students doing any sort of sporting event. “No, top ten overall.”

“So you’re saying it was probably a little bit more competitive, academically, than my solid B average high school education?”

“A little,” she agreed, loving the banter. When he had first opened his mouth in Sutton’s office to object to her presence, Nessa thought he’d be a nightmare to work with, but it hadn’t been hard to move past it. Though she was a little nervous about what else might come out of his mouth. “But you’ve been out of school for years, getting real world experience. I can count the time since I graduated in hours. So you do have the school of hard knocks.”

“If that was a thing,” said Baron, “I’d have a double doctorate.”

“You just wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about them.”

Baron chuckled sardonically, seeming surprised that she would bring that up.

“Should we talk about the mission?” she asked.

“Good idea,” said Baron. “I have a feeling you’re going to keep me focused on this one.”

Nessa did plan to do that, but she also planned to try to get info out of him, and one of the best ways to mine for info was to share personal info. With a reluctant dip of her head, she said, “I might have been accused of being overly-organized once or twice in my life.”

“Probably not as many times as I’ve been accused of a complete lack of organization,” countered Baron.

“The word ‘nerd‘ may have been used once or twice,” said Nessa, wondering if she should have said that. She had very little experience around guys as hunky as Baron. Nerd and geek, however, were two words that she’d learned to own, and being ultra competitive in a male-dominated field only strengthened the pride with which she used those words.

Baron chuckled. “Other end of the spectrum here. In one of my evaluations, my sergeant used the phrase, ‘As unfocused as a pair of binoculars with the lenses installed backwards on one side.’”

That was something. With Baron’s lack of filter, digging info out of him would be a piece of cake.

“Anyway,” he said, “back to our cover story. Sounds like we’re organic fruit inspectors.”

Apparently Nessa had been given more info than Baron had. “We don’t inspect the fruit, we certify the growers and fruit packer as organic.”

“Looking for someone smuggling drugs into the country.”

“Yeah, the owner of the packing company suspects someone on his payroll of taking advantage of the frequent border crossings.”

Baron rubbed his jaw. “Why not call the DEA?”

“Good question,” said Nessa. She exited the freeway onto a two-lane road with green fields lining both sides. She didn’t admit that she had no idea what crops were growing here. It wasn’t grapes or oranges, but that’s about all she could say for sure.

Baron said, “Okay, so honestly, how much can someone be bringing in without cooperation from the owner. A few ounces here and there? A couple pounds, maybe? I remember Logan lighting up 50 acres of poppy fields with a flamethrower in Afghanistan. I just can’t conceive of an operation big enough to justify bringing in all this backup.”

Nessa bit the inside of her cheek. She didn’t know how to respond without getting emotional about it. Just the thought of a few ounces of drugs knocked her off her game, so she just shrugged.

About a mile down the road they pulled up outside of a huge warehouse. She parked the Escalade in front of the two-story office building and they climbed out.

“We’re taking my car next time,” said Baron under his breath as they walked around to the back of the Escalade and opened the back.

“Problem with my driving?” asked Nessa.

“No,” said Baron with a sigh. “Ever since I agreed to take this job, six months ago, I’ve been dreaming about my intel-gathering fortress on wheels.”

“Oh.” Nessa debated whether to say what she was thinking or not, and decided to put it out there. “You sure have a way of making innocent statements sound chauvinistic.”

“I’m sorry,” said Baron, sounding sincere. He smiled and it was a crooked, good-old-boy, kind of smile. “I’m trying. I’ll try harder.”

“Thanks,” said Nessa. She popped open her briefcase and turned it away from him and tucked the keys into one of the interior pockets.

“If you want them to stop calling you nerd,” said Baron, “you should seriously reconsider that briefcase.”

“Funny,” said Nessa. “We’ll see who’s laughing after you see what I brought for you.” She handed over a box clipboard and a pocket protector.

“The clipboard I understand,” said Baron, opening the front flap of the clipboard and slipping something inside. He stared down at the pocket protector. “But what’s this thing?”

“You’re kidding me, right?” She looked for signs of teasing but didn’t pick up on any. “You’ve never seen a pocket protector?”

Baron laughed sharply. “Oh man, that’s perfect. I might have been wrong about having you as a partner, this is going to be fun! Now how do I put this thing on? No, don’t tell me, people might be watching out the windows.”

As Nessa worked on looking busy organizing her briefcase, Baron studied the pocket protector for a few seconds, then slid it over his pocket. “How do I look?” he asked, resting the butt of the clipboard on one hip.

Dang. He looked like the hottest nerd she’d ever seen.

Don’t gawk and don’t start drooling, she told herself. “You’ll do,” she managed to say, feeling out of breath. If this ruse of coworkers was going to work, she needed to figure out how to keep her eyes off of him.