Holy fucking shit. I almost blew it. He was right there in the grocery aisle. Right there with his stunning body and his chiseled muscles.
And fuck, his tattoos. They cascaded down his arms, hypnotizing me as his sapphire eyes pierced my body.
He had been breathtaking. My target was sexy as hell. I could just picture his strong arms around me, cradling me against his masculine chest as my fingertips rolled down his rock-hard abs. I could feel my fingers winding up in his shaggy black curls and pulling his lips down into mine.
I careened my car onto the road as I tugged my phone out of my pocket. Kami was calling, and I answered.
“Hey, how’s Brookings?” Kami asked.
“I saw him,” I said.
“Saw who? Where? Paige, are you all right?”
“My mark. The guy I’m watching out for. I saw him. I almost fucking blew it, Kami.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Just slow down. What are you doing?”
“I’m driving back to my hotel room. I almost got too close to him.”
“Tell me exactly what happened,” she said.
“I was in the grocery store picking up things for the hotel so I wouldn’t have to eat out all the time, and he was right there. I turned to go down the aisle to find rice, and I looked up and boom. He was fucking there, right in front of me.”
“The guy you’re trying to find,” she said.
“Yep.”
“Well, that makes your job easier, right?”
“And he paid for my groceries,” I said, ignoring her question.
“He did what?” she asked.
“I left my damn purse in the car, and the cashier was giving me a hard time. He turned around and handed the woman his card to pay for my groceries.”
“Oh, shit. Is he hot? Please tell me he’s hot.”
“Why does that matter?” I asked.
“Because it just does,” she said. “What does he look like?”
I groaned as I turned onto the road that led to my hotel.
“Kami, he’s fucking gorgeous,” I said, sighing.
“Oh, yes! Details. All the details.”
“He’s tall and very muscular. But it’s a lean kind of muscle. He’s not bulky, like a bodybuilder. And his eyes. They’re this blue. Like sapphire. Or aquamarine. Or a cross between the two. And Kami? He’s got tattoos.”
“Oh, hell. You’re a sucker for tattoos.”
“He’s got tattoos coursing down his arms,” I said.
“Which means he’s probably got them underneath as well.”
“I can hear your grin.”
She laughed. “Good, because I want you to. Look, what’s so bad about getting close to him? You gotta figure out what the hell’s going on, and he’s obviously into you.”
“Paying for my groceries means he’s attracted to me?” I asked.
“Was he eyeballing you?”
I stayed silent as I pulled into the parking lot of my hotel.
“You’re a private investigator,” Kami said. “So, investigate. What were his reactions?”
“Yes, he was checking me out. He licked his lips when he saw me in the aisle, and he tried to help me out to my car with my groceries.”
“Damn. Okay. So, you get close to him. He gets comfortable around you. You get the information you want. Maybe you get a bit of dick in the process—”
“No way,” I said. “That’s completely unprofessional.”
“Fine. You get the dirt on him, you relay it to your boss, you close up the case while you’re there, and then you get some dick.”
“And when am I supposed to paint you this picture you asked for?”
“Woman, your life’s a mess,” she said. “One step at a time. You have a prime opportunity here. Don’t ruin it.”
“This is a horrible idea. I’m not doing that to him. I can do my job just as well from a—”
A knock at the window startled me in my seat, making me jump. I whipped my head sideways, and my heart leapt to my throat.
“Paige? Paige, what’s wrong? Are you back at your hotel yet?”
“I’m gonna have to call you back,” I said.
“Paige, what the fuck’s going on?” Kami asked.
“Nothing bad. Just hold on.”
I hung up the phone and dropped it into my lap before I rolled down my car window. I stared at the man from the grocery store. The man with the aquamarine eyes that sparkled in the sunlight. The man with the tight-ass shirt and tattoos cascading down his arm. The man with the cheeky little grin on his face and the hair that hung down perfectly against his forehead.
The man I was supposed to be surveilling.
“You forgot to tell me your name,” he said.
“So you followed me?” I asked.
“You left in quite a hurry.”
“But you followed me.”
“You left this behind.”
He held up my purse, and I felt my face pale. I craned my neck to look in my backseat, my hand pushing things off to the side to try and find it. That wasn’t my purse, was it? I couldn’t have been that stupid. Not while I was on a case. Not while I was trying to track down a thief.
But I had been. I had been that careless.
“Shit,” I said breathlessly.
“A ‘thank you’ will be just fine.”
I shot him a look as the grin on his face grew.
“I’m Zach,” he said.
I know.
“Paige,” I said, nodding. “And thank you. For getting this back to me.”
“I figured you wouldn’t mind that I followed you after you realized why.”
“Yeah,” I said, grinning. “I don’t mind.”
“So, you’re from out of town?” he asked.
“Just passing through,” I said.
Now I’ll have to find a different fucking hotel to stay in.
“Where you from?” he asked.
“Here and there.”
“Ah. A nomad. I can get behind that.”
“I’m sure you can,” I said.
“Well, Paige the Nomad. I was wondering if you would let me take you to dinner tonight.”
“Actually, I can’t. I’ve got plans tonight.”
“Then possibly tomorrow night?” he asked.
“We’ll have to see. I’m not in a random town in Oregon for pleasure purposes.”
“So, you’re here for work,” he said.
Damn it. What the fuck?
Digging through my purse, I pulled out my wallet. I rifled through some money and counted out sixty dollars before I handed it to Zach. His beautiful eyes looked down at my hand before he took a step back, prompting me to get out of the car so I could shove the money at him.
“Take it,” I said. “I don’t like owing anyone.”
Then, when he didn’t take the money, I balled it up, grabbed his hand, and placed it into his palm.
“Again, thank you for paying for the groceries. I’m sorry you had to do that.”
“I’m not,” he said plainly.
I sighed before I got back into my car and cranked it up.
“I thought this was your hotel?” he asked.
“Forgot to run an errand. And I’ve got my purse now, so don’t feel like you have to follow me just to pay for my things.”
His eyes connected with mine, and I had to bite my tongue in order to keep my mouth shut. He was the epitome of gorgeous. Every single thing I’d ever physically wanted in a man. My tits popped to life behind my bra, and my pelvis grew hot. Shit, this was going to be a hard case, especially since this asshole had already seen me up close and personal.
I was inches away from blowing this entire thing out of the water.
Without another word, I rolled up my window and backed out of the parking lot. I circled the block and took in the city, finding myself another hotel to check into.
I was relieved when I saw Zach was gone, his bike nowhere to be seen as I pulled back into the parking lot. Without turning off my car, I went to my room and gathered my things before I checked out. I could no longer stay here now that he had followed me back to it.
The last thing I needed was him randomly waiting for me outside.
I checked into a new hotel four blocks down the road and got settled in. I dropped my things and put the groceries away, then sat down at the desk in the room to work. I spread out all the files Mr. Kent had given me in the manila envelope, as well as the few new files I’d added to the mixture.
Then, I took Zach’s picture and tacked it up to the wall.
He was a beautiful man indeed, but until I knew otherwise, he was wanted for theft, and I couldn’t forget that. I opened up my laptop and got to work, rifling through some things I already had pulled up. I had his driver’s license and his DMV records, along with his current and past employment records.
He worked at a lumber company in town and had been there for the past seven years. Before that, he had worked at the grocery store I had just come from— for seven years as well— and that thought made me giggle. A massive, tattooed man scanning groceries and bagging them up was a funny little mental image.
But he didn’t always live in Brookings apparently. He was born in Seattle, and he’d moved to Brookings when he was fourteen years old.
Interesting.
I was still having issues unsealing a couple of files I should’ve been able to get my hands on easily. I was running into dead ends when trying to pull up certain documents, and my connection at the police station back in Seattle told me I’d have to go through an entire chain of bullshit paperwork to unseal some of these documents. I couldn’t pull up his birth certificate, where he went to school in Seattle, his current social security card, none of it.
It was like Zach Harte didn’t exist until he turned eighteen. I was staring at a rental agreement in Brookings that confirmed he and a woman by the name of Melissa Harte rented out a home in Brookings for five years, but that was it.
I assumed the woman was his mother, but that was all I had.
None of it was relevant, of course. As far as thieves went, they always worked their way up. A cyber thief didn’t start out with cyber theft. There was always an escalation. A couple misdemeanors as an adolescent, maybe one major arrest for theft in the teenage years. Just like any other skill, theft was practiced and perfected before they went in for the big score.
And Zach didn’t have any blemishes on his record.
Other than the fucking sealed documents I couldn’t get past, he was a squeaky clean, tattooed man in Brookings working at a lumber company.
“This doesn’t make any sense,” I said to myself, sighing. “He doesn’t fit the standard.”
I looked back up at his picture on the wall and frowned. My gut kept churning, screaming at me that something wasn’t fitting into its socket. I kept going back over the conversation I had with Mr. Kent, rolling around everything he had told me. A ding from my laptop pulled me from my thoughts, and I navigated over to my email to check it.
It was the finance office of Kent Enterprises, sending me another document that showed an unauthorized withdrawal of four hundred dollars.
But I’d just seen Zach thirty minutes ago.
So, I got back onto my software and started trying to figure out where he lived now. I needed to know how far away from the hotel he lived because something was seriously not adding up.