Dallas Read online

  “I can see how that may vex ye,” Toren said. “But he’s still only a dumb beast.”

  Eloise pressed her lips together, itching to defend her hairy friend’s intelligence. Miranda smiled triumphantly. “He’s got human level intelligence according to Eloise, so I rest my case.”

  She could see him wanting to keep the peace between them and wondered if he had any siblings. It wasn’t on her questionnaire but now she thought it might be relevant enough to add.

  “Ah, humans can be quite a bit more foolish than animals,” he said calmingly. “I shall try and climb up and search about for him if ye think he willna be scared of me,” he offered. From thinking him a murderer not half an hour ago, now Eloise looked at him like a knight in shining armor. Miranda shoved away that annoying, heartwarming feeling again.

  Before she knew what was happening, Eloise had shoved Bergen’s desk under one of the gaping holes in the ceiling. “I’ll get a flashlight,” she said, hurrying out of the lab.

  Chapter 8

  “You’re not going up there are you?” Miranda asked.

  He was already on the desk, head up in the ceiling. “I said I would,” was his muffled reply.

  As much as she admired that, she tugged at his kilt, some naughty eighth grader trapped deep inside her daring her to peek under it. She knocked that thought away. “It’s fiberboard panels, it will never hold your weight. It shouldn’t be able to hold Ambrose’s weight.”

  He poked his head back out and grinned at her. She had to look away in order to keep control of her thoughts. “There are beams every few feet.” He reached up and knocked against something solid. “Should be fine.”

  Eloise raced back into the lab brandishing a flashlight which she flailed at Toren. He took it with a nod of thanks. “I’m going up from my office,” she said, already turning on her heel. “He’ll be more likely to come to my voice, but you can nab him if he comes out.”

  Miranda blinked at her whirlwind of a sister, wondering if this could all be real. Had she actually fallen asleep at her desk hours ago and this was a dream? “Why don’t I just go up in the crawl space as well,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

  “I dinna think either of ye should go up there,” he hollered toward the reception area for Eloise’s benefit. “It doesna seem verra safe.”

  Her stubbornness button had just been pushed. “I thought it should be fine?” she asked with a raised brow. “If anything, you’ll be the one who comes crashing through. You must outweigh me by eighty pounds.”

  He gave her a side eye that showed he had a stubborn streak of his own. With a swiftness that took her breath away, he leaned down and tucked his hands under her armpits, sweeping her up to his perch on Bergen’s desk. He looked down at her with a sly smile.

  Flustered, her foot slipped on a pile of soggy papers and he grabbed her around the waist to keep her from toppling backwards. Her hands flew up to land on his chest and once she realized she wasn’t going to fall, she relaxed and let them rest there. For two seconds. Then she yanked them away as if he were a porcupine, instantly feeling regret and wanting to put them back. Not just put them back, but slide them upward to his strong shoulders. Behind his head to lace her fingers through his hair. Lean into him so that her entire body leaned against his. Press her lips against the angle of his jaw. Her brain wrestled for control as she stared at his collarbone. What was wrong with her today?

  “Uh, you’re probably right,” she said. “It is too dangerous. I better make sure Eloise stays put. On the ground. Which is where I should get back to.” She cringed, realizing she could have done without at least three of those sentences.

  He tilted his head to the side, pinning her in place with his look. His hands were still at her waist and he moved them, ever so subtly pulling her closer. Could he possibly still have electricity flowing through him? Because she felt something akin to sparks as he leaned closer still.

  “Nay, it’s ye who are probably right. I am eighty pounds heavier than ye, am I no’?” His eyes twinkled with mischief as he leaned over her. He was messing with her! Or flirting with her?

  She jerked back and jumped down, smoothing out her lab coat. By the time she unruffled herself, Toren was already thumping around in the ceiling. She berated herself for not watching him pull himself up, wondering how many muscles would have rippled in the process.

  “You’re being way too loud,” she called. He didn’t answer but the thumping stopped.

  Scrambling onto the desk again, she poked her head through the opening. There was about three feet of vertical space, and it wasn’t an open expanse like she expected it to be. Partitions made of what looked like plywood rose from the bottom to the top here and there, making a maze of the place. Wide beams also criss-crossed every few yards, most likely the support system. Wires and cables snaked along the floor, covered with a spotty layer of insulation. She wondered if there was a way out into the hall.

  Filled with curiosity, she crawled back down and rolled Bergen’s desk chair over. Nope, that was a broken neck waiting to happen. She found a folding chair and set it up on the desk, then climbed on top of it. This put her far enough into the crawl space that she wouldn’t have to rely on her underworked upper body strength to pull her up. She still floundered like a fish being hauled over the side of a boat but made it through.

  “Mr. Dallas,” she called softly. No answer.

  It was irrational, but the darkness and strange, maze-like layout creeped her out. The fact that a frightened orangutan who wasn’t overly fond of her could jump out at any moment wasn’t irrational, though. She crawled toward the front of the building, winding her way past the partitions. There didn’t seem any rhyme or reason for them to be there, but she wasn’t an architect. The building was once a warehouse that had been converted to low rent offices and storage space, so maybe they’d envisioned using this area as further storage at one point.

  She got to the wall that should have been directly above the exit door, but disappointingly, there was no opening or air duct that might get her above the hall and ultimately out of the building. No sign of Ambrose or her Highlander, either.

  She smirked to herself, warmth stealing over her and banishing away her nervousness at being up there. Her highlander, how silly. She leaned against a partition and let herself remember the feel of his hands at her waist and how breathless she’d felt when he’d leaned close. She thought for a second he might kiss her. Her lips tingled, longing to feel his pressed to them. It was already stuffy in the crawl space but now she felt downright hot.

  This is a completely unwarranted biological reaction based on the fact that you are overtired and stressed, she told herself firmly. That and not having a boyfriend in… she couldn’t remember. Yes, she could, but it was so long ago it made her feel pathetic. Another illogical response. She’d never based her self-worth on whether or not she had a man in her life. She didn’t think anyone should. But this emptiness, this yearning she felt, had nothing to do with self-worth. It had to do with straight desire. She wanted those hands back on her waist. She wanted Toren Dallas to follow through with a kiss.

  “Boo.”

  The object of her absurd craving crawled from behind the partition nearest her and grinned. She jumped and gasped so hard it made her cough.

  “Mr. Dallas! You’re lucky I don’t have anything to hit you with,” she said when she was able to breathe again. “You shouldn’t sneak up on me like that.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Please, ye must call me Toren.”

  He held his flashlight low and covered with a fold of his kilt so that it gave him a bit of light to see by but wasn’t glaring all over the place. That and his stealthy movements and it was no wonder she hadn’t realized he was so close. It didn’t help she’d been lost in her wayward thoughts.

  “No sign of him?” she asked.

  He leaned against the wall next to her, a slight sheen of sweat on his brow. She wanted to wipe it away, tuck the stray s
trands of hair that fell across his shoulder behind his ear. Nibble on the ear. She whimpered at the direction her thoughts were heading again, angry at her loss of control.

  “Nay, he must be well and truly hidden. Are ye all right?” He uncovered his flashlight and held it up so it shined down on her face but didn’t blind her. “Ye seem flushed.”

  “It’s hot up here,” she said irritably. His closeness, his concern. It was making her unable to function properly. “And I was hoping there was a way out.”

  “Aye,” he said. “There still may be yet. I’ll just rest a moment and keep searching along the perimeter.”

  He nudged himself closer to her so their outstretched legs almost touched. She knew a big, strong soldier like him wouldn’t need a rest after crawling around for ten minutes, and she felt a foolish satisfaction that he might want to be near her.

  “It was kind of you to come up here and search,” she said after a minute of companionable silence. “Ambrose means a lot to Eloise.” She wanted to ask if he had siblings but felt there was no reason for it other than she wanted to know. And she had been perversely denying herself things she wanted for so long, it was a habit now.

  And yet he seemed to read her mind. “I have an elder sister,” he said. “She acted quite the same toward me as ye do toward wee Eloise. A bit motherly but a fair bit more sisterly. There were many times I was on the wrong side of her moods and got some wicked tongue lashings for it. Quite a few smacks as weel.”

  “Is she still in Scotland?”

  He paused long enough for her to think she was speaking too softly and he hadn’t heard the question. She was still afraid to spook Ambrose with any loud noises.

  “Aye,” he finally whispered, tinged with sadness. He must miss his family very much.

  “What brought you here?” she asked. “To America? To Chicago?” Now that it was unleashed, her curiosity ran rampant. She had to clamp her lips shut to let him answer her questions before she plied him with more.

  “That’s a story that’s far too complicated, far too…” He trailed off and chuckled, a deep rumble that sent happiness shimmying through her. She wanted to hear it more. She really wanted to hear what took him from his family in far-off Scotland. “What about ye?” he asked. She could sense him looking at her but kept her eyes straight, focused on a tangle of cables that hung from the nearest cross beams. “Is this where ye call home?”

  “I’ve been here all my life,” she said. “Born and raised in Illinois. I’ve been to Wisconsin and Michigan and just across the border to Canada once and that’s it.”

  “Ye’ve never craved adventure, then?” he asked. After a pause he laughed bitterly. “Not that adventure ever did much for me.”

  “I try not to crave anything,” she admitted. She had always thought once her career was more solidified, she might travel somewhere exotic— though exotic to her could be Florida. When she would ever consider that day to have arrived, well, she tried not to think about that, either. “It’s better to remain focused,” she explained, hating the prim sound of her voice.

  “That’s admirable,” he said. “As long as what ye’re focused on makes ye happy.”

  Did her work make her happy? Yet another thing she didn’t think about. Fulfilled? Not yet. She knew it would eventually, when everything came together the way she envisioned. Hopefully. But in the long run, those feelings didn’t matter. Achieving her goals did. Right? Right? She couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. It was the strangest day of her life. Probably because of the strange man next to her.

  He seems perfectly normal now. The kilt is sexy and it shows he doesn’t care what others think.

  She was suddenly overwhelmed by his presence and the little voice in her head warring with everything she believed in. Even being perfectly logical, he was not for her. She ran through a quick mental list of pros and cons. He was from a foreign country he’d eventually want to return to, he didn’t care what people thought— which was admirable but would certainly become problematic one day. Both cons. He was kind to her sister and animals. Wait, was that a con? It seemed like a pro. But pros simply didn’t matter in this instance. He was a possible candidate for her experiment, so no matter how compatible they were, wouldn’t it be unethical?

  He shined the flashlight above her head again. “Are ye all right, Dr. Clark? Ye seem to be having trouble breathing.”

  She whooshed out a breath she found she’d been holding and offered him a tremulous smile. His eyes were in shadow but she could see the concern there.

  “I’m okay,” she said, pressing her hand to her chest to try and keep her heart from beating out of it. A minor panic attack, nothing more. He made her think about things that gave her panic attacks. Con, con, con.

  “Let me get ye some water. It’ll take me but a moment. Ye shouldn’t try and move about until ye’ve caught your breath.”

  He was considerate. Pro. “I’m fine.” She slapped her hands down beside her to make her point, raising a small cloud of insulation dust. “You keep searching along the walls and I’ll head back toward my office.”

  Her brisk tone didn’t erase the worried look from his eyes but she couldn’t stay near him another minute. She couldn’t trust herself not to do something completely out of character. She pushed away from the wall with enough force to rattle the fiberboard and crawled away. After a few yards, she looked back but he had already stolen away, silent as an apparition. Only a faint glow from his flashlight showed her where he was.

  A few more minutes of floundering around in the dark and she collided with her sister, nearly making her shriek from the shock of bumping into a warm body.

  “What are you doing up here?” Eloise’s voice came out in the tiniest of whispers. “I thought you were in the lab.”

  “Don’t you have a flashlight?” Miranda asked. She reached out to touch her arm and realized Eloise was trembling. A knot began to form in her stomach.

  “I’m afraid to turn it on.” Again the almost inaudible whisper.

  “El, what is it?” Miranda’s anxiety was already high. Now it threatened to break a hole in the cobwebbed ceiling above them. She prayed her sister hadn’t found Ambrose’s lifeless body. Guilt assailed her at calling him a turd and saying she hated him.

  “Where’s the guy?” Her strangled voice was so full of terror it was contagious. Miranda tightened her grip on Eloise’s arm.

  “What guy? Do you mean Mr. Dallas? Toren?”

  Her trembling grew stronger but she clicked on her flashlight, keeping the bulb covered with her hand. She aimed it at the floor. Through the cracks of her fingers, she waved the light toward what looked like a wad of firecrackers taped to a small electronic device of some sort. Eloise shook so badly that Miranda couldn’t get a good look at it and pried the flashlight from her claw-like grip. She shined it full force on the object.

  “Stop, he’ll see we’re up here,” Eloise hissed. She slapped her hand over her mouth at how loud it had come out.

  “He’s way over there, searching the perimeter,” Miranda said, waving behind her. “What’s got you so spooked, anyway?” She reached for the firecracker bundle but Eloise slapped her hand away.

  “Don’t touch it, it’s evidence.”

  Miranda rolled her eyes at her sister’s penchant for drama. She leaned over and inspected the object without touching it to appease her fears. Up close to the thing, the lump in her stomach turned to ice and her own tremors of fear made the flashlight waver. She clicked it off, plunging them into darkness. “What is it?” she asked, though she had an idea.

  “It’s an incendiary device,” Eloise answered. She was keeping just as quiet but a bit of confidence had returned to her voice. “Did you see it’s attached to a timer?”

  A bomb? It was only about the size of her fist but who knew what kind of power it packed? She had to swallow back bile at being mere inches away from an actual bomb.

  “And come over here,” Eloise continued, pulling her qui
etly a few yards away. She took the flashlight back. “Are you sure he’s not close?”

  “Pretty sure,” Miranda said. “But shouldn’t we show him? He’s a soldier, he might know about these things.”

  Eloise made a strangled noise and pointed down between the wide beams they’d been crawling around on. It was one of the openings caused by the falling ceiling tiles. A faint glow showed through from the office’s emergency lighting below. She turned on the flashlight, once again covering it with her hand, and pointed the obscured light around the edges of the opening.

  “It’s blackened. Burned.” She turned off the light and sat back on her heels. “The fires started up here. I think that little device was a dud, but all the other ones that were up here worked just fine. Somebody started the fire on purpose.”

  Chapter 9

  The sisters climbed down and huddled around Eloise’s desk. Miranda felt cold all over even though she was sweaty from being up in the crawl space. A soft breeze from the open windows in the lab wafted through but Eloise got up and closed the door.

  “I don’t want him coming in here,” she said when Miranda made a noise of dissent.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Miranda asked. One minute Toren was her sister’s hero and now she seemed as scared of him as when she thought he might be out to liberate Ambrose. “Wait, you don’t think he had anything to do with that thing up there?” She couldn’t make herself say bomb. Couldn’t make herself believe it.

  “Of course I do. You’re stupid if you don’t,” Eloise said, crossing her arms tight around her middle. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “It doesn’t make sense at all.”

  Eloise held up a finger. “He wanted to go up there to make sure there was no evidence left.”

  Miranda shook her head. “He offered to go up there because you were whining about your monkey.”