Free Nameless by Debra Webb Page B

her then she remembered the excuse she had given. “Oh. Yes.” She settled into her chair and savored a healthy swallow of her wine. If she were lucky, he wouldn’t ask her any questions she couldn’t answer. After the events of the past thirty or so hours, she had to consider that maybe McBride had the right idea. If you couldn’t change it, just drink it out of your head.
    He lifted the tumbler to his lips, took a long drink of his whiskey, watching her as if he suspected she was keeping something from him.
    “You ordered the food?” she asked in an effort to make conversation. She hoped so. Having not eaten in hours, she surely didn’t need the wine going straight to her head, as tempting as that might be.
    “Two club sandwiches, fries, and another round of drinks.”
    She quelled a shiver. That he had that effect on her made her want to kick herself. Giving herself a break, she admitted that there was something about the man’s voice. Deep, sexy in a blatant, I-know-I-could-make-you-scream-my-name way. Any woman alive would react to the sensuality of it. But that was the thing. She didn’t usually react like other women. Maybe it was the mystique related to the legend that got to her. The whole “idol” thing. Every agent wanted to be able to accomplish what McBride had—before that fall anyway.
    Whatever it was, she wasn’t going there.
    Shifting her attention elsewhere, she surveyed the pub. “Quiet tonight. I guess we beat the crowd.” There were seven or eight couples spread around the dining area that was usually filled to capacity.
    If he just wouldn’t stare at her that way, through hooded eyes that reached right inside her. If her own mutinous gaze didn’t keep straying to his lips, damp from the whiskey, or to those ridiculously sexy whiskers darkening his jaw. Then she might be able to pretend that he couldn’t in a million years get to her that way.
    But all of the above prevented her from pretending.
    “What is it you’re not telling me, Grace?”
    The waiter arrived with their sandwiches. Vivian smiled and thanked him, more for the interruption than the food. She consciously relaxed her posture. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    He dragged a cigarette from his pack and planted it in one corner of his mouth then lit it. As much as she disliked smoking, she observed each action with utter fascination.
    “What’s the deal with Worth?”
    Oh damn.
    As if God had suddenly taken pity on her, her cell phone buzzed against her stomach. “Excuse me.” The relief in her voice came out way too obvious. She checked the display. Worth. So much for a welcome interruption. “Grace,” she said in greeting. Worth cut straight to the chase, his words souring the wine in her stomach. “I understand,” she assured him. She closed the phone and slid it back into its holster, a chill invading her bones.
    Steeling herself as much against what Worth’s call meant as the questions McBride would no doubt have, she looked directly into those piercing blue eyes. “We have to go back to the office.”
    The glass he had lifted for another sip froze halfway to his mouth. “Any particular reason?”
    He asked the question as if he could care less but she didn’t miss the trace of curiosity and maybe the slightest hint of uncertainty in his tone.
    “There’s been another e-mail.”

CHAPTER SIX
     
    8:30 P.M.
Tutwiler Hotel
The Pub
     
    “I want to know who he is.” Nadine Goodman watched the seemingly quiet conversation between Special Agent Vivian Grace and the unidentified man dining with her at a table across the pub. Nadine knew all the agents employed by the Birmingham field office. But this man … she studied him more closely beyond her companion’s shoulder … was a wild card.
    “He could be from another office,” Thomas Jacobs, one of Nadine’s few confidants, suggested. “Montgomery or Huntsville, perhaps.”
    Nadine moved her head side to side. “No. He’s not a fed. He isn’t