Jonah Read online

  To the core.

  And he was attracted to her.

  That added up to serious trouble. In his current situation, Jonah could not imagine a worst-case scenario.

  The very last thing he needed was some do-gooding woman following him around, telling him just how she planned to turn him into the man of her dreams—nice, respectable, home every night.

  A man who looked good on paper but had no spunk, no spine, no backbone. Edie was the type who simply assumed that everyone shared her notion of the ideal home life. She was his Aunt Polly all over again—forever intent on rescuing the heathens from themselves.

  He would bet a thousand bucks Edie had never done anything naughty in her entire life.

  Jonah understood without asking that she’d never gone skinny-dipping in the lake under a full moon, never skipped school in favor of playing hooky at the local pool hall, never toilet-papered the neighbors’ houses on Halloween.

  And Edie thought she could help him!

  He almost laughed aloud.

  In reality, she was the one crying out for life lessons. That’s why she was such a crusader—taking on the flaws of others because secretly, deep inside, she was afraid to face her own rebellious nature.

  Which he suspected, from the kiss he’d given her, she kept tightly under wraps. She wanted to let loose, but she didn’t know how.

  His body heated at the memory of their kiss. In her lips, he’d tasted so much untapped potential he’d ached to excavate. He wanted to show her just how thrilling sex could be.

  Unfortunately, he would not have the chance. Much as he disliked this assignment, he was undercover, and he would not put either the investigation or Edie in jeopardy by starting a romance that he could not finish.

  He couldn’t do that to either one of them. And after the investigation was over and she discovered he’d lied to her, would she still be interested?

  Most likely not.

  She reached out and placed her hand atop his. “I’m serious. I can help.”

  He lowered his eyelids and gave her his sexiest come-hither stare, hoping to scare her off with raw sexuality.

  “Yeah?” he said in a low, husky voice. “And what if I pulled you down to my level? What if I like my life exactly as it is? What if I don’t want to be saved?”

  His approach paid off, rendering her to helpless stutters. “I...er...well...what I mean is...”

  Reaching out, Jonah stroked her jaw with an index finger. She blinked, wide-eyed, but did not draw back from his touch. She was so soft, so perfect. She deserved a man with a safe job, a quiet mind, and a heart empty of old hurts.

  “I know you mean well,” he said, “but I’m way past saving.”

  “No one’s past saving.”

  He wasn’t the petty criminal that she thought he was, but he did have his rough, wild side. A side no woman had ever been able to tame. With him, Edie was in way over her head, and the cute thing about her was that she didn’t even know it.

  Armed with a sincere smile and good intentions, she marched straight into the heat of battle, never realizing she was more vulnerable than a Girl Scout in Afghanistan.

  From his research into Carmichael’s Department Store, he already knew Edie had talked Mr. Carmichael into hiring workers from the local halfway house. Those three guys, Kyle Spencer, Harry Coomer, and Carl Dawson, were his prime suspects because they’d started at Carmichael’s on the same day the first thefts occurred.

  Kyle Spencer had already served a previous stint in prison after robbing a liquor store to pay for his crack habit. Harry Coomer had been on and off the wagon for years and hung with an unsavory crowd. A third DUI conviction had landed him in the halfway house. Carl Dawson had once been a decent family man, but his addiction had driven him to embezzle from his company.

  Any or all of them could be involved.

  Why had Edie so ardently championed these three men with Carmichael and Trotter?

  From what he’d seen of her, he didn’t think Edie Preston was dumb, but boy, was she too trusting. He could tell her stories that would straighten her curly hair.

  But why spoil her innocence and destroy her belief in her fellow man, even if he thought her deluded?

  Jonah looked across the table at Edie.

  Unruly apricot curls corkscrewed around ears so delicate they appeared molded from porcelain. Her complexion was as smooth as creamed butter with the warm undertones of summer peaches.

  And those lips! Firm, full, sweet as hand-dipped chocolate. Thanks to Freddie the Fish, he knew firsthand how incredibly kissable they were.

  His breath caught in his lungs. “We better head back,” he said before he did something really stupid like kiss her again. “We’ve got just enough time to change into our costumes.”

  “Yes.” She dropped both her gaze and her smile. “You’re right. It’s time for me to mind my own business.”

  Damn!

  Why did he feel like a schoolyard bully who’d broken the news to a five-year-old that there was no such thing as Santa Claus?

  “DR. BRADDICK?” AT THE University of Texas at El Paso campus where she was earning her Ph.D. in psychology, Edie rapped on her advisor’s door at nine o’clock on Monday morning following the Thanksgiving holiday.

  Monday was her day off from Carmichael’s. and she’d made the three-hour drive to get her idea approved. She had other business in El Paso as well and figured appealing to her advisor might up the chance he’d approve her request over a phone call or email.

  It was an idea so exciting that it had kept her awake most of the night.

  The gray-haired, bearded man looked up from his desk.

  “Edie.” He broke into an instant smile. “Lucky you caught me. I was about to leave for a conference.”

  “May I come in? I don’t want to interrupt.”

  “Sure, sure.” He waved at a chair. “Have a seat. You don’t mind if I pack while we talk?”

  “Oh, no, sir. Go right ahead.”

  He had an open briefcase on his desk and was filling it with books and papers. “What can I do for you?”

  Edie settled her hands in her lap and cleared her throat. “I’ve decided to change my dissertation topic, and I need your blessing.”

  “Really?” He pushed the briefcase to one side so he could give her his full attention. “But I thought you had already done significant research on the subject I suggested. The long-term chemical effects of pharmacology in the psychotic brain. I even planned on including an excerpt from your work in my new book.”

  “I know.” Edie twisted her fingers. How to tell her instructor that his topic was...er...deadly boring to her. “But then this wonderful opportunity to do field research opened up to me.”

  “Wonderful? Do tell.”

  She met his gaze. “Dr. Braddick, I’m tired of spending my time cloistered in libraries and psychiatric hospitals and rehab centers. I’m more interested in helping ordinary people improve their daily lives than in deviant psychology.”

  “Since when?”

  Since the beginning, Edie suddenly realized. Her admiration for her teacher had allowed her to get caught up in his vision of psychology.

  “For some time now.”

  “Oh.”

  The professor looked so disappointed Edie quelled the urge to rush ahead and tell him it was okay, that she’d work on the dissertation topic he wanted her to research.

  But it wasn’t okay.

  She didn’t want to write about chemicals and drugs and the tragically mentally disturbed. She wanted to study regular people who had problems that she could actually solve and without an arsenal of drugs. She took a deep breath, plunged ahead, and told him about Jonah.

  “I have to know why this man behaves the way he does.”

  Dr. Braddick sniffed. “Other than your obvious fascination with this person, what do you hope to achieve by doing a case study?”

  “To prove that if appropriate intervention occurs at the right time in an ind
ividual’s life, it can make all the difference.” Her excitement grew at the thought. Edie knew she could help Jonah.

  “Intervention? Explain yourself.”

  “Enhance his self-image through positive reinforcement. I believe I can turn him from the wrong path and show him how to reach out and take hold of the wonderful wide world that’s waiting to embrace him. Hold a psychological mirror to his face, show him what he really looks like to others.”

  “Do you have any idea how simplistic that sounds?” Dr. Braddick’s lips puckered as if he’d sucked on a particularly sour lemon.

  For the first time, Edie noticed that the bald spot atop his head had an amazing resemblance to an aerial map of Florida. Hair disappeared around Miami and didn’t show up again until Tallahassee. A large brown mole sat near Tampa.

  “You think you can transform this man,” her advisor said bluntly.

  “No,” she denied, focusing on Tampa to keep from losing her temper.

  “You’re a psychologist, Edie, not a missionary.” Dr. Braddick shook his head, and a few errant strands of hair fell haphazardly across Jacksonville. “I expected much more from you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Edie frowned, irritation rising inside her. Dr. Braddick was miffed because she wasn’t going to help write his book for him.

  “Classic,” he mumbled. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but this is a very adolescent tendency.”

  “What is?”

  “The eternal female need to tame the bad boy. It’s the basis for romance novels, and the myth plays a prominent role in young girls’ fantasies. But it has absolutely no foundation in scientific reality. Ergo, the bad boy can’t be tamed.”

  Ergo? Who used words like ergo, and when had Dr. Braddick gotten so darned pompous?

  “I never expected you to make such broad generalizations, sir.”

  “And I never expected my top student to fall for a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.”

  “I have not fallen for anyone,” she denied hotly. “I merely found a subject that interested me more than the assignments you’ve been spoon-feeding me for the past two years.”

  Edie had never argued with her professor. She had been so busy groveling at the feet of Dr. Braddick’s illustrious reputation, that she’d never considered that he didn’t have all the answers.

  They stared at each other across the desk that had become the widest chasm between student and teacher.

  “Fine,” Dr. Braddick said at last, the muscle in his jaw twitching with suppressed anger. “I’ll allow you enough rope to hang yourself. Go ahead, engage in your case study. But don’t blame me when things fall through, and it costs you a wasted semester.”

  Edie exhaled. “Thank you.”

  “But before I approve this, there have got to be some ground rules.”

  “All right.”

  “Firstly, you absolutely, positively cannot become romantically involved with this man. In any way, shape, or form. If you do, your research will be tainted, and you must scrap the project and start over. Is that understood?” He peered down at her over the top of his reading glasses.

  She nodded. “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “Secondly.” Dr. Braddick narrowed his eyes. “This man cannot know he is the object of your study. You must observe him in secret. Otherwise, he’ll alter his behavior, and your results will be skewed.”

  “I can do that.”

  “And I want a preliminary proposal on my desk the first day class resumes in the new year. You need to distill your topic.”

  “All right.”

  “And I want you to show a clear correlation between your study and how you expect to apply the results to future cases. In other words, I need to know that this project is not simply an excuse for you to get close to this man. I need concrete evidence that the interventions you plan with this subject can, in turn, be used with other subjects to elicit similar constructive improvements.”

  “Yes, sir.” Edie got to her feet. “I promise I won’t disappoint you.”

  Dr. Braddick snorted.

  She shook his hand, wished him a good trip, then left his office. As she walked through the deserted campus, past oak and pecan trees bare of leaves, a broad smile spread across her face.

  “Woo-hoo,” she shouted to the overcast sky and clicked her heels. Thanks to her interest in Jonah, she’d finally had the courage to question her advisor.

  If just knowing Jonah for a few days could bring this much of a change in her, what would a month do?

  Chapter Five

  Case Study—Jonah Stevenson Observation—December 2

  Subject continues to work out court-appointed community service as Santa at Carmichael’s Department Store. He plays the part well, remaining jovial and patient despite some minor disturbances. Including a three-year-old who unexpectedly sprung a leak on Santa’s knee, and a recalcitrant elf who forgot to put a memory card in the camera, forcing Santa to endure a half-dozen do-overs.

  In her notations, Edie did not mention that she was the elf in question. She closed her notebook, capped her pen, and slid both into her purse.

  She sat in her car outside Carmichael’s with her engine idling, waiting for Jonah to depart through the employee entrance. She had raced from the store ahead of him without changing clothes, hoping to get into position before he emerged.

  Her heart was doing this strange little number that oddly resembled the rumba. Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud—thump. Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud—thump.

  What if Jonah spotted her when she followed him? Where would he go after work? What would she do when he got to where he was going? The questions circled her brain like hungry vultures.

  Before she had time to work herself into a full-blown frenzy, Jonah exited the store looking sensational. He wore snug blue jeans that sculpted his gorgeous behind, black running shoes, and a baseball jacket.

  To Edie’s dismay, he wasn’t alone. Carl Dawson walked beside him, and they were talking animatedly.

  What was Jonah doing with Carl?

  Not that she had anything against Carl. He was a good guy when he wasn’t drinking. Edie had met him in her clinical externship at the Rascal Treatment Center’s drug and alcohol rehabilitation program.

  After ending up in prison for embezzlement, Carl had been serious about turning his life around, and he had seemed truly grateful to Edie for getting him a job in the accounting department at Carmichael’s.

  Nevertheless, Edie knew that Carl was still too close to the edge, too near temptation to be hanging out with bad influences.

  Like Jonah?

  Fretting that Jonah and Carl might have too much in common, Edie tugged off her elf hat and tossed it aside as she watched the two men cross the parking lot and get in Carl’s car.

  Carl started his car. Edie put her trusty little Toyota in gear and inched after them.

  Carl drove a half block and switched on his left turn signal. Up ahead was a small shopping center that contained a liquor store, a drugstore, a hair salon, an insurance agency, and a flower shop.

  Don’t go to the liquor store.

  Although she had no personal experience with alcohol abuse, as both a psychology major herself and the daughter of a social worker and a Presbyterian minister, Edie had met people with substance abuse problems.

  The experiences had made an impression on her. She’d never touched a drop of alcohol in her life. Not that she thought any less of those who did take a drink now and then. Plenty of people could imbibe and be none the worse for it.

  But not Carl Dawson.

  And Jonah?

  Edie’s gut tightened.

  Carl stopped the car outside the drugstore. Edie sighed in relief, then immediately wondered what they were buying and decided to follow them into the building.

  The two men got out of the car.

  Edie parked a safe distance away and watched them disappear inside.

  Well, she wasn’t going to find out anythi
ng lurking in the car, but what if she followed them in and they spotted her?

  So what? It was a free country. She didn’t owe them any explanation. She could shop in the drugstore just as readily as they.

  Edie left the car and scurried inside.

  The heat in the overcrowded building stifled her senses. Edie wished she’d left her coat in the car. She glanced down first one aisle and then another.

  No Carl. No Jonah.

  Rats.

  She walked past the first aid supplies, past cosmetics and soaps. She dodged a group of elderly ladies arguing over which was the most flattering color of Miss Clairol for women of their age and skipped around a clutch of uniformed schoolgirls giggling about the nine hundred varieties of blemish cures.

  She caught sight of Jonah standing at the pharmaceutical counter at the back of the store.

  Edie screeched to a halt and turned her back to him.

  Ducking her head, she walked backward to the end of the aisle one baby step at a time, until she stood just a few feet away. Luckily, she remained hidden from view behind a cardboard cutout of some famous athlete extolling the virtues of his favorite brand of jock itch cream.

  She was out of Jonah’s sight but within hearing range. The suspense was killing her. What kind of prescription was he getting filled?

  The pharmacist mumbled something.

  Jonah laughed.

  Edie cocked her head to one side. Straining, she leaned farther back.

  Her heel caught the athlete’s life-size cutout, and it began to totter. Desperate to stay hidden, Edie reached to steady the grinning cardboard effigy and lost her balance in the process.

  Her elf shoes skidded on the waxed floor. One knee buckled, and her leg went shooting out beneath her.

  Flailing, she desperately grabbed for a shelf in a vain attempt to remain standing and wrapped her fingers around the metal rack.

  For one miraculous instant the rack held.

  Then, just when she thought she had everything under control, the smug, artificial athlete slowly toppled onto her shoulders.

  The straw that broke the camel’s back.

  Edie’s remaining leg gave up the battle. The thin rack collapsed under the full brunt of her weight.