Ricochet (Renegades #3)(60)
Author: Skye Jordan

She licked her lips. Cleared her throat. “No. I’m…not okay. I’m…actually…pretty fucked up, to tell you the truth.”

Fear tingled across his neck. He wanted to walk around the desk and pull her into his arms but knew that would totally freak her out. So he pulled his hands from his pockets, and pressed his fingertips to the desktop. “Baby, talk to me.”

Her gaze was a mixture of torture and distance. He knew instantly she was going to push him away, and tensed.

“I…want you,” she said. “More than I’ve wanted anyone in so long.. But taking what I want at the expense of others isn’t… It just isn’t who I am. And almost having the two most influential men in my professional life right now find out we’d been together last night…” She pressed a hand to her forehead, and the distress in her expression tore at him. “That would be absolutely…traumatic. Not only to my life, but to yours. And the crew’s. And…we’ve already talked about this.” She dropped her hand from her brow. “And it’s not like I even have a good reason for doing it. It’s not like we’ve got any plans to take this beyond next week. It’s not like this is…you know…”

His heart hardened. “Important?”

“Don’t trivialize this, Nathan.” Anger flared in her words. “You may screw around like this all the time, but this is a big deal for me.”

“You think me wanting to be with you is trivial?”

“That’s…that’s not what I said.”

He should just let it go. Walk away. But that damn pull in his chest wouldn’t let him. “Rachel,” he said, forcing his voice soft, “we can end the whole problem by just coming clean. Just bringing it out in the open.”

“It?” she asked, eyes narrowed. “What exactly would ‘it’ be? The fact that we’re fucking?” She crossed her arms. “No, thanks. I’d rather not have my sexual business open to my boss’s and coworkers’ scrutiny.”

He pushed off the desk and straightened. “Now who’s trivializing?”

The outer office door opened, and Rachel’s nervous gaze darted that direction. Fresh frustration burned beneath his skin. Never a moment alone.

“Good morning.” Marx’s voice was the last thing Ryker needed to hear right now. “Do you have that SOP for me?”

“Yes.” She picked up the stack of papers she’d been looking at when Ryker walked in and handed it to Marx without her typical enthusiasm. He must have noticed, because he cast a suspicious glance between her and Ryker. “I’ll finish up the action plan with Ryker’s changes today, then have him finalize it. I should have it for you later.”

“You always come through on everything important,” Marx said, skimming the SOP.

Ryker felt an ice pick dig into his chest. He dropped his arms and met Rachel’s guilty gaze steadily. “Now there’s something we can both agree on, Marx. And, lucky for you, her priorities seem to be set in stone.”

At two p.m. Ryker pulled the work truck into a spot near the storage lot and climbed from the cab. He was sweaty, dirty, and hungry, but his mind was absorbed with Rachel, and his gaze scoured the office looking for some sign of her. The blinds were closed against the afternoon sun, which was just as well. What the hell did they have to talk about anymore anyway?

He rounded the truck and met Charlie beside a stack of boxes and pallets of supplies delivered that morning while they’d been on the bridge. “Did they come?”

Charlie squinted at a clipboard beneath the shadow of a hardhat brim, a pencil skimming the packing-order list. He shook his head. “Doesn’t look like it.”

Ryker wiped dirt and sweat from his face with a quick swipe of his hand. “Fuck.”

Charlie lowered the clipboard and searched through the boxes again. “I’ll look again, then I’ll call the company and rip them a new asshole.”

Ryker pulled off his own helmet and tossed it into the back of his truck. They’d rigged the catwalk and safety lines quickly that morning, so they’d moved on to drilling for the explosives as well. But he was stuck now until the steel shims came in. Then they could start stuffing holes with RDX, add timers, and blast.

“I’m going to see if Rachel finished the action plan,” he said. “See if it got past Marx.”

“Joy,” Charlie said, his voice dry. “If I find the shims I’ll let you know.”

On the walk to Rachel’s office, Ryker mentally prepared himself for her indifference. Visualized himself seeing her and feeling blank instead of needy.

And happy.

No. Women didn’t make him happy. Women excited. Women entertained. Women satisfied. Women did not make him happy.

As he pushed through the front door to Rachel’s office, Ryker reminded himself that he should be glad that Rachel was falling into that pattern too, because she certainly wasn’t making him happy now.

Voices floated from the larger space. He passed through the small front area and found Katie and Kelly in the office behind the desks. One had her feet up on the desktop, ankles crossed, a magazine in her lap. The other had her feet up on the desktop, her ankles crossed, a nail file in her hand.

“Oh, thank you God,” the one with the nail file said. “Finally, a little eye candy.”

Ryker wasn’t in the mood for their flirty games. “Where’s Rachel?”

The one with the magazine glanced up, then back, and flipped a page. “She and Josh went into town.”

“Town?” The nearest “town” was over half an hour away. “For what?”

“Probably for a quickie in one the hotels,” one of the twins said, followed by a giggle.

“Oooo,” the other one said, “there’s some brain candy for my afternoon.”

Ryker fisted his hands. “Ladies.”

They both looked up and read his frustrated expression. The one with the nail file shrugged. “She said something about—”

“Grabbing lunch,” the other one said, returning her gaze to the magazine, “and picking up supplies.”

So, she could go somewhere alone with Marx but didn’t dare associate with Ryker.

“Oh,” one of the women said, “she left this for you in case you came in.”

Ryker turned back and found the twin working on her nails taping the file against a stack of papers at the edge of Rachel’s desk. He stepped forward and picked it up, reading the title. It was the action-sequence plan. And at the top, a red stamp of APPROVED with Marx’s initials glaring up at Ryker.