HOWEVER SHE FELT about the rest of Derek Mathers, Carla Windermere had to admit that the junior FBI agent was pretty damn good in bed.
And a good thing, too. Windermere had almost given up on sex after Mark had walked out on her and moved back to Miami two and a half years ago. She had pretty well resigned herself to living alone, avoiding complications. People were overrated, she’d decided. Relationships got messy, and Windermere liked her life clean.
She sat up in bed and studied Mathers, all six-plus feet of goofy corn-fed Wisconsin farm boy tangled up in her new cotton sheets, smiling that dumb smile that, despite her best efforts, always seemed to worm its way past her defenses.
“Goddamn it, Carla,” Mathers said. “I think we’re on to something here.”
She’d have bet money he was wrong a few months back, after they’d hooked up the first time in a Philadelphia Four Points, middle of the last case. She’d figured the big lug would make a decent stress reliever, that a guy with his looks and easygoing personality would have no trouble buying in for some no-strings-attached action.
Hell, he’d told her he joined the FBI because he wanted to be like Keanu Reeves in Point Break. At the time, Windermere figured the guy had a whole harem of badge bunnies waiting for him back in Minneapolis.
But Mathers had surprised her. He’d pursued her once the case broke, and when she finally relented and agreed to see him again, she found he wasn’t just the dumb lunkhead he liked to pretend to be. He’d traveled. He read books. He was a terrible dancer, but he was willing to try salsa, willing to laugh at himself when he sucked at it. And when Windermere needed her space, he didn’t get needy, or whiny, or start brooding, didn’t sulk the way Mark had always done.
And moreover, he was dynamite in bed—not that Windermere would ever let him hear that. She stood, pulled on a hoodie, and drew open the curtains of her downtown Minneapolis condo, letting the morning light into the bedroom.
“Yeah,” she said. “Whatever. That was okay, I guess.”
“‘Okay’?” Mathers sprang up from the bed and was instantly beside her, his arms wrapping her up and drawing her close. He was so big and strong and relentlessly enthusiastic that she felt herself caving, as always.
Just like a damn girl. Some lovestruck teenager.
“Just ‘okay’?” Mathers asked again, his chin resting on her shoulder, his breath on her neck. “You were singing a different tune a couple minutes ago, lady.”
“A couple minutes, yeah,” she said. “Next time, try for five. Maybe you’ll get more of a reaction.”
Mathers laughed and picked her up, carried her back to the bed. Tossed her down and pinned her with those piercing blue eyes of his. Windermere let him kiss her, then shoved him away. “Okay, you big lug,” she said. “We’re going to be late.”
“You know you like me,” he said, releasing her. “No matter how much you try to play badass.”
She walked to her closet, started picking out an outfit. “I don’t have to play badass, Mathers,” she said. “But, yeah, maybe I like you just a little.”
“Good enough for me.” Mathers padded to the kitchen. She heard him fiddle with the coffeemaker, and then the TV came on. She ducked into the bathroom, started the shower.
“Want some company?” Mathers called.
Yes, please, Windermere thought, but she was running late already, and not for the first time she cursed the FBI and its damn heightened-security concerns. Up to about a year ago, the Bureau’s regional headquarters had been located in downtown Minneapolis, just a few blocks from Windermere’s Mill District condo. Last year, though, the entire circus had moved north, way north, to a brand-new, high-security compound on the outskirts of town. Totally screwed up her commute.
“No time,” Windermere called back. She closed the bathroom door and locked it, lest he get any funny ideas. Showered, she did her makeup, and when she came out of the bathroom, Mathers was in the living room, watching the news.
“You see this?” he said. “Sheriff’s deputy shot somewhere up north. Some girl did it, they figure. Only, she doesn’t speak any English.”
Windermere studied the TV. Footage of the tiny sheriff’s office in Walker, Minnesota, a couple of cruisers and a young woman being ushered inside. She was tall and incredibly thin, with long brown hair and dark, haunted eyes.
“No ID on her, either,” Mathers said. “Nobody can figure out where she came from.”
“Walker.” Windermere poured herself a cup of coffee. “Where the hell is that, anyway?”
“Up north somewhere. Leech Lake, or something? Mississippi headwaters, thereabouts. Lake country.”
“Huh.” Windermere sipped her coffee. “I wonder if . . .”
“Yeah?”
She shook her head. “Just wondered if it was anywhere near Stevens, I guess.”
Mathers’s expression clouded briefly at the mention of the BCA agent’s name. Then he shrugged. “Could be,” he said. “Who knows? You said he was camping up there somewhere, right?”
“Could be anywhere, Mathers,” Windermere said. “The hell do I know about this miserable state?” She picked up the remote and shut off the television. “Put some pants on. We’re going to be late.”