Running Hot by Jayne Ann Krentz

West Coast office of J&J was obviously too big a job for one person. He needed an assistant.
    It started to rain. Fat drops spattered on the windshield. She turned on the wipers and wondered if it was raining in Hawaii. When she got bored thinking about the weather in the islands she wondered if she was pushing her luck by taking this assignment from J&J. The what-ifs loomed in her imagination. What if she couldn’t handle the mission? What if Luther Malone uncovered her secrets?
    Don’t think like that, she mentally scolded herself. How much trouble could a guy on a cane possibly be? You’ve been hiding in Eclipse Bay long enough.
     
     
    The courier from the Arcane Society—a young man who seemed thrilled to be performing a role, however small, for the legendary firm of J&J—delivered the packet to Grace at the airport hotel. He handed it to her in the lobby, so close she could feel the pulse and power of his talent. A para-hunter, she thought. She didn’t have to jack up her own senses to know that he was strong.
    “What’s your name?” she asked, automatically stepping back to put some distance between them.
    “Sean Jones, ma’am,” he said.
    Of course, she thought. The Jones family tree was filled with hunter talents of various kinds.
    She thanked him and hurried back to the elevator, ripping open the sealed packet as soon as she reached the privacy of her room. The contents tumbled onto the table—Luther Malone’s phony driver’s license on top. She picked it up and studied the picture, consumed by a curiosity she could not explain.
    Like most license photos, the shot was not intended to be flattering. It was possible that it was the lighting that made Malone look so hard but her intuition told her that the brutal planes and angles of his face would look just as austere in person. His dark hair was cut short. The note said his eyes were brown but in the picture they looked unreadable, the eyes of a lone wolf.
    The picture should have been off-putting. Malone appeared to be stone cold. But for some reason she could not stop staring at the image.
    Reluctantly she put the license down and reached for her plane ticket and the resort reservation.
    Approximately sixty seconds later—the length of time it took her to get her shaking fingers under control—she dialed the now-familiar number in Scargill Cove.
    “You didn’t tell me that Malone and I would be registering as Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs,” she said, her voice rising in spite of her determination to remain cool and professional. “There’s only one room.”
    “Take it easy,” Fallon said, uncharacteristically soothing. “I made sure you got a suite. Take the bedroom. It has its own bath. Tell Malone he can have the pull-out bed in the living room.”
    “I don’t know if I can do this, sir. You should have warned me.”
    “I knew you’d panic if I told you that you and Malone would be checking in as husband and wife.” Fallon sounded aggrieved, the voice of a put-upon employer forced to work with a difficult, temperamental employee.
    “You were right.”
    “There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. Malone is a pro. He’s there as your bodyguard and this is the only arrangement that will allow him to do his job.”
    She swallowed hard. Fallon was right. Malone was a professional. She was the amateur. If she wanted to become a real agent for J&J, she had to start acting like one.
    “Mr. Malone agreed to this plan?” she asked warily.
    “He’ll be fine with it.”
    “Wait a second, are you saying he doesn’t yet know that he and I are supposed to pose as a married couple on this assignment?”
    “Thought I’d let you break it to him,” Fallon said.
    “Oh, gee, thanks.”
    For the first time in her association with Fallon Jones, she ended the call before he could cut the connection.
    For a long time she stood there, looking at Malone’s phony driver’s license and the hotel registration.
    Got to learn to live in the