Page 3 of You Complicate Me

Since Nick had carried her off the plane, he was all too familiar with her weight, and it was perfect. Grace had an amazing body.

“She works in LA as a corporate attorney,” Walden said. “Never had so much as a traffic ticket. Hardly looks like a terrorist, Nick.”

Even terrorists didn’t usually look like terrorists, Nick thought. And this dumbass, wannabe air marshal would know that if he’d been on the job for more than a nanosecond. Or if he’d ever been up to his ass in real terrorists in Afghanistan like Nick had.

“I know she’s not a terrorist, Walden,” he said patiently. “She was drunk and disorderly. I only threatened to cuff her to settle her down and keep her from upsetting the other passengers.”

Walden smirked. “I wouldn’t mind cuffing her.”

Nick fought a sudden urge to knock a few of Walden’s teeth down his throat. “Down, boy,” he muttered, not sure if he’d meant the comment for Walden or for himself. “I didn’t haul her in here for my own amusement.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Walden pressed the file into Nick’s hand. “I’m out of here. She’s all yours. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Or then again…” He waggled his eyebrows in a manner he probably thought was provocative, but actually made him look like he had Tourette’s.

Nick didn’t glance at him, but did take the time to give him the finger. Walden chuckled and let himself out.

Looking through the file Walden had put together on Grace, he noted she was a Notre Dame grad. Impressive.

Nick was always amazed by people who possessed the mental fortitude to make it through college. He’d barely made it through high school. He’d joined the military as soon as he graduated, then from there, went into a line of work that required more muscle, skill, and instinct than book smarts.

Smart good girls like Grace Montgomery historically had little use for Jersey trailer trash like Nick. If they didn’t need a quick meaningless fuck or the perfect guy to piss off their rich daddies, Nick was accustomed to having girls like Grace look right through him.

That was okay with Nick, though. Sure, it had stung a bit when he was a kid, but he was over it now. Mostly. And besides, really smart women were often fairly complicated. Complicated women usually either came with or caused drama, and Nick had a very low tolerance for that kind of bullshit.

And once she found out why his travel plans were so in sync with hers, he had a feeling things with Grace were going to get extra complicated.

With a resigned sigh, Nick walked into the interrogation room, file in one hand, bottle of water and three aspirins in the other. Grace barely moved. Her only acknowledgment of his presence was a brief upward flick of her eyelashes. He slapped the file down on the chipped Formica table in front of her, causing her to flinch.

“Hello again, Grace.”

“Uh huh.”

He chuckled. “Got a bit of a headache, I take it?”

She lifted her head and shot him the look of death. He grinned at her, then handed her the water bottle and aspirins.

Grace fell on those pills like a starving woman on a steak dinner. “Oh, thank God,” she muttered, then tossed the pills back dry.

Nick raised a brow at her. She shrugged. “I never can twist those caps off.” She held up a slender, white hand. “Girly wuss hands.”

Yeah, he could think of a few good uses for those girly wuss hands. He could just imagine them trailing over his chest, down his abdomen, slowly reaching lower to wrap around his…

He gave himself a sharp mental slap across the face. Pull yourself together, man.

He grabbed the bottle and twisted the top off for her. She accepted it and took a few greedy swallows.

“Take it easy,” he said. “Don’t want you getting sick again.”

Grace wiped a drop of water off her bottom lip with the back of her hand and closed her eyes. “I threw up on your shoes, didn’t I?”

“Yep.”

She dropped her forehead to the table. “Oh, God,” she groaned.

“Aw, don’t worry about it. You’re not the first to puke on me.”

She lifted her head an inch or so. “Really?”

“Really.” When she looked relieved, he couldn’t help but add, “You were the first unconscious passenger I had to fireman-carry off a plane, though. Thanks for that. It was interesting.”

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