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Ch11: Habanero Hot

He had gotten up at five—leaving Leah sleeping soundly—to call Seth, who had expressed concern about the brazen abduction of Tyler Crowley. Jacob had reassured Leah's brother that he would exercise extreme caution when it came to keeping her safe. The rain had stopped and pinpoints of sunlight pierced the watery clouds by the time Jacob entered Asheville's city limits.

He had ended the call minutes before Leah had come looking for him. She had greeted him shyly, and Jacob wasn't certain whether her reserved demeanor was the result of his unorthodox lovemaking the night before, or she was more unnerved by the report of the kidnapping that she had said. After a short time they had returned to bed.

Later that day, Jacob gave Leah a sidelong glance. She hadn't said a word since they had left Waynesville. "What's bothering you, sweetheart?"

Leah stared at Jacob. He appeared relaxed and unruffled while her stomach was churning. She had wanted to believe the D.A.'s kidnapping was a random act, that it had nothing to do with the upcoming trial where she would become the plaintiff's only witness. She had almost a year to prepare herself to take the stand and recount what she had witnessed.

"I keep thinking about Tyler Crowley."

"What about him?" Jacob asked.

"What are the odds that the kidnappers—"

"Don't, Leah," he interrupted. "Please don't become fixated on something which may have nothing to do with you."

"How do you know if it had nothing to do with me, or the upcoming trial?" she countered.

Jacob gripped the steering wheel so tightly the veins on the backs of his hands were clearly visible. "I doubt it, Leah. If it's retaliation, then there probably wouldn't be a ransom demand."

"Do you think his family will pay the ransom?"

"I'm certain they will. The Crowley's own most of South Beach." He placed his right hand on her right thigh. "Don't worry baby. If anyone wants to get to you, then they're going to have to get through me. And I will shoot to kill."

Leah closed her eyes. "Please don't talk about shooting or killing someone."

Jacob gave her thigh a gentle squeeze. "Okay, then I'll wound them and you can patch them up."

"You know I'm mandated by law to report a gunshot wound."

He wanted to tell Leah that he was the law and as a federal agent, his authority wasn't relegated to any given state but to all fifty states and the U.S. possessions. "And I'm mandated to take out any son of a bitch who comes after you."

Fear, stark and very real, swept through Leah, a fear that surpassed the one she felt for Tyler Crowley. Jacob's voice was cold, detached and deadly and she found it hard to believe he was the same man who had made the most exquisite love to her.

"No, Jacob. You're taking this bodyguard thing much too seriously."

"Wrong, Leah. I'm not serious enough. Your brother believes I am your bodyguard. It was also his suggestion we present ourselves as lovers."

"Which we are," she added.

Jacob wiggled his eyebrows. "That was before we did the nasty, baby girl."

"Not only are we lovers, but now we have to pretend to be husband and wife."

He removed his hand from her thigh. "I believe we're beyond the pretense stage, Leah. The only thing that's missing is a marriage license. Maybe if we survive the trial period we can try it for real."

"You're crazy as a loon," Leah spat out. "I'm not marrying you or any man—at least not for a long time."

Jacob grabbed his chest. "Damn, Lee Lee. You really know how to hurt a guy."

"Please Jacob," she drawled, "spare me the theatrics. The only thing that's hurt is your ego because I turned you down."

"You don't think I'm husband material?"

Leah wanted to laugh, but the topic of marriage was hardly laughable. She had given Sam's proposal a lot of thought before she had agreed to become his wife. It was only after he had put the ring on her finger that she moved in with him.

"I don't know what to think Jacob."

Signaling, he maneuvered on to a road leading to downtown Asheville. "Don't you have criteria for the man you'd want to marry? I assume you would want him to be able to provide you with the basic necessities," he said, answering his own query. "He probably should also be disease free. Let's see. What else is there? It would help if he didn't have a criminal record." Jacob snapped his fingers. "No baby mama drama. That has to be at the top of the list. Is there anything else Lee?" He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. "How can I forget the very glue that can hold a marriage together? Sex! The sex must be smokin' hot!"

Biting back a smile, Leah stared out the side window. "Like jalapeno hot?"

Jacob shook his head. "Hotter."

"Scotch bonnet?"

"Hotter."

She turned, seeing the smirk on Jacob's handsome face. "Habanero."

He winked at her. "There you go. Now, take us. We're probably somewhere between jalapeno and chipotle, but before summer's end we should approach habanero heat."

"Is that a promise, Jacob Black?"

"I usually don't make promises because some are impossible to keep. But, this is one time I'm going to do everything in my power to fulfill it."

Leah returned her gaze to the side window. She was a scientist, a realist and usually not prone to flights of fantasy. But what Jacob proposed and predicted was nothing more than fantasy and perhaps wishful thinking.

She had dealt with life and death on a daily basis, but having witnessed two murders had shaken her more than she could have imagined. Going into therapy had helped her cope with her personal grief, while her faith and escape into romance novels had kept her from an abyss of self-pity.

"What's the matter, Lee? You have no comeback."

"Nope."

Chuckling Jacob maneuvered into a parking space in front of a jewelry shop. "You're already learning how to be a good little wife. The first rule: don't argue with the big man."

"And the second rule: Don't forget your good little wife is a doctor and she can hurt the big man in ways he could never imagine."

Jacob parked, turned off the engine and draped his right arm over the passenger seat headrest. "Can you give me an idea of where you plan to hurt me?"

Leah flashed a facetious grin. "Since you were bragging about not having baby mama drama, I'd like to help you out and make certain you'll never experience it."

"Oh, fuck no! You will not mess with my package. I'd like the option of whether or not I'd like to father a child."

"You want children?"

"Don't look at me like that Leah. Why wouldn't I want children?"

She lifted a shoulder. "I don't know. You just don't seem like the paternal type."

"I could say the same about you," he countered.

Pinpoints of heat stung Leah's cheeks. "I'd planned to have a child once I was married."

Jacob shook his head. "Now, that's a sorry ass excuse if I ever heard one. You've lived with a man, Leah, and that's not what I call traditional, so I have to be married to have a baby doesn't quite fit into that schematic."

"What if I don't want to be a baby mama?"

"What if you didn't know you were pregnant when your fiancé was murdered?"

"Then I'd be a baby mama."

Leaning closer, he angled his head and kissed her. "There you go."

"You're a piece of work, Jacob Black," she whispered against his firm mouth. "You missed your calling. You would have made out like a bandit running a Ponzi scheme, because you definitely would have hustled lots of people out of their hard earned money."

"And you know what happens to people who go into that line of work? They go to jail for a very long time." He kissed her again. "Let's go before the police cite us for public lewdness."

"We're not doing anything," Leah protested.

"Not yet, but all this talk about making babies is getting me aroused."

Her gaze shifted to the area below his waist, her eyes widening when she noticed the solid bulge in the front of his jeans. Groaning, she closed her eyes while exhaling audibly. "What am I going to do with you Jacob?"

That's what Jacob had been asking himself for days. What was he going to do with Leah once his assignment was over? Would he continue to keep in touch with her? Or would he relegate her to his past like all of the other women in his life? He hoped that was a question he wouldn't have to answer for a while

"I don't know. That's something you're going to have to figure out."

Leah continued to ask herself the same thing when she walked into the jewelry shop with Jacob. The first thing she noticed was the number of women staring at him, and she knew exactly what was going through their minds because the impact of coming face-to-face with him in the supermarket had affected her the same way.

Moving closer to his side, she slipped her hand in his. "What type of band do you want?"

"I'd prefer a simple band without a lot of bling."

Tilting her chin, she met his eyes. "Do you want matching bands?"

He smiled. "That would be nice."

Releasing her hand, Jacob put his arm around Leah's waist over a white man-tailored shirt she had worn over a pair of fitted jeans. He didn't know why, but for a fleeting moment, he wanted what they were about to embark upon to be real. After he proposed they pose as a married couple, he chided himself for making the suggestion, but once he had made love to Leah he knew his feelings had changed. He had changed too.

It was as if he had tired of the undercover assignments and he had grown tired of telling one lie in order to validate another. Whenever he got a call from Charlie, he never knew where he would have to drive or jet off to. One year he had been assigned to cases in Texas, Nebraska and Indiana. He investigated everything from civil rights violations to federal oversight police abuse, and several elected official who were accepting bribes for steering government contracts to several organized crime families.

Did he want to marry? Yes.

Did he want children? Again the answer was yes.

He wanted them both, but not as a field agent. The memory of two agents wearing dark suits, white shirts and conservative ties and shoes standing in his living room and informing Sarah Black that her husband had lost his life in service to the Bureau and his country was branded into his brain.

Sarah was either too shocked or she was expecting the news, because she exhibited no visible reaction. She thanked the agents, and then retreated to her bedroom, where she didn't emerge until the following morning. Jacob didn't know what to do, so he went into his own bedroom, closed the door and cried. It was the last time he had cried, because he knew he had to be strong for his mother. Captain William Black was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Sarah had made it a practice to visit Arlington twice each year—once to mark her late husband's birthday and the other time to commemorate their wedding anniversary.

A conservatively dressed, middle aged woman, approached them with a warm smile. "I'm Kate. May I help you?"

"I'm Jacob and this is my wife, Leah. We're looking for wedding bands."

"Would you like them in gold or platinum?"

Jacob shared a look with Leah, who had raised her eyebrows questioningly. "We'll decide after we try on a few."

Kate angled her head, her experienced gaze sweeping over the tall, attractive couple. Her dove-gray eyes hadn't missed the size and brilliance of the diamond studs in the young woman's ears. "Please come with me and I'll measure your fingers. I'm certain I'll have something you will like."

Leah sat on a stool, while Jacob stood behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder. "Do you see anything you like?" he whispered in her ear.

"They're all nice," she said. And they were. Kate had removed three mean's gold bands. One was set with a circle of round diamonds, another in white gold with a pink stripe and the third white gold with two-toned bands. She took out matching bands for a woman.

Leah and Jacob alternated slipping bands onto each other's fingers and then placed their hands side by side for comparison. She shook her head. "I'm not feeling these. What do you think darling?"

Jacob dropped a kiss to Leah's hair. "Do you have something a little more conservative?" he asked Kate.

Kate replaced the rings in their slots and returned them to the case. "I have a platinum set. And, I also have another set in platinum with double migraine. They're a little pricey for plain bands, but I'll let you in on a little secret," she whispered like a co-conspirator. "I saw the same rings in Tiffany when I went to New York."

Jacob winked at the salesclerk. "May we see them?"

Leah rested her head on Jacob's solid shoulder when Kate went to the opposite end of the shop. "I'll pay for the rings, Jacob."

He stiffened as if she had struck him. "Like hell you will."

"The tradition is the bride pays for the groom's ring and vice versa."

"What you don't know about your new husband is that he is anything but traditional."

Straightening, Leah stared up at Jacob. He was glaring at her. "What is your problem Jacob?"

"My problem is I don't take money from women. The other problem is I need for you to keep a low profile. That's not going to happen if you start making big ticket credit card purchases—unless you happen to have several thousand dollars in cash stashed away in that suitcase you call a purse."

"What's wrong with my handbag?" she said defensively.

When she first saw the Louis Vuitton XXL tote in the Dadeland mall she had been drawn to it like sunflowers and the sun. She had hesitated only because it was much larger than the handbags she favored. The next day, she had returned to the shop, picked up the bag, placed her credit card on the counter and fifteen minutes later walked out with her purchase.

A sensual smile curved Jacob's mouth. "It's large enough to hold an infant or a small dog. I wouldn't be surprised if you decided to carry Terry around in it."

Leah showed him the tip of her tongue. "I'll buy Terry a Louis dog carrier if you keep running off at the mouth."

"No, no, no baby. You will not turn our dog into a bitch by carrying him around when he can walk."

A frown settled between her eyes. "There's no need to get hostile."

"I'm not hostile Leah. I'm just telling you what you're not going to do."

Leah saw Kate coming toward them out of the corner of her eye. "We'll talk about this when we get home." she warned between clenched teeth.

Jacob ran a hand down the length of her back. "I thought you were going to be a dutiful and obedient wife."

She rolled her eyes. "Well, hubby, you thought wrong."

Kate opened a soft felt cloth to reveal two pairs of wedding bands, smiling when Leah expelled a gasp. Reaching for a velvet-covered mat, she placed the rings on the black surface. She wasn't surprised when Jacob and Leah picked up the same set to slip the corresponding ring on each other's fingers. They had chosen the double milgrain platinum bands. Not only were they physically compatible, but it appeared that their tastes were similar. They were even dressed alike in white man-tailored shirts, jeans and black boots. Jacob wore his shirt with the hem hanging out his jeans, while Leah had tucked hers in.

Leah and Jacob shared a smile. "We'll take it," they said in unison.

Kate's smile was dazzling. "You both have wonderful taste."

"Thank you," Jacob and Leah chorused.

"Do you want to wear them, or should I wrap them up?"

"We'll wear them," Jacob said, reaching into his back pocket for his credit card case and handing her a card.

Kate glanced at the name. "Mr. and Mrs. Black, if you take them off I'll have them cleaned for you." She signaled to a young man. "Please clean these for me." Turning back to her customer, she flashed her practiced professional smile. "I'll be back as soon as I process your payment."

Leah wrapped her arms around Jacob's waist, going completely still when she felt the outline of a holster clipped to the waistband at his back. The firearm was a constant reminder that their ruse wasn't all fantasy, that there could possibly be someone looking to keep her from testifying.

When she had gotten up earlier that morning she had made certain not to tune into any of the news channels. The report of Tyler Crowley's abduction had rattled her more than she wanted to admit or acknowledge. As the star witness in a trial that would no doubt attract national news coverage, her testimony was vital for a capital murder conviction. Without her, the defendant would go free and there would be no justice for the families of the six who had needlessly lost their lives. Of the four who were injured, Leah was the luckiest. The three others had sustained wounds that had left one with a shattered hip and the other two had suffered spinal cord injuries. One, a gang member, would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Resting her head on Jacob's chest, she breathed in the scent of the cologne clinging to his shirt. "What's up with you not letting a woman pay for something?"

Jacob cradled the back of her head. "I grew up with guys who thought nothing of asking and taking money from women. They were nothing more than unofficial pimps and they refused to understand why I wouldn't let a woman buy me gifts, or let them pay for food whenever we went out to eat."

"What about for your birthday or Christmas?" Leah asked.

He smiled. "Those are the only exceptions. I suppose I feel so strongly about it because I have a female cousin who's a lawyer, yet she feels the need to buy a man. She's pretty and smart, but is a zero where it concerns men. She had one boyfriend who used to come to her office whenever he ran short. The one time she didn't have any cash on her, He went off on her in front of her colleagues and the firm's clients. One of the partners called her in and told her that if she didn't straighten out her personal life she would have to look for a new position.

I was at her house when the ignorant fool came around again with his hand out. When she refused to answer the door he threatened her. That's when I opened the door and I told him in no uncertain terms that if he came within ten feet of her I was going to kick his ass. He must have known I wasn't blowing smoke because she never saw him again."

Easing back, Leah stared back up at the deep set dark eyes that warmed her in passion and froze whenever he turned his lethal stare on her. This time there was no warmth in the near balck orbs. "Why would she even want to support a grown man?"

"I don't know Leah. Maybe it was something maternal, or it could be she didn't feel good until she cared for the less fortunate."

"Even though I've never taken care of a man, I'm always willing to assume the responsibility for my share."

Jacob shot her a warning look. "Let's not discuss money. It's so gauche." His voice, although soft, was layered with an icy edge. "Please, darling." He said when she opened her mouth to come back at him.

Leah didn't know if his reluctance to talk about money was because he had disapproved of his cousin's relationship with worthless men, or he was intimidated by her wealth. Aside from the diamond earrings, which were a gift from her parents when she had graduates medical school. She didn't wear or own priceless baubles, and she didn't drive a luxury car. Her tangible assets were her homes: the one close to the North Carolina-Tennessee border and the Miami beach front mansion she had purchased from her cousin.

She had her favorite charities and the organization where she had generously volunteered her time and served as a board member. After working double shifts at the hospital and her philanthropic obligations, there wasn't much time for a personal life. That was the reason why she had decided to date someone with whom she worked.

"Okay, darling," Leah crooned. Her apology was layered with a sticky sweetness that changed Jacob's expression from annoyance to shock.

Sue Clearwater may have reared her children in what they'd considered the old fashioned way, but she had instilled in her three children a sense of stalwart independence that intensified with adulthood. Leah had been reminded that money brought comfort, not happiness, and that she shouldn't look for someone to love her more than she loved herself and she shouldn't blame anyone but herself when she made bad choices.

It was Sue's motto, do not be beholden to anyone, that Leah followed without question. Jacob had refused payment for his personal security services but she wasn't going to permit him to spend more than two thousand dollars for an unadorned platinum wedding band for her.

She had the name and address of his cousin's security firm, and she planned to mail a check, payable to Jacob Black, in an envelope marked Personal and Confidential days before leaving North Carolina to return to Florida.

As the adage said, there's more than one way to skin a cat even if the cat reminded her of a sleek, powerful and cunning black panther.

Hours late on the update for this story.

I was thinking that some guys don't stand the art of a purse. My guy best friend and I had a 2 hour discussion on it.

What's better: a smaller purse that you can only fit your keys, your cell phone, and chapstick into? Or a purse that looks nice AND you can fit all the essentials? I obviously choose the latter but that's just my opinion.

I'm excited though ...I finally got twelve hours of sleep and I feel better than I've ever felt this whole year. I think I'll start sleeping more if I'll feel like this everyday lol. :)

But now I still have to write out LC's Room & FWB which won't be up until tomorrow since I have work in a hour. But I wanted to update at least one of my stories today. :)

This time I won't be getting on the freeway lol! :)

Review lovies :)!