Classified by Debra Webb

She checked her phone. For the time, he imagined, since the service was sketchy at best. “Just wondering, that’s all,” she confessed.
    “How about you?” Tit for tat, as they say.
    “No and no.”
    “You’re what…twenty-five?” Guessing a lady’s age was dicey business but he felt confident he was on target.
    “Twenty-nine next month.”
    He looked square at her. “Really?”
    “Flattery will get you nowhere, Stark.” She propped her feet, ankles crossed, on the dash.
    He stared. With a couple of blinks to clear his head, he focused on the road once more. “You?”
    “Just hit thirty.”
    “How long have you been a private investigator?”
    “Going on two years now.”
    “Before that?”
    “Security analyst with the government.” He stole a glance her way. “You haven’t told me what you do.” Sooner or later she was going to tell him to stop his harping.
    He felt reasonably sure a full minute passed and she hadn’t answered. She had the upper hand—and the only gun—and he knew she intended to keep both.
    “If I tell you,” she said after another long minute, “the dynamics of our partnership will be significantly altered. Is that what you want?”
    Levi braked to a stop. He didn’t bother pulling over to the side of the road. There was no traffic in either direction for as far as the eye could see.
    More of those hushed seconds ticked off without her meeting his gaze and he wasn’t saying what he had to say until she did.
    He waited her out. She relented and turned her face to his. Finally he said, “It doesn’t matter who you work for or where you come from. What matters is that we made a deal to find what we came for. Is that good with you?” This game had grown monotonous.
    She nodded. “Yes.”
    He lifted his foot from the brake and hit the road once more.
    Accomplishing this mission was the goal.
    That was all either of them needed to know.

Chapter Eight
     
    6:48 a.m.
     
    Casey needed caffeine. Right now.
    They were approximately forty minutes outside the city.
    She might make it that long.
    She glanced over at her partner. He’d crashed an hour ago. Casey had gotten an hour or so of sleep the first leg of the journey. She’d watched Stark fight the need for sleep until she’d threatened to drag out the Beretta if he didn’t pull over. Men. They refused to admit any suggestion of weakness.
    Finally he had surrendered and she’d taken the wheel. Not a minute too soon, apparently. The big tough P.I. had been dead to the world ten minutes later.
    Now that it was nearly daylight Casey’s wicked side had been distracting her with the urge to study the man. Good thing there was no traffic. That vein of sheer feminine greed she’d failed to tame just wouldn’t let her have any peace. Yes, the guy was pure eye candy. No denying that. He’d stretched out those long legs, snakeskin boots propped on the rusty old dash. The jeans he wore embraced his body with the same enthusiasm as an ambitious lover.
    No man should look that good in blue jeans. And yet he definitely did.
    The need to know more about him was eating her up. But getting answers required giving answers. Not an option. A frown creased her brow. Sometimes she felt…lonely. Okay, she’d allowed the word to fully form in her brain without her mother’s prodding. Maybe that knock on the head had rattled more than she’d realized. Ached like the devil, that was for sure.
    The day she’d graduated from UCLA she’d been hired on as an intern at the Agency. Having a father and an uncle who were high on the food chain had ensured her a spot. Three years later a transition into field operations hadn’t gone over quite so well with her family. Casey hadn’t let that stop her. Nothing had ever stopped her. Work was her life.
    Relationships were repetitive and needy.
    Her errant gaze once again drifted from the road to the man sleeping next to her. What fun was conforming one’s life around the needs of another?