He opened his office door and kept his head down as he crossed the threshold. Eric only took a few steps before he automatically looked at Julie’s work space.
Eric slowed his pace as he stared. Julie was standing as she stacked a pile of uniforms. She wore a yellow sleeveless dress that skimmed her curves. Her brown hair fell in waves against her shoulders. Her lips were pink and kissable. There wasn’t anything suggestive about her appearance, but he couldn’t stop looking. Julie appeared soft and feminine.
Julie flipped her hair off her shoulders and their gazes connected. He felt the energy crackling between them before her eyelashes fluttered down.
“Eric!” Martha greeted him excitedly, effectively cornering him. “I have the perfect mark for our test run.”
“Uh…okay.” Eric dragged his gaze away from Julie and bent his head so he could meet Martha’s eyes. “Please tell me it’s not your husband.”
Martha laughed and gave a light slap on his arm. “No, no, no. That wouldn’t be any fun.”
“Good.” He felt Julie’s gaze on him. He glanced back but she was looking away. Strange. He usually could tell if he were being watched.
“It’s Lloyd.” She looked at him expectantly and clucked her tongue when Eric shrugged. “I know I must have mentioned him. Lloyd is my daughter’s boyfriend.”
Eric winced. That’s almost as bad as volunteering the husband. “That could get messy.”
“Not at all. My daughter knows nothing about this.”
“Even messier.” Martha was good at solving puzzles and scary smart when it came to math, but unlike her detective hero Miss Marple, the way people acted was a mystery to Martha.
“I know that Lloyd is a good guy, but is he good for my daughter?” Martha leaned in closer and whispered conspiratorially, “She once dated a serial cheater and I don’t think she could cope with that again. I just want to see what Lloyd is like when he’s faced with temptation.”
They needed a target for a trial run and Eric would prefer someone who wasn’t dangerous, psychotic or a sleazebag. “Are you sure you want do this? What if he takes the bait?”
“I doubt he will.”
Martha didn’t seem particularly worried, but people have a tendency to surprise. After all, he had been wrong about Julie.
He felt the irresistible lure of Julie and glanced in her direction. She looked up and met his gaze boldly.
Eric broke eye contact. He was usually good about sizing people up. After being out in the field for so long, an agent honed that intuition. But Julie’s action had blindsided him. Either his razor-sharp instincts were blurring or he saw what he wanted to see in Julie. The woman of his dreams and fantasies didn’t really exist.
But the woman who had lain on his desk was an intriguing puzzle. That Julie wasn’t someone he had to approach with caution. That Julie wouldn’t break at the first sign of trouble or make a run for it when he didn’t feel so gentlemanly.
Which was most of the time when he was around her.
“Here’s a picture of Lloyd.” Martha pulled up a photo on her cell phone and handed it to him.
The guy was a geek. Eric studied the picture of the spiky hair, pale skin kid. The red T-shirt overwhelmed Lloyd’s lanky physique.
“What does he do for a living?” Eric asked as he seriously considered Martha’s idea. The guy had a goofy smile and there was an openness about him.
“He’s a computer programmer for a video game company. Z-Tron or Z-Ray. Something that has to do with zombies.”
A computer geek who spent most of his time on video games. Perfect. If Lloyd made a move on Julie, she could snap him like a twig.
“Okay, we’ll do it,” Eric decided as he handed the phone back to Martha. “I’ll inform Perry and we’ll start the process.”
“I can’t wait!”
Eric wished he could share that feeling. He looked in Julie’s direction just as her gaze darted away.
Martha saw what caught his attention. “Julie is going to make a great decoy.”
“I hope so.” As much as he disliked the idea of Julie being the decoy, he didn’t want to throw her into a baptism of fire.
Martha bumped her elbow against his arm. “What do you think of the alias she’s trying out?” she whispered.
Eric frowned. “Alias?”
“Asia calls it Siren Julie.”
Siren. Wasn’t that a female mythological creature who lured sailors to their death by her singing? Only Julie wasn’t using her voice. “And the eyes?”