Summer's Indiscretion(Divine Creek Ranch 7)(67)
Ace made a slight, appreciative sound as he returned the long gaze, and she smiled when he looked down the deep neck of her blouse.
“You wore that filmy top just to tempt me all day, didn’t you?”
She’d picked the sheer, white blouse over a camisole for just that purpose but also because of the early-July heat. The nearly transparent cotton was cool and had the added bonus of being very sexy.
“I wore it thinking you and Kemp might like it. It’s nice and cool, too.”
He ushered her through the doorway and whispered, “If you’re lucky I won’t tear it getting it off of you tonight.” His tone was dominating, but his caress was tender as he palmed her lower back and walked with her down the front steps.
Kemp peeked around from the back of the large paneled work van which had “Foremost Landscaping” and the slogan “We’ll Do Your Dirty Work” emblazoned on the side, along with a phone number.
Summer quirked a brow, and Ace led her around the rear of the van. She gawked in surprise at what she saw in the interior.
Kemp kissed her and said, “Hi, darlin’. We don’t like to keep the doors open. Let me help you up.” He lifted her with seemingly little outward effort so she could step inside the van.
“I don’t suppose you want anyone to see all the equipment inside if they drove by.”
“Exactly. But Duke also gets pissy if we let out all the air-conditioning.”
Summer giggled, and as her eyes adjusted from the bright sunlight outside, she took in the technological wonderland contained in the interior, which was about the size of a large shipping van. Movement on one side drew her attention to a man sitting in front of a bank of what appeared to be security monitors.
Ace said, “Summer, I’d like you to meet Duke Rivers and his cousin, Gage Randall.”
Summer smiled as a second man rose from a stool on the other side of the first man she’d noticed. He stepped away as the other seated man turned to look at her, then stepped over to her and held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Miss Heston. I’m Duke and that’s Gage,” he said gesturing with a thumb at the man who had gone back to peering at the screen of a laptop computer. He looked up, nodded, and smiled at her but didn’t speak.
Duke was about six feet tall, with longish, dark hair that reached just past his shoulders. He was built wiry and looked strong. As he shook her hand, she noticed his hand was firm but gentle and callused. His smile reached his eyes, and she tried not to stare as she looked closer because his eyes were a lovely, unusual slate-gray color.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Duke.”
“Likewise, ma’am.”
“Thank you for helping out at the house last weekend. I was grateful for your help cleaning up the terrible mess in the kitchen.”
“It was no problem. The guys were concerned about you cutting yourself on all that glass, so I dealt with it. It seemed like a good way to help. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to stop the person who did it.”
“So you work with Ace and Kemp?”
“Yes. I’m a subcontractor. Gage and I help them with jobs where they need more than two pairs of eyes or hands.”
“This is a pretty amazing setup.”
“We have pretty much everything we need for surveillance inside this truck,” Ace said, giving her a quick tour, demonstrating the placement of hidden cameras on the exterior of the vehicle and the corresponding surveillance screen in the bank of monitors. At present, they could see all angles outside the van, as well as the feeds from the surveillance cameras mounted both inside and outside of Discretion.
“Wow. You really have been watching over us. I thought the cameras were mostly for recording if something happened inside the shop.”
“That, too, but we watch over you during the day as well.”
“That’s good to know,” she replied as Ace reopened the back door of the van and helped her down. Duke returned to his spot beside his quiet cousin.
“It was a pleasure to meet you both,” she said in farewell.
“Same here, Miss Heston. Y’all have a good evening. We’ll be around.” To Ace, he added, “We’re going to eat supper and then head back over to Leroy Paggs’s house.”
Ace nodded. “Thanks. There has to be a connection there. I don’t want to make any moves until we know what it is.”
Surprised by all the technological wizardry she’d just seen hidden inside that unobtrusive-looking work van, she climbed the steps to the shop with Ace.
“Foremost Landscaping, huh?”
Ace chuckled and said, “Yeah. We do your dirty work. Actually, that’s my brother-in-law’s business and contact information in San Angelo on the side of the van. We figured we might as well advertise for him since he has crews that go all over this part of Texas.”