Midnight Kiss (Virgin River #12)(57)

Plus, he reminded himself, he was armed. Surely one five-foot-seven-in-heels woman couldn’t hurt him. Physically.

She leaned a little closer, her green eyes ablaze with violence, but before she could speak, someone else called out.

“Hey, Noah James!” Tex Harrison called. He was a forensic computer analyst, and though he looked like a scrawny seventeen-year-old boy trying to grow a beard, he was a genius. A perverted genius. Noah bit back a groan.

“Noah, I heard you got an invite to party with the flight attendant team from your flight. Where are they staying?”

Glaring, he gave a quick shake of his head, but Elise’s eyes slid back to him and caught the movement. “That’s not true,” he said, as if it could possibly matter to her.

She swept him with a scornful look. “The bank closes in five minutes. I want your team in place in four.”

“Don’t worry about my team.”

“I swear to God you missed that flight just to make my life harder.” The frustration on her face softened to compassion for a fleeting moment. “These people are about to have a very bad evening. The least we can do is handle this quickly and smoothly.”

Noah clenched his teeth. “The flight was canceled. I briefed my team at the airport while we waited. If anything goes wrong, it won’t be on our watch.”

“You’d better hope not. Or you’re going to regret the time you put into flirting with flight attendants instead of prepping for the job.” With that, she swung around and stalked out to the tiny lobby.

Noah watched the rest of the team jump at some quiet word from her. She was sharp and exacting and one of the smartest people he’d ever met. She demanded excellence and expected miracles, and everyone on her team knew it.

She was damn good at what she did, and that made him crazy. After all, it would’ve been easy to get her out of his head if she weren’t as sharp as a razor blade. That kind of weapon sunk deep and true. His only consolation was that since moving to Denver, he didn’t waste so much time looking up whenever the elevator door opened, just in case it was Elise wandering down to his floor.

Noah followed the rest of the team toward the door, sparing a second to glare promises of retribution at Tex. But Tex was busy hitting on one of the new girls and he only gave Noah a distracted wave in response.

Taking a deep breath, Noah looked down at his watch. Three minutes.

“It’s time,” he said, and his second in command stepped up to his side.

They both unsnapped the guards on their holsters but left the safety on their weapons.

Elise tossed him a glance. He gave a careful nod in answer and they both stepped toward the door, confident the other ten team members would follow. Ten more were assembled in the conference room, waiting for the signal to go, and two more teams were stationed outside the other two branches of the bank.

“Mrs. Smith!” a perky blonde receptionist called out as they moved past.

At the sound of the name she’d assumed for the case, Elise paused, her brown hair swinging forward as if she wanted to keep moving. “Yes?”

“Are you sure you guys want to go out in the cold? It’ll be below zero by eight o’clock. We’ve got an arrangement with the local market, and I’d be happy to have dinner sent over. Maybe sandwiches or barbecue?”

“No, thank you. We’re fine.”

“Oh. Well… All right. It’s just so weird to have a conference and no food service, but I guess, if it’s an emergency meeting, like you said…”

Elise stared at the girl as if she were speaking another language. The girl’s face turned pink, and Noah watched as Elise physically braced herself for the kind of polite talk people in places like Omaha expected. “Thank you so much for the offer, but we’re fine. We’ll have dinner out and then we’ll be back for another meeting later, so keep the coffee brewing.”

“Oh, I’ll get some fresh cookies in the oven!” the receptionist responded.

Noah almost laughed out loud at the horrified expression on Elise’s face. “That won’t be necessary.”

The men and women around her groaned.

“But…they’re complimentary,” the girl murmured in disbelief, but Elise was already walking away.

Noah rolled his eyes at her before following Elise out the door. “Make the cookies,” he tossed over his shoulder, happy to needle Elise any way he could.

The frigid Omaha air hit him with a cruel blow as they stepped past the heated comfort of the lobby. He was used to the occasional arctic cold front, but Elise shivered as she raised a phone to her ear.

Noah listened while she checked in with each team. Behind her, downtown Omaha rose, huddled against the dreary twilight. The sight made the air feel colder, so Noah slid his eyes toward their target.

The main branch of the bank was directly across the street, though Noah would be making trips to the other two branches soon enough. This branch looked cozy and cheerful in the darkening evening. The desks inside were decked out in faux pine boughs and holly, and a few employees moved behind the glass, waiting for the clock to strike six and send them back home to their families. One of the tellers wore a Santa hat.

In a moment, Noah and all the rest were going to rush in and change their lives. He watched twinkling Christmas lights come to life in the plate glass windows of the bank. To Noah, the sight was the opposite of cheerful.