Midnight Kiss (Virgin River #12)(61)

Maybe exhaustion wasn’t anger, maybe it was just a need to escape. Or maybe it was irritating introspection.

He stifled a yawn.

A security guard approached the door from inside the bank, and Noah waved him off before returning his attention to the irate customer. “Sir, I understand your frustration, but the bank closed two minutes ago. Not because we’re shutting it down, but because of normal business hours. If you’ll—”

The bank door opened, and Noah turned to snap at the security guard, but found himself scowling at Elise Watson. Well, what the hell. She deserved a scowl too.

“It’s all right, Mr. James. Let him in.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.” She must be as exhausted as Noah. The rest of the team worked in shifts, but the team leaders often refused the breaks. She’d ordered Noah to take a break at 10:00 a.m. today. He’d ignored her. And he knew for a fact that Elise hadn’t let up once.

Unlike Noah, her weariness didn’t look like anger. As the muttering, hunched customer pushed past her without a word of thanks, Elise’s face looked soft and sleepy, as if she didn’t deserve a scowl at all. Damn.

She held the door open and Noah slipped inside before locking it behind him. A glance at the teller line showed Lara smiling and speaking calmly to the man, but he shook his head and waved his pillowcase around. The teller began counting out bills.

“He called a half hour ago,” Elise explained quietly. “Told us to have his money ready to go. It’s only seventeen hundred dollars. I don’t want him losing any sleep over it.”

“Or God forbid, taking his story of government hooligans to the local news.”

When she tilted her head up and met his eyes, Noah felt his heart stop. And when a slow, tired smile crept over her face, his heart started again with a crazed rhythm.

“Exactly,” she said softly. An innocuous, everyday word that sounded impossibly sexy coming from Elise’s mouth.

For a long moment, Noah couldn’t recall what the hell they were talking about. Then her smile faded and she looked tired again.

“You should go back to the hotel,” he said. “Get some rest.”

She shook her head. “The team…”

“There’ll be here for another two hours, and they’ve already had a full night’s sleep.”

Her eyelids moved slowly when she blinked, but she glanced around and shook her head again. Noah didn’t know why he felt protective. Elise could take care of herself, and this wasn’t the toughest case they’d ever worked. But she looked so…vulnerable. Elise Watson, vulnerable? Man, he really was tired.

“Come on. We’ll both call it quits,” he offered. “Have you eaten dinner?”

She shot him a guilty look.

“Lunch?” The last customer scurried past, still glaring with righteous suspicion, despite the fact that they’d willingly handed over his money. “All right,” Noah sighed as he locked the door behind the man. “Grab your stuff. We’re leaving in two minutes.”

“But I need to—”

“They’ve got your cell number, Elise. They’ll call if they need you.”

The lobby hummed with quiet work as the last two tellers counted out their money drawers. Lara laughed at something one of the loan officers said. There were no crises in the offing. No swelling tension.

“I’ll buy you a beer,” Noah said.

“Two minutes,” she said over her shoulder as she hurried away.

The surge of triumph and anticipation that flooded his blood was something Noah chose to ignore, because he did have his pride, damn it, even if it had been so thoroughly battered and bruised by Elise two years before.

He checked in with the guys working the computers in the back room. He called the men in charge of supervising security at the other two branches. He looked over the latest numbers in the forensic investigation. And his heart never once settled back to its normal beat.

Exhaustion made him angry. Or maybe it just made him need…something.

“OH, MY GOD,” Elise groaned. “Oh, God, that is so good.” Pleasure swarmed over her in little pinpricks of relief. Eyes closed, she moaned as she pressed the bottle of golden joy to her cheek.

Noah cleared his throat. “You really needed a beer.”

“You have no idea.” She took another long draw of the bottle, but she was already anticipating the margarita she was going to have next. It wasn’t her fault. She’d settled on a chile relleno, so the margarita was required by federal law.

She let her head fall back to rest against the booth. They were alone here for all intents and purposes. The only people staying at the hotel were working for her, and at the moment they all seemed to be either working or winding down in their rooms. If there was anybody else here, they were hidden by the six-foot-tall walls of the booths.

“Thank you so much for pulling me out,” she sighed. “Sometimes when I get tired, I just get more and more focused, until I can’t see at all. That’s probably what happened in Madison….” Elise regretted the word before it left her mouth, but Noah didn’t seem to notice her hesitation.

“That was a tough job.” He took a swig from his own bottle. Elise watched the muscles of his throat work, strangely fascinated by the rough look of his jaw. He needed a shave. His light brown hair was sticking up where he’d run his hand through it. He looked more like a bank robber than a federal employee. It didn’t help that he’d slipped off his jacket and loosened his tie. As she watched, he began to roll up the sleeves of his plain white shirt.