Climbing the fence, she tossed her backpack over, then climbed up herself, following down the other side but a bit slower since she had to actually climb. As she turned to face the house once again, she contemplated the possibilities of the space between herself and the house. She wasn’t sure about the area in front of her. There was a large yard and anything could be hidden among the trees and landscaping closer into the building. Listening carefully, she tried to concentrate to see if she heard anything. Mainly the angry growl of a protective German shepherd watching out for his turf, but there was nothing. Only silence. Too much silence?
Shaking her head, she moved forward, pulling out another box. This one she’d built to measure any kind of electric currency. Even though nothing was showing up, she still moved carefully, but quickly. The man was only on his evening run, so she’d given herself barely ten minutes to get in, download the data on the laptop and get out. She was even more anxious since she hadn’t seen Mitch leave. Assuming he could be back sooner rather than at his normal time, she re-calculated the time she had left before he might return, she sped up slightly. She knew he ran ten miles in the evenings which normally brought him back in under an hour and a half. But since she didn’t know what time he started, she had to hurry.
At the door, she had to shake her head as she quickly and easily picked the lock on the side door. A security company owner with a door this easy to open? The electronic code was a piece of cake, only taking a few seconds before the program she’d written had deciphered the code and released the lock.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to convince herself that opening the lock hadn’t been too easy. Shaking her head, she told herself that she’d been reading way too many mystery novels lately and pushed the door open, stepping inside what looked to be a mud room or some sort of utility area. It was very neat with tools lining one wall, held in place by a peg board and hooks, and storage bins on shelves in another area. Her curiosity was killing her to find out what was inside those bins, wondering what a bachelor man would need so many storage units for, but she was on a mission and couldn’t be distracted.
Walking carefully through the room, she found the door and inched it open. When no alarms sounded, and no growling came through the crack, she slipped out of the room, staying close to the wall as she walked down a hallway. Claire wasn’t exactly sure where Mitch kept his computer, but assumed it would most likely be in one of the empty bedrooms upstairs, which was where she kept hers in her apartment.
She frowned slightly as she wandered through the house. The man had a gorgeous, huge house but all the rooms were empty. She hadn’t noticed that while she’d been spying on him over the past few days, but then, she’d been fascinated by the man versus his house, and his fun interactions with the German Shepherd. If he caught her…she pushed that out of her mind. Better to focus on finding out about the man rather than that last encounter out in front of her previous company.
Her fingers trailed along the edge of a book case, the only part of the room that was filled up. The man really loved to read, she thought but didn’t dare turn on even her small flashlight to see the titles. That was just asking to get caught, so she was extra careful not to give out any light. Even her hair was covered tonight, not wanting the moonlight to reflect off her platinum curls.
She reached up and scratched her head, wishing she could take off the wool cap but knew better than to give in to personal inconveniences. This was a mission, she reminded herself. She had work to do and learning more about this enigmatic man that so fascinated her was not her top priority.
Claire smiled with anticipation as she thought about seeing him the next day. Any type of communication with that man just made all of her nerve endings sizzle with excitement. It was so much better than picking a lock or hacking into a computer system.
She was just about to take the first step up the stairs when the glinting from the moonlight caught on something in the family room. She stepped into the dark room and looked around. It was more of a great room than a family room, but she refused to satisfy her curiosity since she now had the computer in her sights. Instead of in a spare bedroom made into an office, Mitch kept his computer in the middle of his great room. Huh!
She sat down and quickly booted up the computer, her fingers flying over the keys as she worked the code that would let her bypass the password. Within seconds, she was in, again amazed that Mitch would have so little security on his home computer. Of course, there were multiple layers of security, but she’d expected that and had a workaround for it.
Claire froze. She was about to put the flash drive into the port when she thought she saw something to her left. Impossible! She thought. But her fingers started shaking which slowed down her speed. Something was wrong. She could feel it and she knew instantly that she needed to get out of there. Just a few more seconds and she’d have the computer’s security system beaten, she told herself. Don’t let the silence get to you, she thought. Just calm down….
She was strolling slowly through the next room, wondering what the empty room could be used for when she heard the front door open and close. Claire’s heart beat went into overdrive as she frantically looked around for a place to hide. There wasn’t anything, literally nothing, in the room. No curtains, no furniture. Not even carpeting since the enormous room was done in shiny hardwood that beautifully reflected the moonlight through the uncovered wall of French doors on two sides. There weren’t even any shadows!
Claire hurried back to the previous room where at least there were book cases that might distract her silhouette. Was there someone else here? Or was it Mitch? Good grief, being caught breaking into his house was bad enough. Breaking in and being caught, that would just be the end of her great new job. She didn’t think she could explain this away.
Claire’s face flamed in the darkness at the memory of her dreams where his strong, powerful arms were holding her against him and his extremely large hand covered her breast, of waking up so hungry for him that she was actually aching inside.
She almost smiled at the memory and how he might react if she were to tell him what she’d been dreaming about for the past few nights, but then the whistling started. Oh no! It was Mitch! He was back early! Why wasn’t he on his normal killer run like he normally did at this time of the evening? He’d been working until eight or nine o’clock every night this past week and then hitting the asphalt for his normal grueling workout. Why did he have to pick tonight to change his routine? What kind of luck was she running these days?