Countermeasures. Janie Crouch

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      “The whole time? You know, this isn’t going to be done in a day. It’s going to take a while. Plus, we are a secure facility, especially within the R & D vault. You can leave Ghost Shell here and come back in a couple of weeks. I promise it will be safe.”

      “Even so, I’ll be staying.”

      This was not good. Having him here was going to wreak havoc on her concentration. “It’ll be pretty boring. You understand that, right?”

      Megan watched Sawyer’s brows furrow as he nodded curtly, with no enthusiasm whatsoever. Evidently, he didn’t really want to be here. Megan wasn’t surprised; watching a group of scientists do conceptual engineering for days or weeks did not strike Megan as something a man like Sawyer would want to do on his own accord.

      “Drew the short straw, huh?” she asked him.

      Megan could tell she had surprised him. He laughed, then looked down at her with his megawatt smile. “Something like that,” he finally said. “Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime while I’m here. You’ll like that story.”

      Megan seemed to have forgotten how to breathe at his smile. She finally forced herself to look away and grabbed all the folders on her desk—most of them ones she didn’t even need—and called her inner team to the conference room for a meeting.

      This group of people had developed Ghost Shell at one stage or another and was well aware of its potentials and dangers. Without going into the details about what had happened with Fred McNeil and DS-13, Megan explained that developing the countermeasure to Ghost Shell had become a priority for them at Cyberdyne.

      Sawyer’s presence in the room couldn’t be ignored, so Megan introduced him.

      “This is Agent Sawyer Branson. He’ll be here for the duration of the project. The fact that law enforcement feels his presence here is necessary should be a reminder of how crucial this project is.”

      Two of the women on the team—both in their midforties and both married with children—were all but ogling Sawyer. Megan resisted the urge to rap something against the conference table to get their attention.

      Branson seemed to be taking it all in stride, smiling easily at the women. Of course, he smiled easily at the men, too. He just seemed to have a way that put everyone at ease.

      Everyone except Megan.

      Megan dismissed the meeting a little more curtly than she had planned, after they all agreed work would begin first thing in the morning. She left the conference room without waiting to see if Agent Branson was coming with her or not. If he wanted to flirt with everyone in the department, that was his business. As long as it didn’t interfere with their work, Megan had absolutely no problem with it.

      Good to see that the FBI had once again sent their very best.

      Megan knew she was being unreasonable. What the heck was wrong with her? She sat down and rested for a minute. It had been a long day, made more stressful by the bad news Sawyer had delivered. She had been such an idiot to trust Fred McNeil. Even though Sawyer told her McNeil had fooled everyone, Megan knew she should’ve trusted her instincts with McNeil.

      But Megan had never been good at trusting her instincts unless it came to science. Trusting her instincts with men had always brought her a heartache or headache.

      Megan rubbed at a knot that was beginning to form in her neck. She took a deep breath and began reorganizing all the mostly unneeded files she had taken to the meeting back into their rightful places on her desk. Then she cleared off and straightened any other items that cluttered it or were out of place. She knew that a clean desk always made her feel better and would help her when she got to work tomorrow with a new, stressful agent on her hands.

      Project. New, stressful project on her hands, damn it.

      And speak of the devil... Agent Branson was making his way over to her office. He rapped on the outside of her office door, but entered without waiting for an invite.

      “Get to meet everyone on the team?” It was the most neutral question Megan could think of.

      “Yep. Seems like a pretty solid crew you have there.” He looked around her office. “And looks like you’ve got that desk of yours about as pristine as they come.”

      Megan shrugged and smiled ruefully. “Having everything neat and organized helps me work. It’ll help me focus when I get back to work in the morning. But right now I’m going to head home and have a nice glass of wine. How about you?”

      Megan watched as Sawyer’s head tilted to the side and he raised one eyebrow. “Sure. I mean, I don’t know you very well, but I’d like to have a glass of wine at your house.”

      Megan could’ve bitten off her own tongue. He thought she was asking him out? No. He absolutely could not come over to her house for a glass of wine. She could barely form coherent sentences around him here. She definitely didn’t want him in her home.

      “No. I mean—I wasn’t asking you over. I don’t want you to come over to my house. I just meant—” Megan stopped herself—she was just making it worse.

      “Oh, well, then, we could go out to a bar or restaurant or something.” Sawyer’s eyes were lit with amusement as he said it. “Just let me grab my stuff.”

      “No! I don’t want to go out with you. I just want to go home by myself.” It sounded rude even to her own ears.

      Sawyer chuckled. “I know what you meant, Megan. I was just giving you a hard time.”

      Megan didn’t know what to say. She just grabbed her purse from the back of the office door and left without another word. She was probably coming across as childish, but didn’t care. His charming laughter followed her down the hall.

      How was she ever going to make it through the next few weeks with Sawyer Branson around her all the time?

       Chapter Four

      Arriving back at Megan’s office at Cyberdyne first thing the next morning, Sawyer was determined not to tease her about the incident the night before. But he had to admit it was tempting. So tempting.

      And icy Dr. Fuller was back in full force this morning. Sawyer could tell as soon as he walked in the door.

      “Agent Branson,” Megan said with a brief nod. “Good morning.”

      So they were back to Agent Branson. “And to you, Dr. Fuller,” Sawyer responded in the same formal tone. Megan’s eyes narrowed at that, as if she couldn’t decide if he was mocking her or not. That was okay; Sawyer couldn’t decide if he was mocking her, either.

      “Is it all right if I put my things in here or would you prefer me somewhere else?” Sawyer asked her. He didn’t have much—but he needed somewhere to set up his laptop and files. He didn’t want to be totally useless while he was here; there were at least some things he could accomplish on the computer while babysitting.

      Sawyer just hoped Megan’s team would be able to construct the countermeasure quickly so he could get back to Omega as soon as possible.

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