Just A Little Bit Married?
Eileen Wilks
HUSBAND FOR HIRE?The secluded beach house was the perfect honeymoon hideaway. And Dr. Sara Grace was there with her real-life fantasy man. Except that the man she called "husband" really wasn't her spouse. Dark, brooding Raz Rasmussin had a very strong interest in Sara's body - in a professional sense, of course.Raz had been hired to guard Sara from a ruthless killer. So to better protect her, they pretended to be married. But then the "newlyweds" began their honeymoon very seriously. Trouble was, the last time the confirmed bachelor had mixed business with pleasure, the consequences had been fatal. Now, more than Sara's heart was at stake… .
“It will work best if we pretend to be newlyweds.” (#ubf2f5771-3377-5b0a-b6c1-26976dec4be9)Letter to Reader (#ufed5e200-28a5-54c8-8db7-427583a5137b)Title Page (#ue6796e89-f918-5b43-b358-7db80780afc3)About the Author (#u15461c8e-1049-555a-93e3-d8d4d13d37de)Dedication (#uebd9e355-4e87-5632-9efe-23cc9e1b6aa5)Chapter One (#u1e7b811d-39eb-530e-8f20-fee536e66ae2)Chapter Two (#u2a2600b9-f454-5265-9623-66a29438b05c)Chapter Three (#udf90b08c-ba86-51b3-bd24-aced4e541594)Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“It will work best if we pretend to be newlyweds.”
“No! No, that’s not a good idea. I’m not good at ... pretense. I won’t be able to fool anyone.”
“Listen, you don’t have to worry.” He was glad he could reassure her honestly. “I’m not going to take advantage of the situation. We may have to hold hands and look at each other all mushy-eyed in public, but leave that part to me.” He grinned. “I can lust in my heart with the best of ’em. But trust me. That’s where it will stay.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice and, disappointed, she took the ring.
“I’ll keep my hands to myself,” he said, slowing as they neared the ferry that would take them to the island. “I promise.”
Darn the man and his stupid promises!
Dear Reader,
All of us at Silhouette Desire send you our best wishes for a joyful holiday season. December brings six original, deeply touching love stories warm enough to melt your heart!
This month, bestselling author Cait London continues her beloved miniseries THE TALLCHIEFS with the story of MAN OF THE MONTH Nick Palladin in The Perfect Fit. This corporate cowboy’s attempt to escape his family’s matchmaking has him escorting a Tallchief down the aisle. Silhouette Desire welcomes the cross-line continuity FOLLOW THAT BABY to the line with Elizabeth Bevarly’s The Sheriff and the Impostor Bride. And those irresistible bad-boy James brothers return in Cindy Gerard’s Marriage, Outlaw Style. part of the OUTLAW HEARTS miniseries. When a headstrong bachelor and his brassy-but-beautiful childhood rival get stranded, they wind up in a 6lb., 12oz. bundle of trouble!
Talented author Susan Crosby’s third book in THE LONE WOLVES miniseries, His Ultimate Temptation, will entrance you with this hero’s primitive, unyielding desire to protect his once-wife and their willful daughter. A rich playboy sweeps a sensible heroine from her humdrum life in Shawna Delacorte’s Cinderella story, The Millionaire’s Christmas Wish. And Eileen Wilks weaves an emotional, edge-of-your-seat drama about a fierce cop and the delicate lady who poses as his newlywed bride in Just a Little Bit Married?
These poignant, sensuous books fill any Christmas stocking—and every reader’s heart with the glow of holiday romance.
Enjoy!
Best regards,
Joan Marlow Golan
Senior Editor
Please address questions and book requests to:
Silhouette Reader Service
U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269
Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3
Just A Little Bit Married?
Eileen Wilks
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
EILEEN WILKS is a fifth-generation Texan. Her great-great-grandmother came to Texas in a covered wagon shortly after the end of the Civil War—excuse us, the War Between the States. But she’s not a full-blooded Texan. Right after another war, her Texan father fell for a Yankee woman. This obviously mismatched pair proceeded to travel to nine cities in three countries in the first twenty years of their marriage, raising two kids and innumerable dogs and cats along the way. For the next twenty years they stayed put, back home in Texas again—and still together.
Eileen figures her professional career matches her nomadic upbringing, since she tried everything from drafting to a brief stint as a ranch hand—raising two children and any number of cats and dogs along the way. Not until she started writing did she “stay put,” because that’s when she knew she’d come home. Readers can write to her at P.O. Box 4612, Midland, TX 79704-4612.
This book is for all my buddies in the Romance Forum at
Compuserve, and especially for Silke, Sherry and
Bonnie, who helped with motorcycles, blood, bullets and
other emergencies. Hi, guys!
One
He dreamed of snow and cold and blood.
Raz was naked when the phone rang that December morning. His covers lay on the floor where he’d kicked them at some point during the restless night. His skin was chilled, clammy, and he told himself that was why he’d dreamed of the cold again.
But he knew better. He knew what the cold meant, and where the blood had come from.
The phone rang again. He groped for it as he sat up. “Rasmussin,” he muttered, reaching automatically for the cigarettes and lighter that should be right beside the phone. Then he remembered. He’d quit. Two months and three days and—he glanced at the clock—seven hours ago, he’d quit smoking. He cursed tiredly.
“Good morning to you, too,” his brother said.
Raz rubbed a hand over his chest, where some of the cold from the dream seemed to be lodged. The warmth from his hand didn’t dispel it. “It’s seven-fifteen,” he said irritably. “You want to know how much sleep I’ve had?”
“Not especially,” Tom said. The slight hiss of static told Raz that Tom was on his cellular phone. “I want you to drag your lazy butt out of bed and listen. Javiero got to one of my witnesses last night. The orderly.”
“Damn.” Raz might not be on the H.P.D. payroll at the moment, but the habit of years was too strong to break. Houston was his city. He kept up with what happened in it, so he knew which case Tom was talking about. Three weeks ago bullets had filled a local emergency room when Javiero and two other members of the Padres “deposed” their current leader. Four people were killed, three others injured.
The press and the public dubbed it the worst outbreak of gang violence yet, perhaps because it happened on supposedly safe territory, away from the Padres’ turf. Because of the uproar, the case had come to Tom in Special Investigations. Tom’s task force had since caught up with the other two gunmen, but Javiero was still loose. “Is the orderly dead?”
“What do you think? Javiero went right to the guy’s home with that Uzi of his. The bullets damn near cut my witness in half. The neighbor who was talking to him when the little bastard opened up is in critical condition.”
“Damn.” Reluctantly Raz faced the fact that he was wide awake at seven-fifteen in the morning and there were no cigarettes in the apartment. For the thousandth time he wondered why he’d picked this time to quit. “You have other witnesses.”
“One of them suffered a severe loss of memory after he heard about the shooting last night.”
“And the other?”
“She’s sticking.” There was satisfaction in Tom’s voice. “Even though she’s scared spitless, and with reason. I don’t have the manpower to get her the kind of round-the-clock protection she needs until we catch up with Javiero.”
An alarm went off in Raz’s mind. “Tom, I don’t—”
“I’ve persuaded her to hire a bodyguard. She’s a doctor, so she can afford it.”
“Fine. Great. Have you suggested North’s agency? They’re reliable.”
“You claim you want to go private. Of course, we both know that’s just an excuse to sit around in your underwear and watch your toenails grow. How many jobs have you turned down this month?”
Three. “I’ve been looking.”
“How many have you turned down?”
“None of your goddamn business.”
Silence from the other end, except for the muted sounds of traffic that indicated Tom was in his car.
“Look,” Raz said, rubbing a hand over his face. Several days’ worth of stubble rasped his palm. “I guess you mean well, but I don’t need my big brother to ride in and save me from myself. I can find my own job.” When he had to. When the right job turned up. He still had some money saved up, after all. There was no rush.
Tom snorted. “You really believe I’m thinking of you here? I don’t risk my witnesses for you or anyone else. I need a guard for her. I want you to do it. When you’re not busy feeling sorry for yourself, you’re almost as good as you think you are.”
“Private security companies—”
“They aren’t good enough. Not for this.”
Raz’s eyebrows went up. Could his by-the-book brother actually have allowed himself to get personally involved in a case? Not with the witness, of course. Tom was too honorable to cheat on his wife. Besides, he was head-over-heels in love with her.
“I want you for it,” Tom said flatly. “Jacy got a threatening note from Javiero. yesterday. Apparently he doesn’t like the coverage she’s been giving his story.”
Oh, sweet Jesus. “She’s all right? And the baby?”
“Both of them are fine. She says I’m overreacting. A dozen other journalists, both print and TV, got similar messages yesterday. Even a nutcase like Javiero can’t go around killing them all, not when he’s trying to hide out.”
“It may be more of a power trip than a real threat.”
“Has your brain rotted out completely in the last couple months? I take a death threat from a man who’s killed at least five people pretty seriously.”
Raz bit back his too-ready anger. Tom was entitled to be touchy under the circumstances. “Javiero is scum, but he’s not stupid scum. By now he knows he’s going down. He just wants to make it happen his way. Sending death threats to journalists gets him more press, more attention.”
“If he really believed he was going down he wouldn’t be offing witnesses.”
Raz grimaced. Tom was one hell of a cop. The best. But he didn’t understand Javiero. Raz did. He’d lived with people like that for years. Hell, he’d been someone like that, in one of his alter egos. “One thing you have to understand about Javiero. Death and prison don’t worry him much, but pride, name, reputation—they mean everything. If he makes a big enough splash, takes enough people with him when he goes down, it makes him more real.”
“Maybe,” Tom said. “Maybe that is his motive right now—attention. He probably doesn’t realize Jacy is my wife. She still uses her maiden name professionally. But once he finds out—if he finds out—his attitude is apt to change.”
Raz’s knuckles went white on the receiver. Tom was right. If Javiero found out that one of the reporters he’d threatened was the wife of the cop who was pursuing him, it might make an attack on her irresistible.
With Jacy in danger, Raz had no choice. He had to do whatever he could, even if that meant being responsible for this witness’s life.
Even though the witness was a woman.
He took a deep breath and fought back the panic churning in his stomach. “What do you want me to do?”
“Take care of my witness. Keep her alive until we find Javiero and lock him up. I don’t want that son of a bitch walking when this goes to trial.”
“One witness’s testimony is no guarantee of a conviction.” Eyewitnesses were, in fact, notoriously unreliable.
“We’ve got physical and circumstantial evidence, too, but I need her. Juries don’t always trust a lab tech’s report, and this woman makes a hell of a good witness.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She’s a doctor, a trauma specialist, though she doesn’t look it. I doubt she’s more than an inch over five foot, and—”
Raz interrupted impatiently. “I didn’t ask for a physical description. What is she like?”
“Quiet Intense. Easy to underestimate. She’s got one hell of a memory for faces, fortunately, and when she’s sure of her facts she can’t be budged. She’s sure it was Javiero she saw that night. She recognized him.”
“How did she know him?”
“She volunteers at the free clinic on Burroughs twice a month. It seems he took his sister there a couple times.”
“Sounds like a real saint.”
“Just make sure she doesn’t get changed from a saint into a martyr.”
Raz promised. What else could he do? He knew what Tom was asking, knew why he was asking. Houston had several top-notch security agencies that could offer excellent round-the-clock protection, but professionals, however competent, weren’t enough. Not when Jacy’s life might be in danger.
Tom offered to call Raz’s boss and get the paperwork started that would grant him official permission to work a civilian job while still technically on the force.
“I could just quit,” Raz said.
“Not necessary,” Tom said, as Raz had known he would, adding, “I’ll be there to pick you up in ten minutes.”
“Pretty sure of me, weren’t you?” The hand that held the phone was starting to shake—a fine tremor, nothing obvious.
“Yes,” Tom said quietly. “I’m sure of you.”
More the fool you, Raz thought. He said goodbye and put the phone down. Then he waited for the shakes to pass.
Tom didn’t understand what he was asking, not really. There was a hell of a lot Tom didn’t know. But Raz understood what Tom wanted. He wanted someone who would keep his witness alive, no matter what.
Raz headed for the shower, wondering if Tom realized just how far his little brother would go to protect his family. Could a man as honest as Tom, a cop that straight arrow, imagine what Raz was really like after eight years of undercover work?
God, he hoped not.
The drumming of hot water on his back and head felt good, though it didn’t banish the exhaustion that clung to him like a second skin. He didn’t really notice, though. He’d been tired too long.
When he came out of the shower he flicked the radio on. A disc jockey announced there were only thirteen shopping days left until Christmas.
Raz stopped in his tracks, naked and dripping. Thirteen days? Only thirteen days until Christmas? Disbelieving, he looked out the window of his second-story apartment. A sunny South Texas sky promised another warm day.
He had vaguely noticed holiday decorations going up, but people put those up earlier every year. He hadn’t paid attention to them. He hadn’t wanted to see them at all. But surely they hadn’t been up very long ... had they?
The disk jockey’s patter gave way to Bing Crosby singing about a white Christmas. Raz thought about the snow in his dream, shivered, and shut the radio off.
So Christmas was less than two weeks away. Christmas, the time of hope and miracles...and everything else Raz couldn’t believe in anymore. But he did believe in family. If he had to lie, steal, kill or die to protect his family, that’s what he’d do.
Though it was December, the air was barely cool that morning as a swimmer stroked up and down an outdoor pool in a Houston neighborhood filled with old houses and new money.
The sun had been up for twenty minutes when Sara Grace finished her first lap. The water was cooler than the air, almost chilly. It flowed like liquid silk over her skin. Sara loved the feel of it as much as she liked the pull and warmth of her muscles as she stroked and kicked. Water was innately sensual. Here, for a little while, she could feel sensual, too. Here she was lithe and graceful and quite unlike her usual self.
As she slid through the water she let her mind slide into a daydream. It was better than thinking about what bullets, fired at a rate of 950 rounds per minute, could do to a human body. Like hers.
Sara had never had much time for daydreaming, so she wasn’t very good at it. She vaguely imagined the feel of strong, male arms around her. The look of a man’s hard, muscular body. A teasing flash of a smile. The combination brought a little tingle of excitement to her own body.
When she reached the south end of the pool she paused long enough to assure herself that the police officer still stood by the gate, watching over her. Then she flipped around and started back.
What had happened to the poor orderly last night had left her terrified. No surprise there. Sara knew she was a coward. But, being an experienced coward, she knew how to banish her fears, at least temporarily. Fear was an ice demon, tight and rigid. It had a hard time holding on to a body warm and loose from exercise. By the time she reached the other end of the pool she made her turn automatically, her mind drifting back to the man she’d been fantasizing about, a man she’d stitched up six months ago.
She’d been on her third night in a new job in a new city when he’d shown up at the ER. Sara remembered the number of stitches she’d put in the gash in the man’s forearm, and she remembered the way his chest had looked—hard, with a dusting of soft brown hair in the center.
Once again she felt that pleasant little tingle of heat.
Her recently developed fantasy life was strangely soothing, rather like having a secret place to go when life became too large and scary. A bit childish, maybe, she thought, but it hurt no one. She did feel slightly guilty for drawing on her memory of a patient’s anatomy for her daydreams. But he’d only been her patient for a couple of hours, after all. She’d never see him again.
Sara stroked smoothly down the length of the pool and thought about the man she would never see again. A dangerously attractive man—sexy, charming—oh, yes, he’d been all of that and more. More, as in possibly wanted by the police. He’d claimed the cut on his arm was an accident, but Sara knew a knife wound when she sewed one up. She’d reported it, of course. He’d sneaked out of the examining room before the officer came to get his statement.
Sara was nearly at the south end of the pool again when a man’s voice interrupted her daydream. “Dr. Grace?”
Shock and fear jolted through her. Her head went up. Her hand, outstretched at the end of a stroke and ready to grab the side of the pool, froze. In that split second she saw not one, but two men. The detective she’d spoken with so often since the shooting knelt by the edge of the pool, his face shadowed by his black Stetson.
Behind him stood the man of her dreams.
Sara nearly drowned.
After several embarrassing seconds of splashing around like a two-year-old in a wading pool, she managed to grab the edge of the pool. She drew herself up with as much dignity as she could. “Yes?”
“Sorry,” Lieutenant Rasmussin said in the Texas drawl Sara had almost gotten used to hearing in the past six months. He was a hard-looking man with a thick mustache and odd, pale eyes. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I brought someone I’d like you to meet.”
Her eyes flicked to the man behind him.
He reminded Sara of a young Harrison Ford, cocky and entirely too charming, his face intriguingly creased when he smiled. His jeans were faded almost to white. His T-shirt was a truly ugly shade of purple, covering a chest that surely couldn’t be the peak of masculine perfection she remembered.
The crooked grin he flashed at her was the same, though. And, oh, heavens, she felt the same little sizzle of heat. Except it wasn’t that little.
She cleared her throat. “We’ve met.”
One of his eyebrows went up quizzically. “We have?”
It was absurd to feel disappointed. She wasn’t a woman who made a lasting impression. And surely she hadn’t wanted a man like him to be the exception? “I sewed up your arm a few months ago, Mr. MacReady.”
His lips twitched. “Uh-oh.” He glanced at the other man. “You were right about her memory for faces. She, uh, knows me as Eddie MacReady.”
Lieutenant Rasmussin’s expression barely changed, yet he managed to look disgusted. “You might have said something.”
“I didn’t know who your witness was. You’ve kept their names from the press, though God alone knows how.”
“Apparently it didn’t do much good, since Javiero found the other one.” Tom Rasmussin sighed and stood. “Explanations are obviously in order. Dr. Grace, this reprobate is my brother, also known as Sergeant Ferdinand Rasmussin of the Houston Police Department Also known by various other names, including Eddie MacReady. He works undercover and he has a sick sense of humor. Raz, meet Dr. Sara Grace.”
She stared at the reprobate. He was a police officer? Now that she looked closely, she saw differences between her memory of him and the way he looked today. His clothes were vastly different, of course. This man’s hair was shorter and lacked the blond highlights she remembered. And his eyes. There was something different about his eyes, but she couldn’t pin down what it was.
He smiled at her, a smile as slow and as sweet as the chocolate-candy color of those eyes. “Call me Raz,” he said, looking almost bashful, as if he should have a hat to doff and boots to scuff in the dirt. “Glad to meet you under my right name this time, ma’am.”
Detective Rasmussin scowled at his brother. “Stop playing around, Raz.”
He shrugged. “I’ve got to do something to counter the impression she has of me. Eddie’s not a very nice boy.”
Sara was confused. On several levels. “You, ah, you want your brother to take over for the other officer?” she asked the detective. “You’re assigning him to stay with me until I get a bodyguard?”
“Not exactly. Raz is on leave from the force right now. Do you want to get out and dry off, Dr. Grace, before I explain?”
Get out—in front of these two men—in her swimsuit?
Sara’s face heated. Nerves fluttered in her stomach, and her throat closed. The rising tide of symptoms was only too familiar, but no easier to combat because of it. She reminded herself that her swimsuit was a conservative one-piece. And these men didn’t care what she looked like. They wouldn’t be checking out her body for flaws. Besides, she’d look more ridiculous if she stayed in the pool.
But real shyness couldn’t be reasoned away. She was barely able to stammer, “I’ll, uh—my towel. It’s—if you’d just—”
The wrong man figured out what her fractured request meant. The one she thought of as Eddie MacReady turned and grabbed her towel from the webbed chair where she’d left it. He crouched near the edge of the pool.
“Here.” He smiled as he held out the towel.
This was awful. He was so close, and looking right at her. Sara shut her eyes and heaved herself up and out. She sat on the edge of the pool and twisted to take the towel from him, eager to get it wrapped safely around herself. Her fingers trembled slightly when they brushed his.
Heat. Quick. Purifying. It zipped through her in a sudden rush. Just that fast, her shakes and sick nerves were gone, washed out by something stronger. Her hand clenched the towel. She stared at him, astonished.
His eyes were wide and startled and, for a split second, completely unguarded.
“Do you want to go in?” Lieutenant Rasmussin said.
His voice brought Sara back to reality. Partway back, at least, enough to realize she still sat there in her skin-hugging swimsuit. She blushed and hastily wrapped the thick terry towel around her. “Yes,” she said, and pushed to her feet. “I’ll fix coffee.”
Now, of course, he would see what had been hidden by the water. But while Sara was painfully self-conscious about some things, she had her pride. She was proud of the fact that she walked at all, and damned if she would be ashamed of the scars.
Her back was straight even if her gait couldn’t be when she limped to the chair where she’d left her cane. She started for her cottage then, and she didn’t look back.
Two
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Raz demanded in a low voice. The sound of the shower his subject was taking traveled clearly through the wall to where he and his brother stood in the kitchen of her dollhouse-sized cottage.
Sara Grace lived on Highpoint Avenue—typical doctor territory, expensive and exclusive. She rented from a doctor, in fact—the chief of surgery at her hospital. But Sara’s home was a tiny “mottter-in-law” house built behind the mansion by a previous owner. Her kitchen was a narrow, unfussy room with several plants hung in front of the long window in lieu of curtains. Like the rest of the house, it had wooden floors. A basket in the center of the table held a miniature holly bush covered with red berries and tiny red bows. Beneath it was a red place mat with a holiday border.
Christmas. Now that Raz had noticed the holiday, he saw it everywhere.
The coffeemaker that sat at one end of the green-and-whitetiled counter gave a last burp and gurgle. Tom set his hat on the counter and reached for the pot. “Tell you what?”
“That she was injured when Javiero went gunning for his rival at the emergency room.” Damn, he felt edgy. Automatically he patted his pocket, then pulled his hand away when he remembered. No cigarettes.
“She wasn’t. I don’t know why she limps, but it’s not from the shooting. Want a cup?”
“Yeah.” He moved restlessly around her small kitchen, trying to get a handle on the woman he was supposed to keep alive. Dr. Sara Grace—physician, trauma specialist, witness ... and a pretty, frightened mouse with a bad leg.
Seeing her limp had bothered Raz. He didn’t know why. It didn’t seem to be a severe handicap. She’d walked almost normally once she had the cane to help. Maybe it was the contrast. She’d been so at home in the pool, a sleek water creature, small and strong and sure.
He thought of his reaction to her once she left that water. Amusement, dark and supple, twisted in him.
“Care to share the joke?” his brother asked, handing him a steaming mug.
“Not really.” Raz sipped. The coffee was one of those fancy gourmet brands, the first evidence of extravagance he’d seen in Sara Grace’s life-style. “I’ve got some questions to ask before she rejoins us,” Raz said.
“Go ahead.”
“What kind of back-up have I got?”
“I can have someone here eight hours out of twenty-four.”
“Wait a minute.” He frowned. “You said ‘here.’ Don’t you have a safe house lined up for her?”
“She won’t go.”
“Won’t go?” Raz’s eyebrow went up. “She didn’t strike me as stupid.”
“Feel free to try and talk her out of staying here.”
He would. Not only was this cottage of hers unsafe from a professional standpoint, it was small. He’d be bumping into her every time either of them turned around, and he did not need the distraction. Not when he’d already experienced the most extraordinary burst of lust for her trim little body.
Lusting after his subject was certainly not a complication he’d expected to have to deal with. Never mind whether he deserved that particular frustration or not. Life had little to do with people getting what they deserved. “You’ve pointed out to her that if she recognized Javiero, he must have seen her, too?”
Tom shrugged and sipped his coffee. His mug was white with a cartoon reindeer on the front. “Most people don’t have her memory for faces. She’s gambling that he didn’t remember her.”
“Funny. She doesn’t look like a gambler.” But Raz had to admit that he hadn’t recognized her, either, and he was trained to remember faces. Of course, he’d been halfway drunk the night she stitched up his arm. “I thought you said she was scared stiff.”
A faint sound made him turn.
Sara Grace stood in the doorway, her pointy chin lifted, her eyes a soft, serious, blue-gray. “I am scared, but I’m not running away.”
Dry, she looked more mouselike than ever. She was so little. Her hair was cut very short and framed her face in a dark, feathery fringe. Her olive-toned skin probably should have made him think of the Mediterranean, but instead he was reminded of the tawny color of the field mice he’d kept in a shoe box in his closet when he was ten ... until they had babies and his mother found out.
He smiled. “That’s an admirable attitude, but not very sensible under the circumstances.”
“I’m always sensible.” Her voice was Southern-belle soft, but her accent was pure, clipped Yankee. It was a strangely appealing combination.
“Then you’ll go to a safe house.”
“No. I have a job to do.”
He shook his head. It bothered him that he couldn’t remember her. He was used to relying on his memory for people. But she didn’t look like a doctor, much less one who specialized in the bloody drama of a hospital emergency room. Her eyes were too big and innocent. Her clothes were just too big.
“No one is indispensable,” he told her. Her pants were baggy khakis. Her white shirt was so loose it hid the existence of her breasts entirely, but he’d seen her in a swimsuit. He remembered their shape, small and firm, nicely molded in powder-blue Lycra right down to the hard little nipples. “No one is indispensable. The hospital can do without you for a few days while Tom gets this straightened out.”
“It might be more than a few days, though, mightn’t it? And you’re wrong. In the ER, the presence or absence of key personnel can be the difference between life and death.”
“Your presence will make a big difference, all right, if Javiero comes after you while you’re at work.”
“He wouldn’t—”
“He did once, didn’t he? That’s how this all started. He’d already tangled with his rival once that night, and when the man came to your emergency room to get his ribs taped up, Javiero followed with his Uzi.”
She shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. I mean that he’s more apt to come after me here, at home. Security has been stepped up so much at the hospital. There’s no reason for him to—to make things hard on himself. Anyway, I doubt very much he knows who I am.”
“You’re willing to risk people’s lives based on your assessment of the situation?”
“I risk people’s lives based on my assessment of their situation every day.”
Raz ran a hand through his hair. He couldn’t picture it. He just couldn’t picture this soft little creature cracking a man’s rib cage so she could get to his heart. “You mean you use your professional judgment every day. Why won’t you trust ours?”
“I’m sorry,” she said in that deceptively soft voice. “The hospital is already short on staff. I’m needed there. But...” She paused. “If Detective Rasmussin finds evidence that indicates Javiero does know my identity, I’ll reconsider.”
God, she was stubborn. And he was getting hard, for no reason at all. His reaction infuriated him. “You won’t be able to do your job with a couple dozen slugs in you.”
Her pale cheeks turned paler. “If you and the other officers do your job, that won’t happen, will it?”
Tom broke in. “Raz won’t be working with the other officers, Dr. Grace. As I said, I can’t assign you round-the-clock protection. I know you weren’t very happy at the idea of hiring a bodyguard—”
“I’m not.” Two faint spots of embarrassed color appeared on her cheeks. “Excuse me. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“No problem. Like I was saying, I know you aren’t crazy about having a bodyguard underfoot all the time. That’s why I brought Raz to meet you. He’s on leave right now, so he could take a private job.”
She looked at Tom in disbelief. “You mean—you mean you want me to hire him?”
“Hey,” Raz protested. “I’m not so bad. Honest.”
Tom shot him a look that told him to keep his big mouth shut, then said to her, “Would you like me to pour you a cup of your coffee while we talk about this? It’s pretty good stuff compared to what I get down at headquarters.”
She smiled shyly and, at last, moved into the room. “Please. And refill your own cup, too, if you like.”
So, Raz thought, Sara Grace might argue with him, but she smiled at his brother. It was supposed to be the other way around. Women generally liked Raz, while Tom made them nervous.
He noticed something else, too. “You don’t need to use your cane all the time?”
She shot a quick, surprised glance his way and paused near the table. “I don’t have to use it at all. It just helps, especially if my hip’s sore. The ER was busy last night, so I was on my feet a lot.”
So the problem was with her hip, not her leg. “I guess you were at work when Tom told you about the other witness. The one Javiero shredded last night.” He wanted her to face the reality of what she risked with her refusal to go to a safe house.
“As it happens, I was on duty when they brought his body in.”
Raz felt foolish. For a moment he couldn’t think of anything to say. Belatedly, his mother’s training came to his rescue. He pulled out one of the ladder-back chairs and held it for her.
Now she looked at him—a suspicious look, as if she thought he might jerk the chair out from under her as soon as she tried to sit down.
He shook his head, torn between amusement and chagrin. “Sit down and we’ll talk,” he said, offering her one of his best guy-next-door grins. “You can point out some of my shortcomings and I’ll listen, then I’ll try to persuade you to hire me, anyway. I’ll promise not to pounce if you will, too.”
She blushed. With color staining her cheeks she was as helplessly charming as a three-week-old kitten or a dandelion puff. Raz looked at soft skin flushed in a delightful mimicry of arousal, and a beast woke inside him. A selfish, hungry, very male beast.
He forgot to keep smiling. Fortunately, she’d turned away to sit in the chair he held. He slid it in under her. When he took the seat at right angles to hers he had to adjust his jeans to accommodate the effect she had on him.
Life was sure as hell ironic at times.
Tom brought her a mug of coffee—this one in bright red with a Santa on the front—sat, and began talking about bodyguards in general and Raz’s qualifications in particular. Raz listened to his brother make him sound like the best thing to come along since color TV and fought the urge to get up and walk out.
When Tom finished, Sara nodded and turned those big, serious eyes on Raz. Her fingers toyed nervously with the fringe of hair at her nape. “Sergeant Rasmussin—”
“Make it Raz,” he interrupted, smiling.
“Raz, then. I’d like to know why you’re on leave.”
“I’m considering leaving the department permanently.” He’d had to give this explanation several times lately, so it flowed easily enough. “A couple of people talked me into taking unpaid leave instead of resigning outright, while I mull things over. I could use some income while I’m mulling.”
“I see.” She turned back to Tom. “I hope you’ll forgive my saying this, but it strikes me as odd that you would propose your brother for this job.”
“It’s damned irregular,” Tom said bluntly. “You probably should know my reasons.”
Sara listened with increasing dismay as she heard about the threat to the detective’s wife. He told her he’d recommended his brother for her bodyguard because “the suspect’s actions have introduced a personal element to the case.” He added that Raz might be irritating, but he was very, very good. Under the circumstances, that was what he wanted for her.
It isn’t fair. It just isn’t fair at all Sara bit her lip when she heard that old refrain singing in her head. Hadn’t she gotten over that attitude years and years ago, when she put the accident behind her and got on with her life? Yet that was her first reaction when she felt herself caving in to the pressure the two men were putting on her.
Surely hiring this man would be a bad idea. He made her—well—hot. And bothered. And mortified. The reactions met and clashed every time she looked at him.
But Detective Rasmussin’s wife was in danger. He deserved to have some peace of mind about that, didn’t he? And she liked looking at the detective’s brother. In spite of her confusion of responses, she liked it very much.
Sara sneaked another glance at the gorgeous man sitting next to her, right there in her kitchen. He’d never notice her, that was certain, but did it really hurt for her to have him around to look at?
Dumb, Sara. Very dumb. She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“How about giving me a test drive?” the man with the candy-colored eyes asked in a voice that could coax birds from the trees. “You haven’t hired anyone yet. Keep me around while you consider your options.”
It made sense. It made too much sense, and she was weakening. “We haven’t discussed money.”
Five minutes later she’d handed over the extra key to her front door. He was hired on a trial basis only, she reminded all of them, feeling breathless from the speed with which she’d capitulated. He agreed—and a minute later, his brother put on his hat and left.
And she was alone with the object of her sexual fantasies.
Sara knew exactly how to deal with the situation. She murmured a few words about taking a nap—at 8:45 in the morning—and fled to her bedroom.
She certainly didn’t expect him to follow her.
“Dr. Grace?” he called through the door.
She looked around, as if her bedroom might have sprouted another exit oversight. But unless she was willing to climb out one of the two high windows along the back wall, she was trapped in a room that revealed too much about a part of herself she preferred to keep private. The romantic part.
Sara had never had a house all to herself before, not even a little house like this one. When she moved down here she’d gone a bit crazy in decorating her bedroom, which was the largest room in the cottage. She’d used scarves and gauze and lace in dreamy colors. Her bed was much too big for one person and mounded with pillows. She sat on her ridiculously big bed now and clutched a mint green pillow to her chest.
No way would she suggest he open that door. “Yes?”
“I understand you’re used to sleeping days since you work nights, and that will work out fine with me. I’ve worked nights more than days myself. But I have to leave for a little while.”
Her relief was enormous. “Oh?”
“I need to bring some of my things over here.”
Oh. Bring his things over here. That sounded so...definite. Her voice was thin when she answered. “I’ll see you later, then.” At least he’d be gone long enough for her to put some cat food down for the tomcat she’d been trying to befriend the past three weeks.
She did not want this man to learn what she’d named that ungrateful cat.
“Don’t worry,” he said, reassuring her for the wrong thing. “Officer Palmer will be right outside until I get back, and I won’t be gone more than an hour. Stay inside until then, okay?”
An hour was a pathetically short time for a woman like her to adjust to living with a man like him. Sara sighed. “I seldom leave the apartment when I’m asleep.”
He chuckled. “I guess not. Later, when you’re awake, we’ll need to go over some ground rules.”
Ground rules?
She straightened. Maybe he thought he was going to be the one making those rules, but she had her own ideas about that “That sounds like a very good idea, Sergeant.”
“Raz,” he corrected her. “See you soon, Sara.”
When Raz pulled out of the long driveway that led past the big, colonial-style house, he was satisfied that things were going to go his way.
First, of course, he had to persuade her not to go in to work until Javiero was found and locked up. Sara Grace had shown herself to be surprisingly stubborn about going to a safe house, but then, she was a dedicated woman. A saint.
A susceptible saint. Susceptible to him, anyway. Raz acknowledged it without ego or pleasure as he headed for his apartment. It had been obvious, once he’d set out to charm her into agreeing to hire him, that he would succeed.
The pretty little mouse wanted him. Poor baby.
He would use that. He was guilty of so much worse that using Sara Grace’s unwilling attraction to him to help him prolong her life wouldn’t bother him at all.
Sara didn’t try to sleep. As soon as Raz left she went to the kitchen, filled a plastic bowl with dry cat food and carried it to the front porch.
Standing on her own porch wasn’t exactly leaving the house, she assured herself. Technically speaking she was still beneath her own roof, which extended out over the porch, and she had walls on two sides, so she wasn’t really exposed. And she could see the police officer standing guard at the gate. He obviously hadn’t seen Javiero creeping up on her. So she was safe enough.
Because she didn’t want the policeman to hear, she called very softly, “MacReady? Breakfast time.” She set the bowl down, looked around and called a bit louder. “Mac? Here, kitty-kitty!”
There was no sign of the ornery cat she’d named for her new bodyguard’s alter ego. Sara sighed. So far Houston had proved a bit lonely. She’d expected that when she’d made the decision to move here. After all, her social skills were barely up to befriending a starving alley cat. Making human friends was going to take time.
Unconsciously Sara began to toy with the hair at the back of her neck, a habit she had when she was troubled. Maybe it was the nearness of the holiday that made her feel the loneliness more keenly. Sometimes lately she even missed her aunt.
How ridiculous. In most of the ways that counted, Aunt Julia was no more distant now than she had been for years. They talked on the phone once a month, just as they had when they lived thirty miles apart instead of a thousand. Even if Sara had still been living in Connecticut, she could only have counted on receiving a box through the mail with a Christmas present or two in it, rather than an invitation to spend the holiday together. Aunt Julia craved solitude the way most people craved the company of their fellows.
Sara shook her head to dispel the maudlin mood. Hadn’t she learned to value her aunt for what she was instead of fretting over all that she wasn’t? The box with the present or two hadn’t arrived yet, but she knew it would. Her aunt might be distant, but she was as dependable, in her way, as the seasons.
Back inside, she went straight to the stereo and put on a couple of Christmas CDs, cranking the volume up before she headed for the kitchen. She hummed along with the London Boys’ Choir while she assembled ingredients. It was only Tuesday, but she wasn’t waiting for her usual baking day. She needed the exertion of kneading, the lusty scent of yeast and the satisfaction of creation to settle her mind.
Raz heard the music before he stepped onto the porch. He’d made a circuit of the outside of the little house, checking for ease of access, before talking with the cop on duty. Officer Palmer had informed him that the subject had stepped out onto the porch for a while.
Apparently she wasn’t taking her situation seriously. Raz used the key she’d given him and walked into a room that all but shook from the chorus to Handel’s Messiah.
Good Lord, didn’t the woman have any sense? All forty or so of Javiero’s old gang could break in and she’d never notice until they shot her down. He shook his head. People never failed to surprise him. Handel, now—that was just the sort of music he’d expect the little mouse to enjoy. But not at these decibels.
Her living room fit his image of her, though, and added to the impression the cottage gave of being a dollhouse. It was a tidy, feminine room, maybe ten feet square. The end table, bookcase and armchair were white wicker, and the print on the chair cushions and love seat was a dainty floral. A multitude of ornaments all but buried the small flocked Christmas tree in one comer.
Christmas again. He grimaced and studied the love seat pessimistically. It didn’t look like it made out into a bed. They were going to have to have a talk about the sleeping arrangements. Among other things.
He set his garment bag down on the love seat but kept his shoulder holster in his hand when he went to her bookshelf. It shouldn’t have surprised him to see it stuffed with medical books and back issues from magazines like the New England Medical Journal, but the grim realism of her reading material seemed incongruous in the dainty setting.
The bottom shelf of the bookcase held her stereo and one of those cordless phones that had an answering machine in the base unit and caller ID in the receiver. The caller ID was a sensible idea for a woman who lived alone. Yes, he thought, kneeling, Dr. Grace was a very sensible woman. In most ways.
He shut the stereo off, and silence dropped like a stone.
In the kitchen Sara froze. Someone is here. Here, in the house.
Fear swept through her, a cold fire that lit every cell, sending her heart rate skidding crazily. A series of images exploded in her head—images of bodies jerking with the peculiar rhythm of gunfire. She saw liquid red blossoms flowering around entry holes in chests, abdomens, elsewhere. She saw the surprised eyes of the security guard who’d shown her pictures of his grandchildren one evening. He’d slid to the floor so slowly, leaving a shiny red smear on the wall behind him.
And the noise. She heard it again, the terrible thunder of gunfire, a sound she heard often in her dreams and tried to drown out when awake.
Trembling, she pulled her hands out of the sticky bread dough she’d been kneading. The back door lay directly opposite the hall doorway. She took a step toward it.
A floorboard creaked in the hall.
She whirled, jerked a knife from the wooden block that held them on the counter behind her and turned back to face the intruder.
Raz walked into the kitchen.
Relief spread as quickly as fear had, leaving weakness behind. Her fingers lost their grip on the knife. It clattered to the floor.
“Oh,” she said stupidly. “Oh. it’s you.”
His quick glance took in her white face and shaking hands, the knife on the floor. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he said, coming toward her. “I didn’t mean to—”
Sara didn’t decide to scoop up a handful of dough and sling it at him. She just did it.
He stopped. He looked down, amazed, at the sticky dough slowly sliding down his chest. Then he looked at her.
“Are you crazy?” she demanded. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Ah—I’m not the one throwing things around here.” A smile tugged at his lips as most of the glob of dough splatted on the floor.
That smile made her even more angry. “Did you think I hired you to terrify me? Do I look like someone who wants to be terrified?”
“No,” he said soothingly. “Not at all. You look like someone who wants to throw things at me. I’m just glad you dropped the knife first.”
The knife. Oh, God, what if she’d—? Sara’s knees suddenly refused to hold her. She sank into the nearest chair. “I wouldn’t have,” she said. “I wouldn’t have thrown it.” Would she have used it at all, if he had been Javiero? Could she?
“Of course not.” He came and knelt in front of her. She noticed vaguely that he held a leather belt in one hand. He set it on the floor beside him. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head, bewildered by herself. “I don’t get mad. Not like that. At least,” she added conscientiously, “not when there isn’t a patient involved.”
“But it’s a natural reaction, to go from fear to fury. You’re the doctor,” he pointed out. “You ought to know about that sort of thing.”
With him kneeling and her sitting, his face was slightly below hers. He smiled up at her with eyes the color of candy kisses and lips just as sweet. Sara felt the oddest fluttering in her middle, as if she’d swallowed a bird and it was trying to get out.
Right now, right this minute, he didn’t look like Eddie MacReady at all. Neither did he look like the cocky police officer she’d met earlier. He looked... nice. As if he cared.
She flushed. Stupid, Sara, she told herself. His concern might be genuine, but was hardly personal. “I’m all right,” she said, and started to smooth her hands on her slacks. She stopped just before she smeared dough all over herself.
He grinned, picked up the leather belt, and stood. “Well, I’m not. I think I’d better change before we have our talk. But first I really do need to apologize. I should have said something the second I turned the stereo off.”
That wasn’t a belt he carried, she realized. It was a shoulder holster. She saw the handle of the gun it carried. She swallowed, staring at the dull gray metal. “Why didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “You were expecting me back about now, and so far you’ve seemed pretty oblivious to the danger you’re in. It didn’t occur to me you’d think someone had broken in.”
“If that’s another attempt to make me change my mind about the safe house, please don’t.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, but I haven’t given up.” His smile this time held conscious charm—which made it all the more irritating when the fluttering started again inside her. “Tell you what. Rule number one—I might try to change your mind, but I’ll let you know up front that’s what I’m doing. Now, why don’t I go change before I get any more dough on your floor?”
“The bathroom is right across from the kitchen.” Sara felt unsteady and vaguely nauseous. She clasped her hands tightly together to keep them from shaking. Adrenaline was great stuff if you had to fight or flee, she reflected, but it played havoc with your system if you didn’t get it all burned up.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, “and we’ll talk.”
Sara didn’t watch him leave the room. She forced herself to stand and go back to her dough.
She wasn’t disappointed, she told herself as she kneaded, working off the lingering effects of the adrenaline, that Raz thought he could talk her into doing things his way. People often thought that because she was shy, she was a pushover. And she was, about some things.
Not about her profession.
She was needed at Memorial. With all the increased security at the hospital since the shooting, she should be just fine while she was there. It was later, when she was home again, that worried her.
Home ... with her new bodyguard.
Three
Raz buckled his shoulder holster in place over a clean T-shirt. Damned if he’d put a jacket on just so she wouldn’t have to look at his gun. He wasn’t in the mood for tact. He’d seen the shocked look she’d given his weapon.
How had she thought he was going to protect her? Insults at fifty yards? Bad breath?
The rich smell of yeast filled the kitchen when he walked in. His subject stood at the table, wrist-deep in dough. She didn’t look up.
At least this time she didn’t turn deathly pale.
Raz was still shaken by what had happened earlier. His fault. Completely, stupidly his fault. He hadn’t stopped to think, a sin for which there was no excuse. He couldn’t even allow himself the luxury of confession. Admitting to her how thoroughly he’d messed up would only make her lose what little confidence she had in him, and that was more dangerous than his own doubts.
She glanced over at him. “Surely,” she said, “you don’t need to wear that—that holster of yours inside.”
“The word is gun,” he said, “and it won’t do me much good if it’s in one room and I’m in another.” He knew what bothered her. Guns belonged to another world, a big, messy world that shouldn’t be allowed to intrude on her here.
A world Raz knew only too well. “Baking bread?” he asked.
“No,” she said shortly, turning back to her dough. “I’m kneading it. The baking comes later.”
He grinned, more pleased by the touch of sarcasm than not. She looked very tidy and domestic standing there with her sleeves neatly rolled up, not one hair on her head out of place. Except...his grin widened. “You’ve got dough on the tip of your nose.”
She lifted a hand automatically to wipe her nose, saw the dough covering it, and grimaced. “I suppose you want to have that talk you keep referring to,” she said stiffly. “There’s coffee, if you like. Or some fruit juice in the refrigerator.”
“Juice sounds good.” But instead of going to the refrigerator he stopped next to her. She glanced at him, wary. He reached out and skimmed a finger down her nose. Kind of a cute little nose, short and pointy. Her skin felt soft and fine pored, slightly cool, and made him think of thick cream.
She stared at him, suspicious and stirred. Such big eyes she had, the color of sky hazed by high-flying cirrus clouds. He liked looking into them almost as much as he liked touching her.
Too much.
He quickly rubbed the bit of dough off the tip of her nose and stepped back. Absurdly, his heart was pounding. He was sure—almost sure—his sudden turmoil didn’t show. “There,” he said, and wiped his hand on the towel that sat on the table before continuing to the refrigerator. “First a question. How bad is your hip?”
She blinked at him, startled. “Why do you ask?”
“If I tell you to run, can you?”
“Oh.” She lifted half the dough, turned it, punched it down. “It depends. My hip wouldn’t keep me from running, actually, though I’d probably be a bit awkward and slow. But the sciatic nerve damage that occurred when the joint was displaced affected my calf muscles. The degree of disability varies, depending on how tired the muscles are. Sometimes I hardly notice a problem. Sometimes ... the muscles just don’t cooperate.”
“Does that mean I shouldn’t count on you being able to run?”
“If I’ve been using my cane, assume I can’t run. If I haven’t been using it, I could probably run for a couple blocks.”
“Good enough.” He pulled out the clear pitcher that held an orangey-red juice. “Next question.” He smiled. “Where are the glasses?”
“In the cabinet behind me.”
He closed the refrigerator. “Now tell me something else. Why are you so blasted certain you don’t need to go to a safe house?”
She didn’t look up. Her long, narrow hands looked surprisingly strong as they worked the dough rhythmically: lift, turn, press. “You answer a question for me first,” she said at last. “How do you think Javiero found out where Carl lived?”
“There’s no way to say for sure.”
“Give me your best guess.”
He stopped barely a foot away from her to open the cabinet and take out a glass. Beneath the ripe scent of the yeast he caught the freshness of flowers. He thought of the scented body lotion he’d seen in her bathroom and wondered where on her body he might find that very feminine scent. “The most likely way would be if he knew who Carl was from the first shooting, watched for him at the hospital, and followed him home.”
“That would indicate he doesn’t want to risk the increased security at the hospital, wouldn’t it? And that he doesn’t have access to any special information about the witnesses’ identities or addresses. And you,” she said—lift, turn, press—“are supposed to see to it he doesn’t follow me home.”
Damn. She was bright enough to be dangerous. “True,” he agreed, pouring some juice. Her head was bent over her work, leaving the back of her neck bare except for a feathery fringe. What would she say if he asked if he could put his face up against the delicate skin there so he could smell her better?
He shook his head, aggravated with himself. “But that’s just the most likely explanation, not the only one. And he could change his mind about hospital security. Men like Javiero aren’t gifted with patience.”
“He hasn’t had time to grow frustrated yet, and your brother’s task force could pick him up any day.” The dough grew supple and shiny as she continued to work it. “And Javiero is an inner-city gang member, not some criminal genius. How would he know how to find me? I’m pretty sure he didn’t notice me that night.”
“The night he brought his Uzi to the emergency room, you mean.”
She nodded.
Raz leaned against the counter and considered the woman standing in front of him, kneading her bread dough. The juice was some exotic, tropical blend, not what he’d expected of her. But Sara Grace kept surprising him, didn’t she?
She was frightened. He was sure of that. She’d been terrified earlier, and she was still afraid. But she was more stubborn than she was scared.
She irritated the hell out of him.
One way or another he had to take control back. Of himself and of her, too, since she refused to do what she should to keep herself safe. She had to be kept safe. He couldn’t allow anything else.
The most powerful stimuli for humans were the same as those for other animals: hunger, fear and sex. He couldn’t starve the blasted woman into submission, and fear had oddly little effect. So... “You know,” he said, and smiled, “living together like this will be easier if we get to know each other a bit better.”
“I ... suppose so.” Lift, turn, press.
He set down his juice and moved closer. Too close, by a couple inches, for courtesy. “I do have one other question.” He could smell the flowers on her skin much better from here. He bent his head slightly.
Her voice was a touch breathless. “Oh?”
“Mmm-hmm.” He watched the nervous color seep into her cheeks and eased even closer, wanting her to have his scent in her nostrils, too. Wanting her to react “Where am I supposed to sleep?”
Her head stayed bent. The tip of her tongue darted out, touched her lips, then hid inside her mouth again. “I...I thought I might rent one of those beds. You know. The kind that folds up.”
“Oh, yeah, I know what you mean.” And I know what you want, even if you aren’t sure. Not sex, not yet, anyway. She wanted touching. Raz reached up ever so casually to toy with that fringe of hair at her nape.
She jolted.
“Where should we put it?” His fingers skimmed her skin.
“Wh-what?” Lift, turn, press. The dough was glossy and smooth now.
“My bed.” He pulled softly on one strand of hair. Sweet Sara. She obviously knew she should say something, do something, but he kept his touch so light, so—nearly—innocent. She didn’t know how to tell him to stop.
Not when she liked it so much.
“In the living room, I guess,” she managed.
“Do you think it will fit?” He smiled, enjoying his double meaning.
“I don’t...” Her voice trailed off. Goose bumps appeared on her skin. She folded the dough over one more time, but this time she didn’t squish it down. “I hadn’t thought about it. I suppose it will...fit.”
“That’s good, then,” he said softly. “In the living room will be fine.” Yes, in the living room would be good. He had a quick flash of Sara lying, stark naked, on that cramped little love seat with the pink and blue flowers. She was lifting her arms, welcoming him. Her legs were already parted.
Somehow he didn’t groan.
The look she slid him was wary, but her cheeks were pleasured pink from his attention. “I’m not—I need to—excuse me.”
“You’re excused,” he said amiably, not moving. The fingers of his other hand, the one not touching her, curled into his palm. He wondered if her nipples were hard beneath that blasted shirt.
He was certainly hard, dammit.
“The dough,” she said desperately. “It’s ready to go in the bowl. Please move.”
He stepped back, smiling and aching. “Sure.”
She picked up the huge, yellow pottery bowl that sat next to her work space. She had to walk past him to carry it to the sink. He didn’t move back quite far enough. She managed—barely—to get by without brushing against him.
Her cheeks were an even brighter pink as she ran water in the bowl.
He smiled at her back. “Why are you doing that?”
Her voice was almost inaudible over the running water. “I’m warming it up. The dough is supposed to stay quite warm from now on.”
“So it will rise?” he asked innocently. “Heat makes it rise?”
She nodded and shut the water off.
When she moved past him again carrying the warmed bowl, her arm brushed against his. The innocent touch sent a current sweeping through him, a sizzling sexual charge all out of proportion to the action. He gritted his teeth against the absurd pull her slight body had on his. This had better be working on her as well as it is on me. “You know, it occurs to me this must be a bit awkward for you, having me suddenly living with you. I’m practically a stranger.”
She darted him one quick, uneasy look and said nothing, lifting the heavy mass of dough in both hands.
“I know a few things about you, from having seen your house. You like to make bread, you listen to Christmas music too loud and you watch TV in bed.”
Her eyes widened. “How did you know that?”
“Hey, I’m good at detecting. No television in the living room means that either you don’t watch it, or that it’s in your bedroom. I took a guess.”
She laid the dough carefully in the howl, seamed side down. A platter went upside down on top of the bowl. “Good guess.”
“Why don’t we eat out tonight? We can talk awhile, get to know each other. Maybe take in a movie.” A movie was a great idea, in fact As long as they weren’t followed, they’d be much safer there than here.
She froze, her hands on each side of the yellow bowl. “I have to work.”
“You know I don’t think that’s a good idea. That bowl looks heavy. Let me.”
She shook her head. “I can get it. I always do.”
As soon as she picked the bowl up he reached out. He ran his fingertips along the backs of her hands before gripping the bowl, his eyes fixed on hers the whole time. But she didn’t let go.
Such a soft, drowning blue he looked into—such a mixture of confusion and desire. “You know,” he said, not moving, “I really wish you’d consider taking a few days off from work.”
Those eyes closed briefly. “Don’t,” she said, her voice strained. “Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?” he challenged her softly.
Her eyes opened. The hurt in them condemned him as thoroughly as only real innocence could have done. “Rule number one, remember? You said you’d let me know when you were trying to change my mind.”
Slowly he released his hold and stepped back. “There’s something you may as well know about me, Sara Grace. I’m a very good liar.”
She turned her back on him and walked over to the stove.
He let her settle her burden in the oven herself. The heavy silence between them was as painful, in its way, as the continued throbbing in his loins. And just as useless.
Poor mouse. She didn’t know how little she really had to fear from him.
She closed the oven door and straightened. “I don’t like being manipulated,” she said.
He sent both eyebrows up. “I don’t like being asked to risk my life by someone who’s unwilling to trust me professionally.”
She bit her lip. “I’m not—”
“Yes,” he said, coming toward her. “You are. Remember Carl’s neighbor? How many bullets did he take for being nearby when Javiero caught up with him?”
She flinched. “All right. All right. I guess I am, but that doesn’t make it right for you to—to try to change my mind the way you did.” Her chin came up. “I could fire you.”
“You could.” He stopped directly in front of her, close enough that she had to tilt her head back to continue to meet his eyes—which she did, though he could see it cost her. “But I don’t think you will. You’re too smart. Smart enough to be scared. Smart enough to know you can’t hire the kind of devoted attention I’m going to give you while I’m your bodyguard. I’ll tell you something else about me—”
“In addition to the fact that you’re a liar?” she asked, two patches of color flaring on her cheeks.
“Yeah. In addition to that. Remember this—I’d do anything for my family. Which means I’ll do anything I have to in order to keep you alive.” He shook his head. “You don’t want to fire me, Sara.”
Now her eyes dropped. A long, silent moment later she spoke. “I’m going to take a nap. We’ll talk about it when I wake up.”
“That’s fine,” he said, knowing she wouldn’t fire him, knowing he’d both won and lost. And he hated himself for his methods, but whether on her behalf, or his own, he wasn’t sure. “You go right ahead. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
He knew, of course, that was what she was afraid of.
What if he was right?
Sara lay on her bed, a pale green afghan snuggled up under her chin, and wished she could sleep instead of chasing her thoughts like a weary cat trying to catch a whole family of mice.
What if she were endangering others by insisting on going in to work? She honestly didn’t think so, but he certainly seemed to think there was a danger. Sara lay quietly and tried to focus on what had to be the most important issue, but those little mice scurried all over the place.
Very few people ever commented directly on her limp. Her new bodyguard had referred to it as casually as he might have mentioned her height or hair color. His attitude had disconcerted her as much as it pleased her. Of course, he’d needed the information professionally. In case she needed to run for her life.
He knew his business, knew what to plan for. What if he was right about her going in to work? Was she exaggerating her own importance in the ER? Dr. Retger, her boss, had encouraged her to come in to work as usual, but Dr. Retger’s specialty was trauma, not security. Maybe, she thought, rolling over restlessly onto her side, she should talk with Dr. Retger again.
But she’d go crazy, staying out of work for days and days—spending all day, all night, every day and night with him.
What would she have done if he’d gone on touching her? What if he’d actually wanted to touch her, the way those melted-chocolate eyes of his had claimed?
She wiggled over onto her stomach. How ridiculous. He’d been using his charm and her foolishness to get what he wanted from her, and what he wanted wasn’t sex. The back of her throat still burned with humiliation, yet she didn’t wholly blame him. He had family involved, after all. His brother’s wife had been threatened. She thought it must be rather wonderful to have family who meant that much to you.
And what would it be like to mean that much to someone?
That thought brought her up sharply, as if she teetered on the edge of some chasm. A wind, dark and cold, swirled up from the empty depths, and the threat of it nearly unbalanced her. With the determination that had gotten her through months of therapy and later carried her through medical school, Sara jerked her mind back from that unnamed edge. She rolled onto her side. This time she tucked a small throw pillow between her knees. The pillow kept her hips aligned comfortably, so that her bad hip wouldn’t stiffen up too much while she slept.
She closed her eyes. Later. She’d think about all this later. Right now she had to sleep or she wouldn’t be alert tonight, when her patients needed her.
Ten minutes later she slept.
Memorial Hospital was a new building in an older part of the city. Some of the homes in the area were shaded by hundred-year-old elms. The nearest residents belonged to professional clubs, historical associations and the Junior League. They parked Volvos and Mercedes in their curving driveways, along with the occasional sports car.
Not so very far away, however, lay a section of Houston that was neither new nor old. Simply tired. Poverty wore down a neighborhood fast. For three blocks on either side of that stretch of Burroughs Avenue, people were careful about what colors they wore, who they spoke to. The gangs had moved in two years ago.
Sara lived in the pleasant section, not far from the hospital where she worked. Normally she drove her four-year-old Ford Taurus to work. That night she rode in Raz’s black-as-night muscle car. He made conversation while she sat, stiff and mostly silent and all too aware of him.
Even after she arrived at work she was aware of him nearby, watching. She didn’t like it. She didn’t like the way her eyes kept straying toward him, or the fact that she felt safer with him there. Oh, she really didn’t like that. Her independence was too dearly won for her to appreciate his presence or the way it made her feel.
Halfway into her shift, Sara stood at the nurses’ station, writing out a prescription for the toddler in 3-B. Raz stood at the end of the hall, talking to one of the security guards. At least he’d hidden his gun and shoulder holster beneath a jacket tonight. Not that he would win any fashion awards. He wore a beige sports jacket with a green T-shirt, dirty running shoes and those sexy, faded-to-white jeans.
“Too dreamy for words,” a young, nasal voice was saying. “What do you suppose he’s doing here, anyway? The way he keeps staring gives me goose bumps.”
Sara’s eyes flickered up. She saw him standing there. Watching. It didn’t matter what he wore, did it? People noticed him. Women, especially, looked at him, not his clothes. They thought about what lay under those clothes, and whether they could get him to turn that smile on them.
Sara knew that, because she kept having the same thoughts.
“Hadn’t you heard? He’s Dr. Grace’s bodyguard.” That came from Lynn Daniels, a cheerful dumpling of a woman. She was an excellent triage nurse, and the only person on this shift who was shorter than Sara. “Quite a hunk, isn’t he?”
“Dr. Grace?” Jenny Burgoyen’s round face turned toward Sara. Her eyes were big with astonishment beneath eyebrows plucked to thinly penciled lines. “He’s yours?”
Was it so amazing that a gorgeous man would associate with her, even for pay? Sara handed the prescription to the charge nurse. “Not exactly,” she said shortly. “I’m only renting, not buying. Foster, please see that 3-B’s mother gets this prescription.”
Jenny giggled, Foster took the prescription, and Lynn handed Sara the next patient’s chart. “Is the boss back yet?” Sara asked. She hadn’t forgotten her decision to talk to her supervisor again about whether she was more of a hazard than a healer while Javiero was on the loose.
“Not yet. I told her you wanted a word. Oh, the blood gases are back on 2-A.”
Sara nodded. Before she realized it, her gaze had slid down the hall again.
He was there. Watching. Making her feel safe...making her heart give a stupid, excited little jump.
It took more of an effort than it should have to slide into the professional persona she’d built so carefully over the years—cool, calm Dr. Grace, the woman with nerves of steel. The woman who hardly noticed that her new bodyguard was standing in front of the same wall the security guard had smeared with his blood two weeks ago.
Raz watched Sara turn away and head for an examining room at the other end of the hall. He felt cramped, restless and altogether too close to the edge.
A cigarette would have helped. That’s what he’d done before when the present made him twitchy—reached for a cigarette. But the things he’d done in the past to cope hadn’t worked out very well, had they? Reason enough to quit, he’d decided two months and three days ago.
He’d been in a hospital then, too. Funny how life worked out.
His reaction to being in a hospital again came as an unpleasant surprise. He hadn’t known he’d developed a phobia about hospitals until he’d followed the pretty mouse into this one. How should he have? After all, he didn’t dream about the ambulance ride he’d taken two months and two days ago, or the emergency room where he’d ended up. And this wasn’t even the same ER.
But it smelled the same. They all smelled the same, like blood and misery and disinfectant. The examining tables looked the same, too. He remembered. God help him, he remembered all too clearly lying on one of those damned tables, bleeding and begging someone to tell him about Marguerite.
And now here he was at another hospital, trying to keep another woman from being gunned down. Raz leaned against the wall, his hands in his pockets, his attention split between the ER entrance and the woman walking down the hall toward him. Life was sure funny, all right, he thought as Sara Grace started to pass him by without a glance. One big, damned, ugly joke. “Where are you going?”
She paused, her lips tight while her eyes avoided his. Those pretty lips of hers had been tightening up all afternoon, ever since he didn’t kiss them. “What does it matter?”
“Think about it. My job—guarding you? It’s a little easier if I know where you are.”
“Fine, then,” she snapped. “I’m on my way to the ladies’ room. After that, I’ll be in Examining Room 4-B, then back at the nurses’ station, probably. Then I may get to go to the break room for a cup of coffee, unless my boss gets back or we get some new patients.”
He chuckled. “You’re a lot different once you sling that stethoscope around your neck, aren’t you? Ornery. I like it.”
“Did I ask what you like?” she muttered, but a hint of color touched her cheeks, and her eyes skittered away from his. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“I remember you now,” he said, unwilling to have her move away quite yet. “Once I saw you in your doctor clothes, the night we met came back to me.”
She stopped still, and looked at him.
“I’d been drinking.”
“I noticed.”
He shrugged. “I was Eddie at the time, and the people Eddie MacReady was hanging out with didn’t understand abstinence.” If he hadn’t been slightly fuzzed by alcohol, he wouldn’t have needed the twelve stitches she’d put in his arm. Normally he managed to avoid bar fights—or at least avoid getting cut in one.
She hesitated. “Being undercover...I guess you have to blend in.”
Only if you wanted to stay alive. “One way to avoid doing the hard drugs yet stay in character is to have a reputation for being real fond of the legal ones. Like bourbon. That’s Eddie’s preferred poison.” Raz might have blamed his failure to recognize Sara on the alcohol that had hazed his mind when he first saw her over six months ago, but he couldn’t afford the smallest self-deception anymore. The fact was, he hadn’t remembered her because she seemed like a different person here at work.
The change in her intrigued him even more than it bothered him, and he didn’t know why he had either reaction.
A small smile touched her lips. “Do you often talk about yourself in the third person?”
“Eddie isn’t me.” But thinking about a night when he was being Eddie helped him block memories of another hospital on another night. He remembered Sara’s hands best. She had graceful hands, the palms narrow and elegant, with long fingers ending in the short, scrubbed nails of a hairdresser or a surgeon. He remembered watching those deft fingers as they sewed him up. He’d been convinced there was something unique about her hands. Something magical.
An alcoholic fancy, of course. And yet he was surprised he hadn’t recognized her hands as soon as he saw them again.
She started to speak, but he never found out what she would have said. An ambulance crew called to say they were coming in with two of the victims of a three-car collision, and she hurried away as if she’d forgotten he existed.
He’d already noticed how unmouselike she was when she wore her doctor clothes. The woman he saw in action when the first victims were brought in was even more of a revelation. For the next several hours he watched his subject, the nurses, the halls and the patients. He flirted when he got the chance, and he considered ways Javiero might try to get to his target and how to counter those attempts. And some of the time, when the memories of another emergency room rose too near the surface, he distracted himself with other questions.
Who was Sara Grace, really? And what would her hands feel like if she touched him as a man instead of a patient?
Having company on the ride home from work felt strange to Sara, and there was something alarmingly intimate about riding in Raz’s low-slung muscle car. Christmas lights jeweled the darkness outside the car and reflected off the windows. Music, low and bluesy, throbbed from the speakers. It was not the sort of music she would have expected him to pick, yet somehow it fit. The car itself smelled of leather and cigarettes.
He hadn’t spoken since she slid in next to him at the ambulance entrance.
The silence worked to make her more conscious of him, not less. After a few blocks she had to break it. “Do you smoke?”
“I used to.”
“What made you decide to quit?”
He didn’t even look at her as he signaled, then turned smoothly onto Highpoint. “Health reasons.”
Her fingers drummed once on her thigh. Twice. Irritation made it easier to speak. “Look, you did suggest we’d deal with the situation better if we got to know each other.”
His voice was low and husky. “That wasn’t the only thing I suggested, as I recall. Though I didn’t exactly put the rest of it into words.” He glanced over at her, his expression impossible to read in the shadowy interior. “I had the impression you turned me down. Was I wrong?”
Her hands clenched in her lap. He was doing this on purpose. He wanted to rattle her, she was sure of it, even if she couldn’t imagine why. “As I recall,” she managed to say in a cool little voice, “your only other suggestion was that I not go to work. I did turn that down, yes.”
He chuckled. “You know, before going in to work with you tonight, I had the idea you were shy. Now I’ve seen you in action, and, honey, ‘shy’ is not the word I’d use to describe a woman who straddles a 250-pound man on a crash cart.”
“The patient was epileptic. He went into convulsions.”
“Yeah, and you were just doing your job, right? Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with the suggestion you made to me tonight, either.” He grinned.
“I didn’t—I haven’t—we hardly spoke.”
“Oh, talking isn’t necessary for this kind of suggestion. Did you think I wouldn’t notice the way you kept sneaking peeks at me? If there’s anything particular you want to see, honey, you let me know. I’ll be glad to show you.”
Mortification swept over Sara in a red tide. He’d noticed? Oh, no. Why hadn’t she tried harder to control her eyes? He just looked so good to her. Her eyes had been drawn to him over and over, but she hadn’t thought he’d caught her at it.
“Hey,” he said more gently, “I’m not—hell!”
She had time to blink. That was it. The next second he tramped on the gas and spun the steering wheel, flinging her sideways and sending the car into a wide, crazy turn. The terrible thunder from her nightmares mingled with the explosive sound of the back window shattering. Glass pebbles rained over her head and shoulders.
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