Just A Little Bit Married?

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.