Hero For Hire

He slanted her a doubtful gaze, then sighed the sigh of a martyr, as though he was the one being inconvenienced. “Look, your virtue is safe with me, all right? You’re not even my type, so just relax and answer my questions.”

Not only had he invaded her home and scared her half to death, but she was quite certain she’d just been insulted. “Get off me!”

“First tell me why you have two goons following you. Oh, and the question of the day, of course. Where is your sister?”

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_63aa3dc9-751f-5727-8305-78eebe1c38c0)

“THERE IS NO ONE following me but you!” Nina cried.

“Not anymore,” Rick agreed. “Because once they saw you pull in here, they took off.”

She stopped struggling for a second. “You... must be mistaken.”

“And your sister?”

“I told you, she is dead.”

Rick stared down into Nina’s face, seeing the fear and fury, highlighted by the faint moonlight coming in the window.

Her fear bothered him. He knew he should reassure her he didn’t rape and pillage for a living, but all he could think was...did she not realize he could see right through her? Everything about her, the wide eyes, the uneven breathing, the not quite direct eye contact—everything told him she was lying through her teeth.

He’d seen and done it all, and as a result knew most people were capable of deception. Maybe he’d turned cynical, yes, but he had good reason to be exactly who and what he was, down to his very toes.

All he knew was that this woman, sweet and lovely as she may be, had lied, because a woman who’d died a year and a half ago couldn’t have given birth a couple of months later.

“Try again,” he said, wanting this over with. Her lie wasn’t the only thing getting to him. Every time he’d seen her in the two days he’d been staking out All That Glitters, she’d been fully dressed in colorful but modest business attire. Even her hair had been restrained.

But now...my God. Now she was the antithesis of that cool, elegant woman. Her chestnut hair sprawled across the pillow in silken waves, and also across his arm, which still held her hands over her head. It was long and thick and scented with some shampoo that made him want to lean in close and sniff some more.

And her body... Well, she most definitely had one. She wore a thin cotton T-shirt. No bra. And since she was pressed to him like shrink-wrap, he could feel her warm, full breasts, her nipples drilling holes into his chest. One arm of the shirt had slid off her shoulder in their tussle, revealing a smooth, tanned shoulder that he had the most ridiculous urge to bend down and bite.

And that was before he realized he lay between her spread thighs, having put himself in that erotic position during their struggle. Even worse, the hem of her T-shirt had tangled around her waist, revealing a pair of plain white cotton panties that suddenly seemed sexier than the most revealing lingerie.

She was amazing.

And her eyes spit bullets. He understood then that the restrained, almost prim woman he’d seen at work was a cover-up. A sham. There was nothing restrained or prim about her.

At the thought, his body reacted, and shoved up against the V of her opened legs as he was, he knew she could feel him. He forced himself to look into her face and found her staring up at him with a mixture of expressions all her own.

Horror.

And reluctant, befuddled arousal.

That made two of them, he thought grimly, pulling back enough that she could close her legs together, which she did so quickly that she slid against the front of his jeans, causing more torture.

At the helpless groan ripped from him, she closed her eyes.

He cleared his husky throat. “About your sister.”

As she had before, she drove her knee up, and since he’d started to relax his hold, her aim was far more accurate this time, hitting him high on the inside of his left thigh. High enough to send stars dancing across his vision. The breath whooshed out of him and he swore the air blue.

Cringing back as far as she could go, Nina closed her eyes tighter.

And damn it, that little protective gesture made him feel like a jerk. “I told you I’m not going to hurt you. I just want the truth.”

It should bother him, he supposed, that he was holding back plenty of truths himself. One, he feared Terry was in deep danger. Two, Mitch clearly imagined himself in love with her. And three, she’d left a baby on a doorstep in Texas.

But Nina probably knew all of that. And yet if that was true, why hadn’t Terry left her baby with Nina?

There had to be a damn good reason for that, and until he knew it, baby Hope remained a secret.

“I do not have the truth you seek,” Nina said in her formal but flawless English. “I have nothing for you.”

He was used to that—there weren’t many who had much for Rick. But he no longer cared. “I’m not going anywhere.” Deliberately, he lay more fully over her. “We can hang out all night, for all I care.”

“My sister is dead,” she whispered, her voice suddenly thick, which would have made him feel like an even bigger jerk if he hadn’t known that to be a lie.

Terry wasn’t dead. She’d just somehow managed to convince everyone else that it was true.

Question was, did Nina know that truth?

Right this very moment Mitch was probably holding the baby he and Terry had made together. Mitch believed Terry needed their help.

Rick didn’t yet know what he believed, but he would learn the truth.

“Terry isn’t dead,” he said slowly. “I know it and you know it. So stop repeating yourself and tell me something that I can use.”

“Why should I tell you anything?” She lifted her chin defiantly, though she still trembled beneath him. “I do not know who you are or what you want.”

He had no idea if it was her forced bravado or the way she spoke English without using contractions, but he softened toward her, just a little. “Okay, I’ll play. My name is Rick Singleton. I’m a bounty hunter. There. Now you know who I am and what I want.”

“A bounty hunter.” Her lips formed a perfect little O of distress. “You have been hired by the police to bring her back! But she is—”

“Dead. Yes, so you’ve said.” He stared down at her, wondering why the police would be looking for Terry. He was definitely missing most of this puzzle. “Maybe no one is fooled, Nina. What do the police want her back for?”

“To go to jail, of course, on that phony embezzlement charge. But she was set up, framed!”

“So you helped her escape.”

She closed her mouth.

“Maybe even helped her fake her death?”

“That would be against the law.”

Ah, things were starting to click into place. Terry had gotten herself in trouble with the Brazilian law.

And had she indeed been framed, as her sister clearly believed, or had the wild older sister bitten off more than she could chew?