Close Contact

Pale slender fingers curled around the cup of steaming coffee. She swallowed audibly, met his gaze again and muttered, “I’m not sure.”

“What does that mean?”

Sahara strolled up behind him. “Sometime before dawn, Ms. Nevar woke up in her yard, feeling very sick and with no memory of how she got there.”

Miles looked back at Sahara, his voice stern with surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“She was a fair distance from her farmhouse but made it to the back porch. Needless to say, she wasn’t keen on going back inside, not without knowing what might await her. The house was dark and her property is isolated with no close neighbors.”

Miles sat back on his heels in disbelief. He didn’t know jack shit about her property, but he put that aside for the moment. “Drunk?” He hadn’t figured her for a big drinker, but then, what did he really know about her—except that, for a time, she’d enjoyed using him for sex.

As if to convince him, Maxi stared into his eyes. “I’d only had one glass of wine. At least, that’s all I can remember.”

All she remembered? “Could you have drunk enough to black out?”

She took that like a physical hit, flinching away from him and making him feel like an asshole.

Brisk now, Sahara said, “Despite being disoriented, she had the forethought, and guts I might add, to enter the unlit house to get her purse, car keys and those adorable boots.”

Adorable? They belonged on a ten-year-old, not a grown woman.

“Staying there was out of the question, and she wasn’t sure where else to go.” Sahara propped a hip on the desk. “Since she remembered that you work here, this is where she came.”

So she finally had a use for him again? No, he wouldn’t be that easy, not this time. But he had questions, a million of them.

Looking back at his boss, Miles said, “Give us a minute, will you?”

She smiled down at him. “Not on your life.”

He recognized that inflexible expression well enough. Sahara Silver did what she wanted, when she wanted. The lady was born to be a boss. In medieval times, she probably would have carried a whip. Still, he tried. “If she’s here to see me—”

“She’s here to hire you.”

Hire him? He turned back to Maxi and got her timid nod. Skeptical, he clarified, “As a bodyguard?”

“Yes.”

Since when did a woman need to be protected from a hangover? Did he want to be involved with that?

Now that he worked at the Body Armor agency, did he have a choice?

Sahara ruled with a small iron fist and she, at least, seemed taken with Maxi’s far-fetched tale. If Sahara took the contract, he might not have much say in it.

And who was he kidding? Much as he’d like to deny it, territorial tendencies had sparked back to life the second he saw Maxi again. In his gut, he knew he was happy—even relieved—to again have her within reach.

Maybe because she was the one who got away, or the one who hadn’t been all that hung up on him in the first place.

His ego was still stung, that was all.

It didn’t help that her disinterest had piled on at a low point in his life, making her rejection seem more important.

She’d come on to him hot and heavy, they’d gotten together three separate times, had phenomenal sex that, at least to him, had felt more than physical, and then she’d booked. She’d guarded her privacy more than her body, and other than her name and occupation, he hadn’t known much about her, not where she worked, or lived, or anything about her family...

As to that, maybe getting smashed and passing out in her yard were regular things for her. If so, he’d count himself lucky that she’d cut ties when she had.

Yet, somehow, that didn’t fit with his impressions of her.

First things first. He had to get a handle on what had actually happened. “Where is this farmhouse?”

“In Burlwood.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Few people have. It’s a really small town forty-five minutes south of here, close to the Kentucky border.”

With that answered, he went on to other details. “So you woke up outside?”

“Yes.”

“In your front yard?”

She shook her head. “A good distance away, on the far side of the pond.”

“Like a little decorative pond?”

“It’s two acres.”

Wow. Okay, so not close to the house, then. “How long were you out there?”

Her brows pinched together and her hands tightened. “I honestly don’t know. The last thing I remember is opening a book to read.” She drew in a deep, shaky breath. “That’s it. Just reading. Then I woke up with a splitting headache, some bug bites and gravel digging into my spine.”

“What were you doing before opening the book?”

Staring down at her hands, she gave it some thought. “I remember cleaning the kitchen.”

“Before that?”

She shook her head. “It was an all-day job.”

Who spent all day cleaning one room? He didn’t know Maxi’s habits, but maybe she’d never done any cleaning if tidying up dinner felt like a big chore to her. Hell, all he really knew about her was that she made him laugh, he enjoyed talking to her and she burned him up in bed.

Yeah, not a good time for that particular memory.

“Did you have company?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t remember?”