Born To Protect

“To my old man. Might as well use the connections we’ve got. Do you have plastic bags in that lab of yours?”

She nodded. “I use sterile bags to collect soil samples.”

“Great. We’ll bag this and the envelope it came in. I’ll need to send our prints, too, so they can eliminate them.”

Her eyes widened. “You carry fingerprint equipment?”

“No, but any unglazed paper will hold prints, and they can lift them with ninhydrin.”

“How do you know that?”

“You have your area of expertise, I’ve got mine. You pick up a lot on counterterrorist ops.”

“I’m sure you do,” she said dryly. “Excuse me if I don’t have your experience.”

He couldn’t resist. It was a knee-jerk reaction to the challenge of her, the precision of her speech and the delicacy of her scent and the angle of her chin.

“Princess, anytime you want experience, I’m your man.”

Jack pushed open the door to his motel room. The trapped air rushed to greet them, smelling like mildew and pine cleaner and sex by the hour.

Christina recoiled.

He looked over his shoulder impatiently. “Problem?”

Her nerves jangled. She took a deep breath and a step forward. Chin up. “Not really. I’m just not in the habit of accompanying strange men to their motel rooms.”

He grinned and tossed the package from Uncle Jonathan onto the cheap dresser. “Well, that’s a relief.”

She lifted her eyebrows in question.

“As long as I’m responsible for your safety, it’s good to know you don’t indulge in high-risk behavior.”

She couldn’t think of anything riskier than this close association with Captain Experience. Except maybe getting herself kidnapped by Ahmed Kamal.

Jack Dalton was too much. Too big, too blunt, too muscled and far too sure of himself. He made her feel like a trembling virgin. The feeling wasn’t helped at all by the depressing knowledge that she was a virgin and far too close to trembling….

“I’ll leave the risk taking to you.” She looked around for someplace to sit. There were clothes folded on the room’s only chair. She felt it would be presumptuous to move them, to handle his pants and his socks. Primly, she sat on the very edge of his bed. “From now on, you can catch all the bullets and infectious diseases.”

“You’ve got the wrong idea about my lifestyle, princess.”

“It’s possible.” She crossed her legs, enjoying a faint, unfamiliar thrill when his eyes followed the movement. “It’s also possible you have the wrong idea about mine.”

“Maybe we both have something to learn.”

His rough voice snagged all her nerve endings. Maybe. Maybe Jack Dalton could teach her all the wild, wonderful, wicked things other women learned from men.

And maybe she should take a rock and knock some sense into her head first. It would be equally painful and ultimately less destructive.

“Not from each other. This situation is difficult enough without our playing at some ill-judged sexual attraction.”

He shoved his hands into his pockets. “Ill-judged, huh?”

“Extremely ill-judged,” she answered firmly.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. But, princess—” he waited until she dragged her gaze up to his “—if and when I do make a move, I won’t be playing.”

He disappeared into the bathroom. “I’m going to pack my kit,” he called. “Make yourself at home.”

Well.

Christina sat on the shiny motel spread, her knees crossed, and wondered if she should be flattered by his near pass or run screaming from the room. Neither, she decided. Dalton was probably just trying to sweet-talk her into going along with whatever he wanted. And if Sheik Ahmed were after her, running away was the worst thing she could do.

She needed facts. A scientist did not draw conclusions before compiling all her data. She needed information to assess her own danger. And the information she needed was sitting in an overnight mail envelope on the dresser three feet away.

She uncrossed her legs and stood. She picked the packet off the maple laminate and weighed it in her hand. Jonathan Dalton’s name was on the return label, along with an address in Texas. She turned the envelope over. Tape sealed the flap. She was testing it with her fingernail when she got that feeling again, the warm sensation of being watched.

She looked up.

Jack stood in the bathroom doorway, one shoulder propped against the jamb. His face was expressionless. His eyes were annoyed. “Was that addressed to you?”

Heat swept up her cheeks. She lifted her chin.

“If it’s about me,” she said, “then it’s my business.”

He prowled forward and tugged the envelope from her grasp. “Wrong. You told me you didn’t want me interfering with your work. Well, don’t interfere with mine.”

“I have a right to know what your father has found out. I should know if the situation warrants my taking precautions.”

“You don’t have the experience to judge that. I do. But if there’s anything in there you need to see, I’ll show it to you.”

It was more than she expected. Better, perhaps, than she deserved. She sat again, cautiously, on the bed.

Jack sat beside her. She tried not to notice how his jeans pulled across his thighs, how the mattress sank under his weight and rolled her toward him. Ridiculous. She was twenty-seven years old, and she’d never sat with a man on his bed before. She inched away.

“Uncomfortable?” he murmured.

“No,” she lied.

“Because we can wait till we get back to your place to do this.”

“I can’t.” She laughed shakily at herself, at the whole situation. “I couldn’t even wait for you to get your things together. Besides, if we find out you’re mistaken—if there is no real danger—then there’s no need for you to come to my place.”

“Right, then.” He ripped the envelope open.

She saw a dark blue portfolio with her name on the cover and an eight-by-ten glossy of the formal portrait commemorating her twenty-first birthday. The girl in the photo wore a long white gown and a glittering tiara and what Christina thought of as her “public” face: eyes straight, chin up, mouth bent in a smile.

Jack studied it. “You tick off the royal photographer, princess?”