- -
- 100%
- +
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.”