Dakota crossed the room and impulsively brushed a kiss against Ian’s cheek. “Thank you.”

The words, softly uttered, hung between them as the bodyguard looked at her. She’d caught him completely off guard. Those same stirrings that had been invading and haunting him these past few days increased in magnitude, threatening to overwhelm him. He’d banked them down before, but this time they proved a little more difficult to hide away.

Impossible, actually.

The next thing happened as if it had been scripted somewhere. But not by him. He wasn’t given to impulse, not unless he was on the job, reacting by instincts.

Like now.

His hand spanning so that it partially framed her cheek, Ian cupped it ever so lightly as he brought his lips down to hers. He did it even as something inside of him ordered, Stop!

He didn’t listen….

Because a Husband Is Forever
Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To

Nancy Neubert

and old friendships

renewed

MARIE FERRARELLA

This RITA® Award-winning author has written over one hundred and thirty books for Silhouette, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide.

October 8, 1861

My dearest love,

I hope this letter finds you and that you are well and whole. That is the worst of this awful war, the not knowing where you are and if you are. I tell myself that in my heart, I would know if you are no longer among the living. That if you were taken from me in body as well as in spirit, some piece of my heart would surely wither and die because it only beats for you. Each evening I press a kiss to my fingers and touch the cameo you gave me—the very same one I shall not remove until you are standing right here beside me—and pray that in the morning I will rise and look out my window to see you coming over the ridge. It is what sustains me in these dark hours.

I miss you and love you more each day.

Your Amanda

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Epilogue

Prologue

June 1, 1861

Amanda Deveaux looked at the cameo in her hand. Embossed on the delicate Wedgwood-blue oval was the profile of a young Greek woman, carved in ivory. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen, even though her vision was blurred because of the tears in her eyes.

She gazed up at the man who had given the cameo to her. Lt. William Slattery of the Confederate Army. Her Will, dashingly handsome in his new gray uniform, a uniform she had sewn for him herself. She was achingly proud of him for what he was about to do. And heartsick about it at the same time.

“I want you to wear this, Amanda.” Will took the cameo from her and tied the black velvet ribbon at the back of her neck. “Promise me that you’ll wear it until I can come home to make you my bride.”

“But why can’t I marry you now?” she pleaded.

Will glanced over at the stone-faced woman who stood several feet away, guarding her precious daughter. “Because,” he told her, “a lady doesn’t hurriedly get married like some penniless servant girl.”

Amanda didn’t care about tradition, only that the man she loved was going away for who knew how long. “I don’t want to be a lady. I want to be your wife.”

“You’ll be both when I come back. Promise you’ll wait for me,” he repeated.

She clutched his hand, ignoring her mother’s reproving looks. Her mother had never liked Will. His family didn’t have enough money to suit her. As if money could ever be the measure of a man’s worth.

“You know I will. From the first moment I saw you until the last moment I’ll draw breath, there’s only you, my darling,” she whispered to him.

Will kissed her hand in the tradition of the times. And then, because he was young and in love and this would be the last time that they would be together, he drew her into his arms and kissed the woman he’d loved since he was a small boy.

He kissed her long and hard, fashioning a moment and a memory that would last him through however many days and weeks and months he would have to be away. He had to fight a war he had never asked for. A war that his young honor demanded he fight. He hadn’t bought his way out the way some others of his class had. They had sent in paid substitutes to fight in their places. To die in their stead if that was the way of it.

The son of a very small plantation owner, Will’s honor forbade him to allow others to brave danger in his place. But, oh, his heart felt as if it was breaking as he stood there, the April wind ruffling his hair, kissing the woman he would rather have died for than leave.

“I believe it is time to take your leave, Lieutenant,” Belinda Deveaux told him sharply.

He took a step back and looked at Amanda, sealing her image in his mind. “Wait for me,” he begged her again.

“Forever if I have to.”

Clutching the cameo to her, Amanda waved as Will mounted his horse and then rode away. She waved until the horse and rider had long disappeared from view.

Amanda ignored the disparaging sound her mother made. It faded into the background, muted by the sound of her breaking heart.

“Forever,” she repeated in a fierce whisper.

Chapter One

Present Day

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

The voice, soft, unobtrusive, felt as if it had slipped into her consciousness via her mind rather than registering the regular way, by way of her ears.

Surprised, Dakota Delany glanced up from the see-through counter with its collection of estate jewelry and one-of-a-kind pieces to see a motherly woman, who watched her with eyes that were incredibly blue. And incredibly kind.

Dakota would have sworn that she was alone in the small showroom area of the upstate New York antique store, with its creaking floorboards and not quite airtight windows. When she’d entered fifteen minutes ago, there hadn’t been a salesperson to be seen. It took her a moment to process the sudden appearance of another person within the rather small area, without so much as a telltale squeak from the floorboards.

If she were being honest with herself, Dakota really didn’t know what she was even doing here. She’d never had much of a penchant for antiques nor a desire to haunt the small shops along the street that hosted them. But an unshakable restlessness had put her behind the wheel of her blazing-red BMW this morning. Dawn had seen her driving away from New York City, making her way upstate, her path marked by a parade of trees whose leaves were turning all the festive colors of fall.

She didn’t feel very festive.

Dakota wasn’t really sure why she kept on driving or where she was going. It wasn’t as if she could just allow herself to get lost for an unlimited amount of time. She had a live show to tape as of two o’clock this afternoon, the way she did every afternoon, Monday through Friday. That meant she had to return by noon or risk having her production assistant, who was, as well, her best friend, succumb to the heart attack MacKenzie Ryan always threatened her with if things weren’t progressing according to schedule.

Schedule.

Hell, if things had been progressing according to schedule, she and Dr. John Jackson would be standing side by side, maybe even here in this little, out-of-theway antique store, picking out their wedding rings. She’d thought her relationship with John was heading down the aisle. To a wedding. To the altar. For a brief, shining moment she’d actually believed that she’d finally found a man who didn’t want anything from her except her. She’d found a man with whom she could share forever, have the kind of life her parents had.

John Jackson didn’t need her name or her fame, not to mention her money, to try to get ahead. The good doctor was a celebrity of sorts in his own right. He was the head of a very lucrative private practice and was currently one of the most sought-after plastic surgeons on the East Coast.

Trouble was, on occasion the good doctor also liked to throw himself into his work—after the fact. Dakota had heard the rumors, but once her mind was made up that this was the man she was going to marry, she had refused to believe them. Having been raised in the entertainment business—thanks to a newscaster father and a mother and grandfather who between them had been in almost every B-grade movie ever written—and having spent the last four years as the star of her own daytime talk show, And Now a Word from Dakota, she knew very well how baseless rumors could be.

Except that these rumors had turned out to be not so baseless. These rumors had turned out to be true. She’d come home early from a taping one afternoon, seeking a respite after working with a particularly difficult starlet, and wound up catching John, also home early, trying on one of his remodeled patients for size.

Her heart and confidence had been shattered in one lightning-swift blow.

Now the engagement was off, John had moved out to some Park Avenue address, and she was single again.

And hating it.

But at twenty-nine, she had also become resigned to the fact that she was probably going to remain that way for a very long time, if not forever. Men just weren’t worth the trouble, she’d decided during her drive up this morning. Besides, she had a full life. Between work and the occasional visits to her family, she didn’t have time to focus on the fact that there were no one else’s dishes in the sink but hers, that the only clothes strewn around the apartment were hers.

“Would you like me to take the necklace out to show you?”

Even as the woman asked the question, she was removing the cameo that had caught Dakota’s eye.

It was a lovely piece, but not extraordinary by any stretch of the imagination. A small profile of a woman set against a field of Wedgwood blue and threaded onto a black velvet ribbon—new by the looks of it. There was nothing unusual about the small piece of jewelry to set it apart from the rest. And yet, as she’d walked through the store, browsing but not really seeing, Dakota found her eyes inexplicably drawn to the cameo.

Still, she wasn’t really here to buy anything, only to kill time. She shook her head. “No, I—”

The protest came a beat too late. The woman with the fluffy gray hair and compelling smile already had the cameo out. She held it up for Dakota’s approval.

For a moment the face of the woman in the cameo was trapped in a sunbeam.

“It has a legend behind it, you know,” the woman told Dakota softly.

“A legend?”

She was too much of her parents’ daughter not to be drawn in by the promise of a story, a history. Dakota could feel her interest being aroused as if it was a physical thing.

The woman came around from behind the counter. Short, round, she had almost a cherubic appearance. If she were casting Mrs. Claus in a play, Dakota thought, the woman would have been perfect.

The woman’s blue eyes gleamed with vibrancy as she spoke. “Yes. It’s said to have once belonged to a Southern belle, given to her by her fiancé just before he rode off to war in 1861. Her name was Amanda Deveaux. His was William Slattery, a handsome young lieutenant in the Confederate Army. William put this around her neck and made her promise to wear the cameo until he could return to marry her.”

The sunbeam still held the woman in the cameo in its embrace. Dakota found she couldn’t draw her eyes away from it. Though injured by love, at bottom she was still a romantic. “And did he?”

Rather than answer directly, the older woman smiled enigmatically. Taking the cameo, she stood up on her toes and gently placed it around Dakota’s neck.

“Why don’t you try it on?” the woman coaxed softly as she tied the two ends of the velvet together at the nape of Dakota’s neck. Stepping back, she looked at Dakota and nodded her approval. “It suits you.”

The delicate oval dipped into the hollow of her throat. Dakota lightly slid her fingers over the necklace, touching it. “Does it?”

The woman nodded again, a wayward breeze that had sneaked in through the open casement playing with the ends of her hair. “They say that whoever wears it will have her own one true love come into her life. And once that happens, once she knows that this is the man she is to spend eternity with, she has to pass the cameo on to someone else so that the magic can continue.”

“Magic,” Dakota echoed. Did anyone still believe in magic? She certainly didn’t. The woman took out a small, sterling-silver-framed mirror and handed it to her. Dakota looked at herself. When she glanced back at the woman, her smile was ever-so-slightly self-deprecating. “I don’t feel any magic.”

The woman laughed to herself, shaking her head as if she’d just heard something very foolish uttered in innocence. “Magic doesn’t come riding on a bolt of lightning, my dear,” she assured Dakota gently as she stepped back behind the counter. “Real magic slips in without you noticing and unfolds its power very quietly. Before you know it, it’s taken a firm root inside your soul.”

Dakota sincerely had her doubts about that. She didn’t believe in magic or cameos that came equipped with magical powers. But there was no denying that the cameo was truly lovely.

And she deserved a pick-me-up, she decided.

Dakota handed the mirror back to the woman. “I’ll take it.”

The woman eyed her knowingly. If she didn’t know better, Dakota would have concluded that the woman’s smile was slowly seeping into her being. “I thought you might,” the woman was saying. “The moment I saw you walk into the store, I knew the cameo was meant for you.”

Dakota frowned slightly, puzzled. The shop didn’t look as if it was wired with a surveillance system. It looked barely able to support the wiring for the overhead lights. “I didn’t see you when I came in.”

The smile on the woman’s face did not falter. “But I saw you.”

About to ask where the woman could have hidden in the small, cluttered room in order to observe her without being noticed, Dakota heard the ancient grandfather clock in the corner begin to chime the hour.

Ten o’clock.

How was that possible? It hadn’t taken that long to drive up here, had it? And yet the hours seemed to have melted into oblivion. Had she been lost in her own thoughts that long?

Her eyes met the woman’s in surprise.

“You’d better start getting back, or you might miss your show,” the woman told her. Taking out a pad, she began to write up the sale. Surprised, Dakota opened her mouth to say something. Second-guessing her response, the woman’s smile widened another several watts. “You know, we do get all the major channels out here. Even have a computer or two around, although I don’t really like the annoying little things.”

The comment seemed appropriate. The area seemed so off the beaten path, Dakota would have been less surprised to have stumbled over Rip Van Winkle than to hear that the houses were wired for cable or had computers in their living rooms.

Dakota glanced at her watch. The woman was right. She had to be getting back before it was too late. She touched the cameo at her throat again, reluctant to part with her new acquisition.

“I think I’ll wear it.”

“Thought you might.” After ringing up the sale, the woman handed her a small pouch.

Taking out her checkbook, Dakota glanced at the dark-green velvet pouch. “What’s this?”

“It’s for the cameo. You can place it in here when it comes time for you to give it to the next person.”

Dakota tore off the check, a smile playing on her lips. “After I find true love.”

The woman nodded gravely. Her faith seemed unshakable. “After.”

Moving the check along the counter to the woman, Dakota shook her head. “I don’t think I’ll be needing the pouch.”

Picking up the velvet item, the woman pressed it into Dakota’s hand.

“You will,” she told her with certainty.

Dakota was still thinking about the unusual little woman and her shop as she parked her car in the underground garage beneath the TV studio’s building. Although her life of late had been a little bleak, Dakota found that she couldn’t suppress or erase the smile that had taken possession of her lips.

Maybe she could go back sometime and have the woman—whose name she hadn’t even gotten—as a guest on the show, she thought as she entered the elevator. It was lovely finding unusual and interesting people. Most of the time, she was in contact with people who were hurrying through life much too quickly to enjoy what was around them or even what they’d earned for themselves along the way.

“Physician, heal thyself,” Dakota muttered under her breath as she sailed into her dressing room. Definitely the wrong metaphor, she thought. Physicians were the last group she wanted contact with. But even that slip didn’t take the edge off her upbeat mood.

She fingered her cameo, as if for luck, even as she silently scoffed at herself. The only thing the cameo was going to bring her was compliments. True love existed in fairy tales and, on rare occasions, in other people’s lives. People like her parents who were part of another generation. Somehow true love had gotten lost in this hurry-up world through which she and others found themselves navigating.

As she gained her dressing room, Dakota nodded at the makeup girl who was in there ahead of her. Alicia’s face lit up and she went to work, although there wasn’t much to do. “You’ve got perfect skin tones.” It was the first thing the young woman had said to her when they met. “If everyone was like you, I’d be out of a job.”

“Hi, Alicia, sorry I’m running late.” Not bothering to sit, she presented herself to the makeup artist, her face upturned.

Alicia wasn’t alone in the room. There, biting her nails in typical nervous fashion, was MacKenzie. The second Dakota entered the brightly lit room, MacKenzie sighed audibly.

“Oh, thank God you’ve finally shown up. Do you realize what time it is?” With one gnawed fingertip, she pointed to her wristwatch. “I was going to call out the National Guard to find you.”

Dakota was accustomed to MacKenzie’s dramatic moments. They’d been roommates in college in California. Dakota, the blond, statuesque native, took it upon herself to show around the petite, dark-haired transplanted Bostonian. They’d come out to New York together to take the town by storm. Thanks to a few words Dakota’s father had put in for them with the head of the studio, they pretty much had.

Dakota tilted her head toward the light as Alicia put on the final strokes. “They have more important things to do than look for me, Zee.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, so do I.” Without preamble, she took Dakota’s purse from her and flipped open the section where her cell phone was usually housed. “So, it is here.” To underscore her point, MacKenzie took the small silver cell out and held it up. Her tone and frown were both accusing. “The object of having a cell phone, Dakota, is so that people can call you when they’re in the middle of having a heart attack.”

Dakota took her cell back and tucked it into her purse before depositing the latter in the bottom drawer of the vanity table. “I wanted to be alone.”

MacKenzie pressed her lips together. Her eyes searched Dakota’s face, looking for a telltale sign that she was about to break. It wasn’t like her just to take off like that without leaving some kind of word. “I was afraid you’d do something drastic.”

Close as they were, Dakota didn’t like to expose her feelings. Especially not when there was a third party present. Her voice lowered. “Over John? Please, I’m not some teenager.”

They’d known each other too long for pretenses. MacKenzie had never thought she’d see her gregarious friend give her heart to any man. When it happened, she held her breath, waiting for a shoe to drop, praying it wouldn’t. But it had. With a resounding thud.

“No,” MacKenzie said quietly in a tone that matched Dakota’s, “you’re a grown woman whose heart was stomped on by a big ape in combat boots.”

Dakota waved a dismissive hand at the words. “Past history.”

Glancing at her makeup artist, Dakota held out her hand for the lipstick she favored. Alicia dug the tube out of her makeup caddy and placed it in Dakota’s palm. Without benefit of mirror, Dakota did the honors quickly. Finished, she handed the tube back to Alicia and squared her shoulders.

She was going to wear what she had on, she decided. “Now let’s move on to our present history.”

But as she began to walk out of her dressing room, MacKenzie placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her. “Small problem.”

Dakota narrowed her eyes. “What kind of small problem?”

“That animal trainer who was scheduled to be on the show—”

Dakota nodded. It was Monday. She’d gone over the week’s guest-star list, skimming over their biographies and trying to get to know a little about them before she faced them on her program. “Fearless Frederick. What about him?”

“Seems that Fearless was taken to the emergency room last night. One of his animals decided to challenge his title and took off the tip of one of his fingers. I hear Fearless turned the E.R. blue.”

Dakota stifled a shiver, trying not to envision the gruesome sight. “Is he okay?”

“They sewed it back on, but needless to say, you won’t be holding on to one of his trained snakes today.”

“Can’t say I’m really disappointed.” Though she was game for anything, there were definitely things that went to the bottom of her list. Holding wriggling snakes and animals that viewed her as a substitute for lunch sank right down to that level.

MacKenzie resumed walking toward the set. Dakota fell into step beside her. “Fortunately, I had a backup plan.”

Dakota laughed under her breath. Her best friend had always been an overachiever. Had she been on the Titanic, the diminutive woman would have found a way to float the ship to safety.

“Never doubted it for a second. So, who am I interviewing?”

“No!”

The deep male voice rang out with dark authority that made the stagehand in the distance jump. MacKenzie rolled her eyes. “Him.”

Making a half turn, Dakota temporarily abandoned her path to the stage and instead followed the single word to its source. Nothing like meeting the guest just before the show, she thought.

She looked to her right at MacKenzie. “And ‘him’ being?”

MacKenzie, shorter than her boss and friend by some three inches, clutched her clipboard to her chest as she lengthened her stride and hurried to keep up. “Ian Russell. Of Russell and Taylor, bodyguards to the rich and famous,” she added when Dakota looked at her quizzically.

Dakota remembered the names. They were the former homicide detectives. The two men were scheduled for the end of the week. She decided that the bodyguard business must be slow to be able to get them on such short notice.

“You come near me with that powder brush, and you’re going to find yourself walking a whole lot stiffer,” the man in the guest-star chair warned Albert, their head makeup artist, just as Dakota rounded the corner and came on the scene.

Highly frustrated, the makeup artist rolled his small dark eyes and looked helplessly at Dakota. “Dakota…?”

A wealth of emotions and entreaties were locked into the single intonation. Dakota rose to the occasion. Smile in place, she took the brush from Albert with one hand while placing the other on the annoyed guest’s chest. Dakota gently but firmly pushed the tall, dark, brooding man back into the chair he was attempting to vacate.

Apparently caught off guard, the man gave little resistance. There was no doubt in Dakota’s mind that, had her guest star resisted, she could have jumped up and down on his chest with her full body weight and made no impression whatsoever. Unless he wore armor, her hand had come in contact with rock in human form. Splaying her fingers wider, Dakota wasn’t sure she even detected a heartbeat.

“Hi,” she murmured, “I’m Dakota Delany, and you really don’t want to come off looking like Casper the Friendly Ghost.”

Staring at her, realizing introductions were necessary, he began saying, “I’m Ian Russell and—” The rest was swallowed up as Dakota began to deftly apply powder to the rugged planes and angles of a face that could have easily belonged to Hollywood’s newest action star. Damn, but he was attractive. She could see women lining up six deep to avail themselves of his services. Some of which might even have had something remotely to do with bodyguard work.

As she applied the brush in short strokes that seemed to vibrate down her arm into her own soul, her eyes held his for a very long moment. The magic she’d laughingly told the woman in the antique store she was waiting for felt as if it had just arrived.

She found herself struggling, just for a single heartbeat, to remove the brush from the man’s face. But for that moment she felt as if the brush was an extension of her fingers. Very odd.

“There,” she finally murmured, hardly aware of forming the word. “Done.”

A deep laugh from the next chair brought Dakota back to her surroundings. Tilting her head, she spared a glance at the other man in the area. Dakota assumed the brown-haired, green-eyed man to be Randy Taylor, Ian’s partner.

“I’m afraid there’s little chance that anyone’s going to mistake Ian for a friendly anything. That scowl was chiseled in when he was three days old. Been there ever since,” Randy said, grinning broadly. He crossed the room to her and offered his hand. “Hi, I’m Randy Taylor. I’m the reasonable one. And you’ve already met Ian Russell, my not-so-silent partner.”

Ian’s scowl deepened as he rose to his feet and yanked off the makeup apron. He towered over the woman who’d just dusted him with something. “Look, you’ll be better off talking to Randy on your show. I don’t know about the ‘more reasonable’ part, but he’s the more talkative one.”

Randy laughed, shaking his head. “He’s right. He’s as talkative as a tree when he gets into a mood.”

Dakota smiled, remembering an old Broadway song she’d heard in a recent revival. It was from Paint Your Wagon and entitled, “I Talk to the Trees.” Suddenly she found herself wanting to talk to the trees.

Chapter Two

Moments before show time, Dakota gave her reluctant guest her brightest, ten-thousand-volt smile as she looked up into his stony face. “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

As she assured him, she casually slipped her arm through his. She slowly began to stroll in the general direction of the soundstage as if it was the one true destination for them all.

It took a great deal of self-control for Ian not to snort at her remark. He was just as sure that he wouldn’t be fine at all, and he at least had a basis for the opinion. He knew himself a hell of a lot better than this blond woman with the electric-blue eyes did.

This was all Taylor’s fault, he thought, annoyed that he’d allowed himself to be roped into this fiasco. Taylor was the one who had pushed for the appearance, claiming they could use the publicity that the syndicated talk show would bring them. Taylor was always in a rush.

He wasn’t. As far as he was concerned, things were going fine just as they were. It took time to build up a decent clientele. Word of mouth was what did it—words from satisfied customers. A prolonged sound bite wouldn’t ensure success.

Ian didn’t bother suppressing his frown as he allowed himself to be steered. He saw no purpose in making an appearance on a program like some sideshow clown, having a bunch of strangers stare at him and pass judgment. The audience wouldn’t care about his and Taylor’s credentials. They wanted sensational entertainment.

That kind of thing didn’t matter in the bodyguard business. Nor did it reflect the hard work he and Randy did every day.

Ian blew out a deep breath. He really regretted letting Taylor have his way in this. Even if the beautiful talk-show host did smell of something seductively floral and mind bending.

Randy inclined his head toward MacKenzie as they followed his partner and Dakota. It took a bit of doing, given that there was almost a foot between them. “She’s good.”

MacKenzie took great pride in compliments sent Dakota’s way. They were a team, she and Dakota, and each reveled in the other’s good fortune. It was she who had first suggested to Dakota that she become a talk-show hostess. If ever there was a natural for this kind of format, it was Dakota.

She flashed a smile at the good-looking man on her left. “You don’t know the half of it. If she set her mind to it Dakota could get the sphinx to talk and reveal its secrets.”

Which was exactly what made Dakota Delany such a hugely successful talk-show host. Her audience had multiplied exponentially since her debut four years ago. Friends called just to tell one another about it. Soon, everyone was tuning in, wanting to know what the party was all about. Her fans were legion.

MacKenzie firmly believed that her friend had the kind of face people talked to, a manner that almost verbally declared that she could be trusted. And why not? With her easy laugh and quick wit, Dakota reminded people of their sister, their mother, their best friend or a favorite aunt, someone they could turn to in both good times and bad.

It wasn’t so much the way Dakota looked—which was gorgeous with a capital G—as it was her manner. She seemed genuinely interested in whatever was being said to her, whether a guest was trying to explain medical science’s latest attempts to cure a major disease, or some Hollywood star expounding on his or her most recent misadventures. Dakota would always manage to get to the heart of the matter and extract the one thing that would make her audience sit up and take notice. Make them feel as if they were right there with her in the simple living room setting she’d made as her center stage.

Every weekday at two o’clock, her audience felt as if they were being invited into her home for a friendly chat. With good reason. Dakota made sure that the soundstage where they taped looked exactly like her own living room. Being at ease herself was the first step toward getting a good interview.

MacKenzie watched her friend work her magic on the day’s reluctant guest.

If the man beside her were any stiffer, he would have been a tree, Dakota thought. She could feel him champing at the bit to get out of there. She’d interviewed and talked to enough people to know that this man was not exactly a willing guest. She suspected that his partner had everything to do with their appearance on the show.

Well, it didn’t matter how he had gotten here, it was up to her to make him feel at ease. Or as much at ease as a man like Ian Russell could be.

Rising up slightly on her toes, ignoring the fact that MacKenzie and Randy Taylor were right behind her, Dakota brought her lips close to Ian’s ear. “This isn’t going to hurt, Ian, I give you my word.”

The woman’s warm breath swirled around his ear, forging a path along his neck and traveling the short distance to his chin. Rather than calm him, the simple act succeeded in creating a sensual riot that ran amok through his system.

Unaccustomed to being the one who needed to be assured of anything, Ian pulled back to look at her. “What?” he demanded sharply.

“The interview,” Dakota explained quietly, never taking her eyes from his. “It’s painless. And it’ll be over with before you know it.”

He really doubted that. He’d once been on a five-day stakeout, living in his car and subsisting on cold burgers and colder fries. Right now that seemed like a day at the amusement park in comparison to the way he felt about the next twenty minutes.

Ian slanted a look toward the woman whose parents had named her after two states. Obviously they were one sandwich short of a picnic basket, just as she was.

“We’ll see,” Ian muttered under his breath as they turned down the long corridor. He glanced at the photographs of celebrities hanging on either side and was completely unimpressed.

That we will, Dakota thought.

Reaching the perimeter of the soundstage where her show was taped, she saw that the crew had already assembled. Billy Webster, a comedian she’d seen at one of the local comedy clubs and liked instantly, was out in front of the curtain, warming up the audience for her. He was nearing the end of his monologue.

That meant that they were going to be on the air in less than five minutes. Dakota glanced at the last-minute fill-in at her side. Standing ramrod straight, he looked even taller than he was. And more foreboding, if that was even possible. She needed this man to be more fluid, or at least in some kind of condition that didn’t immediately bring Dutch elm disease to mind.

Usually, the touch of her hand and the warm look in her eyes was enough.

But not today.

Positioning herself so that he was forced to see only her, she tried again. “Look, the process is a lot easier if you forget about the audience and just talk to me,” she coaxed. “Tell me why I’d want to hire your firm instead of some other. Most important, I want the audience to understand the difference between what you do and what they’ve seen in the movies.”

“I get it. Kind of like reality TV,” Randy interjected.

Her eyes shifted to Randy’s face for a moment. “Something like that.”

Instincts she’d been blessed with told her that she would undoubtedly have a better show, or at least a better chance of attaining one, if she directed her questions and the interview toward tree man’s partner. Unless she missed her guess, Randy Taylor seemed to be a live wire, capable of talking the ears off an African elephant.

But she was her parents’ stubborn daughter. Given a choice, she had never picked the easier way. If she had, she’d be lolling on some absurd flotation device in her parents’ Beverly Hills pool, absorbing the California sun and letting life just drift by.

She lived for challenges, and right now the close-mouthed Ian Russell was her challenge. Besides, although both men were notably good-looking, it was Ian Russell who rightfully earned the label of tall, dark and handsome.

Dark. Dakota couldn’t help wondering if that went clear down to his soul. From the look in his eyes, she was willing to bet that it did.

The show’s director caught her eye and nodded. Which meant her introduction was coming. She gave the bodyguard’s arm a quick squeeze.

“My cue’s coming up,” she said suddenly. “Zee will send you two out as soon as I announce your names.” She paused to add, “Remember, this is going to be fun.” With this, Dakota vanished from the small space, leaving him behind the curtain with Randy and the production assistant.

Ian frowned. It was obvious that he and the incredibly perky blonde had completely different definitions of the word fun. To be honest, he wasn’t sure if he defined anything as fun. The absence of tension was good enough for him. And right now he wished he was in that state.

It annoyed him that he could feel his adrenaline kicking in. That was supposed to happen when he was faced with a fight-or-flight situation, not because he was going to be sitting on some overly warm soundstage, looking into the eyes of some motor-mouth talk-show hostess while he was waiting to be humiliated.

Actually, that had already happened. And it would only get worse.

He looked at his partner accusingly. “Don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” he growled, his deep voice even lower.

Unfazed, Randy shook his head. “Because, at bottom you know I’m right.”

“At bottom,” Ian echoed. The soft buzz of the woman’s voice floated backstage. He couldn’t make out the words, only that the audience was laughing in response. His discomfort grew.

“Right now I’d rather be at the bottom of some lake than waiting to be stripped bare in front of—” he turned toward MacKenzie suddenly “—how big did you say that the audience was?”

Her expression told him that didn’t think this was the time to repeat that particular statistic. She probably thought he’d get stage fright. If that was the case, she was dead wrong. It didn’t matter to him if there was one person sitting out there or one million. The numbers didn’t change the fact that he didn’t like the prospect he was about to face.

“We need the publicity,” Randy had insisted when he’d brought the idea to him. He’d presented it right after a week had passed with both of them staying at the office, waiting for the phone to ring. It didn’t seem to matter to Randy that the week had come on the heels of three very hectic months where neither of them had had more than a day off at a time.

Even when they’d been on the force together, his partner’s mind was always racing ahead, always thinking about the next case that would come their way. In a moment of weakness, Ian had given in to his partner about this show. Giving in to Randy was something he rarely did and never with this kind of consequence.

Makeup. He’d been asked to wear makeup, for pity’s sake. He should have walked out then, leaving Randy holding the bag, instead of allowing that Delany woman to take over and actually apply some to his face. He didn’t care what the reasons were, a man’s face was not made to have makeup on it.

As if to reinforce his convictions, he could feel his skin growing itchy. Could feel himself growing itchy, as well. Itchy to get the hell out of here.

Ian turned on his heel, ready to put thought into action, only to find the little production assistant blocking his way. The look in her green eyes forbade him to move.

Like that could actually stop him, Ian thought. It would have taken no effort at all just to place his hands on her shoulders and lift her out of the way.

“Don’t even think it,” MacKenzie warned, digging the heels of her soft leather boots into the floor.

Ian’s eyes narrowed even as he fought back a grin. He always admired displays of courage, even baseless courage. But before he could say anything to Dakota’s second-in-command, he heard his name being called. Ian instinctively stiffened. The fledgling grin faded.

Taylor clapped his hand on his shoulder. “That’s us, Russell.”

Turning to look toward the set, Ian felt the little brunette’s hands on the small of his back. The next moment she was pushing him in the direction of the set. Rather than take the lead the way he was so inclined to do, this time Randy fell into place behind him. Which meant that if he wanted to leave, he was going to have to send them both flying out of his way.

All right, so not today.

Muttering an oath about Taylor’s not-so-distant lineage under his breath, Ian squared his shoulders and began to walk out toward the set.

The noise level seemed to grow with each step he took.

“You owe me, Taylor,” he growled at his partner. “Big-time.”

“We’ll settle up later,” Randy promised through lips that barely moved. The next moment he smiled broadly. “Smile, damn it, Ian,” Randy hissed. “We’re not exactly walking out to face a firing squad.”

“Might as well be.”

Stoically Ian pushed back the curtain and walked out, blinking as he tried to accustom his eyes to the bright lights. He forced himself to endure this and made an effort to change his expression. He wasn’t about to become some grinning hyena. But he knew that if he continued to look as somber as he felt, not only would business not grow, it might even drop off.

Dakota deliberately made eye contact with the taller of the two men, smiling warmly and willing him to loosen up. He looked as if he expected her to start poking at him with a hot branding iron.

“And here they are now, folks.” Placing herself temporarily between the two men, she escorted them the final ten steps to the set.

An arm hooked through each of theirs, Dakota nodded first to the right. “I want you to meet Ian Russell,” she said warmly, then nodded to the left, “and Randy Taylor, the two men who pooled their considerable abilities to form Bodyguard, Inc.” Gesturing for the men to take a seat on the cream-colored Italian leather sofa, she sat down on the overstuffed armchair that faced them. Only then did she glance toward her audience. “Not a very flashy name, I know, but it gets its message across, and I’m a firm believer that sometimes simple is best.”

The woman probably wouldn’t know simple if it bit her, Ian thought. Because of the nature of his work, he was more than passingly acquainted with celebrity types. The moment any kind of fame came their way, they lost all perspective, became little demigod dictators without any sense of reality. Opulence became their king, not simplicity.

“What these men provide,” Dakota was telling her audience, “is a very basic service.” A chuckle rose from the middle of the crowd, swelling and working its way to the outer perimeter until it seemed to encompass most of the room. “Okay, minds out of the gutter, people,” Dakota instructed with a laugh. “It’s not that kind of service.” Although, she could see why her audience, comprised predominantly of women, would think so, given the men they were ogling at. “It’s protection. These men are modern-day white knights. Ian,” she said, suddenly turning toward him, “why would I come to you?”

“What?”

He’d allowed his mind to wander, and Dakota had caught him completely off guard with her question. He’d been convinced that for the most part, since she appeared to be a savvy-looking woman, the talk-show hostess would know to focus her attention on and direct her questions to Taylor. Anyone could see that his partner was obviously the more gregarious of the two. Scratch that. “More” had nothing to do with it. He was the only gregarious one of the two of them.

Maybe Ms. Dakota Delany wasn’t as savvy as he thought she was.

Dakota shifted in her seat, her body language telling him that despite his hesitation, she wasn’t backing off. Her attention was completely focused on him.

Damn you, Taylor, he thought, hating the trapped feeling that threatened to possess him.

“There are a lot of other companies out there,” she persisted, her blue eyes never leaving his face. “Companies that are more established than yours. They all offer bodyguard service—something,” she said in an aside to the audience, adding a familiar wink, “that I would personally never avail myself of.” Her audience must be aware she had an aversion to having a paid-for shadow following her every move. She looked back at Ian. “Why come to you?”

His eyes met hers dead-on, letting her know he didn’t appreciate being placed on the spot. He was here as a silent support, a nonverbal backup. He wasn’t the firm’s spokesperson. “Because we’ll get the job done,” he told her simply.

Randy finally rode to the rescue. “Between us we’ve got fifteen years of experience on the force,” he interjected. “And we know the kind of precautions that need to be taken.”

Dakota glanced at the silver clipboard MacKenzie had shoved into her hands at the last minute. Typed notes in neat, short paragraphs summarized the men and their firm. Already familiar with what was written there, she looked only to reinforce herself.

“That’s right, both of you are former homicide detectives.” Turning toward the audience, she winked and said in her intimate way, “I do believe I feel safer already.”

If Ian was hoping to catch a respite, the next moment found him disappointed. Dakota’s attention was back on him.

“Being a former homicide detective makes you more familiar with the criminal mind than the average bodyguard might be.” She leaned into him, effectively blocking out the audience and making this a conversation between the two of them. “Tell me, why did you leave the force?”

Randy was ready for this one. He had a pat answer all prepared, dealing with their wanting to grow as people, with their feeling that it was time to strike out on their own, etcetera.

But just as he opened his mouth to reply, Ian was the one who replied, “Too much paperwork.”

Delighted by the honesty, the studio audience roared in response.

The laughter surprised Ian. He hadn’t expected this kind of reaction. He certainly hadn’t said it to be clever. He’d said it because it was true. Too much paperwork and too much red tape had driven him and then Taylor away from NYPD. There were too many rules to follow, and in his opinion a great many of them got in the way of doing decent police work.

Some of the other rules were just too damn frustrating. He’d seen too many bad guys go free on technicalities. So much so that one day, he, the son of a cop and the grandson of a cop, didn’t want to be part of that system anymore.

Protecting people, men, women, and especially children, from any impending dangers meant something. He felt it made a difference. Enough of a difference for him to change what he’d thought was his life’s calling in order to form this partnership with Taylor.

Actually, the company had been Taylor’s idea, fashioned one lazy, sweltering-hot New York summer afternoon as they sat in O’Hara’s, nursing two well-deserved beers.

The moment the suggestion had come out of Taylor’s mouth, he remembered taking to it wholeheartedly. Ian knew that Taylor had espoused the idea because he felt that there was a great deal of money to be made, protecting the rich and famous. His own reasons were different. He’d taken to it because, the way he saw it, there was a difference to be made. Even the rich and famous deserved to be free of fear.

The laughter died down. Ian wasn’t following up his words so Dakota pushed a little bit more, hoping to get the reluctant guest to speak on his own volition. She had a feeling that once this man finally became vocal, he would have things to say that were worth hearing.

“Any other reason than your dislike of putting things down on paper?” she asked innocently.

Ian realized that just for the tiniest slice of a second, he’d gotten lost in her eyes, lost in her expression. Had to be the hot lights. They were all over the place and so intense they could make a grown man dizzy if he wasn’t careful.

“Yeah, I like keeping people safe.”

The smile Dakota gave him in response to his answer made him feel as if warm butter flowed in his veins.

Reorienting himself to the immediate situation, he glanced at his watch. Only three minutes had gone by. That meant there were seventeen more minutes to endure, seventeen more minutes pregnant with sixty seconds apiece.

Eternity loomed before him like a dark specter.

Suppressing a groan, he sincerely began to miss his stakeout days.

Chapter Three

Dakota knew in her bones that the segment would be good.

She knew if she could just move her less-than-talkative guest in the right direction, the audience would meet him more than halfway. Once that was accomplished, this portion of her program would be off and flying.

She did what she could to make it happen.

Rather than ask what the audience could do to protect themselves against a potential stalker, Dakota had given her question a more personal ring by asking what he, Ian Russell, would do to protect a woman who came to him seeking help. As he cleared his throat, a hush fell over her normally boisterous audience. It was as if every woman there was hanging on his every word, probably envisioning herself as a damsel in distress being rescued by this modern-day Galahad.

Everyone loved this kind of fantasy. Dakota was counting on it.

Ian didn’t disappoint her.

Even though his response was mostly technical, it was enough to arouse the imaginations of the women in the audience. Randy was quick to chime in, augmenting points here and there, adding layers to the audience’s daydream. And it didn’t hurt any to have the two men casually mention successfully foiling a kidnapping attempt of one of their clients.

As she listened, the details had a very familiar ring. Her eyes widened.

“That was Rebecca Anderson,” Dakota suddenly realized out loud. Six months ago the story about the A-list actress and her would-be kidnapper had made all the major papers, not to mention the rounds of evening tabloid TV. “You two were responsible for saving her?” How could she have missed something like that? Dakota upbraided herself silently.

“Actually, Ian was.” Randy looked at his partner with the kind of pride that only the closest camaraderie bred.

Well, that explained why she didn’t know, Dakota thought. The man probably vanished at the first sign of a reporter, like any superhero caught slipping into his secret identity.

Dakota looked at the man on the sofa, no small amount of admiration flooding through her veins. She recalled that the kidnapper had been a burly, giant of a man who must have had seventy pounds and five inches on Ian. The lightest thing about the stalker had been his mind, which had clearly taken a holiday when it came to the subject of the glamorous Rebecca Anderson. When the police took him away, he was screaming that Rebecca was his wife, that she’d promised undying love to him and he was going to see to it that she never looked at another man ever again.

Dakota leaned into Ian and asked in a stage whisper, “Want to talk about it some more?”

If there was a man who was less uncomfortable than Ian Russell at this moment, she would gladly have paid for his passage to oblivion.

“No,” Ian replied.

“Okay then, it’s time for questions and answers,” she glibly informed her audience.

The moment the words were out of her mouth, a veritable sea of hands shot up, all waving madly to catch her attention. Dakota didn’t recall ever having seen so many hands raised as she did this afternoon. Delighted, she got started, selecting women at random.

Ten minutes later there was no indication that the questions were going to abate in the near future. Addressing questions to both men, the audience was leaning sixty-forty toward Ian.

Dakota briefly debated terminating the segment, then decided to go for it and let it continue. When you had a hit on your hands, you just kept going. Wasn’t that something her grandfather had once taught her? So, Dakota “just kept going.”

It was evident to her that the last-minute interview would go down as one of her best. There was no doubt in her mind that the segment was an unqualified hit.

As it ran over its allotted time slot, Dakota made a quick decision to ask Joe Lansing, their musical guest, to return the next day in order to showcase his new CD. A twenty-year veteran of the business, Lansing was far too much of a professional not to know that when you found yourself holding lightning in a bottle, you didn’t set it down.

Other than pointing to various waving hands, Dakota mostly kept her silence, letting Randy and, on occasion, Ian answer the questions. Her audience appeared to be in seventh heaven. Which placed her there as well.

She’d never had an hour slip by so effortlessly, so quickly.

Even as the strains of her theme song began to weave themselves through the air, the audience gave no sign of being sated.

But all good things had to end, and her program would be over in less time than it took to say it. Time to wind things up.

She rose from her seat, immediately followed by the two men.

“All right, ladies, Ian and Randy have to get back to doing what they do best.” She beamed at the two men. Randy was grinning from ear to ear while Ian looked just the slightest bit befuddled. Funny, she wouldn’t have thought anything could have accomplished that. The man seemed far too on top of things for that to have happened. “Maybe we can persuade you two to come back sometime.”

Before either could answer, the audience cheered and chimed a resounding “Yes” in response.

Dakota laughed. “I guess that settles it, then.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw the director signal her. She gave a slight inclination of her head then looked toward the main camera. “This is Dakota Delany, thanking you for tuning in. Come by tomorrow so that I can get in another word edgewise.”

She winked, knowing that the camera was fading to the credits.

“And it’s a wrap,” the director declared, crossing to them.

Dakota looked to the wings where her own security people had converged. “Looks like the bodyguards just might need bodyguards to make their way off the stage,” she quipped.

“We finally through?” Ian asked. He didn’t bother hiding the impatient edge that had slipped into his voice. When she nodded, she suddenly felt him place his arm about her waist and abruptly guide her toward the rear. She half expected him to keep on moving once they reached backstage, but then his arm slipped away. An odd sort of regret filtered through her but she dismissed it in the next moment.

Behind her she could have sworn that she heard some of the audience audibly sighing. She became aware that Ian was watching her with more than a hint of an accusation in his eyes. Obviously this hadn’t been as good an experience for him as it had been for Randy or the audience.

“I thought your assistant said the segment was only going to be twenty minutes long.”

Dakota raised one shoulder, letting it drop casually. “Ordinarily it is. On the average, we fit in three guests every hour. But you two were an unqualified hit.” She grinned at both of them, but only Randy responded. “In the four years I’ve been doing this, I’ve never seen an audience take to guests the way they did to you two.”

Randy’s eyes were all but gleaming. With a barely concealed whoop, he looked at Ian. “Business is going to be booming,” he predicted.

Dakota nodded. “I’m sure it will be. You might even have to hire extra people.”

Ian shook his head. “I really doubt if any of those women in the audience are going to need a bodyguard in the near future.”

Her eyes met his. “You never know. As you pointed out, it’s not just celebrities who have stalkers. Regular people are plagued by them, as well.”

MacKenzie sailed up to join them, her feet barely touching the floor. She’d witnessed the show inside the production booth, having full advantage of all the cameras trained on the set.

“That was wonderful,” she enthused. She grabbed hold of Dakota’s hands. “Could you just feel all that energy out there?”

“Feel it?” Dakota laughed. “A couple of times I thought it was going to swallow us up.”

As far as Dakota was concerned, this was almost the best part of the show—the aftermath when, if the show was a particularly successful one, the energy level surged almost through the roof. She felt far too charged to retreat into her dressing room to go over the next day’s show.

She glanced at Randy and saw that the man was making more than a little eye contact with her production assistant. Maybe this could use a little nurturing. She tried to remember the last time MacKenzie had mentioned going out with someone. Nothing came to mind. Her friend needed to get out.

“Listen,” she said suddenly, placing her hand on Randy’s wrist to get his attention, “do you two have to rush off just yet?”

Randy avoided looking in Ian’s direction, as if he knew a contradiction was in the offing. “Not particularly.”

“Good.” Dakota’s smile took in both men and her best friend. “Why don’t the two of you join Mac and me for a drink—or whatever?”

One dark eyebrow rose in a quizzical crescent. “Whatever?” Ian echoed.

Dakota played back her own words. Oh God, did he think she was propositioning him? Her voice as smooth as silk, she was quick to clarify the potential misunderstanding. “Early dinner, late lunch, whatever you feel like having.”

Ian shifted his weight. The backstage area was quickly filling up with people whose jobs he couldn’t begin to guess at. That created a very small space for the four of them to occupy.

Most especially, for the two of them, he thought darkly. The bubbly woman could have been his shadow, or at least an extension of him, she was standing so close. Close enough for him to feel her breathing. Close enough for the scent she was wearing to infiltrate his senses. Consequently, when she ended her offer by saying “whatever you feel like having” he found himself thinking that he felt like having her.

The thought surprised him. He took a second to get his bearings and himself under control. He was a great believer in instinct, and right now instinct told him that Dakota Delany was the type that if you gave her an inch, she found a way to turn it into a town.

There was no way he was about to get socially mixed up with someone like that. Or anyone else for that matter. He was still one of the walking wounded as far as romance was concerned. He’d learned the hard way that he wasn’t cut out for relationships. There were ways of satisfying sexual urges without getting sucked into a situation that required talking afterwards, or even interaction—both of which he preferred to avoid if at all possible. With everyone.

The best way was to beg off at the very beginning. “No, I don’t—”

He felt Randy’s hand suddenly on his shoulder. “We’d love it,” Randy declared firmly. “Wouldn’t we, Ian?”

Trapped, Ian shrugged dismissively. “Yeah, love it,” he echoed.

Dakota noticed how the look on Ian’s face was akin to thunderclouds descending over the plains. But she felt too good to allow him to dampen her mood. On a whim, she decided to bring him around, just as she had on the show.

“Well, that was certainly a resounding positive vote.” She laughed as she threaded her arm through Ian’s, beginning to forge a path for them. “C’mon, I know a great place to go. We can walk there.”

A slight din began to come from the front of the stage. It seemed that security hadn’t managed to clear away their audience just yet.

MacKenzie fell quickly in behind Dakota. “I suggest walking fast,” she told the group, “before the audience decides to make a break for it and cut us off.”

The people around them parted, but only enough to allow them to wiggle through. Acutely aware that his arm was still in Dakota’s possession, Ian glanced over his shoulder toward the stage as they made their way out.

“I had no idea women could be that, um—” He paused, searching for a word that wouldn’t ultimately be offensive, then finally settled on “pushy.”

Dakota caught her tongue between her teeth to keep from laughing. So, despite his somewhat gruff demeanor, the man could be innocent, as well. She had to admit she found it rather refreshing.

“You’d be surprised,” she said before turning back to the task of getting them out of the studio.

He was trying not to be, Ian thought, attempting not to notice the way her hips swayed as she pulled out in front of him. He was definitely trying not to be.

Heaven, Dakota’s restaurant of choice that night, was located only three blocks from the studio where her program was taped. In the last four years Heaven had become a home away from home to her. Certainly the food there was better than anything that could be found in her own kitchen.

Today, as always, Heaven was fairly humming with patrons, both regulars and first-timers. An elegantly decorated restaurant, its walls were lined with photographs of celebrities who frequented the premises. As on any other day, several could be spotted seated at the scattered tables and booths, enjoying the fare.

It was damn crowded, Ian noted. The line they’d just circumvented was clear out the door. He didn’t take Dakota for the type to cut in front of people, which meant that he was off the hook. “I guess we came at the wrong time,” he said to Dakota.

About to retreat, he found his path impeded by the effervescent woman.

“Not so fast,” she told him as she turned to the maître d’. Dakota greeted the man and subsequently was embraced in what amounted to a Russian bear hug.

Ian sighed. Looked as if he’d failed to factor in the magic of star power.

The tall, mustached man in the dark suit smiled broadly as he released Dakota. “For you? How could there not be a table for you, my friend? Always, always there will be a place for you and your friends anywhere I will be,” he swore, dramatically hitting his chest with his fist.

Dakota inclined her head with a smile. “Thank you, Dimitri.”

The aristocratic man looked around for a waiter. Spying one, he was quick to dispatch the man into the center of the dining area. Within two minutes Dakota and the others were ushered to a booth that was off to the side.

The tables around them were filled to capacity with people who clearly enjoyed themselves and their meals. It seemed rather improbable to Ian that this plum location had gone begging all this time. He looked at Dakota as the waiter distributed elegant black menus with gold lettering. “He kill the people who were sitting here?”

“You always view everything so darkly?” Dakota asked.

He shrugged absently. “Just seems surprising that with all these people in here and that line at the door, that this booth would go empty and unnoticed.”

“It doesn’t, exactly.” She paused to order a bottle of wine for the table, then looked back at Ian. “Dimitri keeps it reserved for me.”

That didn’t seem like a sound business move, unless there was something going on between her and the silver-haired man. The embrace had seemed particularly warm and friendly.

“What else does he keep reserved for you?”

“The best wine in the house,” she answered glibly, nodding at the departing waiter. She deliberately took no offense, sensing he didn’t mean it as an insult but more of a probe.

Ian’s gray eyes held hers. He had no idea what prompted him to ask, “What do you do in exchange for all this service?”

Randy leaned in, an apologetic expression on his lean face. “You’ll have to excuse my partner. He left his brain in his other skull.”

Dakota took it all in stride. “Along with his manners, I guess. Glad they lasted the length of the show.”

She should have left it there, she told herself. After all, the man had no right to infer anything. But she wanted to set the record straight.

“And to answer your question, this is Dimitri’s way of showing his gratitude. This place is his first restaurant in this country. I had him on my very first show and sent a little business his way as he was starting out. His excellent menu and fantastic culinary skill—until recently, he was the head chef, as well—did the rest. But he still chooses to be grateful, and I do like the food here.” Finished, she gave him an inquiring look. “Any other questions?”

Ian laughed shortly. He supposed he had that coming. He had no idea why he’d pushed the issue, only that an uncustomary flare of temper had surfaced when he saw the way the older man had held on to Dakota for a beat too long. There was no reason why he should have cared, even if the two were lovers.

“I guess that puts me in my place. Sorry.”

Randy almost choked on the water he’d just sipped. Regaining control, he stared at Ian. “Oh God, this is a monumental moment. Russell never apologizes.”

Ian opened the menu, hoping to return to business as usual. The selections ran down two long columns. “Because I’m usually not wrong.”

Randy grinned. “He’s also been known to walk on water on occasion.”

MacKenzie’s eyes shifted to the other man. “Now that I’d like to book for the show.”

Ian didn’t even glance up. “Sorry, only private showings.”

Dakota laughed. Her eyes fairly gleamed with delight as she looked at him. “Hey, you do have a sense of humor.”

“Sometimes,” he muttered, wishing his partner would start to use his gift of gab and bail him out of this.

As if sensing Ian’s thoughts and taking pity on him, Randy picked up the menu and looked down the long columns. “So, what’s good here?”

“I can honestly say everything,” Dakota told him. MacKenzie nodded her assent. “I’ve sampled every item at one time or another and couldn’t tell you which was his best.”

Ian glanced over the top of his menu. His eyes slowly slid down as much of her trim torso as was visible to him. Women didn’t generally admit to having a healthy appetite, so he believed her. “How do you keep the weight off?”

Dakota thought for a moment. Weight had never been a problem for her. “Regular exercise, I suppose.” Or as regular as she could get it, given her hectic schedule.

“Having the metabolism of a hummingbird doesn’t hurt, either,” MacKenzie chimed in.

Dakota laughed. “You should talk.” If she were into envying people, MacKenzie would be at the top of her list. The smaller woman could eat from morning until night and never show any of it. “She eats ice cream as if it was going out of style and never gains so much as a lousy ounce.”

Ian smiled politely at both women. He was here to have a drink and a late lunch, nothing more. He’d managed to keep a distance between himself and the people he worked for. Doing the same with Dakota Delany shouldn’t be difficult.

Shouldn’t be, a small voice in his mind echoed for reinforcement.

The small voice somehow rang false.

Ian closed his menu as the food server came their way to take their order. He glanced at the glass of wine standing by his plate. He’d never really cared for wine. “They have beer here?”

Dakota grinned. “More kinds than you could possibly imagine.”

Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad after all, he thought. He raised his eyes to Dakota’s.

Then again…

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