Sometimes simple was good. She’d certainly been too surprised to react.
Within ten minutes, Jason served her the best grilled cheese she’d ever eaten.
“These are really good.” She savored the mouthful of sandwich.
“They should be; they’re your recipe.”
“My recipe?”
“From the cooking show. They posted several of your favorite recipes on their website.”
She fought the light brushstroke of guilt. “Melissa sent those recipes in. She’s always getting me spots on local shows or press in magazines. It sells books.”
“Like that article in that dog magazine about you owning your mother’s dog?” He laughed. “I asked Chase about that one.”
“You read the dog magazine, too?” Sue frowned. She’d told her agent that somebody would find her out. But Melissa just kept saying, “It’s press. Readers don’t care if you can cook or if the dog isn’t yours.”
“You want more tea?” He grinned.
Realizing he was attempting to be nice, she got mad at Chase for lumping “Take care of Sue” into a list of chores for Jason that included cleaning up animal feces. That was when her anger once again became targeted toward Jason. Why hadn’t he called her four months ago?
Still unwilling to admit she cared, she internalized that bit of anger. Immediately, the dangers of internalizing anger became clear. Because it opened up the Pandora’s Box of angst. Angst at her ex, Collin. How could he take five years of total commitment and toss it aside? And her father. How could he die and leave her and her mother alone? If he had to die, why from something so common—why from the common cold? She leaned back on the sofa, emotionally drained.
Jason sat beside her. His hand sifted through her hair. “You want a blanket and pillow?”
She got a mental image of them together on the couch again. “No. I’m going to write.”
“Fine, but we need to go feed Lacy’s animals before too long.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “It’s broad daylight. My neighbors are home. I’m fine. And…and once you’re at Lacy’s…just stay. I don’t need you.”
He frowned. “Call the neighbors. If they’re home, I’ll run there and back.”
She sat up. “You can’t actually believe you’re going to stay here.”
“Until we catch this freak, I am.” He said it with such conviction that she might have laughed if she wasn’t an emotional wreck.
“And what about tomorrow?”
“What about it?” he asked.
“Now who’s being a dumb blond? Tomorrow is Monday. I think you work. You know, the thing you do five days a week so you can pay your rent? I think it involves driving around in a car, playing like you’re a macho guy, looking for people who sell drugs.”
He smiled. “I love the way you simplify my job.” His gaze settled on her lips. “I called and took off Monday and Tuesday. The first comp days I’ve taken in years. I’ve got four weeks of time saved up.”
Sue dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “You can’t…” She sat up again. “Why would you even want to? Look, I can understand you coming over when I called. And I can see that because Chase asked you to watch over me that you felt like you had to stay last night. But to take off work is…too much.”
His gaze acquired a serious glint. “Last night you mentioned you’d hire a bodyguard. Well, hire me. I’m cheap.”
“But…”
“No buts.” He leaned in, bringing his face so close she could count his eyelashes. “You need me.” He pressed his lips to hers. The kiss he’d given her in the bedroom earlier had happened so fast that she’d told herself he did it just to calm her—like someone slapping you, though in a nicer way. But right now she was calm. Calm and being kissed.
His tongue slipped inside her mouth. He tasted good: a little like coffee, a little like grilled cheese. But she had to stop him because…well, she didn’t know why. Not exactly why; but if she had any wits about her, she would put an end to this. And she was going to end it. In just a few more seconds.
He reached up and threaded his fingers through her hair. The kiss deepened. She pulled back and took a deep, mind-cleansing breath. Then she looked up at him.
“Are you doing this because you think I’m going to sleep with you?”
Appearing genuinely offended, he held up a hand. “No, I’m not doing this because I think you’re going to sleep with me. But…I wouldn’t be disappointed if we found some pleasurable way to pass the time. We’re adults. And I think—”
“I’m not sleeping with you.” She scooted over.
He arched an eyebrow. “Why not?”
“Because I’m not settling.” Nope. Her issue-dealing/settling days were long past. Her gaze shot to her dying house plant. Plus, she’d already discussed this with her ficus tree. “Nope, not settling.”
He ran a finger down her cheek. “Believe me, sweetheart. When I’m finished with you, you won’t feel as if you’ve settled.”
From that simple touch down her cheek, she knew he spoke the truth. Sex with him would be absolutely, totally, over-the-edge, purple-prose wonderful. Which was all the more reason she couldn’t do it.
She stood. “Won’t happen. Not in this lifetime.” But maybe in the next lifetime, a voice deep inside her begged. She ignored that voice.
“Fine.” He shot up and sounded frustrated but not mean, not accusing. “Don’t sleep with me. We both lose, because it would be good. Really good. But I’m still not leaving.”
“I’m on a deadline. I need to write.” Why was he still being nice?
“So write. I can help. You know, critique like that group of yours.”
“I only let people I trust read my unpublished work.” It came out harsh, and she hadn’t meant it to. Or maybe she had. Four months ago, she would have begged for a pinch of this niceness. But, oh no. He’d not given her the time of day, or a phone call.
He frowned. “Why wouldn’t you trust me? I like your work.”
As if he’d even read her books. “Don’t lie to me.”
“You think I’m lying?”
She ignored his question. Ignored that he sounded hurt. Ignored that she felt guilty for hurting him.
“And when I’m not writing, I’m not staying in the house behind lock and key. I have a life and I don’t plan to let some scumbag turn me into a prairie dog who’s scared of its own shadow.”
“You mean groundhog?” A smile pulled at his too-sexy mouth that had moments ago been busy kissing her.
“No. I meant prairie dog. Groundhog is a cliché. I don’t use cliché s.” She tried to not to use cliché s. “And I don’t like it when people interrupt me while I write. You’d have to entertain yourself.”
Oh, damn! Was she accepting his help? She remembered last night, feeling like a sitting duck. Okay, a sitting duck hiding in the kitchen pantry, a can of peas in one hand and a can of pork-n-beans in the other. She remembered how safe she’d felt when Jason held her. A lot safer than the canned vegetables had made her feel.
Logically, he’d already asked for the time off anyway.
“I’m only agreeing to it for a day or two.”
“Got it. No interrupting you. No sex—unless you change your mind. Which I maintain the right to try and change.”
“I don’t—”
He pressed a finger to her lips. “You can still say no and I’ll respect it.” When she didn’t continue her argument he continued his. “You don’t cook. I stay away from you while you work. I can’t read your unpublished work, though I think that one is unfair. And you tell me where you need to go and we’ll go. I got the rules down.”
“Good,” she said.“Because I have to take my grandfather to have his prostate checked in the morning, and I have a date tomorrow night.” She turned and started toward her study.
“Whoa!” Jason caught her arm. “That I do have a problem with.”
“Which one? The prostate check or my date?”
>
He ran a rough palm over his face. “Both. But mostly the date.”
“Why?” For some reason she wanted to believe he was jealous. “Why do you have a problem with my seeing Paul?”
“Because, like I said earlier, usually the bad guys in crimes like this turn out to be a boyfriend or husband.”
Okay, he wasn’t jealous. That stung a little. “But Paul hasn’t read the book. Remember?”
“He’s the boyfriend. Meaning he’s still a suspect,” Jason growled.
“Well, he’s about to move off the suspect list. I’m breaking up with him.” She bit down into her lip, not certain she’d wanted Jason to know that.
He hesitated, as if digesting that piece of information. “That includes ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands.” He studied her. “Why are you breaking up with him?”
“For the same reason I’m not sleeping with you. I’m not settling.”
“Exactly what do you mean by settling?”
She walked away, toward her office, feeling his gaze follow her. Why had she agreed to let him stay?
The answer bolted back. Because you’re scared.
But deep down she knew there were other reasons. Revenge came to mind. Yup, revenge was sweet. But there was more.
Stepping into her office, she shut the door with a solid thump, then unceremoniously dropped into her ergonomic office chair in front of her computer. The chair designed to prevent back aches and neck aches. It did little to help the pain in the butt that she’d left standing in her living room. If only that pain in the butt wasn’t so darn sexy. If only his touch didn’t set off other body parts aching. If only he’d called her four months ago.
She went for the Velcro again. Rip. Replace. Pat the pocket. Rip again.
Yup. She liked that noise.
Rip.
An icon on the bottom of her computer screen informed her she had e-mail. She clicked onto the envelope and…the screen turned red. Blood red.
Dots started swirling, making an image. Then a picture of a rat, a dead rat, and a poinsettia plant appeared before her. Then came the word Die.
“No!”
If that wasn’t bad enough, one of those little fatal error signs flashed across the dead rat image. Fatal error—as in, your computer is terminally ill. Fatal—as in, it has a cold from which it will never recover.
“No!” She tried to delete the message, but the computer froze. She hit more buttons. Nothing happened. Jumping up, she ran out the door and collided with Jason’s chest.
“What?” He caught her.
She pointed into her study. “Threatening to kill me is one thing. But no one messes with my computer!”
Reaching down, she fingered her pocket.
The Velcro was really going to rip now.
CHAPTER TEN
After having a tizzy in front of Jason, Sue pulled out her old laptop—“old” meaning no Internet—shut Jason out of her office, and started on Chapter Two.
Well, the first hour she spent staring holes at her dead desktop computer. Of course she had back-up disks, but the nerve of the rat-obsessed lunatic made her mad enough to kill. Unfortunately, the only living things in the house were Hitchcock, her ficus tree, and a cop. She loved her cat, the ficus tree was too sickly to make it feel like a fair fight, and killing the cop would get her fifty to life. But the last was still tempting.
She finally found escape in her story and got at least seven good pages written. She was ending a scene when a tap came at the door.
“Come in,” she called. As the door opened, she told herself she was prepared to face him.
Jason leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and crossed his bare feet at the ankles. “You okay?” His voice was husky, and his eyes were hooded as if he’d just awoken from a nap.
Six feet of sleepy bad-boy fantasy come to life.
Her heart hiccupped.
Her toes twitched.
Okay, so maybe she wasn’t prepared to face him.
Her gaze moved up and down all six feet of him. It should be a federal offense for a man to look so good while barefoot and dressed in a worn-yesterday pair of jeans and a T-shirt. No one was that perfect. So she looked harder, wanting to find his one flaw: the beginnings of a gut, a receding hairline, a hook nose, or perhaps beady eyes. Maybe he had a few extra toes.
Her gaze slipped back to his toes. She counted…all perfect ten of them.
Then her gaze rose up the denim-clad legs to the masculine package behind the fly, past the lean hips to the wide chest.
“Did I spill something on myself, or are you just enjoying the view?” Both a smile and masculine pride sounded in his voice.
Sue recognized that his words were similar to those she’d thrown at him this morning. She immediately went to work seeking a good excuse for staring at him like a yummy piece of chocolate.
Eureka. “You’ve got enough cat hair on you to weave sweaters for Houston’s homeless.”
He brushed off his shirt. “I fell asleep, and your cat parked his furry butt on my chest.”
Sue recalled waking up to find herself parked on his chest this morning. She couldn’t blame her cat. Jason’s chest was so…parkable.
“There’s a lint brush below the sink.” She looked back at her laptop screen, away from temptation.
“Did you get some work done?” The husky quality of his voice breezed over her nerve endings.
She finished her last sentence—with three typos. The man could be the death of her writing career. “I got some done.”
“Good. We should head over to Lacy’s to feed the animals. And we need to make a run by my place. I thought we could get some dinner while we’re out, too. I’m starving.” He moved closer.
Had she really agreed to let him stay here? Yup, but for good reason. Someone wanted her dead. Maybe after some thought she would hire herself an ugly bodyguard, someone with a paunch, a big nose—someone who wasn’t six-feet-plus of pure, unadulterated temptation.
“There’re some granola bars in the pantry. I need to just tweak this,” she said, still not looking at him.
“You look tense.” He stepped behind her, pushing his hands between her and the chair, massaging her shoulders. With firm strokes, he rubbed the knotted muscles around her neck. “Why don’t you take a break?”
His hands were magic, kneading with just the right amount of pressure. She bit her tongue to keep from purring. But even as the tightness eased in her shoulders, tension started pulling low in her belly—an ache that she knew he could make go away as well.
Reaching back, she grabbed his wrist to stop him. “Give me a minute.” She felt him lean down behind her, felt the stubble of his beard against her cheek. How long had it been since she’d enjoyed the feel of a five o’clock shadow? Too long.
He brushed his lips against her temple. “Be thinking about what you want to eat.” He rose up, got to the door, then turned back around. “Oh, yeah, I need a copy of your new book.”
Her mind, stuck on how little things like beard stubble could be missed, took a while to compute his words. “I…don’t have a copy yet. Just a disk. They misspelled my name on the first cover and had to have them redone.”
“Then bring the disk, and I’ll print it out at my house.”
She watched him walk out, the backside of him just as nicely shaped as the front. Oh, Lordie, she had it bad. She dropped her head down on her desk and gave it one good thud.
Then she remembered. Just because he was perfect on the outside didn’t make him perfect on the inside. The man had issues. She tried to remember everything she knew about him, surprised at how little she did know.
Rising up, she recalled Chase saying something about Jason’s mother living in Houston. Yet she’d never heard Jason speak of her. From bits and pieces of dialogue over the last year, she’d learned he’d never been married. Most importantly, she knew she had nail polish that lasted longer than some of his relationships. The man had brought one girl to Lacy’s wedding showe
r and, two weeks later, he’d brought a different one to the wedding.
Oh, yeah, definite signs of issues.
And that’s when Sue knew what she had to do. She’d spend the next two days getting under and past Jason’s façade of perfect physical compatibility with her. Discovering his issues would temper the attraction. Then she might be able to stand to be in the same room with him. They could go back to the way things were before the kiss, to when the attraction had only been mildly irritating instead of mind-blowingly infuriating.
Armed with a plan and a surge of confidence, she stood. She glanced back at the unplugged computer. Fear settled in the pit of her stomach. She walked into her living room. But when she saw the big blond cop opening a granola bar, her fear took a hike. In her head, she heard him: Someone is trying to hurt you, and I’m not going to let that happen. She believed him. He wouldn’t.
He saw her. His sexy-as-sin smile appeared in his eyes and she remembered something else he’d said. No sex, unless you change your mind. Which I maintain the right to try and change.
Jason Dodd would protect her from the stalker, but who was going to protect her from Jason Dodd?
Jason ate another granola bar while Sue freshened up. He’d made some calls while she worked. The phone company would put a trace on Sue’s phone calls, though it would be tomorrow before they got it set up, and Bob, the go-to police computer forensic guy, who was off fishing in Galveston for the day, would be here at eight tomorrow morning to take Sue’s computer in for analysis. Jason wanted to know if the jerk who’d sent the e-mail had also hacked into Sue’s files. If so, the stalker wouldn’t necessarily have to be someone Sue knew or someone who had personally been given an early copy of the book. It could be anyone, which meant finding him would be that much harder.
Jason had been forced to call in a few favors to get her hard drive looked at ASAP, but after years of collecting IOUs it wasn’t a problem. He’d probably have a harder time convincing Sue to let Bob take her computer. Earlier she’d said something about taking the computer to her computer guru. After seeing Sue’s antique laptop that she’d pulled out earlier, and hearing her complain about it not having Internet, Jason hoped loaning her his own laptop would appease her. And he’d have Bob fix her computer while studying the data.
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