by Sara Orwig
She prayed they caught Meskell soon.
Jake stood staring at her, his gaze going to her hips, drifting over her legs. The past few minutes had shaken him. He’d never had difficulty keeping business separate from pleasure. He was here to protect her and her family. He didn’t even want to be here, he’d rather be out looking for Meskell. He didn’t want to be attracted to the beautiful Mrs. Bolen. She wasn’t even his type. Any woman who hadn’t dated for years would definitely be in earnest when she started. He picked up his tools and left the room.
He walked outside into the sunshine, his thoughts still on her and the startling reaction he’d had to her. And he suspected she was equally surprised. What was it about her that made him so intensely aware of her? It couldn’t be sympathy for her. She was too snappy to inspire sympathy. She wasn’t deliberately flirting with him—far from it. She looked as if the whole matter were chilling including his staying with them. Yet there had been sparks between them; his erratic pulse testified to that. That and his wayward thoughts. He had to fight the images of her in his arms, in his bed, that kept flashing through his mind. And the curiosity that made him wonder what it would be like to kiss her.
He groaned, striding to his car to retrieve his briefcase, hurrying back to the house. “Forget her, Delancy. She’s business. Anything beyond business would be pure trouble.”
Inside, Rebecca checked on the golden chicken breasts baking in the oven. She called the girls, and explained what the plans were for the evening. While they ate, she went to dress and shower. She had long ago decided on her green linen dress for the banquet.
She gathered lacy underclothes to take to the bathroom. Remembering Jake, she hunted in vain for a robe, finally finding one of Dan’s old blue chambray shirts. It would have to do for a robe. When she stepped across the narrow hallway into the bath, she heard the detective talking to the girls in the kitchen. He was good with kids; too bad he couldn’t stay with them for the evening and make himself useful.
As soon as she finished showering, she wrapped her hair in a towel and put on her underclothes and the faded chambray shirt. She opened the door and collided with Detective Delancy.
He caught her, his hands going to her waist again, sending another electrifying jolt through her. She responded to him like a sun-drenched plant in a spring rain.
“Sorry! We seem to have a knack for collision,” he drawled, and she felt her cheeks burn, wondering if he thought she was deliberately running into him.
She was aware of his hands on her, of his nearness, of her skimpy clothing. “I thought you were in the kitchen. I heard you talking to the girls.”
“I was, but they've finished eating now,” he said. His hands stayed on her waist, and he stood only inches from her. Her toes touched his shoe and she slid her foot away.
“I told you it would be crowded,” she said, pulling the collar of the shirt closed. His gaze dropped down to the collar, and then lower, and she responded, her nipples becoming taut, a tingling racing through her. The shirt was old, not transparent, but soft, clingy, and too revealing, and she was certain he could see her body’s response to his gaze. “You can have the bathroom now.”
“I don’t want it, thanks,” he said in a deep voice, his hazel eyes raising to look at her, and as silence stretched between them, she felt her heart thud.
“I should dress,” she finally managed to say, and hurried past him, feeling as if she had just brushed too close to a raging fire. She closed the door to the bedroom and stared across the room at her reflection in a mirror, but she was seeing Jake, his hazel eyes probing her as if he were peering through a microscope. She didn’t want to respond to him, not in a sexual way—not in any way!
She thought of Dan then, unexpectedly. She moved across the room to pick up their wedding picture. “Dan,” she whispered, missing him, feeling such an enormous void within her. They had been a close-knit, happy family. He had been wonderful with the girls, so full of life and zest and cheer.
“I miss you,” she whispered, setting the picture back in place and wiping away the tears that had sprung to her eyes. It still hurt so badly, and now Jake was a constant reminder of what it had been like to have a strong man in their lives.
She took a deep breath, still feeling the imprint of Jake’s hands on her waist. Why did he get her so rattled? If she reacted this strongly to him after only a few hours, what would it be like when he had been there for days?
She dressed, her thoughts swirling. When she was ready, she took a deep breath, opened the bedroom door and headed toward the living room.
Chapter 4
Jake sat reading the paper while the girls played with cards on the floor.
“Is everyone ready?” Rebecca asked from the hallway. He glanced up as she entered the room and for a moment he felt as if all the breath had been punched from his body. Looking as if it were streaked with sunlight, her hair was a cascade of gold framing her face, falling softly over her shoulders. Her luminous blue eyes were highlighted by a faint touch of shadow that made them seem a deeper blue. The short green dress clung to her figure, and he realized his imagination had never come close to doing justice to the pair of legs beneath the jeans. Long, shapely legs, high-heeled green pumps.
His gaze slowly returned to her face and he stood, his pulse thudding. The woman was drop-dead gorgeous. He knew he was staring, and he couldn’t stop. You're here to protect her, not date her, his conscience shouted.
“Are you ready?” she asked the girls, and they scrambled up, Tara gathering the cards.
“I won, Mr. Delancy,” she said happily to him.
“You sure did,” he answered without taking his attention from her. She didn’t even seem aware that he was staring. If there were no men in her life, it had to be her choice.
The girls ran from the room. “We'll get our things,” Tara called as Rebecca opened her purse and withdrew her small notebook to flip it open. While he still stared, she made notes with a tiny silver pen. The dress had a square neckline that was low enough to stir his imagination, but too high to reveal anything except her collarbones. I'm losing it, he thought to himself. I'm fantasizing about the woman’s collarbones!
“You look gorgeous,” he said in a husky voice.
“Thank you,” she answered briskly, but for one brief moment, she flashed her big blue eyes at him and she looked startled and pleased before she went back to scribbling in her notebook. And he noticed a faint flush in her cheeks that hadn’t been there before his remark. The dress had a tiny row of pearl buttons down the front, and he wondered how long it would take to get them unfastened. As she moved closer to him, he caught a scent of lilacs.
“Here,” she said, handing him the slip of paper. “This is tomorrow’s schedule.”
He was not interested in her schedule. Her skin was smooth and flawless; her full lips were enticing.
“You can have the bathroom first before seven,” she was saying. “I don’t think it will be possible for you to sleep later than that, anyway. Then I'll get in the bathroom so I can start breakfast. We'll breakfast from seven to eight. The girls will be up and need to bathe for church.”
As she continued down the list, he realized what she was saying. “No.”
When she looked at him, he shook his head. “Sorry, but church is out. Too dangerous. I agreed to the banquet—that’s a one-time special deal for you. Sundays you'll stay home until Meskell is caught.”
She opened her mouth as if to protest, and then she crossed out church. “At nine, I'll go to Austin to my shop.”
“This would delight Meskell,” Jake said dryly.
“Excuse me?”
“A schedule. Do you follow a routine every day?”
“Yes. Sunday is the different day, because of church. Weekdays, I go to work at eight.”
“If you have a regular routine, do you know how easy it is for him to decide when and where he'll try to get you?”
Realizing he had a point, Rebecca stared
at the paper. “This place is so small. If we don’t schedule everything we do, we'll have chaos.”
Warm fingers took the paper she was scribbling on from her and crumpled it, along with the schedule she had handed him. “Live on the wild side tomorrow,” Jake stated quietly. “Let the day unfold. You'll see. We'll all get to use the bathroom and we'll all get dressed and Meskell won’t know what to expect from you.”
“You haven’t been here twenty-four hours, yet you've changed everything we do,” she said. Looking up at him, she felt lost in the depths of his green-gold eyes, a feeling she did not welcome and a reaction that perplexed her. His eyes were thickly lashed, adding to his sexy appeal, yet there was a sharpness to his gaze that made her feel he could see far too much.
“It’s for your own good. Give it a try.”
“I’d feel better with a schedule.”
“That schedule of yours is damn dangerous.”
She wanted to protest, to stop him from changing her life, but she knew she should go along with him. “All right, I'll go to the shop at nine.”
“Rebecca,” he drawled softly, and the word seemed to ripple over her like a feathery caress, even more than the first time he had called her by her given name. “You're not going to the shop tomorrow. I'll move things out here. You can tell me what you need and where to find it.”
“I'll have to get my tools!”
Jake shook his head, fighting the urge to touch a silky curl that lay on her shoulder. “No, you don’t. If we have to make twenty trips back and forth, the department will get your things moved here without you jeopardizing yourself by going to town.”
He succumbed to temptation slightly and tapped her wrist, feeling the slender bone beneath his fingers. “Things will fall into place tomorrow. You might be surprised how much you like the change of pace,” he drawled, and saw a flicker in the depths of her blue eyes and knew the moment her attention shifted from the schedule to the pull between them. “I'll bet the girls will like it, too.”
“You've already charmed them completely,” Rebecca said, aware he had been standing so close to her that their shoulders touched. He turned to look directly at her.
“But I haven’t you,” he remarked in that husky tone that set her nerves quivering.
“That isn’t why you're here,” she answered, and wished she sounded brisk instead of breathless, praying he couldn’t hear her heart pound. Why had she had to draw a detective with charisma and an imperious manner?
“I don’t usually annoy women,” he remarked dryly.
“You've had a charming moment or two, but most of the time you keep the charm extremely well hidden,” she remarked with a faint smile.
“Unfortunately, it better stay that way, for both our sakes,” he said quietly.
“We're ready,” the girls said behind her, and she turned with relief. She didn’t want to feel breathless around him, didn’t want to go all tingly and weak-kneed when he started studying her. This wild chemistry that was working between them—she knew he felt it, too. Maybe it was the tension of the situation that triggered it. And she knew he wasn’t any happier about it than she was.
“We'll go in my car,” Jake said. “I'll pull up as close as possible to the door,” he added. “Wait until I get out and come around to the door.”
As he closed the drapes and switched on a light, Rebecca wondered how much it would add to her electric bill. “I'll leave the window units on while we're gone, and then cut them off when we get back. They muffle a lot of sounds.”
Frowning, she nodded reluctantly. As she followed him down the hall, he pointed to each bedroom. “Go pull shades, or whatever you do.”
When she went to the kitchen, the shades were down and the stove light was burning. Jake was waiting at the back door.
He took Tara’s arm. “Hold your sister’s hand. You wait here, Rebecca.” He led the girls along the short gravel path to the car quickly, helped buckle Sissy into the seat while Tara quickly fastened her own seat belt, and then returned to take Rebecca’s arm.
She was aware of his height as he stood close to her, his arm going around her. “Keep your head down, and we'll run.”
She nodded and he stepped closer, draping his arm across her shoulders. Rebecca inhaled, feeling her breasts tighten. The slightest contact with him set her pulse racing. His arm across her shoulders felt too good.
“Let’s go,” he said, and they dashed to the plain black car with tinted windows. Jake almost shoved her into the seat, and slammed the door behind her. He sprinted back to the house to lock the door.
While she waited, she saw a uniformed man come from the direction of the barn, and for the first time she noticed the police car parked in front of the barn. Jake spoke to the policeman briefly and climbed into the car.
“That’s McCauley. He'll watch the house and grounds while we're gone. I'll introduce you next time.”
“I'm glad he’s there.”
“Where are we going?” Sissy asked.
“We're going to my brother’s house. His name is Zach, and his wife is Sally,” Jake answered patiently, checking the rearview mirror.
Watching the countryside flash past, seeing the hills dotted with wildflowers, Rebecca was quiet and thoughtful. “You look gorgeous,” he had said. Had he really meant it, or was he one of those men who gave out compliments as easily as they exhaled? She suspected he wasn’t, and she felt annoyed at herself for even wondering about it. She didn’t want to feel pleased by his compliments. He would disrupt their lives and then disappear, and she didn’t want to feel anything except relief when he was gone.
The girls finally settled in the back, talking to each other, Jake becoming quiet.
“Besides your brother, do you have other family here?” Rebecca asked, curious about him.
“Yes. Another brother lives in the area.”
“I was an only child. How many brothers do you have?” she persisted, aware he probably had a file of information about her. His terse orders and brief answers mildly annoyed her, and she was determined to know more about him.
“Three younger brothers.”
“That’s nice. One is in the FBI. What do the others do?”
“One works for a bank in Austin.”
“Are they married?”
“Oh, Lord, yes.”
“You don’t sound happy about it.”
“They all married too young.”
“Are they still married?”
“Yes. All married and employed.”
“That doesn’t sound so dreadful, if they're employed and happily married.”
When he arched his brows, she sensed his disapproval.
“They've had a tough time financially, and if they had just waited awhile, they would have been better off.”
Amused by his answer, she laughed.
“I don’t believe you've ever really been in love, Detective,” she said. His frown vanished, and his head turned. He focused on her with a speculative look.
“You think I don’t know anything about love,” Jake said, his voice dropping and sliding over her with a warmth that made her pulse jump. His gaze lowered to her mouth, and she couldn’t get her breath.
“You must think I'm cold and crusty as hell,” he said, still studying her. “And I suppose I better be, for this job.” He shifted his attention back to the road.
She kept quiet, not wanting to answer his accusation, but cold and crusty were not terms she’d use to describe him.
Jake drove across the northern edge of the city to take I-35 to Round Rock. Finally he drove into a housing area and turned into the driveway at his brother’s house. It was in a new addition, and the neighboring yards were filled with children playing.
The house had a high stockade fence surrounding the backyard that made Rebecca feel better about leaving the girls.
“Sally’s great with kids,” Jake said as he stepped out of the car.
So are you, Rebecca thought, watching him come around
the car.
A short woman with a big smile and a mop of red curls came outside to greet them and a man almost as tall as Jake appeared behind her. He had a ready grin, a smattering of freckles, hair not quite as dark as Jake’s, but the same sexy hazel eyes.
Rebecca had an immediate liking for Jake’s brother and sister-in-law who were warm and friendly, and in minutes the girls were happily playing. As Rebecca kissed them goodbye, Sissy barely looked up from the doll Sally had given her.
“They're wonderful with children,” Rebecca said when she and Jake were back in the car. “I can tell that in just a short time.”
“Yep, that they are. And they want their own, but so far, Sally hasn’t gotten pregnant. I keep telling them they have a lot of time,” he said.
As they drove away, Rebecca twisted in the seat to study him. “If I hadn’t seen you with the girls and how much they already like you, I’d think you don’t like children.”
“It isn’t that. None of my brothers can afford families yet. I helped put them all through college, and I'm still helping financially with my brother Bill. I just think they ought to wait.”
“Is that what you're doing—waiting?”
He turned to give her another speculative look, and instantly she regretted her question. “Never mind. We should keep things impersonal, and we'll get along better. I keep asking you very personal questions.”
“Damn straight we should keep things impersonal,” he answered with amusement. “I can do my job much better if we do. And yes, I am waiting. I'm not married, so there’s no question of starting a family. And I'm damn sure not ready to settle down. Not with my occupation.” He wondered if he was telling her all this or reminding himself what he should do.
“What did your folks think about you becoming a policeman?”
“My dad was a cop, and he was killed trying to stop an armed robbery,” Jake answered abruptly.
“Why in heaven’s name did you go into law enforcement if you lost a father that way?” Stunned to learn about his father, Rebecca was unable to comprehend why he chose such a life under the circumstances.