“I’ll take that.” She snatched the bra out of his hand. “Why don’t you wade through this stuff and go into the living room. Since we haven’t heard a peep out of Butty-boo, he’s obviously—”
“Butty-boo?”
“That’s what Inga called him, among other, similarly nauseating names. He must be hiding.” She started down the hall. “You check the living room. I’ll check the bedroom.”
She found the shih tzu stretched out in regal abandon on her bed. He’d made a nest of the handwoven Zuni blanket she used as a spread. His black-and-white fur blended in with the striking pattern on the blanket, and she might have missed him completely if he hadn’t lifted his head at her entrance and given a lazy, halfhearted bark.
“That’s it?” Sheryl demanded indignantly. “Two people walk into the house who could be burglars for all you know, and that’s the best you can do? One little yip?”
In answer, Button yawned and plopped his head back down.
“Had a hard day, did you?”
Disgusted, she used one foot to right the overturned straw basket she used as a clothes hamper.
“Well, so did I, and I’m telling you here and now that I’d better not come home to any more messes like this one.”
With that totally useless warning, Sheryl dumped her laundry in the basket and steeled herself to check the bathroom. To her surprise and considerable relief, Button had used the newspapers she’d spread across the tiles. She hoped that meant he hadn’t also used the living-room carpet.
She took a few moments to swipe a little powder on her shiny nose and tuck some stray tendrils of hair back behind her ear, then headed for the living room. Button’s black eyes followed her across the room. With another yawn and an elaborate stretch, he climbed out of his nest, leaped down from the bed and padded after her.
Sheryl had taken only a step or two into the living room when the dog gave a shrill bark that seemed to pierce right through her eardrums. Like a small, furry cannonball, Button launched himself across the mauve carpet at the figure jimmying the locks on the sliding-glass patio doors.
This time, Harry met the attack head-on. Jerking around, he growled at the oncoming canine.
“Take another bite out of my leg and you’re history, pal!”
The shih tzu halted a few paces away, every hair bristling.
His target bristled a bit himself. “If it were up to me, you’d be chowing down at the pound right now, so back off. Back off, I said!”
Button didn’t take kindly to ultimatums. His black lips drew back even farther. Bug eyes showed red with suppressed fury. The growls that came from deep in his throat grew even more menacing. Guessing that the standoff might break at any second, Sheryl hurried forward and scooped the dog into her arms.
“This is Harry, remember? He’s one of the good guys. Well, not a good guy to you, since he sent your mistress off in handcuffs, but he’s okay. Really.”
Murmuring reassurances, she stroked the small, quivering bundle of fur.
“Helluva watchdog,” the marshal muttered in disgust. “What was he doing back there, anyway? Trying on the rest of your underwear?”
Despite the fact that she herself didn’t feel particularly benevolent toward the animal, Sheryl didn’t have the heart to expose him to more criticism. Harry didn’t need to know that Button had sprawled in indolent indifference while persons unknown had entered her apartment. Besides, the dog had leaped to the attack quickly enough once roused. Deciding to treat the marshal’s question as rhetorical, she didn’t bother to answer.
“How are the locks?”
“The dead bolt on the front door is sturdy enough. These patio doors are another story. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get some security people up here to install a drop bar and kick lock, as well as a rudimentary alarm system. I’ll have them wire your car while they’re at it. They can be here in an hour or so.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight.”
Sheryl’s fingers curled into the dog’s silky topknot. The fear that had gripped her for a few paralyzing moments in the parking lot reached out long tentacles once more. She shivered.
Harry’s keen glance caught the small movement: He gave a smothered oath. “My paranoia’s working overtime. The alarm probably isn’t necessary, but I’d feel better with it in.”
“Probably?” she repeated hollowly.
Harry cursed again and closed the short distance between them. Button issued a warning growl, which the marshal ignored. Lifting a hand, he smoothed an errant curl back from her cheek.
“I’m sorry, Sher. I didn’t mean to scare you again.”
The touch of his palm against her cheek startled Sheryl so much that she barely noticed his use of her nickname. She did, however, notice the tiny bits of gold warming his brown eyes. And the way his mustache thickened slightly at the corners, as if to disguise the small, curving laugh lines that appeared whenever his mouth kicked into one of his half-rogue, all-male grins.
The way it did now.
Except this grin was more rueful than roguish. It matched the look in his eyes, Sheryl thought, as his hand slid slowly from her cheek to curl back of her neck.
She shivered once more, but this time it wasn’t from fear. This time, she realized with something close to dismay, it was from delight. Caught on a confusing cross of sensations, she could only stand and watch the way Harry’s grin tipped from rueful into a smile that trapped her breath in the back of her throat.
He shouldn’t do this! Harry’s mind shouted the warning, even as his fingers got lost in the silky softness of her hair. He knew better than to mix business with personal desire. But suddenly, without the least warning, desire had grabbed hold of him and wouldn’t let go.
She felt so soft. Smelled so intoxicating, a mixture of hot sun and powdery talcum, with a little shih tzu thrown in for leavening. She was also scared, Harry reminded himself savagely. Off balance from all that had happened in the past few days. Almost engaged.
Another man might have drawn back at that sobering thought. Someone else might have respected the territory this Brian character had tentatively staked out. Instead of deterring Harry, the very nebulousness of the other man’s claim angered him. Any jerk who kept a woman like Sheryl dangling in some twilight never-never land didn’t deserve her.
So when she didn’t draw back, when her lips opened on a sigh instead of a protest, Harry bent his head and brushed them with his own. She tasted so fresh, so irresistible, that he brought his mouth back for another sample.
The kiss started out slow and soft and friendly. Within seconds, it powered up to fast and hard and well beyond friendship. A dozen different sensations exploded in Harry’s chest and belly. The urge to pull Sheryl into his arms, to feel every inch of her against his length, clawed at him. He started to do just that when another, sharper sensation bit into his lower right arm.
“Dammit!”
He jumped back, almost yanking the stubby little monster locked onto his jacket sleeve out of Sheryl’s arms. She caught the dog just in time and held on to it by its rear legs. It hung there between them, a growling, snarling mop with one end firmly attached to Harry’s sleeve and the other to the woman who held him.
“You misbegotten, mangy little...”
“He was just trying to protect me,” Sheryl got out on a gasp. “I think.”
Harry thought differently, but he was too busy working his fingers onto either side of the dog’s muzzle to say so at that moment. Exerting just enough pressure to spring those tiny, steel jaws open, he pulled his coat sleeve free. He then reached over and extracted the animal from Sheryl’s unresisting arms.
Two long strides took him back to the sliding doors. A moment later, the glass panel slammed shut. Buggy black eyes glared at him from the outside. Ignoring the glare and the bad-tempered yips that accompanied it, Harry turned back to Sheryl.
His fierce, driving need to sweep her into his arms once more took a direct hit when he caugh
t her expression. It held a combination of regret and guilt...and not the least hint of any invitation to continue.
Chapter 6
“I’m sorry.”
The apology came out with a gruffer edge than Harry had intended, for the simple reason that he couldn’t think of anything he felt less sorry about than taking Sheryl into his arms. Yet that kiss ranked right up there among the dumbest things he’d ever done.
That said something, considering that he’d pulled some real boners in his life. Two in particular he’d always regret. The first was succumbing to a bad case of lust and marrying too young, much too young to figure out how to get his struggling marriage through the stress of his job. The second occurred years later, when he decided to take a few long-overdue days off to go fishing in Canada. That fateful weekend his best buddy was gunned down. By the time Harry had returned and taken charge of the operation to track down Dean’s killers, the trail had gone stone cold.
Now it had finally heated up, and he couldn’t allow himself to get sidetracked by a moss-eyed blonde who raised his blood pressure a half-dozen points every time she glanced his way. Nor, he reminded himself with deliberate ruthlessness, could he afford to confuse her by coming on to her like this. He needed her calm and rational and able to concentrate on the task she’d been detailed to do. She still had information Harry wanted to pull out of her.
“That was out of line,” he admitted, less gruffly, more firmly. “It won’t happen again.”
“N-no. It won’t.”
The guilt in her voice rubbed him raw. Cursing the predatory instincts that had driven him to poach so recklessly on another man’s territory, he tried to recapture her trust.
“I guess this damned investigation has sanded away the few civilized edges I possessed.”
It had sanded away a few of Sheryl’s edges, too. She couldn’t remember the last time a kiss had seared her like that. Dazed, she struggled to subdue the runaway fire racing through her veins. A massive dose of guilt helped speed the process considerably.
She was almost engaged, for heaven’s sake! How could she have just stood there and let Harry kiss her like that? How could she have been so shallow, so disloyal to Brian? She’d never even looked at another man in all the time they’d been seeing each other. What’s more, she’d certainly never dreamed that a near stranger could generate this combination of singing excitement and stinging regret with just the touch of his mouth on hers. She stared at Harry, seeing her own consternation in his frown.
“We’ve got a good number of hours of work ahead of us yet,” he got out curtly. “You can’t concentrate if you’re worried that I might pounce at any minute. I won’t, I promise.”
A small sense of pique piled on top of Sheryl’s rapidly mounting guilt. She knew darn well she was as much to blame for what had just happened as Harry. Her instinctive, uninhibited response to his touch shook her to her core, and she didn’t need him to tell her it wouldn’t happen again. She wouldn’t do that to Brian or to herself. Still, it rankled just a bit that the marshal regretted their kiss as much as she did, if for entirely different reasons.
Feeling flustered and thoroughly off balance, Sheryl had a need to put some distance between her and Harry. She moved into the kitchen, where she snatched up Button’s plastic water dish and shoved it under the faucet to rinse it out.
“Why don’t you head back downtown,” she suggested with what she hoped was a credible semblance of calm. “I’ll follow after I feed Button, and we can put in a few more hours’ work.”
Harry looked as though there was nothing he’d like better than to get back to business, but he shook his head. “I’d like to stay here until the security folks arrive and do their thing, if you don’t mind.”
Sheryl stared at him while water ran over the sides of the dish. In the aftermath of his shattering kiss, she’d totally forgotten what had led up to it.
“No, of course I don’t mind.”
“I’ll call them and get them on the way.”
With brisk efficiency, he mobilized the necessary specialists. Another quick call alerted Ev to the fact that he’d have to scrounge his own dinner.
“I guess I could make us some sandwiches,” Sheryl said slowly when he snapped the phone shut. “Or I could cook lemon chicken. I have all the fixings. We can eat and work while we wait.”
The idea of preparing Brian’s favorite meal for Harry disconcerted Sheryl all over again. Honestly, she had to get a grip here. Harry had certainly recovered his poise fast enough. He’d faced the awkwardness head-on and moved beyond it. She could do the same. Briskly, she swiped a paper towel around the bowl and filled it with the dried dog food she’d picked up yesterday.
“I’ll feed Button and get something started.”
“I have a better idea.” Harry shrugged out of his coat, then rolled up his sleeves. “You feed the rodent while I pour you a glass of wine or whatever relaxes you. Then I’ll cook the chicken.”
“There’s some wine in the fridge,” Sheryl said doubtfully, “but you don’t have to fix dinner.”
“I don’t have to, but I’d like to.”
He flashed her a grin that strung her tummy into tight knots. Good grief, what in the world was the matter with her?
“Being on the road so much, I don’t get to practice my culinary skills very often. But my ex-wife trained me well. She never opened a can or flipped on a burner when I was home.”
“Well...”
He traded places with Sheryl, taking over the kitchen with an easy competence that put the last of her doubts to rest. A quick investigation of her cupboards and fridge produced skillet, chicken, flour, lemons, onions, cracked pepper, butter and a half-full bottle of chilled Chablis.
While Harry assembled the necessary ingredients, Sheryl fed Button. Naturally, the dog displayed his displeasure over his banishment to the patio by turning up his pug nose at the dry food. She left him and his dinner outside, then occupied one of the tall rawhide-and-rattan counter stools. Sipping slowly on the wine Harry had poured for her, she tried to understand the welter of confused emotions this man stirred in her.
She gave up after the second or third sip and contented herself with just watching. He hadn’t been kidding about his culinary skills. Within moments, he had the floured chicken fillets sizzling in the skillet. While they browned, he made short work of dicing the onion. Seconds later, the onion, more butter and a generous dollop of Chablis went into the pan. Sheryl sniffed the delicious combination of scents, conscious once more of the inadequacy of the Kom Kurls she’d eaten for lunch.
“My compliments to your ex-wife,” she murmured. “You really do know your way around a kitchen.”
“Unfortunately, cooking is my one and only domestic skill...or so I’ve been told.”
“How long were you married?” she asked curiously.
He squeezed a wedge of lemon over the chicken. The drops spurted and spit in the hot pan, adding their tangy scent to the aroma of butter and onions rising from the cooktop.
“Eight years by calendar reckoning. Three, maybe four, if you count the time my wife and I spent at home together. She’s an account executive for a Dallas PR firm now, but when we met she was just starting in the business. Her job took her on the road as much as mine did, and...”
“And constant absences don’t necessarily make the heart grow fonder,” she finished slowly.
He shrugged, but Sheryl had been in this man’s company enough by now to catch the tight note in his voice. Harry MacMillan didn’t give up on anything easily, she now knew, whether it was a marriage or the relentless pursuit of a fugitive.
“Something like that,” he concurred, sending her a keen glance through the spiraling steam. “You sound as though you’ve been there, too.”
“In a way.”
She traced a circle on the counter with her glass. She rarely spoke about the father whose absence had left such a void in her heart, but Harry’s blunt honesty about his divorce invited r
eciprocation. Reluctantly, she shared a little of her own background.
“My father traveled a lot in his job, too. My mother stewed and fretted every minute he was gone, which didn’t make for happy homecomings.”
“I imagine not. Is he still on the road?”
“As far as I know. He and Mom divorced when I was six. He showed up for a Christmas or two, and we wrote each other until I was about ten. The letters got fewer and farther between after he took an overseas position. Last I heard, he was in Oman.”
“Want me to track him down for you? It would only take a few calls.”
He was serious, Sheryl saw with a little gulp.
“No, thanks,” she said hastily. “I don’t need him wandering in and out of my life anymore.”
“Well, the offer stands if you change your mind,” he replied, flipping the slotted wooden spoon into the air like a baton. He caught it with a smooth ripple of white shirt and lean muscle. “Do you have any rice in the cupboard? I’m even better at rice Marconi than lemon chicken.”
“And so modest, too.”
He grinned. “Modesty isn’t one of the skills they emphasize in the academy. Relax, enjoy your wine and watch a master at work.”
Maybe it was the Chablis. Or the sight of this tall, rangy man moving so matter-of-factly about her little kitchen. In any case, Sheryl relaxed, enjoyed her wine and managed to ignore the fact that the master chef sported a leather shoulder holster instead of a tall, white hat. Her prickly sense of guilt stayed with her, though, and kept her from completely enjoying the meal Harry served up with a flourish.
It also kept her on the other side of the dining-room table after they finished eating and got down to work. Button, released from his banishment, perched on the back of the sofa and watched the marshal with unblinking, unwavering hostility. With the wine and food to soothe the nerves made ragged by Harry’s kiss, Sheryl was able to recall the details on several batches of postcards.
“Venice, the Antibes, Barbados.” Harry tapped his pen on the tabletop. “You’re sure the cards that arrived before the Rio set came from those three locations?”
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