LITMIR.BIZ

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a landline where we’re going to call the local station. But if you want, go ahead and make the call yourself.”

      His easy disregard calmed a few of her nerves. Not all of them, but enough that she was able to get a better look at where they were going.

      Not a neighborhood, per se. But a tidy row of thatched-roof houses, bordering a low hill leading into the forest. A pair of elderly men sat smoking in front of one house, both lifting their hands to her escort in a friendly greeting. Since neither said a word about his dragging her along by the arm, she had to wonder if this was some weird courtship ritual of his.

      A weary looking woman swayed in the open doorway of one house, patting the back of the crying babe in her arms.

      “Colic again?” Lila’s rescuer called out.

      “Again and again,” the woman returned in a singsong voice. “We’ll be hurting too much to sleep for a little while yet.”

      “I keep telling you, a shot of Jim Beam will take care of the problem.”

      “Is the whiskey for him? Or is it for me?” the woman asked with a laugh.

      “Whatever works.”

      It was his easy humor as much as the crying baby that reassured Lila enough to have her tucking the phone back in her pocket. Either way, she’d wait for a little privacy to call the police. Privacy and, she decided with a deep, calming breath, a few minutes to get herself under control.

      The man might be gruff and overwhelming, but she was pretty sure he was safe. Or, safe enough, she amended, watching the way his muscles flowed as he strode a step ahead of her. He had a slight limp, like he was favoring his right leg. She frowned, squinting at the scars crossing, bisecting and wrapping around his knee. She wasn’t an expert, but that looked fresh, to say nothing of painful.

      “Slow down,” she insisted. When he frowned, she made a show of pointing to her feet. “I’m wearing heels. So unless the bad guys are actually chasing us, let’s keep it to a reasonable pace.”

      He didn’t bother to hide the roll of his eyes, but he did slow his pace. Enough, she was glad to see, that he wasn’t limping as badly.

      From the front, the house looked smaller than the others, barely bigger than her apartment in San Francisco. But it had impressive hardware on the door and windows, and, if she wasn’t mistaken, a state-of-the-art alarm system.

      “Worried about break-ins?” she asked as he reached for the doorknob. As soon as he twisted it, she realized she had her answer. It wasn’t even locked.

      “Not my place.” He pushed open the door and gestured her inside. He gave her an impatient look when she hesitated. “It belongs to a friend. He’s not here a lot, so he keeps it secured.”

      Okay. Lila wet her lips. As she hesitated, a loud crash came from the path they’d come from, followed by a couple of gruff shouts. Lila rushed through the door so fast, she almost tripped over his feet.

      “In a hurry?”

      “It’s been a crappy night, okay?” she snapped, hurrying over to peek out the front window. The same old men still sat, smoking. The same woman still swayed, singing. But nobody else was out there. She pressed her hand against her stomach, trying to calm the sharp jabs of fear.

      “It’s been something, all right,” he agreed under his breath, pulling the door shut behind him.

      “Lock it. Please. Lock the door.”

      His eyes skimmed over her face, and even though she could feel his exasperation, he silently turned the lock.

      “Feel better?”

      “No.”

      She looked around with a frown. The bulk of the square footage seemed to be in this main room, with a pair of doors on the end leading to what she assumed was the bed and bath. The furniture was simple. A long black couch and a huge black recliner stood in the center of the room, both so big she was surprised they fit in the room. A table and two chairs were shoved in a corner next to a refrigerator that looked older than the house itself.

      Something about cataloging the room calmed her. Enough so that she started to feel her legs again and her hands started to tremble. She didn’t want to close her mind; she wasn’t ready to see the scene in her head again. But she figured she had a handle on the babbling enough to make a coherent report.

      “We should call the police now.”

      “You sure? Maybe you want to wait a few more minutes. Think it all over again.”

      Lila turned to stare.

      The man was gorgeous. Even in the sad light put out by one rickety looking lamp, he was a work of art. From his sculpted jaw that needed a shave to his eyes, as dark as his midnight-black hair, he had the looks. The body, too, she remembered. She didn’t let herself ogle it for the same reason she wouldn’t let her mind reenact the murder. Because she wasn’t sure she could handle it.

      But she couldn’t deny the man had it all going on.

      All that, and he was still an idiot.

      “You think I went running willy-nilly down the beach on the verge of hysterics, then grabbed on to you, all just for entertainment?” She barreled on before he could say anything to go with the amusement in his eyes. “You think I threw myself into your arms, that I made up the whole story about seeing something that horrible? Why? Just to get your attention?”

      “I didn’t say that.”

      “You don’t believe me,” she said with a scowl. “So why did you bring me here?”

      “To give you time to calm down before you did something stupid, hurt yourself or hurt someone else.”

      “Aren’t you the hero,” she muttered, turning her back on him and pulling out her cell phone.

      “What’re you doing?”

      What did he think she was doing?

      “I’m calling the police,” she said, shooting a defiant look over her shoulder before pressing the keys. One. One. One.

      Before she hit the seven, a hand reached over her shoulder to take the phone.

      “You sure you want to call the cops?” he asked, his voice a slow rumble vibrating against her back. Irritation made it easy to ignore the sensations coiling in her belly, but Lila figured it was smarter to step away regardless. No point in letting her body get stupid ideas.

      “Look, buddy,” she snapped, turning to face him rather than leave all that temptation hulking at her back. Mistake, she realized as soon as she stared up into his dark eyes. Big mistake. But she was good at ignoring mistakes, she reminded herself before taking a deep breath.

      “I don’t know how things are handled in your world. But in mine, murder means we call the cops. So get out of my way and let me do that, then you can get back to your beer and your beach and whatever the hell else actually matters to you.”

      Lila wished that her voice wasn’t shaking almost as hard as her hands, but a person could only take so much.

      “You need to calm down,” the man said, obviously impervious to her nasty tone and cutting words.

      “You don’t believe me?” she accused, slapping her hand on his bare chest to keep him from walking away. “Why? Why would I make something like that up?”

      His eyes locked on hers for a long heartbeat, then dropped to her hand. Her fingers tingling, Lila dropped it to her side. His gaze met hers again and he shrugged. A slow shrug that was just as indifferent as the rest of his attitude.

      Years of being ignored, of having her simplest wants and needs and thoughts dismissed as inconsequential exploded in Lila’s head.

      She used both hands this time, not to stop him from walking away, but to shove him back a step. Ignoring the look of amused surprise on his

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