LITMIR.BIZ

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right here and—”

      “—and then I brought her here to make sure she was okay. That’s why she’s in my bedroom.”

      Kane’s speech got the other men’s attention. They crowded in until she had to slide down farther on the bed to get some air. With them hovering, she wanted her feet on the floor, not tucked underneath her.

      They stood like a matched set. Three handsome men. Three fierce frowns. Three men in control and in her way.

      “Damn, is she okay?” Derek asked.

      Just what she needed, a wall of testosterone on a problem-solving kick. “No, I’m not—”

      “She’s fine except that she’s pretending to have a case of amnesia.”

      “That doesn’t make much sense unless she has something to hide,” Josh said as he leaned in even closer.

      Derek’s frown mirrored Kane’s. “Why is she faking?”

      “She is sitting right here, and she can hear and speak just fine. She doesn’t need Kane answering for her.” Great, now they had her talking about herself in the third person.

      Josh flashed a megawatt smile. “She’s bossy.”

      “Tell me something I don’t know. You should try showering with her.”

      With Kane’s comment, the men stopped looking at her and faced Kane.

      Josh coughed. “What did you say?”

      “Uh, hello?” She waved her hand but realized it was too low on the bed for the guys to notice the motion. “I’m chained to a bed. Let’s get back to that little piece of the puzzle.”

      They treated her to another joint stare. She almost melted under the scrutiny of three pairs of eyes.

      “Any injuries?” Josh ignored her tirade and continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

      “Cuts and bruises. Sore knee. Nothing too serious. She was lucky,” Kane explained.

      “Because I didn’t actually drown? Yeah, lucky me.”

      “Drown?” The lazy look in Josh’s blue eyes disappeared in a flash.

      “She should go to the police,” Derek said.

      Good boy. The kid really was her favorite. “That’s exactly what I said to Kane. That I wanted to check in with…Wait a second. I thought Kane was the police.”

      “Go back to the drowning part,” Josh said.

      Derek shook his head. “We should call the police first.”

      “Stop, stop, stop,” she yelled. Surprisingly, they did. “Kane told me he was the police chief. The guy in charge of crime in this part of the state.”

      “I know I didn’t say it that way,” Kane said in a dry tone.

      She pointed an accusing finger at Kane. “You lied to me.”

      Derek jumped to his uncle’s defense. “He’s police. It’s just that he’s not working right now.”

      “Derek.” Kane said the kid’s name like a warning.

      “He’s on a leave of absence,” Josh added.

      “Vacation, and that’s enough,” Kane said. This time the warning in his tone was pretty clear.

      “You’ve never taken a vacation in your life,” Josh muttered. “Do you even know how to have fun?”

      She held her wrist up as high as it would go. She aimed for under Kane’s nose but could stretch only to his crotch. “Take these off, or I’ll call the real chief and burn your sorry no-good ass. When I’m done, you’ll be damn lucky just to pull meter-reading duty.”

      “I’d like to see that,” Josh said.

      “Wow.” Derek’s voice filled with something that sounded like admiration.

      Kane looked bored by the entire scene. “Impressive language, Fern.”

      A little profanity never scared her. The saltier, the better. Her career required her to travel with men and fit in. Men swore. She swore. No big deal.

      “Wait until I get started. That little shower scene deserves a profane word or two. The damn handcuffs should be good for an all-out screaming fit.”

      “Notice how they keep mentioning the shower but won’t give any details,” Josh said to Derek.

      “Shut up!” Annie and Kane answered at the same time.

      Kane stared at her with those penetrating eyes. “No wonder you ended up in the water. You’re lucky they didn’t gag you first.”

      Derek threw his hands up. “I’m lost again. Who’s they?”

      “Yeah, let’s get back to the drowning.” Josh reached into his pocket and took out a small flip pad. “That’s the subject on the table.”

      Her frustration boiled over. “I didn’t drown, so you can stop talking about it.”

      Josh puckered his lips together. “But you were in the water.”

      “Yeah? So?”

      Josh turned to Kane, all traces of amusement vanished. “We may have a problem.”

      Muscles tensed across Kane’s shoulders, pulling his T-shirt even tighter over his chest. “Yours or mine?”

      “Ours. Maybe hers. All I have is a report of a missing yacht, missing crew and missing owner. The boat was last seen near here.”

      Her stomach flipped at the word yacht. The chances of that yacht being her yacht had to be slim.

      “Which one?” Kane asked the question on her mind.

      Josh rubbed his palm over his stubble. “You’re not going to like the answer. It’s the Samantha Ray.”

      Yeah, not good. Annie did the calculation in her head. She goes overboard, then the yacht and people on board go missing. The chances of those events not being related were about zero. Maybe less.

      Kane’s eyes grew even darker as he glared at her. “Anything you want to tell me?”

      Only that she suddenly didn’t want to go anywhere since by Kane’s side seemed to be the safest place to be. Getting him to agree to let her stay moved up as the new number one strategy. She needed to regroup and think. Kane’s house would provide the perfect setting for that.

      “Uh, yeah.”

      “What?”

      “My name is Annie.”

      Chapter 5

      Ten minutes later Annie, or the woman who claimed to be Annie, sat at his kitchen table wearing a pair of his sweats and one of his slim exercise T-shirts. On her, slim and form-fitting turned into baggy. The clingy material reached past her butt but did highlight her high, firm breasts.

      Braless, shoeless and pissed as hell, she sat there with her elbows resting on the table while Derek sat on the tile floor at her feet. She muttered something about luck and a phrase or two, most of it profane, about fake police officers.

      Kane assumed she meant him. “Are you done calling me an idiot?”

      “Are you done being a damn idiot?”

      “I dunno, Kane,” Josh said. “The answer to your question looks like no.”

      Derek chuckled but didn’t add a comment.

      Disgruntled and bitchy. Well, Kane thought, she should join the fucking club—yeah, he could swear, too.

      The second she’d given Derek the okay to wrap her knee, Kane felt a rush of heat sweep through his body.

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