LITMIR.BIZ

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all sleep instead of worrying who was going to break into our house, or might come looking for us in the night.”

      Savannah and Margot looked at each other for a long time, the kind of silent communication he understood some people had with each other. He turned away, the moment suddenly too intimate to bear witness to, especially when he was lying to them.

      “Do you want to stay here?” Savannah asked him.

      “I want to help,” he said, keeping his real motivation to himself. His quest for justice was his little secret, the heartbeat that kept him moving, and more access to this house and its secrets would only be a good thing. “It’s why you hired me. And if I spent the night, I could get a lot more work done.”

      “We can’t pay you more,” Savannah said. “But with the money you’d be saving—”

      “It works out fine. Truth is,” he said with a shrug, unsure of where these words were coming from and why he was saying them, “I don’t sleep much. So, it really doesn’t matter.”

      “Fine,” Savannah said, squeezing her hands together, but not before Matt saw them tremble. “It’s settled. Matt, welcome to the Manor.”

      KATIE SPENT THE MORNING on Savannah’s lap, which didn’t bother her mother one bit. Savannah was actually dueling with the instinct to somehow chain her daughter to her side.

      If something had happened… She squelched the thought, as she had a thousand times already this morning, and pressed a kiss to her daughter’s head. The sun was sliding past high noon and fear and worry were beginning to chase each other in small circles in her stomach.

      What nightmare would tonight bring?

      She already knew she wouldn’t be sleeping. Probably not for the next few nights. And not only because of the break-in.

      There was a man in her house.

      Margot played dirty. She always did. Going behind Savannah’s back that way and giving Matt the sleeping porch—classic Margot maneuvering. But Savannah couldn’t argue this time. Because Margot was right. Things were different around the Manor. The pranks, if they were high school pranks, had turned ugly. Suspicious. Having someone keeping watch was smart.

      “We can’t even play hide-and-seek,” Katie moaned, looking out the window over Savannah’s printer to the courtyard below. “That man is there.”

      Savannah tried not to look, but Matt was a magnet and she had all the willpower of iron shavings.

      The gray T-shirt clinging to his back was nearly black with sweat, and his dark brown hair was wet and thick against his strong neck. Through her open window it seemed the wind carried his scent to her, sweat, sunshine and wood.

      The urge to close her eyes and inhale, to stick out her tongue just a little bit and taste the air that had touched him nearly overcame her.

      She’d been in control of these sudden cravings, this outrageous lust that had taken root in her body, but at some point midmorning, Matt had put on glasses.

      Glasses.

      Which added a spice to Matt that was infinitely appealing. At least to Savannah. The librarian in her liked bookish men. Bookish men with the shoulders and biceps of men used to doing hard work.

      This was worse than inappropriate. These ridiculous feelings she had for him were flat-out wrong. Wrong because he worked for her and wrong because he was a stranger and wrong because…well, just wrong.

      He was going to be staying here. Downstairs. A hundred yards from where she slept. It had been years since someone other than Katie and Margot had shared this house with her.

      She didn’t know if she was grateful for his presence or sick over it.

      “Yes, he is there,” she said. And oddly, the thought was comforting. As well as really unnerving. And a little exciting.

      He was a guard dog. A big one. And considering the events of the morning, she’d even say he was a good one.

      “I thought he was going to punch Officer Jones in the face,” bloodthirsty Katie said, her eyes sparkling. “Pow.” She illustrated a hard little punch with her closed fist.

      Savannah caught it and kissed the little knuckles, hard and smooth like diamonds under flesh. “It was a bit intense, wasn’t it?”

      Savannah had thought the same. As she’d stood there, watching Matt, a stranger to them, jump to their defense, she’d actually wished he would hit Officer Jones. Officer Jones who apparently still hadn’t gotten over his high school dumping at Vanessa’s hands.

      We just can’t get a break, she thought. The O’Neill curse was riding them particularly hard this summer. The vandalism, the break-in.

      Again she looked at Matt, wondering somehow if he was here to balance the scales for them. Something sweet for all the bitter they’d been eating.

      Honest to God help.

      It seemed unimaginable.

      They’d been alone, the three of them, for so long.

      There had to be a catch. The universe didn’t send blessings to the O’Neills without payment of some kind.

      “I’m going to go get something to eat,” Katie said, scrambling off Savannah’s numb knees.

      “Good idea,” she said, clearing her screen of the computer games they’d been playing. Work, she thought, it was time to focus on work. To clear away every other distraction and chase information across the World Wide Web.

      Knights Templar, she thought. Warriors and protectors. She’d start there.

      But her gaze strayed outside. To Matt.

      Her blood was beginning to buzz, the O’Neill curse manifesting itself in her the way it always did. Curiosity. God, it killed her every time. She could bury it, channel it into her job. Research every natural disaster in the southern hemisphere before the 1700s. Find every voodoo use for frog blood.

      But right now she wanted to go out there and research their new handyman. Why was he here? Why did he want to stay? To help?

      She shook her head, gritted her teeth and fought down her urge to go outside and watch him. Talk to him.

      Chaining herself to her work, to her desk and the small oasis that was her life, Savannah, as she always did, suppressed what was O’Neill in her.

      But she had to wonder, feeling herself pull against the self-imposed bonds, how long could she hold out?

      IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON. Matt could tell by the thickness and heft of the sunlight hitting what remained of the greenhouse—a cement pad. That’s it.

      He stripped off his gloves and wiped his dripping forehead with the sleeve of his shirt. Useless, considering the saturation of that sleeve. The whole shirt, actually.

      Good God, it was hot. So hot the air was thick in his throat and prickles of heat crawled up and down his legs under sweat-soaked jeans.

      His socks were wet. It was disgusting.

      He hadn’t done this kind of labor since he’d worked for that civil engineer during college. His shoulders and back weren’t really enjoying it, but the effort felt good. Clean, somehow.

      There were worse ways to wait for Vanessa to show up, and it sure as hell beat watching the four walls of his condo close in around him.

      Scrap still needed to be carried out to the curb, but now he could get to work on making sure the back wall was safe—the farthest corner had slid apart into a loose heap.

      There was a kid living here, for crying out loud. And this courtyard was like a death trap.

      He felt eyes on the back of his neck and he sighed. Seriously, that little girl was getting to be a pest. Not that she did anything, or said anything. She simply watched him.

      It

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