LITMIR.BIZ

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if you need me.” He pulled the door shut tight and she listened to the sound of his footsteps retreating down the short hallway.

      Slowly she let out the breath she’d been holding and sagged onto the bed. Disappointment mingled with relief. It would be a mistake of epic proportions to make love to him. She knew it. They both did. On unsteady legs she walked into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. She reached for a bottle of ibuprofen and stopped short.

      What if someone had been in her home?

      What if someone had tampered with her over-the-counter medications? Her food?

      “Now you really are getting paranoid,” she muttered, as she poured the pills into the toilet and flushed them down.

      Paranoid, maybe.

      But alive for certain.

      Making her way back to the bedroom, she slid under the covers and decided that she could work with Striker or against him.

      With him would be a lot more interesting.

      And together they might be able to get through the nightmare that had become her life.

      Eight

      He was lying next to her, his body hard and honed, skin stretched taut over muscles that were smooth and fluid as he levered up on one elbow to stare down at her. Green eyes glittered with a dark seductive fire that thrilled her and silently spoke of pleasures to come. With the fingers of one callused hand he traced the contours of his body. She tingled, her breasts tightening under his scrutinizing gaze, her nipples becoming hard as buttons. He leaned forward and scraped a beard-roughened cheek over her flesh. Deep inside, she felt desire stretching as it came awake.

      This was so wrong. She shouldn’t be in bed with Kurt Striker. What had she been thinking? How had this happened? She barely knew the man…and yet, the wanting was so intense, burning through her blood, chasing away her doubts, and as he bent to kiss her, she knew she couldn’t resist, that with just the brush of his hard lips on hers she would be lost completely—

      Bam!

      Her eyes flew open at the sound. Where was she? It was dark. And cold. She was alone in the bed—her bed—and she felt as if she’d slept for hours, her bladder stretched to the limit, her stomach rumbling for food.

      “Let’s go, Sleeping Beauty,” Kurt said from the vicinity of the doorway. She blinked and found him standing in the doorway, his shoulders nearly touching each side of the frame, his body backlit by the flickering light still cast from the living-room fire. In relief he seemed larger, more rugged. The kind of man to avoid.

      So she’d been dreaming about making love to him again. Only dreaming. Thank God. Not that the ache deep within her had subsided. Yes, she was in her own bed, but she was alone and fully dressed, just the way he’d left her minutes—or had it been hours—before?

      “Wha—What’s the rush?” she mumbled, trying to shake off the remainder of that damnably erotic fantasy even though a part of her wanted to close her eyes and call it back. “So what happened to ‘shh, darlin’, you should get some rest’?” she asked sarcastically.

      He took a step into the room. “You got it. Slept for nearly eighteen hours, now it’s time to rock ’n’ roll.”

      “What? Eighteen hours…no…” She glanced at the bedside clock and the digital display indicated it was after three. “I couldn’t have…” But the bad taste in her mouth and the pressure on her bladder suggested he was right.

      Groaning, she thought about her job and the fact that she was irreparably late. Bill Withers was probably chewing her up one side and down the other. “I’m gonna get fired yet,” she muttered, then added, “Give me a sec.”

      Scrambling from beneath the warmth of her duvet, she stumbled over one of her shoes on her way to the bathroom. Once inside, she shut the door, snapped on the light and cringed at her reflection. Within minutes she’d relieved herself, splashed water onto her face and brushed her teeth. Her face was a disaster, her short hair sticking up at all angles. The best she could do was wet it down and scrub away the smudges of mascara that darkened her eyes.

      Thankfully her headache was gone and she was thinking more clearly as she opened the door to the bedroom and found Kurt leaning against the frame, a strange look on his face. She yawned. “What?” she asked and then she knew. With drop-dead certainty. Her heart nearly stopped. “It’s the baby,” she said, fear suddenly gelling her blood. “Joshua. What’s wrong? Is he okay?”

      “He’s fine.”

      “How do you know?”

      “I’m having Sharon Okano’s place watched.”

      She was stunned and suddenly frantic and reached for the shoe she’d nearly tripped over. “You really think something might happen to him?”

      “Let’s just say I don’t want to take any chances.”

      She crammed the shoe onto her foot, then bent down, peering under the bed for its mate. Her mind was clearing a bit as she found the missing shoe and slid it on. Striker was jumping at shadows, that was it. Joshua was fine. Fine. He had to be.

      “Donahue’s in town.”

      She rocked back on her heels. The news hit her like a ton of bricks, but she tried to stay calm. “How do you know?”

      “He was spotted.”

      “By whom?”

      “Someone working for me.”

      “Working for you. Did my brothers hire an entire platoon of security guards or something?”

      “Eric Brown and I have known each other for years. He’s been watching Sharon Okano’s place.”

      “What? Wait! You’ve got someone spying on her?”

      His face was rigid. “I’m not ready to take any chances.”

      “Don’t you think someone lurking around will just draw attention to the place? You know, like waving some kind of red flag.”

      “He’s a little more discreet than that.”

      She shook her head, clearing out the cobwebs, trying to keep her rising sense of panic at bay. “Wait a minute. This doesn’t make any sense. Sam doesn’t know about Joshua. He has no idea that I was pregnant… and probably wouldn’t have cared one way or the other had he found out.”

      “You think.”

      “I’m pretty damn sure.” She straightened.

      “Then why would he be cruising by Sharon Okano’s place?”

      “Oh, God, I don’t know.” Her remaining calm quickly evaporated. She had to get to her baby, to see that he was all right. She made a beeline for the closet. “This is making less and less sense,” she muttered and was already reaching for a jacket. Glancing at her shoes, she saw a pair of black cowboy boots, one of which had fallen over. Boots she hadn’t worn since high school. Boots her father had given her and she’d never had the heart to give away. Ice slid through her veins as she walked closer and saw that the dust that had accumulated over the toes had been disturbed. Her throat went dry. “Dear God.”

      Kurt had followed her into the walk-in. He was pulling an overnight bag from an upper shelf. “Randi?” he asked, his voice filled with concern. “What?”

      “Someone was in here.” Fear mixed with fury. “I mean…unless when you got here you came into my closet and decided to try on my cowboy boots.”

      “Your boots?” His gaze swept the interior of the closet to land upon the dusty black leather.

      “I haven’t touched them in months and look—”

      He was already bending down

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