LITMIR.BIZ

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led her here or not, the reality was, she was inside Tyler’s room, and she might as well make the most of it. She chewed her lip, glancing around.

      “The duffel bag,” she declared. It was tucked neatly under the leather chair. “Look in the duffel bag.”

      But she barely had her hand on the zipper when she heard the sound of the side window scraping open behind her. She spun around in time to see a huge, bulky man vaulting in over the windowsill. Sensing danger, Beau leaped over her head and skidded under the bed.

      Suddenly her little adventure had gotten scary. Very scary.

      Oh, God, what now? The intruder was even bigger and uglier than that Slab person she’d seen at the coffee shop. He had muscles and bulges everywhere, including his neck, and he looked mean enough to pop a blood vessel just for fun. He also had a dull, vacant squint to his eyes—in her experience, the mark of the terminally stupid.

      Not good. Not good at all. Emily could feel sweat drizzling down the neck of her blouse as she frantically wondered if she could scream and if anyone would hear her and how she would explain what she was doing here. She edged along the wall, hoping to make a break for it. But the thug advanced, blocking her path to either the open armoire or the door, and there was nowhere to go.

      “Hey, you,” he bellowed, pointing a meaty finger at her. “Don’t move.”

      “I’m not moving,” Emily returned quickly. “Not even a toe.”

      “Yeah, well, you move a toe and I break it.” His thick lips twisted into a menacing grin. “That’s what I do, you know, like, what I get paid for. Breaking stuff. So don’t tempt me, huh?”

      “Not tempting. Not doing anything.” She held herself so still she could hear a rushing sound in her ears. She licked dry lips. “You know, I think you have the wrong room. Could I help you find the right one, maybe?”

      He narrowed his piggy little eyes, giving her the once-over. “I ain’t got the wrong room. I know O’Toole is here. I wanna know what he’s doing in Frisco. Is he helping Slab? Or looking for him, huh?”

      “O-O’Toole? I actually don’t know what he’s doing in town.”

      “You look like a smart girl to me,” the big bruiser growled.

      Yeah, well, you don’t look very smart to me. But she kept it to herself.

      “So don’t be a dumb bunny, huh?” He marched his massive bulk nearer, where that fat finger could poke her right in the collarbone. “I’m an old friend of Slab. Associate, you might say.” He pronounced the word ass-o-cee-ate.” “So now I need to know where Slab is. You know, for ol’ times. And where the stash is. And you’re going to tell me, huh, cutie? Now.”

      “S-Slab? S-stash?” she stuttered. “I wish I could help, really I do. But unfortunately for both of us, I have no idea. I’m really very sorry, so incredibly sorry.”

      She had only the vaguest notion of what she was chattering on about as she eyed his trousers, trying to figure out if she could get her knee anywhere near the big gorilla’s, um, tender parts. Not likely. Plus he would probably break her kneecap for even thinking about it.

      “Will you please shut your trap?” he roared. “I am loosing my patience with you.”

      “I think you mean ‘losing,”’ she said helpfully. “Not ‘loosing’—losing.”

      His face contorted with rage as she realized it was probably not the best strategy at this juncture to point out his grammatical problems.

      When, thank God, the door crashed open, Emily practically shouted with relief. She might be in her underwear, and she might be in his room, but she was awfully glad to see him.

      Tyler.

      HE BARELY HAD A CHANCE to register that some oversize lunk was manhandling a half-dressed woman. Was it that goofy little brunette from the cab? Before Tyler knew what hit him, she broke away, catapulted herself into him, and knocked him backward onto the leather bed.

      He tried to catch her. Fat chance. “Oof” was all he could get out as he toppled back onto the bed, taking her with him. He was underneath, she was on top, and they each made a bad move and then another in a vain attempt to get off the damn slippery leather bedspread.

      After about a second of wrestling around, it became impossible to tell whose limbs were whose. Her legs and arms seemed to be all tangled up with his body in ways that were really not a great idea for strangers.

      “Your elbow is in my ribs,” he tried. “And will you get your hand off my—?”

      Her hand flew off his crotch and settled on his hip as she cried, “My hand? Do you realize where your hands are?”

      Yes, he did. He was about to break into a cold sweat over it. Why wasn’t she wearing any clothes? It wasn’t his fault if one of his hands had landed on the back of her thigh, just under the silky curve of her skimpy panties, and the other one was lodged somewhere under her shirt, slipping over her slick, naked flesh, unable to get a decent hold.

      “If you would just…oh, forget it!” She attempted to sit up, winding a bare leg around his abdomen, somehow managing to brush him in any number of intimate places. Without thinking, he rolled the other way, but the tail of her blouse got caught under his arm. When he rolled, the fragile fabric pulled, popping buttons every which way.

      Tyler stopped dead. He gulped, looking straight down into a whole lot of pale, creamy skin. The fact that she was wearing a wispy scrap of a bra only made her exposed curves look that much more tantalizing.

      Across the room, the window frame screeched and splintered as the burglar barreled out in a hurry, not bothering to be neat about it. Funny, but Tyler had almost forgotten about him.

      Meanwhile, he couldn’t take his eyes or his hands off all that skin. But he had to get himself out of this before it got any worse—if that was possible.

      Savagely dragging his lower body out from under her, Tyler found his head pointing toward the open doors of the armoire. He could see all the way into the Pollyanna room through the gaping hole in the back.

      “What?” He stared down at her. “You broke into my room through the armoire, dressed like that? Are you stalking me or something?”

      “Ha!” she retorted. She scrambled to a sitting position, vainly attempting to hold the sides of her blouse together. “Of all the nerve! You may be gorgeous, in a menacing and disreputable sort of way—which is not at all my type, for your information—but my motives toward you are completely honorable and virtuous and have to do with helping out a fellow human being who is clearly in trouble with a capital T. This has nothing to do with some insane stalker thing.”

      He had no clue what she was babbling about. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

      But she ignored his questions. “I’m the one who deserves some answers. I have just been threatened by a criminal, and I think you owe me an explanation. Who was he? And what does he want with you? He said something about you and Slab and a stash and how he breaks toes for a living!”

      “Toes?” he echoed, mystified. “Legs, maybe. But who breaks toes for a living?”

      “Don’t change the subject.” As she leaned in closer, her voice dropped to a softer, more intimate tone. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you? But I can help. You can trust me. I’m a lawyer.”

      He laughed out loud at that one.

      “Why are you laughing? Okay, so I don’t look much like a lawyer at the moment.” She spared a rueful glance for her tattered blouse and bare legs. “But I am. I swear it!”

      Tyler laughed even harder.

      Apparently trying to make him stop guffawing at her, she bent nearer, grabbing his shoulders in her small hands. “Listen to me,” she said, but her voice dropped into a huskier, less self-assured range as a tangible,

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