LITMIR.BIZ

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but I’d forgotten that I cashed a check. There’s a couple of hundred in here. Far more than I usually carry.”

      “Even if they were after the necklace, I would think they’d have taken it. That’s not pocket change.”

      Or maybe it was for her. Still, it bothered him that those kids hadn’t taken the money. It didn’t make sense. Not even if they believed the necklace she was wearing was real. Not even if the motive had been something besides robbery, as she’d hinted.

      “You said you didn’t think robbing you was what they were after.”

      “The one who grabbed me…” she began and then faltered. “There was something… I don’t know. It just felt…wrong.”

      “You thought he was going to rape you?” he asked bluntly.

      Another hesitation. “I didn’t know what he was going to do. I didn’t like him touching me.” Her shiver was strong enough to be visible. “Maybe that was just my imagination.”

      “They’re gone now,” he said, choosing to comfort rather than confront, although her instinctive assessment of the boy who had grabbed her was probably right on the money. “Would you like me to follow you home?”

      Her pupils dilated slightly. Shock? Or anticipation? Yeah, right, he mocked himself. In your dreams.

      Then, almost immediately, wariness invaded her eyes. She was trying to decide if she wanted to tell him where she lived, unwilling to surrender even that much of her closely guarded privacy.

      What she didn’t know, of course, was that there was no secret about her address. Or about her any of her personal information. Not to someone with the sources he had.

      He wasn’t going to confess to those, however. There were too many things he didn’t know about Kelly Lockett. And he had a feeling from what she’d said about her brother that there were a few things he knew that she might be completely ignorant of.

      “I’m very trustworthy,” he added, letting her hear his amusement.

      “It isn’t that…” she began and then had the grace to pause, color moving along the line of her throat. “You probably saved my life. At the very least you saved me from what would have been a highly unpleasant experience. How could I not trust you?”

      “Easy. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me.”

      Unconsciously as he talked, he put his fingers over the cut above his eye, which had begun to sting. He brought them away covered with blood. And it hurt like hell to move his jaw, he realized, experimenting.

      “I know that you got that defending me.” Her gaze touched on the injury beneath his brow.

      “Reflex action.”

      “Thank you,” she said softly. Her eyes had left their contemplation of the cut to refocus on his. “Not many people would have come to my aid. Not these days. You were very lucky they didn’t have a gun.”

      “Hell, they were lucky I didn’t have one.”

      Again her eyes widened. She was probably one of those people who believed nobody should carry a firearm, not even cops. Whatever ground he’d gained for knocking a few heads together on her behalf, he’d just destroyed.

      “They were lucky I didn’t have one.”

      It took a heartbeat for what she’d said to sink in. When it did, he laughed.

      Her smile in response was nothing short of spectacular. He deliberately reminded himself of the advantages of being able to afford good orthodontic work and collagen injections. All the same, something hot and hungry stirred deep within his body.

      “Actually, I’d be very grateful if you’d follow me home,” she said. “And I’m pretty sure I’ve got a Band-Aid or two tucked away in a drawer somewhere.”

      Occasionally in this line of work things fell into your lap. No operative worth his salt turned down those opportunities. The going theory in intel was that it was better to be lucky than good. He couldn’t argue with that. Certainly not in this case.

      “Nurse Ratched, I presume,” he said, bowing slightly.

      “I believe Florence Nightingale is the analogy you’re searching for,” she corrected.

      Her smile hadn’t quite faded. And he knew he was going to be damned disappointed when it did.

      “MAYBE I SHOULD give you directions in case we get separated.”

      “We won’t,” he promised, following her around the back of the vintage silver Jag. “Nice car.”

      “It was my brother’s.”

      “The one you mentioned tonight?”

      There was another of those telltale hesitations before she answered. “Chad.”

      “I’m sorry.”

      He was. More than she could imagine. Despite her attempts to keep her feelings private, it had been obvious at the auction that she’d been moved by that spontaneous tribute to her brother. And equally obvious that she was still grieving for him.

      He imagined Bin Laden’s family had loved him, too. That didn’t necessarily mean they’d been unaware of his faults.

      “Thank you,” she said in response to his expression of sympathy.

      She inserted the key into the driver’s side door and opened it. The interior light came on, illuminating the darkness on this side of the Jag. It also revealed that the convertible was sitting at a peculiar slant.

      He stepped back to check the rear tire, which, as he’d begun to suspect, was flat. As was the front.

      “That’s what he was doing back here,” she said. “Letting the air out of the tires.”

      Her attackers had apparently left nothing to chance. Nothing except the one thing they couldn’t control—that someone else might stumble onto the scene. And if he hadn’t been watching her all night, he wouldn’t have been aware of when she left. Considering her choice of exits, very few people at that party had been.

      “Get a wrecker and have it towed,” he suggested. “Unless you have two spares.”

      “No, but I do have a membership in a very good auto club.”

      She bent, putting her knee in the center of the leather driver’s seat to reach across the low car. Red silk molded to a very nicely rounded derriere. Definitely not waif-like, he thought again.

      She straightened, bringing a cell phone out of the car with her. “It wouldn’t fit in my purse,” she explained.

      He pretended to examine the tires while she made the call.

      “They say it’s going to be a while.”

      He looked up to find her standing over him. Without rising, he pivoted on the balls of his feet to face her.

      “How long?”

      “Maybe an hour. They keep only two units on call this late, and they’re both out.”

      “Let the brake off, lock it, and leave it to them. I’ll drive you home.”

      He could tell she was torn. Maybe it was the thought of leaving the Jag to the mercies of some unknown wrecker service. Or maybe it was the thought of getting into a car with a stranger after what had happened tonight.

      “I’m harmless, I promise,” he added, willing to convince her.

      Her lips tilted. It wasn’t the smile that had dazzled him a few minutes ago. This one was more subdued, almost self-deprecating.

      “Okay, but if I were you, I wouldn’t call on the kids who did this to back up that claim.”

      She looked tired. And why shouldn’t she be? he thought.

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