LITMIR.BIZ

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is Brutus?” Alex asked.

      Mikey’s eyes flooded with tears. “He’s my g-gerbil. Uncle J-James sended him for my end-of-school pwesent. Brady gots a lizard and Nick got Ike and Spike. I got Bwutus. He’s my bestest fwiend.”

      Alex’s mouth tightened. He made a mental note to call his younger brother James and ask him—again—to refrain from sending the boys any more pets.

      Which he’d be sure to do after he got to the bottom of the current situation. “So what’s Brutus got to do with—”

      “Pardon me, fellows,” a faint, disembodied voice interrupted. “But do you think you could save the discussion for later and get me out of here? Soon?”

      Alex jerked around, telling himself the voice couldn’t possibly have come from the floor vent the way he thought it had. “What the—” He stopped in shock as the tallest of the fireman stepped forward, making it possible for Alex to see that the other two men were in the process of lifting the built-in clothes hamper out of the wall. “Is there someone down there?” he exclaimed in disbelief.

      “Don’t worry, sir.” The tall fireman stuck out his hand. “Lieutenant Malloy, Port Sandy Fire Department. The lady—your child-care provider, we gathered from the boys?—says she’s fine. As far as we can tell, she only dropped about five feet before the bend in the chute stopped her.”

      “I...see,” Alex said, his gaze riveted on the hole on the wall. Truthfully, he didn’t see at all. Try as he might, he not only couldn’t imagine tall, stately Mrs. Kiltz doing something so undignified, but he also found it hard to believe she’d actually been able to fit in such a narrow space....

      “Like I said, don’t worry,” the lieutenant repeated, nodding at his men to proceed. “We should have her out in no time.”

      Frozen in disbelief, Alex watched as the firemen fed a line with a noose at the end down the now-gaping hole in his wall. They fished for a moment and then Mrs. Kiltz, sounding very unKiltzlike, called out, “Bingo! Nice toss, guys!”

      The firemen grinned and began to reel in the line. Moments later a pair of small, sneaker-shod feet appeared. While one fireman leaned back, keeping the line taut, the other reached forward, grabbed the bare, slender ankles attached to the feet, and pulled.

      Like a genie emerging from a bottle, a woman popped out of the depths of the wall. Dressed in khaki shorts and a loose navy T-shirt, her back to the room, she was small and slim, with dark glossy hair and a nice, firm fanny.

      Alex had never seen her before in his life.

      Shock stole his voice. Before he could recover it, the room erupted in a flurry of activity. First, the paramedics rushed past, blocking the stranger from view as she sank to the ground and they moved in to check her out. Next, all three boys darted over, practically trampling Alex in their haste to get close to the stranger. Everyone began to talk.

      “Are you all right, ma’am?” Lieutenant Malloy asked.

      “I’m fine,” she murmured in a husky alto. “I really appreciate you getting me out.”

      “Those are pretty nasty scrapes on your legs,” one of the paramedics stated. “If you’ll just sit still for a minute we can—”

      “I’m fine, really,” she insisted.

      “She’s tough,” Brady said, a disturbing note of pride in his voice.

      “Was it dark?” Nick asked.

      “Were you ascared?” Mikey inquired.

      “Yes, it was, and no, I wasn’t. I had Brutus to keep me company, remember?”

      “Hand me a sterile 9-O pack, would you, Bill? I’m sorry, ma’am, but this is going to sting a little.”

      “Well, Mr. Morrison—” Malloy stepped over to Alex, pulled out a small notepad and began to write in it as he talked “—it looks as if everything turned out all right here. I’ll send you a copy of my report, of course, but I might as well tell you right now, I am going to recommend that you close up that chute. In addition to the obvious danger to your children, the thing’s a fire hazard.” He tore the piece of paper from the pad and handed it to Alex.

      It was a citation for violating the county fire code. “Now just one minute—” Alex protested.

      Malloy held up a hand for silence as the two-way radio hooked to his belt began to squawk. He listened intently as the dispatcher requested assistance at a house fire with possible injuries and rattled off an address. He unclipped the radio and spoke rapidly into it, before saying to the other men, “Gentlemen, that’s only a few miles from here. Let’s move it!”

      The men went into high gear. The paramedics quickly finished while the three fireman hurriedly repacked equipment, and then all five began an orderly stampede for the door. Not more than fifteen seconds later a pair of sirens began to shrill as the Port Sandy Fire and Rescue Team departed.

      Alex tried to staunch a growing sense of disorientation. It’s just jet lag, he told himself impatiently. Except that he felt as if he’d entered an entire other dimension rather than merely a different time zone—a feeling that intensified tenfold as he got his first frontal view of the stranger.

      Under a short, severely cut mop of inky hair, she had dark, intelligent eyes fringed by sooty lashes, a straight little nose and a surprisingly lush mouth that quirked up at the corners, hinting at a dimple in one cheek. Although she wasn’t exactly pretty, her face sparkled with such energy and good humor that it made her extremely compelling. She also had one of the most flawless complexions he’d ever seen.

      Like a match being struck, awareness burned a path down his spine and set off a sharp burst of heat inside him.

      Would her skin be smooth and creamy...everywhere? Would the generous curve of her mouth feel as good trailing over him as he imagined it would? And what about her eyes? Would they get bigger and darker if he stroked his thumbs across her—

      “Hey, Daddy? Aren’t you gonna say something?”

      Brady’s cheerful voice poured over Alex like a bucket of cold water.

      What the hell was the matter with him? What did he think he was doing, having carnal thoughts about a woman he didn’t even know? In front of his children, for God’s sake?

      All the fear and frustration of the day seemed to coalesce. He felt a sudden surge of anger, at himself, at the situation, at her for undermining his control.

      “I don’t know who you are,” he said abruptly, blanking the emotion from his face and voice with an effort. “But I’m Alex Morrison. This is my house and those—” he nodded at the boys, who were clustered around her as if she belonged and he was the interloper “—are my sons. And you have exactly ten seconds to tell me who you are, how you came to be in my house and what the heck you were doing in my laundry chute.”

      She shoved a strand of dark silky hair off her cheek, her gaze never leaving his face. Her mouth quirked up. “Or?”

      He couldn’t believe her nerve. He glowered at her. “Or else I’ll call the police.”

      Two

      Lord love a duck. Beau’s big brother was a hunk.

      A rude, bad-tempered hunk, but still... Shay stared up at him, feeling as if she’d been poleaxed.

      Decked out in spotless white bucks, nubby vanilla-colored linen slacks, a smooth white shirt and a loosely woven, gold-tone tie that matched his eyes, Alex Morrison was not merely gorgeous.

      He was perfect.

      There wasn’t a single strand of his thick, straight, gold-on-bronze hair out of place. Nor was there so much as one, solitary unshaven whisker to mar the splendor of his square chin or lean cheeks. Even his shirtsleeves, rolled

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