LITMIR.BIZ

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more than a family of twelve could ever use. “My whole house would fit in one room.”

      Jerry idled at the curb, his eyebrow lifted. “Got the lake in her backyard and the world at her feet. Must be nice to be rich.”

      Laurel’s car had retreated into the garage around the back of the house, and now lights were flicking on all over the first floor. There were no blinds at the windows, and even though the house sat back from the street behind a stately yard covered under six inches of snow, Russ could see the outlines of furniture, lamps. Then Laurel, as her blond head popped past a sofa.

      He thought about her suggestion that they have sex. It may have been a dig, a way to prove her point, but his body had heard that suggestion and run with it. Worse, he kept imagining her saying that to someone else—and him ripping the guy’s face off.

      “Wait here a minute.” Russ opened the car door.

      “Oh, here we go again. Wait here, Jerry, while I flirt with a suspect.”

      “She’s not a suspect, I told you that.” He got out of the car. “Call Pam on your cell phone if you’re feeling left out. Try and make her remember why she ever thought dating you was a good idea.”

      Anders called after him, “And while you’re hitting on Blondie, why don’t you try doing your job and seeing if she’ll act as bait to help pull in Dean.”

      Russ stopped closing the door, catching it with his foot. He knew Anders was right, but the idea of enlisting Laurel’s help went against everything he was trying to accomplish. He wanted her out of this. Now. And to stay in her pretty house, protected and innocent, untouched by ugly reality.

      “Not this woman, Anders. We put her up as bait, and more than likely she’s going to get eaten.”

      “By Dean or by you?” Jerry gave him a smarmy grin.

      “Pig.” Russ slammed the door in his face, cutting off a wave of laughter.

      As he headed up the driveway, hands stuck in his pockets, Russ wondered what the hell he was doing. There was no reason to be strolling up to Laurel’s front door, except that he wanted to make sure she was all right. That she had locked up the house nice and tight, checked all her windows, thrown the dead bolts.

      The intensity of his concern bothered him, sent his nerves vibrating, made him edgy. For a man who thought remembering to bring condoms was the height of consideration, he was making too much out of this. He’d met plenty of people over the years on the job—especially women and children—whose eyes had cried for help, understanding, compassion, and he’d felt that pull, that draw deep down in his gut to do something. But he’d always managed to maintain distance, keep a cool head, do his job with sensitivity, yes, but with the hard-ass detachment needed to not go insane or slide into cynicism.

      Ringing Laurel’s front doorbell couldn’t be classified as keeping his distance. And if he was going to breech that boundary, hell, he might as well go all the way.

      The landscaping along the front yard was shrouded with burlap to protect it from the January temperatures and icy snow. Discreet lighting illuminated the brick walk as he walked quickly. He wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to say, but he was thinking somewhere along the lines of offering himself up as a sexual sacrifice.

      If she was serious about having an affair, why the hell couldn’t she just have it with him? That way he would know she would be safe.

      And if he enjoyed himself, well, that was only a side benefit. The real important issue was protecting Laurel.

      Wasn’t he just a Good Samaritan? With an erection.

      The front door flew open when he was still five feet from the stoop. “What are you doing?” Laurel stood in the doorway, wearing those hip-hugging black pants, slippers, her white sweater, and that damn pink scarf still draped around her neck. She had pulled her hair up into a ponytail, shaving a few years off her appearance, as if she didn’t look young enough already.

      “I’m just checking to make sure you got in the house okay.”

      “What?” She leaned forward, strained her eyes. “I can’t see your mouth, the walk is too dark.”

      Russ stepped forward and onto the stoop, under the blazing lights framing either side of the door. He repeated himself clearly, then capped it off with a charming smile designed to have her melting.

      It didn’t work. Laurel’s lips pursed. “As you can see, I’m in the house, safe and sound.” She stared at him, expectantly, waiting for him to leave.

      Russ’s smile began to feel maniacal. But something kept him lingering on her doorstep. “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

      Her eyes went wide, with an innocence that looked insincere, to say the least. “A total stranger? That wouldn’t be very smart, would it?”

      A grin split his face. Damn, she was sexy. “Good answer.”

      “Good night, Russ.” Rolling her eyes, Laurel stepped back and closed the door.

      Russ stood there, listening for the click of the dead bolt. There wasn’t one. He waited. And waited. The door jerked open again.

      “What?” Laurel shot him a look of impatience.

      “You didn’t lock the door. I was waiting to hear it click.”

      “Ahh,” she said, and slammed the door with enough force to rattle the brass door knocker.

      But he heard the distinct sound of the lock sliding shut.

      He smiled at the door, accepting the inevitable.

      Distance be damned. He couldn’t stay out of this. If Laurel wanted an affair, it was going to have to be with him. He’d keep her safe and satisfied.

      He’d decided, and that’s all there was to it.

      Laurel was not an angry person. She never lost her temper, very rarely got mad at anyone, and spent a good portion of her time making excuses for other people’s lousy behavior. But right now, she was not particularly happy with Russ Evans. Not that she’d go so far as to say that she was furious, but she was feeling a distinct irritation with the man. The real Russ Evans. The fake one was much nicer, even if he was a lying con artist. At least he treated her like an adult.

      But Russ had stood there on her doorstep, looking like her every scruffy fantasy come to life. Oozing sex appeal out his jeans, and he had treated her like a slightly dim twelve-year-old. He’d done everything short of patting her on the head.

      Of course, she had pretty much acted like an imbecile in the coffee shop, running on and on about wanting to be wild. At the time, she had been trying to make a point. In retrospect, it sounded pathetic.

      She was embarrassed, confused, disappointed, and beneath all those lousy layers, attracted to Russ. Maybe her mother was right—dating was too dangerous. How ironic that both her mother and the man she’d like to date agreed that she should lock herself up in the house and petrify.

      After taking care of the urgent biological needs three mocha lattes had brought on, Laurel grabbed a muffin in the kitchen and stomped up the two flights of stairs to her suite of rooms on the third floor. When she spotted the array of sweaters tossed across her bed, evidence of her earlier indecision over what to wear, she almost laughed.

      She could have been wearing a paper bag for all Russ had noticed. He looked at her and saw nothing but a naive, trusting, undersexed kid. While he was right on the undersexed part, the rest was all wrong. Completely and totally wrong. She knew there were bad people in the world. She wasn’t an idiot.

      What he failed to realize is that she had thought she was meeting a man her friend Michelle had known for fifteen years or more. It had been a safe assumption that it was all right to meet a cop your friend knew in a public coffee shop. There was only so much you could do to protect yourself without sealing your house off in plastic and breathing through a mask. She

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