LITMIR.BIZ

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I tell you to go inside my place and lock the door behind you?”

      “I thought…” she began, straightening up. “That is, I was worried you might need help.”

      “Help?” He threw a disbelieving glance at the garbage can lid she gripped in one hand. “What the hell did you think you could accomplish with that?”

      “Well, I was thinking along the lines of bonking the intruder over the head if he came running out. But I probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to do much more than make a racket and scare him off,” she admitted, dropping the lid back on the can.

      The fact that she’d been prepared to take a stand at all surprised Marsh. From everything he’d learned about Becky Smith, she’d struck him as more likely to turn tail and run at the first sign of trouble, the way she did after the police interviewed her a few days ago.

      “Is he…?” She darted a look at her back door. “Is he gone?”

      “He’s gone.” Marsh slid his Glock back into its holster at the small of his back. “He must have wanted in pretty bad, though, to bust the glass like that instead of taking the time to use a cutter or lock pick. Any idea what he was after, Miss Smith?”

      She shook her head, her nervous gaze still on her sister’s house.

      She didn’t blink at his use of her name, or ask how he knew it. Marsh had an explanation all ready. He’d even been prepared to lecture her on the idiocy of stenciling her last name as well as the house number on the mailbox out front. Since neither the explanation nor the lecture appeared necessary, he dug the hook in a little deeper.

      “I thought I heard a car pull up in front a few moments ago. Was that you?”

      Distracted, she shoved a hand through her hair. “Yes. I took a cab. From the airport.”

      His pulse jumped. The cop in him almost asked her where she’d flown in from. The patient, determined hunter knew better than to press too hard or too fast. Instead, he used the truth to spring his trap of lies.

      “Whoever tried to break in must have seen you drive up. Sounds as if he was waiting for you.”

      Her head jerked up. “Waiting? For me?”

      Marsh steeled himself against the shock that leaped into her eyes. “I’d say it was a distinct possibility.”

      Every bit of the color she’d recovered drained from her face.

      Ruthlessly, Marsh clamped down on his feeling of guilt. If she insisted on making it with guys who played games with the mob, she’d better be prepared to face a few unpleasantries in life. Curling a hand around her upper arm, he steered her toward her back door.

      “I could be wrong. Maybe it was just a kid wanting something to pawn. You’d better take a look and see if anything’s missing.”

      Lauren almost told him that she’d already looked, and that she had no idea what, if anything, might be missing. The words stuck in her throat, unable to get past the thick lump of fear and dismay he’d lodged there.

      Had someone been waiting for Becky? Was there something more sinister behind her sister’s disjointed message than mere man trouble? Her thoughts tumbled chaotically.

      Lauren reentered the house she’d charged out of just moments ago. Once inside, she whirled to face Becky’s neighbor, intending to pour out the details of her sister’s phone call.

      “I…”

      His narrow, fiercely intent expression killed the impulse on the spot. He looked like a hawk, she thought, in the fleeting instant before he blanked his expression. Or one of those blue-eyed timber wolves who ranged the Rockies. Sharp. Predatory. Dangerous.

      “You what?”

      “I, uh…”

      She tried to shake the ridiculous imagery. He was a cop, for Pete’s sake! A police officer!

      Or so he’d said.

      Thoroughly disconcerted by her sudden, leaping doubts, Lauren tried to think of a tactful way to ask the man who’d just rushed to her rescue for some form of identification.

      She must have looked as confused as she felt at that moment. His narrowed gaze swept over her face.

      “Are you all right, Miss Smith?”

      Belatedly, she recalled that he still thought she was Becky. With the realization came an instinctive decision to let him continue to think so until she sorted out just what she’d walked into. The mile-wide protective streak the two sisters had always felt for each had now kicked in, big time.

      Older than Lauren by a scant ten months, Becky had tried to shield her sister from their parents’ bitter break up with her determined cheerfulness and refusal to cry. On more nights than Lauren wanted to remember, the two girls had huddled together in bed, trying to close their ears to the shouting, the scathing recriminations, the slamming doors. The long summer they’d spent with their mother’s friend, Jane, while their parents waged a bitter war for custody, had cemented the girls’ affection for each other into an indestructible force.

      As they’d grown older, their roles had reversed. Solemn, focused Lauren had worked her way though high school and college, while Becky dropped out after her freshman year and flitted from city to city, man to man. Lauren was always there when her sister needed a loan or a place to camp out.

      Just as Becky had been there for Lauren after she’d walked in on her husband and their accountant, and then turned around and walked out of her marriage.

      Blood ran thicker than a dented heart, and the bond between the sisters ran thicker than blood.

      “Yes, I’m all right,” she replied to this watching, watchful neighbor. “Just…nervous, I guess.”

      He nodded, the movement a mere dip of his head.

      The overhead light caught the glints in his dark hair. He wore it cut short, Lauren noted, neat and trim as a police officer might.

      He had the body of a cop, too, or at least the body of one of those heartthrob TV cops. Broad shoulders strained the seams of his blue denim shirt. Sleeves rolled halfway up displayed arms corded with muscle. His jeans rode low on a washboard-flat belly.

      As Lauren had learned from her brief, disastrous foray into marriage, however, great pecs and a flat stomach didn’t count for squat when it came to character. Her ex, Jack, had worked out regularly—not that his carefully cultivated physique could compare to this rugged, square-jawed stranger’s.

      “Are you up to doing a walk-through?” he asked, those arctic blue eyes filled with seeming concern.

      Needing the time to sort through her chaotic thoughts, Lauren nodded and turned to lead the way down the hall.

      With her protective instincts now on full alert, she couldn’t miss the sardonic twist to his mouth when she flipped on the lights to the living room. Bristling inwardly on Becky’s behalf, she followed his gaze as it swept the room.

      The mess epitomized her sister’s lack of roots and constant job-hopping as much as her casual approach to housekeeping. The furniture had obviously come with the rented house. A blend of desert chic and cheap sturdiness, it consisted of a sofa and two chairs cushioned in shades of mauve and turquoise, one end table and a tacky, cactus-shaped lamp. The collection of orange-striped Garfield cats that crowded the shelf above an adobe fireplace gave the room Becky’s distinctive stamp.

      More than anything else, the grinning cats spoke to the differences between the sisters. Lauren specialized in fine works of art and mythical creatures like unicorns and dragons and griffins. Becky collected Garfields. And frothy underwear…like the lavender silk teddy trimmed in black lace draped over the arm of the chair.

      It was just the type of thing Becky loved to wear, skimpy up top and even skimpier below. Becky had tried to talk her more conservative younger sister into the same thong-style

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