LITMIR.BIZ

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      These words, coupled with the sincerity on Hank’s face, made Kayla pause. She took in a deep breath then exhaled it, giving her time to regain her composure. Then she made herself return her gaze to the huge man one more time, trying for objectivity.

      He stood just back from the doorway now, less than a foot from her, and, once again, the sheer size of him overwhelmed her. She was five eight, but she had to crane her neck upward to see his face. It remained unsmiling—his eyes were an unusual silver-gray, she noted—and his expression remained hard. It was obvious he was not trying to curry favor or to win her over in the least.

      Which, for some odd reason, impressed her. Kayla knew what it was like to be categorized, unfairly judged and then disdained. Surely she owed it to herself, if not to him, to give the man a chance to be seen as an individual.

      Besides, her reaction to the stranger wasn’t really about him at all, and she knew it. It was her custom to be rigorously honest with herself, and what she was dealing with here was old stuff, an automatic fear response to a highly testosterone-fueled member of the male sex, a subgroup she could live the rest of her life without, thank you very much, and be quite content.

      “Well…” She clung to the doorknob, still vacillating between reason and the instinct to flee.

      Just then, Fitzgerald glanced down at her feet—at her bunny slippers, for heaven’s sake, which she had forgotten she was wearing. When he looked up again, she glimpsed a brief flicker of something close to amusement in his eyes. In the next second it was gone, but she’d seen it, and it made her reconsider. She would keep an open mind, give the man a chance.

      “Well, um,” she said again, “I think it’s time I washed my face and changed into actual clothes. Help yourself to coffee. Both of you.” She indicated the automatic coffeemaker she’d set last night before going to bed. “I’ll be right down.”

      When the woman turned and hurried quickly out of the kitchen, Paul’s gaze followed her movements. Mouth suddenly dry, he licked his lips. He felt like a long-starving man in a room that contained a three-course meal, one he wasn’t allowed to eat, but dammit, no one could stop him from looking. Even in a long robe, her womanly shape was apparent. Slim and tall, with an indented waist and gently rounded hips, she moved gracefully, despite those ludicrous slippers

      When he’d first seen her standing in the kitchen doorway, the front view had been just as arresting as the rear was now. Shoulder-length, straight, pale blond hair, sky-blue eyes in a broad, high-cheekboned face that wasn’t beautiful but not plain, either. Character, his father would have said. The woman had character.

      She also had breasts—full, rounded ones. He could tell from the way the robe was tied and from the way they bounced gently as she moved.

      Real breasts. Real hips. Real blue eyes. Not pictures. A real, live, graceful, damned attractive woman.

      Who wasn’t too nuts about him.

      Not that he blamed her. He was hard and he was angry. He had nothing left in him of politeness or manners. In the past four years, civilized behavior had been slowly leached out of him by his brutal surroundings, until he’d learned just to survive. However he could.

      As Hank poured them two generous cups of coffee, Paul walked over the threshold into the kitchen, musing that he’d accomplished the first part of his purpose, gaining access to Kayla Thorne. But he’d been knocked for a loop by the woman who’d greeted them. She was so different than he’d expected her to be. In the pen they’d watched a lot of TV, and Kayla Thorne was all over the tube. She was famous. Infamous, really.

      It was a great story. She’d been a special-duty nurse to millionaire Walter Thorne’s ailing wife. Then six months after the wife croaked, she’d married Thorne, who, at age seventy, was forty-five years her senior. There had been three years of marriage, but the age difference and polar-opposite economic status had given the tabloids and gossipmongers a field day. Thorne had died last year, and she’d been left a wealthy woman, sharing an estate of several million dollars with Thorne’s grown sons.

      In all that time, Mrs. Thorne never gave an interview, never talked about herself, never defended herself. During the marriage and since. So the media had invented a personality for her, a cross between a wet-dream fantasy and money-grubbing schemer. Before the wife croaked, was there kinky stuff going on between the old man and the sexy nurse? they’d asked. Had the two of them murdered the first Mrs. Thorne? they’d implied. And finally, had she cold-bloodedly knocked off the old man?

      She’d been officially cleared of any complicity in either death, both of which were from natural causes, but suspicion remained, even in Paul’s mind. Money could buy you all kinds of ways to cover up a crime. Besides, once he’d heard her maiden name, Vinovich, he’d associated her with lowlifes and liars. He had a lot of evidence and personal experience to back that up.

      Judging from this first meeting, however, unless she was one hell of an actress, it appeared as though both his and the media’s assumptions had been off base. Kayla Thorne was softer than her pictures. More of a real person than a viper. The blond hair was natural, not bottle-created. She was polite, too, no diva, not one of those la-di-da, newly wealthy, lady-of-the-manor types.

      The house was a surprise, too, from the outside for sure. Old, shabby even. Needed a third of the slats replaced, a new paint job. No servants that he could see. The kitchen was like the “before” of a before-and-after remodeling ad. Except for the shiny, new-looking coffeemaker and microwave oven, nothing in here had been updated in years. Old, bent pots and pans hung from hooks above the stove. The tile was chipped, the linoleum water-stained and ancient. One large, deep sink, probably installed in the 1930s. All that money and the whole place was ready for the wrecker’s ball. Damned strange was all he could say.

      He heard her footsteps before he saw her appear from around the corner. He’d been propping a hip against one of the tile counters, sipping his coffee, but he straightened automatically as she entered the room, dressed in a comfortable-looking navy blue sweat outfit and tennis shoes, her hair pulled back from her face in a ponytail. Her face was shiny, as if she’d just washed it, which made her look about eighteen, although he knew she was about ten years older.

      “Did you find the milk?” Avoiding eye contact with Paul, Mrs. Thorne directed the question at Hank, who sat at the small, two-person corner table.

      “Sure did,” Hank said, “and the sugar.”

      “Well, good,” she said, pouring herself a cup, taking a sip and then venturing a quick, sideways glance at Paul. The kitchen was small, there wasn’t a lot of room for maneuvering, so she stood close. He could smell fresh soap and some flowery kind of body lotion. For a moment, he felt light-headed.

      “It’s good coffee,” he said, trying to remember how to be pleasant. He wanted this job, for more reasons than the obvious one, and it was, so far, not a done deal.

      Out of nowhere, a small animal appeared in the doorway, something dirty and floppy in its teeth. Paul frowned. He’d never been a fan of Yorkshire terriers—rats with hair, he’d always thought of them—and his opinion was now reinforced as the runty-looking thing seemed to realize there were two newcomers in the kitchen. Dropping the toy from its mouth, it began a ferocious, high-pitched, extremely irritating round of barking.

      The woman looked down at the tiny dog at her feet, then scooped it up into her arms. “It’s okay, baby,” she cooed, which made it stop barking and begin whimpering, an equally unpleasant sound, to Paul, anyway. “Bailey’s a little upset,” she told them. “We had some kind of nocturnal visitor and he got scared.” She caressed the animal some more. “You want a treat?” she asked him, then got a dog biscuit out of a nearby jar.

      Paul watched her stroke the small animal’s head, scratch it behind its ears. Her hands were pretty and slim, her fingers long, with short, unpolished, efficient-looking nails. He sure wouldn’t mind those hands stroking his head, those fingernails scratching his skin, in all kinds of places.

      At the image, he felt his body stirring. Damn. He really

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