LITMIR.BIZ

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not?”

      “Because I’m not. Charming. And I’m certainly not a prince.” To prove both, he added, sternly, “Now, come here and put on the helmet.”

      “Are you wearing one?”

      He didn’t answer, just lifted his eyebrow at her, the message clear. She could put on the helmet or she could go home.

      Mutinously she snatched the straw hat from her head.

      He tried not to let his shock show. In those few unsupervised minutes while he had talked to Gray on the phone, she had gone to the washroom, all right, but not for the reason he had thought or she had led him to believe. Where had she gotten her hands on a pair of scissors? Or maybe, given the raggedness of the cut, she had used a knife.

      She was no hairdresser, either. Little chunks of her black hair stood straight up on her head, going every which way. The bangs were crooked. Her ears were tufted. There wasn’t a place where her hair was more than an inch and a half long. Her head looked like a newly hatched chicken, covered in dark dandelion fluff. It should have looked tragic.

      Instead, she looked adorable, carefree and elfish, a rebel, completely at odds with the conservative outfit he had picked for her. Without the distraction of her gorgeous hair, it was apparent that her bone structure was absolutely exquisite, her eyes huge, her lips full and puffy.

      “Where’s your hair?” he asked, fighting hard not to let his shock show. He shoved the helmet on her head quickly, before she had any idea how disconcerting he found her new look. His fingers fumbled on the strap buckle, he was way too aware of her, and not at all pleased with his awareness. The perfume he’d caught a whiff of at the wedding tickled his nostrils.

      “I cut it.”

      “I can clearly see that.” Thankfully, the mysteries of the helmet buckle unraveled, he tightened the strap, let his hands fall away. He was relieved the adorable mess of her hair was covered. “What did you do with it after you cut it?”

      Her contrite expression told him she had left it where it had fallen.

      “So, you did it for nothing,” he said sternly. “Now, when we’re traced this far, and we will be, they’ll find out you cut your hair. And they’ll be looking for a bald girl, easier to spot than you were before.”

      “I’m not bald,” she protested.

      “I’ve seen better haircuts on new recruits,” he said. She looked crestfallen, he told himself he didn’t care. But he was aware he did, just a little bit.

      “I’ll go back and pick up my hair,” she said.

      “Never mind. Hopefully no one is going to see you.”

      “Does it look that bad?”

      He could reassure her it didn’t, but that was something Prince Charming might do. “It looks terrible.”

      He hoped she wasn’t going to cry. She put her sunglasses back on a little too rapidly. Her shoulders trembled tellingly.

      Don’t be a jerk, he told himself. But then he realized he might be a lot safer in this situation if she did think he was a jerk.

      When had his focus switched from her safety to his own?

      Rattled, he pushed ahead. “I need you to think very carefully,” he said. “Is there a place on this island we can go where no one would find us for a week?”

      He tried not to close his eyes after he said it. A week with her, her new haircut and her new green bikini stuffed in the backpack. Not to mention the shorty-shorts, and a halter top that had somehow been among her purchases.

      He could see in her eyes she yearned for things that were forbidden to her, things she might not even be totally aware of, things that went far beyond riding on motorcycles and cutting her hair.

      Things her husband should be teaching her. Right this minute. He had no right to be feeling grateful that she had not been delivered into the hands of a man she’d dreaded discovering those things with.

      Instead she’d been delivered into his hands. One mission: keep her safe. Even from himself.

      Still, he was aware he was a warrior, not a saint. The universe was asking way too much of him.

      He turned from her swiftly, got on the motorcycle, persuaded it to life. He patted the seat behind him, not even looking at her.

      But not looking at her didn’t help. She slid onto the seat behind him. The skirt hiked way up. Out of his peripheral vision he could see the nakedness of her knee. He glanced back. The skirt was riding high up her thigh.

      It was a princess like no one had ever seen, of that he was certain. On the other hand, no one would be likely to recognize her looking like this, either.

      “Hang on tight,” he said.

      And then he felt her sweet curves pull hard against him. Oh, sure. For once she was going to listen!

      “I know a place,” she called into his ear. “I know the perfect place.”

      His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He slowed, checked the caller ID. His mother. He wrestled an impulse to answer, to yell at her, Don’t do it! Instead he listened to her leave yet another voice mail.

      “Ronan, call me. It’s so exciting.”

      They were crossing over a bridge, rushing water below, and he took the phone and flung it into the water.

      He was in the protection business; sometimes it felt as if the whole world was his responsibility. But the truth was he could not now, and never had been able to, protect his own mother from what she most needed protecting from.

      Herself.

      Shoshauna pressed her cheek up against the delicious hardness of Ronan’s shoulder. His scent, soapy and masculine, was stronger than the scent of the new shirt.

      Alone with him for a week. In a place where no one could find them. It felt dangerous and exciting and terribly frightening, too. She pressed into him, feeling far more endangered than she had when the gun had gone off in the chapel.

      Some kind of trembling had started inside her, and it was not totally because he had hurt her feelings telling her her hair looked terrible. It wasn’t totally because of the vibration of the motorbike, either!

      “Go faster,” she cried.

      He glanced over his shoulder at her.

      “It doesn’t go any faster,” he shouted back at her, but he gave it a hit of gas and the little bike surged forward.

      Her stomach dropped, and she squealed with delight.

      He glanced back again. His lips were twitching. He was trying not to smile. But he did, and his smile was like the sun coming out on the grayest of days. That glimpse of a smile made her forget she had only a short time to squeeze many dreams into, though a week was more than she could have hoped for.

      Still, it was as if his smile hypnotized her and made her realize maybe there was one dream he could help make come true. A dream more important than wearing shorts or riding astride or touching snow. A dream that scorned people who pretended all the time.

      She had only a few days, and she wanted to be with someone who was real, not kowtowing. Not anxious to please. Not afraid of her position. Someone who would tell her the truth, even if it hurt to hear it.

      I’m not going to be more responsible for you than you are willing to be for yourself, he had told her. She shivered. In that simple statement, as much as it had pained her to hear it, was the truth about how her life had gone off track so badly. Could Ronan somehow lead her back to what was real about herself?

      When she was younger, there’d been a place she had been allowed to go where she had felt real. Relaxed. As if it was okay to be herself.

      Herself—something more and more lost

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