by Lori Foster
She was naked, Zane," he said in a dry voice. "Sorta took me by surprise, ya know?"
Zane took a threatening step forward, his arms rigid at sides, and once again the flashlight beam scattered around the room.
Tamara jumped between the two men and jerked the light away from Zane. She wanted to know what was going on, not watch a display of testosterone one-upmanship. "I take it you know each other?"
Zane gestured vaguely. "He's my cousin, Joe Winston."
Suspicion rose in her, ugly and raw and mean. "Your cousin?"
Zane scowled. "Yeah."
He followed me today," she informed him. "On the bus, when I went to the Realtor's."
A little surprised, Zane cocked a brow at Joe.
Joe shrugged. "She's good. I have no idea how she spotted me."
Every volatile emotion she'd just experienced—fear, panic, anger—coalesced into a fiery rage. She readied herself to blast Zane, to maybe get the journal back and use it on his head this time, when he whipped around to face her and growled, "Why didn't you tell me someone followed you?"
Indignation cut through her. She sputtered several seconds before spitting out, "Why didn't you tell me!"
He leaned into her fury, giving back his own. "I was trying to protect you! If you wouldn't keep shutting me out, maybe it wouldn't be necessary!"
She sputtered again. "I didn't ask you for protection!"
"I know. You won't ask me for anything except—"
Her hand slapped over his mouth. "Don't—you--dare."
Joe laughed as Zane caught her wrist and carried her hand to her side.
"You may not want my protection, but I'm giving it anyway. And God knows you need it." Using his hold on her wrist, he tugged her closer. "And didn't I tell you to stay in the bedroom?"
"Zane!" Did he have to outright announce their relationship that way?
Joe made a tsking sound. "Now, children...."
Tamara reached for the battered journal, wanting to smack him a good one for scaring her so badly, and finding his unwanted audience a good enough reason.
Since Joe was so tall, about an inch above Zane, it was easy for him to hold it out of her reach. "Easy love. Before you start trying to scatter my brains again, do you think we could find some lights?"
Relenting went against the grain, but she saw no option. "I have candles."
"I don't think that's necessary." Zane flipped the flashlight around the room. "The downstairs is still locked."
"I know." Joe, too, looked around. "The fuse box?"
"That's what I assume. How else could he have gotten the whole house to go dark at one time?"
They both looked at Tamara, brows raised, expressions identical though their features were polar opposites.
She almost laughed. Zane stood there, tall, lean, beautifully masculine, a man who oozed charm and sex appeal through every pore, every breath. A man who made her want him just by being.
And next to him, Joe, who looked darker, meaner. She doubted his cousin even knew how to spell charm, much less employ it. He didn't ooze sex appeal—he shouted it. It fell off him in chunks.
"You two are pretty intimidating, you know that?" Then she poked Joe in the chest. "Only I don't intimidate that easily."
Zane slung an arm around her shoulder and hauled her dose. "Now Tamara, don't abuse my cousin. As annoying as he is, he's trying to help."
"Trying to help?" Joe asked with mock offense. "I got here in time to scare off your intruder. I'd say that's a little more than trying, considering you don't look like either of you were prepared to do battle."
Zane, hair rumpled and eyes heavy, had on unbuttoned unzipped slacks, riding low on his muscular hips. He was barefoot, bare-chested . . . her heart punched into her ribs. He looked so good. She squirmed beneath the sheet as her heart turned over and her toes curled.
Zane's muscled arm around her shoulders went taut. "You saw someone?"
"Ran off past your store, down the street. I could have given chase, but I didn't know if you'd need me in here." "Damn, I understand and I appreciate the concern, but I wish you'd run the bastard to the ground."
"I'll get him next time."
Tamara slipped away from Zane—and was promptly hauled back. She nearly lost her sheet, which got Joe's attention and had Zane snarling again.
"Where's the damn fuse box?" he demanded.
"That's where I was going," she informed him with just as much heat, and again tried to move away.
"You'll go with me. We can't be sure that whoever did this is entirely gone."
"Your cousin said he saw him run away."
Joe cleared his throat. "Yeah, well, that doesn't mean there was only one guy."
Tamara felt no sense of intrusion, no sense of threat. Whoever had been there had left. But she merely shrugged. If it'd make Zane feel better to keep her close, she had no quarrel with that.
Using the flashlight and trailing her sheet, she led the way to the metal stairs. On the outside wall, to the left of entry door, the fuse box stood open. The main breaker had been flipped.
Tamara clicked it over and the house buzzed to life. A glow poured from her bedroom window, adding shadows that hadn't been there before.
Joe and Zane stared at her, Joe in open-mouthed wonder, Zane in vexation. They presented a united front--against her.
Clutching the sheet a little more closely, she squared off with them. "What?"
"That's a damn stupid place for your fuse box."
Joe grinned. "I'd have put it more delicately than that, but he's right. At the very least, you should have a lock on it. Hell, anyone could come in here and—omph!"
Tamara didn't hang around to see if the big buffoon liked getting hit with the flashlight more than the journal. She doubted she'd hurt him, though. His abdomen was as hard as Zane's.
Marching in the door, she briefly considered slamming it behind her, and contented herself with stomping to her bedroom instead. "Insufferable, insulting...."
Zane said into her ear, "Do you have to entertain every damn male relative I have?"
She yelped. She hadn't known he was following on her heels. Rounding on him, she thumped his bare chest with a fist. "Damn it, don't sneak up on me!"
"Quit stalking off, and I won't have to."
Tamara stopped at the bedroom door, gestured for him to precede her, then went in and slammed the door. She couldn't remember ever slamming a door before, but then, she'd never dealt with a hardheaded, autocratic male before either.
Jumping right into her grievances, she said, "I don't appreciate having a watchdog that I know nothing about. And I most definitely don't want you poking fun at me or insulting me in front of other people. And while we're on it, don't you ever run off in a dangerous situation and expect me to just cower behind."
Zane pulled her to her tiptoes and kissed her hard. "Joe stays until we figure out what's going on. If you don't like it, tough. I refuse to apologize for worrying about you." He kissed her again, this time sliding his tongue deep until she softened in his hold. He said against her , "I didn't mean to insult you, and for that I apologize. But if we're ever in another dangerous situation, you can damn well believe I'll tie your sweet little ass to the bed if that's what it takes to keep you safe."
His words were so low and seductive and filled with tenderness, it took Tamara a moment to absorb their meaning. When she did, she jerked away. She started to let loose on him—but the look on his face did her in. Damn, he looked so . . . affectionate. Perhaps people in a relationship always carried on that way. She just didn't know.
She swallowed hard, suddenly overcome by all that had happened. Her stomach pulled into a knot. "Someone," she whispered, "was trying to get in my house."
He nodded slowly. "With you home." His big hands smoothed up and down her back, comforting, protecting.
"I don't know what to do."
"Pack. You'll stay with me until we figure out what the is going on. With Joe on the case, it s
houldn't be long. He's good at this kind of crap."
"I can't." Tamara knew what Zane's expression would be without looking at him. She stepped over to her dresser, dropped the sheet and found a pair of jeans. Forgoing underwear, she stepped into the soft denim and zipped up. A T-shirt was next, followed by a red pullover. She had no idea what she'd done with her shoes, but from beneath her bed, her slippers peeked out. She went to her knees to retrieve them.
When she straightened, her feet now resembling white bunnies, Zane crowded against her.
You're coming home with me, Tamara."
Hoping to placate him, she put one hand on his naked chest. Warmth and security rose from his hard flesh—it'd so easy to give in to him, to let him take care of her problems. But there were some facts she couldn't over-
look. "Everything I own is here, Zane. Everything. I'm not leaving it. What if he comes back?"
"Exactly."
"No." She shook her head, not quite meeting his eyes. He wouldn't understand; his life was full in so many ways. Compared to him, her most valued possessions were few. "This is my life. I can't just abandon it to be ransacked."
His brows pinched together, warning of a full-blown rage. Tamara hugged herself to him.
"I've had a fire, Zane, a flood, snoops. Today, I realized someone had been going through my shelves. I have no idea why, what he was looking for, but a lot of things had been displaced. Someone got in here and rifled through my things." She shuddered. Saying it out loud made it somehow worse, more real. "I don't like this, Zane."
He hesitated, his body thrumming with near violence that she knew wasn't directed at her. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?"
"I was going to, but you distracted me with sex."
Something dangerous flashed in his eyes—possession, protectiveness—then his strong arms came around her and held her tight. "All right. If you won't come home with me, I'll stay here with you."
"You don't have to do that."
"I'm staying."
Iron laced his words, and she swallowed her sigh of relief. "Thank you."
Zane tipped up her chin. "Honey, no matter what your journal says, there's nothing wrong with leaning on me a little."
She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. "There's . . . there's a chapter on intimacy leading to more. I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to start something that you don't want to finish, and I can't finish."
"And why can't you?" He smoothed her hair, brushed her temple with his thumb, snugged her hips up to his, and wrapped her in his heat and scent and comfort.
She felt like a limp noodle, weak in body and mind. "I'm selling, remember?"
And where will you go?"
A question she couldn't answer. God, would this night never end? "I don't know. We've worked the circus before, small fairs, places like that."
"The circus?"
He sounded appalled, forcing her to dredge up a smile reassurance. "Every kid's dream, right?"
Was it? Don't lie to me, sweetheart. Tell me the truth."
"The truth, huh?" The truth, in her opinion, was ugly. It wasn't something to be hashed over, but she could pick and choose her words. She shrugged, willing to share a little of the past life she'd never been suited to. "I hated constantly changing friends, forever attempting to build new relationships."
"So finally, you just gave up?"
"My aunts and uncle became my friends."
"It's not the same as kids around your own age."
"No. But you know what bothered me even more? In circus, it's never quiet, and you're never alone, where you can just think. My parents loved that chaos, the continual excitement, and so did my aunts and uncle. But I used to dream of just being all alone, maybe sitting in a rowboat in the middle of a lake, or out in a field with only the bees buzzing."
He caressed her, his rough palms moving up and down her back. "Which is why you like living alone now?"
"Yes." Zane looked far too grim to suit her, and she attempted to lighten the mood. "Maybe I'll just relocate, start a smaller shop somewhere else."
His dark eyes were so intent, so probing, she felt more naked than she had before getting dressed. He touched her face, his fingertips gliding over her chin, her nose, smoothing out her puckered brow.
'If Joe finds out who's doing this, you wouldn't have sell, would you?"
Confiding in anyone, leaning on anyone, was as uncomfortable as a toothache. Because of the way she'd grown up, she'd never done it, didn't know how, and could already tell she wasn't going to like it. But Zane was a mix of tumultuous emotions, cresting against her reserve like a continual wave, wearing her down, smoothing away her worries. He was aroused—but he was always aroused whenever they were alone together. She was getting used to that—or, rather, accepting it. He was also tenderly concerned, openly caring. He wanted her, not just for sex, she realized, but for more.
She shook her head, unwilling to start an internal debate on that subject. What he wanted, how much he wanted, would remain a mystery until he told her outright. It was too important for her to play guessing games. She could sense his feelings, but she wasn't a mind reader who could dissect his every thought with accuracy.
"I lost a lot of money," she said wearily. "The shop does fine, but not when there are a lot of unexpected expenses. It . . . put me behind. Recovering enough financially to stay here would be difficult."
"Do you have some upkeep for your relatives?"
"Not a whole lot." She felt protective of them. They never asked for much, and after all they'd given her, she didn't mind helping them now that they were older. "Because their house is already paid for, their expenses are minimal."
Turning away, Zane picked up one of the software manuals on her desk. He flipped through a stack of notes there, picked up and examined a disk. "And what is all this?"
She flushed. What she did outside of being a Gypsy was just so ... personal. Stiffening her spine, ready to accept any jokes he might feel compelled to make, she said, "Strange as it may seem, I'm a technical writer."
He glanced at her over his shoulder, his gaze full of censure. "Not strange, honey, so don't put words in my mouth." Laying the manual aside, he crossed his arms and rested against the edge of the desk. "I just want to know more about you, about your situation."
"You don't think it's funny, the contrast in the two professions?"
`You're a jumble of contrasts, so it makes sense that you'd seek other outlets." His voice gentled. "You're a complex woman, Tamara Tremayne, and I find I like discovering all the different angles."
She sucked in some necessary oxygen for her laboring lungs and deprived brain. The emotions he felt now were layered and varied and too entwined for her to even begin sort them out. They mixed with her own emotions, until she felt light-headed.
"Is it hard work?"
Her heart raced at the sincerity of his question. She loved her computer work, but it wasn't something she'd ever been able to share with anyone.
A burst of light, like a ray of sunshine, cut through everything else, warming her, filling her up. She smiled, this time a natural smile. "It seems I have a knack for making the complicated sound simple." It was a boastful statement, but with Zane, she felt free to lose her modesty. She knew he wouldn't mind and that, in fact, he'd expect no less.
"I work with a software company on getting instructions down in a user-friendly way. Our work mode varies, but
generally I sit with the programmer and get trained how to use the software. I document the smallest details, then organize everything and write a manual on how to use it."
"This is added income?"
"Yes." She could tell he'd misread the particulars, and smile widened. "I'm not working in the coal mines, Zane."
"No, but I've seen your light on late into the night, and I know why. The job you have is already full-time. You haven't left yourself much time for you."
The irony of his statement amused her. "Gee, how is it
you
've seen my light on, unless you were just leaving your job, too?"
"One job, Tamara. Not two."
"The technical writing is something I enjoy." How to explain it, she wondered. And how much should she explain? "It's . . . serendipitous."
His gaze softened, his shoulders softened. A small, understanding smile turned up the corners of his sensuous mouth. "Part of that `normal lifestyle' you were talking about earlier?"
"Yes."
Zane watched her a moment more, then started to close his slacks. "We've got a lot to discuss. And if I know Joe, he's probably out there snooping around right now."
Startled, Tamara's brows shot up. "Snooping? In my house?"
"Yeah." Zane shrugged. "It's sort of what he does now."
She barely heard him, having already turned away. Long, anxious strides carried her out the bedroom door and down the hallway. But Joe Winston wasn't snooping. Nope. His big body was lounged out on her sofa, long legs in disreputable tattered jeans stretched out in front of him. He was engrossed in the journal.
A pair of black-framed reading glasses perched on the end of his slightly crooked nose, looking horribly out of place against his rugged and whiskery face. His golden earring glinted under the soft light of the end table lamp. His chiseled mouth was pursed in contemplation.
On the seat next to him, the pages that had gotten torn from the book when she'd hit him with it, had been smoothed out flat.
Without looking up to acknowledge her presence, he muttered, "I never figured Zane for the type to need instructions," then he turned another page.
Heat rushed into her cheeks. Behind her, Zane threatened Joe in the most lurid way imaginable.
Joe glanced up, unconcerned with Zane's ire. "A lot of hogwash, but you know, some of it is right on target."
"Zane!" Alarmed, Tamara stepped between them. "What's the matter with you?"
With a shove, Zane released Joe. "He's coming on to you, right in front of me."
Even during Zane's attack, Joe hadn't looked away from Tamara, and now humor lit his dark blue, heavily fringed eyes. "He's jealous, sweetheart, anyone can see that. Seems Zane has a possessive streak, at least where you're concerned. I don't remember him getting his shorts in a bunch over any other woman."
