How many times did women conjure up scenarios where they nursed a wounded soldier back to health? It satisfied both the nurturer and the lover within each woman. Both of which had been leeched from her.
But she'd felt a certain amount of fulfillment, helping Zack. Ever since she was five and suddenly orphaned, she'd wanted to be a doctor. Even then she'd believed she could have saved her parents had she practiced medicine instead of watching them die before the paramedics arrived on the scene.
Right, saved them, she mocked herself. She hadn't even been able to save Jim. She hadn't even stayed to try. The second that police detectivethe man who had been assigned to guard them and keep them safe in the hotel roomhad opened fire on them, hitting Jim, she'd fled. Ducking out the door, she'd broken into a run and flew down the stairs.
She hadn't stopped running until she'd come to a Dumpster two blocks away. She'd hidden there, amid the waste and refuse. Praying that the stench would keep the killer from searching for her in there.
The stench had made her nauseous and dizzy, but she'd endured it for several hours, climbing out only when she thought it was safe. She'd learned about Jim's death via a news program blaring out onto the street from one of those appliance warehouses that kept more affordable items on the sidewalk. Up until that point, she'd been praying that he was alive.
She'd nearly passed out then. But somehow, she kept walking. Aware that people all around her were giving her strange looks. At that point, had the killer found her, she wouldn't have cared. Wouldn't have cared if she lived or died because Jim was gone.
But the will to survive was stronger than her heartbreak and eventually she forced herself to thinkand to act.
Waiting until dark, she bided her time and slipped into the hospital where she'd worked via a back entrance that had momentarily been left unattended. Going to her locker, she'd gotten a change of clothes. She'd showered quickly in one of the stalls located on the maternity floor and then tried to figure out what to do next.
Eighteen months later, she was still trying to figure out what to do next, she mused. Maybe someday, she'd figure it out. Figure out what to do to put this life behind her.
The bell that hung over the doorway went off, signaling the entrance of a customer. Or, more likely, a browser.
Feeling vulnerable, perched on a ladder the way she was, Kasey turned around, intending on climbing down. But she'd moved too quickly, throwing the ladder's balance off. One moment she was standing on the top rung, the next moment, she was airborne. And heading for the floor.
Fast.
* * *
Chapter 5
« ^ »
The second he saw her fall, Zack ran into the shop and across the room. He made it from the doorway to the ladder in less than half a heartbeat, managing to catch Kasey just before she hit the floor.
The wound in his side complained bitterly at the strain of her weight, compounded by velocity. He figured it was a small price to pay. At the very least, he owed her one for what she'd done the other night.
"Gotcha!"
The triumphant word whooshed out of his mouth as he pulled her against him in order to keep his balance. Her hand instantly splayed against his chest. Zack was not prepared for the force of the electricity that came charging at him out of nowhere. It took effort to maintain his equilibrium.
For a split second, the air went rushing out of her lungs, squeezed out as she landed squarely in his arms. God, but they felt strong. And muscular.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she couldn't help thinking that it couldn't have gone better if they'd rehearsed this.
At the same time, she became aware of something very intense happening all along her nerve endings. Mentally, she scrambled to collect herself.
"How did you find me?" she asked.
"I saw a paper bag in your place with the logo Rare Treasures. You said you worked in a bookstore. I took a chance. It paid off."
"You took a bigger chance," she pointed out. "You could have broken your stitches catching me."
He looked directly into her eyes, further unsettling her. "You could have broken something else if I'd let you land on the floor," he pointed out.
"No argument," she conceded. "How's the wound coming along?" she asked.
"It's healing."
It struck her as odd that he made no effort to release her. She wasn't exactly weightless. "I think you can put me down now."
"Yes, I know." Even so, he allowed himself one last moment to savor the sensation of holding her. He couldn't have explained why, but having her in his arms felt right. Zack could only speculate that his covert life had taken its toll.
He did enjoy the company of beautiful women, a rarity when he was on the job.
Setting her down, Zack stepped back, then fired off a rhetorical question. "Don't you know you're not supposed to stand on the top rung of a ladder? You could have taken a really nasty spill if I hadn't come in just when I did."
"If you hadn't come in when you did, I wouldn't have turned so fast and lost my balance," she countered. "And there would have been no reason to play the knight in shining armor." Or faded denim, she added silently. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
He grinned. "Besides catching you?"
Something in the pit of her stomach reacted to his grin. She didn't like it. She stepped back, bumping up against the ladder.
Stilling it before it fell over, she did what she could to recapture her dignity. Kasey raised her chin defiantly. "Yes, besides that."
He was well aware that he was in her space and made no effort to back off. It'd been a while now since he'd felt human. Since he'd felt like a red-blooded man. She made him remember that. "I thought I owed you more than just a thank-you for what you did."
Kasey shrugged his words away. The last thing she wanted was to get involved with someone on any level. "You don't owe me anything."
"I come from a very large family that believes in paying their dues and their debts."
She moved by him, turning her attention to the books in the cart she had yet to alphabetize before shelving them. "You're making too much out of it."
He followed her, entertained by the way her hips moved when she walked. "Well, my life might not seem like that much to you," he allowed, "but it's the only one I have"
She spared him a glance. Why wasn't he going away? "I didn't mean to imply that your life isn't important, it's just that my part in it is negligible. If I hadn't taken you in, someone else would have."
He sincerely doubted that. "I knocked on several doors that night. No one opened theirs." Glancing down at the books, he moved one ahead of several others. "Except you."
"I didn't open the door," she reminded him. "I was coming home and found you splayed across my doorstep. Makes a difference." She blew out a breath. Ordinarily, it wasn't this difficult getting people to go away and leave her alone. "If it makes you feel better, I absolve you of all debts that you think you owe me."
He smiled, offering her another book. "Goes there," he pointed to the space. Then he shook his head. "It doesn't work that way," he clarified when she eyed him quizzically.
"Oh?" Lowering her eyes, she went back to alphabetizingand to ignoring him. The latter effort was completely unsuccessful. "And how does it work?"
He gave her his game plan. "I take you out for some coffee. If you find yourself having not that terrible a time, then we go on to dinner at some future date."
Her head jerked up. "Date?"
"Strictly in the calendar sense," he assured her, at the same time wondering what could have spooked her this way. He had his suspicions on that matter. "Not in the male-female sensealthough, arguably," he allowed, "there will be one of each present at the table."
She looked at him for a long moment. The man certainly wasn't at a loss for words. Or twists and turns. "Are you a disbarred lawyer?"
The question tickled him even though he had little use for lawyers. He saw them as the enemy, getting pe
ople off on a technicality, scum he or one of the other detectives had busted their butt to capture. "Why disbarred?"
She glanced down at his attire. "Because I never knew any practicing lawyer who walked around in torn jeans."
Zack crossed his arms before him, his amusement growing. "So you figure I must have done something dishonorable and gotten tarred and feathered by my own kind?"
She shrugged carelessly, squatting down to take inventory. "Something like that."
"Well, I'm not a lawyer, past or present. What I am is thirsty." He scanned the store, listening for a sound, an indication that someone else was in the store, someone who could cover for her for a few minutes. "When do you get your break?"
"I don't," she informed him crisply. "I'm the only one in the store so I can't just leave on a whim." She hoped that was enough to make him back off and leave.
She should have known better.
"Slavery was outlawed, you know." He had this uncontrollable urge to wind a strand of her hair around his forefinger just to feel if it was as silky as it looked.
She resented his implication. She actually liked working here. It was quiet, and she liked old books. "I get an hour lunch. I lock up the store from twelve to one."
It was ten now. He had to be on his way by eleven-thirty. That taken into account, her time frame didn't work for him.
"Can't you push it up just this once?" He gestured about the empty store. "I'm guessing you won't get an argument from the throngs."
She stopped looking through the books and rose to her feet. Zack made her uneasy, and yet, he stimulated her.
She didn't need this kind of trouble. And yet...
She took a breath, knowing she was going to regret her next move. "Look, if you really want coffee, I keep a pot on in the back. It's Edwin's small way of competing with the bookstores that have cafes built into them." There was a specified tiny area for the customer to sit, but no books could go near the coffee. They were sacred to Edwin. He would sacrifice a customer before he sacrificed a book.
Zack didn't want her going through any extra work. "I don't really want coffee," he confessed. "I want an excuse to spend some time with you."
After having it as her constant and only companion for the last eighteen months, she couldn't just divorce herself from suspicion. "Why?"
He usually didn't get this much resistance when he expressed interest in a woman. "Why do you need to have everything spelled out?" he asked, amused. "It takes all the fun out of the surprises that life springs on you."
He saw her stiffen slightly and knew he'd said the wrong thing, but what part of it was wrong he hadn't a clue. She was like a puzzle. An intriguing, beautiful, blue-eyed puzzle.
She moved back, away from him and wound up hitting the cart, hard. Books flew off the cart, spilling onto the floor.
Swallowing a choice swear word, Kasey dropped to her knees and started gathering the books together. She'd alphabetize them later.
"I don't like surprises," she told him through clenched teeth.
Zack knelt down beside her, picking up several books at a time and sliding them back onto the cart.
"Oh, but you should." He reached over for several books that had spilled out by her side. Picking them up, he straightened only to accidentally brush up against her. Again, electricity hummed through his veins. His eyes held hers for a long moment, temptation swirling through him.
"Some of the nicest things happen that way," he went on to say, his voice low.
Kasey felt as if she'd been zapped by a low-voltage Taser. Damn, what was the matter with her? Where was this pull coming from? She'd never been one of those people who slipped easily from relationship to relationship. Jim had been only the second man she'd ever slept with and that was only after she'd given her heart to him. This man was a complete stranger to her. So why was her body suddenly on high alert? What was this wild, damp palm feeling, and where was it coming from?
For that matter, where had the air in her lungs gone? She couldn't breathe, as if he'd stolen her supply of oxygen.
"I don't like surprises," she repeated, her voice hardly above a whisper.
"I do," he told her, one word slowly following the last. "Sometimes."
And this, he thought, this sexual pull that was drawing him to her, was certainly one of the nicer surprises he'd encountered in quite some time.
The next moment, the books were forgotten, abandoned on the floor where they'd fallen. Instead, he drove his fingers into her hair, tilted her head back and kissed her with all the feeling erupting within him.
She didn't disappoint him.
Lightning flashed as a sweetness spilled out through his veins. One taste of honey led to another and then another. He deepened the kiss, for a single second allowing himself to forget the life-and-death situation he was currently in, to forget that he consistently placed his life on the line and could be, at any moment, wiped away from the face of the earth without a trace.
Right now, nothing else mattered but this woman and her incredibly sweet, exciting mouth.
He wanted more.
More from her, more from himself.
Don't let's get carried away, he silently chided. He was supposed to have more control over himself than this. Okay, so she was damn beautiful and he was really attracted to her, but he was made of sterner stuff than that, right? He couldn't allow this to make him rejuggle his priorities. He was on an assignment for God's sake. Dedication had his job coming before pleasureeven if, right at this moment, he didn't want it to.
Just another second, he bartered with himself, kissing her harder.
Oh God, what was going on here? Why was she letting this happen? Letting? She was right there in it, absorbing and relishing. And reciprocating. But this wasn't the woman she'd become in these last eighteen months. Kasey Madigan shied away from any kind of physical contact, certainly away from something as intimate as a kiss. Because that's what it was, intimate. Not pleasant, not fleeting, not friendly. Intimate. With a capital /.
His kiss slammed into her, going right through all the layers she'd wound so tightly around herself and aimed itself straight for where she lived.
Straight for her inner core. Her heart, which was beating wildly, was in danger of wearing itself out.
Summoning all her willpower, Kasey pulled back. As she did so, she realized that her breath came in small, shaky gasps. Her eyes on his, she squared her shoulders and did what she could to appear unfazed. Even so, she sincerely doubted anyone was that good an actor.
Still, she tried to sound unaffected. She would have been more convincing if she didn't sound so breathless, Kasey thought ruefully. Hoping that he wouldn't notice she was just playing a fool's game.
"Was that to illustrate a point?" she finally asked him.
For a moment, he just looked at her, as if her words weren't making any sense. "If it was, I lost the thread," he confessed.
She felt flustered inside. It was a long, downhill slide from the confident surgeon she'd been such a short while ago. Needing something to do with her hands, to keep busy, she began to place the books back up on the cart. Alphabetizing was out of the question. She would have needed to know the alphabet for that.
"You shouldn't have done that," Kasey murmured.
He wasn't sure if she was addressing the words to him, or to herself. In either case, his reaction was the same. "I think we're going to have our first disagreement, Kasey."
Summoning indignation, a surefire male repellant, she eyed him sharply. But the smile on his lips was so disarming, she had trouble maintaining her annoyanceor any semblance of it. She did, however, want him to know something. "I don't do casual."
He did. It was the only thing he did. Because of his background, of who he was, he didn't do serious, or commitment.
But what just happened didn't fit his normal criteria. "There was nothing casual about that kiss, Kasey. Not on either end," he added. She was going to ask him to leave, he could feel it. And in r
eality, he supposed he should be going. But he wanted to leave the door open between them. "Does this mean I don't get any coffee?"
She stopped stacking books and looked at him intently. Things didn't "just happen" in her life. Not anymore. She didn't allow them to.
"Why are you here?" she asked.
"I already told you. I'm in your debt and I just want to repay you by taking you out to dinner, but I had a feeling that you're not exactly the trusting kind, so I figured we could start out by going out or in" he nodded toward the small table in the back where the cof-feemaker stood "for coffee. Baby steps."
She pressed her lips together. She could still taste his on them. It sent a small, thrilling ripple through her. "That was not a baby step."
He inclined his head, as if in agreement. "I'll do better next time."
Kasey didn't know whether to feel unnervedor thrilled. "Just what makes you think that there'll be a next time?"
"What makes you think there won't?" he countered, his eyes holding her prisoner.
The sound of the bell announcing someone's entrance into the store interrupted them.
He thought he saw something akin to fear flicker in her eyes as she quickly turned her head to see who had entered. What was it that she was anticipating? More to the point, what was she afraid of? For one fleeting moment, Kasey hadn't looked like a clerk about to wait on a customer but like someone expecting something or someonefar worse.
Glancing toward the door, Zack saw an older, well-dressed woman walk into the shop. She had the look of old money and eccentricity about her. Probably someone wanting a first edition or a hidden treasure amid the discarded and neglected tomes. As for him, the only hidden treasure he saw was the woman with wariness in her eyes.
Damn, but this job had to be getting to him. He didn't usually wax poetic this way.
Protecting His Witness Page 5
