The Guardian. Linda Winstead Jones

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      A treadmill, Dante had suggested. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.

      Lydia and Patty had accused her, on more than one occasion, of being perverse. If someone said she shouldn’t do something, she had to give it a try. Robert hadn’t called her perverse, but he had more than once accused her of being stubborn as all get out. Her husband had been gone for four years, gone much too soon, and there were still times that she thought of him and it hurt like hell. She’d decided that the pain—a pain that came less often when she kept herself too busy to think about Robert and all they’d missed—would never go away.

      Perverse or stubborn as all get out, those who knew her best said. So, was she walking down a deserted street at dusk simply because a man who made her anxious and twitchy had suggested that she not?

      Suddenly, she was positive someone was following her. It wasn’t her imagination, not anymore. She heard a car engine, but no car went past her. The engine was almost idling, the car moved so slowly. The motor purred and whispered, instead of racing as a car engine should. Her neck and the palms of her hands itched. Her heart pounded and her mouth went dry. She listened for the car to stop at the curb. She listened for the driver to get out and walk to the door of one of the houses she walked past so she could dismiss her worry as silly and unnecessary.

      No. Someone had anonymously sent her sexy underwear, in the right size no less, so her worries were not silly. Not silly at all. Had her underwear thief stolen the things that had been drying on the line simply to get her size? That indicated an unhealthy interest and determination and all the other traits one did not want from a secret admirer. Like it or not, she could not brush this incident off as nothing. Not anymore. She took a deep breath, gathered her composure as best she could and turned her head slowly, trying for a nonchalant glance back. She’d pretend to see a neighbor. Maybe she’d even look past the car to smile and wave. Surely if someone was following her they wouldn’t try anything if they knew they’d been seen.

      Sara took a deep breath, slowed her step and turned her head—and was immediately relieved and incensed. How dare he? She spun about and stalked toward the car that was so obviously tailing her as if she were the criminal.

      Dante Mangino smiled and lifted the fingers that had been resting on the steering wheel of his city car for a casual wave. He didn’t even have the grace to look guilty! Conservative suit and short haircut aside, he didn’t look like any police officer she’d ever seen. He was irreverent, fiery—and, after all these years, still the bad boy.

      The driver’s-side window was down, allowing him to enjoy the mild March air. One arm rested nonchalantly there, his elbow jutting out of the car.

      “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

      He didn’t seem at all taken aback by her obvious annoyance. “Why, ma’am, I’m making sure the mayor of this fine town gets home safe and sound. That’s all.”

      Was it her imagination, or was his subtle Southern accent exaggerated a bit for that comment?

      Sara’s first impulse was to tell him that it was unnecessary, and then she admitted to herself that she was comforted to see him there, that the shadows did not seem so ominous now that she was not alone, and the noises that had moments earlier seemed out of place were suddenly ordinary and not at all alarming.

      “This is ridiculous,” she said in a calm voice. “The least you can do is park your car, get out and walk with me.” She could only imagine what her neighbors would have to say about that, but it was preferable to having him tail her around the block at three miles an hour.

      It was obvious by Dante’s expression that he had not expected the invitation. He’d expected—perhaps even wanted—a fight.

      “All right,” he said, pulling his car closer to the curb and shutting off the engine. He exited the car in a way that was smooth and graceful and strong. She wasn’t sure how that was possible, but it was. This man, Chief Jesse Edwards’s cousin or not, was trouble with a capital T.

      After the disaster with Dante so many years ago, Sara had worked very hard to be immune to trouble, especially of the male kind. While her friends in college had gone gaga over bad boys with pretty faces, she had always looked for more. She’d looked for intelligence and a sense of humor and kindness. She’d looked for stability. After her brief and fabulous and ultimately unhappy experience with Dante, those were the attributes she deemed to be worthy, not killer dark eyes and a face with sharp lines and nicely shaped lips, and thick heads of hair that might be a warm black or a very dark brown. Not long legs and strong hands and a way of moving that was both graceful and masculine. Those things were nice bonuses, but they were shallow and not at all important.

      So why did her mouth go dry as Dante Mangino approached? “You’re not really dressed for walking.”

      “That’s not a problem,” he said, and then he smiled.

      “You don’t walk very fast.”

      Sara resumed her walk. With Dante beside her she felt much less anxious in one way—and much more uneasy in another. She couldn’t allow a man to get under her skin so easily. Her memories of the past were just that—memories of a time gone by. She was not the same person she’d been at seventeen, and neither was he. She didn’t know him at all. Dante was still good-looking, and he was in great physical shape—and he had no manners at all. He had a wicked grin and a way of taking her breath away with a glance.

      For so long—from the time she’d met Robert eleven years ago, in fact—her relationships with men other than her husband had been businesslike or comfortably casual. She’d never met any man who made her feel so on edge, so anxious. Sara was old enough and experienced enough to know what that edgy feeling meant.

      In an instant, Dante Mangino had reawakened a part of her that had been sleeping for such a long time she’d thought it dead and gone.

      It would be best to quickly and firmly put him in that business category, to squash whatever it was he aroused in her. “So,” she said casually as they walked down the familiar sidewalk. “Tell me about yourself. Are you married?” She hoped he’d say yes. No matter how attractive he was, no matter how he turned her stomach to mush with a glance, no matter that she still remembered what his arms felt like when they wrapped around her, she would not even consider getting involved with or even fantasizing about a married man.

      “Nope,” he answered. He matched her short strides with his long ones with little effort, and offered no details or other information about himself.

      “I imagine you have a serious girlfriend,” she said. As long as he was in some sort of committed relationship…

      “No,” he said, as decisively as he’d denied being married.

      She knew he wasn’t gay. Too bad. That would definitely solve her problem. She was a sensible woman. Why had she felt drawn to this man from the moment she’d opened the door? She didn’t believe in instant attraction! It was too much like love at first sight, which she most definitely did not believe in. She and Robert had been friends first, good friends, and love had come later. It had grown slowly and surely into something special.

      Robert had been a lasting, slow burn. Dante had been a firecracker.

      “Why the interest in my personal life, Mayor?” Dante asked.

      Did СКАЧАТЬ