The Guardian. Linda Winstead Jones

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СКАЧАТЬ the man in every way. “He sees a shadow and he believes there’s a danger in it. He sees the worst possible scenario in everything he runs across. A couple of unhappy letters and a panty thief, and he’s got me under surveillance.” If not for him, she wouldn’t even be worried about the letters or the underwear. A little bothered, maybe, but not really worried.

      Patty cocked her head. “You’re already calling this Mangino character by his first name. That’s rather interesting, knowing you and the way your brain works. Hmm. You also very quickly and decisively dismissed him as a suspect. What does he look like? Is he as hot as his cousin?”

      Hotter. “I suppose some women would think he’s attractive, in a…different sort of way from Jesse Edwards.”

      “Different how?” Patty could be very persistent.

      “Just different.”

      Patty smiled. “You like him, don’t you?”

      “I do not.”

      “You do. You’ve got that little twitch to your lips. It’s a dead giveaway. I haven’t seen that twitch since college!” Patty’s grin was insanely wide. “When do I get to meet him?”

      Never, if I have anything to say about it. “I’m sure you’ll run into him eventually,” Sara said, cursing the ease with which her old friend could read her. A twitch? Why hadn’t anyone ever told her she had a twitch? “He’s going to be around until I can come up with more money for payroll and Chief Edwards hires more qualified men.”

      Patty ignored the subject change to city business. “How serious is it? Are we talking love at first sight?”

      Sara sighed and drank more coffee. It was a nice little stall but didn’t last long enough. Finally she said, “There’s nothing at all serious going on here, and even if there were, I don’t believe in love at first sight and you know it.”

      “Lust at first sight?” Patty asked without pause.

      Again, Sara hesitated. She didn’t believe in that, either, not for a woman thirty-five years old. Not for a woman who’d had her heart broken, first by desertion by choice and later by desertion by death. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “Maybe I was just having an off day.” Maybe, even though she did her best to dismiss it as unimportant, the theft and anonymous gift had rattled her more than she’d realized, and a capable man, any capable man, was a comfort.

      Maybe she’d simply been alone too long.

      Natalie Douglas, Sara’s secretary and maker of terrible coffee, knocked briefly and then opened the door. The young woman was truly beautiful, with pale blond hair stylishly cut, cool gray eyes and a figure any woman would kill for. She was also a more than capable assistant and a whiz with computers. If they could just get past the bad coffee thing…

      “There’s a Sergeant Mangino here to see you. Should I tell him to wait?”

      “No!” Patty said with a smile. “Bring him to us immediately.”

      Natalie ignored Patty’s enthusiastic direction and looked to her boss for an answer, and after a moment Sara nodded her head. “Send him in.”

      Patty’s smile widened, and Natalie cast a furtive and blatantly interested glance over her shoulder. Did Dante have this effect on every woman he met? Probably. She should consider that fair warning where he was concerned.

      Natalie opened the office door wider, and Dante stepped inside. He glared down at the cup of coffee he had foolishly poured himself in the outer office. “Good God, you could tar a roof with this.”

      Whenever Sara had carefully and kindly mentioned that perhaps Natalie could make the coffee less strong, the woman had been insulted. Now she took the cup from Dante’s hand and promised, in a heartfelt, apologetic voice, to pour it all out and make a better pot. When he added a “Thanks, darlin’,” Natalie actually blushed and bit her lower lip in a coy manner.

      Sara was momentarily ashamed of her own gender.

      Dante nodded to Patty, who all but dropped her jaw at the sight of him. Yes, he was studly, but really…get a grip.

      “Do you have those letters?” he asked without preamble, his attention entirely focused on Sara.

      “I gathered them together first thing.” She handed over the thin stack, certain he wouldn’t find anything alarming but not altogether sorry that he was going to check to be sure. Dante shook his head at her as he put on a pair of gloves. Only then did he take the stack of letters.

      Patty stood. “I have to go or I’ll be late for work. Don’t forget the sock burning. Saturday night, Lydia’s place, just after dark.”

      “I’ll be there,” Sara said.

      Patty closed the door on her way out, and when she was gone Dante lifted his head to look at Sara. “Sock burning?”

      She gave him a genuine smile. “It’s a tradition a couple of friends and I have. Every spring, we gather up all the mismatched socks we’ve managed to accumulate during the year, and we burn them. Lydia lives outside town on a large piece of property. We build a bonfire and ceremoniously dispose of the socks whose mates went missing in the dryer or just got lost or damaged along the way. Except that year we were having such a drought. We skipped the sock burning that year.”

      “I have a similar tradition,” Dante deadpanned. “I throw mismatched socks in the trash.”

      Must be a man thing. Robert had voiced the same thought, a time or two, back in the days when the bonfires had been planned around infrequent trips home to see family and friends. He had never understood or embraced the annual sock burning, but he had tolerated the event with a smile. Sara remembered well. She thought of Robert and she smiled herself, and this time his memory didn’t hurt. “Where’s the fun in that?”

      “I didn’t know there had to be fun involved in disposing of…” He stopped abruptly and began carefully riffling through the letters. “Never mind. I should know by now never to question a woman’s logic since there usually is none.”

      She could argue that point with him, but chose not to. Not now, at least. “What do you do for fun these days?” The question was out of her mouth before she had time to think it through.

      He didn’t hesitate to answer. “My idea of fun includes explosives and big guns, or copious amounts of alcohol and loose women.” He glanced up, pinning those dark eyes on her. “And in case you’re wondering, no. The two various forms of recreation don’t mix.”

      “Good to know,” she said softly. Her voice took on a different tone as she asked, “Will there be anything else? I have a busy morning planned.”

      Dante very gently shook the letters in her direction. “No, this’ll do it. Have a good day.” He dismissed her and turned just as Natalie opened the door. The smitten secretary held a foam cup of steaming coffee in one hand.

      “I hope you like this better,” she said sweetly. Too sweetly.

      Dante smiled at her. “I’m sure I will, darlin’.”

      It took all Sara’s willpower not to snort out loud.

      And СКАЧАТЬ