Dangerously Attractive. Jenna Ryan

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      IT WASN’T WHAT HE EXPECTED. Not the woman, not the kiss and definitely not his reaction to it. Vanessa had temptress qualities, no doubt about it, but the heat that flared both above and below his belt, now that was bad.

      He knew where it came from, though, and why. She had a curious blend of softness and strength about her. Maybe she’d channeled the fear she’d refused to show him into the kiss. Whatever the case, his brain had quite simply melted down on contact.

      Forty minutes later, he could still feel her pressed against him, that exquisitely toned body touching his in all the right—or wrong—places. And he swore the taste of her would haunt him all night, maybe longer.

      Angry with himself, he slammed the door of his car and took the porch steps outside his friend’s house two at a time. He walked in without knocking, but closed the door quietly. Didn’t matter. Billy had ears like a damned elephant.

      “S’at you, Rick? I got coffee back here that’s strong enough to strip paint.”

      The old man’s voice had a wobble to it these days. It was a worry, but with his head swimming and the taste of a beautiful woman still on his lips, that worry had pretty much worked its way to the back of Rick’s mind.

      Tossing his jacket aside, he navigated the obstacle course that was the first floor hallway. He hit his head twice on protruding cabinets before squeezing through the kitchen door. “You’ve got to stop taking in every piece of broken furniture you see, Billy.”

      “They’re antiques, and keep your voice down. You’ll wake the new kid.”

      “What new kid?” Rick squinted into the poorly lit room. He could hear the old man but couldn’t see him past two bookshelves, a tall boy and some kind of rickety bureau.

      “Found him this morning at a bus stop.” The words came from somewhere near the pantry door. “Kid didn’t get on when the bus came. Didn’t have any money. He tried to sell me a watch. I offered him a hot meal instead. Figured a good night’s sleep wouldn’t hurt, either.” A smile entered his tone. “I smell real pretty perfume out there. Would it come from that detective you saw tonight?”

      His vocal cords might wobble, but nothing else about Billy Ruby had changed in the nearly twenty years Rick had known him. He took in strays—people, animals and objects. He cleaned them up, gave them a sense of worth and sent them back out into the world. He trusted easily, missed little and took it in stride if one of his tougher human challenges failed.

      A Saint Bernard with a kinked tail wandered over to drool on Rick’s boot. He gave a deep bark and wove a path to the far corner.

      “It’s after midnight, Rick. I don’t take that as a good sign.”

      Hunched over his computer, Billy didn’t look up. At ninety-six, he was the oldest person Rick knew. He wore his store-bought teeth with pride and had more hair than most men half his age, long hair that fell halfway down his back in a thin white braid. He was part African American, part Native American, part French Creole and part Swiss. It never failed to make Rick smile when Billy threw that last thing in. A neutral country, Billy Joe Ruby was not.

      Rick thought back briefly to his youth. He’d fallen in and out of trouble—mostly in—before meeting the old man. With patience, luck and a whole lot of late night talks, Billy had helped a tall, skinny, scared kid from Bakersfield finally get his head screwed on halfway straight.

      At the moment, Billy was regarding a group photo, taken on what appeared to be a college campus. Rick set one hand on the back of his chair, the other on the makeshift desk and bent to study the shot. “Let me guess. You’re helping me with this case.”

      “I СКАЧАТЬ