cheeks couldn’t possibly get any hotter. “Which doesn’t change the fact that you promised.”
He lifted one shoulder. “Promises are made to be broken.”
“You don’t really believe that.”
“How do you know?”
It couldn’t possibly be anymore obvious. “It doesn’t matter how many lines you give me, because the truth is, you couldn’t do the work you do if you didn’t believe in keeping your word,” she said simply.
Chapter Three
Brody looked at Angeline’s face. She looked so… earnest, he thought. Earnest and sexy as hell in a way that had nothing to do with those hanks of black lace he’d gotten a glimpse of.
She’d always been a deadly combination, even in the small doses of time they’d ever spent together.
Was it any wonder that he’d been just as interested in consuming a larger dose as he’d been in avoiding just that?
Complications on the job were one thing.
Complications off the job were nonexistent because that’s the way he kept it.
Always.
But there she was, watching him with those huge, wide-set brown eyes that had gotten to him even on their first, ridiculously brief encounter five years earlier.
He deliberately lifted one eyebrow. “It’s a job, sweet cheeks. A pretty well-paying one.”
“Assembling widgets is a job,” she countered. “Protecting the innocent? Righting wrongs? That’s not just a job and somehow I doubt you do it only for the money.”
“You’re not just prim, you’re a romantic, too,” he drawled.
She frowned a little, possibly realizing the topic had gone somewhat awry. “So what’s the next step?”
He held up a cluster of grapes. “We eat.”
Right on cue, her stomach growled loud enough for him to hear. “Shouldn’t we try to find the children?”
“You wanna pull off our own kidnapping?” He wasn’t teasing.
“That’s essentially what your plan was.”
“I’d consider it more a case of protective custody.”
She pushed her fingers through her hair, holding it back from her face. She didn’t have on a lick of makeup, and she was still more beautiful than ninety-nine percent of the world’s female population.
“Fine. Call it whatever,” she dismissed. “Shouldn’t we be doing something to that end?”
“I told you. First things first. How far do you think we’ll get if we set out right this second? You’re so exhausted I can see the circles under your eyes even in this light and I’m not sure who’s stomach is growling louder. Yours or mine.” He popped a few grapes into his mouth and held up the cluster again. “Come on, darlin’. Eat up.”
“I think we should at least try to see the children. What if that password thing doesn’t work?” But she plucked a few grapes off the cluster and slid one between her full bow-shaped lips. She chewed and swallowed, and avoiding his eyes, quickly reached for more.
“It will.” He tore off a chunk of the bread and handed it to her, and cut the wedge of cheese in half. “Here.”
She sat on the foot of the bed and looked as if she was trying not to wolf down the food. He tipped the pitcher over one of the glasses, filling it with pale golden liquid. He took a sniff. “Wine.” He took a drink. “Pretty decent wine at that.” He poured the second glass and held it out to her.
She took it from him, evidently too thirsty to spend a lot of effort avoiding brushing his fingers the way she usually did. “Wine always goes straight to my head.”
“Goody goody.” He tossed one of the cloth napkins that had been tucked beneath the bread basket onto her lap. “Drink faster.”
She let out an impatient laugh. “Do you ever stop with the come-ons?”
“Do you ever take me up on one?”
She made a face at him. “Why would I want to be just another notch?”
“Who says that’s what you’d be?”
She took another sip of wine. “I’m sure that’s the only thing women are to you.”
“I’m wounded, babe. You’re different than all the others.”
She let out a half laugh. “You are so full of it.”
“And you are way too serious.” He bit into a hunk of bread. He was thirty-eight years old—damn near a decade her senior—but he might as well have been sixteen given the way he kept getting preoccupied with that narrow bed where she was gingerly perched.
“I’m a serious person,” she said around a not-entirely delicate mouthful of bread. “In a serious business.”
“The paramedic business or the spy business?”
“I’m not a spy.”
He couldn’t help smiling again. “Sugar, you’re a courier for one of the biggies in the business.” He tipped more wine into his glass. “And your family just keeps getting pulled in, one way or the other.”
“You ought to know. You’re the one who approached me in the first place to be a courier.”
He couldn’t dispute that. “Still. Don’t you think it’s a little…unusual?”
She didn’t even blink. “You mean how many of us are involved with Hollins-Winword?”
At least she wasn’t as in the dark as her cousin Sarah had been. Sarah’d had no clue that she wasn’t the only one in her family hooked up with Hollins-Winword; probably wouldn’t know even now if her brand-spanking-new husband, Max Scalise, hadn’t tramped one of his own investigations right through Brody’s assignment to protect a little girl named Megan. They’d been staying in a safe house in Weaver, set up by Sarah, who mostly made her living as a school teacher when she wasn’t making an occasional “arrangement” for Hollins-Winword. But she’d only learned that her uncles were involved. She hadn’t learned about Angeline.
Or the others in that extensive family tree.
And now, he’d heard that Sarah and Max were in the process of adopting Megan.
The child’s parents had been brutally murdered, but she’d at least have some chance at regaining a decent life with decent people raising her.
She’d have a family.
The thought was darker than it should have been and he reached for the wine pitcher again, only to find it empty. Thirty-eight years old, horny, thirsty and feeling envious of some innocent,
