my mind. Let me at least see you to and from work. Let me stop in to check up on you now and then.”
“That’s really not necessary.”
“You’d let me suffer when I don’t have to?”
She grinned. “That’s low, Mick.”
He grinned back. “You bet it is, but it’s also the truth. I’m not asking for the world.”
She gazed down at her hands, which were resting in her lap. He was helpless not to look beyond her fingertips to that long bare stretch of legs. Mick took a deep breath and concentrated on the shiny crest of her hair.
“Laura?” he urged.
She brought her head up, her long hair swishing over her shoulders. “You stayed with me for hours. You didn’t ask for anything, really, but letting you stand guard over me seems so…nineteenth century. I can take care of myself.”
“Are your brothers capable of taking care of themselves?”
“Of course. They’re grown men.”
“Don’t you worry about them now and then?”
“Every day. Especially Luke. I don’t even know where he is.”
“So it’s okay to worry even if you trust them to be capable men.”
She smiled at him and stood up, walking toward him. Her smile was both innocent and yet terribly dangerous to him. He wanted to reach out and touch, maybe even to grab. He forced himself to hold his hands still.
“You’re too smart for your own good, Mick Hannon.”
He shrugged. “That’s not an answer.”
“I don’t see how letting you do something else for me would help in repaying you in any way.”
“It would soothe me. It would help me concentrate. It’s very important to concentrate when you’re working with heavy machinery.”
“Mick,” she drawled. “Don’t make me worry, too.”
He got to his feet. He reached out and indulged himself by running one long finger down the smoothness of her cheek. “I’m a desperate man, Laura. I’m genuinely worried.”
She nearly gasped at his touch, and a slight blush turned her cheeks an enticing, desirable rose. Skin made for nibbling on. Mick did his best to resist.
She frowned. “You shouldn’t be worrying about me. That will only attract my brother’s attention and then Rafe will be pacing the floor. You won’t approach him?”
“Afraid it’s too late. He approached me several days ago.”
Laura frowned. “What did he want? No, don’t tell me what he wanted. He didn’t ask you if you—”
The rose of her cheeks had deepened. Mick couldn’t resist. He leaned forward and touched his lips to her cheek, nibbled his way to her ear. “He asked me if I’d actually seen you naked.”
She jumped, and he brought his arms up to catch her in case she should fall.
“What—what did you tell him?” she asked, and he knew that he’d be kissing her lips soon if he didn’t step away. That wouldn’t be a wise course for either of them, but especially for her. She was at a vulnerable stage of her life. He wasn’t a man made for vulnerable women.
But he very definitely wanted to touch her again. He wanted to kiss more than just her cheek. And he wanted to do it in the dark in a bedroom.
He hesitated, then stepped away. “I told Rafe that the only thing I remember was your eyes. I was staring into your eyes the whole time.”
She gazed up into his eyes then, and the room melted away.
“You were,” she said, her voice low and soft and so terribly sexy that it was killing him. “I remember.”
So did he. All too well.
“You’ll let me be your temporary bodyguard, Laura?”
“Do you really think it’s necessary?”
“Very necessary.” It was a good thing she hadn’t asked him if it was wise, because he knew for certain that getting too close to her wasn’t wise at all. She made him feel big and protective, but he knew that wasn’t a feeling that lasted with the men in his family. Inevitably they failed the women they had sworn to protect.
“What time do you start work?” he asked.
“I’m just part-time. They’re letting me bring Meggie, of course. I begin at three and work until six.”
“This late in the year, it’ll be dark by the time you leave, then.”
She nodded, so close that her swishing hair became trapped against his shoulder. He brushed his fingers through the soft silk and slid the strands back over her shoulder.
“Will you have any trouble getting off work to come pick me up?”
“It won’t be any problem,” he promised. “I have a very understanding supervisor.” He did, but it wouldn’t have mattered. Mick was determined to do whatever it took to protect Laura Maitland from whatever threatened her.
But as he took his leave and her soft scent wafted around him, he knew there was more at risk than he’d mentioned to her.
The lady was tempting as sin, and he had just set himself the task of seeing her several times a day. It was going to be one hell of a task to maintain some distance between Laura Maitland’s lips and his own.
She definitely needed to do something about Mick Hannon, Laura thought a week later when Mick picked her up for work for the first time. It was all well and good to say that you were going to be assertive and independent, but with a man like Mick, a woman had to work very hard to stay a step ahead of him. He was a strong, stubborn man and he seemed to have a thing about protecting women.
“You really don’t have to do this,” she began, as Mick opened the door of his truck and fastened Meggie’s carrier into the back seat.
He studied her for several seconds, a note of concern in his eyes. “Am I making you uncomfortable?” he finally asked.
She stared up at him, feeling small and delicate, even though her body still bore some of the evidence of her recent pregnancy.
Was he making her uncomfortable?
Definitely. The word stuck in her mind. What woman wouldn’t feel uncomfortable gazing up at a man who was a walking ad for how the human male should fill out his jeans? But the truth was that, nervous though that thought made her, there was also a certain comfort, a certain satisfaction in just being near the man.
An unexpected smile lifted her lips. “I feel just fine,” she told him, lifting her chin in defiance.
A grin spread across his face,
