deserted her. Through all the long years after that, of working in bars and dating men with no future and trying her best to be a good mother, she’d still held out hope that Robert would return to her. If he whistled for her, she ran to him in a pant. If he called on the phone, she dropped everything. She was a sad, lonely woman, unable to enjoy life or even to enjoy her children that much, and Laura didn’t ever intend to be like that. She’d allowed herself the mistake of hoping her father would love her. She’d even forgiven herself for thinking Greg was something he wasn’t. But no more. She’d made her last big mistake with a man.
“This isn’t going to work, you know,” she said suddenly. “You escorting me to work doesn’t count in the big book of How Laura Pays Mick Back for Helping Her.”
“It works for me.”
She laughed, even though she wasn’t feeling all that amused right now. She was sitting two feet away from a man who had a shadowed jawline made for stroking and a long, strong body made for satisfying a woman’s needs.
“How can I expect Meggie to learn how to behave if I don’t even show her the right way to thank someone?” she asked, forcing her thoughts back down the right lane.
Mick’s laugh was low and seductive. “Um… Meggie would be how many days old now?”
Laura firmed her chin. “A parent should start the way they mean to go on.”
Her comment brought a thoughtful smile to Mick’s face. “You’re an admirable woman, Laura,” he said gently. “I’m sure you’ll be one of the good parents. That’s important.”
His comment triggered a question in her mind. He sounded as if he had issues with parenting. She realized how little she knew about him. Maybe if she knew more, she’d know the right thing to do to demonstrate her gratitude. As it was, all she really knew was that he was handsome and that he was gallant. Well, okay, she did know that he worked in construction and was only here for the short term, but—
“Didn’t you say you were just in from out of town?” she asked suddenly.
Instantly Mick’s expression turned serious. He studied her carefully as if trying to decide what she was up to with this sudden change of subject. “Just in,” he agreed quietly.
“Just here to do a job?”
“I’m here to do a job,” he said.
Laura drummed her fingers lightly on the dashboard. The seeds of a plan—okay, the seeds of a very small plan—were building. Nothing great, but maybe more would come later.
“So…what do you usually do for supper?”
Mick turned curious eyes her way before looking back to the road. Suddenly he smiled.
“I usually eat,” he teased.
“Where?”
He shrugged. “Fast food, a local diner, that kind of thing. Why?”
“No special reason. Just that you’re away from home. Maybe you’d like food that was prepared just for you. Mrs. Parker has given me kitchen privileges if I want to have a guest rather than eat with all the other boarders. I could cook something for you. We could have a meal in my room, unless…”
“Unless?”
She felt her face burning. “I never thought. You don’t have a wife who would get upset about another woman making you a meal, do you?”
In the silence that followed, the sound of the truck’s engine filled her ears. Loudly.
“No wife,” he finally said. “I’m not exactly marriage material.”
His statement called for a question, but his tone told her he wasn’t interested in answering questions.
“So would you be open to letting me work off my debt to you with food?”
“You don’t have a debt.”
She shook her head. “I have a bodyguard. I don’t think most bodyguards work for free. Or at least they shouldn’t.”
Mick pulled up in front of the clinic. He cut the engine and turned dark, intense eyes her way, his arm looped over the steering wheel. Now that he wasn’t driving, Laura was even more aware that he was an attractive, unmarried man…and that he was very close.
As if to punctuate that point, Mick leaned even closer. “Laura,” he said softly. “I don’t know how to say this tactfully, but I’m not sure it’s wise for us to spend too much time alone in your room.”
She sat there quietly chewing on her bottom lip, horribly embarrassed that he must have known what she had been thinking.
A low groan slipped from his lips. “Don’t do that,” he whispered, brushing her lip with his fingertips. And at that point of contact, she knew that he was right. It would be very dangerous for her to bring him into the private confines of her room at the boardinghouse. She’d be in much more danger than she probably ever would be in at the clinic, even with some sort of criminal harassing the Maitlands.
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