a cop?”
“A detective. Now tell me why you went back to your house when you did.”
“I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to get a head start cleaning up and making whatever repairs I could.”
They stepped inside her house a few moments later. The lights were still on and, as she looked around, she sighed. “I’m going back to my office,” she said, leading the way. “It makes me crazy to see paperwork from a project that took me between six months to a year to complete, scattered all over the floor like trash.”
“First, we need to call the police again. Don’t touch anything, but check as best you can to determine if anything is missing,” Burke advised.
Laura nodded. “I can tell it’s going to be a long night.”
LAURA STOOD WITH BURKE in the living room as the police car drove away. As before, there were no revelations, but at least the officers had the vague description Laura could give of the intruder.
“Now maybe I can pick up some of this mess,” she sighed.
“You’ve had two break-ins back-to-back,” he said, following her into her office. “Could they be related to something associated with your work?” Burke began helping her pick up the papers. Then, giving in to curiosity, he read the top paragraph of the page in his hand. “‘His mouth closed gently over hers…’ Whoa.”
“I write romance novels, Detective.”
He grinned widely.
It was the same condescending, amused look she got from men who’d never picked up a romance novel in their lives. The look she gave him in return made the temperature in the room drop by twenty degrees. “They’re not Machiavelli, but they take thought, skill and a lot of work,” she said in a hard voice. “And they’re not just about sex.”
“What did I say?”
“It was written all over your face.” She’d spent years pointing out to critics of the genre that romance novels qualified as “real” books, and often wondered whether her readers went through the same nonsense.
“Do you write other stuff? Maybe I’ve read your work.”
“I doubt it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“If you’d read my work, you would have remembered,” she said, looking him straight in the eye.
He laughed. “Okay. Point taken.” He looked around. “If the break-ins aren’t the result of your work, then what’s your theory? Who’s doing this, and why?”
“I don’t know,” she said slowly. “That man was crazy, angry, or both. He twisted my arm behind my back and told me he’d tear it off if I screamed. I honestly thought he might. It hurt that much.”
“So you were hurt.” Without even thinking about it, Burke moved closer to her, and she felt his nearness with every fiber of her being. Ripples of uneasiness and excitement danced through her.
“I’m fine now,” she stated, stepping back. She couldn’t even breathe when he stood so near. “He just scared me, particularly when he said he’d kill me unless I told him what he wanted to know.”
“And that was…?”
“He wanted me to tell him where ‘it’ was. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. But I was terrified of what he was going to do next.” Laura told Burke about her self-defense move, then shivered.
He placed his hands on her shoulders, then slid them upward in a slow caress until he cupped her face. Awareness shimmered between them as they stood facing each other for one breathless moment.
“You don’t have to be afraid again,” he said, his voice low and seductive. “I’m going to stick around to help you even out the odds.”
Laura couldn’t think; emotions swirled wildly inside her. His palms were rough, hard and very male, and his touch intoxicating.
Hearing a loud crash in the direction of the kitchen, Laura jumped. Burke reached beneath his jacket, and she saw that the same hand that had caressed her now held a gun.
“Stay here,” he said.
He moved purposefully out of the room toward the sound. “It’s clear,” he called out a moment later.
She found him and Wolf next to the open door in the kitchen. A gust of wind blowing in had stirred a window curtain, which in turn had toppled a miniature carnival glass hurricane lamp from the counter.
Laura began picking up the broken pieces with a heavy heart. It was a keepsake from long ago—one of the few things she’d kept since high school. Some boy whose name she’d long ago forgotten had won the little lamp for her at the fair while on a double date. The trinket, which would have cost only a few dollars, represented a time in her life when she’d been open to the possibility of romance in her future. She’d later used the lamp in her first published novel to represent that same hope for her heroine.
“That lamp obviously meant something special to you. I’m sorry it’s broken,” Burke said.
Sadly, she gathered up the pieces, wondering if she could glue them back together. Then, with a sigh, she dropped them into a wastebasket.
“Maybe it’ll help if you talk about it,” he said softly.
She shook her head. “Like with most things, what made it special were the memories it held for me.”
Before Burke could ask more, and she’d have to explain all about the lamp and what it meant to her writing career, she switched the topic of conversation. “I really want to try and secure my home from another break-in before we leave tonight. Any ideas?”
“Since the lock in the front still works, that should keep any street thugs temporarily at bay. We could use some boards to hold the back door shut. But it’ll mean that the repairmen will have one more thing to do when they come.”
“It’s still a good trade-off as far as I’m concerned. But where am I going to get wood at this hour?” She glanced at her watch. It was nearly one in the morning.
“I think I’ve got a few pieces of plywood in my garage—mostly scraps the previous owner of the house left behind, but I think they’ll work.”
“I have a hammer, hand saw and a box of nails in the garage.”
“So we’re all set,” Burke said, walking to the door.
“Let me give you a hand bringing the boards over,” she said.
“No, don’t worry about it. I’ll be back in a minute.” He paused, then quickly added, “But if you don’t want to stay here alone right now—”
“I’m fine.” He hadn’t meant it as a challenge, but it was one nonetheless. Pride set Laura’s course. “While you’re taking care of that, I’ll start cleaning up here.”
“I’ll leave Wolf
