“One morning?”
“And then we’ll take it from there.”
Kate knew, somehow, that it was the best she was going to get. Besides, she saw an advantage to letting him win this one. It was a matter of give and take, she reasoned. Dinner For Two had an engagement this evening. Talking him into letting her do both seemed like something of a long shot. She’d give in on the less important of the two issues. The dinner engagement was something they could get into later.
“Okay.” She put the milk down and reached for the phone. But she didn’t punch in the number right away. She watched him turn away and head for the hall, still shirtless. She took in those broad, bare shoulders. They moved nicely with his stride, with that grace that was all male. She contemplated the movement of muscle beneath skin that looked like pale bronze. Kate put the phone down again quickly and rubbed her palms on her khakis to dry them.
He paused at the door to the hall. “You wouldn’t want to have kept that milk anyway.”
“Why not?” she asked, startled.
“Because I drank right out of the carton.”
He heard her make that strangling sound again. Raphael went on toward the bathroom, imagining her expression, grinning to himself. Regardless of the fact that he didn’t want the prize, winning felt damned good, he decided.
Chapter 5
Regardless of her many irritating traits, the woman could flat-out cook, Raphael realized half an hour later. He’d come back from his shower to find huevos rancheros waiting for him. He didn’t know how she had managed to do it so quickly, then he thought of her labeled refrigerator containers. Under the circumstances, they didn’t annoy him quite as much.
Raphael dug into breakfast. Spices rolled over his taste buds, caressing them like a lover. There was the bite of the chilies, perfect enough to make him want to groan with pleasure. He almost felt guilty for using, and probably ruining, the razor he’d found in her shower.
He pushed his plate away and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “Listen, about that shower I just took—” But he was interrupted by a knock at her door.
The sound galvanized Raphael. It wasn’t a conscious decision to shove his stool back and have his gun in his hand, the safety off, before his next heartbeat. It was fourteen year’s worth of ingrained reaction to trouble. It was the image of Anna Lombardo’s crime scene photos that flashed across his mind’s eye before he took his first step toward the door.
“What are you doing?” Kate cried, horrified.
“Go to the bedroom. Now.”
“I will not!” It was the second time in as many hours that he’d pulled that gun out! At first she’d been merely astonished at his lightning reflexes. But now he was waving the weapon around again like he was some kind of Wild West vigilante, and her heart threatened to stop entirely.
When he turned to her, there was something dangerous about the way he moved. Each motion was contained, violence restrained—not at all like he’d been in Mr. McGaffney’s kitchen last night.
“Go to the bedroom,” he said again, every syllable a warning.
Panic seized Kate by the throat, but she held her ground. “I’ll do no such thing.”
Then, suddenly, she was furious. Kate marched up to him and stuck her face close to his. “Stop this! Stop it right now! You’re running around here like Billy the Kid! It was a knock on the damned door, not a gunshot!”
“Did you just swear?”
Kate reared back. “What?”
“I could have sworn I just heard you swear.”
“So what?”
“What was all that earlier about watching my language? What, underneath all that proper and practical surface you’re really a wild woman? That could make these next few days a lot more interesting.”
It happened instantly, a feeling Kate had never experienced before in her life. It was complex, tangled and frightening. Too many things happened to her simultaneously. Her breath shortened in the same moment something warm swept upward from the very core of her. She felt her skin burn, her heart pump, her adrenaline race.
Was he flirting with her?
Then he turned away. The moment was gone.
“If you won’t leave the room,” he said, “then at least stand over there behind the breakfast bar where you can duck if you have to.”
Kate found herself moving obediently on legs that wobbled. Then she got a grip on herself. “Please. I have friends,” she said weakly, turning back. “I’ve got associates. I have a job tonight. It could be a delivery. You can’t answer the door with that…that thing, ready to shoot somebody.”
He looked at her sharply. “What job tonight?”
Kate bit her tongue. It wasn’t time for that particular battle.
“Hello?” came a female voice through the door. “Katie, are you in there?”
Relief flooded Kate. It was Shawna, her old roommate.
She swept past him, and Raphael put an arm out to stop her. She ducked under it neatly, or maybe he just hadn’t acted quickly enough. He felt a little off balance.
He frowned after her as she rushed to the door. At the sound of the voice from outside, her features went soft with happiness. Her mouth seemed fuller when she smiled. That single dimple came back, winking at him. Raphael realized with a jolt that when she was relaxed, she wasn’t just pretty. She was knee-buckling appealing. He noticed that her turtleneck clung to small but uplifted breasts and her braided belt nipped a waist that his hands could probably span. She’d done something to her hair while he was in the shower, taming it off her forehead with a headband. Near-black curls fell to her shoulders.
He stared at it, wondering if he might like it better wild.
Then she threw the door wide and his heart caromed into his throat. He’d been standing there like a fool, staring at her, feeling as though he was seeing her for the first time. He wasn’t ready for whatever might happen in the instant the caller had access to her apartment. But it was only a woman.
With a dog.
Kate made one of her strangling sounds.
“Good morning,” Shawna said brightly, stepping inside. “Look who I found barking downstairs in the lobby! Isn’t this wild? Belle came home. She’s back!” Then her gaze fell on Raphael, and her eyes widened. “Who are you?”
“Uh…Rafe Monteil. PPD.”
The woman, a beauty with thick blond hair and warm brown eyes, shifted the dog to her left arm so she could hold her right hand out to him. “I’m Shawnalee Marsden.” Raphael shook the woman’s hand, careful not to get too close to the animal. It growled a little and showed its teeth.
“It’s that dog,” Kate said faintly.
“What
