His lips twitched. “Uh-oh.” He glanced at the other man. “You were right about her memory for faces. She, uh, knows me as Eddie MacReady.”
Lieutenant Rasmussin’s expression barely changed, yet he managed to look disgusted. “You might have said something.”
“I didn’t know who your witness was. You’ve kept their names from the press, though God alone knows how.”
“Apparently it didn’t do much good, since Javiero found the other one.” Tom Rasmussin sighed and stood. “Explanations are obviously in order. Dr. Grace, this reprobate is my brother, also known as Sergeant Ferdinand Rasmussin of the Houston Police Department Also known by various other names, including Eddie MacReady. He works undercover and he has a sick sense of humor. Raz, meet Dr. Sara Grace.”
She stared at the reprobate. He was a police officer? Now that she looked closely, she saw differences between her memory of him and the way he looked today. His clothes were vastly different, of course. This man’s hair was shorter and lacked the blond highlights she remembered. And his eyes. There was something different about his eyes, but she couldn’t pin down what it was.
He smiled at her, a smile as slow and as sweet as the chocolate-candy color of those eyes. “Call me Raz,” he said, looking almost bashful, as if he should have a hat to doff and boots to scuff in the dirt. “Glad to meet you under my right name this time, ma’am.”
Detective Rasmussin scowled at his brother. “Stop playing around, Raz.”
He shrugged. “I’ve got to do something to counter the impression she has of me. Eddie’s not a very nice boy.”
Sara was confused. On several levels. “You, ah, you want your brother to take over for the other officer?” she asked the detective. “You’re assigning him to stay with me until I get a bodyguard?”
“Not exactly. Raz is on leave from the force right now. Do you want to get out and dry off, Dr. Grace, before I explain?”
Get out—in front of these two men—in her swimsuit?
Sara’s face heated. Nerves fluttered in her stomach, and her throat closed. The rising tide of symptoms was only too familiar, but no easier to combat because of it. She reminded herself that her swimsuit was a conservative one-piece. And these men didn’t care what she looked like. They wouldn’t be checking out her body for flaws. Besides, she’d look more ridiculous if she stayed in the pool.
But real shyness couldn’t be reasoned away. She was barely able to stammer, “I’ll, uh—my towel. It’s—if you’d just—”
The wrong man figured out what her fractured request meant. The one she thought of as Eddie MacReady turned and grabbed her towel from the webbed chair where she’d left it. He crouched near the edge of the pool.
“Here.” He smiled as he held out the towel.
This was awful. He was so close, and looking right at her. Sara shut her eyes and heaved herself up and out. She sat on the edge of the pool and twisted to take the towel from him, eager to get it wrapped safely around herself. Her fingers trembled slightly when they brushed his.
Heat. Quick. Purifying. It zipped through her in a sudden rush. Just that fast, her shakes and sick nerves were gone, washed out by something stronger. Her hand clenched the towel. She stared at him, astonished.
His eyes were wide and startled and, for a split second, completely unguarded.
“Do you want to go in?” Lieutenant Rasmussin said.
His voice brought Sara back to reality. Partway back, at least, enough to realize she still sat there in her skin-hugging swimsuit. She blushed and hastily wrapped the thick terry towel around her. “Yes,” she said, and pushed to her feet. “I’ll fix coffee.”
Now, of course, he would see what had been hidden by the water. But while Sara was painfully self-conscious about some things, she had her pride. She was proud of the fact that she walked at all, and damned if she would be ashamed of the scars.
Her back was straight even if her gait couldn’t be when she limped to the chair where she’d left her cane. She started for her cottage then, and she didn’t look back.
Two
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Raz demanded in a low voice. The sound of the shower his subject was taking traveled clearly through the wall to where he and his brother stood in the kitchen of her dollhouse-sized cottage.
Sara Grace lived on Highpoint Avenue—typical doctor territory, expensive and exclusive. She rented from a doctor, in fact—the chief of surgery at her hospital. But Sara’s home was a tiny “mottter-in-law” house built behind the mansion by a previous owner. Her kitchen was a narrow, unfussy room with several plants hung in front of the long window in lieu of curtains. Like the rest of the house, it had wooden floors. A basket in the center of the table held a miniature holly bush covered with red berries and tiny red bows. Beneath it was a red place mat with a holiday border.
Christmas. Now that Raz had noticed the holiday, he saw it everywhere.
The coffeemaker that sat at one end of the green-and-whitetiled counter gave a last burp and gurgle. Tom set his hat on the counter and reached for the pot. “Tell you what?”
“That she was injured when Javiero went gunning for his rival at the emergency room.” Damn, he felt edgy. Automatically he patted his pocket, then pulled his hand away when he remembered. No cigarettes.
“She wasn’t. I don’t know why she limps, but it’s not from the shooting. Want a cup?”
“Yeah.” He moved restlessly around her small kitchen, trying to get a handle on the woman he was supposed to keep alive. Dr. Sara Grace—physician, trauma specialist, witness ... and a pretty, frightened mouse with a bad leg.
Seeing her limp had bothered Raz. He didn’t know why. It didn’t seem to be a severe handicap. She’d walked almost normally once she had the cane to help. Maybe it was the contrast. She’d been so at home in the pool, a sleek water creature, small and strong and sure.
He thought of his reaction to her once she left that water. Amusement, dark and supple, twisted in him.
“Care to share the joke?” his brother asked, handing him a steaming mug.
“Not really.” Raz sipped. The coffee was one of those fancy gourmet brands, the first evidence of extravagance he’d seen in Sara Grace’s life-style. “I’ve got some questions to ask before she rejoins us,” Raz said.
“Go ahead.”
“What kind of back-up have I got?”
“I can have someone here eight hours out of twenty-four.”
“Wait a minute.” He frowned. “You said ‘here.’ Don’t you have a safe house lined up for her?”
“She won’t go.”
“Won’t go?” Raz’s eyebrow went up. “She didn’t strike me as stupid.”
“Feel free to try and talk
