flushed. Stupid, Sara, she told herself. His concern might be genuine, but was hardly personal. “I’m all right,” she said, and started to smooth her hands on her slacks. She stopped just before she smeared dough all over herself.
He grinned, picked up the leather belt, and stood. “Well, I’m not. I think I’d better change before we have our talk. But first I really do need to apologize. I should have said something the second I turned the stereo off.”
That wasn’t a belt he carried, she realized. It was a shoulder holster. She saw the handle of the gun it carried. She swallowed, staring at the dull gray metal. “Why didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “You were expecting me back about now, and so far you’ve seemed pretty oblivious to the danger you’re in. It didn’t occur to me you’d think someone had broken in.”
“If that’s another attempt to make me change my mind about the safe house, please don’t.”
“I didn’t mean it that way, but I haven’t given up.” His smile this time held conscious charm—which made it all the more irritating when the fluttering started again inside her. “Tell you what. Rule number one—I might try to change your mind, but I’ll let you know up front that’s what I’m doing. Now, why don’t I go change before I get any more dough on your floor?”
“The bathroom is right across from the kitchen.” Sara felt unsteady and vaguely nauseous. She clasped her hands tightly together to keep them from shaking. Adrenaline was great stuff if you had to fight or flee, she reflected, but it played havoc with your system if you didn’t get it all burned up.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he said, “and we’ll talk.”
Sara didn’t watch him leave the room. She forced herself to stand and go back to her dough.
She wasn’t disappointed, she told herself as she kneaded, working off the lingering effects of the adrenaline, that Raz thought he could talk her into doing things his way. People often thought that because she was shy, she was a pushover. And she was, about some things.
Not about her profession.
She was needed at Memorial. With all the increased security at the hospital since the shooting, she should be just fine while she was there. It was later, when she was home again, that worried her.
Home ... with her new bodyguard.
Three
Raz buckled his shoulder holster in place over a clean T-shirt. Damned if he’d put a jacket on just so she wouldn’t have to look at his gun. He wasn’t in the mood for tact. He’d seen the shocked look she’d given his weapon.
How had she thought he was going to protect her? Insults at fifty yards? Bad breath?
The rich smell of yeast filled the kitchen when he walked in. His subject stood at the table, wrist-deep in dough. She didn’t look up.
At least this time she didn’t turn deathly pale.
Raz was still shaken by what had happened earlier. His fault. Completely, stupidly his fault. He hadn’t stopped to think, a sin for which there was no excuse. He couldn’t even allow himself the luxury of confession. Admitting to her how thoroughly he’d messed up would only make her lose what little confidence she had in him, and that was more dangerous than his own doubts.
She glanced over at him. “Surely,” she said, “you don’t need to wear that—that holster of yours inside.”
“The word is gun,” he said, “and it won’t do me much good if it’s in one room and I’m in another.” He knew what bothered her. Guns belonged to another world, a big, messy world that shouldn’t be allowed to intrude on her here.
A world Raz knew only too well. “Baking bread?” he asked.
“No,” she said shortly, turning back to her dough. “I’m kneading it. The baking comes later.”
He grinned, more pleased by the touch of sarcasm than not. She looked very tidy and domestic standing there with her sleeves neatly rolled up, not one hair on her head out of place. Except...his grin widened. “You’ve got dough on the tip of your nose.”
She lifted a hand automatically to wipe her nose, saw the dough covering it, and grimaced. “I suppose you want to have that talk you keep referring to,” she said stiffly. “There’s coffee, if you like. Or some fruit juice in the refrigerator.”
“Juice sounds good.” But instead of going to the refrigerator he stopped next to her. She glanced at him, wary. He reached out and skimmed a finger down her nose. Kind of a cute little nose, short and pointy. Her skin felt soft and fine pored, slightly cool, and made him think of thick cream.
She stared at him, suspicious and stirred. Such big eyes she had, the color of sky hazed by high-flying cirrus clouds. He liked looking into them almost as much as he liked touching her.
Too much.
He quickly rubbed the bit of dough off the tip of her nose and stepped back. Absurdly, his heart was pounding. He was sure—almost sure—his sudden turmoil didn’t show. “There,” he said, and wiped his hand on the towel that sat on the table before continuing to the refrigerator. “First a question. How bad is your hip?”
She blinked at him, startled. “Why do you ask?”
“If I tell you to run, can you?”
“Oh.” She lifted half the dough, turned it, punched it down. “It depends. My hip wouldn’t keep me from running, actually, though I’d probably be a bit awkward and slow. But the sciatic nerve damage that occurred when the joint was displaced affected my calf muscles. The degree of disability varies, depending on how tired the muscles are. Sometimes I hardly notice a problem. Sometimes ... the muscles just don’t cooperate.”
“Does that mean I shouldn’t count on you being able to run?”
“If I’ve been using my cane, assume I can’t run. If I haven’t been using it, I could probably run for a couple blocks.”
“Good enough.” He pulled out the clear pitcher that held an orangey-red juice. “Next question.” He smiled. “Where are the glasses?”
“In the cabinet behind me.”
He closed the refrigerator. “Now tell me something else. Why are you so blasted certain you don’t need to go to a safe house?”
She didn’t look up. Her long, narrow hands looked surprisingly strong as they worked the dough rhythmically: lift, turn, press. “You answer a question for me first,” she said at last. “How do you think Javiero found out where Carl lived?”
“There’s no way to say for sure.”
“Give me your best guess.”
He stopped barely a foot away from her to open the cabinet and take out a glass. Beneath the ripe scent of the yeast he caught the freshness of flowers. He thought of the scented body lotion he’d seen in her bathroom and wondered where on her body he might find that very feminine scent. “The most likely way would be
