01 – Divorced, Desperete and Dating – Craig, Christie

Divorced, Desperate

and Dating

CHRISTIE CRAIG

LOVE SPELL NEW YORK CITY

To Jake, my canine office companion and muse, who gave

me the best years of his life.

I miss you, buddy.

BUSTED

“It was one kiss,” he said.

Oh, yes. One kiss by a cop Sue couldn’t forget.

“We have to stop avoiding each other. Let’s go back inside and prove to each other, and to Chase and Lacy, we’re adults.”

She looked him in the eyes—blue eyes, long lashes. “Sorry, I’ll have to be an adult another day. But if you start practicing now, you might succeed in a couple of years.”

“Don’t be silly.” The wind blew again and the bow on her dress flew up to her Wonderbra cleavage. He jerked his fingers out of his pockets and tucked his hands beneath the opposite armpits like a child who’d been told not to touch.

“I’m not being silly. I’m meeting someone.”

“You aren’t meeting anyone. You’re lying so you don’t have to be in the same room with me.” He rubbed his arm. “I happen to know that you don’t date. You belong to that Divorced, Desperate and Delicious club that you, Lacy and Kathy started. Of course, Lacy jumped ship.”

Sue gritted her teeth. Did everyone in town know she hadn’t had sex in two years? “Well, throw me a landline, matey, because you can drop the desperate for me, too. I’m now divorced, delicious and dating.”

CHAPTER ONE

The worst part about murdering someone was planning exactly how to do it. Not that this was Sue Finley’s first. She’d whacked at least ten people, but it never got any easier.

She bounced the toe of her strappy sandal against the kitchen island, the portable phone trapped between her shoulder and ear as she waited for the Poison Control Hotline. “How much poinsettia leaf would it take to kill someone?” she asked as soon as someone answered.

“Can ya hold?” the woman on the other end asked in a twangy voice, her Texas drawl as thick as the state’s humidity.

“Sure.” Sue reached for a magazine on the counter. The cover promised to make her a better lover and reduce the size of her thighs in ten minutes. Instead, she fanned damp air across equally damp skin with the glossy pages.

The heck with poinsettia; July in the South could kill. She heard the telltale humming of her central air just as her cell phone started chiming. Sue tossed away the magazine, rummaged beneath several loose tampons in her purse to find the phone, and pressed it against her other ear. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me again,” Melissa Covey, her agent, said. “I’m in the middle of downtown Houston. Am I taking—Oh, I’m getting another call. Hang on.”

“Sure.” Sue glanced at one silent phone and then the other. With a phone to each ear, she paced and watched Hitchcock, her gray tabby, leap up on the table. The cat dipped his paw into Sue’s coffee mug, testing the brew’s temperature before lapping up his daily dose of caffeine. She really should start pouring him his own cup, but whenever the feline’s green eyes gazed up at her with such adoration and unconditional love, Sue forgot about cat germs.

“Hey, baby.” She bumped foreheads with her pet.

“Did ya say poinsettia?” the woman from Poison Control asked.

“Yes, poinsettia.” Sue pulled away from the cat. “I’m a writer, and—”

“Can you hold again?”

“No problem.” Sue bit down on her lip. On hold. The story of her life.

But no more. Her gaze caught on the black lace teddy stretched out on the butcher block countertop beside the Victoria’s Secret bag. She only hoped sex was like riding a bicycle and one didn’t forget how to do it. Then again, the last time she’d gotten on a bike she’d hit the right-hand brake instead of the left and nose-dived over the handlebars. Oh, Jiminy Cricket, she hoped sex wasn’t like biking. Or at least she hoped it came with pedal brakes.

Doubts about the weekend started to fizz. She tried to visualize her and Paul doing the deed, but then she recalled last night’s kiss. The kiss that had left her feeling…nothing. She’d even put her heart and soul into that kiss, hoping it would have the same earthshaking effect on her as The-Boyfriend-Who-Never-Was Jason Dodd’s kiss had four months ago.

The earth hadn’t moved. Not even a wiggle. Not with Paul.

For the hundredth time, she wondered if Jason had felt the earth shake that April night, too. Probably not. He’d never bothered calling her, even after he’d asked for her number. Not that it mattered now; she was so over him. Memories of how he’d tasted, of how hard his body had felt…Oh, brother. Well, she was almost over him.

With one phone pinned between her shoulder and ear, she skimmed her fingers over the slip of sexy fabric and tried not to hyperventilate at the thought of feeling nothing next weekend. She totally sucked at faking orgasms. Her oohs and aahs never came out in the right pitch. Or at the right time.

Something at her entranceway window caught her attention—something tan and about the size of a horse. Her breath caught. Goliath, the English Mastiff. Her mother’s drooling canine companion and one-dog destruction team had come to call. Unfortunately, the dog seldom traveled alone. Where Goliath went, so did Sue’s mother.

Thoughts of her mother collided with previous thoughts of orgasms and sent Sue’s brain into a Monday-morning blitz. Hit with a case of fight or flight, and always being more flighty than fighty, Sue grabbed the scrap of black lace and ducked behind the island.

Hitchcock, who was still nursing a grudge against Goliath for sticking a nose where it didn’t belong, abandoned his coffee and darted under the living room sofa.

“You can’t hide from me, Susie,” her mother called out, shutting the front door. “And make your cat behave this time.”

Sue dropped her new nightie on the floor, stood, then gave the sexy garment a toe-nudge into the corner. “My cat isn’t the problem. You need to have that dog castrated. And I wasn’t hiding. I was…counting dust bunnies.”

“Counting dust bunnies?” her mom repeated.

The portable phone slipped down Sue’s shoulder and she snagged it. “Sorry, I’m on hold…both phones. Kind of busy. But I love you.” The last sentence came out with a touch of caring. Sue gave a wave with her pinky.

Her mother, juggling an orange purse, an armful of mail, and a gold-wrapped package, didn’t leave. Sue’s gaze shot to the package. Great. Her mother came bearing gifts. Now she would really feel guilty for trying to avoid her.

“Who’s on the phones?”

“Poison Control.” Sue tilted her head to the right. “And my agent.” She leaned her head to the left and noticed her mother’s low-cut tangerine-colored pantsuit. Lately her mother had seemed extra cheery, and her wardrobe…Fruit colors—apple red, lime green. And every time Sue saw her, the necklines got lower. It wasn’t really indecent yet, but after a few more visits she’d be down to nipple exposure.

Sighing, Sue accepted that her feelings might stem from jealousy. Peggy Finley, at fifty-one years of age, had cleavage that Sue’s size B’s could only attain with a Wonderbra.

“What?” her mom asked. “Your agent get you a bad deal and you’re planning on poisoning her?”

“No. My agent is in town and on her way here now. She phoned for directions.”

“And Poison Control? Oh.” Her mom’s wide smile faded. “You didn’t eat the casserole your grandmother sent over, did you?” Goliath sniffed at the gold package.

Sue studied her mother’s suggestive neckline and decided to buy another Wonderbra.

“You didn’t eat that casserole, did you?” her mom repeated.

“No. Since Grandpa had to have his stomach pumped, I flush everything. As for Poison Control, I’m trying to figure out how much poinsettia leaf it would take to kill a one hundred and fifty pound cross-dresser.” Sue bounced her toe against the island. Then she paused before her mother told her to stop fidgeting. Sue knew she fidgeted, but her brain worked best when she moved.

Her mother’s perfectly plucked eyebrows shot upward. “Taking out your ex, huh?”

“It’s for my book.” But her mother wasn’t too far off target.

The panicked voice came back on the line. “This isn’t good. How much poinsettia leaf was ingested?”

“It hasn’t been ingested,” Sue answered. “I just need to know how much it would take to kill a medium-size man. I usually talk to Lisa. She always answers my—”

“You want to kill someone?” the voice squeaked through the line.

“Only on paper. I’m a”—the line went dead—“mystery writer. Great.”

Her mother pitched the mail on the island and positioned the gold box on the counter. “This was on your doorstep.” She scooted the stack of bills and the box closer.

Sue glanced at the Godiva Chocolatier sticker on the package. “Paul?” She got a funny feeling between her legs. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a delayed reaction to Paul’s kisses. It was Goliath’s nose where it didn’t belong.

Dropping the portable phone, she thrust the dog from her crotch. “You should train him not to do that.”

“It’s just his way of saying hello.” Her mother set her purse on the island.

“I knew a guy in college who said that, and I trained him not to do it.”

“Always the good girl.” Her mom’s gaze dropped to the floor, and the mama’s-proud-of-you smile faded. “I don’t like this Paul creature.” Her mother scooped up the teddy.

“He’s not a creature, and there’s nothing wrong with him.” Cell phone still held to her ear, Sue nudged the dog’s nose from between her legs again.

“What happened to that cop you were so crazy about? Jason, wasn’t it?”

Great. Now her mother was tossing Jason Dodd’s name at her, too. It wasn’t bad enough that she kept thinking about him and his kisses—or kiss, since, technically, that was really all there had been: one kiss. Not that it really mattered, anyway. She needed to stop thinking about Dodd altogether and start thinking about Paul. Paul, who had lots of great traits, even if kissing wasn’t one of them.

“It didn’t work out.” She bounced her toe against the cabinet. “Paul’s smart, clean-cut, and sweet.” She declined to mention that he was also dull, but four adjectives leaned toward purple prose. “You only met him that time we passed him on the road. You two never said more than three words to each other.”

“Sweetie, I ’d be the first one to tell you that you need to get on with your life. But I don’t trust men who drive around wearing shower caps. And don’t fidget, dear.”

“It wasn’t a shower cap.” Sue forced herself to stand still. “He’s a doctor, and he’d just come out of surgery and forgot to take off his surgical cap when—”

“Doctor?” Her mother’s expression soured.

“Most mothers would be thrilled their daughter was dating a physician.”

“Most mothers don’t have my experience. Doctors think all women are hypochondriacs. And they’re cheaters, blaming it on the fact that they have to look at naked bodies all day.”

You are a hypochondriac.“Paul’s a podiatrist. I don’t think he’s getting turned on by women’s bunions.” Then it occurred to Sue that Paul did spend an awful lot of time checking out her feet. Oh, great. Leave it to her mom to plant more insecurity. It wasn’t as if Sue didn’t already have a boatload of them. Boobs, thighs, turning men into wanna be women.

“He might. He has shifty eyes.” Her mother dropped the nightie. “I don’t want squinty-eyed grandchildren with foot fetishes.”

“I’m not having his babies. I’m just…” Going cycling with him on a bike with pedal brakes. Her doubts resurfaced.

“You’re sleeping with him?” Her mother’s eyes narrowed.

“No. Not yet. I mean, I’m going to Mexico with him this weekend.” At twenty-seven she should be able to tell her mother this, shouldn’t she? So why was she getting that look? The same look she got when her mother found the gigantic hickey on her neck when she was fourteen.

“If he’s good in bed, you’ll marry him. You’re that desperate.”

Sue punched off her cell phone. It wouldn’t do for Melissa to hear her mother talking about how sexually deprived she was. Already Melissa complained about the lack of sexual content in her books.

“I’m not desperate.” Desperate and horny were two completely separate emotions that involved two completely different parts of a woman’s anatomy.“And as much as I would love to visit with you, I need to straighten my office before Melissa gets here.”

“Melissa?” Her mom pushed Goliath’s nose away from the gift-wrapped box, and Sue saw drool ooze from the creature’s mouth.

“Melissa. My agent. Can I help you get Goliath back in the car?” She tossed her mom some paper towels.

“You’re not offering me chocolate?” Her mother eyed the box before giving the dog and his drool the one-two swipe.

“Paul’s scum but you’ll eat his candy.” Sue reached for the gold-wrapped package.

“It’s Godiva.” Her mom gave the dog a scratch behind his ears.

Sue understood. Even from scum, Godiva was…Godiva. Not that Paul was scum. And he’d noticed other parts of her body besides her feet, hadn’t he? Either way, Sue was getting a new Wonderbra. After two years, her old one had lost its wonder.

“Have a truffle. Then go.” Sue pulled at the box. The ribbon floated to the floor. The top came off, followed by the white tissue, and…

Sue’s breath caught.

She froze.

It wasn’t Godiva.

It wasn’t even cheap chocolate.

Sue found her breath and the ability to move simultaneously. The package flew up. Air whooshed into her lungs, and the rat, with the word die written in red across its dead, hairy chest, went sailing up into the air.

Unfortunately, what went up must come down. The deceased rodent landed smack-dab in the middle of her mother’s tangerine fabric-covered boobs. Her mother jumped, the C-cups boomeranging the rat across the room. Goliath, slobber now dripping from his jaws, lumbered after it, but Hitchcock dashed out from the sofa and beat him to the punch.

“I’m calling the police.” Her mother grabbed Sue’s cell phone. “That foot-fetish fiend sent you a rat! I hope you have wine.”

With one hand over her heart, Sue watched Hitchcock rise up on his hind legs, his claws swatting left and right, his feline teeth buried deep into the dead rodent’s head.

Thoughts swirled in Sue’s own head, but of one thing she was certain: Unconditional love or not, tomorrow that cat was definitely getting his own coffee cup.

Her mom’s voice vibrated through Sue’s consciousness. “Someone just threatened to kill my daughter.”

Right then, a bell rang. Sue’s gaze darted toward the entryway.

“Oh, Hades!” Her mom pulled Sue against her. “That could be the killer now!”

Jason Dodd, a narcotics detective for the Houston Police Department, gazed at the leggy blonde strutting across the street in heels. Her tight red skirt jiggled back and forth with each step. He waited for the zing of plea sure.

Anticipated it. Wanted it.

But…no zing.

“You could always arrest her for jaywalking and get her number.” His partner, Chase Kelly, tapped the steering wheel to the sound of a Dido CD, waiting for the light to change.

“She’s not my type,” Jason said, annoyed at his lack of interest. His lack of zing. Lately, no one fit the bill. For the last four months, he’d spent his weekends either held up in his apartment or helping his foster mom, Maggie, do odd jobs around the inn. He’d never gone this length of time without sex. Not voluntarily anyway.

Even Maggie had noticed. “I’m sixty-five years old and I’ve never known a man who’d willingly come over to unstop a toilet on a Friday night. Why aren’t you with a lady friend?”

His partner’s hand-tapping jerked Jason back into the present.

“Something bothering you?” Chase asked. “You don’t mind pet-sitting, do you?”

“I don’t mind.” Jason scrunched back against the seat. “But I thought Sue usually watched the menagerie.”

“She’s going on some trip.” The light changed, and Chase started driving.

Jason stared out the window. “Probably another book signing.”

“Maybe.”

Something about Chase’s tone made Jason turn around. A pink Cadillac, sporting a dented fender, darted in front of them. Chase slammed on the brakes.

“Pull him over,” Jason said.

Chase sped up beside the car, and they both looked at the purple-haired old lady white-knuckling the steering wheel so she could peer over the dashboard.

“Or not,” Jason said. “I’d drive like a bat out of hell if I was pushing ninety.”

His partner chuckled and let off the gas. “You have a soft spot for old ladies.”

“Do not.” Jason glanced out the window again.

“You let that shoplifter go last week, even after you found that pot roast in her purse.”

“She thought it was her wallet.”

“Like hell,” Chase said. “You paid for the pot roast and sent it home with her. I’m surprised you didn’t throw in some baby carrots and pearl onions.”

“She said she had those at home.” Jason grinned.“So shoot me. I should have been a Boy Scout.” Then he remembered he’d been too busy scouting for trouble to earn merit badges. People expected foster kids to be trouble, and he hadn’t let anyone down. At least he hadn’t until Maggie came along. But that had been different. Maggie needed him.

“You’re going to come over for the Fourth, right? Lacy has the party all set.”

“I’ll be there,” Jason answered.

“You bringing a victim?”

“Bringing a what?”

“A victim.” Chase laughed. “That’s what Lacy calls your girlfriends.”

“They’re not victims.”

“Hey, she just means that you love ’em and leave ’em.”

“I leave them happy. They needed some special TLC, and I’m good at it. What’s wrong with that?”

“Hmm…maybe the leaving part?”

“They don’t complain.” Much. The fact that he hadn’t made anyone, or himself, happy lately was another issue.

Chase’s phone rang, and he looked at the caller ID. “Hey, Lace,” he said before the receiver was anywhere near his mouth.

Jason dug into his jeans pocket for a piece of cinnamon candy and scanned the streets for his “type.” When had he gotten so picky? Maybe he was just getting old. But thirty wasn’t that old, damn it! According to that article in Men’s Health even a married man should want sex at least three times a week. That meant he was forty-eight climaxes behind—and counting—because he had no prospects…and even worse, no real interest.

“What?” Chase’s sharp tone brought Jason’s gaze back around. “We’ll be right there.”

Jason waited until Chase hung up. “What’s up?”

“Something about Sue getting a death threat.”

Jason’s shoulders stiffened. “Sue? What happened?”

Chase shook his head. “She’s not making sense.”

Jason got an image of Sue at her last autographing, wearing pink, bouncing in her chair, and smiling as she signed books. He’d seen the announcement of her signing in the paper. Having already bought her book, he didn’t have a reason for showing up. Thankfully, he’d ducked out before she spotted him.

“Then let’s move.” Jason looked out at the traffic. “Is she okay?”

Chase punched the gas. “Lacy said she was.” One of Chase’s brows arched. “I thought you didn’t like Sue.”

“I don’t dislike her. Just drive.” Jason pointed at the road.

Thirty minutes later, Chase parked his Isuzu Rodeo across from Sue’s house, located in Hoke’s Bluff, one of the smaller towns outside Houston’s city limits.

“Why’s the media here?” Jason voiced his question aloud. Only a dead body could bring out this much press. The thought of Sue not moving or smiling gave him a jolt. Chase hadn’t cut the engine off before Jason jumped out.

CHAPTER TWO

He sped past the television vans. Hurrying toward the house, Jason saw Chase jump out of the car and gravitate toward the side of the yard where a pack of women huddled together. Jason recognized one of the women as Lacy, Chase’s wife, and he almost turned around to hear what she had to say. But he didn’t see Sue, and he had a burning desire to make sure she wasn’t lying facedown in a puddle of blood like one of the characters in her mystery novels.

He walked inside the house, only stopping when he saw a camera focused on Sue and a woman who sat beside her on the edge of an overstuffed red sofa. Relief melted through him as he scanned her for bruises or scrapes. She looked fine.

So fine, he inventoried her for reasons altogether different. She wore a skirt and had her legs crossed, revealing a creamy expanse of thigh.

“I don’t think this is drug-related,” a voice said nearby.

Jason glanced briefly over at Officer Donny Martin of the Hoke’s Bluff PD. He had met the guy a couple of times at someone’s barbecue but didn’t much like him. Mostly because Martin thought of himself as a player and had mistaken Jason for someone who wanted to listen to him brag about his conquests.

“Sue’s a friend of my partner’s wife,” he replied, then trained his gaze back on Sue. Something didn’t look right. It took him a second to figure it out. Sue wasn’t talking or moving. Sue always talked and moved. The woman was perpetual motion with a voice box. Jason had wondered how she sat still long enough to write a book. He’d also wondered how she’d be at other things. Constant movement could be a good thing when the clothes were off and—

Quashing that thought, he glanced at the brunette beside Sue. Dressed in a navy business suit, she spoke directly into the camera. Jason turned back to Martin.“What’s going on?”

“If you ask me, it’s a publicity stunt—but the view’s nice.” Martin pointed to the two women and then to a blonde reporter.

“There wasn’t a death threat?” Jason asked.

“She says the dog and cat ate it.” Martin chuckled.

“Ate what?”

“The rat someone sent the sexy little New York Times bestselling author.”

Jason frowned. “She hasn’t made that list yet. Who’s the brunette?”

“Her agent/PR person from New Jersey. Kind of convenient her being here to help get the press out, wouldn’t you say?”

The brunette placed a hand on Sue’s shoulder. “Of course she’s scared,” she cooed into the microphone. “This is obviously the work of a stalker. Why, her next book, Murder At Midnight is due out in a few weeks. She’ll be autographing copies at all the local bookstores. Her book received a glowing review from Publishers Weekly!”

“Yeah, it’s convenient,” Jason agreed.

He watched Sue lace her hands together and stare down at her lap. Along with that short khaki skirt, she wore a light blue polo shirt. Her shoulder-length blonde hair fell loose from where it was tucked behind her ear. She flipped it back with nervous fingers.

The reporter asked her a question, then shoved a microphone in her face. Sue’s wide blue eyes blinked.

Jason flinched. Sue clearly wasn’t up to being interviewed.

His gaze shot to Miss Navy-Suit, who appeared utterly prepared. “Yeah, it’s a publicity stunt. But Sue’s not in on it.” He moved in. “Show’s over.” He glared at the woman in navy. “Police need to talk to Ms. Finley.”

Sue’s eyes grew round, and her vulnerability vanished. Jason took her by the forearm, lifting her off the couch.

“What are you doing?” Sue seethed as he pulled her away from the crowd.

“I’m trying to save you from making an ass out of yourself.”

She jerked free of his hand. “What?”

“It’s obvious that your PR guru set this whole thing up.”

“Set what up?”

“Come on, Sue. Doesn’t this look suspicious? Listen to her. She’s done everything but give out a 1–800 number where they can order your book. She obviously devised this whole thing.”

Sue latched her hands on her hips and gaped at her agent. She seemed to consider what he’d said, then met Jason’s gaze. “No. She’s taking advantage of the situation. I’ll give you that. But she didn’t send that rat.”

“And I have some oceanfront property for sale in Iowa. For some reason I thought you were different from other blondes.”

Sue’s eyes squinted, her shoulders snapped back, and her chin tilted up. Not that it made any difference in her height. She barely measured chest high on his six-foot frame. Oddly enough, though, her petite body thrilled him.

As did the rest of her.

“What are you even doing here?” she demanded.“I don’t need more police.”

“What you need is your head examined if you’re buying little Miss Priss’s stunt.”

Sue tapped the toe of her sandal against the wood floor. The sun spilling through the dining room window reflected off her blue eyes. Angry, but beautiful, eyes. He inhaled. Her fruity fragrance made him want to step closer and breathe deeper.

“Sorry to ruin your theory, Columbo,” she said,“but when the rat was being delivered, Melissa was thirty miles from here filing a hit and run report on an old lady driving like a bat out of Disney World in a pink Cadillac.” She hesitated. “Did Lacy call Chase?”

Jason stared at her moist lips, painted pink, and remembered the taste he’d gotten of them that night four months ago. Oh yeah, he remembered, all right. He’d been plagued with flashbacks. Desire stirred deep in his belly and spread lower. And lower. There was a very good reason why one taste had been more than enough, but with all that stirring going on in places that hadn’t stirred in too long, he couldn’t remember what it was. Then something really moved between his legs.

“Damn!” He removed a huge dog nose from his crotch.

“I think it’s time you leave.” Sue started the bouncing shoe routine. “You’ve outworn your welcome again.”

Jason supposed he deserved that. After all, he’d expected something of a consequence for not calling her. It didn’t matter that her number was tucked inside his wallet, the paper worn and faded from constantly taking it in and out. Still, her words made him flinch. Words he’d heard enough as a boy from caseworkers as they shuffled him from one home to another.

Right then he remembered why one taste of Sue’s mouth had been more than enough. It went back to childhood lessons. Plain and simple. Jason Dodd never allowed himself to want anything too much—not a birthday cake, not a new bike for Christmas, not his mother to come back for him. Wanting things only led to disappointment. Even wanting a woman came with limits. And after one kiss, he’d wanted Sue Finley too damn much.

“Have it your way.” He nearly tripped over a gray cat as he stormed out.

Walking straight to the Rodeo, he pulled his keys out of his pocket, found the spare key Chase had given him, got in, and drove away. Turning up the volume, he listened to Chase’s Three Doors Down CD and dug into his jeans for another cinnamon candy. By the time he got to I-45, he had forgotten about Sue. He was almost in Houston before he remembered something else he’d forgotten. His partner…and the owner of the car.

Sue knelt to loosen the straps of her sandals. They pinched her toes something terrible, but jeez, it had been a toe-pinching kind of day.

“Oh, that was good!” Melissa brushed a speck of dust off her navy jacket.

“Someone sent my daughter a dead rat, and you think that’s good?” Sue’s mother poured another glass of Merlot. Sue figured this to be about a four-glass problem, which meant she’d be driving her mom home.

Again.

“No, the rat wasn’t good.” Melissa wrinkled her nose, but her brown eyes glimmered. “But that free press was priceless. Now, if I could just catch Grandma in the Caddie. It’s going to make her cost me a fortune to pay for that fender bender.”

Sue dropped down on the sofa, feeling like a balloon with a slow leak. Everyone milled around the front section of her house. The reporters and police had left, except Chase, Lacy’s husband, who stood next to his wife, absently toying with her dark curls as he stared out the window. Lacy looked over and offered Sue a supportive smile. Good ol’ Lacy, as supportive as an underwire bra.

Sue forced a grin, then reached down to pull at the leather straps around her toe. Toe pain was the worst. Glancing up, Sue’s gaze shifted and skidded to a halt on a newcomer: Lacy’s mother.

“I picked it up at the Galleria last week,” Karina Callahan said, dangling her bracelet at Melissa. Karina exhibited an Elizabeth Taylor charisma, and the woman had never met a shade of purple she didn’t like. Purple suit, purple shoes. Sue had her earmarked to use as a character in a book, because Karina was, well, unforgettable.

“So, who was at the door?” Lacy asked, talking to Sue’s mom.

“Just the good-looking FedEx guy,” Sue’s mom answered. “Before the police arrived, the cat and dog ate the evidence.”

Sue fought back irritation. In spite of a request that she not, Lacy had called her husband, Chase. Which was how Jason Dodd had ended up here. Then there were the reporters, vultures for a story, and the other police. But it was Jason, his six-feet of male ego, that annoyed Sue most. Conversations bounced all around the room, and Sue wished everyone would leave. She’d had autograph parties that weren’t as well attended. But give the crowd a dead rodent and—

She crossed her legs and swung her foot back and forth, counting the insults Jason had slung at her in the course of three minutes. It was bad enough for him to kiss her so completely that he checked out the back of her tonsils, ask for her number, and then never call, but for him to barge into her home, call her a dumb blonde, accuse her agent of planting a dead rat, and…

Why the heck hadn’t he called? Had he found some tonsil defect? Maybe she’d better resist French kissing Paul this weekend.

At the thought of the weekend, her toes pinched again.

Lacy dropped down beside her. “Do you want to stay at our place for a few days?”

“No. I’m fine. This was just someone’s idea of a prank.”

“A dead rat with die written on it is not a prank.” Her mother stepped closer to the sofa. Her tangerine outfit clashed with the red leather. “It was that doctor.” She looked at Chase. “I want that foot quack checked out.”

“Mom, why would Paul send me a dead rat?” she asked.

“Why would anyone send you a dead rat?” Chase gave Melissa a not-so-friendly look.

“I don’t know.” Sue pumped her foot back and forth. Jason must have told Chase his half-cocked suspicions about Melissa being involved, but Sue knew they were wrong. Melissa had worked at a Hollywood PR firm before moving east to start her literary/PR agency. Sure, the woman could be an opportunist—a talent that had gotten Sue all sorts of media coverage—but dead rats weren’t her style. Melissa hated rats. She had freaked when she read Sue’s chapter in which a victim received a dead rat.

Sue remembered the scene. The killer had sent the rat as a warning of what was to come. After tormenting the victim with hang-ups and threatening notes, the rat-recipient had been murdered. Coincidence, Sue told herself again.

“You okay?” Lacy asked.

“Fine.” She considered telling Chase about the scene from her book, but how would it look? Melissa had been one of the few people who’d read it. If Chase suspected her agent now, what would he think then? It was just a coincidence. In her scene, the rat had been in the mailbox, and it hadn’t had die written on it.

And it hadn’t been disguised as chocolate.

A horn blew outside. Chase kissed Lacy good-bye. “Jason’s back.”

Lacy leaned into her husband for another kiss. All eyes turned to them. Lacy and Chase had been married almost a year but still gave each other looks that set off enough steam to carpet clean a Persian hotel.

“Okay, guys,” Sue’s mother said. “We’re here for dead rats, not soft porn.”

“Leave them alone,” Karina Callahan chimed in. Somehow, even her voice sounded purple. “I want grandkids.”

“You all need to get a life.” Chase smiled. “That was just a kiss, not porn.” With a confident gait he left.

“Sue needs to get a life.” Melissa pulled at the edge of her jacket. “If she doesn’t stop rewriting the same love scene, I’m going to hire her a gigolo.”

Everyone giggled. Everyone except Sue.

“Sue’s getting a life this weekend.” Karina pressed a fingernail against her purple-tinted lips. “Or at least she’s going to play ‘One Little Piggy Went to Market’ with her podiatrist.”

“What?” Sue’s mouth dropped open.

“Mom,” Lacy said. “Going after my sex life is bad, but leave my friends’ sex lives alone.”

“You’re finally dating?” Melissa got a this-is-news look about her.

“I swear,” Sue growled. “If I read this in the paper, I’ll fire you. And no—”

“I don’t like Paul,” her mother interrupted.

“You don’t have to like him,” Karina responded.

Lately, Sue had noticed Karina and her mom had been spending a lot of time together. She wondered if the six-times divorced Karina was behind her mother’s fruity low-cut outfits. Perhaps Sue should just be glad her mom wasn’t wearing purple.

“It’s Sue who has to bump uglies with him,” Karina continued.

“Mom.” Lacy sent Sue a look of apology.

Melissa chuckled. “Bumping uglies? Now there’s one I haven’t heard. Real romantic.”

Karina looked at Sue. “Your mom bumped uglies last week with Bill Delaney, the manager of the fruit stand by the highway.”

Sue’s brain went on the fritz.

Sex?

Her mom?

“Tell me this isn’t true.”

“I…” Her mom paused. “Bumping uglies? They are kind of ugly. I don’t see how anyone can watch porn without cracking up.” Everyone laughed except Sue, who was busy trying not to imagine her mom having sex with a fruit salesman.

Her mom shot her a get-real look. “Lighten up. It’s just us girls. Besides, if you can play footsie with your podiatrist, I can talk bananas with my fruit stand owner.”

“You did more than talk.” Karina laughed. “You made juice.”

Sue dropped her head back on the sofa. Her mother not only had better cleavage, but she had a better sex life. Not that Sue even had a sex life. Yet.

Unable to wrap her mind around her mom having sex, Sue tried to think of Paul and herself bumping uglies and making juice, but all she could think was that there had to be something wrong with her tonsils.

The bad vibes brought her focus back to her pinching shoes. She yanked off the sandals. Barefoot, she stomped over to the trash can and ceremoniously dumped the shoes. Everyone stared.

“Toe pain,” she said. Everyone nodded in understanding. Then Sue’s home phone rang, and her mother answered.

“Hello?…Fine, don’t talk.” She dropped the phone and downed the last of her wine.

“Was that a hang-up?” Sue asked.

When her mom nodded, Sue’s heart missed a beat. Just a coincidence, she told herself. She got hang-ups all the time. Didn’t she?

Two days later, Sue sat at Lacy’s kitchen table on the Fourth of July and tried to figure out the best way to drop the bomb about having to miss the party. She had tried to persuade Paul, but…

“Did you find someone to pet sit?” she asked.

“Yes,” Lacy said.

Chase sauntered into the room and gave Lacy a kiss on her neck. Sue tried to imagine Paul doing that this weekend. She couldn’t.

“So, how are your plans for cha-cha-cha in Mexico?” Chase asked.

“Fine.” Sue rubbed Lacy’s dog, Fabio, with her foot.

“Just fine?” Chase asked. “You haven’t had sex in years and all you can say is fine?”

Sue frowned at Lacy. “Do you tell your husband all my secrets?”

“I seduced it out of her.” Chase wrapped his arm around his wife.

“Great,” Sue said. “You two get it on while you talk about my nonsex life.”

Lacy elbowed her laughing husband. He rubbed his side. “Speaking of your nonsex life, is this Paul guy going to show his face around here?”

Time to drop the bomb. “He’s coming by to…pick me up.” Sue winced at Lacy’s frown. “Before I ever mentioned the party, he’d made reservations at a fancy restaurant by the Galleria.”

“You think you’ll get food better than mine?” Chase asked.

“No.” Guilt started pulling tighter at the corner of Sue’s heart. “I’m so sorry.”

“What,” Chase said, “the foot doctor’s too high class to hang out with cops?”

“No.” Sue met Lacy’s eyes and pleaded for understanding. “He already had plans.”

“Your mother seems to think he’s behind the rat incident.” Chase’s brow pinched.

“He’s not!” Sue snapped, and from the look on Chase’s face she knew where the conversation was going. “And neither is my agent.”

Sue’s cell phone rang, and she grabbed it from the table. “Hello?” She prayed it wouldn’t be a hang-up. She had only gotten two since Monday, but…

“I’m lost.” Paul’s voice echoed through the line as Sue watched Chase leave the room.

She gave Paul directions again, trying to find some flicker of warmth at the sound of his voice. But Paul had a wimpy voice. When she hung up, she met Lacy’s eyes. “I hope you didn’t cook steak for us. I should have called last night when Paul told me—”

“It’s okay,” Lacy said. “Jason will make up for it.”

Sue’s eyebrows shot up before she could fake a nonchalant expression. “He’s coming?”

Suspicion filled her friend’s eyes. “Is this why you and Paul are leaving? You’re not still avoiding Jason?”

“I didn’t even know he was coming,” she said honestly. Yet who could blame her for wanting to leave? What girl wanted to spend time with a guy who found her tonsils defective?

The phone rang again. “You take a left on the dirt road,” Sue explained when Paul said he was lost again. “It’s a ranch-style house. I’ll meet you out front.”

Sue dropped the phone in her purse and went to hug Lacy.

“You’re not going to bring him in at all?” her friend asked. “You’re going to sleep with the guy and I haven’t even met him. Isn’t that against the girlfriend code of ethics? What if he’s dog ugly and you just can’t see it?”

“He’s not ugly, and you slept with Chase before I met him.” “Yeah, but he had me handcuffed to the bed.” Sue chuckled, then asked, “Is Kathy coming?” “Tommy’s sick,” Lacy explained. “I throw a party and neither of my two closest friends show up.” She studied Sue as if using her all-powerful girlfriend radar. “It is about Jason, isn’t it?” She pointed a finger at Sue. “Other than that day at your house, you two haven’t been in the same room since the kiss.”

“Pure luck,” Sue said. Shoes in hand, she waved and headed out the door.

She hadn’t gotten off the front porch when she realized her luck had run out. Jason’s Mustang eased into the driveway.

CHAPTER THREE

Jason saw Sue’s Honda. For a second, he considered leaving. But he’d spent a good part of the last two days telling himself he’d made more of this infatuation with Sue than existed.

So she tempted him. He wasn’t going to act on it. She wasn’t the first woman he’d chosen to avoid, and it wasn’t as if she was some siren that drove a man to his knees. He’d had women with larger breasts and longer legs. Sue wasn’t even his type. She talked too damn much, was too short, and…

“Crap!” All delicious five feet of her stepped out of Chase’s front door.

Jason’s gaze whispered over every inch of her, and his mouth went dry. For a woman who wasn’t his type, she got his pulse rate going. She wore one of those loose-fitting, sleeveless summer dresses—the type of dress that led a man to think about how little was worn underneath. His mouth dryness increased, and he wished he had a beer. Hadn’t he passed a convenience store a mile back?

“Don’t be a fool.” He crawled out of his car. Or a bigger fool. He’d already made a fool out of himself a couple days ago when he’d left her house, taken Chase’s car, and forgotten to take Chase.

Jason pushed his door closed with more force than needed. He didn’t like losing his head, especially over a woman he had no intention getting close to. But neither did he run from trouble. Best to face this problem head-on like any other.

Facing Sue, he first noted her frown, then the fact that dangling from her fingers were a pair of peach-colored sandals. But it was the frown that got to him, though the bare feet did a little something to his insides, too. Not to mention the low neckline that showed off her breasts, which in all fairness were perfectly proportioned.

Damn, she looked good.

“Where’re you going?” Rearing back on his heels, he tried not to enjoy the view.

“Don’t you know better than to ask a dumb blonde a question?” She skirted him.

Turning, he caught her by the arm. The feel of her skin sent his pulse to ticketing speeds. He told himself to ignore it. But he’d never been good at minding.

He ran his thumb over her elbow. “Don’t you think this is silly?”

“What’s silly?” She glared at his hand wrapped around her arm.

He let go, reluctantly. “This avoiding act you’ve been playing.”

“I haven’t been—”

“Don’t lie. Every get-together I don’t come to, you do. And when I’m here, you’re not.” If he were being honest, he’d done his share of avoiding, too. But this time his plan was to confront the problem head-on, and he couldn’t let something like the truth get in his way.

“Pure luck.” She glanced at the street—avoiding looking at him, probably.

“Pure stupidity.” He decided to give her the same speech he’d given himself earlier. “It’s not as if we’re divorced or something. We didn’t even date. We kissed. Once. Just once.”

She moved from side to side, as if the sidewalk was too hot on her bare feet. If her feet were as soft as her elbow…He nudged her over to stand on the grass.

The grass felt better against the pads of her feet, though Sue wouldn’t give Jason the pleasure of such an admission.

“One kiss,” he repeated.

But it was a good kiss, Sue thought, as the smell of smoldering charcoal and the hearty aroma of Chase’s steaks grilling in the backyard filled her nose. She stared down the road and prayed Paul would magically appear.

If only Jason’s kiss had been horrible. If only she hadn’t enjoyed having her tonsils strip-searched by a certain cop.

“I just don’t get it,” he said.

Neither did she. She had to bite her lip to keep from asking why he hadn’t called. Another scented breeze caught her hair. And she remembered the night and the kiss in question. She’d forgotten her shoes on Lacy’s patio and stepped out to get them before heading off. He’d followed her. They’d actually stood there and had a real conversation about the…stars. And—

“Look,” he said, pulling her out of a memory that was best forgotten.

“Gotta go.” She tried to step around him.

“It was just a kiss.” He moved in front of her. “I didn’t even touch…the merchandise.”

Considering his eyes had gone to her newly acquired Wonderbra cleavage, she knew what merchandise he meant.

“For which I am very grateful!” she snapped. “Because I don’t like to be groped while some guy has his tongue down my throat.”

He muttered something under his breath and tucked both hands into his jean pockets. The position made his biceps press against his white T-shirt. Not wanting to notice things like muscles, or how good white cotton looked stretched across his masculine chest, she pinched her toes around the hot blades of grass.

“Look,” he said. “Let’s go inside and put this whole thing to bed.” His voice rang baritone, and his hair, the shade of light wheat, whispered across his brow in the breeze.

“Sorry, but I don’t intend to bed you.” But if you’d called four months ago I’m sure my life would have been off hold. Yet somehow she knew sex with Jason Dodd would not come with pedal brakes. She’d be thrown over the handlebars for sure.

But you wouldn’t have to fake it with him, a voice within chimed. A voice she ruthlessly ignored.

“You know what I mean,” he said. “It’s not fair to Lacy and Chase for us to keep this up. Let’s go back inside and prove to each other, and to them, we’re adults.”

She looked him in the eyes—blue eyes, long lashes. “Sorry, I’ll have to be an adult another day. But if you start practicing now, you might succeed in a couple of years.” The wind blew again and the bow on her dress flew up to her Wonderbra cleavage.

“Don’t be silly.” He jerked his fingers out of his pockets and tucked his hands beneath the opposite armpits like a child who’d been told not to touch.

“I’m not being silly. I’m meeting someone.” She noticed his gaze flickered to her chest every few seconds. So the Wonderbra was doing the trick, huh?

“This is what I mean.” His gaze fell back to her breasts. “You aren’t meeting anyone. You’re lying just so you don’t have to be in the same room with me.”

Tension knitted Sue’s brows, and she waved the sandals in front of him to get his gaze off her chest. The leather strap of one shoe caught him across his arm with a loud pop. “For your information, I have a date and—”

“Right.” He rubbed his arm. “I happen to know that you don’t date. You belong to that Divorced, Desperate and Delicious club that you, Lacy, and Kathy started. Of course, Lacy jumped ship.”

Sue gritted her teeth. Did everyone in town know she hadn’t had sex in two years? “Well, throw me a landline, mate, because you can drop the desperate from my title, too. I’m now divorced, delicious, and dating.”

The sound of an engine buzzed in the summer air. “Sue?” Paul called from his car as he stopped in the driveway. His voice wasn’t baritone, but she didn’t mind because it blended perfectly with the purr of the Porsche’s engine.

Victory tickled her insides, and she darted off, ducked inside Paul’s window, and kissed him. She even put a little tongue in the kiss. “Perfect timing.” Then she noticed he wore the surgeon’s cap again over his short brown hair.

She yanked it off before backing up. Paul had to look good, just in case Jason checked him out. Not that she needed to worry. Paul could look like a dweeb, because his red Porsche had the power to mentally castrate any man who cared about cars. Jason might not care about Sue, or her tonsils, but she was almost certain he liked cars.

“What’s this?” Paul leaned out the window, his gaze following her legs downward.

At first she thought he referred to her dress. Then he frowned. Had he somehow guessed that she’d found more sizzle standing on the same block with a certain egotistical cop than she had in the lip lock she’d planted on him?

He flicked the edge of her sandals with his index finger. “Never go barefoot!”

Barefoot? Here she’d worn a bra that pushed her boobs plum up to her nose and the man still only noticed her feet. Oh, goodness, in two days she would be having sex with this man.

Or not, whispered an internal voice. She could still tell him no. But her life might be on hold for eternity. She might never have sex again, and the whole world would know.

She shot a quick glance back at Jason, who stood, arms crossed, staring daggers at her. Then he bolted off to Lacy’s front door.

“Who’s the dude in the shower cap driving the Porsche?” Jason shoved Chase into the kitchen, away from the crowd.

“Oh, you must mean Paul, Sue’s new squeeze. She said he drove a nice car. I wouldn’t know about the shower cap.” Chase shrugged. “Want a beer?”

“It’s a tad more than nice. It’s a Porsche, for Pete’s sake. And why in the hell didn’t you tell me Sue was dating?” Jason stalked to the fridge and grabbed a beer.

Chase studied him. “I didn’t know you cared about Sue.”

“I don’t care.” Giving the cap a vicious twist, he hurled it into the sink with such force that it pinged around the white porcelain. “But you could have told me.”

“Hey, you made a play and said you weren’t interested. In my book that means her dating status is off the record. I mean…” Chase smiled and snatched the cap from the sink. “If I got juicy details, I ’d share them with you because you’re my best friend, but—”

“I’m not interested. The woman can’t stand still and never shuts up. When I kissed her she talked through the whole thing. Never stopped yapping. You know how hard it is to kiss a girl who’s talking?”

“Well, excuse me!” Sue’s voice brought Jason swinging around. She stood in the doorway, eyes narrowed, hands on her hips, and her peach-colored sandals now on her feet.

Jason went ahead and took a sip of beer, because from the look on her face he was going to need it. Hell, from the look on her face he might need a six-pack.

“Maybe I was telling you to get your tongue out of my larynx.” She jerked a purse off the kitchen table then turned to Chase. “And if you share one tiny piece of my ‘juicy details’ with Mr. Deep Throat here, I swear you’ll be singing soprano for at least a week.” In a streak of peach, the woman stormed out.

Jason held the cold beer to his forehead and leaned against the counter. Chase waited until the front door slammed before bursting out in laughter.

“Cork it, would you?” Jason snapped.

“I’m sorry,” Chase said. “But that was funny. You two got something good going. But you’d better move fast before the foot doctor gets her socks off. Her mother swears if he’s good in bed, Sue will marry him.”

Thursday night’s weekly meeting with her longtime critique partners strained Sue’s nerves to the breaking point. Hey, it had been a hard week. As if dead rats, bad-boy cops, and several more hang-ups weren’t troubling enough, Benny Fritz, critique partner number three, was giving her the eye again.

She watched Mary and Frank walk out of the diner. Then her gaze darted to Benny, who still had his crooked smile in place.

“Have dessert with me.” Benny eyes took on that glint again.

“Sorry, but Thursday nights I go for homemade cookies and hurricanes at my grandparents’. Weekly ritual. They’re big on rituals.” Sue looked at her bill.

“Isn’t she the one whose cooking sends people to the hospital?”

“Yeah, but her cookies are safe. Burnt, but safe.” Sue noted again the puppy-dog way Benny gazed at her. He looked as if he might roll over and offer his belly for her to scratch. She had no desire to scratch Benny’s belly, stroke his ego or any other body part. Since his separation with his wife a month ago, the forty-year-old had been way too chummy.

Frankly, his interest surprised her. She’d seen Benny’s wife, and she and the woman were complete opposites. Dark, light. Big, small. Sue fidgeted with her purse strap and tossed words at the awkward moment. “Your chapter had edge. The man-eating plant was a nice touch.”

“You don’t like sci-fi. I know that.” He placed his hand over hers.

“But it’s good writing.” Sue slid her fingers from beneath his. “I sympathized with the donkey when that alien ate its baby.” She liked Benny, appreciated his input on her own work, and admired his writing talent, if not his genre. Most of his one-eyed alien stories were published regularly.

“I’ll take the compliment,” he said. “When a beautiful woman says something nice, you shouldn’t argue.”

Sue half smiled. Benny wasn’t half bad looking, but as soon as his wife forgave him for not noticing her new perm, or what ever stupid thing they had argued over, they’d be back together. All Sue had to do was discourage him until they rediscovered their twenty-year love affair, hopefully without damaging his ego or the dynamics of the critique group.

Benny winked at her. “Can I drop off my story at your place when I finish it?”

“Or you could e-mail it.” She scooted out of the booth, dropped money on the table, and waved at the young pregnant waitress. Wondering about the girl’s situation, Sue dropped another bill and glanced at Benny. “Later.”

He followed her. Muggy July air greeted them as the door squeaked closed and sent one last wave of air-conditioning their way.

“Your hair smells good.” His hand pressed against the small of her back; his head tilted downward until his breath, a little muggier than the night air, brushed across her temple.

He was going to try to kiss her. She couldn’t deal with this now. She had bigger fish to gut—like if she was or wasn’t going to go to Mexico and fake orgasms. Like why she’d spent all day fuming over yesterday’s run-in with Jason Dodd instead of working on her new book. Add the two phone hangups she’d gotten today and trying to figure out if they had anything to do with the dead rat, and a kiss from Benny could be her breaking point. And when she broke, she was as bad as her mother. Tears and snot, snot and tears. It wasn’t pretty.

Neither was the idea that someone really wanted to scare her, someone who had read her unpublished manuscript.

Like, someone in her critique group.

Hadn’t it even been Benny’s idea to use the rat? His hip brushed up against hers. Suspicion pricked her stomach.

Then evaporated.

The man spent his time imagining man-eating plants. Weird, yes, but he wasn’t a rat-sending lunatic. Benny coached his son’s Little League team and sold Bibles part-time to supplement his income.

He looked at her again, and his tongue brushed his bottom lip, reminding her of his alien before it devoured the baby donkey. Not a lunatic, but lonely enough to try to kiss her.

Two words shot through her head: dead dog.

She put on her brakes.

“Gross.” She made a show of putting a finger in her mouth.

“What?” Benny asked.

“Nothing, I just found a piece of steak that has been stuck between my teeth for a week. Tastes like dead dog. I’m gonna have to floss better.” Sue waved a hand in front of her face.

He backed away. “My car’s over here. See you…later.”

Sue bit back a smile. She hadn’t used the dead dog trick in years. “Bye.” Retrieving her keys from her bag, she cut into the restaurant’s rear parking lot.

The night suddenly grew blacker, too quiet. With her heart drumming the music to the Jaws movies, she hurried like a woman wearing white in search of a tampon. She did have to hurry. Not a tampon hurry, but she had grandparents to see, and then she had to go home and pack or call Paul and cancel Mexico.

It was time to cook or get out of the kitchen. She’d sucked at cooking. But dang it, she was hungry for a little male companionship. Benny didn’t count. Obviously, neither did Paul.

The click of her sandals on the pavement seemed to be soaked up by the darkness—a swarthiness cloaked by Texas humidity. The hair on the back of her neck began to rise at the same time her cell phone rang. Jerking it out of her purse, she hit the on button.

“Hello.”

Nothing. Not a word. Then a click. She squinted to see the number of the caller. Restricted.

She took another step. Just like that, she remembered another scene in her book where a victim had been kidnapped in a parking lot. She tasted fear on her tongue.

Sue arrived at her car, her skin tight with goose bumps. “I’m being silly,” she muttered…but then she heard it.

Footsteps.

Fumbling with her keys, she intended to hit the unlock button, but her hands shook. The keys clattered to the pavement. The footsteps drew closer. The Jaws music playing in her head increased in tempo.

Maybe she wasn’t being silly. Breath hitched, she took off at a dead run away from her car.

CHAPTER FOUR

Sue had only made it past the trunk when she heard, “Ma’am!” The nonthreatening young female voice brought her to an embarrassed stop. She turned and faced the pregnant waitress standing about ten feet behind her.

“Someone forgot their papers.” The waitress held a stack of manuscript pages to her round belly. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“You didn’t. I ran because…I’m training for a marathon.” She grinned at the obvious lie.

The waitress chuckled and, edging closer, handed Sue the papers. “I see you guys in here every week. Ask for me next time.”

“We will, Tina,” Sue told the girl, remembering her name. “Thanks.”

Hand on her belly, the waitress wobbled away. She looked way too young to wobble. Sue wondered if she was wobbling through the pregnancy alone. She placed her fingers on her own flat stomach. There had been the time in her marriage when she’d thought she was pregnant. Collin had been thrilled, but it had been a false alarm. Shortly after she’d learned what else gave him thrills.

Shaking her head, Sue rattled the memory from her brain. She had outlawed all memories of her ex-husband, because even the good memories ultimately led to the bad ones. The bad ones brought on self-doubt. Self-doubt brought on fear. And fear made her want to verbally castrate every male that came within ten feet. She’d stopped mentally castrating men about four months ago, right after one blond cop started making her want something other than revenge.

Jason’s face filled her mind. The memory of his kiss echoed: the way he’d tasted, the way he’d felt, all hard and solid against her.

“No!” She tossed his image, with the memories, into a mental Dumpster. “I should have used the dead dog trick on him, too.”

Without haste, she found her keys and took off to enjoy her hurricane and cookies. Maybe her grandma hadn’t burnt them this time.

Sue rose on her toes and kissed her grandfather’s cheek in greeting. “Sorry. We had a lot to go over to night. Where’s Grandma?”

At eighty-three, the man had likely shrunk a few inches, but his thick, curly hair, growing coarser with age, now stood up by its roots and made up for any such loss. Sue often wondered why she couldn’t have inherited his height or thick hair.

She glanced at the Lyle Lovett hairdo and decided she’d keep her own. However, bad hair and all, she loved every inch of this man. After she’d lost her father at age eight, her grandfather had filled his shoes. They were big shoes to fill.

He nudged her into the kitchen. “Your grandma’s on the phone. Your mom’s talking about your Mexican physician with a foot fetish.”

Great! Her mother was tattling again. “He’s not Mexican; I’m supposed to go to Ixtapa with him this weekend. And he’s a podiatrist.”

Her grandparents seldom watched the local news, so perhaps they’d missed the news segment about her receiving a dead rat. She wasn’t about to tell them, and neither would her mom. At least Sue hoped. With her mom, one could never be sure. It depended on how much wine she’d consumed.

Her grandpa’s bushy eyebrows knitted together. “That explains the foot fetish.” He picked up a charred-around-the-edges cookie. “Oh, your grandma cooked her casserole. I mentioned sending it home with you. Don’t eat it.” He rubbed his stomach. “But if you’d take it, I’d be appreciative.”

Clean-fridge casserole: Dump everything together, stir ten seconds, ignore smells and mold, bake at 400 for one hour.

Sue shook her head. “This is ridiculous. Tell her to throw the leftovers away.”

“She went hungry as a child. Throwing food away is blasphemy to her. And it wasn’t that bad this time. She added that mushroom soup.”

Sue’s stomach roiled. “You love her so much that you’d risk having your stomach pumped again before you’d tell her she’s poisoning you?”

The wrinkles around his eyes softened. “Yup. That much. So why does your mother have her nose out of joint about this doctor?” He picked up the cookie plate.

“I’ll give you one guess.” Sue followed her grandpa to the kitchen table where a pitcher of Kool-Aid with rum waited. He placed the cookies beside a basket of fake fruit.

“The doctor thing, huh?” Grandpa answered.

“You got it.”

Her grandpa filled a glass and handed it to her. “What do you think about the doc?”

“He’s a nice guy.” Sue picked up a cookie and looked at the edges.

“But?”

“I didn’t say ‘but.’ All I said—”

“I heard the ‘but.’ ” He poured himself a drink and his aged hand shook. Those shakes always got to her.

“I just want to move on with my life,” she grumbled.

Her grandpa patted her wrist. “You will, Princess. You’ll meet someone who takes your breath away. Just like I met your grandma. But until then, don’t settle.”

The words reminded Sue of Jason’s kiss. “Having the breath knocked out of you isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

“Neither is settling. And we both know you settled when you married—”

“Collin just had issues.” But why she continued defending him was a brain stumper. She tapped her foot on the floor. “Is it supposed to rain tomorrow?”

Sympathy creased her grandpa’s mouth. “I forgot the no-talk-about-Collin rule.” A frown pulled at his aged eyes. “The thing about washing mistakes from your mind is you have a tendency to repeat them. For example, does this doctor have issues?”

“Grandpa…”

He pointed a cookie at her. “You only seem to fall for guys with issues. Remember that high-school football player? Did he ever get out of prison?”

“You’re never going to let me live that down, are you? I told you, he said he worked with his dad in the banking business. I didn’t know they paired up to rob them.” Sue sank into a chair. With no desire to rehash her romantic fiascos, she took a conversational turn. “Pretty weather today, wasn’t it?”

“Okay, I’ll change the subject.” He eased into a chair. “Have you noticed anything strange about your mom lately?”

“You mean the wardrobe?” Sue started folding and unfolding a paper napkin. Some things one couldn’t tell their grandpa. The fact that his daughter was bumping uglies with a fruit salesman definitely fell into that category.

“I hadn’t noticed the wardrobe, but she hasn’t come up with a new disease-of-the-week in a month. Yesterday, she said something about fruit juice keeping her healthy.”

Sue started rearranging the plastic bananas in the bowl. “She does have a healthy glow about her.” A forced smile in place, Sue attempted another conversational U-turn. “I started my new book.”

“Susie Veronica!” Her grandma sashayed into the room and placed a kiss on Sue’s cheek. “We need to talk, young lady. Your mom is concerned. Did you know…?”

After her grandma’s speech about the perils of not listening to her mother, her grandpa walked Sue to her car. He handed over the casserole and foil-wrapped pizza. “Don’t eat the pizza either,” he said. “Nearly broke a tooth on it a week ago. And don’t be upset with your grandma or mother. They’re trying to look out for you.”

“They’re both nuts. We are the only normal ones in the family.” Sue opened her car door and glanced at her grandpa. “Take some Rolaids and Vitamin C before bed.”

“Normal?” Her grandpa’s hair, an inch high, bobbed from side to side. “Have you forgotten about my bug collection? We’re all abnormal. You, too.”

“Being a collector doesn’t make you nuts. And I’m not a hypochondriac and I don’t poison my loved ones with my cooking. But talking about doctor’s appointments, your appointment is on Monday. I’ll pick you guys up around nine.”

He tilted his head. “They love you, Susie.”

“I know.” She kissed her grandpa again. “I’m just glad I took after you.”

“Me? I don’t kill people on paper, and I’ve never dated a bank robber.”

Sue grinned. “Okay, you’re the only normal one. I’ll call in a few days.”

“Does that mean you’re not going to Mexico?”

“Nice weather, isn’t it?”

Her grandpa laughed. “Let the fellow down easy.”

Let the fellow down easy. Sue pulled up in her driveway and sat thinking how she’d give Paul the news. “I can’t go because I’ve got to give my cat a bath.” She dropped her head on the steering wheel. “I can’t go because I’m terrible at faking orgasms and if your kisses are any indication, then…”

Whoever said that truth was the best policy had never dealt with her situation. Sue reached for the door and noted the darkness and the soft cries of the wind. Moonlit tree shadows danced on the ground. Creepy.

Grabbing the pizza and casserole, she darted across the yard. If someone attacked, she could whack them with the pizza. Weeks old, the thing could offer a lethal blow. She imagined the headline: Mystery Writer Kills Stalker with Deep Dish, Extra Cheese Pie. Her agent would love that. “Any press is good press,” Melissa would say.

After scurrying inside and hitting the lock, Sue’s surge of panic decreased. Kneeling, she set the dish and pizza on the floor, then petted Hitchcock, who sideswiped her ankles. Stroking his gray fur, her thoughts zapped back to Paul. “What do I tell him? Maybe you could cough up a few hairballs and I could tell him I’m afraid to leave you.”

Hitchcock meowed but didn’t offer up a convenient, excuse-laden hairball. Moving inside, Sue noted the light on her answering machine flashed. She thought of the hang-ups and, squaring her shoulders, hit the play button and went to dump the casserole down the disposal.

“Sue. It’s Melissa. I’m back in New Jersey and got a copy of the book with the new cover. It looks good. The artist you met and didn’t like did a fine job. But he put a dead rat in the corner of the cover, and that’s when I remembered about the rat scene in your book. This is strange. You getting the rat. I want you to be careful. Your royalties are paying for my retirement.” She chuckled nervously. “Seriously, do you have a gun?”

“No, but I have a pizza.” Sue dropped the pizza in the trash. Hitchcock jumped up on the counter, rubbing his soft face against her cheek. “And I’ve got Hitchcock.” Scratching the feline under his chin, Sue waited for the next message.

“Sue,” Paul’s voice came on the line. “My…ex called. Our son broke his toe. We’re going to have to postpone our trip.”

What? Relief swirled along her rib cage. Postponed?

“Consider it postponed.” Sue danced across the kitchen. Her dance petered out when she realized Paul had never told her he had a son. Or an ex-wife. Why would he have never told her? The realization that the trip wasn’t the only thing that needed to be postponed rained down on her. The whole relationship needed to be put on the back burner or run down the disposal like a bad casserole. Her grandpa was right. Settling wasn’t good enough. She wanted a guy without issues; she wanted the kind of love her grandparents had. A guy who’d eat her cooking and never complain. The thing was: her ex, Collin, had never complained.

You only fall for guys with issues. Her grandfather’s words plowed through her mind. Problem was, she hadn’t even known about Collin’s issues when she married him—hadn’t even known about them when she divorced him. But she had loved him, and his double dose of deception left her emotionally crippled.

Or had her grandpa nailed that one, too? Had she been settling when she agreed to marry Collin? Had she really loved him? More than once her mother had commented that Collin looked like her father. Had she been trying to fill the void of a missing dad?

Dear Lord, her father would die again if he knew she’d compared him to a man who…

What a nice day! She changed mental channels so fast her brain went on overload.

Her answering machine beeped. The third message clicked on. Silence. Then…“Sue, sweet Sue,” the voice whispered.

Sue rose up, remembering similar words in her novel, “Sally, sweet Sally.” Words spoken by a killer. Fear knotted her stomach. The machine clicked off. Who was doing this? And why?

The phone rang. Sue jumped. Then, bracing herself, she forced herself to answer. “Hello?” Her heart pumped, sending a gushing sound into her ears.

“Hey. You okay?” Lacy’s voice blended with the gushing.

“Yeah.”

“I wanted to say good luck this weekend. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

Sue almost told Lacy that her weekend had been canceled, but her heart hadn’t stopped racing, and the voice of the caller kept ringing in her head. She half considered telling Chase about the calls and the rat scene in her book. But Lacy kept chirping about their vacation.

Telling Chase wouldn’t help, but it might scare loyal Lacy enough to cancel their trip. And with Lacy looking forward to spending time with Chase’s sister and niece, Sue couldn’t do that, but what she could do…

Moving across the room as Lacy rattled on, Sue dug in her kitchen drawer until she found the card of the officer who had handled the rat incident. Officer Martin had made a point of telling her that he lived only five minutes away. He’d even written his home phone number on the back of the card and said if she needed anything to call him.

Sue had a feeling “anything” included swapping bodily fluids. Not that she’d go there, but calling him about the prank calls? Yup, she’d do that. And she’d also do as Melissa recommended and buy a gun.

“You okay?” Lacy asked. “You’re quiet. You are never quiet.”

“Well, after Dodd’s comment, I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf.”

“Don’t pay attention to him. He’s a great guy but…he has serious issues.”

Well, that explained why Sue found him so dang attractive. “What kind of issues?”

“You name it. He failed relationship 101 and obviously French kissing, as well. Chase told me about the Mr. Deep Throat comment. Good one.” Lacy laughed but Sue couldn’t return it.

Sue, sweet Sue. This was too much like her book. What if these weren’t just prank calls? Okay, tomorrow she was so buying a gun.

But until then…Walking over to the trash, she retrieved the foil-wrapped package. Until then, the petrified pizza would have to do.

“You sure you’re okay?” Lacy asked.

“Positive.”

“We’ll be back on Friday,” Lacy said. “I’m still planning on being at Kathy’s Friday night. Gosh, I’ll miss you guys.”

They chatted a few more minutes and said good-bye. Then with her cat in one hand and the pizza in another, Sue decided to call it a night.

Jason sat on his sofa, flipping Sue’s card between his fingers. He owed her an apology, didn’t he? Of course he did. He should have never opened his mouth to Chase. But seeing Sue plant one on the Porche-driving asshole had screwed with his head.

No. What had screwed with his head was that kiss four months ago. From the first time he’d caught sight of Sue Finley, she’d smelled and looked like trouble. Soft. Sweet. Sexy. Smart. Yup! Troubles each, with a capital’s.

“It’s not as if I haven’t dated soft, sweet, sexy, smart women before,” he told the orange feline staring up at him.

The cat cocked its head and twitched its right ear.

“Okay, so most of my girlfriends haven’t been that smart. None of them were writers like Sue.” He ran a hand over his jaw. “But it’s not Sue’s IQ that gets to me, it’s…”

You’ve outworn your welcome again. He recalled Sue’s words the day of the rat incident. Words that exemplified why he shouldn’t have kissed her. Words he’d heard growing up. Words that still cut to the core.

Jason liked to believe that his past hadn’t left any black marks on his life. He’d learned how to cope after the third or fourth foster home: Never pick a fight with a guy twice your size unless the cause is worth taking a beating. Never reach out to someone whom you can’t walk away from, or to someone you’d care about if they walk away from you. Because someone always walks away.

It wasn’t as if he had the intimacy issues so many women accused him of having. No, he had all sorts of people in his life. People who counted on him, like Maggie, his foster mom. Hell, there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her. Then there was Chase. He’d take a bullet for Chase. And his friends on the force, too. So what if he was selective of whom he let close?

His phone rang, and Jason answered it, eager to interrupt his thought process. “Yeah?”

“That was quick,” Chase remarked.

“What’s up?” The cat jumped into Jason’s lap.

“Just making sure you’re cool about everything. The food’s in the cabinet. The vet’s number is on the fridge. And don’t feed Fabio too much—”

“He upchucks, you told me. You went over this today.” Twice.

“These animals are Lacy’s babies. So make sure you—”

Jason stroked the cat in his lap and listened—again. He knew Lacy wasn’t the only one crazy about those damn pets. Chase was a total animal wuss. “I think I can take care of it.”

“Fine.” Chase sighed. “Can I get one more favor from you?”

“Depends.” Jason kicked off his shoes and stared at the cat curled up in his lap. In spite of him telling the animal not to, the dang thing kept cozying up to him. And unlike Chase, Jason Dodd wasn’t a wuss. To prove it, as soon as he found the time, he was taking the thing to a shelter. A good one, of course. He gave the cat’s chin a scratch.

“Would you mind checking up on Sue when she gets back from Mexico? I—”

Jason’s gaze zapped to the card beside his wallet.“Whoa. I’m not sure—”

“Just check in when she gets back on Sunday. Make sure nothing’s going on with this rat freak.”

Jason frowned. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Hold it right there, or I swear I’ll splatter your brains.” Sue raised the gun, then lowered it. “Of course, you look half dead already,” she told the down-on-its-luck ficus tree wilting by her back door.

Staring at her 60LS revolver made especially for a woman, Sue tightened her palm, adjusting to the feel of it. This baby was going to come in handy. Just holding it gave her all sorts of scene ideas.

Oh, goodness, she hoped a book was all she used it for. Yes, she’d bought some bullets, but she had no intention of loading the gun unless things got worse.

Remembering what she’d been doing before being distracted, she set the gun on her counter, grabbed the plant food in the plastic cup, and fed it to her sickly ficus. As she poured, another leaf cracked off and fell to its death.

She eyed the plant. “Hey, chin up. If someone breaks in and threatens you, I’ve got your back.”

Hitchcock, in all his feline glory, lay on the arm of the sofa, staring at her as if she’d lost it. Which could be right. Face it. It had been a trying few days. A trying few years. Not that talking to her plant was insane. Nope.

Yesterday, after purchasing her gun, she’d stopped by the plant store to see if there was some miracle cure for a dying ficus. The clerk had sold her twenty bucks of plant food and then suggested Sue try talking.

Luckily, Sue excelled at talking.

“So,” she said to the ficus. “How’s your life? Mine sucks. I got two more hang-ups today. And then that rude caller who left the message called back. This time he used the word die. I don’t like that word.” She sighed. “And speaking of rude, did I mention Jason Dodd?”

She touched the plant, and three more leaves floated downward.

“Not that my life is worse than yours. You’re almost down to your last leaf.” She bit her lip. “I should have never brought you home. I’m much better at killing things than keeping them alive.” She paused. “Relationships included. Not that I had a relationship with Dodd.”

Sue dropped to the floor and picked up the brittle leaves. “Have you ever met someone who just fit like a good pair of jeans? As if they’d been made for you? After he kissed me…” She fought the swell of emotion in her chest. “Have you ever been so lonely that you spent your Saturday afternoon pouring your heart out to a plant? Probably not, huh? And axe the jeans question, too. As a plant, you probably can’t relate to the whole jeans analogy. Besides, I’ve learned my lesson. He’s not my pair of jeans.”

She touched one of the plant’s limbs. “If he showed up at my door now and begged for a second chance, I’d laugh myself silly. Not that I don’t feel a little silly now, talking to a plant. And I do have friends. Got a whole club thing going. But both Kathy and Lacy are out of town—”

Sue’s doorbell rang. She remembered who she was expecting. Getting up, she spotted her gun and hurriedly stuck the weapon in her purse. No use flaunting it in front of a cop.

“Hi.” She waved Officer Martin inside. He’d already changed out of uniform, wore jeans and a short-sleeved button-down shirt, which bore the print of…smiley faces. Hmmm.

She’d called him this morning and told him she felt like she needed to report a few more things. He’d offered to stop by after work. The after-work comment bothered her, but she remembered he lived close and decided to go with the flow. And the flow right now dictated she offer him something to drink.

“Soda or tea?”

They sat at the kitchen table, sipping iced tea, and she spilled the beans. She told him about the rat scene in her book and the phone calls. He sat there looking at her, or rather, looking at her chest. She pulled the scoop-neck blouse up to a non-scooping level. When his eyes rose, she continued talking.

“It’s just weird, things happening so close to how they happened in my book.”

“And your PR person, she’s read the book, right?” He scooted his chair closer.

“Yes.” Sue inched her chair back. “But Melissa wouldn’t be behind this.”

He nodded. “And…you live here alone, right?”

“Yes.” She waited for him to give her a piece of advice. Like “buy a gun,” which she’d proudly announce she’d done.

Instead, he sent her one of those male, gotta-love-me smiles. The man could work on his smiles. “There’s not a boyfriend who could come stay here?”

“Not really.” She had spoken to Paul, said boyfriend, once since he’d left the message of the vacation cancellation. During the brief conversation, she’d arranged a Monday night dinner. A Monday night good-bye dinner. No more settling.

“How could that be?” Martin asked.

“How could what be?” Sue had lost track of the conversation.

“Someone like yourself being single.”

Sue pasted a smile on her face, imitating the one on his shirt. “I kill people on paper. Excruciating deaths. Guys find that hard to deal with.”

“I wouldn’t,” he said.

But maybe you should.“Look, about these calls…”

“Yeah,” he said. “If she calls back…”

“She?”

“Whoever. If you get scared, need anything, day or night, call me. I can get here in minutes.” He picked up her portable phone on the table, which he told her was exactly like the one he owned, and punched his number into her speed dial. “I’m one touch away.”

She thanked him but explained that she thought she’d be okay. When he offered to take her out to dinner, she refused. When he offered to stop by later, she told him she didn’t want him to go beyond his call of duty. Hint. Hint.

He didn’t take that hint, and she was afraid she might have to bypass the polite I’ll-never-date-you hints and go for the never-in-a-million-years bluntness. Then she spotted her ficus tree. She faced Martin, his gaze directed toward her chest, of course.

Okay, so the Wonderbra had its good points and bad.

She yanked up her top again. “You know, I’m sorry to do this but I have to cut this short. I have a sick friend to visit.”

After Martin left, Sue donned a pair of pj’s, drank one glass of Merlot—she needed to wipe the smiley faces from her mind—and chatted with Ms. Ficus and Hitchcock before going to bed.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d slept when a paw, claws in, struck her face. Then Hitchcock howled. An ugly type of howl, too. Sue shot up. The cat jumped from the bed and paced in front of her huge bay window.

“What is it? A hairball? You don’t have a cold, do you? Oh, Lordie, don’t have a cold.”

Hitchcock continued to pace. The blinds were up, and the backyard floodlight cast enough of a glow that the cat’s fur shone silver. Sue watched. Not that she really cared to witness the hairball delivery, but it was good knowing where they were. Stepping on them was—

Then she saw it. It was not a hairball.

Oh God, someone was in her backyard! And they were walking toward her window. The voice from the prank calls echoed in her head. Die, sweet Sue, die.

Unable to breathe, she grabbed her cat around the middle and darted out of the bedroom.

“Oh, God!” She started going in circles. Hitchcock, never fond of circles, leapt down. Sue accepted right then that everyone in their lives was faced with circumstances that proved what they were made of: strength, valor, courage. She owned not one of those qualities. No backbone, no nerve. She was one tiny muscle spasm away from wetting herself.

Focused on not peeing, it finally hit her to call for help. She spotted her cell phone on the table, grabbed it, and hit 911.

“Help me,” she screamed as soon as the voice answered. “Someone is in my backyard. Someone’s told me to die!” She rattled off her address. Then she remembered Martin telling her that he could arrive fast. She grabbed her portable phone. She started to look for his card, then remembered he’d put his number on speed dial. Three, wasn’t it? Or four? “Crap, crap, crap!”

Hitchcock howled again. Sue’s gaze shot up. She heard it. Her doorknob turned. It was locked, but the eerie clicking sounded like something out of a horror movie. Or a scary book! Like one of my books. One where someone always died.

A noise startled Jason awake. He forced his eyes open, his mind trying to process the noise and where the hell he was. Suddenly, he was nose to nose with something with bugged-out eyes and a short snout. In his youth, he’d woken up with some real dogs, but—

He remembered: Lacy’s house, pet-sitting, Fabio. Pushing the ugly dog away, Jason heard the phone.

Grabbing his watch off the coffee table, he hit the light button to check the time. One A.M.? Who the hell would be calling at this hour? He vaguely remembered calling Maggie and leaving this number because his cell phone had run out of juice and he’d forgotten to bring his charger. Picking up the portable phone, he answered on the fourth ring. “Hello?”

“Someone’s here. I saw him walk past my window. Oh, God, he’s at my back door again! What do I do?”

Jason’s foggy brain tried to place the panicked voice. It wasn’t Maggie.

Recognition struck. “Sue?” But, wasn’t she in Mexico doing the tango with the shower-capped Porsche driver? “Where are you?”

The line went dead.

The phone crackled under his intense grip. If she was in Mexico, she wouldn’t be calling here. She had to be at home. The fear he’d heard in her voice ricocheted into his gut. He grabbed his jeans, his gun belt, swiped his keys from the coffee table, and ran to his car.

It was a ten-minute drive to her place. He made it in six.

A police car, lights flashing, sat in Sue’s driveway. Jason parked on the curb, jerked his jeans up over his boxers, slipped on his shoes, and grabbed his gun. Jumping out of his car, he headed to the front door. Blue shadows danced across the yard. He made four steps when he heard, “Police! Hands up. Down on the ground. Now!”

“I’m Houston PD. Jason Dodd.” He held up his hands, knowing the shape of the gun would be clearly visible. “I’ve got a gun. Sue Finley called me. I’m Houston PD,” he repeated.

“Drop the weapon and get on the ground until I can see your badge,” the man called.

Jason did as he was told even though it stung. A young man stepped from the shadows, his weapon aimed.

“Badge is in my back left pocket. Is Sue okay?”

The officer grabbed Jason’s gun. Tossing it aside, he reached for Jason’s wallet. A second later, he spoke again. “Sorry, Detective. You…surprised me. I’m Officer Tomas Poe. Hoke’s Bluff police.”

Jason pushed himself up. “Is Sue okay?” he asked again. After collecting his gun and wallet, he started toward the house.

“She’s shook up.” Officer Poe fell in step beside him. “But not hurt.”

“What happened?” Jason asked.

“Donald Martin, one of our officers, asked me to drive by. I did. I noticed a car parked up the street. I thought it belonged next door.”

Sirens screeched in the distance. “You get the license number?”

The young guy shrugged. “It looked like it belonged to the house next door.” The kid had rookie written all over him.

“Then what happened?”

“I hadn’t gotten but a mile away when I got the call of a break-in in progress. When I came around, the car was gone. I called for backup.” He glanced back to the street as two patrol cars squealed to a halt. “After seeing she was okay, I did a sweep of the outside of the house, then you came up. I think what happened was the perpetrator saw me swing by and bailed. That is, if there was a perpetrator.” Poe turned to the two officers and yelled, “It’s clear.”

“You’re questioning the fact that there was a perpetrator after you spotted that car?” Jason’s tone drew the man’s attention back to him.

“I mean, a real perpetrator.” Poe hesitated. “Donald thinks this is a publicity stunt by her PR agent. But since this lady called him about the phone calls—”

“What phone calls?” Jason snapped.

“All he said was she was getting prank calls, and to be safe he wanted me to swing by.”

Two other officers walked up. The rookie introduced Jason as a Houston detective and explained he was an acquaintance of the victim.

“Isn’t this the writer’s house—the one Martin’s got the hots for?” one of the newly arrived officers asked.

“Yeah.” Officer Poe cut his gaze to Jason.

“Have you called him?” the larger newcomer asked. “He’ll want to be here to comfort her, if you know what I mean. Or I could stand in for him if she’s pretty enough.” He laughed and attempted to suck in his gut. “Let her get a taste of a real man.”

Poe shot Jason another look, as if questioning the relationship between Jason and Sue. Jason didn’t care what the guy thought; he wanted to check on Sue.

“I called Martin,” Poe stated. “He should be pulling up any minute.”

Jason stalked toward the front door. As he walked, his mind started gnawing on what he’d learned. So, Sue had been getting disturbing phone calls. And she’d called Martin instead of Chase…or himself. Then he remembered the fiasco that had happened at Chase’s on the Fourth, and he supposed he didn’t blame her for not calling him. But Chase…

The door stood ajar, and Jason saw her on the sofa. Her knees pulled up to her chest, she had her arms wrapped around her calves, and her head rested facedown on top of her knees. Dressed in blue cotton pajamas, she looked small and so damn scared. Emotion kicked the inside of his ribs.

He stepped inside without knocking.

CHAPTER SIX

Sue couldn’t stop shaking. Someone had attempted to break into her house. Someone had been calling and leaving weird messages or just hanging up. Someone had sent her a dead rat. Just like in her book. Someone really wanted to kill her.

She remembered seeing the shadow pass by her bedroom window. She remembered hearing someone at the back door, the knob turning. Thank goodness the police arrived so quickly. With her face hidden in the fold of her arms, she heard the officer talking to someone outside. Then she recalled hearing other sirens arriving. More police. She was safe. Safe but still shaking.

She buried her face deeper. This was grist for the mill. As a mystery writer, she should be taking notes of the emotional impact, but this wasn’t fiction. She clenched her teeth and wished she had someone to call. But Lacy was in California, and Kathy in Dallas visiting her mom.

She thought of phoning her own mom but wasn’t sure she had enough Merlot to keep her mother from hysterics.

Sue’s mind turned to her grandpa. Her rock, her protector. But lately, their relationship had changed. Oh, his love had never faltered, but Sue found herself being the strong one. She envisioned the times he’d whispered, “It’s gonna be okay, Princess.” By golly, she could use hearing those words right now.

A tear squeezed its way through her closed lids. “Can’t cry,” she muttered. Any minute the officers would need to ask her some questions, and she couldn’t be blubbering like a baby.

“It’s going to be okay.” The caring voice came out of nowhere, and so did the emotion in her throat. He hadn’t called her princess, but it was close enough. The sofa shifted. He sat beside her. She kept her head down to hide her watery weakness.

The owner of the deep voice wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Probably the officer on duty—Tomas, if she remembered his name. Or was it Officer Martin? Probably him, because there was a familiar ring to the voice. He even smelled nice and familiar.

She started to raise her head, but the muscled arm pulled her against him, offering a shoulder—an offer she couldn’t refuse. And it was a nice shoulder, masculine like his voice and his spicy scent. Oddly, she hadn’t given Martin’s shoulders, voice, or scent a second thought earlier. Nothing like a little panic to bring things home. She pillowed her cheek on the wall of muscle.

“You’re safe.” His arm tightened, and she felt safe.

The concerned tone, the warm touch, all made her throat ache and her sinuses sting. Her tears flowed. Knowing her nose ran like a floodgate when she cried, she inhaled a hiccupping breath and drew her face off his shirt. Any longer and he’d be wringing the garment out in her sink.

“Thank you.” She sat up, pressing her hand over her face, hoping to collect any leakage without looking totally undignified. Only then did she look at…

“No.” Could panic bring on hallucinations?

“No, what?” Dodd asked.

When she didn’t answer, he rose and went into the kitchen. He came back, sat down beside her, and held a paper towel to her nose. “Blow,” he said.

So much for looking dignified. She took the paper towel, but when she felt the moisture collect between her nose and lip, she blew.

And she really wished she hadn’t.

With one nasal cavity stopped, it made a honking noise that sounded like a mating call of a jungle bird. She wiped and wished she could slip between the sofa’s cushions and disappear like an unwanted penny.

“What happened?” Jason’s leg cozied up to hers.

“My nose is stopped. What do you think happened?”

He attempted not to smile, but humor danced in his eyes. “I mean to night.”

She leaned back into her leather sofa. “I…”

Officer Tomas and two more uniformed policemen walked inside. Sue looked at them and then back at Jason, who wore jeans and a white T-shirt. “How did…” She stared at the damp spot on his chest. Great, she’d snotted up his shirt. Maybe he wouldn’t notice.

Jason glanced at his slimed shirt. Okay, he’d noticed. But she hadn’t asked him for his shoulder.

“Do you think you could go over what happened again?” Officer Tomas asked.

Sue wadded the paper towel in her fist. Then, unable to help herself, she wiped at Jason’s damp spot. “Hitchcock woke me up.”

“Hitchcock?” One policeman, an Archie Bunker lookalike, stepped closer. Sue barely noticed him, because she was too busy noticing Dodd staring at her as she attempted to clean the snot off his shirt.

“My cat.” She decided to leave Jason’s shirt alone and looked up at the big cop. “He hit me with his paw. I think he saw the guy first. Then I saw him.”

“A guard cat?” the same officer said. “I’m glad I don’t have to write this one up.”

“Did you get a look at him?” Jason’s voice came out stern, and he stared at Archie.

Still uncertain how Jason had wound up here, she stared at him. Remembering their confrontation at Lacy’s, residual anger stirred in her chest. Then she recalled the tender way he’d held her seconds ago.

She moved away from the warmth that his jean-covered leg offered hers. “No, all I saw was a shape.”

“Big or small?” Jason ran his hand down his leg, which brought the backs of his fingers sliding against Sue’s outer thigh—an outer thigh covered only by a thin layer of cotton pj’s. His touch sent her brain into sensory overload. Nerve endings that hadn’t been awake in a long time started stretching and yawning to life.

“I…don’t remember. But I assumed it was a man, so it wasn’t that small.” She moved a couple more inches away on the couch.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just a shadow?” The larger officer snickered.

“I’m sure.” Sue’s left foot tapped nervously against the wood floor. “My backyard has a floodlight. And besides, I ran in here and then I heard him at my back door. He was turning the knob. Shadows can’t do that, can they?”

The sofa shifted beside her. Jason got up and went to her back door. He unlocked it and studied the doorknob on the outside.

“Any damage?” Tomas asked.

“No, but dust it for prints.” Jason’s gaze returned to her. “Then what happened?”

“I called for help and I…” Hid, she remembered but didn’t say so.

“Prints?” the bigger cop interrupted. “You’re joking.”

Jason met the man’s gaze without flinching. “Do it, or I’ll call someone from my unit.”

“Go ahead and call,” Archie answered. “But you should talk to Martin first. This whole thing is a sham.”

“A sham?” Sue’s left foot went still.

“I think it’s more,” Jason said.

“Sham?” Sue repeated.

Archie Bunker reared back on his heels, looking as if he might tumble backward. “Martin’s just playing this up to get in her—”

“I don’t give a damn what Martin’s doing.” Jason scowled.

“Wait!” Sue held up a hand. “What’s a sham?”

The front door, left ajar, flew open. Officer Martin, wearing jeans and his unbuttoned, short-sleeved smiley shirt, rushed in. His light brown hair stuck up at an odd angle. He knelt between her knees and took her hands in his. “You okay?”

Sue glanced at their interlaced fingers, finding his affection too showy.

“Why didn’t you call me?” Martin asked.

“I did.” She tried to pull away. He held on. He leaned closer; she backed up. “Do you think this is a scam?”

Jason walked to the sofa and stared at Officer Martin crouched between her knees. Martin let go of her hands and stood. Both men’s expressions grew pinched, and Sue got an image of two roosters clawing at the dirt, ready to spar. One rooster was wearing a smiley-face shirt.

“Why are you here?” Martin voiced the question she’d been dying to ask herself.

“Sue called me,” Jason answered.

“I did not,” Sue retorted.

Jason’s pinched expression targeted her now. “You called Chase’s. I’m pet-sitting.”

“I…” Understanding dawned. “I must have misdialed. Lacy is three on my speed dial. Martin put his in as four.”

“Yeah, I did that before I left to night, didn’t I?” Martin said. There was an insinuation in his tone that Sue didn’t like.

Jason continued to scowl. “What phone were you on when you called?”

“My home phone. 911 said for me not to hang up. I called them on my cell.”

“I don’t think this is going to take two police forces,” Martin said.

Without a word, Jason walked out the door. The fact that it was the back door seemed a little odd. Odder still, Sue felt abandoned.

She looked at the four cops in her living room. If she broke down again, whom would she lean on?

No one.

She focused on Martin. “Why do they think this is a sham?”

He shuffled his feet. “It’s nothing.”

“Do you think I’m doing this for publicity?”

“No.” He flushed. The man couldn’t lie worth a diddly squat.

Sue crossed her arms and started swinging her foot. “I’m going to say this once more. My agent isn’t doing this. I’ve been getting weird phone calls and someone sent me a dead rat. It doesn’t matter that the evidence was eaten.”

Martin knelt between her legs again and grabbed her hands. “You’re upset.”

Sue slammed her knees shut, blocking him from getting any closer, and jerked her hands from his. “When I said I didn’t want you doing more than your call of duty, what I meant was…I’m not sleeping with you!”

The back door swung open. Jason stepped inside and his gaze homed in on Martin; then it turned to Officer Tomas. “You get someone here to dust for prints or I’ll make a few calls and make it happen. And I want a detailed description of the car you saw.”

“What car?” asked Martin.

“What car?” Sue echoed.

“Wait a damn minute!” the large cop spoke up. “The last time I checked the map, Hoke’s Bluff is our jurisdiction. We call the shots here. Even if Martin is wrong, we don’t dust for fingerprints for Peeping Toms. So just take your attitude and—”

“The phone line’s been cut.” Jason’s tone could have etched glass. “Whoever was here wasn’t just planning on peeping in the windows. Get the kit out here and dust for the prints.”

Sue tried not to imagine what her stalker had intended to do to her. She wouldn’t let fear win. She could deal with this. Her gaze slid to her purse on the kitchen table. She was an adult, a gun-toting in de pen dent female. Okay, she was a gun-toting in de pen dent woman who’d forgotten all about the gun and hid in the pantry with her cat, but…she could handle this. She could handle anything.

A familiar dog bark sounded outside. Sue amended her last thought. She could handle anything as long as it didn’t involve her mother. Sue sent up a serious, silent prayer. Please, don’t let it involve my mother.

“Susie!” Peggy Finley scrambled inside, doing her best Scarlett O’Hara entrance without the staircase. She threw herself on the couch and hugged Sue against her low-cut grape-colored blouse. “Are you okay? Oh, God, why aren’t you talking?”

“Because you’re smothering me!” Sue pried herself free, frustrated until she saw the concern in her mother’s eyes. “I’m fine.” Sue held up hands and feet. “Got all my fingers and toes. No sore throat, either.”

“She’s not hurt, Mrs. Finley,” Officer Martin said in an annoyingly in-charge tone. The man was not in charge. He didn’t believe her, and he hadn’t even arrived in time for her to leak snot on. No, she’d had the pleasure of doing that to the man who didn’t like her tonsils.

“Oh, sweetie,” her mother cried. “Bill and I were…playing checkers. We heard your address called out on his police radio that he listens to for entertainment. Tell me they caught the doctor.”

Bill? Was this the fruit salesman? Glancing at her mom’s disheveled clothing and mussed hair, Sue questioned the checkers story. Suddenly it all seemed too real—and she didn’t mean that someone had tried to break in. She meant her mother. Her mom was having sex. A vision of her father flashed in Sue’s mind.

Her mom straightened her blouse. “I hope they throw that foot doctor in jail for years.”

“It’s not Paul. But who’s Bill?” Sue managed to say.

“Who’s Paul?” Officer Martin asked.

Sue watched all two hundred pounds of Goliath lumber into her entranceway. Hitchcock zipped out of the room. Behind the dog, a middle-aged man with jet black hair appeared. Wearing tight leather pants and a silk shirt, he looked…familiar.

Recognition dawned.

“Get this beast away from me,” Sue heard someone say, but she continued to glare at the leather pants–wearing man in blue suede shoes.

Great. Her mom was sleeping with a fruit-selling Elvis impersonator. Her father had hated Elvis. He hadn’t been too keen on fruit, either.

“That’s Bill,” her mother said.

Sue opened her mouth but didn’t have a clue what to say to a man who was, moments earlier, bumping uglies with her mother.

Before Sue could say anything, a masculine outcry arose. She turned her head just as Goliath jammed his nose into Archie Bunker’s crotch and growled. The cop jerked out his gun. “You bite me there, you son of a bitch, and you’re a dead dog!”

“No!” Her mother, a grape-colored streak, vaulted over the coffee table and latched her arms around her English Mastiff. Goliath, not used to being lunged at, jumped. All two hundred pounds of canine slammed into Archie Bunker. The cop tumbled backward. His hands, with one gun attached, flew up in the air. As he went down, the gun pointed in Sue’s direction and exploded.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Sue pressed her hand over the bullet hole.

“It’s not fatal.” Jason walked closer, his expression softening.

She remembered him unleashing his anger on the officer who’d fired the gun. “I can’t believe he shot my couch.”

“It could’ve been worse.” He looked at her, his blue eyes serious. “But if it makes you feel better, he’ll be doing paperwork for hours. Explaining a misfired weapon is a bitch. And I’m sure you’ll get a new sofa out of the deal, too.”

“Yeah, it could have been worse,” Sue repeated. “They could have arrested my mom. I don’t think prison uniforms come in fruity colors.”

The warmth of his smile worked its way into her chest. She returned the gesture, suddenly finding his presence a lot easier. Her gaze flickered over him—his wide chest, lean hips…It didn’t feel so easy anymore.

Still smiling, he pulled a piece of red-wrapped hard candy from his pocket. “Want one?”

Sue’s gaze shifted to the back door. The events of the last few days felt more like fiction than her life. Sure, she wrote about crazy things and murder, but she didn’t want to live it. All that talk about grist for the mill was just talk. She could imagine all the grist she needed, thank you.

“I personally liked Elvis,” Jason said. “But if that dog put his nose in my crotch one more time, I might have taken a shot at him, too.”

Sue grinned. “He flunked obedience training four times.”

A smile chased away the awkwardness again. How could Jason Dodd make her feel comfortable and then so uncomfortable in the next second?

“The dog or Elvis?” He stepped closer.

The humor helped, but reality crowded her mind. “Do you think they’ll get a name from the fingerprint?”

“It was only a partial.” He sat down in the chair across from her. Everyone else had left. Sue had insisted Mr. De-laney, a.k.a. Elvis, take her mother home before she finished off the bottle of wine.

Officer Tomas had gone back to the precinct and gotten the equipment to dust for prints, while Jason had taped the phone line back together.

Officer Martin had hung around long enough to ask her to go home with him. When she refused, he walked out in a huff. After Officer Tomas and Archie left, it was only her and Jason. And Hitchcock.

The cat jumped up in her lap. Sue stroked the feline and stared at the dancing penguins on her pajama bottoms. Her knees were still trembling.

“You okay?” Jason asked, bringing her gaze up.

“You can go, you know.” She hoped she sounded more convincing than she felt. What if whoever had tried to break in came back? “I didn’t mean to call you to night, and I’m sorry about…your shirt.”

“I haven’t complained.” He glanced at the door. Then they stared at each other for several suspended seconds before he stood up.

Thinking he meant to leave, she bit down on her lip to keep from asking him to stay. But instead of heading for the door, he moved to her DVDs shelf.

“You know, I haven’t seen this movie in years.” He held out the Lonesome Dove case. “Do you mind if I hang out a while?”

When she shook her head, he put the disc in, and because the only place to see the television was on her wounded sofa, he sat down beside her, keeping a good ten inches between them. The distance showed that he didn’t intend to take advantage of her.

Of course he didn’t. If he’d been interested in her, he’d have called four months ago. She petted Hitchcock and reminded herself that Jason Dodd wasn’t her pair of jeans.

But, the smell of his cinnamon candy teased her senses. She knew Jason didn’t want to see a movie. He obviously sensed she didn’t want to be alone. But why did he care? The man didn’t like her. She knew he didn’t like her tonsils.

She looked back at the clock. When Lonesome Dove ended, it would be daylight. No reason to be afraid. Yup, tomorrow morning, she’d send Jason Dodd off with a big “Thank you” and a fond farewell. Tomorrow, she’d be fine.

She looked back at him. “I appreciate what you’re doing. But after the movie, you should go.”

Jason winked in response, but he didn’t agree to anything, especially the leaving part. Thirty minutes later, Sue was out like a blown bulb. Her cheek rested against his arm, her mouth sagging open. Her breathing sounded heavy—not quite snoring, but serious rattling, as if her sinuses were still clogged. Not that they should be clogged. He’d never seen so much fluid come out of a woman. He smiled, recalling the look on her face when she’d seen his shirt.

Popping another piece of candy into his mouth, he watched her take even breaths and recalled another look on her face, the look when she’d thought he was about to leave. Sue Finley needed him. He could no more have left Sue than he could have left Maggie fourteen years ago.

Leaning his head back, he wasn’t certain why that memory surged forward, but it did. He’d heard shouting as he let himself in the front door. Maggie sat in a ball in the corner of her kitchen, her eyes wet and swollen, her lip bleeding.

Jason had intended to walk into the house that night—two hours after the curfew Maggie had set for him, the curfew he never kept—grab his things, and leave for good. At sixteen, he figured the foster system was as tired of him as he was it. But one look at Maggie that night and everything changed. Maggie needed him.

Sue’s gray cat moved to his lap, ending his reverie. He wasn’t a cat person, but damn if cats didn’t realize that. The animal looked up at him, then back at Sue. Jason ran his hand over the feline’s back and followed the cat’s gaze.

“Pretty, isn’t she?” he asked. Swallowing a wave of desire, he told himself there was nothing sexy about a woman wearing loose, penguin-printed pajamas buttoned up to her neck—a woman with a stopped-up nose. But tell that to the hardness growing between his legs.

Moving his hand from the cat, he reached up and touched a strand of Sue’s hair. Soft. Leaning closer, he caught a whiff of the fruity scent. He’d smelled it the night he’d kissed her, and again the day of the rat incident.

Yeah, he’d noticed. So much so that yesterday at the drugstore he’d actually paused at the shampoo aisle and loosened lids trying to discover which she used. Very unlike him. He simply wasn’t the type of man who cared what type of shampoo a woman used. But he cared about Sue.

His gut tightened when he remembered someone was trying to hurt her. He took a deep breath and swore that whoever had put that fear in Sue’s eyes to night would pay. Pay big.

For a second, he got that soul-wrenching feeling to run, the same feeling he’d gotten the night he’d kissed her. The one that said this could only lead to regret. But who would Sue turn to? She hadn’t called the foot doctor to night. She obviously hadn’t gone to Mexico with him. Which meant she didn’t care about him. An odd sense of relief flooded Jason’s chest.

Sue nestled closer against him as if comfortable with his presence. He hoped that was the case. Because until he caught the stalker, he planned on staying right here.

Here, with Sue. With the woman he’d vowed not to get close to.

“I’m staying,” he whispered, not loud enough to wake her but loud enough for her subconscious to hear. “So don’t argue with me. Got that?”

She stirred again, her hand came to rest in his lap, and his sex stiffened. It felt good. He glanced at the rising bulge in his jeans. Realization hit. Things were back to normal. He smiled.

Ah, hell, since they were going to be together anyhow, he didn’t see any reason they couldn’t indulge in a few pleasurable pastimes. If she was up for it. He knew he was.

But why now and not last week, or last month? Because she needed him? Yeah, that was it; but there was also the whole no-dating rule she’d followed. Non-dating women were either too easily hurt or they were looking for more than the average man was offering. Jason was definitely the average man in the offerings department, and he hated the idea of hurting someone. But obviously Sue had moved past that. Now all he had to do was convince her that they could be good together.

Letting his gaze whisper over her, he shifted his arm so she rested closer against him. Nice. Real nice. Tilting his head down, he pressed his lips against her forehead and eyed the tiny buttons of her pajama top.

She let out another light rattle/almost a snore. He grinned and decided again that a little convincing was the only thing keeping him from exploring what was below those cotton pj’s. Not to night. But soon.

Knowing Sue, he expected her to try to talk him out of it. Luckily, he was good at convincing.

Light.

Morning breath.

A hard object.

“Jiminy Cricket!” Sue snapped her eyes open, attempting to identify the hard object pressed against her hip.

She tried to dislodge herself, but her legs and arms were tangled with another pair of arms and legs. Pushing against a very masculine chest, she jerked up, lost her balance, and started falling off the couch. A pair of arms caught her and in one swoop she was once again against the warm, masculine chest…and the hard object.

“Relax.” His voice sounded hoarse with sleep. “You’re gonna fall.”

His breath tickled her ear, and the hardness now pressed against her thigh. She pushed up, carefully.

Standing, she gazed at the large bulge between his legs. Yup, she’d been right. After two years, she should be proud she could recognize one. She might have been proud to have gotten Jason Dodd in the state, but she knew better. Men just naturally found lead in their pencils in the morning.

He followed her gaze. “Sorry. I was asleep. It has a mind of its own.”

Yeah, because your other mind wasn’t interested enough to call me! Sue looked at the silent television screen, then at the clock. It was almost ten.

“The movie’s over.” She marched across her breakfast room and into her hall. She opened her bedroom door, then called back, “Thanks for staying. You can see yourself out. And lock the door behind you.”

Closing her eyes, she leaned against the wall. Perhaps it was normal for men to wake up to lead in their pencils, but it wasn’t so normal for a woman to want to be used as stationery. Forcing herself to move, she headed to the bathroom and a cold shower. And then she needed to figure out what she was going to do about someone wanting to kill her.

Ten minutes later, dressed in a pair of cut-off jeans and a T-shirt, she stepped into the hall. When she didn’t hear anything, she assumed he’d done as she’d asked and left. Later she’d call and thank him again. After all, it had been rude to send him off without offering him coffee, tea, or…me. She moaned at the wayward thought.

She got to the kitchen and froze when she heard the running shower in her guest bathroom. Dashing to the window, she peeked out to make sure Jason’s car was still there. For all she knew, her stalker had come in and had decided to bathe before he did her in. Seeing the blue Mustang out front, she relaxed.

But as she reentered the kitchen, she got a mental picture of him naked, his pencil still ready to write, standing beneath a steamy spray of water.

Swallowing, she started coffee and made it strong. Jeepers! The man wasn’t interested in her. The least she could do was return the feeling.

After calling her mom and leaving a short message that she was fine—not mentioning the whole Elvis situation, she would deal with that later—Sue phoned her grandparents to remind them of tomorrow’s doctor’s appointment. Her grandpa pointed out that she obviously hadn’t gone to Mexico.

Sue told him the truth. “You were right. Settling isn’t going to cut it. No more guys with issues.” Then she reminded them both to take their vitamin C.

Hanging up, Sue poured herself a cup of vanilla java with milk and filled another cup for Hitchcock. “It’s a little strong,” she warned the cat waiting on the table.

Hearing footsteps, she darted to the fridge, opened it, and stared at some mayonnaise. The footsteps moved closer, then stopped.

Sue felt his gaze and pulled her cup to her lips, hoping to appear nonchalant, sophisticated, and totally uninterested. Suddenly not sure staring at mayonnaise said sophisticated, she focused the gorgonzola cheese. Much more sophisticated. Moldy cheese would always do the trick.

“Thanks,” Jason said.

For what? She turned. He had on the same jeans and T-shirt, but his blond hair was wet and finger-combed. He held Hitchcock’s coffee as if she’d poured it for him.

His gaze homed in on her as if she were something delectable. He sipped the brew before his delectable gaze shifted to the cup. “I usually take it black.”

She glanced at an unhappy cat, tail twitching, staring up at Jason from a chair. “Yeah, but Hitchcock takes his with cream.”

Jason eyed the cat, then the cup. “You serve him coffee?”

She nodded.“We used to share, but after he ate that dead rat, he gets his own cup. Nasty germs and all.” Sue grinned at the look on Jason’s face.

“Funny.” He set Hitchcock’s coffee on the table and opened a few cabinet doors until he found a new cup.

She should have gotten it for him, but the morning-after awkwardness had her in knots. Not that they’d had a night.

Then, feeling rude for staring, she refocused on the cheese. The cool air hitting her face felt good. She heard Jason pour coffee and felt his gaze on her again.

“Make yourself at home.” Her tone bordered on sarcastic.

“I did.” He either ignored her sarcasm or was deaf to it. “What are we having?”

“Having?” She refused to look at him. Safer to stare at the cheese.

“For breakfast.” He nudged her over so he could share the fridge space and her much-needed cold air.

She looked at him.

He glanced into the fridge. “Eggs, milk, cheese.” Still holding the coffee in one hand, he opened the vegetable drawer. Steam rose from his cup. A lock of wet hair fell to his brow. He looked at her and smiled. “You could make us omelets.”

Yeah. She barely managed to scramble eggs.

Snatching the milk, she shut the fridge. Sue then retrieved a box of raisin bran and shoved it into his hand. “This is as good at gets around here.” But why had she said that instead of asking him to leave?

“I’m a cereal man, myself.” He carried the box to the table and then, bringing the cup to his lips, his slow gaze moved over her body. “Does the cat get his own bowl?”

His smile wrapped around her lungs making it hard to breathe, and the unexplainable heat in his eyes made her heart drop. She grabbed bowls and spoons and, moving to the other side of the breakfast table, set them down.

“Look, I appreciate what you did last night. But I should be fine now. I mean, you’re welcome to some cereal but—”

“Good, I’m starved.” He opened the box and commenced to fill the two bowls.

Resigning herself to sharing a meal with him, she pulled one bowl closer. “Then you go.”

He closed the top of the cereal. “No.” He said the word so casually it surprised her. “After we eat, we talk.”

“We don’t need to talk.”

“Yes, we do. I’ve got questions about the phone calls.” He pointed to her bowl. “But now, let’s eat.”

She could have argued. Could have, but didn’t. Instead she sat down, grabbed her vitamin bottle from the table, and poured out two for herself and two for him. Leaning over, she dropped his pills beside his bowl. “Vitamin C. Cold prevention.” She’d answered his raised brow.

“I don’t get colds.”

“Anything that stays around here long enough starts dying.” She motioned to Ms. Ficus. “Look at my plant.” She swallowed her pills with a sip of coffee.

He smiled—one of those really nice smiles. Obviously, Jason thought she was too scared to be alone. Why else was he being nice? And why was she letting him?

“Look.” She sighed. “As Officer Martin pointed out last night, this isn’t your district, so it’s not your problem.”

He picked up his spoon and met her gaze. “Why? You want to call Martin again?”

“No.” She leaned back in her chair.

“Good.” He uncapped the milk and filled both bowls. “The guy’s a jerk.”

She propped her elbows on the table and watched him spoon bites of cereal into his mouth. Why was he still here? She understood the panicked phone call may have brought out his to protect and serve instincts, but to stay last night…“Why are you being nice?”

He grinned. “I’m a nice guy.”

“No, you’re not.”

He pointed to her bowl with his spoon. “Your cereal is getting soggy.”

She hated soggy cereal, so she started eating. He refilled his bowl and finished before she did. Obviously not going back for thirds, he crossed his arms over his chest and watched her eat.

No longer hungry under his intense scrutiny, she pushed her bowl away. “Fine. Let’s get this over with.”

“Get what over with?” He smiled as if she’d secretly meant something sexual.

“The questions.”

He settled back in his chair, and his smile melted away. “Okay. Why aren’t you in Mexico with the foot doctor?”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I…” Why did she get the feeling of déjà vu?

Oh, yeah. His smug tone reminded her of the conversation they’d had last week at Lacy’s. The gratefulness she’d held for him for staying last night started to wane. “You know? I don’t want to do this. You should—”

“Your mother thinks the doc is behind all this.”

She wadded a paper napkin in her hand. “My mother is having sex with a fruit-selling Elvis. How much weight do you think you should put in what she thinks?” Sue shook her head. “Paul didn’t do this.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I just know.” She unwrinkled her napkin, flattened it, then ripped it in half.

His blue-eyed stare made her realize that the air conditioner hadn’t come on. Hot, too hot. The memory of waking up on top of him did funny things to her stomach. She fidgeted with her napkin and tore it again.

“So, what happened to your plans for the weekend?”

Oh, I decided I couldn’t fake orgasms. She ripped the napkin into tiny shreds. Realizing the mess she’d made, she swiped up the bits and closed them into her hand. “He had a medical emergency.”

“Someone get an ingrown toenail?” Humor danced in Jason’s eyes.

Sue stood and carried her bowl to the sink. “Paul’s a doctor. He doesn’t deserve to be ridiculed. Feet are important.”

Jason turned in his chair. “So you broke up with him, huh?”

“I did not.” She shot him her best go-to-Hades look. The fact that she planned to break up with Paul tomorrow night was none of Dodd’s business.

“So, why didn’t you call him last night to come rescue you? Isn’t that what a girl does—calls her boyfriend during a crisis?”

She opened her mouth but couldn’t answer. Truth was, she’d never considered calling Paul. Even before she’d decided to break up with him, she would never have counted on him. Didn’t that say something about how little she really cared?

She bit into her lip. “How is that any of your business?” Being that you’re not interested in a woman who can’t stand still and never shuts up, she continued in her mind. But she didn’t say it. Because to say it would make her sound hurt. And if she was hurt, then it meant she cared. Which she didn’t, of course.

Sure, she had a bad case of you’re-my-kind-of-jeans lust going on, but give her a break. It had been two years since she’d had sex and anything battery operated didn’t count. Jason had all the right equipment, no batteries required. She’d probably be attracted to any man if he’d kissed her and discovered a never-before-found G spot in her throat.

Jason brought his bowl to the sink. His leg brushed against hers.

Zip.

Zing.

The thrill of his touch rushed through her again and sent liquid pleasure pooling in places that didn’t need to be moist right now. Space. She needed space. She stepped to the side.

He edged closer. “You mom has a point. Stalkers usually turn out to be the boyfriend or the ex-husband.”

“Not this time.” She shifted to avoid touching him and opened the dishwasher.

“Why do you say that?” He leaned against the counter and watched her load the dishes. Wasn’t that just like a man—to watch a woman clean and not offer to help?

When she rose up, she noticed his eyes on her butt. The words tumbled out before she could stop them: “Did I sit in something, or are you just enjoying the view?”

“It’s definitely the view.” He grinned, not at all admonished. She supposed she needed to work on her chastising voice.

His smile hit her again, pure sex appeal and a whole bunch of promises. She tugged on her shorts to make sure she wasn’t truly giving him an eyeful.

He took her by the elbow and started to the living room. “Let’s sit down. Tell me why you don’t think this foot doctor or your ex is responsible for all this. Tell me about the phone calls.”

His touch as he guided her to the sofa made it hard to think period, much less to think about Paul or her never-think-about-him ex-husband. Sitting down, the cool leather sofa pressed against her upper thighs and reminded her of the cut of her shorts. They weren’t indecent. So they weren’t Sunday school attire, but when she’d dressed she hadn’t expected him to be here.

“Start with the phone calls. When did they begin?” He sat beside her.

The sofa gave way; a few pieces of foam shot out of the bullet hole. His weight brought Sue against him. She scooted over and considered telling him to go take a hike, but then she spotted the gunshot in her sofa again. While that bullet hadn’t been intended for her, someone had wanted to do her harm last night.

She met his eyes. “I don’t know. I got a few hang-ups. I don’t know if they were part of it or not. I only started noticing them after I got the rat. By Lacy’s party I ‘d gotten several. He never said anything, just hung up. And—”

“Why didn’t you say something then?” Jason sounded annoyed.

She crossed her legs, her right foot swinging as she spoke. “I didn’t know if they were connected. Everyone gets hang-ups when telemarketing computers—”

He held up his hand to silence her, reminding her of his comment about her talking too much and never standing still. She stopped fidgeting.

“But now he does more than just hang up?”

She nodded and accidentally kicked him as her foot began to swing again. Uncrossing her legs, she dropped her hands on her knees. “He says weird stuff. Things like, ‘Die, Sue, die.’ ”

“Die?” Jason frowned.

“And what’s scary…Yesterday he called my cell. Few people have that number.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Does the doctor have your cell number? Your ex?”

“Yes, Paul has it, but he’s not doing this, and I haven’t seen my ex in two years. Neither of them is behind this.”

Jason folded his arms across his chest. “How can you be so sure?”

She decided to just tell him. “Because neither of them has read the book.”

“What…do you mean?”

She stood and walked around the coffee table. Bending, she straightened the bowl of wooden fruit. “My book, Murder at Midnight, isn’t coming out for two weeks.” Seeing his gaze travel again to her backside, she jerked upright and tugged at the bottom of her shorts. His gaze went back to her face.

“What does the book have to do with the phone calls?”

“My story has a serial killer who taunts his victims. He makes frightening calls, says strange things, and…once he sent a—”

“A dead rat!” Jason stood up. “Shit! Why the hell didn’t you tell me this last week?”

“I didn’t want to believe it. It wasn’t exactly the same as my book. And you and Chase were already accusing Melissa. If you learned about the scene and knew she was one of the people who’d read it, you’d have probably taken her down for questioning.”

“Well, hell yeah.” He stepped in front of her. “Is she still in town?”

“No. And it’s not her. Why would she do this?”

“Damn, Sue, you write about weirdos, but you haven’t got the good sense to know that some people are just screwed up. I can’t believe you’d keep something like this to yourself. Whoever is doing this is a real freak.”

“I didn’t keep it to myself. I told Officer Martin.” She tried again with the chastising voice.

He scowled. “You told that jerk but you couldn’t tell Chase or me?”

Okay, so she didn’t have what it took to pull off chastisement, so she went with just plain old irritated. “If Lacy thought I was in danger she’d have canceled her vacation.” She held out her hands. “And until he started saying things like ‘die,’ I didn’t think I was in danger. As for not telling you…I had no reason to tell you anything. I still don’t. You don’t even like me. I talk and move too much. Remember?”

Guilt ran through his eyes. “I never said I didn’t like you.”

“The only reason you’re here is…I don’t even know why you’re here. You’re Chase’s and Lacy’s friend, not mine!”

And just like that she knew why he was here. “Chase asked you to watch out for me, didn’t he?”

Jason’s expression said it all.

“Great! Scoop poop and take care of Sue.” She pointed toward her front door. “Go. I don’t need a babysitter.” She placed her hands on his chest to help him on his way. He didn’t budge.

“I’m not leaving.” He wrapped his arms around her waist. “I’m not going anywhere until this freak has been caught.” He brought her closer. “You’re stuck with me.” There was a low, sexy growl to his tone.

She grew uncomfortably aware of how close their bodies were. And that perfect-fit feeling hit again. “You can’t stay here.”

“Why not?” His hands glided up to her shoulder blades, then slowly moved to circle her waist.

“Because I don’t want you to.” Her words sounded weak, not how she’d meant them.

“You need me.” He lowered his face. His cheek, with day-old whiskers, brushed against hers. This close, she could definitely see the heat in his eyes.

“I don’t need you.”

She might want him badly, but she truly didn’t need him. She’d learned during her financially lean days how to distinguish between a want and a need. A want made you temporarily happy but wasn’t crucial to sustaining life. Some wants were even bad for you in the long run. Jason Dodd would definitely be bad for her. They would have over-the-handlebars, no-pedal-brakes sex and then what? He’d tire of her because he didn’t really like her. Definitely a want, not a need.

“You need me.” His pressed his forehead against hers. “Someone is trying to hurt you. I’m not going to let that happen.”

His breath whispered across her lips, and she found it a little hard to breathe.

“No.” She pulled her face back, away from his lips. “You’ve got to go.” But she knew he made sense. She did need someone to protect her. She wrote about heroines who fought the bad guys and won, but she’d proven she wasn’t one of them. Even with the gun in her purse, she’d—

“You need—”

“I’ll find someone else to protect me.” She couldn’t allow Jason to needle his way into her life. She’d wind up broken and hurt. Lord knew she’d been hurt enough to last a lifetime. To have anything to do with Jason Dodd was like opening up her chest, handing him a hammer, and telling him to go for it.

She blinked at his unhappy expression. “I’ll call the police and ask for some references.” She stepped back, but he held on and moved in even closer. His thigh pressed between her legs.

Zip.

Zing.

His leg felt nice between hers.

“I am the police. Consider that a reference.” His moist lips brushed her cheek. “You smell so good.”

He smelled good, too. A little like coffee, with…the natural scent of how a man should smell: earthy but clean.

“Let me stay here until this blows over.”

And then he’d be gone. “You can’t.” But she leaned against him, into him. Just for a second, she told herself.

“Then I’ll just camp out on your doorstep.” His lower body brushed up against her lower body. “Frankly, I like being close.” His lips swept against her temple. “And I think you’re finding it nice, too.” He glanced down to where her breasts were pressed against his abdomen. She followed his gaze—and went on instant nipple alert.

He moved in, as if purposely brushing against the two sensitive points. Pleasure had her melting into her pan ties. Why was telling him no so hard? She swallowed and realized something else had become hard. It didn’t belong to her, but it was pressed against her navel.

Good Gawd! What was she doing? Hadn’t she discussed this very thing with her ficus tree last night?

“This has to stop.” She pulled away. “And it has to stop right now.” It really did.

He held up his hands. “You’re right.” The heat in his gaze faded. “Now isn’t the time. I need a list of everyone who’s read your book. I need names, phone numbers. I should probably read the book myself.” His gaze moved down her legs and inched up again. “But first…you have to get out of those shorts. They’re driving me crazy.”

And just like that, the heat in his gaze flared back up. He reached out, his index finger hooked her belt loop and he tugged her closer. “Then again, maybe what we need to do is get this stuff out of the way.”

“No stuff is happening.” Pulling his finger out of her belt loop, she stepped back.

His gaze lowered to her chest, to her nipples pebbling through the thin cotton top. “Why not?”

“Because…” She pointed a finger at him. “You have issues, and I’m finished dealing with issues. And stop…stop staring at my boobs!”

His eyes shot up but he grinned. “What issues? Besides staring at your…boobs. Which, in my defense, are really nice to look at.”

He stepped closer. His sexy, self-assured gait came off way too tempting. She stormed off to her bedroom to change clothes. Yet, even as she went, feeling slightly embarrassed and a lot cautious, the tickle of feminine power brushed over her. Jason Dodd might not have wanted her four months ago, but now was another story. Turnaround was fair play. And this time, she was the one who was going to turn him down.

“You’re not staying,” she called over her shoulder.

Her tone didn’t even convince herself. Guess she needed to work on her convincing voice, too.

CHAPTER NINE

You’re not staying.

Sue’s words echoed inside Jason’s head, but she hadn’t convinced him. Not for a second. Not when someone was out to hurt her.

Stop staring at my boobs. A smile pulled at his lips. He hadn’t lied; they were really nice to look at.

Then the image of her prancing down the hall replayed in his head. Damn, she had the cutest ass he’d ever seen. Why hadn’t he ever noticed it before? Because she’d always been wearing dresses, skirts, or long shirts that hid the treasure.

The slamming door should have made him flinch, but nope. His smile held tight. In spite of being afraid for Sue, and madder than hell that someone was putting her through this, he still felt…happy. As if someone had just handed him a new lease on life.

He’d returned to the kitchen to see if Sue had any soda when the phone rang.

The phone. Shit! Realizing the call could be the stalker, he turned and snatched it off the counter. “Don’t answer yet!” he yelled as he took off for the bedroom. “Don’t answer.” He got to her bedroom door. For a split second he considered knocking, but not wanting her to pick up before he got to her, he let himself in.

She shot him a quick look, but her concern appeared directed at the ringing phone. “It says it’s restricted. All those calls are generally from him.” Panic sounded in her voice.

“Sue?” Jason put his thumb on the talk button in case she snatched up the phone. “We’re going to answer it at the same time so I can listen in. Okay?”

“It could be my mom, calling from Elvis’s phone. Maybe he had his number placed on the restricted list.” Her panicked gaze shot to him. “She calls a lot whenever she discovers her new disease. But I think sex with Elvis cured her.”

Disease? Jason quit trying to understand and sat Sue down on the side of the bed. Then he sat beside her. “You ready?”

The phone rang a fourth time.

Her soft blue eyes had that frightened little girl look that made him want to wrap his arms around her. He resisted the urge and handed her the phone. They hit the buttons at the same time.

Sue brought the phone to her ear. “Hello?” Her voice sounded tight. Scared.

No one answered. Silence. And then…“Don’t fight it.”

Her scared gaze shot to Jason.

“The police can’t protect you,” the gravelly voice continued. It was raspy and low, but Jason couldn’t tell the gender.

“Die sweetly,” the voice continued. “Slowly. Die, sweet Sue. Die.”

A shot of adrenaline hit Jason’s gut. The line clicked silent.

The phone slipped from Sue’s hands and crashed onto the wood floor. The batteries dislodged from the phone and rolled in different directions.

Because one of them needed to be calm, Jason fought back his own knee-to-the-gut reaction. “It’s okay. We’re going to catch this bastard.” He pulled Sue close. Her face fit into the curve of his shoulder. He felt her trembling. Pressing a hand to her upper back, he expected her to start crying on his shirt again. Not pretty, but he didn’t care.

Instead of leaking on his shirt, she pulled herself free. “Who does he think he is?”

“I don’t know.” Jason brushed her hair behind her ear and felt an odd sense of rightness being there with her. In her house. In her bedroom. In her bed.

The scent of sleepy woman filled his nose. Just like that, the familiar tightness hit his lower abs again. He fought it. Right feeling, wrong time.

She popped off the bed. Jason watched her pace from one side of the room to the other. He recognized her reaction all too well; he’d seen it in a number of victims. Anger was always a short walk from fear and panic. And while most people could deal with being angry, fear gave people a run for their money. The problem was that anger took a lot of energy, and unless getting angry could solve the problem, a person generally ended smack dab back in fear, only they were exhausted from the emotional ride.

Not that she’d have to suffer exhaustion alone. He’d be there.

Die sweetly. Slowly. Die, sweet Sue. Die. The voice from the phone replayed in his head, and Jason gripped his hands together.

“We’re going to get this guy,” he said again, feeling helpless at fixing her emotional havoc but damn near certain he’d fix her other problem. He would catch this creep.

Sue continued to pace. And for the first time, he noticed what she wore. Or what she didn’t wear. Her white T-shirt dangled mid-hip. Below, she wore…The tightening in his stomach came back threefold.

Below, she wore white bikini pan ties. Cotton, but they couldn’t have been sexier. They fit her like a glove. And when she turned around he caught a glimpse of just how shapely her behind really was. Round. Perky. What he wouldn’t give to remove that piece of white cotton.

For a second, he allowed himself to just enjoy the view, but then reality sneaked back in. Heightened emotions could easily lead to sexual arousal, but bedding a woman high on emotion was like bedding one who’d had too much liquor. The sex might be fantastic, but the awkward aftershock was considered by most females to be fatal to the relationship. To a male’s way of thinking, it simply meant the chances of repeat sex were almost nil. And one time with Sue wasn’t going to sate him.

Plus, he had to stay on her good side while he made sure some idiot didn’t carry out this death threat. Yes, the sex between them was going to be great, but he had to do it right.

A pair of khaki shorts on the bed caught his attention. He’d probably regret this later, but he did it anyway. Picking them up, he handed them over. “Here, get dressed.”

She yanked the khakis from his hands, unsnapped them, and slid her bare feet and slender legs into the shorts. “Who does he think he is?” she repeated.

“I don’t know.” Unable to resist, he gave her a quick kiss on the mouth. Very quick. Considering what he would like to do, he should win a medal for not doing more. A big gold one. “But we’re going to find out.”

He ran a finger over her lips, fought the desire to go back for seconds since she didn’t seem to object to the first course. But he knew if she wasn’t riding a wave of emotion right now, she’d be giving him hell.

Turning her around, and with only a slight amount of guilt, he put his hands on her backside, allowing himself the pleasure of touching her butt before giving it a gentle push toward the door. “Now let’s get out of the bedroom before I forget my manners.”

Moving down the hall, he knew he had to stop thinking like a man and start thinking like a cop. Die sweetly. Slowly. Die, sweet Sue. Die. The voice replayed in his head. And the cop inside him reared its head. He let out a hissing breath and accepted that Sue probably wasn’t the only one riding that emotional high. Who was this asshole? His mind went back to the doctor. Then to Sue’s agent. Jason replayed the voice again in his head. Sue had referred to the caller as a guy, and his gut agreed, but the voice had been so raspy, it could have been either gender.

Questions flipped through his mind. He needed answers. The sooner the better.

Something also told him they weren’t finished discussing his staying here. He had no problem discussing it. He’d discuss it until the cows came home…but he wasn’t leaving.

Sue found that being angry felt so much better than being afraid. Reaching down to her shorts’ Velcroed pocket, she yanked it loose. The resultant sound, a crackling pop, felt good to her ears.

Jason led her to the wounded sofa and started firing questions at her.

Frustrated, she shot back, “No! I don’t think Melissa would do this.” She yanked the pocket loose again. Rip. “And no, I don’t think my editor would do it.”

“Then who?” he asked.

Rip.

“Well, if I knew that, I could just have Officer Martin arrest the guy for me.”

Jason’s brow pinched. “Martin’s a jerk. Tell me about this critique group of yours.”

Oh yeah. Anger won hands down over being afraid. But anger came with its own downside. No focus. She found herself getting mad at everyone. Officer Martin, for believing this was a scam. The fat cop, for shooting her sofa. Goliath for sniffing the man’s crotch. And, oh yeah, her mom, for making juice with Elvis.

Rip.

Needing to spend some of the emotional energy zipping through her, she went to the kitchen to snag some coffee. Caffeine poured, she plopped down at the breakfast table. Jason took the chair beside her to continue his interrogation.

“So all three of these guys have read it?” he asked, taking notes.

“Well, yeah. That’s what critique groups do. They read each other’s work.” She reached for the pocket, fingering the tab. Jason’s suspicions of her critique group brought on another wave of anger.

Rip.

And when she thought about the critique group, she remembered Benny’s crush on her, and she got mad at him for forcing her to use the dead-dog trick. Even if it saved her from bruising his ego, the man would always think she had bad breath. And by gosh, she flossed regularly. It was unhealthy not to.

Rip! Replace pocket. Rip. Rip. Rip.

She really liked that sound. So fitting to her mood.

Jason eyed her pocket, looking as if he was going to ask her to stop, but he didn’t. Smart man.

But his questions continued, and so did her anger.

He wanted to know everything, from the names of the editors who’d read her novel to the art directors who’d been given the synopsis to help design the cover.

“I didn’t like that guy.” She figured that before her fury frenzy finished she’d be mad at everyone she’d ever met.

“Who? The copy editor or the artist?”

“Both. The artist wanted to take me to his place and show me his etchings, and the copy editor said I needed to take a grammar course. It’s not my fault he doesn’t speak or read Texan. He got insulted when I proved him right.”

“I’ll check them out. What about the book reviewers? Who has seen an early copy?”

“My publisher sent out ARCs—advance review copies. Lots of them. You’ll have to get that list from them.” She leaned her head back, emotionally strung out. No more anger to spend.

Then Jason suggested she whip up something for them to eat, and she got mad at her mom for never teaching her to cook. Which led to her getting mad at her grandmother, and her grandmother’s mother. Sue came from a long line of women who couldn’t cook. Ancestral anger ran deep.

Finally, she came to her senses and got mad at Jason for thinking it was the woman’s place to cook.

“Sorry,” he said. “I thought you loved to cook.”

“Why? Because I’m a woman?” She reached for her pocket again. Rip. Replace.

“No. Because you said you loved to cook on that cooking show you were on.”

She shook her head. “You saw that?”

He held up his hands, as though agreeing he’d been presumptuous. “I’ll cook, you relax.”

When he disappeared into the kitchen, Sue tried to do as he suggested: relax. But her skin tingled, and she remembered Jason pulling her against him before she’d gone to the bedroom. Remembered him staring at her breasts, and she hadn’t even been wearing the Wonderbra. She remembered the way it had felt being close to him, the sensation of her tight nipples brushing up against his chest. Then she recalled that he’d kissed her in the bedroom. Not a hot and heavy kiss like four months ago, but a kiss. Sweet. Simple.

Sometimes simple was good. She’d certainly been too surprised to react.

Within ten minutes, Jason served her the best grilled cheese she’d ever eaten.

“These are really good.” She savored the mouthful of sandwich.

“They should be; they’re your recipe.”

“My recipe?”

“From the cooking show. They posted several of your favorite recipes on their website.”

She fought the light brushstroke of guilt. “Melissa sent those recipes in. She’s always getting me spots on local shows or press in magazines. It sells books.”

“Like that article in that dog magazine about you owning your mother’s dog?” He laughed. “I asked Chase about that one.”

“You read the dog magazine, too?” Sue frowned. She’d told her agent that somebody would find her out. But Melissa just kept saying, “It’s press. Readers don’t care if you can cook or if the dog isn’t yours.”

“You want more tea?” He grinned.

Realizing he was attempting to be nice, she got mad at Chase for lumping “Take care of Sue” into a list of chores for Jason that included cleaning up animal feces. That was when her anger once again became targeted toward Jason. Why hadn’t he called her four months ago?

Still unwilling to admit she cared, she internalized that bit of anger. Immediately, the dangers of internalizing anger became clear. Because it opened up the Pandora’s Box of angst. Angst at her ex, Collin. How could he take five years of total commitment and toss it aside? And her father. How could he die and leave her and her mother alone? If he had to die, why from something so common—why from the common cold? She leaned back on the sofa, emotionally drained.

Jason sat beside her. His hand sifted through her hair. “You want a blanket and pillow?”

She got a mental image of them together on the couch again. “No. I’m going to write.”

“Fine, but we need to go feed Lacy’s animals before too long.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “It’s broad daylight. My neighbors are home. I’m fine. And…and once you’re at Lacy’s…just stay. I don’t need you.”

He frowned. “Call the neighbors. If they’re home, I’ll run there and back.”

She sat up. “You can’t actually believe you’re going to stay here.”

“Until we catch this freak, I am.” He said it with such conviction that she might have laughed if she wasn’t an emotional wreck.

“And what about tomorrow?”

“What about it?” he asked.

“Now who’s being a dumb blond? Tomorrow is Monday. I think you work. You know, the thing you do five days a week so you can pay your rent? I think it involves driving around in a car, playing like you’re a macho guy, looking for people who sell drugs.”

He smiled. “I love the way you simplify my job.” His gaze settled on her lips. “I called and took off Monday and Tuesday. The first comp days I’ve taken in years. I’ve got four weeks of time saved up.”

Sue dropped her head back and stared at the ceiling. “You can’t…” She sat up again. “Why would you even want to? Look, I can understand you coming over when I called. And I can see that because Chase asked you to watch over me that you felt like you had to stay last night. But to take off work is…too much.”

His gaze acquired a serious glint. “Last night you mentioned you’d hire a bodyguard. Well, hire me. I’m cheap.”

“But…”

“No buts.” He leaned in, bringing his face so close she could count his eyelashes. “You need me.” He pressed his lips to hers. The kiss he’d given her in the bedroom earlier had happened so fast that she’d told herself he did it just to calm her—like someone slapping you, though in a nicer way. But right now she was calm. Calm and being kissed.

His tongue slipped inside her mouth. He tasted good: a little like coffee, a little like grilled cheese. But she had to stop him because…well, she didn’t know why. Not exactly why; but if she had any wits about her, she would put an end to this. And she was going to end it. In just a few more seconds.

He reached up and threaded his fingers through her hair. The kiss deepened. She pulled back and took a deep, mind-cleansing breath. Then she looked up at him.

“Are you doing this because you think I’m going to sleep with you?”

Appearing genuinely offended, he held up a hand. “No, I’m not doing this because I think you’re going to sleep with me. But…I wouldn’t be disappointed if we found some pleasurable way to pass the time. We’re adults. And I think—”

“I’m not sleeping with you.” She scooted over.

He arched an eyebrow. “Why not?”

“Because I’m not settling.” Nope. Her issue-dealing/settling days were long past. Her gaze shot to her dying house plant. Plus, she’d already discussed this with her ficus tree. “Nope, not settling.”

He ran a finger down her cheek. “Believe me, sweetheart. When I’m finished with you, you won’t feel as if you’ve settled.”

From that simple touch down her cheek, she knew he spoke the truth. Sex with him would be absolutely, totally, over-the-edge, purple-prose wonderful. Which was all the more reason she couldn’t do it.

She stood. “Won’t happen. Not in this lifetime.” But maybe in the next lifetime, a voice deep inside her begged. She ignored that voice.

“Fine.” He shot up and sounded frustrated but not mean, not accusing. “Don’t sleep with me. We both lose, because it would be good. Really good. But I’m still not leaving.”

“I’m on a deadline. I need to write.” Why was he still being nice?

“So write. I can help. You know, critique like that group of yours.”

“I only let people I trust read my unpublished work.” It came out harsh, and she hadn’t meant it to. Or maybe she had. Four months ago, she would have begged for a pinch of this niceness. But, oh no. He’d not given her the time of day, or a phone call.

He frowned. “Why wouldn’t you trust me? I like your work.”

As if he’d even read her books. “Don’t lie to me.”

“You think I’m lying?”

She ignored his question. Ignored that he sounded hurt. Ignored that she felt guilty for hurting him.

“And when I’m not writing, I’m not staying in the house behind lock and key. I have a life and I don’t plan to let some scumbag turn me into a prairie dog who’s scared of its own shadow.”

“You mean groundhog?” A smile pulled at his too-sexy mouth that had moments ago been busy kissing her.

“No. I meant prairie dog. Groundhog is a cliché. I don’t use cliché s.” She tried to not to use cliché s. “And I don’t like it when people interrupt me while I write. You’d have to entertain yourself.”

Oh, damn! Was she accepting his help? She remembered last night, feeling like a sitting duck. Okay, a sitting duck hiding in the kitchen pantry, a can of peas in one hand and a can of pork-n-beans in the other. She remembered how safe she’d felt when Jason held her. A lot safer than the canned vegetables had made her feel.

Logically, he’d already asked for the time off anyway.

“I’m only agreeing to it for a day or two.”

“Got it. No interrupting you. No sex—unless you change your mind. Which I maintain the right to try and change.”

“I don’t—”

He pressed a finger to her lips. “You can still say no and I’ll respect it.” When she didn’t continue her argument he continued his. “You don’t cook. I stay away from you while you work. I can’t read your unpublished work, though I think that one is unfair. And you tell me where you need to go and we’ll go. I got the rules down.”

“Good,” she said.“Because I have to take my grandfather to have his prostate checked in the morning, and I have a date tomorrow night.” She turned and started toward her study.

“Whoa!” Jason caught her arm. “That I do have a problem with.”

“Which one? The prostate check or my date?”

He ran a rough palm over his face. “Both. But mostly the date.”

“Why?” For some reason she wanted to believe he was jealous. “Why do you have a problem with my seeing Paul?”

“Because, like I said earlier, usually the bad guys in crimes like this turn out to be a boyfriend or husband.”

Okay, he wasn’t jealous. That stung a little. “But Paul hasn’t read the book. Remember?”

“He’s the boyfriend. Meaning he’s still a suspect,” Jason growled.

“Well, he’s about to move off the suspect list. I’m breaking up with him.” She bit down into her lip, not certain she’d wanted Jason to know that.

He hesitated, as if digesting that piece of information. “That includes ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands.” He studied her. “Why are you breaking up with him?”

“For the same reason I’m not sleeping with you. I’m not settling.”

“Exactly what do you mean by settling?”

She walked away, toward her office, feeling his gaze follow her. Why had she agreed to let him stay?

The answer bolted back. Because you’re scared.

But deep down she knew there were other reasons. Revenge came to mind. Yup, revenge was sweet. But there was more.

Stepping into her office, she shut the door with a solid thump, then unceremoniously dropped into her ergonomic office chair in front of her computer. The chair designed to prevent back aches and neck aches. It did little to help the pain in the butt that she’d left standing in her living room. If only that pain in the butt wasn’t so darn sexy. If only his touch didn’t set off other body parts aching. If only he’d called her four months ago.

She went for the Velcro again. Rip. Replace. Pat the pocket. Rip again.

Yup. She liked that noise.

Rip.

An icon on the bottom of her computer screen informed her she had e-mail. She clicked onto the envelope and…the screen turned red. Blood red.

Dots started swirling, making an image. Then a picture of a rat, a dead rat, and a poinsettia plant appeared before her. Then came the word Die.

“No!”

If that wasn’t bad enough, one of those little fatal error signs flashed across the dead rat image. Fatal error—as in, your computer is terminally ill. Fatal—as in, it has a cold from which it will never recover.

“No!” She tried to delete the message, but the computer froze. She hit more buttons. Nothing happened. Jumping up, she ran out the door and collided with Jason’s chest.

“What?” He caught her.

She pointed into her study. “Threatening to kill me is one thing. But no one messes with my computer!”

Reaching down, she fingered her pocket.

The Velcro was really going to rip now.

CHAPTER TEN

After having a tizzy in front of Jason, Sue pulled out her old laptop—“old” meaning no Internet—shut Jason out of her office, and started on Chapter Two.

Well, the first hour she spent staring holes at her dead desktop computer. Of course she had back-up disks, but the nerve of the rat-obsessed lunatic made her mad enough to kill. Unfortunately, the only living things in the house were Hitchcock, her ficus tree, and a cop. She loved her cat, the ficus tree was too sickly to make it feel like a fair fight, and killing the cop would get her fifty to life. But the last was still tempting.

She finally found escape in her story and got at least seven good pages written. She was ending a scene when a tap came at the door.

“Come in,” she called. As the door opened, she told herself she was prepared to face him.

Jason leaned his shoulder against the doorframe and crossed his bare feet at the ankles. “You okay?” His voice was husky, and his eyes were hooded as if he’d just awoken from a nap.

Six feet of sleepy bad-boy fantasy come to life.

Her heart hiccupped.

Her toes twitched.

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t prepared to face him.

Her gaze moved up and down all six feet of him. It should be a federal offense for a man to look so good while barefoot and dressed in a worn-yesterday pair of jeans and a T-shirt. No one was that perfect. So she looked harder, wanting to find his one flaw: the beginnings of a gut, a receding hairline, a hook nose, or perhaps beady eyes. Maybe he had a few extra toes.

Her gaze slipped back to his toes. She counted…all perfect ten of them.

Then her gaze rose up the denim-clad legs to the masculine package behind the fly, past the lean hips to the wide chest.

“Did I spill something on myself, or are you just enjoying the view?” Both a smile and masculine pride sounded in his voice.

Sue recognized that his words were similar to those she’d thrown at him this morning. She immediately went to work seeking a good excuse for staring at him like a yummy piece of chocolate.

Eureka. “You’ve got enough cat hair on you to weave sweaters for Houston’s homeless.”

He brushed off his shirt. “I fell asleep, and your cat parked his furry butt on my chest.”

Sue recalled waking up to find herself parked on his chest this morning. She couldn’t blame her cat. Jason’s chest was so…parkable.

“There’s a lint brush below the sink.” She looked back at her laptop screen, away from temptation.

“Did you get some work done?” The husky quality of his voice breezed over her nerve endings.

She finished her last sentence—with three typos. The man could be the death of her writing career. “I got some done.”

“Good. We should head over to Lacy’s to feed the animals. And we need to make a run by my place. I thought we could get some dinner while we’re out, too. I’m starving.” He moved closer.

Had she really agreed to let him stay here? Yup, but for good reason. Someone wanted her dead. Maybe after some thought she would hire herself an ugly bodyguard, someone with a paunch, a big nose—someone who wasn’t six-feet-plus of pure, unadulterated temptation.

“There’re some granola bars in the pantry. I need to just tweak this,” she said, still not looking at him.

“You look tense.” He stepped behind her, pushing his hands between her and the chair, massaging her shoulders. With firm strokes, he rubbed the knotted muscles around her neck. “Why don’t you take a break?”

His hands were magic, kneading with just the right amount of pressure. She bit her tongue to keep from purring. But even as the tightness eased in her shoulders, tension started pulling low in her belly—an ache that she knew he could make go away as well.

Reaching back, she grabbed his wrist to stop him. “Give me a minute.” She felt him lean down behind her, felt the stubble of his beard against her cheek. How long had it been since she’d enjoyed the feel of a five o’clock shadow? Too long.

He brushed his lips against her temple. “Be thinking about what you want to eat.” He rose up, got to the door, then turned back around. “Oh, yeah, I need a copy of your new book.”

Her mind, stuck on how little things like beard stubble could be missed, took a while to compute his words. “I…don’t have a copy yet. Just a disk. They misspelled my name on the first cover and had to have them redone.”

“Then bring the disk, and I’ll print it out at my house.”

She watched him walk out, the backside of him just as nicely shaped as the front. Oh, Lordie, she had it bad. She dropped her head down on her desk and gave it one good thud.

Then she remembered. Just because he was perfect on the outside didn’t make him perfect on the inside. The man had issues. She tried to remember everything she knew about him, surprised at how little she did know.

Rising up, she recalled Chase saying something about Jason’s mother living in Houston. Yet she’d never heard Jason speak of her. From bits and pieces of dialogue over the last year, she’d learned he’d never been married. Most importantly, she knew she had nail polish that lasted longer than some of his relationships. The man had brought one girl to Lacy’s wedding shower and, two weeks later, he’d brought a different one to the wedding.

Oh, yeah, definite signs of issues.

And that’s when Sue knew what she had to do. She’d spend the next two days getting under and past Jason’s façade of perfect physical compatibility with her. Discovering his issues would temper the attraction. Then she might be able to stand to be in the same room with him. They could go back to the way things were before the kiss, to when the attraction had only been mildly irritating instead of mind-blowingly infuriating.

Armed with a plan and a surge of confidence, she stood. She glanced back at the unplugged computer. Fear settled in the pit of her stomach. She walked into her living room. But when she saw the big blond cop opening a granola bar, her fear took a hike. In her head, she heard him: Someone is trying to hurt you, and I’m not going to let that happen. She believed him. He wouldn’t.

He saw her. His sexy-as-sin smile appeared in his eyes and she remembered something else he’d said. No sex, unless you change your mind. Which I maintain the right to try and change.

Jason Dodd would protect her from the stalker, but who was going to protect her from Jason Dodd?

Jason ate another granola bar while Sue freshened up. He’d made some calls while she worked. The phone company would put a trace on Sue’s phone calls, though it would be tomorrow before they got it set up, and Bob, the go-to police computer forensic guy, who was off fishing in Galveston for the day, would be here at eight tomorrow morning to take Sue’s computer in for analysis. Jason wanted to know if the jerk who’d sent the e-mail had also hacked into Sue’s files. If so, the stalker wouldn’t necessarily have to be someone Sue knew or someone who had personally been given an early copy of the book. It could be anyone, which meant finding him would be that much harder.

Jason had been forced to call in a few favors to get her hard drive looked at ASAP, but after years of collecting IOUs it wasn’t a problem. He’d probably have a harder time convincing Sue to let Bob take her computer. Earlier she’d said something about taking the computer to her computer guru. After seeing Sue’s antique laptop that she’d pulled out earlier, and hearing her complain about it not having Internet, Jason hoped loaning her his own laptop would appease her. And he’d have Bob fix her computer while studying the data.

Sue walked out wearing jeans that were slung low on her hips and a pink sleeveless top short enough to offer a smidgen of bare skin around the belly button. While the neckline offered no cleavage, the fabric outlined the soft swells of flesh in detail. Detail that told him she wasn’t wearing a bra—or maybe it was one of those hardly-there bras.

Just like that, heavy wanting made his jeans tight. The granola wrapper slipped from his fingers and floated to the floor.

Stopping in front of him, she knelt.

Damn! A woman should never kneel down in front of a half-aroused man. Put a pretty face within a foot of a man’s crotch, and a man’s mind will take the image and run with it. Jason’s mind was definitely running with it.

She looked up, thankfully past his bulging zipper and into his eyes. She’d pulled her blonde hair back with one of those cloth bands, but several strands danced down her neck. Her mouth looked wet, as if she’d just put on lipstick.

“You dropped this.” She stood.

The erotic images faded, but he curled his hands into fists to keep from pulling her into his arms and kissing the pink color from her lips.

“I’m ready,” she said.

So was he. Ready to quit pretending that there wasn’t enough sexual tension between them to light up a city block. A big city block. Sue wanted him; that much he knew. But what the hell did “not settling” mean, anyway?

“What?” she asked.

Did she see the longing in his eyes, or had she noticed the bulge behind his fly? For four months his dick had hardly twitched, but it was making up for lost time now.

“I didn’t say a word.” He got up, moved to the door, and then stopped. “Did you get the disk to print your book?”

“Is that really necessary?” She grabbed her purse.

“Why would it be a problem?”

“It’s just a lot of trouble when I can tell you what happens. You don’t have to read it.”

“First, I want to read it. Second, you might miss something.” Was he detecting some issue with him reading her book? “And third, it’s evidence, Sue.”