“How’s it going so far?”

Huck shot a dark look across the lingerie section of the department store and stifled the growing urge to howl. “Fine,” he lied into his cell phone, forcing a smile so that maybe it would actually reach his voice. “Everything’s going fine.”

Jamie Flanagan’s low laugh rumbled into his ear. “Bullshit. What? She’s got you out shopping with her, doesn’t she? I can hear the music. Shoes or panties?”

Huck blinked. “Come again?”

“If she’s not carrying the dog to have her hair colored or visiting the gynecologist, then she’s either shopping for shoes or looking at panties. The woman can flat waste some time in a store and typically, it’s one that is designed to make a man miserable.”

Huck rubbed the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “We’re in the panty store,” he admitted, mortified.

He heard Flanagan share that tidbit with the rest of the group and a chorus of you-poor-bastard laughter reached his ears. “S-sorry, man. But better you than me. I served my time. I feel for you.”

He felt for himself and he hadn’t even reached the end of the first day with her yet. Honestly, she’d been ogling undergarments--slinky, sexy, sheer things held together with tiny bits of lace and thread--for the better part of an hour. He’d watched her disappear into the fitting room, hands loaded down with matching bras and panties and, evidently his imagination was much better than he would have ever dreamed because he could mentally dress her in each and every matching set with little to no problem at all.

In short--gallingly--his anger wasn’t the only thing swelling around here.

Furthermore, though he’d been watching closely he hadn’t seen a single person--aside from the coffee shop clerk she’d snapped at over the low foam on her latte--who wanted to do her any bodily injury. No suspicious-looking characters, no threat of any sort. And, though he could have misread the file, he didn’t think any of the others had noted anything odd either.

“Listen I know I’m the new guy here, but something about this doesn’t feel right. For someone who is supposedly in danger, she’s not the least bit worried and I haven’t detected even the slightest hint of a threat.”

“We didn’t either,” Flanagan admitted. “But the letters are real and her father is worried, so our job is to do what we’re getting paid for. Protect her, of course, and find the source of risk.”

He knew that--and would follow orders--but it didn’t keep him from seriously wondering just what the hell was going on. Another thought struck. “Did you meet her father?”

“No, I didn’t. Payne pulled first duty with her and he’s the only one who’s met Mr. Stravos.”

Ranger Security reputation aside, he still thought that was strange.

“Any new developments in the case?” Jamie asked. “Has another letter arrived?”

“Not that I’m aware of. We’ve, er... We’ve been gone all day,” he admitted. “Pussy had to have her nails painted--

“P-pussy?” Flanagan chuckled. “Isn’t the dog named Trixie?”

 “It’s not what I’m calling her,” Huck said grimly. “Then Sapphira had an appointment to get waxed and buffed and her nails done.” Clearly he’d gone into the wrong business--he needed to open a pet-friendly spa, one where the owners and animals could get their manicures and pedicures, hair and the like done at the same time. The idea made a grim chuckle rise up in his throat. He blew out a breath. “Then we had to drive all over town to find a particular shade of lip gloss to match the new nail color ‘because the shade at the spa was more peachy than pink’--“ Now there was a sentence he never thought he’d use, particularly in the security field. “--and now we’re here, where’s she tried on every freakin’ pair of panties in the store, with the exception of the control top garments.”

He glared down at the dog currently resting atop his foot. Meanwhile, he was dog-sitting. Again.

Jamie laughed once more, then apologized. “Sorry, man. We warned you.”

Yes, they did. Regardless, this was not at all what he’d envisioned when he’d signed on for the job. Naturally he hadn’t expected anything to be so thrilling as being a paratrooper--free-falling through the sky was a singularly unique sensation which he knew from personal experience had no rival, and God how he missed it--but he had expected to need adrenaline more than patience, at the very least.

“You’re not regretting you decision, are you?” Flanagan asked, showcasing a keen sense of insight.

When he’d rather not lie, Huck had learned to merely remain silent.

Flanagan let go an uneasy breath. “Look, if it makes you feel any better, in three years in business this is the first case we’ve had of this sort.”

“Hopefully it’ll be the last,” Huck told him, resisting the urge to rub his throbbing leg. At any rate, what did it matter? He couldn’t be a paratrooper anymore and this was the best gig in town. Even if it didn’t feel like it at the moment, Huck thought, staring morosely at the check-out counter where Sapphira had finally moved.

Promising to call with regular updates, he disconnected the call. He’d barely stowed it in the holder before it vibrated again. Huck checked the caller ID display and felt a smile tug the edge of his mouth. Mick.

“How’s it going, Falcon? You teaching those boys how to kick some security ass yet?”

Huck chuckled. “Hardly. I’m guarding a socialite and we’re presently in the panty store.”

Mick’s easy laugh came over the line. “She pretty?”

That would be the first thing his hell-raising love’em and leave’em friend would ask. “Did you hear me?” Huck asked, purposely ignoring the question. “I’m in a panty store.”

“Yeah, well, I’m getting ready to head out again.”

Huck’s senses went on point. “Where?”

“You know I can’t say. Just another miserable village in another war torn country.”

He detected an unusual undercurrent in his friend’s voice--reticence? Fear? “When will you be back?”

“End of the week, God willin’.”

“Be careful.”

Mick laughed. “When you’re as good as I am, you don’t have to be careful.”

Arrogant bastard, Huck thought, shaking his head. “You’re so full of shit.”

“And you’re in a panty store, guarding a pretty woman. Wanna trade?”

Huck’s gaze homed in on Sapphira. “I never said she was pretty.”

“I know. Sometimes it’s what goes unsaid that ends up being the most telling.”

“What? Have you been reading your fortune cookies again?”

“Asshole,” Mick shot back, laughing. He paused. “Have you heard anything from that PI you hired?”

Mick was the only person on the planet who knew why he’d buggered that training session, who knew that he’d decided he had to know who his father was. He swallowed. “He called this morning. He still doesn’t have anything yet, but he’s working on it. It’s tough going because it’s a small town and I don’t want my mother to know that I’m doing any snooping around.”

“I still think you need to just ask her.”

He knew what he thought and he disagreed. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was too afraid of hurting her. “You know I don’t want to do that.”

“If you want answers, you may end up not having a choice.”

Huck sighed. He’d just have to cross that bridge when he came to it. He told him as much. “Give me a call when you get back, will you?” It was the closest thing to a let-me-know-you’re-okay as he could get.

“Will do,” Mick told him, accepting the gesture for what it was. Huck disconnected, thankful that Mick had been a stubborn sonofabitch and hadn’t given up on him as a friend after the accident. He smiled. Oh, hell. Who was he kidding? When had he ever known Mick Chivers to give up on anything? Belatedly remembering his target, Huck’s gaze found Sapphira once more.

Is she pretty?

Though he’d ignored his friend’s question, the query came back to haunt him. In the traditional sense, no she wasn’t what one would call pretty. Her face was a little to round, her nose a little too pert. Her mouth, though, was possibly the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Extra full bottom lip, bowed upper, and wide enough to make him hard.

The overheard light gleamed over the caramel highlights in her pale brown hair and her tiny foot, clad in a shoe that would more than likely cover a food bill for the month for the average family of four, tapped in time with beat of the piped-in music. She wore a pair of red butt-hugging Capri pants that clung to her ripe rear end with just enough cling to be a degree shy of tight and a white scoop-necked t-shirt with lots of little sparkly doodads. She looked funky but chic and sexy as hell.

She turned then, and smiled at him--and just like that the breath that had been in his lungs silently evaporated, as though it had magically disappeared.

Oh, hell, Huck thought as his mouth parched and his heart- rate kicked up a notch. Another blast of heat landed in his loins and he resisted the urge to gnash his teeth and scream.

This was so not good.

On too many levels to count.

“I’m ready,” she said brightly, shoving her newest purchases at him as though he were her personal bag boy. It was like a welcome splash of cold water over his privates. Though it went against every bit of southern gentleman training he’d received from his mother and grandmother, Huck made himself stand still and not accept her load.

Seemingly stunned, she stared blankly at him. “Aren’t you going to carry these for me?”

“Did you buy them for me?”

She smirked. “I wasn’t aware that you were into that sort of thing.” Her gaze slid over him and she cocked her head in exaggerated bewilderment. “Just goes to show you can never tell.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “Tell me, are you wearing a bra now?” she stage-whispered to everyone in a fifty feet radius, much to his immediate discomfort.

Lips pursed into a thin line, he grabbed her arm and propelled her out of the store. Trixie yelped into action. “You know damn well I don’t wear a bra.”

“How would I know that?” she asked, hurrying to keep up with him. “For all I know you’ve got a thong on, too.”

He felt his teeth almost crack. “I can assure you that I don’t have on a thong.”

Eyes twinkling, he slid him a provokingly sly grin. “But you won’t assure me you’re not wearing a bra?”

“I’m not wearing a bra either,” he clarified through a tight smile. “And while were on the subject of what I’m not doing, maybe I should take this opportunity to clarify a few things for you.” He drew up short and whirled her around to face him, then glared down into her irritatingly sensual face. “I’m not going to dog-sit or tote your bags. I’m not going to fetch the sugar for your coffee or select the color of your nail polish.” He felt his expression blacken as another pain sliced through his leg. “And I’m not going to drive your car anymore. In fact, if I let you leave the house again--and at the moment that’s a pretty big if--we’re taking my car and you’re sitting in the--“

Huck paused as sudden inspiration, like a gilded gift from the heavens, descended up upon him. He felt a smile slide slowly, wonderingly, over his lips.

Alarm registered in those startling green eyes. “What do you mean if you let me leave the house?” she asked, growing pale.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Huck told her, laughing softly, as the brilliance of the idea--the solution to his problem--unfurled in his furious mind. That was it. That was the key. Honestly, he didn’t know why Payne, Flanagan and McCann hadn’t thought of it.

His gaze slid to hers and caught. He’d put her in lockdown mode. Hadn’t he just thought she was safer at home than out in public? That her father’s compound was the best possible place for her to be? No more running around feeling foolish. No more beauty appointments and shopping.

Hell, it would probably be good for her. She could read a book or something, he thought uncharitably.

“You’d better get your errands done today, sweetheart, because your days of leading me around like a circus bear are over. Starting tonight, you’re going under house arrest.”

She gasped, then her eyes narrowed and the intelligence he’d glimpsed off and on all day suddenly flared in those green orbs. “The hell I am.”

“I think perhaps you have confused me with your other hired help,” Huck pointed out. “I don’t have to follow your orders. You have to follow mine.”

Impossibly, her eyes narrowed further. “Listen, Jack. I don’t work for you. You work for--“

“Your father,” Huck interjected. “And the name’s not Jack. It’s Huck.”

She glared up at him. “I’m beginning to see why the sonofabitch, bastard and asshole nicknames followed you around. And my father--“

“--will follow my recommendation,” he finished for her, once again cutting her off. From her mutinous expression it was a novel experience for her and for reasons which escaped him it made this all the more enjoyable.

He liked pissing her off. It was fun.

“He’s paying for my professional opinion and the instant we get back I’m going to give it to him.” He chuckled darkly. “Unless it’s an emergency of epic proportions, your newly waxed, buffed and painted ass isn’t leaving the house. Playtime is over, sweetheart.”

 

*   *   *

 

He couldn’t possibly be serious, Sapphira thought as a triumphantly smiling Huck held her car door open for her. He might have been doing it out of courtesy, but it felt like he was ushering her into a jail cell, or worse still, the last walk for a death row inmate. Panic punched her heart rate into overdrive and nausea spun in her suddenly churning gut.

House arrest? House arrest?

Had he lost his freaking mind?

No, dammit, she was the one who’d lost their mind. She’d known--known--the instant she’d laid eyes on him that he was different, that he wouldn’t put up with her the way that the others had. She’d recognized it, but hadn’t changed her tact, hadn’t developed a new strategy.

She watched him round the car, a slight limp to his gait and observed the faintest hint of a wince behind the grin he wore at her expense. She’d noticed the hitch in his step this morning when she’d first met him, but couldn’t recall seeing it the rest of the day. Come to think of it, though, he’d either been sitting in her car, in a chair, or leaning against the wall.

As he angled into her tiny car and wedged himself behind the wheel a bolt of insight flashed in her otherwise preoccupied mind and she inwardly squirmed with shame. Clearly piloting her Mini Cooper hadn’t helped with whatever ache pained his leg. Ordinarily she wasn’t so dim and thoughtless, but the sight of him earlier today and his overall appearance had rattled her beyond the usual measure. Her guardian bird of prey obviously had a broken wing, she thought, shooting him a look from the corner of her eye.

“I can be reasonable,” Sapphira said, dragging her shredded thoughts together and forcing herself to remain calm. “If driving my car hurts your leg, then we can take yours. Why didn’t you say something?”

She watched his jaw tighten as he shifted the car into gear and expertly merged out into traffic. “Who said anything about my leg hurting?”

“Nobody had to say anything. It’s obvious. You’ve got a bit of a limp.”

“I’m not making you stay home because of any physical discomfort on my part,” he all but growled. “It’s a safety issue.”

Sapphira rolled her eyes. “Bullshit. You just don’t like following me around. Newsflash, Huckleberry, that’s your job.”

He slid her a look that would have wilted steel and frightened small children. “My job is to protect you, not follow you around. Contrary to popular belief, they aren’t synonymous.”

“Then why didn’t the others balk?”

He snorted. “They were too nice.” He bared his teeth in another disturbingly thrilling smile and those mesmerizing eyes pinned her to her seat. “I am not.”

Her muddled belly did a little roll and, against all sense, her nipples tingled at the blatantly bald comment. Sweet God, what was wrong with her? The man was being a complete ass--and an obstinate one at that--and yet she found herself curiously aroused.

Clearly the heat from the unusually potent attraction had fried her brain, otherwise she was certain she’d give him a real piece of her mind, not the dumbed-down version she’d been sharing with the other men over the past week and a half.

Sapphira looked away and harrumphed under her breath. “Trust me, it’s nothing to be proud of.”

“That’s a matter of opinion.”

“That’s right. Mine,” she added pointedly.

A low chuckle rumbled up his throat. “And I suppose you think yours is the only one that matters?”

“Of course, not,” she snapped, annoyed despite the fact that she’d obviously given him that impression. At the moment it felt like a very shallow victory. “But if you think you’re going to keep me locked up until you figure out whose sending those ridiculous letters, then you’d better think again.” She pulled out her hand sanitizer and squirted a dollop onto her right palm, then put her hands together and gave them a vicious rub. “I have things to do.”

He grunted. “Your spray-on tan can wait.”

Sapphira felt her mouth drop open. “I don’t--and have never--gotten a spray on tan,” she said through tightly gritted teeth.

Obviously having watched her apply the hand gel, he jerked his head in her direction. “What’s with the disinfectant stuff? You’ve been putting it on all day.”

“I’ve been touching things covered with germs all day,” she shot back. “Did you know that some bacteria and viruses can live for up to two hours on a doorknob?”

A smile caught the corner of his mouth. “Er...no, I didn’t.”

She hadn’t either until she’d watched that damned primetime special. At first she’d just been appalled at the number of people who didn’t wash their hands after using the rest room and had decided that hand sanitizer was a good way to combat other people’s uncleanly behavior, but once she’d started using the gel... Well, suffice it to say that it was more addiction now than habit. She craved that cool feeling on her palms. She kept multiple bottles in her purse and around her house. She needed it. Without it, she could practically feel the germs crawling all over her hands.

“Well, they do.” She held the bottle out to him. “Want some.”

“No, thanks. What makes you think the letters are ‘ridiculous?’”

Dammit, she was going to have to be more careful. She should have known he’d pick up on that slip. “They’re ridiculous because they are disrupting my life,” she said, exasperated and thankful it was, in part, the truth. “I have things to do.”

Huck presented ID at the gate, then pulled around to her house. “Yes, well, that list just got shortened considerably. From this point forward all of your errands will be vetted by me and I will decide whether or not they are pressing or can wait until we’ve determined the source of your threat.”

“Well, just exactly what have you done about that?” Sapphira asked, feeling panic fuel her ascending blood pressure. “Could you tell me what you’ve done to find out whose sending me the damned letters?”

 Huck shifted into park and immediately climbed out of the car to stretch. Rather than wait on him to round the hood and open her door, Sapphira scrambled out as well. “Well?” she demanded. She knew she was being unfair and unreasonable. The man had scarcely been on the job eight hours and she’d had him chauffeuring her around the majority of that time. She knew she was being a certified pain in the ass, but couldn’t seem to help herself. Her life was spinning out of control and she seemed utterly powerless to stop it.

And for whatever reason, he seemed to be making things worse. His presence, his attitude, not to mention this damned attraction. Truth be told she’d offered him the hand gel to see if she could eliminate a bit of that strangely wonderful scent that seemed to ooze out of his pores.

Furthermore, she’d caught the disgusted look on his face when she’d snapped at Mark, the coffee clerk, and the realization that her plan to make him dislike her was working had left her more depressed than happy. Did he know that she’d slipped Mark a hundred dollars last week to play along? That she’d apologized in advance for her tacky behavior so that he wouldn’t be hurt that she’d suddenly turned into a screaming harpy from hell?

No. He didn’t. And couldn’t ever know it, otherwise her plan, such as it was, would be ruined.

And as far as a plan went, she had to admit it was pretty damned stupid. Entertaining at times, but ill-conceived, ineffective and ignorant. Had she annoyed them? Made them miserable?

Certainly.

But she hadn’t managed to permanently put them off and knew that, ultimately, she wouldn’t be able to pull that sort of coup. These men were former Rangers, for pity’s sake. Bonafide bad asses. They’d been put through some of the most rigorous military training exercises in the known world and had come through on the other end. They were modern day warriors, Uncle Sam’s elite, the cream of the crop. Had she honestly believed that being a shallow prima donna with more money than sense would really make them go away? Quit, even?

She inwardly sighed. Who was she kidding? They weren’t going anywhere. Her gaze slid to Huck. And he damned sure wasn’t. He would ride it out regardless because he was just that damned stubborn.

And only she would find that deeply sexy. She smothered a whimper and resisted the urge to howl with frustration.

“What have I done to locate the letter-writer?” Huck asked, glaring wide-eyed at her from across the hood. “You know damned well what I’ve done today, Princess. I haven’t had time to piss,” he said, glowering at her, “much less investigate who wants to hurt you, though given the day that we’ve had together I can see that the suspect list should include anyone in the food service, retail sales and personal hygiene industries.”

The jibe, while deserved, struck a nerve.

“But you can rest assured we won’t have another repeat of today.” He paused and shot her a shrewd look with those clear gray eyes. “We’re done playing by your rules. From now on we’re following mine. And, believe me,” he added laughing softly though it lacked any genuine humor, “no one wants to neutralize the threat more than I do.”

 Meaning, he couldn’t wait to get away from her.

Mission accomplished, girl genius, she thought her heart sagging as Trixie did her pee-pee dance around her leg. And in record time, too. He hates you.

It should have been the least of her worries, but oddly enough...it wasn’t.