The bear should have frightened her. A gigantic, snarling brown bear had loped across the deck at her, destroying tables and chairs, and smashed the coffee cup from her very fingertips. Laura knew that she should have been quaking in her shoes at the near-assault, and she wasn’t sure why she hadn’t feared for her life at any point in that blurry moment.

It was Tex’s words that shot cold terror into her heart.

Poison.

Her latte had been poisoned.

That meant the cartel had found her. She’d been followed under her sister’s name to this foreign resort, and they were still trying to get to her.

There was no place in the world that was safe for her.

“What kind of poison was it?” Scarlet asked, once they were out of the restaurant and in a little office off the kitchens with the door closed. Laura sank into the only available chair without asking, sure that her shaking knees weren’t going to hold her any longer.

Tex took an apron off a hook near the door and used it to do a poor job of covering his nakedness. Laura was grateful for that much coverage; a completely naked Tex was extremely distracting. She kept imagining what she would do to him, what his skin would feel like if she touched him.

“Rattlesnake venom,” Tex said confidently.

Scarlet frowned at him. “We don’t have any rattlesnake shifters registered among the staff or the guests. Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, ma’am,” he said firmly. “We found a rattlesnake nest on the ranch when I was a lad, and I will never forget that scent.”

Scarlet turned her sharp emerald eyes to Laura, and Laura shivered at the intensity in them. Surely this woman was looking right through her flimsy disguise.

“Do you know why someone would attempt to poison you?”

“No,” Laura lied, hoping her squeak sounded sincere. She could think of at least two reasons — either the cartel she’d been reluctantly working for thought she’d snitched, or the rival cartel had figured out who she was. Either one of them would want her out of the picture, and had already tried to do that, taking her sister instead. She swallowed the grief that welled up in her throat.

“Would rattlesnake poison have killed you?” Scarlet’s gaze was direct and unnerving.

It would have killed Jenny, Laura realized with a start. Her sister wasn’t a shifter. Laura might have burned off the poison if she’d shifted, but Jenny definitely wouldn’t have been able to. She felt safe giving an uncertain shrug, not really sure who she was answering for.

“You represented Mr. Stubbins, the producer of the Mr. Shifter event, when he broke contract with the previous resort, didn’t you?” Scarlet suggested. “Could there be some hard feelings there?”

Laura had only the foggiest idea what Jenny had done with the contract, or how she had handled that case; most of what she knew about law was based on sensational cop shows. “I suppose there could be?” she said hesitantly, hoping it wouldn’t raise questions about the details.

“Wouldn’t that mean Mr. Stubbins was a target?” Tex suggested. Laura could have kissed him. Not that she didn’t already want to kiss him, with his gorgeous, suntanned muscles not at all covered by the tiny apron he was wearing.

Scarlet pursed her lips thoughtfully and said decisively, “I’m going to have some trusted extra security assigned to him. Tell Graham to clean up and report to the office. Travis has got too much to do.” She looked at Tex appraisingly. “You keep an eye on Ms. Smith.” Tex thought there was a hint of a smile in the corner of her mouth. “I’ll report this to the authorities, of course, but they’re not likely to react quickly.”

Authorities were the last thing that Jenny wanted to involve, but she couldn’t very well say that. Everything was unravelling far too rapidly for her to follow.

“I’m very sorry that you’ve run into this trouble at our resort,” Scarlet said sincerely. “We will do our very best to find the person responsible and keep you protected in the meantime.”

Was Scarlet afraid of a lawsuit? Laura abruptly remembered that she was supposedly a lawyer and it was probably a valid concern. “I’m sure it’s not your fault,” she said faintly. Probably that wasn’t very lawyer-y of her to say.

Scarlet gave her an unexpected smile. “I’m sure it’s not,” she agreed dryly. Then, to Laura’s dismay, she added, “I would love to consult with you at some time regarding the Shifting Sands contract. I’ve been butting heads with the owner’s lawyer about some of our lease details, and I would appreciate an experienced set of eyes on the wording.”

It was everything Laura could do not to squirm and start crying. One wrong word out of her mouth would betray her masquerade now. She kept her gaze locked with Scarlet with effort, but she knew that her hands would be shaking if they weren’t clenched tightly in her lap.

“I would pay for your time, of course,” Scarlet added, guessing the cause of her discomfort incorrectly. “Now, I’ve got paperwork to file and samples to store. I’ll be taking witness statements from the guest and staff most of the day. If you need anything, be sure to let me know.”

Then she was sweeping out, pulling out her cellphone as she went, and the silence in her wake was awkward and deep as Laura kept dragging her eyes away from Tex.

Who was still wearing nothing but an apron.

“I’m so sorry I frightened you,” he said, in that thick southern drawl.

Laura gave a strangled sound that was meant to be a laugh. “Frighten me?” she chuckled. “You saved my life.” She found that tears were gathering in her eyes against her will. All of her resolve seemed to have vanished in Scarlet’s wake.

Tex looked horrified. “Oh, ma’am, no!” He knelt before her, taking her unresisting hands in his own big ones.

“Don’t call me ma’am,” Laura sniffed.

“Jenny…”

“I’m not Jenny.” The words were out before she could stop them.

Tex blinked at her, but kept looking at her with those painfully trusting eyes. “I thought…?”

“Laura. I’m Jenny’s twin sister, Laura. Laurelangelina Lily.”

“You’re… not… Jenny.”

Were they back to ‘he’s an idiot?’

It was just a shame he was such a gorgeous idiot.

“Why would you do that for me?” she asked before she thought about it. “Save me, I mean.”

“I love you,” Tex replied.

Laura’s breath caught in her throat. “What?!” It was absurd. Mating wasn’t love. It wasn’t love that was making her nethers heat up. It wasn’t love that made her think about the way Tex’s hands would feel on her skin.

But somehow, hearing him say the words was a knife-twist to the gut in a new and agonizing way.

It felt like hope.

Flustered, Tex twisted the apron in his big hands, which made it cover even less of him. Laura caught a tantalizing glimpse of his half-hard member before he shifted uncomfortably.

“I don’t mean I love you, exactly. I hardly know you. And apparently I know you less than I thought, since the you I knew wasn’t you. But I… I couldn’t let you get poisoned. Not that I’d let anyone get poisoned, but you… you’re everything.”

It sounded like a line. In his ridiculous cowboy accent, it sounded like it had been written for the most awful movie in the world.

And Laura believed every syllable of it.

She believed that she was everything to him, that, however deluded he might be, he believed she hung the stars. No matter what happened, how stupid she was, he would come galloping for her over any obstacle. He was her knight in a cowboy hat. He was her… everything.

Without meaning to, Laura reached out to touch his face.

He was looking up at her adoringly, and when her fingertips brushed his jaw, he caught her hand in his own and kissed it.

Was there no end to his dramatic gallantry? His mouth on her knuckles was more potent than the liquor he’d served her, and Laura was grateful she was sitting; her knees were suddenly very shaky, and she was uncomfortably aware of all her intimate parts.

When she didn’t make any motion to withdraw her hand, he turned it over and kissed the inside of her wrist, a place that Laura would never have guessed was so sensitive. Every nerve in her body was on fire, desperate for more of this man’s gentle touches.

He wasn’t half-hard any longer. The apron was a tent across his lap, and Laura was mesmerized by the promise of it.

She swallowed hard. “I’m not in a good place right now,” she said, her voice husky. “There’s a reason I was pretending to be my own sister.”

Tex looked up at her trustingly, not relinquishing her hand. “I’m sure it’s a great reason,” he said, and there was a catch to his breath that told Laura he was as affected by her presence as she was by his.

“Don’t you care what it is?” Laura wondered if she should feel insulted by his lack of concern. But she’d had plenty of experience with jerks who only wanted sex, and this didn’t feel anything like that.

Tex kissed the inside of her forearm, the stubble of his jaw tickling her skin. Then he looked up at her and said sincerely, “I will protect you from anything. Whoever you fear, I will fight. Whenever you flee, I will find you. Whatever you choose to tell me, that will be enough.”

Laura had no defense equal to those words, and fell forward to press her mouth to his.