Slow Dancing With a Texan

“I think I can handle it, thank you,” she told him with a wry smile. “But first I need to make a phone call, if you don’t mind.”

“No calls.” He went to the phone, ripped the cord from both the wall and the phone itself and stuffed the wiring into the pocket of his heavy jacket.

“Hey!” She started toward him with a murderous look in her eyes. “What’d you do that for?”

“Who do you need to call, Lainie? A boyfriend?” That wasn’t what he’d meant to ask, he chided himself. What business of his was it if she had a boyfriend?

“No. I don’t have a boyfriend. I stay too busy for such things.” She made a sudden move to grab his arm. “It’s my sister. I have to know if Suzy is all right.” A horrified look spread across her face. “I’ve just realized…if this isn’t my blood, it must be hers. I never should’ve left her there.”

“You didn’t leave her. I took you. The shooting was directed at you, not her. With all the madhouse there, the only way to make sure no one else caught another bullet meant for you was to remove you from the scene.”

Once more he searched his pockets for the mobile phone. “Take a shower and check for any nicks that might need attention. I’m going outside to phone the captain again, let him know you’re not in any immediate danger. I’ll ask about your sister.”

Then, without really knowing why it seemed so important, Sloan searched for a way to take the fearful expression from her face and to calm the near-hysterical sound of her voice.

“Why the hell didn’t you stay in your office and wait for me like you were told?” he asked with a pretend snarl. “Anyone with half a brain would know not to stand out in the open and in such a public place while they were being stalked and threatened.”

That remark seemed to do what he’d intended. Instead of fear, anger sparked across Lainie’s features.

She narrowed darkened emerald eyes at him and propped her hands on her hips. “So I should’ve cowered in my office, waiting for some big-shouldered man to come save me? Is that what you’re saying?”

He’d hoped she had a temper, and it sure looked like he’d been right. The red hair was a dead giveaway.

“Look, lady. From now until we catch the guy, you will do exactly as I say. No more waltzing around in plain view. I’m here to see to it you stay alive.” He waited for the fire to reach her eyes again. “Now be a good girl and get those clothes off.”

She took a menacing step in his direction and clenched her fists. The lights in her eyes were stunning, and for just a moment he was paralyzed with need. He should have thought of what this diversion might do to him.

Instead of hanging around, though, Sloan made a strategic retreat from the motel room. He was out of there quicker than a brushfire could burn through a parched field. And he didn’t take another breath until he was in the parking lot and away from the temptation of all that passionate heat.

Not once in his entire career had he considered that he might become anyone’s bodyguard. In fact, he wouldn’t be doing it now except that the man he most respected in the world had asked him as a personal favor. He should be out of state, fulfilling a deathbed wish with this leave of absence from the Rangers—not baby-sitting a fiery, hot-tempered woman.

Sloan fought his reaction to the flaming lust Lainie’s anger had brought out in him. Gulping down the last remnants of desire, he swore under his breath.

The assignment to protect Lainie Gardner’s body might just turn out to be a lot more difficult than he’d ever imagined.

Two

Sick to her stomach and madder than all get-out, Lainie tossed a string of bad words toward the back of the motel room door as it closed behind Sloan. Being angry at him was the only way she could survive her conflicting emotions.

She hardly ever used curse words, however. And she had no idea where she’d learned a few of the ones she’d just thrown out. What was the matter with her?

Yes, she was scared beyond all reason, and near hysterical at the thought that her sister might be injured—or worse. But none of that accounted for the lust she’d felt as Sloan stood there with that teasing grin on his face. The flashes of heat and weakness his look created pushed pure old-fashioned desire trembling down her spine. The anger had actually turned her on.

She was mad again just thinking about it. How stupid could one supposedly smart woman be?

Her shakes started once more. She felt them move up her wobbly legs and spread across her body. Good grief.

Was her body betraying her need for Sloan? She prayed that her reaction to him was just some weird kind of delayed stress related to her crazy predicament.

Desperately wanting to regain the control and determination she’d become famous for, Lainie fought her own emotions. She was always in charge of every situation and this one should be no different. The danger was over. It was time to start thinking instead of feeling.

And all she could think of was the arousal in Sloan’s chestnut-colored eyes as he’d headed out the door? Oh dear Lord, help her. The stress must be driving her totally insane.

Lainie wasn’t the kind of woman who was normally disgusted by the thought of good healthy sex. Far from it. She’d had a couple of great experiences with that very thing in her checkered youth. But that was long ago. Besides that, she simply did not jump into bed with total strangers—not even ones who’d just saved her life.

Struggling to even out her ragged breathing, she ordered herself to stop all this idiotic emotional stuff and to start thinking. Just close her eyes, clear her mind and rationally consider her options.

When she finally managed to close her eyes for a few seconds, they popped right back open as the shaking began again. Instead of waiting for the trembling to stop this time, she focused on her surroundings, and the reality of the room hit her with a sickening rush. It stopped the shakes but gave her a headache instead. What a truly awful place to pick to hide.

Using her vivid imagination, she could tell that forty or fifty years ago these furnishings might’ve been someone’s idea of fashionable. The avocado walls, gold carpeting and dreadful flower-print bedspread looked as if they’d seen much better days.

A cheap chair, a metal rack with two wire hangers and a TV set with an old-fashioned rabbit-ears antenna were the only items besides the bed in this cramped room. The place smelled of stale cigarettes. And the heavy rubber-backed drapes over the one lone window contributed to a depressing atmosphere.

Lainie checked the bathroom and found two plastic cups wrapped in little paper jackets, a green-glass ashtray and the smallest bar of soap she’d ever seen. All of it had been crammed onto the edge of a single cracked sink.

Two yellowed towels sat folded on the back of the toilet, while the plastic shower curtain hung crookedly off its metal rings. Boy oh boy. The lap of luxury.

As much as she hated the thought of stripping down in this joint, she hated the idea of having glass slivers embedded in her skin even more. With a careful sigh, Lainie grabbed a towel and fitted it over her hair. The tiny thing wasn’t big enough to cover her head, but it would have to do while she took off her clothes and stepped into the shower.

Sloan balanced the two soda cans in one hand while he pulled the motel room key from his pocket with the other. He carefully inserted the key in the lock and waited for either the chain to stop him or for a heavy object to come flying at his head. Neither thing happened, so he pushed the door open and walked into the room.

He’d given her a full half hour, hoping that she’d use the time to calm down and take a shower. Actually, the idea of a cold shower had sounded pretty good to him when he’d last walked out of here.

The bathroom door stood ajar and he could hear the water running. Guess she’d decided a long, cold shower was just what she’d needed, too.

“Lainie! It’s me,” he called out, hoping not to frighten her.

“Wait. Hold on.”

After a few seconds the water stopped. She appeared in the bathroom doorway. And suddenly he couldn’t have moved if his life depended upon it.

Her hair had darkened with wetness and hung down to her shoulders, dripping water over her bare skin—all of that totally naked, glistening skin.

She’d apparently just stepped out of the shower, because she stood there looking up at him with an exasperated look on her face. And nothing to cover her nakedness except a postage-stamp-size towel that she was trying to spread out over her important parts.

He let his gaze shoot down her body to the long, slender legs and nearly bit his tongue. Dang, but he’d surely love to be able to touch all that soft skin. It was everything he could do just to drag his eyes back up to meet hers.

“Uh…” he stuttered. “Sorry. I thought you’d be out of the shower long ago. I can go away and come back in later.” That was…if he could force his legs to propel him out the door.

Lainie shook her head. “It won’t help. My clothes had so many specks of glass that I decided to rinse them out in the tub.” The edge of the towel slipped as she talked and she was forced to hang on with both hands. “But I’ve just realized that it’ll be tomorrow before they’re dry enough to put back on. What am I going to do?”

He could think of about a half-dozen things that she could do while she waited. And every single one of them involved him—and most of them involved the bed.

But she looked so forlorn, so annoyed with herself, that he felt a grin coming on. Sloan opened his mouth to make a smart remark but the irritated look in her eyes pulled him up short. She was the subject of his mission, not the object of his desire. And he’d better start treating her that way.

“Did you try wrapping up in the bedspread?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s too heavy. I couldn’t walk with it around me. Think of something else.”