Secret Agent Dad. Metsy Hingle

      With less-than-steady hands, she returned the glass to the tray, determined not to let him know how he had rattled her. “I’ll leave you to get out of those wet things. Just yell for me if you need anything,” she told him and started to leave. Then she noticed that his eyes were closed again. Frowning, she said, “Did you hear me? I’m leaving so you can change clothes.”

      When he still failed to respond, she jabbed a finger at his shoulder. Again, no response. “Great,” she muttered. The man was obviously out cold again—either from exhaustion or from his injury or from both. Worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth, she debated what she should do. She didn’t have any options, she admitted. She was going to have to get him out of his wet things and into something dry.

      Josie studied her patient and frowned again. Changing the babies’ clothes had been one thing. Changing their daddy’s clothes was quite another. After wiping her hands on her jeans, Josie moved toward the foot of the bed. She’d start with his boots, she decided, and as she reached for the first one, she fervently wished she’d taken the dirty things off him before they’d had an opportunity to become acquainted with her comforter. Maybe I’ll be lucky and he’ll wake up before I’ve even got the first boot off and finish the job himself.

      She wasn’t lucky. He didn’t wake up. The man didn’t stir even after she’d made several attempts to get the blasted boots off. Finally the first one came free. Even wet, the deep brown leather was butter soft, expertly stitched and obviously expensive. From the size of the thing, she suspected he’d had them custom-made. “All right. One down. One to go,” she muttered. After dropping the boot beside the bed, she reached for its mate. She gave it one hard tug, then another, and on the third tug Josie went tumbling back and onto the floor with his soggy boot in her hands and a wicked-looking gun in her lap. Stunned, Josie dropped the boot and picked up the shiny black weapon.

      Oh, my heavens! What kind of man carries a gun in his boot? An escaped convict? A bank robber? A government spy?

      Stop it, she told herself, and slammed the brakes on her runaway thoughts. She stared at the gun in her hands, turning the thing over, studying it. It felt hard, cold, lifeless and sent a shudder through her. Oh for pity’s sake, she chided herself for her reaction. This was Texas. Half the men in the state owned a gun. Just because she didn’t particularly like the things meant zip, she reasoned. Besides, hadn’t she read somewhere that owning a gun was some sort of guy thing? That’s probably all this was, too—a guy thing. Walking over to the armoire, she tucked the gun inside a drawer and out of sight, then turned around and went toward the bed.

      Besides, discovering that the man carried a gun was the least of her problems at the moment Getting him out of those wet clothes was. With nerves bouncing in her stomach like Ping-Pong balls, she reached for the button of his shirt.

      By the time Josie had unfastened the last of his buttons and had wrestled the shirt off him, she wasn’t so sure that leaving him in his wet things would have been such a bad idea after all. Although he was about the same size as her former husband had been, there the similarities ended.

      While Ben had been fair-skinned, this man appeared to have been kissed by the sun. And talk about shoulders! He had linebacker shoulders, and a well-toned chest to go with them. A silver medal lay against his chest, suspended by a chain from his neck. She started to reach for the disc to examine it, then decided she’d better not. Instead she directed her attention to the other major difference between this man’s body and that of her former husband‘s—chest hair. Ben’s chest had been as smooth as a baby’s bottom. But her patient had a swirl of deep gold hair that arrowed down the center of his chest all the way to the taut muscles that stretched across his abdomen and then vanished beneath the waist of his jeans. Heat curled in Josie’s belly as she looked at him, struck by the masculine beauty of his body. Surprised and embarrassed by her reaction, Josie reminded herself that she had a job to do. And that job didn’t include ogling the man’s body and thinking inappropriate thoughts.

      Inappropriate or not, by the time Josie lowered his zipper and tugged off his jeans, her fingers were shaking. And if she were being honest with herself, her accelerated breathing had little to do with exertion and everything to do with the man who lay stretched out on her bed naked—save for a pair of black briefs. Fascinated, her eyes tracked that vee of dark gold hair that disappeared beneath the low-rise briefs. And the curl of heat inside her twisted, slid lower.

      Get a grip, Josie, she told herself. Or else she was going to end up embarrassing the man and making a complete fool of herself. It was the thought of making a fool of herself that snapped her back to her senses. Pride, Josie conceded, had seen her through a mountain of disappointments more times than she cared to remember. While the Almighty might have skimped on her when it came to looks and family, He had given her an abundance of pride. And it was pride that made her yank the comforter up over the man and leave the room.

      

      He came awake as he always did—instantly and fully alert. In the blink of an eye he noted the position of the exits. Assured he was alone, and sensing no immediate danger, he gave in to the need to clutch his aching head. He didn’t know what had happened, but he felt as though he’d gone ten rounds with a Mack truck. Based on the wad of gauze and tape across his forehead, he could only assume that he’d lost.

      Willing himself not to focus on the pain in his head, he took quick stock of his surroundings and tried to determine where he was. He noted the ceiling painted a soft shade of cream, the delicate floral border that wrapped the room’s four walls. He gazed past the empty overstuffed chair in faded chintz positioned several feet from the bed. A small dressing table covered in lace sat against the far wall, a vase of pale pink roses, glass bottles and a ceramic box sat atop it. Continuing his assessment, he skimmed past the old-fashioned armoire in one corner and paused at the quaint bench seat beneath a window decked out in mint-and-ivory-colored drapes.

      Nothing about the room or its contents triggered any warning bells. Nor did the place strike any chords of familiarity. But that fact didn’t alarm him. Although he had no idea where he was or exactly how he’d gotten here, he was sure of one thing-the room and the bed he occupied belonged to a female. Pleased by the thought, he closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath and smiled. Now that he did recognize—the scent of roses and rain. And of a woman.

      But who was she?

      He searched his memory for a picture to match with the scent. At first none came to him. Then an image began to play at the fringes of his memory—an image of a raven-haired angel with clear, green eyes leaning over him, speaking to him in a honeyed voice. The smile curving his lips widened. Opening his eyes, he stared at the empty space in the bed beside him and probed for a name to go with the face of the woman whose bed he’d shared.

      “Good morning.”

      He turned his gaze toward the doorway at the sound of the voice and stared at its owner. “Morning,” he replied, giving her a quick once-over and then a slower one. The tray she held blocked his view of her upper torso, but he noted with appreciation the way the jeans hugged her long legs, the slight sway of her hips as she walked toward the bed. His body responded to her immediately, tightening as he thought of her stripping off those jeans and shirt and joining him back in bed. He started to invite her to do just that, only he couldn’t come up with her name.

      “How are you feeling?”

      “Fine,” he replied, only to wince when a pain shot through his head as he pushed up to his elbows. “Correction. Not so fine. My head feels as if it went a couple of rounds with a tank and lost.”

      “I’m not surprised.”

      He shifted to a sitting position and was surprised to discover that he still had on his briefs. Must have really tied one on, he reasoned, which also surprised him since he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in such sad shape. Not only couldn’t he remember her name, but he usually slept in the raw. Heaven knows what in the devil he’d done to his head. He was just about to ask her what had happened when the scent of coffee derailed his thought processes. He sniffed. “Please, tell me that’s coffee I smell.”

      “It’s