San Antonio Secret. Robin Perini

the manager’s stout figure first.

      The man frowned at the towels and trash scattered around the room. “She’s not here,” he said. “You’ll have to come back.”

      The door creaked. “I’m her husband.”

      She clutched the doorknob with a death hold. She’d recognize that voice anywhere, the deep rumble, the smooth velvet baritone, but she couldn’t believe those three words had escaped his lips.

      “Rafe?” Sierra nearly rushed into the room before she stopped herself. Parading around in her underwear wasn’t an option. She peeked around the door.

      “Hi, honey,” Rafe said, his expression grim, his voice soft and deadly. “I’m home.”

      Before Sierra could contemplate how he’d found her, Rafe shunted the manager out of the room with an excuse, grabbed a bloodstained towel from the floor and wrenched open the bathroom door. He shoved the cloth at her. “What the hell is this?”

      She snapped a clean bath towel from a rod and wrapped it around her waist to hide her high-cut panties and naked legs. “What are you doing here?”

      “That’s a bullet graze,” he said, ignoring the question. He tugged the terry cloth back to reveal her injury, and before she could say a word, swept her into his arms. Gently, carefully he laid her on the small bed.

      He straightened and tossed his Stetson on the chair beside the table.

      With his six feet four inches of pure muscle and outlawesque eye patch, he looked like a hero who’d walked straight out of a romance novel. He’d certainly featured in more than one of her own fantasies. At least until the morning after one very passionate night. She’d dropped her guard, flayed open her heart and he’d stomped all over it.

      “I don’t need the help. I’ve got the situation under control.” She propped herself up on her elbows and tried to shift to the other side of the bed.

      He grasped her arm and held her in place, pushing aside the towel. He didn’t speak, but probed at the angry skin surrounding the wound, then arched his brow as he met her gaze.

      Sierra squirmed under his lingering, enigmatic look. Rafe shook his head and rummaged through the supplies. He returned to her side with antiseptic, bandages, antibiotic ointment and tape.

      He straightened her leg and held her down with a firm hand. “Let me do this. I’ve had a lot of practice.” He tilted the antiseptic onto a large gauze square. “Brace yourself,” he said, and dabbed at the flesh.

      She sucked in a sharp breath. Her leg jerked.

      “Easy does it.” He bent over the wound and blew, easing the sharp sting.

      Sierra glanced away, her cheeks burning as he poked and prodded close the top of her thigh. He was nothing but professional, even distant. In fact he’d acted as if it were nothing but business as usual.

      They hadn’t seen each other since a very awkward Thanksgiving dinner at her father’s house the week after he’d rescued her.

      One look and her heart had leaped at the memory of the way he’d touched her, the way he’d driven away her nightmares. At least for a few hours.

      Until he’d vanished from their bed. And then walked away without a word after the family gathering he clearly had only attended to out the fact that she worked for CTC to her family. Noah in particular.

      Sierra’s dreams had returned with a vengeance. Rafe hadn’t come back. A time or two she’d imagined she’d recognized him in a crowd, that he’d found her, that she’d been more than a convenient and willing night of passion, that he hadn’t simply used her.

      She’d been wrong. A second glance and the imaginary figure had vanished. So had the rose-colored glasses.

      How had she allowed herself to be duped? That she’d trusted a man who could so easily walk away.

      Well, she wouldn’t allow herself to be seduced again. By his memory, by her fantasies. She couldn’t trust him. Not with her heart. She’d learned her lesson. And she was an excellent student.

      He pressed the final strip of tape against her skin but didn’t move his tan hand from her thigh. A tingling of awareness rose across her skin, settling deep in her belly.

      Now if she could just convince her body to listen to her mind.

      Rafe simply looked at her, the muscle in his jaw pulsing, holding her gaze hostage.

      Despite her decision and best of intentions, she couldn’t control her response to his closeness. Being in her underwear on the receiving end of Rafe Vargas’s hot stare was a bad place to be. The man could still make her heart flip-flop. Even when he was obviously furious, like now.

      She blinked, breaking the spell, and quickly tossed the bedspread over her naked legs.

      Only one way to handle him. Get on the offensive and don’t back down. “In what fantasyland are you my husband?”

      * * *

      IF THE MOTEL owner hadn’t been so damn protective of Sierra’s room number, Rafe wouldn’t have had to resort to the lie. He wasn’t about to dwell on why the statement had crossed his lips all too easily, nor was he willing to apologize for it.

      He’d dreamed of having Sierra in his bed for the past two months. His hand stroked the bandage on her thigh gently. But not like this. Never like this. When Rafe had first entered the room and had seen that bloody towel on the floor, his knees had nearly buckled.

      A few inches and the bullet would’ve nicked her femoral artery. She’d have bled out.

      She’d come too damn close to dying. Twice.

      But she was alive. And mostly well. She lay propped up on the bed, shadows beneath her eyes, her cheeks pale. He cataloged the injuries he could see: the scrapes, the bruise darkening her jaw and cheekbone. She must be black-and-blue.

      Someone needed to pay.

      At his silence, a flash of blue fire erupted in her eyes. He’d witnessed the flame more than once: usually when someone crossed her, but also when she’d wrapped her arms and legs around him.

      Her very presence drew him in. The small motel room’s walls closed in on him. He had to let the past go.

      Every instinct inside him fought the urge to wrap his arms around her, breathe in her scent and just hold her close. If he closed his eyes, he knew he could feel the silk of her skin beneath him, smell the clean scent of her hair, remember her generosity as he held her, giving him her heart and soul.

      And he’d been stupid—or smart enough—to throw it away when all he’d wanted was to stay with her.

      He’d done the right thing. He had to believe that. The alternative—well, he just wouldn’t consider the alternative.

      Instead of acting on his urges, he cocked his head to the side. “What am I doing here? Oh, no reason. I get a call from Noah that you’d vanished from Denver without telling your family only months after being held captive by a serial killer. And then, after you use your debit card at a convenience store, I find you a mile away in a barely up-to-code motel room, shot and obviously assaulted. I don’t know, Sierra. Why don’t you guess what I’m doing here? Saving you one more time.”

      “A mile would’ve been far enough if anyone but you had been searching,” she muttered under her breath. Her lips flattened in a straight line. “Go home, Rafe. And tell Noah if he wants to send a babysitter, pick someone else.”

      The words, though expected, still hurt. No distance would ever be far enough if she was in trouble. “Tough. You got me. And I’m not budging.” He lifted his hand and hovered over the stark mottling on her face. “Honey, who did this to you?”

      Her eyes glistened and she looked away. “Don’t be nice. I can’t take it.”

      “What are you involved