Ready. Lucy Monroe

pretty damn independent.”

      She supposed she was. The one person she knew would not let her down was herself.

      “You need my help.”

      The blunt statement took the breath out of her, but she wasn’t about to deny the truth of it. She’d passed that point about when he’d disarmed her and gotten her in a headlock before she could even scream. If he had been Nemesis, she could be dead, or hurting badly right now.

      Joshua watched the play of emotions across Lise’s face. Denial wasn’t one of them.

      “You’re right,” she said. “The authorities won’t take me seriously and I’m afraid Nemesis will have to do something pretty awful before they do, but what can you do?”

      “I can keep you safe, for a start.”

      There was no mistake about the expression burning golden in her tired hazel eyes. It was relief. “Thank you.”

      “I plan to nail the bastard, too.”

      “Do you think you can?”

      He wasn’t offended by her expression of doubt. “Maybe not alone, but I’ve got a couple of buddies who will help. Hotwire’s a computer expert and Nitro’s great with explosives, but he’s got other talents just as useful.”

      “Interesting names—are they mercenaries too?”

      “We were in the Rangers together.” Evading direct an swers had become a way of life for him ten years ago. “When did Bella tell you what I do?”

      Had Lise run from his profession as much as she’d run from the primitively passionate man he’d become with her?

      “She didn’t.”

      “Then how did you know?”

      That vague look settled over her, the one he identified as her writer look. “It’s the way you move, the way you are hyper-aware of everything and everyone around you. It’s just like the other mercenaries I’ve met. Special Forces soldiers are that way, too, but there are subtle differences.”

      “You’ve met other mercenaries?”

      “Sure.”

      “Right.”

      She frowned at his disbelief. “I interview a lot of people for my books. I like hands-on research. It’s how Jake and Bella met, or didn’t they tell you?”

      His sister had said something about it, but attending a few fashion shows was not in the same league as getting into personal contact with the men who peopled the shadowy world he lived in. “What did you do, contact Soldier of Fortune magazine for a reference?”

      “Not the first time. I’d learned about a mercenary from a retired Navy SEAL I knew. The man he hooked me up with wasn’t hero material at all. He was cold, and so calculating. You could just tell he’d kill his own grandmother for the right amount of money.”

      “Who was it?”

      She said a name.

      His heart about stopped in his chest at the prospect of her spending five minutes alone with such a predator, much less the length of an interview. “Are you crazy? You don’t chat over coffee with men like him.”

      “Yes, well, I figured that out. The next man I interviewed was the one who worked for one of those companies advertised in Soldier of Fortune magazine. He was a total phony.”

      He was getting a pretty intimate picture of the type of research she did to write her books and he didn’t like it. He’d read most of them since meeting her the year before. If she talked to the types of characters she wrote about, the list of stalker suspects would be as long as his mother’s grocery list the week before Christmas.

      “So you went looking for another merc to talk to?”

      “Yes. He was retired and I liked him.”

      When she named the man, Joshua had to bite down on the urge to curse. It was the same man who had drawn him into the gray world of being a soldier for hire. He had ideals, even if the average civilian wouldn’t understand them. Combat had retired four years ago, turning his business over to Joshua. That’s when he’d taken Hotwire and Nitro on, the two men in the world he trusted.

      “You live damn dangerously for an introverted writer who shies away from mingling in crowds.”

      Soft pink tinged her cheeks. “I’m not that shy.”

      “Apparently.”

      “I know you didn’t ask for pay, but I will. Pay you, I mean.”

      He stood up, rejection pounding through his veins. “I don’t want your money.”

      “You’re a mercenary. This is what you do.” She licked her lips nervously and his gut tightened for reasons that had nothing to do with their discussion.

      “I’ve done a lot of things I wouldn’t want to put in a memoir, but no way am I taking money from you to help you.”

      “That’s a ridiculous attitude, and I would feel better keeping this on a professional basis.”

      “Tough.”

      Her eyes widened, highlighting their reddened condition. “There’s no reason for you to refuse to let me pay you.”

      She spoiled the severity of her tone with another yawn.

      The woman was seriously ready for bed.

      Too bad it wouldn’t be one she’d willingly share with him.

      “There are a couple of reasons,” he ground out, forcing his mind away from a path it had no business traveling down, especially since she’d just become a job.

      “Name them.”

      “One, you can’t afford me. Two, you’re family.”

      “I’m not your family.”

      “Close enough.” What he didn’t say was that if she’d had no connection to him at all, he’d want to help her.

      Lise Barton got to him in a way no other woman had since he was a naïve new recruit to the Army Rangers.

      Joshua heard the water stop on the other side of the privacy wall while he listened to Bella’s latest cute baby story about Genevieve with half an ear.

      Lise came into the main room, her hair wet from her shower and looking more alert than she had earlier, not to mention too damn appealing.

      That was going to be a problem.

      She sat down on her bed and started brushing her hair out. Damp, it looked more brown than blond, hiding the gold highlights that rippled through it when it was dry.

      “Isn’t that just the sweetest thing?” Bella’s voice reached him even as he watched Lise’s movements with entirely too much interest.

      Her pajamas were a pair of men’s boxers and a well-worn t-shirt that molded her delicious curves when she reached up to run the brush through her hair. She wasn’t big-breasted, but she wasn’t small, either. She was perfect, her firm breasts jiggling just enough to make him crazy with every swipe of the brush on her hair.

      He wanted to curse as his body reacted with pain-filled intensity to the sight. It had been too damn long…

      He forced himself to answer his sister with a mild, “Yeah.”

      “So you’ll be here in time for dinner and you’ve talked Lise into coming with you?” His sister sounded like she was having a hard time believing that.

      “Yes, Bella. We will both be there.”

      Lise’s eyes snapped up at that, their gold-and-green depths asking him a question.

      “I told Lise babies are more resilient than she thinks,”