To Love a Thief. Merline Lovelace

to think we’ll be dining tonight on under-cooked prime rib and overcooked broccoli.” Sighing, Maggie speared another pastry and popped it into her mouth.

      Nick gave her an amused look. “You should have convinced the awards committee to hold the banquet at my restaurant, as I suggested.”

      “Are you kidding? Despite your offer to feed us at cost, not even the International Monetary Fund can afford dinner for three hundred at Nick’s.”

      Adam glanced pointedly at his watch. “Speaking of the IMF…”

      “I’m coming, I’m coming!”

      Snagging another of the flaky tidbits, Maggie chewed, swallowed and rattled off last-minute instructions.

      “The girls have had their supper and their baths. They’ll be ready for bed about the time Nick says your dinner will finish cooking. Jilly’s eardrops are on the nightstand beside her bed. One squirt in each ear. Don’t let Samantha have any more apple juice. It goes right through her. If Terence gets loose…”

      “God help you,” Adam muttered.

      Shooting her husband a quelling look, Maggie grabbed her evening bag. “We both have our cell phones. Call if you need us. Bye, Nick. Bye, Mackenzie. Bye-bye, sugar pies.”

      She planted noisy, smacking kisses on the cheek of each girl. Adam waited patiently, then took his turn. A few minutes later, the garage door rumbled up, then down. Before their vehicle had cleared the front drive, a low, mournful howl drifted up from the basement. Another followed, longer and louder than the first. The third rose to an earsplitting crescendo.

      “Radizwell doesn’t like it when Mommy and Daddy go off and leave him in the basement,” Jilly informed Nick and Mackenzie between yowls. “He can go all night,” she added with some pride.

      “I’d better let him up,” Nick muttered. “Brace yourself.”

      Nodding, Mackenzie plunked Samantha on the countertop and took a wide-legged stance. Nick made sure she was ready before he opened the hall door.

      Neither one of them could have known it at the time, but by that simple act he saved both their lives.

      Chapter 2

      The attack didn’t come until almost two hours later.

      Looking back, Mackenzie would always marvel at how blissfully unaware she’d been her life was about to take a sharp turn into danger and international intrigue. Nothing in those hours leading up to the murderous assault gave any warning of what was to come.

      The time was filled with nothing but noise and laughter. Shrieks of delight as Jilly and Samantha used the family room sofa as a springboard onto Nick’s prone body. Loud grunts when they landed feet first on his midsection. Earsplitting protests from Radizwell, who danced around the threesome wanting in on the fun.

      Mackenzie kept a wary eye on lamps, books and silver-framed photographs and generally stayed out of the fray. She did, however, get suckered into playing the part of Bad Bunny when Jilly dragged out a set of plush hand puppets and a folding cardboard stage. With the air of a general marshaling her troops, the pint-size director issued orders to her cast and crew.

      “You put the stage together, Uncle Nick. Fold the tabs over like this. See?”

      “Got it.”

      “’Kenzie, you sit here. Samantha has to sit in your lap ’cause she’s just a baby.”

      Her sister’s rosebud mouth puckered at the disparaging remark. “Nuh-uh.”

      “Yes, you are. A silly little baby.”

      Tears welled. A chubby fist closed over a puppet in the shape of a bear. Before Mackenzie could stop her, Samantha swung.

      Screeching, Jilly swung back. Radizwell set the windows to rattling with his bark.

      It took a moment or two for Nick and Mackenzie to separate the combatants. They emerged from their brawl with sulky expressions that melted instantly into happy smiles when Nick suggested ice cream after they finished their theatrical production.

      Finally—finally!—eight o’clock rolled around. Breathing a heartfelt sigh of relief, Mackenzie rinsed out the ice-cream bowls while Nick carried Samantha upstairs on his shoulders. Jilly raced ahead to select the books she wanted to read before lights out.

      A half hour later, the girls were ear-dropped, pot-tied, story-taled and snuggled in. Nick dropped kisses on their cheeks and went downstairs to stir his pots, leaving Mackenzie to deposit their various items of discarded clothing in the hamper.

      When she opened the door to the bathroom, though, an ominous hissing sound greeted her. Evidently Terence the iguana had heard the sounds of the toilet flushing and decided to migrate from the playroom next door. He had now taken up occupancy in the bathtub.

      Radizwell, who’d plopped down beside Jilly’s bed, went on full love alert. Hastily, Mackenzie yanked the door shut, separating him from the bug-eyed creature in the tub.

      “Sorry,” she told the quivering sheepdog. “I don’t think he’s in the mood for love right now.”

      She just wished she could say the same!

      Only now, with the girls tucked in and Nick downstairs, could she catch her breath and put a name to this tingling, prickly sensation she’d been experiencing for the past few hours. The sensation had intensified each time Nick grinned at the girls’ antics. Or sprawled loose-limbed and feigning exhaustion while they climbed all over him. Or solemnly danced his grasshopper hand puppet across the cardboard stage.

      Mackenzie had seen a different side of Nick Jensen tonight—gentler, funnier, more relaxed. The disconcerting glimpses of the man behind the handsome mask had totally skewed the image she’d constructed of him over the past years. As OMEGA’s chief of communications, she’d monitored Lightning’s operations in the field. She knew how good he was. And how lethal.

      She’d also monitored his activities when not in the field. It wasn’t difficult to keep up with them. The paparazzi followed him like hounds after a sleek, handsome fox. According to the tabloids’ various “reliable sources,” he could have his pick of the half-dozen gorgeous beauties reportedly madly in love with him.

      Although…

      Mackenzie could have sworn she’d caught a speculative gleam in his eyes when he looked at her lately. Part of her wanted to believe it telegraphed a very definite male interest. The rest of her got clammy at the thought.

      Nick Jensen was out of her league. Correction, out of her universe. And despite the fact he’d spent hours tussling with kids and their near hairless sheepdog on the floor, she’d be a fool to believe he possessed any more homing instincts than her philandering ex.

      Or so she tried to convince herself as she and Radizwell made their way downstairs.

      Seeing Nick in his natural habitat didn’t exactly reinforce her theory. He looked right at home at the stove, darn him! Far more than Mackenzie herself did on the rare occasions she attempted anything more esoteric than nachos or microwave popcorn. He’d even set the table. Candles flickered amid the blue-and-white crockery and tall-stemmed cobalt goblets.

      “Almost ready,” he assured her.

      “I know it’s a little late to ask, but what can I do to help?”

      “Why don’t you do the honors with the wine? I uncorked it but was waiting for you to come down before pouring.”

      Extracting the bottle from the crystal ice bucket, Mackenzie gave its label a curious glance. “Mt. Blaze?”

      “It’s a small vineyard on New Zealand’s Gold Coast. Their late-harvest Riesling won Wine Enthusiast’s best vintage award three years running.”

      “Oooh-kay.”

      Detouring around the recumbent sheepdog,