Undercover Protector. Molly O'Keefe

was something about Gomez, an energy—her sister would call it an aura. Whatever it was it knocked her off her stride and she hesitated at the doorway.

      “You can come in,” he finally said, his deep voice laced with humor. “I only eat people who are early.”

      She smiled and stepped into the tiled foyer. The foyer was shadowed but the great room and the kitchen—visible from where she stood—were bathed in light from the floor-to-ceiling windows that faced the ocean.

      “Mr. Estrada—” She called him by the name he’d registered with the agency. It was a fake and a bad one at that, but she could hardly tell him that.

      “I’m telling you the guy is nuts. Who uses a fake name like Estrada?” Gordon said in her ear.

      “Shut up, Gordon,” Curtis said.

      Maggie bit back a smile.

      Gomez laughed, apparently very entertained with his little inside alias joke. “You can call me Caleb. Caleb Gomez.”

      So far so good, she thought. “It’s a lovely house.” She turned as if admiring the view and used the chance to case the place.

      Phones. Two units. One in the kitchen beside the refrigerator. Another cordless beside the couch, facing the windows. The hallway, directly across from her and through the great room, led to three shut doors. Office, bedroom, bath was her guess.

      “It’s a pigsty,” Gomez said and lurched away, leading her into the great room. “I wish I could claim all this mess as my own, but I rented the house unseen and the landlord didn’t clean after the last tenants. I’d wondered why it was so cheap.”

      You’re a housekeeper, she reminded herself. Act like one.

      “I’ve seen worse,” she said. Not really. There was some clutter—newspapers covered the sofa, a moat of coffee mugs surrounded the overstuffed chair. But dust bunnies so big her mom could use them to knit scarves floated across the filthy floor like strange tumbleweeds.

      The windows were cloudy with grime and the air in the house seemed stale and musty and smelled a little like tomato sauce and dirty socks.

      “You’re going to have your work cut out for you cleaning that dump,” Curtis said and she almost smiled. She’d done worse for her job. She didn’t even want to think of those long days on that hydroponics farm.

      She followed Gomez and his lurching slide-and-thump gait. From the back, his injuries didn’t seem to diminish him other than the limp. He was tall and still broad, though he held his shoulder at an awkward angle. Long black hair brushed the collar of his blue T-shirt, which hugged the wide muscles of his shoulders and back.

      The reports of his injuries must have been exaggerated, she realized. He didn’t look like a man who had been standing at death’s door a few months ago.

      And he definitely didn’t look like any journalist she had ever met.

      He looked like a man more used to activity than sitting behind a computer. He had a magnetic force about him that she couldn’t imagine allowed him to be a quiet observer.

      He poked at the dust bunnies that congregated around the foot of the brown twill sofa. “I’ve never had a housekeeper before. I’m afraid I’m not too aware of the protocol,” he said and turned to face her.

      She had read the reports. She knew about the burns—the torture and the broken shoulder and arm. She had seen the grainy surveillance photos. But nothing could have prepared her for the reality.

      The bright sunlight was unforgiving and the red and white scar tissue on the left side of Caleb Gomez’s neck stood in violent relief. The skin was taut and shiny. His arm—the one held at an angle—was covered in similar scar tissue and his hand curled into a fist that looked unusable.

      She was used to seeing injuries—had treated and caused her fair share in the field—so it was not the scars that made her feel as though she’d been punched in the stomach.

      It was his eyes, as blue as the sky behind him, untouched by the fire and horrors of captivity, that made the impact. They were the most beautiful eyes she’d ever seen and they absolutely dared her to pity him.

      For a moment she couldn’t tolerate what she intended to do to this man. She was breathless, her stomach in knots and she knew without a doubt that he would be trouble for her.

      “Holy shit,” Gordon breathed in her ear.

      CHAPTER TWO

      FIRST TEST, Caleb thought. If she doesn’t stammer or stare or run screaming, then they could commence with the interview. However, if she was going to cross herself and get all teary, the way the last woman he interviewed for the housekeeper job had, Margaret Warren could go. And quickly.

      He found that his new body, as painful and ugly as it might be, was the great personality barometer. People took one look at him and their reactions told him all he needed to know about their inner workings. Their base-line take on the world.

      Granted, his present appearance was more extreme than usual. Most of the time he didn’t use the cane and his arm was far more mobile than people assumed. But some days his physical therapist was a sadist and Caleb felt freshly tortured all over again. Today was one of those days.

      Caleb used to pride himself on his spot-on first impressions. His editors had claimed he had the best gut in the business. But, man, this banged-up body was even better.

      Survive some time in an Iraqi prison and a helicopter crash and this is what you get. A foolproof lie detector.

      Margaret Warren took her time. She didn’t look away immediately, the way a lot of women did, throwing their attention to other places and yammering on about the weather.

      Her eyes widened and her lips parted, which, frankly, he liked. They were pretty amazing lips.

      He read a tangle of emotions on her plain face and thus began test number two.

      If she was going to pity him as the guy he first interviewed for the position had, he’d boot her out himself, bad leg or no.

      He would even let his dog out of the office to chase her down the driveway.

      Well, not really. But he liked to think he was that kind of badass.

      She blinked and all that stunned awareness vanished and instead of pity there was…nothing. Inwardly, he had to applaud. She was good. Politicians could learn something from her rock-solid composure.

      “Perhaps you should tell me what the job will entail?” Her raspy voice went through him like good whiskey.

      And that, it seemed, concluded Margaret Warren’s reaction to the relative monster he had become.

      Great. If she wants to pretend there’s nothing strange about me, I’m all for it.

      “Right.” He turned and lurched farther into the living room. “As you can see I am not much for housework.”

      “Clearly,” he thought he heard her say, but by the time he got his head turned, her face had the same slightly interested but completely removed expression.

      Those lips, though. They didn’t seem to belong on that plain face. The upper lip was fuller than the bottom and, while she did not appear to wear makeup, her lips were the color of the bougainvillea creeping over his window.

      “I don’t really like to cook, either,” he said, too fast thanks to his juvenile reaction to Ms. Warren’s lips.

      “The agency said nothing about cooking.”

      “Yeah, well, I tricked you. Can you cook?”

      “Sure.” She continued to look around his house, no doubt cataloging the months’worth of neglect.

      “Would you be interested in doing it for me?”

      Good grief,