Navajo Echoes. Cassie Miles

everybody else. And yet that description didn’t fit John at all. For one thing, he was thirty-seven and not settled down with wife and kids. “Have you ever been married?”

      He gave a quick shake of his head. “You?”

      “No.” She hadn’t even lost her virginity yet—a detail she didn’t intend to share with him.

      “How did you end up at PPS?” he asked.

      “Long story.”

      He grinned. “You don’t seem to mind telling long stories.”

      “I’ve got nothing to hide. What you see is what you get.”

      “We’ve got an hour to kill,” he said. “Tell me all about yourself.”

      “I stepped off the predictable path when I dropped out of college in Ann Arbor.”

      She told him about backpacking through Europe, working as a waitress when she could and picking up the languages.

      After seeing injustice on a global scale, she’d felt the need for order. That was when she’d moved to Denver and entered the police academy. “Then I joined PPS. It feels like this is where I belong. I love the people in the office. Former FBI agents like Evangeline and Melissa. Jack Sanders was an Army Ranger. Cameron Morgan, the cowboy.” Her gaze bounced into his eyes. “Then, of course, there’s you.”

      “What about me?” he asked suspiciously.

      “You’re very secretive. The strong, silent type. All I know about you is your work. You’re an electronics genius and an expert in security systems.”

      “I like detail work.”

      No surprise there. He was a master of precision and planning. “Tell me about growing up. Did you have a big family? Were you good in school?”

      John checked his wristwatch again. “We’ve waited an hour. Robert isn’t coming tonight.”

      How typical of John to divert the subject as soon as it shifted to him. She followed him across the sand to the bushes where he’d hidden their transportation. Climbing onto the back of the motor scooter, she wrapped her arms around him and rested her cheek against John’s broad back.

      In a moment, they were back on the road, headed back to the hotel. She snuggled closer. Hanging on tightly wasn’t really necessary; they were only going about twenty-five miles an hour. But she liked holding him. Her attraction to John was far from sisterly fondness. He was much too sexy to ever be thought of as a brother.

      She heard him curse, sat up straighter and peeked around his shoulder. Headlights. A big vehicle. A Hummer. And he was coming right at them.

      As the motor scooter skidded off the narrow road, she heard herself scream.