Undercover Passion. Melinda Di Lorenzo

a few doors up, the air was silent.

       Which actually might work in your favor.

      Keeping very still, he strained to hear a sound—the crunch of gravel, the creak of a door—that would indicate the correct direction. Then it came. The light brush of feet on pavement from around the side. Harley pushed down his triumph. He’d celebrate once he had his hands on his wily escapee.

      He moved to the edge of the building and pressed himself against its side with practiced stealth. He knew he wasn’t the fastest runner on his team of partners, but what he lacked in natural athleticism he made up for in cunning.

      Slow and steady, he cautioned himself as he inched along. Surprise is your friend.

      He reached the edge of the building then and paused again. He started to ease forward. Before he could make it even a single step, a figure came stumbling around the corner.

      Prepared for victory, Harley reached out. “Aha! Now I’ve got—Whoa!”

      He froze midgrab, as he realized his hands were clasped to someone other than the person he pursued. Not that he didn’t recognize her. The short curvy woman with her untamed head of brown curls was more than familiar to him. His cover story—that he was an aspiring artist in the small town, trying to find his muse—included subletting the studio beside her apartment. The fact that his short-term apartment rental had gone bust in a flood meant temporarily staying in the studio 24/7. So he’d spent enough time close to her over the last week to have her smattering of freckles and full lips permanently etched into his memory.

      Yeah, said a voice in his head. Close to her. But not this close.

      He had to agree. He hadn’t been near enough to know for sure that her skin would be warm and soft, and though he’d caught hints of her perfume before, its lightly floral fragrance hadn’t ever filled his nose quite so thoroughly before.

      Realizing he still held her arms, he dropped his hands and tried to take a cautious step back, but her hands came up to stop him, almost clutching at his shirt. Concern flooded through him. Automatically, he brought his fingers up to hers to offer comfort.

      “Hey,” he said as he gave her a quick soothing squeeze. “What’s the matter? Something happen at the store?”

      “No. It’s Teegan.” Her gaze darted around frantically. “Where is she? I heard her, but now I can’t find her.”

      Harley relaxed a little. “Kind of the point of the game.”

      “What?”

      “Hide-and-seek.”

      “She’s hiding?” The tension in Liz’s face eased marginally.

      “Yeah,” Harley replied. “And in case you didn’t know, the monkey’s pretty darned good at it, too. You’d think in a three-building limit, she’d be easy to spot, but I’ve been looking for her for a solid two minutes and haven’t spotted her yet.”

      “I really did hear her a second ago, but—” The pretty brunette’s eyes crinkled with worry again.

      “What’s wrong?”

      “Nothing. I just need her to come in. Quickly. Please.”

      “All right.” He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “Olly, olly, oxen free! You win, monkey!”

      “Yes!” The little girl’s triumphant cry came from above.

      Harley tipped his gaze up, and rolled his eyes as he spotted a flash of purple on the side of the building. Like an actual monkey, she’d managed to scamper up the solitary evergreen tree there, then used one of its wide branches to tuck herself in behind the Liz’s Lovely Things sign. Her grinning face popped out, and she offered a wave. Harley shook his head and smiled back. She had a right to be proud. No way would he have found her on his own.

      He turned to say as much to her mom, but the words didn’t make it out. Liz’s posture was rigid, her eyes focused across the road rather than on her daughter. Automatically, Harley widened his stance defensively and craned his neck to see what she saw. He spotted the object of her attention right away. A man.

      He stood near the end of the block, tucked against the door frame of a closed shop. There was something off about him. Harley had seen enough people who were up to no good to recognize one when they were standing more or less right in front of him. This guy definitely had that look. He held his hoodie-covered head down, but still somehow gave the impression that he wasn’t trying not to be seen.

       Hiding. But not.

      The contradiction puzzled Harley a bit, and he glanced back toward Liz. Her cheeks were flushed, her chest rising and falling with short breaths. Her reaction clued him in to the man’s intent. The guy wanted to blend in for the general public, but also to make sure one person knew he was there.

       And that person is Liz.

      Concern drove away Harley’s other feelings and made his gut twist with protective instinct instead. His urge was to reach out to the woman beside him—to defend and soothe—but he stopped himself just short of doing it.

      Instead, he tipped his head and—in a low voice—asked, “Someone you know?”

      “What?” Liz’s response was at first startled, then too innocent. “Who?”

      “The guy over there who’s making you look like you swallowed something sour.”

      “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      The stiff defensive tone and the blatant lie put an idea into Harley’s head. “Look. I’m not here to judge. If you need help...if he’s an ex, or—”

      Liz let out a laugh that sounded genuine. “Oh, God no. Nothing like that.”

      “All right.” He knew his reply sounded dubious.

      She clearly picked up on it, too. “Look. He was just an unhappy customer.”

      “A really unhappy customer?”

      “It happens.”

      “Okay.” He paused, and he noted the way her eyes flicked back to the hooded figure. “But if you did need help...”

      “You’re the knight in clay-stained clothes I’d call first,” she assured him before she turned to call out to her kid. “Teegs! Anytime you come down from there would be good!”

      Harley smiled as the little girl started to expertly scamper down. From the corner of his eye, though, he watched Liz, searching for another sign of fear. Even though he’d had the pretty woman and her activities under close surveillance for the last two weeks, this was the first hint that there was even something to watch. He’d actually been questioning whether or not he and his partners were way off base in having him in to keep an eye on her. Was this a sign that they were right after all? Was Liz’s obvious fear of the hooded man related to the case they’d been investigating for the last fifteen years?

      Even though she’d already denied knowing the shadowy figure, Harley wished he could ask a more pointed question without giving himself away. Something told him that even if he’d been able to, drawing attention to the situation right that second might backfire anyway. Liz was too on edge, the man close enough to see if she reacted poorly. The last thing he wanted was to put Teegan—who was now using cartwheels to propel herself toward them—or her mother in danger, so he kept his mouth shut and turned back to the other man to assess for any immediate danger. The hooded figure was on the move now, his head still down as he shuffled out of the doorway.

      Harley tensed automatically, preparing for a fight. Preparing to tell Liz to grab Teegan and run. He was hyperaware of the fact that he’d left his gun in a coded lockbox high on a shelf in his closet. A safety precaution, which now seemed like an unsafe choice. He wished he had it strapped to his side in easy reach.

      But