Rock-A-Bye Rescue. Karen Whiddon

eyebrow, he opened the drawer in front of him. “Cookies? You have cookies?” He moved to the oven and the dishwasher, opening each in turn, then moving closer to her. “Am I getting warmer?”

      She chuckled at his playfulness. She remembered his sense of humor from their earlier acquaintance. His ability to make her laugh had been one of the things that first drew her to him. Along with his dark good looks. And his bad-boy image.

      “Colder.”

      Despite her direction, he moved closer to her, checking more drawers. When he reached her, he grabbed the hem of her sweater and flipped it up to bare her midriff. “Are they in here?”

      With a startled gasp, she swatted his hand away, smoothing the sweater back into place. “Dean!”

      “I don’t know about you, but I think I’m getting warmer.” He edged closer, crowding her personal space. He tucked her hair behind her ear, allowing his crooked finger to brush her cheek. “What do you think, Lila? Am I warmer? Are you?”

      “Dean, I—” The rest of her sentence snagged in her throat when he leaned in to steal a soft kiss. Her head spun dizzily, and a flash of heat raced through her blood. Desire coiled in her belly, and her most intimate places throbbed with longing. Warmer? Oh, yes. In an instant, he’d managed to set her on fire.

      He placed another breath-stealing kiss on her lips, then stepped back, snapping his fingers as if inspired. “The cookie jar!”

      With a puckish smile, he crossed the floor to the opposite counter where her whimsical Kermit the Frog cookie jar sat. When he lifted the lid and spied the peanut butter cookies she’d made yesterday, he crowed, “Score!” He gobbled a cookie down in two bites, wearing a smug look. “The cookie jar. You can’t fool me, you minx.”

      Lila pressed a hand to her belly, where a host of butterflies flapped furiously. “Gee, I thought that one would stump you.”

      Outside, another loud snap echoed through the woods, and a stiff wind whistled through her eaves. The haunting noises were enough to spoil the brief moment of levity. Reminded of her situation and the looming threat to Eve, Lila’s muscles tightened again. Moving stiffly, she took a pot from her lower cabinet and set it on the stove. “So...soup? It’s vegetable beef.”

      The soft shuffle of his feet across her hardwood floor was her only warning before he stepped close behind her and set his hands on her shoulders. Her flinch spoke for itself. She was all wound up and ready to shatter.

      “Soup is fine, but I can heat it myself.” His low murmur and warm breath near her ear didn’t help calm her. If anything, it stirred her pulse to a fevered pitch.

      She bit her bottom lip, still damp from his kiss, and tried to center herself. “What happened to me needing a distraction?”

      His fingers dug into her shoulder muscles, kneading...tantalizing. “Yeah, a distraction would be good. You’re as tight as a drum.”

      Her hands shook as she pulled the lid off the soup and dumped it in the pan to heat. She closed her eyes as he continued massaging her shoulders. The deep strokes felt divine, and she had to brace her knees to keep from melting into a puddle of goo. The hypnotizing massage was muddling her thoughts. Fueling the lust in her core. I should stop him...

      Instead, she prayed he’d never quit. If she died now, she’d die happy. A small moan of bliss slipped from her throat as she let her head loll forward, giving him better access to the stiffness in her neck and upper back. Hussy! her conscience hissed.

      He chuckled softly, and his hands moved up her nape into her hair. “If you keep making sexy noises like that, I’m gonna have to kiss you again. This time, for real.”

      Finding the air in her lungs to speak was difficult, but she managed to rasp, “Dean, I can’t... I don’t want...”

      His hands stilled, dropped from her arms, and she almost wept for the lost contact. She turned to face him, ready to defend her choice, while at the same time regretting her hesitance. Damn Carl and the pain he’d caused her! This reluctance was his fault, his legacy.

      “What don’t you want? Me?” Dean ran a finger along her cheek, and she shivered. “’Cause I don’t believe that. That’s not what your body is saying.”

      He stood close enough for her chest to brush his, for her to have to tip back her head to meet his gaze, for her to note that his bister eyes grew even darker when he was aroused. What was darker brown than bister? Zinnwaldite? She gave her head a shake. Who cared? Wasn’t it enough that they were intently focused on her, that she could read his desire for her in those dark, brooding depths?

      “Okay, I’d be lying if I denied feeling something for you, but...” She wiggled loose of his grasp with a defeated sigh and stalked to the living room, stewing. “I followed my heart in the past and got burned. This time, I have to listen to my head.”

      She heard the clomp of Dean’s boots as he crossed the floor, sensed him moving up behind her.

      “Are you telling me,” he asked, “that there is a this time?”

       Chapter 5

      The road was slick. Really slick. Wayne already knew that, thanks to the transport van crash, but keeping the piece-of-crap SUV he’d hot-wired on the road was harder than he’d imagined. He’d picked the SUV thinking it would have four-wheel drive, that it would handle the icy roads better, but whoever once owned this rattletrap had done as lousy of a job maintaining it mechanically as he had with the exterior. The gears stuck and wouldn’t shift into four-wheel drive and the steering was so loose, he could jerk the wheel a good six inches left or right before the damn SUV responded. He’d lose the SUV and steal something else if there was another car around. But he’d already reached the outskirts of Collins Ridge and was headed up into the foothills. Nothing out here but forests, wild animals and the sleet-crusted highway.

      Wayne set his jaw and tightened his grip on the steering wheel as the tires slipped again. Kent had trusted him to take care of Eve. To humanely end his niece’s life. To save her from the indignity of foster care, the blind dictates of bureaucracy and a life under the tyranny of misguided government drones.

      The idea of killing a baby, his own niece, didn’t sit well with him, but he saw Kent’s reasoning. And his first duty was to his brother. He had his orders, and he’d carry them out. What’s more, he’d take down anyone who tried to stop him, too. For instance, this Lila Greene woman who’d taken Eve. Was she just in the foster system for the check, like his foster mothers had been? Would she stand aside when threatened and let him take Eve with him or would she put up a fight? If she tried to stop him, he’d shoot her.

      He had no problem with that. Funny, though, that any show of actually caring about her charge was exactly what would get the lady killed. Wayne didn’t dwell on the irony long. He needed to focus on his driving. The sooner he did his job, the sooner he could meet up with Kent and they could disappear. They’d set up a compound in another state with new names and build a new family. The Pitts brothers would not be shoved in a box or ruled by any government. They would remain free, follow The Truth and The Sword would rise again.

      * * *

      “I gotta tell you, Lila,” he said as she turned to face him, “listening to your head is fine most of the time, but I’ve done tours with too many young guys who died with regrets.” He moved closer, and she would have backed away from his touch but her legs bumped the edge of her coffee table. Without pushing past him or climbing backward over the furniture, she was trapped.

      “The girl they should have married before being deployed, the apology they never gave their dad, the risk they should have taken in business. Heads are good for some things, but don’t let it talk you into missing something you’ll always regret losing.”

      Lila closed her eyes. It was so hard to think straight when she looked into Dean’s dark eyes.

      “I