The Dangerous Jacob Wilde

Frowning, she rose, went into the closest bedroom and drew back a corner of the curtain.

Jake Wilde’s car.

He was back.

The man was persistent, if nothing else.

Jake stood on the porch and rang the bell.

Knocked on the door. Knocked, not banged. No answer, so he switched to ringing the bell again.

Eventually, he heard a window slide open somewhere above him. He took a step back, looked up, saw Addison, her face half-obscured by a flapping lace curtain the color of old gym socks.

He took a breath, let it out, cleared his throat.

“Ms. McDowell.” Did you address a woman so formally after you’d slept with her? But he hadn’t slept with her. He’d all but screwed out his brains and hers against a truck … and, hell, that kind of image didn’t belong in his head right now. “Addison,” he said pleasantly, “good—”

“You have ten seconds to turn around and get off my land, Captain. After that, I call the police.”

So much for being pleasant.

“Take it easy, okay? You don’t need the police.”

“I’ll decide what I need. The police, the FBI, the National Guard. How about the cavalry?”

“Look, I just want to talk to you.”

“You have nothing to say that I want to hear.”

“How do you know until I say it?”

“When I was in college, I took a class in Platonic dialectic. I’m not going to get dragged into this discussion.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. “I took a class in contract negotiation. Does that make us even?”

It was difficult not to laugh. He was quick, and he was funny.

As if either thing mattered.

“Here’s the bottom line,” Addison said. “We have nothing to talk about.”

“What about last night?”

“What about it?”

“We need to talk about that.”

“We already did.”

She was right; they had. And the excuse he’d given himself when he’d been here fifteen minutes ago wasn’t valid, either.

He hadn’t come to confront her.

He’d come because he just plain wanted to see her.

What if he told her that?

“Captain?”