So Sensitive (Hard to Get 1)

Jonas cocked his head to the side and stared at him. “You thinking of taking on safe, easy cases now that you’re with Gracie?”

The very thought made Wade cringe. “Hel , no. I’m just saying that Gracie has a point. I mean, what woman wouldn’t be a little reluctant to hook up with me? I’m damned possessive. Protective to the point that it’s annoying. And I’m this close to solving Gracie’s stalker problem with a bul et. That’s not normal, not in anyone’s book.”

Jonas grinned. “And yet she hasn’t told you to go to hel yet.”

Wade turned and headed toward the door. “ ‘Yet’ being the operative word there,” he muttered.

He hadn’t intended for Jonas to hear, but apparently he had because he was pul ing him to a stop with a hand on his shoulder. Wade glare

d back at him until he dropped his hand. “Listen, Wade. Gracie seems pretty taken with you. And she doesn’t strike me as the wilting flower type either. She’s put up with a lot over the past few days, and she stil holds her head up high. She’s a tough cookie.”

Wade thought about Gracie’s dad, the shitty way she’d grown up. Never knowing a mother’s love. Having to take care of a father who didn’t deserve to breathe the same air as her. She was tough, but she was also easily bruised. “She’s beautiful, passionate, and so damn smart it makes my head spin. She’s my Fiery Angel.”

Jonas narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re in love with her.”

Shit, had he said al that aloud? Then again, now that it was out in the open, it felt good. “Yeah,” Wade confessed, “I’m in love with her.”

“Does she know?”

Wade shook his head. “I didn’t want to spook her. Hel , we haven’t even gotten a chance to go on a real date, Jonas. Everything has been happening so damn fast.”

Jonas slapped him on the back. “Then I say we get this fucker, so you can take that pretty little thing on a date. The sooner you tel her how you feel, the sooner I can start thinking of my own love life.”

Wade opened the door and stepped outside. “If you start on your Deanna campaign again, I’l hit you.”

Jonas threw his hands up in the air and slid past him. “I’m not. It’s just . . . She’s different. I like Deanna. She pretty much hates my guts, though, so there’s real y nothing to talk about.”

Jonas seemed so sincere, and that surprised Wade more than anything. He’d never seen his friend get serious over a woman before. “She doesn’t hate you,” Wade said, knowing he shouldn’t encourage Jonas, but unable to let the man believe something that simply wasn’t true.

Wade set the security alarm, then locked the door, and headed for his truck.

Once on their way, Jonas turned and asked, “How do you know she doesn’t hate me? Has she said something?”

Wade was waiting for the question to pop up. “No, not in so many words.” He pressed on the gas, anxious to get to Lusk. “Deanna likes to get under your skin. She only does that if she’s attracted to a guy.”

Jonas grunted. “She’s definitely under my skin.”

Hearing the desire in Jonas’s voice had Wade counting to ten. It was either that or punch him. “Jonas?”

“Yeah?”

“This is the part where you shut the hel up.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Wade sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want you with Deanna. It’s just that I don’t want to see her get hurt. Don’t play with her feelings.”

“You have my word.”

And Jonas’s word was as good as gold. Stil , Wade made sure they understood each other. “I’l have more than that if you break her heart.”

“Noted.”

With that settled between them, Wade turned his attention back to George Lusk. With any luck, they’d find proof that he was Gracie’s stalker.

They’d be able to turn him over to the police without any problems. And Wade would be able to spend his evening loving Gracie. But that little prickly feeling he’d felt earlier hadn’t gone away. And that, Wade knew, was a very bad sign.

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