High Octane (Texas Hotzone 2)

“You’d do that?”

“Hell, yeah, I’d do it, and so would Bobby and Caleb.” He drew her hand into his and kissed it. “Come back to bed with me for a while. And I have a good mind to cancel the Realtor today to allow you more time to say thank you.”

Back in the bedroom, Ryan sat down on the bed and pulled Sabrina to him, eager to feel her soft skin next to his.

Her hands settled on his shoulders. “House-hunting should be fun,” she said. “Why aren’t you excited about it?”

“Buying a house is a long-term commitment,” he said. “After a lifetime of temporary, I want to get it right. And nothing has felt right.”

“What about your family?” she asked. “Where are they?”

“At the Hotzone,” he said. “Bobby and Caleb.”

“Your real family,” she said. “Mother and father.”

He’d known this question was coming. Known it and dreaded it. “No family.” He wanted to leave it there, but he knew her well enough to know she’d press him, so he added, “My mother dropped me off at a church when I was eight. Said she’d be back, but never returned. I was at an age that adoption was unlikely, so I was moved around from foster home to foster home until I joined the Army.”

“So a hotel room, or Army quarters, really is what you see as home,” she said, almost to herself.

No. You are, he thought. “It’s what I know.”

Tenderness filled her eyes and her palm gently caressed his jaw. To his surprise, she offered none of the sympathy he disliked from others. Nor did she immediately speak. She simply stared at him with so much understanding that he could almost have believed that she, too, had no family of her own.

Finally, her lips brushed his, velvety smooth with some unspoken promise, before she stepped back and pulled the shirt over her head. “Cancel the Realtor,” she said and slid her arms around his neck. “Stay here with me.”

***

ALMOST A WEEK LATER, on Thursday morning, Ryan pulled into the garage of Sabrina’s office building to drop her off at work. Somehow, her car had managed to get front-end damage at the storage facility. A fight with the tow yard had ensued with the yard claiming the car had been damaged before they picked it up. In the end, her car was being repaired and was supposed to be ready that morning. They’d left Sabrina’s place, where he’d stayed all week, living a little piece of heaven every morning as he woke by her side at the crack of dawn. But the car wasn’t ready, and she’d already turned in her rental car.

“You don’t have to wait with me, Ryan,” she said. “It’ll be an hour until the rental place has a car for me, and it’s only a few blocks away.”

“But they can’t deliver on such short notice,” he said. “And I don’t want you walking alone.”

“You’re being paranoid,” she said. “I’ve had a few pictures left at my door. Nothing more.”

“Sunday, Monday and Tuesday morning—three packages, left at the door, three days in a row,” he corrected.

“But nothing for a couple of days.”

“Which means nothing,” he argued. “Until we know who is leaving the packages and their intentions, we have to be careful. We assume it’s Mike Patterson’s wife seeking vindication for her husband. We don’t know for sure. Either way, I’m working on the charity foundation for the kids, and we’ll take care of them. What their father did or did not become is not their fault. Once the charity is a complete go—which will be in the next day or two—we’ll pay their mother a visit. Until then, humor me. I’m having one of those male tough-guy mornings, so go with it.”

“You’re always having one of those male tough-guy mornings from what I can tell,” she commented.

“You’ll have to keep me around awhile to make that kind of statement stick.”

She cast him a sly look. “Maybe I’ll do that.”

Man, she knew how to light him up. “Maybe, huh?” he asked and started to reach for her. She opened the door and slid out of reach.

“Running again?” he challenged.

She peeked in through the door and pursed her lips. “I don’t run,” she said. “You’ll mess up my makeup.”

“Sounds fun,” he said, thinking of all kinds of wicked ways to achieve that goal.

“Not now, it doesn’t,” she said. “Not before work. There’s a coffee shop a few blocks away. Let’s go get a caffeine fix.”

He climbed out of the truck and met her at the tailgate. In her light blue suit with a slim-cut shirt and tapered-waist jacket, Sabrina was a better jolt awake than a whole pot of coffee. “Let’s skip the coffee and mess up your makeup.”

She shoved him playfully. “Behave.”

He pulled her close before she could stop him. “You’d rather I didn’t.”