Driven by Fire (Fire 2)

His old T-shirt clung to her, and a bloody stain was spreading from her bra into the white fabric. For some reason he’d had no idea how curvy she was beneath those businesslike suits she wore like Southern armor. He had a hard time dealing with Southern women—the charm seemed to cover a deadly determination, though in most cases it was simply a lethal determination to get their own way.

The woman in front of him had succeeded, as she presumably knew she would. He made a noncommittal sound. “That’s why we don’t like having guests. But don’t worry, Parker,” he said, his use of her name deceptively friendly, “you’ve won this round. We’ll keep the two of you here for the time being until we ascertain whom that shot was meant for. In the meantime your little one is already settled in”—at least he hoped she was—“and I’m taking you home to get your things.”

She bristled immediately. “I don’t need anyone to take me home, Mr. Ryder. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of it myself. And you’re mistaken—I’m not staying here. I have a perfectly good house, and there’s no reason why anyone would have shot at me.”

“Yeah, that’s what the bullet graze on the side of your head is saying.”

“No one wants to hurt me. It’s Soledad they’re after, not me. I told you she needed protection. I’d rather have your resources spent on her than wasting your time with me.”

“And what makes you think I give a shit about your preferences?” he said.

She gave him something just short of a glare. “Then surely you can send someone else home with me if you’re suddenly smitten with concern for my welfare.”

“No one else is available,” he said with a blatant disregard for the truth. “Your waif is under lock and key, and the sooner you can get your things, the sooner I can dump you and get back to my work.”

“I’m fine on my own,” she said, and he controlled his instinctive snort of exasperation. Of course she’d be convinced she was safe, no matter what she was hiding. Her old man, Fabrizio, would make certain she was protected at all times. So much for turning her back on the family business, which was all well and good until she needed protection or a favor.

They wouldn’t provide protection from him. There was something going on with her, something inexplicable. The tension between them was palpable, but it wasn’t simply a matter of dislike. More women than he could remember despised him—some he’d wanted, some he hadn’t—but there was a hidden thread of . . . something between them, something he didn’t want to look at too closely. There was definitely more to her than met the eye. For all she looked like an auburn-haired pixie, he wasn’t fooled into thinking the surface had anything to do with the real woman inside. She had secrets, and he never trusted a woman with secrets. Especially not the daughter of one of the most corrupt political families he’d ever seen.

He didn’t have time to waste on her. She probably wasn’t a major player, and the sooner he could clear her, the sooner he could get back to business.

Giving her a deliberately impatient look, he started forward. “You coming?”

“What makes you think it’s safe to walk out the front door? Your enemies might still be out there.”

He mentally counted to ten. “We haven’t decided whether they were shooting at me or you or your supposedly endangered waif, which is why we’re holding on to both of you. Once we know she’s safe we’ll get her settled in some anonymous city, and she can go on to live the American dream. In the meantime our computer hacker is checking the surveillance tapes in the live feed. The facial-recognition software should give us an answer sooner or later, and in the meantime Jack will let us know if the coast is clear.”

“Isn’t that rather a lot for one man?” she said caustically.

“You haven’t met Jack. And you’re not about to, either. And that’s the last question I’m answering. Where are your bloody clothes?”

“I tossed them,” she said. “Soledad told me it was impossible to get blood from silk.”

Ryder paused. “What bothers me,” he said meditatively, “isn’t that she knew about field dressings and bloodstains, but why the hell should she know about silk? Hardly your common jungle wear in Calliveria.”

There was only the faintest movement of her long eyelashes, but he realized the same thing had occurred to her. No dummy was his Miss Parker.

Not his, and he sure the hell didn’t want her. He just wanted her sorted out and gone.

“If I have to be escorted home, couldn’t your computer guy take me?” she said.

“He’s busy.” Not a complete lie, but he’d sent Jack off on diddly-shit missions like this before. He could have taken care of this one with no difficulty, but Jenny Parker was his job, not Jack’s. “Look, if it makes you happy we’ll go out through the basement.”

Ms. Parker made a long-suffering sigh. “Let’s just get it over with. My head is killing me, and all I want to do is lie down in a darkened room and sleep.”

He frowned. “You think you might have a concussion?”

“No! It was just a graze, and I certainly don’t need someone hovering at my bedside, waking me up every few hours.”

“I wasn’t offering.”

She gave him that haughty look she’d perfected. Usually he liked cold women who were completely secure with who and what they were. Not Ms. Parker, but then, her self-assurance was only skin-deep. “Good,” she snapped. “Your job is to take care of Soledad, my job is to take care of myself, which involves a long nap in my own house.”

“Dream on.” He put his hands on her when she headed for the front door, and apart from yanking her arm away from him and glaring at him, she didn’t let out a peep. She didn’t even remember her waif until he’d shepherded her next to one of the sleek, low-slung cars in the basement garage.

“I didn’t say good-bye to Soledad.”

“That’s all right, one of my people will explain everything.”