“How about making a little noise?” Boone whispered to the woman on the bed. “You know, so the real bad guys will think you’re enjoying yourself?”

“I will not!” she said indignantly.

He grabbed her wrist, and she squealed. Then he dragged her closer, and she squealed again. “That’s good.”

But it wasn’t good. She was breathing hard, as if they were really making love. Her green eyes were fiery and latched to his. And he couldn’t stop wishing for what he was only pretending to do. “One more time, sugar.”

“Don’t call me—”

He hauled her off the bed so that she came to her feet and ran smack-dab into his bare chest. This time she screamed, and Boone let go of her.

She glanced up at him suspiciously.

He couldn’t resist. “Was it good for you, too?” he whispered.

Dear Reader,

The warm weather is upon us, and things are heating up to match here at Silhouette Intimate Moments. Candace Camp returns to A LITTLE TOWN IN TEXAS with Smooth-Talking Texan, featuring another of her fabulous Western heroes. Town sheriff Quinn Sutton is one irresistible guy—as attorney Lisa Mendoza is about to learn.

We’re now halfway through ROMANCING THE CROWN, our suspenseful royal continuity. In Valerie Parv’s Royal Spy, a courtship of convenience quickly becomes the real thing—but is either the commoner or the princess what they seem? Marie Ferrarella begins THE BACHELORS OF BLAIR MEMORIAL with In Graywolf’s Hands, featuring a Native American doctor and the FBI agent who ends up falling for him. Linda Winstead Jones is back with In Bed With Boone, a thrillingly romantic kidnapping story—of course with a happy ending. Then go Beneath the Silk with author Wendy Rosnau, whose newest is sensuous and suspenseful, and completely enthralling. Finally, welcome brand-new author Catherine Mann. Wedding at White Sands is her first book, but we’ve already got more—including an exciting trilogy—lined up from this talented newcomer.

Enjoy all six of this month’s offerings, then come back next month for even more excitement as Intimate Moments continues to present some of the best romance reading you’ll find anywhere.

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Senior Editor

In Bed with Boone
Linda Winstead Jones

LINDA WINSTEAD JONES

would rather write than do anything else. Since she cannot cook, gave up ironing many years ago and finds cleaning the house a complete waste of time, she has plenty of time to devote to her obsession with writing. Occasionally she’s tried to expand her horizons by taking classes. In the past she’s taken instruction on yoga, French (a dismal failure), Chinese cooking, cake decorating (food-related classes are always a good choice, even for someone who can’t cook), belly dancing (trust me, this was a long time ago) and, of course, creative writing.

She lives in Huntsville, Alabama, with her husband of more years than she’s willing to admit and the youngest of their three sons.

She can be reached via www.eHarlequin.com or her own Web site www.lindawinsteadjones.com.

This book is dedicated, with much love, to my New York friends. You’ve all been very much on my mind as I finish this story, and I continue to be amazed by your heart and courage.

For Matrice and Diane, Leslie and Lynda.

For Chris and Brooke and Tim.

For Joanna, Amy and Richard.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Chapter 1

A blind date was a sure sign of a life gone wrong. Jayne Barrington stared out the passenger-side window of the speeding Mercedes and wondered where her life had gone wrong. The Arizona landscape, so different from her Mississippi home, provided no answers. Giving in to the only sign of nervousness she ever allowed herself, Jayne fingered the pearls that hung at her throat.

She expected too much, she imagined. The kind of man she dreamed about was long gone. A gentleman. A gallant. A knight in shining armor. Those men didn’t exist anymore.

“I must’ve taken a wrong turn,” Jim said nervously. “Surely there’s a road that cuts through to the south. We’ll be at the party in no time at all.” The false note of cheer he tried to put into his voice didn’t quite work.

They hadn’t passed a house or a streetlight for miles. Jim had driven by the last gas station twenty minutes ago. When Jayne had suggested that he stop and ask for directions, he’d uttered a valiant rejection of her sensible idea. Men.

The car jerked as the narrow asphalt road ended and without warning they found themselves on what was little more than a dirt trail.

“Turn the car around,” Jayne insisted in her frostiest voice. “This road can’t possibly go anywhere.”

Jim leaned forward and craned his long scrawny neck to see over the steering wheel, peering at the small section of the road his headlights illuminated. “There’s a ditch on this side. I’m afraid if I try to turn around here, we’ll get stuck. Keep your eye out for a nice flat place to turn around.”

For the past half hour, everything had been flat! Jayne took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly. Pamela would pay dearly for setting up this disastrous date. Jim might be relatively handsome—but for that long and skinny neck—and he definitely ran in the correct social circles; but the man was dumb. Beneath that pretty face and the expensive dental work, he had fewer working brain cells than the average twelve-year-old. Jayne could abide many faults in a man, but stupidity wasn’t one of them.

They’d left Flagstaff two hours ago, eventually leaving behind the pine forests for stretches of flat land broken here and there by magnificent red rock formations and scruffy plants that fought to survive in the harsh dirt. They should have reached their destination more than half an hour ago, but she hadn’t seen any of the landmarks she’d been told to look for.

For goodness’ sake, they were completely lost!

“I think I see lights,” Jim said, a twinge of hopeful optimism in his voice.

Jayne looked ahead, and sure enough a soft glow broke the complete darkness of the night in the distance. Not enough to be the headlights of an approaching car or a house situated here in the middle of nowhere, but more illumination than a flashlight would give off. A distinct uneasiness settled in her stomach. Who knew what might be ahead?

“Perhaps you should just put the car in reverse and back up until we hit the asphalt, and then you can turn around,” Jayne said sensibly. “To be honest, I’ve developed a headache. Let’s forget the party. I just want to go back to the hotel.” Her father would be disappointed, but there was just so much a dutiful daughter could do to further a promising political career. Jim had been looking forward to the party at Hollywood producer Corbin Marsh’s secluded Arizona home. He had a notion that if Marsh got a good look at his pretty face, he’d soon be a star.

“Drive backward all that way?” Jim shot her an astonished glance. “It’ll be easier to just find a wide place to turn around. If we don’t come across a good spot by the time we get to whatever that light ahead is, I’ll try to back up.” He tried for a reassuring smile. “I was really looking forward to meeting Marsh, but if you insist, we can forget the party and go back to your hotel. I’m sure he’ll want to meet with you at another time, and I’ll just tag along then.”

No way was she inviting this moron into her hotel room, and this was definitely their last date. There was no way he would be “tagging along” with her anywhere! But now, while she was at his mercy practically in the middle of nowhere, was probably not the time to tell him so.

The glow ahead grew brighter, and soon Jayne was able to make out dimly lit forms moving about two cars that had been pulled off the road. Three or four powerful flashlights lit the night, illuminating the scene, a scene that struck her as not being quite right. Why were all those men out here where there was so much nothing? She didn’t like this; she didn’t like it at all. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. “Jim, just back up,” she commanded. Men usually listened intently to her commands, but not dim Jim.

“I’ll ask for directions this time. Guess I should’ve done that at the gas station we passed.”

“Guess so,” Jayne muttered, fingering her pearls almost furiously.

Jim pulled the Mercedes to a slow gentle stop in the middle of the road. He grabbed his keys, turned on the small flashlight that hung from his keychain and gave her a dazzling smile. “I’ll be right back.”

Just a few feet away, the six men huddled around the trunk of one car watched Jim step from the Mercedes. Jayne knew she was a bit of a snob; her mother had trained her well. But even if she hadn’t been such a self-confessed elitist, she would’ve felt uneasy at the sight of these six men.

All of them were dressed in jeans and T-shirts, and at first glance it seemed they all fingered or puffed on cigarettes. In this day and age, who smoked? One of the men had long greasy hair. The fidgeting kid beside him had either very short hair or none at all. The light was not good enough for her to be certain. The unusually tall man who stood beside the open trunk of one of the cars was so large that his rounded belly, tightly encased in a ripped Harley-Davidson T-shirt, hung in a distressing way over his low-slung jeans. Two of the men were more conservative in appearance than the others, looking almost out of place. Their jeans were pressed, their T-shirts were free of wrinkles and tucked into those jeans, and each of them had what could only be described as an executive haircut. They stood side by side, obviously together. The sixth man…the sixth man hung back a little, his face in shadow. But he looked as common as the others in tight jeans and heavy boots and a leather jacket. A leather jacket, at this time of year? The nights could become cool here, she knew, but late spring was definitely not the proper season for leather. Grandmother would call them all hooligans.

Jim shone his flashlight before him, checking the road for potholes as he called out a cheerful greeting. “Hi, fellas. I seem to have gotten myself lost…”

Jayne heard nothing more except a loud popping noise that made her jump. Jim crumpled to the ground before her eyes and disappeared from her limited view. She snapped her eyes to the crowd of thugs. The two more conservatively dressed men backed warily away from the others. The man with the long greasy hair calmly lit another cigarette and offered the pack to his bald friend.

The large man who had done the shooting waved the gun in his hand toward the thug in the leather jacket, who seemed to be arguing with him.

It took a moment for the information to register, for her heart to quit beating so fast that she couldn’t even think. They’d shot Jim. Shot him. Poor dumb Jim, whose only crime was getting lost on the way to Marsh’s vacation home, who was the worst blind date Jayne had ever suffered…who had taken the keys to the car with him.

The greasy-haired hood spoke softly and nodded toward the car, and the bald one headed her way. She had nowhere to run to, and even if she did, she wasn’t likely to get far in the high heels that matched her chic coral suit. She thought of kicking off her shoes and running in her bare feet, but she knew how rocky the land she’d have to run across would be. Her feet needed to be protected. She wasn’t going anywhere fast. Still, if she could manage to get lost in the darkness…

Before the hoodlum reached the car, Jayne threw open the passenger door and sprinted out. She ran without looking back, her legs a little wobbly on the uncertain terrain, thanks to her high heels. She was supposed to be at a political party, sipping wine and drumming up support for her father, not running from a murder!

The men behind her seemed to all shout at once, as Jayne ran farther and farther into the darkness. She didn’t know where she was headed, but she didn’t care as long as that place was away from the scene of the shooting. Behind her the gun fired again, and she actually heard the bullet zing past her ear. A man shouted, another yelled, a third howled like a wolf, and still Jayne ran without looking back. A car engine roared. She could hope that they would all leave, couldn’t she? They could take off, leaving her to disappear into the darkness.

No such luck. Long before she heard the heavy footfall behind her, she knew that running from the hoodlums was a hopeless cause. If they wanted to catch her, if they wanted to stop her, they could. Several of them were chasing her, or so it seemed from the sound of the approaching steps and the vile curses she heard muttered and shouted. A harsh voice ordered her to stop.

Her heart pounded so hard she thought it would burst through her chest. She couldn’t breathe, and her legs ached. Every step was perilous in the heels. But she was not going to stop.

Without further warning she was caught from behind. Arms snaked around her waist, snared her, held her, and with those arms on and all around her, she fell to the ground. She screamed breathlessly, and the man who’d caught her let out a loud whoosh as he landed practically on top of her. Since his arms were already completely around her, she was partially protected from her fall to the hard-packed ground. But still, it hurt.

Jayne closed her eyes, lost in darkness and the weight and suffocating heat of the man lying atop her. They were going to kill her, just like they’d killed poor Jim. Dammit, she would never forgive Pamela for this.

“On your feet, sugar,” the one who had caught her ordered.

He dragged her up, keeping his hand tightly around her wrist even when they were standing face-to-face. Well, her face to his broad chest was more like it. It was the hoodlum in the leather jacket who had caught her, and he wasn’t even breathing hard! She could barely catch her breath.

The man who had shot Jim raised his weapon and pointed it at her. Jayne closed her eyes.

“Put that down,” the man in the leather jacket ordered calmly. He took a step to the side, effectively shielding her. “Does she look like a fed? Does she look like some dealer who’s here to snatch your stuff? Hell, what we have here are two yuppies who have the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” He turned to face her again, and she had no choice but to see his stubbled jaw and cruel lips. And though she couldn’t see well in the dark, she sensed that the look in his eyes was accusing, as if this catastrophe was all her fault.

“Don’t matter,” the fat man with the gun in his hand said. “She’s seen us. Ain’t nothing else I can do but shoot her.” He sounded so matter-of-fact, so insanely logical.

The man who held her too tightly shook his head in what appeared to be dismay. His long dark hair swayed softly, his stubbled jaw clenched. And he muttered the most foul of words beneath his breath. The grip on her wrist was a vise she didn’t even try to fight. He jerked her around thoughtlessly, placing his body between her and the man with the gun. All the while he cursed, low and gruff. His body tensed; a muscle in his jaw twitched.

“I want her,” he growled.

The fat man lowered his gun. “You what?”

“I said I want her,” he repeated in an almost grudging manner. “We’ve been stuck out at that damn shack for over a month, and let me tell you, the women in that pisshole you call a town aren’t exactly up to my standards.”

Jayne panicked all over. “I’d rather die,” she said. She tried to jerk away from the man and attempted to kick him where it was supposed to hurt the most. She ended up falling, landing on her backside in the dirt. The grip on her wrist never let up.

The man who manacled her wrist turned his shadowed face toward her, leaned down and whispered, “Be careful what you wish for, sugar.”

Boone kept his body between the woman and the gun. She thanked him by kicking him in the knee with a pointy-toed shoe. He had a feeling she’d been aiming higher before she’d lost her balance and stumbled. The skirt of her obviously expensive suit rode high on her shapely thighs. Her knees knocked together and her toes pointed in, in a fashion that should have been comical but wasn’t.

Light from Marty’s wavering flashlight raked over the woman’s body. Soft, barely curling hair not much longer than chin-length brushed pale cheeks. That baby-fine hair was blond, he thought, but not golden. A touch of red made it brighter. Different. The pearls she wore around her neck were surely real and expensive, like everything else about her. Her suit was the color of an Easter egg, not pink and not orange, not pale and not bright. She was all creamy white and golden pink, and she was rightfully frightened half out of her mind.

Focusing on her gave him a moment to collect his thoughts, to still his racing heart. No one was supposed to die here. Tonight’s sale was to have been a simple exchange, a little business Darryl had to take care of before his next meeting with the man who ran things around here. Boone had had no choice but to tag along, taking mental notes, knowing that in less than a week this entire operation would be shut down. Just a few more days, and he’d be meeting the infamous Joaquin Gurza face-to-face.

“Watch your step, sugar,” he said as he hauled the woman to her feet.

“Do not call me sugar, you…you goon,” she said indignantly. Her honeyed Southern drawl reminded him of home.

He cast a glance at Darryl, the drug dealer who’d been so quick to pull his gun and fire. Boone cursed himself for not seeing it coming. He likely couldn’t do a damn thing about the man lying in the road, but he’d do his best to save the woman—if she’d let him.

“Well, then, what’s your name, darlin’?”

She hit him, hauling off and landing a pathetic punch on his upper arm. “My name is none of your business,” she snapped.

Darryl laughed. “Come on, Becker,” he said. “Have at her and then let me shoot her. She looks like an awful lot of trouble, and she’s got a big mouth.”

Boone placed his face close to the woman’s. “Sugar, your choices are limited,” he whispered. “You shut your mouth and stick close to me, or you end up like the man in the road.” Even in the dark he could see the new wave of panic that flitted across her pretty face. “Was he your husband?”

She shook her head.

“Boyfriend?”

She shook her head again.

He couldn’t afford to tell her too much, but he sure as hell couldn’t hand her over to Darryl. Marty and Doug, who looked on as if this was the most amusing scene they’d witnessed in a long while, weren’t much better. Nope, the woman was his responsibility—until he figured out how to get rid of her.

“No,” he said, his eyes on the woman, his words for Darryl. “I’m not going to ‘have at her’ and you’re not going to shoot her. It’s not going to be that easy.”

The woman’s lips trembled, and she lowered her eyes. Maybe she didn’t want him to see the fear that had to be there. Oh, God, he hoped she didn’t start to cry. He had no patience with weepy women.

“I’m taking her with me.” With that, he turned and headed back toward the car.

Darryl didn’t like the idea of taking the woman along, but he simply grumbled a curse and stuck his pistol into his waistband.

The buyers were long gone, having collected their purchase and taken off as Boone and the others chased the witness. They’d wisely left the money, neatly bound and stacked in a small suitcase, sitting in the trunk of Darryl’s car.

Boone sped up and headed toward the man on the ground. He moved so fast the woman he dragged behind him had to run to keep up. Every foul word he’d ever used came to mind. He muttered them all.

“You have a vulgar mouth,” the woman said primly, keeping her voice low.

“Yep.”

“A gentleman would never use such language in front of a lady.”

Boone stopped and stared down at the man who was sprawled on the ground by the Mercedes, taking everything in quickly. High-priced suit, gold watch, salon haircut. A perfect match for the woman at his side. He hated people like these. Holier than thou, too rich for their own good, always looking down their noses at the rest of the world. They didn’t deserve to get shot for it, though.

He didn’t have much time. Keeping a firm grip on the woman’s wrist, he dropped to his haunches and quickly rifled through the man’s pockets.

“What are you doin’?” Marty called.

Boone glanced over his shoulder. The kid who combed his hair with a razor was heading right for him.

“Checking the man’s pockets. He looks like he has money, doesn’t he?” With that Boone ripped off the watch and stuck it in his pocket.

The woman made a sound that was a tsk and a sigh and a grunt rolled into one feminine utterance, revealing her utter disgust with him.

Marty grinned. “Can I have the car?”

“No,” Boone said tersely. “It’ll lead the cops right to us.”

Doug came up behind his buddy. As the woman’s frightened eyes landed on him, Doug flipped his long hair like a vain woman trolling in a bar. “And she won’t?” he asked bitterly.

“I’ll take care of her,” Boone promised darkly.

Doug and Marty were not much older than twenty, neither was too bright, and they scared easily. All those facts had made Boone’s time here much easier than it might have been.

Still, no matter how dumb they were, he couldn’t finish what he had to do with them looking on. “Put the girl in Darryl’s car,” he said, offering her imprisoned arm to Marty. Just before Marty grabbed the woman’s wrist, he felt a deep tremble pass through her body. Sorry, sugar, he thought silently. I have no choice. “Touch her anywhere else,” he added darkly, “and I’ll kill you. She’s mine.” Marty’s grin faded rapidly, and Boone said, “I’ll be right there.”

Doug and Marty moved away, Marty with his hand gripping the woman’s arm, Doug quickly checking the front seat of the Mercedes. Darryl was occupied getting his money situated, which gave Boone the opportunity to place his fingers against the neck of the man on the ground.

He closed his eyes in relief. The man wasn’t dead. His heartbeat was strong and steady. What happened next was necessarily fast. Boone found the wound on the man’s side. It was nasty, but not fatal. He prayed the guy didn’t come to and start making noise. Darryl would finish the job if that happened.

Moving quickly, Boone removed the man’s jacket. In the process, he snagged the wallet—in case anyone was watching. The cell phone in the inside pocket dropped into his hand.

The jacket made an easy, quick, inadequate bandage. But it was better than nothing. Keeping his hands out of sight, Boone switched on the cell phone and dialed 911. He positioned the phone on the man’s chest, then concealed the phone with a flapping portion of the fancy jacket that he had fashioned into a bandage.

“Come on!” Darryl shouted, slamming the trunk of his car closed and heading for the driver’s-side door. Marty and Doug were already sitting in the back seat, the terrified hostage pinned between them.

There was no more time. If Darryl decided to come over and see what he was doing, the operation was finished. Done. Three months’ work wasted and someone dead. Either Darryl, or Boone himself and the woman.

Boone leaned forward and whispered, giving the 911 operator who had answered the emergency call the name of the road they were on. Nothing more. It would take them a while to find the exact location, but the delay couldn’t be helped. At least the man on the ground had a strong pulse and wasn’t bleeding too seriously.

“Hang in there, buddy,” he whispered.

He couldn’t afford to be caught. Not tonight. He hadn’t yet found the child the drug dealer Gurza had kidnapped, and until he did, nothing else mattered. Not this man and not the woman.

He shook his head as he strode away from the Mercedes and the man on the ground. Very faintly, he heard the tinny sound of the operator’s voice from the cell phone asking for more information.

What a night. A man shot, a hostage he was now responsible for…he was in too deep. Things were going very wrong, and once things started going wrong, they usually didn’t stop. They just got worse.

There was going to be hell to pay, but not until he found that kid and delivered him home.

Chapter 2

Jayne shook. She didn’t want the murdering kidnappers to know how scared she was, but no matter how she tried to stop the all-over shaking, it continued.

The two men who bracketed her stared straight ahead and didn’t acknowledge her presence at all, even though the three of them sat thigh to thigh in the rear seat of the dark sedan. They were obviously afraid of the one they called Becker, who kept casting dark warning glances into the back seat.

She might have been protected from the seedier side of life since birth and she was definitely frightened now, but Jayne had enough wits about her to be very well aware of what had happened. She and Jim had happened upon a drug deal. Just their luck. Of all the roads to get lost on, Jim had chosen that one. She sniffled, just a little, and fingered her pearls. Jim was dead, and she soon would be. Unless she found a way to escape.

Becker glanced into the back seat again, his eyes landing on hers briefly as they passed under a street lamp. Her mouth went dry. Her heart thundered. It took no imagination at all to realize what he wanted from her. He’d told his friends plainly enough. Her shaking got worse.

For a split second she thought she saw those dark eyes soften, and then they passed out of the light and his face was lost in darkness again. She shook her head. Any hint of softness she saw in that man was a hopeful illusion.

The car came to a stop in front of a ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere. A single low-wattage lightbulb glowed near the front door, lighting the less-than-illustrious dwelling too well. The gray paint on the walls was peeling, and the windows she could see had been covered in bedsheets, instead of curtains. There were no neighbors, but for the similar shack they had passed a mile or so back. And in truth, it had looked deserted.

She should be sipping wine at Corbin Marsh’s extravagant Arizona vacation home. Instead, she was…here.

By the time the bald thug exited the car, Becker was waiting for her. He looked none too happy as he offered his hand. Jayne refused to touch that hand as she stepped from the car. There was nowhere to go and she already knew she couldn’t run fast enough. Still, she glanced toward the gravel road.

“Don’t even think about it,” Becker said softly as he took her arm. “You wouldn’t get far.”

Because he’d shoot her? Because one of the other hoodlums would?

Jayne gathered every ounce of strength she had left and looked him in the eye. “Bully,” she said.

The other three laughed, but not Becker. The fat man who had shot poor Jim slapped his long-haired friend on the back. “I shoot her boyfriend, and you drag her back here to have your way with her, and the worst she can come up with is ‘bully’?” He snorted like a pig.

Jayne was tempted to look the fat man in the eye and deliver a criticism in his direction…but she didn’t. Becker scared her, but the man who had shot Jim and threatened to do the same to her terrified her beyond reason. She sensed that if she kept her eyes and attention on Becker, she might get through this.

They were all thugs, but the one who had claimed her as his own seemed to be the most intelligent of the four. Maybe when they were alone, she could reason with him. Offer him money to get her out of here, safe and untouched. Her father could and would pay anything to rescue her. Could Becker be bought? And if so, how much would it take?

She was led to a side entrance, where no light burned. As soon as the bald young hooligan threw that door open, she could tell that the interior of the shack was worse than the exterior. She would have thought that impossible. Becker led her through the door and into the kitchen. Fast-food bags and beer cans littered the floor, and the counter and sink were stacked high with dirty dishes. She had to step over a discarded pizza box as Becker dragged her through.

“Hey,” one of the younger criminals said as he followed them in. Jayne looked over her shoulder and saw it was the kid with the long greasy hair. “I wouldn’t step on your toes or anything,” he continued, grinning at Becker. “But maybe when you’re through with her, the bitch could clean this place up a bit.”

Jayne’s eyes shot fire at the kid.

“Clean it up yourself, Doug,” Becker said without looking back.

Doug’s smile died quickly, and he scowled at Becker’s back.

The living area was no better than the kitchen. More fast-food wrappings and beer cans littered the place, appropriate accompaniment to newspapers, a canted couch and a couple of chairs that looked as if they might have been retrieved from a trash pile. A small television sat on a table against one wall. No cable, she noticed, just a rabbit-ear antenna. A new fear gripped her. If they found out who she was, who her father was, would they decide to hold her for ransom? Or would they panic and dispose of her as quickly as possible?

Becker led her into a narrow hallway carpeted in faded and stained green. No matter how hard she tried to calm herself, nothing worked. Her heart pounded, her breathing was shallow, her knees shook. She found herself hanging back, fighting against Becker’s grip as he opened a door and dragged her into what appeared to be a bedroom. Behind her, she heard the two younger criminals laugh again.

With one last yank, Becker dragged her all the way inside and slammed the door shut. Her first thought was that at least this room was cleaner than the rest of the house. The double bed had been hastily made, there was no garbage on the floor, and the single narrow window was actually covered with a curtain, not a sheet.

“Sit down,” Becker ordered softly.

The only place to sit was the bed. Jayne shook her head in silent refusal.

Becker leaned in closer, just a bit. The dark of night had shadowed much of his face, but the uncovered lightbulb that burned overhead illuminated every detail. Dark-brown eyes that held no laughter. A sharp jaw dusted with dark stubble and softened by the long dark-brown hair that fell over his shoulder. A long, perfectly shaped nose, a wide, perfectly shaped mouth. A big gun shoved almost carelessly into the waistband of his jeans. “Sit,” he whispered.

Jayne sat. She perched on the side of the bed with her hands in her lap, her spine rigid and her knees together. “My father will pay a lot of money to get me back, unhurt and, uh…” She swallowed hard. Untouched. She couldn’t say that out loud, but surely he knew what she meant.

Becker paced by the side of the bed, staying between her and the door, running his hands through his hair and pushing the long brown strands away from his face. He kept his eyes on the floor, and occasionally he glanced at the door. Only once did he look at her, and when he did he shook his head and groaned low in his throat before casting that dark gaze to the floor again.

Finally he stopped pacing and stood before her. Close. Too close. And she had nowhere to go.

Boone stared at the girl on the bed. What the hell was he going to do with her?

“What’s your name?” he asked.

She flinched. “I’m not telling you anything,” she said frostily.

He almost smiled. She should be crying, hysterical, terrified, but she still had the guts to look at him coldly. She couldn’t hide the way her hands and knees shook, though. “Well, then, I’ll just call you sugar.”

She pursed her lips. “Jayne,” she said.

“No last name?”

“Not that I’d care to share with you.”

He leaned forward and down. “Don’t play hardball with me, lady. I’m your only chance of getting out of here alive.”

She swallowed, sending that slender, pale throat working in interesting ways.

In the hallway someone snickered. Doug or Marty…probably both.

Boone sighed. “Give me your jacket,” he ordered.

“I will not.”

He slipped off his leather jacket and placed it on the end of the bed, pulled off his T-shirt and tossed it atop the jacket. He drew the Colt pistol from his waistband, looked at the weapon, looked at the woman, then quickly went to the closet and placed the pistol on the top shelf. He didn’t think Jayne would actually try to shoot him, but until they got things straightened out here, he couldn’t be sure—and she wouldn’t be able to reach the top shelf without a ladder or a chair. Neither was handy.

That done, he waggled his fingers at her, silently asking again for the jacket to her expensive suit. She stubbornly lifted her chin and shook her head.

“I’m not going to touch you,” he said through clenched teeth. “But I need that damn jacket.”

She sniffled and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Fine,” he said. “We do this the hard way.” He sat beside her and grasped one wrist in his hand. She fought a little, but not very hard.

“Get your hands off of me,” she said loudly, slapping at his hands.

In the hallway, another giggle.

Finally, after just a little wrestling, he had the jacket in his hand. He shook his free finger at her. “Now lie down and be still.”

“I will not.”

Boone closed his eyes and shook his head. “This is not going to work.”

“No, it’s not,” she agreed.

Boone left the bed and went to the door, opening it on two grinning young thugs. “What the hell are you two doing here?” He shook the jacket as he spoke. They looked past him, no doubt to see a red-faced Jayne sitting on the side of the bed, her hair mussed and her blouse halfway untucked.

“There’s nothin’ else to do around here,” Doug said. “Ain’t you finished yet?”

“Some of us like to take more than three minutes with a woman, kid. Get lost. If I see either one of you near this door or that window,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, “I’ll shoot you.”

“Maybe you oughtta tell her that,” Marty said with a lift of his chin.

Boone turned around to see that Jayne stood at the window, tugging frantically at the lower frame. He closed the door and leaned against it, watching her with a shake of his head.

“It’s painted shut,” he informed her.

She gave one last tug and spun to face him, her eyes red and her cheeks flushed. It hit him, for the first time, how very small she was. Not thin, but short—no more than five foot two—and delicately shaped. Beneath the hem of her straight skirt was a pair of nice legs. Up the length of her body she sported easy curves.

“We need to talk,” he said softly. “Sit down.”

She shook her head.

“Please,” he said, calling on every little bit of patience he had left. “Please sit down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I imagine you think I should be flattered,” she said, trying to sound strong and falling far short. “Am I supposed to be grateful?”

“Well, you would be dead right now if not for me. A little gratitude can’t be too much to ask,” he said in a low voice. His response did nothing to soothe her. She brought a hand to the pearls at her throat, and her breathing changed, became more rapid. He did not need her passing out on him! Calming himself, he raised both hands, palms out. “I swear, I’m not going to touch you. You’re safe with me. Now sit on the bed.”

She moved warily away from the window, and he stepped into her place, making certain the curtains were tightly closed. He didn’t need anyone peeking in, and warning or no warning, he wouldn’t put anything past Doug and Marty. When he turned around, he saw that Jayne had done as he asked and was perching prettily on the edge of the bed.

“We need to talk,” he said, “but first…”

Her eyes grew wide as he stepped around her to the head of the bed, gripping one corner of the headboard in his hand. He sighed tiredly. How to explain? Best just to do what he had to do.

While Jayne sat warily on the side of the mattress, Boone banged the headboard against the wall. Once. Twice. A third time. He waited a moment, then began again, in a steady rhythm this time. Eyes pinned on the woman, he banged the cheap headboard against the wall over and over.

“You could help,” he whispered.

She shook her head. “Help with what?”

“Make a little noise. Pretend to be enjoying yourself.”

“I will not,” she said indignantly.

With his free hand, Boone reached out and grabbed Jayne’s wrist. As he’d suspected she would, she squealed. He smiled. “That’ll do.”

Jayne clamped her mouth shut and pursed her lips. Oh, she was cute when she got mad. Of course, she’d been mad since he’d met her. Mad and scared.

He sped up the rhythm of the headboard banging against the wall. “Do it again,” he ordered in a whisper.

“No, I wo—” At an insistent tug that dragged an unwilling Jayne closer to the head of the bed, she squealed once more.

Oh, this was not good. The way he was holding her made her creamy blouse hug her breasts. She was breathing hard, the way she might if this was not pretend. Her fiery green eyes were latched onto his. And the banging of the headboard reminded him of what he was pretending to do. The rhythm, the shaking of the bed… “One more time, sugar.”

“Don’t call me—”

He hauled her off the bed so that she came to her feet and ran smack-dab into his bare chest. This time she screamed. Boone whacked the headboard against the wall three more times for good measure, and then he quit.

Jayne glanced up at him, suspicious and still frightened. But then, they hadn’t had their little talk yet, so she was less than fully informed.

“Was it good for you?” he whispered.

In answer she slapped him across the cheek, hard and solid.

Jayne realized, as the sound of the slap reverberated in the air, that she should not have hit him. Still, she wasn’t sorry.

He laid a big hand over the red mark she’d made on his face. “Sit,” he said.

She did, and again he paced in front of her. She wasn’t as afraid as she had been. He had only pretended to…well, he’d pretended, and he said they needed to talk. About what? Ah, likely he was interested in her offer of money from her father.

“My daddy will pay you anything…”

“Let’s leave your daddy out of this, shall we?” Becker said testily. “I’m trying to figure things out.”

“Figure what out?”

“What to do with you, sugar.”

Jayne bit her lower lip. There were worse things to be called than sugar, she supposed.

Finally Becker stopped pacing and stood before her, bare-chested, bigger than most men, all muscle and hair and tight jeans and penetrating eyes. There was something intimidating about him. Something intense. Of course he was intimidating!

“Can I trust you?” he asked, the question seeming to be more for himself than for her. “God, what a mess.” He then began to mumble a string of profanity that had Jayne blushing.

“Do you mind?” she finally asked.

“Do I mind what?”

“Don’t curse.”

He actually grinned. “We are in so much trouble I can’t see a way out, and you’re worried about my language?”

“There’s no reason to be crude.”

“Sugar, crude is my middle name.”

Jayne wrinkled her nose. “That doesn’t surprise me.”

Becker sat beside her, and Jayne scooted away. But she didn’t jump up, which had been her first instinct. If he had planned to hurt her, he would have done so by now. Still, she felt too small sitting next to him, and a little distance wouldn’t hurt.

Voice lowered, Becker leaned close. “I’m here undercover.”

A surge of relief washed through her. “Oh, thank God. DEA? FBI? You must have some way to call in backup or something, right? There are probably a bunch of agents out there in the dark, waiting for your signal so they can storm the house. Right?”

He laid dark eyes on her and sighed. “No backup. I’m a private investigator, and I’m here on my own.”

Her relief was short-lived. “No backup?”

He shook his head.

Jayne was determined to make the best of the situation. “But you’re not one of them, not a…a bad guy, and you can get me out of here, right?”

“Eventually.”

“What do you mean, eventually? Those men killed Jim, and they almost killed me—”

“Your friend’s not dead,” Becker interrupted. “He’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. But I need a few more days.”

She shook her head. “But—”

“I’m not going to blow three months of work just to get your pretty little ass out of here.”

“But—”

“Don’t ask me to throw away everything I’ve done to this point because you were foolish or unlucky enough to stumble onto Darryl’s drug deal.”

“Can’t you sneak me out of here and make it look like I escaped?”

Becker shook his head. “I don’t think so. Darryl would come after you for sure. If I keep you close, if we…make them think you don’t mind being close, I think I can keep you alive until I’m done here.”

“You think? How comforting.”

“It’s the best I’ve got right now.”

She studied his face for a moment, the lines and the tense set of his jaw. Should she tell him who her father was? Maybe not. Wouldn’t make any difference, and he might think she was trying to use the family name to get him to change his plan and get her out of here tonight, his three months’ work unimportant in the light of her father’s public and political stature.

“Is Becker your real name?”

He shook his head.

“Are you going to tell me your real name?”

He sighed. “Boone, but don’t use it outside this room. For the duration, I’m Richard Becker.”

“Is Boone your first name or your last?”

“Does it matter?”

Jayne sighed. She could feel her body relaxing, unwinding, ratcheting down. She’d survived. With this man’s help she’d continue to survive. “I’d like to know.”

“Boone Sinclair, private investigator, ma’am.” He offered his hand.

Jayne cautiously took it. “Jayne Barrington.”

The threat momentarily gone, Jayne saw Boone in a whole new light. The strength that had been menacing became consoling. His dark good looks were suddenly interesting, rather than intimidating. They shook hands briefly, Boone’s big hand gentle around hers, the contact unexpectedly comforting.

“Jim’s really not dead?”

Boone shook his head. “Darryl winged him. He’s lost some blood.” A smile flitted across a hard face. “I think your friend fainted.”

A shiver worked down Jayne’s spine. “I thought he was dead.”

“Don’t worry,” Boone growled. “You’ll be out of here and comforting him in no time.”

She shook her head. “No. In truth, I barely know Jim.” She settled her eyes on his, dark and deep and unreadable. “Blind date.”

“How did you end up on Springer Road?”

“We were on our way to a party and got lost.” She couldn’t believe her luck. If Boone Sinclair hadn’t been there, if he hadn’t rescued her, she’d be dead now. Her grandmother would say that Boone was an angel sent to save her. That it had been no accident that he’d been there, working undercover. She smiled.

“What are you grinning about?” He dipped his head and looked into her eyes. “You’re not going to lose it on me, are you?”

Jayne shook her head. “No. It’s just that…you don’t look at all like an angel.”

“Trust me,” he said in a low voice. “I’m not.”

She tried not to stare at his bare chest. He didn’t seem to mind at all sitting here, half-naked, broader and more muscled than an ordinary man. “What are you doing here? I didn’t know private investigators could do undercover work.”

That got a half grin out of him. “I didn’t say it was legal.”

Jayne pursed her lips slightly. As a politician’s daughter, she’d lived all her life under a microscope. Every detail, every decision, every move properly scrutinized. She couldn’t even leave the house without carefully checking her clothes, makeup and hair. To disregard the law with a smile…she couldn’t even imagine.

Boone frowned. “I see you don’t approve.”

“It’s just…I’m sure you have your reasons.” In truth, she didn’t care why he was here. Just that he was.

“I do.”

Jayne sighed. Boone had been honest with her. It was the least she could do for him.

“My father—”

“Can’t we leave Daddy out of this?” Boone said again.

Jayne looked him in the eye. “I don’t think so.” He waited for her to continue. Eyes steady, chest bare, dark hair hanging over his shoulders. “My father is a United States senator. From Mississippi,” she added. “Augustus Barrington.”

He remained silent.

“Jim and I were on our way to a party given by a potential supporter who might go a long way in aiding my father financially should he decide to run for…a higher office.”

Boone didn’t so much as move. Did he even breathe?

“My disappearance is going to cause an uproar,” she went on. “A big one. My father will do his best to get every government agency available on the job. So we have until morning. Maybe.”

Boone ran one hand through his hair and let loose with an even viler string of profanity than before. He didn’t look at her, but stared at the floor and the wall and the window as he cursed.

“Mr. Sinclair,” she chided softly, censure in her soft voice, “do you mind?”

He fixed his gaze on her again and responded succinctly with the most foul of forbidden words.

Jayne tightened her lips. “You know, there are other words you can call upon when you’re upset.”

“Really,” he drawled.

“Darn or drat or a good doggone work just as well.”

He grinned at her, insolent and amused. And again muttered what seemed to be his favorite word.

“Or fudge,” she said lightly. “I have, on frustrating occasions when no one is about, muttered an ‘oh, fudge’ myself.”

“Oh, fudge,” he growled.

“See?” She smiled. If nothing else, she did know how to get men to do as she wished. It was a gift. “That works just fine, doesn’t it?”

Boone left the bed quickly, his back to her as he retrieved his T-shirt. Good! He was going to get dressed. As fine a specimen as he was, his bare chest had become quite distracting.

“Here,” he said, turning and tossing the garment to her. “Put this on.”

Jayne caught the shirt, then held it cautiously between two fingers. “I’m perfectly comfortable in my own clothes, thank you. Besides—” she sniffed “—you’ve worn this, and it hasn’t been washed.”

Boone pressed the bridge of his nose between two fingers, as if he had a headache coming on. “In less than a week I should be done here. Three months of work, down to a matter of days, and now this. I can keep you alive, but you have to listen to me. You have to let me do what I do best.”

“What’s that?” Jayne whispered.

“Lie.” He dropped his hand and glared at her. “As far as Darryl and those two idiots of his are concerned, you and I are hot and heavy.”

“Hot and heavy?” She took an unsteady breath. “You just…you dragged me away from the car back there…and you kidnapped me. What kind of woman would willingly become intimately involved with a man who literally dragged her to his…his cave as if she were nothing more than…”

Boone’s raised hand silenced her. “I know,” he said. “But we’re looking for two things here. One, we want to keep them away from you.”

Jayne shuddered.

“You wear my clothes, you stick close to me at all times, we spend a lot of time right here in this bed.” He took an unsteady breath of his own. “You’re mine. We make it clear that you’re mine. The guys know that if they try anything funny, they’ll have me to contend with.”

And Boone Sinclair looked as if he would be awe-inspiring to contend with.

“Two, we want to keep you alive.”

“Definitely.” Jayne nodded emphatically.

“If they think you’re going to keep trying to run away, one of them is going to get antsy and…do something drastic.”

Kill you. Boone didn’t say the words, but Jayne knew what he meant.

“So you stick to me,” he said, as if he didn’t like the idea at all. “You lie low, keep your mouth shut, and in a few days I deliver you home.”

She still didn’t know why Boone Sinclair was here. He could get them both out of this horrible place whenever he wanted, she had no doubt of that. So why didn’t he? What was so important that he would risk both their lives? “You never did tell me why you’re here,” she said softly.

“No, I didn’t.”

“If I’m going to have to…pretend to like you and all that, shouldn’t I know?”

He pinned his eyes to hers again. Oh, he had a way of looking at her that made her arms tingle and her toes curl. She unconsciously raised her arms to hug herself, to chase away the unexpected chill.

“No,” Boone finally said, and then he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

Chapter 3

A night of sleeping on the hard floor did nothing to improve Boone’s disposition. He had planned to ask Jayne if she minded sharing the bed—platonically, of course—but she’d been sound asleep by the time he’d returned to the room last night. Asleep! She either trusted him completely, a frightening possibility, or she had no self-preservation instincts whatsoever. Neither option was good.

If she’d come awake in the middle of the night and found him sleeping beside her, she probably would have come off the bed screaming. Which wouldn’t have necessarily been a bad thing, now that he thought about it. The occasional cry in the night was probably expected.

He rolled up and peered over the edge of the mattress to find Jayne still sleeping. She hadn’t put on his T-shirt as he’d told her to. She slept in a silky white slip. He hadn’t known women still wore slips! All he could see of the undergarment were the straps, one of which had fallen off her shoulder, but last night he’d caught a glimpse of white against the thigh that had escaped from beneath the sheet on his bed. He’d covered that thigh, feeling a little guilty for enjoying the sight so much, and Jayne hadn’t tossed the covers off in the night. If anything, she caught the covers to her more tightly and securely than she had last night, hiding there beneath white sheets and the twisted green comforter.

As he watched, her eyes fluttered, opened, latched onto his and went wide with terror.

Jayne Barrington, demure Southern belle and his unwilling hostage, sat up, bringing the sheet with her. “Oh, no, it wasn’t a nightmare,” she said breathlessly. “You’re…you’re real.”

“Not the response I usually elicit from women I spend the night with,” Boone grumbled.

She took in the makeshift pallet on the floor, and her frightened expression softened. “You could have slept on the couch in the other room.”

“You could have left room for me on the bed, so I wouldn’t have to sleep on the…darn floor.”

Her lip actually curled. “I don’t think so.”

Annoying as she was, the girl recovered quickly. “So, what’s next?”

“Make me breakfast?”

She looked as horrified as she had at the prospect of sleeping with him. “I don’t cook!”

“Of course you don’t,” he muttered, coming to his feet.

She quickly covered her eyes. “You’re naked!”

“I am not!” Boone glanced down at the underwear he wore, a pair of baggy silk boxers that were, by his standards, modest.

She did not drop the hand from her eyes, protecting herself from the sight of his scantily clad body as she continued in a much calmer voice. “Nearly naked. Don’t you have a pair of pajamas?”

Boone stared at her and shook his head. “No.”

“Maybe you could get some.”

He laughed at the absurdity of the suggestion. “I don’t think so.”

Jayne sighed and finally lowered her hand, but she didn’t look at him. Her eyes were turned to the window and the morning light that broke through the sliver of a part in the curtains.

Boone heard a footfall in the hallway outside the bedroom door. When he raised a finger to his lips, Jayne nodded her head and pursed her lips. She was spoiled and rich, a debutante who had no business here, but she was quick, he’d give her that.

He grabbed the corner post of the headboard.

“Not again,” Jayne whispered.

Boone shrugged and began to rock. Jayne lay down on the bed and covered her face with the sheet, squealing softly but appropriately when he reached down to pinch her lightly on one gently curving, sheet-covered shoulder.

Jayne had brushed off Boone’s suggestion that she wear one of his T-shirts and cinch up an old pair of cutoff denims, and dressed in her own clothes. Blouse and skirt, anyway, and shoes. No hose, no jacket, but she had retrieved her pearls from the bedside table and put them on, and she’d brushed her hair. Fortunately one of the hooligans had collected her purse from the Mercedes. Her cell phone was gone, of course, but she had her own brush, as well as a small amount of makeup. Very fortunately the criminal who had reached into the car for her purse hoping for a nice wad of cash hadn’t recognized the name Barrington on her driver’s license, a name her father had made well-known. In truth, she had done nothing on her own accord but to uphold the family name and play hostess for the sociable Senator Barrington when he asked it of her.

She plopped a large plate of bacon and eggs on the kitchen table, and the four men present stared suspiciously at the offering.

“The bacon’s not done,” Marty grumbled.

Doug picked up the strip nearest him, an almost black piece of bacon that had gotten away from her and turned dark before her very eyes. “This one is.”

“Bacon’s not good for you, anyway,” Boone said as he reached for the spoon Jayne had left in the scrambled eggs, took a huge spoonful and dropped it onto his plate.

Darryl grumbled, but he filled his own plate, too, and the four men began to eat. They each took a bite. Three men spit half-chewed eggs back onto their plates.

Boone swallowed, grudgingly. “Sugar, hand me the salt.”

“Salt!” Jayne said, turning around and heading for the kitchen counter. “I forgot all about the salt.”

“We figured that out for ourselves,” Doug said under his breath.

“There’s no need to be rude,” Jayne said as she placed the saltshaker on the table, directly in front of Boone. “I’m not a cook, you know. If you don’t like what I made for breakfast, you can just quietly walk away and either go hungry or make your own breakfast.”

Darryl, the man who had shot Jim, narrowed one eye. He still gave Jayne a major case of the shivers. She didn’t think it was simply his large size that frightened her. He’d shot and intended to kill Jim; he would have shot her without a second thought, without a twinge of conscience. Boone she could handle; the boys who giggled like teenage girls when they thought of sex she could handle. But Darryl…Darryl was much too frightening for her to even consider handling.

“If she’s going to stay here, she’s going to pull her weight,” Darryl said.

“She will,” Boone replied. Without warning, he grabbed her and pulled her onto his knee. “She does,” he added suggestively.

Jayne tried to stand; Boone held her in place. She knew what he was doing and she knew why. That didn’t mean she had to like it. “Not now,” she chided. “I have dishes to do. The kitchen is a mess.” She tried again to stand, and got only a few inches off his knee before he pulled her down again. She landed with a thump on his rock-hard thigh.

“I didn’t bring you here to do dishes,” he said in a voice low enough to be meant for her alone, loud enough to carry to the other three, who ate newly salted eggs and picked at their bacon looking for properly cooked segments. “Doug and Marty can do the damned dishes.”

“Don’t curse,” she said primly.

Boone tightened the arm that encircled her waist and pulled her back. “Don’t tell me what to do.” With that, he nudged aside her hair and pressed his lips to her neck. She couldn’t help it; she let out a squeaky breathless cry.

Doug giggled. “She is a squealer, ain’t she, Becker. Doesn’t that get on your nerves? All that howling?”

“No,” Boone responded, his mouth still against her neck.

“I really should do the…” Something wet trailed across the back of her neck. His mouth…his tongue. “Dishes.”

Jayne wasn’t tough, she wasn’t prepared for a situation like this one, and yet at the moment she felt as if she had absolutely no control. None. The world was spinning, she didn’t know what would happen next…and she was just along for the ride. She hated that, rolling along with no say in the matter, a man’s hands on her body and his mouth on her neck giving her inappropriate and unexpected and unwanted chills. Another man watched, ready to kill her at the slightest provocation. Two other brainless hoodlums looked on, amused.

Boone said that what he did best was lie. It was a game. A deadly one, but a game all the same. If she was to play, perhaps she could gather her wits and play. What would it take to garner a bit of control? Some semblance of order?

She grasped Boone’s wrist and forcefully moved it aside. She stood, removing her neck from his lascivious attentions. When he reached out, she very deftly moved out of his way.

“For goodness’ sake,” Jayne said as she took a step that carried her just out of his reach. “You are incorrigible.” They were supposed to be intimate, and while she knew very little about intimacy, she did know that the woman in such a relationship possessed a power of her own. “All night,” she said, turning to face Boone as she backed toward the sinkful of dirty dishes. “And into the morning. What do you think I am? A…a…” She didn’t have to work hard to manufacture a sniffle. “You should be able to keep your hands to yourself for five minutes. Five minutes! Is that too much to ask?”

Boone lifted two finely shaped dark eyebrows. “You didn’t complain last night.”

“I did!” she said indignantly. Then she remembered his words, what it would take to keep her alive, and she blushed. “At first.”

“This is better than a soap opera,” Doug said with a grin.

“Do the dishes,” Boone finally said, his voice low and his eyes dark.

“You do the dishes!”

“I thought you wanted to do the dishes!” Boone sounded truly frustrated.

“God, now they sound like my parents,” Marty said with a shudder, pushing away from the table.

Darryl slowly rose to his feet, shook his head, clenched and unclenched his meaty fists. Doug popped up, too, not wanting to be left behind.

Marty, still shaking his head, left the kitchen and headed straight for the television in the connecting living room. “Hey, maybe the news about that guy Darryl shot will be on TV!” Darryl and Doug followed.

The expression on Boone’s face changed subtly, darkening. “You missed the morning news.”

“Yeah, but the one station we get kinda clear has an update at ten.” He glanced at his watch. “Just a couple of minutes.”

With his hands positioned so that no one else could see, Boone motioned to Jayne. She had no idea what he was trying to tell her, but she did know one thing: they didn’t want these guys to know that Jim was alive or that she was a senator’s daughter.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he said sharply. “You think what happened last night will keep you alive? Piss me off and you’re history, just like your boyfriend.”

Sure enough, a curious Marty glanced into the kitchen. Doug wasn’t far behind. Darryl remained firmly planted in front of the old television, waiting for the update.

“You wouldn’t dare,” she said frostily. “Not after…you know.”

“Sex,” Boone said. “You can’t even say it!” He launched into a tirade, using every foul word she had ever heard and some she hadn’t.

“You…you crude bully.”

As it had last night, the word bully made Darryl laugh. But he didn’t move away from the TV.

“I can be cruder and I can be meaner,” Boone promised.

“Impossible.”

The teaser about the news update came on, sending a shiver down Jayne’s spine. They had a minute, maybe less.

Boone crossed the room and swept Jayne off her feet. “Fight me,” he whispered as he hauled her up and tossed her over his shoulder.

She did, kicking, beating ineffectually against his back with her fists as he carried her into the living room.

“Can’t you do better than that?” Boone whispered.

She tried, but she wasn’t a violent person. As Boone carried her through the doorway into the main room, where Darryl sat before the television, she fought as best she could, feet and hands flailing. “You…you un-civilized brute!”

“Last night you seemed to like that about me, sugar.”

“Don’t call me sugar.” She glanced up to see that the two dim-witted criminals grinned, while a disgusted Darryl shook his head in wonder or dismay. Maybe both.

“I’ll call you whatever I want to call you.” Boone put Jayne on her feet between Darryl and the TV, raising his voice. “Don’t forget who you are, or how you got here, or that I might get tired of you at any moment and then you’ll be in a world of trouble.”

Jayne placed her hands on her hips. “You wouldn’t dare! Not after…not after…” She stopped and gave Boone an exasperated huff. Darryl leaned to one side as the newsbreak came on. With an outraged cry, Jayne turned and gave the television a shove. It wobbled backward, finally falling from the unsteady stand and crashing to the floor with a spark and a puff of smoke. The screen went black.

“I can’t believe you’d say that to me, not after last night. You said…you said…”

The three other men gathered around the remains of the television as Boone grabbed Jayne and pulled her against his chest. “Now, sugar,” he said in a soothing voice, “don’t get all upset.”

Jayne hid her face against Boone’s chest. Oh, Darryl would be furious, but what else could she have done? Pushing the TV off its stand had seemed like a good idea at the time. Now she wondered.

“Becker,” Darryl said slowly, “your woman just broke my TV.”

“I’ll buy you a new TV. That one was a piece of crap, anyway.” Boone’s arms protected her as he brushed off Darryl’s complaint.

“How am I supposed to watch my soaps?” Marty asked, not quite as outraged as Darryl, but definitely unhappy.

“Soaps are for old women,” Boone growled. “You’ll survive a few days with no TV.”

Jayne chanced a quick glance at the three men. None of them were happy with her at the moment. She’d made a lousy breakfast and broken their television. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I just got so upset…” The tremble in her voice was not manufactured; it was very real. She returned her gaze to Boone. “You can be so mean.”

He lifted her off her feet and spun her around. “I know how to make you feel better.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“But, Boo…”

He shut her up by laying his mouth over hers. Immediately she knew why, and even though she had insisted on knowing, for a split second she wished Boone had never told her his real name. Would she always remember to call him Becker when the others were around? If she forgot in a moment of anger or forgetfulness, it could mean death for both of them.

It wasn’t a real kiss, but a necessary caution. Still, his mouth was nice and firm, sweet and gentle. She had a feeling that when Boone really kissed a woman, he did it right.

He took his mouth from hers, a warning gleam in his eyes.

“But, BooBoo,” she said when she could speak again, hopefully covering her mistake. “I still haven’t done the dishes.”

“Marty!” Boone yelled. “Do the damned dishes.”

BooBoo! Oh, this was bad. “BooBoo?” he asked, hands on hips as he glared down at Jayne, who sat on the side of the bed looking composed, calm, perfectly in control. One foot rocked, drawing his eye to her shapely ankle.

“It’s no worse than sugar.”

“Yes,” he insisted with a nod of his head, “it is.”

He didn’t let on that his heart was still hammering. He had thought about shooting the television and then trying to pass it off as a rash moment of rage, but Jayne’s seemingly impulsive shove had worked much better. But for how long? They would meet with Gurza in four days. Four days, after three months of undercover work! And one wrong word could blow it in a heartbeat.

“I shouldn’t have told you my name,” he said in a low voice.

Her face softened. “I know but…I’m glad you did,” she whispered. “It makes me feel so much safer.”

She wasn’t safe, not at all, but he didn’t bother to tell her so.

Boone moved to the head of the bed and grasped the post in his hand.

Jayne sighed. “Not again. This is so embarrassing.”

Boone ignored her and began to shake the bed. The springs squeaked. Jayne covered her face in her hands.

“Come on, sugar,” Boone said softly. “Help me out here.”

For a moment she did nothing. Then she dropped her hands from her face, looked him in the eye and gave a little hop that made the bed squeak even more. “Why Becker?” she asked as she gave another little bounce. “Is that like a middle name? A family name?”

Boone leaned down, placing his face close to hers. “Rhymes with my favorite body part,” he whispered.

She screwed up her nose. “Becker? Becker doesn’t rhyme with…” Suddenly her face turned red. “That’s disgusting!” she said, her voice rising slightly.

He grinned. “Say that a little bit louder.”

“I will not,” she said primly.

He began to bang the headboard against the wall, faster and faster, harder and harder. “Moan,” he whispered.

“I do not moan,” she said, her Southern accent deepening as she protested.

“You poor thing. I guess I’ll just have to pinch you again to make you squeal.”

“That won’t be necessary.” She looked away from him, squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. And then she made some kind of noise. It wasn’t a moan or a squeal. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was.

“If I can barely hear it, they can’t hear it at all.”

She snapped her head around and glared at him. “You know, I’m sure there are women out there who make love silently.”

“I’ve never met one.”

“You’re vile.”

“You’re a prude.”

It was the wrong, or perhaps the right thing to say. Prude was an insult Jayne took personally, and her response was apparently going to be to prove him wrong. She closed her eyes, tossed back her head and moaned. The sound was low, long and real enough to make Boone’s insides tighten. Her soft voice was the kind that might creep under a man’s skin if he went for her type. Which he didn’t.

Jayne took a deep breath and moaned again, louder this time. Boone tried to convince himself that Jayne Barrington was not his type at all. He liked his women with long dark hair, long legs and plenty up top. Not gentle, delicate curves, but prodigious breasts that made a man’s eyes pop out of his head when the woman walked into a room. He shook the bed harder, faster, his eyes on Jayne.

Head back, throat bared, mouth slightly parted, she was a fascinating sight, with her creamy skin and reddish-gold hair and soft lips. Her throat was nice and long, he noticed. Shapely and delicate, like the rest of her. His body began to respond. Enough was enough.

“Scream,” he whispered.

She laid those green eyes on him and glared. “Maybe I’m not ready,” she mouthed.

He grinned and reached for her with his free hand.

“Okay,” she said softly, scooting away from him. She closed her eyes again, took a deep breath and screamed. Loud and long. Boone banged the headboard a couple more times, for good measure and then stopped. Thank God. He really couldn’t take much more of this.

“Not bad,” he said as he sat beside Jayne on the side of the bed. He took a deep calming breath. “Who were you thinking of when you let loose?”

She looked him in the eye. “Not who, what. Snakes.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly. “Snakes?”

“I’m terrified of snakes,” she said with a shake of her head and a shudder that seemed to rack her from head to toe. “And I don’t care if they’re poisonous or not. I hate all snakes equally.”

“Why?”

Her eyes met his. “I don’t have to have a specific reason,” she said. “A lot of people hate snakes.”

Boone waited a couple of minutes before leaving Jayne, shaking his head as he stood. It had been a pretty damn good scream.

He wasn’t terribly surprised to find a scowling Darryl waiting at the doorway between the hallway and the television-less living room. Marty and Doug were nowhere to be seen, but as he glared at Darryl, Boone heard laughter from the kitchen and then a splash of water. The boys were doing the dishes.

“I don’t get it,” Darryl muttered, his hard eyes on Boone and his arms crossed over his massive chest. “It doesn’t make any sense. You hauled that woman here last night because you wanted her in your bed. She was none too happy about the idea at the time, as I remember. And then this morning she’s calling you BooBoo and screaming her head off. Something stinks.”

Boone grinned. “What can I say? I’m good.”

Darryl was not impressed.

Boone’s grin faded. “She’s a society sweetheart who’s been handled with kid gloves all her life. Nobody’s ever touched her right, nobody’s ever made her scream. Since she’s never had one before, she thinks an orgasm means she’s in love. Three or four and we’re soul mates. Don’t worry about Jayne. I can handle her.”

“What are you going to do with her when we’re through here? I can’t have her coming to her senses and talking about what happened last night.”

“She won’t.”

“You can’t be sure…”

As far as Darryl knew, Richard Becker was a badass drug dealer from Atlanta, looking to move up a notch in the world. An association with Joaquin Gurza would make that happen. Thanks to big brother Dean—who was a deputy U.S. marshal and had all the right connections—and Detective Luther Malone, Boone had the background to make this cover tight. Airtight. Boone would protect Jayne Barrington with his life. Richard Becker wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who got in his way.

“When I’m finished with Jayne,” Boone said tightly, “I’ll take care of her. She’s the one with the illusions, not me. You have nothing to worry about.”

Darryl nodded, slightly mollified. “Glad to hear it.”

Boone headed past Darryl, intent on the coffeepot on the kitchen counter. He had to keep Darryl and the boys away from the news for the next four days. Could he do it? If Darryl found out that the man he’d shot was alive and that Jayne was a senator’s daughter, he’d panic and insist on doing away with her immediately. And since Boone had told them all that Jayne’s friend Jim was dead, Jayne would likely not die alone.

If they got that far, how was he going to get Jayne, the kid and himself out of here alive?

His life and his mission had just become very complicated.

Chapter 4

Jayne lay back in the bed and stared up at the ceiling. A shower had helped her to feel a little better, but still she wished for a change of clothes—her own clothes—as well as underwear, a soft nightgown, her hair dryer, and an entire package of chocolate-chip cookies. The soft ones.

She hated being shut up alone in this room, but it was better than facing Darryl and his two brainless accomplices. Even with Boone beside her—and when she left this room, he was always beside her, even going so far as to stand guard at the bathroom door while she showered—she was afraid of those thugs.

Earlier today Darryl had suggested that they turn the doorknob on this bedroom around so that they could lock her in and she couldn’t lock her BooBoo out. Boone had hated the idea, and she didn’t blame him. If they turned the doorknob around, Darryl would be able to lock them both in if he was of a mind to, and with the window painted shut, they’d be trapped. She had no doubt that Boone could get past the flimsy lock on the door, but reversing the knob would also mean that they couldn’t lock the others out at night. That would never do.

Boone had told Darryl that no locked door could keep him out. After that, it hadn’t been mentioned again.

Low voices drifted to her from the living room, where the four men had gathered to discuss business. She caught enough words to understand they were talking about drugs, money, some kind of meeting.

She couldn’t help but wonder why Boone was here. He wasn’t DEA, he wasn’t official law enforcement of any kind. So what was he doing here undercover, and what was going to happen in less than a week?

Jayne pulled the comforter to her chin and tried to melt into the mattress. The news of her disappearance had probably reached her parents hours ago. Her mother would be frantic. Lucille Barrington was not a particularly stalwart person, and she had always been a little overprotective of her only child. Her doctor would have given her something to help her rest, Jayne supposed, as he had when Grandpa passed away. Lucille Barrington suffered as a Southern woman should—acutely, and in the privacy of her luxurious bedchamber. Jayne loved her mother dearly, but under certain circumstances the woman could be somewhat melodramatic.

The senator, however, was not a man to sit around and worry, and if any physician had dared to try to give him something to help him rest, he’d probably break the poor man’s arm. He had doubtless called in favors, Jayne knew, marshaled the troops, spent the afternoon on the phone shouting and cajoling and doing everything humanly possible to get his daughter home safely.

Grandmother would be praying and cooking. Whenever she got anxious, Myra Jayne Barrington went to the kitchen. During the last senatorial campaign, she’d fed not only her son’s entire hometown staff, but a lot of the reporters, as well. By now she was probably feeding the entire town.

Boone said he needed less than a week. She didn’t think they had even two days.

When Boone returned, locking the door behind him, Jayne breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn’t help it; she felt better when he was near.

He was quieter than usual as he sat on the bed to remove his boots and socks. His clenched jaw did nothing to make her feel safe.

“Do you have a cell phone?” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he replied absently.

Thank goodness. “I just know my parents and my grandmother are worried sick.”

“Scoot over,” Boone said, lying back as if he actually intended to sleep here beside her.

Her first impulse was to give him a gentle shove and refuse to scoot over. But if she was about to ask him for a favor, maybe that wasn’t the way to go.

She scooted. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“I’m not sleeping on the floor again,” he said, stretching out beside her. “I’ll stay on top of the covers, you stay beneath.” A grin flashed across his face. “That way I can be sure you’ll keep your hands to yourself.”

Jayne moved to the edge of the bed, giving the big man all the room he might need. “Won’t you get…cold?” She had been surprised by the night’s chill in this part of the country. Back home, May was warm. Some days felt almost like summer. Here the days were pleasant, but when the sun dropped, it was very clear that winter had not fully departed.

Boone turned his head to look her in the eye. “Are you asking me in?”

Jayne’s eyes went wide, and her heart thumped hard. “No! Of course not.”

“I didn’t think so.” He rocked gently and the old bed squeaked.

Not again. “I need to call my mother,” Jayne whispered.

“Sorry,” Boone said as he rocked again.

“But—”

“We can’t take the chance,” he said, before she even had a chance to present her argument. He continued to move in a manner that made the bed rock and squeak. “You might be overheard, the call might be traced, and cell phones are notoriously insecure. Besides, my cell company doesn’t even have service out here. We’d have to swipe Darryl’s phone, and trust me, that’s not a good idea.”

“Boone,” she whispered, pleading.

He rotated his head and looked at her again. “Shouldn’t you be moaning by now?”

“No!” she whispered. “I’m quite sure I should not.”

“A nice loud yee-haw, then,” he suggested with a grin.

“I do not yee-haw,” she said primly.

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Boone’s grin faded. His eyelids seemed to grow heavy.

Boone rocked so hard the headboard banged against the wall. And again. He moved faster, harder, and a mortified Jayne, who did not think she could watch this indecent display any longer, tried to turn away from him.

And rolled off the bed. She squealed and landed on the floor with a thud.

The gyrations of the bed came to a sudden stop, and a moment later a grinning Boone glanced over the side. “Well, that was different. But okay. The guys will just think we had a quickie.”

“That was not…” Jayne began, and then she pursed her lips. She considered sleeping on the floor herself tonight, but there was a draft. It was cold down here! Boone offered a helping hand, which she ignored. His grin faded and he stared at her, his expression hard and dark.

The fall must have addled her brain. Jayne suddenly realized that she was lying on the floor wearing nothing but her slip and panties, and in the fall the slip had ridden up high on her thighs. “Do you mind?” she said coolly, fluttering her fingers in Boone’s direction.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” he said, deepening his Southern accent and shifting away.

Jayne gathered what was left of her dignity and crawled back beneath the covers, while Boone remained on top. As soon as she was situated, he sat up and pulled off his black T-shirt.

“It’s awfully chilly to be sleeping without…something on.”

He tossed the shirt aside and lay back down. “I’ll be fine. Nice of you to be concerned for me, though.” There was just a touch of sarcasm in that last sentence.

At least he kept his jeans on. When he reached over and turned off the bedside lamp and they were left in darkness, Jayne breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe if she didn’t have to look at him, she wouldn’t be so…so distracted.

“I’m not being silly in wanting to call my parents,” she whispered.

“I know. They’re bound to be worried.”

“That’s true, but I’m also anxious about what my father might do. If this area is overrun with federal agents, army, navy, marines…”

“Navy in Arizona?” Boone asked, humor in his deep voice.

“Probably,” she said softly.

“We’ll be fine,” he assured her.

How could she tell Boone that if he got killed or hurt because she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time, she’d never forgive herself? There was more than one danger to worry about. If Darryl found out who she was and that Jim had survived, they were both in trouble. If they actually did get out of here and Boone was mistaken for a kidnapper, he might be dead before she had a chance to explain things.

Apparently Boone didn’t want to talk anymore. Just as well. The man confused her. He looked like a criminal, he cursed too much, he was crude and wicked. But he was also one of the good guys. An angel. A modern-day knight.

More than that, he was sexy as all get-out. The smile, the eyes, the body. A quickie? She knew what a quickie was, thank you very much. Her one sexual experience had lasted less than two minutes, and it had been painful and unpleasant. She hadn’t minded at the time, because she’d thought the man who had asked her to marry him actually loved her, and that things would get better with time.

But she and Dustin Talbot hadn’t had time. She’d found out too soon that the only reason he’d asked her to marry him was that he had political ambitions, and being married to Gus Barrington’s daughter would be a real boost for his career.

Since her recovery from that disastrous encounter, she’d been cautiously guarding her heart and waiting. Waiting for the perfect man to come along. Waiting for her knight in shining armor to appear.

She might occasionally think of Boone as a kind of errant knight, but he was far from perfect.

Maybe she’d waited too long. She was twenty-seven years old, and no man had ever made her moan or shake or shout yee-haw.

As Jayne drifted toward sleep, she chastised herself. She’d be lucky to survive the coming days, and here she was worried about her sex life! Or lack thereof.

But once, just once, she’d like to shout yee-haw.

Boone awoke slowly, reluctant to return to the world of the waking. He’d feel better if he didn’t have to sleep at all, at least not on this job. He didn’t trust Darryl. And Darryl didn’t trust anyone.

There were four of them living in this shack, five if you counted Jayne, and yet there was only one working cell phone. Darryl’s. One car. Darryl’s. This shack was well off the beaten path, and whenever anyone needed to go to the nearest poor excuse for a town, usually for food or beer, he was not allowed to go alone. They traveled in pairs, always.

Setting up his cover here had taken time, but thanks to Dean and Luther, he’d had the paper trail and the contacts to make it work. An introduction from a snitch who hadn’t yet been retired or caught had brought Boone, as Richard Becker, into the circle that Darryl ran and worked. And Darryl was his only key to finding Gurza.

As he came fully awake, Boone realized he was warm. Very nicely, unusually warm. Jayne was using his chest as a pillow. Her head rested over his heart, and one arm was draped around him. She breathed deeply and evenly, and had thrown the covers off so the sheet was partially twisted around both of them. Most of the green comforter had fallen off the foot of the bed.

He should think of Jayne as nothing more than a nuisance. That was all she was. She had stumbled onto something ugly, and in doing so she’d complicated an already difficult job. That aside, Jayne Barrington was everything he didn’t like in a woman. Petite. Classy. Spoiled. Prudish. Rich. Dainty.

It was this make-believe relationship, he supposed, that made him occasionally look at her and wish that some of what he pretended was real.

He touched Jayne’s red-gold curls and gently shifted her head. Comfy as this was, it definitely wasn’t a good idea. “Wake up, sugar,” he whispered.

She murmured against his chest, wriggled a little and didn’t wake up.

His physical reaction to finding a half-dressed, pretty woman clinging to him in the morning, especially when he hadn’t had sex in months, was completely natural, he was certain. Perfectly understandable. Somehow he had to get this woman off him. Now.

“Jayne,” he said a little more loudly, patting her on the back this time.

She stirred finally, lifting her head to look him in the eye, whispering, “Yee…,” before coming fully awake.

Realizing where she was, Jayne rolled quickly away. “How dare you?” she asked in that prim voice she used when she was really annoyed.

“Pardon me, miss priss, but you will notice that I’m on my side of the bed and have been all night.”

She had no argument for that.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said as he left the bed. “You probably just got cold.” Or lonely. “No big deal.”

“Sorry,” she said softly.

Darryl was probably already up and about. Maybe the boys, too. He really should grab the headboard and shake the bed and tease Jayne until she squealed. But he couldn’t. No way. Not now. He grabbed his pistol from the bedside table and stood. “I’m going to take a shower.” A cold one. “Lock the door behind me. Don’t let anyone in but me.”

“Don’t worry,” she muttered.

Once he was in the hallway, he listened until he heard the lock turn. He knew Jayne wouldn’t open that door to anyone but him, but still he rushed through his shower. One way to get his mind off inappropriate speculation was to get his mind back on business.

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