“We’re Here, Sleeping Beauty. Wake Up.”

Once, twice…Julie’s lashes fluttered open on the third try. “Why are we sitting here with the car idling?”

“We’re waiting for the door to open.”

“Well, it’s not opening. The electronic beam must be…” Her voice trailed off as she exchanged a look with Billy. “There is no electronic beam, is there?”

“No, ma’am. We’re slumming it. It’s manually operated.”

She climbed out of the car, then lifted the heavy aluminum garage door as if she had been doing it all her life. She whirled toward Billy and clapped enthusiastically for herself. “It was easier to deal with than the rotary phone,” she called out. “I have great potential for becoming an ordinary woman.”

“Not a chance, lady,” Billy whispered, unable to take his eyes off her. Her magnificent eyes were flashing, and her lavish smile was enough to break a former undercover cop’s heart….

Dear Reader,

Welcome to the world of Silhouette Desire, where you can indulge yourself every month with romances that can only be described as passionate, powerful and provocative!

Popular author Cait London offers you Gabriel’s Gift, this April’s MAN OF THE MONTH. We’re sure you’ll love this tale of lovers once separated who reunite eighteen years later and must overcome the past before they can begin their future together.

The riveting Desire miniseries TEXAS CATTLEMAN’S CLUB: LONE STAR JEWELS continues with Her Ardent Sheikh by Kristi Gold, in which a dashing sheikh must protect a free-spirited American woman from danger.

In Wife with Amnesia by Metsy Hingle, the estranged husband of an amnesiac woman seeks to win back her love…and to save her from a mysterious assailant. Watch for Metsy Hingle’s debut MIRA title, The Wager, in August 2001. Barbara McCauley’s hero “wins” a woman in a poker game in Reese’s Wild Wager, another tantalizing addition to her SECRETS! miniseries. Enjoy a contemporary “beauty and the beast” story with Amy J. Fetzer’s Taming the Beast. And Ryanne Corey brings you a runaway heiress who takes a walk on the wild side with the bodyguard who’s fallen head over heels for her in The Heiress & the Bodyguard.

Be sure to treat yourself this month, and read all six of these exhilarating Desire novels!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

The Heiress & the Bodyguard
Ryanne Corey

www.millsandboon.co.uk

RYANNE COREY

An author of bestselling romance novels, Ryanne Corey lives in Idaho in the shadow of the Teton Mountains, “the best place in the world to write and write and write.” She has written over twenty novels and is recognized for the true-to-life humor and sensuality of her characters. She has received several awards over the past few years, including the Romantic Times Magazine Best Novel and Lifetime Achievement Awards. She has long believed that life is too serious to be taken too seriously. In her writing she enjoys creating appealing and amusing characters that take their first breath on page one, endearing themselves to the readers long after the book is finished. “For me,” Ryanne says, “bringing a smile to someone’s face is what life is all about.”

Nothing is more satisfying to her than hearing from readers who share her enjoyment of “love and laughter.” You can write to her at P.O. Box 328, Tetonia, ID 83452. Please include a SASE if a reply is desired.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

One

This job was cake.

Billy Lucas lay stretched out on the bed, a banana Popsicle in his hand and three sinfully comfortable feather pillows behind his back. The Popsicle and the pillows were perks of the job. Ask for anything you need, Harris Roper had told him.

Being Billy, he’d taken advantage of the offer. Besides, there was a lovely Latin maid who hustled over from the kitchen whenever he ordered food. She spoke no English, but had beautiful black eyes and giggled whenever Billy winked at her. Whatever it took to draw a woman’s attention, Billy had in spades. It was a gift he had enjoyed thoroughly in his life, but never abused. He respected women deeply, but had little regard for his own ability to make a lasting commitment. Life was far too interesting to settle down in the suburbs. Even the thought made him shiver.

His room had originally been intended for a chauffeur, or so he assumed. He had not been born into the Palm Beach set, but rather into the crime-ridden Oakland, California, set. They didn’t have apartments for the chauffeur where he grew up. They had bars on the windows and jagged broken bottles topping cinder-block fences. The fine art of staying alive had kept him on his toes, however. Never once in his thirty-three years had he felt the boredom he’d seen on the faces of these poor Palm Beach trust-fund babies.

And he knew what he was talking about. There were five separate camera monitors mounted on the ceiling above his bed. One gave him a panoramic view of the front of the pink-tiled palace, another covered the walk-way leading to the guesthouse. One covered the west side of the guesthouse, another the east side, which included the garage. And the last camera—his personal favorite—gave him a close-up of Julie Roper’s front door.

For nearly two weeks now, he had watched Julie’s comings and goings night and day. On the rare occasions when she went out alone, he was an invisible shadow. Once, very late at night, he’d followed her down to the beach, watching from the redwood dock as she’d skipped barefoot through the surf. She’d actually skipped, like a child who could hardly contain her own energy. He’d known then she was one lady he would never be able to predict, which made the job all the more interesting. She had pure class written all over her. Her shoulder-length hair was dark blond, artfully streaked with platinum, and whenever she walked, her shoulders were thrown back and her head held high. Billy had never seen an actual princess, but he imagined princesses would walk something like Julie Roper did. She dressed with the classy nonchalance of someone who could afford the best, but who put on the first thing in her closet and forgot about it. She was small, with fine bones and a look of fragility, which he was beginning to suspect might be deceptive. For whatever reason, she chose to live in the small guesthouse rather than the palatial main house. He was having a hard time getting a fix on her personality, which was very unusual for Billy Lucas. He was famous in his humble circles for being able to predict someone’s next move with uncanny accuracy, but little Julie Roper kept him guessing. A gazillion-dollar heiress skipping through the surf? A woman who chose to live in a cottage rather than a palace? A woman who was terribly easy on the eyes, yet had no dates beyond an occasional evening with a stocky fellow who looked like a marine sergeant? No kisses, no cuddling, just a bear hug at her door.

And speak of the devil…

Billy perked up, watching as she emerged from the stucco monstrosity he had dubbed the Palm Beach Hilton. Her short white-sequined dress, slim-fitting but modest, sparkled as she strolled down the well-lit pathway to the guesthouse. She walked slowly, as if she had no place to go and all the time in the world to get there. Her head was down, her hair obscuring the expression on her face. Even her posture looked different, more brokenhearted than cool and composed. Her small figure looked incredibly defenseless, a little blond angel framed on either side by hedges of vibrant tropical blooms.

Something was wrong.

Change camera. She walked slowly to her front door, motion-sensitive lights keeping her well-illuminated. She punched in a security code beside the door, then disappeared inside. The windows of the cottage lit up one by one.

Shirtless, his longish dark hair tumbled, he sat up on the edge of the bed. His heavy-lidded blue eyes took on a new intensity as he kept them on the camera. He might not be able to predict Julie Roper, but he knew when trouble was brewing. That talent had kept him alive and almost in one piece after working the gang unit in Oakland for eight years. Three puckered scars on his back from bullet wounds gave witness to his survival instinct. Another jagged scar on his abdomen above his low-riding jeans was a memento of his one and only stab wound. It was a sad fact, but most everyone on the streets, good guys and bad, had guns these days. His third trip to the hospital had resulted in a medal of valor and an early retirement from life as an undercover cop. He hadn’t minded. He’d known for some time he was pushing his luck. Besides, he liked the idea of setting up a little security business for himself. There was very little chance of being shot while baby-sitting the rich and the paranoid.

Billy watched Julie’s shadow crossing back and forth behind the blinds of the bedroom window. Suddenly, she was moving quickly, as if now she had a purpose. Billy shrugged on a flowered shirt and started putting on his runners, never taking his eye off the cameras for more than a few seconds at a time. What are you doing, little sister?

And then he had his answer. The garage door opened, spilling a square of light on the driveway. Billy stood up and grabbed for his wallet, watching as Julie’s Porsche backed out at thirty miles an hour, tires squealing. The lady was in a hurry. This was no midnight visit to the beach.

Billy knew his Rent-a-Wreck would have a tough time keeping up with the Porsche, particularly with an emotional blonde driving the fancy car. He grabbed his cell phone and sprinted out of the apartment like a bat out of hell, with no time to obey Harris Roper’s number-one rule of little sister surveillance: Call me immediately if anything unusual happens.

Billy could take the time to call Harris and risk losing his charge, or follow Julie and call Harris ASAP.

Some decisions practically made themselves.

For Julie, it had started out as an ordinary, yawn-stifling evening. Harris had thrown one of his exclusive parties, inviting the few acquaintances he deemed suitable to associate with his sister. Her brother had terribly high standards, and none of his friends were particularly outgoing. Still, they could all trace their ancestry back to the May-flower, and each and every one was on the Forbes 500 list of wealthiest people. As usual, the party had turned out to be very small and very subdued. The ladies congregated on the sofa, keeping their legs crossed and their hands folded modestly in their laps. The gentlemen were gathered at the mirror-backed bar, drinking little but gazing often at the splendid figures they made in their designer tuxedos. The one exception to this was Beauregard James Farquhar III, a Palm Beach trust-fund baby who sat next to Julie, stood next to Julie and walked beside Julie the entire evening. He was a long-time friend of the family, a man Harris deeply respected for his financial acumen, impeccable manners and doggedly patient character. He looked like a tennis pro, with tanned skin, a perfectly trimmed blond crew cut and a square face that always reminded Julie of a young Ted Kennedy. Beau had returned from a wine-and-spirits tour of Europe that very day, a good ten pounds heavier than when last she’d seen him. He’d proclaimed himself “frightfully happy” to see Julie; indeed, he had been frightfully happy to see her on each and every occasion since Julie could remember. He was completely devoted to her and had been since she was eighteen. She had managed to keep him at arm’s length until she returned home from college a few months earlier. Prior to his leaving for Europe, he’d been constantly underfoot, rather like a co-dependent housepet. Julie knew it was only a matter of time before Beau asked her to marry him. Her twenty-third birthday was hanging on the horizon like a dreadful storm cloud. Beau had hinted that this year her special day would be truly a monumental occasion. He had also asked her ring size. Julie had suffered from a nasty case of hives ever since.

Although it was not yet 10:00 p.m., Julie was wrestling with an overriding urge to take a nap in the middle of Harris’s party. The pianist her brother had hired for the evening was like a musical sandman, playing “Somewhere over the Rainbow” ever so softly. She sat on the sofa next to Beau and tried to appear interested in his detailed description of a smooth yet complex little cabernet he’d discovered in Italy. Unfortunately, Beau knew his wines, and could go on forever rhapsodizing about the subtle integration of aromatics and tannins. Julie had fallen asleep twice, her lolling head connecting painfully with the carved sofaback. Finally she’d pleaded a headache and politely excused herself from the festivities.

The urge to sleep left her the moment she walked into the small guesthouse she called home. Away from Beau, the pianist and all talk of financial dealings, she was suddenly wide-awake and positively smoking with restlessness. She decided to take her Porsche out for a spin before bed. She didn’t bother changing from her evening dress, although she did lose the panty hose and exchange her high heels for a comfortable pair of high-top sneakers. She looked utterly ridiculous but felt more comfortable than she had all evening. Besides, no one would see her. More than likely, Harris wouldn’t even know she had left the grounds.

She drove mindlessly, enjoying the cool air on her flushed cheeks and pondering the strange culture of the well-bred and confused. She’d mingled with Palm Beach’s finest families sporadically throughout her life, yet she always felt like a stranger in their midst. Six months earlier, she had graduated from a private women’s college, and now poor Harris didn’t know what to do with her. The two jobs she’d had since then had lasted four weeks and four days, respectively. First, she’d given in to Harris and accepted a job on the board of Roper Industries, doing what seemed to her absolutely nothing for an obscene amount of money. She had traveled to work with Harris, had lunch with Harris and traveled home with Harris. By week four she was bored to tears and told Harris she thought her destiny lay elsewhere. On her own, she had found a job as a personal shopper at a terribly chic oceanside boutique. It wasn’t something she wanted to make a career of, but she thought it might keep her occupied while she tried to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. Unfortunately, the self-absorbed clientele, set hours and lack of challenge was worse than working at Roper Industries. She was “voluntarily unemployed” after only four days. Harris was becoming more and more concerned about her future, and he made no secret of that fact. He was a dear soul, but a chronic, intense, agonizing worrier. Julie had been seven years old and Harris only twenty-one when their parents had been killed in a sailing accident. Julie thought of them often, remembering sparkling, beautiful people full of love, laughter and spontaneity. She had no idea how two such oddball personalities as Harris and herself had emerged from the family gene pool. Harris had done his best for her through the past sixteen years, but his responsibilities had been terribly heavy for one so young. He obsessed over her welfare as he obsessed over the management of the family fortune. Julie hadn’t realized just how much it had all worn on him until she’d returned from college. Suddenly he looked far older than his thirty-seven years, with shadow-rimmed blue eyes, pale skin and shoulders that hinted at weariness. Julie had tried to make him understand she wasn’t his responsibility any longer, but Harris continued to worry himself to death when it came to her safety and security. The Roper mansion might have some forty-odd rooms, but Julie was plagued with overwhelming claustrophobia. Harris was here, there and everywhere, forever anxious and apprehensive. It had taken Julie months to talk him into allowing her to move from the main house to the guesthouse. Two weeks earlier he had positively stunned her by finally giving his permission. This had given her hope that someday she would be able to actually move off the grounds…until Beau had made it clear it was only a matter of days until he popped the big question. Julie had listened with barely disguised horror, visualizing a helium balloon going boom.

Seeking advice on the best way to let Beau down, she’d approached Harris on the subject. His reaction had been uncharacteristically vehement. Although he didn’t go so far as to actually raise his voice, he demanded to know how long Julie was going to skim the surface of life like a paranoid butterfly, never committing to anything or anyone. She couldn’t do any better than Beau, and he had certainly proven himself to be truly devoted. She had to dedicate herself to something someday. Why not now? Why not a fine, decent fellow like Beau?

Why not indeed? Julie thought. Beau certainly wasn’t the man she dreamed of, but the faceless fantasy she had visualized probably didn’t exist. Each night in her dreams her imagination went for a walk and came back with a mysterious, thrilling superhero who inspired a great deal more than respect. Logically, however, she knew Beau Farquhar would never mistreat her, and he’d proven long ago he was hopelessly devoted. The man was steady, persistent, kind, persistent, good-natured and persistent. He was also persistent. Why not indeed? Poor Harris had worried himself sick over her welfare too long as it was. She wasn’t particularly interested in getting married nor was she particularly determined to stay single. Quite honestly, she wasn’t particularly focused on anything. The death of her parents at such an impressionable age had left Julie emotionally scarred, wary of attachments which could result in vulnerability. Harris had been the only constant in her world. She loved her brother deeply and would do almost anything to repay him for all the sacrifices he had made on her behalf. She had been his responsibility for far too long.

And so it came down to this: realistically, she knew there was very little chance of her falling head over heels in love. She truly believed it was an impossibility, given her own fear of caring too deeply for anyone or anything. Beau was a good man who knew her well and expected very little. Harris obviously thought the match was made in heaven. If he thought it was the best thing for her, it probably was. Heaven knew Harris deserved a life of his own. He would never concentrate on his own happiness until Julie’s welfare was secured.

She continued driving for well over an hour. She didn’t care where she was going, she only knew she had to be someplace else. Eventually she lost the lights of the city, finding herself on a narrow two-lane road crowded on both sides with thick cypress. It was too dark to see anything beyond the shadows of foliage surrounding her. The air grew heavy and wet, as if she were heading into a swamp. She’d never been in an actual swamp before, but the word alligator kept popping into her mind. She was terrified of animals whose teeth were larger than her own. Her palms on the steering wheel became wet.

Julie wasn’t accustomed to checking the gas gauge in her car. In fact, all the maintenance on the Porsche was done by Harris’s “people,” invisible and ever-diligent. Usually Harris insisted she used his car and driver if she needed to go out. When she did drive her own car, it was always ready, bright and shiny and filled with gas. Naturally she knew such things as oil and fuel were necessary for a car to run, but the particulars of it all had never been a concern.

Until the Porsche sputtered, coughed and died. The gas gauge read empty.

She managed to pull over to the side of the road before the car came to a complete stop. Greenery scratched eerily against the passenger window, sounding like someone trying to get in. She panicked, locking the doors and putting on her seat belt for the first time, as if this would save her from her predicament. Other words scuttled through her mind besides alligator: snakes, spiders, green slimy things. Beyond the windshield, the circles of the headlights barely illuminated ten feet of the utter void surrounding her. In her conscious mind she knew it wasn’t a good idea to leave the lights on when the engine wasn’t running. She also knew there was no way in heaven or hell she was going to sit in utter darkness. She turned on the interior light and tried to find the emergency flasher lights, but nothing she punched, pulled or turned did a thing, beyond turning the windshield wipers on. She asked herself what a true heroine would do in this situation. She answered herself: she probably would have had the sense to put gas in the car in the first place. Still, she could simply call Harris on the cell phone…if she’d had the foresight to bring the phone with her. Her beautifully manicured nails tapped a frantic rhythm on the steering wheel. What to do, what to do…?

From out of nowhere, a car pulled up beside her and stopped. The driver sat in shadows, but she had the impression of a portly build and a bushy beard. He motioned for her to roll down her window. Julie shook her head frantically. He held up two hands as if saying, How do you expect me to help you, then?

They’ll find my body dumped by the roadside, she thought despairingly. Not right away, but in a few days when the humidity and heat and alligators have taken their toll. She would look utterly terrible for the funeral. Poor Harris would think it was all his fault for allowing her to live in the guesthouse and be guilt-ridden the rest of his life. And he would never have an answer to the million-dollar question: What on earth was Julie thinking, driving through that sort of neighborhood?

Suddenly a hand tapping on her window interrupted her morbid musings. She jumped as high as her seat belt would allow her, staring into dark eyes that looked glazed and unfocused. He looked about forty years old, a very large man with more hair on his arms and face than his head. He wore a thin white undershirt stained on the front in several places.

Her panic doubled and redoubled in the space of five seconds. She might not have much experience with men, but she knew this person walking around in his underwear was not the answer to her prayers.

“Do you need help?” he shouted.

Julie shook her head frantically.

“Can I give you a ride?”

Julie shook her head harder, her brown eyes enormous.

At this point he dropped his smile and tried to open the driver’s-side door. If Julie had been able to breathe, she would have screamed. Unfortunately, the only sound she could make was short and faint, like a baby hiccup. For whatever reason, she pressed her hand on the horn and kept it there.

It took a moment before she realized another car had pulled up directly behind her. She wondered what the possibilities were of two men with extremely bad intentions happening upon her in this tropical wilderness. Was there a convention of highway muggers somewhere near here? Did these sort of people lie waiting in the dark for idiots like herself to run out of gas?

At that point, everything happened quickly, like a nightmare in fast-forward. The driver of the second car got out, leaving his engine running and the lights on. He said something to white-undershirt person, but Julie still had her hand on the horn so she couldn’t hear. There was the briefest scuffle outside her window; she saw the whirl of a flowered shirt and a fist flying. Almost immediately the fellow who’d been trying to get inside her car dropped out of sight.

Two arms leaned against her door. Her rescuer—at least she hoped he was her rescuer—leaned down to look inside. He had longish dark hair that covered his ears, moving softly around his face with the night wind. She couldn’t make out the color of his eyes, but saw them sparkle, as if he were greatly amused.

“Stop that,” he mouthed, pointing at her hand on the horn, then at his own ears.

For whatever reason, Julie did as she was told. She continued to stare at him like a helpless deer caught in the headlights.

“Thank you,” he said when the noise suddenly stopped. He grinned at her, showing very white teeth against a very tan face. For a simple smile, it was amazingly powerful, glinting in his eyes, denting his cheeks and lending an aura of boyish charm to very masculine features. Julie was reassured enough to roll down her window one-half inch.

“Looks like you’ve got yourself in a sticky situation,” he said.

Julie cocked her head, trying to see where the worrisome bearded person had gone to. “Did you kill him?” she asked, her voice trembling with nerves.

He looked perplexed. “Why on earth would I kill him? You’re a complete stranger. Don’t take offense, but I really don’t want to go to jail for someone I don’t even know.”

“Did you beat him unconscious?” she persisted, warming to her subject.

He rolled his eyes. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a little dramatic? He told me if I knew what was good for me, I’d keep driving. I told him I’d never done what was good for me and hit him once. Now he’s taking a nap here on the road. He’ll be fine.” He paused, added, “Except for the black eye he’ll have. So what are you doing out here in the wee hours of the morning? If you don’t mind my asking.”

The window went down another inch. “I’m sitting here because my car broke.”

“What do you mean, it broke?”

“It’s out of gas.”

He considered this for a moment, and the grin came back. “Yeah, I guess that would break it all right. So how can I help?”

“Well…” Julie considered her options, starting up the tapping on the steering wheel again. “Do you happen to know where I am?”

He bit his lip, trying not to laugh out loud. “You’re a couple of hours north of the coast.” He paused. “The Florida coast.”

“I know I’m in Florida,” Julie replied indignantly. “I just wondered if there was a town nearby, somewhere I could get some gas.”

“I’m a tourist, so I’m afraid I don’t know. I’m exploring myself. I’d be happy to give you a lift to a gas station, if you’d like.”

“That’s probably not a good idea,” she said nervously. “I should be able to handle this myself.” Still, there was such an enormous difference between should and could.

“Whatever,” he shrugged. “This isn’t exactly a freeway, so you may be here for a while. Keep your doors locked, especially when what’s-his-name here wakes up. He won’t be a happy camper. See ya.”

“Hold it!” Julie’s yelp stopped him from walking away. She rolled her window down another two inches. “Maybe I will take you up on your offer, if I won’t be putting you out.”

“Fine by me.” He lifted his hand, sticking four fingers through the top of the window. “I’m Billy.”

“Julie,” she said, taking his lead and foregoing last names. Hesitantly she took the tips of his fingers in her hand and shook them politely. “How do you do?”

This time Billy laughed, the sound rich and deep, lingering in the heavy air. “How do you do? Has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like Grace Kelly? Same voice, too. Very cultured.”

“Is that good?”

“If you like Grace Kelly. I loved her myself.” He stepped back, hooking his thumbs into the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t want to scare you, but you’ll need to get out of your car if this is going to work.”

Julie still hesitated. “Maybe I should sit here and wait for you to bring some gas back.”

Billy sighed, digging his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans. He flipped it open, allowing her to see the flash of his old police badge. As a retired cop, this was highly illegal. That fact didn’t stop Billy from doing it now and again. “You couldn’t be safer, ma’am. I’m an officer of the law, sworn to protect and serve the citizens of California when I’m not on vacation. I wouldn’t do anything mean to the citizens of Florida, either. Could we hurry this up? The mosquitoes are eating me alive.”

Julie realized this was the first time she had met an actual public policeman. The well-dressed private security people Harris hired were nice, but hardly battle-scarred veterans of the streets. Immediately her mind took off on a fantasy flight, imagining the dire and dangerous situations he must face in his work. How thrilling. “Do you shoot people?”

He assumed a terribly serious expression. “Only very bad people who shoot at me first.”

“Where do you keep your gun?”

Billy almost lost it at that point. He stared down at the toes of his runners for a good fifteen seconds before he could talk. “I’m on vacation,” he finally managed. “Besides, the shoulder holster would look terrible with this shirt. Any more questions?”

“Not at the moment,” Julie said graciously, turning off the interior light and pushing the button to unlock the car doors. “I do appreciate your help.”

“Hold it a minute,” Billy told her. If she got out now, she would step on the beer belly of her unconscious, not-so-good Samaritan. He took him by the arms and pulled him away from the Porsche. “Okay, princess. Your carriage awaits.”

Princess, Julie thought, smiling to herself. This was getting better and better. She couldn’t have come up with a more perfect hero if she’d tried. He was an authority figure, an officer of the law. He had gone into battle for her. He was charming. He was absolutely gorgeous. Her nervous tension was gradually being replaced by unexpected excitement.

She got out of the car, sparing a quick look at the fellow in the undershirt. He appeared to be sleeping peacefully. “Are you going to report this?” she asked Billy.

“As soon as I can,” he replied, thinking of poor Harris Roper. While following Julie, he’d tried using the cell phone, only to realize the battery was out of juice. He’d have to do this the old-fashioned way and use a pay phone as soon as he could. “It’s part of the job, princess.”

Two

Up close and personal, little Julie Roper packed a wallop. From the top of her designer gown to the toes of her absurd sneakers, she was clearly one-of-a kind.

She wasn’t cool, self-centered or spoiled, the way Billy had imagined a heiress would be. She was nervous, but Billy sensed the nervousness was something she was enjoying. She talked like someone had put a quarter in her, asking him questions at the speed of light.

Do you like your job?

Do you enjoy danger?

Have you ever been shot?

What do you mean, a few times?

Twisting sideways in her seat, blond hair flying every which way from the open window, she demanded every detail. Billy shook his head, assuming a deeply troubled expression. “I can’t really talk about it. It brings back such horrible memories.” Which, of course, was another bit of fiction. In reality he was rather proud of his war wounds, keeping all three bullets surgeons had dug out of him in a peanut-butter jar in his closet. Still, he was beginning to sense Julie Roper would be impossible to send home like a good little girl if she enjoyed her adventure any more than she seemed to be doing already.

“I’m terribly sorry,” Julie said earnestly. “Truly, I didn’t mean to open any old wounds—” She stopped, realizing what she’d said. “Gracious. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Oh, dear.”

“No problem,” Billy muttered. It wasn’t often he found himself in a situation that made him uncomfortable, but Julie Roper did just that. She was a bundle of brown-eyed enthusiasm, using her hands as she talked, her animated face illuminated in the yellow light from the dashboard. There was no artifice about her, nothing pretentious. This was the woman-child he had seen skipping in the surf. This was the true Julie Roper. Part child, part woman and apparently starving for a taste of life with all its adventures and dangers.

In all his experience, he’d never come across a woman quite like her. He began to worry.

“Is there someone at home you should be calling?” he asked abruptly. “Someone who might be terribly worried about you? Someone you need to get home to?”

Julie shook her head, absently tucking her hair behind her ears. “Not really. I left him a note just in case. I said I needed to get away for a couple of hours, and not to worry.”

“Husband?” Billy asked, since it was the logical response.

“No. My brother Harris. It’s just the two of us.”

“Then he’ll probably be going crazy when he realizes you’re gone,” Billy said, trying to implant a seed of guilt. “I don’t want to pry, but…when exactly did you leave home?”

Julie shrugged. “I don’t know. Two, three hours ago.”

“And within that time, you’ve run out of gas, been accosted by a drunk, and been forced to accept a ride from a total stranger. Kind of a bad track record, don’t you think?”

“I accepted a ride from you,” she pointed out defensively, “because you are a policeman.”

“Whatever,” Billy replied, shoving a frustrated hand through his long black hair. “My point is, if all this can happen to you in three or four hours, what could happen to you in a few days? This is just a guess, but…you don’t run off by yourself very often, right?”

“I could do it every week, for all you know.”

“If you did it every week, you would remember to check the gas gauge in your car. You would also know where you are, not to mention where you are going.”

Julie considered this for a moment, her lips pinched tight. “I don’t care for the way you put that, but you’re right. This was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, if you know what I mean. Still, it’s turning out better than I hoped.”

Billy slanted her an incredulous look. “Are you kidding?”

“Well, I met you,” she said, her eyes shining like copper pennies and a high flush of color on her cheekbones. “You are by far the most interesting person I have ever met in my life.”

Billy could barely stop himself from groaning out loud. “You must not get out much, then. Which, by the way, is probably going to be the reason your brother is going to worry about you. Are the two of you close?”

“Yes,” Julie said, “and no. We love each other, but neither one of us is exactly…comfortable…with our lives right now. Harris has been the father figure for a long time, and it’s wearing on him. I just do as I’m told so the poor man doesn’t worry any more than necessary.”

“You do as you’re told? Well, that explains everything. Your brother must have told you to drive around Florida in the middle of the night.”

“Very funny. It’s not a crime to take a little ride.”

“I doubt he’ll see it that way.”

“How could you possibly know that? You don’t know the situation, you’ve just met me and you don’t know Harris at all. How could you possibly have any opinion on this?”

Billy found himself grinding his teeth. The little lady was not cooperating. He wasn’t used to women who didn’t cooperate with him, and the experience was a little frustrating. “I’m not trying to pick a fight with you. I just know when someone is in over their head, that’s all. You need to go home and rethink this thing.”

“My head,” Julie retorted, “is well above the water-line, so don’t worry. For heaven’s sake, you’re as bad as Harris.”

I’m nothing like your brother, Billy wanted to throw back. I know him, and I know you far better than you think. Instead he contented himself with, “I’m a man, and I know how men protect the people they love. I’ve had a little more experience with life than you have.” Now there was the understatement of the year.

“That’s exactly why I’m so glad we met,” Julie exclaimed, putting her hand on his arm. “You came along at such an opportune moment. I was feeling a little down tonight, because my birthday is coming and I’m going to…well, that’s neither here nor there. At any rate, you actually fought someone on my behalf. I’ll never forget this. Every now and then it’s kind of a relief to just…just fly by the seat of your skirt.”

“Pants,” Billy snapped, irritated by the way his body was reacting to her innocent touch. “Fly by the seat of your pants. And don’t romanticize this thing. I didn’t fight with anyone on your behalf, I just pushed a drunk over sideways with one hand. I should have let him have a few more minutes with you. Then maybe you’d want to go home where you belong.”

“You’re talking like a bodyguard or something.” Miffed, Julie withdrew her hand, folding her arms across her chest. “You should meet my brother. I’m sure the two of you would be the best of friends.”

Billy opened his mouth to tell her he was nothing like her damn brother, then put a choke-hold on the words. “Whatever.”

“You say that a lot.”

“What?”

“Whatever. And you say it kind of like you’re growling, like this— ‘Whatever.’”

Billy looked at the face she was pulling, at the way she wrinkled her nose and drew her eyebrows together fiercely. She was completely unselfconscious, oblivious to the disarming expression on her face, doing her very best to imitate a growl. A little blond pit bull in this instance, just another side of her personality to add to the fascinating repertoire.

He couldn’t help himself. He turned his attention back to the road, smiling just a little. No, this was bad…he couldn’t afford to lose his perspective. Never mix business with pleasure…or anything else, for that matter. She was business. Business, business, business.

His smile grew to an irrepressible grin, despite the lecture he was delivering to himself. He allowed himself a quick look, his eyes following the line of her cheekbone, the soft curves of her parted mouth. She had no idea he was staring. She had no idea how her hair drank in light, didn’t realize how lush and ripe her baby-bowed mouth seemed to him. She even smelled like an unfamiliar delicacy, the fragrance subtle, lingering in the close confines of the car like music. Billy’s blood was zinging through his veins like 98-proof adrenalin.

“Of all the damn things,” he said softly, staring straight ahead.

“What?” she asked innocently, pulling her attention from the butterball moon hanging in the sky straight in front of them.

“Nothing.”

Julie sighed, dropping her head back on the seat. “First it was whatever, now it’s nothing. Has anyone ever told you that you’re not particularly good at communicating your feelings?”

“Actually, no. Usually I’m quite good at communicating my…feelings. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

“I expect you’re not talking about verbal communication.”

“I expect I’m not.”

Julie closed her eyes, fighting a sudden and overwhelming fatigue. She wasn’t used to all this excitement. Her petite figure looked incredibly defenseless against the unrelenting darkness of the window beyond. “I think…” She yawned, covering her mouth as if a lady should. “I think you’re probably…sorry…you’re stuck with me…”

He waited, and when she didn’t continue, he realized she had fallen asleep. Just like that; one minute she was chattering like a trained parrot, the next she was sleeping like an angel. He allowed himself a longer look this time, fascinated for some strange reason by the way her hair looked caressing the long line of her throat.

“I expect I’m not sorry,” he whispered.

She awoke to music—loud, thumping, migraine-promoting music.

“There’s a nasty wake-up call,” Billy said, amused.

Blinking her eyes, she looked around, realizing they were at a truck stop. Billy had pulled up to a gas pump, and on the other side of the pump, a low-rider Toyota truck jumped and rocked with deafening noise. Underneath the truck, fluorescent purple lights glowed brightly.

“Have I been asleep long?” she mumbled, sitting up and stretching her arms. “Where are we?”

“You were asleep about an hour,” Billy said, turning off the engine. “And I haven’t the faintest idea where we are. We’re just lucky we stumbled across a gas station that’s open in the middle of the night. This Rent-a-Wreck was about dry.” Since he didn’t want Julie to know he had a cell phone in the glove box, he was relieved to see a pay phone inside the small convenience store. He was itching to call Harris and assure the poor guy his sister was safe. “Look, I have to visit the rest room. Why don’t you fill up the car while I’m gone? I’ll borrow a gas can while I’m inside.”

He was gone before she had time to form the words: I’ve never filled up a car before.

Which was probably good, Julie reasoned. Billy was already under the impression she was a mindless idiot; there was no reason to add fuel to that particular fire by confirming it.

All she had to do was add fuel to the car. And how hard could that be?

She got out of the car, wincing as the music from the Toyota hit her full-force. It wasn’t Chopin, but it was all part of the experience. She watched intently as a whip-cord-lean teenager jumped out of the truck, opened the little door to the gas tank and stuck the nozzle inside. Voilà.

The teenager looked over at her, his clean-shaven head glinting like a cue ball beneath the overhead lighting. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey what?” she asked curiously, fiddling with the door to the gas tank.

He grinned. “Just hey, Blondie. Are you having a little trouble there?”

The little door wouldn’t open. “No,” she muttered, pulling at it with both hands. “It’s just…stuck a little, I think.”

He sauntered over, bringing a heavy aroma of cigarette smoke with him. “You can’t open it from out here, or everyone would be siphoning your gas. Pop the safety latch inside.”

She bit her lip, trying to translate this into Palm Beach language. “Pop what?”

“You’re kidding, right? The door to the gas tank. Hell, haven’t you ever filled up a car before?”

“Not this particular car,” Julie said honestly. Nor any other car, but that was none of his business. “Could you show me where to…pop it?”

“I’d show you anything you want.” He looped his skinny arm around her shoulders, guiding her over to the driver’s side of the car. “You open the car door—like this—and pull that little lever—like this—and it pops the door to the gas tank open. Now pay attention and I’ll demonstrate.” He guided her back to the pump. “Pull the hose out. Twist the cap on the tank, put the hose in and push Start. See? It’s that easy. What’s your name?”

Julie was watching the gas pump intently, afraid the thing was going to overflow. “My what? Oh…Julie. Thank you for your help.”

“I’m Jeff.”

“Goodbye, Jeff.”

“What’s a pink and fluffy thing like you doing out here at 2:00 a.m.?”

“Is this thing going to stop on its own?”

He chuckled. “Poor baby. Whoever let you out alone after dark made a big mistake. Yeah, it will stop.” His fingers kneaded her shoulder. “You owe me something, don’t you think? Have you got a phone number?”

“Everyone has a phone number,” Julie said irritably, twisting away from him.

“What are the chances you’d give it to me?”

“The chances of my adopting you would be greater,” she said, tossing her hair back and staring him down as she would a fly, moth or any other insect annoying her. “Goodbye, Jeff.”

“Not interested, huh?”

“No,” Julie said with an overdose of sincerity, “but I’m sure I’ll have wonderful memories about you for the rest of my life.”

He held up both hands in surrender. “Your loss, Blondie.”

“Let’s talk about loss,” Billy said.

Julie hadn’t seen him approach, as most of her focus had been on the mysterious gas pump and the worrisome gurgling noises it was making. He was carrying a dented old gas can, which he put down directly in front of Jeff. “There are all kinds of loss,” Billy went on, with a smile that didn’t even begin to reach his eyes. “You can loose teeth, for one thing. That kind of loss is really painful. You don’t want to lose any of your teeth, do you, kid?”

There was something about Billy’s expression that made Julie plant herself between the two. “This isn’t necessary. He was showing me how to make the gas pump work.”

“What-ever,” Billy replied, in his best growling fashion.

“Hey man, she needed help,” the teenager said, quickly backing up as he talked. “She couldn’t figure out how to fill the car up, so I helped her. Ask, if you don’t believe me.”

Billy raised one eyebrow at Julie. She nodded and he seemed to relax almost imperceptibly. “Okay, kid. You can leave.”

Jeff didn’t need a second invitation. The fluorescent laces on his combat boots flashed as he sprinted inside the truck stop to pay for his gas. Billy never took his eyes off Julie, not for a second. A muscle in his jaw was working hard and fast. “You really don’t know how to fill up a car, do you?”

“If I did, would I embarrass myself like this?” Julie threw back, cheeks flaming. “He was just a baby, you didn’t need to scare him. You were a baby once…or were you?”

“Never,” Billy snapped. He was so frustrated, he wanted to kick something. Harris had just answered his private line when Billy had looked outside and seen Julie in what appeared to be yet another sticky situation. He’d hung up on the man to come to her rescue. “What is it with you? Didn’t you learn the first time? Don’t talk to strangers!”

“I never talk to strangers! I don’t know any strangers!”

Billy thumped his head with the heel of his hand. “Why do I expect logic from you? Julie, that kid was a stranger. That drunk trying to get in your car was a stranger. Hell, I’m a stranger! You shouldn’t be talking to any of us, don’t you get that?”

“You’re a policeman,” Julie sniffed. “You’re perfectly safe.”

“What if I’m a bad policeman? Have you thought of that? You can’t go around trusting everyone you meet, or you’ll never get home. Learn from your mistakes.”

At that point, Julie knew she was either going to cry or slap him. Before she could lift her hand, the tears were welling up in her soft brown eyes. “You don’t need to talk to me like this,” she sniffed. “I have enough on my mind without taking your abuse. You’re overreacting, anyway. I’m not your responsibility. I know I’m not…familiar with some things, but I’m not stupid, either. Just take me back to my car and you can go on your merry way.”

“And you’ll go home?” Billy persisted, steeling himself against the weeping Bambi look.

“When I darn well please,” Julie tossed back, refusing to be intimidated as easily as poor Jeff had been. “Which could be months from now!”

Silently, Billy counted to ten. Then, quite softly he said, “Get in the car. Now.”

“And if I don’t?” some devil made her say.

He took two steps, bringing his body three inches from hers. He dipped his head, letting the words swirl over her parted lips. “Then I’ll spank the living daylights out of you, right here and right now.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Ha! Honey, at this point there’s no telling what I’ll do.”

Brown eyes warred with blue for a good ten seconds. Julie gulped, lifted her chin and tried to say something to break the standoff, but the small movement closed the distance between them. For the space of a heartbeat she felt the touch of his lips on hers, no deeper than moonlight. Her body prickled fiercely like awakening flesh from top to bottom. And somewhere in the depths of her unconsciousness, she thought to herself, I want more. Whatever this is, I want more.

And so it was Billy who finally jumped back, Billy who threw open her car door and pushed her inside with barely restrained force. He’d known precisely what she was thinking, not only because she was too inexperienced to hide it, but because he was thinking the same thing.

More.

He decided he wasn’t getting paid nearly enough for this job.

On the positive side, the not-so-good Samaritan was gone when they returned to the cypress jungle where Julie had abandoned her car. On the negative side, so was Julie’s Porsche.

“Oh, my sainted aunt,” she whispered, her jaw dropping. “Did I…could I have…I was so distracted, I may have left my keys—”

“—in the Porsche,” Billy said in a flat voice. If he were an emotional man, he would seriously consider shedding a few tears at this point. He couldn’t think of a time when he’d been so damned exasperated. “This is a real red-letter day for you, isn’t it? In case no one has told you this, people who drive exotic sports cars are not supposed to leave the keys in the ignition.”

“I’m not some kind of dimwit. Whether you believe it or not, I don’t make a habit of leaving my keys in the ignition. I wasn’t thinking straight at the time. That disgusting person who apparently made off with my car really had me rattled.” She paused, blinking away the moisture gathering in her eyes. “What else could go wrong tonight?”

Despite his own frustration, Billy wanted to erase the forlorn look on her beautiful face. “Look at the bright side, kiddo. He left you that fine 1969 Ford pickup for trade. You could sell it for parts.”

A loud sniff. “These kinds of things never happened before.”

“Welcome to the real world. So what now?”

Julie looked at Billy sideways, biting her lip. “Well…I might need another little ride.”

“Another little ride?”

“Just to a telephone,” she assured him. “We could head back in the general direction of Palm Beach and stop at the first telephone we come across. I’ll just call Harris and…you could go on your merry way.”

Billy’s forehead thumped on the steering wheel. “I feel like I’m in a nightmare and can’t wake up,” he muttered. “You’re like a little tornado, creating havoc wherever you touch down. I really feel for your poor brother.”

“My poor brother won’t know I’m gone until the morning.” Julie’s lower lip quivered ever so slightly. “And there’s no need to be insulting. We all have our areas of expertise.”

Despite everything, Billy’s mouth tipped up on one side. “That’s true. I was under the impression you’re in the habit of depending on others, but maybe I was mistaken. Tell me, your area of expertise would be…?”

Julie thought. What on earth was she supposed to say, I’m a pro at using a charge card? “My area of expertise is none of your business. Suffice it to say I have one. Several. I have several areas of expertise.”

He smiled, his mouth curved with a hint of tenderness. He was finding it terribly hard to stay angry with her. He’d thought he had seen everything in his gritty days as an undercover cop, but he’d never come across a woman with so much spirit and so little experience to back it up. Strangely enough, he almost envied her in a wistful sort of way. What would it be like to have so little experience with the world that you expected the best from everyone? The way Billy figured it, if you had no illusions or expectations, they weren’t going to blow up in your face. Though it had never been a conscious choice he’d made, he’d been disillusioned almost from day one. When Billy was two years old, his father had gone out one night for a beer and never come back. His mother had her hands full keeping them both fed and clothed while she worked her way through school to get her RN degree. She’d done her best, but she didn’t have the time or resources to protect him from reality. Five years after she’d achieved her dream and become a nurse, she was diagnosed with leukemia. She had died four agonizing months later, with Billy by her side. The last thing she had said to him was “I’m sorry.” He had the feeling she wasn’t apologizing for dying on him, but for the circumstances under which she’d brought him into the world.

At that point, Billy began charting his own course. He’d decided early on to look at life as a very dangerous game. The more dangerous you were, the more likely you were to stay alive. He always expected the worst from his adversaries and was seldom disappointed. In Billy’s world, innocence was a weakness. Purity was extinct and idealism was a terrible flaw. It could get you killed.

This world was not a pretty place, damn it. Why did spending a couple of hours with Julie Roper make him wonder if he might have missed a rainbow somewhere along the way? He told himself he was an idiot, yet continued to watch her, devouring her with his thoughts. She dropped into the passenger seat of his car and slammed the door with a frustrated sigh.

“All I wanted was to go on a drive,” she whispered. “No Harris, no Beau, no chauffeur—”

“Wait a second. Who’s Beau?”

“What? Oh…he’s a friend. I just wanted some time to myself, no one escorting me, no one waiting anxiously for me to come back. Just a ride, that’s all I wanted.”

Just a ride, she’d said, but Billy heard the tremor of loneliness and defeat in her voice. With an odd sense of surprise, he realized he had been wrong about her motives. This wasn’t a joyride or even a small rebellion against a spoiled and privileged existence. This was something quite different. He watched the moistness gather in her eyes, saw the glitter of a single tear rolling down her soft cheek.

Billy was no stranger to a woman’s tears, but more often than not, they came from the wives, mothers or girlfriends of someone he’d locked up. Like everyone else in his line of work, he’d been trained to offer a professional compassion, which stopped short of genuine sympathy. As a matter of fact, he’d been famous for his emotional detachment.

Cool, calm and controlled under any circumstances. Yes, siree.

“Will you please not do that?” he said abruptly, an unusual tightness in his throat.

Julie sniffed loudly. “Do what?”

“That thing you keep doing. Crying.” Billy searched his pockets, coming up with a napkin from a fast-food joint. He was lucky to find that. He was the sort of man who carried a gun, not a nice white handkerchief. “Here. Blow your nose, and…and think happy thoughts.” Hell, he sounded like Mary Poppins.

Julie took the napkin and dabbed her nose, blinking away the tears blurring her vision. “I’m sorry. This is none of your concern. If you…if you could take me to a phone, I’ll call Harris and put an end to all this. You know what they say…try, try again another day.”

“Try what?” Billy asked suspiciously.

A slow-motion tear rolled down her cheek. “What business is it of yours? Why should you care if there’s a clock ticking in my life, if the sand is running out of the hourglass? The important thing is that I’m off your hands.”

“There you go with the high drama thing again. What are you talking about? What hourglass?”

In a tiny voice, “Never mind.”

“Look, Julie…I gave you a lift, no big deal. You’re in a pickle tonight, and I don’t think you’re too familiar with pickles. Under the circumstances, I suppose I could give you a ride home.”

“I may not know exactly where I am, but I know it’s a good long way from my home in Palm Beach.” She stopped sniffling long enough to stare at him suspiciously. “You haven’t been completely thrilled with my company so far. Why would you want to go so far out of your way to take me home?”

Here Billy was on familiar ground. His former occupation had given him valuable experience in spur-of-the-moment fabrication. He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms behind his neck. “Well, I didn’t say the service would be completely free. I don’t know if you’re familiar with a cop’s salary, but—”

“I understand.” Julie looked at him, seeing something in his eyes she recognized only too well. Dollar signs. Finally, a situation she was adept at handling. “So I can have you for a price?”

Billy feigned shock. “I’m not that kind of man. You can hire my hired car for a price.”

Julie tossed the hair away from her face, color flaming in her cheeks. She was magnificent, Billy thought wistfully, when she was truly offended. He experienced a surprising regret for what he knew he had to do.

“You know,” she said tightly, “for a minute there I thought I was having a unique experience tonight. Silly me.”

Billy lifted a brow innocently. “And you’re not? Good heavens, woman, you learned to pump gas tonight. That could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for a pampered princess like yourself.”

“That was unusual,” she replied cooly. “You’re not, however. How much do vacationing policemen charge for putting on a Good Samaritan act? You don’t come cheap, I imagine.”

Billy was surprised at the conflicting emotions he felt. It appeared that at the advanced age of thirty-three, he was developing a late-blooming case of sensitivity. He didn’t want her to think he was just another greedy opportunist, but the wide-eyed rich girl had to lose her fascination for the adventure she was having if he was ever to deliver her home. At that point, there would be no alternative but to leave Harris Roper’s employment. The man was very clear about not wanting his little sister to know he was having her watched twenty-four hours a day. An unfamiliar face would have to be brought in if Harris wished to continue the invisible surveillance.

So, no matter how he looked at it, this was the beginning and the end of his contact with Julie Roper. The little word end had never pulled at him quite like this before.

“Just gas, princess,” he said tonelessly, avoiding her wounded gaze. “And a little tip when I get you home wouldn’t go unappreciated. Whatever you think I’m worth. Deal?”

“I hope you’ll take a check,” she bit out.

He forced himself to look at her, his smile stopping short of his eyes. “No problem. I think you’re good for it. Dig out the map in the glove box and we’ll find the quickest way to Palm Beach.”

“Why bother? Drag it out and fatten your payoff.” Her expression was uncovered briefly, showing the depth of her disillusionment. Quite softly she added, “You see, I do have an area of expertise. I’m very good at paying top dollar for what I want.”

Billy closed his eyes briefly, fighting an urge to tell her how wrong she was. Of course, that would turn out to be a bad move as well, since he’d been on the Roper payroll long before he’d actually met Julie. Talk about a no-win situation.

He muttered a choice four-letter word beneath his breath and shoved the car into reverse, tires spitting gravel. His throat burned with the force of his frustration. Never in his life had he felt quite so helpless, and the feeling wasn’t exactly warm and fuzzy. His jaw was clenched so tightly, his teeth ached.

“Whatever,” he bit out. “Do up your seat belt. We’re taking you back to Kansas, Dorothy.”

Three

He had a damn good excuse for getting lost.

That damn good excuse was sitting beside him, the breeze from the window scattering her spun-gold hair over the seat back. The air was redolent with her scent, a subtle combination of roses and baby lotion. Everything about her seemed magnified in the close confines of the car, the small sighs he heard now and again, her restless movements in the seat, even the faint shadows of weariness beneath her eyes. She had lost the urge to converse back at the gas station, keeping her thoughts and questions to herself. He couldn’t blame her. He hadn’t exactly treated her with kid gloves. Julie’s face was turned away from him, her breathing slightly uneasy as if her silence was less than peaceful. He found himself stealing glances at her whenever he could, fascinated by this untried, defensive soul in his care. She seemed to be everything he was not: a delicate fantasy filled with curiosity, amazingly innocent and unguarded. Heaven knew there had been nothing like her in Oakland. Nothing like her in his entire life, actually. An hour into their drive, for reasons that evaded him, he’d turned the radio on softly, finding a melancholy blues station that seemed to fit his mood. And what a strange mood it was.

A pink chink in his scratched and dented armor? Maybe. Billy was, if nothing else, a realist, and knew it didn’t matter at this point.

What did matter, he realized abruptly, was that he’d gotten them good and lost. Unless he’d been mistaken, the signpost he’d just seen half-buried in a cypress jungle read Gator Getaway, 5 Miles. Nothing at all about Palm Beach, no directions to freeways or interstates.

Damn. This was not going to reflect well on him.

“Did you see that?” Julie asked, breaking sixty minutes of brittle silence.

Billy feigned surprise. He was no different than any other man, and the words I goofed were not in his everyday vocabulary. “What? See what?”

“The sign we just passed. Gator Getaway…isn’t that what it said?”

“Oh, that sign. I think it said, Gator, Get Away,” some kind of a warning. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Then, hopefully, “Did you know you smelled like roses?”

“Don’t try and change the subject.” Julie grabbed the map and shoved it close to the dashboard lights. “What the…? Oh, it’s upside down. Gator…Gator…There’s nothing in the index called Gator Getaway. Are you sure you know where you’re going?”

Cornered, Billy surrendered. “I am absolutely certain that I haven’t a clue where we are, let alone where we’re going. On the positive side, I know precisely where we’ve been. It’s good to think positively, don’t you think?”

“We’re lost,” Julie said, with an equal mixture of alarm and satisfaction. “Ha! The boy wonder has gotten us lost. Lost, lost, lost. And now we’re headed to some godforsaken place where alligators gather. What do you have to say about that?”

“Pick a four-letter word, any four-letter word. That’s what I have to say about that.” This city boy had no desire to visit a place where alligators congregated. If it weren’t for the unrelenting darkness and swamp-like foliage, he might be able to get his bearings. This was not the way things were done in the concrete jungle. Roads led somewhere in California, and they weren’t obscured by confusing walls of dripping, mossy vines. You might get stuck in a traffic jam, but you always knew where you were stuck, and you had colorful graffiti murals to enjoy while you waited. And if you happened to be an undercover cop, you could pull out the handy-dandy portable gumball machine, stick it on the roof of your car and zip down the emergency lane with cheerful impunity.

Not that a gumball machine would help him at this point. He had a sinking feeling he was already in the emergency lane.

“This is all your fault,” he told Julie irritably.

Her jaw dropped. “What? What did you say?”

“You have no idea what you’re putting me through tonight.” He was not about to tell her how good she smelled or what incredible legs she had, although these things had certainly contributed to his mounting stress. “I’m coming unglued. I never got lost in California, never once. How do you people live in a wilderness like this? Where are all your stoplights? Where are your freeway entrances? I’d rather be dodging bullets in California than alligators in Florida, I’ll tell you that. And that’s if we’re still in Florida. I have my doubts.”

“Are you kidding? You don’t know what state we’re in?” Julie pressed her nose against the window, palms splayed over the glass. “I can’t see anything,” she whispered slowly. “No houses. No street lights, nothing. It’s never dark in Palm Beach. Everything stays open all night. I’m really getting freaked out. Do something.”

“What would you like me to do? Look, I’m only human. I can’t read a map and keep us on the road at the same time. Florida is your state, I’m just a tourist. You’re the one who is supposed to know your way around. You’ve lived here for…what? Twenty-five years?”

“Twenty-three years,” she corrected stiffly. “Almost. And most of that time I was in England, anyway. Except for when I was in Italy. And the summers I usually spent in France or in the Hamptons, except when Harris insisted I go to finishing school in Switzerland, so—”

“How do you finish someone? I know how they do it in California, but how do they do it in Switzerland?”

“Well…you learn the social graces, and…never mind. Just trust me when I tell you my idea of finishing someone is probably quite different from your idea of finishing someone.”

“I’ll just bet it is. So you went to Switzerland to ‘finish’ yourself, but you don’t know Florida any better than I do. This is just great. What the hell were you thinking tonight? The next time you decide to go for a joyride, hop on a bus and leave the driving to someone else.”

Julie looked down her nose at him. “No wonder you were always getting shot. You have no manners whatsoever.”

“Undercover cops are famous for that. They’re so rude, people would rather shoot ’em than look at ’em.”

“Well then, it’s a shame you weren’t a traffic cop. You’d probably be much nicer and you’d know something about reading a map and finding your way around. Your tip just went down, by the way.”

A moment of quiet passed before Billy trusted himself to speak. “Unfortunately for you, I was not a traffic cop. Now, since I’ve been known to have a temper and occasionally it gets the best of me, we’ll just have a few minutes of silence.”

“We still don’t—”

“Silence.”

Julie opened her mouth to retort, then looked sideways at his stark profile and thought better of it. There was something about the rigid set of his lips that suggested he had completely lost his sense of humor. As far as she could remember, she’d never witnessed a true testosterone temper tantrum. She had spent more time with Harris than any other man, and the closest he had ever come to losing his temper was loosening his tie. Strangely, some little devil within her wanted to see Billy lose his cool. She stared at him through a screen of lashes, inexplicably fascinated by the way his wild, wind-tossed hair moved over his hard brown cheekbones. There was a scar that cut diagonally through one dark eyebrow, perhaps a memento of yet another dangerous escapade. He was driving with hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, steely-blue eyes focused straight ahead and the speedometer glued to a steady forty-five m.p.h. Somehow she knew his emotions were barely in check. She was oddly intrigued by the notion of being the one to push him over the edge. She’d never wielded any sort of influence over men, particularly a man’s man like Billy. He had a world of experience; she had none. And yet she had managed to get under his skin; she was at least savvy enough to know that. Was this, then, her first skirmish in the battle of the sexes? Had she won?

“Why are you doing that?” Billy asked suddenly, still staring straight ahead.

She looked away, squinting at the curtain of black nothing beyond the window. “Doing what?”

“Staring at me.”

“How could you know if I was staring? You weren’t even looking at me.”

Quietly, “I knew. I know everything you do.”

“Well…well…” Hells bells, this man had a way of overwhelming her. A few little words and her bravado evaporated beneath a nuclear flush. Had there been a referee in the back seat, round two would go to the hotshot from California.

“I don’t want to talk anymore,” she muttered.

“What do you know? Miracles do still happen.”

Civilization was not far ahead. A sort of semi-civilization, at least. As far as Billy could see, they had landed themselves at some sort of amusement park/campground/motel combination. The flashing neon sign had every third letter burned out, but he was quite sure it read Gator Getaway. There were only two cars parked in the motel lot, one in front of the manager’s office.

“Did you ever see Psycho?” Julie asked softly, brown eyes enormous. “This place is sort of scary.”

“I worked undercover in California, remember? Nothing is more psycho than that. Besides, I can’t drive any further tonight. I’m beat.” Here again he was prevaricating. He could go without sleep for three days and never notice, but Harris Roper was a little more delicate. One way or another, Billy had to find enough privacy to call him. Not to mention the fact they were lost. It went deeply against his independent grain, but he had to ask someone where the hell they were and find out how to get where they were going. Billy shoved open his door and got out of the car, then, keeping in character, leaned down and lifted an eyebrow at Julie. “Unfortunately, I’m on a limited budget. You and your credit cards will have to check us in.”

“Of course. I forgot for a minute you were the employee.” Julie grabbed her purse and got out of the car, fighting an odd tightness in her throat. She followed Billy inside the motel lobby, sneakers stomping, then nearly ran back outside when she saw the clerk behind the desk.

There was no question about it. He bore a definite resemblance to Anthony Perkins, who played the knife-wielding motel owner in Psycho.

“We need a couple of rooms,” Billy told him.

“Sorry,” Anthony Perkins replied, stifling a yawn. “We’re just about full up. We’ve got a single left, if that’ll do ya.”

Billy was half tempted to flip out his police badge, but since it was illegal, he liked to reserve that for emergencies. “As far as I could see, you have a dozen rooms and only one car parked in the lot. Did all those people come in one car?”

“Most everybody who visits us comes with a trailer and parks at the campground across the way. We only keep two rooms open during the off-season, and I just rented one of ’em an hour ago.”

“Tomorrow won’t do us any good,” Julie told him, peering out from behind Billy’s back. “We need it now. We’ll pay double.”