Crista, and Kelly are doing some kind of girl thing on the boat, and Dawg and Rowdy were pouting in Dawg’s. I didn’t feel like putting up with the pouting.”

“So they were picking on you, and you thought you would share the fun and pick on me?” she asked sweetly.

He grinned, then frowned back at Alex.

“The produce people called me today,” he finally told her. “Manager was screaming something about an abusive foreigner cursing at him over celery. Said he lost the restaurant account.”

Janey leaned back in her chair now. “So?”

He shrugged again. “The manager’s a friend of mine. I just wondered what happened.”

“You don’t want to know anything about the restaurant unless it finally burns to the ground, remember?”

she reminded him. “So why are you here about this?”

His eyes narrowed. “I just told you why.”

“Tell your friendly manager to remember me the next time he decides to send out inferior produce.” She crossed her arms on her desk and leaned forward. “It was crap, Natches. I was getting the worst of the deliveries, deliberately, because of Dayle. They haven’t figured out yet that the perfect Mackay princess was just as much a pawn in Dayle’s games as anyone else was. I don’t care about the comments, but I won’t serve my customers crap.”

Natches was still, silent for long moments. His expression never changed, but she watched his eyes, watched the slow burn of his temper.

“Look, I can take care of the business,” she told him. “Desmond arranged a new supplier out of Louisville. We’ll get produce later in the day, but we’ll have it on time and we’ll get it fresh. No big deal.”

“The suppliers in Louisville charge more,” he reminded her.

“I’m sure we can weather the small jump in cost,” she breathed out roughly. “I’m not going back to your buddy for supplies, Natches.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to,” he told her. “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?”

“Why don’t you tell me every time Chaya chews your ass for being arrogant and full of testosterone?”

she asked mockingly.

“But you’re my business, too, and the problems you have here because of suppliers that I know is my business,” he informed her, his voice a hard, lazy drawl. A dangerous sound. “Especially when I arranged with someone I called a friend to make certain you were given exactly what you needed.”

“Maybe he didn’t believe I needed anything better,” she remarked, before pushing her fingers through her hair in irritation. “Look, it doesn’t matter. It’s business, nothing more. I wasn’t satisfied with their product so I went somewhere else.”

He nodded abruptly, before rising to his feet once again and heading for the door. As he opened it, he turned back to them, leveling a look at Alex.

“I’m going to cut your fucking hands off if I keep catching them on her,” he growled. “Damn, find someone your own age.”

He slammed the door before either of them could retaliate.

“One of these days, I’m going to cut his tongue out,” Alex mused behind her.

“Better do it before he cuts your hands off.” She almost laughed, before turning back to the piles of papers on her desk.

God, she wanted his hands on her. But it was do this now or it wouldn’t get done at all.

“One hour,” he told her, moving back to the couch.

She stared back at him questioningly.

“One hour for paperwork, then I’m dragging you upstairs.” He picked up his magazine and stretched back out on the couch. “Better get used to it, sweetheart. Time’s counting down.”

Unfortunately, she spent more of that hour staring at his sexy body and that hard ridge under his jeans than she did focusing on her paperwork.

At this rate, Natches wasn’t going to have to worry about burning the place down. She was going to end up destroying it herself from lack of paperwork completion and an overload of fascination for the man who seemed determined to drive her completely and totally insane.

SIX

Rule number one: He was too damned old for her.

Rule number two: He was too damned hard for a virgin, because nothing in his life had ever been as difficult as taking her nipples with slow precision.

He’d wanted to devour. He wanted to suck her hard and deep into his mouth, nip those tiny hard points and hold her to the couch while he buried his cock hard and deep between her thighs.

Rule number three: Never, ever get emotionally involved with a woman. And it was obvious she made him weak. Otherwise, he’d have never held on to that restraint.

Alex felt like a drowning man a week later as he paced his own house, waiting on evening to fall so he could slip back into her apartment. Ray and Rowdy’s suggestion that Alex keep his presence at the apartment as secretive as possible made sense. But it left the whole day without her. He had no reason to linger around her, and no chance to figure out the enigma of Janey.

And he was no closer to figuring out who had left those letters than he had been a week ago.

He stopped pacing long enough to refill his coffee cup and rub at his thigh. Hell, it still ached, even a month later. The bullet that had torn into the muscle and nearly shredded it had been a bad fucker. Bad enough that Alex had put in for extended leave. Time enough to consider if he was returning or not.

He could cash out now with full benefits, no problem. He’d been in the Army since he was eighteen. He could take six months’ active reserve and retire at thirty-eight. He’d been thinking too damned much about retiring lately.

Police Chief Harding was making a bit of noise about retiring, and Alex had already been approached about taking the position when he stepped down. Hell, it would beat dodging terrorist bullets and bombs and putting his ass in the line of fire continually.

He had a little niece or nephew coming in a few months. He’d like to have time to be an uncle. He didn’t consider becoming a father himself. Not Alex. Hell no. He’d raised his sister, Crista, and swore at the time he’d never risk having kids himself. Shit happened, then your kids had to fend for themselves.

Protect themselves.

He ran one hand over his head before rubbing wearily at the back of his neck. More and more often, he was thinking about shit he had no business thinking of. Especially in the past six months. Things like Janey, round with his kid. And this after telling himself all the reasons he had no intentions of having kids with any woman. Things like waking up in the morning, his arms around her. And Alex wasn’t the type to enjoy sleeping with a woman. Fucking her, yes; playing bed games all fucking night long, he was all for it.

But he didn’t sleep as well with a woman in his arms.

Now each night he checked on Janey, turned the television off in her room, and risked that hissing cat taking a swipe at him as he pulled the blankets around her, he found himself wanting to curl around her.

He wanted to hold her while she slept, because she didn’t seem to sleep well.

At the sound of a car pulling into the drive, Alex moved to the window and looked out, a grin tugging at his lips as he saw Dawg and Crista.

He leaned against the window frame and watched as Dawg helped Crista from the passenger side of the truck. Dawg frowned. Shook his head. Then a male grimace of frustration pulled at his expression, before he leaned against the truck as Crista headed to the front door.

His sister looked maternal and happy. The baby bulge of her stomach gave her a cute little almost waddle. He’d considered teasing her about it, but damn, her temper had been a little iffy lately.

He moved to the door and opened it as she stepped up to the porch. Dawg lifted his hand in greeting, though he was still scowling.

“Dawg’s not allowed to come in and play today?” Alex laughed as Crista stepped into the house.

Crista ducked her head and hid her smile as Alex closed the door behind her.

“Dawg’s been playing games again.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s already avoided Natches’s fist this morning. I don’t want to risk you two fighting.”

“Wouldn’t be a lot of fight to it, sis,” he promised her, kissing her cheek. “Want me to make you some decaf coffee?”

It was a tease. Crista hated decaf coffee. She glared at him for his efforts. “Don’t start with me, Alex.”

He held his hands up in surrender as he laughed. “So why is Dawg stuck outside while you visit me?”

Alex had a feeling his sister hadn’t just dropped by to check on him.

“How’s your leg doing? Did you go to the doctor this week yet?” she asked as she moved to the fridge, opened the door, and checked it out. She moved to the cabinets next. “You need groceries, Alex.”

“I went to the doctor,” he reported. “The leg is healing. And I haven’t exactly been at the house a lot this week. I’ve been eating out.”

She turned to face him, crossing her arms over her breasts and resting them on the bulge of her stomach as she leaned back against the counter. Her brow creased thoughtfully.

She finally nodded. “Janey’s a good cook. Maybe she’ll fatten you up some.”

Alex’s brows arched. “Janey doesn’t cook.”

Crista’s lips twitched. “She’s an excellent cook. The weeks she stayed with us, I swear I gained ten pounds.”

Alex scratched his jaw. “She doesn’t cook for me.”

“You probably pissed her off,” she teased him. “What did you do to her?”

Alex stared back at her. “Don’t fish, Crista. Get it off your chest.”

Crista nibbled at her lip. “Are you sleeping with her?”

“Would she cook for me if I were?”

She rolled her expressive eyes. “Probably. Dawg’s convinced you’re sleeping with her.”

“It’s none of Dawg’s business.”

“Janey’s vulnerable, Alex.”

“Crista, are you here to warn me out of Janey’s bed?” He frowned back at her. “Because if you are, then I think I’d rather visit with Dawg. I can hit him if he pisses me off.”

“Which is why I’m in here instead of Dawg,” Crista pointed out.

“And it’s the reason why you can trot your little butt right back out there with him,” he told her. “For Christ’s sake. I wouldn’t tell you if I was sleeping with her. It’s none of your business. Do I question you about your sex life?”

It was bad enough that he knew she had one. And even worse that she had one with one of the wildest men in the county.

“Well, she’s not cooking for you, so obviously you’re not exactly in her good graces.” Crista laughed back at him. “So I don’t have to worry about Natches castrating you and ending the Jansen line forever.

Right?”

Alex stared back at her broodingly.

“You’re not going to sleep with her, right, Alex?”

Sleeping wasn’t exactly what he had on his mind. “I wasn’t making any hard and fast plans in that direction,” he finally said, sliding past the question. “Stop interrogating me before I call Cranston and let him know how damned good you are at it.”

She was still watching him worriedly. “I talked to Janey this morning.”

His brow arched. “Oh yeah?” Exactly how close were Janey and Crista?

“She hedged, too.”

Alex ignored her and walked back to the coffeepot, where he refilled his cup before turning back to stare at her.

If there was one person in this world that Alex allowed himself to love, then it was this woman. His baby sister. She was everything that was good and right in his world. Damn if he wanted to hurt her, but she was poking her nose in too deep here.