Tami Hoag - Heart of Gold

Pouting, Lindy gathered her toys together and climbed down from the bed. A disgruntled frown marred her forehead as she grumbled, “All she ever watches is movies, and I fall asleep ’cause I’m too little.”

Faith shook her head as she watched her daughter shuffle dejectedly out into the hall.

“I’ll have to have a talk with her about wandering into people’s rooms before the inn opens for business,” she said. “That could be a very embarrassing habit for her to get into.”

“Not to mention prematurely educational,” Shane quipped, enjoying the color that rose in Faith’s cheeks. He had to admit he found her modesty refreshing and sweet, and damned if it didn’t turn him on. Desire stirred lazily inside him as he wondered whether or not she would be shy with him in bed.

“I’m sorry if she woke you.”

“She didn’t bother me at all,” he said, a little surprised that it was true. It had been so long since he’d had the chance to be around small children, he’d forgotten how much he enjoyed their company. “Anyway, I have a feeling it’s time I got up.”

“You’re in no condition to get up,” Faith protested, planting her hands on her gently rounded hips and giving him a look of maternal command, even though maternal was the last thing she felt when she looked at him.

“That never stopped me before.” He actually found the makings of a smile to send her. Unconsciousness had done wonders for his temperament.

If he had looked sexy before, Faith thought, he looked doubly so now, alone in the bed with the covers riding low on his flat belly. Darn it, why couldn’t the government have sent her a fat, balding toad of a special agent?

Breathlessly she asked, “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.” His brain felt like steel wool, his shoulder throbbed, and his skin hurt all over, but these complaints seemed minor enough to fit under the heading of “fine.” By the look of her Faith wasn’t able to make the same claim.

Shadows hung under her dark eyes in violet crescents. The pallor of her skin was a sharp contrast to the soft pink sweater she wore above a mauve cotton skirt that was gathered at the waist and hung down well past her knees. She was unquestionably as nervous as a cat and looked as if she had never even heard of a good night’s sleep, let alone enjoyed one.

“How long have I been out?” Shane asked, scratching at the stubble that covered his lean cheeks.

“About nineteen hours,” she answered as she flitted about his room like a hyperactive butterfly, straightening things that had already been straightened a dozen times and had never needed it in the first place. She could have told him how long he’d been out to the minute, but she didn’t think it would be a wise thing to reveal, considering how it would reflect on her.

“Agent Matthews says the wound in your shoulder is infected.” She started leaning in the direction of the door, eager to make her escape. “I should go get him. He’ll want to see you.”

Shane’s right hand snaked out and closed quickly but gently around her delicate wrist, snaring her alongside his bed. Her eyes rounded in alarm.

“That can wait,” he said. “I want to talk to you first. What happened?”

“You passed out.” Somehow Faith knew it wasn’t the answer he was looking for, but it was the only one she wanted to give him.

He shook his head impatiently. “While I was out, what happened?”

She frowned at his suddenly wary look. “You didn’t reveal any state secrets, if that’s what you’re worried about. You growled and snarled and were generally unpleasant, but that wasn’t anything I hadn’t already experienced.”

“What else?” he prodded.

“Nothing, really.”

She was a terrible liar. Her teeth dug into her lower lip, and her gaze darted around the room, landing everywhere but on him. She was keeping something from him. Even if it hadn’t been written all over her lovely face, Shane could sense the tension in her.

Instead of wanting to shake the truth out of her, he found himself wanting to pull her into his arms and coax it out of her with gentle kisses. That was a bad idea, but he was darn near beyond caring about job ethics where Faith Kincaid was concerned. Just looking at her, even now when he was only at half strength, he wanted her. He was beginning to think they were simply going to have to deal with that desire sooner or later, because it obviously wasn’t going to go away.

At the moment, though, his first concern had to be finding out what had happened while he’d been dead to the world.

“Faith?”

She trembled as his smoky voice caressed her like velvet. His thumb gently rubbed circles at the paper-thin flesh on the inside of her wrist. She felt faint from trying to fight her own emotions. Darn him anyway, what did he want to know? That she had sat beside him during the worst of his fever trying to comfort and soothe him? That she had just fallen in love with him because he had stayed inside the lines when he colored Bedtime Bear? That she was so stressed out, all she wanted to do was find a quiet place, curl into a ball, and cry?

“Did you get another call?”

“No,” she said too quickly. “And Agent Matthews is handling everything, so you don’t have to worry-”

Shane cut her off with a virulent expletive. “The bastard called again. Get me my pants.”

Faith jerked her arm from his grasp and retreated two steps but faced him with a look of determination. “I will not get you your pants, Shane Callan. You are going to stay in bed at least another day.”

“The hell I am.”

Without warning or compunction he tossed back the covers and hauled himself to his feet, absolutely, magnificently naked.

Faith’s jaw dropped. He was everything she had imagined he would be and then some. Six feet, four inches of beautifully sculpted, elegantly built man. Someone should have bronzed him and put him on display in a museum. His powerful chest tapered to gracefully slim hips that led to muscular thighs and impressive evidence of his gender.

“Sweetheart,” he said in a voice like raw silk, “if you keep looking at me that way, neither one of us is going to need clothes in a minute.”

As impossible as it seemed, Faith was certain she blushed an even deeper shade of red. The heat in her cheeks rose another million degrees. Arrogant, presumptuous man! Never mind that her insides were melting like ice cream under a hot July sun, he needn’t have commented on it.

Quickly she turned and reached into the wardrobe. She yanked out one of the fresh bath towels she had stocked it with and thrust it at him.

“You are not leaving this room,” she announced, refusing to look at him another second for fear that she’d faint dead away. It seemed all her bones had turned to butter.

“I’m here to take care of you,” Shane pointed out, accepting the towel. “Not the other way around.”

“It seemed a moot point when you were unconscious.”

“I’m not unconscious anymore.”

“So I noticed,” Faith grumbled between her teeth, forcing her eyes to remain riveted to the pattern of the wallpaper.

“This is my case,” Shane said as he slung the swath of deep green terry cloth around his hips and secured it out of deference to Faith’s modesty. “I’m perfectly capable of handling it.”

“Yes, I seem to remember you mumbling something to that effect as Mr. Matthews and Mr. Fitz hauled your semiconscious body from the floor of my room.”

Shane ignored her sarcasm and abruptly went to the heart of the matter. “Was it the same caller? Did Matthews have time to trace it?”

“It was a letter, not a call,” Faith admitted in a low voice. Lust was instantly forgotten. She trembled as she thought of the note that had come in the morning mail. It seemed impossible for a scrap of paper to be such a terrifying thing, but it had shaken her almost as badly as the phone call had. She didn’t want Shane to know that, though. The pigheaded man belonged in bed. “Everything is under control. Your men are watching the house, and Agent Matthews is taking care-”