Cait London - Blaylock's Bride

She hesitated, studying the old flower bed, heavy gold daffodils bent beneath the weight of raindrops. For just a heartbeat, her frown softened. Then, she flew up the steps in the easy movements of an athletic woman on a mission, and punched the doorbell furiously. Before Roman could move from the shadows, she had banged her fist on the door. In the next second, she had begun muttering and had extracted a small black kit from the huge leather bag slung over her shoulder.

When she crouched to pick the lock, Roman found his mouth drying at the curve of her hips. The instant desire to place his hands on her startled him, and he spoke too roughly, “The door isn’t locked. You’re a strong woman and I don’t want the stained-glass window broken. It was Boone’s mother’s treasure,” Roman murmured, moving out into the moonlit square on the porch.

“I know what that stained glass meant to him.” Kallista took a step backward, her narrowed almond-shaped eyes ripping down his body, pausing on his bare chest and then jerking back up to his face. At six foot three, Roman stood a head higher than her and Kallista’s frown said she resented looking up to him. She jammed the worn lockpicking kit into her bag. The firm edge to her jaw and the thrust of her chin reminded him of Boone. “I want you out of here. Now. You don’t belong here, not in Boone’s house.”

Roman took his time in answering, stunned by the exotic scent curling from her—part anger, part cinnamon and silk, and all woman. Sleek, tough, sophisticated and...wounded. From Boone’s file, Roman knew the shadowy corners of Kallista’s life. “He wanted me here.”

She glanced again at his bare chest, hesitated for a heartbeat, and then jerked her gaze back up to his face. “You took advantage of a dying man. You moved in and took over. You’re probably bleeding his estate dry.”

In the fraction of a heartbeat when she’d glanced at his chest, wildfire heat shot through Roman’s body, stunning him. She’d tensed just enough to prove that she’d been aware of him. At thirty-nine, Roman considered his sensual years behind him—if he’d had any—and settling gently into middle age without the complications of a woman, Roman wasn’t prepared for the sensual jolt slamming into his midsection. “I see your opinion of me hasn’t changed. You should have called. I tried to contact you for a solid year after Boone’s death.”

He noted the trembling of her fingers before she gripped the porch railing, gleaming with the rain that had passed. “I didn’t want contact with you. I don’t know what Boone saw in you.”

In the moonlight, Roman saw her resemblance to Boone, that sweep of feminine jaw clenched in rigid, righteous anger reserved for bullies and those who would hurt others. “Boone wanted me here...to take care of things.”

“I’ll just bet,” she snapped back, locking her arms around herself. “I want to see everything. Now. I want to see what you’ve sold off, what you’ve destroyed, and oh, yes, the books. I want to see just how much you’ve siphoned off into your own accounts.”

“No one has ever accused me of being dishonest,” Roman stated tightly, and wondered why this woman could set him off so easily.

“Afraid that I’ll see something I shouldn’t?” she taunted in a silky purr that raised the hair on Roman’s nape. “Something that might be missing? Something expensive?”

“It’s ten o’clock at night. Why don’t you come back in the morning, after you’ve had some sleep and cooled down?” Roman managed after taking a long, deep breath. Kallista knew just how to insult his pride. She’d launched her contempt without shielding it But then from his file on Kallista, Roman knew that she wasn’t sweet—she was a fighter.

She folded her arms across her chest, slanting a suspicious look up at him. “And give you time to fix what you’ve done? No.”

Roman locked his jaw before he said too much. “Let’s try this another way. I’m the legal executor of Boone’s estate. What makes you think that you have the right to examine anything?”

She shimmered in anger, as though she wanted to launch herself at him, and tear him from Boone’s property. Then, for just an instant her bottom lip trembled and Roman prayed she wouldn’t cry. He fought a shudder; he knew his limits. One tear and he’d go down like the proverbial ton of bricks.

“He was my friend. I loved that man,” she said finally and the raw pain in her tone tore at Roman’s heart, matching his own love for Boone.

“He left you something.” Roman reached past Kallista and opened the door. He noted the distinctive recoil of her body from him—die “wife beater.” “After you.”

She arced an eyebrow and nodded curtly. “You first.”

Roman smiled tightly and remembered his mother rapping him on the head when he forgot “ladies first.” Kallista didn’t trust him. Spitting mad, she looked like a weary, fragile kitten backed into a corner she didn’t understand. The tension in her expression was for Boone, a man who had kept her safe. Roman wanted to fold her into his arms, to keep her safe, just as Boone had wanted. Instead he curled his hand around her nape, tugged slightly and she leaped back, her indrawn breath a hiss of warning, as she gave him room to pass.

“Wipe those boots.” Roman Blaylock’s broad, tanned back rippled in front of her, gleaming with sweat and rain, and the primitive impulse to draw her nails slowly down the smooth dark surface, stunned her. When he turned, a mocking lilt to one corner of his hard mouth, Kallista forced her eyes to stay locked with his, keeping them from drifting lower—to that wide, fascinating expanse of his chest, tanned and lightly flecked with damp curling hair. The man was physically potent, enough to send women swooning, especially with his dark warlord scowl and shaggy, poorly cut hair. A physical man, she repeated, catching the scent of rain on his skin, sweat and a dark stormy presence. Roman moved like a mountain lion, smooth, rippling—a predator aware of his surroundings, his power. In Kallista’s experience, men who looked like Roman knew how to use their looks and she wasn’t interested. She focused on her mission—to see that Boone’s beloved house hadn’t been sacked.

A sweep of Roman’s hand invited her to look—the house was just as she remembered, big and cluttered, filled with pictures of people she didn’t recognize, other children latched to Big Boone’s safe body. The old upright piano, which had been Boone’s mother’s, loomed in the shadows. The furniture was old, overstuffed, and stripped of the doilies she’d remembered. Against the wall, covered by an oversized shawl, was the huge steamer trunk that he’d always kept locked. The hulking china cabinet was packed with old china and glassware, which Boone had said came from his mother and grandmother—me fascinating, elegant collection of ruby glass circled by gold had been Kallista’s favorite. Amid other framed childish drawings on the wall was her watercolor of Boone, a huge stick man, holding a little stick girl’s hand. Boone And Me And My Boots a young Kallista had printed in block letters, referencing her favorite red boots.

Emotion tightened Kallista’s throat and dampened her eyes. She never cried, and couldn’t afford the luxury now, because she had a job to do for Boone. She forced herseh to scan the house, because if anything was missing...

Kallista moved past the living room into another smaller less formal room. The chair was simple, solid lines of oal- big enough to accommodate Roman’s tall body. She scanned the room quickly—a television set, magazines books, and a dinner tray placed on a coffee table that matched the chair. Off to one side, the door to Boone’s study was open and Kallista entered the room in which he had held her on his lap. He’d cuddled a sobbing lonely child, deserted by her mother. He’d told her that he loved her, that love was the most important thing in the world and that she would always be his girl, that she could cal- The Llewlyn her home.