A Time to Die. BEVERLY BARTON
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this morning, she preferred something heavier. Besides, the velvet robe offered her more protection from Deke Bronson’s subtle appraisal. It wasn’t that he’d blatantly stared at her, or that his glances over her body had been offensive. Quite the opposite. The way he’d casually raked his gaze over her—more than once—had aroused her.
Just go out there and follow your usual morning routine.
What she would do was put on coffee and prepare breakfast. There was a box of frozen sausage biscuits in the freezer. And it wouldn’t take ten minutes to make the coffee, heat the biscuits in the microwave and scramble eggs. Once she had set the bar with placemats and silverware, and poured their orange juice, she would knock on the guest room door and announce that breakfast was served.
As she crossed her bedroom, she managed to slip into her robe and knot the tie belt before opening the door.
Morning sunlight flooded the huge three-room expanse. She loved the triple set of French doors that led onto the balcony, because they afforded her a magnificent view. Late autumn in eastern Tennessee was always a lovely time of year, but especially this year, when the first frost had come late and the vibrant colors of the fall foliage were still at their peak. A week from now, closer to Thanksgiving, the colors would have faded, harkening the approach of winter. From almost every window in her home, she had a fabulous view of the Tennessee River. Real estate along the river was at a premium, and she knew that if Bedell, Inc. hadn’t owned this building and sold her the loft at a bargain price, she wouldn’t be living here now. Despite the sizable settlement she had received from UBC, she didn’t squander her money, using it for necessities and donating most of the interest she drew from her money market account to Helping Hands. Her contribution was only a drop in the bucket compared to what Bedell, Inc. donated, but no gift of either time or money was insignificant.
“Good morning,” a deep male voice said.
Gasping, Lexie jerked her head around and stared at the man standing in her kitchen. He was clean-shaven, and his short black hair was slightly damp. He wore jeans, a plaid shirt and a tan corduroy jacket. No tie. He lifted one of her orange UT mugs in a salute.
“Good morning,” she replied. She eyed the coffee-maker. “You’ve made coffee?”
“It’s fresh,” he told her. “I’m finishing off the first pot.”
“How long have you been up?”
“Since five-thirty.” He glanced at the bar area, where he’d plugged in a small laptop computer. “I had some reports to go over.”
“Did you get any sleep at all?” she asked.
“About four hours. I don’t need a lot of sleep. Four or five hours are good for me.”
She sighed. “Must be nice. I’m a seven-hour-a-night person. Less than six and I’m worthless.” Her cane tapped softly on the wooden floor as she walked over to the coffeemaker. She reached into the cabinet overhead and removed another cup, this one bearing the University of Georgia bulldog mascot, then filled it to the brim.
“I just got off the phone with my colleague, Geoff Monday, who’s guarding Ms. Bedell,” Deke said. “They had an uneventful night, too.”
Lexie sipped the coffee. Mmm…delicious. In reality, her night had been uneventful, though her dreams had been anything but. “That’s good. No more threats. Maybe yesterday’s bomb and threatening phone call were all there’ll be, and that’s the end of it.”
“Maybe, but doubtful.”
Lexie set her mug down, then hoisted herself onto one of the two stools and hung her cane’s bronze handle on the edge of the bar. “You think it was just the beginning, don’t you?”
“Probably.” He joined her at the bar. After closing his laptop, he swiveled his stool around and faced her.
Her heartbeat did a stupid little rat-a-tat-tat when his dark gaze settled on her. Without thinking about what she was doing, she pulled the lapels of her robe together, all too aware that her nipples had peaked, and momentarily forgetting that she was wearing her velvet robe and not the one made of delicate silk.
His gaze drifted to where her hand rested in the center of her chest. He cleared his throat. “Is there any reason why Lieutenant Desmond should remove himself from this case?”
Taken totally off-guard by his question, she almost choked on her coffee. After coughing a couple of times, she stared at him quizzically. “Why would you ask such a question? I have no idea why you’d—”
“In the same way doctors aren’t supposed to treat loved ones, it’s a bad idea for a police officer to be directly involved in a case when he has a personal relationship with—”
“Bain and I are friends, nothing more,” she said defensively. “And he and Cara are acquaintances.” Acquaintances who just happen to be in love with each other, but that’s nobody’s business except theirs. “Being a Dundee agent, you’re probably aware of the fact that Bain was the lead detective on Cara’s half sister’s murder case.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I know.” He paused for half a second. “So you’re dating the lieutenant, but you’re not sleeping with him?”
Surprised by his comment, Lexie glared at her bodyguard. His gaze met hers head-on. “That question was highly inappropriate,” she told him.
“Maybe I should have put the question less bluntly, but—”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have asked the question at all.”
“I didn’t ask out of idle curiosity,” he told her. “I’ve been hired to protect you, to do whatever is necessary to keep you safe. In order to do that, I need to know as much about you and your life as possible. Someone set off a bomb at the headquarters of the organization you’re in charge of, and then that someone telephoned you to threaten your life. I need your full cooperation in order to do my job and stop him before he does anything else.”
Lexie saw no connection between the threat on her life and her personal relationship with Bain. But she wasn’t about to be stubborn and difficult, not when it served no purpose.
“Bain and I are friends. We go out occasionally. We enjoy each other’s company. But we are not lovers.”
Only when Deke’s facial muscles relaxed did Lexie realize how tight his jaw had been. Had he been angry with her for not answering his question immediately, so once she acquiesced to his wishes, his anger had subsided? Odd. Very odd.
Brushing aside any lingering tension between them, Lexie slipped off the bar stool, grabbed her cane and took a few steps toward the refrigerator. “I have frozen sausage biscuits that I can pop into the microwave. And if you’d like I can scramble—”
A cell phone rang, but the sound was muffled, as if coming from another room. As they listened, Lexie recognized the ring tone as hers. “It’s mine,” she told him.
“Where’s your phone?”
“In my bedroom.”
When she took a couple of tentative steps in that direction, he waved her back. “Stay. I’ll get it for you.”
Unaccustomed to being ordered about as if she were a helpless child—not since she had completed her physical therapy and begun a new life on her own—Lexie stopped dead still and glowered at Deke Bronson’s broad back as he disappeared into her bedroom. She might have a slight physical handicap, but she despised being treated as if she were less capable than anyone else.
Don’t get bent out of shape about it. After all, he didn’t know that she hated being waited on and catered to. Just fix breakfast.
Before she had time to open the freezer compartment and remove the box of biscuits, Deke came out of her room with her cell phone to his ear.
He had answered her phone. How dare he!
“Yeah,