Men Of Honour. Lori Foster
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an author,” Dare told him as he began preparing the food. “One of her books is being made into a movie with Ryan Reynolds as the lead.”
Chris’s jaw loosened. Why did Dare just keep dropping bombshells on him? He’d already found her interesting, in part because Dare had brought her here, which was an aberration of the major kind.
But this was something altogether different.
“You’re shittin’ me.”
“Nice language, asshole.”
Chris waved that off. It wasn’t like Dare was any better. Hell, neither of them was used to having a female around the place—not counting Tai and Sargie, who didn’t care what language they heard as long as they got treats and plenty of attention.
As a genuine movie buff, Chris felt suitably impressed. But then, he’d already been impressed with her before that. Somehow, Molly didn’t fit his vision of the creative sort. She wasn’t … glamorous enough. And she seemed far too grounded, instead of artistic.
But hell, she’d just been rescued from kidnappers who had battered her pretty badly. Maybe under better circumstances she had more savoir faire.
As he considered it, he realized that Molly didn’t fit any stereotype familiar to him. Most people in her situation would be either demanding of attention or withdrawn and fearful. Not Molly. Perhaps she was different with Dare, in private.
But in his presence, she wasn’t intrusive, needy or whiney. In fact, she tried hard not to inconvenience them in any way.
Chris shook his head. He knew Dare expected him to resent female intrusion, and before Molly, he would have. He protected his position, and he always had Dare’s back.
With Molly, there was no threat—not of the type he’d always guarded against.
If anything, he fell in line with Dare, sharing the need to keep her safe and help her feel secure.
“Ryan is a possible lead,” Molly corrected. “We’re waiting for confirmation….” She looked oddly chagrined, then downcast. “Well, actually, it might have already been confirmed or denied, but I haven’t had access to a phone or computer or anything.”
“Soon,” Dare told her.
“God, this sucks. I have no idea what’s going on with my career. But I was so focused on …”
“Surviving?” Chris supplied.
“Well, yeah. I was surviving, and so caught up in … in just holding it together that I …” She trailed off with a groan.
“You’re a trouper,” Chris told her in a grand understatement.
“I hope my editor or agent hasn’t been trying to get hold of me. What would they think? We were right in the middle of negotiations on this thing before I … I …”
Chris set the juice before her and pulled up a chair. He took her hand, so small and female, and wished he could have helped Dare destroy the ones who had done this to her. “Getting snatched by thugs is so damned inconvenient, isn’t it?”
She choked on a laugh and nodded with exaggeration. “More so than I ever could have imagined.”
Dare shot him a look of warning, which almost made Chris roll his eyes. He had to be the least threatening guy Ms. Molly was likely to come into contact with.
Even if he wasn’t gay, he’d have no sexual interest in her. Dare had already staked a claim. End of story.
But was he supposed to ignore the fact that she was a famous writer? No, of course not. “How long did they have you, Molly?”
“Dare helped me to figure out that it was nine days.”
Good God. Nine days of unending fear, pain, despair … Nine days of hell.
Overwhelmed with emotions he’d seldom felt, Chris gently squeezed her hand. “Well, then, I take back my earlier thoughts. You actually look incredible, all things considered.”
She snorted at that and, pulling her hand away, smoothed her hair behind her ears in a female show of insecurity. “Yeah, if looking like death warmed over appeals to you.”
He helped her tuck away a wayward strand. “Actually, you only look wounded, which sometimes appeals to the big protective male.”
“Chris …”
He laughed at Dare. “What I really meant was that I thought there were two types of writers, the glamorous ones who donned feather boas and dripped diamonds, and the harried ones who lived in a fantasyland.”
“I’m far from glamorous, and I’m only harried when I’m in the middle of a book. And when that happens, I can forget I have hair, much less how to groom it.”
Before Chris could ask for more details, Dare said, “We’ll be going to your place soon. You can get updated on everything important then.”
“Soon as in … like, when?”
“Depends. Probably in a couple of days.” He put the thinly sliced chicken into a hot skillet with spices. “You said you live north of Cincinnati, right?”
Molly toyed with her glass of orange juice. “It’s a small community, but nice. My apartment building is pretty old and quaint, but it’s comfortable for me.”
“Good security?” Dare asked.
“Not really. I mean, compared to this fortress, it’s just a plain old building. We have floodlights in the parking lot, and the halls are well lit. But we don’t have any hired guards or anything.”
“Is the front door kept locked?”
“Well … no.”
Chris shared a look with Dare. Most people were never forced to face danger in daily living. But as Dare’s personal assistant, he knew only too well the peril that could invade a person’s life, especially a woman.
It made him ill to think of Molly alone and susceptible to danger.
“It’s not that bad,” she told both men, recognizing their expressions of concern. “The locks on each apartment are sturdy, and we all have dead bolts, too.”
Only a small part of Dare’s attention was on the food. “You said the building is old. Do the windows lock?”
“I guess most of them do.”
When Dare turned toward her in exasperation, she rushed to explain.
“I’m on the upper floor, so I never worried about it as much as the people on the ground floor might.”
“It’s two stories? Do you have a fire escape?”
“Yes and yes.”
Chris always enjoyed seeing Dare in analytical mode. You could almost hear the gears turning as he figured things out in his mind.
“You need windows with secure locks.”
“Trust me, when I finally get my life back together, I’m going to be the most lock-happy woman you’ve ever met.” Wrapping her arms around herself, she shuddered. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to feel totally safe again.”
Dismissing that, probably because he was intent on ensuring her safety, Dare asked, “Busy area? Much traffic out front?”
“Not really, no. In fact, it’s really quiet. That’s … that’s how those men were able to grab me without anyone noticing. It’s a neighborhood of older people.” She breathed a little faster, a little more shallowly. “And it’s not that I’m oblivious to my surroundings, honest. I … I saw the old, rusty white van when I went out to the mailbox. But it just never occurred to me … I mean, why would I think that anyone wanted to grab me? It wasn’t the middle of the night, and I don’t live in the slums.”
Dare