Double Dare Read Free

have. “It’s over. I’m exhausted.” Emma slid down into the seat and pulled the jacket up to her face, secretly sniffing it again.
    “Check the pockets,” Abigail suggested.
    She did. There wasn’t anything in them. Not even a lint ball. “Empty.” Disappointment filled her at the thought of never knowing her rescuer.
    “At least you have a souvenir,” Abigail said.
    Talk about a tall, dark and handsome souvenir. “I do.”
    “Did you recognize him?” Abigail stopped in front of Emma’s house.
    “No,” she answered and finally her heartbeat leveled back to normal.
    She looked out the window. On both sides, the neighbors’ safety lights flickered on. The house had been her childhood home. Many times her parents had greeted her when she arrived in the yard. Those memories had faded at the edges. The long held grief ached like an old injury. The house was hers now. The small cookie-cutter shape belied its large size. In the night you couldn’t see the light blue paint or the trimmings with white and yellow accents. Didn’t matter, she could see it in her mind’s eye.
    Sasha said, “It was so dark I’m sure you couldn’t pick him out of a line up.”
    But Emma could. There was no way she’d ever be able to forget those eyes. Shock, surprise, and then want had flickered behind his steely gaze all in less than a minute. One measly minute of her life and Emma kept replaying the heat of his mouth, the feel of his hands and his gaze. She kept sniffing the stupid coat to reassure herself the moment happened. Sasha was right. The man could have been dangerous. He felt dangerous with glass at her back and him at her front.
    With her clothes balled in one hand, Emma closed the front of the coat and stepped out the car. “Come by after work. Tomorrow’s Cookie Wednesday.”
    “Macadamia?” Sasha perked up again.
    “Don’t know yet,” Emma teased.
    She would have waved good-bye, but one flash a night was more than enough. Once inside the house she took in what would be the last deep breath of the coat’s scent and put it and him out of her mind. The odds of ever seeing him again were nil, which was for the best. Any man who could kiss like that on the fly was bound to create nothing but havoc.
    He wanted an explanation . Had asked for one without once letting his gaze leave hers, a gentlemanly act and a respectful gesture. The acts held a restraint that hadn’t been in the kiss. The whole thing left her feeling off-kilter.
    She had her friends, her business. A lust, let alone a love affair, didn’t fit into the compact life she enjoyed and created. She had balance and that man promised anything but that one thing. She preferred the slow build to attraction anyway. Half convinced now, she nodded. That quick, hot jolt of attraction always fizzled out. She pressed her nose to the leather. This would be the last smell before she hung the jacket in the foyer’s closet.
    Emma slipped off the coat and placed it into the dark recess of the closet without sniffing the air.
    “Good riddance,” she said and slammed the door.

Chapter Two
    “Let me get this straight.” Tobias Merchant breathed through his nose to get a semblance of calm. He did that a lot when talking to his little brother. “This woman hired you off the street without checking references. Without you having actual work experience.”
    His mind filled with all the possible dangers. As a former homicide detective, his imagination didn’t have to do a lot of work. He’d seen more than enough to know how small, seemingly innocuous circumstances ended with a dead body. “She didn’t even ask for your ID before hiring you?”
    He kept his voice low, because he had five customers sitting at various tables, sipping their coffee. Joshua’s brows went up, and Tobias knew he’d slipped into cop mode. Low didn’t mean without menace. Much worse, he’d planned to go into business with the woman who owned Sweet Tooth where no more than five minutes