’s life that you need to catch up on.”
Impulsively Erin went toward her sister-in-law and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for accepting me. I know that when they find Ken, everything will work out for the two of you. I’ll be available if you need any help.”
“Oh, Erin, Ken is going to love you. I know he is.” She sounded like an innocent child again.
Erin took her shoes off and curled her feet under her as she sat in the corner of the leather sofa and began studying the photographs. There were pictures of Ken with a nice-looking couple whom Erin supposed to be his adoptive parents. She laughed over one photograph featuring a Ken about nine years old wearing an enormous pair of Mickey Mouse ears standing outside the gates of Disneyland. For the next brief hours, his whole life kaleidoscoped before her eyes. She reached out and touched a recent photograph taken on Fisherman’s Wharf. Ken’s dark hair was windblown, his smile rakish, his long legs in the ragged cutoffs were tanned and muscular.
Tears pricked the backs of her eyelids as she prayed that soon she would see this man who was the only person on earth she knew of with whom she shared a bloodline. With the back of her hand, she whisked away the tears as the door opened and Lance walked in.
He stood in the doorway for a moment and allowed himself the luxury of staring at the woman folded into the corner of the couch. Either she’s who she says she is, or she’s one hell of an actress, he thought grimly when he caught her brushing away the tears.
Her fatigue was all too evident as she looked up at him, but he thought the hollows under her cheekbones added a waifish quality to her face that was beguiling. The faint lavender shadows under those wide, fathomless eyes made them even more haunting. Any man with an ounce of sense would run as far and as fast as he could from them.
He swallowed the lump that unexplainably formed in his throat when he noted the slender legs tucked under her hips. Her skirt had ridden up over the knee and accommodated him with an unrestricted view of a smooth, slim, silk-encased thigh.
Hell! he thought. If he didn’t know the muscles of his face were frozen into that implacable mask, he’d be making a fool of himself. He felt like a schoolboy seeing his first copy of Playboy. He wished he didn’t remember how her mouth tasted.
“Mr. Barrett?”
Her hesitant question brought him to the surface again. Maybe his face hadn’t been as unreadable as he imagined. “I thought you might already have been asleep,” he said, closing the door behind him.
“No. I’m tired, but the day has been too tumultuous, I guess. I don’t seem to be able to relax.” The sight of him hadn’t done anything to calm her. If she gave credence to her senses, his presence in the small room had increased her anxiety.
“Would you like something from the kitchen?”
“No. Thank you.” His civility was as unnerving as his former hostility.
She watched him warily as he took off the necktie that had been loosely knotted all day. He draped it over the back of a chair. Then he put both his palms to the small of his back and stretched, expanding his chest out in front of him. The play of muscles under his shirt was awesome. Finally, he released his breath in a long expulsion of air, and the muscles returned to their normal state.
“Which blanket do you want?” he asked as he sat down in a deep overstuffed chair. With the toe of one foot, he pushed the heel of his loafer off the other foot.
Staring at him, disbelieving his intention, Erin stammered, “You can’t mean—I—you’re not—this is—”
“Could you be a little more specific, Miss O’Shea?” he asked sardonically.
His teasing made her furious. “You’re not thinking of sleeping in that chair?”
He looked at the chair he was sitting in as if weighing its merits. “Well, I was planning to. But if you’d rather I join you on the couch—”
“You stay where you are,” she commanded, pointing an imperative finger at him as he moved to get out of the chair. “What are you trying to pull?” she demanded as she stood and took two steps toward him with her balled fists planted on her hips. “You must have a James Bond hangup, thinking you can bully a woman all day and then seduce her at night. Well, I’m informing you now, Mr. Barrett, that unlike those libidinous females in the movies, I can and will resist you.”
“You’re making far too much of this, Miss O’Shea,” he said quietly and reasonably. Her tirade sounded ridiculous. “Rest assured that my reasons for sharing this room with you are strictly professional. Believe me, I’d rather be across the street stretched out on the bed I’ve been using for the past ten days than sleeping in this chair.”
“I don’t require constant surveillance,” she flared.
Again his voice was annoyingly calm. “Probably not, but until I can confirm your identity, you stay under my watch. I wouldn’t want to allow a gunrunner or drug dealer to escape into the night.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” she groaned, rolling her brown eyes heavenward.
She flopped down on the couch in irritation and sulked for a moment while he began sorting through the blankets and pillows. His every movement attracted her attention and she couldn’t help but stare. If she would admit it, the idea of spending the night in the same room with him was exciting. She wasn’t nearly as irritated with him as she was with herself for the outrageous pounding of her heart and the murmurs of arousal that stirred her as never before.
When he had divided the linens equally, he turned around to face her. Her disparaging expression was well-known to her employees. It usually portended bad news for someone who had made a stupid mistake. “I would like to take a shower.”
“Forget it.”
“I need to go to the bathroom!” she exclaimed.
“That I’ll allow.”