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But damn. If Willow DeVane wanted him the same way he wanted her, things could get dangerous.
Then she blinked rapidly as if she was pushing the sensation to the back of her mind. She whirled around and scowled at Kit while he piled steaming lasagna onto his plate.
"Don't you dare feed him," she warned. "He's not here to eat."
Kit blinked in confusion. Then he grinned mischievously and plopped a healthy-sized portion onto the second plate, making Raith chuckle. Reaching past her, the blond disobediently handed the filled plate to him.
Raith accepted it, always willing to get a rise out of the hot lawyer. As she whirled back to give him a dirty look, silently commanding him not to eat her food, he stared her right in the eye and lifted the fork, then shoved a heaping pile of lasagna into his mouth.
Kit hooted in approval. "Oh, I like him," he praised, nudging Willow's elbow. "Even if you claim he's not your newest plaything."
Willow smacked Kit yet again on the arm. "Deputy Malloy is not my anything. He's merely here to—" Glancing from Kit back to Raith, she broke off her explanation. Coughing delicately, she quickly changed her story. "I mean, yes, he's my newest plaything."
Raith choked on a lasagna noodle. Kit paused with his fork half way to his mouth and glanced from a coughing Raith to the glaring Willow. "Deputy?" he repeated. "How interesting." He reached across the bar to smack Raith on the back, immediately clearing his air passage, and then held out a hand. "Kit Fletcher," he introduced himself. "I'm Willow's favorite cousin."
DeVane snorted. "Most annoying cousin more like."
Raith took his hand, irritated by the relief he experienced discovering Kit wasn't one of her old playthings. "Raith Malloy."
Willow blinked. "Wait. What'd
you say your first name was?"
Raith scowled. "Are you telling me you've known me for I don't know how many years," he lied, knowing exactly how long he had known her, "and you don't know my name?"
It stung. He knew everything he could discover about her. Soon after meeting her, he'd looked her up in the system. Willow Grace DeVane, born on November fourth, had a clean record. Ten years his junior, she'd been raised in Dexter County her entire life and left for only a few years to attend college at Duke. She'd gone through school faster than most law students and passed her bar at age twenty-seven. Now, at twenty-nine, she was a successful solicitor who usually only took divorce cases.
The woman at least had the decency to blush. "I've only ever heard anyone call you Malloy," she defended. Then she frowned and asked, "Did you say Rafe?"
He shook his head. "No. It's Raith, with a T-H not an F."
DeVane stared a moment longer, looking transfixed. "Raith," she repeated quietly. "Well, that's a fascinating name."
Raith took pleasure in the way a half-smile lit her face as she studied him, as if she'd completely forgotten they were archenemies. But she seemed to realize she'd been staring far too long, because she quickly twisted away and switched her attention to Kit, frowning at him as if her lapse in memory was his fault.
"Been breaking the law again, cousin dearest?" Kit asked as he forked up a mouthful of lasagna.
She sniffed, but Raith answered the man before she could. "I'm here to show her some self-defense moves."
As she turned to narrow her eyes at him, he shoved more food into his own pie hole. Damn, the woman really could cook orgasmic Italian. The only thing that could make her lasagna taste better would be covering her naked body with the meal and licking all the flavors off.
"Why you doin' that?" Kit muffled between bites, interrupting Raith's delicious thoughts. "She get mugged or something?"
"No!" Willow snapped, and sent a pointed look Raith's way, silently commanding him to keep quiet. "I did not get mugged."
Ignoring her wordless warning, Raith leaned past her. "She was attacked by one of her clients at the jail yesterday."
Kit immediately stopped eating. "She what?" He whirled toward DeVane. "What happened? Did you get hurt? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Willow said just as Raith added, "He gave her a nasty bump on the forehead."
Kit immediately reached over and flipped up her bangs to see the dark bruise stretching over her right eyebrow. "Holy hell!" he burst out, pinning her with a disapproving grimace. "Damn it, Willow. Why didn't you tell anyone?"
Willow glanced over at Raith and blasted him with a killer glare. "Thanks a lot, Malloy. Now, every freaking member of my family's going to call, worried and upset."
"Good," Raith shot back. "Maybe they can lecture some sense into that hard head of yours."
"How did this guy get close to you?" Kit butted in, reaching for her hair to get another look at the bruise, only to have her to push his hand away and hiss at him.
