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“Me neither. They’re doing a prequel. I can’t wait!”
He laughed. “I read about that. I’ll be watching it, too.”
She glanced at her phone and grimaced. “I’ll be late to work.”
“Can’t have that.” He went inside, slipped on his shoes, grabbed his keys, and went out the door.
“You’re going to drive it looking like that?” she exclaimed.
He raised both eyebrows. She must mean the scar. He should have pulled on a shirt . . .
“You’ll be mobbed by love-starved women!” she told him. “They’ll all swoon!”
“The scar will put them off.”
“What scar?” she asked.
He caught her arm and pulled her just a little closer. “This one.” He took her hand and traced it.
She frowned as she felt it and pursed her lips, trying not to let him see that her pulse rate doubled and her breath suspended somewhere halfway to her mouth from the contact with that gorgeous male body. “That must have taken a lot of stitches.”
“It did.”
“And you think it would put a woman off?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“Wouldn’t it?”
“It wouldn’t put me off. If I was in the market for a man, that is. I’m not,” she added quickly.
“That’s nice to know. I don’t have to worry about you jumping on me when I come to get my car in the morning.”
She grinned at him. “You’ll be perfectly safe.” As she turned, she made a growling noise.
His chest swelled. He chuckled. “Stop that. I’m impervious.”
She didn’t say another word, but she couldn’t stop smiling. And at least he hadn’t noticed her reaction to him. She hoped.
* * *
He went to bed, still wondering what sort of work she did that late at night. She was intelligent. But she might have been forced by circumstances into a cleaning job. That was sad. It was admirable work, but she deserved better. He recalled her face when she’d touched his chest. It had been very expressive, like the sudden uptick in her heart rate and breathing, not signs an experienced law enforcement officer would fail to notice. Of course, he shouldn’t have been noticing those things, either. She was far too young for him. Yet his own pulse had done some odd things when he felt her hand on his bare chest. He couldn’t afford to get mixed up with a small-town girl who was too young for him. If only she wasn’t so damned sexy! He fell asleep worrying it in his mind.
The next morning, he got up and showered and dressed. He really needed to find a laundromat. He had two suits and they were fine, but he had shirts and undershirts and underwear and socks that needed washing. He bundled it all into a zipper bag and started out the door and up the hill to his car.
She was just pulling into the driveway as he reached his vehicle.
“Going bowling?” she asked, noting the bag.
“Not hardly. To the laundromat, if you know where I can find one.”
“Bring your stuff inside,” she said. “I have some things to wash, too. We can put all of it in together.”
“That’s above and beyond,” he pointed out.
She cocked her head and looked up at him. “I’m cultivating you,” she explained. “That way if I ever get stalked by monsters, you’ll come save me.”
He chuckled. “I’d do that anyway.”
“So, come on in.”
