guess maybe I went a little overboard with the self-discipline. I was terrified I’d do something to derail my goals.”
“So how did Anthony sneak under your radar?” he asked with a smile, more interested in her answer than he liked to admit.
“I was twenty-six, burned-out and lonely,” she answered, her cheeks flaming as if the answer embarrassed her. “He was smart, charming, sophisticated and experienced. I was completely unequipped to handle a man so determined and skilled at seduction.” She met his gaze. “I asked him once, near the end of our marriage, why he’d chosen me out of all the women he could have pursued.”
“He said he liked the idea of being with someone who’d never loved anyone but him,” she answered with a bitter laugh. The sound made Harlan’s stomach ache.
“He was an idiot, then,” Harlan blurted, unable to school his tongue. He rose from the sofa, pushed by an urge he couldn’t seem to squelch.
She rose, as well, like a gazelle startled into alertness by his swift movement. They stared at each other over the low coffee table, their gazes locked and blazing.
She was the first to look away. “I should get ready for bed. We have a lot to do over the next couple of weeks, and I need to get as much rest as I can manage with the schedule we’ll be keeping.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, although he wanted nothing more than to follow her into the bedroom and do what his body was screaming for him to do. “I should probably take a walk around the perimeter, make sure everything’s still.”
They both moved at the same time, around the coffee table, and nearly collided. He put out his hand to steady her, his fingers brushing against her rib cage.
Her soft gasp sent need rocketing through him.
“Harlan,” she murmured, her voice raspy and low.
Kissing her was the worst possible thing he could do at that moment. He knew it was.
He just didn’t give a damn.
Dipping his head, he brushed his lips against hers. He kept the touch light. A question, not a statement.
She made a sound low in her throat and rose on her tiptoes, her mouth pressing back against his for a long, electric moment. Her hand flattened against his chest, her fingers curling in the fabric of his shirt.
Then she was suddenly halfway across the room, moving at such a fast clip she was in the kitchen before Harlan could do more than catch his breath.
She disappeared into the back of the house, her movements quick and nervous, reminding him again of prey trying desperately to escape the notice of a deadly predator on the prowl.
Hell, maybe that’s exactly what she was.
Her escape leaving him feeling frustrated and edgy, he headed outside, glad for the chilly October night, which went a long way toward cooling the heat burning at his core. He took a couple of slow circuits around the house, keeping an eye out for movements in the dark. To the north, only a few lights burned inside the main house, but the white facade glowed in the moonlight like a pale wraith.
He made his way back to the front door of the guesthouse, feeling more in control now, although he still burned with anger at what Stacy had told him about her husband. What kind of narcissistic creep had he been to say such a thing to her? To make her think the only asset she could offer a man was her inexperience and her single-minded devotion to his needs?
Jerk.
He climbed the wide, shallow steps to the front door and halted just before he reached the landing, his gaze falling on something lying next to the woven welcome mat.
It was a deep golden bloom with four long petals. It looked freshly picked. He must not have looked down as he left the house, he realized. He’d been too busy trying to cool down his uncooperative sex drive.
He had no idea if it was possible to get fingerprints off a flower. Probably not. And for all he knew, the bloom had blown here on the West Texas breeze that sometimes swept across the plains like a runaway train.
But if he was wrong…
He opened the front door and called Stacy’s name. She appeared in the doorway, looking apprehensive.
He showed her the bloom. “Do you know what that is?”
Her expression shifted to curiosity. “A canna lily, I think.” She bent to pick it up.
He bent, catching her hand to still her movement. She looked up at him, her eyes dark and intense.
He forgot about the flower. About the threat. About anything but how the Texas moonlight made her look more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen in his life.
He wanted to kiss her again, more than he wanted to take his next breath. And if the fire gleaming in her eyes meant anything, she wanted the same thing.
But she looked away, her struggle for control visible and ultimately successful. She stood, pulling her hand away from his grasp. “They grow in the governor’s garden,” she said in a strained voice. “Do you think it could have blown here?”
“I considered it.” The porch light overhead wasn’t on. “Can you turn on the light for me?”
A second later, the porch light cast its golden glow across the stoop. Harlan pulled out his cell phone and snapped a couple of shots, then took a pen from his jacket pocket and used it to flip the bloom toward him to get a better look. The flower had been pinched off, if the slight bruising on the pale green stem was anything to go by.
He rose from his crouch. “Could Zachary have pulled the flower from the governor’s garden and brought it here?”
“No,” she answered, her gaze still on the bloom. “He got stung by a bee one time while smelling a flower. Now he has a phobia about flowers.”
“Do you have a plastic zipper bag-like a sandwich bag?”
“Sure.” She disappeared inside and returned with a clear plastic bag with a sliding snap closure.
Harlan used his pen to nudge the flower into the bag. He followed Stacy back into the house, watching to make sure she locked the door behind them. “I’ll run this by the agency in the morning. Someone there will know if there’s any way to get fingerprints off the flower.”
She rubbed her arms as if she were cold, although the October night was unseasonably mild. “I don’t know why I’m so creeped out by a flower.”
“It’s not just the flower,” he said, almost reaching out to touch her before he realized what a bad idea that would be. He had to stay here tonight to keep watch. How much good would he be if he spent the whole time wishing he were naked with her in her bed?
Too bad he hadn’t gotten the number of the hotel in Amarillo where Alexis and her fiance were staying. One two-minute conversation with his ex ought to be enough to cure him of his newfound fascination with Stacy Giordano.
Just thinking about his failed marriage helped him regain some of his equilibrium. By the time he settled on the sofa across from Stacy, he felt as if he might make it through the night without losing his mind.
“A flower is a strange means of making a threat, isn’t it?” Stacy asked, after a couple of minutes of strained silence.
“Without a note, yeah. I guess it’s an odd choice.”
“Maybe it’s not connected to what’s happening with the governor at all.”
“Have you received anything else like that? Like the strange phone call, or anonymous gifts?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’m not really the type of woman who attracts secret admirers. I don’t go out much, most of what I do is behind the scenes-”
“Maybe someone on the governor’s staff?”
“I don’t think so. I can’t think of anyone who even gives me a second glance.”
“Maybe you’re so busy with your work, you’re just not paying attention to who might be watching you,” he suggested.
“You’re creeping me out again.”
