Free Cavanaugh Watch by Marie Ferrarella Page B

In a lot of ways.
    But then, he did like a challenge and she was that. Right from the word go. Just being around the woman without telling her exactly what he thought of her and her damn superior attitude came under the heading of one hell of a challenge.
    “Your apartment’s clear,” he told her, walking back into the kitchen.
    Janelle saw him holstering his weapon. All of her brothers wore holsters and guns beneath their jackets, as did her cousins. She was accustomed to this and hardly noticed.
    Except for now.
    There was something incredibly masculine about the way Sawyer moved, the way he took charge.
    Her sense of wonder warred with her sense of independence and her resistance to having him take over. This was not going to be an easy association, she thought as she hung up the receiver. Pizza was on its way. She’d selected the toppings of her choice since he hadn’t voiced a preference. If Sawyer didn’t like them, he was just going to have to deal with it.
    Janelle looked at him meaningfully. They had a difference of opinion there, she thought. He might regard the apartment as clear, but she certainly didn’t.
    “No, it’s not.”
    With that, she turned on her heel to go find Batman some bedding in case he was lying about his having no need to sleep.

    The pizza box, its bottom shiny with the oils that had leeched out of their dinner, was empty.
    Janelle reached for a napkin, wiping her lips and then her fingers before balling the paper up and tossing it into the box. She eyed Sawyer sitting across from her at the small, dinette-sized kitchen table. For once, his eyes weren’t on her.
    For a man who had expressed no desire to eat, he’d certainly done justice to the supersize pepperoni, sausage and cheese pizza she’d ordered. She’d hoped to have at least one slice leftover for breakfast, but that was no longer a possibility. He was consuming the last piece.
    She supposed she couldn’t really say anything about it, seeing as how he’d been the one to go to the door when the doorbell had rung—had insisted on it, actually and then had paid the delivery boy for the pizza.
    When she’d tried to reimburse him, he’d abruptly cut her dead with that cold, distant voice of his. She supposed he was good at that, cutting people dead. With or without a look.
    “Kill many people?” she heard herself asking out of the blue.
    She was more surprised by her question than he was. Actually, he looked rather unfazed by it. In the background, one of the many forensic shows that littered the airwaves played on her thirty-inch TV. She had a weakness for the shows, for problems that were neatly solved in an hour, counting commercials. She wished life could imitate art.
    Sawyer took his time answering. “Depends on what you mean by many.”
    Yup, the man was definitely dangerous. The minute she got into her bedroom for the night, she was going to pull out her laptop and see if she could access any information on her surly guardian angel. If that didn’t yield anything, she was going to start pulling in some minor favors. Or lean on Brenda. Her brother Dax’s wife was a wizard when it came to finding information.
    “More than one?” she guessed, watching his profile.
    The rigid contours gave nothing away. “Yes.”
    “Less than a hundred.”
    This time, he did raise his eyes. And just the slightest trace of a vein twitched for a second along his cheek. It almost succeeded in drawing her attention away from the hint of a smile on his lips. “Yes.”
    Well, that certainly left them a broad range. She’d only been kidding about the upper number. Now she wasn’t all that sure. She could feel a shiver shimmying up her spine.
    “Do you know how many?”
    His eyes were flat. “Yes.”
    Janelle blew out a breath slowly. The man really was Dirty Harry. At least as far as the communication part went, she amended. Dirty Harry with a slice of Batman thrown in. Both fictional characters were portrayed as intense and