Free Bridal Armor by Debra Webb Page B

breaking-and-entering skills. She hadn’t guessed about his size, it looked like she’d taken clothing straight out of his home. He was more than a little embarrassed he hadn’t noticed the missing items and perturbed that she’d found a way past his security system, but at the moment he could only be grateful she’d thought ahead.
    Changing into dry clothes, with the Scotch warming him from the inside, improved his mood dramatically.
    He returned to the front room to find Jo curled up in a chair by the fire, a quilt over her legs and a tablet in her hands. In the Air Force hoodie, the glow of the screen shining on her face, she looked almost too young to be an accomplished investigator. The fierce attraction he felt to her startled him more than a little. She’d always be beautiful, but wasn’t he supposed to be immune after all this time?
    “Is there really a wi-fi connection out here?” he inquired.
    “Not in this weather,” she said with a small frown. “But I have the file here, ready for your review.”
    “Thanks.” He turned toward the kitchen and started poking through the grocery bags on the counter. The fridge was fully stocked, as well. She’d really gone above and beyond.
    “What are you doing?”
    “Dinner.”
    “Dinner?”
    “Typically the last big meal of the day,” he reminded her. “We missed it.” He tapped his watch. “Since it seems you were right about us being safe here, I figured we should eat.”
    “Okay.” She unfolded herself from the chair. “But you don’t have to cook.”
    “Now who needs to extend a little trust? I know my way around a kitchen.”
    “That’s not what I meant.”
    He pulled out a stockpot and saucepan. “May as well whip something up in case we lose power.” He filled the stockpot with water and set it on a burner to boil.
    “Let me make the salad.”
    “I’d rather you talked me through whatever it is you know.”
    “You don’t want to read it first? Develop your own opinion?”
    He finished pouring the jar of sauce into the smaller pan and set it to warm before turning to face her. “You wanted trust, Jo. I’m here in your cabin, prepping dinner, ignoring the fact that you managed to break into my home.” He plucked at the cable knit sweater he’d recently picked up to replace an old favorite.
    “Wow.” Her eyes went wide with surprise. “If I didn’t know better I’d say being director for so long has mellowed you.”
    “Tell me why you insisted on taking this case and why you think doing so protects me.”
    “Fine.” She squeezed by him and opened the refrigerator, pulling out fresh greens for a salad. “Can you find a bowl, please?”
    He opened cabinets until he came up with both a bowl and colander. “Nice place.”
    “It is.”
    He watched her work with those slender, deft fingers and tried to forget how they’d once felt on his skin. She would talk eventually, he just had to be patient while she organized her thoughts.
    He remembered that about her, too. She wasn’t the sort to jump into anything—not a firefight nor a conversation—without thinking it through and weighing the options and potential fallout.
    “I’d really like to see the files on the supply audit,” she muttered half to herself.
    He could make that happen when they had access to the internet, but he kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt her. If she was making a connection there, she’d get to it.
    He dumped pasta into the boiling water, added salt and stirred.
    “There was an outbreak of a new flu virus two weeks ago in a remote village on the border between Pakistan and Iran.”
    An icy finger that had nothing to do with the weather system battering the cabin danced across his nape. He recognized the foreboding sense of dread and let it roll on through. Fighting grim emotions wasted energy and he’d long ago learned to channel his energy into appropriate outlets.
    “How many dead?”
    “Reports were conflicted,” she replied, mumbling as she