Free Touched by Lightning [Dreams of You] (Romantic Suspense) by Tina Wainscott Page A

spoiling him rotten, and he loves it.” Her voice grew soft. “I doubt anyone’s ever spoiled him before.” She couldn’t help but smile at Crackers’s tail, wildly swinging every time Adrian spoke.
    He held the pup’s chin and said, “You don’t know how lucky you are, fella.”
    Nikki pulled on the leash she fashioned from a couple of belts and started walking away.
    “Did I say something wrong?” he asked in that rich voice of his.
    “No. It’s just that I…have to go now. I have to get Crackers back…” She started to say home but let the sentence hang. “He’s been on his leg all morning.”
    “Can I walk with you?”
    “It’s probably best if you don’t.” Ulyssis’s warning to be careful floated through her mind. She remembered something he’d said about the man who’d come into the gallery. “Do you like to photograph things, Adrian?” Damn, but she liked the feel of his name on her tongue.
    He gave her an odd look. “Yes, but I’m not very good. There wasn’t much to do where I grew up, so when my Uncle Carlos gave me one of his cameras he used in his private investigator practice, it gave me something to do with my time.”
    Nikki found herself smiling, picturing him as a kid with a camera. In spite of herself, she wanted to know more about him. “What kinds of things did you take pictures of?”
    “At first everything, but my newspaper delivery business could hardly support my habit. I always look for the story behind the photograph.”
    Like her. “And you didn’t do anything with it?”
    He shrugged. “If you count working with my uncle catching illicit cheaters for rankled spouses. Even then, I always went for the artistic angles.” He reached for the camera in her hands, and she reluctantly let him take it. That he would steal it was the least of her worries.
    “A Hasselblad. It’s a good camera, isn’t it?” He looked it over and then handed it back to her.
    “I suppose. I’ve had it for a while.” A gift from her mother who always insisted on the best. When her mother thought it was a hobby.
    As he looked into her eyes, she felt such a poignancy she could hardly pull her gaze away from his. Once again she forced herself to walk away from him, wondering if he was lying about his mild interest in photography. The man who’d gone into Ulyssis’s gallery said he was a photographer. She kept her camera in the folds of her coat to hide it from any other interested individuals who wanted to do more than compliment her taste in equipment.
    When he spoke, his voice was a short distance behind her, and she knew he had remained where he was. Crackers was straining against his homemade collar, trying to go back to him.
    “Nikki, let me buy you lunch. Crackers, too.”
    “I don’t need your charity,” she said, still looking ahead. Her voice trembled, and she cleared her throat. “But thank you anyway.”
    He laughed, though not in a mocking way. “I’m not offering you charity. You can tell me about your hobby.”
    When she turned around, he was standing with his hands in his pockets, leaning his weight on one leg. He smiled, such an innocent smile. If he were hired to find her, or to kill her, he was probably the best in the business. And her brother, Devlin, would hire the best.
    Crackers continued to strain as she fought with herself over something as silly as whether to have lunch with this man. The two belts came undone, and the pup hobbled eagerly over to Adrian. She found herself ironically glad that she’d given Crackers a sponge bath now that Adrian was rubbing his cheek against the top of the dog’s head. Something in that small action tugged at her resistance, and she stepped forward to retrieve her puppy.
    “I guess I’m outvoted.”
    He smiled. “Looks like it.” He reattached the belts and carried the dog several blocks to a restaurant called Mama Jam’s. She paused warily outside, already smelling the jerk spices.
    “Haven’t you ever eaten