Free Dirty Deeds by Sheri Lewis Wohl Page A

was better to keep her hands on the furniture and not on the man. "I'll find your brother. It's what I do and I'm very good at it. You go home and rest. Be there in case he calls you."
    He turned the bottle of water in his hands, his gaze downcast. "He won't call."
    "You can't be certain of that. He's in trouble. He's in a lot of trouble and people do odd things when they're backed into a corner. I've seen it more than once."
    His hands stopped and he brought his gaze up to meet hers. The bright green of his eyes sent a little thrill through her. "No, you don't understand. He won't call me. Not now. Not ever."
    Maybe he was right. The McDonald brothers may have had a gulf between them too wide to cross. Even so, at the moment Paul needed some rest if he was going to be any help at all. Fatigue was not a friend when it came time to think and act sharp, especially for someone not in the business.
    "Then go home, get some rest and after that, call his friends. Talk to your parents again. Talk to anyone you think he might go to." So far, so good…she'd managed to keep her hands off of him.
    He sighed. "I feel like I should be able to do more."
    She lost the battle and reached up to lay her hand against his cheek. His skin was cool and clean-shaven. Her body tingled in places it hadn't for a very long time. She wondered what his lips would taste like. With sheer force of will, she kept her voice calm and even. "I'll find him, I promise."
    His green eyes, tired as they were, held hers with a steady gaze. "He's my brother."
    "I understand." And she did. Her voice was tender as she told him, "Go home, Paul. Get some sleep and then come back. We'll find him together."
    He continued to study her face. His gaze fell to her lips and for a flash of a second she wondered if he also had the crazy urge to kiss her. A second later, his eyes met hers again and the moment was lost. He pushed out of the chair and walked to the back door. "I'll be back later."
    She watched him through the window as he walked to his car and drove away. Finally. Alone at last. Time to turn away from wild thoughts of what it would be like to kiss a man she barely knew and work on finding James McDonald. She swiveled to face her computer, powered it up, and began to work. Over the next four hours, she only moved away from the computer to fill up her coffee mug. Unlike Paul, she thrived on good, strong, black coffee. And concentrating on something besides his hot body and kissable lips didn't hurt either.
    "Hey good-lookin', find my boy yet?"
    Harry stood in the doorway to her office, his big bulk filling it to capacity. Today he wore an indigo shirt with his standard blue jeans and boots. The dark circles under his eyes were just about the same color as the shirt. More and more over the last year, she'd noticed those circles darkening his face. He always seemed to look tired but when she'd ask, he'd blow her off saying he was sleeping just fine and feeling great. She didn't believe him.
    He wasn't fine and she worried a little more every day. If anything happened to Harry, she'd essentially be alone. Both her parents were gone and with Chris locked in a silent world, she'd have no one without Harry. The thought made her shiver.
    Theirs was a special relationship. She could talk to him about things she couldn't share with others. Her friends were willing to listen, but they had no way of relating. Most of them didn't know Chris very well; some had never even met him. Not one had ever faced life with a sibling who lay in a rehab center locked away from the world, courtesy of a gunshot wound to the head.
    With Harry it was different. Chris and Harry had been in the Rangers together. They'd passed the grueling training together and that had linked them for life. When they'd left the elite corps and headed home, Harry had taken to the bonding business like a fish to water, while Chris found his niche with the Drug Enforcement Agency. Chris seemed to be born to a life as a