Free Bear Claw Bodyguard by Jessica Andersen

back and run this from the lab?”
    Tori shook her head. “I’m sure, and there’s no more danger really. The guy’s story checked out, cave and all.” And the other stuff was just false alarms and an overactive imagination.
    “That doesn’t explain why you still need to be there.”
    “I just do, that’s all. Something’s telling me to stay put, and over the years I’ve learned to listen to my gut on stuff like this.”
    But as Tori said goodbye and ended the transmission,she hoped she had sounded far more convincing than she felt. Because, really, she didn’t have a clue whether the urge to stay was coming from her instincts as a researcher, or from something far more primal and way less logical—namely, desire.
    She might be a plant researcher, but she was plenty familiar with animal attraction. And although she and Jack had kept a very professional distance after that one kiss—that one crazy kiss—there was an added sizzle between them now.
    It wasn’t solely physical either, nor was it leftover gratitude from him having saved her butt. Instead, it had turned out that they actually kind of liked each other. Not to mention that they worked well together, with him offering help when she needed it and backing off when she didn’t, and once or twice stepping in when he thought she was straying over the line of safety. Although their conversations had mostly centered on her investigation, she had gotten him to share a few memories of his childhood adventures in the forest, and she had told a story or two on herself, mostly mishaps during field investigations. And despite her intentions to focus on the case and not her hottie bodyguard, she found herself looking forward to the drive there and back, when they were closed in together, breathing the same air and darting sidelong looks when each thought the other wasn’t looking.
    She was thirty-one and at the top of her game, career-wise. She had a great lab, solid funding, good classes to teach and a hugely flexible travel schedule. There was nothing about her life she wanted to change right now.
    But she couldn’t get Jack out of her mind. Normally, that wouldn’t have been an issue—although she didn’tchange her men quite as often as she changed her locale, she’d had more than her share of fieldwork flings. Even given the potentially serious threat she was dealing with here, she could have made the time for some fun.
    Jack, though, didn’t seem to consider dating—or, in her case, hooking up—as anything remotely approaching fun. The few times they had skirted the edges of the issue in conversation, he’d made it plenty clear that he wasn’t interested in quick and casual, and that he had some heavy thoughts when it came to relationships.
    Not that there was anything wrong with that, to coin a Seinfeld-ism, but it wasn’t her style by a long shot, which meant that it wasn’t smart for her to remember their kiss…and it definitely wasn’t smart for her to wonder what it would feel like to take it further.
    Still, smart or not, dozens of butterflies dipped and spun inside her as she headed down the spiral staircase to the lower level, and they got worse when she caught a whiff of red sauce and garlic and heard cookware clanging softly over the refrain from “Home on the Range.”
    Oh, God. He was cooking. And humming. The two together tipped her a little further from “like” to “lust” and warning bells went off.
    Pausing on the lowest rung of the stairs, she told herself to go back upstairs and chow down on the camping rations she kept in her bag for emergencies. But she was starving and she was a sucker for pasta.
    Her feet were moving before her brain had fully weighed the decision. And before she could second-guess herself, she was in the kitchen doorway, and he was turning to greet her with a raised eyebrow that said he’d heardher on the stairs and knew how long she’d stood there debating.
    He’d stopped humming, leaving the