Guardian Read Online Free PDF Page B

his torso over her legs in much the same casual fashion as his jacket resting along the back.
    If he dropped his hand to caress her calf…
    She would probably club him with her thickest brief.
    David grabbed the steering wheel and tugged himself upright. He was past ready to put some distance between them.
    “I saw you on my way out to work one morning. But I guess you didn’t see me. As for why I never mentioned it before, it just never came up,” he explained curtly, leaving out the part about how just one look at her as she’d driven past had sucker punched him right in the libido. “Let me show you this great shortcut I know.”
    *    *    *
    Sophie lost all sense of time as she leaned back in the seat and let the fifty-mile-an-hour wind wreak havoc on her hair. David wove through traffic, the bumper-to-bumper flow an ever-annoying constant in their tourist community.
    Gaudy neon billboards whizzed by one after the other, casinos, live shows, golf resorts. The same signs repeated themselves, counting down the miles to life on the Vegas Strip.
    Exhausted as hell from work and the concussion, Sophie studied David through heavy-lidded eyes. Currents of air channeled through the neck of his blue uniform shirt, filling it in rippling blasts. What would it be like to tunnel her hands underneath and explore that defined chest she’d felt earlier?
    Her toes curled in her shoes.
    He lived in her neighborhood. He’d been that close, and she hadn’t known it. The exclusive lakeside community was outside of most military paychecks. Waterfront anything was pricey in a desert state like Nevada. She only lived there because her husband had owned restaurants and casinos. Or rather, as she’d found out after he died, he’d owned highly mortgaged restaurants and casinos. She’d been left with no choice but to liquidate most of his assets and pray she could keep her head above water. Holding on to the house until the local market turned around was damn near crippling.
    Her chest tightened with panic and she shoved aside the worries she couldn’t control. Distraction was welcome, and the hunk beside her provided plenty. David changed gears, his long legs working as he downshifted around a corner with only a slight drag and whine of the engine. But then David Berg did everything with ease.
    He personified military professionalism, with a driven edginess in his world, and she respected him for it. She just didn’t plan to tangle her life or her son’s world with a father who thrived on danger ever again. She was better off on her own, blending into a calmer civilian life.
    Sophie looked away.
    David slowed the Scout as they approached the gated Lake Las Vegas community. Her husband had insisted onthe high-end house with all the trappings, elite all the way for his family. Except after a while, she’d realized he really wanted all of that for himself, appearance, flash, live for the moment and worry about the mortgage tomorrow.
    Now, she was stuck busting her butt paying for that tomorrow.
    She twisted at the waist to grab her briefcase and pull out her ID…except wait. He had one.
    God, her head was fuzzy.
    David lifted his hand to greet the uniformed attendant as he waved them through. He frowned when she stayed silent. “Something wrong?”
    “Nothing.” The last thing she wanted was to sound like a wimp. It was just a bump on the head. She was a trained warrior, for heaven’s sake. For now anyway.
    David turned at the corner, driving past the row of looming stucco houses along the shore of Lake Las Vegas. “So this isn’t my kind of neighborhood. A little too rich for my taste.” He shrugged. “I’m more of a middle-class-condo sort of guy.”
    “That wasn’t what I was thinking.”
    “Then what were you thinking?”
    She blurted, “I was wondering where your ex-wife lives.”
    Where had that come from, a question that hinted at interest, even jealousy?
    His fingers thumped the steering wheel. “She