MacKenzie's Lady Read Online Free PDF Page B

"There aren't all that many women named Holly Reynolds who teach school in L.A."
    "I didn't tell you I was a teacher."
    "You mentioned your students. It wasn't hard to interpret that to mean that you were a teacher."
    Her brows drew together and her forehead wrinkled as she considered this. Her toes curled inside her soft pumps, responding to the warm air from the heater. Her name and the fact that she might be a teacher didn't sound like much of a clue to her, not enough of a clue to track someone down in a city the size of L.A. Her frown deepened. Maybe it would be safer not to inquire about his methods.
    Holly cleared her throat and gave him a tentative smile. "It seems as if you always turn up just in time to rescue me,
    Mr___umm..." She let the sentence trail off. She didn't know his last name and she wasn't sure she wanted to use his first name. That implied an intimacy her common sense urged her to avoid.
    "Donahue. My friends call me Mac, short for Mackenzie."
    "I don't know that we're friends," she told him bluntly, wanting to make her feelings clear from the start.
    "Maybe not yet, but I hope we will be."
    Holly dropped her eyes away from that compelling gaze and studied the pale pink polish on her nails, comparing it to the warm gray of her wool skirt. She might be impulsive, but not even Maryann could accuse her of being completely devoid of sense. The man who sat next to her looked like an all-American boy right now, but ail-American boys did not hang out in sleazy Tijuana bars wearing white spangled suits and getting into brawls. She could overlook the brawl. After all, he had been coming to her rescue, but there was still the question of what he had been doing there in the first place. She was not going to get involved with someone that she strongly suspected of being a pimp.
    Holly cleared her throat again. "I don't think we will get to be friends. I mean, I appreciate your help and all that, but I don't think I'd cope too well with your line of work. I'm not making any judgments or anything," she added hastily, "because I think everybody has a right to do whatever makes him happy." She trailed off uncertainly, wondering how anyone could be happy selling someone else's body. She shook the thought away and continued, wishing that she hadn't rolled her car window down, wishing even more that she'd never gone to that stupid bar in the first place.
    "The problem is, I'd be uncomfortable and I'd make you uncomfortable, so I think maybe I'll just walk home, but thank you very much for the offer of a lift." She rushed the end of the sentence out, feeling acutely uncomfortable in the face of his continued silence.
    She gave a startled gasp as his hand came out to catch her shoulder when she tried to reach for the door handle. The eyes she turned to him were wide, with a hint of fear in their depths.
    He gave her an appealing smile. "Look. I think you've got the wrong idea about what I do for a living."
    "I don't want to know any details," she assured him hastily.
    "You don't understand, Holly." Despite her wariness, hearing her name on his lips sent a shiver of awareness through her. "The way I was dressed down in Tijuana was part of my job."
    "I understand," she told him. "Believe me, I understand. I'm not making any judgments but I..."
    He interrupted her with a hint of exasperation lacing his deep tones. "I'm a cop, Holly."
    "A cop?" she exclaimed, her mouth hanging slightly open until she shut it with a snap.
    He nodded. "I was working on a case in Tijuana. I could hardly go into that area wearing a uniform."
    "A cop?" Her voice rose to a squeak as she stared at him. She giggled. "A real live honest-to-goodness, you-have-the-right-to-remain-silent cop?" She began to laugh. "I don't believe this. Do you have any idea how guilty I felt every time I thought of you? I couldn't believe I was actually attracted to some sleazy—" She broke off, feeling a burning tide of red surge into her face.
    Why didn't she just tell