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dangerous.

Chapter Three
    M ack Carlton was as good as his word. It began to seem as if every time Beth went into Tony’s room in late afternoon, Mack was there. It was evident he’d become a quiet, comforting, dependable presence in Tony’s life, just as he’d promised he would. She began to feel the first faint hint of respect for him, despite her determination to keep her guard up.
    Sometimes he sat quietly reading a book while the boy slept. Beth couldn’t help noticing that Mack’s taste ran to thrillers, rather than to the sports books she would have guessed. She even caught him totally absorbed by a recently released presidential biography. He rose another notch in her estimation that day. She tried to smother the reaction by reminding herself that she couldn’t weaken, not with Destiny Carlton scheming in the wings.
    Sometimes Beth arrived to find Tony in a spiritedargument with Mack over the best football players ever. Mack listened intently to whatever case Tony made, and even when he disagreed, he did it in a respectful way that seemed to make Tony sit a little taller in bed, pride shining in his eyes at being taken so seriously by a man he idolized.
    On more than one occasion, they played one of the electronic games that Mack provided. When they were caught up in the competition, they barely spared Beth a glance. That gave her a chance to observe the two of them a bit more closely. To her amusement, it was evident that Mack was having as much fun as Tony and was every bit as determined to win, not giving the boy an inch out of pity.
    There was something a little too appealing about Mack with his hair mussed, his collar open, his expression totally focused as he concentrated on that little screen with such intensity.
    To Beth’s surprise Mack was also sensitive to Tony’s level of exhaustion and his shifts in mood. Mack seemed to know just when to encourage a nap and just when to initiate some distracting activity. And he always left shortly after Tony’s mother arrived, clearly attuned to Maria Vitale’s need to spend time alone with her son.
    The first time Beth saw Mack in the hallway outside Tony’s room consoling an obviously shaken Maria, she caught herself looking for evidence of the kind of chemistry that Destiny Carlton had been talking about over dinner. If her reaction had involved anyone other than Mack, she might have labeled it a ridiculous twinge of jealousy, but with Mack that would be absurd. There was absolutely nothing between her and the ex-football star. Her interest was purely clinical, achance to study how the male-female-chemistry thing worked.
    After all, Mack was a virile man with a reputation for appreciating beautiful women. Maria was a gorgeous woman with a flawless olive complexion, a lush body and flowing waves of black hair. Only the exhaustion that was clearly visible in and around her eyes marred her beauty. For some men, Beth thought, that evidence of vulnerability would make her seem even more attractive. Beth couldn’t help wondering if Mack was one of those men.
    But despite her intense curiosity, Beth never saw the slightest sign that Mack was interested in the single mom. Even his attempts to comfort her were verbal, not physical. And rather than any hint of a growing closeness between the two, more often than not, he left mother and son together and sought Beth out when he left Tony’s room.
    In little more than a week, Beth had come to count on him dropping by far more than she should. While he’d shown no evidence of being attracted to her, he was giving her more attention than she’d expected from him.
    Now, at the rap on her office door near the research lab, Beth glanced at the clock and saw that it was just past six. That was when Mack usually stopped in.
    “Yes?” she said, fighting the little flash of heat that licked through her as she anticipated seeing him for a few minutes.
    Her office door cracked open and, as expected, Mack peered around the