Safe Passage Read Online Free PDF Page A

development. I work mostly with insects and design biological control measures for the agriculture and horticulture industries.”
    “You mean, you create assassin bugs?”
    She laughed that deep, smoky laugh. “That’s cute, McIntyre. Yes, I find and develop little predators.”
    “I see.” He allowed his eyes to walk slowly, obviously, over her utterly amazing body. “I’d never have pegged you for a bug lady.”
    She laughed again, a little less sure. “A bug lady? What’s a ‘bug lady’ supposed to look like?”
    Scott smiled, holding her eyes. “Not like you.”
    For a moment their gazes locked. A silent, primal current swelled, surged between them.
    Then she broke the moment. “And there I was, wondering what a typical futurist looked like.” She turned in a fluid movement and strode down the rutted driveway. Scott couldn’t help but watch the way her firm buttocks moved under the denim fabric of her jeans, couldn’t help the soft pulse of warmth in his groin.
    “Oh.” She stopped suddenly and swung round.
    He braced.
    “I meant to tell you, nice Web site.”
    Scott closed the door deliberately, quietly.
    And blew out a stream of breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Thank God. Rex’s boys must have placed some cyber-litter for his cover. It made sense that a woman like Skye would check him out on the Internet. Especially if she was hiding something.
    He leaned heavily on his cane, looked down at the dog waiting patiently at his feet. “We’d better use the doctor’s dolly to unpack that computer gear and get connected.” He limped over to where his jacket hung across the back of the sofa. “That is, once we’ve made sure work is where she really is headed this morning.” He picked up his keys, bounced them once in his hand. And he couldn’t help grinning. The woman was a challenge he didn’t mind right about now. She was up to something, sure as hell. And he’d find out what. He’d prove Agent Armstrong still had what it took. This little game was gonna buy him a ticket back out into the field.
    The real field.

    The jitters in her stomach were still there. And her neighbor wasn’t helping matters. Skye pulled into the Kepplar parking lot, dismounted, yanked off her helmet. She should never have taken him that dolly. But seeing that big pile of boxes still in the back of the truck this morning had tugged something inside her. She’d wanted to reach out, to help. She’d also been curious. Because when she’d come back from the lab in the dark hours of dawn, his truck had not been there. And that only added to the strange cocktail of anxiety skittering through her system.
    But taking him that dolly was definitely a mistake. Because seeing Scott McIntyre at the door, ruffled, sleepy, and all get-out sexy, in the same clothes he’d worn the night before, had stirred something else deep within her.
    Something that manifested in a potent fusion of basic female desire and a maternal need to care. Both were parts of herself she’d locked away more than ten years ago.
    In a few short hours Scott McIntyre was digging them out. Scratching at her veneer. And she knew what lay beneath was too raw and malignant to ever be exposed.
    Besides, she couldn’t afford to be distracted now. Her beetle project was close to completion.
    And she was getting married in the morning.
    Skye shoved her emotions aside, pushed open the lab door and shrugged into her white coat. She was early, but Charlotte, her assistant, had arrived even earlier and was already busy at her microscope.
    “Hey, Charly, getting a head start?”
    The blond woman looked up, smiled. Skye had allowed herself to get close to Charly, closer than she really was comfortable with. A part of her craved the kind of open, genuine and honest friendship so many women shared. The other part of her was afraid she’d let something slip. She wished, at times, she could let her guard drop, her hair loose and just be free to share. Staying