Winters Heat (Titan) Read Online Free PDF Page B

information-eliciting tactics weren’t appropriate, and he had no idea how to proceed with her.
    This was why Jared never paired him one-on-one with the untrained or the guiltless. Winters didn’t have a careful touch, and he was unsuccessful when he tried. Case in point. Mia acted beyond apprehensive as she picked at her dirt-streaked sweater and pants.
    “So…” He turned to the table. “Food? Clothes?”
    “I’m starving.” Her tongue ran over her lips. Maybe he should have bought some lip gloss or something like that. Women liked that stuff. Needed it. Didn’t they? He blew out a frustrated puff.
    “I didn’t know what you liked, so we have everything from peanut butter and jelly makings to fried chicken, but it’s not hot anymore. And candy. I have a bad candy habit. Though I’m more than willing to share if you promise to stop kicking me for the rest of our trip.”
    She tucked her legs beneath her and inched toward the shabby spread on the table. “Thanks, Mister—”
    “Just call me Winters.” He needed something to do with his hands. All of the sudden, his arms were gangly and awkward. He stuck his thumbs in his pockets.
    She nodded, slid off the bed. After two glances over her shoulder, she made a plate of food using a pile of napkins. She conjured images of movie nights and Sunday pot roast dinners. Safe, responsible activities non-operatives did in their normal lives. A tightness in his throat surfaced as he tried to swallow away confusion.
    “You ready to answer some questions for me now, Mia?”
    “Not really.”
    “We could start simple.”
    “I’d rather just eat.” She polished off her sandwich and picked up a drumstick.
    “The airport. Why were you there? Hell, how did you know where to go?”
    Something changed in her. And just that fast, he regretted pushing her. The fresh color painting her face was gone. Her fingers tore at the chicken. She stared at him with sad eyes. “You said my client is, and I said my client was . You said owns , I said owned .”
    “So you aren’t working together anymore?”
    “He’s dead.”
    Her reaction hurt to watch. Heartbreak. Fallen eyes. Aching tonality. The corner of her eyes pinched, and she swallowed a few times. She needed comforting, an emotional poultice. Both were things he knew zip about. Why was it so hard to conjure up a soothing word? Nothing came to mind. He didn’t know how. He fell back on what he knew. Interrogation.
    “How’d he die?” He worried he’d just made her pain worse.
    “ They say he killed himself. But he wasn’t suicidal. He was scared for his life.”
    “How would you know that?”
    “Because I was his therapist. And, whether I should have been or not, something like his friend.”
    Winters sat there for a moment and watched her eyelashes flutter. Her eyes grew moist and tears welled. Agony overtook her innocence. He reached out to her arm, trying to soothe away the pain in her. Her skin was so warm whenever he brushed it. And each time, it shocked him how fragile she felt. His fingers traced down her bicep.
    Mia’s downturned head shot up, panic flashing across her face and a clear warning to back the hell off.
    He snatched his hand from her as fast as he could. His finger singed, the tips tingled. Why the hell did he reach to her? Thinking of him as a good guy only recently began to solidify. At least he hoped.
    “Sorry about that.” Erratic behavior wasn’t his norm. “I don’t know what that was. Sorry.”
    “It’s okay. Anyway…” She rubbed her arm. “My client said something would happen to him. That if he turned up dead, I needed to go to the airport. To those chairs.”
    “And when did he die?”
    She put the chicken down on the napkin and wiped her fingers. “Two days ago.”
    Winters’s jaw flexed. He’d gotten his marching orders two days ago and had headed out from DC. She bit her lip, uncertain maybe if she’d admitted too much.
    The woman needed reassurance. Comforting. And