Sliding his spectacles back into place, he cleared his throat. “There are several investigators I could recommend. Good men, all, and—”
“I don’t want them.” Joanna stepped closer to him, her leather boots leaving small, muddy footprints on the wooden floor. Her tantalizing perfume lingered in the air between them, causing his nostrils to flare. “I wantyou.”
Steeling himself against the urge to reach out and trace the sharp curve of her cheekbone, then bury his fingers in her hair, Kincaid shoved his hands behind his back and disguised his desire behind a clipped, businesslike tone. “As I said, Miss Thorncroft, I am not accepting new clients at this time.”
Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “Then you’ll have to make an exception, Kincaid, because I have come a very long way, I am very tired, and I am not leaving here unless you agree to help me.”
He’d missed the stubbornness in her chin before, but he saw it now. Along with a tiny freckle in the middle of her collarbone.
He wondered what it tasted like.
He wondered whatshetasted like.
Scowling, Kincaid squeezed the back of his neck where the corded muscles were as hard as granite.
They weren’t the only part of his anatomy that had gone hard.
“Miss Thorncroft, Imustinsist—”
“Kincaid,” she interrupted smoothly, “I can see that you are reluctant to hear me out. I can understand. I am a stranger, after all. And an American at that.” A wry smile twisted those plump lips. “However, I am sure that after I’ve had the opportunity to tell you why I came here, you will agree that my case is of the utmost importance. Do you have an office?”
“Yes, it’s through there.” He nodded at a door across the foyer that was partially ajar.
Originally, the room had been a parlor, but now housed an old desk cluttered with papers, shelves cluttered with books, and chairs cluttered with cats. There was also a bed shoved into the corner and his jaw clenched taut when his mind conjured a vivid image of Joanna sprawled across the mattress while he peeled off her wet clothes…with his teeth.
He ran a hand across his mouth.
This would not do.
This would not do at all.
But before he could put his foot down and demand Joanna get the hell out, she flitted past him and into his office, leaving him staring after her in stunned, stormy silence.
“Oh, you have a cat!” she exclaimed, pointing to the top of a bookshelf where a sleek, black feline lounged on its side.
“Two,” he managed in a strangled voice. “I have two cats. That’s James. Jane is most likely upstairs.”
“I’ve always wanted a cat, but my sister seems to be allergic to them. Well?” Joanna’s head canted. “Won’t you come in, Kincaid? Do have a seat. You’re looking rather…flushed. Are you feeling all right?”
The irony of being invited into hisown bloody officewas not lost on Kincaid as he stalked through the doorway, sat down at his desk, and selected a pen from the jumbled pile of writing utensils jammed inside the top drawer.
It was clear Joanna was not leaving until he listened to what she had to say. It was even clearer he was dangerously close to yanking her into his arms and kissing her senseless. Since he obviously couldn’t do the latter, he would grit his teeth and do the former. Then he’d escort her out, tear up his notes, and go on with his day as if she’d never walked through his door.
“I am fine,” he said curtly as he flipped to a fresh page in the leather-bound journal where he kept track of all his various cases. Not that there were very many to keep track of at the moment. Business always slowed when thetonflocked en masse to their estates in the countryside. As it stood, his only other case regarded another missing cow. The poor things must have had a dreadful sense of direction. Ordinarily, he’d be reluctant to take on work involving farm animals, something which never would have been asked of him as an inspector, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
He hadn’t earned much as a peeler. Certainly not enough to compensate him for all of the long hours, nor the life-threatening danger he’d found himself in more often than not. But part of his salary had included an allowance for rent, and clothes, and food. It hadn’t been much, yet he had gotten by. And there’d been a certain security in knowing that at the end of every week he would have money to bring to the bank.
As a private detective, he earned more quid outright, but it came in sporadic bursts that were dependent on the number of cases he took on. In the beginning, not a single person had dared darken the door of a disgraced policeman. By sheer will and persistence, he’d managed to secure a handful of clients, who had then discreetly spread his name to their friends. Now that he was nearing the end of his third year as a detective, he was turning a respectable profit. But he still had bills to pay, and a house in need of repairs, and cats to feed.
Traitorous little buggers that they were.
Abandoning his perch on top of the bookshelf, James leapt onto Joanna’s lap as soon as she sat down. Purring loudly, he kneaded her thigh before turning in two circles and curling into a ball. If Kincaid didn’t know any better, he would have sworn the damned cat smirked at him before James yawned, exposing a mouthful of pointy white canines, and closed his eyes.
“He’s absolutely charming,” said Joanna, stroking his back. “Andsoft.”
Kincaid had endured low points in his life. A beating at the orphanage that had left him black and blue for weeks. The betrayal of the woman he loved. But never—not once—had he sunk so low as to be jealous of a cat.
Before now.
