Just as he closed in on the back door, he heard the heavy-duty lock give. Whoever had conquered it was skilled with lock-picking tools, he concluded with grudging admiration. It hardly narrowed the field, since most of the kids he knew had been breaking and entering since they could reach a door handle or heave a rock through a window. Most, however, didn’t have the finesse or patience to work at a lock with the tedious determination that this person had.
The heavy steel door inched open silently on its well-oiled hinges. Pressed against a wall, Rick waited in the shadows. There was no point in risking his neck until he knew exactly what he was up against. One thief. Two. Or a whole gang, in which case his goose was cooked and he could kiss the TV and DVD player goodbye.
To his relief, the lone person who slipped inside was slightly built and dressed in black from head to toe. Black baseball cap, long-sleeved black T-shirt, trim black pants, even black sneakers. Vaguely taken aback, he concluded it was the working gear of a pro, not some daring kid intent on mischief. The kids he knew wore the baggy clothes and colors of their gangs. Solid, formfitting black like this would have appalled them.
More on edge than ever, and itching for action, he studied the person creeping slowly and unwittingly toward him in the narrow hallway. Rick figured he easily had a fifty-pound advantage over the intruder, plus several inches in height. Even so, he forced himself to wait patiently and watch for accomplices.
When none appeared, he bit back a sigh of relief and considered his options. The bat seemed unnecessary. He propped it cautiously against the wall. Then he slipped up behind the increasingly confident and fast-moving thief and, without uttering a word, slammed the jerk onto the hardwood floor in a full-body tackle that knocked the breath out of both of them.
Rick recovered from the fall first, latched on to a pair of skinny wrists and brutally wrenched the would-be thief’s arms behind him.
He received a blistering earful of curses for his trouble. The words didn’t shock him. He’d heard far worse. Used far worse, for that matter.
What flat-out stunned him, though, was the fact that the voice uttering such foulmouthed language was so evidently and self-righteously outraged. More startling yet, it was also very clearly feminine.
“If you don’t let me up right this instant, I will slap you with a lawsuit that will take away this building and every dime you have to your name,” the woman vowed furiously.
Rick was intrigued despite himself. Not intrigued enough to let her go, but fascinated enough to pursue the conversational direction for a bit.
“Is that so?” he asked, unexpectedly amused by her gambit. “And how do you figure you’re the injured party here?”
“Because I’ve been attacked by an idiot with more muscle than sense. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if half my ribs were cracked.”
“You did break into private property,” he reminded her.
“A technicality,” she insisted.
“Some technicality. You a lawyer?”
“Sweet heavens, no,” she said with such heartfelt distaste that Rick grinned.
“I’m not overly fond of them myself. I guess that gives us something in common, doll face.”
“Doll face?” she repeated with more of that misplaced indignant outrage. “No one calls me doll face or honey or sweetheart.”
“Too bad,” Rick said sympathetically. He decided he could really enjoy deliberately aggravating this woman. “Mind telling me why you dropped by, doll face? Since you chose not to use the front door or to come during business hours, I have to assume your mission is less than legal.”
“That’s not true,” she said.
“The facts say otherwise.”
“To hell with your so-called facts. Are you going to let me up or not?”
“Not just yet,” he said, wondering abruptly if the decision was the security precaution he wanted to believe or merely an attempt to prolong the distinctly provocative contact. Worry over his motives kept him silent for so long that his captive jumped back in with her two cents.
“If you’re figuring on copping a feel, you’d better think again,” she said in that imperious way that amused him so. “I’ll slap you with sexual battery charges while I’m at it.”
Rick chuckled. “Doll face, I do not need to get my kicks from accosting total strangers. In case you’ve missed the point, I am subduing a thief who broke into this building. I’m within my rights, believe me.”
“I am not a thief,” she retorted.
“Maybe not technically, since you never got a chance to lay your hands on anything of value,” he agreed. “But you seem to be in deep denial of the seriousness of your position. Now, how about giving me some answers?”
She hesitated for a very long time, probably evaluating her alternatives, before asking, “Such as?”
“Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“Who are you?” she countered. “For all I know, you’re just a thief who got here first.”
She had audacity. Rick had to give her that. She was the kind of smart-mouthed handful who’d drive a man crazy. He wished he could get a better look at her to see if she’d be worth the trouble, but the lighting in the hallway was virtually nonexistent. The only thing he knew for sure was that she wasn’t local. She had no accent. All of the girls in this neighborhood—and some of them were indeed tough as nails—were Latinas.
Based on her shape, though, this one definitely had promise. His own body had picked up on that without his brain even having to kick in. Another couple of minutes of close contact and he’d be dangerously aroused. Hell, he was already aroused. For a man who’d vehemently sworn to remain celibate through all eternity after his very brief and ill-advised marriage had gone sour, it was a troubling turn of events. He’d better settle this nonsense in a hurry and extricate himself from a dangerous situation.
“Let me assure you, doll face, I belong here,” he said. “I run the place.”
The announcement had an odd effect on her. Though she’d remained relatively still since he’d taken her captive, it now seemed that the remaining breath whooshed right out of her. She was utterly and absolutely motionless. That didn’t strike Rick as a good sign.
“Doll face?”
“You’re Rick Sanchez?” she asked in a broken whisper.
Rick couldn’t tell if her voice was choked by tears or was shaking with some inexplicable anger, but he definitely got the feeling she knew a whole lot more about Yo, Amigo than he’d assumed. He also realized that he was the very last person she’d expected to encounter here tonight.
“That’s me,” he told her. “Which leaves us with you. Who are you, doll face?”
Several seconds ticked by before she answered.
“I’m Dana Miller.”
She said it in a tone so stiff and cold that it sent goose bumps chasing over Rick’s body. Dismay slammed through him as the name registered. Ken’s wife? Dear God in heaven, he’d tackled Ken’s wife as though she were a common criminal. Which, of course, at the moment she appeared to be, but that was beside the point.
He released her wrists at once and leaped to his feet, holding out his hand to help her up. She ignored it and rose with a grace