“Are you finished?” he asked. “With lawyers, sometimes it’s kind of hard to tell.”
“I could be.”
“How will I know?”
She picked up a pen and tapped it on the pile of papers in front of her. “Are you convinced my folks are overreacting and that I have no need for a bodyguard?”
“I’m convinced that your family went to considerable trouble and expense to make sure nothing happens to you for the next thirty days.”
“Okay, so you get it—”
He held up his hand and straightened to his full height. “I also know for a fact that I assured Roy and Louise that on my watch, I will do everything humanly possible to find out who’s harassing you.”
She stared at him for several moments. “Was I talking to myself? We don’t know there is anyone harassing me. So any investigation would be a waste of time.”
“But it’s the court’s time, purchased by your parents.”
“Without my knowledge or consent.”
She stood and stared him down—eye to eye. Well, not technically. He towered over her, but the glare she was giving him canceled out any height advantage.
“So, what we have here is a standoff,” she said.
“Stalemate. Deadlock, draw, impasse,” he agreed. “I’d say something’s gotta give.”
“I’m not going to blink.”
“Me, neither.”
She put her hands on her hips. “When this happens in court, we go to mediation.”
“I’m not going in front of Uncle Harry again, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
Her mouth twitched as she fought a smile. “I was thinking we should go in front of my folks at the restaurant.”
“And do what?” he asked suspiciously.
“Get them to give you absolution. Release you from this obligation.”
It would be a waste of time. Jamie got her stubborn gene from one or both of them. He knew that because he’d tried to tell Roy and Louise he wasn’t the right man for this job. They refused to believe him after Hayden Blackthorn’s glowing reference. But he was getting nowhere here. So…
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay,” she agreed.
He waited for her to gather up her jacket, purse and briefcase before they left and locked her door. At the end of the hall a man stood in an office doorway.
“Jamie, are you leaving?”
“Hi, Al. Yeah. Something’s come up.”
Al considered Sam. “Is he a friend of yours?”
“Sam Brimstone,” Sam said, holding out his hand.
“Al Moore.”
The guy had up-and-comer written all over him. Young, good-looking, a firm aggressive handshake. And Sam didn’t like him.
“Al’s an attorney here at the firm,” Jamie explained.
“I thought we were firm friends, too.”
“Of course,” she said, shaking her head at his pun. “You’re always there for me.”
“Good to know.” He looked at Sam. “People make the job, and friendships are what make the long hours tolerable.”
“Isn’t that the truth?” she agreed.
Al grinned, the effects of his white strips so bright, Sam was tempted to whip out his shades. And again he picked up a whole lot of unspoken communication from body language and what Slick didn’t say. This guy wanted Jamie, and there was nothing friendly about it. Lust—pure and simple. It glowed in his eyes, and the tension was there in every muscle in his twenty-four-hour-fitness toned body.
Sam really didn’t like this guy.
It wasn’t jealousy, he told himself. He barely knew Jamie, certainly not well enough to be jealous of her coworker. And he didn’t want to know her better because a detective should never get personal with a person involved in a case.
She looked at the watch on her wrist. “Well, we have to be going.”
Al slid his hands into the pockets of his tailored slacks. “So where are the two of you headed?”
“Dinner,” Sam said, putting his palm at the small of her back, the gesture intimate, but only to urge her forward.
The guy’s smile disappeared faster than you could say “teeth bleach,” and Sam felt a surge of satisfaction that told him he really had to work on that SOB thing. And he would. Real soon, he thought, escorting Jamie to the elevator.
Jamie drove to the restaurant with Sam on her tail in his sleek, black Mustang. They went into The Homestead through a back entrance, and she knew Sam was following her, this time on foot. Even if she hadn’t heard the heavy sound of his boots behind her, she could just feel him. His presence raised the hair on the back of her neck and tingles everywhere else. Back in her office, she’d sworn he was staring at her mouth. But she was probably wrong. He’d stopped in town to say hello to a friend, and her family had turned his life upside down. Why in the world would he be thinking about kissing her?
She turned a corner and poked her head into the room her folks used as an office. As usual, paperwork was scattered around the computer on each of the two desks facing each other from opposite walls. Two desks, two computers, and neither of her parents was anywhere in sight.
“They must be out front working,” she said.
“Do they always leave the back door unlocked?”
His body was so close behind her she could almost feel his chest against her back and the vibrations of his deep voice. There was no mistaking the disapproval in his tone.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
“Anyone could have walked in and helped themselves to anything in here, including the picture of you that your parents told me was stolen.”
“Even if it was locked, this place is so busy at lunch and dinnertime that it would be easy to slip back here unnoticed.”
“I need to have a talk with them about security.”
Before she could respond, there were footsteps in the hall. Sam moved farther into the room and stood beside her, just before her parents appeared in the doorway.
“Jamie.” Her mother held out her arms, and Jamie went into them.
“Hi, Mom.” She gave her father a quick, hard hug. “Dad. You already know Sam.”
“Louise. Roy,” he said.
They shook hands, Sam towering over the other man, Jamie noticed. Roy and Louise Gibson were like a matched set, one complementing the other—both small and round and solid and comfortable. Her mother’s short brown hair was shot with red highlights to cover the gray. What hair her father had left encircling his head was gray. He always said he’d earned every single one worrying about his only daughter. They were both dressed for the evening crowd—her father in a navy suit and red tie, her mother in a long-sleeved black knit dress and matching low-heeled shoes.
“I see you and Sam have met,” her father said.
Jamie huffed out a breath, then leaned against her mother’s littered desk, folding her arms over her chest.
Before she could say anything, her mother asked, “So, why are you upset?”
“Let