“You hold her,” Savannah insisted. “Look into her eyes and tell her that you’re going to make her a ward of the state and let her be shuffled around to foster homes. Think of her dad and the trust and faith he placed in you.” Now her voice held steel in it, and a good measure of anger, too.
“Stop trying to sell me on this, because it isn’t going to work,” Mike said tightly. “I’m not becoming guardian of a baby.”
“Can you look at her and tell her that?”
He gazed down into wide blue eyes and remembered John Frates. “Dammit, leave me alone, Savannah. You don’t push someone into parenthood,” he said, his anger growing.
“Nonsense. Half the world gets pushed into it one way or another. Have you ever planned to marry, or do you plan to stay a bachelor your entire life?”
“I don’t intend to get married yet,” Mike replied in clipped tones.
“So you never expected to marry or have children.”
“That isn’t what I said,” he snapped. “Now take this baby, Savannah. I’m afraid I’ll drop her.”
Jessie cooed, and as he watched, she smiled at him. He felt a tightening inside and a small sliver of regret. The girl caught his finger in her hand, holding it tightly.
He clenched his jaw and imagined life with a baby. He couldn’t. He was headed for D.C. today and the CIA. They wouldn’t like having a man saddled with a child. He couldn’t settle in a little Texas town and take charge of a baby. Nor could he see taking her to Washington with him.
“She’s beautiful,” he said tersely, and held her out to Savannah again. “Thanks for giving me a lot of sleepless nights.”
“I hope so,” she answered in a voice dripping with disdain as she took Jessie and cuddled her in her arms. She crossed to the door, talking softly to the baby, looking as if she’d done this a million times before. She gave the baby to the caseworker and returned, closing the door and facing him. And once again, she took his breath away. How could the woman be so beautiful and so damned annoying at the same time?
“Will you at least go have coffee with me?” she asked. “I have one more thing I want to show you.”
“One more reason to ruin my life?”
“If you have a guilty conscience, that’s not my fault,” she replied with a smugness that only heightened his irritation.
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “I’ll go, but I don’t see any point in us spending one more minute together.”
“I think another couple of hours is a small thing to ask. Are you this difficult with other women?”
“This isn’t a man-woman thing and you know it.”
She gave him a long, intense look that included a sweep of her eyes from his head to his toes and back, and he had to admit to himself that it was at least partially a man-woman thing.
“No, I guess it’s not,” she said coolly, making him want to cross the room and take her in his arms, kiss her soundly and show her it was a man-woman thing after all. “But I’d really like you to spend the next couple of hours with me.” She awarded him the dazzling smile that made his knees weak, and he wondered how many juries and judges had succumbed to the influence of that smile.
“What the hey,” he said, and grinned. “I have hours yet to kill here.” He strolled over to her and she gazed up at him, the smile still hovering on her lips. If his proximity fazed her, she didn’t show it. “Maybe it could turn into a man-woman thing,” he said softly.
“Not in this lifetime,” she snapped. “But I’m glad you’ve agreed to stay. Let me arrange a few things, and then we’re out of here. Wait just a minute.”
Another order. Did the woman even know the word please? he wondered. He sat and watched her move around her office, and in minutes she nodded to him. “I’m ready. Shall we go?”
He left with her, enjoying the sight of her walking beside him, as well as the scent of her perfume. “Is this another exercise in futility?” he asked.
“Might be, but I have to do what I have to do. I don’t give up easily.”
“You’re very passionate about this. Maybe all that passion is just misguided.”
She laughed, a sexy, flirty laugh, then slanted him a look that made his blood heat. “In your dreams, Colonel! You’re not goading me into sex.”
“Sometimes the impossible happens,” he retorted lightly, but she was definitely keeping him off balance. He didn’t want to be intrigued by her or physically drawn to her, but he was. A woman who kept shifting from glacial to this kind of sexy was bound to give him trouble.
At her car he held the door for her and then went around to sit in the passenger seat. As they drove away from her office and into San Antonio traffic, he watched her.
When they left town and traffic thinned, his curiosity increased. He looked at rolling green hills dotted with sturdy oaks and sprinkled with colorful wildflowers. “So where are we headed—Stallion Pass, perhaps?”
“Good guess. I want you to see the town.”
“It won’t do you any good.”
“You asked me last night, and now I’ll ask you—have you ever been in love?”
“Yes, I have,” he answered quickly.
“I’ll bet lots of times,” she said, flashing a quick smile.
“Sometimes it’s a light, pleasure-only thing and sometimes it’s been more serious, but nothing permanent ever. I’m not a man to settle, and women take a dim view of getting involved with a man with my lifestyle.”
“Why do I doubt that they protest very much? I’ll bet you’re nearly always the one to break things off.”
“Why would you think that?”
“You’re handsome, dynamic, aggressive—”
“Aggressive? I think I’ve been a model of restraint and cooperation with one exception. I’m not taking a baby as an inheritance.”
“You might change your mind.”
“No, I won’t. Handsome?” he repeated, his tone changing as he shifted slightly in the seat to study her more intently. “My, my, Counselor. I’m surprised to get any kind of positive reaction from you,” he said.
“You didn’t, but I imagine ninety-five percent of the women you meet find you quite attractive.”
“Now what exactly makes you come to that conclusion?”
She laughed and glanced at him. “You want me to shower you with compliments? I think your ego is big enough as it is.”
“And I bet you get hit on often, too. Except you probably scare the hell out of a lot of men.”
“Do I scare you?” she asked, slanting him another quick, saucy look.
“Ask me that when you’re not driving, and I’ll show you.”
“Why do you want to be in the CIA?”
“You’re changing the subject, but I’ll remind you of it later,” Mike told her. “I want to go into the CIA because I can still serve my country that way. I can do some interesting things, see interesting places.”
“You can do that in the military, too. Why are you getting out?”
“It’s a little too much on the edge. I’m tired of getting shot at.”
“And that won’t happen in the CIA?”
“I’m wrangling for a desk job.”