“What?”
“Walter’s an OB-GYN. I’m assuming he had to attend a birth. This really is myhouse.”
He shot her a skeptical glance. “And you can provethis?”
“The lady next door knew myvoice.”
“She’s half-deaf. She heard a woman’s voice. You’ll have to do better thanthat.”
With a sigh, Cynthia said, “I’ll get my driver’slicense.”
She strode to the bedroom to get her purse, and he dogged her footsteps. “Do you mind?” she asked inannoyance.
“Don’t want you hijacking the familysilver.”
With an irritated huff, she grabbed her black leather purse and fished out her driver’s license. “There.”
He glanced down at it. “This isn’tyou.”
“Of course itis.”
He took the plastic folder from her hands and looked more carefully—at her, then at the photograph on her license. “You should get that picture updated,” hesaid.
The photo was less than a year old. It was theRaunchversion of her that was different. And once you took Walter Plinkney’s admittedly disappointing reaction out of the equation, she quite liked theRaunchversion. It made a dangerous, gun-toting FBI agent talk about sex and her in the samebreath.
At that moment she vowed to keep some part of herRaunchlook. Not the rouged nipples, probably, but, well, part ofit.
“Hold out yourhands.”
“This is my house. Stop ordering me around.” She stuck her hands behind her back. Once she got the remnants of the handcuffs removed, no man was going to touch her hands for a very longtime.
He plucked a pair of keys out of his pocket and dangled them in front of her. “I found them in the candydish.”
With a relieved sigh, she gave him herhands.
Swiftly, he unlocked first one cuff, then the other. While he worked, he asked, “If you’re not a hooker, what do you do? For a job, I mean,” he amendedhastily.
Well, it was nice while it lasted, she thought. “I’m an accountant.” She watched him from under her lashes, waiting for his eyes to glaze over inboredom.
Instead, she got a curious reaction. He blinked slowly and stared at her, hard. “You’re putting meon.”
“I’m serious. No one lies about being inaccounting.”
“An accountant. That’sfantastic!”
No one, but no one, got excited about accounting except for one reason. Her mind fogged over with depression. “Don’t tell me, you have a thorny tax problem you’d like me tosolve?”
“No, not at all. Let’s sit down. Why don’t you tell me aboutyourself.”
“You can’t be serious.” She pulled the terry robe tighter around herself, and was reminded she had nothing on underneath but mint-green cottonpanties.
“I guess I should have introduced myself properly.” He shot her a killer grin, one that completely transformed him from scary law enforcer to incredibly attractive man. “I’m Jake Wheeler. I just moved into theneighborhood.”
“Cynthia Baxter.” She shook his hand automatically, while cold dread filled her. “Did you say you were a neighbor?” He’d seen her naked; now he was going to say “hi” over the fence? She’d bump into him on garbage day and at the Fourth of July neighborhoodbarbecue.
She felt like she needed to stick her head between her legs to stop from fainting withhorror.
