Besides, Grier handled the trip to her front door just fine, in spite of the fact that she was walking in stilettos and had been attacked by some drugged-up asswipe.

Too bad they hadn’t met in a different world. He would have really liked to—

Yeah, right. Take her on a date?

Whatever. Even if he had gone the law-abiding, I’m-not-an-assassin route, they were from opposite ends of the spectrum: he was all farm boy and she was all fabulous.

And he really had to cut the double-think when it came to how attractive she was.

Her security alarm went off the moment she opened the way in and he was glad, although he didn’t approve of her letting riffraff like him in the house. And how was that for fucked-up?

As she punched in her code at the ADT panel, he looked down at the soles of his combats—which were caked with chunky mud and fuzzy sod. Bending down, he unlaced them, slipped them off, and left them outside.

Her black-and-white marble floor was warm under his socks—

Looking up, he found her staring at his feet with an odd expression on her beautiful face.

“I didn’t want to track in,” he muttered, shutting the door and locking it.

After he took off his windbreaker, he got out the Star Market bag with his life savings in it and they just stood there: her in her black designer coat and her soiled purse that had one strap hanging loose; him in his sweatshirt with a load of dirty money in his bloody hand and two guns she didn’t know about in his pockets.

“When was the last time you ate,” she said softly.

“I’m not hungry. But thank you, ma’am.” He glanced around, looking into a tall-ceilinged room that was painted a rich red. Over the regal marble fireplace was an oil painting of a man sitting up straight in a gilded chair with a pair of old-fashioned spectacles perched on his nose.

It was so quiet here, he thought. And not just because there weren’t any sounds.

Peaceful. It was . . . peaceful.

“I’ll make you an omelet, then,” she said, putting her bag down and starting to shrug out of that coat.

He stepped up to her to help, but she moved back. “I’ve got it. Thanks.”

The dress underneath . . . Dear God, that dress. Modest and black had never looked so sexy, as far as he was concerned, but then that was more about her than the design or the fabric.

And those legs. Fuck him, but those legs with the sheer black stockings . . .