She pulled off her dress, hung it haphazardly on a hanger, then tossed her favorite nightgown over her head. She needed to wash her face, but that would mean walking into the hallway. “So what?” she growled under her breath. Just because Luke was in the house, didn’t mean she couldn’t do what she had to do. The man wasn’t going to intimidate her, for goodness’ sake! This was her house. Her life. She snagged her bathrobe from a hook on the closet door, flung her arms into the sleeves and cinched the belt snugly around her waist. She crossed the hall, slipped into the bathroom and went through her nightly ablutions with one ear cocked to the door.

Luke didn’t disturb her. A few minutes later she crawled into bed, pulled the covers to her neck and wondered how she’d get one second of sleep knowing that he was just down the hall. Blue, who had padded into the room when she was in the bathroom, circled and dropped into a sleeping position at the foot of her bed. “Good dog,” she said around a yawn and he thumped his tail. Sighing, she closed her eyes and the exhaustion of the day took hold. She was asleep within minutes.

* * *

A sharp pain in his neck drove Luke to consciousness. He blinked, focusing on the small living room, and realized he was in Katie’s house.

The smell of coffee drifted from the kitchen and as he lifted his head, Katie, her hair wound into a knot atop her head, her face scrubbed free of makeup, peeked around the corner.

“Good morning,” she said, her eyes sparkling in the dawn light.

“Mornin’.”

“Some bodyguard you turned out to be.” She giggled and he should have felt irritated by her ribbing, but he managed a thin smile.

“You’re safe, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, but I don’t think it’s because of you.”

“Well, then, you’re wrong. I chased away all sorts of evil types last night.”

“Did you?” She laughed and ducked back into the kitchen as some bell rang.

He got up from the couch, rubbed the kinks out of his neck and back, then ambled into the kitchen where she was busy tossing slices of bread into an ancient toaster.

“Breakfast?” Katie asked him.

“You don’t have to—”

“No trouble,” she insisted with a lift of one shoulder. “Consider it payment for protecting me. Ham and eggs okay?”

She didn’t know that he’d stayed awake until dawn, only falling asleep when he’d felt certain that there was no one skulking in the night to threaten her. “Great.” He couldn’t help noticing the long, graceful arch of her neck, the feminine slope of her shoulders and the nip of her waist where her robe was tied. Beneath the soft velour fabric her hips shifted as she twisted to look at him.