His thoughts broke off as he looked up. Rachel walked in, cheeks flushed from the chilly evening, eyes snapping. As she crossed the room, she peeled off her jacket to reveal one of those soft sweaters she often wore. This one was the color of a good burgundy, with a wide cowl neck that draped softly over the swell of her breasts. It rode her hips, and under it she wore snug black leggings that showed off those first-class legs.

Zack checked to make sure his tongue wasn’t hanging out.

She stopped at the bar only long enough to glare at him. “In your office.” Without waiting for a response, she strode off.

“Well, well…” Lola watched Rachel swing Zack’s office door open, then shut it behind her with a loud click. “Looks like the lady’s got something on her mind.”

“Yeah.” Zack set the last glass on Lola’s tray. All he could think was, there was definitely a fire in the hole. “If Nick comes back down, tell him I’m…tied up.”

“You’re the boss.”

“Right.” And he intended to remain the boss. He swung through the bar and, taking one bracing breath, marched into his office.

Rachel had tossed her jacket and purse aside, and was pacing. When the door opened, she stopped, swung her hair back and leveled a killing gaze at him.

“Don’t you ever talk to him?” she demanded.” Aren’t you making any effort to find out what’s going on in his head? What kind of a guardian are you, anyway?”

“What the hell is this?” He threw up his hands in disgust. “I don’t see or hear from you in days, then you come stalking in here just so you can yell at me. Just simmer down, Counselor, and remember I’m not some felon on the witness stand.”

“Don’t tell me to simmer down,” she tossed back. It felt good, really good, to assuage her guilt and frustration with a pitched battle. “I’m the one who’s going to have to deal with him. And if you were any kind of a brother, you would have known. You could have warned me.”

Because his confidence as a brother was still at low tide, he hissed out an oath. Rachel echoed it as he shoved her into a chair. “Just sit down and take it from the top. I assume we’re talking about Nick.”

“Of course we’re talking about Nick.” She popped up again, and was pushed right back down. “I don’t have anything else to discuss with you.”

“We’ll bypass that for now. Just what is it I should have known and warned you about?”

“That he’d…he’d…” She blew out a breath, struggling for the proper phrase. “That he’d started to think of me as a woman.”

“How the hell is he supposed to think of you? As a tuna?”