He said it with such mustache-twirling, over-the-top villainy that she would have laughed if so much hadn’t been on the line. Instead, she advanced on him. “Let’s get serious. A woman’s life is at stake. I need you to do this. And your better self—assuming you have one—needs for you to do this.”

He’d gotten wise to her tactics, and her swipe had no effect. “Try again, Sherlock. That wasn’t even a first down.”

She’d run out of arguments, and she slumped against the brick terrace wall. “Do you have a better idea?”

“I sure as hell do. Mind your own business.”

She took a deep breath, then slowly shook her head. “I can’t.”

***

Coop popped one of the small yellow pear tomatoes in his mouth. It didn’t go well with the remnants of his cherry sucker, but he needed to stall. She was right. He’d been messing with her. Trying to make that wrongheaded kiss seem as meaningless as it should have been.

He gazed over at her. She looked so damned disappointed in him. Like she’d caught him torturing a kitten. What she wanted was over-the-top and doomed to failure, but he still felt about two feet tall, an emotion he hadn’t experienced since his college coach had deservedly called him out for too much partying.

“All I’m asking for is an hour,” she said. “Two at the most.”

He never let anybody put him on the defensive, yet that was exactly what she’d done. She saw herself as some kind of knight-ess in shining armor, and she expected him to join her crusade. She worked for him, damn it. He was the quarterback, and she didn’t get to call the plays. “You’re asking for a lot more than that.”

She wouldn’t give up. “Isn’t a young woman’s life worth a little of your time?”

He countered her attempt at emotional blackmail with cold logic. “Her life isn’t in danger.”

She gazed over the wall at a big maple that had turned red. For once, he couldn’t tell if she was sincere or playing him. “Being born in this country gives us opportunities most people in the rest of the world don’t have,” she said. “Where you happen to be born. It’s the luck of the draw, isn’t it?”

He’d been born dirt poor, but... Shit. She was going to make him do this. Or maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe it was the challenge of what she wanted.

***