Ellie looked up at him. “I’m waiting for a call from a friend. She’s a whiz at digging up information. I’m hoping she can come up with something useful. But you’re right. Unless something turns up, we’ve got nothing.”

“There’s one thing we can do.”

“What’s that?”

“I promised to take you to the Elkhorn, introduce you around. You came here to do a job. Maybe that will help you do it.”

Ellie started nodding. Kade was right. She needed to get back to the murder case she was there to solve. “All right. That sounds good.”

Ellie’s eyes widened when Kade framed her face between his hands, leaned down, and captured her lips in a very thorough kiss. “I’ll see you at supper.”

Her heart was racing. The man could just look at her and make her want him. She watched him stride across the kitchen, long legs encased in his worn, rough-out chaps. They outlined the heavy bulge beneath the fly of his jeans, and Ellie bit back a moan.

Kade grabbed his work jacket off the coatrack, plucked his battered cowboy hat off a peg, settled it on his head, and tugged it low. With a last hot glance, he turned and walked out of the kitchen.

Ellie took a deep breath. She was in way over her head with Kade Logan. Kade wasn’t interested in more than a physical relationship. Which should be exactly what she wanted.

She didn’t trust men, not after her lying, cheating ex-husband. She’d had the same bad luck with every serious relationship since college. She’d met David Richmond her third year. He was the love of her life—or at least so she’d thought. David had professed eternal devotion and hinted at marriage. All the while, he was screwing one of the grad students.

Two years later, the promising relationship she’d had with a young doctor turned sour when she found him cheating with one of his patients. It seemed the word gullible was stamped on her forehead.

The woman Ellie was now refused to let herself be fooled again. Added to that was the not so small matter of her independence. She would surely lose it with a man like Kade. Better to keep her distance from him, enjoy that hard male body and all that masculine virility, and say goodbye when the time came.

The sound of her cell phone returned her thoughts to the moment. She had called Zoey Rosen last night, but her friend hadn’t picked up. Unlike Ellie, Zoe never let a man make a fool of her. She took what he offered and felt no remorse when she ended things. Zoe dumped her lovers without a second thought.

Ellie grabbed the phone off the kitchen counter and checked the caller ID. “Hey, Zoe, thanks for calling me back.”