The Excerpt
“So, what’s next?” Nora looked to him then frowned when his set expression grew even more remote. Her tone sharpened. “A little late in the game to ask me to step aside for my own safety, Ranger Bass, so I wouldn’t suggest you go there.”
Silence thickened like the dust cloud billowing behind them until he finally got to what darkened his mood.
“It’s time for you to head back to that comfortably messy apartment in Chicago and let us do our job without having to worry about you, too.”
Her jaw dropped. Even expecting him to come up with something equally unacceptable in the macho department, those words cut deeper than simple exclusion from their case. He wanted her gone, out from under his feet, out of sight and mind and potentially heart. For a moment, she couldn’t think around the huge swell of hurt. She waited for some contentious warnings and arguments to resurface but none did . . . because he was right.
(…and a bit more…)
Worrying about her was no help to the task set before him. All she’d done was tangle about his feet like an overly eager annoyance that distracted him from what he needed to focus upon. What Lenna Lupan needed him to focus upon.
She sat back in her seat and stared straight ahead toward the destination she no longer anticipated—the end of their collaboration and whatever it might have led to beyond her goal to protect other innocent girls from being carelessly discarded.
So, when Zayn rolled to a stop to drop her off by the dumpsters like trash that had begun to smell, she was out of the car and striding toward the casino entrance without a look back over her shoulder. Nothing to see there, anyway.
Giving Thanks for all of you!!
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