it back into his pocket. He could see by the look on her face that they weren’t going back where they were before the call.
“Two men answered your ad,” he told her. “One of them wants a meeting at noon at El Topo.”
She nodded and slid off the rock wall. “Let’s get it over with.”
He almost made the mistake of asking her if she was sure she wanted to go through with this. One look at her answered that question in spades.
He was reminded of the first time he saw her. His Girl Next Door. He could see how he’d originally thought that. She had the look. Except this woman refused to fit his mental mold. What had Denny called her? A gutsy lady. Too gutsy for her own good, Jack thought.
LEAN ON JACK? The thought pulled at her, tempting her, making her ache inside for a lot more than just leaning. But she knew she couldn’t trust her body, let alone her emotions, right now. Nor did leaning on Jack in any way seem like a good plan. He confused her, made her feel things she’d gone for twenty-eight years without feeling.
Like his kiss. The kiss had been electric. Her limbs still tingled from it and her knees had gone weak. Karen Sutton. Weak-kneed. How about that? Just what she needed right now.
Oh, why was this happening now? Now, when it didn’t seem like the time to have her head in the clouds? Now, when maybe there was a killer out there looking for her? Now, when she didn’t even feel comfortable in her own skin, with this new Karen acting up?
She had to get tough. That was the ticket. It had worked for her before; she had to trust she could get through this, as well. But that meant finding her own strengths. She’d weakened back at the lodge, touched by more than Jack’s concern, but now that the effects of his kiss were finally starting to wear off some—
“May I ask you something? Why do you feel the need to protect me?” she asked as they drove down the mountainside toward Missoula.
“It came with my badge,” he said and smiled over at her. “And I told you, I like the way you eat lemon-filled doughnuts.”
Right, a man who liked to see a woman eat. She hadn’t bought that yesterday; she wasn’t buying it now. “Does it have something to do with your friend Denny Kirkpatrick and the fact that he knew Liz?”
His smile faded a little.
“He hadn’t told you he dated her, had he?”
“No.” Jack stared straight ahead at the road.
“Do you think he could be involved in her murder?” she asked and could see him fighting with the question.
“Denny and I have worked together for seven years. I’d trust him with my life.”
“What about mine?”
Jack looked over at her. “You really go to the heart of the matter, don’t you?”
Always. Unless it involved her own heart. Then she ran. Just as she was trying desperately to do now. Run from this unlikely chemistry she felt between her and Jack. The cop and the cabinetmaker. So unlikely a match. And yet she felt drawn to him with a sudden sense of urgency—
The murder. Of course that was it. The intrigue, the suspense, the danger had ignited a passion she never knew she possessed and heightened Jack’s coplike protectiveness.
Once the murder was solved, it would be like Cinderella after the ball. Karen would go back to being the old passionless Karen and Jack would go off to protect some other damsel in distress. Not exactly your happily-ever-after ending, but an ending just the same.
“I’m just being a cop. Suspicious. Cautious.”
Jack’s words jerked her back to reality.
“Just can’t fight that need to save the damsel in distress,” she said, hoping he’d deny it.
“Something like that.” He drove in silence for a few minutes as if grappling with his own reality. “What was their relationship like in high school, Denny’s and Liz’s, do you know?”
Karen thought back, glad for the change of subject. “Like I said, I didn’t know Liz well. We ran in different circles. I was Miss Goody Two-shoes, Exemplary Student and Nerd Extraordinaire. Liz seemed a little wild back then, adventurous, daring, but that was just from my limited perception.”
“It doesn’t sound like she changed all that much,” Jack pointed out.
“No, I guess not,” she agreed. “Denny wasn’t exactly a secret lover, that’s for sure. But he was a biker, three years older and from the wrong