Midnight Kiss (Men of Midnight #7) - Lisa Marie Rice Page 0,27

them. They’d borrowed a safe house in Sacramento from Black Inc, another company that was quivering with eagerness to help her as repayment for the magical mystery firewall that had their tech people salivating. There was a whole machine revving up, just waiting to go and … she dug in her heels.

“But —” he began, in his reasonable tone.

“No.” Hope’s voice wasn’t adamant or stubborn. There was no emotional overtone at all. That ‘no’ was said as if he’d offered her a whiskey and she’d said no. No biggie.

Except it was.

She pulled out the chair from the side table that was acting as a workspace and she sat and pulled her laptop toward her. She’d been working since breakfast, had taken a coffee and muffin break and was now settling back in.

Luke was … well he was at a loss. If this were an operation where her life was in immediate danger, he’d have no compunction in tossing her over his shoulder and getting her out of there. But her life was in no immediate danger. If anything, she was super safe right where she was.

“Hope, it really would be best to get going.” Said quite reasonably. With absolutely no irritation in his voice, which was an act of heroism right there.

She touched a key and her screen came to vivid life, colors so bright they almost hurt the eye. Her screensaver was …

“Rivendell,” he said. The Peter Jackson version.

That earned him a quick upside look. “Right.” She gave him a slow elevator look, boots to hair. “You’re too built to be a nerd. What is this?”

He took a step toward her. “When I was eleven and discovered Lord of the Rings, I was short and underweight. I looked about seven and I was bullied. I discovered books, dived into them and didn’t come up again until I started growing. So in a real way, Tolkien saved my bacon. And my dad. He saved my bacon too.”

She stopped, put her hands in her lap. “Tell me about your dad. I love good dad stories.”

He just bet she did. Her own father wasn’t her father after all and had ignored her, from what he understood. And maybe her biological father was trying to kill her. So he could imagine that good dad stories were appealing.

Well, he was happy to oblige. He’d had one of the best.

Luke perched on the edge of the table and felt her interest as a palpable thing. God she was just so irresistible — that pretty face turned up, those intelligent eyes focused like green lasers on him.

“My dad was the best,” he began.

Her pretty face fell. “Was. You told me.”

He nodded, sighed, feeling that punch to the heart he always felt. “Yeah. Unfortunately.” He wouldn’t repeat that his dad had essentially died of a broken heart right after the trial. It wasn’t the time for sadness. “Anyway. Seventh grade. Middle school. I was the runt of the class. Short and scrawny. Classic nerd. Straight As. D&D, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter. Bullied mercilessly by a gang of tough older kids who were much bigger than me. The main bully was Lou Garrett. Mean son of a bitch. I used to come home with black eyes, once with a cut that required ten stitches. But my dad … he didn’t do the TV dad thing. Go to the bully’s house, talk with the asshole’s father, talk to the school principal. Nope. That would have just painted a bullseye on my back. He took me to the gym of his good buddy and former Marine, Nelson Harmer. Known as The Hammer.”

She winced. “Ouch.”

“Nah.” Luke shook his head. “He was a good guy and always took me to my limits but never beyond. I trained hard, three afternoons a week, for seven years. During those seven years I shot up a foot and a half and put on fifty pounds. The Hammer made sure it was all muscle. After the first year at the dojo no one bullied me again. And that is the story of how I can be a former Ranger and still know Rivendell.”

That brought a smile to her face. “What happened to the bully?”

The thought always made him happy. “He’s asking customers if they want fries with that.”

“Oh, man.” Hope sighed. “I do love me a happy ending.”

Luke leaned forward. He’d taken the tense expression off her face, which was good. Now for the rest of it. He made his voice very gentle. “Hope,