"Mary Janice Davidson - Thief Of Hearts" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Mary Janice)

“Thanks, I’ve got a million of ‘em.” Pause. “How did you know my name?”

She smiled. It was a nice smile, warm, with no condescension. “It wasn’t hard to find out.”

“What’syour name?” he asked boldly. He should have been nervous about the locked door, about the
threat to his life. He wasn’t. Instead, he was delighted at the chance to talk to her, after a day of thinking
about her and wondering how she was…who she was.

“Kara.”

“That’s gorgeous,” he informed her, “and I, of course, am unsurprised. You’re so pretty! And so
deadly,” he added with relish, “you’re like one of those flowers that people can’t resist picking and
then—bam! Big-time rash.”

“Thanks,” she said, “I think.” She blushed, which gave her high color and made her eyes bluer. He
stared, besotted. He didn’t think women blushed anymore. He didn’t think women who beat up thugs
blushed at all. He was very much afraid his mouth was hanging open and unable to do a thing about it.
“Dr. Dean—”

“Umm?”

“—I’m not sure you understand the seriousness of the situation—”

“Long, tall and ugly is out to get me,” he said, sitting down opposite her. He shoved a pile of charts
aside; several clattered to the floor and she watched them fall, bemused. “But since you’re not the
hitman, I’m not too worried.”

“Actually, I’m your self-appointed bodyguard.”

“Oh, well, then I’m not worried at all,” he said with feigned carelessness, while his brain chewed that
one…bodyguard?…over.

“You could take on an assassin with one hand while writing a grocery list with the other. You’re certainly
a match for whoever that guy sends after me. So, do I pay you? Should we even be talking about
money? What’s the etiquette here?”

She blinked. “Uh…that won’t be necessary. Dr. Dean—”

“Jared.”

“—may I say, you’re taking this remarkably well?”

“Work in an E.R. for a year,” he said, suddenly grim. “You learn to recover your equilibrium pretty
damned quickly.”

“Touché,” she said quietly.

“So now what?”
“Now you don’t get killed.”