But it was devastating to his masculinity.
With a grimace he started toward the door that separated his office from the waiting room. Putting off the confrontation was cowardly, something he’d never been. It was just that Tess could look so wounded when he scolded her. He hated giving her more pain. Over the years, God knew, he’d given her more than enough.
But she had to learn that rules were meant to be obeyed. If he overlooked this infraction, he might put her at risk in the future. He couldn’t have that.
Resignedly, he reached out and opened the door.
Chapter One
TESS MERIWETHER SIGHED HUGELY, feeling stiff all over from the tension of waiting for the ax to fall. She glanced ruefully toward Dane’s closed office door. Today had really been one of those days. She’d blown a stakeout and gotten the cold shoulder from Dane all day for it. She hoped she could sneak out at quitting time without being seen. Otherwise, she was going to catch it for sure.
Dane Lassiter was her boss—the owner of the Lassiter Detective Agency—but he was also more. She’d known him for years; their parents had almost gotten married. But a tragic accident had killed them both, and the only one Tess had left in the world was Dane.
She carefully put away her equipment with a quick glance at the clock and reached for her trench coat. The coat was her pride and joy, one of those Sam Spade-looking things that she adored. Working for a detective agency was exciting, even if Dane wouldn’t let her near a case. Someday, she promised herself, she was going to become an operative, in spite of her overprotective boss.
“Going somewhere?” he asked, suddenly appearing in the doorway, a cigarette smoldering between his lean fingers. He looked like the ultimate private investigator in his three-piece suit.
She had to drag her eyes away. Even after what he’d done to her three years ago, she still found him a delight to her eyes.
“Home,” she said. “Do you mind?”
“Immensely.” He motioned her into his office. Once she was inside, he half closed the door and came closer to her, noticing involuntarily how she tensed when he was only a few feet away. Her reaction was predictable, and probably he deserved it, but it stung. He spoke much more angrily than he meant to. “I told you not to go near the stakeout.”
“I didn’t, intentionally,” she said, nervously twisting a long strand of pale blond hair around one finger. “I saw Helen and I waved. I thought the stakeout you mentioned was going to be one of those wee-hours-of-the-morning things. I hardly expected two professional detectives to be skulking around a toy store in the middle of the afternoon! I thought Helen was buying her boyfriend’s nephew a present.” Her gray eyes flashed at him. “After all, you didn’t say what you were staking out. You just told me to keep out of the way. Houston,” she added haughtily, “is a big city. We didn’t all used to be Texas Rangers who carry city street plans around in our heads!”
He didn’t blink. His dark eyes stared her down through a cloud of smoke firing up from the cigarette in his fingers.
She coughed as the smoke approached her face. Loudly.
He smiled at her. Defiantly. Neither moved.
A timid knock on the door startled the tall, rangy, dark-haired man and the slender blonde woman. Helen Reed peeked around the half-opened door.
“Is it all right if I go home?” she asked Dane. “It’s five,” she added with a hopeful smile.
“Take your ear with you,” he said, referring to a piece of essential listening equipment, “and go with your brother. Nick needs some backup while he stakes out our philandering husband.”
“No!” Helen groaned. “No, Dane, not four hours of lewd noises and embarrassing conversation with Nick! I hate Nick! Anyway, I’ve got a date with Harold!”
“You were supposed to tell sweetums here—” he nodded toward a glaring Tess “—where and when the stakeout was going down, so that she wouldn’t trip over it.”
“I apologized,” she wailed.
“Not good enough. You go with Nick, and I’ll reconsider your pink slip.”
“If you fire me,” Helen told him, “I’ll go back to work for the department of motor vehicles and you’ll never get another automobile tag registration off the record for the rest of your life.”
He pursed his lips. “Did I ever mention that I spent two years with the Texas Department of Public Safety before I joined the Texas Rangers?”
Helen sighed. She opened the door the rest of the way and made a huge production of going down on her hose-clad knees, her long black hair dragging the floor as she salaamed, her thin body looking somehow elegant even in the pose. She studied ballet and had all the grace of a dancer.
“Oh, for God’s sake, go home,” Dane said shortly. “And I hope Harold buys you a pizza loaded with anchovies!”
“Thanks, boss! Actually, I love anchovies!” Helen smiled, waved, and then vanished before he had time to change his mind.
He ran a restless hand through his thick black hair, disrupting a straight lock onto his forehead. “Next the skip tracers will be after paid vacations to the Bahamas.”
Tess shook her head. “Jamaica. I asked.”
He turned and tossed an ash into the smokeless ashtray on his desk. The entire staff had pitched in to buy it. They’d also pitched in to send him to a stop-smoking seminar. He’d sent them all on stakeouts to porno theaters. Nobody ever suggested another seminar. Dane did install big air filters, though, in every office.
Dane was a renegade. He went his own way regardless of controversy. Tess might disagree with him, but she had to respect him for standing up for what he believed in.
She watched him move, her eyes lingering on his elegant carriage. He was built like a rodeo cowboy, square shoulders and lean hips and long, powerful legs. When he was tired, he limped a little from the wounds he’d sustained three years ago. He looked tired now.
She watched him, remembering how it had all begun. When he’d opened the detective agency, he’d remorselessly pilfered the local police department of its best people, offering them percentages and shares in the business instead of salaries until the agency started paying off. And it had thrived—in record time. Dane had been a Houston police officer years before he made it to the Texas Rangers. He’d been a good policeman. He had plenty of clout in intelligence circles, and that assured his success.
Being a Texas Ranger hadn’t hurt his credentials, either, because in order to be considered for the rangers, a man had to have eight years of law enforcement experience with the last two as an officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Then the top thirty scorers on the written test had to undergo a grueling oral interview. The five leading candidates to pass this test were placed on a one-year waiting list for an opening on the ninety-four-member force. Dane had been one of the lucky ones. He’d worked out of Houston, ranging over several counties to assist local law enforcement. A ranger might not have to fight Indians or Mexican guerrillas, but since Texas had plenty of ranchland left, a ranger had to be a skilled horseman in case he was called upon to track down modern-day rustlers. Dane was one of the best horsemen Tess had ever seen. Despite his injuries, he still was as at home on the back of a horse as he was on the ground or behind the wheel of a car.
She was awed by him after all the years they’d known each other. But she was very careful these days not to let him know how awed. One taste of his violent ardor had been enough to stifle her desire for him as soon as it had begun.
“You never send me out on assignments.” She sighed.
He glanced at her, his expression guarded. He seemed to make a point of never looking too closely, or for too long, as if he found her very existence hard to accept. “You’re a secretary, not an operative.”
“I