Major Daddy. Cara Colter

      She felt a little finger of fury. How could he tell, in the length of a thirty-second meeting, whether or not she had what it takes? She itched to give him a little taste of the Mace.

      “I do so have what it takes!” she said and realized it was a pathetic thing to say in the presence of a man who so obviously possessed the real thing in astounding abundance.

      She wondered if she really could use Mace on him. She’d seen how quick his reflexes were. He could probably wrestle her weapon away from her before she’d figured out how to discharge the spray. And then, he’d be in the position to use it on her. She could feel the blood drain from her face at the thought.

      “Exactly,” he said and, looking directly into his piercing gaze, she had the disconcerting sensation that he had just read her mind.

      For just a second, the briefest spark of humor flickered to life in the depths of those eyes. If anything, it only made him look more dangerous. And more attractive. And more sexy. She felt that traitorous little twitch of her heart.

      She could almost see Shauna rolling her eyes and saying with sweet southern sarcasm, “Brooke, you sure know how to pick ’em.”

      “It isn’t a gun, anyway,” Brooke defended herself. “It’s Mace. And Lexandra wouldn’t have been hurt had I used it. I would have been very careful with my aim. Besides, there’s quite a bit of padding between me and her skin.”

      “And for what reason exactly were you feeling a need to defend yourself?”

      “I don’t know who you are! Or what you are doing in my employer’s home. With her children tucked under your arms. You haven’t exactly been forthcoming.”

      “Ah. And straight from the embrace of Hollywood, you figured a plot was being hatched.” His voice, edged with sarcasm, was even sexier than when it was not. “Let me guess, your boss is filming suspense and terror, and all of you become so immersed that you see it everywhere. An easy leap to assume I have taken the children and their dear granny hostage.”

      She disliked being so transparent, and, as a matter of fact, Shauna was filming a suspense thriller.

      “Have you?” she said.

      He snorted derisively. “Is it that easy to come up with a plot?”

      “You are still not answering the question! You are being evasive, a quality I cannot stand in men.”

      The smile died. He looked at her intently before saying, with disconcerting softness, “I think I hear the bitterness of experience.”

      “No, you don’t!” she lied, a defensive lie if she had ever told one.

      He sighed, then dismissed that topic with a shake of his head. “It’s the other way around,” he said. “I haven’t taken them hostage, they have taken me. I’m glad I don’t do this for a living. It’s exhausting being a hero. And then to get sprayed with Mace for my trouble.”

      A hero? No, no, no! “I would have used it only if you did something to deserve it.”

      “I don’t believe that. Once you got your finger on that sprayer, you would have been a dangerous woman. Trigger-happy.”

      She did not dignify that with a reply.

      “Mace is illegal in Canada,” he informed her dryly. “If they’d found it on you at the border you could have been refused entry. And that would have been a very bad thing for me, since I’m assuming you are the reinforcements, Addie Bwookie.”

      “Brooke Callan,” she corrected him haughtily.

      But she registered the word reinforcements and her relief grew. Whoever the mystery man was, he wouldn’t be glad to see her if he was up to no good, though glad was probably phrasing his reaction to her arrival a little too strongly.

      Her relief died abruptly. What if he was that handsome, that sure of himself, that physically perfect, and he wasn’t the bad guy?

      He looked down suddenly at the baby that was straddled over his arm and a terrible expression crossed his face. He unraveled Kolina’s fingers from around his knee, scooped her up, tucked her under the other arm, whirled and disappeared into the darkness of the house, giving Brooke little choice but to follow him.

      Out of pure defiance, she stuck her hand back in the purse and fondled her Mace can deliberately.

      Please be a bad guy. Please, please, please.

      “Don’t even think it,” he warned her without looking back, and so she took her hand out again, not knowing what it was in his voice that made it unthinkable not to obey, but resenting it heartily all the same.