And Able by Lucy Monroe Page B

tilted her chin up with his hand so her gaze had nowhere to go but his face. “It doesn’t work that way. I didn’t make the commitment to you, and I keep my promises.”
    “You made it   about   me and I don’t want you held to it anymore,” she insisted, her voice sharp, her heart beating too fast.
    “That’s too bad, sugar, because I’m not going anywhere.”
    Unable to stand the contact, she shoved with desperate strength, breaking his hold, and stepped back. “I don’t need you watching over me and I don’t want you around me.”
    “You need me, all right,” he retorted harshly. “Someone is after you.”
    “So you say.”
    He made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a bear growling. “Whether it’s you or Josie they are after, you can’t stay in the house by yourself.”
    “I’m not staying in the house at all.”
    Whatever was going on, Josette’s house wasn’t safe. Claire didn’t know what she was going to do, except that she had to leave. She needed to go someplace that got her away from the danger of staying around Brett as well as far away from the man who had tried to smother her.
    “Where do you plan to go?” The question was innocuous, but his body language said she wasn’t going   anywhere   if he had anything to say about it.
    “That’s not your problem. As long as I’m out of Josette’s house, I’m out of your hair. Your responsibility to me ends.”
    “Like hell.”
    “Leave it alone, Brett. We’re done here.”
    Suddenly the air shimmering between them changed, and the sense of antagonism coming off of him disappeared, leaving her disoriented. So when he moved into her personal space and cupped her shoulders, she just stood there, incapable of objecting, though she didn’t know why.
    “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.” He sounded contrite, like he really cared.
    But she shook her head. Other people rarely   meant   to hurt you, but they did it all the same, and she’d let herself feel too much for this man. “It doesn’t matter.”
    “It does matter, sugar. You’re wanting to go off half-cocked because of me. I can’t let you do that. You’d end up hurt and it would be my fault.”
    “You are not responsible for my safety—or my feelings, for that matter. I wouldn’t give you that much power over me.”
    Hotwire wasn’t sure why Claire was so pissed off, but he knew he had to fix it. He was not letting her walk away from him, not when her life was so obviously in danger.
    Maybe she was offended because she thought he didn’t believe her. “You said you don’t know why these things are happening, and I trust you. I really do.” He looked into her doe-brown eyes and willed   her to believe   him . “It’s just that my gut is saying you are at the center of whatever is going on, and I’ve learned to trust my instincts.”
    “But I don’t know how I could be,” she said vehemently, looking not in the least appeased.
    “I learned a long time ago, the bad guys don’t always make sense.”
    “I don’t understand why your instincts latched on to me, Brett. I really don’t.”
    The sound of his name on her lips gave him a twinge like it always did. Like it or not, this woman was under his skin and she wasn’t going anywhere for a while. “I don’t either, sugar, but they have. You’re my friend and I don’t want you hurt.”
    She dropped her head so all he could see was the top of her wild mop of red curls. “Do friends distrust each other?”
    She was still bothered that he’d accused her of having a criminal record. Talk about getting the wrong end of the stick. “Sometimes. People aren’t perfect, Claire, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care.”
    “But why should you care? I’m nothing to you.”
    Did she really believe that?
    “You are my   friend ,” he repeated, emphasizing the word. “That means something to me.”
    He’d slept with a lot of women, but few had been called   friend   in his life.
    “To me,