Guardian of Justice by Carol Steward

fiancée, family, life in general. But in his case, the individual intent on hurting people was out of the picture. In her case, he was still a very real threat.
    Kira continued to the kitchen, where she handed him a knife and a small loaf of French bread. “If you’ll butter the bread, I’ll make a salad,” she said, as if they were an ordinary couple.
    “Sure,” he answered, trying to squelch his inclination to care about her. She looked happy tearing lettuce and chopping tomatoes, doing the routine things that couples normally did together.
    Dallas’s chest tightened. Why he had this reaction every time he saw her, he couldn’t understand. He hadn’t been interested in dating in three years, not since Jessica had broken their engagement. Since then, he hadn’t met one woman he’d wanted to date casually, let alone seriously. Less than a year into his new career, and he couldn’t seem to get his mind off the one woman who wanted nothing to do with a police officer. Just his luck.
    Her parents stepped into the room, and Dallas felt like an awkward teenager on a first date. Kira quickly introduced him to her mom, Grace, before her dad rushed them out the door, claiming they’d be late for the play if they didn’t hurry.
    While Kira set the salad in the refrigerator and Dallas finished buttering the bread, an awkward silence stretched between them. He wrapped the bread in the foil that it was on, and Kira set it in the warm oven. She turned around, her gaze roaming from his chest to his face.
    “You sure you don’t mind eating here?”
    He couldn’t stop analyzing her, and apparently she was doing a bit of analysis on herself.
    He nodded. “I’m sure. So what have you been doing all week?” Pom Pom yipped as they pulled the steak out of the refrigerator, and guarded Kira at the grill.
    Kira smiled at the pup, consoling her with a doggy treat. Again, Dallas felt an odd rhythm in his chest. “Not much, until today,” she told him. “Dad drove Mom and me to my office, where I tried to get some work done.”
    “And?”
    “Every time the phone rang, Mom jumped a mile and asked a hundred questions. It wasn’t worth it. I brought my paperwork home.” Kira opened a cabinet and pulled out plates, handing them to him. “Would you set them on the table over there?” She nodded toward a sizable table across the kitchen, and Dallas breathed a sigh of relief.
    “Were you afraid we were going to eat in the dining room with the candles and flowers?” Kira laughed softly and he realized his sigh must not have been mental.
    “What, are you a detective now, or a mind reader?”
    Kira laughed again. “I’d say it’s in my blood, but I guess that’s pretty obviously not it, right? I guess I just have too many brothers to not recognize panic when I see it.”
    He’d only met her a week ago. But he couldn’t seem to get her out of his head. She was going to capture his heart if he wasn’t careful.

Chapter Eleven
    ELEVEN
    Kira had waited patiently while they ate dinner, and still she knew little more than she had when Dallas arrived. She glanced across the large round table, wondering if she should have sat farther away, but that seemed so cold. Then again, sitting next to Dallas may have made him uncomfortable. Maybe that’s why he’d been so quiet.
    He’s quiet because he’s not interested.“More tea?” Kira offered. She didn’t want to seem pushy, but she did want to correct him on one major point. He was hurting, and she wanted nothing more than to help him through it.
    “Sure,” he said as he held out his glass.
    She struggled to keep her mind on pouring and not on his muscular forearms. Or his blue eyes, which were the color of the Caribbean, and a definite distraction. His military buzz cut was typical of most street cops, but slightly overgrown.
    She took a nibble of bread and felt the silence stretch dangerously thin. “This isn’t getting us very far, is it? And here I thought being in a