Outspoken Angel by Mia Dymond

fall
apart - until she pinned him with a fiery gaze.
    “If it weren’t for my cat, you and I both
would’ve been toast.”
    Max wasn’t quite sure exactly what prompted
his next move, the jagged, bloody scratches on his foot or the smug
expression on her face, but his anger and frustration refused to be
restrained any longer.
    “Look here, Princess, I heard the
noise. I stood in front of the door when the doorknob moved.
If your cat had been asleep instead of on the prowl, I could’ve had
the intruder by the scruff of the neck and all this would be over.”
He paused for moment to re-fuel. “Why can you not see how serious
this is? Someone intended to enter the house, while you were
asleep, and I can guaran-damn-tee you it wasn’t a booty call.”
     
    She blinked several times, almost as if she
used her long eyelashes to snuff the fire in her eyes. “I’m sorry,
Max.”
    Finally. Except, now that his anger had
worked itself free, Max felt a slight nudge of guilt. “Don’t be
sorry, be careful.”
    She gave him a half smile. “I have a
bodyguard to protect me, remember?”
    Her light teasing knocked the fight right out
of him and he squeezed the top of her shoulder. “He can’t get past
me, but you’re making my job almost impossible.”
    Max fully expected another argument. Damn his
big mouth. Just when he seemed to have pounded the danger of her
situation into her thick skull, he let his ego barrel through. Did
it really matter that she made him look like an amateur? From the
very first insult she’d slung at him, he’d learned it was best to
let her believe she was in control. And that would continue to be
his strategy. Even if it made him look like an idiot.
    “That makes things much more exciting,
Max.”
    It took him a minute to realize she’d
responded to his earlier impossible comment - without an argument.
“Exciting doesn’t quite describe it,” he mumbled.
    Another light-hearted giggle floated across
his ear. “Let me clean those scratches.”
    “Wait, there’s one more thing.” He squeezed
her shoulder again. “You have a gift.”
    “What kind of gift?”
    “There’s a box on the porch.”
    In usual act-before-think tradition, Cameron
pushed herself off the step and started toward the door.
    He managed to grab her forearm before she
could flee. “Hold up, Speedy Gonzalez. Don’t touch anything. There
might be fingerprints.”
    By a pleasant stroke of luck, she stopped and
propped herself up against the banister. Satisfied she understood
his warning, he ran his hand over his head and limped to the
telephone to call the police.
    As he pushed numbers, another thought crossed
his mind. Why didn’t the alarm company call when the sirens
sounded? No way had Cameron turned them off in time.
    Max lifted the phone to his ear. Dead air. It
was a long shot, but maybe he could keep this new development from
her. He disconnected and made his first attempt. “Don’t you need
some ice cream after all this?”
    Cameron raised an eyebrow and crossed her
arms. “What’s wrong, Max?”
    One more time. “Nothing, I just know you like
chocolate ice cream.”
    “I like many different kinds of ice cream,
but that doesn’t answer my question.”
    He scrubbed a hand across his jaw. “No dial
tone. The phone line’s been cut.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Want me to leave you here and go check?”
    She dropped her arms and pushed off the
banister. “No. I’m going to get the ice cream.”
    While she rummaged in the kitchen for ice
cream, he ran upstairs, grabbed his cell phone and called the
police. By the time he arrived back downstairs, she was seated on
the bottom step and licked chocolate ice cream from a silver
scoop.
    “No spoon?” he drawled.
    “This works better. Wanna lick?”
    He shifted. Oh man, did he want a lick.
    “Go get dressed,” he told her as he pushed
his phone back into his pocket. “The police are on their way.”
    “What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”
    He