Protecting His Assets by J.K. Coi Page B

wait for Nolan to return. But now she couldn’t help but imagine how she would feel if this was her place.
    She was furious on his behalf, but that only reinforced her fear that she’d already gotten much too close to this assignment than was prudent. If she’d been on a case for the FBI, she probably would have been yanked off of it already.
    This isn’t an FBI assignment. That’s not going to be your career now, remember?
    She squared her shoulders and took another step forward. A complete set of knives had all been stabbed into the wall over the gas range. Dishes had been taken from the kitchen cupboards and presumably thrown across the room, since they were smashed on the floor all around the fireplace. Not much of it had actually made it in the fireplace, so at least she could scratch anyone with good aim from the list of suspects.
    Even the refrigerator had been ransacked, a carton of milk dumped out on the floor. Nolan was standing in it. And the contents from a leftover carton of Chinese food was smeared across the countertops. He carefully avoided touching it.
    He opened a drawer and found a paper bag and handed it over. She thanked him and folded the notes inside.
    He couldn’t even hide his disgust as he paused. “There probably isn’t anything left in here worth eating,” he muttered.
    Leaving the surveillance report and bag on a clean square of countertop, April tiptoed through the rubble to the pantry cupboard and peered inside. Whoever had been in Nolan’s kitchen hadn’t really bothered with it, so the contents were still pretty much intact, although that didn’t mean there was much to choose from. She pulled out a lone box of crackers and shook it, then stuck her hand in. They were big and round, and when she popped a whole one into her mouth it stretched her cheeks.
    “This will be just fine, thanks.” She grinned around a mouthful of crumbs, all semblance of professionalism falling away. It was too late, not to mention she was too hungry and tired, to keep it up any longer.
    He came up beside her and looked inside the pantry, too. Then he pulled out a can of sardines and a tiny jar of artichoke hearts in oil.
    Hanging from a hook inside the pantry cupboard was a broom. She grabbed it and started to sweep aside the broken china in front of the door.
    “Don’t do that,” he protested, reaching out to stop her. “The insurance company said they’ll send someone out in the morning to assess all the damage and start cleaning up.”
    She felt the urge to comfort him. It had to be hard to be here in the middle of all this destruction. He didn’t strike her as the overly sentimental type, but everyone’s house should be the one place where they felt safe, the place they kept the things that were special to them. To see everything smashed and broken…
    “I just want to clear a spot for a picnic,” she said and pointed at the kitchen table, which was covered in half-dried broken eggs that had been smeared around like finger paint. “I’m not sitting there.”
    With that she plopped down on the floor of the pantry with her box of crackers. He grinned and sat with her, prying the pull-tab lid off the tin of sardines. “Give me one of those,” he said. She handed over the crackers with a grin.
    He should have looked ridiculous. Cross-legged on the ceramic tile in his suit, minus the jacket, digging into a box of crackers. But as she watched, he bent his leg and draped an arm over his knee. His smile had less of the edge that had crept over him since they’d got here, and her stomach hollowed out with aching desire. He’d only become more appealing with every minute they’d spent together.
    He used his fingers to pinch the end of a sardine and put it on his cracker, dripping oil. She looked on in horror as he glanced around for something to wipe his hands with. “Wait!” she cried. “Don’t you dare ruin those pants.”
    He paused and grinned at her. “I have others.”
    “No you