Sexy-sounding or not, he somehow doubted that. “Uh-huh.”

This woman thrived on intel gathering. She knew how to drill down, ask the right question. Set someone off and test his patience. He didn’t think she’d turn those skills off in her private life, which totally sucked for him. He’d been interrogated, soft and hard, and didn’t need a repeat of either.

Thwack.

“Are you immune to the cold or something?” she asked.

He stopped before he could lift the maul for another swing. “No.”

“Ah, we’re back to curt responses.”

“Never left them.” He made the mistake of looking at her then. Forget yelling at her to get back inside. She stood there, leaning against a post, wearing his thick down jacket and wrapped in two blankets with an oversized hat plopped on her head. Only pink cheeks and those big eyes peeked out. “I’m not a big talker.”

But he was a fucking goner. One quick glance in her direction and his common sense fizzled. He couldn’t even see skin, and what few brain cells he had left blinked out as images of her, under him, over him, filled his head.

“You must be a joy on a stakeout.”

She seemed a little confused about the difference between an Army sniper and a detective. No way she made that mistake except on purpose, which meant she’d carefully crafted the questions to get at something else.

He balanced the head against the chopping block and leaned against the handle. “I don’t really do those.”

Her head fell to the side and that soft blond hair, now dry, slipped over her shoulder. “What do you do?”

“Now?” He followed the direction of the question but couldn’t figure out where it led.

“Other than swing that axe, I mean.” She pointed at the handle as her gaze wandered across his shoulders and down to his stomach.

“Maul. And I think you know the general gist of my job.” Not that he could or would explain more. His clients deserved confidentiality. He extended it to her just as he did all the others.

She made an exaggerated show of dropping her head forward and sighing. “Honestly, this is going to be the longest few days of—”

“Weeks.”

“I’m ignoring that.” She pinned him with a serious glare. “Can’t really imagine not killing you if we stay up here for weeks and don’t say or do anything.”

She’d basically summed up the reason he stood outside in the frigid weather chopping wood when they already had piles of it stacked up under tarps in the dry shed. Not that they had a lot of choices for activities that didn’t include the bed or the outdoors. Other than a pile of mysteries with torn covers, a deck of cards and an old laptop loaded with a few movies and nothing more, they were on their own for entertainment. Next time he picked a safe house, he’d pick one with Internet service. “You want to go to a movie?”

“What?”

She clearly missed the sarcasm. “This is about keeping you safe.” When she continued with the narrow-eyed frown, he skipped right to the point. The one he thought he’d made when he dragged her under that shower spray. “Hell, I don’t even want you outside.”

Instead of getting the hint and heading back in, she pushed away from the post. Took a few steps then started down the stairs. “I’m assuming you set up a perimeter.”

Now that was insulting. As if this was his first damn day on the job. “Of course.”

“Don’t you think you should tell me where in case I accidentally walk into it? While you’re at it, I need the locations of those two emergency drop sites. Just in case.”

A trained operative turned handler turned administrator. While he intended to fill her in and would, he couldn’t quite see her racing around without a care. “There’s less chance of any trouble if you stay inside.”

She stopped on the bottom step. Didn’t venture into the snow this time. “I’m not someone who just sits around.”

“I can appreciate that.” Neither was he. He worked hard and played even harder. He didn’t hover or sit around watching one game after another in a recliner until his ass fell asleep. He got up and did things.

She shrugged. “Then entertain me.”

His mind went blank. Totally fucking blank.

“Oh my God.” She burst out laughing. “You should see your face.”

The sound echoed around him, wiping out every dark thought and the last of his frustration over her refusal to just follow his directions without question. “Do you know your accent comes out when you do that?”

“What?”

“Smile.” There, in the background. The southern melody. The way she hit certain words. The light that brightened inside her, if only for a second, while she sparred with him and let the rest fall away.

She held his gaze for an extra beat before glancing away. All of a sudden, something in the sway of the towering trees held her attention. “Back to my point.”

“You want me to keep you busy.” A list of possibilities filled his head, each one dirtier than the one before. “Right.”

“Then entertain me.”

The handle dug into his palm as he tightened his grip. “You’re playing a dangerous game here, Natalie.”

A whooshing sound had them both turning to the side. Snow dropped off high branches in large clumps and crashed into a pile at the edge of the small open area around the cabin.

Nature provided the diversion. Gabe jumped on it. Whatever coursed through his veins likely hit her as well. He didn’t buy into the idea of men being more sexual than women. The one looking at him right now, picking each word for maximum impact on his senses and taking his nerves to the snapping point, was no shrinking violet. But he had his limits, so he went with safe.

“I was talking about a game of Twenty Questions.” Not that they hadn’t studied each other’s files . . . or at least the information that other people, even people with clearances and access, could unbury. The stuff she kept hidden, the information locked inside her and in unmarked files somewhere, did interest him.

“You won’t know if I’m telling the truth.”

The woman had a good point. Not that he’d conceded that just yet. “I will.”

“You’re some kind of human lie detector?”

He fought to keep his mind on the mundane conversation and off the hours that lay ahead. The night he had to get through. “Possibly.”

She rubbed her boot over the salt he’d thrown on the step after clearing it off. “Indulge me.”

The scraping sound screeched across his brain. “I thought I was doing that when I agreed not to tie you to the bed.”

Her foot slid to a stop. “Is that your thing?”

“Actually, yes.” She just stood there. Not quite what he expected. Hell, he deserved for her to tell him to fuck off, but she didn’t. “No comeback to that?”

“You don’t scare me.” She tightened her grip on the edges of the blanket. “Having sex with you doesn’t scare me.”

It scared the piss out of him for some reason. “So that we’re clear, what I’d do to you in bed would be about pleasure, not pain.”

Silence roared between them. The creaks of the cabin and regular thuds of the snow dropping off trees blended into nothingness as they stood there, a few feet apart, with the words hovering between them.

She broke the spell with the muffled clap of her gloved hands. “Back to the game.”

Damn but he liked her style. She didn’t back down from a challenge. “You have to earn it.”

She snorted. “I almost hate to ask what that means.”

He held up a finger and waited until her eyebrow lifted in response. He’d piqued her curiosity. Good. A quick jog to the shed and he was back with a hatchet in one hand and a roll of red tape in the other. Using the chopping block, he balanced an extra piece of wood against another.

“I give up. What are we doing?” She came the rest of the way down the steps to stand beside him.

Before answering, he used the tape to create a makeshift circle on the log balanced and facing them. More of a hexagon, but close enough. He tapped the center. “If you hit the target, you get to ask a question.”