She nodded, eyes serious. “But you’ve already found a job.”

“I guess.” More anger spilled out.

“Why aren’t you satisfied with it?” She tilted her head.

“It’s private work, being paid for, not serving the public, not helping folks who don’t have the money to pay.” That sounded too damn high-minded, but it was the way he felt. Emotions swirled around them. “If I’d been a police officer, I wouldn’t have listened to Mrs. Flinton; I could have gone after Whistler and arrested him. Not as if he isn’t going to try to con others. Better if he’s off the street.”

She blinked, then nodded slowly again. “I understand that.” She glanced between the seats toward his cane. “But you can’t work in the public sector anymore?”

“Not in the field.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry.”

They gazed at each other. He leaned down, closer, closer; she clicked off her seat belt and moved toward him, saying nothing. Barking started outside the car, and a cold stream of air from the mountains moved through his window. Clare frowned and Zach began to lean back, and then her eyes fired and she put her hands on his shoulders, tilted her head for his kiss, met him halfway.

He’d meant just a brush to test her and the kick they might have between them, learn the texture of her lips, but her tongue swept over his mouth and he opened it and welcomed her in. Here was the fire that he’d sensed below her buttoned-up accountant persona. Her tongue probed his mouth and he found himself groaning into her mouth with his breath.

She shuddered and pressed closer to him, her breasts against his chest. Pleasure roared through him, then stopped and built and spiked, wisping all thought from his mind.

Until he moved wrong and his leg shot pain through his nerves, killing all desire. Setting his hands on cold fingers, he lifted them from his shoulders, and when her eyelashes opened he saw loss and grief and abandonment in her eyes. What? What the hell was he thinking? He couldn’t see that stuff in a person’s eyes, not even a woman he was kissing. Could not sense that from her, emotions that resonated with his own.

Then her pupils focused and the shadows in her eyes became shades of emotions he couldn’t fathom. She settled back into her seat, smiled, and it was an okay smile, not too bright, not sad.

“I think I told you that I like you, too,” she said.

Released tension. This didn’t have to be awkward.

“Yeah.” He matched his stare with hers. “Completely mutual, Clare Cermak.”

She nodded and opened the car door, slipped out with the smooth moves of a fit, healthy woman.

Zach snagged his cane, opened the door, and readied himself to get out. Clare awaited him on the sidewalk in front of the small path leading to the front stoop. Her fingers remained tight around the bag from the auction house. Zach definitely wanted to see what was in the box.

Slowly he exited, his bad leg stiff and aching from so much running around today. Real life, not like exercise at all. He’d have to change his program.

But he was facing real life, and that mattered.

He eyed the upper curves of her breasts, rising slightly over her sundress. He ached to get his hands on those.

Her breath remained fast. Her lips looked good, too. His favorite muscle hardened again. He grinned. Hell, having a sex life again, an interesting, pretty woman in his life was enough to think life was getting better. Even the job with Rickman, the apartment with Mrs. Flinton, both things that could be missteps, were first steps. His life progressed, and that soothed the anger within him.

He locked the car and held up the keys, pulling back to toss them at Clare.

Alarm crossed her face. “No, Zach! I’m bad at catch.”

Zach kept his chuckle to himself. A woman who could admit to a weakness, a woman who couldn’t match him in at least one physical thing, stroked his ego.

The dog barked and he heard it more clearly outside the vehicle, a bigger dog, a Lab, maybe. Moving around the car, his limp and the swing of his foot more pronounced than he cared for, he kept a smile on his face. She didn’t even look at his awkward steps, seemed not to even notice.

More burden of feeling like a lesser man fizzled away from his heart into the hot air.

The concrete path to her door wasn’t wide enough for two, so she walked in front of him. Light from the porch showed deep auburn highlights in her hair, her dress was thin enough to silhouette her shape, and he liked the sway of her hips and ass. Very nice.

His body agreed as his blood thickened in his groin, but his mind knew there was no chance of getting a woman like Clare into the sack on the day they met. She had great fire in her, sure, but she didn’t let her emotions call the shots, Zach was convinced of that.

She opened the screen door, unlocked the too-flimsy main door and shoved it wide, then went into the living room. Zach followed her. Old furniture, some of it antique, was placed here and there, the pine floor polished and very clean. He approved of the long and wide man-sized couch that dominated the living room, angled toward the television, though her video system was pitiful.

The house was stifling; must be in the nineties, and it didn’t look like she had so much as a window air-conditioner. The living room ceiling showed a light and fan. She turned on the light. Zach stared. She didn’t seem to feel the heat at all. Sweat dampened his back.

And she didn’t seem to think that she was in any danger from him. “You should be more careful who you invite into your house,” he said.

She turned and still looked pale to him in the low light, maybe even worse. Raising her brows at his cane, she said, “I don’t think you’re a vampire.”

That response took him off guard. “Vampire.”

She shrugged her lovely shoulders. “Joke.” Meeting his eyes, she said, “I can tell you were a cop. You’ve said you weren’t happy only serving people who can’t pay. To me, that means you’re honorable. Mrs. Flinton, whom I know of, vouched for you and knows you’re with me.” She glanced out the wide open front door. “And someone will be delivering your car here any minute.”

She dampened her lips. “I . . . I have defenses you don’t know of, and”—she gestured to the half wall revealing the kitchen beyond—“I have pepper spray in the kitchen.”

“Pepper spray in the kitchen,” he said tonelessly.

“All right, all right!” She dropped the bag with the box on a coffee table that held a few large picture books on the Old West and hurried into the kitchen, coming back with the pepper spray, which she stuck on a bookcase shelf next to the door. He took it down and checked the expiration date. “You should have tossed this two years ago.”

Crossing her arms, she lifted her chin. “All right. When . . . if . . . we, uh, spend some time together, I’ll be more security conscious.”

“Deal,” he said.

“And, anyway, I’m sure the new-to-me house that I’m buying will have a security system.”

He opened his mouth and she smiled, holding up a hand. “And I’ll let your firm check it out.”

“Did you find a house today?” he asked, remembering that she’d been meeting with a real estate agent.

“No.” Her mouth turned down, and she looked around, sighing and shoulders slumping. “This house is a good starter house and it was the right price. But it’s too small, and comparing it with Aunt Sandra’s charming place in Chicago, where I’ve been staying . . .” She shook her head. “That house is gorgeous, by a noted architect.”

“You’re looking for something like that here?” he asked, hitching his hip on the round arm of the couch. He figured she’d find his family’s Victorian home in Boulder full of charm.

Plastic crackled; Zach looked and saw the bag holding the box sagging. Clare had flinched and wrapped her arms around herself again.

Zach made a point of glancing at his watch. He’d like to stay here with Clare, but the damn house was so hot! “Let’s check out the box.”