Into the Crossfire by Lisa Marie Rice Read Free Book Online Page B

on her love life. One
    whiff of what she was dealing with, and a lot of men who'd been very interested in
    a date suddenly lost interest.
    It was her little test. As her philosophy professor in college would have put
    it, being able to deal with her father was a necessary but not sufficient condition
    for her to think of hooking up with a man.
    If the man in question could deal with her life and all its troubles, fine.
    They might just take it a step or two further. If not...good-bye. If you wanted her,
    she came with her father. They were a package deal.
    She'd had a lot of good-byes before the relationships even started, and now
    that her father was deteriorating so rapidly, she wasn't open to dating at all.
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    Not that tonight was a date, of course. It was a thank-you.
    Blue, black, blue, black...
    Blue, she finally decided. The periwinkle blue polished cotton sheath paired
    with a black linen jacket. After ten years of Swiss winters, San Diego's mild
    climate never failed to delight her.
    Makeup! My God, there was no way she could go down with a naked face.
    She glanced at her watch and shuddered. Twenty minutes late, unheard of
    for her. Nicole dressed and made up in record time and started descending the
    stairs when she suddenly stopped, transfixed.
    There was her father downstairs, facing her, sitting in the fabulous
    wheelchair she'd bought with part of her severance pay from the UN. It did
    everything but make coffee and sing. He had a celebratory finger of whiskey in a
    crystal glass on the occasional table at his elbow and Sam had his own glass of
    twenty-year-old Talisker. Guests were few and far between and her father rejoiced
    at visits.
    Sam Reston was sitting across from her father--she couldn't see his face but
    she could see his shoulders, so broad they over-shot the chair back--clad in an
    expensive midnight blue suit.
    But what had her blocked at the top of the staircase, one foot up, one foot
    down on the first step, was the expression on her father's face. He was...happy. He
    looked animated and there was color in his cheeks. His eyes--the color so like her
    own--sparkled. No doubt he'd been telling one of his wicked jokes.
    She hadn't told Sam Reston that she lived with her father and that her father
    was ill. She hadn't told him anything, in fact. So when he came to the door
    expecting to find a woman to take out to dinner, he'd been confronted with a
    visibly very ill man. An ill man he'd made smile.
    Sam Reston just kept on moving up the scale. Lowlife to security company
    owner to guy who made her father smile. That last attribute was the best one.
    Her father's gaze shifted and his smile broadened. "Hello, darling."
    "Hi, Pops." Smiling at her father's expression, she walked down the
    staircase. If he was happy, even for a fleeting moment, then so was she.
    Sam turned in his seat and their eyes met.
    Nicole stopped. Everything in her stopped--head, lungs, legs. It was like
    taking a punch to the stomach. All the air left her system. His dark eyes were so
    intense, it was as if they were hands, reaching out to touch her. She could hardly
    breathe, hardly think.
    She'd always seen him looking grim and dirty and dangerous. Now he still
    looked deadly serious, two hundred plus pounds of male potency, completely
    focused on her. His eyes made a quick trip down to her feet then back up to her
    face. With anyone else, she would have bridled at the blatant male once-over.
    Somehow Sam Reston managed to make it not insulting but...arousing.
    At any rate, he was certainly aroused. Those dark eyes were full of heat;
    under the olive-toned skin of his sharp cheekbones was a faint wash of red, and it
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    wasn't a blush of shyness.
    There was pure sex in his look, powerfully potent, stronger than anything
    she'd ever felt from a man before. It sapped the strength right out of her knees and
    her hand went reflexively to the railing for support. She stood there for a long
    moment under his heated gaze.
    It was