Beauty and the Brit by Lizbeth Selvig Page B

safe? You don’t have to earn the right to be here.”
    He rested his fingers on her upper arm as casually as the word “love” flowed from his lips. The touch meant nothing, and yet her stomach filled with frenetic butterflies. A mix of spicy musk, sawdust, and faint farm odors befuddled her, and for an embarrassing moment she found no words—she only stared and swallowed. Then annoyance with herself returned and, ducking from his touch, she hardened her features and stared him down.
    Long, long ago she’d learned not to accept free help. Free help equaled ulterior motives and ulterior motives usually required payment due later.
    “I don’t do charity well, Mr. Pitts-Matherson. We’ll earn our keep, and we’ll be out of your hair as soon as I know the police have Hector Black in custody.”
    He half-chuckled. “Please don’t backslide into the ‘Mister’ title. Nobody even calls my father Mr. Pitts-Matherson. My great-grandfather, perhaps, the one who saddled us with the mouthful.”
    He so charmingly ignored her point, Rio couldn’t decide whether to laugh or scowl harder. “Do they call you Dave? Or Davy?”
    “Not if they want an answer. It’s David. Or, if you must, Hey You.”
    She gave in at last to his incorrigible charisma with a small smile. “Hey You. I need you to understand that we’re not here as charity cases. We’re grateful, but I’ll find a way to get back into a place of our own just as soon as possible. And, like it or not, I’ll somehow work off our room and board.”
    For a moment he looked ready to argue further. At the last second, he nodded. “All right. Under one condition. Tell me you understand that I do not view either of you as a charity case and we agree today is a free day. You both unpack, and I’ll show you around the place. We’ll go into town, get acquainted with the area. No fires, no Hector, no police, no worries. Even your brother doesn’t know where you are, right?”
    “Yes,” Rio said. “Since he took my car, it’s safer for all of us if he can’t find me.”
    “Then everything’s good for now. I’ll fetch your case and leave you to it.”
    Bonnie tripped back to her pretty green room, and Rio buried a twinge of envy at her sister’s ability to forget and adapt. “I can go get my own suitcase.”
    “If you like. But I’m happy to do it.”
    All at once the whole situation—this amazing house, with this seriously attractive man she didn’t know a thing about—seemed ludicrous. Who was he? What was she doing here?
    “Why?”
    “Why what?”
    “Why are you ‘happy’ to get my suitcase? Why are you perfectly okay with having two city girls running from trouble invade your house?”
    He laughed without hesitation. “I don’t know any differently, Rio. Before my parents married, my mother and grandmother ran a guesthouse in northern England. When she married, Mum continued with her own version of the same in Kent. I grew up with guests coming in and out all the time. It seems perfectly natural to take in visitors.”
    A very, very slight weight lifted from Rio’s shoulders. He was serious. And although the situation sucked, at the moment her life was as calm and safe as it had been in a while. She made a conscious effort to diffuse her anger.
    “Rio? David?” Bonnie emerged from her room. “What was that you said about no police?”
    Rio’s heart skipped a beat at the pale confusion in her sister’s eyes. Gone was the effervescent excitement. “What’s wrong?”
    “Why do you ask?” His eyes narrowed.
    “There’s a squad car sitting right out front of your house.”

 
    Chapter Five
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    A T THE SIGHT of the black-and-white cruiser, Rio’s first reaction was relief. They’d found Hector and Paul. This whole exercise here at David’s was moot, and she could go back home—or at least back to her neighborhood, start looking for a new place, and get her job back.
    “This might be good news,” she said.
    Bonnie remained sober.