Deliciously Dangerous by Karen Anders

Callie couldn’t allow that to sidetrack her.
    Hopefully, Damian had finished what he needed to do. Jammer went to the computer and looked at it, then at her. Callie’s attention was on his library. She was pretending to peruse the books, but when her eyes snagged on Scottish poetry, she reached up and pulled the volume from between two leather-bound books.
    “Scottish poetry?” She turned toward him, but Jammer was looking at the laptop with interest. Finally, he powered it down and closed the cover.
    “What?” he said, as if whatever he had found on the computer had distracted him. She edged toward the door just in case he had discovered what she had been doing in his library. But she froze when he stared up at her.
    “What did you say?”
    She held up the text. “Scottish poetry. You are Scottish, aren’t you?”
    “I’d like people to think so,” he said.
    “Is something wrong?”
    “No. Why? Should there be something wrong?”
    She smiled and opened the volume in her hand asif she didn’t have a care in the world. Even her heart remained calm, beating normally. Written on the page in a neat hand was an inscription. “To my son. Here is a bit of our heritage. Although we’re Americans, it’ll help you understand your roots and where you came from.”
    The words touched her—a father giving a collection of poetry to his son so that he could have a sense of family and belonging.
    Moments later she felt his hand on her nape, the warmth sending little prickles of sensation down her back and arms, but she kept her eyes glued to the page. “Did you read this?” she asked.
    “Do you want me to tell you it’s all for show?”
    She closed the book, wishing he didn’t evade every question she asked him. It was like he was the one who was the ghost.
    “We have to be on our guard all the time. It’s the nature of the business. So you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to tell me. We aren’t a couple. We don’t have any intention of staying together. I know this is a deal with fringe benefits. So you can lie to me if you wish and I’ll pretend that it’s the truth.”
    “Then why do you ask me so many questions?”
    Callie’s stomach jumped. Of course, the reason was because she was undercover to reveal the identity of the Ghost, and how to get to him. But if she was honest with herself, the real reason was because she wanted to know. She had this insatiable need to discover everything about Jammer.
    But she tamped all of that down and responded withthe easiest answer. “Just wondering. You’re an enigma, Jammer. Just trying to find out what’s behind it.”
    “You’d be better off not knowing anything, Gina.”
    “You’re probably right.” He was, too; she had to get her wits back. She had to keep telling herself that this man wasn’t who he seemed to be. He was in a dangerous business. He bought and sold weapons to perpetuate wars and death. He did it for profit. She couldn’t be blinded by the way he treated her or how she felt when she was close to him.
    Just because she couldn’t reconcile what he’d done for her sister or the DEA agent didn’t change the cold, hard facts. Jammer, the Ghost and—if she could manage it—Fuentes would all go down and be nothing but names on a prison roster when she was done.
    She closed the book and went to return it to the shelf, working to corral her feelings, to get the right perspective on the situation.
    But he bent his head down, his lips close to her ear. “What if I said that my ancestry is Scottish? That the book you hold was a present from my father, who wanted me to understand my lineage? Who thought that it was important to know where you came from before you found out where you were going? Who every day of his life gave me the wisdom and the nurturing that a father is supposed to give his son? What if I told you that he instilled in me a sense of place, an anchor to ground me? An anchor that has helped me in both hard times