Who knew she had it in her? Crime writer. Bookworm. Former ER nurse. Turned fugitive. She grinned. Even—she thought as she stretched her dangling toes to reach for the ground—if it meant she’d be in hot water with her captor. I’m going swimming, Ranger Martinez, before you’re up and learn I’m gone. She felt the cool earth beneath the soles of her feet and stifled a sigh of relief. There was only so long she could stand this blazing August heat. “And the scalding gaze of Rex Martinez,” she murmured to herself as she tucked her boobs back inside her cotton bra, hiked up her flimsy panties and flung her towel over her shoulder. She headed for the pool behind the barn, picking her way along the pebbles and brush barefoot. She needed to do five laps, maybe more to get relief from the tension of wanting to jump the bones of the tall, dark Texas Ranger who had been her bodyguard for more than two months. He was an ogre, a tyrant, refusing to let her go anywhere except prowl that teensy-weensy house like a caged animal.
