Midnight Jewels

ensure her curving fingers missed their target. Mercy's growing irritation now bordered on anger. Her hand fell to her side as she regarded him with smoldering annoyance. Her head came up with proud challenge.
    "Are you going to abuse my hospitality by stealing
Valley
?"
    He sighed, reluctantly handing the book to her. "No, I'm not here to steal it. But I'm growing very curious about your client."
    She shrugged, snatching the volume from his grasp and hugging it possessively. "Well, maybe you can convince him to resell
Valley
to you. Once Mr. Gladstone has the book, he can do anything he wants with it. I, however, am under an obligation to deliver it to him."
    "Do you always fulfill your obligations, Mercy?"
    "I try," she replied stiffly.
    "So do I," he heard himself say softly, his gaze never leaving hers. "That's why I'm here. We have something in common, Mercy Pennington."
    She shook her head in denial, but she couldn't hide the flash of reluctant curiosity in her eyes. "I doubt it."
    "Give it a chance." He kept his tone low and persuasive, watching her intently. Croft was certain now that the expression in the depths of her green eyes was more than mere feminine awareness. She saw him as a man who, while he might yet prove dangerous, was also proving fascinating. She was just impetuous enough to act on the shining allure of such an unusual possibility.
    Her streak of rashness would work in his favor, Croft decided. With some careful coaxing she could be made to ignore the warning bells of her common sense and respond, instead, to the pull of a very basic sexual attraction. He had already proven himself adept at silencing warning bells.
    That the attraction existed and that it existed on both sides, Croft didn't bother to deny to himself. He accepted the fact that he found Mercy Pennington sexually intriguing with the same matter-of-fact attitude with which he accepted hunger or cold. If necessary he could ignore all three. But he didn't have to ignore Mercy. For her sake, in fact, it would be better if he didn't. She was proving to be a stubborn little . thing, and in this case her recalcitrance might prove dangerous.
    There were too many unknowns at the moment. He needed to find answers quickly and Mercy Pennington was the shortest route to those answers. That meant he had to find the shortest route to Mercy Pennington, and that looked as if it would be via the sensual awareness that was flaring to life between the two of them.
    "Dinner," he said succinctly.
    She frowned, still clutching
Valley
. "What about it?"
    He smiled again. "I'd like to take you to dinner. It's the least I can do under the circumstances."
    "That's not necessary."
    "It would be my pleasure."
    "Don't you have to get back to Oregon?"
    "Not this evening. I'm staying at an inn here in town tonight."
    "Oh."
    He gave her a few seconds to absorb that and then pushed gently. "Do you have other plans?"
    "No. Tomorrow is a workday. I have to get up early."
    Croft nodded. "I'll have you home early. I give you my word."
    She looked at him with an odd curiosity, as though she were searching for something in him. It wasn't the first time she'd studied him in such a manner. There had been those few moments back in her shop when he had told her she was safe with him.
    She had had the same strange curiosity in her eyes then. It had been followed by a clear acceptance of his words. That expression of acceptance was in her eyes again now. She probably didn't even realize the full implications, but Croft did. She trusted him on some basic, feminine level, whether she knew it or not.
    He liked that. And he could use it.
    "I was going to have dinner here this evening," Mercy said finally, as if feeling her way through a mine field. "I bought some buckwheat pasta. I planned to open a bottle of zinfandel I've been saving. After all, it's Friday."
    "Fine." Croft nodded equably.
    She blinked warily. "I beg your pardon?"
    "I said that sounds fine. I like buckwheat pasta and I like zinfandel."
    Mercy stared at him. She looked as though she didn't know whether to laugh or scream in outrage.
    Croft smiled to himself. Mercy was quickly falling right into the palm of his hand.

    Twenty minutes later Mercy still couldn't decide whether to laugh or scream. She ceased rinsing broccoli, picked up her wineglass and leaned back against the counter to take a sip. Her guest, whom she had decided fell into the uninvited category, was straddling one of the diamond shaped, black