Dangerous Waters by Janice Kay Johnson Page B

it, McClain, you're a sitting duck! You've got to do something, and you know what I vote for. Run again. Make Saldivar start all over. We'll get him sooner or later, you can count on it. Buy us some time."
    "I can't leave the woman," Mac said tersely. "I owe her."
    "Make her run, too."
    Mac gave a snort of near amusement. "I wish I could."
    "The only other choice I can see is to set a trap. With you as bait, the bastard won't be able to resist it."
    Mac reached up to knead taut muscles on the back of his neck. Across the small living room and through the arched doorway he could just see a corner of the kitchen. Every couple of minutes Megan passed through his field of vision as she stepped between sink and stove. He liked the way she moved, quick and graceful, her stride more contained than the hip-swaying walk of most women.
    "That's what I wanted to do in the first place," he said wearily. "Now I can't. Short of arresting her and tossing her in the local jail, how do I keep her from looking like bait, too?"
    Silence was his answer, and he was left with the same problem. He had to find a way to remove Megan Lovell from this whole mess. As each day passed, he became more determined. She had risked her life for him. He had to pay her back in kind. Then he could move on with his life. He could forget her.
     
    *****
     
    Megan brooded as she worked on dinner. She tore the lettuce into shreds and chopped carrots with quick hands, hardly conscious of what she was doing.
    He was there all the time, at the edges of her consciousness. Megan wanted to forget him and pretend life was normal, that this summer was just like every other one since she had come home again. But how could she, in a house as tiny as hers, in a town so small his constant presence at her side must be causing talk?
    What he succeeded in doing was awakening her fear every time she saw him. Her rational side was convinced the threat was illusory. On a more primitive, emotional level, however, she couldn't help being afraid. Sometimes she thought it was Mac himself who frightened her.
    She would glance over her shoulder at the beach and there he was. Nobody else seemed to notice him, and she couldn't understand why. He was extraordinarily handsome with the bones of a male model and that dark blond hair curling on his neck. But what struck her most was the quality of danger he possessed. He was a dark presence, an unsmiling, watchful man who never quite fit in with those around him.
    Megan slowly realized, though, that she was more nervous when he wasn't there. It was then that she suffered doubts, wondered about that smiling father who approached her, the two vaguely Hispanic men who strolled past with fishing poles and tackle boxes. It was then that she felt vulnerable, and grateful when Mac reappeared.
    She hated her dependence on him. This was her hometown, the one constant in a life of change, of new coaches and different swimming pools that all looked alike, of teammates who sometimes envied her and friends who didn't understand her drive to be the best. Devil's Lake was where she felt safest, most herself; where she belonged. Now she was being robbed of that sense of security. In saving a life, she had changed her own, she thought bitterly.
    She could hear Mac's voice in the other room, but didn't try to make out words. It sometimes seemed to her he was playing games. Cops and Robbers. Or maybe she just wanted to think it was a game.
    Puffing out an impatient breath, she grabbed a hot pad and pulled the biscuits out of the oven. "Dinner's ready," she called.
    He raised his voice. "Be there in a minute."
    She rolled her eyes. How cozy. They sounded like a couple who'd been married for ten years. Megan slammed the cookie sheet down on the counter with complete disregard for the sea-green Italian tiles she had tediously installed. With a pancake turner she flipped the biscuits off the sheet, her movements jerky, tension bound up in her muscles until she felt like