“I appreciate your concern.”

Ethan nodded toward the house. “Here’s your fellow coming after you now. He’s not the trusting type, Miss Sarah, I’ll say that for him.”

She spun around. Ethan wasn’t kidding-Nate was walking up from the house. He had on jeans and a black jacket, probably to hide the weapon he was carrying, and his expression was unreadable as he approached the fence. “I didn’t realize you were up,” she said, pushing back any sense of awkwardness at seeing him. “I left a fried pie for you in the toaster oven.”

“Pies for breakfast. That a habit here?”

She shook her head. “I’m just not in much of a mood to resist.”

She immediately regretted her comment, felt the heat rising to her cheeks, but Nate had already shifted back to Ethan, who, if he noticed the tension between his boss and her company, made no comment. “I want to talk to you later,” Nate told Ethan. “Stay where I can find you.”

“Yes, sir, Deputy Winter.”

Sarah thought she detected a hint of sarcasm in Ethan’s tone, another surprise from him, but she supposed lawmen elicited different reactions from people. But Nate didn’t linger or argue, and she chose not to ask more questions-or to remind the two men that they were both on Dunnemore property at her sufferance.

She walked past Nate and felt a blast of damp, chilly air off the river as she headed back to the house, pounding up the porch steps, her heart racing, her cheeks flushed from awareness and anxiety. She tore open the porch door and marched down the hall to the kitchen. Using a dish towel as a pot holder, she pulled a fried pie from the toaster oven, put it on a plate and dusted it with confectioner’s sugar.

Nate came into the kitchen, and she shoved it at him. “Fried apricot pies might even be better than prune cake.”

“Better than sex?”

She stared at him. There. Throw down the gauntlet, Deputy.

He wasn’t letting her off the hook. He wasn’t going to pretend last night hadn’t happened. She leaned back against the counter, twisting her dish towel in both hands, and decided not to let him get to her, even if he was more accustomed to “morning afters” than she was.

Her brother was wrong. She wasn’t afraid of hard-ass types who wanted her just for her body and didn’t much care about her as a person. She just knew she should avoid them.

Or she used to know it.

Not that Nate didn’t care about her as a person.

“I guess it depends on the sex,” she said airily. “Last night was right up there with fried pies, I’d say. But, I imagine it broke every rule in the deputy U.S. marshal rule book-”

“There are no rules that cover you. Twin sister of a wounded deputy, friend of the president, daughter of a diplomat, southern academic. Pretty.” He smiled and sat at the table with his pie. “Very pretty.”

“Well, my life would be easier if it’d been someone else with Rob, or someone else who flew down here-”

“Someone you’re not so attracted to?”

“God, you can be direct.”

“It’s a quality we share.”

And she was attracted to him. Never mind what he wanted from her or what he cared about, she hadn’t objected to sex with him in the kitchen.

Not even a little.

She decided to change the subject. “Ethan said he checked on Conroy this morning. I wish he hadn’t, but at least Conroy wasn’t around. And I talked to Rob. Our folks are arriving in New York tonight. I told him about Ethan and Conroy. Turns out he met Conroy in Amsterdam. Conroy was there trying to get interviews with my parents. Nice business write-off.” She sat across from Nate, trying to calm herself down. “My family attracts a lot of drama on a good day. These haven’t been particularly good days.”

Nate didn’t answer. He picked up a pie semicircle and examined it as if it might have ants. “What’s in it?”

“What? Oh. Apricots and spices.”

“So, it’s like a turnover.”

“Better.”

He smiled. “Better than a turnover, maybe or maybe not better than sex.” He broke the pie in half, the warm cinnamon-apricot filling oozing out. “Another stick-to-your-ribs southern recipe.”

“They’re one of Wes Poe’s favorites. I don’t think he tells many people. And, no, it’s not something I shared with Conroy.”

Nate tried a bite. “Not bad.” He sat back in his chair, his incisive eyes on her. “I don’t trust Ethan Brooker. I don’t trust Conroy Fontaine. Hell, I don’t trust myself.” He sighed. “You do bear closer watching, Miss Sarah.”

“You’re not responsible for me.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Not officially.” She had no intention of backing down with him. “I’m not letting you or anyone else force a security detail on me in my own home. I won’t have it, not unless there’s just no other choice.”

His eyes were flinty. “We’ll see what comes in the mail today.”

She ignored him. “I suppose what happened last night wouldn’t have happened if you were here ‘officially.’”

“I love the oblique way you put it. You mean indulging in prune cake or-”

She pushed back her chair and threw her dish towel at him, which he caught with one hand, laughing unexpectedly for the first time since she’d met him, at least like that. He had a great laugh. Sexy. But she was in a frame of mind and all her nerve endings were such that they had her thinking everything about him was sexy.

“About last night.” She cleared her throat and made herself go on. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you that way. You’ve experienced a recent trauma, and I should have been more sensitive to that.”

He almost choked on his apricot pie. He had to get up, go to the sink and get water before he could speak again.

Sarah frowned. “What? I started things rolling last night. I’m not the one who was shot the other day. It was up to me to stop things before they went too far.” She had a feeling she was making a mess of things. “I’m just saying, if you have any regrets this morning, I understand.”

He waved one hand and choked out, “No regrets.” He took another drink of water, then turned and leaned back against the sink. “God, you’re a trip, Dr. Dunnemore. You tell me how the hell you could possibly have taken advantage of me when I’m the one who was standing, holding you, when we-” He shook his head. “Never mind.”

“I’m talking about emotional advantage more than physical advantage. If I’d simply gone about making my fried pies-”

“You’d just have had more flour on you when we made love.”

She was getting nowhere. She wasn’t sure she wanted to and smiled. “And dough on my hands. Sticky dough.”

“Jesus.” He grinned at her. “You’re right. You did take advantage of me. I hope you will again soon.” But he went still and swore under his breath, drawing his weapon. “Don’t move.”

Sarah followed his gaze, stifling a yell of surprise when she saw the fat, black snake slithering up the hall toward the kitchen.

“Water snake or cottonmouth?” Nate asked in a low voice.

She noted the triangle-shaped head and stout body. “Cottonmouth.”

It was at least three feet long. Nate kept his eyes on it.

Sarah took a breath. “Slowly move toward the back door.”

“And what? Let it find its way under my bed? Not a chance.”

“Well, you’re not going to shoot it!” She took a step toward the counters, the snake moving quickly now. “Try to get behind it if you can. Rob and I used to catch cottonmouths all the time, but outside. I think they might be faster on a floor.”

“Oh, good.”

He didn’t sound scared at all. Sarah realized that getting behind the snake, which was coming toward them in the kitchen, wasn’t going to be easy. “I’m going to the pantry, okay? Granny used to catch snakes with the mop handle.” She moved deliberately, as quickly as she dared, to the pantry in the corner of the kitchen. “Distract it if it goes after me.”

“I’m going to shoot it if it goes after you.”

She grabbed the rag mop from the open pantry and detached its metal head. “We just need to get it outside. Remember, most water moccasin bites don’t end up being poisonous. They don’t release their venom willy-nilly. Anyway, I have an antivenom kit. Of course,” she added, walking slowly back toward the hall doorway, “I’ve never had to use it.”