Emma narrowed her eyes and Thomas could see the doubt behind the pretty blue irises-she wasn't falling for it. This woman was beautiful, sweet, funny, and smart as hell. Thomas was afraid he might be hyperventilating.

"Uh-huh. Just like it says on your new-patient questionnaire." She took a sip of coffee. "So, do you like your work?"

Thomas shrugged casually, trying not to picture the last few times he'd posed as a killer for hire. He tried not to see the pimply seventeen-year-old who gave him six dollars in change and a PlayStation II game to kill his chess team nemesis. Or the guy who needed his wife's fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy to buy a Camaro with a sunroof and drive his new girlfriend to Disney World. Or the housewife who got down on her knees in front of his chair and began to unzip his pants, saying she didn't have the money for a hired killer but knew another way she could pay him for his services.

Emma's question echoed in his ears-doI like my job? Sure he did-what's not to like? He prevented the loss of human life. He got scum off the street and behind bars. And the dozen or so people in the world who knew how he made a living told him he was at the top of his game.

"I absolutely love my job."

"And what do you like best about it?"

"The people," Thomas said. "I get to meet fascinating people."

"Of course." Emma took another sip and peered at Thomas over the rim of her cup, clearly amused. "So do you have your own company or do you work with a group?"

Thomas remembered that she was wearing shorts with that sweatshirt and that she had nice legs-not particularly long, but strong and smooth and shapely. No chicken legs on this woman. She said she rode horses-he could picture it. He could picture her riding a lot of things, like the front of his hips.

"A group. We all have our specialties."

"And what's your specialty, Thomas?" Her mouth quirked up provocatively.

He felt a warm tingle shoot through his extremities, hitch a ride along his spine, and settle with a thud in his groin. He had to struggle to recall the details of his standard cover story. "Uh, whatever the situation calls for, really. But mostly I deal with downsizing decisions."

"You axe people." It wasn't a question.

"So to speak."

Emma's eyebrows went up. "You're the guy they call in to do the boss's dirty work. A hired gun."

At that pronouncement, Thomas laughed outright, a sound that shocked him as much as it did Emma. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed like that. It was so loud it woke up Hairy, and the dog's pointy little face popped up over the edge of the table and he yawned.

"That's exactly right, Emma. I'm a hired gun."

She frowned at him. "God, that sounds perfectly awful. No wonder you're so grumpy. I'd be in a bad mood too if I had to do that for a living."

Thomas rubbed a hand over his mouth to wipe away his smile. "Yeah, I guess I'm a little rusty at being the life of the party. My best friend tells me that I've been about as much fun as nail fungus lately."

She laughed, reaching across the table to touch Thomas's fingers where they clasped his coffee cup. She stroked him.

Thomas stopped breathing. He stared down at his fingers under hers, his flesh changed yet unchanged, jumping from the contact yet perfectly still. He hadn't wanted her to do that, had he? He hadn't somehow asked her to touch him using some kind of damned indirect communication, had he?

Emma probably touched everyone-the old woman in the waiting room for instance-and it didn't mean anything special. He raised his eyes from their fingers to her face, and he nearly groaned at the tenderness in her expression. She couldn't possibly know how long he'd gone without this. She couldn't possibly know how much he wanted her.

Dear God-he wanted her.

Emma pulled her hand away and leaned back again, meeting his steady gaze. Her face was the loveliest thing he'd ever seen. He really needed to get the hell out of this restaurant.

"Nail fungus?" Her smile was full of mischief. "You do know there's a cure for that, don't you?"

Oh, God. Hell, yeah. He knew exactly what would cure him.

"So what's the whole story of how you ended up with Hairy?" she asked. "I'm just dying to know about the 'flamboyant' guy and why he gave you his dog."

Thomas cringed and finished off his coffee with one big gulp, looking around for the waitress. She was perched on a red vinyl stool at the empty lunch counter, her nose in a romance novel. "He was a friend," he answered, willing the waitress to look his way. She didn't. "He died and I took Hairy."

"And do you plan to keep him?"

When Thomas turned back to her, Emma was waiting for him. Her gaze was direct-no judgment, no criticism, just curiosity.

"I can help you find a home for him if that's what you want to do," she said.

Thomas stared at the top half of Hairy's face, now visible over the edge of the tabletop. The dog's perfectly round eyeballs looked as if they could pop from his bony skull at any, moment. But at least he wasn't wheezing anymore. Emma had been right about that-it was the cigar smoke. Back at VetMed, Hairy got a steroid shot and Thomas got a lecture about smoking cigars around the dog and a hundred and twenty-five bucks later they were merrily on their way.

"… because I know a nice woman in Richmond who might be willing to… "

Thomas was halfway listening to Emma, halfway looking at her breasts under the sweatshirt, halfway noticing how he was more than halfway hard just sitting across the table from her, wondering what the hell he was going to do with Hairy.

The dog was a train wreck. A disaster. And he didn't even like dogs, let alone ugly, shrimpy, psychologically challenged ones. And now he couldn't even smoke his Cohibas in his own damn house because the dog had respiratory problems?

What was happening to him? What was happening to his life? Why the hell was he even thinking about getting this woman into his bed when there was probably an eighty percent chance that she had some fatal personality flaw and about a hundred percent chance that she'd leave him as soon as she learned about what Nina so lovingly called his "defect"?

Your basic guaranteed catastrophe, right there.

And it was all Hairy's fault. If it weren't for Hairy, he wouldn't be sitting there in the middle of the night with Emma Jenkins, trying not to like her.

He wouldn't be looking at her sensual, soft body parts, trying to figure out how he could touch them.

He wouldn't have to be the heartless bastard who forces an orphaned puppy to live with strangers!

Damn the little mutant.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to see if there's someone interested," Thomas said with a shrug. "They'd be nice people, though, right? People who'd take good care of him?"

Emma smiled at him again. "Sure, Thomas," she said.

First off, Emma had never seen a paper-pusher built like Thomas Tobin. He might be pushing stuff around, but she was certain it was heavy stuff like punching bags and barbells and bad guys, not departmental memos.

The man had "law and order" written all over him.

And the story about the way he acquired Hairy? She knew he was leaving out a few crucial details-like how exactly the guy died and why Thomas felt obligated to take the dog home. Emma knew a massive load of guilt when she saw it.

And now Thomas was talking about his rugby team, and she used the excuse just to admire the loose curls of his short hair, the dark blond scruff along his jawline and up his cheeks, the smooth, golden skin below his eyes.

She'd grown accustomed to his appearance in the last three hours or so, enough that her blood wasn't beating against the back of her eyes like it did at first. Enough that she could breathe normally.