Born To Protect

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Jack shrugged uncomfortably. “It wasn’t that. I just didn’t want him using his money, his influence, to get me an officer’s berth. I didn’t want what he could do for me.”

Christina smiled ruefully. “Yes. I understand. Still, to give up your chance for a college education…”

“When I was eighteen, my head so stuffed with big ideas, a college education would have been wasted on me.”

“Learning is never wasted,” she said firmly.

She would think that. She was a microbiologist. Microbial ecologist, he corrected himself. She probably had enough letters after her name to qualify as a government program.

“I went back for it six years later,” he said, surprising them both by his need to explain. “Night school. I had the discipline for it then.”

“You got your degree while you were a SEAL?”

The disbelief in her voice made him wince. He should have kept his trap shut. “It’s not that unusual. When you’re a SEAL, you’ve got to be the best.”

“You make me a little ashamed,” she said softly. “I never had to combine classes with work. All I’ve ever done is study.”

“Well, you must be good at it. Made good grades. Got a good job.”

“Yes.” She gave him a small, twisted smile that sneaked inside him. “I’m a much better scientist than I am a princess.”

Oh, no. He was not going to fall for that poor-little-princess routine. He was not going to fall for her. “What kind of cook are you?”

The smile froze. “I beg your pardon?”

“Dinner. We’re stuck here till the phone rings, and we have to eat. Do you cook?”

Christina blinked, bewildered by his abrupt change of subject. One minute she’d been having a real conversation, basking in the uncommon intimacy of actually talking with a man in her kitchen, and now he expected her to feed him? She reached for her dignity.

“Not well. I can offer you some eggs and toast if you’re hungry.”

“I’m more hungry than eggs and toast. Do you mind if I see what else you’ve got?”

She stepped back, waving a hand in a gesture she hoped would look royal, and probably came off as royally ticked. “Please. Be my guest. But don’t expect to find anything. I told you, I’m no cook.”

He was already rummaging through cupboards without regard to her privacy or her warning. She stifled a protest.

He flashed a grin over his shoulder. “Yeah, but I am.”

She was still trying to take it in. “You cook.”

“You bet.”

“That’s very…evolved of you.”

“Not really. Cooking is just another way to be self-sufficient. I did a lot of the cooking growing up.”

Trying not to resent his intrusion, she watched him pile things on her counter, her clean, bare counter, like testaments to her sad, bare life: an unopened box of macaroni and cheese, a flat tin of anchovies she used to spice up pizza, two cans of tuna and a small bottle of cocktail olives with a Montebello label. He dug deeper, unearthing her lonely bottle of olive oil and the dried herbs she’d bought to make salad dressing.

“Your mother didn’t cook?” she asked.

“My mom liked to go out. She was the uncrowned benefit queen and committee chair of Highland Park, Texas.” He squatted to dig in a cupboard for a stainless steel pot. “My sister and I got pretty tired of heating things in the microwave, so I taught myself the basics.”

After filling the pot at the sink, he set it on the stove. Christina sipped her water, watching him. He poured olive oil into a skillet and peeled garlic with a no-fuss ease that was impressive. His T-shirt stretched over his biceps. His forearms were muscled. She found herself watching them, and the movement of his hands, and flushed.

“That doesn’t look very basic,” she said.

“I had an XO—executive officer—who liked to cook. I learned a lot from him.”

He scraped slivered garlic into the hot oil. The scent rose and made her mouth water.

“It always seemed a waste of time for me to cook,” she said. “It’s not like I was ever going to be called on to whip up a formal state dinner, and here…most of the time, I eat alone.”

He chopped anchovies with brisk competence. “All the more reason to make sure you eat properly, then. Weren’t you the woman who said learning is never wasted?”

“I guess I did,” she admitted. Whatever he was making smelled too good for her to take offense. But she’d never taken kindly to being told what to do, and she couldn’t resist teasing him a little. “But in this case it would still be superfluous. I have you to take care of me now. At least temporarily.”

He slid her a dark, unreadable look. “I didn’t sign on as your houseboy, princess.”

“No.” She was embarrassed. And it served her right, for trying to flirt with a man like Jack Dalton. “I didn’t mean—I don’t expect you to wait on me.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I—I very much doubt my father wants to hire you because you’re a good cook or can run errands. I may need a bodyguard, but I can live without servants. I prefer to live without servants.”

“So you moved to Montana to get away from it all.”

She hesitated. “Something like that.”

He added salt to the boiling water and then threw in the uncooked noodles from the box of macaroni and cheese. “You said you had wine. White?”

Here, at least, she could demonstrate her expertise. “I have a bottle of 1997 Laspiro Classico.”