“No!” Helen groaned. “No, Dane, not four hours of lewd noises and embarrassing conversation with Nick! I hate Nick! Anyway, I’ve got a date with Harold!”

“You were supposed to tell sweetums here—” he nodded toward a glaring Tess “—where and when the stakeout was going down, so that she wouldn’t trip over it.”

“I apologized,” she wailed.

“Not good enough. You go with Nick, and I’ll reconsider your pink slip.”

“If you fire me,” Helen told him, “I’ll go back to work for the department of motor vehicles and you’ll never get another automobile tag registration off the record for the rest of your life.”

He pursed his lips. “Did I ever mention that I spent two years with the Texas Department of Public Safety before I joined the Texas Rangers?”

Helen sighed. She opened the door the rest of the way and made a huge production of going down on her hose-clad knees, her long black hair dragging the floor as she salaamed, her thin body looking somehow elegant even in the pose. She studied ballet and had all the grace of a dancer.

“Oh, for God’s sake, go home,” Dane said shortly. “And I hope Harold buys you a pizza loaded with anchovies!”

“Thanks, boss! Actually, I love anchovies!” Helen smiled, waved, and then vanished before he had time to change his mind.

He ran a restless hand through his thick black hair, disrupting a straight lock onto his forehead. “Next the skip tracers will be after paid vacations to the Bahamas.”

Tess shook her head. “Jamaica. I asked.”

He turned and tossed an ash into the smokeless ashtray on his desk. The entire staff had pitched in to buy it. They’d also pitched in to send him to a stop-smoking seminar. He’d sent them all on stakeouts to porno theaters. Nobody ever suggested another seminar. Dane did install big air filters, though, in every office.

Dane was a renegade. He went his own way regardless of controversy. Tess might disagree with him, but she had to respect him for standing up for what he believed in.

She watched him move, her eyes lingering on his elegant carriage. He was built like a rodeo cowboy, square shoulders and lean hips and long, powerful legs. When he was tired, he limped a little from the wounds he’d sustained three years ago. He looked tired now.

She watched him, remembering how it had all begun. When he’d opened the detective agency, he’d remorselessly pilfered the local police department of its best people, offering them percentages and shares in the business instead of salaries until the agency started paying off. And it had thrived—in record time. Dane had been a Houston police officer years before he made it to the Texas Rangers. He’d been a good policeman. He had plenty of clout in intelligence circles, and that assured his success.

Being a Texas Ranger hadn’t hurt his credentials, either, because in order to be considered for the rangers, a man had to have eight years of law enforcement experience with the last two as an officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety. Then the top thirty scorers on the written test had to undergo a grueling oral interview. The five leading candidates to pass this test were placed on a one-year waiting list for an opening on the ninety-four-member force. Dane had been one of the lucky ones. He’d worked out of Houston, ranging over several counties to assist local law enforcement. A ranger might not have to fight Indians or Mexican guerrillas, but since Texas had plenty of ranchland left, a ranger had to be a skilled horseman in case he was called upon to track down modern-day rustlers. Dane was one of the best horsemen Tess had ever seen. Despite his injuries, he still was as at home on the back of a horse as he was on the ground or behind the wheel of a car.

She was awed by him after all the years they’d known each other. But she was very careful these days not to let him know how awed. One taste of his violent ardor had been enough to stifle her desire for him as soon as it had begun.

“You never send me out on assignments.” She sighed.

He glanced at her, his expression guarded. He seemed to make a point of never looking too closely, or for too long, as if he found her very existence hard to accept. “You’re a secretary, not an operative.”

“I could be, if you’d let me,” she said quietly. “I can do anything Helen can.”

“Including dressing up like a hooker and parading down the main drag?” he mused.

She shifted restlessly, averting her face. “Well, maybe not that.”

His dark eyes narrowed. “Or listening to intimate conversations in back-alley motel rooms? Taking photographs of explicit situations? Tracing an accused murderer across two states and apprehending him on a bail-bond forfeiture?”

She let out a long breath. “Okay. I get the point. I guess I couldn’t handle that. But I could be a skip tracer, if you’d let me. That’s almost as good as going out on cases.”

He put out his cigarette angrily, a terse but controlled stab of his long fingers that made Tess uneasy. He was a passionate man, despite his cold control. She very rarely allowed herself to remember how he was with a woman. Just thinking about those strong, deft hands on her body made her go hot and shaky, but not with desire. She remembered the touch of Dane Lassiter’s hands with stark fear.

He glanced at her suddenly, his eyes piercing, steady, as if he felt the thought in her mind and reacted to it. She went scarlet.