Page 14 of Keeping Her Safe

“I think I’m okay, Zachary. Thank you so much. I think I had a panic attack.” With her words, he pulled his hand from her hair, dropping it onto his lap. Still, she kept her head resting against his.

“Glad I could help. That’s what I do.”

“Zachary,” she whispered, and her blue eyes slid closed.

With a sigh, he moved to close the few inches between them and lightly touched her lips to his. Just once, just a light brush against her soft lips.

With all the strength he had, he pulled away from her soft, glorious mouth. He would have given anything to pull her closer and deepen the kiss until his tongue was in her mouth, and she was moaning in his arms.

Cursing, he excused himself to the restroom. He didn’t even check to see if he could get up, just got up and walked away. After closing the bathroom door, he leaned against it and cursed out loud. They hadn’t even made it twelve hours into this, and he wanted to have sex with her on a plane.

It was supposed to be a hands-off week—no touching, definitely no kissing, and absolutely nothing more than that. She was almost his sister. His body didn’t seem to care about who she could have been, just who she was now.

By the time he left the restroom, he had his mind and body under control. During his absence, she had pulled out her computer, but she wasn’t typing. She had the screen pulled close to her and was staring at it.

“Did we lose your glasses?” He sat next to her.

Her eyes didn’t leave the screen as she replied, “I don’t wear glasses.”

He looked over at her, and she was squinting at the screen in front of her. The screen was as close as she could get the laptop to her. Why was she lying to him? He had seen her in glasses hours before. She must have taken them off in the closet.

“Are you lying to me?” He called her on it.

She pushed the screen away and looked up at him. “I have the print small so that no one can read it. I have glasses for the glare when I type at night. I don’t need glasses to see, close or far.”

He watched as she clicked a series of keys and shut the computer. Pulling the USB drive from the socket, she handed it to him and said, “Put this in your pocket. I can’t work anyway.”

He took the small drive from her outstretched hand and slid it in his pocket, then took the computer from her lap and put it in the bag at his feet. Grabbing a pile of folders he had in his case, he handed them to her. He watched as she settled them on her lap, then straightened the pile and looked up at him.

“Those are files on the Hart girls and their spouses.”

“I can see that by the labels … because I don’t need glasses.” Her finger lightly touched each of the names. Then she sorted them by age, oldest to youngest.

“Did you want to know about them?”

“No,” she whispered, staring at the neat pile on her lap.

“Have you ever looked them up on the internet?”

“No.” She didn’t move to open any of them, just looked at them on her lap.

“There are pictures in the files. Mostly driver’s license pictures,” he told her.

“Did you look at them?” she asked, looking up at him.

“Yes.”

Her eyebrows raised in anticipation. “Do they look like me?”

“Yes.”

“Who should I start with?”

“I thought you were going by age?” That was how she had sorted them.

She looked back down at the pile. “Is there a better way?”

He took them from her lap, trying his damnedest not to touch her. Resorting the files, he handed her Zoey’s first. “This one. She could be your twin.”

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