“Dammit, hold still!” he ordered, tightening his arm against her. “I didn’t kill her. It was an accident.”

“Tell it to a lawyer!” she managed to shout, pushing frantically at the big hand that was pressed up against her diaphragm. She couldn’t budge him. She couldn’t hurt him. He had her. The panic that thought bred nearly choked her.

“Listen to me,” he ordered sharply. Then he gentled his tone as skills from other parts of his life kicked in. He knew better than to fight fear with force. “Easy,” he murmured to her in the same low, soothing voice he used with frightened horses. “Listen to me now. Just take it easy. I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re doing a pretty damn good imitation of it,” she snapped, squirming. “You’re pushing my spleen into my lungs.”

Immediately he loosened his grip but still held her firmly against him. “Just settle down. Just take it easy.”

Mari craned her neck around to get a look at his eyes. Men could say anything, but their eyes seldom lied. She had learned that in the courtroom and in the offices of countless lawyers. She had taken down testimony word for word, lies and truths, but she had learned very early on to read the difference in the witness’s eyes. The pair boring down on her were tucked deep beneath an uncompromising ledge of brow. They were the gray of storm clouds, and slightly narrow, as if he were permanently squinting against the glare of the sun. They gave little away of the man, but there was nothing in them that hinted at lies or violence.

She relaxed marginally and he rewarded her by easing her down so that her feet touched the floor. Air rushed back into her lungs and she sucked it in greedily, trying not to lean back into him for support. She was already too aware of his body, the size and strength of it, the heat of it. His left hand encircled her upper arm, the knuckles just brushing the outer swell of her breast. The fingers of his right hand splayed over her belly, thumb and forefinger bracketing the inner and under contours of the same breast.