"Climbing is too expensive to support just by playing honky-tonks. The guys are stupid about girls and booze, but they can make an engine purr like a satisfied woman. So they also run a garage here in Estes Park." She finished her slightly tattered origami bird and set it between them. What could she do with her hands now?

"Everybody's gotta be good at something, I guess." He picked up the bird she'd made from the napkin and studied it, giving her a brief respite from his X-ray gaze. "Nice."

Just when she needed the knife-edge of tension to keep her head clear, it dissolved, letting exhaustion rush in to fill the void. Heaviness settled around her eyes, pulling down the lids with an insistence hard to ignore. She fought a yawn and lost. When it faded, she felt boneless and kind of drifty. Made it harder to remember why she couldn't lean across the tiny table and taste his yummy mouth for herself. The guys claimed denial Wasn't good for you, but that was just because denial didn't suit them.

"I can understand the climbing bit, but-" He looked puzzled. A very good look on him, Phoebe conceded, her defenses eroding faster than sand on an ocean beach. "-I thought Texans couldn't leave Texas?"

"Why not? It's just a big, flat place." She heard the words leave her mouth and tensed, waiting for God to strike her down, but He didn't have to. All He had to do was leave her in the sun of Jake's smile and wait until she melted from the inside out.

Her gaze slipped its leash, running over the lean, lanky lines of his body as a lazy heat built in her midsection. She huddled in on that warmth. She'd been cold so long, she'd almost forgotten what warm was. Her gaze continued roving. Until she ran into a big question mark in both eyes.

That cleared her head faster than a lightning bolt. She'd heard him asking Chet about the bar. If he was looking for work, why hadn't he asked one question about a job?

Past his beckoning eyes, past the uniform of worn jeans and flannel shirt worn over his tee, beyond the relaxed air was something else, something that put him outside her world, with its rare questions and rarer confidences. The people in her world usually had something they wanted to keep in the back of the closet.

To distract him from her closeted secrets, she leaned forward and held out her hand. "My turn."

"For what?"

"Your hand. I wanna read it. Learned from my mama, during one of her rare moments of sobriety."

The tiny piece of truth came out so naturally, Phoebe almost missed it. Phoebe's mama hadn't been a drunk. She hadn't lived long enough. She was mixing her real past with her fictional one. Not smart. Adrenaline entered her bloodstream in a slow but steady stream, then subsided as the question marks in Jake's eyes faded like snow in the sun of his smile.

A pity truth was so dangerous. It was so effective.

"Hand? Isn't it palms?"

"Anyone who reads just your palm is a quack-according to my mama. The palm tells only part of the story."

"Okay." He opened his hand for her viewing.

The pouting curve of his full lips started that warm stuff shooting through her blood again. It fused the tiny split in her personality, patching over the pain that tried to push out through the gap. But now she'd have to touch him.

Good move, Phoebe. The skin of her palm tingled in anticipation of-

The jangle of the bell over the door as a customer came in made them both jump. Phoebe smiled uneasily and tucked her hair behind her ear. Jake looked back her way, then, as if he knew she couldn't do it, did the touching for her.

The feel of his hand on hers sent a tiny shock of delight spiraling up her arm. It felt warm and heavy, the skin pleasantly abrasive where it brushed against hers. Phoebe let her fingers curl up around it, shivering slightly when the pads of her fingertips found skin. Her gaze lowered, a move both defensive and imperative. She wanted to see, smell'she inhaled deeply, filling her lungs with his singular scent-and hear, wanted to engage all of her senses, if only in her imagination. Her exhalation came in a shaky rush.

Good thing restraint had been one of her first, hard-learned life lessons.

Her free hand hovered over his before landing to lightly trace its narrow length. His long, strong fingers were well kept but showed no sign of pampering. The pads were softly callused, the flesh beneath firm and capable.

Her nose quivered slightly as it homed in on his scent under the smell of soap and an echo of aftershave, as if it had been awhile since he'd shaved. Going for a Don Johnson scruffy look, or just circumstances?

"What do you see?" he asked, his voice turning husky. Did that mean he felt the current running between them?

Her forefinger made a path down his ring finger, her face taking on a sultry look easy to assume with her insides doing a slow lava boil. "All sorts of things."

He cleared his throat. "Good thing I have nothing to hide."

Maybe he didn't. She explored the place on his finger where a wedding ring should be, her gaze never leaving his face. "No ring. No wife?"

What would he do with that question?

Jake swallowed dryly, wishing he'd gotten a drink with ice. "No."

For someone who was supposed to be reading his hand, she was spending a lot of time looking at his face. "Past or present."

Her low murmur could have meant anything. Each finger was touched, and turned, all surfaces tantalizingly explored. Her smoky gaze pinned him in place and stirred heat in his gut.

"This is interesting." She waited several seconds, a hundred heartbeats. "You're a hunter."

She wouldn't have felt the flinch if she hadn't been holding his hand. His brows drew together in a quick frown.

"Hunter?"

She gave him a smile edged with triumph. She'd got him off guard. Good. "Hands can't hide what you've done to them."

Jake's stomach felt as if he'd taken a big drop on a roller coaster. He got a grip and asked lightly, "What'do I hunt?"

She shrugged. "Just know it's personal. And You're more driven than most."

His stomach did another drop, until he saw a swiftly veiled gleam of satisfaction in her eyes. Not magic. Just an old fashioned lie-detector test, watching his eyes with her finger on his pulse. Damn, she was good. "Driven by what?"

Her lashes lifted, her eyes meeting his. "Justice." Her fingers stroked his palm, stealing his breath. "But-"

Jake lifted a brow in a question his tight throat couldn't voice.

"There's mercy there, too. Like the horns of a dilemma."

Her gaze locked with his for a long, hot moment while Jake struggled to clear his head. With an effort, he leaned into her space, determined to turn the tables on her. "Aren't you going to tell me who I'll marry, how many children I'll have? My mom would like to know."

Her lashes hid her eyes. "Let's see."

She turned his palm up, tracing the lines inside, a sultry abrasion from a finger pad roughened by contact with guitar strings. "This is your life line. It's very long but bumpy. You take a lot of risks."

"Is that the tactful way of telling me no woman would have me?"

"That-and this." The nail of her forefinger, just long enough to be squared and serviceable, marked the place where another crossed his lifeline. "Your commitment line."

"Commitment line? I've never heard of that one."

"Really? Yours is very short."

He studied the line she indicated. It was very short. He looked up, his face just inches from hers, and chuckled. The sound emerged huskier than he liked. So far this game was a draw. "Is the divorced pot calling the unmarried kettle black?"

She leaned back with a rich and sultry laugh. "I was sixteen."