appealing despite himself.

So, she had been serious when she had said that her mother no longer ran her life.

"I'm working, Mother."

Regina frosted everything in the path of her glance as she turned and

walked to the door.

"Nice seeing you, too, Mother," Caitlin called out to the retreating back.

The door slammed.

The bell rang shrilly.

Graham's mouth curved.

"She hasn't changed any" No," Caitlin agreed quietly, shaking her

head." No, she hasn't.

" Coming to life, she realized that the display her mother had scattered was still on the floor. She stooped to pick them up.

After a beat, Graham joined her.

Awkwardly he picked up one pair of panties.

Despite the anger, the turmoil raging within her, Caitlin laughed.

Gray looked so very uncomfortable, so out of place holding scraps of

silk and lace in his large hands.

"Here."

She took the red panties from him.

"Before you turn completely beet-red."

He surrendered the article willingly.

"I wasn't turning beet-red. Besides, according to your mother, that

would be impossible to detect."

Caitlin sobered.

"I'm sorry you had to hear that. She's still a bigot. If it makes you

feel any better, you're on a long list of people she dislikes."

He rose and watched her as she gathered the rest of the panties to her. "Her feelings don't concern me. There are a lot of people like her around on both sides of the reservation."

She stood, holding the undergarments against her.

"What are you doing here, anyway?"

The reason suddenly occurred to her.

"Did you catch him?"

No.

' She didn't understand.

She had told him everything she could think of.

"Then-?"

"I've been assigned to be your bodyguard."

The panties she had just gathered fell from her hands to the floor.

Caitlin stared at Graham, dumbfounded.

"You're what?"@ He didn't like this any more than she apparently did.

He would rather have been anywhere in the world instead of here.

But here was where he was supposed to be, and he was, too much of a

professional to let his.feelings interfere with his work. "I've been assigned to be your bodyguards' The hell he had. For the second time she bent and scooped up the fallen underwear. She deposited the garments on the counter and raised her chin pugnaciously.

"No, you haven't."

He raised a brow at the challenge in her eyes.

"Want to call the captain?"

"The marines if I have to," she countered.

Anything to insure that he was not going to be here with her any longer than was absolutely necessary.

She didn't want to have old feelings stirred up.

Now that her mother was no longer there to silently unite them by

giving them a common enemy, they divided, returning to their respective corners, eyeing each other warily.

Scars from the past and the feeling of betrayal shimmered between them,

an unspoken presence.

An uninvited guest, pushing them apart.

Caitlin shook her head.

"You can't stay here, hovering over me."

She just wouldn't allow it.

It was bad for business.

How would it look, having a policeman loitering around?

raham banked down the anger that flashed, red-hot, within him.

"Believe me, it's not by choice."

He paused, debating.

It was best to say nothing, to be like his mother, who restrained her

words and doled them out sparingly.

But there were other emotions bouncing around within him, emotions that wouldn't allow Graham to completely hold his tongue.

"You know, you're not really that different from your mother."

He hadn't wanted to believe it last time.

He didn't want to believe it now.

But what else could he think?

The evidence was staring him in the face.

Her mother was the last person Caitlin wanted to be compared to.

Her eyes narrowed.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

She couldn't play innocent with him.

He knew better, had been shown better.

When it came down to it, she was just as bigoted as her mother.

He wasn't about to play word games.

"I think you know."

What was he talking about?

She was the one who had been wronged, not him.

"I wouldn't go throwing stones if I were you, Gray. You're not exactly