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It barely brushed across Phoebe's cheek before falling to the carpet, but Phoebe let out a yelp and then dropped to the floor. "You got me!"

Annie screeched with delight, charged across the room, and flung herself on Phoebe's chest. Phoebe laughed and tickled her daughter, who screamed with laughter, giggling and snorting. Outside, she heard Cupcake barking, and she laughed. "Cupcake wants to play!"

"Yes! Let's get him!" Annie launched herself off Phoebe and raced to the door. She flung it open, then froze.

A man was in their doorway.

CHAPTER THREE

Tall, broad-shouldered, the man's face was shadowed by a cowboy hat.

He was immobile, standing there in her door, ignoring Cupcake jumping up on him and whipping around him in a frenzy.

Phoebe's heart jumped, and she scrambled to her feet, her heart racing. She didn't have her phone. Or her gun. Or anything to defend them. She'd gotten so lax, and now… "Annie," she said softly. "Come give Mommy a hug."

But her daughter didn't move, frozen inches from this massive, silhouetted man, her little face staring up at him.

Fear gripped Phoebe, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She'd been in tough situations before, but she'd never felt like a victim, never felt like she couldn’t handle them, but as she stood there, too far away from Annie to grab her if the man made a move, she felt absolute, raw terror for her baby's safety.

"Annie," she said cheerfully. "Let's go bake. Can you get the pans out?"

Annie startled, then spun around. "Yay!"

She turned and raced back to the kitchen, and the man made no move to grab her, leaving Phoebe alone with him.

"Get out of my house," she said softly, with as much menace as she could muster. "Now."

He cleared his throat, then muttered under his breath. "Eliana said to tell you that toucans eat chocolate bonbons on day seventeen."

Phoebe blinked, startled by how rich and sexy his voice was, and by the fact he'd just said something about toucans and chocolate bonbons. "What?"

"And snow leopards believe in unicorns."

Phoebe stared at him blankly. "What are you talking about?"

"Isn't that the code to tell you that Eliana sent me and that I'm here to help?"

"Unicorns and bonbons? Seriously?"

He swore suddenly and pulled out his phone. "Hang on a sec." He hit send, keeping his phone on speaker.

A man answered. "Did you find them okay?"

"You made up that unicorn shit, didn't you?"

The man on the other end started laughing. "You really said that to Phoebe?"

Her visitor glanced at her. "I did. She thinks I’m insane now."

The man laughed harder. "That was a joke. I was trying to break through all the internal tension that you were bringing with you so you didn't scare her. Did it work?"

"You're a fucker." Her visitor hung up his phone, then shoved his hat back and grimaced. "Sorry about the profanity. My brother brings it out in me."

She waved her hand absently, distracted by how attractive he was. Sculpted jaw, radiant blue eyes, just enough whiskers to make a woman take notice. He was pure testosterone, and yet, there was a calmness to his energy, as if he had nowhere to go, nothing else to do, and would be perfectly at peace standing in her doorway for hours.

It had been a long time since Phoebe had bothered to notice an attractive guy, so it was a little startling that she was noticing now. "It's fine. I believe in profanity," she said. "Who exactly are you?"

The conversation with his brother had been too genuine for it to be faked. The warmth in their voices had been real, despite the teasing they were giving each other. So, she wasn't exactly scared of him, but at the same time… Big, muscled stranger in her doorway needed to be addressed.