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gone.
    “You don’t want to know,” he told her.
    Now there was a chauvinistic answer if ever she’d come across one. Raised with and around as many males as she had been, Janelle still had never experienced chauvinism in its truest sense. She was tested as a person, as a Cavanaugh, not as a female in a male world.
    “If I hadn’t wanted to hear the answer, Detective Boone,” she told him evenly, “I wouldn’t have asked the question.”
    He watched her for a long moment, as if he was weighing something. And then he said, “Because if you think any of this is about justice, you’re more naive than you look.”
    Her eyes narrowed as she asked, “And just how naive do I look?”
    Sawyer snorted. “Like you could be their poster girl.”
    Normally, being referred to as a girl didn’t rankle her. She had no problem with the word because she had no problem with her self-esteem. And anyone who knew her knew what kind of mettle she was made of. But for some unknown reason, everything out of this man’s mouth, including probably hello, promised to rankle her. Clear down to her bones.
    She didn’t waste her breath denying his statement or reading him the riot act because of it. She had a bigger question on her mind. “If you find this assignment beneath you, why didn’t you protest when you were given it?”
    “I did,” he answered simply. Sawyer led the way to her office on the other end of the building. He obviously already knew the layout of their floor, she thought. “I got overridden.”
    “That makes two of us,” she told him. Sawyer looked at her and she could have sworn she detected a hint of surprise in his eyes. “I guess then,” she continued, “this is something we both will just have to suffer through.”
    Sawyer said nothing. He barely nodded in response to her last statement, hiding his surprise that someone he’d just naturally assumed had been spoiled within an inch of her life would balk at being offered protection from the “bad guys.”
    Unless something wasn’t kosher here. Maybe this was a publicity stunt on her part to attract attention to the case. Maybe she was after a change of venue and this sort of thing could just do it. Not unheard of.
    “For the record,” she said as they reached her office door, “I don’t want you here as much as you don’t want to be here.”
    For the first time since he’d rescued her, the corners of his mouth curved up just a fraction. “I really doubt that, Cavanaugh.”
    Without making a comment, Janelle opened the door and walked into the office she affectionately called her cubbyhole. It was no more crammed and cluttered now than it had been before she’d left for the courthouse this morning. But somehow having an extra body with her cut down on her space. She hadn’t minded when Woods had given the tiny office to her. She didn’t require much.
    But there was hardly any room within the enclosure to stuff in another book, much less a warm body that was larger than hers by a long shot.
    She glanced around, trying to see the area through his eyes. “I really don’t know where you’re going to hang around,” she finally said.
    “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of me. And you,” he added after a slight pause.
    She felt as if she were being put on notice. And she didn’t like it. Didn’t like not feeling in charge. Control was a very, very important thing to her, something she had had to fight for ever since she could remember. That, and respect. It had been awarded within her household, but not automatically. You received respect when you earned it. This new speed bump in her life was going to be one hell of a challenge to surmount.
    She indicated a chair that was against the wall. “I guess you can sit there.”
    Sawyer grabbed the top of the chair, swinging it over to the side of the desk without saying a word. He planted the chair, not himself.
    Just then, the phone rang and she almost sighed with relief. Something to draw