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Nick’s bigger fingers over hers was almost painful as the blood began to warm her heat-deprived extremities. A little hiss of pain brought his gaze up to hers. “Easy, slugger. You’re okay.”
    “Slugger?” A baseball reference?
    He glanced up at the blue-and-white KC on the cuff of her stocking cap. “Looks like you’re a Royals fan.”
    “I am.”
    “Me, too. Who’d have thought you and I had something in common?”
    “Yeah.” Witty comeback. But her thoughts were shifting from shock into the critical observations that usually filled her mind.
    Sensation returned to her hands and Annie began to feel every supple movement of his fingertips, every callus that marked his broad palm. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, from his skin into hers.
    Nick Fensom was being nice? On purpose? Where were the wisecracks that forced her to stay on her mental toes? The annoying arguments that threatened to undermine her investigative expertise? The heat he rubbed into her once-numb hands was blossoming elsewhere inside her, too. Her cheeks began to thaw with the traitorous flush of her physical response.
    Up close like this, Annie noticed just how blue Nick’s eyes were. Their dark cobalt color was emphasized by the shadows between them, yet there was a sparkle of energy there, a light that gave them a sharp contrast to the coffee-brown darkness of his hair. And maybe it was just the close proximity she wasn’t accustomed to—or the thickness of his insulated leather jacket—that distorted the dimensions of his body. She knew he hadn’t grown any taller, and yet his shoulders and chest were broader than she remembered. They were wide enough to block the worst of the wind and snow and allow the air between them to warm and fill with the scents of the sterile solutions she used, along with the leather and faint garlicky deliciousness emanating from him.
    “You’re like a furnace,” she noted, drawing her focus back to the reviving heat of his fingers around hers. Was he feeling this unexpected jolt of awareness, too? “Why are you doing this?”
    “Speeding the process so I can get out of here before dawn. Your hands are like ice.”
    “Oh.” So she’d been analyzing the color of his eyes and wondering if the dark stubble dusting the angles of his face would be sandpapery or soft to the touch while he’d simply wanted to get out of here sooner. Awkward. He probably had a hot date he’d left in a snug apartment somewhere, and Annie’s poky thoroughness was keeping him from getting back to her. With plenty of embarrassment to infuse her blood and keep her warm now, Annie jerked her hands from his and grabbed a fresh pair of gloves from her kit. “I’m fine. You can stop.”
    “I don’t mind.” She flexed her fingers and reached up to extricate her flashlight from the net pocket in her CSI vest where Nick had stuck it. But her hands were chilling again and he’d jammed it in there good and why the heck couldn’t she manage her own equipment? Nick plucked the flashlight from her vest and pressed it into her palm. “Here. We’re part of a team, right? We have to help each other out.”
    “Right.” Go ahead and be practical and coordinated and temptingly warm, she accused him silently, pushing to her feet and feeling about as graceful and misguided as a teenage girl who’d just had a run-in with her high school crush. She must be suffering from hypothermia to have hallucinated any sort of fascination with Nick Fensom. “I’m almost done. The path of blood droplets I was following has tapered off considerably.”
    “O...kay.” He drawled out the word, clearly questioning her abrupt retreat. Nick pulled on his black leather gloves and straightened beside her. “By the way, you’re welcome.”
    Annie lifted her gaze from the void of snow on the bricks behind the Dumpster. “Sorry.” Rubbing her hands truly had been a nice gesture, which was certainly more observant of her discomfort and