Invincible

He was all muscle, but it wasn’t overly obvious. He had a rodeo rider’s physique, lean and powerful. Like her, he wore jeans, but his were obviously designer ones, like those hand-tooled leather boots on his big feet and the elaborately scrolled leather holster in which he kept his .45 automatic. He was wearing a jacket that partially concealed the gun, but he was intimidating enough without it.

He was Lakota Sioux. He had jet-black hair that fell to his waist in back, although he wore it in a ponytail usually. He had large black eyes that seemed to see everything with one sweep of his head. He had high cheekbones and a light olive complexion. There were faint scars on the knuckles of his big hands. She noticed because he was holding a file in one of them.

Her file.

Well, really, the chief’s file, that had been lying on her desk, waiting to be typed up. It referenced an attack on her father a few weeks earlier that had resulted in Carlie being stabbed. Involuntarily, her hand went to the scar that ran from her shoulder down to the beginning of her small breasts. She flushed when she saw where he was looking.

“Those are confidential files,” she said shortly.

He looked around. “There was nobody here to tell me that,” he said, his deep voice clear as a bell in the silent room.

She flushed at the implied criticism. “Damned truck wouldn’t start and I got soaked trying to start it,” she muttered. She slid her weather-beaten old purse under her desk, ran a hand through her wet hair, took off her ratty coat and hung it up before she sat down at her desk. “Did you need something?” she asked with crushing politeness. She even managed a smile. Sort of.

“I need to see the chief,” he replied.

She frowned. “There’s this thing called a door. He’s got one,” she said patiently. “You knock on it, and he comes out.”

He gave her a look that could have stopped traffic. “There’s somebody in there with him,” he said with equal patience. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“I see.” She moved things around on her desk, muttering to herself.

“Bad sign.”

She looked up. “Huh?”

“Talking to yourself.”

She glared at him. It had been a bad morning altogether and he wasn’t helping. “Don’t listen, if it bothers you.”

He gave her a long look and laughed hollowly. “Listen, kid, nothing about you bothers me. Or ever will.”

There were the sounds of chairs scraping wood, as if the men in Cash’s office had stood up and pushed back their seats. She figured it was safe to interrupt him.

Well, safer than listening to Mr. Original American here run her down.

She pushed the intercom button. “You have a visitor, sir,” she announced.

There was a murmur. “Who is it?”

She looked at Carson. “The gentleman who starts fires with hand grenades,” she said sweetly.

Carson stared at her with icy black eyes.

Cash’s door opened, and there was Carlie’s father, a man in a very expensive suit and Cash.

That explained why her father had left home so early. He was out of town, as he’d said he would be; out of Comanche Wells, where they lived, anyway. Not that Jacobsville was more than a five-minute drive from home.

“Carson,” Cash said, nodding. “I think you know Reverend Blair and my brother, Garon?”

“Yes.” Carson shook hands with them.

Carlie was doing mental shorthand. Garon Grier was senior special agent in charge of the Jacobsville branch of the FBI. He’d moved to Jacobsville some time ago, but the FBI branch office hadn’t been here quite as long. Garon had been with the bureau for a number of years.

Carlie wondered what was going on that involved both the FBI and her father. But she knew that question would go unanswered. Her father was remarkably silent on issues that concerned law enforcement, although he knew quite a few people in that profession.

She recalled with a chill the telephone conversation she’d had recently with someone who called and said, “Tell your father he’s next.” She couldn’t get anybody to tell her what they thought it meant. It was disturbing, like the news she’d overheard that the man who’d put a knife in her, trying to kill her father, had been poisoned and died.

Something big was going on, linked to that Wyoming murder and involving some politician who had ties to a drug cartel. But nobody told Carlie anything.

* * *

“WELL, I’LL BE OFF. I have a meeting in San Antonio,” Reverend Blair said, taking his leave. He paused at Carlie’s desk. “Don’t do anything fancy for supper, okay?” he asked, smiling. “I may be very late.”

“Okay, Dad.” She grinned up at him.

He ruffled her hair and walked out.

Carson was watching the interplay with cynical eyes.

“Doesn’t your dad ruffle your hair?” she asked sarcastically.

“No. He did lay a chair across it once.” He averted his eyes at once, as if the comment had slipped out against his will and embarrassed him.

Carlie tried not to stare. What in the world sort of background did he come from? The violence struck a chord in her. She had secrets of her own from years past.

“Carson,” Garon Grier said, pausing at the door. “We may need you at some point.”

Carson nodded. “I’ll be around.”

“Thanks.”

Garon waved at his brother, smiled at Carlie and let himself out the door.

“Something perking?” Carson asked Cash.

“Quite a lot, in fact. Carlie, hold my calls until I tell you,” he instructed.

“Sure thing, Boss.”

“Come on in.” Cash went ahead into his office.

Carson paused by Carlie’s desk and glared at her.

She glared back. “If you don’t stop scowling at me, I’m going to ask the chief to frisk you for hand grenades,” she muttered.

“Frisk me yourself,” he dared softly.

The flush deepened, darkened.