Colton's Secret Service

Something told him that he should have investigated Georgie Grady a little before catching the red-eye to San Antonio, but time had been at a premium last night and he’d wanted to wrap this up fast.

His eyes swept over her. “Is that so?”

She rocked forward on the balls of her boot-shod feet. “Yes, that’s ‘so,’ and I resent your attitude, you manner and your manhandling me.”

“Lady, you got in a right cross and your daughter almost cracked open my skull with that tire iron of hers. If anyone was manhandled, it was me.”

He saw a grin spread over otherwise pretty appealing lips. “Is that why you’re so angry? Because you were bested by a woman a foot shorter than you and her four-year-old daughter?”

Not only was she cocky, but she wasn’t observant either.

“You’re not a foot shorter than me, more like eight inches,” he estimated. “And I’m angry because I’m here in this one-horse town, wasting my time arguing with a pig-headed woman after waiting for the last eight hours for her to show up when I should be back in California, with the Senator.”

“Well, go.” Tucking Emmie against her hip, she waved him on his way with her temporarily free hand. “Nobody told you to come to Esperanza and harass innocent people.”

Nick rolled his eyes. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”

“Finally, we agree on something.” She blew out a breath. One of them would have to be the voice of reason and because he didn’t know the meaning of the word, it would have to be her. “You really a Secret Service Agent?”

“Yes.”

“Can I see that ID again?”

Reaching into his pocket, he took out his wallet. “Not very trusting, are you?” He’d always thought that people in a small town were supposed to be incredibly trusting, to the point of almost being simple-minded. Him, he trusted no one. When you grow up, not being able to trust your own parents, it set a precedent.

She raised her eyes to his. “Should I be?” He was a stranger, for all she knew, he could be some serial killer, making the rounds.

His eyes slid over her. Someone as attractive as this woman needed to be on her guard more than most. That body of hers could get her in a great deal of trouble.

“No, I guess not.” Opening his wallet to his badge and photo ID, he held it up for her to look over again.

Still keeping Emmie on her hip, Georgie leaned slightly in to peruse at length the ID he showed her.

As did Emmie. She stared at it so intently that Nick caught himself wondering if the annoying child could read. Wasn’t she too young for that?

Georgie stepped back and looked at him with an air of resignation. The ID appeared to be authentic after all.

“I guess you are what you say you are.” He felt her eyes slide over him. “You’ve got the black suit and those shades hanging out of your top pocket and all.” There was that smirk again, he thought. The way she described him made him feel like a caricature. “And your hair’s kind of slicked back, the part that’s not messed up,” she added.

Without realizing what he was doing, Nick ran his hand through his hair, smoothing down the section where the kid had hit him.

He saw the woman shake her head. “You’d look better with it all messed up. The other way looks like it’s been glued down.”

He knew what she was doing. She was trying to undermine him any way she could. Well, it wasn’t going to work.

“We’ll trade hairstyling tips some other time,” he told her sarcastically.

Rather than put her in her place, his response seemed to amuse her.

“Touchy son of a gun, aren’t you? Don’t take criticism well, I see,” she noted, as if to herself. She cocked her head, as if taking measure of him and trying to decide some things about him. You’d think he was the one in trouble, he thought, annoyed.

“You the one they used to make fun of when you were a kid?” she asked.

The exact opposite was true. He’d been more than half on his way to becoming a bully, threatening other kids at school. Smaller, bigger, it didn’t matter, he took them all on because he could. In school and on the streets, at least some things were in his control. Not like at home where an abusive father made his life, and his alcohol-anesthetized mother’s life, a living hell.

But then, one day, for reasons he had yet to completely understand, he suddenly saw himself through his victim’s eyes. Saw his father as Drake Sheffield must have been at his age. Sickened, Nick released the kid who’d come within a hair’s breadth of being pummeled to the ground because he’d mouthed off at him and just walked away. After that, his life had turned around and he put himself on the path of protecting the underdog rather than trying to humiliate and take advantage of him.

“Well, were you?” Georgie queried, although, she couldn’t quite see him as a classic ninety-eight-pound weakling.

“No” was all Nick said.

Her arms began to ache, reminding her that until this man had jumped out of the shadows, tackling her and causing her adrenaline to register off the charts, she’d been dead tired. It was getting really late.

Georgie decided to appeal to his sense of decency—if he had any. “Look, would you mind if I put my daughter to bed? It’s been one back-breaking long day.”

“I’m not tired,” Emmie protested.

It was obvious that she didn’t want to miss a second of what was going on. Because of the life she led, a child thrust into a world populated predominately by adults, Emmie thought like a miniature adult. Georgie was positive that if she’d elected to remain on the rodeo circuit, Emmie would have been thrilled to death. The little girl would have loved nothing better than to live in the run-down trailer amid her beloved cowboys forever. Especially because so many of them doted on her.

“That’s okay,” Georgie told her, “I am, pumpkin.”

Emmie pulled her small features into a solemn expression. “Then you go to bed,” the little girl advised her.

Georgie glanced at the dark-haired stranger. Yes, she was exhausted, but she was also agitated. There was no way she could have closed her eyes with this man around.

“Not hardly.” She raised her eyebrows, silently indicating that she was still waiting for him to respond to her question. She didn’t expect him to say no.

Nick gestured toward the door. “Go ahead.”

Setting Emmie down, Georgie fished her house key out of her front pocket.

As she raised it to the keyhole, he said, “It’s not locked.”

She looked at him accusingly. Secret Service Agent or not, the man had some nerve. “You broke in?”

“No,” Nick corrected patiently, “I found it unlocked.”

The hell he did, she thought. “I locked up before I left,” she informed him. In her absence, no one would have broken in. Everyone around here knew she had nothing worth stealing. He had to have been the one jimmying open her lock. How dumb did he think she was?

Pushing the door open, Georgie took Emmie’s hand in hers and walked inside.

Nick followed in her wake. “Aren’t you going to turn on the light?” he asked when she walked right by the switch at the front door.

“No light to turn on,” she answered. The shadows in the room began to lengthen, swallowing up the pools of moonlight on the floor. She turned to see he was automatically closing the front door. “Keep the door open until I get the fire going,” she instructed. Georgie quickly crossed to the fireplace.

Obliging her, Nick pushed the door opened again. He saw her squatting down in front of the fireplace, bunching up newspapers and sticking them strategically between the logs.

“In case you haven’t noticed, it’s June,” he protested. A damn sticky June at that. “Isn’t it too hot for a fire?”