“I’m sorry I just hot-footed it out of there this morning. That was rude.”

“You were there to keep us safe. You didn’t owe us anything else. We appreciate it.”

So formal, he thought. “That’s not all it was, and you know it. Don’t you?”

The pained look in her eyes showed her reluctance to have this conversation. But ignoring the attraction between them hadn’t seemed to work very well so far. Maybe getting it out in the open and putting it to rest was the only solution. “What do you want from me?”

“I’m not a good bet for happily ever after. Been there, done that, got burned.”

Her lips curved slightly. “Same here.”

“But that doesn’t mean I’m not still a grown man.”

“With grown man needs?”

He nodded.

“Is this some sort of proposition?”

Major Nanny
Paula Graves

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For my editor, Allison, who trusted me enough to ask me to take on this project. And for my fellow Daddy Corps authors, who helped make this experience so much fun.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alabama native Paula Graves wrote her first book, a mystery starring herself and her neighborhood friends, at the age of six. A voracious reader, Paula loves books that pair tantalizing mystery with compelling romance. When she’s not reading or writing, she works as a creative director for a Birmingham advertising agency and spends time with her family and friends. She is a member of Southern Magic Romance Writers, Heart of Dixie Romance Writers and Romance Writers of America.

Paula invites readers to visit her website, www.paulagraves.com.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Stacy Giordano —A single mom to a child with Asperger’s syndrome as well as the Texas governor’s aide-de-camp, the last thing Stacy needs to deal with is another threat to the governor’s life—especially when it puts her and her young son in the line of fire.

Harlan McClain —The governor taps the Corps Security and Investigations agent to head security for an upcoming fundraiser—and work side by side with Stacy. Can he keep the governor and her pretty aide safe from a ruthless assassin?

Zachary Giordano —Stacy’s young son is struggling to fit into a world that makes no sense to him. But does he have a vital clue to the mystery of who’s stalking his mother locked in his mind?

Lila Lockhart —The Texas governor’s announced intention to run for president was greeted by a deadly bomb blast. Is she crazy to hold another fundraiser within a couple of weeks of the assassination attempt?

Bart Bellows —Lila’s dear friend owns Corps Security and Investigations. Did he make a mistake assigning Harlan McClain to the governor’s security staff?

Greg Merritt —Governor Lockhart’s new campaign manager is a political shark. Can Stacy trust him to have the governor’s best interests at heart?

Trevor Lewis —The young stable groom has taken a liking to Stacy and her young son, Zachary. But what are his true motives for befriending them?

Jeff Appleton —The Freedom, Texas, deputy is leading the investigation into some very personal threats against Stacy. But is he looking in the wrong direction?

Planet Justice —The anarchistic antiglobalization group is determined to hold a peaceful protest outside the governor’s fundraiser. But are there elements within the group whose intentions are anything but peaceful?

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Epilogue

Chapter One

The bomb went off, and for a minute, Harlan McClain was back on a dusty road in Iraq, his ears ringing. Everything around him moved in slow motion—debris flying, people falling.

There were screams. Always screams. The training never prevented the screaming.

You’re not in Iraq. You’re in Austin, Texas, and a bomb just went off. Get your backside in gear.

Over a decade of Marine Corps training taking over as chaos unfolded around him, he scanned the area for a quick damage assessment. Car bomb. Not a huge one—the blast radius wasn’t anywhere near the size of something like Oklahoma City—but the dais where Governor Lila Lockhart had stood moments earlier was a ruin, reduced to jagged metal and splintered wood.

Was the governor buried somewhere under the debris?

The crowd surrounding the platform had already begun to disperse in panic, leaving behind some of the fallen. Many were still moving, trying to drag themselves to safety. Others lay motionless in the grass in front of the dais.

Triage, he thought, pulling out his cell phone to call 911. His call was one of many, he discovered. To his relief, the dispatcher told him units were already responding. But he couldn’t sit tight waiting for the cavalry to arrive—some of these people might not survive the wait.

As he hurried toward the first fallen victim, a slim, dark-haired woman raced across his path, heading toward the collapsed platform. Blood stained the side of her face without obscuring her delicate profile. Pretty, he thought. Scared as hell. She looked familiar.

“Governor!” she cried, trying to pull away a piece of metal from the pile.

Harlan raced forward to stop her. The wrong move could bring the rest of the debris falling down on top of anyone buried underneath. And the last time he’d seen his boss, Bart Bellows had been only a few feet from Lila Lockhart.

“Don’t try to move anything,” he barked, his voice coming out more gruff than he’d intended.

She turned a fierce glare his way. “The governor is under there.”

“And if you do the wrong thing, you could bring the rest of this mess crashing in on her.”

Her nostrils flared. “You were with Bart.”

“Harlan McClain.” He nodded, remembering where he’d seen her before. “You’re the governor’s aide, right?”

“Stacy Giordano.” She pressed her fingertips to the side of her head. When she drew them away, they were bloody. Her face went even paler. “What happened? Was it a bomb?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

She shook her head, looking stunned and scared. “But Frank Dorian is in jail.”

He’d had the same thought. Even Bart, who was a suspicious old cuss, had thought that stopping Frank Dorian solved Governor Lockhart’s problem. Dorian had come damned close to killing the governor before Wade Coltrane had stopped him, but once he was in custody, everyone at Corps Security Investigations had thought the trouble was over.

Harlan should have known better. Trouble never went away for long.

“We need to help the injured.” He caught her arm, making her gasp. He loosened his grip, tried to soften his voice. She looked shell-shocked and he didn’t need to spook her any further. “Go find as many able-bodied people as you can. We need to start some sort of triage—”

She straightened, as if she’d found her core of steel. “Okay.” Her chin lifted and her eyes flashed with determination as she headed out in search of help.

He wasn’t surprised when she returned a few minutes later with several people in tow. Most had clearly survived the blast themselves, their clothing covered with grime and fine debris. Some, like Stacy, had cuts and scrapes, but they all seemed relieved to have a purpose—something to take their minds off witnessing their world upended.

Sometimes, Harlan knew, finding something useful to do was the only thing that kept you sane in a crazy world.

He sent Stacy Giordano and her army in search of people who were moving around, while he checked on the ones who weren’t moving. Unlike his civilian helpers, he had plenty of experience in dealing with mortality. Too much experience.

He found two D.O.A.s and a couple more who might not make it. As he moved to the next body—a man in a state trooper uniform lying near the mangled remains of the dais—he heard sirens approaching at a clip.

“It’s Chip!” Stacy Giordano rushed past him toward the state trooper. “He’s part of the governor’s security detail.”

Harlan raced to catch up, not sure what she’d find when she reached the trooper’s still body.

Stacy crouched next to the man, her fingers on his carotid. “He’s alive,” she said briskly. Her hands moved over his body, searching for injuries. She moved with a sureness that caught Harlan by surprise.

“You a nurse or something?”

She glanced at him. “No. Search and rescue medic training. There’s a lump here at the back of his head. Skull feels intact, but it may be a concussion.” She checked the man’s eyes with a small penlight attached to a keychain. “Pupils reactive. Good sign.”

The man made a low groaning sound.

“EMTs are arriving. We should back off, let them work,” Harlan suggested.

“There aren’t going to be enough for everybody. Not yet—”

He caught her arm and tugged her to a standing position. “We’ll be in the way. And we don’t know that we’ve seen the last of the blasts.”

Her eyes widened. “You think there could be more coming?”

“It’s possible,” he admitted. “Sometimes there’s a secondary device—”

“To hit the first responders.” Stacy’s jaw squared. “Then we’d better find the governor and get her out of here.” She started toward the back of the dais before he could stop her.

He jogged to catch up.

“She was standing back here,” Stacy called over her shoulder, “so if she dropped with the dais—”

Harlan spotted a flash of pale blue under the tangle of metal piping and wooden slats that had once constituted the bunting-draped platform where Lila Lockhart had declared her intention to run for higher office. Lila had been wearing a light blue suit, hadn’t she?

“Lila!” Stacy dashed forward. “Lila, can you hear me?”

“I’m stuck under this damned mess!” Lila called out, her voice surprisingly strong. “I must’ve bumped my head—I was out a few seconds—”

“Hold still—you don’t want to cause yourself more injury,” Harlan warned. “Did you see what happened to Bart?”

“He was right behind me—”

“I’m over here.” A man’s voice, weak and strained, came from somewhere behind Harlan.

Harlan turned to see a large chunk of the dais had broken off and flown backward in the blast, landing sideways in a shallow rill in the capitol grounds. “Bart?”

“Knocked me clean on my backside!” Bart called out, his voice a little stronger. “But I can’t get my chair up.”

“Keep her from moving,” Harlan ordered Stacy before he hurried to the second debris site. To his relief, Bart had been thrown clear of the twisted tangle of wood and metal, but the old man and his wheelchair both lay on their sides in the grass beyond the rill.

“I’m afraid this is probably a goner,” Harlan said as he picked up the wheelchair, pushing it away from Bart’s useless legs to free them. He grimaced as his scarred right hand twinged where he gripped the chair handle.

“Is Lila okay?” Bart asked.

“She’s alive. She’s trapped under the debris, but she sounds good. The paramedics are on the way.”

“Who did this? Frank Dorian’s in jail.”

“I don’t know.” Harlan ran his hands over Bart’s body, looking for injuries. He didn’t feel any obvious broken bones, and the old man seemed bright-eyed and lucid. “Do you have any pain anywhere?”

Bart shook his head. “The explosion flung me like a rag doll, but I reckon I landed that way, too. Probably saved me a broken bone or two.” He clapped his hand on one useless leg. “Not that I’d have noticed.”

Harlan looked again at the wheelchair. The control panel had been damaged by the impact, but the wheels and frame looked surprisingly sturdy. “Let’s get you into the chair and see if we can’t do this the old-fashioned way.”

He picked up Bart and set him in the wheelchair, taking another chance to look him over. Bart’s well-seamed face was scraped and dirty, but he didn’t seem to have any worrisome injuries, to Harlan’s relief.

“Quit lookin’ at me like I’m about to keel over any minute,” Bart groused.

Harlan bit back a grin. “Let’s go check on Lila.”

The wheelchair wasn’t easy to push over the uneven, grassy terrain, especially with Harlan’s hand starting to ache as if he’d taken the shrapnel injury moments earlier rather than months ago. But Harlan was so relieved Bart seemed to be okay that he barely felt the pain.

When they reached the edge of the debris pile, Stacy was crouched outside near the governor, peering through the maze of steel and splintered wood. “It looks as if the main thing trapping her is that crossbeam,” Stacy told Harlan as he hunkered down beside her. She pointed to a large steel support bar that once had been one of the stabilizing structures for the dais. It didn’t look particularly heavy, but the way the bar was wedged between the ground and clumps of the fallen platform, it wouldn’t budge. Lila was effectively pinned in place, unable to move more than a couple of inches in any direction.

“You’re a big, strappin’ fellow. Can’t you move it?” Lila asked.

Harlan smiled. “No, ma’am, I’m afraid it’s probably going to have to be cut apart to get you out.” Especially with his hand being half-useless.

“What about coming at it from the back side?” Stacy asked. “Lila can’t turn around because of the debris blocking her, but if I could crawl in and move some of the looser pieces out of the way—”

“No way I’m letting you go under there,” Harlan said.

“Now you’ve done it,” Lila murmured.

“Letting me?” Stacy stared at him as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “Not your call, Mr. McClain. If there’s even a chance there’s a secondary explosive device—”

“There probably isn’t.”

“But if there is, and someone timed it to go off when it would do the most damage, the governor needs to be out from under there now.” Stacy moved away, peering through the remains of the dais—no doubt in search of the best place to enter the maze of rubble. Harlan didn’t know whether she was as crazy as a loon or incredibly brave.

“If I go in here and crawl through that narrow breach over there, I can reach the debris blocking the governor from behind,” she said, sparing him a quick look.

He bit back his opinion that she was nuts to even try going into that mess, taking a look at what she was proposing instead. She was right about one thing—the path she’d pointed out definitely appeared to be the best angle of attack, and nobody any bigger than Stacy would be able to navigate the tight space.

But the plan was as risky as hell.

“Stacy, you don’t need to take foolish chances here,” Lila called, drawing her aide’s attention back to her. “They’ll get to me sooner or later,” the governor added with a wry smile. “One of the perks of the job, you know.”

Stacy bent down by the opening to make eye contact with the governor. “Waiting could be dangerous, Lila. We need to get you out of there.”

“Think about Zachary, honey.”

For a second, Stacy’s face seemed to melt, her dark eyes liquid and soft, making Harlan wonder who the hell Zachary was. Then her shoulders squared, her chin jutted forward and she met Harlan’s curious gaze.

“I can do this. The structure isn’t going to get any more stable if we wait, and I probably have more close-quarters rescue training than any of these first responders.”

Before Harlan could respond, an emergency medical technician rounded the corner and spotted them. His eyes widened as he caught sight of the governor buried under the debris, and he squatted next to Stacy.

“I’m not badly hurt, I don’t believe,” Lila said in a firm, strong voice that seemed to relieve the EMT. “I’m just stuck.”

“I have a plan to get to her,” Stacy said. She told the EMT what she had in mind.

Harlan hoped the man would tell her she’d lost her mind—maybe she’d listen to him. But the EMT nodded. “That’ll probably work, as long as you don’t dislodge anything supporting the pile. I can get you a hard hat and some protective gear—”

“I’ll take the hat, but the gear will be too bulky to let me get through there.”

“Be right back.” The EMT hurried away.

“I thought he was going to tell you to stay out of his way and let him do his job,” Harlan murmured.

“He knows me. I gave a cave extraction seminar for the Austin Fire Department a couple of months ago.”

Harlan shook his head. “Who are you?”

Stacy shot him a faint smile. “I’m the daughter of an Ozark Mountain search and rescue coordinator. I was helping pull people out of caves before I started high school.”

“You’re sure you want to do this?” Harlan asked.

“Yes.” Stacy looked scared but determined. “And we’d better get to it, fast,” she added, her gaze sliding past him.

Harlan turned, following her gaze to find a convoy of news vehicles approaching the capitol grounds.

“Get your game face on,” Stacy muttered. “We’re about to be TV stars.” She spotted the EMT returning with a hard hat and hurried to meet him, clearly eager to get to work.

Harlan dragged his attention away from her to watch the approach of the news crews. This whole mess was about to get a thousand times messier.

Right now, he thought, I’d rather be in Iraq.

You can do this, Stacy. It’s just like a cave.

If a cave were made of twisted steel poles and splintered slabs of wood, that was. And if she were really executing a cave rescue, the hard hat on her head would have a carbide lamp attached, enabling her to see more than three or four feet ahead of her. Instead, it just pinched the scrape on her temple that the EMT had patched up for her before she entered the remains of the dais.

“You okay in there?” Harlan McClain’s gravelly drawl sounded as if he were standing a quarter mile away, even though she’d crawled no more than a few yards into the debris field.

“So far,” she called back, wincing as her palm pressed down onto something sharp—a piece of metal, she saw, bent out of shape and unrecognizable.

Of course, those adjectives could describe almost everything that lay in crumpled heaps around her. If she hadn’t seen the dais in all its bunting-draped glory beforehand, she’d never have recognized what it was in the aftermath of the bomb.

Carefully moving aside several twisted pieces of metal frame blocking her path forward, she called out to Lila. “Still hanging in there with me, Governor?”

“You bet, sugar!”

Stacy smiled. “I’m about ten yards from your position, Governor. You just get ready for your close-up.”

“Damn, I left my lipstick in my other purse.”

Atta girl, Stacy thought. That’s the woman who’s going to be the next President of the United States.

Carefully, she carved a twisting path for herself through the debris, keeping a mental map in her head. Forward about four yards, then left another three. That should put her in reach of the large chunk of tangled metal pinning Lila in position. If she could clear enough of that mess to free the governor to move around, she could get her out to safety.

“I need a little more line,” she called to the EMT holding the safety rope biting into her waist. The line slackened and she moved gingerly forward. Finally, she spotted the governor’s wavy blond hair, now ashy from the dust and debris caused by the bomb’s destruction.

“I see you, Governor.”

“I’m a mess, aren’t I?”

Stacy chuckled. “Never.” She edged around a pole that leaned at a precarious angle, barely holding up a large piece of the stage that could crash down on top of them at any moment. She cleared the hazard and took a sharp left as planned.

Then she froze.

Strapped to the large chunk of steel that formed the obstacle between her and the governor, an electronic device blinked ominously, its smooth facade attached by colorful wires to what looked like pumpkin-colored bricks.

“Governor, don’t move. Not one inch.”

“What is it?” Lila asked.

Stacy spotted movement outside the fallen dais, jeans-clad legs moving toward the governor’s position. Harlan McClain’s rugged face came into view as he hunkered down to get a better look at what was happening. His dark eyes met hers. “Is something wrong?”

Stacy licked her lips. By now, she knew, there must be scores of reporters outside. Whatever she said next could create chaos if she let her rising panic show.

Lowering her voice, keeping the tone as calm as possible, she said, “I think there’s a second explosive device. And it looks big. You need to start clearing the area. Now. But try not to start a panic.”

Harlan moved quickly, disappearing from her sight. A few seconds later, she saw a rush of movement outside the steel-and-lumber cocoon as the EMTs and bystanders responded to whatever Harlan had told them.

“You need to get out of here,” Lila urged, her voice low and serious. “Zachary needs you a hell of a lot more than I do.”

“I can’t go, Governor,” Stacy answered, wishing it weren’t true. Lila was right. Zachary needed her, even more than most kids his age. She was his biggest advocate and his most devoted fan. But what she wanted didn’t change the facts on the ground. “The bomb squad is going to need me.”

“Now you’re an explosives expert?” Lila retorted tartly. “Any other hidden talents I should know about?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Stacy answered bleakly. “There’s a support beam between here and there that’s about thirty degrees shy of falling over and bringing this whole pile of junk raining down on us. I was barely able to get around it without jarring it out of place.”

“What are you saying?” It was Harlan McClain’s voice, not Lila’s, that answered her. Stacy looked up and found him staring at her with wide, worried eyes.

“I’m saying that maybe the governor and I are small enough to crawl out of here without bringing this pile of junk down, but I don’t think a man could make it through safely—certainly not wearing a bomb-resistant suit.” She tamped down the panic rising in her throat. “I don’t think there’s going to be any way to disarm this bomb without me.”

Chapter Two

Stacy Giordano was right about one thing, Harlan decided, peering up at the slab of wood and steel propped up precariously by the tilting support beam Stacy had described. There was no way anyone bigger than a medium-size woman would ever get through the narrow gap between the beam and another pile of teetering debris without bringing everything crashing down on top of the whole pile.

She appeared in the space ahead of him, considerably grimier than she’d looked when she entered. As she reached him, she held out her cell phone. There was a photo called up on the phone’s small display window. “This is the device.”

He took care not to touch the teetering support pole as he took the phone from her and looked at the image on the display window. He tried not to react as he saw the orange bricklike cakes of material attached to the bomb. “Semtex,” he said aloud. “Industrial grade—not that it makes much difference.”

“That’s bad, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Bomb squad’s on the way. They’ll have some ideas about what to do.”

Her dark eyes met his. “Get out of here, Mr. McClain. The last thing the rescue team needs is one more person to have to dig out of here.”

“You need to get out of there, too.”

She shook her head. “If there’s any way to defuse the bomb, they’ll need me to do it. And the more we move around in here, the more likely we are to dislodge something that’ll bring everything crashing down around us. Just go back outside and make sure Mr. Bellows is okay.”

“Bart’s fine. One of our guys is here—Parker Mc Kenna—you know him?”

She nodded. “He and Bailey just got engaged.”

Poor fool, Harlan added silently. Marriage was a sucker’s game. “He got Bart and Bailey out of here.” Bailey Lockhart hadn’t wanted to leave her mother, but Parker had convinced her that the governor would be a lot less stressed out if she knew her daughter was safe.

“Good. Now you get out of here, too,” Stacy said.

“Mister, you need to clear out of here and let us do what needs doing,” a man barked from somewhere behind Harlan. He turned and saw a uniformed police officer peering through the maze stretching out a few yards behind him.

“You can’t go past this spot,” Harlan called back to the officer, tersely explaining the problem. “I think anything you try to do to shore it up will just bring it down.”

“Who are you?” the officer asked.

“Harlan McClain. I’m with the governor’s party.” It was close enough to the truth; he was with Bart, who was part of the governor’s entourage. “I work with a company who provides the governor with security,” he added, figuring a little more embellishment couldn’t hurt. For reasons he couldn’t quite define, he was reluctant to leave Stacy on her own in this hazardous maze.

He turned around to look at her, but she was already crawling back toward the governor’s position. He sighed, frustrated and worried.

“I’m still going to need to get in there, even if I can’t move past that support beam,” the officer behind him called out in a reasonable tone. “I need to get closer to the bomb if I’m going to help your friend disarm it.”

He was right. Harlan was just in the way at this point. He started crawling back out of the hole, emerging on the outside a few seconds later to find himself surrounded by bomb squad members. They were already assessing the debris pile to see if there was a better way to the bomb site.

“There’s a whole lot of junk in there ready to fall down on top of you,” Harlan warned the one who seemed to be in charge. He showed the man the cell phone photo from Stacy. “Here’s a picture of the bomb.”

The bomb tech frowned. “Semtex. Radio controlled, if I had to guess.”

“Which may mean he’s around here somewhere, waiting to send a signal,” Harlan said. At the bomb tech’s odd look, he added, “Three stints in Iraq.”

“Ah.” The bomb tech nodded. “It’s probably not going to blow if someone touches it—there don’t appear to be any trip wires. I think what we have to do is send in a blast blanket to the aide—”

“Stacy Giordano,” Harlan supplied.

“Ms. Giordano can detach the bomb—looks like it’s just taped to the post—and cover it with the blast blanket. We’ve got one that has a radio frequency jammer built in. It ought to block any remote signal he tries to send.”

“If he’s watching, he might send the signal as soon as he spots the blanket.”

“We can hide the blanket in something else so he doesn’t know we’re taking it in,” the bomb tech suggested. “We could send in a protective suit and shield the blanket with that.”

“I’ll take it in,” Harlan suggested. “Whoever’s watching will be less suspicious of me than of you guys. Plus, I know how the blast blanket works, so I can talk her through it.”

The bomb tech frowned, as if he were considering arguing. But finally he nodded. “Just tell her to make sure the yellow side is down.”

Harlan nodded.

The minute and a half it took for the bomb squad technicians to surreptitiously hide the blast blanket bag between the folds of the bomb suit seemed to drag on forever. Harlan found himself scanning the area the whole time, wondering if the bomber was watching him at that very moment.

Large numbers of police had finally arrived, keeping the curious onlookers away from the blast area, but a radio signal wouldn’t have to come from nearby to do the job. The bomb squad couldn’t run full force radio jammers now because it would interfere with the communications between the first responders, a potentially disastrous scenario.

So until Stacy could get that blanket wrapped around the bomb, the bomber had all the time in the world to make his move.

What was the bomber waiting for, anyway? The governor was a sitting duck. He could have already set off the second blast, the second it was clear that she was still alive.

Why hadn’t the bomber made his move?

“All set.” The bomb tech interrupted Harlan’s musings, handing him the bomb suit. He made sure Harlan had a tight grip on the handle of the blast blanket bag peeking out through a space in the suit and nodded for him to go back into the maze. “I’ll go around and tell Ms. Giordano what we’re doing.”

As soon as Harlan was pretty sure he was no longer visible to anyone other than people standing right outside the debris pile, he dropped the suit and pulled out the blast blanket contained in a nylon bag about the size of an artist’s portfolio. He hurried as quickly as he dared to the teetering support pole and found Stacy already waiting for him, the bomb lying next to her on the grass.

Somehow, he hadn’t expected her to bring the bomb with her. But it was probably smart—the area where she now crouched was about as wide a space as she’d find under the fallen platform.

“Here, let me help you get the blanket through,” she said, her dark eyes wide with terror but her chin squared with determination. Once again, Harlan had to give her extra points for sheer guts.

He helped her slide the bag through the narrow space between the sagging pole and the debris field blocking wider access, taking care not to let anything touch the pole.

Once Stacy had the bag clear of the pole, she looked back at Harlan. “What do I do?”

“Inside is a blanket and a smaller collar.” He watched as she unzipped the bag and pulled out the contents. “Wrap that collar around the bomb without letting it touch it. Use the Velcro fasteners to close it.”

As he took her through the steps of shielding the bomb with the blanket, he was struck by how calmly she was following his orders. Her hands shook a little, but she managed to do everything right the first time. Within a few minutes, the bomb was covered by the blast blanket and the low-frequency radio jammer was working.

Harlan released a sigh of relief. “Go see if you can get the governor out. I’ll wait here.”

He found himself staring at the dark blue blanket lying on the ground on the other side of the narrow gap, sweat dripping down his forehead. He’d seen an earlier version of the blanket used in Iraq, one with passive rather than active radio jamming capabilities. Most of the time, it had worked.

Once, it hadn’t, and he had the shrapnel scars on his trigger hand to show for it. That and an honorable discharge from the Marine Corps that amounted to “Thanks for your service—now get lost.”

He heard the sound of movement from the direction in which Stacy had disappeared. A few seconds later, the governor’s pale, perspiring face appeared in the gloom. She managed a quick smile as she caught sight of Harlan watching her through the narrow gap.

“You’re a hell of a lot more handsome than I remembered,” she said with a weak chuckle.

“Clearly you need immediate medical attention,” Harlan responded in a teasing tone, relieved to see the governor was able to move around under her own steam.

Bringing up the rear, Stacy Giordano looked wiped out, as if only her determination to help the governor escape had been holding her together over the past hour.

Gingerly, the governor slipped through the narrow gap, careful to avoid the precarious support beam. Harlan didn’t even have to call for help—one of the EMTs hurried inside and took charge of the governor, helping her out of the ruins.

Harlan turned to look after Stacy Giordano, catching her as she tripped and swayed precariously close to the slanting pole. Her fingers tangled in the fabric of his shirt, and her dark eyes flickered up to meet his.

The air between them heated, so volatile that Harlan wondered, for a crazy second, if it was enough to set off the bomb they’d so carefully neutralized.

Then Stacy found her balance and let go of his shirt. The tension eased, though it didn’t dissipate completely. She thanked him politely in a low, raspy voice and headed for the opening, leaving him to follow behind her.

Outside, the police took over, whisking them out of the blast area and into a squad car parked a safe distance away. Stacy closed her hand around Harlan’s arm, reigniting the spark between them for a moment. “I should be with the governor.”

He looked down at her hand. Her fingers were slim and small, neatly manicured, though several nails were now broken and ragged from the ordeal. He remembered his first sight of her earlier that day as she was helping the governor prepare for her announcement. The pale gray blouse that was now streaked with blood and grime had been spotless and crisp, businesslike yet still fiercely feminine.

Her dark hair had been up, also, he realized. Coiled at the base of her neck, not loose and tangled as it was now. And she’d had a dark gray jacket to go with her matching trousers, buttoned up and looking every bit the poised, perfect government aide—nothing like the lioness who’d just saved at least a dozen lives with her show of bravery.

“They won’t let you see her until they check her out,” he responded. “You know the governor’s going to get the full package of tests. Better for us to get our statements to the police over with, don’t you think? We’ll probably get back to the hospital before she’s even done.”

He turned out to be right. It didn’t take long for the police to realize Harlan and Stacy didn’t have much to add to what Parker McKenna and Bart Bellows had already told the police about what happened that day. Harlan found he had several of the same questions the police did about the bombing. For starters, why had the first bomb been so low-impact? It had been large enough to take down the dais and blast deadly shrapnel through the surrounding crowd, but there had been minimal impact to the area beyond the platform where the governor had given her speech.

“If the first bomb was so small, why was the second one so much bigger?” Stacy asked another of his questions aloud later as they were on the way to the hospital in the back of a detective’s sedan.

Damned good question, Harlan thought. “Maybe they were supposed to go off at the same time and something blocked the signal to the second device. Bomb squad will tell us more.”

“Maybe.” Stacy didn’t sound as if the explanation appeased her curiosity. “Have you heard any news from the hospital?”

“Not a word.”

“I hope they’re still doing well,” she murmured, gazing out the window at the sprawling campus of the University of Texas. Her profile looked pale and fragile, though Harlan knew now that she was a lot tougher than she looked.

“Did you get to call Zachary?” he asked aloud, wondering if she’d spill the beans about who the mysterious Zachary was to her.

She slanted a quick look his way. “I did. He hadn’t heard anything about what happened, so he wasn’t worried.”

“Good,” Harlan said, although he wondered how anyone with access to a radio or television could have missed the news about what happened at the capitol.

At the hospital, Parker McKenna was waiting for them in the lobby. “We’re all upstairs waiting for more word,” Parker told Harlan. “They’ve done a few tests, but so far everything’s looking good. They think she has a mild concussion, so they’re going to want to keep her here overnight.”

“What about Bart?”

“Him, too. He doesn’t seem to have sustained any real injuries—pretty miraculous if you ask me.” Parker pushed the button for the fourth floor. “They’re going to move Lila into her own room on the fourth floor as soon as they finish the last tests, so we’re all gathering in the fourth floor waiting area until they’ve brought her up.”

In the waiting room, Bailey and her sister Chloe sat talking to each other. They both looked up as Harlan, Parker and Stacy entered. Bailey’s eyes went soft at the sight of her fiancé, while Chloe Lockhart’s baby blues hardened at the sight of Harlan. She wasn’t exactly his biggest fan after his stint as her bodyguard a few months back.

“Oh, look. It’s Dirty Harry.” She greeted him with a roll of her eyes.

“Nice seeing you again, Chloe. Like the hair.”

Chloe’s right hand went defensively to her spiky pink-streaked hair. “I needed a change.”

Bailey pulled away from Parker’s hug and reached out to touch Stacy’s arm. “Mom told us everything you did for her back there. I don’t even know how to start thanking you.”

“Thank the Austin bomb squad,” Stacy said, looking uncomfortable at the praise.

“I will, but I’m not through thanking you,” Bailey said with a smile. “Listen, is there anything I can do for you?”

“I should get busy booking rooms for everyone who’s staying overnight,” Stacy murmured, looking as if the last thing she was capable of doing was playing social secretary for the governor’s entourage. But Harlan supposed that was her job, and the explosion had certainly put a kink in the plans for everyone to hop aboard the governor’s private jet and fly back to her home base of Freedom, Texas.

“Why don’t you let me do that for you?” Chloe Lockhart suggested in a gentle tone that caught Harlan by surprise. He was used to sarcasm and petulance from the governor’s rebellious youngest child.

“No,” Stacy snapped, making Chloe flinch. Looking horrified by her own rudeness, Stacy immediately added, “I’m so sorry. I guess I’m still a little stressed.”

“Understandable,” Chloe answered, her voice sympathetic.

“I just have everything I’d need to get this done on my phone,” Stacy added. “Plus, I could really use the distraction.” She flashed Bailey and Chloe a faint smile and headed out the door to the courtyard outside the waiting room. Once the door closed behind her, she pulled out her phone and seemed to get right to work.

Harlan watched her, a little worried by the pallor of her face and the way her back bowed with sheer exhaustion.

What if she’d sustained an injury worse than just the scrape to her head? She could be bleeding internally, for all they knew. The EMTs had barely spared a minute to slap a bandage on her head.

“Did the police tell you anything new?” Parker McKenna’s question forced Harlan’s attention away from Stacy.

With an apologetic look at Bailey, Harlan drew Parker off to the side.

“I’ll tell her what we’re talking about later, you know,” Parker murmured.

Harlan barely kept himself from rolling his eyes. Half the guys at Corps Security and Investigation were sappy in love these days. It was becoming an epidemic—one Harlan had no intention of getting sucked into. His ex-wife had done an excellent job of immunizing him against the love bug. He might thank her one of these days, if he ever decided to speak to her again.

“Regardless, the governor’s daughters don’t need to hear us analyzing who might want to blow up their mother and why,” he said aloud to Parker. “The situation’s scary enough.”

“Tell me about it,” Parker growled. “I thought when we caught Frank Dorian, this kind of thing was over.”

“What’s the chance that Dorian had an accomplice we don’t know about?”

“Believe me, I’ve been thinking about that myself,” Parker admitted. “But it just doesn’t make sense. Dorian’s motive was so personal. It’s not like he’s going to pass on his obsession to some random bomber he found in the phone book.”

Harlan knew Parker was right. Frank Dorian had blamed Lila Lockhart for her decision not to pardon his brother, who’d been on Texas’s death row. His brother’s execution had been too much for Dorian’s brokenhearted mother, and Dorian blamed Lila for her death, as well. His decision to go after the governor had been deeply personal rather than political, and his arrest had put an end to the threats against the governor and her family.

But at least it would have been a place to start looking.

Instead, they didn’t have a clue who’d planted the two bombs at the capitol today. People had been killed. Even more had been injured, some critically.

And for what? Just because Lila Lockhart had decided she wasn’t through serving her country?

The world was a crazy, crazy place.

Harlan’s gaze drifted toward the large plate glass window looking out on the concrete courtyard, where he’d last seen Stacy Giordano. She was no longer talking on the phone, nor had she reentered the hospital waiting room. Instead, she sat on one of the three concrete benches loosely circling a large potted evergreen tree, her back to the window. Her hunched shoulders and lowered head made her look small and fragile.

Harlan’s gut tightened with concern.

“Is she okay?” Parker’s gaze had followed Harlan’s, settling on Stacy’s slender form.

“She had a scrape on her head, but the EMT didn’t seem to think it amounted to much.” Of course, in the middle of all the chaos, the paramedic hadn’t exactly spent much time checking her out. “I’ll go check on her.”

As he stepped out onto the narrow fourth floor terrace, Stacy turned to see who had disturbed her solitude. In her pale face, her eyes looked big and haunted. “Has something happened?” she asked, her voice tinged with alarm.

“No. I just wanted to check on you.” He sat on one of the adjacent benches, squelching the urge to reach out and touch her folded hands. “You look tired.”

“Long day,” she murmured with a hint of wry humor.

“Hellish day,” he agreed. “Did you manage to get all your calls made?”

“I think so.” The humor in her eyes faded. “I just wish I were home.”

“I bet your husband does, too.” Even as the words escaped his lips, Harlan knew he was fishing for information about her marital status. He gave himself a mental kick.

She grimaced. “No. No husband.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Um, sorry?”

She flashed a quick, humorless grin. “No, not sorry.”

So, another wounded warrior back from the marital battlefield? That was even more dangerous.

Her smile faded as quickly as it had risen. “Do we have a death tally from the blast yet?”

He shook his head. “I found two D.O.A. at the scene. At least two more who were in really bad shape.”

Her chin trembled and a sheen of moisture filled her dark eyes. “Damn it.”

The urge to pull her into a hug caught him off guard. He wasn’t a demonstrative guy. He didn’t do tea and sympathy. But something about Stacy Giordano’s vulnerability punched him right in the gut. He wanted to make things better for her.

And that scared the hell out of him.

“I’d better go see if Lila’s been asking for me.” Stacy pushed herself off the bench, wincing a little as if the movement caused her pain.

Harlan couldn’t stop himself from reaching out to steady her, his fingers closing around her upper arm. Her gaze shot up, a quizzical look in her eyes, and for a second, he felt as if his whole body had turned to liquid.

Heat quickly eclipsed that melting sensation. He pulled his hand back, disturbed by his reaction to her.

The door from the waiting room opened, and Parker stood in the doorway, his expression grim. “I just got a call from Wade,” he said. “Frank Dorian’s dead.”

Chapter Three

The governor stayed on the phone for most of the very early flight home from Austin the next morning, giving Stacy time to decompress from the past twenty-four hours. Staying busy arranging for the governor’s entourage to stay in Austin overnight had helped fill her afternoon, and the temporary drama of learning about Frank Dorian’s jailhouse death had occupied most of the early evening, as Bailey Lockhart’s fiancé, Parker McKenna, and his colleague Harlan McClain had stayed in constant touch with their counterparts at the Corps Security and Investigations office in Freedom, relaying information as it trickled in.

All evidence pointed to suicide—Dorian had fashioned a noose from his jail-issued shirt and hung himself from the bars of his cell—but Bart Bellows had selected the men who worked at CSI because they were thorough and resourceful. Stacy had tried not to eavesdrop on their conversations, but she’d gleaned enough to know that one of the CSI agents had a contact at the Freedom Police Department who was keeping them apprised of the department’s investigation. If there was anything strange about Dorian’s death, the agents of CSI were determined to figure out what it was and what, if anything, it had to do with the attack on the governor.

Stacy had found herself growing more and more impressed with the two CSI agents as the evening went on. She knew from Bailey that Corps Security and Investigations was made up of former military men. Parker had been an Army Captain, and it showed. He’d been a huge help in keeping everyone in the governor’s entourage calm and focused.

She wasn’t sure what branch of the military Harlan McClain had been part of. He wore his sandy brown hair short, but so did most of the other former military men she knew. He was hard-muscled, as she’d learned when she’d practically collapsed in his arms after tripping on their way out of the debris field. Clearly he’d kept himself in shape since parting company with whatever military branch he’d served in.

He smelled good, too, she thought, even when sweating out a bomb scare. He didn’t wear cologne like a lot of men, including her ex-husband, did. He smelled of good old soap and water, a light, clean scent that probably wouldn’t have smelled masculine on anyone else.

Harlan McClain was masculine to the core. It had showed in how he’d dealt with the aftermath of the bombing—taking charge, keeping things moving. He’d tended to the dead and wounded, delegated authority to others as needed, and jumped right in to help Stacy when they found the governor buried under the rubble.

Very different from her ex-husband, Anthony, who’d never met a problem he couldn’t analyze to death.

“Looking forward to seeing Zachary?” Lila murmured, drawing Stacy’s attention back to the cabin of the small jet.

“Yes,” she answered, even if there was a small part of her that was dreading seeing her son after the unexpected night away from home. Zachary hated changes to his routine, so he’d probably given poor Charlotte a hard time last night. Stacy almost envied Charlotte—at least a tantrum was a response. When Zachary was immersed in his own little world—a frequent event—he barely acknowledged Stacy’s presence.

They arrived in Freedom a little after 7:00 a.m. Stacy stayed with the governor for a few minutes, going over the changes to Lila’s schedule arranged in response to the events in Austin and planning ahead for a couple of television interviews to let the people of Texas see that the governor was ready to finish out her term with her usual sass and vigor.

Finally, Lila told her to take the rest of the morning off, but to come back to the ranch house for lunch. “I have something else I need to discuss with you.”

With curiosity niggling at the back of her brain, Stacy walked to the ranch guesthouse she shared with her son. She found Charlotte Manning in the middle of helping Zachary find a pair of socks to wear to school.

Charlotte looked surprised to see her. “How’d the governor get the hospital to let her go so early?”

“You know how the governor is. What doctor was going to say no?” Stacy smiled at Zachary, who looked up at her for a second, then looked away, showing no sign of interest.

He went back to his search, sorting through the socks to find the blue pair. Tuesday meant the blue socks. Always.

A cold ache settled in her chest. After a year and a half of trying to come to terms with Zachary’s condition, she now realized she wasn’t ever going to get used to it. She’d spent every available hour researching Asperger’s syndrome, reading books, blogs, dry medical journal articles and heartfelt newspaper stories from parents of aspies, as people with Asperger’s syndrome referred to themselves. She’d come across a blog by a young college student who had Asperger’s and found some comfort in how grounded the young woman seemed to be, despite her different way of experiencing life, but ultimately, she’d had to accept that life with her beautiful son would be a series of never-ending challenges.

He’d have trouble making friends. He might never fall in love and have a life partner. He might find a job he loved but he just as easily might not. She’d fight with everything inside her to help him reach his full potential, but it was impossible to tell what that potential might be right now, when he was barely old enough to tie his shoes on his own.

“The Arabian horse has a concave nose,” Zachary announced, still looking at the sock drawer. He reached in and extracted the blue socks, showing no sense of triumph as he pulled the blue socks onto his small feet. “The Morgan horse is the first American breed of horse to survive to this day.”

“He’s been reading his horse book again?” Stacy asked Charlotte.

Charlotte nodded, her shaggy red hair bouncing with the movement. “He was pretty insistent about reading it to me at bedtime. His reading is getting to be downright amazing.”

“I know he must have been disappointed not to take a riding lesson yesterday.” Stacy had been taking him for lessons every Monday and Thursday for a few weeks now. Lindsay Kemp at the Long K Ranch had started giving riding lessons to disabled children a few years ago. While Zachary’s problems were more developmental than physical, riding at the Long K had turned out to be good therapy for him. He loved horses enough to make the effort to interact with Lindsay in order to learn better how to deal with the horses.

Maybe she could sneak him down to the governor’s stables later this week. One of the groomsmen there, Trevor Lewis, had let Zachary ride one of the governor’s gentler horses a few times before. He seemed to know a little about Asperger’s syndrome—something about a cousin who had it—and he accepted Zachary’s idiosyncrasies without making a big deal about it.

“Charlotte, I’ll finish up getting him ready for school. You go ahead—I know you need to get there earlier than the children do.”

Charlotte taught Zachary and a small number of other students with learning challenges. One of the draws for Stacy when she was considering taking the job with the governor was the Cradle to Crayons day care. The reputation of its special education curriculum was excellent. Everyone Stacy had asked about the school had concurred—Zachary couldn’t ask for a better learning environment.

These days, Zachary was her reason for everything she did.

Charlotte had been a godsend. Once she’d learned about Zachary’s Asperger’s syndrome, she’d gone to work studying up on the condition and how best to work around his lack of social skills to make sure he was prepared for elementary school when the time came.

Stacy wasn’t sure she was ready to think that far ahead.

“He’s had breakfast, but he hasn’t brushed his teeth,” Charlotte warned. “His lunch is packed already—”

Stacy gave her an impulsive hug. “I don’t know how to thank you for this. Just tell me what I owe you.”

“Work in a couple of hours volunteering at the school over the next few weeks and we’ll call it even,” Charlotte said. “It was good for me to do this. It gave me a better understanding of how to deal with Zachary during school hours. It’s like on-the-job training.”

Stacy walked Charlotte to the door. “I’ll work out a volunteer schedule as soon as I get the governor settled back into some sort of routine.”

“I imagine that’ll take some doing,” Charlotte said with a wry grin as she headed out the door.

You have no idea, Stacy thought, closing the door behind Charlotte.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Harlan leaned over Vince Russo’s shoulder, growing impatient with his fellow agent’s continuing silence. Vince was Corps Security and Investigation’s go-to guy when it came to explosives. If anyone could tell them anything interesting about the undetonated bomb Stacy had found in the debris, it was Vince.

“It’s basically an Iraqi-style IED,” Vince answered flatly.

Harlan released a long, slow breath. He’d thought so as well, at first glance, though his experience with explosives hadn’t been as hands-on as Vince’s had been. A former navy SEAL, Vince had set—and defused—his share of explosive devices during his time in Iraq.

“Can you tell anything else about it?”

“It’s a common make of phone—something you could find in just about any store in America. The cops will be able to see if the phone can be traced to anyone.” Vince looked up at Harlan. “It’s not likely. The device is fairly cobbled together, but whoever made it knew what he was doing. It’s a miracle he didn’t set it off before the bomb squad got there to disarm it.”

“I was wondering about that myself—” The door to the agents’ bull pen opened and Parker McKenna wheeled Bart Bellows through the door in a manual wheelchair.

Vince and Harlan both rose to greet their boss, hurrying to shake his hand.

“Aren’t you still supposed to be in the hospital?” Harlan asked, worried about how pale the older man looked.

“Hell, if Lila can talk her way out of a hospital bed, I’ll be damned if I’m going to laze about in Austin all day.” Bart directed his sharp blue-eyed gaze at Harlan, nodding his head toward the corner. “Let’s talk, McClain.”

Harlan wheeled Bart with him to the corner, away from the other agents. “What’s up?”

“The governor asked me to get you to her ranch for lunch.”

“Why?”

“I reckon she might want to thank you again in person.”

Harlan shook his head. “I didn’t do much of anything. She should thank her aide. She’s the one who crawled into that maze and got things done.”

He’d found it hard to get Stacy Giordano off his mind over the past few hours. Her gritty courage had impressed the hell out of him, but it was the pale, troubled expression on her face when he’d left her there at the hospital to start the long drive home to Freedom that had stuck with him through the intervening hours. He knew next to nothing about her, really, but he had a gut-level sense that she was a woman under an enormous amount of pressure beyond her demanding job.

Stop it. She’s not your problem. You have all the problems you need.

“Well, be that as it may, she asked for you to be there, and you’re going. Because that woman may well be the next president of the United States, and you don’t say no to someone who might wield that sort of power someday.”

“Fine. I’m up for a free lunch.” It would be a real pleasure to eat something that didn’t come straight out of a can or a microwave plate.

Bart gave a satisfied nod and started wheeling himself back to where the other men had gathered around Vince’s computer, looking at the bomb.

Harlan joined them, catching the tail end of what Vince was telling Parker. “The setup is pretty typical of what the al Antqam were using a few years back.”

“Al Antqam?” Bart asked.

“Loosely translated, it means Sons of Vengeance,” Harlan answered, not looking away from the computer screen. “They were a particularly vicious sect working out of the Anbar Province. Gave us a whole lot of trouble for a while.”

“I know that.” Bart’s voice sounded hoarse.

Harlan looked up and saw that the old man had gone as pale as milk. “Bart, are you okay?”

Bart’s eyes darted up to meet Harlan’s. “I’m fine.” He wheeled his chair toward the door. “I’ll be here around eleven-thirty to drive you to the governor’s ranch,” he called over his shoulder to Harlan. Parker hurried to open the door for him and went with him to the elevator.

“What was that about?” Vince asked Harlan.

Harlan shook his head. “No idea.” He didn’t know much about Bart beyond the basics—he was a Vietnam vet who’d later joined the CIA and eventually became a defense contractor before he sold out for billions. But that was the sort of stuff he could have found out by going on the internet.

Parker returned a few minutes later, looking troubled. “I’m not sure Bart should have left the hospital. His hands were shaking like crazy.”

“What do you know about Bart’s history?” Harlan asked.

Parker shrugged. “Just what he told me when he hired me. Which wasn’t much.”

“Same here,” Vince agreed.

“I don’t think he’s sick,” Harlan said. “I think what we were talking about disturbed him.”

“What were we talking about—the bomb?” Vince asked.

“We were talking about al Antqam,” Harlan said, remembering the tone of Bart’s voice when he’d echoed Harlan’s words. Before he’d looked up to see Bart’s ashen face, he’d thought Bart had simply been asking a question.

Now he wondered if it was more than that.

“Well, you’re about to rub elbows with the old man during lunch,” Vince said with a shrug. “Why don’t you ask him?”

Harlan planned to do just that. But when Bart’s long black Cadillac arrived in front of the CSI headquarters shortly after eleven, the old man wasn’t inside.

“Where’s Bart?” Harlan asked the driver as he slid into the front passenger seat.

“He went on ahead earlier to talk to the governor.” The driver, a grizzled old former cowboy named Dalton Hicks, waited for Harlan to buckle his seat belt before he entered the light traffic. “Said he’d see you there.”

Harlan knew from listening to Bailey Lockhart talk that Twin Harts Ranch was still a working cattle ranch, but he had to admit, if he hadn’t known that already, he’d never have guessed it by looking at the imposing two-story white villa that served as the governor’s home. Sugar-white columns flanked the portico, and a long outside corridor, shaded by another portico with columns, extended nearly the length of the house.

“Nice, huh?” Hicks drawled as he pulled up in front of the entrance. “Wait till you see the inside.”

Harlan unfolded himself from the Cadillac and walked to the door. Beneath his feet, the narrow walkway was polished marble, making him wish he could take off his dusty boots to keep from marring the shiny surface.

He didn’t see a doorbell, so he rapped the heavy brass knocker against the white door. A pair of glass insets reflected his own face back to him, preventing him from seeing inside. But he heard movement, the flurry of footsteps, and the door swung open wide.

It was the governor herself who answered the door, to his surprise. “Welcome, Mr. McClain. So nice to see you again.”

“Should you be answering the door yourself?” he couldn’t help asking as he followed her through a large, ornate foyer into a hallway that was only slightly narrower. “Someone just tried to kill you.”

She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I saw who was there. And the glass in the door is bullet-resistant.” Her lips curved. “Besides, the Texas State Troopers in my security detail have been tracking your arrival since you drove onto Twin Harts land ten minutes ago.”

He should have known. He supposed a woman of Lila Lockhart’s power and controversial outspokenness couldn’t thrive this long in a volatile political climate without knowing how to take a few precautions to protect herself.

The governor led him into a cozy sitting room filled with large, dark-wood furniture and colorful woven rugs. Paneling darkened the walls and gave the place a rustic feeling at odds with the European refinement of the ranch house’s exterior.

A woman of many contradictions, Harlan thought as the occupants of the study turned to look at the newcomers.

Bart Bellows was there, his chair parked in front of the large river stone hearth, where golden flames licked lazily at a slab of hickory firewood. He grinned at Harlan as if he were keeping a juicy secret. Next to Bart, a sandy-haired man wearing a neat business suit watched Harlan’s approach with an oddly speculative gleam in his blue eyes.

And in an armchair adjacent to the stranger, Stacy Giordano sat quietly, her gaze watchful and wary.

“Stacy, I’m sure you remember Mr. McClain,” the governor said, waving for Harlan to sit on the small sofa across from Stacy. Stacy flashed him a quick smile as he sat, briefly transforming her features as if a beam of sunlight had fallen across her face. The smile faded quickly, her gaze returning to Lila’s face as the governor sat beside Harlan on the sofa.

“And this is Greg Merritt,” the governor added, waving toward the stranger. “He’s going to be my campaign manager. Greg, this is the man I was telling you about, Harlan McClain.”

Merritt rose and extended his hand to Harlan. He spoke with a mild Texas twang. “Happy to meet you, Mr. McClain. The governor tells me you were instrumental in saving her life yesterday. We’re all very grateful.”

“Just call me Harlan,” he said, uncomfortable with the praise considering how little he’d done compared to Stacy. But before he could protest, the governor cut in.

“I am deeply grateful to you, Mr.— Harlan.” The governor smiled, then turned to look at Stacy. Her smile grew warmer. “And to you, darlin’. I won’t forget what you did for me. But that’s not really why I asked the two of you here for lunch.” She took a deep breath, as if bracing for what she would say next.

Stacy’s gaze briefly connected with Harlan’s. He saw a hint of surprise and, unexpectedly, a flicker of dread.

“In two weeks, I intend to hold my first official fundraiser for my presidential campaign. Right here at Twin Harts. I’m going to ask that lovely girl Carrie Rivers to entertain us again.” The governor smiled brightly. “It’s going to be a party just about as big as Texas. Of course, Stacy will be in charge of bringing the party together. Nobody can get things done for me better than she can.”

The dread in Stacy’s eyes turned into full-blown panic.

“And you, Harlan, will be in charge of security.”

Harlan glanced at Stacy again. Babysitting the governor and her entourage of fans and followers wouldn’t normally be at the top of his list of desirable assignments, though he had to admit the recent attempt on Lila Lockhart’s life added a little zing of excitement to the prospect.

But working day in and day out with the governor’s enigmatic—and intriguing—aide?

Now, that might turn out to be a real challenge.

Chapter Four

“I want to go riding, Mommy.”

Setting aside her pile of notes, Stacy turned to look into her son’s bright blue eyes. He wore an expression she was coming to know well, the “come hell or high water” look he gave her when he was determined to get his way.

“Zachary, I told you I have to work this afternoon.” She knew she was fortunate to be able to work from home when necessary. She and Zachary lived in the guesthouse at Twin Harts, so she was only a short walk from the governor’s own office at the ranch house.

“I was supposed to go riding Monday, but you changed the plans.” He sounded quite put out about it, too.

“Yes, I changed the plans. I told you why I changed them, didn’t I? Miss Lila had to visit the capitol, and I had to go with her. Remember?”

And then things blew up, literally, and now I have to work with a big, hard-muscled ex-military man with sexy brown eyes whom I can’t stop thinking about no matter how I try.

“You changed the plans, and I didn’t get to ride.”

“I’m taking you to see Miss Lindsay tomorrow, remember? It’s your regular riding lesson.”

Zachary’s round little face darkened. “You have to take me twice a week. I have to get a riding lesson in before tomorrow. I have to.”

Even though his vocal inflections and pronunciation were still those of a child of five, the words he chose and the sentence structure he used were far beyond his years. It was one of a wide range of possible indicators of Asperger’s syndrome. So was his dogged obsession with horses.

Some aspies became obsessed with video games. Some focused on planes or trains or cars. Zachary’s obsession with horses seemed to date back to the age of three, when her ex-husband’s parents had given Zachary a rocking horse for his birthday. That had been shortly after Stacy had started to realize her beautiful, bright son wasn’t the same as other children.

He’d been diagnosed with Asperger’s a few weeks later. For about three months, she and her ex-husband, Anthony, had struggled against the diagnosis, trying to come up with some other rational explanation for Zachary’s developmental difficulties. But all the signs were there, and finally, Stacy had been forced to face the truth. Her son was going to have a radically different life than the one she’d dreamed of when she’d first learned she was having a baby.

She’d accepted the truth. Anthony had not.

“Tell you what,” she said, gazing at her son with so much love in her heart she thought it might burst, “I’ll see if Mr. Miller can work you in at Miss Lila’s stable, okay?”

Zachary cocked his head, as if considering the offer. “Okay. What time?”

She glanced at her watch. It was almost two, and she had at least another hour’s worth of calls to make. “How about three? I’ll call Mr. Miller and see if he can work you in.”

She found the number for the stables and dialed, hoping the affable stable manager would be able to find a gentle horse for Zachary to ride around the paddock for a while this afternoon. If not, the rest of her day was going to be sheer hell.

The stable manager, Cory Miller, answered the phone. He was a gruff old Texan who’d been with the Lockhart family since Lila’s daughters and son were children. “Trevor’s nearly through with his work for the day—I can have him let Zachary have a ride.”

“Thank you so much, Cory!” Stacy nearly melted with relief. Trevor was one of the younger grooms. He seemed to enjoy letting Zachary take rides now and then. Maybe Zachary would settle down now and let her get on with the plans for the governor’s fundraiser. “And Cory? Please don’t tell the governor about this. I don’t want her to think Zachary’s getting in anyone’s way.”

“I don’t reckon she’d think that,” Cory protested. “But all right, Ms. Stacy. I’ll keep it to myself.”

Maybe Lila wouldn’t think she couldn’t handle the job because of Zachary’s special needs, but Stacy was in no position to put her job at risk. Lila paid very well, enough to cover the costs of Zachary’s weekly therapy sessions. If something happened to change the governor’s mind about Stacy’s ability to do the job, she didn’t know if she’d be able to find another job as flexible and lucrative.

Had she been wrong to believe she could handle a job as demanding as being Lila Lockhart’s aide-de-camp?

For a brief while, Lila had even named Stacy campaign manager for her presidential run, until Stacy—and others in the governor’s circle of friends—had convinced her that hiring a seasoned political pro was the only smart choice. Though deeply flattered by Lila’s confidence in her instincts and skills, Stacy knew her limitations. Lila deserved the best. Greg Merritt was the best.

Despite the daunting list of phone calls Stacy needed to make before Zachary’s impromptu riding lesson, she couldn’t concentrate. Zachary was being too quiet, so she took a quick break to see where her son had disappeared to.

She found him in his bedroom, riding the rocking horse his grandparents had given him. He chattered quietly to the toy, as if giving it commands. At five, he dwarfed the toddler’s toy, the sight comical enough to make Stacy smile.

He looked up at the sound of her footsteps on the hardwood floor, then resumed his play. No expression of welcome. No smile. Not even a grin of embarrassment at being caught playing with a baby toy.

Tears stung her eyes, but she fought them off, even though he wouldn’t react to them anyway.

“Is it time to go?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the rocking horse.

“Not yet.” She retreated from the room and let the burning tears fall, even though she knew she’d probably regret the show of weakness later, not being the sort of person who gave in to self-pity. But after the past few days, she supposed she could cut herself some slack.

It wasn’t as if the next couple of weeks were going to be any less stressful, after all. Between preparing for the fundraiser and working long and no doubt demanding hours with Harlan McClain, the next couple of weeks would be like living in a pressure cooker.

And if she wasn’t careful, the whole situation just might blow up on her. Because there was something about Harlan McClain that seemed to press all her buttons, good and bad.

When Anthony left, she’d thought her disillusionment and sense of betrayal had immunized her against the charms of any male besides Zachary. But even in the middle of a life-and-death situation in Austin, something about Harlan McClain had made its way past the walls she’d spent the past year and half building to keep herself and Zachary safe from any more unnecessary disappointments.

There had even been that moment, brief but powerful, when she’d literally fallen into his arms and realized that she could still feel wildly attracted to a man despite her determination to never be the fool again.

She’d have to be very careful not to let Harlan McClain slip through her defenses again.

THE GOVERNOR HAD GIVEN HARLAN a day off before starting work on the security plans for the fundraiser. He supposed she thought he’d need to tie up any loose ends in his personal life, since she clearly expected him to spend most of his waking hours at the ranch, coordinating the event. But he didn’t have any loose ends to tie up. His life these days was blissfully uncomplicated—no wife, no kids, no one to answer to besides Bart Bellows and his fellow agents at CSI.

Yeah, life was just a big ol’ bowl of cherries.

Well, except for the fact that the dream home he’d spent so much time planning for and saving for had gone to his ex in the divorce. Never mind that Alexis had been the one getting naked with the contractor—her daddy was a golfing buddy of the divorce court judge, and if that hadn’t been enough, the high-priced Atlanta lawyer she’d hired somehow managed to twist Harlan’s years of outstanding service in the Marine Corps into de facto abandonment of his wife and their marriage.

Goodbye, two-story farmhouse in Walnut Grove, Georgia. Hello, three-room man-cave in Freedom, Texas, with the thrift-store furnishings and only the big-screen TV he’d eked out of the divorce settlement to give him any sense of his old life following him into his new one.

Well, there was also his trusty old Ford F-10 pickup. Alexis never liked the truck, and he supposed he should just be glad she got all the vindictiveness out of her system by taking the house.

A quick rap on the door of his apartment dragged him out of his grim funk. Matt Soarez stood outside, holding a pink envelope. One black eyebrow arched upward. “It’s for you.”

Harlan took the envelope. It had his name written on the outside in a familiar script and smelled of gardenias. Well, hell.

“Holding out on us, McClain?” Soarez grinned broadly. “Who’s the lady?”

“She’s no lady.” Harlan grimaced. “She’s my ex-wife.”

Soarez winced. “I thought she was back in Georgia.”

“So did I.” Harlan frowned at the pink envelope. “Where did you find this?”

“In front of my door.” Matt lived in the next apartment to his own. “I just got home from lunch at Talk of the Town.”

Harlan glanced at his watch. It was after three. He shot Soarez a skeptical look.

“Hey, it’s my day off,” Soarez said with a grin. “Faith and I have plans to make, you know.”

“Plans for the wedding?” Not that Harlan cared about things like weddings or marriage or that mewling little baby girl of Faith Scott’s that Soarez was so sappy over. But anything to keep from opening the envelope from Alexis.

“Well, yeah, that, too.” Soarez’s grin widened further. “But first, we’re moving in together.”

Not what Harlan expected, though it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. Soarez had been spending most of his hours away from work over at Faith’s place anyway. He lived right down the hall from Harlan, but Harlan hardly ever saw him outside of work anymore. “When’s that going to happen?”

“This weekend, unless something comes up at the agency.” Soarez’s dark eyes glittered with happiness. “I get to be a full-time daddy to Kayleigh.”

Harlan bit back the snarky reply teetering on the edge of his tongue. “You’ll enjoy that.”

Soarez didn’t miss the lack of enthusiasm. “Not all women are lying cheats, Georgia. Give it a little time. Maybe you’ll find a girl like Faith, too.”

Harlan didn’t want a girl like Faith. He didn’t want a woman in his life at all. In his bed? Sure. But beyond that, women were nothing but trouble.

Soarez shrugged. “Well, I’ll leave you to the she-beast’s letter.” He headed back down the hall to his apartment.

With a heavy sigh, Harlan closed the door behind him, leaning against the solid wood as he contemplated the pink envelope that smelled like gardenias.

What do you want, Alexis?

He ran his finger under the flap, wincing at a paper cut. Perfect, he thought, sliding the folded note from the envelope. Pressing his thumb to the nicked finger, he used the other hand to shake open the paper.

I’m in Freedom. Call me. We need to talk. No number written down on the page, so he guessed she still had her old cell phone number.

He crumpled the paper and tossed it in the garbage can in the kitchen, grabbing his jacket. He was halfway to his truck when his curiosity overcame his stubborn pride.

What on God’s green earth would Alexis be doing in Texas? He’d known her since they were both twelve years old, and he’d never heard her mention any family here. Certainly not in a tiny dot on the map like Freedom.

Had something happened to someone in her family? Did she need his help with something?

Growling a profanity, he climbed into the truck cab and pulled out his cell phone. She was still on his speed dial, he noticed with a grimace. He punched the code.

She answered on the first ring. “Hey, stranger.”

He laid his head back against the headrest. She might be a liar and a cheat, but that sweet magnolia accent still sounded pretty damned good. “What’s wrong, Alexis?”

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line. “Nothing’s wrong. I just need to talk to you about something.”

“Call my lawyer.”

“It’s not a lawyer kind of topic,” she said, impatience adding a hint of spice to that honeyed drawl. “Just come meet me at the Bella Rosa. I’ll buy you a cup of coffee.”

“Despite your best efforts, I can still buy my own cup of coffee,” he replied. “Are you there now?”

“Yes. You’ll come?”

“Yes,” he said after a long pause. “But this better be important.”

“It is,” she assured him.

He hung up without responding, muttering a low curse as he realized his nightmare of a marriage had found a way to live on, even after the divorce papers had been signed.

Bella Rosa was a small bistro on the eastern edge of Freedom’s town square. It was a few blocks down from Talk of the Town, the friendly little café owned by Matt Soarez’s pretty fiancée, Faith. Harlan was glad Alexis had expensive tastes—if he’d met his ex-wife at Talk of the Town, news of the meeting would be all over town by sunset.

Meeting her at Bella Rosa meant the news would take a few more days to circulate, giving him time to come up with a story that didn’t make him look like a grade-A sap.

She was sitting at a table near the back, her honey-blond hair twisted into a neat, attractive coil at the base of her neck. She arched one perfect eyebrow at his casual attire—he’d seen no reason to change out of his jeans and golf shirt just to have lunch with his ex-wife—but waved him over.

“What’s up?” he asked without preamble, sitting across from her and waving off the waiter who’d practically trailed him to the table.

“You don’t want anything to eat?”

“I’m not hungry.” Not the exact truth, but he wasn’t hungry enough to eat with her. “Just get to the point.”

She took a deep breath and folded her neatly manicured hands over each other. “I’m getting remarried.”

Harlan wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to say, but telling him she was getting married again wasn’t it.

“No response?” she asked with a nervous chuckle.

“What’s there to say? Congratulations, I guess? Best wishes? I never remember which you say to the bride and which to the groom.”

“Thank you.” She smiled at him.

“So I guess this takes me off the hook for any more alimony.”

“I never wanted you to have to pay alimony. I don’t need your money.”

“I don’t think you ever needed anything from me,” he murmured. “Speaking of the groom, I have to admit I’m surprised. I always figured Ted the Contractor as more a fling kind of relationship than anything long-term, but if he makes you happy—”

“I’m not marrying Ted,” she said. “I’m marrying Alden.”

He stared at her. “Alden? Your fifty-year-old shark of a divorce lawyer Alden?”

“Forty-six,” she corrected. “And he’s only a shark in the courtroom. He’s really very sweet. And attentive.”

And I wasn’t attentive, Harlan thought. Of course, I was a little busy at the time, dodging bullets and bombs while fighting for my country, but hey. That’s not your problem, is it, sweetheart?

“How’s your hand?” she asked a moment later. He wasn’t sure if she asked the question just to break the uncomfortable silence or if she really cared.

He flexed his right hand, where the scar tissue from the shrapnel wounds was still pale and tight, limiting his mobility. “About the same. I think therapy’s gotten me about as far as it can. I just have to adjust to the limitations now.”

“I’m sorry you were hurt, but I’m glad it got you out of the Marines,” Alexis said, her chin held high as if bracing herself for his anger.

“Too bad you didn’t wait a few months longer before you slept with the contractor. I’d have had plenty of time to be attentive,” he responded.

She looked hurt by his words. He almost felt guilty, until he remembered the humiliation of walking into his bedroom and finding Alexis naked and wrapped around the muscular contractor Harlan had hired to build their dream home.

“I’ve told you I was sorry you found us that way.”

“But not about having sex with the guy behind my back?”

“You know as well as I do our marriage was doomed. We’re too different. We want different things out of life.”

That much was true. He definitely didn’t want to marry a ruthless divorce lawyer. Matter of fact, he didn’t want to marry anyone at all. Ever again.

Once was enough.

“You flew all the way to Texas to tell me you were getting married?” he asked. “You could have just called.”

“Alden’s attending a conference in Lubbock. I thought it would be better to tell you the news face-to-face.”

He just looked at her, taking in her prom-queen beauty, which hadn’t yet faded with age, and her hopeful expression. She wanted closure. Maybe even absolution.

Would it hurt so much to give it to her?

He forced a smile. “I really do hope you and Alden are happy. And that he stays just as attentive fifty years from now as he is today.”

Her smile in return made her look sixteen years old again, bright and beautiful and everything he’d thought he wanted in life. He’d loved her like crazy once.

But not anymore, he realized with a little shiver of relief. He might still resent her infidelity and her lies, but he didn’t really care who she slept with anymore.

I guess that’s progress, he thought.

“I hope you find someone, too,” she added.

He felt his rising mood deflate again. “I’m not really in the market.”

“Just because our marriage didn’t work out—”

He stood, looking down at her one last time. “Have a good life, Alexis.”

“You, too,” she said.

But he was already headed out the door, stepping into the warm midday breeze blowing in over the western plains.

He looked around him, taking in the friendly facades of the shops and businesses that formed the town square. Old cottonwoods and sprawling oaks lined the streets, giving the place the look of an idyllic oasis in the middle of the arid Texas Panhandle.

He’d taken the job Bart Bellows offered because it was a chance to start over, to see what life would be like outside the Marine Corps and his shattered marriage. Freedom seemed like a great place to make a new life—just as in most small towns, it was hard to stay a stranger for long in Freedom.

But Harlan had never felt more alone.

He checked his watch. A little after two. Half of the day spread out ahead of him, barren and daunting.

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