Praise for the novels of New York Times bestselling author

DIANA PALMER

‘Nobody does it better.’

—New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard

‘The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.’

—Booklist on Lawman

‘Palmer knows how to make the sparks fly … heartwarming.’

—Publishers Weekly on Renegade

‘Diana Palmer is a mesmerising storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.’

—Affaire de Coeur

‘Sensual and suspenseful’

—Booklist on Lawless

The prolific author of over a hundred books, DIANA PALMER got her start as a newspaper reporter. One of the top ten romance writers in America with over forty-two million books in print, she has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humour. Diana lives with her family in Georgia.

Invincible

Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Contents

Cover

Praise

About the Author

Title Page

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

Extract

Copyright

1

IT WAS A rainy Friday morning.

Carlie Blair, who was running late for her job as secretary to Jacobsville, Texas police chief Cash Grier, only had time for a piece of toast and a sip of coffee before she rushed out the door to persuade her ten-year-old red pickup truck to start. It had gone on grinding seemingly forever before it finally caught up and started.

Her father, a Methodist minister, was out of town on business for the day. So there was nobody to help her get it running. Luck was with her. It did, at least, start.

She envied her friend Michelle Godfrey, whose guardian and his sister had given her a Jaguar for Christmas. Michelle was away at college now, and she and Carlie still spoke on the phone, but they no longer shared rides to town and the cost of gas on a daily basis.

The old clunker ate gas like candy and Carlie’s salary only stretched so far. She wished she had more than a couple pairs of jeans, a few T-shirts, a coat and one good pair of shoes. It must be nice, she thought, not to have to count pennies. But her father was always optimistic about their status. God loved the poor, because they gave away so much, he was fond of saying. He was probably right.

Right now, though, her rain-wet jeans were uncomfortable, and she’d stepped in a mud puddle with her only pair of good shoes while she was knocking corrosion off the battery terminals with the hammer she kept under the front seat for that purpose. All this in January weather, which was wet and cold and miserable, even in South Texas.

Consequently, when she parked her car in the small lot next to the chief’s office, she looked like a bedraggled rat. Her dark, short, wavy hair was curling like crazy, as it always did in a rainstorm. Her coat was soaked. Her green eyes, full of silent resignation, didn’t smile as she opened the office door.

Her worst nightmare was standing just inside.

Carson.

He glared at her. He was so much taller than she that she had to look up at him. There was a lot to look at, although she tried not to show her interest.

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.

His black eyes narrowed, because he knew innocence when he saw it; it was that rare in his world. “Clueless, aren’t you?” he chided.

She lifted her chin and glared back. “My father is a minister,” she said with quiet pride.

“Really?”

She frowned, cocking her head. “Excuse me?”

“Are you coming in or not?” Cash asked suddenly, and there was a bite in his voice.

Carson seemed faintly surprised. He followed Cash into the office. The door closed. There were words spoken in a harsh tone, followed by a pause and a suddenly apologetic voice.

Carlie paid little attention. Carson had upset her nerves. She wished her boss would find someone else to talk to. Her job had been wonderful and satisfying until Carson started hanging around the office all the time. Something was going on, something big. It involved local and federal law enforcement—she was fairly certain that the chief’s brother didn’t just happen by to visit—and somehow, it also involved her father.

She wondered if she could dig any information out of her parent if she went about it in the right way. She’d have to work on that.

Then she recalled that phone call that she’d told her father about, just recently. A male voice had said, simply, “Tell your father, he’s next.” It had been a chilling experience, one she’d forced to the back of her mind. Now she wondered if all the traffic through her boss’s office involved her in some way, as well as her father. The man who’d tried to kill him had died, mysteriously poisoned.

She still wondered why anybody would attack a minister. That remark of Carson’s made her curious. She’d said her father was a minister and he’d said, “Really?” in that sarcastic, cold tone of voice. Why?

“I’m a mushroom,” she said to herself. “They keep me in the dark and feed me manure.” She sighed and went back to work.

* * *

SHE WAS ON the phone with the sheriff’s office when Carson left. He went by her desk with only a cursory glance at her, and it was, of all things, placid. Almost apologetic. She lowered her eyes and refused to even look at him.

Even if she’d found him irresistible—and she was trying not to—his reputation with women made her wary of him.

Sure, it was a new century, but Carlie was a small-town girl and raised religiously. She didn’t share the casual attitude of many of her former classmates about physical passion.

She grimaced. It was hard to be a nice girl when people treated her like a disease on legs. In school, they’d made fun of her, whispered about her. One pretty, popular girl said that she didn’t know what she was missing and that she should live it up.

Carlie just stared at her and smiled. She didn’t say anything. Apparently the smile wore the other girl down because she shrugged, turned her back and walked off to whisper to the girls in her circle. They all looked at Carlie and laughed.

She was used to it. Her father said that adversity was like grit, it honed metal to a fine edge. She’d have liked to be honed a little less.

They were right about one thing; she really didn’t know what she was missing. It seemed appropriate, because she’d read about sensations she was supposed to feel with men around, and she didn’t feel any of them.

She chided herself silently. That was a lie. She felt them when she was close to Carson. She knew that he was aware of it, which made it worse. He laughed at her, just the way her classmates had laughed at her in school. She was the odd one out, the misfit. She had a reason for her ironclad morals. Many local people knew them, too. Episodes in her childhood had hardened her.

Well, people tended to be products of their upbringing. That was life. Unless she wanted to throw away her ideals and give up religion, she was pretty much settled in her beliefs. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being a misfit. Her late grandfather had said that civilizations rested on the bedrock of faith and law and the arts. Some people had to be conventional to keep the mechanism going.

“What was that?” Sheriff Hayes’s receptionist asked.

“Sorry.” Carlie cleared her throat. She’d been on hold. “I was just mumbling to myself. What were you saying?”

The woman laughed and gave her the information the chief had asked for, about an upcoming criminal case.

* * *

SHE COOKED A light supper, just creamed chicken and rice, with green peas, and made a nice apple pie for dessert.

Her father came in, looking harassed. Then he saw the spread and grinned from ear to ear. “What a nice surprise!”

“I know, something light. But I was hungry,” she added.

He made a face. “Shame. Telling lies.”

She shrugged. “I went to church Sunday. God won’t mind a little lie, in a good cause.”

He smiled. “You know, some people have actually asked me how to talk to God.”

“I just do it while I’m cooking, or working in the yard,” Carlie said. “Just like I’m talking to you.”

He laughed. “Me, too. But there are people who make hard work of it.”

“Why were you in the chief’s office today?” she asked suddenly

He paused in the act of putting a napkin in his lap. His expression went blank for an instant, then it came back to life. “He wanted me to talk to a prisoner for him,” he said finally.

She raised both eyebrows.

“Sorry,” he said, smoothing out the napkin. “Some things are confidential.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s say grace,” he added.

* * *

LATER, HE WATCHED the news while she cleaned up the kitchen. She sat down with him and watched a nature special for a while. Then she excused herself and went upstairs to read. She wasn’t really interested in much television programming, except for history specials and anything about mining. She loved rocks.

She sat down on the side of her bed and thumbed through her bookshelf. Most titles were digital as well as physical these days, but she still loved the feel and smell of an actual book in her hands.

She pulled out a well-worn copy of a book on the Little Bighorn fight, one that was written by members of various tribes who’d actually been present. It irritated her that many of the soldiers had said there were no living witnesses to the battle. That was not true. There were plenty of them: Lakota, Cheyenne, Crow and a host of other men from different tribes who were at the battle and saw exactly what happened.

She smiled as she read about how many of them ended up in Buffalo Bill Cody’s famous traveling Wild West show. They played before the crowned heads of Europe. They learned high society manners and how to drink tea from fancy china cups. They laughed among themselves at the irony of it. Sitting Bull himself worked for Cody for a time, before he was killed.

She loved most to read about Crazy Horse. Like Carson, he was Lakota, which white people referred to as Sioux. Crazy Horse was Oglala, which was one of the subclasses of the tribe. He was light-skinned and a great tactician. There was only one verified photograph of him, which was disputed by some, accepted by others. It showed a rather handsome man with pigtails, wearing a breastplate. There was also a sketch. He had led a war party against General Crook at the Battle of the Rosebud and won it. He led another party against Custer at the Little Bighorn.

Until his death, by treachery at the hands of a soldier, he was the most famous war leader of the Lakota.

Sitting Bull did not fight; he was not a warrior. He was a holy man who made medicine and had visions of a great battle that was won by the native tribes.

Crazy Horse fascinated Carlie. She bought book after book, looking for all she could find in his history.

She also had books about Alexander the Third, called the Great, who conquered most of the civilized world by the age of thirty. His ability as a strategist was unequaled in the ancient past. Hannibal, who fought the Romans under Scipio Africanus in the Second Punic War at Carthage, was another favorite. Scipio fascinated her, as well.

The ability of some leaders to inspire a small group of men to conquer much larger armies was what drew her to military history. It was the generals who led from the front, who ate and slept and suffered with their men, who won the greatest battles and the greatest honor.

She knew about battles because her secret vice was an online video game, “World of Warcraft.” A number of people in Jacobsville and Comanche Wells played. She knew the gamer tags, the names in-game, of only a very few. Probably she’d partnered with some of them in raid groups. But mostly she ran battlegrounds, in player-versus-player matches, but only on weekends, when she had more free time.

Gaming took the place of dates she never got. Even if she’d been less moral, she rarely got asked on dates. She could be attractive when she tried, but she wasn’t really pretty and she was painfully shy around people she didn’t know. She’d only gone out a couple of times in high school, once with a boy who was getting even with his girlfriend by dating her—although she hadn’t known until later—and another with a boy who’d hurt another girl badly and saw Carlie as an easy mark. He got a big surprise.

From time to time she thought about how nice it would be to marry and have children. She loved spending time in the baby section of department stores when she went to San Antonio with her father occasionally. She liked to look at knitted booties and lacy little dresses. Once a saleswoman had asked if she had children. She said no, she wasn’t married. The saleswoman had laughed and asked what that had to do with it. It was a new world, indeed.

She put away her book on the Little Bighorn fight, and settled in with her new copy of a book on Alexander the Great. The phone rang. She got up, but she was hesitant to answer it. She recalled the threat from the unknown man and wondered if that was him.

She went to the staircase and hesitated. Her father had answered and was on the phone.

“Yes, I know,” he said in a tone he’d never used with her. “If you think you can do better, you’re welcome to try.” He paused and a huge sigh left his chest. “Listen, she’s all I’ve got in the world. I know I don’t deserve her, but I will never let anyone harm her. This place may not look secure, but I assure you, it is...”

He leaned against the wall near the phone table, with the phone in his hand. He looked world-weary. “That’s what I thought, too, at first,” he said quietly. “I still have enemies. But it isn’t me he’s after. It’s Carlie! It has to have something to do with the man she saw in Grier’s office. I know that the man who killed Joey and masqueraded as a DEA agent is dead. But if he put out a contract before he died... Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.” He shook his head. “I know you don’t have the funds. It’s okay. I have plenty of people who owe me favors. I’ll call in a few. Yes. I do appreciate your help. It’s just...it’s worrying me, that’s all. Sure. I’ll call you. Thanks.” He hung up.

Carlie moved back into the shadows. Her father looked like a stranger, like someone she’d never seen before. She wondered who he’d been speaking to, and if the conversation was about her. It sounded that way; he’d used her name. What was a contract? A contract to kill someone? She bit her lower lip. Something to do with the man she saw in the chief’s office, the man she’d tried to describe for the artist, the DEA agent who wasn’t an agent.

She frowned. But he was dead, her father had said. Then he’d mentioned that contract, that the man might have put it out before he died. Of course, if some unknown person had been paid in advance to kill her...

She swallowed down the fear. She could be killed by mistake, by a dead man. How ironic. Her father had said the house was safe. She wondered why he’d said that, what he knew. For the first time in her life, she wondered who her father really was.

* * *

SHE FIXED HIM a nice breakfast. While they were eating it she said, “Why do you think that man came to kill me?”

His coffee cup paused halfway to his mouth. “What?”

“The man with the knife.”

“We agreed that he was after me, didn’t we?” he said, avoiding her face.

She lifted her eyes and stared at him. “I work for the police. It’s impossible not to learn a little something about law enforcement in the process. That man wasn’t after you at all, was he? The man who was poisoned so he couldn’t tell what he knew?”

He let out a breath and put the coffee cup down. “Well, Carlie, you’re more perceptive than I gave you credit for.” He smiled faintly. “Must be my genes. Your mother, God rest her soul, didn’t have that gift. She saw everything in black and white.”

“Yes, she did.” Talk of her mother made her sad. It had just been Carlie and Mary for a long time, until Mary got sick. Then Mary’s mother, and her hophead boyfriend, had shown up and ransacked the place. Carlie had tried to stop them... She shivered.

It had been several days later, after the hospital visit and the arrests, when her father had come back to town, wearing khaki pants and shirt, and carrying a pistol.

There had been no money for doctors, but her father had taken charge and got Mary into treatment. Mary’s mother and her boyfriend went to jail. Sadly, it had been hopeless from the start. Mary died within weeks. During those weeks, Carlie got to know her absent father. He became protective of her. She liked him very much. He was gone for a day after the funeral. When he came home, he seemed very different.

Carlie’s father spoke to someone on the phone then, too, and when he hung up he’d made a decision. He took Carlie with him to Atlanta, where he enrolled in a seminary and became a Methodist minister. He said it was the hardest and the easiest thing he’d ever done, and that it was a good thing that God forgave people for horrible acts. She asked what they were. Her father said some things were best left buried in the past.

“We’re still not sure he didn’t come after me,” her father said, interrupting her reverie.

“I heard you talking on the phone last night,” she said.

He grimaced. “Bad timing on my part,” he said, sighing.

“Very bad. So now I know. Tell me what’s going on.”

“That phone call you had came from a San Antonio number. We traced it, but it led to a throwaway phone,” he replied. “That’s bad news.”

“Why?”

“Because a few people who use those phones are connected to the underworld in some fashion or other, to escape detection by the authorities. They use the phone once to connect with people who might be wiretapped, then they dispose of the phone. Drug lords buy them by the cartload,” he added.

“Well, I didn’t do anybody in over a drug deal, and the guy I gave the artist the description of died in Wyoming. So why is somebody still after me?” she concluded.

He smiled. “Smart. Very smart. The guy died. That’s the bottom line. If he hired somebody to go after you, to keep you from recognizing him in a future lineup, and paid in advance, it’s too late to call him off. Get the picture?”

“In living color,” she said. She felt very adult, having her father give her the truth instead of a sweet lie to calm her.

“I have a couple of friends watching you,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a big threat, but we’d be insane not to take it seriously, especially after what’s already happened.”

“That was weeks ago,” she began.

“Yes, at the beginning of a long chain of growing evidence.” He sipped coffee. “I still can’t believe how many people’s lives have been impacted by this man and whoever he was working for.”

“You have some idea who his boss is...was?”

He nodded. “I can’t tell you, so don’t ask. I will say that several law enforcement agencies are involved.”

“I still don’t understand why you’re having meetings with my boss and that...that man Carson.”

He studied her flushed face. “I’ve heard about Carson’s attitude toward you. If he keeps it up, I’ll have a talk with him.”

“Don’t,” she asked softly. “With any luck, he won’t be around long. He doesn’t strike me as a man who likes small towns or staying in one place for any length of time.”

“You never know. He likes working for Cy Parks. And he has a few projects going with locals.”

She groaned.

“I can talk to him nicely.”

“Sure, Dad, and then he’ll accuse me of running to Daddy for protection.” She lifted her chin. “I can take whatever he can hand out.”

He smiled at her stubbornness. “Okay.”

She made a face. “He just doesn’t like me, that’s all. Maybe I remind him of someone he doesn’t care for.”

“That’s possible.” He stared into his coffee cup. “Or it could have something to do with asking him for a grenade to start a fire...”

“Aww, now, I wasn’t trying to start anything,” she protested.

He chuckled. “Sure.” He studied her face. “I just want to mention one thing,” he added gently. “He’s not housebroken. And he never will be. Just so you know.”

“I have never wanted to housebreak a wolf, I assure you.”

“There’s also his attitude about women. He makes no secret of it.” His face hardened. “He likens them to party favors. Disposable. You understand?”

“I understand. But honestly, that’s not the sort of man I’d be seriously interested in. You don’t have to worry.”

“I do worry. You’re not street-smart, pumpkin,” he added, with the pet name that he almost never used. “You’re unworldly. A man like that could be dangerous to you...”

She held up a hand. “I have weapons.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“If he starts showing any interest in me, I’ll give him my most simpering smile and start talking about how I’d love to move in with him that very day and start having children at once.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Works like a charm. They actually leave skid marks...”

He threw back his head and laughed. “So that’s what happened to the visiting police chief...?”

“He was very persistent. The chief offered to punt him through the door, but I had a better idea. It worked very nicely. Now, when he comes to see the chief, he doesn’t even look my way.”

“Just as well. He has a wife, God help her.”

“What a nasty man.”

“Exactly.” He looked at his watch. “Well, I have a meeting with the church officials. We’re working on an outreach program for the poor. Something I really want to do.”

She smiled. “You know, you really are the nicest minister I know.”

He bent and kissed her forehead before he left. “Thanks, sweetheart. Be sure to check your truck, okay?”

She laughed. “I always do. Don’t worry.”

He hesitated. He wanted to tell her that he did worry, and the whole reason why. But it was the wrong time.

She was already halfway in love with Carson. He knew things about the man that he’d been told in confidence. He couldn’t repeat them. But if Carlie got too close to that prowling wolf, he’d leave scars that would cripple her for life. He had to prevent that, if he could. The thing was, he didn’t know how. It was like seeing a wire break and being too far away to fix it.

He could talk to Carson, of course. But that would only make matters worse. He had to wait and hope that Carlie could hang on to her beliefs and ignore the man’s practiced charm if he ever used it on her.

Carson seemed to hate her. But it was an act. He knew it, because it was an act he’d put on himself, with Carlie’s late mother. Mary had been a saint. He’d tried to coax her into bed, but she’d refused him at every turn. Finally, in desperation, he’d proposed. She’d refused. She wasn’t marrying a man because he couldn’t have her any other way.

So he’d gone away. And come back. And tried the soft approach. It had backfired. He’d fallen in love for the first time in his life. Mary had tied him to her with strings of icy steel, and leaving her even for a few weeks at a time had been agonizing. He’d only lived to finish the mission and get home, get back to Mary.

But over the years, the missions had come closer together, taken longer, provoked lengthy absences. He’d tried to make sure Mary had enough money to cover her bills and incidentals, but one job had resulted in no pay and during that time, Mary had gotten sick. By the time he knew and came home, it was too late.

He blamed himself for that, and for a lot more. He’d thought an old enemy had targeted him and got Carlie by mistake. But it wasn’t a mistake. Someone wanted Carlie dead, apparently because of a face she remembered. There might be another reason. Something they didn’t know, something she didn’t remember seeing. Even the death of the man hadn’t stopped the threat.

But he was going to. Somehow.

2

CARLIE LOVED THE WEEKENDS. At work she was just plain old Carlie, dull and boring and not very pretty at all.

But in this video game, on her game server, she was Cadzminea, an Alliance night elf death knight, invincible and deadly with a two-handed great sword. She had top-level gear and a bad attitude, and she was known even in battlegrounds with players from multiple servers. She was a tank, an offensive player who protected less well-geared comrades. She loved it.

Above the sounds of battle, clashing swords and flashing spells thrown by magic-users, she heard her father’s voice.

“Just a minute, Dad! I’m in a battleground!”

“Okay. Never mind.”

There were footsteps coming up. She laughed as she heard them behind her. Odd, they sounded lighter than her father’s....

“Sorry, we’re almost through. We’re taking out the enemy commander....”

She stopped while she fought, planting her guild’s battle flag to increase her strength and pulling up her Army of the Dead spell. “Gosh, the heals in this battleground are great, I’ve hardly even needed to use a potion... Okay!” she laughed, as the panel came up displaying an Alliance win, that of her faction.

“Sorry about that...” She turned and looked up into a pair of liquid black eyes in a surprised face.

“A gamer,” he said in a tone, for once, without sarcasm. “Put up your stats.”

She was too startled not to obey. She left the battleground and brought up the character screen.

He shook his head. “Not bad. Why an NE?” he asked, the abbreviation for a night elf.

“They’re beautiful,” she blurted out.

He laughed deep in his throat. “So they are.”

“How do you know about stats?”

He pulled out his iPhone and went to the game’s remote app. He pulled up the Armory and showed her a character sheet.

“Level 90 Horde Tauren druid,” she read, indicating that the player was from the Alliance’s deadly counter faction, the Horde. “Arbiter.” She frowned. “Arbiter?” She caught her breath. “He killed me five times in one battleground!” she exclaimed. “He stealthed up to me, hit me from behind, then he just...killed me. I couldn’t even fight back.”

“Don’t you have a medallion that interrupts spells?”

“Yes, but it was on cooldown,” she said, glowering. “And you know this guy?” she asked.

He put up the iPhone. “I am this guy.”

She was stunned.

“It’s a small world, isn’t it?” he asked, studying her face.

Too small, she thought, but she didn’t say it. She just nodded.

“Your father asked a couple of us to take turns doing a walk-around when he’s not here. He had to go out, so I’ve got first watch.”

She frowned. “A what?”

“We’re going to patrol around the house.”

“Carrying a Horde flag?” she asked, tongue-in-cheek.

He smiled with real amusement. “We’ll be concealed. You won’t even know we’re on the place.”

She was disconcerted. “What’s going on?”

“Just a tip we got,” he replied. “Nothing to worry about.”

Her green eyes narrowed. “My father can pull that stunt. You can’t. Give it to me straight.”

His eyebrows arched.

“If it concerns me, I have the right to know. My father is overprotective. I love him, but it’s not fair that I have to be kept in the dark. I’m not a mushroom.”

“No. You’re Alliance.” He seemed really amused.

“Proudly Alliance,” she muttered. “Darn the Horde!”

He smiled. “Better rune that two-hander before you fight me again,” he advised, referring to a special weapons buff used only by death knights.

“It’s brand-new. I haven’t had time,” she said defensively. “Don’t change the subject.”

“There may be an attempt. That’s all we could find out.”

“Why? The guy I recognized is dead!”

“We’re pretty sure that he paid the contract out before he died,” he replied. “And we don’t know who has it. We tried backtracking known associates of the man who made the first attempt, the one who was poisoned awaiting trial. No luck whatsoever. But an informant needed a favor, so he gave up some information. Not much. There’s more at stake than just your memory of a counterfeit DEA agent. Much more.”

“And that’s all I’m getting, right?”

He nodded.

She glared.

“So much frustration,” he mused, studying her. “Why don’t you go win a few battles for the Alliance? It might help.”

“Not unless you’re in one of them.” Her eyes twinkled. “Better watch your back next time. I’m getting the hang of it.”

He shrugged. “I don’t want to live forever.” He glanced around the room. It was Spartan. No lace anywhere. He eyed the title of a book on the desk next to her computer and frowned. “Hannibal?”

“Learn from the best, I always think.”

He looked at her. He didn’t look away.

Her eyes met his and she felt her body melting, tingling. There was a sudden ache in the middle of her body, a jolt of pure electricity. She couldn’t even manage to look away.

“Wolves bite,” he said in a soft, gruff whisper.

She flushed and dragged her eyes back to the computer. Somebody sold her out. She wondered if it was the chief. She’d only called Carson a wolf to two people and her father would never have betrayed her.

He chuckled softly. “Be careful what you say when you think people aren’t listening,” he added. He turned and left her staring after him.

* * *

LATER, SHE ASKED her father if he’d ratted her out.

He chuckled. “No. But the house is bugged like a messy kitchen,” he confessed. “Be careful what you say.”

“Gee, thanks for telling me after I said all sorts of things about Carson,” she murmured.

He laughed. “He’s got a thick skin. It won’t bother him.”

She studied him quietly. “Why are they after me?”

He drew in a long breath. “There are some political maneuvers going on. You have a photographic memory. Maybe you saw someone other than the murder victim, and the man behind the plot is afraid you’ll remember who it is.”

“Shades of Dalton Kirk,” she said, recalling that the Wyoming rancher had been warned by the woman who became his wife about a vision of him being attacked for something he didn’t even remember he’d seen.

“Exactly.”

She poured them second cups of coffee. “So I guess it’s back to checking under the truck every time I drive it.”

“Oh, that never stopped,” her father said with a chuckle. “I’ve just been doing it for you.”

She smiled at him. “That’s my dad, looking out for me,” she said with real affection.

His pale blue eyes were sad. “There was a long period of time when I didn’t look out for anybody except myself,” he said quietly. “Your mother wouldn’t even let anybody tell me how sick she was until it was too late.” He lowered his gaze to the coffee. “I made a lot of mistakes out of selfishness. I hope that someday I’ll be able to make up for a little of it.”

She sipped coffee. “You never talk about your life before you went to the seminary,” she pointed out.

He smiled sadly. “I’m ashamed to.”

“You were overseas a lot.”

He nodded. “In a number of dangerous foreign places, where life is dirt cheap.”

She pursed her lips and stared at him. “You know, Michelle’s guardian, Gabriel Brandon, spent a lot of time overseas also.”

He lifted an eyebrow and smiled placidly. “Are you fishing?”

She shrugged. But she didn’t look away.

He finished his coffee. “Let’s just say that I had connections that aren’t obvious ones, and I made my living in a shadow world.”

She frowned. “You aren’t wanted in some country whose name I can’t pronounce?”

He laughed. “Nothing like that.”

“Okay.”

He stood up. “But I do have enemies who know where I live. In a general sense. So it’s smart to take precautions.” He smiled gently. “I wasn’t always a minister, pumpkin.”

She was remembering Carson’s sarcastic comment when she’d mentioned that her father was a minister. She hadn’t known that he was aware of things about her parent that she wasn’t.

“I feel like a mushroom,” she muttered.

He bent and kissed her hair. “Believe me, you’re better off being one. See you later. I have some phone calls to make.”

* * *

HE LOCKED HIMSELF in his study and she went to watch the news on television. It was mostly boring, the same rehashed subjects over and over again, interspersed with more commercials than she could stomach. She turned it off and went upstairs.

“No wonder people stopped watching television,” she grumbled as she wandered back to her bedroom. “Why don’t you just stop showing any programs and show wall-to-wall commercials, for heaven’s sake!”

She pulled up her game and tried to load it when she noticed that the internet wasn’t working.

Muttering, she went downstairs to reset the router, which usually solved the problem. Except the router was in the study, and her father was locked in there.

She started to knock, just as she heard her father’s raised voice in a tone she’d rarely ever heard.

“I told you,” he gritted, “I am not coming back! You can’t say anything, threaten anything, that will make me change my mind. And don’t you say one more word about my daughter’s safety, or I will report you to the obvious people. I understand that,” he continued, less belligerently. “Trust me when I say that nobody short of a ghost could get in here after dark. The line is secure and I’ve scrambled important conversations, like this one. I appreciate the tip, I really do. But I can handle this. I haven’t forgotten anything you taught me.” He laughed shortly. “Yes, I remember. They were good times.”

There was another pause. “No. But we did find out who his enforcer is, and our local law enforcement people are keeping him under covert surveillance. That’s right. No, I didn’t realize there were two. When did he hire the other? Wait a minute—blond hair, one eye, South African accent?” He burst out laughing. “He hired Rourke as an enforcer?”

There was another pause. “Yes, please, tell him to come see me. I’d enjoy that. Like old times, yes. Okay. Thanks again. I’ll be in touch.”

Totally confused, Carlie softly retraced her steps, made a racket coming down the staircase and went directly to the study. She rapped on the door.

“Dad? The internet’s out! Can you reset the router?”

There was the sound of a chair scraping the floor, but she never heard his footsteps. The door suddenly opened.

He pursed his lips and studied her flushed face. “Okay. How much did you hear?”

“Nothing, Mr. Gandalf, sir, I swear, except something about the end of the world,” she paraphrased Sam from Lord of the Rings.

Her father laughed. “Well, it wasn’t really anything you didn’t already know.”

“Who’s Rourke?” she wondered.

“A man of many talents. You’ll like him.” He frowned. “Just don’t like him too much, okay? He has a way with women, and you’re a little lamb.”

She gave him a blithe look. “If I could get around Barry Mathers, I can get around Rourke.”

Her father understood the reference. Barry, a classmate, had caused one of Carlie’s friends a world of hurt by getting her into bed and bragging about it. The girl had been as innocent as Carlie. He wasn’t even punished.

So then he’d bet his friends that he could get Carlie into bed. She heard about it from an acquaintance, led him around by the nose, and when he showed up at her house for the date, she had two girlfriends and their boyfriends all ready to go along. He was stunned. But he couldn’t call off the date, or he’d have to face the razzing of his clique.

So he took all of them out to dinner and the movies, dutch treat, and delivered Carlie and the others back to her house where her friends’ cars were parked.

She waited until the others left and she was certain that her father was in the living room before she spoke to Barry. She gave him such a tongue-lashing that he literally turned around and walked the other way every time he saw her after that. He never asked her out again. Of course, neither did anybody else, for the rest of her senior year.

Barry, on the other hand, was censured so much that his wealthy parents sent him to a school out of state. He died there soon afterward in a skiing accident.

“You had a hard time in school,” her father said gently.

“No harder than most other people with principles do,” she replied. “There are more of us than you might think.”

“I reset the router,” he added. “Go try your game.”

“I promised to meet Robin for a quest,” she said. “I’d hate to let him down.”

Her father just smiled. They knew about Robin’s situation. He was in love with a girl whose family hated his family. It was a feud that went back two generations, over a land deal. Even the principals didn’t really remember what started it. But when Robin expressed interest in Lucy and tried to date her, the hidden daggers came out.

It was a tragic story in many ways. Two people in love who weren’t even allowed to see each other because of their parents. They were grown now, but Lucy still lived at home and was terrified of her father. So even if Robin insisted, Lucy wouldn’t go against her kin.

Robin worked in his dad’s real estate office, where he wasn’t harassed, and he was a whiz with figures. He was going to night classes, studying real estate up in San Antonio, where he hoped to learn enough to eventually become a full-fledged real estate broker. Carlie liked him. So did her father, who respected a parent’s rights but also felt sympathy for young people denied the right to love whom they pleased.

* * *

CARLIE WENT ONLINE and loaded the game, then looked for Robin, who played a shaman in the virtual world. His was a healing spec, so it went well with Carlie’s DK, who couldn’t heal.

I have a problem, he whispered to her, a form of typed private communication in-game.

She typed, How can I help?

He made a big smiley face. I need a date for the Valentine’s Day dance.

Should I ask why? she typed.

There was a smiley face. Lucy’s going to the dance with some rich rancher her father knows from out of town. If you’ll go with me, her dad won’t suspect anything and I can at least dance with her.

She shook her head. One day the two of them were going to have to decide if the sneaking around was less traumatic than just getting together and daring their parents to say anything. But she just typed, I’ll buy a dress.

There was a bigger smiley face. It’s so nice to have a friend like you, he replied.

That works both ways.

* * *

LATER, SHE TOLD her father she had a date. He asked who, and she explained.

“You’re both hiding, Carlie,” he said, surprising her. His eyes narrowed. “You need to think about finding someone you can have a good relationship with, someone to marry and have children with. And Robin and Lucy need to stand up and behave like adults.”

She smiled sadly. “Chance would be a fine thing,” she replied. “You might not have noticed, but men aren’t exactly beating a path to my door. And you know why.”

“Young men look at what’s outside,” he said wisely. “When they’re more mature, men look for what’s inside. You’re just at the wrong period of your life. That will change.”

She drew in a long breath. “You know, not everybody marries...”

He glared at her.

She held up both hands. “I’m not talking about moving in with somebody,” she said hastily. “I mean, not everybody gets married. Look at Old Man Barlow, he never did.”

“He never bathed,” he pointed out.

She glowered at him. “Beside the point. How about the Miller brothers? They never married. Their sister was widowed and moved back in with them, and they’re all single now. They seem perfectly happy.”

He looked down his nose at her. “Who spends half her time in department stores, ogling baby booties and little gowns?”

She flushed and averted her eyes.

“Just what I thought,” he added.

“Listen, there really aren’t many communities in Texas smaller than Comanche Wells, or even Jacobsville. Most of the men my age are either married or living with somebody.”

“I see your point.”

“The others are having so much fun partying that they don’t want to do either,” she continued. “Come on, Dad, I like my life. I really do. I enjoy working for the chief and having lunch at Barbara’s Café and playing my game at night and taking care of you.” She gave him a close scrutiny. “You know, you might think about marrying somebody.”

“Bite your tongue,” he said shortly. “There was your mother. I don’t want anybody else. Ever.”

She stared at him with consternation. “She’d want you to be happy.”

“I am happy,” he insisted. “I’m married to my church, pumpkin. I love what I do now.” He smiled. “You know, in the sixteenth century, all priests were expected to be single. It wasn’t until Henry VIII changed the laws that they could even marry, and when his daughter Mary came to the throne, she threw out all the married priests. Then when her half sister Elizabeth became Queen, she permitted them to marry, but she didn’t want married ministers preaching before her. She didn’t approve of it, either.”

“This is the twenty-first century,” she pointed out. “And why are you hanging out with McKuen Kilraven?” she added, naming one of the federal agents who sometimes came to Jacobsville.

He laughed. “Does it show?”

“I don’t know of anybody else who can hold forth for an hour on sixteenth-century British politics and never tell the same story twice.”

“Guilty,” he replied. “He was in your boss’s office the last time I was there.”

“When was that? I didn’t see him.”

“You were at lunch.”

“Oh.”

He didn’t volunteer any more information.

“I need to go buy a new dress,” she said. “I think I’ll drive up to San Antonio after work, since it’s Saturday and I get off at 1 p.m.”

“Okay. I’ll let you borrow the Cobra.” He laughed at her astonished look. “I’m not sure your truck would make it even halfway to the city, pumpkin.”

She just shook her head.

* * *

IT WAS A CONCESSION of some magnitude. Her father loved that car. He washed and waxed it by hand, bought things for it. She was only allowed to drive it on very special occasions, and usually only when she went to the big city.

San Antonio wasn’t a huge city, but there was a lot to see. Carlie liked to stop by the Alamo and look at it, but El Mercado was her port of call. It had everything, including unique shops and music and restaurants. She usually spent half a day just walking around it. But today she was in a hurry.

She went from store to store, but she couldn’t find exactly what she was looking for. She was ready to give up when she pulled, on impulse, into a small strip mall where a sale sign was out in front of a small boutique.

She found a bargain dress, just her size, in green velvet. It was ankle length, with a discreet rounded neckline and long sleeves. It fit like a glove, but it wasn’t overly sensual. And it suited her. It was so beautiful that she carried it like a child as she walked to the counter to pay for it.

“That was the only size we got in this particular design,” the saleslady told her as she packaged it on its hangar. “I wish it was my size,” she added with a sigh. “You really are lucky.”

Carlie laughed. “It’s for a dance. I don’t go out much.”

“Me, either,” the saleslady said. “My husband sits and watches the Western Channel on satellite when he gets off work and then he goes to bed.” She shook her head. “Not what I thought marriage would be like. But he’s good to me and he doesn’t cheat. I guess I’m lucky.”

“I’d say you are.”

* * *

CARLIE WAS IN the Jacobs County limits on a long, deserted stretch of road. The Cobra growled as if it had been on the leash too long and wanted off. Badly.

With a big grin on her face, Carlie floored the accelerator. “Okay, Big Red,” she said, using her father’s affectionate nickname for the car, “let’s run!”

The engine cycled, seemed to hesitate, and then the car took off with a growl that would have done a hungry mountain lion proud.

“Woo-hoo!” she exclaimed.

She was going eighty, eighty-five, ninety, ninety-six and then one hundred. She felt an exhilaration she couldn’t remember ever feeling before. The road was completely open up ahead, no traffic anywhere. Well, except for that car behind her...

Her heart skipped. At first she thought it was a police car, because she was exceeding the speed limit by double the posted signs. But then she realized that it wasn’t a law enforcement car. It was a black sedan, and it was keeping pace with her.

She almost panicked. But she was close to Jacobsville, where she could get help if she needed it. Her father’s admonition about checking the truck before she drove it made her heart skip. She knew he’d checked the car, but she hadn’t counted on being followed. Someone was after her. She knew that her father’s friends were watching her, but that was in Jacobsville.

Nobody was watching her now, and she was being chased. Her cell phone was in her purse on the floor by the passenger seat. She’d have to slow down or stop to get to it. She groaned. Lack of foresight. Why didn’t she have it in the console?

Her heart was pumping faster as the car behind gained on her. What if it was the shadowy assassin come for a second try? What was she going to do? She couldn’t outrun him, that was obvious, and when she slowed down, he’d catch her.

She saw the city-limit sign up ahead. She couldn’t continue at this rate of speed. She’d kill someone at the next crossroads.

Groaning, she slowed down. The black sedan was right on top of her. She turned without a signal into the first side street and headed for the police station. If she was lucky, she just might make it.

Yes! The traffic light stayed green. She shot through it, pulled up in front of the station and jumped out just as the sedan pulled in front of her, braked and cut her off.

“You damned little lunatic, what the hell were you thinking!” Carson raged at her as he slammed out of the black sedan and confronted her. “I clocked you at a hundred miles an hour!”

“Oh, yeah? Well, you were going a hundred, too, because you were right on my bumper. And how was I supposed to know it was you?” she told him, red-faced with embarrassment.

“I called your cell phone half a dozen times, didn’t you hear it ring?”

“I had it turned off. And it was on the floor in my purse,” she explained.

He put his hands on his slim hips and glared at her. “You shouldn’t be allowed out by yourself, and especially not in a car with that sort of horsepower!” he persisted. “I should have the chief arrest you!”

“Go ahead, I’ll have him arrest you, too!” she yelled back.

Two patrol officers were standing on the sidelines, spellbound. The chief came out and stopped, just watching the two antagonists, who hadn’t noticed their audience.

“What if you’d hit something lying in the middle of the road? You’d have gone straight off it and into a tree or a power pole, and you’d be dead!”

“Well, I didn’t hit anything! I was scared because I saw a car following me. Who wouldn’t be paranoid, with people watching you all the time and my father having secret phone calls...!”

“If you’d answered your damned cell phone, you’d have known who was following you!”

“It was in my purse and I was afraid to slow down and try to grab it out of my pocketbook!”

“Of all the stupid assignments I’ve ever had, this takes the prize,” he muttered. “And why you had to go to San Antonio...?”

“I went to buy a dress for the Valentine’s Day party!”

He gave her a cold smile. “Going alone, are we?”

“No, I’m not.” She shot back. “I have a date!”

He looked oddly surprised. “Do you have to pay him when he takes you home?” he asked in a long, sarcastic drawl.

“I don’t have to hire men to take me places!” she raged back. “And this man doesn’t notch his bedpost and take in strays to have somebody to sleep with.”

He took a quick step forward, and he looked dangerous. “That’s enough,” he snapped.

Carlie sucked in her breath and her face paled.

“It really is enough,” Cash Grier said, interrupting them. He stepped between them and stared at Carson. “The time to tell somebody you’re following them is not when you’re actually in the car. Especially a nervous young woman whose life has been threatened.”

Carson’s jaw was set so firmly she wondered if his teeth would break. He was still glaring at Carlie.

“And you need to keep your phone within reach when you’re driving,” he told Carlie in a gentler tone and with a smile.

“Yes, sir,” she said heavily. She let out a long sigh.

“She was doing a hundred miles an hour,” Carson said angrily.

“If you could clock her, you had to be doing the same,” Cash retorted. “You’re both lucky that you weren’t in the city limits at the time. Or that Hayes Carson or one of his deputies didn’t catch you. Speeding fines are really painful.”

“You’d know,” Carson mused, relaxing a little as he glanced at the older man.

Cash glowered at him. “Well, I drive a Jaguar,” he said defensively. “They don’t like slow speeds.”

“How many unpaid speeding tickets is it to date? Ten?” Carson persisted. “I hear you can’t cross the county border up around Dallas. And you, a chief of police. Shame, shame.”

Cash shrugged. “I sent the checks out yesterday,” he informed the other man. “All ten.”

“Threatening to put you under arrest, were they?”

“Only one of them,” Cash chuckled. “And he was in Iraq with me, so he stretched the rules a bit.”

“I have to get home,” Carlie said. She was still shaking inside over the threat that turned out to be just Carson. And from Carson’s sudden move toward her. Very few people knew what nightmares she endured from one very physical confrontation in the past.

“You keep under the speed limit, or I’m telling your father what you did to his car,” Carson instructed.

“He wouldn’t mind,” she lied, glaring at him.

“Let’s find out.” He jerked out his cell phone and started punching in numbers.

“All right!” she surrendered, holding up both hands. “All right, I’ll go under the speed limit.” Her eyes narrowed. “I’m taking that sword to a rune forge tonight. So the next time you meet me on a battleground, Hordie, I’m going to wipe the ground with you.”

He pursed his lips. “That would be a new experience for me, Alliance elf.”

Cash groaned. “Not you, too,” he said. “It’s bad enough listening to Wofford Patterson brag about his weapons. He even has a dog named Hellscream. And every time Kilraven comes down here, he’s got a new game he wants to tell me all about.”

“You should play, too, Chief,” Carlie said. She glanced at Carson. “It’s a great way to work off frustration.”

Carson raised an eyebrow. “I know a better one,” he said with a mocking smile.

He might not mean what she thought he did. She flushed helplessly and looked away. “I’m leaving.”

“Drive carefully. And buckle up,” Cash told her.

“Yes, sir, Boss,” she said, grinning.

She started the car, pulled it around and eased out of the parking lot.

She really hoped that her father wouldn’t find out how she’d been driving his pet car. It would be like Carson to tell him, just for spite.

Odd, though, she thought, how angry he’d been that she’d taken such chances. It was almost as if he was concerned about her. She laughed to herself. Sure. He was nursing a secret yen for her that he couldn’t control.

Not that he ever would ask her out or anything, but she had grave misgivings about him. He was known for his success with women, and she was soft where he was concerned. He could push her into something that he’d just brush off as insignificant, but her life would be shattered. She couldn’t let her helpless interest in him grow. Not even a little. She had to remember that he had no real respect for women and he didn’t seem capable of settling down with just one.

She pulled into her driveway and cut off the engine. It was a relief to be home. Just as she got out of the car she saw the black sedan drive by. He didn’t stop or wave. He just kept going. Her heart jumped up into her throat.

In spite of all the yelling, he’d shepherded her home and she hadn’t even noticed. She hated the warm feeling it gave her, knowing that.

3

CARLIE HAD HOPED that her father wouldn’t hear about her adventure. But when she got inside the house, he was waiting for her, his arms crossed over his chest.

“He lied,” she blurted out, blushing, the dress in its plastic bag hanging over one arm.

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

She hesitated. He might not know after all. She cocked her head. “Are you...angry about something?”

“Should I be?”

He made her feel guilty. She drew in a breath and moved toward him. “I was speeding. I’m sorry. Big Red can really run...”

“A hundred miles an hour,” he said, nodding. “You need special training to drive at those speeds safely, and you don’t have it,” he added patiently.

“I didn’t know it was Carson behind me,” she said heavily. “I thought it might be whoever still has me targeted.”

“I understand that. I gave him...well, a talking-to,” he amended. “It won’t happen again. But you keep your cell phone where you can get to it in a hurry, whatever you’re driving. Okay?”

“Okay, Dad,” she promised.

“Got the dress, did you?” he asked, and smiled.

“Yes! It’s beautiful! Green velvet. I’ll wear Mama’s pearls with it, the ones you brought her from Japan when you first started dating.”

He nodded. “They’re very special. I bought them in Tokyo,” he recalled, smiling. “She had the same skin tone that you inherited from her. Off-white pearls are just right for you.”

She frowned. “You buy them for a skin color?”

“I always did. Pearls come in many colors, and many prices. Those are Mikimoto pearls. An armed guard stands in the room with them.”

She lost a little color. “Maybe I should wear something else...”

“Nonsense. They need to be worn. That would be like getting a special dress and letting it hang in your closet for fear of spilling something on it. Life is what matters, child. Things are expendable.”

“Most things,” she agreed.

“I made supper, since I knew you were going to be late,” he said.

Her eyebrows arched. “That was sweet of you, Dad,” she said.

“It’s just a macaroni and cheese casserole. Your mother taught me how to do it when we were first married. I never forgot.”

“It’s one of my favorite dishes. Let me hang up my dress and I’ll be right down.”

“Sure.”

* * *

THE MEAL WAS DELICIOUS, even more so because she hadn’t had to cook it. She noticed her father’s somber expression.

“I’m really sorry about pushing Big Red,” she began.

He leaned back in his chair. “It’s not the car I was worried about.” His pale eyes were narrow and thoughtful. “It might not be a bad idea to send you over to Eb Scott and let one of his guys teach you the finer points of defensive driving. Just in case.”

Her heart jumped. “Dad, maybe there isn’t a real threat,” she said. “I mean, the guy who was afraid of what I remembered about him is dead.”

He nodded. “Yes, but there are things going on that you don’t know about.”

“You were talking to somebody on the phone who wanted you to come back. Come back where?” she asked bluntly.

He grimaced. “I used to work for the feds. Sort of. It was a long time ago.”

“Feds?” she repeated, trying to draw him out.

His chest rose and fell. “When you’re young, you think you can do anything, be anything. You don’t worry about consequences. You take the training and do the job. Nobody tells you that years down the line, you may have regrets.” He studied her oval face. “I was away when your mother got sick. What happened to you, because nobody was at home, was my fault. I should have been there.”

She glanced down. “They paid for it.”

“Not enough,” he said coldly, and his face was suddenly hard and merciless. “I don’t wish harm to anyone as a rule, but when your grandmother left the world, I didn’t shed a tear.”

Carlie managed a smile. “Me, neither. I guess he’s still around somewhere.”

“No. He died in a prison riot last year.”

“You didn’t say,” she faltered.

“I didn’t know. My former boss and I were making connections. We looked for anyone dangerous who knew you in the past. I had someone do some checking. I only found out yesterday.”

“It’s a relief, sort of,” she said heavily. She shook her head. “They were both crazy. She was the worst. My poor mother...”

He put his hand over hers and squeezed. “Mary was such a ray of light that nobody blamed her for what her mother did,” he reminded her.

“I know, but people have long memories in small towns.”

“You have your own spotless reputation,” he said gently. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I guess you’re right.” She laughed. “Robin hired a limo for us, can you believe it?”

“I like Robin,” he said. “I just wish he had more guts.”

“Now, now, we can’t all be real-life death knights with great swords.”

“You and that game. You do need to get out more.” He pursed his lips. “Maybe we need to organize some things for the young, single members of our church.”

“All four of us?” she mused.

He rolled his eyes.

“I like my life,” she declared. “Maybe it lacks excitement, but I’m happy. That should count for something, Dad.”

He laughed softly. “Okay. I see your point.”

* * *

THE CHIEF WAS UNHAPPY. He didn’t come out and say so, but he was on a short fuse and it was difficult to get anything out of him past one-syllable words.

“Sir, what about the new patrolman’s gear?” she asked gently. “You were supposed to give me a purchase order for it, weren’t you?”

“New patrolman?” He frowned. “Oh, yes. Bartley. Okay. I’ll do that today.”

She bit her tongue so that she didn’t remind him that he’d said the same thing the day before.

He caught her expression and laughed hollowly. “I know. I’m preoccupied. Want to know why?” He shoved a newspaper across his desk. “Read the headline.”

It said, Matthew Helm to Fill Unexpired Term of U.S. Senator. She stared at Cash without understanding what he was upset about.

“There were three men in the running for the appointment,” he said. “One was found by police in San Antonio, on the street, doped up by an apparent drug habit that nobody knew he had. A tip,” he added. “The second withdrew from the nomination because his son was arrested for cocaine possession—a kid who’d never even used drugs, but apparently the glove compartment in his car was stuffed with the stuff. Another tip. The third contender, Helm, got the appointment.”

“You think the others were set up,” she began.

“Big-time,” he replied. He glared at the headline. “If he wins the special election in May, we’re in for some hard times in law enforcement. I can’t prove it, but the prevailing theory is that Mr. Helm is in bed with Charro Mendez. Remember him?”

She nodded. “The enforcer who worked for the late El Ladrón,” she said. “He was a cousin to the Fuentes brothers.”

“The very same ones who used to run the distribution hub. He’s now head of the drug cartel over the border in Cotillo. In fact, he’s the mayor of that lovely little drug center.”

“Oh, dear.”

“I really wish somebody had furnished Carson with more than three hand grenades,” he muttered.

“Shame!” she said.

He chuckled. “Okay. I’ll get the purchase order filled out.” He leaned forward. “Hell of a thing, to have a politician like this in Washington.”

“He’ll be a junior senator,” she pointed out. “He won’t have an important role in anything. He won’t chair any important committees and he won’t have powerful alliances.”

“Yet.”

“Surely, he won’t win the special election,” she ventured.

He looked at her. “Carlie, remember what I just told you about his rivals for the appointment?”

She whistled. “Oh, dear,” she said again.

“Exactly.”

The phone rang. She excused herself and went out to answer it.

* * *

CARSON WAS CONSPICUOUS by his absence for the next few days. Nobody said anything about him, but it was rumored that he was away on some job for Eb Scott. In the meantime, Carlie got her first look at the mysterious Rourke.

He stopped by her office during her lunch hour one day. He was wearing khakis with a sheepskin coat. He grinned at her where she sat at her desk eating hot soup out of a foam cup.

“Bad habit,” he said, with a trace of a South African accent. “Eating on the job. You should be having that out of fine china in some exotic restaurant.”

She was staring at the attractive man wearing an eye patch, with her spoon suspended halfway between the cup and her mouth. “Excuse me?” she faltered.

“An exotic restaurant,” he repeated.

“Listen, the only exotic restaurant I know of is the Chinese place over on Madison, and I think their cook is from New York.”

He chuckled. “It’s the sentiment, you know, that counts.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” She put down the cup. “How can I help you?”

“Is the boss in?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Sorry. He’s at the exotic local café having a thick hamburger and fries with a beautiful ex-motion picture star.”

“Ah, the lovely Tippy,” he chuckled. “Lucky man, to have a wife who’s both kind and beautiful. The combination is rare.”

“I’ll say.”

“So, okay if I leave a message?”

She pushed a pad and pen across the desk and smiled. “Be my guest.”

He scribbled a few words and signed with a flourish.

She glanced at it. “You’re Rourke?”

He nodded. His one pale brown eye twinkled. “I guess my reputation has preceded me?”

“Something like that,” she said with a grin.

“I hope you were told it by your boss and not Carson,” he said.

She shook her head. “Nobody told me. I overheard my dad talking about you on the telephone.”

“Your dad?”

She nodded. “Reverend Jake Blair.”

His face softened. “You’re his daughter, then.” He nodded. “It came as a shock to know he had a child, let me tell you. Not the sort of guy I ever associated with family.”

“Why?” she asked, all innocence.

He saw that innocence and his face closed up. “I spoke out of turn, there.”

“I know he did other things before he came home,” she said. “I don’t know what they were.”

“I see.”

In that instant, his own past seemed to scroll across his hard face, leaving scars that were visible for a few seconds.

“You need to go to one of those exotic restaurants and have something to cheer you up,” she pointed out.

He stared at her for a moment and then chuckled. “How about going with me?” he teased.

She shook her head. “Sorry. I’ve been warned about you.”

“How so?” he asked, and seemed really interested in her answer.

She grinned. “I’m not in your league, Mr. Rourke,” she said. “Small-town girl, never been anywhere, never dated much...” He looked puzzled. She gave him her best starstruck expression. “I want to get married and have lots of kids,” she said enthusiastically. “In fact, I’m free today after five...!”

He glowered at her. “Damn! And I’ve got a meeting at five.” He snapped his fingers. “What a shame!”

“Just my luck. There, there, I’m sure you’ll find someone else who can’t wait to marry you,” she added.

“No plans to marry, I’m afraid,” he replied. Then he seemed to get it, all at once. His eyebrows arched. “Are you having me on?”

She blinked. “Am I having you on what?”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I can’t marry you,” he said. “It’s against my religion.”

“Which religion would that be?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “I’ll have to find one that prohibits marriage...” He burst out laughing.

She grinned.

“I get it. I’m a bit slow today. Must stem from missing breakfast.” He shook his head. “Damned weird food you Yanks serve for breakfast, let me tell you. Grits? What the hell is a grit?”

“If you have to ask, you shouldn’t eat one,” she returned, laughing.

“I reckon.” He smiled. “Well, it was nice meeting you, Ms. Blair.”

“Miss,” she said. “I don’t run a company and I’m not planning to start my own business.”

He blinked. “Come again?”

She frowned. “How can I come again if I haven’t left?”

He moved closer to the desk. “Confound it, woman, I need a dictionary to figure out what you’re saying.”

“You can pin a rose on that,” she agreed. “Are you from England?”

He glared at her. “I’m South African.”

“Oh! The Boer Wars. You had a very famous general named Christiaan de Wet. He was a genius at guerilla warfare and was never captured by the British, although his brother, Piet, was.”

He gaped at her.

She smiled shyly. “I collect famous generals. Sort of. I have books on famous campaigns. My favorites were American, of course, like General Francis Marion of South Carolina, the soldier they called the ‘Swamp Fox’ because he was so good at escaping from the British in the swamps during the Revolutionary War,” she laughed. “Then there was Colonel John Singleton Mosby, the Gray Ghost of the Confederacy. I also like to read about Crazy Horse,” she added shyly. “He was Oglala Lakota, one of the most able of the indigenous leaders. He fought General Crook’s troops to a standstill at the Battle of the Rosebud.”

He was still gaping.

“But my favorite is Alexander the Great. Of all the great military heroes, he was the most incredible strategist...”

“I don’t believe it.” He perched himself on the edge of her desk. “I know South Africans who couldn’t tell you who de Wet was!”

She shrugged. “I used to spend a lot of time in the library. They had these old newspapers from the turn of the twentieth century. They were full of the Boer Wars and that famous Boer General de Wet,” she laughed. “I almost missed class a couple of times because I was so entranced by the microfilm.”

He laughed. “Actually, I’m distantly related to one of the de Wets, not really sure if it was Christiaan, though. My people have been in South Africa for three generations. They were originally Dutch, or so my mother said.”

“Rourke is not really a Dutch name, is it?” she asked.

He sighed. “No. Her name was Skipper, her maiden name.”

“Was your father Irish?”

His face closed up. That one brown eye looked glittery.

“Sorry,” she said at once. “That was clumsy. I have things in my past that I don’t like to think about, either.”

He was surprised at her perception. “I don’t speak of my father,” he said gently. “Didn’t mean to unsettle you.”

“No problem,” she said, and smiled. “We’re sort of the sum total of the tragedies of our lives.”

“Well put.” He nodded thoughtfully. “I might reconsider about that marriage thing...”

“Sorry. My lunch hour’s over.”

“Damn.”

She laughed.

He studied her with real interest. “There’s this do, called a Valentine’s Day dance, I think. If you need a partner...?”

“Thanks, but I have a date,” she said.

“Just my luck, being at the end of the line, and all,” he chuckled.

“If you go, I’ll dance with you,” she promised.

“Will you, now? In that case, I’ll dust off my tux.”

“Just one dance, though,” she added. “I mean, we wouldn’t want to get you gossiped about or anything.”

“Got it.” He winked and got to his feet. “If you’ll pass that note along to the chief, I’ll be grateful. See you around, I expect.”

“I expect so,” she replied.

* * *

WHAT A VERY strange man, she thought. He was charming. But she really didn’t want to complicate her life. In his way, he seemed far more risky than even Carson, in a romantic sense.

When she got home, she mentioned his visit to her father.

“So now you know who Rourke is,” he chuckled.

“He’s very nice,” she said. “But he’s a sad sort of person.”

“Rourke?” he asked, and seemed almost shocked.

“Yes. I mean, it doesn’t show so much. But you can tell.”

“Pumpkin, you really are perceptive.”

“He said he’d take me to the Valentine’s dance. That was after he reconsidered the wedding, but I told him my lunch hour was over...”

“What?” he blurted out.

“Nothing to worry about, he said he wasn’t free today anyway.”

“Listen here, you can’t marry Rourke,” he said firmly.

“Well, not today, at least,” she began.

“Not any day,” came an angry voice from the general direction of the front door. Carson came in, scowling. “And what did I tell you about keeping that cell phone with you?” he added, pulling it out of his pocket. “You left it on your desk at work!”

She grimaced. “I didn’t notice.”

“Too busy flirting with Rourke, were you?” Carson added harshly.

“That is none of your business,” she said pertly.

“It really isn’t,” her father interjected, staring at Carson until he backed down. “What’s going on?” he added, changing the subject.

Carson looked worn. “Dead ends. Lots of them.”

“Were you at least able to ascertain if it was poison?”

He nodded. “A particularly nasty one that took three days to do its work.” He glanced at Carlie, who looked pale. “Should you be listening to this?” he asked.

“I work for the police,” she pointed out. She swallowed. “Photos of dead people, killed in various ways, are part of the files I have to keep for court appearances by our men and women.”

Carson frowned. He hadn’t considered that her job would involve things like that. “I thought you just typed reports.”

She drew in a breath. “I type reports, I file investigative material, photos, I keep track of court appearances, call people to remind them of meetings, and from time to time I function as a shoulder for people who have to deal with unthinkable things.”

Carson knew what she was talking about. His best friend, years ago, had been a reservation policeman. He’d gone with the man on runs a time or two during college vacation. In the service, overseas, he’d seen worse things. He was surprised that Carlie, the innocent, was able to deal with that aspect of police work.

“It’s a good job,” she added. “And I have the best boss around.”

“I have to agree,” her father said with a gentle smile. “For a hard case, he does extremely well as a police chief.” He sighed. “I do miss seeing Judd Dunn around.”

“Who’s Judd Dunn?” Carson asked.

“He was a Texas Ranger who served on the force with Cash,” Jake said. “He quit to be assistant chief here when he and Christabel had twins. But he was offered a job as police chief over in Centerville. It’s still Jacobs County, just several miles away. He took it for the benefits package. And, maybe, to compete with Cash,” he chuckled.

“They tell a lot of stories about the chief,” Carlie said.

“Most of them are true,” Reverend Blair replied. “The man has had a phenomenal life. I don’t think there’s much he hasn’t done.”

Carson put Carlie’s phone on the table beside her and glanced at his watch with a grimace. “I have to get going. I’m still checking on the other thing,” he added to Reverend Blair. “But I... Sorry.”

Carson paused to take a call. “Yes, I know, I’m running late.” He paused and smiled, gave Carlie a smug look. “It will be worth the wait. I like you in pink. Okay. See you in about thirty minutes. We’ll make the curtain, I promise. Sure.” He hung up. “I’m taking Lanette to see The Firebird in San Antonio. I have to go.”

“Lanette?” Reverend Blair asked.

“She’s a stewardess. I met her on the plane coming down with Dalton Kirk a few weeks ago.” He paused. “There’s still the matter of who sent a driver for him, you know. A man was holding a sign with his name on it. I tried to trace him, but I couldn’t get any information.”

“I’ll mention it to Hayes,” Reverend Blair said. “He’s still hoping to find Joey’s computer.” Joey was the computer technician who’d been killed trying to recover files from Hayes’s computer. The computer itself had disappeared, leading Hayes to reset all the department’s sensitive information files and type most of his documentary evidence all over again.

Carson’s expression was cold. “Joey didn’t deserve to die like that. He was a sweet kid.”

“I didn’t know him,” Reverend Blair said. “Eb said he was one of the finest techs he’d ever employed.”

“One day,” Carson said, “we’ll find the person who killed him.”

“Make sure you take a law enforcement officer with you if it’s you who finds him,” Reverend Blair said shortly. “You’re very young to end up in federal prison on a murder charge.”

Carson smiled, but his eyes didn’t. “I’m not as young as I look. And age has more to do with experience than years,” he said, and for a minute, the sadness Carlie had seen on Rourke’s face was duplicated on Carson’s.

“True,” Reverend Blair said quietly.

Carlie was fiddling with her phone, not looking at Carson. She’d heard about the stewardess from one of the sheriff’s deputies, who’d heard it from Dalton Kirk. The woman was blonde and beautiful and all over Carson during the flight. It made Carlie sad, and she didn’t want to be. She didn’t want to care that he was going to a concert with the woman.

“Well, I’ll be in touch.” He glanced at Carlie. There was that smug, taunting smile again. And he was gone.

Her father looked at her with sympathy. “You can’t let it matter,” he said after a minute. “You know that.”

She hesitated for a second. Then she nodded. “I’m going up. Need anything?”

He shook his head. He took her by the shoulders and kissed her forehead. “Life is hard.”

“Oh, yes,” she said, and tried to smile. “Night, Dad.”

“Sleep well.”

“You, too.”

* * *

SHE PLUGGED IN her game and went looking for Robin to run some battlegrounds. It would keep her mind off what Carson was probably doing with that beautiful blonde stewardess. She saw her reflection in the computer screen and wished, not for the first time, that she had some claim to beauty and charm.

Robin was waiting for her in the Alliance capital city. They queued for a battleground and practiced with their weapons on the target dummies while they waited.

This is my life, she thought silently. A computer screen in a dark room. I’m almost twenty-three years old and nobody wants to marry me. Nobody even wants to date me. But I have bright ideals and I’m living the way I want to.

She made a face at her reflection. “Good girls never made history,” she told it. Then she hesitated. Yes, they did. Joan of Arc was considered so holy that her men never approached her in any physical way. They followed her, a simple farm girl, into battle without hesitation. She was armed with nothing except her flag and her faith. She crowned a king and saved a nation. Even today, centuries later, people know who she was. Joan was a good girl.

Carlie smiled to herself. So, she thought. There’s my comeback to that!

* * *

SHE WAS TYPING up a grisly report the next day. A man had been found on the town’s railroad tracks. He was a vagabond, apparently. He was carrying no identification and wearing a nice suit. There wasn’t a lot left of him. Carlie tried not to glance at the crime scene photos as she dealt with the report.

Carson came in, looking weary and out of sorts.

She stared at him. “Well, it wasn’t you, after all,” she said enigmatically.

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“We found a man in a nice suit, carrying no identification. Just for a few minutes, we wondered if it was you,” she said, alluding to his habit of going everywhere without ID.

“Tough luck,” he returned. He frowned as he glanced at the crime scene photos. He lifted one and looked at it with no apparent reaction. He put it back down. His black eyes narrowed on her face as he tried to reconcile her apparent sweetness with the ability it took to process that information without throwing up.

“Something you needed?” she asked, still typing.

“I want to speak to Grier,” he said.

She buzzed the chief and announced the visitor. She went back to her typing without giving Carson the benefit of even a glance. “You can go in,” she said, nodding toward the chief’s office door.

Carson stared at her without meaning to. She wasn’t pretty. She had nothing going for her. She had ironclad ideals and a smart mouth and a body that wasn’t going to send any man running toward her. Still, she had grit. She could do a job like that. It would be hard even on a toughened police officer, which she wasn’t.

She looked up, finally, intimidated by the silence. He captured her eyes, held them, probed them. The look was intense, biting, sensual. She felt her heart racing. Her hands on the keyboard were cold as ice. She wanted to look away but she couldn’t. It was like holding a live electric wire...

“Carson?” the chief called from his open office door.

Carson dragged his gaze away from Carlie. “Coming.”

He didn’t look at her again. Not even as he left the office scant minutes later. She didn’t know whether to be glad or not. The look had kindled a hunger in her that she’d never known until he walked into her life. She knew the danger. But it was like a moth’s attraction to the flames.

She forced her mind back on the job at hand and stuffed Carson, bad attitude and blonde and all, into a locked door in the back of her mind.

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