Texas Proud

by Diana Palmer

  He looked around. “Not so many people just yet. So.” He caught a handful of her long, beautiful platinum hair and tugged her face under his. “Don’t panic,” he whispered as he bent his head. “This is just a test. I’m practicing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, in case I ever have to save you...!”

  Chapter Five

  Bernie held her breath as she watched his firm, chiseled lips hover over hers. She could taste the coffee on his mouth, feel his breath as his face came closer, so that his dark eyes filled the world.

  She clutched at his jacket, more overcome with emotion than she could have dreamed even a few weeks ago.

  “I love your hair, Bernadette,” he whispered as his hand contracted in it and his mouth slowly covered hers for the first time.

  She gasped under the soft pressure, but she wasn’t trying to get away. He gazed down at her. Her eyes were closed, her eyebrows drawn together. She looked as if she’d die if he didn’t kiss her.

  Which was exactly how he felt, himself. He settled his mouth over hers, gently because he could sense her attraction and her fear. It was hard to give control to another person. But it was a lesson she would have to learn. He was glad that she was learning it with him.

  He guided her arms up around his neck as his lips became slowly more insistent, giving her time to absorb the newness of it, giving her time to let go of her restraint. It melted out of her as he drew her closer across the console, his lips opening now, pressing hers gently apart.

  She heard his breath sigh out against her cheek, felt his arms enfolding her, protecting her. She moaned as the feeling became almost overpowering and her arms tightened around his neck.

  “That’s it, baby,” he whispered. “Just like that. Don’t hold back. I’ll go slow, I promise.”

  And he did. He didn’t force her or do anything to make her uncomfortable. His mouth slid finally against her cheek to rest at her ear. His heart was doing the hula in his chest. He could feel hers doing the same thing.

  It was odd, to be chaste with her. Most women in his past would have been tearing his clothes off at this point, but Bernie was gentle and inexperienced. He could feel the need in her because he felt it, as well. It was new to want to protect and cherish someone. He felt as if he could fly.

  “You taste like sugar candy,” he whispered at her ear.

  Her arms tightened and she laughed softly. She didn’t know what to say.

  His big hand smoothed the length of her hair. “I’m glad you left it down tonight,” he murmured. “Just for me?”

  “Just for you.” Her voice sounded husky. She felt swollen all over. It was a delicious sensation, like going down on a roller coaster.

  His face nuzzled hers. “I never expected something like this,” he said in a deep, lazy tone. “I was going to stay in this little town for a while and bide my time, maybe find a poker game to get into or something. And here’s this beautiful little violet, right in my boardinghouse.”

  “Me?” she stammered.

  His hand slid under her hair. “You, Bernadette.” His cheek slid against hers and his mouth covered hers again, but harder this time, hungrier.

  She couldn’t resist him. She didn’t have the sophistication to even pretend that she didn’t like what he was doing. Her fingers tangled in his thick, cool, wavy hair. She loved what he was doing to her. She couldn’t hide it.

  And he loved that about her. He loved that she felt the same attraction he did, and that she was innocent, untouched, vulnerable. She needed someone to take care of her. He needed someone to take care of. Since his grandmother’s death, there had been nobody in his life to fill that need. Bernie’s disability didn’t put him off in the slightest. It made him feel protective.

  Which made him slow down. He was taking things too far, too fast. He drew back very slowly, his dark eyes intent on her face, her eyes half-closed, her pretty mouth swollen, her body warm and soft in his arms. She radiated tenderness.

  “It’s been a long time since I felt like this,” he whispered at her lips, brushing them with his own. “And even then, it wasn’t so sweet.”

  She smiled against his mouth. “I’ve never felt anything like this,” she confessed softly. “Not with anybody.” She grimaced. “Not that there’s ever been anybody, except a boy who kissed me at a party when I was sixteen.” She sighed. “That was just before he said he liked me a lot but he didn’t want to get involved with a crippled girl.”

  “You aren’t crippled,” he said shortly. “You have as brave a spirit as anybody I ever knew. You’re strong and capable. You’re a woman with a disability, not a disability that’s female. If that makes sense.”

  “You mean, I have a disability but it doesn’t define who I am,” she translated.

  He smiled. “Yeah. It’s like that.” He searched her pale green eyes. “I don’t mind it. I told you about my grandmother, that she had it, too. Somebody who minds it isn’t interested in you the right way. He’s looking for somebody more...casual.”

  She knew what he meant. Her fingers went up to his face and traced it while she studied him with fascination. “I never knew anybody like you,” she whispered.

  “I never knew anybody like you,” he replied, and he was serious. “I can’t imagine how I missed seeing you when I was here before, three years ago.”

  “I heard about you back then. I was working for a firm of attorneys. But people just said you were helping your brother-in-law with some case,” she added.

  That might be a good thing. He wasn’t sure how she’d feel if she knew the truth about him, about exactly why and how he’d helped the Grayling girls.

  “You don’t know much about me,” he said after a minute.

  “That’s okay. You don’t know much about me, either,” she replied.

  He grinned. “Don’t tell me. You’re a spy and you have a trench coat in your closet back in the boardinghouse.”

  “Don’t you dare tell a soul,” she chided. “They’d send people to sack me up and take me away.”

  “I’d never do that,” he said softly, and he smiled. “Not in a million years.”

  In the back of his mind, he was hearing a song recorded by Meatloaf about doing anything for love. He sang softly, a little off-key.

  She caught her breath. “It’s one of my favorite songs,” she confessed. “Did you see the video?”

  “I did. I watch it on YouTube sometimes.” He laughed. “It’s one of my favorites, too. What other sort of music do you like?”

  Just as she started to answer, there was a gentle rap on the window.

  Startled, Mikey let go of Bernie and put her gently back into her own seat before he powered down the window.

  Cash Grier was standing there with a very knowing smile on his face, in his uniform.

  “I have not been speeding in your town, and I never even jaywalked,” Mikey began. “Besides that, we are outside the city limits.”

  Cash chuckled. “That’s not why I’m here.”

  Mikey just waited.

  Cash grimaced. “We’ve had a development,” he said. “Nothing major. But Paul wants to talk to you, at the house.”

  “We just got here,” Mikey said, visibly disturbed. “Can’t it wait?”

  “Sorry. No, it can’t. Paul said to bring Bernie with you,” he added with a smile in her direction.

  “Oh.” Mikey brightened. He turned to her. “Okay with you?”

  She grinned. “Okay with me.”

  “We’ll catch the movie another time,” Mikey promised. He turned back to Cash. “You headed that way, too?”

  Cash nodded. “You’ll have two other cars following behind you, as well.”

  “Following us?” Bernie asked, concerned.

  Cash and Mikey exchanged a long look. Mikey shook his head, just a jerk, but Cash understood at once that he wasn’t to tell Bernie
anything. “It’s something to do with a case Paul’s working on,” Cash told Bernie with an easy smile. “No worries.”

  “Okay,” she said, and smiled shyly.

  “We’ll be right along.” Mikey took the speaker off the window and put it on its stand, powering the window up afterward. “Sorry about this,” he told Bernie.

  “You’re related to an FBI agent,” she said. “And I don’t mind. Really.”

  He caught her hand in his as he turned onto the road. “You’re easy to be with,” he said softly. “You don’t complain, you don’t fuss. Even when you probably should.”

  She laughed. “I love being with you. Anywhere at all.”

  “That’s how I feel.” He curled her fingers into his and drove the rest of the way to Paul’s house in silence. He was worried, and couldn’t let it show. It must be something big if Paulie wanted to interrupt a date. His cousin wasn’t the sort to interfere unless it was warranted. Which led Mikey to worry about exactly what the new development was.

  His first thought was that they’d found Tony in some sort of horrible condition. They knew that Cotillo had a contract out on him, and that he could probably figure out that Tony was in the Bahamas since he and Marcus Carrera were close. He hoped Tony was still alive, even though it put Mikey in more danger.

  He glanced at Bernadette and felt his heart clench. He was already attached to her. He couldn’t bear the thought of letting her get hurt because of him. And she still didn’t know anything about him, really, or the danger he was in. He was putting her in danger. If someone came looking for him, they’d go after the weakest link. An hour in any restaurant or bar around, and they’d know that Mikey was dating this cute little paralegal who worked for the DA. Bernadette could be used against him. In fact, so could Mrs. Brown and her other residents. Mikey had a weakness for motherly women, and people knew about it.

  “You’re worried,” she said softly from beside him.

  His head turned. His shocked expression said it all.

  “You hide things very well,” she continued. “You really do have a poker face. But it’s inside you. I can feel it.”

  He let out a long breath and his fingers contracted. “You see deep, just like Paulie’s sister-in-law.”

  “Merrie was always like that, even in school.”

  “You’ve lived here a long time, haven’t you?”

  “Well, off and on, yes. I was born here, but when I was little, my parents moved to Floresville. My dad worked on a cattle ranch there as a foreman.” Her face closed up. “Dad and I moved back here when I was about ten years old.”

  He was reading between the lines. Something had happened in Floresville that still caused her pain after all that time. He wondered what it was. But he wasn’t going to ask. Not yet. They had time.

  “I lived all my life in Newark,” he said.

  “Yes, you told me. You said you own a hotel in Las Vegas,” she added, fascinated. “It must be a lot of responsibility, taking care of something so big,” she added.

  He chuckled. “You have no idea. I didn’t know what I was getting into. I had some spare cash and I thought it would be fun to own something big and elegant. It’s not what it’s cracked up to be. The labor problems alone are enough to send me to the nearest bar.”

  “I guess a lot of people work for you.”

  They did, but not in the hotel business. He employed a number of men who worked just a little outside the law on various projects for him. He wasn’t about to go into that with her. He thought about the life he’d lived, the things he’d done to get rich. It had seemed so important at the time, as if nothing was more important than having things, having expensive things, having money. He’d come out of the armed forces with a lot of contacts and even more ideas, and he’d put them into practice in the years since then. Now, when he thought of Bernadette and what a straight arrow she was, he felt uncomfortable. What would she think of him when she knew what he was, what he’d been, what he’d done? Already, the thought of losing her trust was painful.

  “You have to stop worrying about things you can’t change,” she said, reminding him of a conversation they’d had some time ago about that.

  He chuckled. “That’s the thing, kid. There’s a lot of stuff I can change. I just don’t know how to go about it without getting thrown in the slammer.”

  She laughed because she thought it was a joke.

  He smiled. It wasn’t a joke at all. He had men who could take on a contract killer with great success, but it would put him in bad stead with the FBI and the US Marshals Service, which was helping protect him. His hands were tied. He couldn’t put Paulie on the firing line by acting on his own. Besides, if he helped put Cotillo away, it put him in a great bargaining position with Uncle Sam. He might need a favor one day. It was to his advantage not to use his usual methods of dealing with threats.

  “If you get arrested, I can bake a nail file in a cake and come to see you,” she said with a wicked little grin.

  He sighed. “Honey, they don’t have iron bars on the outside of cells anymore. They’re all inside and all the doors lock along the way. You’d never get out that way.”

  She frowned. She’d never been in a real jail, but he seemed to know a lot about them. She reasoned that he’d probably been with his cousin to see somebody in jail on a case or something. It didn’t worry her.

  He glanced at her and smiled. She really didn’t see the bad part of him. It was amazing—that she had such insight but didn’t see wickedness in his actions. Probably she didn’t look for it. Apparently, her own life had been a sheltered one.

  * * *

  The big house at Graylings was ablaze with lights when Mikey pulled up into the driveway. There were two black sedans and a black SUV. The sedans had government license plates.

  “Feds,” Mikey said with a sigh as he helped Bernie out of the car.

  She glanced at the backs of the cars parked side by side. She smiled. “Government plates. I guess they think people won’t know as long as they don’t have flashing lights on top,” she teased.

  He chuckled. “Good one.” He caught her hand in his as they walked up to the front door. He drew in a breath. “Listen, kid,” he said as they reached it, “there are things going on that I can’t tell you about.”

  “I don’t mind,” she said, and looked up at him with perfect trust. In fact, she was in so far over her head that she wouldn’t have minded if he robbed banks for a living.

  He smiled slowly. “You’re almost too good to be true,” he chuckled. “Don’t you have any wicked, terrible things in your past?”

  The door opened, but not before he saw the expression that washed across her face, quickly hidden when Sari Fiore opened the door and grinned at them, holding hands.

  “Sorry to have to break up your date,” she told Bernie, “but we didn’t have a choice. You can keep me company while the men talk. Mandy’s gone to bed with a headache, so I’m alone. Well, almost alone,” she amended when three men walked into the hall.

  “Hey, Mikey,” Paul Fiore greeted his cousin.

  “Hey, Paulie.”

  “You know McLeod already,” he said to Mikey, indicating a big, dark man, “and this is Senior FBI Agent Jarrod Murdock from our San Antonio office.”

  “I heard about you,” Mikey mused as he looked at tall, blond Murdock, an imposing man who never seemed to smile. “Didn’t they threaten to dress up like a ninja and throw you in the back of a pickup if you made coffee again...?” he teased.

  Murdock made a face. “Not my fault I can’t make good coffee,” he scoffed. “I wasn’t raised to be a woman.”

  The two women present gave him a wide-eyed, shocked look.

  He cleared his throat. “Well, men aren’t built right to make coffee,” he amended. “Our hands are too big.” He added that last bit tongue in cheek. And he wasn’t smiling
, but his pale blue eyes were twinkling just the same.

  “That’s the only comment that saved you from a picket line outside your office,” Sari said in a mock threatening tone.

  “God forbid!” Murdock said. “They’d fire me for sure.”

  “Not really,” Paul commented. “You’re too good a shot. You and Rick Marquez’s wife hold the record for the most perfect scores in the city in a single year.”

  “She missed one shot last month,” Murdock replied. He grinned. “Morning sickness. So I hold the record right now.”

  “She’s pregnant?” Sari asked. “Oh, that’s so nice! I hope it’s a boy this time.”

  “They already have two girls,” Bernie told Mikey with a smile.

  “I like little girls,” Mikey said. “Little boys, too. Kids are sweet.”

  “Not all of them,” Agent McLeod said coldly with glittering silver eyes.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Paul commented. “That family you were looking after had a kid who stayed in juvie hall most of his life. What was that he painted your car with?”

  McLeod eyes narrowed. “Skull and crossbones.”

  “And you couldn’t touch him, because he was in protective custody.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” McLeod replied. “I had a long talk with his probation officer. He’s getting visits at school, at home, at his part-time job...”

  “You vicious man,” Sari chuckled.

  “Maybe the skull and crossbones was more accurate than we know,” Murdock commented.

  “Watch it,” McLeod said, “or I’ll buy myself a ninja suit and a pickup truck.”

  They all burst out laughing.

  “Well, come on into the study,” Paul said to the men. He glanced at Sari.

  “Bernie and I will be in the kitchen, discussing world politics,” Sari replied.

  Bernie looked up at Mikey with soft, pretty green eyes. “See you later.”

  He smiled slowly. “You will.” He brought her fingers to his mouth and brushed them with it before he followed the men into the study.