by Dana Marton
She stared at him. His place.
Okay. What did that mean? As a friend? As more? They had kissed. Or was he offering safety in an official capacity?
She could just barely picture herself leaving the ranch. Moving in with Mo... She needed to know what he meant by it. “I’m guessing you don’t offer room and board to every person you interrogate.”
A wry smile stretched his masculine lips. “Pretty much never. I haven’t even had the guys on the team over.” He shrugged. “I’m not exactly a social butterfly. More of a loner, actually.”
“Sounds like you like your private life private.” She did, too. She liked living out here in the middle of nowhere. She’d never lived anyplace else.
Since she’d had Logan right after high school, she had never gone away to college. She’d received her agricultural-management degree through one of those low-residency programs where she only had to go on campus twice a year to take her exams. And the college had day care for young mothers during those residencies.
Her dream had been to create a preservation education operation, growing and preserving rare and heirloom fruits and vegetables and allowing various colleges to hold open-air lectures on her land. But Dylan had said it couldn’t be done. They simply didn’t have the resources.
She could have applied for grants, but he’d gotten upset when she’d mentioned that. He was proud that way, didn’t like the idea of his sister going around begging, hat in hand.
And it was fine. She loved her animals, loved her garden, had a lot more time to spend with Logan than if she was running a serious operation. As long as she was on the ranch, she was happy.
Living at Mo’s place...
The passionate kiss they’d shared earlier filled her mind, making her lips tingle. She felt awkward just sitting with him in her kitchen. What would it be like to spend serious time together? Could she pretend that she didn’t like him as much as she really did?
“I’m on duty almost around the clock,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “And I’ll come by at night as much as I can. I want to catch those men if they come back. You would pretty much have the place to yourself.”
Odd how something could set a person more at ease while being disappointing at the same time. So, going to Mo’s place... What choice did she have? Not much if she wanted to keep her son safe.
“I don’t want harm to come to you or Logan,” he said, underscoring her thoughts.
Which meant what? That they meant something to him?
Her insides began tingling again.
“Okay.” She closed her eyes for a second. “Thank you.”
His shoulders relaxed, the smile on his face widened. He looked pleased as punch, while she worked hard to hide her misgivings. He was about to say something, but then the dogs barked and soon they heard the sound of a car coming up her driveway.
He went to the window and looked out. “It’s Jamie and Shep. I’ll go talk to them. You stay here.”
She watched from the window as he led his friends to the barn and they disappeared inside. She fed the dogs breakfast to keep them quiet, but Logan woke up anyway and plodded down the stairs, bringing his handheld “Calvin Cat Counting” game with him.
He was even more obsessed with the games now that he knew Mo’s connection. He was quickly developing some hero worship for Mo that had started after the school incident and martial-arts training. It worried her a little. She didn’t want Logan to fall for Mo so completely, not when she knew Mo wouldn’t be staying.
A worry for another day. She had plenty of other things on her plate today. She put a big smile on her face. “Hey, you. How about breakfast?”
He sat in his chair and yawned as he nodded, looked toward the window and saw the men in the backyard. “Mom? Who is that?”
“Some of Mo’s friends. They’re working in the barn.” She didn’t want to scare her son with details. “Guess what?” She widened her smile as she got out the bowl to make pancakes. “Mo invited us to visit with him.”
He brightened immediately. “I bet he has a lot of video games.”
“I bet he does. And it’s not just any visit. It’s a sleepover. Probably for a few days.”
Logan jumped from his chair, looking as if someone had just told him Santa Claus was coming early. “I’m not going to school?”
“I’m pretty sure the school bus stops there, too.” She shook her head.
His enthusiasm waned a little, but not by much. “Can I pack now?”
She laughed as she stirred the pancake mix. “I think packing can wait until after breakfast.”
So they ate together and Logan talked about nothing but going to Mo’s place. They rarely went away, mostly because they had little family to visit, and also because somebody had to be here for the animals.
Since it was admin day, no school, they did go upstairs to pack. Logan finished first. She spent an eternity agonizing over which clothes to take. She didn’t want to look like a country bumpkin in front of Mo. Stupid vanity, she told herself and nearly packed her rattiest work clothes. But at the last minute, she folded her nicer dresses into the suitcase instead.
The extra SUV was gone from the driveway by the time she came downstairs. Mo was just coming in.
“Everything’s taken care of. I’ll help you do morning chores before we leave.”
And he did. And, Lord, that was nice, not just the help but the company. He was a quiet man, didn’t talk her ear off like Kenny. Quiet, but strong and efficient. He figured out everything right quick, too. She didn’t need to explain a thing.
As he mucked out the stalls, nobody would have guessed that he was some gaming-empire millionaire. She stared at him, just a little, before she caught herself. She’d been worried about Logan, but was she falling just as fast for Mo?
“Done here.” He leaned the pitchfork against the wall. “I’ll just wheel this out back.” He grabbed the wheelbarrow.
“Thanks.” She looked after him as he went, then busied herself with the cows, even as her thoughts kept lingering on Mo.
He seemed to be the type of man who could fit in anywhere, do anything and be good at it because he paid attention and gave top effort. He didn’t put on airs. He could have been dressed all in Armani, but wore simple clothes and didn’t mind getting them dirty.
By the time the chores were done, she nearly talked herself into the fantasy that they weren’t so different after all, that maybe some relationship between them could be possible while he was here.
That thought went right out the window when they finally arrived at his apartment in Hullett an hour later.
Logan walked around wide-eyed, touching everything, exclaiming over something every second. She felt the same, although held herself back. But only just. She was more than a little shell-shocked.
“You, um, have a very nice place.”
The understatement of the year. He rented in the fanciest building in town, a historical hotel on Main Street once owned by an oil baron. The whole top floor had been the baron’s private living space. Now Mo was staying there.
“Sit,” she ordered her dogs and pointed to a corner, hoping they wouldn’t mess up anything. Thank God they weren’t chewers. She couldn’t afford to replace as much as a doormat here.
“They’ll be fine.” Mo was smiling at her.
“This is very fancy,” she said weakly.
“Didn’t want it, didn’t need it.” He set down her suitcase and raised his hands palms out, in a defensive gesture. “I came to rent something small. Turns out the manager is somewhat of a gaming buff. He gets every gaming magazine. My name was familiar to him and he asked. I didn’t want to lie to his face. All he had to do was look it up on Google.”
Of course, in the gaming circles the Mann name was probably famous. And the manager woul
d insist that Mo take the penthouse apartment, the best they had.
She couldn’t imagine who else would ever have money to rent the place. Visiting politicians? The pope?
He moved farther in, seemingly oblivious to all the fanciness. “Let me show you around so you and Logan can get settled in.”
He led her through the large living room, where the furniture was modern and well made. “At least it came furnished,” he said. “Otherwise, I’d be probably sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor.”
Logan stared at the longhorn armchairs, actually made with cattle horns. The leather couch was as big as Texas. It looked like something from one of those high-end home-design magazines she couldn’t afford to read.
The place had a full kitchen with top-of-the-line appliances, although they were so fancy she wasn’t sure she’d know how to operate them. She drew a hand over the smooth granite countertops, pure luxury.
“The place came with two guest bedrooms all set up.” Mo led them forward.
She followed him hesitantly, already overwhelmed, while Logan plowed ahead. The first bedroom had a flat-screen TV of immense proportions. In front of the TV stood some sort of a console, a leather armchair with a dashboard built in. Looked like the captain’s chair from the USS Enterprise.
“My brother sent it over last week. Some new game he wants to put out. Space cowboys.” He shrugged. “Not exactly my area of expertise. He’s the programming genius. But from the beginning he insisted that I get a vote on everything. So I’m supposed to evaluate the experience.” He shook his head. “Maybe Logan could help?”
“Mom,” Logan squealed. “Can I have this room? Please?” He actually had his hands clutched together in front of him, his eyes as big as Ping-Pong balls.
“Sure,” she said weakly. She had no idea how they were ever going to repay Mo for all this.
She backed out of the room. Logan stayed behind, diving for the game console. And where she wouldn’t have had any idea how to even turn the thing on, he had a game going in less than thirty seconds.
Mo moved down the hallway, stopped in front of the next room. “This could be your room, if it’s acceptable.”
A four-poster bed dominated the space, the room decorated in grays and earth tones, sumptuous and sophisticated at the same time. So unlike her. And yet she was completely in love with it. She felt like a kid at the state fair and had an idea that she probably looked just as amazed and wide-eyed as Logan.
Mo stepped aside so she could walk into the room. “Do you need anything? All you have to do is push the number-one button on the phone for concierge.”
Concierge. “I think we’ll be fine.”
“Bathroom is right next door.”
She stayed where she was. She didn’t want to see the bathroom. It probably had a marble Jacuzzi or something. She could only deal with so much at once.
“I’ll leave you to settle in. I’m going to go into the office for a while. My hours aren’t exactly regular,” Mo said with a smile that said he was happy to have her here and, at the same time, that he’d be happy to have her.
Heat crept up her neck.
“Call me if you need anything.”
What else could she possibly need? The suite had everything but a private butler. She’d never seen anyplace like it. That Mo lived here boggled her mind more than a little. The gap between them suddenly widened to a giant gorge. She nodded and watched him leave.
They were so not in the same league.
He strode to the front door, but then suddenly stopped and came back. “One more thing.”
Her heart leaped. God, don’t let him kiss her. She was so overwhelmed, she wasn’t sure she could resist.
But instead of trying to make a move on her, he hurried around the apartment, reached under furniture, behind sofa pillows, into a kitchen cabinet and gathered up half a dozen guns of all sizes. He carried them to an abstract painting on the wall that turned out to be a safe and locked them in there.
“I don’t want these within reach with Logan here,” he said as he moved to leave again. Then stopped again.
He reached into his pocket and handed her a key. “I’ll get another one for myself from downstairs. Make yourselves at home. Feel free to use the room service.”
And then he kissed her, a lingering brush of his lips over hers before he strode out the door, leaving her staring after him.
She was pitiful. And he was...
Room service. Just like that. Was that how he ate? On a daily basis? A day of that probably cost more than her weekly grocery bill.
“Mom, it has alien cowboys! Want to see?” Logan called from his room.
“In a second, honey.”
She took in the place, more carefully this time, feeling more overwhelmed by the minute.
She and Mo were from different worlds. The kiss had meant nothing. She sank into the nearest chair as dismay filled her. Girls like her were nothing but playthings to men like him.
She’d learned that lesson early and wasn’t likely to forget. She’d fallen in love, let herself be seduced, then had been cast aside the day she’d found out she was pregnant. Rich men wanted women for entertainment. Mo wouldn’t want more than that from her.
Oh, God, she thought, feeling sick to her stomach. She’d done this before. Mikey had dazzled her with his money and extravagant gifts. He’d told her how much he’d cared for her. But all of that had been a setup.
And she’d almost fallen for it again. She felt so disappointed, she nearly choked on the feeling. Then she gathered herself and stood. She wasn’t an impressionable young girl anymore, ripe for the plucking.
“All right. Let’s see how those aliens fight.” She headed back to Logan, thinking about her own battles.
She might have moved into Mo’s apartment, but if he thought she was just going to waltz straight into his bed, too, he had another think coming.
Chapter Eight
Mo filed his reports and was on his way out of the office to stop by the jail again, this time to talk to the driver they’d caught by the border, when Ryder came in.
“Can I see you for a sec?” Mo gestured with his head toward the interrogation room, the only room in the office that had a door. The rest was open space with enough desks for the six-man team.
“Sure.” Ryder followed him.
He was looking at Mo with expectation. “Everything okay?”
Mo scratched the back of his neck, not entirely comfortable. “So, about Molly Rogers.”
“You got something on her?”
“She has nothing to do with anything. Thing is...” He paused, then bit the bullet. “I moved her and her son to my place at the hotel.”
Ryder’s eyebrows slid up his forehead.
Mo thought how to best word his explanation. “She keeps getting night visitors. She has an eight-year-old son. They’re out there alone.”
“She could have gotten her own room at the hotel.”
Mo cleared his throat. “She’s not that well-off financially.”
“She has to have some friends.”
She probably did. Although some of the people in town looked down on her, there were plenty of nice folks in Hullett. “If whoever keeps searching her place decides that whatever he’s looking for is not there, they could come after her. She’s safest at my place.”
Ryder raised an eyebrow. “With you?”
Right. Slippery ground. “I’m never at the apartment. I’m either here or looking for crossing points on the border. For the next few days, I’m going to spend as many nights as I can at the Rogers ranch, see if I can catch whoever keeps going back there.”
Ryder rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I know there’s a certain irony here, considering Grace and me, but I have to ask...do you have an interes
t in Molly Rogers beyond the professional?”
Mo shoved his hands into his pockets. He wasn’t used to talking about stuff like this. But Ryder was team leader and he had a right to know where this was going, if it would distract from the mission. Oh, hell. He filled his lungs.
“I don’t really know. I want her and her son to be safe. And then—” He shook his head. “I have no idea what she wants.”
Maybe Ryder could give him some tips. Ryder had managed to win Grace over, and Grace Cordero was one tough cookie.
But all he gave Mo was a sympathetic look. “Rather go into armed combat myself than try to figure out a woman.”
Mo nodded. At least Grace was a soldier. She and Ryder had that in common.
Molly Rogers seemed like a whole different world to Mo. He was pretty much a killing machine, usually surrounded by violence on a daily basis. She was a mother, surrounded by chickens.
What did he know about women anyway? His birth mother had tried to drown him. His foster mother had died when he’d been a kid. He never had sisters.
But he knew enough to know that Molly was special. She would be worth any effort to win. If only the timing of all this didn’t suck so much. But maybe he could work on the timing. They had weeks before the planned terrorist crossing, if their intel was right. And even after the capture, more weeks would pass while they wrapped up everything here.
They needed to run down every last person involved, to make sure something like this couldn’t happen again. His team was determined to secure the hundred-mile section of the border that they’d been trusted with.
“Is this going to be a problem?” He didn’t define what “this” was. He had no idea what to call the instant attraction—at least on his part—between them, and those spectacular kisses, which he hoped would soon be repeated. “She’s no longer a person of interest.”
