One Night Standoff

True. That didn’t do much to steady her already racing heart and frazzled nerves. Lenora made a mental note to call the minister, Reverend Donaldson, to say she couldn’t finish the job. Then she could leave town and make sure Clayton didn’t find her again. However, that leaving part wasn’t going to happen unless she gave him the answers he was demanding, because there was no way he’d just let her walk out.

But where to start?

It was a tangled mess. One that Clayton definitely wasn’t going to like.

She took a deep breath, walked back toward him and sank down into a pew. “Jill and I both worked for the justice department.” There. Plain and simple. She gave him a moment to let that sink in.

It obviously didn’t sink in well. Clayton’s eyes narrowed. “It’s the first I’m hearing of this, and that’s funny since I work for the justice department, too, and I was assigned to protect you two.”

Yes, she was painfully aware of that. “You weren’t told the whole truth, and I was sworn to secrecy. Jill and I were agents on a special task force put together to bring down Adam Riggs and his cronies—”

“Any reason I wasn’t let in on this?”

“A good one.” Well, it was good in some people’s minds. It’d never felt right to her. “There were other agents planted in companies that Riggs was doing business with. The task-force supervisor didn’t want anyone knowing that Jill and I were deep cover, because it might have leaked—”

“I wouldn’t have leaked it,” he snapped, interrupting her again. He slipped his sunglasses back on and went to the front windows to look out.

The sunglasses were an odd mix with the rest of his clothes: the jeans, boots and silver rodeo belt. He used the brim of his black Stetson to help shield his eyes. It made her wonder just how bad his headaches actually were and if he was duty ready. Apparently he’d been ready enough to find her, and she’d thought she had covered her tracks well with the assumed name and the cash-only lifestyle.

“You could have trusted me,” Clayton added.

“I know that now, but we didn’t know it at the time. The task-force supervisor also wanted to make it look as if Jill and I were truly just workers who might be in danger because of a federal investigation. That’s why he asked the Marshals Service to provide protection for us. He took the ‘better safe than sorry’ approach.”

Clayton shook his head, glanced back at her, and even though she couldn’t actually see his eyes behind those shades, she was certain he was glaring. “That didn’t work out so well, did it?”

No, it hadn’t. Somehow Lenora would have to learn to live with that, but she hadn’t had much luck doing it so far. The nightmares were still there. Every night. Unrelenting.

“So, you’re an agent,” Clayton said almost like a challenge.

“Former agent. I resigned shortly after Jill was murdered. But before the justice department, I worked in Dallas for a man who was a world-class money launderer. And I helped him.”

Lenora nearly choked on the confession, but it was true. She had indeed helped him, unknowingly, but she darn well should have known what he was up to. She’d played with fire and had gotten burned.

Now Lenora was trying to make sure that didn’t happen again.

Yes, Clayton was fire, all right.

Fiery trouble in a black Stetson.

All of her experience and training told her that he was off-limits. As if on cue, the baby kicked, reminding her that the hands-off rule had been broken months ago. Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t do something to stop more bad things from happening. She didn’t include her baby in that “bad things” department. She desperately loved and wanted this child. But the baby’s father was a different matter entirely.

She couldn’t live with another death on her hands. Especially his death.

“And you were a criminal?” he mumbled. He shook his head, put his back to the sidelight window and shucked off his glasses so his gaze could meet hers.

Yes, it was a glare, all right.

Lenora nodded. “When the feds started investigating the money-laundering scheme I was involved in, I was taken into custody and cut a deal to help them with an investigation to collar my boss.”

“Sounds dangerous,” he pointed out.

She settled for a shrug. “My boss and his business partners were bigger fish that they wanted. So, because the situation could have turned, well, more than dangerous, they trained me like a regular agent. But I was technically just a criminal informant assigned to the deep-cover task force. Then, after my boss was arrested and convicted, they asked me to stay on in the department and work on the Riggs case.”

Clayton made a sound of displeasure. “And as a dupe, my own people assigned me to two women that I was told needed protection.”

“Obviously, we did need it, because one of us was murdered,” she reminded him, then paused. “I’m sorry I had to lie to you.”

“Not as sorry as I am. I hate being lied to, especially by people that I’m supposed to trust.” However, he immediately added a sound of dismissal. “Old baggage rearing its head. But it still comes into play here.”

She knew a little about his old childhood baggage, from the notorious Rocky Creek Children’s Facility, which was now closed. Had been for sixteen years. She also knew his mother had died giving birth to him and that his father, Melvin Larson, had literally abandoned him at the facility when he was eleven. All of that had come out when they’d talked in bed after their fast and furious bout of sex.

Too bad her memories of that were crystal clear.

She could remember every last detail of that night. The raw pain from losing a friend and fellow agent. The comfort she’d found in Clayton’s arms. The pleasure, too. Pleasure should have been the last thing on her mind that night, but she’d felt plenty of it anyway. Thanks to Clayton.

“Lies like that are usually unnecessary,” he tossed out to her.

“You lied to the minister to find me,” Lenora tossed right back at him.

He gave her that riled look again, like the one he’d given her in the diner. “I didn’t lie to deceive. I lied to find you so I could help. Maybe now’s a good time to ask if you were planning on telling me any of this?”

No, it wasn’t a good time to ask, but Lenora would answer it anyway. “I was waiting for you to heal and for the danger to die down.”

He lifted his shoulder. “How the hell was the danger going to die down? You know who was responsible for putting that bullet in my head?”

She couldn’t deny it fast enough. “No. I assumed that Riggs hired someone to do it, but I don’t have any proof.” Lenora stopped, met his gaze. “Do you?”

Clayton didn’t answer her for several moments, but his stare continued to stab at her. At least it did until the baby kicked her and she winced a little. It wasn’t a hard kick, but she’d only been feeling movement for a few weeks and wasn’t used to it.

“You okay?” Clayton asked.

“Fine. The baby moved, that’s all.”

His mouth tightened. Then relaxed. He mumbled some profanity. “I’m having a hard time dealing with this.”

“Of course.” She didn’t dare repeat the offer she’d made to him at the diner, that she expected nothing from him. No, best not to say it aloud, but the truth was, she couldn’t expect anything from him. Because she needed him out of her life. Maybe just temporarily.

Maybe forever.

And that meant she needed to get on with her explanation. Besides, it was possible Clayton could actually help. She’d been hesitant to trust anyone, and maybe she was a fool for trusting him, but without this explanation, he clearly wasn’t leaving.

“After your shooting, I wasn’t sure whom I could trust.” She slid her hand over her stomach.

Clayton huffed. “Any of my five foster brothers would have been a good start. They’re all marshals and all capable of protecting you.”

“But I didn’t know them, and I wasn’t sure I could trust anyone in law enforcement.”

That eased Clayton’s glare, and he cocked his eyebrow. “Why?”