Never Say Never Again

“No, that you haven’t.” He put his glass down. “You don’t mind if I have a little fun for the both of us then, do you?”

Before Connor could answer, he watched his father head toward the dance floor and cut in on the bride and groom. Kelli laughed as he said something to her, then he swept her away from David like Fred Astaire on a bad dance day.

Connor turned back toward the bar. For a minute there he’d been afraid Pops meant to ask Mel’s mom, Wilhemenia, to dance. He was curious at the mixture of relief and disappointment that his father hadn’t.

Someone put a full wineglass on the bar next to him. “I’d like to exchange this for a glass of beer, please.”

He glanced over to find Kelli’s friend—what was her name?—standing beside him. He drew a complete and utter blank on her first name as he noticed the way the light from the chandeliers set her short, red hair on fire.

She thanked the tender for the beer then leaned against the bar next to him. “Looks like you’re having about as good a time as I am.”

Connor forced himself to take a sip from his glass. Bronte. That was her name. For the life of him he couldn’t figure out why he had momentarily forgotten it. It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen her enough times in the past few months, what with her being Kelli’s best friend and all.

He shifted from one booted foot to the other. Who was he kidding? His memory of her and her name went back farther than that cop bar where David and Kelli had first met. A lot farther. He remembered Bronte O’Brien from George Washington University, second year.

One recollection in particular sprung forth. Although he’d noticed her in the lecture hall before, on this day she’d taken the seat in front of him. It had been exam time, just after spring break. He hadn’t had much time to study because he’d spent his vacation looking after David, who had come down with a nasty virus. The night before his brother had been sicker than a dog. Connor had spent hours holding a bucket up at the side of his bed and keeping a cool rag on his head. Still, he’d fully intended to pass the exam. He’d been twenty-five and it had taken him longer than most to make it to college, and that had made him determined to make each moment count. He had passed the exam—just barely. He’d been so obsessed with the way the ends of Bronte O’Brien’s short hair curled against the back of her freckled neck that he’d been marked wrong on questions he could have answered in his sleep.

He took a long pull from his glass, moving past the memory and to the present. So long as she was standing next to him, and wasn’t making a pest out of herself, he supposed some sort of small talk was warranted, something he’d never been particularly good at. But at least in their case they had shared interests. More specifically, the witness she’d placed into the witness protection program two months ago. A witness that was giving Connor his fair share of sleepless nights with her ceaseless demands for expensive items not included in the program’s limited budget.

He cleared his throat. “Congratulations on convincing Melissa Robbins to testify.”

Bronte appeared not to hear him at first. She twisted her lips, then glanced away. “I’m not sure if I’m deserving of congratulations yet. She’s a reluctant witness at best. And her ex-boyfriend, Leonid Pryka, is a formidable target.” She looked him full in the face. “Does that mean you’re in charge of her protection?”

“Yeah.”

Connor supposed that, on the surface, you couldn’t find two people more different from each other. Where Bronte appeared at home in her sophisticated clothes and surroundings, he was counting the minutes until he could get out of there and out of his monkey suit.

But they did share something in common: their involvement in the justice system, though he found it ironic that even in that regard their roles were completely different.

As an attorney in the Transnational/Major Crimes Section of the U.S. attorney’s office, Bronte O’Brien put together cases against criminals to take to trial, which sometimes required protection for key witnesses she unearthed. And as a deputy U.S. marshal in Witness Security and Protection, also known as WitSec, that’s where he came in. He made sure those witnesses were kept safe and sound and delivered in time for trial.

In this particular case, Bronte had convinced Melissa Robbins to testify against her ex-boyfriend, Leonid Pryka, a once small-time importer who had become big time with noted speed, making local and federal law enforcement very interested in just how, exactly, he had come by his seemingly instant wealth. They suspected that illegal arms and possibly weapons of mass destruction might be the import of choice. And apparently the U.S. attorney’s office felt that Pryka’s spurned girlfriend was the witness that could help them finally prove it.

Connor’s current assignment was to keep Melissa Robbins safe. Well, at least from outsiders. Protecting himself and the other marshals from her incessant, aggravating, irrational demands was something else entirely.

He squinted at Bronte, wondering if she knew exactly how…impossible her witness was. It wasn’t that he doubted Bronte’s capabilities. He made a point of knowing what was going on in the U.S. attorney’s office. You couldn’t fully protect a witness unless you knew who and what you were protecting her from. And he’d long since become aware that Bronte’s conviction rate was high. If she thought Robbins could deliver the goods on Pryka, then she could. It was as simple as that.

But as far as witnesses went, high-maintenance Melissa Robbins was one of the most difficult targets he’d had to protect in all his years with WitSec—second only to a schizophrenic mob accountant who had convinced himself that the marshals protecting him had been bought. Norman Becknal had escaped their custody no fewer than four times.

Connor would count himself lucky if Melissa Robbins tried to do the same.

“I suppose I can be thankful for that,” Bronte finally said. “I mean, your being in charge of Robbins’s protection. At least I can be reasonably assured that she’ll be…available when the case comes up for trial next month.”

Connor grimaced. That was if he and his men didn’t end up whacking the woman themselves.

Bronte fingered a simple silver earring on her left lobe. Connor watched the absent movement, inexplicably fascinated.

It wasn’t the overt things about women that got to him. Height, hair color, breast size—none of that made one iota of difference to him. It was the small things that threatened to do him in. The way they wrinkled their noses when they talked. How they told a story, including details he’d overlook but ultimately made the tale more interesting. The way they toyed with tiny, shimmering earrings….

“What?” Bronte made a funny face. “Don’t tell me. I have rice or something stuck in my eyebrow.”

Connor couldn’t help a smile. “No. Your…eyebrows are just fine.” As was everything else about the outgoing college student turned savvy junior U.S. attorney.

He snapped upright, moving from his startlingly relaxed position.

He’d be well-served to remember what else he knew about Bronte O’Brien. Particularly that she went through men faster than a shopaholic could max out a new credit card. He narrowed his eyes. Funny, he hadn’t seen her with anyone lately, though. Not at the bar when he’d first crossed paths with her again outside the district courthouse. Not during her occasional visits out to the McCoy place with Kelli.

Not that he’d been paying close attention, mind you. The last thing on his mind was women.

Bronte pushed from the bar and visibly straightened her shoulders, jolting him from his thoughts and making him realize he’d been staring. “Okay, after that thorough inspection, I know something is wrong. It’s my makeup, isn’t it? I forgot to put mascara on one eye. No, wait. My blush doesn’t match my lipstick.”

Connor looked down at his glass, fighting a half smile. “I’d be the last person to notice either thing.”

She considered him warily. “Then why are you staring at me?”

He shrugged. Why was he staring at her? He already knew that such steady attention only garnered unwanted interest. And while he wasn’t opposed to bedding the occasional female every now and again, Bronte wasn’t going to be one of them. “Just thinking.”

“Uh-huh…you were just…thinking.”

He put his glass on the bar. “Something wrong with that?”

“I don’t know. Depends on what you were thinking.”

He fastened his gaze on her face. But rather than the flirtatious look he expected, he instead found she wore a guardedly curious expression. Was that because she wasn’t attracted to him? Found his company…wanting?

He frowned. What was he thinking? He didn’t want her to be attracted to him any more than he wanted to be attracted to her. And he wasn’t. He was merely appreciating her beauty, that’s all. He wasn’t any more attracted to her than he was to any of his sisters-in-law. So what if he noticed the way her breasts pressed against the thin fabric of her dress? How the slit up the side of her ankle-length skirt flashed glimpses of her long legs when she walked? How pale freckles peppered every visible inch of her skin? He’d notice the same thing about any other female within the vicinity. He was a man, after all. It didn’t necessarily mean he was attracted to her.

“I was just thinking,” he began, searching for an explanation that would keep him safely out of reach, yet make some sort of sense. “You went to G.W.U., didn’t you?”

Her instant answering smile yanked on something inside his chest. He told himself it was relief. “I’m surprised you remember.”

His brows budged upward. Her response indicated she had some memory of him being there as well. “I have to say I’m surprised you do too.”

She looked down at her glass. “Yeah, well, it’s hard to forget a guy who would be taller than me even when I’m in high heels. There aren’t many out there.”

“I remember noticing your height too—and that red hair,” he said.

She leaned back against the bar. “I have to give you credit. You’re the first guy I’ve met who hasn’t asked me inside of a minute if I’ve ever modeled.”

“That’s because I know you’re with the U.S. attorney’s office.”

Her laugh was mature, deep and throaty.

“I could say that you’re the first woman at this wedding who hasn’t asked me to dance inside of a minute.”

Bronte O’Brien looked at strapping Connor McCoy from beneath her lashes, trying to figure out if he was trying to make small talk, or if he was just plain conceited. Oh, she could imagine that lots of women asked him to dance. That wasn’t the problem. In a room full of men dressed to the nines, he was the one who stuck out, tempted women’s attention with that clean-shaven, good-guy look and brooding expression. He was the type of guy a woman spotted and instantly a flashing alarm went off: Grade-A heartbreak ahead.

Well, at least that’s how she saw him. Other women might be inclined to try to tempt him from his commitment-phobic ways. Of course she’d passed that masochistic phase years ago, thank God. The simple truth was, no woman could change a man like Connor. The more she’d try, the more he would resist. Until finally she’d be forced to walk away—or worse, he would send her packing and she’d be left to make fast friends with a carton of tissues.