Unexpected Protector

by Justine Davis

“Sorry, can’t wait that long. I’ll be an old lady by the time that happens. You want them to change their minds?” Valeria laid down a challenge. “You see if you can do it before Christmas Eve,” she told her sister. “But one way or another, Vincent and I are getting married.”

  Taking Vincent’s hand again, she laced her fingers through his and said, “Let’s get out of here, Vincent. It’s way too stuffy for me.”

  “Yeah,” Vincent agreed. The youngest Gage brother only had eyes for Valeria and gave every indication that he would follow her to the ends of the earth if need be. “Me, too.”

  Chapter 9

  Feeling incensed as she watched her sister and Vincent walk away, most likely to find another place where they could be alone, Serena swung around and directed her anger at the K-9 detective who was still standing next to her.

  Her eyes were blazing as she demanded, “Are you just going to let them go like that?”

  “Can’t arrest them for being in love,” Carson told her. He was almost amused by the fiery display he’d just witnessed, but he knew better than to let Serena suspect that. “And no matter what your father or my father think about the other person’s family, there are no laws being broken here.” He could see that Serena was far from satisfied with his answer. “Just what is it that you want me to do?”

  Serena threw her hands up, angry and exasperated. “I don’t know,” she cried, walking back around to the front of the building. “Something!”

  “I am doing something,” Carson shot back. “I’m trying to find the person who killed my brother,” he reminded Serena.

  From what she could see, all he was doing was spinning his wheels, poking around on her ranch. “Well, you’re not going to find that person here, and you’re not going to find Demi here, either,” she told him for what felt like the umpteenth time, knowing that no matter what he said, her cousin was still the person he was looking for.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to check that out for myself,” Carson told her.

  “Yes, I do mind,” she retorted angrily. “I mind this constant invasion of our privacy that you’ve taken upon yourself to commit by repeatedly coming here and—”

  As she was railing at him, out of the corner of his eye he saw Justice suddenly becoming alert. Rather than the canine fixing his attention on Serena and the loud dressing-down she was giving him, the German shepherd seemed to be looking over toward another one of the barns that contained more of the hands’ living quarters.

  At this time of day, the quarters should have been empty. Even so, he intended to search them on the outside chance that this was where Demi was hiding.

  Something had got the highly trained canine’s attention. Was it Demi? Had she come here in her desperation only to have one of the hands see her and subsequently put in a call to the station? Was she hiding here somewhere?

  “What is it, Justice? What do you—”

  He got no further with his question.

  The bone-chilling crack of a gun—a rifle by the sound of it—being discharged suddenly shattered the atmosphere. Almost simultaneously, a bullet whizzed by them, so close that he could almost feel it disturb the air.

  Instinct took over. Carson threw himself on Serena, covering her with his body as he got her behind what had to be Valeria’s car. The one Vincent was supposed to be working on.

  Startled, Serena couldn’t speak for a moment because the air had been knocked out of her. The next second, she demanded, “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Trying to save your life, damn it,” Carson snapped.

  Justice broke into a run and whizzed by him, heading straight for the barn. The main door was open.

  Pulling out his sidearm, Carson ordered Serena, “Stay down,” and took off after his K-9 partner.

  “The hell I will,” Serena retorted.

  Scrambling up to her feet, she cursed the fact that it took her a second to steady herself. And then she quickly followed in their wake.

  Reaching the barn, Carson began to move from one uniform room to another. Whoever had fired at them had done so from one of the windows facing the other barn. They were also gone.

  Cursing under his breath, he kept his gun drawn as he scanned the area.

  Justice was barking in what could only be termed a display of frustration. The dog was expressing himself, Carson thought, for both of them.

  When he heard a noise behind him, Carson whirled around, his weapon cocked and ready to fire. He could feel his heart slam against his chest when he realized it was Serena and that he had come within a hair’s breadth of shooting her.

  “Damn it, woman,” he said, resetting the trigger, “I told you to stay put. I could have killed you.”

  Her eyes met his. There was still fire in hers. “The feeling’s mutual,” she informed him.

  The sudden, unexpected feel of his body pressing against hers like that had brought back all sorts of sensations and emotions, which were running rampant through her. She welcomed none of them. Even so, her body refused to stop throbbing and vibrating and it totally unnerved her.

  Despite her agitation and the anger it created, Serena immediately recognized the feeling for what it was. She had been aroused.

  Was aroused. And damn it, she didn’t want to be. The last time she’d felt that way, nine months later she was giving birth to a baby.

  Giving birth and vowing that she was never, ever going to allow herself to get into this sort of predicament again. And, until just a few minutes ago, she was completely certain that she never would. She’d been positive that she had sworn off men for the rest of her life, dedicating herself to her daughter and to her job on the Double C.

  And now, after a year’s hiatus, her body was practically begging her to abandon limbo and feel like a woman again. Begging her to revisit that glorious feeling of having every single inch of her body tingle because she was responding to a man’s touch.

  Carson stared at her in confusion. What the hell was she talking about? “I was talking about you sneaking up on me like that.”

  “I didn’t sneak,” Serena declared defensively, desperately trying to regain control over herself. “This is my family’s ranch, and I’ve got a right to know what’s going on.”

  “Of all the harebrain—You want to know what’s going on?” he shouted at her. “Someone just shot at you, Serena. That’s what’s going on. And if I hadn’t been there just now, they might have killed you!” he exclaimed. “You’re welcome!” he yelled at her when she said nothing in response.

  He’d knocked her down and almost given her a concussion, the big oaf! Serena was the picture of fury as she retorted, “I didn’t say thank you.”

  “I can’t help it if you have no manners,” Carson shot back. Fed up, he began to storm away.

  She wasn’t about to stand for him turning his back on her like this. “Now, you just wait a damn minute!” Serena exclaimed, grabbing hold of his shoulder and attempting to pull Carson around to face her.

  His emotions were running at a fever pitch and not just because someone had discharged a rifle, narrowly missing them. If he was being honest with himself, something had been stirred up when he had first seen Serena standing at the top of the landing with her baby in her arms. Seeing her had unearthed something, keenly digging into his mind and soul. Reminding him of what he had lost before he had ever been allowed to have it.

  It had given him a reason to shut Serena Colton out.

  But for some perverse reason, it had also given him a reason to want this woman. Want this woman the way he hadn’t wanted any other, not since he’d lost Lisa. All the while, as he had been involved in the search for his brother’s killer, this feeling had been messing with his mind.

  Messing with it to such a degree that he’d allowed himself to entertain irrational thoughts.

  Like pulling Serena into his
arms and sealing his mouth to hers so he could still the needs that insisted on multiplying within him. That insisted on taunting him and giving him no peace.

  Carson came perilously close to going with that desire. And he would have if a livid Anders Colton hadn’t picked that exact moment to all but burst onto the scene.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Anders demanded as he came upon his sister and the detective.

  For a split second both Serena and Carson shared a single thought. That Anders’s question was about what had come very close to happening between them—Serena had felt the pull, too—and not about the gunshot that had resounded loud enough for anyone close by to hear.

  Serena drew in a deep breath, trying valiantly to still her pounding heart and get control over her all but runaway pulse.

  “What?” she asked.

  “The gunshot,” Anders shouted. His expression demanded to know if she had gone deaf. “I just heard a gunshot,” the foremen cried angrily. “What the hell is going on here?”

  By now, some of ranch hands had also come running over as well, as had Valeria and Vincent.

  At the sight of the two younger people, surprise and then anger crossed the Double C foreman’s face.

  “What are you doing with my sister?” he demanded, glaring at Vincent. He forgot all about the gunshot as the thought of the mechanic’s questionable behavior came to the foreground.

  “Later,” Carson told Serena’s brother authoritatively. “Right now, you’ve got bigger problems than Romeo and Juliet over there,” he said. “Someone just took a shot at Serena.” Serena had to be the target, he thought. Had the shooter been after him, there had been plenty of opportunities to shoot at him prior to now.

  “Serena?” Dumbfounded, Anders’s attention shifted to her. She looked none the worse for wear. Was the detective lying to him? “Why would anyone shoot at Serena?”

  “Why does anyone shoot at someone?” Carson countered, exasperated.

  Realizing that Carson was telling him the truth, Anders put his hands on Serena’s shoulders as he looked his sister over closely. His voice was filled with concern as he asked, “Are you hurt?”

  “Just slightly bruised,” she answered. “Detective Gage decided he was bulletproof and took it upon himself to act as my human shield.”

  Anders flushed, torn between being grateful and his natural feelings of resentment when it came to anyone who belonged to the Gage family.

  Feeling that he should offer the detective an apology, he began, “Look, if I just came off sounding like an idiot—”

  “Save it,” Carson said, waving away what sounded as if it was shaping up to be a very awkward apology. “The first order of business until I can find this shooter is to pack up your family and get them off the ranch and someplace safe.”

  Anders was in total agreement with the detective. “I’ll have my parents and sisters move into the hotel in town until this blows over.”

  “Wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to go, too,” Carson told him.

  But here they had a parting of the ways when it came to agreement. Everyone on the ranch couldn’t just leave. The ranch had to continue being productive.

  “I’m the ranch foreman,” Anders told him. “I’m responsible for the staff on the Double C. I’m not about to leave them, especially not when there’s some crazy shooter loose.”

  Carson sighed. “Look, I can’t make you go—” he began.

  “No, you can’t,” Anders agreed, interrupting the detective.

  “And that goes for me, too,” Serena informed him, speaking up.

  Carson whirled around to face her. This was getting out of hand. “You were the one who was just shot at,” he reminded her.

  “How do you know?” she challenged, surprising him. “Maybe whoever it was that was shooting just now was aiming at you.”

  That was ridiculous. She was grasping at straws, pulling thin arguments out of the air. “If that’s the case, they would have had plenty of opportunity to shoot at me. They didn’t have to wait until I came here to the ranch. You were the target,” he insisted.

  Be that as it may, she was not about to have Carson tell her what to do. “If that’s the case, I’m a big girl, and I can decide whether I stay or go.” She raised her chin, sticking it out as a way of asserting herself. “And I’ve decided to stay.”

  Stubborn woman! All he could do was block any of her senseless moves.

  “I can’t let you do that.”

  Who the hell did this man think he was? “You have nothing to say about it,” she informed Carson. “Besides, whoever just shot at us,” she said, deliberately underscoring the word us, “can and will come after us, no matter where we are. There’s no point in me running,” she argued. “The ranch has a couple of safe rooms inside the mansion. As a last resort, if it comes down to that, I can hide in one of them,” she said, her tone clearly declaring that it was the end of the debate as far as she was concerned.

  Caught completely off guard, Carson looked at the foreman. This was the first time he’d heard that there were safe rooms within the sprawling mansion.

  “Is this true?” he asked Anders. “The mansion has safe rooms in it?”

  “Of course it’s true,” Serena retorted, speaking up because she was annoyed that the detective had asked her brother instead of her. “There’s no reason for me to lie about that.”

  “No,” Carson agreed. “There isn’t.” He processed this new piece of information, then turned toward Anders. “I want to see those safe rooms.”

  “Why?” Serena wanted to know, once again interrupting. “You want to inspect them to see if they live up to your high standards?” she mocked.

  She felt as if Carson was determined to block her at every turn. She certainly didn’t like him questioning her every move the way he did.

  Maybe, if she hadn’t reacted to him the way she had when he’d thrown himself over her, she wouldn’t feel anywhere nearly as combative as she did. She didn’t know, but now was not the time for her to suddenly start questioning and doubting herself.

  “No,” Carson answered Serena. “I want to see if Demi’s in either one of them. If you ask me, it sounds like a really logical place for her to be holed up,” he told Serena.

  “She doesn’t know a thing about them,” Serena informed him, annoyed that she had essentially been forced to share this secret with the likes of him. “Nobody does. Only family members do. That means,” she told him, clenching her teeth, “that Demi’s not there. Give it up, Detective.”

  “You won’t mind if I satisfy my curiosity, do you?” he asked sarcastically.

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” she informed him coldly. “And I’m not taking you to them.”

  “If you have nothing to hide, there’s no reason not to take me to those safe rooms,” he said, prepared to go toe-to-toe with her—or have a judge sort it out after she spent a night in lockup.

  “The reason is I don’t want to,” Serena informed him stubbornly.

  “Not good enough,” he said, taking out the warrant again and holding it up to her.

  “That doesn’t say you can search the safe rooms,” she retorted.

  “It says,” he answered, emphasizing each word, “I can search the immediate premises—so unless the safe rooms are hovering somewhere above the ranch,” his voice dripped with sarcasm, “they’re considered to be part of the premises.”

  Valeria uttered a frustrated, guttural sound as she lost her patience. “Oh, take him to go see them, Serena. We’re not going to get rid of him or his dog otherwise,” she insisted.

  “You’re getting rid of him because you’re going to be staying at the hotel with Mom and Dad,” Serena reminded her sister.

  Valeria drew herself up to her full height. “I am not going,” she protested between clenched teeth.

  �
�You’re going, little sister, even if you have to be dragged there kicking and screaming,” Anders informed her.

  Angry, fuming and utterly frustrated, Valeria looked in Vincent’s direction as her brother pulled her after him to the mansion. “I cannot wait to get married,” she cried plaintively.

  “Well, you’re not married, and right now you’re my responsibility,” Anders informed her, maintaining a tight grip around her wrist as he continued on his way to the mansion.

  Chapter 10

  As he watched Valeria being dragged back to the mansion, Vincent turned toward Carson. He looked clearly concerned.

  “Do you think she’s really in any danger?” he asked his older brother.

  Carson gave him his honest opinion without sugarcoating it. “I think all the Coltons here are in danger,” he answered. “Which is why,” he continued, looking in Serena’s direction, “you and your baby should go with your parents and Valeria to stay at the hotel in Red Ridge.”

  Serena made a disparaging, dismissive noise. “Nice touch, Carson, having your baby brother play straight man for you like that, but I’m still not leaving the Double C.”

  Carson knew he was getting nowhere, but he still felt that he had to try.

  “You’re being unreasonable,” he told Serena, struggling with his temper. “That shooter missed you last time. He—or she—might not the next time.”

  “There’s not going to be a next time,” Serena countered with a huff. “Because you are going to catch him—”

  “Or her,” Carson interjected pointedly.

  She knew what he was doing. He was making it seem as if Demi had been the one who’d pulled the trigger. But that was absolutely ridiculous. There was no reason for the bounty hunter to have tried to shoot her. They had actually become friends, at least to some degree. With that in mind, Serena deliberately ignored the detective’s interjection and went on talking.

  “—like the county’s paying you to do.”

  Carson shook his head, exasperated. The woman was being brave and damn foolhardy at the same time. “You never did have a lick of sense.”