What Happens at the Ranch...

by Christy Jeffries

  “What happened?” she asked. Her full pink lips were slightly parted, bringing his attention back to her face—a heart-shaped face with high, rounded cheekbones that framed a perfectly straight nose. He shouldn’t notice how attractive she was, but being observant was part of his job.

  The other—and more important—part of his job was to ensure the safety of the First and Second families, as well as the thousands of people gathered both inside and outside of Vice President King’s funeral. Keeping the scene from turning into a full-fledged spectacle made his job, as well as the jobs of all the other assets on the multiagency teams, much easier.

  Tessa’s breathing normalized once she’d gone unconscious, but now it threatened to resume its faster pace. She tried to lift her shoulders, but the vehicle swerved again and her elbows lost their traction.

  “I asked what happened.” This time her words were more of a command than a question. And in Grayson’s experience, rich and powerful people like Tessa King were accustomed to having their orders followed.

  Grayson couldn’t afford to go into some long-winded explanation and risk losing focus of the paparazzi jockeying for position along the sidewalk. “You fainted outside the church.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” she replied, her quick breaths making her nose give a little snort.

  Tessa tried to sit up again, but Grayson put a hand on her shoulder. “You better stay low until we get to the MultiAgency Command Center.”

  “Where?” Creases formed between her brows as she gingerly lowered her head.

  He exhaled, still concerned about a possible head injury but relieved she wasn’t putting up any resistance to his keeping her out of harm’s way. “The place where all the federal and local agencies, like the sheriff and fire departments, come together—”

  “I know what a MACC is,” she interrupted, her eyes likely rolling upward in annoyance behind her closed lids. Of course Roper King’s daughter would be well-versed on all the government acronyms. Perhaps this wasn’t even the first time something like this had happened to her. “I’m asking where it is. As in how much longer do I need to lie here like some sort of hapless victim.”

  “It’s in the big white staging tent set up behind the church. We’ll be pulling up to it in about forty-five seconds as long as none of these dumbass reporters get in our way.”

  “There’s already a ton of them coming up behind us,” the driver said, using the rearview mirror to give Grayson a pointed look. “This thing ain’t exactly built for speed, you know.”

  “Just keep driving,” he told the older gentleman in the front seat. “If anyone gets in our way, run them over.”

  “Run them over?” Tessa lifted one brow. “I assume you mean the dumbass reporters?”

  Damn. Grayson had forgotten that she was one of them.

  He sighed. “Fine, don’t run them over. Let them get close enough to the windows so that they can get a good shot of the former vice president’s daughter right after she tossed her cookies all over the front steps at her daddy’s funeral.”

  Tessa squeezed her eyes shut again and Grayson inwardly cringed. Not because of the harshness of his words, but at the unfortunate reminder of the reason they were all there.

  Roper King had been a good person and an easy assignment—up until this point. The man had been an admired patriot and deserved to be laid to rest with honor. While the jury was still out on the rest of the King family, Grayson owed it to the heavily decorated military commander, former Wyoming governor and United States vice president to prevent the memorial service from turning into a full-fledged circus.

  Tessa squinted one eye open. “I thought you said I fainted?”

  “You did. Right after you puked your guts out.” Okay, so maybe that sounded a little worse than it was. But he needed to convey the seriousness of the situation to her.

  She rolled her head to the side to get a better look at him. “Do they throw in the black sunglasses for free when you buy your footwear at Agents ’R’ Us?”

  “No.” He allowed his eyes to lazily travel down her bare, toned legs until they came to her black suede heels. “Don’t they sell functional winter shoes at Divas ’R’ Us?”

  A small huff escaped her lips before she gave him a dismissive glance and turned her head away, effectively reminding Grayson that he wasn’t there to trade insults with Roper King’s grieving daughter. Even though she’d started it.

  He cleared his throat and directed his attention back to their driver. “See the barricade next to the tent? Pull straight in there. Don’t worry, they’ll move the barricade for you.”

  As soon as the vehicle entered the covered confines of the immense outdoor tent, Grayson reached for some sort of door handle, but only came up with a smooth, leather-covered panel.

  “My passengers usually don’t let themselves out.” The driver chuckled as he shifted into Park then added, “They also don’t usually do so much talking back there.”

  “Back where?” Tessa blinked several times before her eyes focused on the long, narrow, curtained windows framing the waiting emergency personnel outside. Grayson kept silent, hoping she’d think they were simply in the backseat of one of the fleet of armored presidential limos.

  Apparently, he’d been correct in his earlier assumption. King’s daughter didn’t appreciate being ignored. This time, though, when she shot up to a sitting position, he didn’t stop her because they were finally out of view of the news cameras.

  The rear hatch opened and Grayson had never been so relieved to jump out of a car or away from a high-maintenance protective detail. He stood to the side as two medics loaded Tessa onto a gurney.

  “Is all of this really necessary?” he heard her ask as he tried to concentrate on the operational radio chatter in his ear. “I’m perfectly capable of walking.”

  One of the paramedics strapped a blood pressure cuff on her arm as the other bobbed and weaved, using the calculated positioning of his body to politely prevent the reluctant patient from climbing off the gurney. Thank God she was their problem now.

  “They need you back in front of the church,” Grayson told the driver as he slammed the door closed. “Thanks for the lift.”

  As the black Cadillac pulled forward, Tessa’s head whipped around and her sexy pink lips formed a little O as she gasped. When she turned to face him, her angry glare made him take another step back.

  “You put me in the back of a damn hearse! What in the hell kind of special agent would put someone in the back of their own father’s hearse?”

  The swear words that peppered her tirade would have been bleeped out if she’d been on live television, and Grayson knew without a shadow of a doubt that his supervisor and his teammates were going to have a field day with this.

  Right before he got demoted to a desk job.

  Chapter Two

  Tessa was sweaty, irritated—and desperately in need of a little privacy. She didn’t want these strangers asking her about her medications and repositioning the oxygen mask every time she tried to remove it. She wanted a hot bath and she wanted a cold beer and she didn’t care in what order.

  Oh, and she wanted the dark-haired Secret Service agent who kept looking over his broad shoulder at her to go find someone else to rescue. As soon as her father had become vice president, Tessa had purposely turned down the offer of a protective detail. She’d insisted it was because the news station provided her with security if she needed it. Really, though, it was because she’d had bodyguards forced on her back in the days when her father had been governor.

  It was bad enough that she’d had to suffer through remedial speech therapy for a couple of years after high school just to be able to say her own name. She’d already been several years older than everyone else in the freshman dorms when she’d finally moved to Georgetown. Having armed state troopers following her to all her college classes hadn
’t done her social life any favors.

  Her upper lip curled in annoyance as she glared at the man who’d caused all this unnecessary attention.

  And on today of all days.

  Sure it sounded odd that someone who made their living as a television personality didn’t like added attention, but Tessa’s career was different than her personal life. One was due to recognition for her own hard work. While the other...well, the other merely came from her unearned notoriety based on her family’s last name.

  If she’d been anyone else, would Agent Rescue have swooped in like that? Of course not. Hotshot heroes like him probably lived for the opportunity to “save” someone famous. Someone who had the power to advance his career.

  Tessa was about to ask for a copy of the preoperative report—she was well aware of how government agencies and their protective details worked—so that she could find exactly where it authorized some rogue agent to commandeer a hearse to save someone who clearly didn’t need saving. But a commotion at the far end of the tent gave her pause.

  “What in the hell happened to my niece!” Her uncle Rider used his barrel chest to push his way to her side.

  “I’m fine,” she said, her breath clouding the clear oxygen mask that had been forced on her. Tessa tore the contraption off her face. The moment anyone in her family sensed even the slightest hint of weakness, their protective instincts kicked into overdrive. And some of her relatives were much less subtle than others. The last thing she needed was her grizzly bear of an uncle drawing any more attention to the situation. “There’s no need to overreact.”

  “Oh, I’m the one who’s overreacting, young lady?” Rider lowered his bushy gray brows at her. “You ran outside with no coat as though a herd of longhorns was comin’ straight for you. So what happened?”

  “I just needed some fresh air,” she offered, knowing full well the older man was unlikely to fall for some simplified explanation.

  Tessa shoved the clear mask back on her face before her uncle could repeat his question for a third time. She couldn’t answer if she couldn’t talk. And it wasn’t as though the paramedics could disclose any information without violating HIPAA regulations.

  “This—” Rider held up the pump of the blood pressure cuff hanging loosely on her arm “—looks a little more serious than simply needin’ some fresh air.”

  “They’re just making sure her vitals have stabilized.” The annoying agent apparently wasn’t bound by the same privacy restrictions as the medical personnel and his deep voice sent a tingle down the back of her spine. “Your niece most likely had a panic attack.”

  The tingle turned into a chill at his last two words.

  Simply hearing the phrase panic attack made Tessa fear she’d succumb to another one. She’d almost forgotten how debilitating an episode could be. How far one could set her back.

  After that disastrous dive in high school, she’d been diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and instead of going off to college with the rest of her graduating class, the next two years were spent dealing with neurological damage that affected both her vision and her speech. But with countless hours of remedial speech therapy and physical rehabilitation, she’d overcome the effects of the injury, as well as the panic attacks.

  Or so she’d thought.

  This was bad. She made her living speaking in front of a camera; she couldn’t afford to have a setback now. Or worse, give anyone reason to think that she might have a relapse in the future—especially while she was on the air. Tessa tore the Velcro from the arm cuff before anyone could check her blood pressure, which was now way above where it needed to be.

  “Seriously. It’s no big deal.” She tucked a loose blond strand into the tight bun at the back of her head to give her trembling fingers something to do. “I’ll be perfectly fine if everyone around here would just let me have some space.”

  “I know you’re fine, Kitten. And you know you’re fine. But these folks have a job to do and it’s not as if we’re in any sorta hurry to get anywhere.” Uncle Rider and her father were identical twins. Besides the determined and all-knowing stares of their deep blue eyes, though, they’d never looked anything alike to Tessa...or to most people. And they certainly didn’t sound alike.

  Both King men had been born and raised on the family ranch in Wyoming and both had served in Vietnam, returning home as decorated war heroes. But that was about where the similarities ended.

  Roper had married his first wife during college and then married his second wife only a few years later. Both those marriages had ended in divorce, while his third marriage left him a widower at the age of thirty-nine. After a wild and reckless decade in his forties and two stints in rehab, Roper finally met the much younger Sherilee King, his fourth wife and the mother to his six children, when he was fifty-one.

  Rider, on the other hand, never had any children of his own. Plus, he’d just been married once, as far as Tessa knew, and her uncle’s ex-wife had been the only person to keep the peace between the equally powerful King twins.

  Speaking of her uncle’s ex-wife, another commotion rippled through the tent, the unmistakable scent of vanilla and extra-hold hair spray announcing her arrival.

  “Aunt Freckles!” Tessa smiled at the older woman who was as different from her own mother as her uncle had been from her father. “You came.”

  “Of course I came, darlin’.” Freckles had teased her peach-colored hair into a curly updo that defied gravity. Her heavily applied makeup didn’t do much to diminish the laugh lines and creases that had taken her over eighty years to earn. She bent over to press her bright magenta-painted lips to Tessa’s forehead, flashing a paramedic—and everyone else on the right side of the gurney—a view down her low-cut emerald-green dress.

  Sherilee King had once described her sister-in-law as an older, bustier version of Dolly Parton, and Tessa now stifled a giggle at the accuracy of the description. When Freckles used the back of her cool hand to smooth the loose strands of hair from Tessa’s flushed forehead, though, the giggle nearly turned into a sob of relief.

  “Having you here makes...” she started, but couldn’t get the words past the emotion clogging her throat. Luckily, the tender expression reflected in the older woman’s bright and knowing eyes meant that Tessa didn’t have to say the rest aloud.

  “I know, darlin’. Now, don’t get my tears started or we’ll both ruin our mascara and I only brought one backup set of false lashes.”

  Regardless of the bright spandex wardrobe and beauty pageant–inspired hairdos, everyone loved Aunt Freckles. Like the small pews inside the church, Tessa’s colorful aunt would never change and just having her there made Tessa’s pulse settle into a more manageable rhythm.

  Finally, Tessa sat up on the rolling gurney, which was beginning to feel more like a rolling prison. “Is everyone already on their way to the graveside service?”

  “Not yet,” Agent Rescue said, reminding Tessa of his hovering presence.

  “I didn’t get a chance to thank you for saving my niece.” Uncle Rider stuck out a beefy hand.

  “He didn’t save—” Tessa started, but Freckles pushed a plastic bottle of water against her lips.

  “Here, darlin’. You should get some fluids in your system.” Her aunt made sure she had a mouthful of water before turning to the man who was still wearing those ridiculous dark sunglasses. “Everyone calls me Freckles. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mr....?”

  “Special Agent Grayson Wyatt,” he said, taking her aunt’s age-spotted hand in his bigger tanned one.

  Tessa had to gulp down the rest of her water before she audibly groaned. She didn’t care how chiseled the agent’s jawline was or how his dark brown hair refused to budge from its precision military hairstyle. Any man who introduced himself using his title like that took things way too seriously. Even if it was his job.

  “Great.” Tessa swung
her poorly chosen high heels off the gurney and onto the floor. “Now that we’ve met the hero of the hour, can we please get to the limo?”

  But before she could stand, the agent had sidestepped Rider, which was quite a maneuver considering her uncle’s considerable girth, and had his hand cupped under her elbow. “Take it slow.”

  A warmth spread along the base of her spine, signaling that her neurological functions were still in complete working order. Despite her recent drink, her mouth suddenly felt extremely dry. Even in four-inch heels, Tessa had to tilt her head to look up into his face. He hadn’t seemed so tall in the back of the hearse.

  Lord, don’t remind her of the hearse.

  Special Agent Grayson Wyatt had been just as bossy back there, though. And if there was one thing Tessa had always resented, it was an overbearing man.

  Make that two overbearing men and a nosy aunt, she corrected when Aunt Freckles asked, “So what in the world happened back there?”

  “Here we go again.” She tried to roll her eyes, but it brought on another wave of dizziness. Grayson gently slid his fingers from her elbow to her upper arm, his strong hand heating the skin underneath her thin silk sleeve.

  Freckles, though, was just as unsubtle as her ex-husband. “Did you really puke before passing out in front of the church?”

  “No,” she said at the same time Grayson replied, “Yes.”

  “Are you pregnant?” her uncle asked.

  “No!” This time Tessa’s voice was the only one that answered, and it was louder and sharper than she’d anticipated.

  “Sorry.” Rider shrugged then looked at Grayson. “Tessa’s younger sister once puked then fainted back when she was pregnant. It runs in the family.”

  Seeing one of Grayson’s brows lift above his sunglasses in speculation, Tessa gritted her teeth. The last thing she needed was for that particular rumor to get started. “No, I am not pregnant. Not that it’s anyone’s business.”