Grayson shifted in his chair. If his mother had laid on a guilt trip like that, there was no way he’d be able to refuse her wishes. But Noreen Wyatt would never go that route. His mother was the most selfless woman he knew, and didn’t have a strategic bone in her body.
And right now, Grayson needed to go call her to get away from the constant headache the King family had given him.
* * *
“So tell me about the food at this new treatment facility,” Grayson said to his younger sister whose face occupied the screen of the laptop. She was twenty-eight years old, but looked more like a teenager in that big hospital bed. “Is it any good?”
“Can we not talk about my upcoming procedure for a few minutes?” Maddie replied. “I want to talk about my big brother’s picture being posted all over the internet like some sort of prince charming rescuing a damsel in distress.”
“Don’t let Tessa King hear you call her a damsel, let alone one in distress.”
“Tell me about her.”
He resisted the urge to make sure none of the other agents in the bunkhouse could hear him. They could sniff out suspicion from a mile away. “Even if I were at liberty to disclose that information, there’s nothing to tell, really. I hardly even know her.”
“Oh come on, Gray. I’m going stir crazy over here practically waiting to die.”
“Maddie, you’re not going to—”
“Don’t say it. We always promised not to lie to each other.” His sister’s body might have atrophied over the years, but her silver eyes were as fierce and determined as ever. He’d never seen them lose their light, no matter how grim her prognosis had been. “This treatment doesn’t have a guaranteed success rate on someone my age. And even then, I’m only holding off the inevitable a few more years.”
“If you would let me finish...” he continued, refusing to even acknowledge any possibility that the spine fusion wouldn’t work. “I was saying that you’re not going to go stir crazy with that new laptop. Which, by the way, I got you so that you can work on that online masters program. Not so you could run internet searches on me. If you’re bored, you need to be studying.”
“How can I keep my mind on anything right now? Please, Gray. Give me something to live for.”
The familiar guilt twisted inside his chest.
Growing up, he’d been the big brother who’d done all the physical stuff his sister hadn’t been able to do. Maddie had been diagnosed with Emery-Dreifuss Muscular Dystrophy, or EDMD for short, when she was nine years old. There’d been no stopping the weakening of the muscles in her shoulders, upper arms, calves and legs. There’d only been physical therapy and sometimes surgical intervention to relieve the stiff joints of her elbows, neck and heels. Surgical release of the contracted muscles sometimes helped, but never kept the contractures from recurring.
They’d known that conduction blocks would eventually start affecting Maddie’s heart, disrupting the heartbeat rhythm since the electrical impulses wouldn’t communicate between the upper and lower chambers. She’d gotten her first pacemaker two years ago. Now she was having rods inserted into her spine to hopefully keep her walking so she could maximize her physical therapy.
Nothing was wrong with her mind or her sassy attitude, though, Grayson thought before asking, “Where’s Mom?”
“I made her go get a coffee down in the cafeteria. You think I’d be using that ‘something to live for’ line if she was in the room with me? I’m not that heartless.”
“Sorry. I’ve been with the cruise director of guilt trips lately,” he said, thinking of Sherilee King. “So I’m a little suspect of everyone right now.”
“Right now? Gray, you’re always suspect of everyone. It’s what makes you so good at your job.” His sister’s eyes twinkled. “Now tell me about your next assignment. Are you going back to the White House?”
“First of all, you know I can’t divulge that kind of information. Second of all, I’m still on my current assignment for an undisclosed amount of time.”
“So you’re staying on that fancy ranch in Wyoming?” Maddie asked but didn’t give him time to respond. “Can you send me pics of the inside of the house? I saw an article about the Kings in Fine Tastes and there were all these glossy pictures of a huge mansion made to look like a rustic log cabin. The kitchen was bigger than our entire apartment.”
Grayson didn’t want to admit that the kitchen was in fact twice as big, if one counted something called a butler’s pantry and the separate prep area for catering staff whenever the Kings had a party. “Since when do you read snooty magazines like Fine Tastes?”
“Since my big brother insisted on paying out of pocket for only the top-rated specialists. All those plush waiting rooms have magazines like that.”
Their mom, who had always been Maddie’s sole caretaker, hadn’t been able to work full-time after their dad died, so their government-subsidized medical insurance only covered the basics. Grayson would’ve put them on his own insurance plan if he could. Instead, he worked as much overtime as possible so that his sister could have the best health care possible. And so that his mom could afford to take hotel rooms near the hospitals and pay for meal deliveries when she was too tired to cook after spending the day driving Maddie around to doctor and physical therapy appointments.
Neither Noreen nor Maddie would ever ask him for so much as a dime, but if he couldn’t be home to take care of them himself, the least he could do was send a part of his paycheck to help.
His dad had always hoped Grayson would get a football scholarship right after high school, but he hadn’t wanted to waste time on college when he could join the Marines and immediately start earning a paycheck to send home.
“Did the screen freeze?” Maddie asked.
“Huh?” Grayson replied.
“You were just sitting there not answering. I thought the video connection had gone out again.”
“Sorry, I was just lost in thought.”
“About the beautiful and smart Tessa King?” His sister wiggled her pale eyebrows.
“What? No. I mean other than how she relates to my afternoon shift. Speaking of which, I’ve got to go back to work. Tell Mom to text me when you get out of surgery.”
Maddie shrugged. “Give me Tessa King’s number and I’ll have Mom text her instead.”
“The painkillers must already be taking effect if you’re crazy enough to think I’d ever give you top-secret information like that.”
Maddie’s eyes narrowed playfully. “So you do have her number.”
Actually, he didn’t have Tessa’s number, though he could get it from the Protective Intelligence Division. “Don’t need it. And I definitely don’t want it.”
“You need someone, Grayson. Mom is worried that you haven’t dated anyone since Jamie.”
Grayson shook his head, trying to dislodge the sting of the reminder. “I need to get back to work. Good luck in the operating room and try not to yell at the nurses this time.”
“I didn’t yell at that nurse. I politely told her that I didn’t appreciate them putting me in a hospital gown covered with pink and purple unicorns. I don’t care if they thought it fit me better. I’m a twenty-eight-year-old woman. Not some preteen with stars in her eyes.”
“Says the grown adult who is addicted to sour gummy bears.” He smiled indulgently. “Love you, Mads.”
“Love you more, Gray.”
He closed the screen of his laptop, disconnecting the video call. He hadn’t lied to his sister. He really did need to get back to work, which meant he had to get his mind right. If Grayson couldn’t do his job, then he couldn’t provide for his sister, which was the indirect goal of all of his missions. All the hours of training, the overtime shifts, the high-risk assignments came at a physical cost for him, but the financial reward was well worth with it. But that also meant compartmentalizing his family l
ife and his work life, and even his social life—not that he had much of one. He couldn’t allow himself to be distracted by thoughts of his sister’s medical procedure, or by what the internet was saying about him.
Or the fact that Tessa King had just ridden by the bunkhouse on a horse, without an assigned agent trailing at a distance.
Crap. He’d been in the briefing with her and knew she’d heard the part about having an agent accompany her everywhere she went. He’d also seen her roll her pretty blue eyes at that particular directive. That meant she must’ve purposely slipped her tail. Doherty was supposed to be assigned to her this afternoon. Grayson should simply let his fellow team member deal with the woman.
Unfortunately, his job was to protect all the Kings. Even the ones who’d been assigned to someone else.
Even the ones who made his muscles tense and his blood heat up.
* * *
“I know I told you I’d be back on the air by tomorrow night, Bryson,” Tessa told the chief executive of programming at her network. Her agent had offered to make the necessary calls for her, but Tessa hadn’t become one of the top political analysts on prime time TV by avoiding the tough conversations. “But a few things have come up and I need to stay in Wyoming another week.”
“I told you that you should’ve planned to take the full week,” Bryson Johnson told her before speaking to someone else on his end of the line—probably his assistant. “Get Brett Monroe from the morning roundtable show and see if he can cover the eight o’clock slot this week.”
“You know, Brett Monroe didn’t do well in focus groups when he covered the gubernatorial debates last summer,” Tessa reminded her boss. After all, this was her show they were talking about. Her name was in the title. Bottom Line with Tessa King. No way was some comedian-turned-breakfast-show host going to maintain the serious integrity of the very program Tessa had built. “I’d go with Juanita Munoz. She covered that election scandal in South America and—”
“Fine,” Bryson interrupted. “We’ll send Brett up to Wyoming for an exclusive on you and that Agent Steamy guy.”
“No, I’m not going to comment on the Secret Service agent who was doing his job. We both know that’s nothing but tabloid fodder and our network is better than that.”
“Hmm. You might be right. Probably not a good look to be talking about your love life on camera so soon after your father’s passing. Plus, if you’re hiding out, that’ll build up the speculation. As long as you don’t hide out so long that everyone forgets about you.”
“It’s only a week, Bryson,” she tried to reassure him, though they both knew that in this business, there was always another big story and a hungry journalist right around the corner. “Besides, it’s also not a good look for the network to be spinning my family’s tragedy to their advantage.”
“Damn, Tessa. I’m sorry. You’re right.” He paused. “Did you get the flowers we sent?”
“The flowers were beautiful,” she replied carefully. There’d been so many arrangements delivered to the church and the ranch, she’d had no idea who had sent what. But all flowers were beautiful, weren’t they? And she appreciated the gesture, even though she knew that Bryson was probably more concerned with the potential loss of viewers than with Tessa’s personal loss. “So I’ll see you in a week.”
“Of course. Take all the time you need. We’ll schedule your exclusive with Brett for March sweeps instead.”
Tessa knew better than to tell her boss that there was no way she was going to do any sort of interview about her love life, especially with someone like Brett Monroe. However, that was a battle to be fought after she secured her next contract. At the end of the day, she couldn’t blame her network for wanting to capitalize on her personal situation. It was a business, and they were there to make money. Unfortunately for them, there was no story to sell.
When Tessa got off the phone with Bryson, she sent her agent a text with the contact info for her mother’s public relations team. After all, those weren’t the tough calls, just the annoying ones.
She could hear Aunt Freckles banging around in the kitchen and, as much as she loved the older woman, Tessa didn’t want to be within a mile radius when Sherilee found out her former sister-in-law was making chicken-fried steak and gravy for dinner.
Tessa sat back in the stuffed leather chair in front of her father’s desk. She’d come into his office to make her call, but she hadn’t dared to actually sit behind his desk. This room was her father’s sanctuary and there were parts of him everywhere she looked. Pictures of him with celebrities, world leaders and military buddies shared space with family photos and homemade Father’s Day gifts.
She picked up a frame with a black-and-white photograph of Roper and Rider when they were only seven years old. The towheaded boys were dressed in matching denim overalls and had their arms over each other’s shoulders. Their identical noses were covered in freckles and their wide grins were missing at least six teeth between the two of them.
Tessa’s heart tugged at the obvious closeness of the little boys. Even though they’d grown up to live such different lives, there were no two men who had loved her more. She shuddered as a sob threatened to make its way through her chest.
If she were smart, she’d let herself have a good cry and get it over with. But once she started, there’d be no stopping the flood of tears that was sure to come. And who knew who might walk in and see her?
She needed to get outside, to get away from all the memories inside the house. When Tessa had wanted to get away from the stresses of childhood, she’d go to the swimming pool her parents kept heated eight months out of the year and practice her dives. But after her accident, her mom had removed the diving board and Tessa had a feeling that seeing the empty spot where the board used to be would be worse than sitting in her father’s study.
In DC, she’d work out to relieve some of the antsiness, but she was pretty sure her mom was with a personal yoga instructor in the home gym right now. And Tessa really didn’t feel like being around anyone.
She stood and stretched. The entire backside of the house was covered in floor-to-ceiling windows that framed the glorious purple mountains in the distance. Maybe she should go for a ride. She hadn’t been on a horse for a few years and relearning the motions would require her to think about what she was doing, which would be way better than going for a mindless jog where her brain might latch onto any passing thought.
She found a pair of extra boots in Finn’s closet and, because they weren’t the type of sisters who shared everything, Tessa decided it was better to borrow now and ask for forgiveness later.
One of the stable workers offered to saddle a mare for her, but Tessa declined, needing physical activity that required her to get outside of her own head.
She and Phoebe—Finn had named the mare when she’d been going through her Friends phase—started off on a measured pace.
Tessa got the older horse up to a slow canter but, rocking back and forth in the leather saddle, she decided it was not like riding a bike. She didn’t remember her thighs ever burning this much before. Or needing to stretch her lower back. And she’d only gone a couple of miles or so. This might not have been her best idea.
She turned her head to gauge the distance and caught sight of someone riding up the path behind her. Tessa initially felt relief that she was no longer on the trail alone. Then she realized the person appeared to be even more awkward than she was on the back of a horse.
None of the hired cattle hands wore shirts that bright or sunglasses that dark. An electric current shot through Tessa’s legs as Grayson Wyatt drew closer.
“Sorry to intrude, Miss King, but we discussed this in the briefing this morning.”
“Discussed what?” she asked, wishing she’d brought her own sunglasses again. Instead, she pulled the brim of her dad’s old University of Wyoming cap lower.
“Members of the family shouldn’t go anywhere without an escort.”
She looked at the Teton mountain range in the distance to make sure she hadn’t gone farther than she thought. “But I’m not leaving the ranch.”
“Still.” That was all he said and she swallowed a groan of frustration.
Not that she needed an explanation. Tessa wasn’t about to play stupid with him and pretend like she didn’t know full well that someone could slip through one of the checkpoints and gain access to them. It was a vast, sprawling property, not Fort Knox.
She was about to turn around and head back to the stables—her sore forearms gripping the reins certainly would’ve appreciated that. But she saw how uncomfortable the perfect agent was on his own horse and decided she could suffer his presence a little longer if it meant putting him outside his comfort zone for a change.
Tessa snapped the reins and urged Phoebe into another canter, the thrill of regaining control overriding her protesting muscles.
Chapter Six
Grayson could go for hours and hours without talking to a soul. It was one of the skills he’d mastered as a sniper for both the Marines and the Counter Assault Team.
Following Tessa King, he didn’t say a word—not even a warning when she rode under a sagging tree branch and almost didn’t duck in time. Occasionally, he’d hear another agent on his earpiece, yet for the most part, it was blessedly uneventful and quiet everywhere else on the ranch. By the time she passed the trail that would take them back to the stables, though, she was slouching so low that he wasn’t sure how much longer she could remain upright in the saddle.
“Do you know where we’re going?” he finally asked.
“Of course I do.” She slowed her pace until his horse was beside hers. “At least, I used to. But it’ll come back to me.”
Grayson didn’t need the GPS on his watch to tell him exactly where they were. On the airplane here, he’d studied the trail maps while other agents had studied nearby restaurants that served the best steaks and coldest beers. Plus, the horses had already done at least two circles right past this location today. “There’s a creek about half a mile from here. We should probably stop and get the horses some water.”
What Happens at the Ranch... Page 7