“If anything happens to make you feel threatened or even uncomfortable, call or text me immediately. Promise?”
“I promise.” Before she slipped out of the truck, she kissed him, a fervent, passionate, all-in kiss that sent his pulse rate soaring. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“Count on it.”
Still not happy with the situation, he watched her walk back to the house, giving him a little wave from the front door. Much as he’d like to, he couldn’t override her wishes and insist on staying in the house.
But he sure as heck was going to spend the night parked right outside her door, where he could get to her in a minute if she were in trouble. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d slept in his truck on a stakeout.
He never expected to be doing it to protect the woman with whom he’d fallen in love with.
The woman he loved. Maria Giordano, niece of a small-time L.A. criminal. He shook his head wryly. Her brother had probably been justified in laughing out loud.
*
Cramped from the uncomfortable sleeping position and hungry, Brice woke as early morning light crept through his windshield. Judging by the sun, Mary—Maria—should be up, getting ready for work. Wishing he had a cup of coffee, Brice grabbed his phone and texted, Everything okay?
A few minutes later, she texted back, Everything’s fine. Having breakfast before work.
Good, he replied. See you this afternoon.
But he actually saw her sooner, for when she walked out to get into her car, she spotted him in his truck. Stopping short, she shook her head, then walked over to the driver’s side of the truck while he lowered the window.
“You stayed outside all night, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “The ranch would be too far away if something had happened.”
She blew him a kiss. “That was terribly sweet, if unnecessary. I owe you a breakfast and some strong coffee. I’d do the coffee now, but I need to get to work.”
“Did your brother agree to leave today?”
She blew out a breath. “No. But I searched his bag while he was sleeping. Unless he’s hidden some in the lining of something, he doesn’t have any more drugs with him. Which means he’ll want to leave soon to score some more. Hopefully by tonight or tomorrow.”
“You can’t just make yourself kick him out?”
“He pleaded for one more day. I figure I could give him that, but then I really will boot him out the door.”
“Okay. Stay safe, sweetheart.”
“You, too, Brice.” She leaned up to kiss his hand on the window, then walked to her car, giving him a wave as she drove off.
Brice started his truck and followed her to the library, parking with the engine idling until, shaking her head at him again, she gave him another wave before entering the building. Finally assured she would be safe, he headed off to get coffee, grab something to eat, and check to make sure his brothers hadn’t changed their minds about doing the bank meeting without him.
Then he’d pay a call on the town sheriff and call in a favor. He might have had to restrain himself last night, but this threat to Mary’s safety and well-being was going to be eliminated today.
*
Two hours later, Brice parked his truck a street away from Mary’s cottage and walked toward her backyard. After slipping through the greenery that separated her yard from the neighbor on the other side, he silently made a circuit of her cottage, looking and listening intently. After ten minutes of observation, he determined that her brother was in the kitchen where, from the sound of it, he was making himself coffee.
Entering unannounced could get him shot, if her brother was packing, but Brice hadn’t gotten the impression that he was. Still, it was a risk—but he didn’t want to give the man advance notice to flee or barricade himself in a room somewhere.
Looking at the front door, he shook his head. If Mary intended to buy this house, he really needed to get her a better security system than that old turn-button door and a bolt lock. Quickly, he inserted the tool that pushed back the bolt, released the mechanism, and walked in.
“Making me some coffee?” he asked, watching Joey intently, ready to duck and roll if the man went for something at his waistband or pocket. But, looking strung out and nervous, Joey just said, “What are you doing here?”
“Could ask you the same question. You’re supposed to be gone.”
“What business is it of yours? Maria’s my sister. I have a right to visit her if I want.”
“You don’t have the right to interfere in her life or put her at risk. What if whatever lowlife you offended enough to make you run finds you in her house? Do you want to be responsible for getting her shot—again?”
Joey flinched. “That wasn’t my fault.”
“Maybe not. But I’m not prepared to risk having it happen again. After you drink that coffee, you’re going to get in that rental car parked a block away, drive out of Whiskey River, and never come back.”
“Who are you to tell me what to do? It’s a free country.”
“For law-abiding citizens, yes. Maybe not for Joseph A. Giordano. Convicted of two juvenile offenses, with community service as your punishment. As an adult, arrested twice on possession charges, remanded into a treatment program. Suspect in a shooting in L.A. a week ago.”
“I had nothing to do with that! I was just a bystander.”
“Tell it to the judge. There are arrest warrants out in the case. By rights, I should cuff you and take you in now. But because you’re Mary’s brother, I’ll give you half an hour before I report to the local police that I saw a suspicious person skulking around Mary’s house, who then drove away in a dark-blue rental car, though I only caught three of the numbers on the license plate. By the time they can trace that, you can be halfway to the woods around Caddo Lake if you keep to the back roads. Where you go from there, I don’t care, as long as you never come back to Mary’s. So, do I escort you to the sheriff’s office now, or do you leave town voluntarily?”
Joey stared at him, his hands shaking. Definitely coming down off something, Brice thought. All the more reason to get him out of Mary’s house immediately, and for good. “Don’t give me much choice, do you?”
“That was the idea.”
“Okay. Let me drink my coffee and get my bag, and I’ll go.”
“I’ll get the bag. You drink the coffee.” On the off chance that her brother might have a weapon stashed in it, Brice didn’t want him to be the one fetching it.
He walked down the hallway and into the guest bedroom, then picked up the leather overnight bag sitting beside the bed. A quick examination confirmed there were no weapons in it, thankfully. Mary’s brother was definitely not the muscle in her uncle’s organization.
He carried the bag back to the kitchen and stood, arms crossed, until Joey, looking surly and increasingly agitated, finished the coffee. Then pointed to the door. “Out. Now.”
Joey threw him a furious look. “Always have hated cops.”
“You’re breaking my heart.”
Brice kept a laser-focused gaze on the man while he picked up his bag and walked to the front door. Then followed him down the street until he got into his rental car and drove off.
Now to go see Mary and let her know the cause of her anxiety had just left town.
Catching a glimpse of himself in his rearview mirror after he parked outside the library, Brice rubbed the scruff of whiskers on his chin, thinking he really ought to go back to the ranch, shower and shave. But disreputable as he looked, he was too impatient to reassure Mary, see the stress and worry fade from her face, to waste time cleaning up first.
Hopefully he wouldn’t send Miss Shirley screaming in alarm when she saw him.
She did scan him up and down with a puzzled look, but replied cordially to his greeting and confirmed that Mary was in the reference room. He strode down the hallway, but stopped short on the threshold, savoring his first glimpse of her as she sat at the reference desk, her atte
ntion on her computer screen.
Since she’d started seeing him, she’d stopped wearing the ugly bag dresses. The summery, flowered-print sundress she wore today showed her bare shoulders, while her long, curly dark hair was pulled to one side with a clip. She wore only a dusting of powder and a little eye makeup that accentuated those fascinating dark eyes.
Warmth and tenderness swelled his chest. He couldn’t wait to have that serious talk about the future . . . and start making plans to make her his forever.
Apparently sensing someone’s presence, she looked up. “Brice! What are you doing here?” Her smile of welcome fading, she said anxiously, “Has something happened?”
“Everything’s fine,” he soothed, coming over to give her a kiss. “I just wanted you to know that your little familial problem has been resolved.”
“Resolved? How, resolved?”
“I stopped by to visit with your brother this morning. Convinced him that it would be in his best interests to leave immediately.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “You must have been pretty persuasive.”
“As he represented a potential danger to the community, before I went to see him, I felt justified in accessing the national criminal databases. Saw the juvenile offenses and the drug convictions. And there was a shooting in L.A. last week, involving members of the Giordano organization.”
“A shooting!” Mary cried. “Joey carries things for Uncle Sal, but I can’t believe he’d be involved in a shooting.”
Brice nodded. “He insisted he had nothing to do with it. I told him there had been arrest warrants issued in the case, and because he was your brother and ‘family,’ gave him half an hour to leave before I contacted police—or if he refused to leave, I would take him in immediately. I don’t think he wanted to tangle with me. So he left.”
Mary swallowed hard. “Thank you, Brice, for not arresting him. But . . . isn’t that illegal? Couldn’t you get in trouble as, I don’t know, an accessory abetting the escape of a wanted man?”
Brice shook his head. “There were arrest warrants issued—but none of them were for him. He just assumed one was, and I didn’t correct his assumption. The threat of believing he’s wanted should keep him on the move, though. As long as he ends up far away from you, I’ll be happy.”
Mary wrinkled her nose. “That sounds . . . like skating pretty close to the edge of what is permissible.”
“Close, maybe. But not over. Sometimes I have to make that call, balance the right of an individual to privacy with the need to protect the community. Protection always trumps privacy in my book. Like with you, when I needed to know you were no threat to Bunny.”
Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “When you needed to know about me?” she echoed. “Are you saying . . . you investigated me?”
Too late, Brice realized what his overtired brain had let him blunder into saying. He’d never told Mary about his snooping, which was probably a mistake. He should have confessed it long ago. To be honest, though, once his fears had been relieved, he’d forgotten about it.
Bad call. Because right now, Mary looked indignant.
“I hope you were duly gratified to discover I wasn’t wanted for anything!” she said angrily. “And that I had never been accused or convicted of a crime. What gave you the right to investigate me? Can you just . . . look up anyone you want, anytime you want? Aren’t there procedures now that limit stuff like that?”
“There’s usually a review,” he admitted.
“Which you chose to omit. Thank you, Texas Ranger, for violating my privacy.” She shook her head. “I don’t believe this. It’s like my father all over again. Nobody in this town would have had any reason to suspect me of anything. I go to work, do my job, don’t bother anyone. But that’s not enough to protect me from the suspicions of the law, is it? Just like it was never enough for the police who harassed Papa all his life. And when they couldn’t find anything, they called out the IRS agents, who audited his business every single year. Every. Single. Year. Despite never finding any records out of order, much less any evidence of criminal activity. I thought you were different. I guess I was wrong.”
“Wait a minute,” he protested, as angry as she was now. “It’s not like I impugned your reputation before the whole town! I really didn’t think I would find anything when I checked, but good grief, Mary, remember how much time you spend with Bunny! Nobody knew much of anything about you, where you came from, what you’d done before you came to Whiskey River. I just wasn’t comfortable trusting only my instinct that someone who was that much of a mystery didn’t pose a danger to her.”
“Since if I’m unknown, I must obviously be an escaped criminal. I moved halfway across the country to escape being Uncle Sal’s little princess, and still I get investigated.”
“That’s really not fair, when I had no way of knowing—”
“Enough!” she said, cutting him off. “I hardly slept all night, I’m exhausted and worried, and I can’t deal with this. Leave, please.”
He hadn’t gotten any sleep either, which was probably why his stupid brain had let this slip. “I’ll talk to you later when you’re more reasonable.”
“Oh, yes, because I’m the unreasonable one. Merely angry at having my privacy grossly invaded because you have the power to do it, and you could get away with it. Just like all the police who harassed Papa back in L.A.” She shook her head, fury clear in her eyes. “A Texas Ranger. Joey was right. I was an idiot. Goodbye, Brice.”
She jumped up, shoved her chair in, and stalked back to a door marked “Private—Library Staff Only.” Walking quickly through, she closed it behind her. He heard the click of a lock.
Angry, exasperated, and annoyed with himself, Brice hesitated, but after a moment, turned and walked out. He wasn’t about to pound on the door and demand that she come out and talk. It probably wouldn’t accomplish very much to continue the conversation now anyway. They were both overtired, stressed, and not thinking clearly.
Setting his jaw, he walked back out to his truck and set off for the ranch.
Chapter Fourteen
In the morning, a week later, Brice paced his condo in Austin. After their argument at the library, he’d texted Mary from the ranch and proposed they meet again to sort things out.
She’d replied that it might be better for them to take a break and not see each other for a while. Upset and angry, he’d replied whatever you want, and after dinner—and no more texts from Mary—had driven back to Austin.
Even the news delivered over dinner that night by his triumphant brothers that their confrontation with the bank had led to the president backing down and restoring the original loan terms hadn’t been able to cheer him. They probably suspected something was wrong when he wasn’t able to join wholeheartedly in their celebration over surviving this latest threat to the Triple A.
He passed it off as worry over the upcoming operation to apprehend the suspect in his ongoing investigation. He didn’t think they believed him, but they were wise enough not to press him about it.
Over the past week, he’d texted her several times asking how she was. She’d replied saying she was fine—but not suggesting she was ready to see him again.
He took another sip of his strong coffee, but that just reminded him of Mary and her espresso and biscotti. Putting down his cup, he walked out onto his balcony overlooking the Austin skyline.
He’d thought she was The One. Heck, he’d been on the point of proposing the next time he saw her. He couldn’t believe she’d let one stupid argument derail what had been so good for both of them. Not that he blamed her for getting angry, but once she cooled down, how could she continue to blame him for wanting to make sure Bunny was safe?
Maybe it was time to give up on the idea of one special woman and go back to playing the field.
Even though that option didn’t sound very appealing.
Irritation faded to depression, the result of the hurt and the ache of longing he’d felt e
ver since leaving her behind that closed door in the library. Besides, over the last week, as he cooled down and finally tried to look at the argument from her viewpoint, he better understood why she’d gotten so upset.
After having grown up witnessing the constant scrutiny to which her law-abiding father had been subjected, both she and him saddled with reputations solely because of their kinship to a criminal, she couldn’t help but be sensitive to the idea of being investigated when she’d done nothing to warrant it. Her opinion of the police could hardly have been improved when they hadn’t found or prosecuted the shooters who had killed her fiancé and her baby and put her in the hospital for weeks.
And, he thought, squirming a little uncomfortably, she did have a point. He hadn’t followed procedures when he tried to trace her, rationalizing that if he found nothing, no one needed to know he’d ever looked, and if he did find something, then he would go through channels to make the investigation official. He had taken advantage of his power and authority, even if he’d done it for a very good reason.
Maybe he should do a better job of trying to apologize.
Because he realized it wasn’t just that the idea of dating a variety of women didn’t appeal. There was only one he wanted. Sometime between their frosty first meeting in the library and watching her childlike delight at walking through the display gardens at that Hill Country nursery, he’d fallen off the swinging bachelor train. He neither could nor wanted to climb back on.
Like it or not, he loved Mary Williams Maria Giordano. And he needed to do whatever was necessary to recover from his false step and win her back.
A slow burn of determination, fueled by hope and excitement, lifted his dull spirits. Good thing he’d been keeping a mental list of her favorite things.
*
Later that afternoon, Mary sat at her computer reviewing files. When not needed to assist library patrons or do other routine work, she’d been reading through old texts and documents, typing the text by hand into a database so that all the rare books, many of them too fragile to scan, could be added in digital form to their collections.
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