His father cleared his throat as Ben realized the kitchen had gone quiet, and he’d been caught staring at Joanna for a minute too long.
“Long day,” Ben agreed, clearing his throat. “We should probably head back to the bar.” He checked the clock. It was well after midnight.
“Nonsense, you’ll both stay here. It’s too late to drive home and we have more than enough room upstairs.”
“Oh, I couldn’t impose,” Joanna broke into the conversation.
“I won’t hear of you driving back home tonight. After all of this work you helped us with, you get a good night’s sleep and we’ll have a nice breakfast. The bar is closed tomorrow, right, Ben?”
“Yep. Sunday is our day of rest,” he said, smiling at Joanna.
Cornered. That’s how she looked, but maybe only to him. He wondered why. What had made her so skittish?
“I—I don’t have any change of clothes with me,” she said.
“No problem, Joanna,” his mom said, taking her by the arm. I have plenty of extras upstairs, and I think a few of my things from my younger years will fit you. I’ll show you the shower, and you can have the guest room on the end, it’s the one with the best view in the morning,” his mother chirped.
Ben shook his head, smiling, knowing Joanna didn’t stand a chance. He also knew the room she was taking Joanna to didn’t have that great a view, but it was right next to his—on the opposite side of the house from his parents’ master bedroom.
His mom really wanted grandchildren, but Ben wasn’t willing to think that far ahead just yet.
“That’s one heck of a woman, son,” his father said as the two women left. “But she’s no waitress.”
Ben cocked an eyebrow at his dad, who seemed more tired than usual.
“You okay, Dad?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Just a long day. Don’t change the subject.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Ben said. “Of course she’s a waitress.”
“She has a different way about her. Strong, doesn’t ask for help and isn’t slow to offer it,” Hank explained.
“She’s a waitress, she’s on her feet lifting heavy trays all day, serving people,” Ben said, shrugging.
“True, though that doesn’t explain the way she scans the area when she thinks you aren’t looking, or…I don’t know. There’s just an air about her.”
Ben knew what his dad meant—he’d noticed too, when they were shooting, for instance.
“She had a tough time growing up—and more recently, too,” Ben went on, telling his father about Joanna’s ex, and some of her other troubles. He didn’t want to betray her confidence, but he knew what he said was safe with his dad.
“Hard to think of that lovely young woman having all that hardship. But now she has you,” his father said confidently.
“It’s not like that, Dad. Not yet, anyway,” Ben said nervously, starting to feel as if his parents were counting on something he didn’t even know was real just yet.
“Of course it is. I’m old, not stupid. Whatever needs working out, you two will do it. She’s holding on to something—something you need to know about, take my word for it. But you’ll work it out, because she’s the one. I would put money on it,” his father said.
They said goodnight, and Ben walked down to his room, pausing by the upstairs bathroom where he heard the shower running. He figured Joanna was in there, getting ready for bed.
The house was silent, and he stood outside the door for a long couple of minutes. His dad always had a way, just like his granddad had, of cutting to the core of the matter. Walking down to his room, he passed it by and went to hers, slipping inside to wait for her.
9
JOANNA HATED CRYING. SHE’D cried buckets when her mom had left, but she’d been seven. Even then, she had tried not to let anyone see.
She’d also vowed after that that she’d cried enough for a long, long time.
She hadn’t even given in to tears when she’d been shot, and she had only shed a few embarrassing tears at her brother’s wedding, which she hoped no one had noticed. But it took every ounce of control she had just to make it to the shower where she could let go for a few minutes. It had just been too much. Ben’s passionate words at the pond, the way he moved her. His family, his parents being so nice to her, welcoming her into their home, their faces lit with hope for their son, because of her.
And she was lying to all of them. Well, mostly. She hadn’t lied when she admitted to Ben that what she felt for him was more than sex, too. She probably shouldn’t have opened that door, but the words had come out before she could stop them.
Anger blended into the mix of emotions running through her as she thought about why she’d been given this assignment, not to mention Don’s warning about her career.
She’d been devoted to her work to the point of almost dying, and still she had to prove herself. What did she have to show for it? None of this, she thought miserably, looking at the beautiful tile along the edges of the bathroom that Ben’s mother had proudly showed her. She and Hank had built their life here, updated the entire place themselves.
A testament to family and to love. A legacy. Jarod was building that now with Lacey, and even her dad had someone in his life.
All Joanna had was lies.
She’d put some terrible criminals behind bars. Kept society safe, but what did she have when she went home at night?
It had never bothered her before, but now, faced with her emotions and the prospect—the very real prospect—that she was going to lose Ben, all the walls she built around herself felt brittle.
She straightened, taking hold of her crazy emotions. It was her job, and right now, she was all that stood between these good people and something bad.
Letting herself forget why she was here, even for a few hours, even for a day, was foolish. She’d had fun. She’d let herself stare into his eyes, kiss his fingers. She let down her guard, and she’d been burned.
Joanna liked his parents. Rachel was the kind of mother Joanna had fantasized about after her own had left, and Hank was a good man. She could see Ben was like both of them. Steady, solid, good.
There wasn’t a way for her to fit into their world.
In the kitchen, the four of them downstairs, it had been far too easy to imagine how wonderful a real life like the one Ben enjoyed could be—one full of sunshine, picnics and family.
It had scared the crap out of her when she’d seen that knowing look in his parents’ eyes. The warm acceptance, the way they’d included her and seemed to like her.
Stepping out of the shower, she pulled on the light robe that Rachel had given her and padded down to the room to get dressed, only to find herself face to face with Ben when she opened the door.
He was in bed. His jeans were on the floor. Her mind blanked.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said, smiling at her in a way that made her knees weak.
Then he looked closer. “Are you okay? Were you crying?” he asked, getting out of bed to close the distance between them, tipping her face up, his eyes fierce.
“I wasn’t. Just got shampoo in my eyes,” she said, but even as she did, hot tears prickled at the back of her eyelids, and she silently cursed, trying to fight them back.
“Yeah, I don’t think so, c’mon,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulder. “What’s going on? I could tell down in the kitchen you were about ready to run out the door. You can tell me.”
Every word he spoke was a stab in the gut. He was being so good to her.
“Ben, we have to talk. This isn’t working, I can’t—”
“Listen, I don’t know what happened, but I want to know. Sure, this has all happened fast, and it’s scary. For me, too. No one else has made me feel like you do.”
She took a deep breath. “It did freak me out,” she confessed. “Being here, your parents, who are great, by the way, but—”
“I know. They like you, and they are blinded by the visions of grandchi
ldren dancing before them,” he said with a smile, shaking his head ruefully. “Don’t worry. I told Dad straight that we were new to each other, not to push. Don’t let it get to you.”
She let out the breath she was holding, relaxing a bit, feeling silly. “I know, I’m sorry. They really are wonderful, but suddenly it was all just so—”
“Much.”
“Yeah.”
“Well, if you feel that with me, let me know,” he whispered in her ear, dragging his tongue along the edge of the shell, making her eyes close and her head fall back toward him. “I’ll back off, I promise.”
She had started to tell him that was the last thing she wanted when they both spun around, hearing shouting, downstairs.
“That’s Dad,” Ben said, lurching away, grabbing his jeans and yanking them on, heading out the door. Joanna got her gun from her bag and ran out behind him.
“What’s going on?” he asked as he ran down the stairs, seeing his mom wrapped in her robe over her pajamas, heading out the front door.
“There’s a fire in the back barn,” she said, looking worried and taking off after his father.
He turned, surprised to see Joanna dash past him, shouting at the two of them to stay in the house in a way that made them all freeze in their tracks. He followed, grabbing her by her arm and spinning her to face him. She easily disengaged and pushed him back, her eyes intense.
“Joanna, what the hell?” he asked, looking down toward the burning building where his father had gone, the sound of sirens still far off in the distance.
“Get back in the house, Ben, and keep your mom there, too, and I’ll go after your dad,” she said, and only then did he notice the .45 in her hand. She shoved her badge up to his face where he could see it, her expression stony.
“I’m a U.S. Marshal, Ben. I’m here to protect you. I can explain more later. I don’t know what this is—it could be a trap, so please, get back in the house, lock up somewhere, and let me go do my job.”
In a second, before he could form his next thought, she was gone.
JOANNA STUDIED THE SCENE, HER eyes traveling over the mostly intact barn—the fire hadn’t gone too far, amazingly, and had only consumed part of one corner of the massive old structure before the volunteers had put it out.
That alone pointed to arson. There was nothing else that could have started the fire—no lightning, no electricity in the barn, no accelerants left lying around—no reason a fire should have started in that quadrant, although the odor of chemicals, not gas, was clear in the afterburn. Chemical analysis would tell them what they were later. Luckily, the barn was used only for equipment storage, not animals.
The fire officer who stood surveying the scene with her had reached the same preliminary conclusion—arson—not entirely because of the forensics. Some other vandalism had made it clear that there’d been an intruder on the ranch.
“The weird thing is, why would the arsonist slash all the tires of the cars in the driveway, but set fire to a barn that was the farthest away from the house? Why not set fire to the house? And what did slashing the tires accomplish?”
The guy seemed genuinely confused, and Joanna nodded.
“Maybe a former employee, or someone who was angry about something that happened at the party yesterday—maybe they weren’t invited,” she joked, though that wasn’t what she thought at all.
What she believed was that the slashed tires and the fire were a message. A warning, the way she saw it. She knew from the look on Ben’s face when he saw the tires that he thought the same thing.
Still, the fire officer had a point, and she wasn’t completely settled on what had happened here. Some things were just…off.
She couldn’t figure it out now, and while a few of the firemen would stay on site until they were sure nothing would reignite, there was nothing else she could do for the moment.
Rachel had been cooking all night, feeding firefighters and sending breakfast down for the people at the barn. It was how she dealt with stress, apparently.
Joanna was starving, something she hadn’t realized until Lisa came walking toward the barn with another thermos of coffee, handing it to one of the guys before coming over to join Joanna.
“Coming up for breakfast? Rachel has enough food up there to feed an army.”
Joanna was surprised any of them were speaking to her.
“I don’t think I should,” she said, not looking Lisa in the eye. “But thanks.”
Lisa shuddered. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to do such a thing to the Callahans. They’ve never hurt anyone in their lives.”
“Yeah. Who knows what prompts people to do these things.”
“I know what prompts Ben,” Lisa said with a grin. “He’s been driving us crazy pacing back and forth to the window keeping his eye on you down here with the firemen,” she said.
“Lisa, do you know what happened last night? I mean, with me?”
“Yeah, Ben told everyone what’s going on and who you are. He’s totally pissed. But the way I see it, you are just doing your job, and if he knew who you were, he never would have gone along with it,” Lisa said with a shrug. “Men.”
Joanna smiled, and shook her head. “I was pretty sure everyone would hate my guts for lying.”
“Nah, and neither does Ben, but you know, I guess I can see how it makes things more complicated with you two.”
Joanna started to argue, but then considered the cat was out of the bag in a lot of ways. “Yeah, I guess it does. Or not. There is no ‘us two’ anymore, I don’t think.”
“Well, just hang in there. You can handle him,” Lisa said confidently, and smiled up at Joanna. “You are a U.S. Marshal after all.”
Joanna blew out a breath. “That I am.”
“You should know, though, Charlie says maybe Ben should think about not testifying. And I think Ben is considering it.”
Joanna stopped in her tracks. “Really? Why would anyone think that? Ben has to put these guys away, if he can. They killed someone.”
“But they’re strangers, not family. I have to admit, as much as I know Ben wants to do the right thing, if it means risking his family’s safety, how can he? The law will just have to do its job.”
Joanna stifled another groan. She couldn’t let them talk Ben out of testifying—not over this. Which made her mind leap to another place as they walked the rest of the distance to the house. Her appetite had diminished considerably under the weight of her thoughts as they entered the kitchen, though the aromas of the food were tantalizing.
Rachel met her with a steaming-hot cup of coffee and pointed her to several warming pans full of waffles, bacon, sausage and home fries, among other things. She still treated Joanna warmly, though Joanna could tell by the worried look in her eyes that things had changed.
No grandbabies were popping up in Rachel’s imagination now, Joanna figured.
She offered a brief hello to Hank and Charlie, who nodded in response, and then she met Ben’s eyes across the kitchen. Everything they’d shared flashed through her mind, along with an aching need to go to him, to make things right, but that was probably not going to happen.
She went to the counter where he was, and filled a plate with some of the food, although she was barely paying attention.
“You doing okay?”
“Fine,” he said.
“Right.”
“What did you find?” he asked.
“Nothing much new. They have to do some tests, but it’s pretty clear someone set the fire, probably to discourage you from testifying,” she said. “So are you discouraged?”
“I don’t know yet,” he replied.
“That’s good. Let me know what I can do to encourage you not to change your mind.”
“I think you’ve done enough, thanks,” he said coolly and left her gaping.
After a shocked second, during which the kitchen had gone completely silent, she slammed her plate down on the counter and went after him, finding
him in the front room, staring out a window.
“I get it, this stinks, but you can’t walk away from your testimony because you’re pissed at me,” she said. “Even if you did refuse to testify, you’ll never be truly safe, and neither will they,” she said, nodding back toward the kitchen, where she was sure they could hear every word. “You’re a loose end. You know as well as I do that guys like this don’t like loose ends.”
His back was ramrod-straight, his hands jammed in his pockets. When he turned to face her, she could tell he was exhausted—none of them had slept all night.
Correction—she and Ben hadn’t slept for the last two nights, she remembered with embarrassing clarity.
“Two guys came after me,” he said baldly.
“What? When?”
“Thursday night. When I went out for a run.”
She thought back, remembering the scrapes and bruises. “You said…”
“Yeah, well, I can lie, too,” he responded. “The blood on the shirt was from one of them…” he paused, realization dawning. “I see. That was why you took it. To test it.” He barked out a laugh, shaking his head, muttering something to himself about being a damned fool.
It took everything she had to steer away from the personal and to keep the discussion on track.
“So with the two guys. What happened?”
He filled her in succinctly, and it took everything she had to listen without reacting. He could have been killed.
“I put both of them down—figuratively speaking—but their IDs were fake, the car a rental. No leads there,” he said.
“How can you know? You should have reported that to the marshals, immediately,” she said, her voice rising.
“So you could put me into federal custody? I don’t think so. Besides, what if they weren’t even connected to your case?”
“You have more than one group of bad guys after you?” she asked incredulously.
His expression became veiled in a way she’d never quite seen before. “It’s possible. I have a lot of nasty people in my past.”
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