Tami Hoag - Heart of Gold

It had been years since she’d had the solid support of her friends. During her marriage to William she had had no one to depend upon except herself. Now Alaina and Jayne were offering her their shoulders to lean on, and she felt torn between the desire to accept and the ingrained habit of handling her troubles herself.

“I really wanted to believe I’d left everything associated with William behind when I left Washington,” she said, shaking her head in dismay. “Now I’ve got a federal agent skulking around.”

“Look on the bright side.” Jayne winked at her. “At least he’s not hard on the eyes.”

That was a fact, Faith thought. It was a fact that made her feel distinctly uneasy. There was something vitally, basically male in Shane Callan that all but reached out and touched the most feminine parts of her. Just the thought of his hard, aristocratic good looks was enough to send heat rushing under her skin. He was making her crazy. What was she doing feeling attracted to the man, knowing what he thought of her?

“He does a hell of a job of fraying nerves, though,” Alaina concluded.

Jayne gazed off into space. “He does seem rather hostile, doesn’t he? I wonder what motivates that feeling,” she said, trying to dissect Shane’s performance as if he were a character in a movie. Her brow knitted. “He could be out of touch with his aura.”

“Aura my Aunt Sadie.” Alaina sniffed. “He’s a cop. The attitude is a prerequisite for the job.” Dismissing the topic, she turned toward Faith. “Call it a night. Jayne and I can take care of the kitchen. Go read Lindy a bedtime story or something.”

Faith turned to dump her leftover onion salad into the trash. “She’s already asleep; she wasn’t feeling well. Besides, I can’t leave you two to handle Robo-Cop alone, when I’m the reason he’s here. Where is he anyway?” she asked, swearing to herself it was only idle curiosity that made her ask, not unbridled lust.

“On the porch.”

“Shane Callan,” Jayne mused dreamily. “With that name and that voice and those looks, it is a crime against humanity that he hasn’t found his way to Hollywood.”

“I only wish he hadn’t found his way here,” Faith complained, fanning herself with a pot holder as her hormones threatened to riot.

“Your safety is important,” Alaina said, shaking a serving spoon at her. “And not only to the Justice Department. If they think there’s some reason to assign you protection, then you ought to accept it.”

“They’re overreacting,” Faith insisted.

“Are they overreacting or are you underreacting?” Jayne questioned gently. “Honey, no one could blame you for not wanting to believe your life is in danger.”

Faith twisted the pot holder in her hands. “I don’t know anymore. The trial is a month away yet. I’d rather not think of it at all, but now I’ll be reminded of it every time I turn around and find Eliot Ness watching me as if I’m public enemy number one.”

“He’s a real piece of work, isn’t he?” Jayne gave a half laugh, then made a stern face and propped her hands on her hips. “Shane Callan-he’s not just a man, he’s an adventure.”

Even Faith managed to laugh. Maybe Jayne was right in trying to find a lighter side to the situation. It was absurd for a federal agent to suspect her of wrongdoing. She was the most ordinary of women. Her needs were simple, she aspired to nothing beyond being a good mother. Yet this cynical, world-weary cop was watching her with an eagle eye. The joke was on Shane Callan.

But Shane Callan wasn’t laughing when he burst in the back door of the kitchen. His gun wasn’t laughing either. He pressed the nose of it to the head of the frazzled gray-haired man he shoved into the room ahead of him. Faith and Jayne both shrieked and jumped as Callan roughly spun the man around and slammed him back against the kitchen wall, causing three copper molds to clatter to the floor.

“Who the hell are you, and what the hell were you doing under that window?” Shane growled the words in the older man’s face.

The old man sputtered right back, though he was in no position to make demands. “Let me go, ye sly devil!” he ordered in an oddly lilting voice. “Who do ye think ye are, wavin’ a gun about!”

Shane’s fist wound tighter into the knot of fabric he clutched beneath the man’s bearded chin. “I’m the man who’s going to make you very unhappy if you don’t start answering questions.”

The control on Faith’s temper snapped like a toothpick when she realized whom Shane was holding at gunpoint. Furious, without a thought as to what Callan’s reaction would be, she stormed across the room.

“For Pete’s sake, put that gun down before you hurt someone! That’s my caretaker you’re assaulting, you overgrown bully.”

Shane loosened his hold on the man’s dirty brown work jacket and half turned to glare at Faith, lowering his pistol as he did so.

“Give me that,” she snapped, snatching the gun from his slack hand. “You obnoxious jerk! You can’t just bust into my home with guns a-blazing like some kind of reincarnated John Wayne, scaring everybody half to death! You could have given poor Mr. Fitz a heart attack!”

Mr. Fitz stepped away from the wall and his captor, somehow managing to look down his hooked nose at Shane, who stood a head taller. He adjusted his jacket, which reeked of fish, like a king arranging his cloak, then stroked a smoothing hand over his shaggy gray beard.

Shane ignored the old geezer in favor of riveting Faith with a burning look. He was furious with himself for letting her take his gun. What the hell was wrong with him? Was he so off his game he could let a slip of a woman get the drop on him? Or was it just this particular woman, an annoying little voice asked him. He was acting like a green rookie, and it was all Faith Kincaid’s fault. He scowled at her.

Suddenly realizing she had his pistol in her hand, she grimaced at it as if it were a slimy dead fish and offered it back to him, holding it pinched between her thumb and forefinger. “Here. Take this awful thing and put it away,” she said in her sternest motherly tone. For added oomph she shook her finger at him. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, pulling a gun on poor Mr. Fitz. He’s no killer.”

Shane holstered the pistol, an ominous frown pulling his black brows low over his eyes. Lord, she made him feel as if he were ten all over again, in trouble for throwing spit wads in school. “How was I supposed to know that? No one bothered to tell me there was a Mr. Fitz.”

Alaina stepped between them, defusing the situation with an introduction as the telephone rang in the background. “Mr. Callan, this is Faith’s caretaker, Jack Fitz. Mr. Fitz, this is Agent Callan. The government sent him to keep an eye on Faith because of that trial business.”

Mr. Fitz snorted like an infuriated billy goat, his whiskered chin set at a defiant angle. “That better be all ye keep on her, ye big rascal.”

Shane rolled his eyes and heaved a much-put-upon sigh. Half under his breath he said, “This place is unbelievable.”

“Feel free to go back to Washington to report that,” Faith said. She was still seething. She’d had it with him upsetting her household and her nervous system. A quiet life was all she wanted. “You’re not welcome here, Mr. Callan. You’re not wanted, and you’re not needed.”

“You’ve made that first part abundantly clear, Ms. Kincaid,” he said, his voice low and silky as he leaned over her.

Faith met his cool, intense stare with one of her own. Shane’s look was that of a man who could have stared down the devil himself. Perhaps he had. And underlying the anger that snapped between them like a live wire she could feel a pull, an attraction she neither wanted nor welcomed. A strange tingling raced over her skin as the moment stretched out between them.