Marie Ferrarella - The Coltons - Nick, Clay & Jericho

This wasn’t going to look good in the report.

The woman took the tire iron from her daughter. But rather than drop it, the way he expected her to, she grasped it like a weapon while gently attempting to push the little hellion behind her. The girl didn’t stay put long. It reminded Nick of a painting he’d once seen in a Washington museum, something that had to do with the spirit of the pioneer women who helped settle the West.

For one unguarded moment, between the monumental headache, the intermittent confusion and the anger he felt at being caught off guard like this, the word magnificent came to mind.

The next moment, he realized this was no time for that kind of personal assessment.

He found himself under fire from that rather pert set of lips.

“Who the hell are you?” she demanded hotly, moving the tire iron as she shot off the words. “And what are you doing, sneaking around on my land, attacking defenseless women?”

“I already told you who I was,” he reminded her tersely, “and I’d hardly call you defenseless.”

As he said that, he rubbed his chin and realized belatedly that the woman he’d inadvertently tackled had actually landed a rather stinging right cross to his chin. Maybe he was damn lucky to be alive, although he probably wouldn’t feel quite that way if word of this incident ever really got out: Nick Sheffield, aspiring Secret Service agent to the President, taken down by two females who collectively weighed less than a well-fed male German shepherd.

He eyed the tire iron in her hand. “I feel sorry for your husband.”

“Don’t be,” Georgie snapped. “There isn’t one.”

Once upon a time, during the summer that she’d been seventeen and full of wonderful, naive dreams, she’d wanted a home, a husband, a family, the whole nine yards. And, equally naively, she’d thought that Jason Prentiss was the answer to all her prayers. Tall, intelligent and handsome, the Dartmouth College junior was spending the summer on his uncle’s farm. She’d lost her heart the first moment she’d seen him. He had eyes the color of heaven and a tongue that was dipped in honey.

Unfortunately, he also possessed a heart that was chiseled out of old bedrock. Once summer was over, he went back to college, back, she discovered, to his girlfriend. Finding out that their summer romance had created a third party only made Jason pack his bags that much faster. He left with a vague promise to write and quickly vanished from her life. In the months that followed, there wasn’t a single attempt to contact her. The two letters she wrote were returned, unopened.

Georgie had grown up in a hurry that summer, in more ways than one. Eighteen was a hell of an age to become an adult, but she had and in her opinion, she and Emmie were just fine—barring the occasional bump in the road.

Like the one standing in front of her now.

Sucking in his breath against the pain, Nick rubbed the back of his head where Emmie had made more than gentle contact.

It was a wonder she hadn’t fractured his skull, he thought. As it was, there would be one hell of a lump there. Probing, he could feel it starting to form.

No husband, huh? “Killed him, did you?” he asked sarcastically.

He saw the woman’s eyes flash like green lightning. Obviously, he’d struck a nerve. Had she really killed her husband?

“I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I want you to turn around and get the hell off my property or I’m going to call the sheriff,” she warned.

Nick held his ground even as he eyed the little devil the woman was vainly trying to keep behind her. He was more leery of the kid than the woman. The little girl looked as if she would bite.

“Call away,” he told the woman, unfazed. He saw that his answer annoyed her and he felt as if he’d scored a point for his side. “It’ll save me the trouble of looking up his number.”

“Right.” She drew the word out, indicating that she didn’t come close to believing him. Inclining her head slightly toward her daughter, she nonetheless kept her eyes trained on him. “Emmie, get my cell phone out of the truck.” Her eyes hardened as she turned her full attention back to him. “We don’t like people who trespass around here.”

Okay, he’d had just about enough of this grade B western clone.

“Look, I already told you that I’m a Secret Service agent—” Nick got no farther.

Georgie snorted contemptuously at what she perceived to be a whopper. Anyone could get a badge off the Internet and fake an ID these days. “And I’m Annie Oakley.”

“Well, Ms. Oakley ,” Nick retorted sarcastically, “right now, you’re interfering with a federal matter.”

When it came to sarcasm, she could hold her own with the best of them. Growing up with no father and her lineage in question, the butt of more than one joke, she’d learned quickly to use the tools she had to deflect the hurtful words.

“And just what matter would that be?” she asked.

Although he rarely justified himself, he decided to give this woman the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she wasn’t playing dumb, maybe the more-than-mildly attractive hellcat really was dumb.

So he spelled it out for her. “Obstruction of justice, harboring a criminal—”

She stopped him cold. “What criminal?” Georgie demanded angrily.

This man was really getting under her skin. God, but she wished she had her shotgun with her instead of this hunk of metal. Wielding a tire iron didn’t make her feel very safe.

“Georgie Grady,” he answered. He had his doubts that she was innocent of the man’s activities. Not if she lived here as she claimed. Even so, Nick decided to cover his bases and give reasoning a try. “Look, your boyfriend or whoever Georgie Grady is to you is in a lot of trouble and if you try to hide him, it’ll only go hard on you as well.” Needing some kind of leverage, he hit her where he assumed it would hurt the most. “Do you want Social Services to take away your daughter?” He nodded at the returning child holding on to the cell phone she’d been sent to get. “I can make that happen.”

“Can you, now?” He was bluffing, Georgie thought. The man didn’t know his ass from his elbow, he’d just proven it. “Somehow, that doesn’t fill me full of fear,” she informed him coldly.

“Mama?”

There was fear in Emmie’s voice. Georgie’s protective mother instincts immediately stood at attention. She slipped one arm around her daughter’s small shoulders to give her a quick, comforting squeeze.

“But someone upsetting my daughter does fill me full of anger and I promise you, mister, when I’m angry, it’s not a pretty sight.” Her eyes became glinting, green slits as she narrowed them. “You’d do well to avoid it if you can.”

What the hell was he doing, standing in the middle of nowhere, going one-on-one with some misguided red-headed harpy? He’d had enough of this. “Just tell me where I can find this Georgie Grady and I’ll forget this whole incident.”

Emmie tugged on the bottom of her mother’s shirt to get her attention. “Is he simple, Mama?” she asked in what amounted to a stage whisper.

Georgie stifled a laugh. “It would appear so, honey.”

He was not here to entertain them, nor did he appreciate being the butt of someone’s joke, especially when he wasn’t in on it. “Look, call the damn sheriff so we can get this over with.”

To his surprise, she took a step toward him, lifting her chin exactly the way he’d seen her daughter do. “I will thank you not to use profanity in front of my daughter.”

Of all the hypocritical—“But you just cursed,” he pointed out.

Georgie allowed a careless shrug to roll off her shoulders. “That’s different.”