Linda Conrad - The Gentrys - Cinco

She needed—no, she absolutely lived—to control her own world. To be in charge of every situation and be able to walk away whenever she wanted.

All her life she’d been in a prison of one kind or another, controlled by someone who’d claimed only to care about her best interests. And when the clear air of freedom had been almost within her grasp…she’d found herself forced back into the stale air of a prison, even though it was beautiful countryside. And once again guarded by someone else who claimed to care only about her protection.

Meredith wanted to assume total responsibility for her own life, and had for as long as she could remember. She had no doubt that she could protect herself, either. Her current impossible situation made that whole dream feel like a nightmare.

Logically she knew the ranch was the best, perhaps the only, place for her at this point. But her heart wasn’t buying logic right now.

Meredith glanced around at the acres of fenced land surrounding her. For miles—literally miles in every direction—nothing but sparse brown grasses and an occasional clump of stubby trees appeared on the landscape.

During the past couple of days when she’d been outdoors like this, she’d seen a few horses with riders on them in the distance. And once or twice a cow or two had wandered within yards of the road where she ran. She didn’t care for the way her skin crawled and stomach lurched at the nearness of them, but the animals never looked up at her. Anyway, this was no time to let that old weakness of hers out of the box in her mind where she’d relegated it.

The ranch had a feudal character. Sort of like a bygone era. It gave her the creeps. Nothing should be this laid-back and boring. Where was all the action?

The minute she’d thought the word laid-back, the one thing she didn’t find particularly boring around here came clearly into her mind. Cinco.

Despite not having enough time to figure him out, Meredith thought he must really be a kind person to take her in this way. That first day, after he’d shown her the family’s personal library and told her to help herself, he’d surprised her by also leading her to a makeshift weight room located in the far reaches of the ranch house. He’d explained that in the dead of winter even cowboys need some exercise.

She’d found herself starting to like him—a little. He was easy and funny, even if he was committed to controlling her actions and her life for the near future.

All things considered, for a jailer, he wasn’t half-bad.

She started to run again in earnest. Cinco had made himself scarce for the past two days. He’d left her breakfast and dinner on the kitchen counter with notes saying he’d be tied up for a while and for her to make herself at home. The ranch could never feel like a home, but it was nice of him to offer. Perhaps he’d be in the kitchen when she returned this time. They could talk.

As she rounded the last bend in the road, leading into the yard surrounding the house, she saw a man standing on the wide porch. Meredith couldn’t make out his features yet, but she knew it was Cinco by the way he filled out the denim shirt and jeans he was wearing.

The closer she came, the slower she ran. His black felt cowboy hat cast a threatening shadow across his eyes, as he sipped a cup of coffee. Silhouetted above her at the porch railing, he seemed big, tough and unfriendly.

Her forward progress slowed to a crawl. He looked mad. Whatever had possessed her to want to talk to him? And what right did he have to be angry?

She was the one who had every right to be mad at her situation. It wasn’t fair. She hadn’t asked for this mess. She hadn’t wanted to be brought out to some distant and uncivilized backcountry. She hadn’t needed his damn protection in the first place.

By the time she’d stopped moving, she was fairly shimmering with livid energy. While she tried to catch her breath, his gaze skimmed up her bare legs, over her thighs and heaving chest, and upward on a long, lazy journey to her eyes.

“’Bout time you finally decided to get back here,” he growled. “Where’ve you been, Meredith?”

“Running,” she answered automatically. She’d almost complained about feeling like a caged animal, but thought better about it. Did she owe him any explanations?

He wasn’t her superior officer. He wasn’t her father. He hadn’t even bothered to check on her welfare at all in two days. She didn’t owe him any answers.

“What’s gotten into you this morning, Gentry?” she shot back at him. “You said it’d be all right for me to exercise. That’s what I’ve been doing.”

Cinco tamped down on his rising panic. Ever since he’d realized Meredith wasn’t in the house when he’d gotten home from his morning rounds, the insidious worry grew like wild mesquite on the range.

He’d had very little sleep in the past couple of days, trying to finish up the latest security program he’d promised another Cyber-Investigations client. Going at it straight through so he could spend more time keeping Meredith entertained, he was tired and not just a little edgy.

“I didn’t say you could go out of the house without leaving me word. I was about to organize a search party when I saw you coming down the road.” He looked at his hand—the one holding the coffee mug—and realized it was shaking. “Don’t do that again.”

Meredith bristled, bounding past him up the stairs and into the kitchen. “I can’t stay cooped up in this house for days, no matter how big and nice it is. Just what do you expect me to do?”

Cinco closed the door and took a deep breath. She was okay.

“Well, we could always try wrestling,” he drawled slowly…for effect. “Kyle tells me you’re really quite good.”

That did the trick. She stopped dead in her tracks, her skin turning the spectacular sunrise-pink color he’d noted the other day. He was starting to love that particular shade. No longer angry, she looked downright embarrassed. Served her right for scaring the good sense right out of him.

“I’m sorry to be so out of sorts.” Meredith managed a mumbled apology, then looked up at him with those huge blue eyes. “But us wrestling…might not be such a bad idea. Do you think?”

He could scarcely believe it, but her eyes were twinkling with both chagrin and mischief. The more he got to know this uptight pilot, the more he found to like about her.

An assignment to protect a witness for the U.S. Marshal’s Office should remain impersonal. Despite his attempts, however, he was finding it harder and harder to keep their relationship on that level.

He urged himself to keep on trying.

“Look. I’ve made time today to show you around the spread and try to find a few things you might enjoy doing while you’re here. Why don’t you change into something…” He glanced at her long legs topped by the shortest of running shorts and tried to remember to breathe.

He forced his gaze up to latch on to hers. “Go put on some jeans and get into leather-soled shoes with a heel,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

Another few seconds of looking at those legs—the ones going on forever, the ones designed to make a man forget his own name—and it would be the end of him. He headed toward the staircase, putting distance between his libido and the sight of all that skin.

Meredith felt the flush of her anger begin to replace the crawl of embarrassment from a few minutes ago. “If that’s an order, Mr. Gentry, I respectfully…request that you shove it. You’re not my commander.” She headed for the coffeepot. “I don’t own a pair of blue jeans, anyway.”

Cinco halted midstride and spun around. She braced herself to hear a barrage of reasons why she should heed his demands in order to ensure her own safety.