6

COURTNEY HOPED no one could tell that her knees were knocking. When Ryan had rushed out the door after the bank robber, he’d taken ten years off her life. But she couldn’t let that show. She had to be cool, be sensible.

“It’s a good thing you were here,” Courtney told Ryan, trying to hide her concern behind a facade of calm as Fell’s full complement of law enforcement officials—all five of them—were now swarming the bank.

Francis joined Courtney and Ryan a moment later, having just finished calming Mrs. Albergast, who was demanding reparations for her cracked piggy bank.

“You run awfully fast for a bank inspector,” Francis noted with an admiring look at Ryan.

“I work out,” he modestly replied.

“I can tell.” Was Francis actually simpering? Courtney blinked in disbelief. Was Francis trying to flirt with Ryan?

All of a sudden, the other woman looked years younger. Now that Courtney thought about it, she was only a few years older than Ryan and herself. It was her attitude that had always made her seem so much older.

And Ryan, drat his hide, was flirting back with her. While not simpering, he was displaying the masculine equivalent. Courtney recognized the signs. Flashes of his lopsided grin. That glint in his hazel eyes, lighting them from within. A very tempting package and one that poor Francis would be helpless to resist

Courtney ought to know. She’d been there herself.

And she was not feeling jealous. No, no she wasn’t She was merely concerned for Francis. After all, women needed to stand together. It was their feminine duty to place warning labels on men so that the next woman in the guy’s life could see what was wrong with them, label them Sold as Is and list the damage—which in Ryan’s case would be an inability to commit to a relationship. He valued his work more than his relationships. Oh, she could write a book about Ryan’s flaws.

The problem was, she could write a multivolume epic on his good points as well.

Her reminiscences were getting her nowhere. “I hate to interrupt,” she said, “but the police have indicated that they want to speak to each of us individually. Francis, you should go first since you have seniority.”

As soon as the other woman was gone, Courtney directed her attention to Ryan. Only now was it truly sinking in how much at risk he’d been by chasing after a bank robber like that She knew Ryan had a gun. But chances were that the robber had been armed as well.

She shuddered to think what might have happened had the masked thief not had trouble with the door. Her only way of venting her feelings, which threatened to overwhelm her, was to sock Ryan’s upper arm.

“Ouch!” He shot her a look of exaggerated outrage that moved her not at all, except to notice how cute he looked.

“That robber would have hurt you far worse,” she said. “Do you have any idea how much danger you put yourself in by chasing him like that?”

“It’s my job,” Ryan stated simply.

“I hate your job,” she stated, just as simply but with more vehemence.

“So you’ve said.”

Courtney knew this wasn’t the time or place for this conversation. So she let her eyes do the talking. She hoped they didn’t also convey her fears for his safety, her blind relief that he was unharmed.

Ryan was getting to her. His searching gaze was stripping away her defenses and digging into her soul. So she did what any sane woman would do. She attacked. “What were you doing with Francis?”

And like any obtuse man, he jumped to the wrong conclusion. “Are you jealous?”

“Absolutely not. But I thought your job was to keep your eyes on me, not on Francis’s shirtfront.”

“Meow.”

“Was that your impression of Felix the Cat?” Courtney inquired with mocking sweetness. “If so, it needs more work.”

“You’re jealous. I can tell.” Ryan’s voice was rich with satisfaction as he added, “You always get this little tick at the corner of your eye when you get jealous.”

She immediately put her hand to her face. “I do not!”

He removed her hand and replaced it with his own, his fingertips barely brushing the sensitive corner of her eye. “There it goes. Tick, tick, tick. Very impressive.”

If he thought that was impressive, he should feel what her heart was doing. Thumthumthumthum—one rapid beat bumping into the next as sexual awareness shot through her system. All this because he was touching her. Every cell vibrated with excitement and recognition, while shouting for more.

It didn’t help that Ryan curved his fingers so that he cupped her face. His hand was so large that his thumb brushed the opposite corner of her mouth. She felt cradled, engulfed by the magic only he could produce.

His eyes were starbursts of gold and green, alive with need and disarming passion. And then she saw his slow lopsided smile, the one that said he knew he was getting to her.

The effect was the equivalent of a bucket of cold water being dumped over her head, so quickly did she snap out of it and step away from him. She shook her head so vehemently her tight bun almost came undone. “Oh, no, you don’t.”

“I know I don’t” His husky voice slid down her spine like a lover’s touch. “But I want to. With you.”

She glared at him. “Keep your hands to yourself from now on, buster.”

“I just love it when you try to sweet-talk me.”

She refused to be swayed by his charm. “Keep this up and you’re going to be in very hot water.”

His grin turned naughty. “Keeping things up has never been a problem where you’re concerned.”

Frantic, she looked around them to make sure they weren’t being overheard. Thankfully no one was close enough to eavesdrop. Which gave her the courage to say, “For a bank inspector, you’ve got a wicked mouth on you.”

“So you’ve told me before,” he murmured seductively. “Usually right after I put my mouth on your…”

She clapped her hand over the item under discussion—his naughty mouth—silencing his words but not his effect on her. She affixed him with her best “you’re overdrawn and you’re not getting another damn cent” bank teller’s look. “Behave yourself,” she ordered sternly.

She could tell he wasn’t taking her seriously by the way he swirled his tongue across the heart of her palm. She should have threatened to yank his tongue out, then he’d stop toying with her, but she was distracted by the molten heat he was evoking deep within her body.

“Am I interrupting something?” Francis inquired from beside them.

Courtney jumped as if she’d just been hit by lightening and yanked her hand away from Ryan’s tempting mouth.

He shared a look with her that was part conspirator, part wicked lover. “Courtney was just restraining me from speculating about the robbery.” His words were directed toward Francis but his attention was completely concentrated on Courtney.

“The sheriff would like to speak to you next, Ryan,” Francis said.

Tiny Picton, county sheriff, was no stranger to Ryan. He joined the sheriff in the conference room the lawman had commandeered.

Tiny was a misnomer if ever there was one—the man was six foot six and had to tip the scales in the neighborhood of 380. Even his voice was big. “Well now, boy, why is it that as soon as you show up in my jurisdiction, we start having trouble with bank robberies? This have something to do with your case?”

“You want to keep your voice down, Tiny?” Ryan requested dryly. He’d checked in with the sheriff as soon as he’d hit town. Not only as a professional courtesy, but also to pump him for information about Anton. Tiny didn’t know much about Anton, who’d only come to Fell a few times to visit Courtney. The print shop Anton had managed had been in a Portland suburb so Ryan hadn’t held out much hope that Tiny would have any useful information, but you never knew.

“I’m not sure if this bungled robbery has something to do with my case or not,” Ryan added. “But my gut tells me it does.” He then went on to give a description of the height and weight of the white male suspect as well as his attire, including the panty hose pulled over his head.

“I’m assuming he’s taken that off by now,” Tiny noted. “And I’m assuming the suit currently walking in the bank entrance is FBI.”

Ryan was no huge fan of the FBI, few members of the Marshals Service were. There was a definite rivalry between the two federal law agencies.

After introducing himself, Agent Charles Zamika asked Tiny, “What do we have here?”

“A bungled robbery attempt.”

“Any witnesses?”

“Sure thing. A U.S. Marshal.” Tiny nodded toward Ryan.

The agent frowned at them both. “You think this was done by a wanted felon on the run?”

“I doubt it,” Ryan replied. “It had amateur written all over it.”

“Then what are you doing here? The Marshals Service isn’t an investigative agency.” Zamika made it sound like an insult.

Ryan had run into his type before. They considered a marshal’s work to be a lowly combination of bailiff and process server while the FBI tracked down the real criminals. In the considered opinion of the FBI no credit was given for fugitive arrests, only for initial arrests.

It wasn’t all that long ago that the two agencies had been involved in turf wars regarding who was responsible for capturing high-profile federal fugitives. Ryan wasn’t about to get embroiled in the same thing on a smaller level here in Fell. He wasn’t about to tell Agent Zamika any more than he had to. Releasing information on a need-to-know basis was too deeply ingrained in him to change now.

The agent, sensing that Ryan was holding back, became hostile. “Attempted robbery is a serious offense. If one of your Witness Security people has perpetrated a crime, they have to be hauled in, the same as the rest of the population.”

“This has nothing to do with the Witness Security Program.”

“Like you’d tell me if it did.”

“You know the rules as well as I do.” Ryan continued to keep his voice even, but it was requiring more and more effort. “If a protected witness commits a crime, they have to face the same punishment as anyone else.”

“Most of the people in that program are criminals who copped a plea to get out of doing time.”

Ryan gritted his teeth. “Like I said, I’m not involved in that program. I’m pursuing a subpoenaed witness.”

“It’s pretty sad when you guys can’t even keep track of a witness before the trial.” Zamika gave him superior look.

Ryan gritted his teeth even harder and reminded himself that throttling an FBI agent would be frowned upon by his boss. Although, come to think of it, Wes had never been a big fan of the suits with their fancy law degrees or CPA’s.

“So you think that this robbery attempt was someone’s way of trying to make a grab for the witness’s niece? I’ll check it out,” Zamika said.

“Keep her name out of it,” Ryan ordered curtly. “I don’t want the wrong people finding out where she is.”

“If your theory is correct, it sounds like they already have.”

“Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”

“And maybe you’re right.” Zamika said the words reluctantly. “I’ve got an evidence team dusting for prints and checking the bank entrance for clues. So far nothing. The guy must have been wearing gloves. We’ve still got the bank’s security video. Maybe we’ll get something from that. I’ll keep you posted,” Zamika added with a dismissive nod in Ryan’s direction. To Tiny he said, “Send in this niece and I’ll question her.”

“Go easy on her, she’s still shaken up,” Ryan growled.

“We stopped using bamboo shoots under the fingernails a few years back, or hadn’t you heard?” the agent mocked him.

Tiny looked from one to the other with a big grin. Ryan knew what he was thinking. As far as he was concerned federal officials were all a pain in the butt.

“Courtney doesn’t know anything,” Ryan maintained.

“I’ll be the judge of that. Send her in and then you can wait outside,” Zamika disdainfully instructed Tiny, who did not take kindly to being ordered around.

“Anything else I can do for you?” Tiny inquired mockingly. “Get you a turkey sandwich from the diner across the street maybe?”

From the gleam in Tiny’s blue eyes Ryan deduced that the selection of turkey hadn’t been a random one, but rather a personal reflection on Zamika’s personality.

It sailed right over the agent’s head. “I already ate. I don’t require your assistance any further, either,” he added with a dismissive nod toward Ryan. “You can go.”

“I’m staying.”

“Suit yourself.”

“I usually do,” Ryan assured him.

COURTNEY FELT NO FEAR at the prospect of being questioned by an FBI agent. She’d already been given a thorough going-over by the queen of interrogations herself, Francis. “Why did Ryan pose as a customer the first time he came to the bank? How long have the two of you known each other?” A dozen more whys, wheres and whens had crossed Francis’s lips before Tiny came to rescue Courtney.

Tiny, who’d once dated Francis and was the only person to ever call her Franny, gently patted Courtney’s shoulder with unspoken commiseration as he escorted her to the conference room.

“Thank you for rescuing me,” Courtney whispered.

“Any time.”

Once inside the conference room, Courtney registered the fact that Ryan was sprawled in a chair with typical nonchalance before she focused her attention on the other man in the room—a younger and much better dressed man.

“I’m Agent Zamika, Ms. Delaney. I need to ask you a few questions.”

Courtney nodded, appreciating the businesslike yet deferential tone of his voice. Quite the opposite from the way Ryan talked to her. The only time Ryan deferred to her wishes was when they’d been making love.

Darn it, how did that happen? How did her thoughts return to the forbidden subject of sex within two seconds of Ryan entering them?

Evoking her internal thought police, she wiped her mind clean as she kept her gaze centered on the FBI agent. She relaxed as she and the agent immediately formed an easy camaraderie.

“Delaney,” he noted with a pleasant smile. “That’s a good Irish name.”

“My father was Irish, my mom grew up in Czechoslovakia.”

“Really? My folks are Irish and Eastern European, too, only the reverse of yours. My mom’s Irish. Do your parents live here in Oregon?”

“No,” she replied. “They passed away when I was ten.”

“I’m sorry.” His voice reflected sincere sympathy. “You must miss them a lot.”

“I do,” she said, while thinking to herself, What a nice guy.

WHAT A JERK! Ryan rolled his eyes in disgust. So the guy had parents. So what? Ryan had parents, too. You didn’t hear him going on and on about them.

And he could have. He had great parents. Unlike Courtney, they hadn’t thrown a fit when he’d become a deputy marshall. Oh sure, they’d teased him some about being the peacemaker in the family, keeping his siblings Jason, the control freak, and Anastasia, aka It’s My Turn in the Bathroom, from each other’s throats while growing up. But they’d understood. Courtney hadn’t.

Just as she apparently couldn’t understand that Zamika was a rigidly dysfunctional bureaucrat on the make. Didn’t she see what he was up to? Was she completely blind?

She should be giving the guy the cold shoulder. God knew, she was good at that. Ryan had the frost burns to prove how good.

And why had she taken off her jacket? Her white blouse, while more conservative than what the old Courtney would have worn, still showed off the curves of her breasts more than he liked. Well, he did like it, but he didn’t like the way Zamika was eyeing her.

If anyone was going to be eyeing Courtney’s cleavage it would be him, not some FBI twit who looked as if he’d been born in a suit. It didn’t help matters that Ryan’s attire was meant to convey nerdiness rather than power. Ryan had actually had to learn how to dress like this. It didn’t come naturally!

During his rigorous thirteen-week basic training at Glynco he learned the stuff he needed to protect himself—how to shoot straight, how not to get shot, how to drive fast, how to react in a crisis. Along with the basics of law enforcement training, he’d also been required to take a course in Image Awareness where he’d been taught the talent of manipulating one’s wardrobe to the requirements of the job. Ryan had no idea what type of clothing would be appropriate for dealing with Courtney. Nothing he did seemed to be working.

“YOU’RE AWFULLY QUIET,” Courtney noted as Ryan ate his dinner in silence later that night. She’d changed out of her suit and heels into a pair of black leggings and an oversize turquoise T-shirt. Her feet were bare but her hair remained in its braid, although she had unpinned it from the bun on top of her head.

“Unlike Chatty Charlie, you mean?” Ryan growled.

She paused to frown at him, a piece of lettuce from her chefs salad poised on her fork. “What are you talking about?”

“Charles Zamika. The FBI guy you were flirting with earlier today. I thought you were supposed to be serious about Fred.”

“I am.”

“Then why were you flashing the green light at Zamika?”

“I was doing no such thing,” she denied. “We were merely making polite conversation.”

“Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “And the Columbia River is just a tiny little stream.”

“Careful, your eyes are turning green.”

“It’s from having to eat all these peanut-butterand-jelly sandwiches.” He dolefully stared down at the food on his plate.

She refused to feel sorry for him. Because if she gave an inch, she knew she’d be cooking three-course meals. She had to ruthlessly squelch any hint of her desire to pamper him. She had to be tough. Besides, she wouldn’t put it past Ryan to feign hunger to gain her sympathy. She, however, was willing to play along with his pretense in order to get in a few jabs of her own. “I can’t help it if that’s the best your employer can do for you. He’s the one who said you’d supply your own food.”

“He hates me,” Ryan noted glumly.

“You have that effect on some people.”

“Very funny.”

“Agent Zamika didn’t appear to like you much, either,” she took great pleasure in informing him.

“The feeling is mutual. Who was that woman in the bank this morning?”

Courtney blinked at his abrupt question. “Excuse me?”

“The old woman in the pink jogging suit. The two of you were talking up a storm.”

“We were discussing the stupidity of men.”

He grinned, but his gaze was penetrating, digging for the truth. “Why don’t I believe that?”

Trying to be helpful, Courtney came up with what she thought was a viable reply. “Because you have a distrustful nature?”

Ryan absently rubbed his chin while frowning in concentration. “She looked familiar to me somehow.”

Courtney shifted uncomfortably. Anton’s disguise had been so good that even she hadn’t recognized him, so how could Ryan? He had to be making a stab in the dark here. The secret was not to react.

“I’ve got some fudge ripple ice cream in the freezer.” She deliberately made her voice cheerful and carefree. “Want some?”

“I want your uncle back in protective custody.”

Now Courtney was the one who was silent Her first loyalty was to her uncle. If he didn’t think he’d be safe in custody, then her hands were tied. She couldn’t betray his trust.

Feeling edgy, she fired up her hot-air popcorn maker. Minutes later she grabbed the bowl of hot buttered popcorn and headed for the living room and her VCR.

“I’ve had enough excitement for one day,” she stated. “I need to watch something soothing.” After sticking a video into the machine, she plunked down on the couch.

“Only you would think that cartoons are soothing.” He grinned as he sat beside her.

Grabbing a big pillow to sit on, she slithered onto the floor from the couch, not trusting herself to be that close to him. Ryan was unfazed by her departure. Instead he scooted over so that he sat directly behind her, his legs bracketed around her like muscular bookends.

She couldn’t count the number of times she’d sat this way when they’d been together. In those days she’d rest her cheek against his knee and curl her arms around his powerful thighs. Not that she’d ever been docile.

The chemistry had always been volatile between them, creating arguments the way hot summer nights created storms. But they’d soon passed, often with Ryan teasingly telling her that she was entitled to her own opinion…even if it was wrong.

Sometimes she suspected he just liked provoking her because he enjoyed their making up so much. But it was also true that they were two very different personalities. She’d worn her heart on her sleeve in those days, while he’d hidden his emotions beneath an endearing but nonetheless impenetrable layer of humor.

“Relax,” he murmured. “You’re so uptight you’re about ready to crack.”

His hands lighted on her shoulders with familiarity. He kept up a steady flow of conversation, but nothing that required her participation. She just had to sit there and enjoy—enjoy the brush of his thumb against her nape, the slide of his fingers against the tight tendons of her neck. He’d always had an incredible talent for finding that one spot that was knotted with tension.

“I’m telling you, I had the worst clothes in that sting operation,” Ryan was saying in a low voice laced with amusement. “Even worse than that time I had to dress like a psychedelic golfer. Neon checked pants. Bright purple shirt. But dressing up as the mascot for the Seattle Seahawks was the worst. The good news was the operation worked. We conned a dozen federal felons into showing up at our bogus headquarters to pick up the season tickets they’d supposedly won. Along with a free trip to the Superbowl. Instead they ended up with a free trip back to the penitentiary.”

“So what you’re telling me is that basically all you marshals do is dress up in funny clothing, huh?”

“You betcha,” he cheerfully agreed.

There it was, that way he had of blindsiding her. She’d expected him to take offense, almost wanted him to so that this closeness wouldn’t keep tugging her in.

“In that case, I can see why you’d want the job,” she said.

“I wanted the job because I like chasing bad guys and keeping the peace. Even as a kid, I was the peacemaker in my family.”

“You never told me that before.”

“You left before I had the chance.”

Was that true? Would he have explained his actions to her had she stayed? “It’s not like I left without giving you the opportunity to talk to me.”

“We were both pretty angry by then. Could be that we both made a few mistakes.”

Having said that, Ryan proceeded to undo her braid and comb his fingers through her long hair. She wanted to believe him, wanted to think that he was willing to acknowledge that he’d been wrong to do what he’d done. But there was so much at stake.

On the TV screen one cartoon ran into the next, Mr. Magoo morphing into the Pink Panther and then the Road Runner, while Ryan simply continued threading his warm fingers through her hair until she was lost in the magic of the good things they had together, not the least of which was this incredible sense of contentment at simply being together. She’d never felt that way before or since. As if he were her home.

But she couldn’t trust Ryan’s motives, not with him after her uncle. He could just be telling her what she wanted to hear so that she’d be more cooperative in his quest to capture her uncle. No, she couldn’t trust him and she couldn’t trust herself around him. Not yet.

As if on cue, the videotape ran out. Scrambling to her feet, she winced as one of them tingled from almost falling asleep. “It’s getting late.” She grabbed her empty popcorn bowl and headed for the kitchen.

Courtney was standing in front of the sink, wiping down the counter, when she heard the loud crash.