Snowbound with the Bodyguard. Carla Cassidy

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      Sammy laughed and smiled at Dalton every time Dalton looked at him. He had to admit, the kid was cute with his tuft of dark hair and blue eyes. Dalton finished eating before Jane, or whatever her real name was. “Do you need to call your sister in St. Louis to tell her you’ve been delayed?”

      “I already did,” she replied.

      Dalton stared at her. She’d told him the night before that she was on her way to visit her sister in Kansas City. Women interested him, but a woman with secrets definitely intrigued him.

      He didn’t call her on her slip, but instead leaned back in his chair and watched as she finished feeding Sammy. He didn’t want to be intrigued by her. He wanted the snow to melt quickly and her and her cute baby to move along on their way to wherever. However, the weather report that morning hadn’t been exactly favorable for her to make a quick escape out of his house.

      Taking a sip of his coffee, he gazed out the window where the snow still fell in buckets. At least she didn’t seem to be a chatterer. She didn’t expect him to entertain her with lively conversation.

      Silence had always been Dalton’s friend. Growing up in a household with a rambunctious bunch of siblings had made him appreciate his solitary life now. Odd that he suddenly found the silence strangely stifling.

      “We’re lucky we still have power,” he finally said to break that uncomfortable silence. “The news report this morning said that half the town is without power and phone service.”

      “That’s terrible,” she exclaimed.

      “Most folks around this area are prepared for situations like this. They have wood-burning fireplaces or generators that will be cranked up. We Oklahoma people are solid stock and know how to deal with an emergency.”

      She frowned. “I certainly wasn’t prepared for this particular emergency.”

      “According to the weather report I heard the snow is supposed to end by nightfall. If that happens, then first thing in the morning the locals will get out and clear the streets.”

      “It can’t happen fast enough for me,” she replied. She looked up from Sammy, her blue eyes dark and troubled. “I’m sorry I can’t get out of your hair right now. I know when you offered me a place to stay last night you had no idea that I’d still be here today.”

      Dalton shrugged. “We’ll just have to make the best of it.”

      “I just hope if they get the streets cleared in the morning then the bus comes tomorrow afternoon.” There was a thrum of desperation in her voice.

      “Surely your sister will understand the delay.”

      “Of course.” She averted her gaze from his and focused on her son in her arms. “I’m just anxious to get gone.”

      “Is this a vacation trip?”

      She kept her gaze firmly on her son. “Yes. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen my sister and she hasn’t met Sammy, so I thought it would be nice to take a trip to visit her. I suppose it was foolish to plan a trip in late January. But babies are only babies a short time.”

      She was rambling, and it was Dalton’s experience that people who rambled were usually hiding something. She seemed to realize what she was doing for she suddenly clamped her lips closed and frowned.

      Getting up from the table she started to grab for her plate. “I’ll take care of that,” he said.

      She gave him a grateful nod, then once again disappeared from the kitchen. Dalton remained seated at the table. He sipped his coffee and looked out the window. Although he stared at the snow, his mind was filled with those blue eyes of hers.

      At thirty-three years old, Dalton had worked the family business for twelve years. He’d spent that time studying people, and the assessments he made of those people sometimes made the difference between life and death.

      Jane Craig was lying. He’d seen it in those impossibly blue eyes of hers. Secrets and lies. There had been something in her eyes that had looked not only like quiet desperation, but also screaming fear.

      His mind whirled with all kinds of possibilities. Who in their right mind planned a bus trip in the Midwest in January? Especially with an infant? He could write off the appearance of the knife the night before as a wary woman in the home of a stranger. But what was she doing with a wicked-looking knife like that in the first place?

      Secrets and lies. What he was suddenly eager to find out was whether her secrets and lies could be the difference between life and death, and whether the snowy conditions had suddenly made him a player in a drama he wasn’t prepared to face.

      Sheriff Brandon Sinclair stared out the window and silently cursed the snow. He’d been in a foul mood since the day before, when he’d gone back to the diner to have a little chat with Janette and discovered she’d up and quit her job, just like that.

      He’d been on his way to the little rattrap trailer where she lived with her grandmother when a six-car accident just outside of town had required his immediate attention. By the time he’d finished up, the ice had begun to fall in earnest.

      He tried to ignore the sound of his three daughters playing in the middle of their living-room floor. He hadn’t thought about Janette Black since the night they’d had sex over a year ago.

      Then yesterday morning he’d heard the rumor that she had a little baby boy, a rumor that had been confirmed when he’d spoken with her at lunch.

      Since that moment, he couldn’t get her—or more precisely the boy—out of his mind. His son. He knew in his gut that the kid was his.

      “Brandon, honey, your breakfast is waiting,” Brandon’s wife, Sherrilyn, spoke from someplace behind him.

      He grunted but didn’t turn around. Sherrilyn was a good woman. She’d come into the marriage not only crazy about him, but with the kind of respectability and a trust fund that Brandon had desired. She kept the large house neat and tidy, tried to anticipate his needs before he knew them and was an adequate if boring bedmate.

      She loved being the sheriff’s wife, and while Brandon was feared and respected by the community, Sherrilyn was loved for her charity work and big heart.

      But, when it came to giving Brandon what he’d wanted most in life, she’d failed miserably, pumping out three girl babies instead of the boy he desperately wanted.

      “Mommy, Susan won’t share,” Elena, his youngest, whined from the living room. She was always whining about something. Girls whined. Girls cried, and he had three of the whiniest, weepiest girls in the county.

      He narrowed his gaze as he turned away from the window and headed for the kitchen. As soon as the snow stopped, he’d get that boy. He didn’t much care what he had to do, but eventually that little boy would be living with him, being raised by him. Boys needed their daddies, and if the only way to get that kid was over Janette Black’s dead body, well then that could be arranged, too.

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