Renegade Protector. Nico Rosso

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       Chapter Four

      Mariana had never shared her bedroom with the rifle before. The door was locked and Toro was curled up next to the bed. She sat on the edge of a reading chair, very aware that Ty was in the guest room below her feet. The rifle wasn’t for protection against him. As crazy as his story was, he’d proved she could trust him to help her. Whether or not he could fight off the Hanley Development Group was a different question.

      She spoke low into her phone, knowing he could still hear her through the old house. “Hi, Brenda, I couldn’t find an after-hours number for you, so I’m leaving this message.” Her voice was tired and shook as she recounted the minimum details to her insurance agent. “My shop on Pacific was firebombed tonight. Fire department did a good job, but I don’t know how much I can salvage. Call me back and let me know what to do next. Thanks.” She hung up and let the phone slip to the rug.

      Brenda was a professional, and had to know the steps for dealing with the nuts and bolts of a claim. Paperwork, phone calls, emails. Impersonal. But that didn’t stop the cold grip that squeezed the back of Mariana’s neck.

      Ty had eased that. He knew the violence of the world. And he seemed to understand her. That uncanny perception of his had a way of slipping past her guard. He was probably doing it just then, staring at his ceiling and seeing her rubbing her hands together in an attempt to wring out the tension.

      It had been months since the guest room had been used, when Sydney had brought a special bottle of wine and the two had cooked dinner and stayed up way too late. Inviting Ty to stay had taken all her resolve. After all that had happened that night, an empty house would’ve only amplified her anxiety. But when she’d shown him to the guest room, with the made bed against one wall, she was hit with just how intimate the silences between them had become.

      Talking about what Frontier Justice had been and what Ty wanted it to be again had occupied her mind like an unfinished puzzle. She’d put the pieces together as he’d spread them out. There were still gaps, like why the old photos had come into her family’s possession, even though none of the people in them had ever been identified as her ancestors. It hadn’t been the time for too many questions, though. Any more information would’ve been overload.

      She picked up her phone and walked to the bed, turning what Ty told her over again to see if she could draw any conclusions from what she knew about her own family. The Italian side had come from southern Italy and had started out as farmhands until they could buy their own spreads and plant the kinds of foods they understood. It didn’t take long for them to make ties with the Mexicans in California, marrying into old, established families. Their voices surrounded her, rising up from the earth of the orchard. Her parents had drawn strength and pride from that past, but had passed on only a handful of stories before they were taken from her in a car accident during her first year of college. She’d been so busy growing up, she hadn’t learned what this land had really meant until she’d returned to work it.

      Ty seemed to understand these connections. She saw how he felt his own ancestors and their struggle for justice in himself. He acted on it, leaping into the fight for her and into the fire for his own legacy. Thoughts of the assault and the fire kept jabbing into her, making her weary muscles ache. Her mind wouldn’t allow her to go over it again and again. A new thought took over.

      Ty’s mouth. Eating the apple she’d grown and picked and cut. He’d taken his time, giving her plenty of opportunities to watch him consider and then savor the fruit. It had almost been like kissing him. Almost. Mariana knew that if she had, she’d still be feeling the power of that man on her mouth. Hell, she might still be kissing him hours later.

      She plugged her phone into a charger cord. Sitting on the bed made the mattress groan. She knew he could hear it, too. Her breath caught in her throat with the thought of what Ty’s remarkable perception would find if he turned his attention to her body. Usually people couldn’t identify what made the apples of her orchard so unique. But he’d tasted the salt. He could probably search out pleasures in her body she’d never discovered.

      Mariana blew out the hot breath and shook the thoughts out of her head. He might be involved, or married, though she’d noticed no ring. She’d seen his integrity, so it didn’t make sense if he had someone that he’d still be staring so deeply at her. Or maybe it was just her wishful thinking. Throwing too many feelings toward the one man who’d helped her.

      She got under the covers, wearing sweats and a T-shirt, knowing her shoes and rifle were close by. Ty’s perception was dangerous. She tried to take comfort in how it was an asset in her fight to keep her orchard, but couldn’t dim the bright flush across her chest and down her legs that he inspired. The man was probably asleep already, thinking only of justice. She turned out the last light in the bedroom. He remained very much awake in her mind. All he’d told her still hadn’t settled into order. But it was the silences between her and Ty she had no defense for.

      Stars glittered outside her window. Ty was in her house. Sleep seemed impossible. She closed her eyes and felt him wrapped around her, rolling from danger on the hard ground of the parking lot. Remembering him eating in her kitchen slowed her pulse to a more sensual pace. It was only when she imagined the slow process of handpicking apples from her trees that sleep finally took her.

      She woke with a clutch of fear in her throat. The sky was still deep charcoal. It could’ve been hours or minutes since she’d fallen asleep. Toro stood on alert in the middle of the room, staring at a dark window. The unknown danger burned the cobwebs out of her head with icy fire. She slipped from her bed and grabbed her rifle.

      One footstep creaked on her floor and Ty’s voice came cautiously low from downstairs. “One car, parked on the road to your place.”

      She crouched low and approached the window. Among the natural landscape that spread out beneath her house and orchard, a car gleamed in the starlight. It was on the side of the road, small puffs of exhaust showing it was idling. Then she heard the distant sound of the engine, like an angry insect stuck deep between the house’s walls.

      Ty asked in a clipped voice, “Is there a back way to your house?”

      She СКАЧАТЬ