Profile Durango. Carla Cassidy

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      Ava reappeared a moment later, her hand splayed across her stomach. “Sorry, I tried a new breakfast drink this morning and apparently it didn’t agree with me.”

      “I hope you haven’t caught the flu bug that’s been going around.”

      “I don’t think so. But, I think I’m going to scoot out of here and see if I can find something to soothe my tummy.”

      “Go on, get out of here and take care of yourself,” Callie said. “And thanks for the flowers.”

      “See you in the morning,” Ava said and with a wave of her hand, she left the room.

      The morning passed with a number of visitors stopping in from the lab to check on her. After she’d picked at her lunch and the tray had been taken away, she lowered the head of her bed. She was tired. While the steady stream of visitors had been welcome, she now found herself exhausted.

      She closed her eyes and tried not to think about the fact that it was possible the fire had been intentionally set, that the goal of the arsonist had been to kill her.

      “Hello, Callie.”

      She froze at the sound of the deep male voice and prayed that she was already asleep and suffering a nightmare. But she knew she wasn’t and she opened her eyes and stared at the tall, lean man.

      His light brown hair was much longer than when she’d last seen him, but his deep brown eyes still held the brooding darkness that had always been such an integral part of him.

      He was the man she cursed on a regular basis and the last person on earth she wanted to see at the moment.

      “What in the hell are you doing here?” she asked.

      THE FIRST THING that entered Tom Ryan’s mind as he gazed at Callie was that at some point over the last three years she’d cut off all her long, luxurious pale hair.

      Still, the short and sleek blond cap suited her, emphasizing the elegant bone structure of her face and those amazing blue eyes of hers, eyes that at the moment held all the warmth of an iceberg in glacial waters.

      “If you came to make sure that I’m okay, then your question has been answered and you can leave now.” She squeezed her eyes closed.

      If she was upset at the very sight of him she was really going to go ballistic when she found out why he was here. “It’s a little more complicated than that, Callie.” He shrugged out of his winter coat, walked over to the chair and sat next to her bed.

      “What’s more complicated?” she asked as she once again opened her eyes to glare at him.

      “The Bureau is concerned about you. With Julie’s murder and now the fire, we think you need protection.” He watched her features intently. The only sign of her displeasure was her lush lips pressing thinly together.

      He’d once believed he knew her thoughts almost before she knew them herself, but that had been a lifetime and many mistakes ago.

      “They think it’s Del Gardo?” There was a faint weariness to her tone.

      He nodded. Vincent Del Gardo was head of the Del Gardo crime family based in Las Vegas. Three years earlier when Del Gardo was on trial for ordering a hit on a competing crime boss, Callie had testified against him. She’d been placed in protective custody and Tom had been assigned to protect her.

      The trial had lasted months and eventually he and Callie had become lovers. It was a relationship Tom had ended when he’d taken an assignment working undercover in Mexico.

      Del Gardo had been found guilty but had escaped from the courthouse before serving any time. He’d recently been tracked to Kenner City and was now a suspect in Julie Grainger’s murder.

      “I thought it was over when I left Las Vegas,” Callie said more to herself than to him. “I’d hoped he’d gotten out of the country, was living the good life on some foreign soil far away from me.”

      “But you know Julie had tracked him to that mountain estate not far from here,” Tom replied.

      She nodded. “I know the man supposedly living there is named Griffin Vaughn, but Julie had discovered that the corporation that owned the property was a front for Del Gardo.”

      “We’re hoping to get inside the place over the next day or two and have a look around. Callie, men like Del Gardo don’t forget or forgive. Your testimony helped get him a sentence that would have seen him behind bars for the rest of his life.”

      “I know.” She raised a hand to the side of her head and rubbed her temple as if to ease a headache.

      “Sheriff Martinez told me you had a close call last week, too, that you were nearly the victim of a hit-and-run.” A rise of emotion shoved against his chest at the thought of how close she’d come to death—not once, but twice.

      “It was nothing, just a close call by a driver on his cell phone.” Although her eyes remained cool, there was a slight tremor in her voice that let him know she didn’t quite believe her own words. “Those things should be outlawed when driving.”

      Despite the fact that he could smell the smoke that lingered on her skin, in her hair, he could also smell the faint scent of the gardenia skin lotion she’d always used in the place of perfume.

      It evoked images of her soft, perfumed skin beneath his hand, of the throaty moans that once escaped her when they made love.

      He parked those particular memories in the dark recesses of his mind, knowing that it was useless to dwell on what had once been.

      “I’m not here to talk about cell phones. I’m here to talk about the fact that you were almost struck by a car last week and just last night somebody set a fire that might have killed you if a coworker hadn’t suffered a bout of insomnia. Has Del Gardo tried in any way to make contact with you recently?” he asked, focusing on duty. “Have you received any strange phone calls or anything like that?”

      “No, nothing.” Once again she rubbed her temple. “You never answered my question.”

      He frowned. “What question?”

      “What are you doing here, Tom?”

      “As I said before, the FBI is concerned about you and they want you back in protective custody. That’s why I’m here.” He waited for the explosion and she didn’t disappoint him.

      “You have got to be kidding me.” She pressed the button that raised the upper part of her bed so she could glare at him more efficiently. “I’d rather be in the care of a rattlesnake.”

      Tom winced. “Callie, I know you aren’t exactly thrilled to welcome me back into your life again, but I’ve been assigned to you and you and I just have to figure out how to make the best of it.”

      She started to say something and then snapped her mouth closed and drew several deep breaths, obviously composing herself. Tom knew from past experience that under most circumstances Callista MacBride was the queen of cool composure.

      “Okay, then the way we make the best of it is to do things my way,” she finally said.

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