Profile Durango. Carla Cassidy

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      Chapter Two

      There were still times Callie desperately missed her mother, who had been dead for five years. She and her mom, Belinda, had been unusually close. Belinda had been a Las Vegas showgirl, a job she’d continued for years after Callie had been born.

      Some of Callie’s fondest memories of her mother were of Callie sitting on the bed watching as Belinda applied her stage makeup before going to the casino to perform.

      Those had been magical moments between mother and daughter when they’d talked about anything and everything. Nobody had been more proud than Belinda when Callie had told her she wanted to be a forensic scientist.

      Although Belinda had enjoyed her share of flashy boyfriends, Callie had never known who her father was. Belinda quit her showgirl job when Callie was in middle school, but money never seemed to be an issue. They certainly didn’t live a lavish lifestyle, but they had always been comfortable.

      When Callie asked about the money, Belinda had told her that Callie’s father had left Belinda enough money so she and Callie would have what they needed. Callie had guessed from that statement that her father was dead.

      As she sat on the edge of the hospital bed and waited for the nurse to bring the papers to release her, she wished she could pick up the phone and call her mom. She wished she could tell her that the man who had devastated her was back in her life.

      Tom.

      His very name brought forth a combination of memories, some filled with joy but others filled with an indescribable pain. And it was the pain that had lingered, that had hardened her heart into a place where no feeling could get in.

      “Here we are, honey.” The nurse swept into the room with a cheerful smile. “I’ve got your discharge papers here and a chariot awaiting you.” She gestured toward the wheelchair visible in the hallway. “I just need your John Hancock on a couple of these forms, then we’ll get you out of here.” She handed Callie the papers to sign. “Ah, and here’s your handsome prince to escort you home.”

      Callie looked up to see Tom standing in the doorway and instantly every muscle in her body tensed. “Trust me, that man is not a prince,” she muttered. “He’s not even on the toad scale.”

      She would have loved to blow him off, insist that she didn’t need to be in protective custody. But Callie had worked too many crime scenes, seen too often what people could do to each other, to take her personal safety for granted. If the FBI thought she needed protection once again, then she probably did.

      She’d apparently made a lifelong enemy of Vincent Del Gardo when she’d testified against him and until he was in custody, her life was at risk and she’d be a fool not to accept the protection of the FBI.

      “All ready?” Tom asked.

      Callie handed the papers back to the nurse, then nodded. “As ready as I’m going to be.”

      Tom got the wheelchair from the hallway and pushed it to the side of the bed. He made no offer to help her from the bed to the chair and she was glad. She didn’t want him to touch her in any way.

      It was the nurse who helped her into the chair. “I’ve got my car at the front entrance in the loading area,” Tom said.

      “Let’s go,” the nurse exclaimed. As she pushed Callie out of the room she didn’t seem to notice the tension that rippled in the air between her patient and the tall, rip-cord lean man walking beside them.

      She chatted about the flu bug going around, the predictions of unusually harsh winter weather set to move into the area and her plans for the weekend with a boyfriend named Jimmy.

      By the time they reached the dark sedan parked at the curb, Callie was exhausted, both from the tension of Tom’s nearness and the chattiness of the nurse.

      She’d had a headache from the moment she’d opened her eyes that morning. She’d tried to nap off and on throughout the afternoon, but found it impossible. Between the hourly check of vital signs and the visitors who drifted in and out, sleep had been impossible. What she wanted now most of all was the comfort of her own bed and some quiet time.

      Tomorrow she’d be back in the lab where she belonged, in a world she understood, a world she found comforting in that there were no shades of gray, only black and white supported by cold, unemotional science.

      “Here, take my coat,” Tom said when they reached the car. He began to shrug out of the jacket.

      “No thanks, I’ll be fine once you get the heater going,” she replied. The last thing she wanted around her was a coat that smelled of him, that contained the heat from his body.

      She slid into the passenger seat, told the nurse goodbye and then watched Tom as he walked around the front of the car to the driver door.

      He was thinner than he had been before, although he still radiated with a simmering energy of competence and also a whisper of an edge of danger.

      He wasn’t a pretty boy. At thirty-six years old, his features were far too rugged, too boldly masculine for pretty. But he was a man who commanded attention, from men who would be slightly wary and from women who would want to dig beneath the forbidding surface to find the soft center. Callie could tell them, there was no soft center in Tom Ryan.

      He got into the car, bringing with him a burst of cold wind and the scent she remembered from so long ago, a clean male smell with a hint of lemon and cedar cologne.

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