Colton's Secret Service. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ thick, red braid back over her shoulder. Squaring them, she glanced into the rear-view mirror to check on her pint-sized passenger.

      Big, wide green eyes looked right back at her.

      Georgie suppressed a sigh. She might have known that Emmie wasn’t asleep, even if her nonstop chatter had finally run its course. Ceasing about ten minutes ago.

      “Why aren’t you asleep?” she asked her precocious, almost-five-year-old daughter.

      “Too excited,” Emmie told her solemnly in a voice that could have easily belonged to someone at least twice her age.

      Emmie sounded almost happier to be getting back home than she was. Sometimes, Georgie thought, it was almost as if their roles were reversed and Emmie was the mother while she was the daughter. There was little more than eighteen years between them. They could have just as easily been sisters instead of mother and daughter.

      And, as far as daughters went, she couldn’t have asked for a better one. Raising Emmie had been a dream, despite the unorthodox life they led. A good deal of Emmie’s life had been spent on the road, as a rodeo brat. It was out of necessity so that Georgie could earn money by competing in various rodeo events—just as her mother and her grandfather had before her.

      At all times, her eye was on the prize. The final prize. Not winning some title that would be forgotten by the time the dust settled, but amassing as much money as she could so that she and her daughter could finally settle down and live a normal life.

      She owed it to Emmie.

      Her mother, Mary Lynn Grady, had quit the life, walking away with nothing more than medals and trophies, as she took up the reins of motherhood. But she intended to be far more prepared than that. It took money to make dreams come true.

      Emmie was coming of age. She’d be turning five next week and five meant kindergarten, which in turn meant stability. That translated into living in a home that wasn’t on wheels, nestled in a place around people who loved her. That had been the plan for the last four-something years and Georgie was determined to make it a reality.

      Every cent that hadn’t been used for clothing and feeding them, or for entrance fees, had faithfully been banked back in Esperanza. By her tally, at this point, thanks to her most recent winning streak, the account was exceedingly healthy now. There was finally more than enough for them to settle down and for her to figure out her next move: finding a career that didn’t involve performing tricks on a horse that was galloping at break-neck speed.

      Any other career would seem tame in comparison, but right now, tame was looking awfully good. The accident that she’d had a few months ago could have been disastrous. It made her very aware that she, like so many other rodeo competitors, was living on borrowed time. She wanted to get out before time ran out on her—and now, she could.

      Independence had a wonderful feel about it, she thought.

      Emmie’s unbridled excitement about coming home just underscored her decision. There’d be no pulling over to the side of the road for her. Not when they were almost home.

      Leaning forward, Georgie turned up the music. Tobey Keith’s newest song filled the inside of the cab. Behind her, in an enthusiastic, clear voice, Emmie began to sing along. With a laugh, Georgie joined in.

      In the overall scheme of things, eight hours was nothing, but when those hours peeled away, second by second, moment by moment, it felt as if the time was endless.

      He wanted to get back to the action, not feel as if his limbs were slowly slipping into paralysis. But he didn’t even dare get back to the car he’d hidden behind the barn. He might miss his quarry coming home. The man had to come home sometime. The e-mails had been coming fairly regularly, one or more almost every day now. Because there hadn’t been anything yesterday, the man was overdue.

      Nick took out a candy bar he’d absently shoved into his pocket last night. It was just before leaving Prosperino, California, the Senator’s home base, to catch the red-eye flight to San Antonio. After checking in with his team to see if there were any further developments—there hadn’t been—he’d rented a car and then driven to this god-forsaken piece of property.

      He’d found the front door unlocked and had let himself in, but while there were some signs here and there that the ranch house was lived in, the place had been empty.

      So he’d set up surveillance. And here he’d been for the last interminable eight hours, fifteen minutes and God only knew how many seconds, waiting.

      It would be nice, he thought irritably, if this character actually showed up soon so he could wrap this all up and go back to civilization before he started growing roots where he stood.

      How the hell did people live in places like this? he wondered. If the moon hadn’t been full tonight, he wouldn’t even be able to see the house from here, much less the front door. Most likely, he’d probably have to crouch somewhere around the perimeter of the building as he laid in wait.

      He supposed that things could always be worse.

      Stripping the wrapper off a large-sized concoction of chocolate, peanuts and caramel, Nick had just taken his first bite of the candy bar when he heard it. A rumbling engine noise.

      Nick froze, listening.

      It was definitely a car. From the sound of it, not a small one. Or a particularly new one for that matter.

      Damn, but it was noisy enough to wake the dead, he thought. Whoever it was certainly wasn’t trying for stealth, but then, the driver had no reason to expect anyone to be around for his entrance.

      Because he was pretty close to starving before he remembered the candy bar, Nick took one more large bite, then shoved the remainder into his pocket.

      All his senses were instantly on high alert.

      He strained his eyes, trying to make out the approaching vehicle from his very limited vantage point. He didn’t dare open the door any wider, at least, not at this point. He couldn’t take a chance on the driver seeing the movement.

      It suddenly occurred to him that if the driver decided to park his truck behind the barn, he was going to be out of luck. That was where he’d left his sedan.

      Nick mentally crossed his fingers as he held his breath.

      The next moment, he exhaled. Well, at least one thing was going right, he silently congratulated himself. The vehicle, an old, battered truck, came into view and was apparently going to park in front of the ranch house.

      A minute later, he saw why the truck’s progress was so slow. The truck was towing an equally ancient trailer.

      As he squinted for a better view, Nick tried to make out the driver, but there was no way he could see into the cab. He couldn’t tell if the man was young or old. The vague shadow he saw told him that the driver appeared to be slight and even that might have just been a trick of the moonlight.

      Nick straightened his back, his ache miraculously gone. At least the ordeal was almost over, he told himself.

      The truck finally came to a creaking stop before the ranch house, but not before emitting a cacophony. It almost sounded as if it exhaled. Straining his eyes, Nick still heard rather than saw the driver getting out of the truck’s cab.

      Now СКАЧАТЬ