The early dismissal of my services was nice, but there’s only so much a guy can do alone in a hotel room. I watched a baseball game, ate a hearty supper of fried chicken, and downed a beer or two. But now I was bored and wanted some company.

I headed downstairs, my boots making a riot of noise on the wooden stairs. The stairs opened at the back of a long corridor where the exercise room and the business lounges were located. I could hear voices coming from the room where I’d left the bank executives earlier, mostly just mumbles like you hear from the corner of the library where the straight A students go to study every day. It made me feel that creepy tightness in my belly that used to be a daily occurrence in school, that feeling that I wasn’t working hard enough or should be doing more. I’d managed to pass despite the little feeling, but I supposed I could have done better.

But we could all do better in everything, couldn’t we?

“Mr. Forrester.”

I’d paused in my step without even realizing it, lost for a second in my thoughts. She’d slipped up behind me, still dressed in that tight, professional little thing that showed off more of her curves than seemed practical in my backwoods, nonprofessional, chauvinistic sort of thinking. It was distracting, that little dress. It made me think of just about anything but finance and banking strategy.

“Did you need something, Ms. Gray?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing. Were you looking for me?”

There was a teasing light in those perfect amber eyes of hers. I shook my head even as that light threatened to mesmerize me.

“I was just headed out.”

“Where are you going, if I can ask?”

I gestured over my shoulder. “To a local bar for a few drinks. Why? Were you going to need me again tonight? I was under the impression—”

“No. My staff will be very busy for the rest of the night, and they’ve already called for a pizza, so they shouldn’t need to leave this room until their work is done.”

I inclined my head slightly. “Then I’ll let you get back to it.”

“Actually…”

I’d begun to turn, but that single word pulled me back. There was something about the way she said it that drew my attention more than the word itself. It was soft, gentle, filled with something that melted the ice that was normally wrapped around her words.

I moved closer to her, my palm itching to press itself to her arm or her hip, to use it to pull her to me. But I kept my hands at my sides as I waited for her to utter whatever it was that was coming after that one word.

“Would you mind if I tagged along?” She dropped her gaze, her eyes falling to the floor between us in a rare, almost shy moment. “I could use a good drink.”

“And I’d love a little company.”

Her eyes came up again. “Just a drink, though.”

“Of course.”

I gestured for her to lead the way, which she did with all the confidence a woman could possibly put into her perfect stride. I kept my distance, enjoying the sight, not touching her until we reached the lobby and she began to turn toward the main doors. I pressed my hand to her hip and guided her toward the back entrance where the parking lot was. She glanced back at me, her eyes too dark to read, but she slipped her hand over mine and held it in place for a brief moment.

This was definitely going to be an interesting night.

“This is your car? I would have assumed you drove a pickup truck.”

“I work security, not a ranch.”

I opened the passenger door of the dark Dodge Charger provided for my use by Stone Security. She slipped inside, moving so gracefully that for a long moment, I couldn’t pull my eyes from her legs. She glanced up at me, a soft smile slightly parting her full lips.

“Ready?”

I nodded, slamming her door and making my way around the front of the car, silently cursing myself for being a damn fool. The woman was clearly playing with me. And I was letting her.

The car smelled of her perfume when I climbed in, a soft jasmine sort of thing that surrounded me like a cloud of femininity. I glanced at her as I shoved the key into the ignition and caught her watching me, her eyes moving over my thighs, before she realized I was doing the same to her long, smooth legs. She tugged at her skirt and turned her attention to the window. I started the car, that exciting roar of the engine sending vibrations through my entire body.

“You’ve lived here all your life. You must know the area well.”

I glanced over at her. “Fairly well, I suppose.”

“You’ve heard about the trouble people have been having out here? The militant group that’s been harassing businesses around here?”

I tightened my grip on the wheel. “I’m aware.”

“It’s part of the church, yes?”

“They’re called the Guardians. And yes, they are affiliated with the church.”

“I was told before I came down here to watch out for trouble.”

“I assumed so, or else you wouldn’t have hired Stone Security.”

“That was more my company. They knew Truesdale was doing some shady things and were afraid he wouldn’t respond well to our arrival. But he’s actually handled it with a great deal of grace.”

“Has he?”

“Disappointed?”

I shrugged.

“No, the warning I received was from my mother. She worries, you know?”

“Most mothers do.”

“Yes, well, African American mothers in this county, with the way things have been going in recent history…I think they have more cause for worry.”

We slowed to a stop at a light. I looked at her, let my eyes linger on her beautiful face and the curves of her shoulders, her waist, before once again settling on her long, thin legs.

“Do you think your mother would approve of you being alone with an Arizona redneck right now?”

Her eyes jumped to my face, to my pale eyes. “I think she’d be shocked. I know I am.” She bit her lip, then laughed, a long giggle that was like bells ringing in an auditorium. “But, again, she married a white man who has redder hair than yours, so she might understand.”

“Your father?”

She nodded. “An Irishman from Boston. How he managed to worm his way into the heart of a proud black woman who has managed to trace her ancestors all the way back to the coast of West Africa, I will never know. But they love each other so passionately that even as a child, I could see it, you know?” She sighed. “I guess love overcomes everything, even our own racial bigotries.”

“Do you have siblings?”

“An older brother and sister.”

“Aww, you’re the youngest. That probably makes it harder for your mother.”

I eased the car into traffic again as she laughed again. “She has always been overprotective, but to see me in this career, going from place to place to tell these good ole boys that they screwed up and have been reassigned…it scares her. She’s afraid I’ll push my luck too far one of these days. But she still lives in the mindset of the sixties, you know?”

“Have you ever had an issue with any of these bankers?”

She rubbed her hands over the top of her skirt. “A few times. One guy spit in my face as security escorted him out of the building. Another pushed me up against a wall and threatened to give me a beating I’d never forget.” She shrugged. “This is their livelihood we’re talking about, their only means of caring for their families. And I’m the face of the entity taking it away from them. I would be surprised if they didn’t react with some sort of violence. It’s the way men have been taught to be.”

“Not all men.”

“No? You’ve never threatened to hurt a woman when she came at you the wrong way?”

I thought about my mother, about the times she’d had to stand up to a ranch hand over a theft or the improper handling of an animal. If one of those men had turned on her the way Malaika was describing…I know I wouldn’t have allowed him to walk away.

“I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of, but I wouldn’t hit a woman.”

“You’d just sleep with her to get revenge on her husband.”

The words dropped from her lips as I pulled the car into the parking lot of a local dive, the Davis Watering Hole. She got out of the low-riding Dodge before I could respond, before I could even comprehend the fact that she’d put one and nothing together and gotten two. By the time I got out and followed, she was slipping through the door of the squat building. She pranced right up to the bar and slapped her hand on the smooth counter.

“A bottle of tequila, please!”

“What makes you think it’s me?” I demanded as I moved up behind her, slipping an arm around her waist so that she couldn’t escape.

“You just told me.”

She twisted in my arms and looked me in the eye with this gaze that seemed to see everything I’d tried hard to hide. That look seemed to last a lifetime, the way she looked at me, the way she just stood there so close to me, the scent of her clouding my thoughts, her body so close that a few inches and a few fewer pieces of clothing, and we’d be as intimate as two people could become. She brushed her fingertips over the angle of my jaw, her fingernails rasping against the fine stubble the day had put there. And then she spun around, grabbing her bottle off the bar and dancing away toward the narrow booths at the back of the joint.

“You want glasses?” the bartender was calling after her.

I grabbed them and dropped some bills on the bar before following after her.

“Was humiliating him with that video not enough?” she asked, snatching a glass out of my hand and pouring herself a shot. “Is that why you’re sniffing around his daughter now?”

“What’s it matter to you?”

She shrugged, downing the first shot and pouring another. “It doesn’t matter to me. I’m just curious how far you’ll go to get back at him.”

“As far as I can.”

“He’s losing his job, you know. I’m informing him in the morning.”

“Are you done with the audit already?”

She shook her head, snatching my glass now and pouring for us both. “We won’t be done until Monday, but we already have enough to prove he’s been playing games he shouldn’t have been playing.”

“Games?”

“Giving credit to people he shouldn’t. Refusing credit to people who deserve it. Foreclosing on properties he shouldn’t.” She glanced at me, her glass to her lips for her third shot. “He’s a puppet, and someone outside the bank has been pulling his strings. You wouldn’t know who that is, would you?”

“I could guess.”

“Yeah?” She pushed my shot toward me. “Drink with me.”

I took the shot, watching her as I set the glass back down on the table. She was watching me, too, curiosity burning in her eyes.

“Is it these Guardian people? The ones associated with the church?”

I sat back as she lifted the bottle and began to pour us both another round. Her eyes moved from the tequila to me and back again.

“Are you asking me as an employee of the bank?”

“I’m asking you because I know you know what’s going on in this town.”

“You came with me tonight because you want answers.”

“I came with you because I wanted a good, stiff drink, because I wanted to get to know you better, and because—yeah—I need answers.”

“Then we’ll do this tit for tat.”

“Oh?” She picked up her glass and waited for me to pick up mine. “What answers do I have that you want?”

“What kind of man do you normally date?”

She burst into laughter, glee dancing all over her face. She had these perfect dimples that appeared every time she laughed, making her more beautiful just when I’d come to the conclusion that that was impossible.

“You want to know who I date?”

“Yes.”

“Not your kind.” She took the shot, grimacing as the burning liquor went down her throat. “I usually stick to professional men, men who like to be in control.”

“You don’t think I like control?”

“I think you’ve been out of control far longer than you like. That’s why you’re going after Truesdale.”

“And these men? White or black?”

She laughed again. “Are you worried you might not be able to compete in the bedroom, dear Quentin?” She reached over and patted my hand. “I’m an open-minded woman raised by open-minded parents. My brother is married to a Hispanic woman, my sister to an Asian American. My family is like the goddamn United Nations! I don’t really care what ethnicity a man is as long as he knows what to do with what God gave him.”

“But you’ve never dated a redneck.”

“I’ve never dated a cowboy. I prefer that my men have bank accounts that contain more than pocket change.”

“And yet, you let me pay for this eighty-dollar bottle of tequila.”

She tilted her head to one side. “I suppose that was quite rude of me. I can pay you back, if you wish.”

“That wasn’t the point,” I said, my face burning as shame burst through me. “I just…if you think I’m so poor, why would you do that?”

“It was thoughtless.” She poured another shot of tequila into her glass. “And, well, being the executive of a large banking corporation allows you access to things mere mortal men aren’t allowed to see. I couldn’t help myself. I peeked into your accounts.” She raised her glass in a sort of salute to me. “You, my dear, have a little more than pocket change.”

“You looked at my accounts?”

“You said you wanted to buy back your family ranch. I was curious to see if you could, should the opportunity present itself.”

“You shouldn’t have done that!”

My face was still burning, hotter now than before. And my fists…but she had this sweet, slightly confused look on her face that cooled my anger just slightly.

“You help me, I help you. Isn’t that how this is supposed to work?”

“Why do you want to know about the Guardians?”

She pushed her glass away after taking that last shot, pressing her hands to the table top and staring at them like she thought they might morph into something else. Her eyes slowly rose to mine, moving from my chin to the tip of my nose to my eyes, boring into them like she was trying to see something that was buried deep.

“We came here because of a storm of letters we’d received over the past year—which, I assume, came from you. But there were other things, too. Some minor discrepancies my bosses wanted me to check out. And then we arrived and began going through the books there at the bank, and it became clear that something more was going on.” She fell quiet for a long moment, her eyes dropping to the table again. “Whoever’s pulling the strings behind Truesdale’s back is incredibly smart. Nothing they’ve done is expressly illegal, just unethical. They’re playing with people’s lives, picking and choosing who should have credit, who shouldn’t, and who should just get the hell out, you know?”

“Like what?”

“Like your father. Yes, he was behind on his payments. He’d made steady payments from the beginning of the loan, some of them less than the minimum during the winter months, but coming back up in the summer, most for twice the minimum, some even more than that. It was a pattern he stuck to every year for fifteen years. But Truesdale decides to foreclose even though he’s done the same thing all those years?” She shook her head slightly. “What he did wasn’t wrong. Your father did break the word of the contract. But our policy at Sunshine is to work with the customer because we’d rather have the contract honored than have the hassle of having to foreclose and sell the property. He could have worked out the same deal with your father he’d clearly worked out all those years before. Why didn’t he?”

“He wanted the property to go to the bank.”

“But why? And why did someone make a huge, cash bid on the place the same day I told Truesdale he needed to have it appraised and put on the market?”

“Because whoever is pulling his strings doesn’t want to lose my family’s ranch.”

“Why?”

I shook my head, already trying to figure out how the Guardians could use the place. There was no evidence right now that anyone was using it, but they clearly wanted it for something. To house more Guardians? To have another compound they could hide on? But if that was all they wanted, weren’t there cheaper properties in the same area?

“I don’t know.”

“There’re other things, too. The bank’s refusal to give loans to local businesses that are clearly ideal candidates. The closure of accounts that were in good standing, but had a small discrepancy. Credit offered to others who are clearly not a good risk.” She looked up at me again. “If I gave you a list of names, could you tell me who the people are and if they’re affiliated with the church?”

“Probably.”

“I don’t like the idea of these Guardians using my bank as a way to conduct their illegal—or unethical—business. It’s simply not right.”

“What are you going to do?”

She rolled one petite shoulder. “My people are back at the hotel right now conducting a full audit into the bank’s records going back ten years. I’m hoping we’ll get a name, or names, we can use to help us figure out who’s behind this.”

“If you do that, will you let Stone Security in on the information?”

She tilted her head slightly. “Why?”

“My boss, Jack Stone, has something of a personal vendetta against the Guardians. He had a friend who was killed when a few of the Guardians drove him off the road.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Then my mother was right. There are bad things happening around here.” She shivered as she reached for the bottle of tequila. “I can’t believe I’m going to have to admit she was right!”

I chuckled.

“Don’t laugh! It’s not funny. My mother…she never lets these things go!”

I reached across the table and took her hand. “You can also tell your mother that you’ll be well-protected while you’re here.”

She jerked her hand away. “I don’t need a man to protect me.”

“No? But you might need someone who’s already gone up against the Guardians. We ran a raid on their compound that resulted in the arrest of a dozen of their members. Then, just a month ago, my boss, Patrick, went head to head with their new leader and sent him to the morgue.”

Her eyes widened. “Seriously? More than one person has died in all this?”

“Several people. There was another man at the church on the night of Patrick’s ordeal who also died.”

She straightened up in her seat. “Why are you wasting your time going after Truesdale? Sounds to me these people are more dangerous than he’ll ever be.”

“The people within the Guardian organization who pressured him to foreclose on my ranch are already in jail.”

“But, clearly, it’s not over for them. They’re still pulling strings at the bank.”

Silence fell between us as we both got lost in our thoughts. Jack had mentioned the possibility of someone else running the Guardians, but I’d put it down to paranoia. I couldn’t imagine the Guardians would be brave enough to show themselves after what had happened with Patrick, but…was it possible she was right? Was it possible there was a bigger plot going on here that we’d missed? Was it possible it wasn’t over?

“Enough of this crap!” she suddenly announced, pouring more tequila for the both of us. “Tell me about you. How many siblings do you have?”

“A much younger brother.”

“Yeah? How much younger?”

“I was thirteen when Quaid was born.”

“Wow, that is much younger.”

“My mother was diagnosed with diabetes when she was ten. It caused her trouble with pregnancies. She had multiple miscarriages before me, and then she simply didn’t get pregnant again, so she assumed something had broken when I was born, that I would always be an only child. When she found out she was pregnant with Quaid, she was already nearly four months along. It was a shock…and then she had all these complications. That’s why my father took out the mortgage on the ranch.”

“That’s sad.”

I tilted my head to one side. “I suppose. But we got Quaid out of it.”

“My sister just had a baby. A little girl. Said it was the most horrible, and the most amazing, thing she’d ever gone through.”

“I suppose it is for most women.”

“Are you close to your brother?”

I thought about the last phone call I’d taken from him. I wasn’t sure close was what one would call our relationship.

“It’s complicated.”

“Aren’t all relationships?”

“I wasn’t around most of his childhood. I enlisted in the Marines the moment I graduated from college, choosing to follow in my father and his father’s footsteps. I served six years. So, to Quaid, I was this guy who came home every few months in the fancy uniform, you know? The family hero who was unable to stop the worst thing that ever happened to them.”

She reached across the table and touched my hand. “I’m sorry.”

I picked up the bottle and took a healthy swig straight from the lip. I’d had enough of this conversation. I’d had enough of this night. I drank half of what remained in the bottle, set it down with more of a bang than I’d intended, and struggled to my feet.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

She took my hand quite readily.

“My sentiments exactly.”