Leah

If he didn't stop calling her Sweets she was going to...she didn't know what but it would probably involve the hard toe of her Doc Martens. She'd given him the cold shoulder on the ride over to the sheriff's office, only to have him ignore it completely. The man was an ass. And now she had the Feds on her ass. Just wait until her brother Isaac found out—and he would. With his connections as part of the B-Squad Investigations and Security in Fort Worth, there was no way he wouldn't.

Keeping that little tidbit to herself, she followed Drew into his office, taking the time to admire the way his ass made well-worn blue jeans look even better. Yeah, it seemed kind of crazy to be mentally drooling over his butt under the circumstances, but ‘roided up assholes in big trucks who were obviously compensating for something didn't shake her up. It just pissed her off. And when it came to her and Drew, anger and sex went together like toasted PB and J.

Drew's office could have been a picture in Texas Sheriff's Monthly. There wasn't a single item out of place and absolutely nothing—with the exception of one family photo featuring his parents and bitch queen of a sister, Jessica—personal about the place.

"Have a seat," Drew said, gesturing to the three chairs facing his desk as he sat down behind it. "Why don't you guys bring me up to speed."

Nope. That wasn't going to fly. The Rhinestone Cowboys had come to her. She wasn't sitting by the sidelines now while the menfolk discussed serious things. This was her life and she wasn't about to be shut out of it—especially not by someone who'd taken her sense of trust and shredded it completely.

"Us," she said, dragging one of the chairs around so it was next to Drew's and facing the agents.

Drew arched an eyebrow. "Us?"

"Yeah, bring us up to speed," she said, sitting down and giving him her best don't-fuck-with-me-fella look. "I'm not just here because I'm cute."

"No, you're not," Agent Curtis said right before the tips of his ears turned cherry red. "What I mean to say is that we've been tracking you since you left the car rental place in Fort Worth."

She froze in her seat. "Why?"

"The fifteen-carat diamond," Agent Ritter said.

Her stomach sank. Part of her—that idiot part that believed things would always work out in the end, even when she knew they wouldn’t—had held out hope that the whole thing was just a bizarre misunderstanding.

"It's really real?" she asked, already knowing the answer.

Ritter nodded. "It's the last piece from a massive jewelry heist in Antwerp. We'd been following Ricky Jessup—that’s the guy who'd been behind the rental desk. He'd been in on the heist but double-crossed the rest of his crew and walked away with the best diamond in the lot. His fellow thieves weren't particularly happy with him, as you can imagine, and decided to get it back. When he spotted the guys in the truck tailing him, he ditched them long enough to swap your compact rental with the Aston Martin rental he'd been driving. According to what he said before he lawyered up, he figured he'd track you down later using the rental company's LoJack system."

The agent's words swirled around in her head. "So it wasn't the boobs."

Ritter blinked twice. "I don't know what that means."

"Never mind." She wasn't about to explain that she'd figured the rental agent had gone boob-blind when he'd upgraded her. With the explanation for what really happened—and why—taking hold, some of the confused fog lifted, leaving two very important unanswered questions. "Why are you telling me this? You have the diamond now. Why didn't you just arrest the Rhinestone Cowboys?"

"We need you," Curtis answered.

Drew stiffened beside her, his brown eyes narrowing as he stared down the two agents. "Why?"

"The guys in the truck are low-level," Curtis said. "We want the man who organized the job. And if they think the diamond is in federal custody and they have no chance of getting it back, we have a much harder job at tracking them back to the head of the snake. But if they think you still have it..."

Realization sank in. "You want me to be bait?"

"Only for a day or two," Ritter said.

"No way," Drew said.

The harsh finality in his voice needled her in all the soft spots she'd fought for so long to keep protected. It was a call back to her days when walking down the halls of Catfish Creek High School was like navigating a minefield with people like his sister, Jessica—her former best friend—lobbing verbal grenades for the freak in black, her teachers warning she'd never make anything of herself if she didn't stop hanging out with the losers in the school parking lot, and those losers wondering why in the hell the bitchy brainiac was out there smoking a joint with them. Everyone had loved to tell Leah what exactly she should be doing with her life. It had taken awhile, but she'd finally figured it out on her own and she wasn't about to give up that power to anyone—especially not the man who'd broken her heart as if it hadn't been worthy of special care.

She pivoted in her seat, facing Drew full on, and smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "It's not up to you."

The vein in his temple pulsed. "You're putting yourself in danger."

"I'm already in danger from the sounds of it." What with the Rhinestone Cowboys following her from Fort Worth and threatening her at The Hamburger Shack.

Drew's hand clamped down on her arm, sending a wave of invisible sparks up her arm that went straight to her clit. "Not if you refuse."

Her nipples puckered against the sheer material of her bra and a lazy wave of desire slid through her. Damn this man. Damn him for having this effect on her when she knew better than to fall for it. Desperate to reassert her control, she yanked her arm free, missing the heat of his touch as soon as it was gone.

"Now where's the fun in that?" She turned to the agents. "I'll do it."

Ritter nodded. "We can keep a watch on you, Ms. Camacho, but we have to keep our distance or risk blowing the case. If their past history is indicative of future behavior, then Hank Wynn and Markus Miller, the men following you, won't be aggressive. They tend to use their size for show."

"Don't worry," Drew said. "I'll be right next to her the whole time."

Telling him to fuck off would feel so good that she almost gave in to it, but she wasn't that dumb. The Rhinestone Cowboys weren't the regular badass wannabes that she dealt with on an all too frequent basis in Denver. They had FBI agents following them. There was a one point six million dollar diamond on the line. Nicer people than those two would do a whole lot of bad things for that kind of money. If it were anyone else acting as her temporary bodyguard she would have said yes immediately. That it was Drew rankled, but the choice between dealing with him shadowing her when she left her hotel room or facing the Rhinestone Cowboys again on her own wasn't much of a decision.

"Fine," she said, still not liking it even if it was the right choice.

Curtis looked relieved. "Okay, we need to work out some details, take your statement, and outline the plan of action to get these guys to lead us back to the guy in charge. The easiest to deal with though is if you can look off duty while you're with her, Sheriff, so Wynn and Miller knock up the confrontation in the restaurant as just an overprotective male. It's a good thing you're not wearing a uniform today. We need you to pretend to be a friend or boyfriend rather than a guard dog."

"Oh, that won't be difficult," Leah said with a harsh chuckle. "He's played that part already."

And he should have gotten an award for it.

* * *

Drew

A few hours later, Drew was white knuckling his sanity as he got in behind the wheel of his truck. The drive from the sheriff's office to his house would only take about ten minutes at most, but with Leah steaming in the passenger's seat and shooting him dirty looks, it felt a lot longer. Keeping his hands loose at ten and two on the steering wheel instead of relaxing back and letting his fingers wander over to her long legs like he wanted, Drew watched the road for any signs of the truck Wynn and Miller had been spotted in. The problem was with the influx of new vehicles into town because of the reunion this weekend, Catfish Creek's streets didn't look the same as they normally did.

"What do you mean you canceled my hotel reservation?" Leah asked after he pulled out of the sheriff's office parking lot. "Where am I supposed to stay?"

Ignoring the last question, he kept his tone even as he answered, "Exactly what it sounds like." And he'd do it again.

High-handed? Yep. Smart? Most definitely because when he said he was going to be with her 24/7, he meant it. The woman always seemed to turn his world upside down—especially the last time she'd rolled into town. She'd been nothing but temptation and trouble wrapped up in an off-limits package that he hadn't been able to resist then and was having a helluva time doing so now. Especially when she looked at him like she was now, as if she didn't know whether to fuck him or fight him.

"This is Catfish Creek," she said as he turned left at Sam Houston Avenue. "This weekend is probably the only time every hotel room in the entire town is booked with a waiting list a mile long."

"County fair time," he said, turning right onto Alamo Road and fighting to keep the grin off his face.

A half beat of silence. Then, she leveled one hellacious glare at him. "What?"

He gave in to the smile twitching his lips. God, he loved giving her shit just to watch her spark. "No hotel rooms to be found during the county fair."

She let out a huff and turned away from him to stare out the window. "I hate you right now."

Good that would make what came next easier—even if hearing it was like getting jabbed in the eye with a broken stick.

"Okay," he said, keeping it as neutral as he could.

He turned onto Denton Court and headed straight for the small one-story house at the end of the first block. Halfway there, he pressed the garage door opener attached to his visor.

"That's all you have to say?" she asked, looking around at the neighborhood, no doubt trying to figure out where they were going. "Am I supposed to sleep on a park bench so as to make a better target for the Rhinestone Cowboys?”

"Nope." He pulled into the garage, pulled up until the tennis ball hanging from the ceiling told him his truck had cleared the door, cut the engine, and watched the garage door roll shut behind them. "You're staying with me."

Her eyes went wide. "No. Fucking. Way."

"It's the easiest way for me to keep an eye on you 24/7." And if there was more to it than that, he wasn't about to admit to it out loud--or in his head for that matter.

Not wasting time waiting for her response, he was out of the truck and halfway through the house with her bag before she caught up to him in the hallway outside the only bedroom.

"You can't be serious," she said, following him into the bedroom.

He tossed her bag in the middle of his bed. "Call your brother and see what he thinks."

Hands on her hips, fire sparking in her eyes, she stared him down. "Why, because I'm a girl and couldn't possibly understand things?"

Girl? She definitely was not a girl. Leah Camacho was all woman and he had a raindrop's chance in hell of ever forgetting that. He hadn't forgotten it in the years since their summer together no matter how fucking hard he'd tried. But this wasn't about the fact that he'd never been able to shake her ghost. Her safety was at stake and no matter what had happened between them before, he'd do whatever it took to keep her alive and in one piece--even if that meant breaking himself apart in the process.

"No, because I'm a professional," he snarled, bearing down on her to send his message home. "This is what I do. I keep people safe. Right now I'm going to keep you safe. If we had to sell a shitload of pot, then I'd trust you to know the right way to go about it. Until then—which will be never—you need to trust me and do what I tell you."

When she didn't say anything, he reached around behind her, slid his hand inside the back pocket of her jeans, and pulled out her phone.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her cheeks flushed and her voice a little more breathy than it had been before.

Ignoring the way his body immediately responded to her, he took a step back and scrolled through her contacts list. "Calling your brother." He hit the call button. "Maybe he can talk some sense into you."

She swiped the phone away as it was ringing. "I don't need to—”

The muted sound of Isaac Camacho saying, "Hey, sis," sounded from the phone.

She flipped off Drew and put the phone to her ear. "Isaac, I think I might need bail money."

"What do you mean you might need bail money?" Isaac's voice came in loud and clear over the phone for that one.

Leah looked directly at Drew. "Because I just might kill Drew Jackson."

He laughed. He couldn't help it. She was pissed and it looked fucking good on her. Giving her some space, he walked out into the hall and to the living room and gave it a once over. He didn't need to pick up anything. He'd always been neat. He liked things cleaned up and orderly, which is why his attraction to Leah had come out of left field. Orderly was not her way. She was risk and disarray and taking the plunge without knowing what was coming next.

That summer, after gaining real world experience as a cop in Fort Worth, he was ready to bite the bullet and follow his dad's dream for him and go to law school and become a corporate attorney. It wasn't what he'd wanted but it had been expected. A few whirlwind weeks with her and he'd taken the risk. He told his dad that he was going to law school to study criminal law. His dad had responded by pulling the plug on paying for school. The result was Drew going back to Fort Worth as a cop—this time, permanently. After years of night school, he had his law degree but by then he wasn't just working as a cop anymore, he'd become one. Spending his life behind a desk just wasn't in the cards. Even Catfish Creek was better than that. And in a few days, that would be gone too. All he was waiting for was the call from the Fort Worth PD with a start date.

A noise behind him pulled him out of his thoughts and he turned around. Leah stood in the dim hall, the light from his bedroom silhouetting her and outlining every curve.

She held out the phone. "Isaac wants to talk to you."

He just bet Isaac did. He took the phone from Leah. "Hey, man."

"I'll be there in three hours," Isaac said.

"No need. I've got her and the Feds are doing surveillance."

"It doesn't seem right."

Drew shoved his hand through his hair and tried to imagine the fallout if Isaac showed up in Catfish Creek. It wouldn't be good. "You show up here with your B-Squad fire power and you'll put an even bigger target on Leah because Wynn and Miller will know she's got more backup than one guy and it'll make them desperate. People do stupid shit when they're desperate. Right now they still think it's an easy job and will lead the Feds right back to the man running the show. If Wynn and Miller scatter, the head of the snake will just send in more muscle—maybe more dangerous and definitely unknown. Right now, we know who they are and where they are. This is the best plan. She's protected. She's safe."

Drew left out the part about Leah being more pissed off than Beauford Lynch watching Maisy Aucoin's cat prance through his backyard.

"If anything happens—”

"It won't," he cut off Isaac. "You knew me back when we played ball together in high school and when I was still on the force in Fort Worth. I'm good for this."

Isaac let out a sigh but he didn't argue. He couldn't. Drew was damn good at his job and they both knew it.

"I heard you're joining back up in Fort Worth," Isaac said.

"That's the plan."

"Well, seeing how you're going to guard my sister with your life then I'll buy you a beer when you get back—Lord knows you're gonna need it."

Drew grinned. "I’ll be there."

"Just don't fuck this up."

He glanced up at Leah, standing with her back to the hall closet and her arms crossed underneath her luscious tits. His cock automatically started thinking very happy thoughts despite the death glare she was shooting him. Fuck, she might kill him, but Wynn and Miller wouldn't get within touching distance of her. No matter what. "Never."

He ended the call and handed the phone back to Leah, his fingers brushing against hers. That small connection was enough to remind his dick and the rest of him just how good it felt to touch her. She slid her phone back into the back pocket of her jeans and then rubbed her hands together as if she'd felt that sexual charge too. Judging by the way her nipples pressed outward against her thin T-shirt, she had. At least he could take comfort in the fact that they both were waging a war that had nothing to do with diamonds, paid muscle or anything else outside of his front door.

"You always think you know what's best for me," she said. "Isn't that how you put it that summer?"

No one slid the knife home quite like Leah. "And I was right."

They were total opposites. He couldn't understand her. They'd have only made each other miserable if they'd tried to make it work—especially long distance. So when the call came about the job with the Fort Worth PD, he'd gone and left only a texted goodbye.

"Of course." She strode up to him, stopping only when they were toe to toe, her tits practically touching his chest and her luscious mouth within kissing distance. "The perfect Drew Jackson is never wrong."

Not when it came to Leah. He'd been right. He knew because if he hadn't, he would have forgotten her long ago. So why was he about to fuck things up? Unable to stop himself, he dropped his hands to her hips and jerked her against him.

"Exactly," he said right before crashing his mouth down on hers.