The two brothers made a complementary pairing: Dylan was a genius, and Sean had street smarts.
“I’ll use my FBI contacts, namely, Levine, to keep tabs on their investigation.” He drained his beer and stood. “That should just about cover it.”
“Cover what?”
“Ground rules,” Sean said as he crossed the room toward the wet bar. “You and Hazel will be safe if you stay here and don’t communicate with anybody. I’ll need to take your cell phone.”
“Not necessary,” she said. “I’m aware that cell phones can be hacked and tracked. I only use untraceable burner phones.”
“What about your computer?”
She swallowed hard. In the back of her mind, she knew her computer could be hacked long distance and used to track her down. There was no way she’d give up her computer. “All my documents are copied onto a flash drive.”
“I need to disable the computer. No calling except on burner phones. No texting. No email. No meetings.”
Anger and frustration bubbled up inside her. Though she hadn’t finished her beer and didn’t need a replacement, she followed him to the bar. She climbed up on a stool and peered down at him while he looked into the under-the-counter fridge. When he stood, she glared until he met her gaze.
To his credit, Sean didn’t back down, even though she felt like she was shooting lightning bolts through her eye sockets. When she opened her mouth to speak, she was angry enough to breathe fire. “Your ground rules don’t work for me.”
He opened another zombie beer. “What’s the problem?”
“If I can’t use the internet, how can I work?”
“Dylan can probably hook up some kind of secure channel to communicate with your employer.”
“What if I don’t want to stay here?”
“I suppose I could move you to a safe house or hotel.” He came around the bar and faced her. “What’s really going on?”
“Nothing.”
“You always said you hated lying and liars, but you’re not leveling with me. If you don’t tell me everything, I can’t do my job.”
The real, honest-to-God problem was simple: she hadn’t given up on the Wynter investigation. One of the specific reasons she’d come to Colorado was to dig up evidence against Frankie. She swiveled around on the bar stool so she was facing away from him. “I don’t want to bury my head in the sand.”
“Explain.”
“I want to know why Roger Patrone was murdered. And I want to stop the human trafficking from Asia.”
He nodded. “We all want that.”
“But I have leads to track down. If I could hook up with people from the Wynter compound and question them, I might get answers. Or I could break in and download the information on their computers. I might find evidence that would be useful to the FBI.”
“Seriously?” He was skeptical. “You want to keep digging up dirt, poking the dragon?”
She shot back. “Well, that’s what an investigative reporter does.”
“This isn’t a joke, Emily. You saw what happens to people who cross Frankie Wynter.”
“They get shot and dumped.”
Wynter’s men could toss her body into a mountain cave, and she wouldn’t be found for years. When she voiced her plan out loud, it sounded ridiculous. How could she expect to succeed in her investigation when the FBI had failed?
“If you want to take that kind of risk,” he said, “that’s your choice. But don’t put Hazel in danger.”
He was right. She shouldn’t have come here, and she definitely shouldn’t have talked to him. Trust me? Fat chance.
Their connection had already begun to unravel, which was probably for the best. He irritated her more than a mohair sweater on a sunny day. Her unwarranted attraction to him was a huge distraction from her work. She should tell him to go. She didn’t need a bodyguard.
But Sean was strong and quick, well trained in assault and protection. He knew things about investigating and undercover work that she could only guess about. Her gut instincts told her she really did need him.
“Come with me,” she said. “Back to San Francisco.”
At five o’clock the next morning, Sean stood at the window in the kitchen and opened the blinds so he could see outside while he was waiting for the coffeemaker to do its thing. He’d turned off the overhead light, and the cool blue shadows in the kitchen melted into the shimmer of moonlight off the unbroken snow. The blizzard had ended.
Soon the phones would be working. Lines of communication would be open. There would be nothing to block Emily’s return trip to San Francisco. She’d decided that she needed to go back and dig into her investigation, and it didn’t look like she was going to budge.
It was up to him whether he’d go with her as her bodyguard or not. His first reaction was to refuse. She had neither the resources nor the experience to delve into the criminal depths of Wynter Corp, and she was going to get into trouble, possibly lethal trouble. He needed to make her understand her limitations without insulting her skills.
Outside, the bare branches of aspen and fir trees bent and wavered in the wind. So cold. So lonely. A shiver went through him. Their divorce had been five years ago. He should be over it. But no. He missed her every single day. Seeing her again and hearing her voice, even if she was arguing with him most of the time, touched a part of him that he kept buried.
He still cared about Emily. Damn it, he couldn’t let her go to California by herself. She needed protection, and nobody could keep her safe the way he could. He would die for her...but he preferred not to.
After she’d made her announcement in the living room, she outlined the plan. “Tomorrow morning, we’ll catch a plane and be in San Francisco before late afternoon. There’ll be time for you to have a little chat with Agent Levine and the other guys in that office. We’ll talk to my contacts on the day after that.”
He’d objected, as any sane person would, but she’d already made up her mind. She flounced into the dining room and ate chili with Hazel and Willis. The prime topic of their conversation being big snowstorms and their aftermath. The chat ended with Emily’s announcement that she’d be going back to San Francisco as soon as the snow stopped because she had to get back to work.
During the night, he’d gone into her room to try talking sense into her. Before he could speak, she asked if he would accompany her. When he said no, she told him to leave.
Stubborn! How could a woman who looked so soft and gentle be so obstinate? She was like a rosebush with roots planted deep—so strong and deep that she could halt the forward progress of a tank. How could he make her see reason? What sort of story could he tell her?
Finally, the coffeemaker was done. He poured a cup, straight black, for himself and one for her with a dash of milk, no sugar. Up the staircase, he was careful not to spill over the edge of the mugs. Twisting the doorknob on her bedroom took some maneuvering, but he got it open and slipped inside.
For a long moment, he stood there, watching her sleep in the dim light that penetrated around the edges of the blinds. A pale blue comforter was tucked up to her chin. Wisps of dark hair swept across on her forehead. Her eyelashes made thick, dark crescents above her cheekbones, and her lips parted slightly. She was even more beautiful now than when they were married.
She claimed that she’d changed, and he recognized the difference in some ways. She was tougher, more direct. When he thought about her rationale