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  Kellan led them toward the pond. “Look, there are mobsters who want my brothers’ heads on a plate. They could be looking for us. It was only a month ago that FBI agent tried to blackmail us. As dirty as he was? It wouldn’t have been hard to go a step further and sell out our location to McGinty’s crew.”

  “He didn’t know who you were. He only knew that you were a witness, and assumed that you’d be sitting on hidden money to pay him off.”

  He gave her a look out of the corner of his eye. “Don’t try to out-logic an almost-lawyer. Technically, we’re on the run. In hiding. Which means there is a chance someone nefarious could find us. If that happens, I want to be prepared. I want to be able to protect not just myself, but my brothers.”

  “Your brothers are ex-mobsters. Flynn’s such an expert at MMA he could probably kill someone by flexing his big toe. They can take care of themselves.”

  “Maybe. But we can’t be too careful.”

  Delaney stopped as soon as their feet hit the gravel on the other side of the road. She planted herself, legs spread wide and her free hand fisted at her side. Slowly and emphatically she said, “I repeat, I’m in charge of protecting you.”

  “In theory, sure. But I doubt that if the mob comes for us, they’ll keep it to normal business hours with a four-hour forecast arrival window like the fucking cable company.”

  Despite her anger, and her hurt, Delaney couldn’t help but snicker. Because Kellan had a gift for diffusing tension. Perhaps it came from being the youngest of three hotheaded brothers. “That’d make my job a lot easier.”

  “Look, it’s a simple matter of math. Miles and minutes. Most of the time you’re in Eugene, a three-hour drive away. And I like to be self-sufficient.”

  Still pissed at the implication that she wasn’t enough, Delaney lashed out. “Is that so?”

  He’d started walking to the edge of the green scum-covered pond, but Kellan cranked his head around at the disbelief in her voice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Your brothers treat you like a spoiled prince. I’d be shocked if you were self-sufficient enough to change a toilet paper roll.”

  “Over or under?”

  Delaney huffed out a breath that fanned her bangs off her forehead. Suddenly tired of sparring, she said, “Just don’t, Kellan. A gun is no joke.”

  “Neither is my desire to stay alive.”

  “Are you sure it isn’t just a desire to keep up with your badass brothers?”

  “This is war. This is survival.” He speared his fingers through his black hair. “Rafe and Flynn may have put me in this situation, without my knowledge or consent. But now that I am in it? I intend to fully participate. I made friends at the cranberry plant. I’m a model-fucking-citizen of Bandon. That’s not enough, though. I need to prepare for the worst. I need to learn how to use a gun.”

  She slurped down almost half of her drink while looking out across the still water. The tactic he’d chosen had been perfect. Talking about saving not just himself, but his brothers. Stamping the whole situation with the mob as a war. Because it was. And because he’d unwittingly painted a picture, a nightmare vision, of the Maguires being pinned down in Bandon while she slept, unaware, up in Eugene.

  That vision already tormented her at least once a week. Kellan’s request was unorthodox. It was also utterly logical. “Fine.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” Delaney put her cup on the ground and crossed her arms. “You’re smart enough to get one under the table without my help. I don’t want you going down that road. I also don’t take gun ownership lightly. If you’re going to have one, I want you fully trained and able to hit a body mass on a dime. Because if you half-ass this and end up shooting Rafe in the leg on the way to the bathroom one night, it’ll mean a hellish amount of paperwork for me.”

  Kellan let out the breath she hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Thank you. Sincerely.”

  Her lips pursed again. His sincerity had a way of slipping in past her defenses. “Don’t make me regret it.”

  “Protection only. You have my word.”

  “Great. The word of an almost-lawyer,” Delaney said mockingly. “That and twelve dollars will buy me a martini.”

  Then she instantly regretted pushing his buttons. It was habit. It was fun.

  It was dangerous.

  One thick dark eyebrow winged up, like an arched frame around his stunning ice-blue eye. “First you call me spoiled, and now you’re insulting my near lawyerness? If I didn’t know better, I’d say the lady doth protest too much.”

  “The lady has her hands full dealing with your troublesome brothers. She doesn’t like to waste her energy constantly fending you off, too.”

  “I think you do.” Kellan set his cup down.

  Delaney gaped at him. Because she’d been oh-so-careful never to give away with so much as a flicker the fact the she was still interested. How could he tell something that Delaney barely admitted to herself? “You think I want to keep fending you off?”

  “Yes.” Kellan stepped closer. In fact, he moved in way past what would be polite. Invaded her personal space just as much as he’d been invading her mind. “You like fighting with me. You could ignore my compliments, my flirty remarks. You don’t. You rise to the bait every time. I think you’re every bit as frustrated as I am.”

  “You don’t know anything about my life outside the time I spend working on your case.” Heat flashed across her cheeks and chest. And she stepped in, too. To where the tips of her breasts brushed his chest, and her feet bumped against his. “Don’t begin to think you know me.”

  “I don’t think. I know. I know that you may have been on dates since you met me. But none of them distracted you from whatever’s simmering between us. You want to turn back the clock to the day I asked you out and follow through on it.”

  “I don’t.” Her words were the verbal equivalent of a foot stamp. Then, softer, as if she didn’t mean to speak it out loud at all, Delaney said, “We can’t.”

  In response, Kellan framed her face with his hands, tilted her head back more, and kissed her.

  Not the light, polite, introduction kiss they’d shared the first time. Delaney had obviously pushed him past that step. Kellan kissed as if he needed her to know just how badly he wanted her. His lips worked across her mouth, moving and kneading. Kellan nipped at her wide bottom lip. It felt like punishment for her making him wait so long.

  It also felt like a reward, so she rewarded him with a tiny moan.

  Delaney’s hands fisted in his thick hair, pulling and tugging. It undoubtedly showed him the insta-heat burning her up inside as much as the way her leg wrapped around his calf.

  She wanted more.

  His tongue teased at the seam of her lips, and Delaney opened for him like they’d already done this dance a hundred times. She tasted the sweetness lingering from his drink. Desire rocketed through her, turning her nerves to lava. From the way his penis had hardened to pure steel against her belly, Kellan felt the same.

  He streaked the backs of his knuckles down the undersides of her raised arms. Kept going to just lightly brush them along the sides of her breasts, her ribs, the flare of her hips to finally land on the curve of her ass.

  Kellan dug his fingers in and lifted. Just high enough to press her center against his penis. Instantly, she got on board with the position, rocking against him even as her tongue twined and teased.

  It was impossible to stop the little breathy moans that kept escaping from her. It was impossible not to undulate against his rock-hard abs and dig her fingers into the sculpted muscles of his back. Kissing Kellan wasn’t foreplay. It was a sex act all by itself. Utterly satisfying even as it drove her hunger up immeasurably.

  And while Delaney would’ve sworn it was impossible, he was a million times better in reality than all the ways she’d fantasized being with him over the past months. Kellan ripped his mouth away to burn a trail of kisses down the side of her neck.

/>   A semi rolled by, and the driver honked for a long time. It had been easy to ignore the white noise of the cars passing, but the horn broke through to Delaney. It reminded her they were on the edge of a green-scummed pond, across from a strip mall. The world could see them making out. And they’d already shot way past a reasonable stopping point.

  So she unwound her leg and put her foot back down on the ground. Kellan seemed to get the signal. He dialed back the intensity on his kisses and rained them up the side of her face, down her nose, to end with a light peck on her mouth before easing back. Then he moved his hands to her shoulders.

  It took a moment for her eyes to reopen. When they did, it took another moment before Delaney fully focused on him.

  “Not only can we kiss,” Kellan said with enough authority to make her realize he wouldn’t allow her to pretend this hadn’t happened. To pretend that she hadn’t just climbed him like a tree and responded with a fervor that matched his own. “We’re absolutely doing it again.”

  Chapter Two

  The U.S. Courthouse in Eugene was pretty new, as federal buildings went. Snazzy glass outside, good lighting, excellent air-conditioning that kept you cool without requiring a parka in June.

  So why was Delaney burning up? Hot flashes weren’t an obvious explanation at twenty-eight years. But she couldn’t stop fanning herself with the ubiquitous bail bondsman notepad.

  Hot. So hot. And the more she stabbed at the keys of her laptop, inputting all of Kellan Maguire’s vital information, the more heat prickled beneath her skin.

  Age: 25

  Height: 6’1”

  Eye color: the blue of a blue jay’s wing, with lighter flecks that glinted in the blue of the Pacific on a sunny day . . .

  Her screen beeped. Repeatedly. Apparently, the box for eye color didn’t allow for the ramblings of a kiss-drunk woman.

  And how embarrassing was it that she was still googly-eyed over a kiss that had happened twenty-four hours ago?

  “That’s annoying,” her partner-for-now said calmly. Everything Kono Cheeska said came out calmly. Delaney enjoyed that about him. It was especially fun to watch that calmness beat down a suspect.

  Delaney furiously tapped the delete button to clear the box. “Sorry.” She deliberately circled the cursor, then plopped it back in place.

  Eye color: blue.

  Sex: yes, please.

  Delaney let out a groan.

  Kono pushed his waist-length black hair over his shoulder. “What’s blowing up your screen?”

  “I’m getting one of my protectees a gun. Obviously I want to circumvent the background check, as well as the wait period, so I’m doing all the paperwork myself.”

  One eyebrow lifted on his placid face, which was the equivalent of anyone else shrieking and running in a circle. “That’s a new one.”

  No kidding. There weren’t any actual rules against it because no marshal with a lick of common sense would provide a former criminal with a firearm. Delaney didn’t want Kono to think she’d lost her mind. Especially since he was more than just her partner here in Eugene.

  Rafe and Flynn were poised to take down one of the largest, once-thriving crime syndicates in the country. If she got the Maguires safely—aka alive—to Chicago to testify against Danny McGinty, there’d be a promotion. She’d figured out fast that Kono was officially keeping an eye on her for someone. Making sure she truly deserved the promotion, even if he didn’t know the specifics of why or what.

  So it seemed prudent to make her case for this decision. Delaney stacked her hands on top of each other on the desk. “He’s not a criminal. Kellan’s the good Maguire. The one who got dragged along with his brothers.”

  Kono, like everyone else in the Eugene field office, didn’t know the actual details of the Mullaney brothers and their connection to the Chicago mob. Not to mention the multiple different identities they’d worked through before landing in Bandon. All he knew was that she was in charge of the Maguire brothers, two of which were actual witnesses with a somewhat shady past that needed to testify in a few months.

  That’s how it worked in the Marshals Service. The fewer people who knew the real story lessened the risk to their new lives exponentially.

  “Hmm. Was this your idea?”

  She understood why he asked. While she was assigned to the Eugene office, they were partners. Kono needed to be able to trust her judgment.

  “No. Definitely not. Their covers are rock-solid. There’s been no hint that anyone connected to their case is looking for them. The Maguires are in no danger.”

  “Why’d you agree to it?”

  Kono was asking all the right questions. The same ones that ran through her head the moment Kellan brought it up. There wasn’t a single reason in the extensive rulebook for a protectee to be armed, but there were innumerable reasons why they shouldn’t be armed.

  Except that Kellan was different. He was whip smart and honest and loyal and all the man wanted to do was pull his weight in protecting the family. Okay, so there was probably some pride in the mix that was bruised from his brothers keeping such huge secrets from him. That he hadn’t been allowed to be part of the decision-making process that enrolled them in the program. The process that ripped away any possibility of the law degree he’d worked so hard and come so close to getting.

  Mostly, though? She knew it wasn’t at all about keeping himself alive. It was about not being a liability to Rafe and Flynn if there was a fight. The one thing that was indisputable about the Maguire brothers was their obvious love and loyalty to each other. Kellan’s loyalty, despite everything his brothers had done? It was one of the qualities she most admired in him.

  Delaney pushed out of her chair, suddenly too antsy to stay seated. The bare-bones office they shared had a Keurig right around the corner. She nipped into the hallway, popped in a pod, and shoved a mug underneath the spigot, buying enough time to figure out how to express her unshakeable belief that Kellan wouldn’t cause trouble in a way that Kono would understand.

  “Here’s the thing.” She paced back in to his desk in the sensible heels that matched her sensible navy suit. Over three steps to straighten her chair, then back to look at that nonjudgmental face the color of wet sand. “I’m considering it as a placebo. You and I?” Delaney waved a hand back and forth between them. “We both know he’s never going to need this gun, let alone use it. But it’ll give Kellan strength. Confidence.”

  “That’s pretty touchy-feely. Since when do you care about a protectee’s inner strength?”

  Damn it. Another three steps back to perch on the edge of her chair. She drummed her fingers on the black padded arm. “Not . . . usually.”

  “You’re affected by them. Not just the one who wants the gun. All of these brothers.”

  A jolt ran through her and Delaney sagged against the back of the chair. It squeaked and rolled off the edge of the plastic mat underneath the wheels. Kono’s oh-so-casual assessment hit her as hard as the shoulder to the diaphragm he’d given her in their hand-to-hand practice that morning.

  “I should only care about the job, not the people,” she murmured. “That’s one of the most basic rules.” One she’d oddly had trouble following for the last year.

  Protectees lives were messy and leaving them didn’t automatically remove the messy feelings. There were department shrinks to talk them through their problems, officially. Her job was to give them unbreakable covers, decent-enough jobs, and make sure they rode the straight and narrow.

  But she’d had trouble recently, drawing the line. She liked listening to them. Delaney had discovered that helping gave her as much satisfaction as protecting.

  Too bad that wasn’t in her job description.

  The Keurig beeped. Kono retrieved her mug and set it on her desk. Then he laid a heavy hand on her shoulder and squeezed, once. “Caring’s not a bad thing, Evans. Getting attached is.”

  “I know.” She’d already stuck her neck out for the Maguires a few times. They had
a way of finding trouble—although Rafe claimed trouble found them more easily than flies to a shit pile. They’d grown on her. Their dogged loyalty and love for each other was irresistible. So, yeah, they’d carved a soft spot onto her heart.

  One that Kellan had sealed with a kiss.

  “Is this going to be a problem?” Kono asked as he sat back down. She didn’t think he’d complain about her to the district supervisor. Not yet, anyway. He was probably filing away everything for the final report he’d submit on her to someone in HR. On the other hand, she’d known him for only a little over a month.

  Either way, Delaney did not intend to let this ridiculous soft spot endanger her career.

  Because her career was all she had.

  This favor for Kellan was for his peace of mind. Period. Gun ownership wasn’t too difficult to obtain in Oregon. She wasn’t bending the rules.

  Technically, anyway.

  So she’d finish the paperwork because she’d given Kellan her word. And then she wouldn’t communicate with any of the Maguires again until their next scheduled check-in. Aside from the training she’d agreed to give Kellan.

  Crap.

  More to the point, Delaney wouldn’t think about any of the Maguires, aside from the coordination with her team in Chicago as they put the pieces in place for their return to testify.

  That kiss with Kellan was an aberration. A mistake. Yes, something that had been coming down the pike, if she hadn’t stubbornly had blinders on to it, for a good long while. But it was over. Done with.

  Kellan was out of her system.

  No matter how many of his traits she admired, no matter how many muscles she ogled. He was her job, and nothing more.

  Delaney shook her head so hard that her ponytail whipped her cheek. “Plumbers don’t get sappy about the toilets they snake. It’s simply a responsibility to check off the list. Which is how I need to compartmentalize again. I’m just tired. This has been a long haul with the Maguires—longer than my other assignments. Exhaustion probably blurred my lines a bit.”