freedom-hours of tramping through the woods and playing with friends without school bells or homework to interrupt the fun. His parents had both worked, leaving him in the half-interested care of his teenage sister, whose only rules were to stay out of the hospital and stay out of jail. Somehow, he’d managed to keep those rules, though sometimes by the finest of hairs.
He checked with the guard outside the governor’s office. All fifteen staffers had signed the sheet. His gaze slid down to the clean, bold signature of Stacy Giordano.
She’d seemed restless during the meeting. And when he’d laid out the details of the security protocols, she’d looked frustrated and unhappy.
The idea that she could have anything to do with the threat against the governor seemed ludicrous on its face. She’d been the one who found the bomb. She’d dashed right into the debris, stayed there even after she found the bomb and any reasonable person would have completely understood if she’d decided to clear out and let the bomb squad figure a way in to the bomb.
Of course, if she’d been the bomber, or knew the bomber, she’d feel pretty confident the explosive device wasn’t going to blow. Not while she was in the line of fire, anyway.
Pulling his phone from his pocket, he jotted a note to do a background check on the governor’s office staff. He should have started this yesterday, when he found out he was going to be in charge of security for the upcoming fundraiser. He’d already begun to suspect the bombing could have been an inside job.
He had learned to trust his instincts, and something about Stacy’s demeanor during the meeting had set off his radar, big-time. She didn’t like the security protocols one bit, and he wanted to know why.
He jotted another note on his phone.
The security checkpoint was stationed about seventy yards up the dirt road that led to the stable, but she decided she could stay out of sight for most of the trip to the horse barn by circling around and approaching from the rear, through a rough bit of scrubby pasture fenced off to keep the horses away from the treacherous minefield of gopher holes. Reclaiming the fallow land was on the ranch agenda for next spring, but for now, it gave Stacy a more stealthy approach to the stable.
From inside the horse barn, she heard the familiar sounds of a working stable-the soft nickers of horses and the murmur of conversations between the grooms working inside. Over the other sounds, she heard the high-pitched sound of her son’s voice responding to something a groom had said. She smiled at the sweet, familiar sound.
“Forget something?”
The gravelly drawl, close to her ear, nearly made her jump out of her skin. Whirling, she found herself face-to- face with Harlan McClain, who stood only inches away, his brown eyes hard with suspicion.
“You scared the life out of me.” She pressed her hand to her chest, her cheeks hot with guilt.
His only response was a slow, thorough appraisal of her, head to foot and back again, as if he were trying to see right through to her bones.
“Do you need something from me?” she asked when the continuing silence grew excruciating.
“The truth would be a good start.”
“The truth?” she echoed, not yet ready to incriminate herself, just in case he didn’t realize she’d sneaked her way here instead of following the protocols he’d set up.
“The road from the governor’s house to here is straight and remarkably level for a dirt road. Very easy walking.”
She didn’t reply, although she knew where he was headed.
“So I have to wonder why you chose to walk a quarter mile farther than necessary through a scrubby field to get here when you had such a nice easy path.”
His caustic tone made her bristle, driving away her lingering sense of chagrin. “Are you accusing me of something, Mr. McClain?”
“You bypassed the security checkpoint. Deliberately. I’d like to know why.”
She pressed her lips into a flat line, growing angry. “Is this how it’s going to be from now on? One step outside your rules and it’s the third degree?” She knew some of her anger was fueled by her dismay at being caught breaking the rules, but not all of it. The Harlan McClain standing in front of her seemed a completely different man than the Southern gentleman who’d treated her with such kind concern the day of the bombing. His eyes had been warm and comforting then, not hard and cold like stone as they were now.
He shifted so that he blocked out the afternoon sun, plunging his face into shadow until she could no longer see his expression. But the tense set of his muscles as he towered over her was enough to convey his hostile attitude. “Someone tried to kill your boss two days ago. I would think you of all people would understand why I asked y’all to keep to the security protocols. So you mind telling me why you didn’t?”
She couldn’t stand not being able to read his expression, so she took a couple of steps to the side, trying to force him to turn so the glare of the sun no longer backlit his face.
His hand snaked out and snagged her arm, making her gasp. He loosened his grip at the sound but didn’t let go. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Mommy, you’re late.”
She whipped her head around to find her son standing a few feet away, looking up at her with a disapproving gleam in his blue eyes.
“I know, baby. I’m sorry. I had a meeting and I couldn’t get away as early as I’d hoped.”
“Couldn’t you tell them you had to come here?” Zachary asked.
Stacy shot a quick look at Harlan. He looked confused.
“Who are you?” Zachary asked bluntly, his gaze following Stacy’s to settle on Harlan McClain.
Harlan cleared his throat and dropped Stacy’s arm. “I’m Harlan McClain. Who are you?”
“Zachary Giordano,” he answered formally, as he was prone to do. It had taken Stacy a while to get used to his way of speaking. It was another symptom of his Asperger’s syndrome, one that could be deceiving to people who didn’t know his situation. Because he conversed so much more maturely than his peers, and was such a sponge when it came to learning the new things he wanted to learn, people often assumed he was just a very precocious child. Which he was, in many ways.
It was the ways in which he differed from other children that would keep his life from ever being considered normal.
“Zachary’s my son.”
Harlan nodded. “I guessed as much.”
“He loves to ride,” she added, “but we missed his Tuesday lesson because of…what happened in Austin.”
“I see. So you thought you’d make it up to him?” Harlan glanced at Zachary, who was gazing up at him with an almost comical look of interest.
Seeing the signs of trouble on the horizon, Stacy quickly stepped between Harlan and Zachary. “Zachary, it’s time to go back home now. I’ve got to get you cleaned up and ready for dinner.” She turned to look at Harlan. “I’m sorry I broke protocol. I didn’t want the governor to think I can’t handle motherhood and the job at the same time.”
Harlan’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t want to sign the check-in list.”
“Yes.”
“Mommy, can Harlan come to dinner?”
“Mr. McClain,” she corrected automatically, before she registered what he’d asked.
“Can Mr. McClain come to dinner?”
She looked at Harlan, warning him with her eyes to make a quick excuse. Zachary might have all the socialization difficulties that came with Asperger’s, but that didn’t mean he didn’t form attachments to people. On the contrary, her son was prone to crushes on people. He latched on to friends at school, had a huge preference for
