needed to win, so she overlooked his personal flaws.
But had she overlooked too much? Lila had stolen him practically out from under Lloyd Albertson, her strongest competition for the party’s presidential nomination. Could they be sure he wasn’t a double agent, undermining her for Albertson’s sake?
Harlan shot her a curious look, and she realized her turn of thought must be written all over her face. She quickly schooled her expression before the governor and Merritt read her mind, as well.
Within a half hour, Sheriff Hale had apparently exhausted his questions and he let them leave the sheriff’s department. “We’re going to have to impound your car for a few more days as evidence,” Hale apologized to Stacy.
“I’ll give her a ride,” Harlan said quickly, shooting a look at Stacy. Something in his expression squelched her initial urge to argue.
“Could we get the booster seat from my car?” Stacy asked.
“I’ll send one of the deputies to get it for you,” Hale assured her. “You drive the Ford F-10, right, McClain?”
Harlan nodded, and the sheriff headed down the hall away from them, the governor and Greg Merritt right on his heels.
“I’ve lent the governor my car,” Parker explained to Harlan and Stacy. “I’ll catch a ride to the day care with Charlotte Manning and go home with Bailey.”
Stacy squelched a smile at the eagerness in his eyes. Clearly, having to carpool with his fiancee was no hardship for the CSI agent.
She followed him and Harlan down the hall to the room where Charlotte and Jeff Appleton were entertaining the two children. Abby, Jeff’s pretty, green-eyed six-year-old daughter, grinned at them as they entered. Zachary, as usual, kept working on his drawing, a look of steely determination in his blue eyes.
Stacy sighed. Trying to drag Zachary away from a project was always a pain. But to her surprise, he put away the drawing with only the briefest of protests, slipping his hand into Harlan’s the second Harlan reached out to him.
He gave them a little more trouble, however, when Harlan tried to strap him into the booster seat attached to the narrow bench seat at the back of the truck’s extended cab. “Where is your car?” he asked in a plaintive voice that reminded Stacy his nap was way overdue.
“My car is in the shop,” she answered. “Remember?” He didn’t have to know about the bomb or the impoundment, after all. “Mr. McClain is being very nice to give us a ride home.”
Zachary wasn’t impressed. “I don’t like this truck.”
“Well, you’re going to have to get used to trucks if you ever intend to have a horse,” Harlan said.
Zachary quieted down at the mention of the word
“Because a horse trailer is big and heavy, and not just any old car can haul it around,” Harlan answered sensibly.
Zachary’s forehead wrinkled with thought. Finally, his expression cleared and he got into the booster seat without further argument.
Stacy shot Harlan a grateful look, surprised by how well he’d handled Zachary’s mini tantrum. Of course, compared to some of the doozies she’d dealt with over the past couple of years, this struggle had been nothing. She doubted Harlan would handle a full-scale Zachary meltdown quite as well.
Zachary fell asleep on the short ride back to the ranch. Harlan waited in the living room for her while she put Zachary in his bed and soothed him back to sleep.
Harlan smiled at her when she returned. “How are you holding up after all that mess?”
“I’ve had better days,” she admitted. She still felt a little shaky, though the tremors had finally disappeared.
He reached out and straightened her collar, reminding her that she was still wearing his jacket. She started to shrug it off to return it to him, but he stepped closer and caught her hands in his. He twined their fingers together, his touch heating the air between them until she no longer felt chilled.
“You can’t stay here alone.” His half whisper should have sounded like a warning but somehow came out as pure seduction.
“I’m not really alone. There are guards all over this ranch.” She hadn’t intended to answer in a low, sultry tone, but somehow, there it was. She cleared her throat, but it didn’t change a thing. “I’m okay.”
“Maybe the bomb was intended for the governor, but we can’t know that for sure.” He let go of one of her hands and lifted his fingers to her face, brushing a tendril of hair away from her eyes. “You were also at the announcement in Austin. It was your car that was rigged for explosion.”
“But the governor would have been in the car when it blew, not me.” It seemed to take a great deal of effort to focus her attention on what she was saying. Whatever his fingers were doing to the side of her neck was as distracting as hell. The shivers she thought had finally left her returned in full force, driven by heat rather than cold this time.
“You said yourself you didn’t even know the governor was going to borrow your car until earlier this afternoon.” His finger traced lightly over the curve of her collarbone, sending a lightning bolt of fire straight to her core. She struggled to keep from closing her eyes and falling into his arms.
She had to get herself under control. She couldn’t even remember what they were talking about.
She tried to step away from him, but her wobbly legs rebelled, sending her into a backward free fall.
Harlan caught her up in his arms, his body hot and hard against hers. His dark gaze scorched her, striking sparks along her nervous system. A muscle in his jaw worked furiously. “This is probably not the best time to suggest this,” he growled in that same sexy half whisper, “but I think I should move in to protect you and Zachary.”
For a second, the suggestion seemed the most sensible thing she’d ever heard. Of course he should move in here. He belonged here.
But that second passed, and the next brought doubts and fears crashing down around her.
She pulled away from his grasp. “No. That’s a terrible idea. You know it’s a terrible idea.” She made herself look at him. “You know why.”
“I’m the best person to do it. Zachary likes me. I like him. I’m working here anyway.”
“You’ve already put guards outside my house. Twenty-four hours a day.” She felt as if the room were closing in around her, squeezing out all the air until she couldn’t draw a breath.
“And still someone set a bomb under your car,” he pointed out sensibly.
She walked even farther away from him, seeking relief from the drowning sensation. She couldn’t deal with this idea. She couldn’t. If he moved in here, she’d lose control and do something stupid, just the way she had when she let Anthony blow into her life and sweep her off her feet, against all good sense. And maybe that would be okay if she was the only one involved. Sometimes, mistakes could be worth the price paid.
But she had Zachary to think about. Zachary who already liked Harlan more than he liked just about anyone else in his life, including her.
She couldn’t let him pay for her mistakes any more than he already had.
“There’s got to be another option,” she said aloud.
“Will Zachary tolerate anyone else moving in?” Harlan asked.
“You don’t even know if he’ll tolerate you.”
“He already asked me to move in.”
She spun around to look at him. “What?”
“When you were talking to the deputies earlier, he asked me if I wanted to come stay with you. He thinks maybe he’d get to go riding every day that way. I could take him if you couldn’t.” Harlan’s smile seemed genuine. “He’s a bit of a plotter, your boy.”
She leaned her elbows on the breakfast bar and buried her face in her hands. “You’re using my son against me.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” Harlan said sharply, making her look up at him again. He pinned her with a fierce gaze. “I would never do that. Not to Zachary or to you.”
“But you’re telling me this so I’ll let you stay.”
“I’m telling you this so that you’ll understand why I don’t think giving you a different bodyguard will work,” he
