“You’re divorced?”
“No.”
“Who is she?”
“She was part of my cover in Afghanistan.”
“Was? Is she dead? Was she undercover like you?”
His ardor cooled in an instant.
Rocco withdrew from Mandy. He pulled her skirt down and buttoned his fly, then picked up his T-shirt and pulled it over his head. There was no way he could answer her questions. He wanted no secrets between them, but there were big chunks of his memory missing. And his mission wasn’t something he was willing to talk about. There were no answers he could give her.
What the hell had he been thinking to pursue this with her? He was too messed up for a relationship. Nor did he plan to stick around. And if she had such a visceral reaction to the fact that he’d been married, what would she say when she learned of his son?
He crossed his arms and leaned against the opposite counter. “I completed my mission. That’s all I can tell you.”
Tears filled her eyes. She righted her bra and pulled her shirt up, slipping her arms into the sleeves with jerky, angry movements. “You completed your mission,” she ground out. Reality hit her like a bucketful of ice water. What did she really know about Rocco, besides the fact that he was a passionate and generous lover?
He’d been in Afghanistan, undercover. He’d been in an explosion of some sort. And he’d been a prisoner of war. Those were all random facts. She didn’t know him at all. What was she thinking leaping into a sexual relationship with him? If she let it happen now, it would be the Bobby situation all over again.
Granted, she’d never come close to letting Bobby break her heart. But Rocco could. She cared for him enough to want to go slowly, let their relationship build from the ground up.
Her gaze crossed the chasm that had opened between them. “I’m sorry, Rocco. I can’t do this. I can’t do this now.”
Chapter 11
Static ripped into the silence of the bunkhouse. Rocco jerked awake, his heart slamming. He looked around the room, not recognizing where he was. “Rocco? Rocco, can you hear me?”
The walkie-talkie. A long, relieved breath eased out of his tight lungs, until he realized something had to be wrong up at the house. He grabbed the yellow plastic device. “Go ahead.” He was out of his chair and jamming his feet into his boots as Mandy’s whispered response rushed into the room.
“Someone’s in my house.”
He grabbed his shotgun, then ran out the door, glad he’d slept in his clothes. “Where are you?”
“In my room.”
“Is the front door unlocked?”
“It is now.”
“Lock your bedroom door. Don’t come out until I tell you it’s safe.” He clipped the walkie-talkie to his waistband and reached her porch in record time. On the porch, he eased the front door open, shotgun at the ready. He made a visual sweep of the living room, then turned down the hall leading to the master bedroom. He moved silently through the dark, a shadow in a house of shadows, all his senses engaged. This danger he knew. It was comfortable. Search and kill. He checked the bedrooms, their closets, the bathroom. All was clear. He knocked on the master bedroom door. “You okay?”
Mandy ripped the door open. There was enough moonlight to see her pale, tense face, her enormous eyes. She nodded.
“What did you hear?”
“There was banging somewhere out there. Someone, something was walking around. The floors creaked. I know I heard something.”
Rocco nodded. “Stay here. Lock your door. I’ll check out the rest of the house.”
“No way. I’m coming with you.”
He frowned down at her, but didn’t want to waste time arguing. It was probably a raccoon or something that had climbed in through a window. “Stay behind me, then.” Two cold hands slipped between his back and waistband as she gripped his pants and leaned close to his back. She peeked around his shoulder, stepping in the shadow of his steps. They moved down the hall as tightly as sack racers in slow motion.
Her arms wrapped around his waist, and she buried her face in the middle of his back as they went through the dining room, the kitchen dinette area, the galley, across the hallway to the laundry room, a storeroom, and at last, to the back door. It was closed and firmly locked.
“Nothing. Let’s go downstairs.” He reached a hand behind him, needing distance between them to take the stairs safely. She threaded her fingers with his. He moved slowly, in no hurry to lose this time with her. They’d barely talked for the last few days. She’d been sending him supper on a tray. God, he’d missed her.
They moved through the rooms downstairs. Three bedrooms, a bathroom, a utility room, a storeroom, and a large, open rec room. It was a big house for one small girl. Did its emptiness haunt her? She’d probably dreamed the noise. Or perhaps one of the cottonwoods towering over the house had dropped a branch.
They made their way back upstairs. At the top of the steps, he pulled her in front of him into a light hug. She was ice cold. He rubbed her arm. “There’s nothing here, babe. The house is clear.”
“I know what I heard, Rocco.”
“Tomorrow, I’ll take a look around the house and see if maybe something fell on the roof.”
“It wasn’t the roof. It was by the kitchen. In the hallway. It was coming toward my room.” She stood next to him, so closely that they touched from calves to shoulder. He glanced around at the shadowy living room. Nothing was out of place. He didn’t know what she’d heard before, but there wasn’t anything suspicious now.
He looked down at her, seeing the tension in her face. “Want me to stay here tonight?” he asked before realizing what it sounded like he was suggesting. “I mean, not with you, but here. In the living room. Alone.”
Before Mandy could answer him, they heard a bang in the hallway by the kitchen. Her hand tightened on his. “See? That’s what I heard!” she hissed.
There was a clattering of items from the kitchen, then the sound of nails skittering across the wood floor as an animal rushed toward the backdoor. A low growl set the hairs at Rocco’s neck on edge. He flipped on the light switch in time to see a gray animal push out through a small access flap in the back door.
Rocco cursed. “You’ve got a coyote coming in.”
Mandy slipped free of her death grip on Rocco’s back. “I don’t think that was a coyote. It was too small, and it had no tail.” She flipped the outside light on and jerked open the door. Two dogs stood a few yards from the last step, a little one and a big one. The little one was standing guard. It growled when it saw them.
Rocco had seen plenty of pariah dogs in the Middle East. Often, they were vicious predators, always hungry, always hunting. “Go back inside, Em. You don’t need wild dogs stalking the ranch. I’ll take care of them.” He stepped in front of her.
“Wait! Rocco, they’re just strays. They’re hungry and lost.”
He pushed her toward the door. “There could be a whole goddamned pack. Get back inside.”
“Rocco. Stop. You’re not going to shoot them. They belong to someone. You can’t kill them.”
She slipped out of his grip and moved down the back steps slowly, eyeing the ghostly forms of the dogs in the distance. She sat on the bottom step and called to them in a friendly voice. Neither came to her. The larger one was eating something. She walked toward it slowly, talking in a cheerful voice. When she was about six feet from them, she knelt down and patted her thighs, calling the strays over. The little one, a Blue Heeler, stood stiff and growled. The larger one, a Golden Retriever, wagged his tail but didn’t look up from the sleeve of bread he was munching. Both of them were reed thin.
Mandy talked to them for a while as the Golden fed on the stolen bread. “Look at you, you little fierce thing. You stole food for your friend,” she said to the Heeler. “You can’t be all bad. Come in the house. I’ll cook some rice and eggs for you.”
