let her play around with men, and she had less than visible assets, physically. She was more sensitive about her body than most women, for reasons she wasn’t sharing in a public venue. It shouldn’t have bothered her that Mr. Womanizer there didn’t like her. She should be grateful not to be a target. Still, it stung to have her deficiencies pointed out in public. Especially in front of men. She mumbled something and excused herself to go make coffee.
“Dammit!” Cash snapped at Carson with blazing dark eyes. Tank saw immediately the danger in the man that was carefully concealed most of the time behind a pleasant personality. The anger seemed oddly out of proportion to what Carson had said. “What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded.
Carson shifted restlessly. “Wasn’t thinking,” he said through clenched teeth. It was a rebuke he wouldn’t have taken from any other man. But he respected Grier.
“Obviously,” Cash replied tersely. His eyes narrowed. “There are a lot of things you don’t know. Snipe at her again and you’ll deal with me. Understood?”
Carson jerked his head up and down, once.
“When is the special election?” Tank asked, to break the tension.
“In the spring,” Hayes remarked.
“That does give us a little time to investigate,” Cash said, apparently over his anger. “But not a lot.”
“I’d wiretap every damned Texas DEA agent’s phone,” Carson interjected with cold eyes.
“Great idea,” Cash said. “You go find us a judge to sign the warrant.”
Carson sighed. “Okay. I get the point.”
“Besides that, we don’t know if he’s still with the agency in some satellite office somewhere,” Hayes added. “There’s a good turnover in every agency these days because of funding. Maybe he even quit the agency once he realized we had a photo of him on our computer.”
“There has to be some way we can trap this chameleon,” Tank said curtly. “Listen, we know he’s targeting me, even though we don’t know why. We know he’s targeting you, too.” He indicated Hayes. “But you have powerful connections. Maybe he’s not willing to tangle with your new father-in-law. But I’m on my own. I don’t have a network behind me.”
“You do now,” Cash said.
“Indeed,” Hayes agreed.
“Thanks,” Tank said, smiling.
“You’re also forgetting that the late El Ladr?on’s men hired your father-in-law’s temporary employee to kill you,” Carson told Hayes. “If they’re plotting anything, he’ll be the first to know.”
“Assuming they haven’t rumbled him,” Cash told him. “Never underestimate an organized network of criminals.”
“Good advice,” Hayes seconded.
“But the point is, regardless of by whom,” Tank interjected, “I’m being actively targeted. Rourke’s got my back. But it wouldn’t hurt to bring in a little help. Do we know somebody in the FBI or Eb Scott’s group who has some free time and would like to hire on as a cowboy in Wyoming?”
There were amused glances between the other men.
“I can ride a horse,” Carson said surprisingly.
“You’d need to talk to Cy Parks about that,” Hayes remarked.
“Like Mr. Parks would miss him,” Carlie said under her breath, and she didn’t look at Carson when she spoke. “Coffee’s up,” she added as she sat down at her desk.
“Why don’t you go?” Carson shot at her, embarrassed by his former outburst and angry that she’d made him look like an idiot in front of the other men. “You seem to know how to do everything. Can you ride a horse?” he added sarcastically.
She glared at him. “Yes, I can,” she said. “And use a lasso and even shoot a gun if I have to.”
“No more talk of shooting guns, please,” Cash groaned. “First you have to learn how, especially after the last fiasco at the firing range.”
She glared at him, too. “I could learn if somebody would teach me!”
“Don’t look at me,” Carson drawled with pure venom. “I’m not teaching you anything.”
“Mr. Carson...or whatever your last name actually is...I was not speaking to you,” she said icily.
“You couldn’t pronounce my last name,” he returned, dripping even more venom. “It’s Lakota.”
She flushed and averted her eyes.
He saw that, frowning. Why should his heritage provoke such a reaction?
“Lakota?” Tank asked softly.
Carson nodded. “I grew up on a reservation in Kyle, South Dakota,” he said.
“No wonder you’re so good at tracking,” Hayes remarked.
Carson glared at him.
Hayes held up both hands. “I’m not stereotyping. I mean, growing up in relatively rural places, like Jacobsville, or rural South Dakota, people learn to use their senses more, and most rural men hunt and track.”
“I see.” Carson relaxed a little.
“Touchy,” Cash Grier remarked with narrowed eyes.
“You don’t know me,” Carson replied quietly. “Or you’d understand why.” He turned to Tank. “You can hire me on for a few weeks. I’ll do some checking, make some inquiries. In your part of Wyoming, I won’t even raise eyebrows much. There are communities with native people all over the place.”
“Not so many as you might think,” Tank began.
Carson smiled. “That’s because you don’t know where they are. I do. I have Cheyenne cousins.”
“In that case, I’d love to give you your very own horse and a new rope.” Tank chuckled.
“A new one? Gee, thanks,” Carson said sarcastically.
“You can stretch it between a tree and the rear bumper of a truck and it’ll work really nicely,” Tank assured him.
All the men laughed.
“I’ll talk to Mr. Parks about it tonight,” Carson assured Tank. “But I don’t think he’ll mind. He has plenty of other employees to look after things. And it’s Christmas in three days. He can call it a holiday vacation.”
“I’d better get back there, it’s late,” Tank said, glancing at his watch.
“I’ll drive you,” Hayes said.
“We’ll talk again,” Cash said, shaking hands. They wished each other a Merry Christmas. Cash smiled and went back into his office. Tank and Hayes said their goodbyes to Carlie and walked out.
That left an embarrassed, heartsick Carlie at her desk alone with a ravenous wolf.
Carson stood over the desk looking down his straight nose at her. “Well done,” he said coldly. “I felt like a slab of meat on a grill.”
She looked up at him without her usual tartness. Her eyes showed the wound. “Don’t you have something earthshaking to do elsewhere?” she asked in a subdued tone and pulled out a file from her lower drawer. It humiliated her that her hands were shaking.
He saw that and felt even smaller. He hated her. It was so odd; he didn’t usually dislike women, even plain ones. But she antagonized him. She confused him, unsettled him. He didn’t like having his calm shattered. Besides that, she looked a little like Jessie...
His face closed up. His black eyes narrowed, stabbing at her.
“Do you mind?” she gritted. “I have work to do.”
“You could always call the chief out to protect you,” he drawled.
She looked up at him with quiet pride. “I can defend myself, thanks.”
He had sharp eyes. He was used to dealing with hazardous situations, with dangerous people. He saw more than most people did. His eyes strayed to her shoulder, where the T-shirt was a little tight, just over the fleshy part of her arm. Odd, the way the shirt fit. There was a wrinkle, as if the flesh underneath wasn’t quite smooth...
She put her hand over her shoulder defensively. “Was there something else you wanted?” she asked harshly.
His eyebrows arched. “No. There’s nothing here that I want, or ever will.” He even smiled. He turned and
