How better to stay below suspicion where the wrong men were concerned than by employing the worst gossips in the county? Men and women who knew or worked with the very men that Ethan Cooper and his bouncers watched on a nightly basis.
“So when did all this begin?” Sarah propped her cheek in her hand as she stared back at Sheila. “Come on. Give deets. Ethan so refuses to allow me to take an interest in his bouncers’ buff bodies.”
Sheila winced as the bouncer behind the bar, Morgan, stared at his boss’s wife in amazement. He was only seconds from blushing, and Sheila had a feeling he rarely, if ever, blushed.
“I’m not giving you deets, Sarah,” Sheila informed her, well aware of the fact that the other woman would be horrified if she did attempt to do so.
Sarah pretended to pout before giving Sheila a subtle wink and turning to Morgan once more. “Perhaps Morgan will satisfy our curiosity then.”
Morgan lifted his gaze from where he was cleaning a whiskey glass and stared back at Sarah with an expression of baffled concern. And for the smallest second, Sheila could have sworn she saw something more there.
Did Ethan Cooper’s new bouncer have a crush on Mrs. Cooper?
“Curiosity regarding what?” Morgan asked warily.
Sheila almost laughed. That wasn’t concern. Morgan was bordering on fear. It was one of those rare times anything managed to bother him.
He was saved at the last second, though, as Casey and Cooper stepped from the office. Cooper took one look at Morgan’s face, then at Sarah’s, and shook his head with a chuckle.
“Is she causing trouble, Morgan?” Cooper drawled with an edge of laughter
Morgan grunted. “She’s dangerous, Coop. You should lock her up for our safety.”
Sarah smiled back at him sweetly, but Sheila was aware that the other woman had noticed where Casey stopped. And she was very, very curious indeed.
Because Casey had stopped right behind Sheila.
Then his arms slid around her and a small kiss was pressed to the top of her head.
“Evening, sweetheart,” he drawled. “Are you having fun out here with Sarah?”
She barely managed to hide her shock at the public display of possession. She had never, ever known of Nick Casey to show such attachment to any other woman. Neither in public nor a hint of it having been shown in private.
“Observing Sarah is always fun,” she assured him as she fought to ignore both Sarah and Cooper’s curiosity.
“I live to entertain,” Sarah sighed, her dimples peeking out again.
“Then you will live a very long, happy life,” Sheila informed the other woman as she held back her own laugh.
It was hard to pay attention to the conversation, though, as Casey stood behind her. His hands rested low on her stomach; placed flat, they drew her closer to him, holding her firmly as her back pressed against his torso.
She could feel the strength and the warmth of him, as well as the sensuality that seemed to wrap around her. Against the small of her back she could feel the jutting arousal contained by his jeans, and in his hands, the firm strength that anchored her to him.
She had never felt that before with Casey. As though he were trying to seduce her with more than the pleasure he gave her body.
“Oh yes, Sheila—Cooper and I received our invitations to your father’s barbeque this month. I can’t wait. I hear the Rutledge party is the event of the year,” Sarah stated happily as a glimmer of excitement filled her vivacious brown eyes.
And Sheila felt a twinge of remorse that she had been unaware Sarah had lived in the county for more than a year before Ethan had finally claimed her. Everyone in the county was invited to the Rutledge barbeque. Catered, rousing, and filled with food and laughter, the yearly party was Douglas Rutledge’s way of giving back to the community his wife had loved.
It had been their hometown, but it had been Eleanor Rutledge who had wanted to come home when Douglas retired. She had died six months before that retirement of a heart attack.
“Well, it’s an event, anyway,” Sheila agreed, her smile almost shaking as she felt Casey settle his chin at her shoulder.
“Do you have a partner for the Rutledge party yet?” he murmured at her ear. “Or the ball?”
Sheila swallowed tightly.
The barbeque was her mother’s dream, but the ball a week later was the captain’s baby. Inviting officers of all the military branches as well as political and private sector law enforcement officials. The ball was the captain’s excuse to be more than the stern, supposedly disillusioned army captain whose friends were generals, admirals, and senators.
It was also his chance to revel, even if privately, in the fact that the job he had accepted while in his prime, the one that had required he remain a captain rather than advancing, was succeeding.
The position of head of the National Covert Information Network.
“I don’t have a date yet,” she answered quietly. She had never had a date for her father’s balls unless she did the inviting. She had stopped doing the inviting the summer she turned nineteen. And she’d gone alone ever since.
“You do now,” Casey informed her as her eyes narrowed on him in the mirror behind the bar.
He stared back at her, his gaze heavy-lidded, his expression reminding her of the night he had taken her on the bar. That memory was seriously messing with her ability to stay angry with him.
“Do I really?” she murmured, aware of the fact that Sarah, Ethan, and Morgan were attempting to carry on another conversation despite their rabid curiosity.
“What do you think?” The look in his eyes dared
