alone to think. Of course, she followed him everywhere, so he had to go to his only private space anywhere at the moment—the bathroom. The second time he stood in there with one hand against the wall mirror and mentally listed out all the reasons making a move on a prickly woman who carried a gun was a dumb idea.
Mark clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “You can’t sleep with her.”
“Whoa.” Ben held up his hands and tried to deliver his best shocked look. “Where did that come from?”
“Thirty-eight years of seeing that stupid smile on your face and the past twenty plus watching how you operate with women.”
Ben balanced his hips against the counter and swished his drink around in the bottle. “Despite what everyone in the courthouse thinks, I’ve never had a relationship with someone who works for me.”
“So?”
“What, you don’t believe me?” That possibility hit Ben like a sucker punch. Through everything that happened in the past, they believed in and supported each other. They owed the lives they had now to that fact.
“I mean ‘so’ as in Callie works for me. Your impressive statistic isn’t relevant.”
Ben relaxed, but not fully. He had hoped Mark would miss that distinction. “What’s your point?”
“She’s there to protect you.”
She excelled at distracting him. Ben didn’t buy into the rest. He could watch out for himself. Had been doing it for years no matter the cost. “So you keep saying.”
“I am not paying her to slide all over you.”
“I’m not sure which one of us is the whore in that scenario you’re describing, but for the record, I’m outraged on Callie’s behalf,” Ben said in his most sarcastic voice.
“She’s off limits.”
“Come on. She’s a grown woman and can make her own decisions.”
All the humor faded from Mark’s face. “Not her, Ben.”
Ah, shit. All the oxygen sucked right out of the room. Ben could handle Mark’s interference at work. Ben understood where the concern came from and forced back his refusals to let Mark win that one. But Ben refused to fight his brother over a woman. They’d never done that before, despite what Mark might think, and were too old to do it now.
“You want her,” Ben said.
“What? No.” Mark’s eyes grew wide enough to take over his face. “I mean, she’s fine. Don’t get me wrong. I have a pair of fucking eyes, so I can see how good she looks.”
Mark could get off that subject damn quick, as far as Ben was concerned. “So?”
Mark squirmed in his seat as he picked up his bottle and set it back down again. And then repeated the exercise four more times.
The fog cleared from Ben’s brain. He got it. “This isn’t about Callie.”
“It’s just that—”
Ben forced his hands to unclench from the counter behind him. “You’re stuck on someone else.”
Mark’s anger came fast. “That’s over.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“We’re not talking about my love life. We’re on yours.” Mark shoved the laptop and everything in front of him off to the side and then started to pace. “Look, there are about a hundred women who would love to say they got nailed by the popular young judge. You’ve got power, and that stupid robe seems to drive the courthouse ladies wild. You need a good time? Pick one of them.”
Ben tried to think of something less appealing. “I can’t date anyone who works for me or in the same building.”
Mark stopped. Even gave a forced smile. “Then you have your answer.”
“To what?”
“Callie works there. Right in your office, in fact. By your logic, she’s in restricted territory.”
“She doesn’t really.”
Mark shrugged. “Besides, she probably isn’t interested.”
“What about my aphrodisiac robe?”
“You’re not her type.”
Ben refused to ask. This amounted to brotherly warfare. He set his empty bottle in the sink and thought about…Hell. He turned back around. “What’s her type?”
“A guy who’s smart enough to take a bodyguard without whining when one’s offered,” Mark said as if he’d been waiting to fire off that response.
“You’re wrong.”
“About?”
“Almost everything, but mostly about Callie’s feelings. She wants me back.” Ben was counting on being right about that important fact.
“She better not.”
Ben was thinking the exact opposite.
Chapter Four
The next day, Callie stepped off the elevator and rushed down the hallway leading to the private judges’ chambers. That was her deal with Mark. They would exchange the responsibility for Ben no later than seven thirty each work morning. The fact the plan worked a bit like a kid’s day care drop-off made her smile. She bet Ben loved that.
But funny or not, she vowed to arrive even earlier each day and get settled in. Since she didn’t have any real paperwork to do, getting ready for work consisted of walking through the office’s four rooms and reception area to make sure no one else was there. The only barrier between the elevator and the office was a sign at the top of the hallway that read “RESTRICTED AREA” and warned of electronic monitoring. Yeah, that would stop the bad guys. Stern written warnings always scared men who liked to blow things up.
Idiots.
She made a mental note to go a second round with Sheriff Danbury over the need for a guard station on each of the floors where the judges had offices. She knew the man would ignore her, but there was an “I told you so” moment coming and she planned to be ready for it. The truth of looming disaster gnawed at her gut.
Her shoes tapped against the marble floors as she walked past the stupid sign. There was something unsettling about knowing security guards sat in a room somewhere in the building watching her walk. Kind of made her want to do something inappropriate, but since the gossip about her new position with Ben had already started rumbling in the women’s restrooms and at the tables in the cafeteria she skipped the offensive gestures. It had been hard enough to make a salad under all those watchful eyes at lunch yesterday. No need to make people think she had an insanity issue on top of having a mysterious job.
She stopped at the far end of the hall near the emergency door to the stairwell. The locked door on the right
