on principle and because he was now about twelve steps past being ornery, Declan considered doing the opposite of anything she was asking. “Give me a reason why I should stay away from my own window.”
“There’s a tiny camera attached to the big oak on the right side of your front porch.” Her breath trembled in her throat. “And they’re watching the front of the house. Maybe trying to listen, too.”
Declan shook his head, stared at her and made a circling motion with his gun for her to continue. He needed more. A lot more, but he needed that “a lot more” to make sense. So far, that wasn’t happening.
“Did you miss a dose of meds or something?” he asked.
“No.” She stretched that out a few syllables. “I’m not crazy. And I have a good reason for being here.”
He stared at her, made the circling motion with his hand again.
“I got here about a half hour ago, while you were out riding,” she said. “I’ve watched you for the past two days, so I know you take a ride this time of morning before you go in to work.”
Well, it was an answer all right, but it didn’t answer much. “You watched me?”
She nodded.
“Really?” And he didn’t take the skepticism out of it, either.
Until this morning when he’d reined in at the barn, he hadn’t felt or seen anyone watching him yesterday or the day before. Of course, he’d had a lot on his mind what with his foster father, Kirby Granger, battling cancer. The thought of losing Kirby had been weighing on him. Maybe enough for him to not notice someone stalking him.
He looked her straight in the eye. “Are you going to make me arrest you, or do you plan to keep going with that explanation?”
She made a soft sound of frustration, looked out the window again. “I’m a P.I. now. I own a small agency in San Antonio.”
She’d skipped right over the most important detail of her brief bio. “Your father’s Zander Gray, a lowlife swindling scum. I arrested him about three years ago for attempting to murder a witness who was going to testify against him, and he was doing hard time before he escaped.”
And this was suddenly becoming a whole lot clearer.
“He sent you here,” Declan accused.
“No,” she quickly answered. “I’m not even sure he’s alive.”
Okay, maybe not so clear after all.
“But my father might have been the reason they contacted me in the first place,” Eden explained. “They might have thought I’d do anything to get back at you for arresting him. I won’t.”
He made a sound of disagreement. “Since you’re trespassing and have been stalking me, convince me otherwise that you’re not here to avenge your father.”
“I’m not.” Not a whisper that time. And there was some fire in those two little words. “But someone’s trying to set me up. Earlier this week someone broke into my office, planted some fake financials on my computer and changed the password so I can’t delete them from the server. That someone is trying to make it look as if I’m funneling money to a radical militia group buying illegal firearms.”
Declan thought about that a second. “Lady, if you wanted me to investigate that, you didn’t have to follow me or come to my ranch. My office is on Main Street in town.”
Another headshake. “They didn’t hire me to go to your office.”
Mercy. It was hard to hang on to his temper with this roundabout conversation. “There it is again. That they. They put up the camera that you don’t want me to go to the window and see. So who are they?”
“I honestly don’t know.” She dodged his gaze, tried to turn away, but he took hold of her again and forced her to face him. “After I realized someone had planted that false info on my computer, I got a call from a man using a prepaid cell phone. I didn’t recognize his voice. He said if I went to the cops or the marshals, he’d release the info on my computer and I’d be arrested.”
And maybe she would be. Because some cops might assume like father, like daughter.
But was she?
Declan pushed that question aside. Right now, that didn’t matter. “This unknown male caller is the one who put the camera outside?”
“I think so. If not him, then someone working with or for him. All I know is it’s there because I saw a man wearing a ski mask installing it right after you left for your ride.”
He shook his head. “If they sent you to watch me, why use a camera?”
“Because the camera is to watch me,” she clarified. “To make sure I do what he ordered me to do.”
“And what exactly are you supposed to do?” Declan demanded.
Eden Gray shoved her hand over her Glock. “Kill you.”
Chapter Two
Declan O’Malley came at her so fast that Eden didn’t even see it coming until it was too late.
Even though he was tall and lanky, he still packed a wallop when he slammed into her, knocking her back against the wall. In the same motion, he ripped her gun from her shoulder holster, tossed it behind him and jammed his own weapon beneath her chin.
“Kill me?” His teeth were clenched now. Jaw, too. And even though there were no lights on in the living room, she had no trouble seeing the venom in his eyes.
Eden was certain there was no venom in hers. Just fear. It’d been a huge risk coming here. From everything she’d read and heard about him, Declan could be a dangerous man. Still, she hadn’t had a choice. If she was going to die, she’d rather it be at his hands than others’.
“The man who called me on the burner cell ordered me to kill you,” Eden managed to say. Though it was hard to speak with the marshal’s body pressed against her chest. It was hard to breathe, too.
But maybe Declan himself was responsible for that.
Eden had known that he fell into the drop-dead-hot category. Tall, dark, deadly. However, what she hadn’t known was that despite the danger and this insane situation, she would feel the punch of attraction. She’d never expected to feel it for this man, but it was there.
You’re losing it, Eden.
Declan O’Malley was the job. For some huge reasons, especially one, he couldn’t be anything else.
“Why does he want me dead?” he demanded.
“I don’t know. That’s the truth,” Eden added when he made a “yeah, right” sound. “He just told me if I didn’t kill you that he’d release the info he planted on my computer.”
No “yeah, right” this time, but his left eyebrow lifted. “You’d kill me rather than risk charges for funneling
