just Mom and she’s right here.”
Maggie flinched and glanced all the way up at him. His face was still care fully blank, but he tensed, as if every cell and nerve in his body had gone on high alert. She noted a vague feeling of sat is faction that she’d finally been able to detect any reaction at all in him. Unfortunately her hope that he would have no comment was swiftly shattered.
“‘Mom’?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.
Chapter 2
Maggie had a kid? A little girl.
Jack wasn’t sure why that surprised him, but it did. He’d thought about her over the years. Visions of her red curls and hazel eyes had crept into his mind at the weirdest times. Not to mention her sweet, lush lips that had done things to him he would never forget.
But he wasn’t a dope. She’d hardly been more than a girl when he’d left. He’d known she would grow up, and grow up fine, but he’d never pictured her with a kid.
“This is my daughter, Faith,” she said, hesitating slightly.
Most people wouldn’t have noticed that she missed a beat. But he wasn’t most people. He was a career soldier whose life and the lives of his men depended on him noticing even the slightest twitch. He was the computer expert, a military operative in the field who got the job done. So he noticed that Maggie was nervous and trying to hide it.
“Sweetie,” she said to the girl, “this is Jack Riley—G.G. Dot’s grandson. He’s an old friend of mine.”
“He doesn’t look old,” the little girl commented, glancing shyly at him.
Maggie slid him a slightly un com fort able look. “I meant that I’ve known him for a long time.”
“Then how come I never met him before?”
“I’ve been gone,” Jack said. In more ways than one, he thought. G.G. Dot? Must be some nickname she’d come up with for Gran. “Hi, Faith. Nice to meet you.” He held out his hand.
The child put her smaller one in his. “Nice to meet you. Why did you go away?”
“Sweetie, it’s not polite to ask questions.”
Since when? A few minutes ago Maggie had asked whatever popped into her mind. Grilled him like a raw hamburger. If he had a dollar for every time she’d said the word why, he would be on his way to financial security. He studied the two—the kid’s hair and eyes were different. But she had Maggie’s stubborn, confident stance. And curiosity. She was definitely a Maggie in the making. Like mother, like daughter.
Faith’s beautifully shaped little mouth puckered in a familiar pout. It looked suspiciously like an expression he remembered from her mother, a decade ago.
“How am I s’posed to get to know him if I don’t ask questions?” the kid asked.
“She has a point,” he said to Maggie. Although he wondered if he should tell the girl that when she actually got to know him, she wouldn’t like what she found. Nah. He wouldn’t be here that long. What could it hurt to let her keep looking at him as if he were a hero? “I joined the army,” he explained. “I’m on leave.” When she turned a puzzled frown on him, he added, “It’s like vacation.”
“Do you hafta go back?”
“Yes.”
For some reason he felt compelled to answer her questions. Was it those big blue eyes looking at him as if he was ten feet tall? Or was it something about being back in Destiny? Something that brought out memories he’d tried to forget.
Like Maggie. And the way she’d felt in his arms with her mouth soft against his.
“So you’re officially still in the military?” Maggie asked.
He nodded. “I’m here to sell Gran’s house.”
“You’re leaving soon, then,” she said.
“Probably.”
Did he see relief in her eyes? Why would she care if he stayed or left? She had once, but that was a long time ago. He hadn’t intended to look her up while he was in town. As he’d passed by earlier, hidden in the milling crowd, he’d spotted her bright-red curls. Speaking to her had been the furthest thing from his mind, but something about her had drawn him like a beacon. She was a beckoning spot of color in his black, white and gray world.
Was it her hair, the shade of stub born ness? Her huge eyes—not quite green or brown, but with flecks of gold tossed into the mix. Maybe it was that tempting little body any red-blooded man would yearn to hold. She was compact and curvy. And her snug white T-shirt with the rodeo logo didn’t hide much. He hadn’t missed the way she’d crossed her arms over her chest earlier. It was the first time in a long time he was grateful he had an eye for detail.
What had compelled him to walk over to say hello? Maybe the way she caught her full bottom lip between her teeth—he remembered she did that when she was nervous—and she was doing it now. But none of the above explained why a man trained to endure and deflect interrogation had felt compelled to answer a little girl’s questions. Not one training session had included techniques on resisting a child with big blue eyes and her mother’s curls.
“Where did you go?” Faith asked him.
With an effort he pulled his thoughts from Maggie’s sweet little shape and full sexy mouth to look at the girl. “Hmm?”
“You said you’ve been gone. Where?”
He stuck his fingertips into the pockets of his denims. “Every where.”
Maggie turned a stern look on the girl. “Faith, the rodeo is almost over. I need you to help me pack up. Then it’s home for you and bed.”
“But, Mo-om, I’m not ready.”
“I don’t recall asking if you were ready. It’s time to go.”
“But school’s out.”
“I have to work tomorrow. And you’ve got to go to camp.”
Jack wanted to tell the kid to just do it. In the army, a soldier never argued with a direct order. But this wasn’t the military. Civilian life made him feel like a hick at a tea party.
Faith kicked the dirt and defiantly looked at her mother. “But I didn’t get to thank Jack yet. He saved my life.”
That reminded him. Right after he’d plucked her out of the stock pen, the kid had said something odd. “What are ‘dire consequences’?” he asked her mother.
“What?” Maggie looked at him as if he had two heads. “I think you know what the words mean.”
“Yeah. But what specifically. When I picked her up, she saw you and said it was time to suffer dire con sequences.”
Maggie laughed, a merry, musical, sound that bumped up against his ice-cold soul. He swore he could almost hear the sound of breaking glass, and the sensation of fresh,
