No wonder someone was trying to keep the officer from her quest. His respect for Maren ratcheted up. He decided, then and there, that sticking close to the K-9 officer was the right thing to do, because she needed somebody watching her back here and now. She’d mentioned she had backup but they weren’t on scene at the moment.
Part of him looked forward to sparring with the pretty officer.
Not good, Dawson.
The last thing he needed was to let emotions of any sort cloud his judgment. He’d faltered on that score before, receiving a deep, scalding wound that had yet to heal. When it came to women, he didn’t seem to have any common sense. Best to just bolster his barriers so they couldn’t be breached.
He would keep things professional between them. He couldn’t forget his own agenda. Sticking close to Maren would lead him to Opal and to his ultimate goal of taking down Shadow.
He didn’t want to think about Maren and her twin getting caught in the cross fire.
THREE
Maren stomped toward her Bronco parked in the lot of the clinic with Haven at her side. Her blood boiled. This whole situation had turned into a complication that was equally upsetting and painful.
Her sister.
Alive?
Did she dare hope?
Though she was satisfied she’d been able to confirm Dr. Derek Rolls’s last-known place of employment, seeing a woman who looked like her sister—her heart bumped—who could have been her sister—had sent her into a tailspin.
And now to learn this DEA agent was hunting Opal like she was a criminal?
Aware of Colt and his dog, a beautiful German shorthaired pointer he called Rusk, trailing behind them, she stopped short of her car and turned to face them.
Haven, apparently mistaking Maren’s upset for a sign of danger, moved to stand in front of her as if guarding her from an oncoming threat.
“Friend,” she murmured, letting the dog know to stand down. Haven sat but stayed in front of her.
Colt stopped, with his dog at his heels. The pointer sat with his tongue lolling to the side.
“Why are you following me?” she demanded to know.
Arching an eyebrow, he said, “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
His matter-of-fact tone grated on her nerves.
“That’s not necessary,” she said. “The shooter is long gone. We don’t even know why he was shooting at the clinic.”
“I think we do know why,” Colt said. “You’re digging into a very dangerous organization.”
She hated to admit the real possibility that someone connected to the illegal adoption scheme was targeting her. But how anyone could have known she was coming here was a mystery. She’d only learned of the lead last night from Eva Gomez, tech analyst for the task force, and then driven to the clinic this morning. “What do you know about it?”
“Not as much as I would like,” he said. “Let me help you.”
Her defenses rose. Did he think she couldn’t handle her job? Who was he to judge her? “I have a whole task force helping,” she said. “What could you do?”
“We both know your sister’s not dead,” he said. “I found her once. I can find her again.”
A lancing pain struck her to the core. Why would Opal make her suffer? “We know no such thing. Just because that woman—” Even as the words left her mouth, she knew they were a lie. It had been Opal. But now she was in the wind, once again lost to Maren. But not dead. She took a shuddering breath. The exhaustion she’d been fighting returned. “Why were you following Opal?”
Colt’s eyebrows twitched. “You do believe she was your sister.”
Blowing out a breath, she admitted, “For now, I will allow there’s a good possibility that Opal is alive.”
The thought conjured up a ton of questions, alongside a tsunami of hurt. If her sister was alive, why would she make Maren go through the ordeal of believing she was dead? Especially after the way they’d lost their parents to a car crash when they were eighteen. And then their uncle who’d taken them in had had a heart attack. Her twin was the only family she had left. Maren hoped that if she were open and helpful regarding Opal, then maybe the DEA would give her more information on her sister’s case.
