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“Why do you have a gun?”
He huffed out a sigh. “For protection, baby. That’s all. Just protection.”
Relief made her muscles sag. She collapsed back on the blanket and slung an arm across her eyes.
“Belle? I’m sorry. I should have told you I was carrying a weapon.”
“I know plenty of people do. Only…I thought they made people check any weapons for the weekend?”
His silence dragged on for ten seconds too long.
She scrambled off the blanket and started feeling around for her discarded PJs.
“Belle, stop. Calm down.”
“I was dumb. Not just dumb—stupid. We’re strangers. I don’t know anything about you and I’m alone in a hayloft with you having sex?” She shoved her fingers through her hair.
His body heat washed over her naked skin as he stepped close again. “I promise I’m not up to no good. I realize that having a weapon concealed from you and all the other guests seems weird, but I have good reason for carrying it.”
Fireworks continued to explode outside, making it difficult to hear his quiet but urgent words.
She had to get out of here. She’d fallen into a terrible mess once already with Ethan. Had she been naïve enough to do it a second time? Who was Declan, anyway? She didn’t know anything about him.
Well, she wasnotfalling into another guy’s trap.
She found her garments and threw them on. The only thought in her head was to get away.
ChapterEleven
Declan stared at the computer screen, eyes burning with strain. After three solid hours of checking security footage from the Christmas weekend, he hadn’t spotted a single thing to raise alarm.
He scrubbed a knuckle over his brow where an ache had begun but even digging into the tense band pulled taut across his forehead didn’t ease the pain.
“Declan?”
His eyes shifted from the group of guests he was staring at and landed on a lithe blonde in a sleek black suit standing beside the desk.
She had to be part of the WEST crew. Otherwise she wouldn’t be in the office.
“Yes.” The word came out with a note of caution because what he wanted to say was very different from how he should act. He wanted to be left alone, especially after how things ended with Belle in the hayloft.
Her eyes traveled over his stubbled, unshaven jaw to the crumpled shirt he hadn’t bothered to change after scooping it up off the floor of the hayloft. He’d picked off a few bits of hay and come straight to the office to take Casey’s place.
“You definitely look like a man who’s seen battle.”
He swung his chair to focus on her. “Excuse me, but who are you?”
“Madeline. You were supposed to train with me but you got called away on that op.”
“Damn. Yeah. Sorry about that.”
Madeline and one of the founders of WEST, Mathias Trace, ran a security team training facility in Stone Pass. Not only did they provide cutting-edge training to the WEST Protection team, but other security agencies all over the country sent their people to them.
She breezed over to the desk beside his, pulled out the chair and turned it to face him. When she sat, she smoothed a hand over the thigh of her pants to remove any creases. Next to her perfect appearance, he felt like he’d just limped off that battlefield she mentioned.
He glanced at the screen again for the main reason why he felt so damn rough. But after hours and hours of watching for Belle to appear, she hadn’t.
He also knew she hadn’t left the ranch. Not yet anyway. That bunkhouse door was one camera view he had a hard time tearing his gaze away from.
