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That could be dangerous. The women in that brochure were highly attractive, alluring women. And that was like waving an open invitation to the more unsavory types out there. Saying, “Here we are. Come get us. Just…take your pick.”
His stomach tightened in revulsion. Nothing angered him more than men preying on women. Not since one had taken his twenty-four-year-old sister so long ago. And killed her. They’d never learned who. Sean wouldneverforget. Nor forgive. It was why he did law enforcement in the first place.
But maybe that young man lived here, with her, and with that phenomenally alluring white-blond creature with the stunning blue eyes that had been at the desk for a few moments tonight. It clicked.Thatwas where he’d seen the white-blond hair. That other clerk. It was so unusual.
As he made his way back to the elevator, he could just see the two of them entering the elevator together. That was a very lucky man, indeed. To haveherjust for his own. Sean wished he was the kind of man women looked at like that.
He would love to have had a woman like that for his own.
But women like that—they didn’t fall for ordinary men like him at all. Men who blended in, like Sean had been trained to do so long ago. Hell, maybe it was time he admitted it to himself. Sean was lonely. He and his wife? It had been six years since she’d left him, taking their boys with her. And he wondered—was there something he could have done differently? Made it work somehow?
He had tried—he truly had. But he had been away from home so often, and the life of a law enforcement spouse could be so hard. He didn’t blame her for leaving him for someone else. Not really.
Sean returned to his room, heart heavy and feeling a little broken.
Maybe it was time to move on? Put the marshals and the Browns behind him?
Have a different kind of life for himself? He’d be forty soon. Was this what he wanted for the rest of his years? Going from place to place—with no one even remembering his name? Barely spending any time withhisfamily, while protecting those like the Browns?
Stan was really missing his boys right now. They were getting older, getting close to the more difficult teen years.
Maybe it was time.
Maybe.
Once he figured this out for LaDonna and the girls, he was going to seriously consider it. Maybe it was time for a change.
20
Ben barely cameout of his room unless he was wanting food. One thing Dusty could say—the man was very elemental. Food, shower, heat—and he was good. She had thought there was somethingdifferentin how he had looked at her that night when she’d been restocking the pool. Now Dusty was convinced she had been imagining it.
Still, the man hadn’t emerged from his room intwo days. She was sure of it. No one had seen him at all. She was about to do a proof-of-life check on that man. Just to be sure.
She took a load of clean towels up to his room. Not that she needed the excuse, but he’d been in there for two days. The only signs he was even still there were the food orders that had come to the dining room a couple of times. But as Marin had pointed out when she suggested Dusty check on the man—anyonecould have been ordering that food. No one had seen Ben since the room service cart had been left outside his door. They hadn’t even seenhimthen.
Her bestie would never forgive her, Marin had pointed out, if Dusty let a troll or an ogre get Nikki’s big brother. Dusty was there at his door now, just to escape her cousin. Marin was being more than a little bit annoying lately.
Constantly teasing Dusty aboutBen.About there being something between them. As if Marin had completely fallen off the deep end or something.
Dusty knocked. Waited. That man had to be in there. She just knew it. She’d do her duty to her best friend, make sure their hotel guest had all that he needed, and then she would escape back to her suite. After grabbing something for her own dinner from the dining room. She was starving.
All thoughts of food went right out of her head when the door swung open and a bare chested man stood there, staring at her.
OMG, that man had the most defined chest she had ever seen.
He had a six-pack. An actual six-pack. He wasn’t all bulky and body-builder, nor was he all oiled up and sleek. But Ben Tyler was inexcellentphysical shape.
Her fingers were just itching to run over every perfect muscle.
“Hey, babe. You’re just in time.” He took the towels from her hands. Her limp, lifeless hands. And used one to pat at the beads still clinging to that chest. He had just the perfect amount of dark-brown chest hair. Nothing gross and Bigfoot hairy at all. Ben Tyler was a Man. With a capital M.
And the world had gone completely insane. “I brought you...towels.”
Lame. The lamest thing she had said to anyone in her entire life. Dusty shook herself back together and made herself act normal again. She never would have believed pimply-faced Ben would turn intothis.”I am here to check on you to make sure you weren’t eaten by trolls or ogres or some blend of the two Marin assured me exists. So that Nikki won’t hold your demise against me personally forever.”
“Come in, babe. I just finished the scene that has been bugging me for two days. It has some romance in it. Nothing like I’ve ever written before either. I’m pretty pumped.” He grinned at her. That perfect Ben grin. It told her one thing—he was very happy with himself. Ben grabbed a T-shirt off the bed—anEat at Flo’s Masterson Dinershirt he’d gotten from Marin, she suspected—and pulled it over all that perfect man muscle.
Dusty wanted to cry.
