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At that moment she spotted Taylor’s sister, Jensen, strolling by the booth. “Jen?”
The stunning green-eyed brunette stopped and looked. “Hi, Maggie.” She walked over to the booth. “You look familiar,” she said to Jack.
“Jack Riley,” he said.
“Now I remember.” She slid Maggie a look that said she approved of her taste in men. Then Jensen looked more closely and asked, “What’s wrong, Maggie?”
“I saw you in the stands with the girls a little while ago, Jen. Did you see which way they went?”
She nodded. “I think Kasey and Stacey were on their way to the refreshment stand. Faith was headed in the direction of the stock pen.”
“Doggone it. That girl doesn’t have the good sense God gave a grass hop per.” She met Jack’s intense gaze and tried to tamp down her reaction. The last thing she wanted was him questioning anything until she had a chance to think this through.
“I’m sure Faith is fine,” Jensen assured her.
“Do me a favor, Jen? Watch my booth while I see what’s what?” Maggie opened the wooden door as she spoke.
“Sure,” the other woman answered, changing places with her. “I’ll do the best I can to hold down the fort.”
“Don’t worry. It was busy before the rodeo events started but now it’s slow. Intermission is almost over so you shouldn’t have a problem. I’ll be back in a few. Thanks, Jen. ’Bye, Jack,” she said, starting off in the direction of the stock pen.
“I’ll go with you.” He fell into step beside her.
“That’s not necessary,” she answered, hurrying to keep up with his long-legged stride.
It briefly crossed her mind to sprint away. But he had her on height, six foot one to her five foot two. And with those thick ropy thigh muscles rippling beneath his denim jeans, she didn’t have a prayer of out running him. Besides, he would wonder why and probably ask. And she couldn’t give him an answer.
When they reached the stock pen, the smell of hay and dust was strong. In spite of the haze kicked up by the animals, she had no trouble spotting Faith at the far end of the enclosure. True to form, the girl was perched precariously on the top rung of the fence, watching the activity. She faced outward, her bottom hanging over the slat, on the animal’s side. Maggie’s bad feeling just got worse.
“Faith,” she called when they were a few feet away. “Get down from there.”
The little girl saw her and started to wave, using her whole body to do it. “Hi—”
The next thing Maggie knew, her child had lost her balance and was tumbling backward into the wooden steer enclosure. Everyone’s attention was on rodeo commissioner Mitch Rafferty, standing with a microphone in the center ring. Nobody close to Faith had noticed her fall.
“Oh, God—” Maggie’s heart leaped into her throat. She felt as if she were trapped in a night mare, trying to wade through hip-deep honey to get to her daughter.
But Jack didn’t hesitate. Without a word he jumped onto the middle rung of the fence, then swung himself over and into the pen. He slapped the rumps of the milling steers to move them out of the way. In the next instant he scooped Faith up into his arms and turned his back, putting his body between the little girl and the nervous animals tossing their wide heads with the dangerous horns. Seconds later he climbed back over the fence, still holding the child.
With her arm around his strong neck, Faith smiled at Jack. “Thanks, mister.”
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Then Faith spotted her. “Maybe not. But it’s okay if you put me down now. It’s time for me to suffer dire consequences.”
“Are you hurt?” Maggie took her daughter by her upper arms and checked her freckled face for bumps and bruises. Fortunately, she didn’t find any. There were red spots on her pink shirt, but that was a cherry snowcone stain. The worst of the ordeal seemed to be the muck and straw mixed with dust that stuck to the backside of her britches.
“She’s okay.” Jack scanned the crowd. “But I think we should find her folks.”
Faith’s blue-eyed gaze—Jack’s eyes—swung from Maggie back to him. “You can stop looking for my folks,” the child said.
“What?” he asked, sounding puzzled.
“It’s 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, cool air against his hot skin. He must be losing his mind—along with the rest of himself.
Amused, Maggie shook her head. “The last thing I said to her was that if she didn’t stay within sight of the booth, she was going to suffer dire consequences,” she explained.
“So what is that?” he asked. Just curious, he told himself. It wasn’t like he felt any sympathy for the kid. He’d just met her. And she’d argued with a direct order from her commanding officer. He supposed that was normal for a kid. But he wouldn’t know about that; he didn’t do the kid thing.
But he did do consequences and he’d seen too many since he’d left Destiny. Enough to last him two life times. Pain, suffering and death. He could never forget. He couldn’t help wondering what this beautiful, innocent little girl considered dire—as far as consequences in her safe world were concerned.
“I haven’t decided yet.” Maggie met his gaze as she caught the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth—again. She was pretty nervous about something, he thought. “But thanks for reminding me.”
“I couldn’t have reminded you if Faith hadn’t mentioned it,” he pointed out. He was trying to help the kid while at the same time struggling to ignore the way Maggie’s nervous habit made him want to taste her mouth.
Would she cut the kid some slack for voluntarily bringing it up? What kind of disciplinarian was she? He’d heard that when people who broke the rules as kids had kids of their own, they tended to act like a dictator trying to prevent a military takeover. He remembered teenage Maggie sneaking out to meet him. She’d been a good kid and he’d been her walk on the wild side. Her chance at defiance. But it had meant a lot to him. It was personal. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had made a loner like him personal.
They’d gone to the same high school, and both rodeoed. Her parents had for bid den her to see him because of his bad-boy reputation. They’d been right, but that hadn’t stopped stubborn, hard headed Maggie Benson. And he still couldn’t help being glad about that. Did Maggie’s daughter take after her? Or her father?
That pulled him up short as a lassoed calf. Who was Faith’s father?
The question stirred something inside him, the ashes of feelings that had burned out a long time ago.
Maggie put her hands on her hips. “Faith Elizabeth, go stay with Jensen Stevens until I come and get you. If you don’t—”
“I know,” the girl mumbled, digging the toe of her grungy white sneaker into the red dirt. “Dire con sequences.”
“That’s right,” Maggie con firmed. “Don’t make me tell you what they are.”
With head hanging and her hands in her pockets, the kid started to walk away. Stopping suddenly, she turned and smiled, a punch-to-the-gut beautiful smile that was one hundred percent her mother. “Thanks, Jack—”
“Mr. Riley,” her mother corrected.
“Captain Riley,” he clarified. “But Jack is okay.”
Faith slid her mother a slightly rebellious look. “It was nice to meet you, Jack. Thanks for saving me. I hope I see you again. ’Bye.”
“’Bye,” he answered.
He watched Maggie watch her daughter. “How old is she?” he asked.
Her shoulders visibly tensed. She took a deep breath, then slowly released it. “Nine.”
He did the math and his heart stuttered for a moment. Then he shook his head. Maggie would have told him. He remembered her saying she’d gotten over him. Must have been right away. Because up until then, she’d filled every letter with how much she loved and missed him. She must have met someone who’d made her forget about him right after she’d gotten her letter back, the one he’d marked Return to Sender. He’d wanted her to forget about him and move on. He had no right to feel anything because she’d done just that.
So why did he have to remember that just before he’d left, they’d been as physically close as a man and woman could be? She’d insisted on giving herself to him even though he’d tried to make her see that she was too young. In his gut he’d known being with her that way was wrong. But stubborn Maggie had dug in her heels and wouldn’t take no for an answer. It would have taken more will power than he possessed to turn away from the temptation she was back then. Still was, he corrected.
He found it oddly comforting that some things didn’t change. She was a unique combination of spirit, sex appeal and sass.
And she’d written that she loved him and always would. Now he’d discovered that her declarations had been short-lived. But, even if he wished it could have been different, he wasn’t entitled to regrets. He’d made his bed ten years ago and he had to suffer the con sequences. A woman like Maggie and a child like Faith would never be possible for an empty-hearted man like him.
But he couldn’t help wondering where the girl’s father was. Maggie had asked him what he’d been up to for the past ten years. He’d wanted to know if there was anyone special in her life. But he hadn’t inquired.
His training hadn’t included polite social skills. It had been more along the lines of three hundred ways to kill a man with his bare hands. Or how to fit in without drawing attention to himself.
“Nine years old,” he repeated. He catalogued the expression on Maggie’s face and figured she probably didn’t even realize she looked defensive. The expression was identical to Faith’s when she’d decided her back was against the wall and she’d best do what her mother said. “She reminds me of you.”
“Really?” She looked surprised, and relieved. “How?”
