Secret Service Dad
Mollie Molay
Clear and Present…Trouble?Mike Wheeler needed to look no further than Charlene "Charlie" Norris to find the cause of the pain in his–leg. Mixing it up with a diplomat one minute, then chasing after an exotic pet the next, Charlie was an international incident just waiting to happen. The woman was pure trouble. With her long, shapely legs and cheery attitude, she had a way of turning his wellordered world upside down every time their paths crossed. Mike already had his hands full, juggling single fatherhood and a danger-filled job. Now he'd pulled bodyguard duty for the free-spirited blonde who made his blood race and lonely heart stir. But was Charlie really mother and wife material? And was Mike prepared to become a secret service husband?Grooms in Uniform: Serving their country, as they follow their hearts…
Blond, blue-eyed security risk…
Mike caught sight of Charlie and as if on cue, his leg started to ache…. The pain reminded him of the night he’d been wounded in the line of duty.
In his book, trouble, Charlie and his aching leg were synonymous. He wasn’t afraid of what she might do next; he was afraid of a loose cannon, and that description custom-fit Charlie Norris to a T.
There was another concern, Mike thought uneasily as he made his way through the crowded room. He was way too fascinated with Charlie for his own good. It just might prove a fatal attraction in his line of work as an agent in the Secret Service…because Charlie Norris was a magnet for trouble!
Dear Reader,
Millionaire. Prince. Secret agent. Doctor. If any—or all—of these men strike your fancy, well…you’re in luck! These fabulous guys are waiting for you in the pages of this month’s offerings from Harlequin American Romance.
His best friend’s request to father her child leads millionaire Gabe Deveraux to offer a bold marriage proposal in My Secret Wife by Cathy Gillen Thacker, the latest installment of THE DEVERAUX LEGACY series. A royal request makes Prince Jace Carradigne heir to a throne—and in search of his missing fiancée—in Mindy Neff’s The Inconveniently Engaged Prince, part of our ongoing series THE CARRADIGNES: AMERICAN ROYALTY. (And there are royals galore to be found when the series comes to a sensational ending in Heir to the Throne, a special two-in-one collection by Kasey Michaels and Carolyn Davidson, available next month wherever Harlequin books are sold.)
Kids, kangaroos and a kindhearted woman are all in a day’s work for cool and collected secret agent Mike Wheeler in Secret Service Dad, the second book in Mollie Molay’s GROOMS IN UNIFORM series. And a big-city doctor attempts to hide his true identity—and his affections—for a Montana beauty in The Doctor Wore Boots by Debra Webb, the conclusion to the TRADING PLACES duo.
So be sure to catch all of these wonderful men this month—and every month—as you enjoy their wonderful love stories from Harlequin American Romance.
Happy reading,
Melissa Jeglinski
Associate Senior Editor
Harlequin American Romance
Secret Service Dad
Mollie Molay
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To June Arias for introducing me to the world of kangaroos. If there are any errors, they are solely mine.
Thank you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
After working for a number of years as a logistics contract administrator in the aircraft industry, Mollie Molay turned to a career she found far more satisfying—writing romance novels. Mollie lives in Northridge, California, surrounded by her two daughters and eight grandchildren, many of whom find their way into her books. She enjoys hearing from her readers and welcomes comments. You can write to her at Harlequin Books, 300 East 42nd St., 6th Floor, New York, NY 10017.
Books by Mollie Molay
HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE
560—FROM DRIFTER TO DADDY
597—HER TWO HUSBANDS
616—MARRIAGE BY MISTAKE
638—LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON
682—NANNY & THE BODYGUARD
703—OVERNIGHT WIFE
729—WANTED: DADDY
776—FATHER IN TRAINING
799—DADDY BY CHRISTMAS
815—MARRIED BY MIDNIGHT
839—THE GROOM CAME C.O.D.
879—BACHELOR-AUCTION BRIDEGROOM
897—THE BABY IN THE BACK SEAT
938—THE DUCHESS & HER BODYGUARD* (#litres_trial_promo)
947—SECRET SERVICE DAD* (#litres_trial_promo)
ALL-POINTS BULLETIN
The following fugitive is wanted by the MCLEAN, VIRGINIA, POLICE DEPARTMENT
WANTED
“Boomer” Norris
(aka “Joey”)
Norris is unarmed, but can turn overly affectionate if cornered. He has been on the run since escaping from the private zoo owned by Charlene “Charlie” Norris earlier this week. If you have any information regarding this individual or have knowledge of his whereabouts, please contact Sergeant Hawkins of the minor crime support division, McLean Police Department.
Contents
Prologue (#u521bc385-d98e-5cfb-ae81-2df3b2f82060)
Chapter One (#ufc9e1d0b-c8df-5ed7-ab59-70cb11d326e0)
Chapter Two (#u59be6aaf-70ef-5fac-90f7-b6ae33ba83ca)
Chapter Three (#u7fd69e88-a6c3-5c69-92d0-c2ab29277f2b)
Chapter Four (#u6a73d5fb-a9d4-565c-a06c-41a85dfd05f9)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue
Europe, the Country of Baronovia, February
Flailing helplessly, U.S. Secret Service agent Mike Wheeler tumbled to the ground. Moments before, he’d been idly checking out security measures around the palace where the wedding of Duchess Mary Louise to Commander Wade Stevens of the U.S. Navy was to take place in a few hours. Now, he was lying on his back in a bed of carefully tended petunias and staring up into a pair of startled blue eyes.
“Oh no! I’m so sorry! I’m afraid I wasn’t looking where I was going. Are you okay? Here, let me help you up!” A pair of manicured feminine hands pulled at his tuxedo jacket.
Mike bit back the paralyzing pain in his injured leg and grimly eyed his attacker, Charlie Norris, a fellow American and a member of the wedding party. She was the last person he wanted to meet.
He took a deep breath and struggled to his feet. Getting shot in the line of duty three months ago had been the pits. Getting knocked over by the woman who inadvertently had played a large part in the events that had led to the shooting didn’t make the pain any easier to bear.
“Are you sure you don’t need any help?” She took a corner of her silk stole, wet it between her lips and tried to scrub something off his chin.
To his chagrin, whether he approved of her or not, his body warmed at her touch. And tightened at the sight of full, tempting lips so close to his own. He grabbed her hand before things could become more personal.
“Thank you, no,” he said tightly. “Give me a minute. I’ll be fine.”
She waited hopefully, her concern evident. Considering how he felt about the way trouble seemed to follow Charlie and wind up affecting him, he would have been just as happy to see her leave.
“I understand that there are over two hundred rooms in the palace and that it is surrounded by hundreds of acres of grounds,” he said when he could breath freely again. “How did you manage to pick precisely the same two square feet of ground I was standing on to stumble about on?”
She colored. “I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking.”
“That’s the problem,” he agreed as he tried to balance himself squarely on two feet. He hadn’t approved of the lady’s methods as the concierge of Blair House even before she ignored security rules to aid and abet the forbidden courtship and subsequent fairy-tale marriage of today’s unlikely bride and groom. He didn’t approve of her any more now.
Charlie bristled. She had been about to tell Mike she’d barreled into him simply because she had slipped down the sloping lawn. “The only mistake I made was to head for the only friendly face I thought I recognized out here,” she said. “Strike the word friendly. And furthermore,” she went on as she tried to balance on one foot, “it looks as if I’ve sprained my ankle. All you have to show for this accident are a few grass stains!” Turning to leave, she teetered and flailed at empty air.
Instinctively, Mike reached to catch Charlie before she fell. Too late—she stumbled, squealed and, to his discomfort, landed squarely in his arms.
He closed his eyes and mentally counted to ten. However misguided Charlie Norris might be, and no matter how wary he was of what she might do next, she was every bit as soft and warm as he’d been afraid she would turn out to be.
Chapter One
Washington, D.C., April
It was said by some that Washington’s Blair House was jinxed.
Now that it looked as if a second State Department guest within six months had become the target of a disgruntled foreign nationalist, Secret Service agent Mike Wheeler was prepared to believe the rumor. At least this shooting, thank God, hadn’t happened on his watch.
For some reason, whenever Mike thought of Blair House, his thoughts turned to the Blair House concierge, Charlene Norris, dubbed Charlie by all who knew her. She was trouble, blond, blue-eyed trouble. If that wasn’t bad enough, she usually got him involved in whatever trouble she managed to get herself into.
His fears had been realized when he reported for duty that day. The foyer of the residence was teeming with activity. The air smelled of cordite. Cell phones were ringing. Sirens screamed outside, Secret Service agents, anyone with the credentials to get in the front door milled around the reception room where, to his dismay, it looked as if another attempted assassination had taken place.
His practiced eye took in a wounded man who lay sprawled, groaning on the marble entry floor clutching his bleeding shoulder. An agitated man dressed in a foreign military uniform stood handcuffed in the custody of two D.C. policemen. The cuffed man was protesting at the top of his lungs, but the police seemed to be ignoring their suspect. One D.C. lawman gingerly held a smoking gun by two fingers while a third was preparing to fit the gun into a plastic evidence bag.
Off to the side, six uniformed staff members stood gaping at the scene being played out in front of them. Mike didn’t blame them. He could hardly believe it himself.
He cut through the mob scene until he caught sight of Charlie Norris. She looked as if she was in a state of shock. There was blood on one of her wrists and on the skirt of her tailored beige suit. He was concerned at the sight, but not surprised. He’d had the sinking feeling that somehow she would be in the thick of any action, hadn’t he?
And not for the first time.
As if on cue, his leg started to ache. The pain reminded him of the night a disenchanted Baronovian nationalist had attempted to assassinate Prince Alexis of Baronovia and his daughter, the duchess Mary Louise, the night he’d been wounded in the line of duty.
In his book, trouble, Charlie and his aching leg were synonymous.
He wasn’t actually afraid of what she might do next. Almost half his size, he could have handled two of her. Besides, problem-solving was his job. What he was afraid of was a loose cannon, a description that custom-fit Charlie Norris to a T.
There was another concern, he thought uneasily as he made his way through the crowded room to where the shooting had taken place. He was too fascinated with Charlie for his own good. A fatal attraction if there ever was one, he thought unhappily.
Gazing at Charlie today, he realized that Charlie Norris, the coltish figure from the Baronovia caper, obviously was a magnet for trouble. Her hair was summer sunbeams, her eyes the color of clear blue summer skies. Used as a weapon, à la the famed Helen of Troy, her blue eyes could have sunk a thousand battleships. But instead of her usual professional, tailored appearance, tonight she looked distraught and disheveled.
Normally, Charlie had the most sinful and inviting smile he’d ever encountered on a woman. And, to his professional way of thinking, the darndest way of talking herself out of any problem she managed to get herself into. She wasn’t smiling now. After a glance around at the chaotic activity, he couldn’t blame her.
He bit back his frustration as he came up along her side. To his chagrin, his body reminded him he hadn’t been with a woman for a while; not since before the Baronovian shooting. Why in the hell he remembered this now, in a room full of people that resembled a scene out of a TV mystery comedy, beat the hell out of him. Maybe it was the excitement of the moment—he always seemed to feel high when danger threatened. If that weren’t so, he never would have joined the Secret Service nor would he have met Charlie.
Mike ground to a halt and turned his gaze on her. From the distressed expression on her face, he knew she had to have been present when all hell had broken loose.
“What?” she said before he could open his mouth. She glared at him from under narrowed eyebrows and crossed her arms in front of her as if to put some distance between them. She certainly didn’t look pleased to see him. Maybe it was difficult for her to read his opinion of the situation.
He might have been more surprised at her question, if he’d been paying closer attention. The truth was, he’d been so busy admiring the dimple on her left cheek he hadn’t been concentrating.
Wrong.
He knew better than most that the best defense, when you’ve painted yourself into a corner, was a good offense. After his experience with Charlie in Baronovia, he knew firsthand she was damn good at the offensive end of the game. To complicate matters, she made him feel guilty for not trusting her even when he had nothing to feel guilty about.
“Wheeler! Over here!” a loud voice cut through the noise and confusion.
Mike glanced over to where several Secret Service men and women were huddled in conference. His assistant gestured for him to come over. “In a minute,” he called, then turned back to Charlie. “What happened here?”
She glared at him, her blue eyes blazing. “You mean, what did I have to do with it, don’t you?”
“You’ve got it.” Damn, that fierce look cooled any sexual fantasies he might have entertained. Just as well. Another thing he’d learned the hard way was that it was never wise to fraternize with the people you worked with. It didn’t look as if she were interested in fraternizing, anyway. If looks could freeze, he would have been an icicle by now. He jammed his hands into his pockets and waited for the fur to fly.
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” she said and gestured to the handcuffed swarthy man who by now had lost his voice and was glowering at her. “All I did was introduce General Negri here, to Mr. Oberhammer of the visiting United Nations’ contingent over there.” She gestured to a man who lay on the marble floor in the entryway. “At the general’s request, I might add.”
“That’s all that happened?”
“No,” she answered breathlessly. “That was only the beginning. The general pulled a gun. At first I thought it had to be joke.”
“A joke?” Mike glanced over at the gun. “That doesn’t look like a toy gun to me.”
She plastered her hands on her hips before he got any further. “How was I to know the man was going to start shooting?”
Mike glanced at the man who lay moaning on the marble floor. “Have you called 911?”
“Of course. That’s part of my job.”
Mike nodded curtly. From his previous experiences with Charlie, he had the feeling she wrote her job description as she went along. As for the wounded man, from the look of things, he would keep until the paramedics arrived. “Anyone else get hurt?”
“Well,” she went on, brushing her hand across her forehead, seemingly unaware her wrist was bleeding. “I guess you could say so.” She aimed a shaking finger at a ceramic bas relief sculpture over the mantel that depicted a trio of angels holding hands and dancing across a cloud-filled sky. A bullet hole was visible where one of the angel’s belly button would have been. “He took the other bullet.”
“Get real,” he snapped to keep himself from laughing. Where else but here would a plaster angel have taken a bullet in its belly button? On the other hand, it wasn’t all that had happened. The bullet had apparently grazed Charlie’s hand in passing. “This is serious.”
“Yes, I know,” she said in a shaking voice. “I couldn’t believe it myself. But it’s true. I tried to grab the gun when I realized things were getting serious.” She stopped to catch her breath. “Anyway, it’s a little late to get upset about it now, isn’t it?”
“You haven’t learned much since the last time you set fire to a powder keg, have you?” Mike growled. He pulled a fresh white handkerchief from his back pocket and wrapped it around her right wrist. Thank goodness she was shaken enough to let him do it.
“You could have checked the guy’s credentials before you made the introduction,” he went on, surprised at the tender feeling that came over him as he wrapped the makeshift bandage around her slender wrist. That was Charlie all right. A mixed bag of sensuality and danger.
“It’s my job to introduce guests to each other, Mr. Wheeler, not to interrogate or to search them,” she retorted. “Among other things, I am the official hostess here. It says so in the fine print of my contract.”
Mike gave up. If Charlie hadn’t learned by now how to run a tight ship, nothing he could say was going to change her.
The alternative was to keep a close eye on her. To see to it she stopped trusting anyone who came along with some innocent request or another. Especially if they wore the uniform of a foreign country.
Somehow the prospect of watching over Charlie didn’t seem to bother him as much as it might have—if only he’d had his head on straight. Hell, he’d be the first to admit that she drove him nuts at the same time she fascinated the hell out of him. Without her, his job as the Blair House Special-Agent-in-Charge would have been boring as hell.
Not that he was looking for excitement. At thirty-five, he was looking forward to a peaceful period in his life. At least until his son Jake reached puberty.
“Don’t leave the premises,” he said and turned away. “I may want to talk to you later.”
“That’s what you think,” she answered. She gestured to the splatter of blood on her beige skirt. “I’m going home to change as soon as I can get out of here. And as for you, Mr. Wheeler, I don’t care if I never lay eyes on you again.”
To her chagrin, Mike winked and went on his way.
She grimly watched him stride over to the group waiting for him. If ever a man had the ability to get under her skin, it was this take-charge, go-by-the-book, stuffy Mike Wheeler. A man who apparently had never forgiven her for passing Commander Wade Stevens’s address to Prince Alexis’s turncoat bodyguard months ago. How was she to have known the man had been out to kidnap the prince’s daughter, Mary Louise? Or that an attempted assassination of the prince would follow?
She would have really been annoyed with Mike Wheeler tonight, if, heaven help her, she weren’t so attracted to him.
His hair, cut in the approved military style, topped a fit body that had to be the result of daily trips to the Blair House gym. As if that weren’t enough to feed his ego, he was tall, dark and, except for the scar at the side of his chin, handsome. Handsome enough to interest any woman foolish enough to fall for a lawman.
As for the Secret Service, from what she had observed in the two years she’d been working as the Blair House concierge, the profession was not only dangerous and demanding, it took all of a man’s time and attention, and sometimes his life. With her late father as an example, she didn’t want any part of it.
Not that she knew much about Mike. If he had any kind of a home life, she wasn’t aware of it. He kept his private life, what there was of it, to himself.
Which somehow seemed to make him more of a challenge.
She shook the cobwebs out of her mind. She would do well to remember that she wasn’t prepared to fall in love with any man she’d kiss goodbye in the morning and suffer the uncertainty of not knowing if he would live to come back to her at night. She never wanted to suffer as her mother had after her policeman father had been killed attempting to foil a bank robbery.
She wasn’t going to let herself fall in love with a lawman. Not even if he managed to make her hormones snap to attention whenever she laid eyes on him.
No way.
What really irked the heck out of her was the realization that he acted as if she couldn’t be relied on.
“Sorry to bother you at a time like this, Miss Norris,” a voice broke into her dark thoughts. “There’s a man out front who says he wants to talk to you.”
Charlie swung around to face Henry Ochoa, the Blair House doorman. Too frustrated with her mixed emotions over Mike’s evident low opinion of her to be polite, she snapped, “Too bad. Right now, there isn’t a man alive I want to talk to.”
Startled, the doorman took a step backward and cleared his throat. “But Miss Norris,” he stammered. “He says he’s Commander Daniel O’Hara from JAG. Since he’s wearing the uniform of a United States naval officer, I guess I have to believe him.”
Dan O’Hara! Of course! Commander Wade Stevens’s fellow lawyer at JAG and the best man at the recent wedding in Baronovia.
“Let him in, please.” She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together. No way was she going to let Mike’s opinion of her make a difference in how she thought of herself. She was comfortable with herself and that was all that mattered. “He might turn out to be the only intelligent man around here I can talk to.”
Suddenly, the scene around her erupted in chaos as the general suddenly tried to wrestle his way out of custody. “I have diplomatic immunity, I tell you!” the distraught man shouted. “You cannot hold me against my will!”
“Unfortunately, the man is right,” Dan O’Hara muttered under his breath as he joined Charlie. “He doesn’t even have to make a statement if he doesn’t want to.” He paused to look at the numerous men in black and uniformed D.C. police milling around the room. “What kind of trouble did you manage to get yourself into this time?”
Charlie’s zero opinion of men immediately extended to O’Hara. What had happened to “innocent until proven guilty”?
“You too, Dan? What’s with you men? Why does it always have to be something I did?”
Seemingly unabashed, O’Hara grinned. “Maybe because I know how deeply you were involved the last time hell broke out around here?”
Charlie glared her frustration. “As I told Mike Wheeler, I was just doing my job back then. Just as I was trying to do it today. Can I help it if things don’t always go as planned?”
“If you say so.” Dan gazed around the foyer. “Say, who’s in charge around here, anyway?”
“Wheeler, but he’s busy right now,” Charlie answered with a frown as the general recovered his voice and began to rant and rave again. “Since you’re a lawyer, maybe you can do something with the general over there.”
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Dan laughed. “I’m a JAG lawyer, United States Navy, period. This is State Department business. I just dropped by to deliver a message from Wade and the duchess.”
“How is May doing?” Charlie thought back to the time when JAG Commander Wade Stevens and the Dowager Duchess of Lorrania, then a guest of the U.S. government, had met at a diplomatic function. And she remembered the fur that had flown between them before they realized they were meant for each other. If Stevens and his duchess had managed to find each other in spite of a similar, if not worse, mess than she found herself in now, then maybe there was some hope to get Mike to listen to reason.
“May asked me to tell you she’s deliriously happy. And that she and Wade expect to be back in D.C. in a couple of weeks.”
Charlie considered Dan for a long moment. The frantic activity surrounding her faded into the background as the past flashed through her mind. Wade Stevens and May Baron had had a rocky relationship until May had managed to change Wade for the better. Maybe that’s what it would take to turn a robot like Mike into a feeling man; a woman who was interested and determined enough to humanize him. And maybe even to save the man from himself. If ever there was a man who needed saving, she thought sourly, it was Mike Wheeler. “Really? So you’re saying JAG commanders can be tamed.”
Dan shrugged and grinned sheepishly. “Yeah, but you have to shoot them first to get their attention.”
“Really?” Charlie gazed over to where Mike was now briefing the new crew reporting for night duty. His all-business, take-charge attitude might be okay for them, but it wasn’t for her.
One thing she did know, Mike’s attitude about women left something to be desired. She wasn’t going to put up with it any longer. It was time to show Mike he was as human as the next man. And to find a way to show him that no matter what he thought about her methods of operation, there was nothing wrong with her. Even if her why-not attitude apparently drove him up a wall.
If getting a man shot was a requirement or prelude to taming him, she mused as she watched Mike limp back to her, at least she was halfway home.
She absentmindedly thanked Dan for delivering the message from the duchess. If he only knew, he’d also delivered another, more interesting message; a Secret Service agent could undoubtedly be tamed by the same means the duchess had used on her JAG lawyer. And Charlie felt she was just the woman to do it.
“O’Hara?” Mike held out his hand. “Haven’t seen you since the wedding. How you doing?”
“Better than you, from what I’ve heard.” Dan grinned as Charlie sniffed and left to speak to the paramedics.
Mike raised an inquiring eyebrow. “Come again?”
“I was thinking about how you and Charlie seldom saw eye-to-eye during the Baronovia caper. Doesn’t look as if much has changed since then, has it?”
“If you’re talking about my reaction to Charlie’s idea of a Frisbee contest in an unguarded park with the duchess’s safety at stake, you’ve got that right,” Mike said after a glance to make sure Charlie was out of hearing. “The lady has a knack for acting before thinking.”
Dan grinned. “From the way you look at her it hasn’t prevented you from falling for her.”
“You’ve got that right, too,” Mike agreed. “But I’ll be damned if I understand why when she attracts trouble the way a cat attracts fleas.”
Dan smothered a laugh and turned to leave. “If anyone can handle Charlie, I have a feeling you’re the man to do it.”
“Not if I can help it,” Mike muttered.
Charlie came back in time to hear him. “Did you have something else to say, Mr. Wheeler?”
Mike glanced at her. Mr. Wheeler? She was back to the best-offense-is-the-best-defense position that fried him. “No. Talk to you later.”
Charlie frowned when Mike walked away. The man was a puzzle, all right. But, first things first, she mused as she set her mind back to the business at hand. There was a wounded man waiting to be taken to the emergency hospital. There was also the shooter, whom the FBI was going to have to debrief. And, to her annoyance, there was Mike wanting to know more about the shooting incident after she’d already told him everything she knew.
Her first opportunity to do something about turning Mike into a more reasonable man would have to wait until Sunday. A day when she’d volunteered her place for a do-it-yourself Blair House picnic. Surely by then they would have a chance to talk to each other like two reasonable people. The only problem was that every time they got together, something major seemed to happen to Mike.
All she had to do was make sure Mike wouldn’t come to harm in the process of taming him, she thought with a guilty twinge of conscience as he limped away. What could possibly go wrong at a picnic?
Squaring her jaw, Charlie turned back to matters at hand. She wasn’t interested in winning Mike for herself, mind you, but showing Mike he was as human as the next person could be interesting. No matter how she looked at it, taming Mike Wheeler was going to be a job and a half.
Chapter Two
Matters didn’t improve between them when Mike arrived unannounced in Charlie’s office the next morning. He carried a sheaf of papers in his hand and had a determined look in his eyes. Ordinarily, she wouldn’t have minded, but at the moment he was the last person on earth she cared to entertain in her office. If he discovered what was going on in here, coupled with the negative image he already had of her, her professional reputation wasn’t worth a plugged nickel. Not that it mattered, she told herself, the man’s attitude was enough to try a saint.
“What are you doing here, Mike?”
He looked taken aback at her attitude. His eyes narrowed, an eyebrow rose. “I work here, remember?”
“Of course,” she said, brushing aside her instinctive reaction to his unexpected and definitely unwanted appearance. Forcing a smile, she risked a glance at the coatrack behind him. “Actually, I meant, what are you doing here in my office this morning?”
“I need to get a few more details about the shooting yesterday. I didn’t come back right away because you looked a little queasy and in no condition to talk.” He gestured to her bandaged wrist. “Feeling a little better this morning?”
“I’m fine, it was only a scratch,” Charlie answered, more and more uneasy at his presence with every passing moment. Considering the state of affairs between them, and what was going on in her office, she didn’t feel very well, at that. Too bad she hadn’t had the foresight to close the office door behind her.
Their gazes locked. She could tell he sensed something was wrong with her. It looked as if the visit was going to end in a standoff, until, to her dismay, a strange guttural sound broke the silence.
Mike cocked his head and looked around the office for the source. “What was that?”
“What was what? I didn’t hear anything.” The feeble smile froze on Charlie’s lips as the sound came again. The unthinkable was about to happen. She silently prayed that the sound wouldn’t be repeated.
“I’m sure I heard something,” Mike glanced cautiously around the office again, finally shrugged and took a seat by her desk. “Maybe it was my imagination. Got the time to answer a few questions?”
“Actually, no.” She summoned her best smile and remained beside the open office door. Maybe he would take the broad hint and leave. “I have a full morning ahead today. How about tomorrow?”
The sound came again. This time, too loud for her to ignore. She frantically tried to think of a sensible explanation for the sound, but her mind seemed to have turned to mush. Any way she looked at it, she was knee-deep in trouble—and with the last man in the world she wanted to be in trouble with. He’d already as much as told her she was one card short of a full deck. What would he think of her now?
She followed Mike’s gaze to the large cloth tote bag she’d hung on the coatrack this morning. To her deepening dismay, it was shaking as if something inside was doing a rumba, with sound effects to match.
“Maybe I’m nuts,” Mike said as he got to his feet and cautiously eyed the shaking tote bag, “but it looks to me as if there’s something alive in there.” He paused and fixed her with a grim look that sent her heart skidding down to her toes. “You wouldn’t happen to know what it is, would you?”
Charlie swallowed hard. There was something alive in the tote bag. How could she deny the truth when it was so blatantly obvious? She debated the alternatives and finally decided she had to give Mike some kind of story to throw him offtrack before he looked inside the bag for himself. But then, she thought as she took a deep breath, this was no ordinary situation.
To add to her present problem, she was all too aware this wasn’t going to do much for her reputation.
“It’s only Boomer,” she said finally when she tried and failed to come up with a decent story. She patted the tote bag and made soothing noises. “No problem about our talking, though,” she added hastily when Mike took a step toward the rack. “As long as you’re here, you might as well go on with your questions.”
His eyes narrowed as his gaze turned back to Charlie. “Boomer? Your cat?”
“No.” She eyed the tote bag and prayed its occupant would give up and take a nap before all hell broke loose. After all, she’d bottle-fed Boomer only minutes before they’d left the house. He couldn’t possibly be hungry again.
“Your dog?”
“No. That is, not exactly.”
“Not exactly,” Mike repeated slowly. The finely honed sixth sense that had never failed him demanded satisfaction. “Just what do you have in there?” He took another step toward the rack.
“A male baby wallaby, a type of kangaroo.” Charlie blurted since she couldn’t come up with another answer. “His name is Boomer. All male kangaroos are called Boomers.”
Mike froze in midstride. “A male baby kangaroo? In here? I mean in there?” He pointed to the tote bag.
Charlie nodded and tried to act as if a kangaroo in an office was an everyday occurrence.
He ran his fingers through his hair in a gesture Charlie remembered all too well was a sign of his frustration. “Since when does the concierge of Blair House keep a kangaroo as a pet? Let alone carry it around with her like a baby?”
Charlie glowered at him. “Where is it written in my contract that I can’t bring a pet into Blair House? Or that it has to be a cat or a dog?”
“Come on,” Mike said, frustrated as hell. He knew that there was no such clause in her employment contract, but enough was enough. Not even an unusual woman like Charlie Norris would go to such weird lengths as to own a pet like a kangaroo. “You really don’t expect me to believe a cockamamy story like that one, do you?”
She shrugged. “I’m beyond the point of trying to defend myself or my choice of pets to you or anyone else. Believe it or not, Boomer is a baby kangaroo and he needs five feedings a day. I bottle-fed him this morning before I came to work. Right now he thinks he’s in his mother’s pouch waiting for the next feeding.”
At her explanation, Mike looked more incredulous than ever. “Why is he shaking like that?”
“He’s just reacting to a friendly voice. Mine,” she added pointedly.
Mike eyed the swaying tote bag. “Not that I believe you, but where did you manage to find a kangaroo around here? And why did you have to bring it to the office?”
“I found Boomer through the Internet. As for why he’s here, Freddie, my zoo helper, has the flu. I didn’t have anyone else to leave the little guy with.”
“On the Internet. A zoo,” Mike echoed slowly. “I’ve heard of Web sites where people sell or exchange all kinds of weird things, but baby kangaroos? And a personal zoo? You can’t possibly be serious.”
“He’s here, isn’t he? And, for your information, I own two other marsupials. They’re my friends.” She stopped and frowned. “Actually, I don’t actually know who owns who, but collecting exotic animals is a hobby of mine.”
Charlie wasn’t sure she liked the rainbow of expressions that ran across Mike’s face as he eyed the tote bag. If he’d thought she was odd before, what did he think of her now?
And why, she wondered as she eyed Mike’s chiseled features and the aura of mystery that his profession surrounded him with, did she care what he thought of her?
“A zoo for exotic animals,” he echoed softly as he eyed her. “Now, why don’t I believe that either?”
It was Charlie’s turn to shrug. “It’s a small zoo where I keep Boomer and his…” She paused for breath. What more could he think about her if she told him she had an eclectic collection of creatures, furry and otherwise? She settled for “…and a few other animals.”
“And this so-called zoo of yours?” he said dryly. “Next thing you’re going to tell me it’s in your backyard.”
“Exactly,” she agreed, relieved that the cards were on the table. She could be herself again. “I have three acres of land in back of the house.”
Mike was almost speechless. As far as he knew, kangaroos were regarded as pests by Australians, but evidently not by Charlie. But to carry around a baby kangaroo in a tote bag?
For Pete’s sakes! Mike wanted to shout at her. This is Blair House, the official residence of the State Department! Numerous notables have stayed here through the years, including a president of the United States while the White House was being renovated. How could you bring a live kangaroo in here?
He glanced at the tote bag. On second thought, he didn’t dare raise his voice. There was no telling how the baby kangaroo in there might react. What if it got out and he had to chase it around the premises? He and Charlie would be dismissed so fast it would make their heads swim. And what that would do to his spotless reputation wasn’t even worth thinking about.
The terrifying thought changed the picture. He could look the other way, but he was the Special-Agent-in-Charge at Blair House, and had a duty to perform. If anything went wrong, it was his head.
Before she could stop him, Mike reached for the tote bag, pulled the strings open and looked inside.
Two big brown eyes looked trustfully back at him. A damp nose twitched, two little brownish-red elongated ears waved a welcome.
To add to Mike’s dismay, a slender tongue licked its lips, a sure sign it was ready for its next bottle. To really blow his mind, he caught a glimpse of small hips encased in a diaper and a foot that was tapping to some unheard melody.
The little creature inside the tote bag was a baby kangaroo!
Mike could have sworn, if anyone had asked him later, that the animal had actually smiled at him.
What he did sense, was that he’d been foiled one more time by Charlie’s unorthodox behavior and her mesmerizing eyes. Thank God, it was only a helpless baby kangaroo she had with her this time instead of something that could have caused a major incident.
He let the tote bag’s drawstring close, muttered under his breath and swung around to stare at the baby kangaroo’s owner. When she smiled hopefully, words almost failed him.
“I can’t deal with this right now,” he muttered and dropped the sheaf of papers he was carrying on Charlie’s desk.
The tote bag stopped shaking.
Charlie sighed in relief, put a warning finger over her lips and pointed to the door. “We can talk outside,” she whispered.
“I can’t believe you want to talk out in the hall because of your pet,” Mike protested. “Why not here in your office? He can’t possibly understand what we’re talking about.”
“I don’t want to disturb Boomer,” she whispered. “He needs his rest.”
“You’ve got it wrong. He’s not a baby. He’s only a kangaroo!”
“Same thing.” She grabbed him by the arm and urged him toward the door.
“No way! I’m not putting up with this,” Mike said. He shook off her arm. “We’ll talk another time when your pet isn’t around.”
Charlie unhappily watched Mike glare at the tote bag and head for the door. After this latest incident, there was no way she was ever going to be able to restore her credibility with him—if she had had any in the first place—or be able to change his opinion of her. At least, not until she had a chance to show him how nearly human some of her pets actually were. And had a chance to show him humans had a lot to learn about relationships from the loving and caring animals.
She turned back into her office and glanced through the sheaf of papers Mike had dropped on her desk. After a moment, she realized they were copies of handwritten notes he’d taken about the incident yesterday. Several had question marks on the side. Questions he’d obviously intended to ask her.
“Still don’t trust me, do you?” she muttered as she debated throwing the papers in the wastepaper basket.
Mike unexpectedly appeared in the doorway. “Maybe I was a little hasty back there,” he said. “I forgot to take my notes with me. Unless…” he went on with a glance at the coatrack, “you’ve changed your mind and want to go over them with me now.”
Charlie glanced up at Mike. She could have sworn her hormones snapped to attention and her body start to tingle at his unexpected appearance. After startling her out of a year’s growth, he had a lot of nerve trying to be friendly. Now, more than ever, she was determined to show him how human he could be if he tried. But with Boomer waiting for his next feeding, she didn’t dare take the time. At full strength, Boomer sounded like a foghorn. The last thing she needed was to attract any more attention.
“No, thanks,” she said with a smile. “As I said, I have a full schedule this morning. But leave the papers with me and I’ll give them back to you later.”
Mike started to turn away. “By the way,” she called after him, “are you going to be at the employee picnic Sunday?”
“Picnic?”
Charlie fished in her desk drawer and handed him a handful of picnic flyers. “Try to make it. I think you’re in for a pleasant surprise. And while you’re at it, please leave a few copies in the butler’s pantry on your way out.”
Mike looked doubtful, but after another glance at the coatrack, folded the flyers and put them into his pocket. “As usual, you’re not making much sense,” he muttered. “But if you want to play games, I’m willing to give it a try.” He glanced at Charlie as if he wanted to say something more before he shook his head and left.
With a rueful glance at the quiet tote bag, Charlie dropped into the chair behind her desk. Boomer could wait for his next feeding until she had a chance to come up with the answers to the question marks on Mike’s list. When she returned the papers, Mike would have to admit that the only thing she’d been guilty of yesterday was trying to do her job. And of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
As for Boomer and the rest of the zoo population she planned on introducing Mike to, she was positive that once he met them in a more natural setting their personalities were bound to hook him for sure. Just as Boomer had captured her heart the first time she’d seen his picture on the Internet and found out that he was for sale.
If Boomer and the rest of his animal friends didn’t manage to humanize Mike, nothing could.
FRIDAYS HAD NEVER been a particularly good day, Mike mused as he strode along the corridor away from Charlie’s office. The only good thing about this one was that it brought the end of the week. After midnight tonight he had two peaceful days off to look forward to, thank God.
Two days without Charlie Norris and her cute but bizarre pet. He muttered his displeasure under his breath as he strode across the marble floor to his office and, at the same time, tried to rub the kink out of the back of his neck. As far back as he could recall, the only time that damn kink showed up was when he was under stress. No big surprise it showed up this time. He could lay the credit for this episode on Charlie Norris and that baby kangaroo of hers. Bottle-feeding! Diapers! Hell, you’d think that Blair House was an animal nursery instead of a prestigious home away from home for VIPs.
“Wheeler! Wait up!”
Mike stopped in midstride and turned around. His superior, Bradley Simons, beckoned him into his office and closed the door behind them.
“Have a seat.” Simons walked around his desk and dropped into his chair. “Got a job for you.”
“I’ve already got a job,” Mike answered.
“Well, now you’ve got another one.” Simons reached into his desk drawer for a bottle of pills. “Hand me that pitcher over there, please.” He shook out two large pills, put them in his mouth and washed them down with water. “Sorry, with all the crap going on, that ulcer of mine is acting up again. Guess it comes with the territory.”
Mike rubbed the back of his head when the thought of Charlie and her pet began to show all the signs of turning into a headache and a half. “Tell me about it.”
Simons eyed him sympathetically. “You, too?”
Mike shrugged. “Like you said, it comes with the territory.”
“Glad you feel that way.” Simons rummaged in his center desk drawer, took out two letters and handed them across the desk. “Take a look at those.”
Mike read the first letter. His lips set in a grim line as he read the second. Both letters threatened the Blair House personnel for their interference in the attempted assassination yesterday. “Kind of soon for these to show up.”
Simons leaned back in his chair. “Make a guy angry enough…” His voice trailed off. “You notice that the author keeps referring to our Charlie Norris?”
Mike had noticed, all right, but he hadn’t thought of the lady as being “our” Charlie. Maybe she was Simons’s Charlie, but not his. Not after the way the pain was growing at the back of his neck and threatening to take his head off. She may have pleaded her innocence when he’d confronted her after the shooting, but it looked as if she had managed to annoy the hell out of someone out there. “What was she supposed to do, let the two jackasses kill each other?”
Simons shrugged. “Right or wrong, she’s a target. I want you to keep an eye on her.”
Mike blinked. Of all the assignments he could have drawn, guarding Charlie wasn’t at the top of his list. “Don’t tell me that that’s the new job!”
“Yep.” Simons stood. “Get used to it.” He gestured to a picnic flyer Mike had sticking out of his breast pocket. “You can start with the picnic.”
Mike got to his feet and bit back a protest. “I hadn’t made up my mind to go to the picnic, sir.”
“Sure you have,” Simons said amiably as he opened the office door. “Enjoy the day.”
Chapter Three
At midmorning Sunday, Mike checked the address on the picnic flyer against the address on the little red barn mailbox. They were one and the same. The empty field across the road was filled with automobiles, SUVs and motorcycles.
It looked as if Charlie had offered her property for the annual Blair House picnic. That seemed normal enough, but what really got to him was the lack of security personnel at the gate.
He bit his lower lip. With Charlie Norris in charge, he was almost afraid to think of the surprise she said she had in store for him.
What bothered him even more than the lack of security was the conventional, rambling yellow-and-white Cape Cod-style farmhouse. Surrounded by trees and flowering azalea bushes, and with beds of peonies and day lilies randomly placed to make them look as if they grew there naturally, it wasn’t the type of setting he’d expected the unconventional Charlie to own.
On second thought, he wasn’t sure what type of house he’d expected Charlie to live in, but this traditional cottage sure wasn’t it. After she’d told him she had a zoo in her backyard, he’d almost expected her to live in a wooden cabin set in a stand of trees surrounded by animal cages.
“Daddy, hurry.” A small hand tugged at Mike’s knee and pointed to the balloon-decorated side gate. “Hurry up before all the balloons are gone!”
Mike tore his gaze away from the house and moved on.
Mob scenes weren’t his idea of entertainment, he mused as he followed the red arrows that pointed to the side gate. It was the idea of any open gathering in unguarded settings that made him uneasy.
He’d been trained to be wary of open spaces where he couldn’t control the setting or protect his charges.
This one really disturbed him. Bringing his son Jake along didn’t sit well with him, but he’d tentatively promised him they would come to the picnic before Simons had given him his new assignment. He’d had no choice.
With Jake’s little hand in his, Mike made his way around to the back of the property. Accustomed to checking every detail of his surroundings, he mentally counted twenty-eight women in shorts and T-shirts decorated with a Blair House logo. True to form, thirty-two men in jogging shorts or jeans and the same Blair House T-shirts were gathered in small groups and drinking beer.
The children were more difficult to account for. They never seemed to stand in one place long enough to count heads, anyway.
The casual T-shirts had to be a management giveaway because everyone wore them, even the kids. From a security viewpoint, in his opinion, they were the last item of clothing they should all have been wearing. If a problem arose, with every kid wearing the same T-shirt it would be difficult to tell one from another. As for putting a T-shirt on Jake or himself, no way. It wasn’t only foolhardy, the word casual wasn’t in his vocabulary.
Picnics weren’t exactly his style, Mike mused as he continued to check out the surroundings while deciding whether to remain or leave. But, he reminded himself, he was not only here on orders, there was Jake, a thirty-seven-inch-tall, three-and-a-half-year-old bundle of energy to consider.
Then, too, he’d been promising himself he’d take up a normal life again, and, after a year of promises, he reluctantly figured it was about time to begin. Not for his sake—with a leg still aching from a bullet he’d taken during an attempted assassination, he could have done without picnics—but because of Jake.
As a single parent, he owed the kid big.
He smiled fondly at his son. “What color?”
“Green,” Jake said firmly. A frown crossed his little forehead. “No, red. I want a red one.”
“Cool, sport,” Mike agreed with a covert glance around the territory. So far, so good. “Let’s go and see if we can get you one of each.”
This shouldn’t be a problem, Mike told himself as they made their way across the wide expanse of grass to where a clown was blowing up balloons. The bigger problem facing him was how to make up to Jake for the loss of his mother in a boating accident a year ago.
As for seeing many familiar faces at the picnic, he hadn’t been assigned to Blair House on a regular basis long enough to have cultivated any real friendships. Except perhaps Charlie Norris. Now that he thought about their recent exchange over her odd choice of pets, he wasn’t sure Charlie fitted into the friendship category. Or, better yet, he thought as his imagination suddenly took flight, into his arms.
He’d never known anyone like Charlie Norris, he thought as they strolled around the grounds checking out the activity. The bigger surprise was that his attraction to her had turned into something beyond fascination before he’d realized what had hit him. Considering that business and pleasure didn’t mix, any ideas along that line had to stop. Especially since she had become his official charge.
He simply couldn’t afford to let his interest in her go any further.
He gazed casually around the picnic grounds as they made their way to the clown. On the surface, everything looked harmless, but he wasn’t prepared to relax his vigilance. On one hand, there had been Charlie’s involvement in the love affair between Wade Stevens and the Baronovian duchess. Then there was the recent shooting in Blair House. There were too many unusual happenings that Charlie had managed to become involved with. He needed to stay on his toes if he was going to keep her alive.
Granted, Charlie had always claimed good intentions, but as far as he was concerned it had only been by the grace of God that neither she nor anyone else had gotten killed by now. Between his reaction to those unhappy incidents and the incongruous encounter with her pet kangaroo, he didn’t expect many friendly words from her today. How to stay on a friendly footing and keep from blowing their tenuous relationship was priority number one.
“Daddy,” Jake said. “I’m hungry.”
“Me too, sport. Let’s go see what we can find.” Mike took a fresh look around him for any food vendors. With one balloon tied to Jake’s wrist and the other carefully tied to the shoulder strap of his little denim overalls, they set off to explore the picnic area. It was soon clear that it was a case of finding something for Jake to eat or having to leave, which he couldn’t possibly do and still keep an eye on Charlie.
Picnics were usually catered, but not this one. Too late, he remembered that the flyer had said this was a do-it-yourself picnic. Damn! True to form, Charlie’s picnic had to be different. He sighed as he gazed over at a group of women laying out homemade fried chicken and potato salad on picnic tables, and at the men busy at portable barbecues.
He sobered as the setting began to remind him of a long-ago picnic he’d attended with his new bride before Jake had been born. Ellie had been annoyed by the rustic surroundings and lack of what she thought of as comfort. He hadn’t dwelt on the possibilities of picnics since.
One thought led to another, and he was reminded of something he hadn’t wanted to think of.
It had been a year since he’d forced himself to put the past and his late wife’s accidental drowning behind him. Longer, if he counted the months from the time Ellie had decided to relive her carefree youth, free from husband and child, a decision that had left him without a wife and Jake without a mother.
What had made him think now of Ellie and the role she could have played in his and Jake’s life beat the hell out of him. Maybe he hadn’t done as good a job of putting the past behind him as he thought he had.
It certainly couldn’t have been the sight of Charlie Norris staking out a position under an apple tree. Or could it?
For a moment, he hadn’t recognized her without the tailored suit she usually wore on duty. In her brief cream-colored shorts and that damn T-shirt that seemed to be today’s dress code she made his testosterone jump to attention.
Her T-shirt revealed more of Charlie’s slender and curvaceous figure than it was intended to conceal. Considering the state of their friendship, or the lack of it, it was strange that the idea of her wearing that skimpy outfit for everyone within shouting distance bothered him. Even the idea that he was bothered annoyed him.
The sight of Charlie in her too-tight T-shirt and the wicked smile she exchanged with the male picnickers came close to driving him out of his mind. Considering that their relationship was a hands-off situation, he was forced to chalk up another reason to stay at least ten feet away from the lady. He was jealous!
In his frustration, he ran his hand across his forehead. When had his fascination for her unorthodox behavior turned into a grudging but growing attraction? And where in the hell was it going to get him in the long run, anyway?
He took Jake’s hand and started toward a large, wooded fenced-off area that surely housed Charlie’s zoo. At least the animals would take Jake’s mind off lunch. A meat-and-potato man himself, he wistfully wished for a hamburger. Not the best of choices for Jake, but he doubted anyone would be offering Jake’s current choice of food; peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
His stomach growled. Thank God he had his mother to help keep an eye on Jake and to feed him during the week. If it had been left up to him, the kid would have lived on fast food hamburgers and French fried potatoes. Unfortunately, his mother, who would have known to bring food to a do-it-yourself picnic, was off visiting a close friend for a few days. Thus the care and feeding of Jake this weekend was up to him. Unfortunately, he didn’t seem to be doing a good job of it.
“Daddy! Daddy!” Jake hollered as he jumped up and down and pointed to the sky. The red balloon Mike had tied to Jake’s wrist had broken loose and was slowly floating away in the breeze. Before he could stop him, Jake ran after the balloon with Mike hard at his heels shouting for him to wait up.
The breeze grew stronger. The balloon picked up speed and sailed straight toward where Charlie was unpacking a picnic basket. To Mike’s surprise, she leapt to her feet and managed to catch the balloon before it sailed over her head.
Jake crowed happily and, before Mike could grab him, made a mad dash for the balloon—and Charlie.
Charlie laughed when a little boy ran into her and grabbed her around her knees. Amused, she handed him the errant balloon and, to her delight, was rewarded by a kiss and a hug.
Her smile faded when Mike Wheeler skidded to a stop in front of her.
“Thanks,” Mike said as he retied the balloon to Jake’s wrist. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t have caught it in time.”
Charlie’s eyes widened as she glanced down at the laughing little boy. To her surprise, he was a miniature duplicate of Mike, complete with golden-brown hair, blue eyes and a child-sized killer smile.
“Yours?”
“Mine. His name is Jake.” He looked down at the little boy. “Jake, this is Miss Charlie Norris. How about thanking her for saving your balloon?”
Wheels began to turn in Charlie’s head. Had Mike ever mentioned he was married? Or that he had a child? For that matter, when had he ever said anything about his private life? Never. So where did the kid come in?
She searched over Mike’s shoulder. “Where’s your wife?”
“She died a year ago,” he answered, his hands on Jake’s shoulders to keep him from darting away again. “There’s just me and Jake.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, itching to know what had happened to the late Mrs. Wheeler but too embarrassed to ask. The tight look around Mike’s eyes would have stopped her, anyway. She’d already guessed he was a man who kept his off-duty life private.
“Thanks again for your help,” Mike repeated. He took his son’s hand in his and started off across the lawn.
Charlie nodded and headed back to her blanket. Regardless of having worked in close proximity to Mike Wheeler at Blair House for the past year, she didn’t know him any better than he knew her.
Looking back over her shoulder, she saw the ever-watchful Mike lounging against an apple tree with his hands across his chest, never taking his eyes off Jake who’d stopped to investigate a rock. The expression on his face and the soft look in his eyes as he gazed at the boy told her how much the boy meant to him. She found herself smiling. Contrary to her earlier impression, maybe Mike was a man with a heart.
Gone were the traditional Secret Service black suit, white shirt and black tie that enabled him to fade into a background. In khaki slacks and jacket, a gray polo shirt and casual leather loafers, he looked like a new and different man. If the old one had attracted her, this new one had her full attention. He certainly didn’t resemble the all-business man he’d appeared to be ever since they’d first met. Today she was seeing a side of him he seldom showed to anyone.
Judging from the way he behaved with his son, Mike Wheeler was strong on the outside yet tender beneath the surface. He could be protective and nurturing, she thought as she gazed at him. But not with her.
To her secret regret, almost every man she met treated her like a sister or a friend. They even laughed at her carefree attitude and the oddball ideas she came up with.
Most of the men she met never saw her as a desirable woman.
The look in Mike’s eyes when he thought she wasn’t noticing told her that, in spite of himself, he thought she was hot. And, to her growing surprise, his interest made her feel womanly.
The long and the short of it was that, even though she was thirty-five and had successfully established her independence years ago, Mike made her yearn for someone of her own to watch over her.
But Mike by profession was a lawman. She had vowed never to fall for a lawman and, like her own mother, take the chance that someday she would have her heart broken.
“Daddy!” Jake ran back to his father. “I’m still hungry!”
Charlie heard Jake complain. It didn’t look as if Mike had brought lunch with him. She bit her lip, made up her mind to put her musings aside and went to join him. It was only a friendly gesture she had in mind. What could happen? “Can I help?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t think to bring anything for lunch,” Mike said with a helpless shrug. “I guess I thought I’d find a food vendor here. I’ll have to take Jake back into town.”
“But Daddy, there’s the zoo!”
Mike tried to connect a zoo with lunch and came up empty. “What about the zoo?”
“You said there’s a zoo here, Daddy.”
Charlie rushed to explain. “I was planning on taking anyone who’s interested to visit my zoo later this afternoon. The animals aren’t as frisky as they are in the morning.”
Jake’s eyes lit up. “I want to go to the zoo now!”
Mike held Jake by an arm before he could start off by himself again. “You actually have a zoo of your own?”
Charlie looked offended. “You still didn’t believe me?”
Left unsaid was the implication he should have known she was telling the truth. Even if the truth in this case was something most people would never have believed anyway. But then, Charlie wasn’t most people.
“Right,” he answered dryly. “Face it. A zoo isn’t the sort of thing most people have in their backyard.”
Charlie silently gestured to the mutinous expression on Jake’s face. “Now that you’re here, it would be a shame to miss the tour.”
“Guess so,” Mike muttered. “But if there’s a choice between the zoo and Jake’s lunch…”
“How about a hamburger and some veggies?” She pointed to the picnic basket. “I have enough for all of us.”
“Jake?”
“No peanut and jelly sandwiches?”
“No, I’m sorry.” Charlie answered with a proper sad look on her face. “But I do have celery sticks filled with peanut butter.”
“Cool!” Jake grinned happily.
Charlie grinned back. Anything with peanut butter was obviously okay with him.
Mike took the plunge. “If your offer includes me, I’ll take the hamburger.”
Charlie hesitated, debating whether she should tell Mike the truth before he found it out for himself—the hard way. She couldn’t fib—she’d said hamburgers, but the truth was something different.
She rummaged in the picnic basket, found the celery-and-peanut-butter sticks wrapped in a plastic bag and handed them to Jake. With a calculating glance at Mike, she took out two round bundles wrapped in foil and handed him one. “I think I should warn you this is a different kind of hamburger.”
Mike unwrapped the foil bundle and stared at the green and brown contents. “It sure looks different. Is it really a hamburger?”
“It’s made from tofu and vegetables. I love animals too much to eat meat,” she added, looking horrified at the thought.
Mike grimaced. “No meat?”
“No.”
Mike hid his trepidation. Of course, a lover and collector of kangaroos and the Lord knew what else would never eat meat. He was afraid to ask if she had any chickens in that zoo of hers.
Since she was feeding Jake, eating a veggie burger without comment seemed to be the least he could do.
“Sure,” he said bravely. “May I pay you?”
Charlie frowned. “I thought this was a favor between friends!”
Mike hid a smile. Friendly. He was making some progress after all, but knowing Charlie, he wasn’t quite sure how much and in which direction—good or bad. “Er…okay. The next favor is on me.”
Ten minutes later, Charlie caught sight of Mike covertly rolling up the remains of the veggie burger in its foil wrapping. She hid a smile. She was willing to bet that after a visit to her zoo where he’d meet her pets, Mike wouldn’t order meat for a while either.
Mike gazed around the grounds. Women were packing the picnic baskets, younger children were on the verge of falling sleep, older children were playing games and the men were still drinking beer. “You haven’t taken any security precautions, have you?”
“No. Why would I?” Charlie asked. Mike was obviously back to looking at everything as though it were a threat. “This is my home and these people are friends.”
“Maybe so,” he replied. “But the fact remains you’ve invited a hundred people to visit you without a security check. To top it off, you have a zoo full of exotic animals that are probably worth good money. In my book, those are damn good reasons for having some kind of security precautions.”
With Mike reverting to the all-business persona who saw danger everywhere, Charlie’s pleasure cooled. “Don’t you ever let yourself relax?”
For a moment he looked surprised. “Not when it counts.”
“Ridiculous. I told you, most of these people are my friends.”
“Heck,” he answered as he searched the area for Jake, “with everyone wearing the same T-shirts, they all look alike. You’ve given anyone who doesn’t belong here a perfect cover.”
He covered his eyes with a hand and squinted into the sun.
“Looking for suspects?” Charlie covered the picnic basket with a small cotton towel and got to her feet.
“No. At the moment, I’m looking for Jake. See the green balloon moving over there? That’s Jake. I tied the balloon to his overalls. Best security idea I ever thought of,” he added with a satisfied grin.
Charlie swallowed a tart remark. Maybe Mike was human, after all.
“When does this tour of yours begin?” Mike asked. “I’d like to get Jake home before he falls asleep on his feet.”
“I was going to do the tour first,” Charlie said after a thoughtful glance around. “But maybe I’ll wait until after we have a few games.”
“That’ll wake everyone up, for sure,” he said dryly. “Are you really the only hostess of this shindig?”
“Mostly.” She took a whistle out of her pocket. “Kids’ games first, then it will be the grown-ups’ chance.”
“To make fools out of ourselves?”
“Don’t knock it, Mr. Wheeler,” she said with a sassy smile. “If you lightened up a little, you might even have some fun like a normal human being.”
Mike gazed after Charlie as she walked to the middle of the grassy area. He couldn’t help admiring her swaying hips, the inviting smile that lit up her face when she glanced back at him over her shoulder and the way her silken hair blew across her shoulders in the afternoon breeze.
Charlie was wrong about him, he thought as he smothered a smile. He was not only human, he was beginning to feel more normal by the minute.
Charlie was a handful, but it was her innate sensuality and the way that damned T-shirt strained against her breasts that made his body warm and his thoughts turn to subjects best left unexplored.
The attraction wasn’t only physical, he admitted wryly. To give the lady credit, there was her intelligence, her wry sense of humor and the unlikely way she managed to march to her own private drummer and still come up smelling like a rose that made him want to get closer to her.
What he didn’t approve of was the side of her personality that put her squarely in the middle of any trouble that came along. And he hated the way she managed to get him mixed up with her in her latest disaster.
Whoever the real Charlie Norris was, she was an intriguing bundle of womanhood that any red-blooded man could appreciate. Except that he had no room in his life right now for anyone but Jake.
Becoming involved with a woman, Charlie Norris in particular, would definitely be a mistake.
A voice came over a loudspeaker. “Attention, everyone! Attention! We’re about to start the mother-and-son relay races. Mothers, get ready!”
Mike watched as the balloon attached to Jake floated back over in Charlie’s direction. He smiled fondly and started to follow his son. It wasn’t strange the kid was attracted to Charlie. She had the kind of warmth and vitality that kids instinctively were drawn to.
He reached Charlie just as Jake slid to a halt in front of her. And was just in time to hear the words that made his head spin and the bottom drop out of his world.
“Miss Charlie, everybody here gots a mommy except me. Would you please be my mommy so I can race, too?”
Chapter Four
Mike’s smile faded. Of all the words his mind and certainly his heart weren’t ready for, it was mommy. Charlie Norris, of all people! The last woman who would fit the bill!
That was going too far and too fast, he thought as he ran his fingers through his hair and tried to put the smile back on his face. Oh, Charlie was attractive enough, he’d give her that. Smart, too. Maybe too smart for her own good. But maternal? Hell, he thought as he gazed at her over Jake’s head, of all the words that he could have used to describe Charlie, maternal wasn’t on the list. She was too flighty to be a responsible parent.
Except maybe when it came to that kangaroo she’d treated like a baby. As far as he was concerned, mothering an animal, no matter how admirable, didn’t count.
“Sorry about that,” he muttered. “I don’t have the slightest notion where that came from.” He put his hands on Jake’s shoulders.
With a quick shake of her head, she put out a hand to stay him. “Don’t worry, Mike. I understand. He’s only a little boy. Kids usually say what they think one minute and forget it the next. Besides,” she added with a grin, “I’ll only be his mother just long enough for the race.”
Charlie tried to hide her reaction to the look of panic that passed over Mike’s eyes. The way his clear blue eyes turned a deep gray spoke louder than anything he could have said. He obviously regarded her as the last woman he would care to have for Jake’s substitute mother.
She decided to let the incident pass. Being asked to play mommy may have given her a twinge or two, but she had the picnic to see to and a life of her own afterwards to enjoy.
She smoothed the little boy’s unruly hair away from his face. “You’re on, Jake, if it’s okay with your father,” she said, gazing at the virile man who often occupied her thoughts. Of all people to be Jake’s father! Why was the man she was attracted to so clearly not the man for her?
“I wanna go with Miss Charlie now,” Jake said stubbornly. He grabbed Charlie’s hand and tried to pull her along with him. “Bye, Daddy.”
Mike knew when he was licked. He let go of Jake’s shoulders. “Come right back when the race is over.” Too late. Jake and his temporary mother were already on their way.
He watched the two head for Charlie’s picnic blanket to pick up the batons for use in the relay race. Sure enough, she was quietly talking to Jake who, to Mike’s surprise, was listening intently and nodding his head. Whatever she was saying, it looked as if Jake was eating it up.
It sure couldn’t have been the celery-and-peanut-butter sticks Charlie had given Jake for lunch that had won the kid over, no way. Or the way she’d agreed to pretend to be his mother for the race. It had to be something more. Maybe Jake saw something in Charlie that only a child could see.
“You must have bribed him with the promise of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!” Mike called, eyeing his antsy son as they walked by him on their way to the starting line. “I’ll have to remember to do that for future use.”
“No bribe,” Charlie smiled. “I just explained we have something important to think about right now. Like winning the race. He can’t wait.” She paused to shake her head at Jake who was back to pulling at her hand. “He obviously isn’t into delayed gratification, is he?”
Mike had to agree. Delayed gratification was a hard enough concept for a grown man to understand; he was still grappling with it himself. And that included considering a possible affair with, of all women, Charlie.
Damn, he thought as he watched Charlie and Jake take their places at the starting line. The lady had to be smarter than he’d thought or she wouldn’t always manage to stay one step ahead of him so easily.
He eyed her skintight T-shirt, the cream shorts that barely covered critical parts of her anatomy and her long, slim legs as she jogged across the lawn. With a slender waist, those appealing legs and a body he would have loved to explore, she was clearly in a class by herself. She was, if he had his head screwed on right, a woman to avoid.
There was no doubt about it, his mind and his body weren’t going down the same track.
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