Page 21 of The Bodyguard's Fall

“That’s pretty hard to ignore.”

At his look, I carefully wiped all traces of my smile off my face and said, “Just sit on it. Please.”

“I don’t need it.”

My eyes narrowed. “Did you use it yesterday?”

There was a slight pause. “Nope.”

“You did.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does. If you need it, then you should use it. Don’t be uncomfortable on my account.”

He snorted, and I thought I detected the slightest upward movement of his lips before it disappeared.

“If I wasn’t here right now, would you be sitting on it?” I asked, sneaking a glance at him. For such a tough guy, he had eyelashes I would pay money for.

“If you weren’t here, I’d be in the loader, moving bales for the straw maze.”

“Why aren’t we there instead?”

“Because there’s only one seat. Unless you’re wanting to get a jump on our undercover assignment?”

His blue eyes crashed into mine just then. A jolting vision of two bodies sharing one seat sparked a flicker of heat in my cold, dead, unromantic heart, which I couldn’t allow.

“No, thank you. I can’t force you, but remember…you don’t want to re-damage the goods.” I couldn’t say it without a soft laugh, though I didn’t risk looking at him.

“Are you coming on to me right now?”

I stilled as heat bloomed on my cheeks. I was ready to defend myself when I stopped. He raised his eyebrows in a ‘gotcha’ kind of way, but his face definitely showed traces of amusement.

“‘Cause if your undercover work is anything like last time, you might need some practice.”

“What?! I was good.”

To be honest, I couldn’t have been great. Trying to keep up with Tate as he touched and flirted and teased was a full-time job in and of itself. That combined with trying to remember it was fake and to NOT read into it all was a whole different ballgame. I had not been prepared for casual flirty Tate, and it showed.

“I carried us,” Tate said.

I nudged his leg, which resulted in a soft laugh from him. The sound of it brought a smile to my face. Too bad that moment was short-lived.

“Alright. What happened with your stalker?”

If there were ever words that reminded you of your purpose in being somewhere, those were them. I picked at a loose thread on my jeans. I didn’t want to talk about this. But I felt the shift in the air the moment he asked the question. Officer Walker was now on the clock.

“You mean Leroy?”

Tate turned sharply toward me. “I thought that wasn’t his real name.”

“It’s not. At least, we don’t think it is.”

“Why do you call him that?”

“So I have a name for my Christmas card list.”

I was rewarded with a hint of a smile and a head shake before he continued.