Chapter 1: Welcome to the Firefight
“Keep your
head down!”
Emmaline Gregson immediately followed the barked command, ducking down behind the low stone wall that surrounded the garden. The next shot grazed the top of the wall where her head had been a half a second earlier. Her heart was hammering, her palms sweaty, and she wasn't positive she wouldn't lose her lunch completely as the exchange of gunfire rang out through the crisp morning air. “Wh-what should we do?”
“Well, honey, at this point I’d be pretty damn pleased about not dying!”
At the presumptuous endearment, Emmaline gritted her teeth and reminded herself that her father had spent a lot of money to ensure Peirce Taggart protected her. So she couldn't kill him.
Instead she shot him a glare. Too bad the bullet-jockey was busy returning fire and didn't even give her a sideways glance. Even now, with her life at risk, shots hammering the stone wall at her back, she couldn't completely escape the fact that he was the best looking man she’d ever seen.
She’d been smitten since Taggart had waltzed into her comfortable ancestral summer home two weeks ago, all confident swagger and heady sexuality, carrying his security orders from her father. A former corporal, he still moved with the restrictive grace of an ex-Lawman despite his broad shoulders and strong thighs. His blonde hair remained buzzed, although he’d relaxed his training enough to allow the most interesting shadow of stubble grace his strong jaw and chiseled lips. Even now, face smudged with dirt, blood rising up where he’d been hit by the spray of rock shrapnel, she couldn't look away from the intent focus in those blue eyes, even when they were narrowed and focused on the unseen enemy. He’d be the perfect man to help her solve her little problem, if not for -
“What the fuck are you doing sitting there?” he yelled at her as he ducked down behind the wall to reload. “I told you to get to the fucking house!”
If not for his filthy mouth.
Emmaline Gregson immediately followed the barked command, ducking down behind the low stone wall that surrounded the garden. The next shot grazed the top of the wall where her head had been a half a second earlier. Her heart was hammering, her palms sweaty, and she wasn't positive she wouldn't lose her lunch completely as the exchange of gunfire rang out through the crisp morning air. “Wh-what should we do?”
“Well, honey, at this point I’d be pretty damn pleased about not dying!”
At the presumptuous endearment, Emmaline gritted her teeth and reminded herself that her father had spent a lot of money to ensure Peirce Taggart protected her. So she couldn't kill him.
Instead she shot him a glare. Too bad the bullet-jockey was busy returning fire and didn't even give her a sideways glance. Even now, with her life at risk, shots hammering the stone wall at her back, she couldn't completely escape the fact that he was the best looking man she’d ever seen.
She’d been smitten since Taggart had waltzed into her comfortable ancestral summer home two weeks ago, all confident swagger and heady sexuality, carrying his security orders from her father. A former corporal, he still moved with the restrictive grace of an ex-Lawman despite his broad shoulders and strong thighs. His blonde hair remained buzzed, although he’d relaxed his training enough to allow the most interesting shadow of stubble grace his strong jaw and chiseled lips. Even now, face smudged with dirt, blood rising up where he’d been hit by the spray of rock shrapnel, she couldn't look away from the intent focus in those blue eyes, even when they were narrowed and focused on the unseen enemy. He’d be the perfect man to help her solve her little problem, if not for -
“What the fuck are you doing sitting there?” he yelled at her as he ducked down behind the wall to reload. “I told you to get to the fucking house!”
If not for his filthy mouth.
