His lips turned up sensually. “Don’t be sorry. It looks sexy as hell on you, and I don’t use it.”
He was already dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, his feet bare. “Let’s go, buddy, before you do your thing on the floor.” Tate opened the front door and pulled on his boots.
Before Tate could catch him, Shep’s little body flew out the door from behind him.
“Oh, no,” Lara groaned.
“He won’t go far. I guess he had to go pretty bad,” Tate remarked, his voice amused.
“It’s freezing.” Lara pulled the robe tighter around her body as she leaned against the doorjamb and watched the puppy as he ventured out toward the edge of the woods. “Don’t you want a jacket?”
“Worried about me?” Tate straightened after he pulled on his boots, sounding as if he liked the thought of her fretting over him. He crowded her up against the door frame and trapped her with one hand on the outside wall and one on the inside. “I woke up with my dick already hard, and the sight of that sweet bare ass of yours walking to the closet. I think I need to get just a little bit cold right now.” His eyes caressed her face as though he searched for something.
“Okay.” She almost blushed like a teenager. Dammit. Tate Colter got to her with the simplest of statements, rendering her senseless. Last night had proved that with a vengeance.
As he dropped his arms and turned around to follow Shep, Lara took a deep breath.
Get it together, Lara. It’s bad enough that you begged the man to fuck you last night. You need to pull your shit back together again. You have a mission to accomplish, and being involved with Tate Colter is trouble.
Disgusted with herself, Lara started to close the door, but she caught a sudden movement out of the corner of her eye. She opened the door again, oblivious now to the bitter cold wind. Her brows narrowed as she realized that it wasn’t a larger dog that stalked the puppy, moving slowly closer to the defenseless little ball of fur. It was a large coyote.
“Tate!” she shouted, putting urgency in her voice as the coyote moved closer, no more than thirty or forty feet now from the tiny Shep.
“I see him,” Tate called back, his eyes focused on the predator. He reached down to the ground, digging underneath the snow. He picked up some rocks and sticks and flung them with accuracy toward the hungry coyote. The animal yelped from a direct hit with a small rock, but didn’t run away like a coyote usually would when hazed by a human. Tate cursed at the animal, yelled, and continued to toss anything he could find at the stalking predator, but the coyote just let out a low, feral growl.
Lara could see the ribs on the wild canine, and it was skinny, obviously hungry enough to feed on anything. “You’re not making Tate’s innocent puppy your damn breakfast,” Lara muttered angrily. She ran into the bedroom where she had shed her clothing the night before and was back to the door in seconds.
Stepping outside just in time to see Tate lunge for the puppy at the same time the coyote went in for the kill, she lifted her arms as Tate sprinted toward the door with his pet in his arms. The coyote turned to give chase with an angry howl.
The coyote would be on Tate in moments unless…
Given no choice, Lara sighted and shot the pursuing predator right between the eyes.
She lowered her arms slowly; the Glock 23 pistol came to rest against her thigh as she let out a sigh of relief. She had no doubt that the coyote was after the puppy. They rarely attacked humans. But if Tate got in the way, he could be torn up or even killed. She wasn’t about to let either the puppy or Tate get injured if she could help it.
But she’d need to think fast to explain.
“That was one hell of a shot,” Tate rumbled as he jogged up to the porch. Shep whined in his arms. He dropped the puppy inside the door and Shep scampered into the house gladly. “I’m not sure if it was the coyote or the gunshot that scared the piss right out of him,” Tate drawled as he watched Shep run for cover inside the house, seemingly totally unfazed by the fact that he could have gotten injured.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice. The coyote was giving chase and you weren’t going to make it to the house,” Lara argued defensively.
Tate wandered over to the dead animal and then back to Lara, nudging her to get back inside the house. “You don’t have any shoes on. Get back inside.”
She went back into the house and set her Glock gently on a high kitchen cupboard to prevent Shep from getting near it. “I really didn’t have any other option,” Lara told Tate again as she turned to him when she felt his presence behind her.
“Hey.” He dropped his hands on her shoulders. “I’m not arguing. Your quick actions and fucking awesome sharpshooting probably saved me some injuries and Shep’s life. Some of the coyotes are getting bold. I’m not sure if that one was rabid, but I know it was hungry. The tourists think it’s fun to leave food out so they can see them, and then they lose their natural fear of humans, become habituated. He definitely wanted to make Shep a meal. I’m not mad at you. I’m grateful.”
“You are?” Lara looked at Tate, confused.
He nodded. “You’re a damn good shot. And you carry a gun. Why?”
They were the questions Lara wanted to avoid. “Because I—I’m…”
Tate covered her lips with his fingers. “Don’t lie to me. I know you want to, or you feel you need to, but don’t. You don’t need to.” His brows drew together as he studied her carefully. “You’re Special Agent Lara Bailey from the FBI. You’re assigned to the counter-terrorism division, which makes a lot of sense to me now that I know how you lost your parents. My question isn’t who you are, Lara. My question is what in the hell are you doing here in Rocky Springs, Colorado?”
She stepped back until his hands fell from her body, completely in shock that her status as an agent had been discovered so easily. “How did you know?” She wasn’t going to deny it. There was obviously no point.
He smirked knowingly. “I’ve got connections you wouldn’t believe. All it took was a phone call. What I couldn’t discover was your mission. You aren’t a stressed-out employee on vacation. You’re here for reason.”
She folded her arms in front of her. “How do you know that? Being a field agent is a stressful job. And we do get vacation.” Lara just couldn’t remember ever taking one. She took a deep breath before she continued. “And how is it possible for you to find out my status that easily? I know that you were a Navy SEAL, but it wasn’t on your military records. Why? And how is it that you still have such powerful contacts?”