Page 26 of Lone Star Hostage

“He won’t get the chance. I’m having Angel guard her for a while.” Her gaze went to his. “You’re too close to this. Best if you step back and…deal. It had to have shaken you when you found out she was your bio-mom.”

“It did, but I can still do the job,” he argued.

But he wasn’t sure he actually wanted bodyguard duty. Not until Victoria at least knew who he was. Because then, she might have to do her own dealing, and he’d rather not be around for that.

Something must have caused her to drop him off at the fire station, and it sure as hell wasn’t lack of funds. She came from money, lots and lots of it. Of course, her rich folks likely wouldn’t have approved of her having a kid. And then there’d been the bio-father angle. It was possible the guy had been the one who’d ditched Presley.

That left another possibility.

The worst of the bunch. Because maybe Victoria had had all the money and support in the world, but she simply hadn’t wanted him. Hadn’t cared enough about him to even put him up for adoption. Even as an adult, that stung.

“How about you handling what you learned about Victoria?” Ruby asked, “And feel free to tell me to mind my own business.”

“It’s your business because I work for you. You have to know you can trust me in any situation where you assign me.” He paused. “But I’ll have to get back to you on how I’m handling it.”

Ruby nodded as if that’d been the exact answer she’d expected. Presley didn’t get a chance to say more because he saw Billie step away from the deputy and head their way. He watched her movements, looking for any signs of pain. And it was there all right. She winced a little when she sat down on the other side of him.

“Good job on the mission,” Ruby told her, and she stood. “I’ll try to get some updates from the sheriff.”

Ruby went in that direction, and what she’d said likely wasn’t BS. She probably did want to get some intel, but Presley suspected her quick departure was to give Billie and him a moment alone.

Presley studied Billie’s face, cursing the new bruise that she now had in addition to the black eye. And it wasn’t the only bruise. He knew there was another one where the bullet had hit her vest. He hadn’t gotten a look at that one, but figured it was just below her right breast.

Mercy, he wanted to pull her into his arms. Gently though. He wanted to have just that body to body contact with her. But this definitely wasn’t the time or the place, not with both of their bosses and half of the local police force in the room.

“Please tell me you got some pain meds,” he murmured, moving a strand of her hair off her cheek.

“I got it. Not sure I’ll take it. How about you? How bad is your headache?” she asked.

Despite everything, including the damn headache, he smiled. “It’s a good day. We won. Sort of,” he tacked onto that. “We didn’t get the big asshole who hired the little assholes who tried to kill us.”

She sighed, nodded. “I heard that Jesep, Olivia, and Ari are on the way here to the hospital.”

“Yeah. Angel’s guarding Victoria.”

That put some relief on Billie’s face, and she continued to study him. “I have to take at least a mandatory twelve hours off since I was involved in a shooting. Owen’s rules,” she added.

“Ruby has a similar one,” he let her know. “Why don’t we do our downtime together? My house is only about twenty minutes from here.”

There. He’d thrown out an invitation that he figured she’d turned down. She didn’t.

“Okay,” she said after pausing only a heartbeat. “And just know that I could really use a hug from you right now.”

Presley smiled, and he did a big assed no-no by leaning in and brushing his mouth over hers. Billie certainly didn’t push him away. In fact, she appeared to be on the verge of kissing him right back, but the sound of approaching footsteps put a halt to that.

He looked up and saw Owen Striker looming over them.

Emphasis onlooming. The guy definitely looked Delta Force, and not ex or retired either. He seemed more than capable of being on active duty.

And kicking some serious ass.

Billie started to stand, almost as if she were about to come to attention, but Owen motioned her back down. “I just wanted to check on you before I head out.” He volleyed glances at both of them.

Presley braced himself for Owen to mention that kiss. No way in hell had he missed it. But he didn’t.

“Downtime,” Owen spelled out. “Get it while you can. This investigation will heat up again when we find out who’s behind the kidnapping.”

Owen had barely finished that when there were more footsteps, and this time both Presley and Billie got to their feet when they saw it was a doctor heading straight for them.

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