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father’s Zander Gray, a lowlife swindling scum. I arrested him about three years ago for attempting to murder a witness who was going to testify against him, and he was doing hard time before he escaped.”
And this was suddenly becoming a whole lot clearer.
“He sent you here,” Declan accused.
“No,” she quickly answered. “I’m not even sure he’s alive.”
Okay, maybe not so clear after all.
“But my father might have been the reason they contacted me in the first place,” Eden explained. “They might have thought I’d do anything to get back at you for arresting him. I won’t.”
He made a sound of disagreement. “Since you’re trespassing and have been stalking me, convince me otherwise that you’re not here to avenge your father.”
“I’m not.” Not a whisper that time. And there was some fire in those two little words. “But someone’s trying to set me up. Earlier this week someone broke into my office, planted some fake financials on my computer and changed the password so I can’t delete them from the server. That someone is trying to make it look as if I’m funneling money to a radical militia group buying illegal firearms.”
Declan thought about that a second. “Lady, if you wanted me to investigate that, you didn’t have to follow me or come to my ranch. My office is on Main Street in town.”
Another headshake. “They didn’t hire me to go to your office.”
Mercy. It was hard to hang on to his temper with this roundabout conversation. “There it is again. That they. They put up the camera that you don’t want me to go to the window and see. So who are they?”
“I honestly don’t know.” She dodged his gaze, tried to turn away, but he took hold of her again and forced her to face him. “After I realized someone had planted that false info on my computer, I got a call from a man using a prepaid cell phone. I didn’t recognize his voice. He said if I went to the cops or the marshals, he’d release the info on my computer and I’d be arrested.”
And maybe she would be. Because some cops might assume like father, like daughter.
But was she?
Declan pushed that question aside. Right now, that didn’t matter. “This unknown male caller is the one who put the camera outside?”
“I think so. If not him, then someone working with or for him. All I know is it’s there because I saw a man wearing a ski mask installing it right after you left for your ride.”
He shook his head. “If they sent you to watch me, why use a camera?”
“Because the camera is to watch me,” she clarified. “To make sure I do what he ordered me to do.”
“And what exactly are you supposed to do?” Declan demanded.
Eden Gray shoved her hand over her Glock. “Kill you.”
Chapter Two
Declan O’Malley came at her so fast that Eden didn’t even see it coming until it was too late.
Even though he was tall and lanky, he still packed a wallop when he slammed into her, knocking her back against the wall. In the same motion, he ripped her gun from her shoulder holster, tossed it behind him and jammed his own weapon beneath her chin.
“Kill me?” His teeth were clenched now. Jaw, too. And even though there were no lights on in the living room, she had no trouble seeing the venom in his eyes.
Eden was certain there was no venom in hers. Just fear. It’d been a huge risk coming here. From everything she’d read and heard about him, Declan could be a dangerous man. Still, she hadn’t had a choice. If she was going to die, she’d rather it be at his hands than others’.
“The man who called me on the burner cell ordered me to kill you,” Eden managed to say. Though it was hard to speak with the marshal’s body pressed against her chest. It was hard to breathe, too.
But maybe Declan himself was responsible for that.
Eden had known that he fell into the drop-dead-hot category. Tall, dark, deadly. However, what she hadn’t known was that despite the danger and this insane situation, she would feel the punch of attraction. She’d never expected to feel it for this man, but it was there.
You’re losing it, Eden.
Declan O’Malley was the job. For some huge reasons, especially one, he couldn’t be anything else.
“Why does he want me dead?” he demanded.
“I don’t know. That’s the truth,” Eden added when he made a “yeah, right” sound. “He just told me if I didn’t kill you that he’d release the info he planted on my computer.”
No “yeah, right” this time, but his left eyebrow lifted. “You’d kill me rather than risk charges for funneling money to a militia group?”
Eden lifted her own eyebrow. She wasn’t feeling especially brave, definitely not like the cocky man looming in front of her. The seconds were ticking away, and with each one of them, the risk got higher and higher. Someway, somehow, she had to get this hot cowboy marshal to go along with an asinine plan that had little or no chance of succeeding.
Still, little was better than zero.
Without warning, he yanked the baseball cap from her head and threw it in the direction her Glock had landed. Her hair was in a ponytail, but it dropped against her shoulder. He studied it. Then her eyes. Every inch of her face. Maybe trying to figure out if she was telling him the truth. Or maybe he was just giving her the twice over as she’d done to him.
She hoped not.
They didn’t need both of them feeling this involuntary heat.
“You sure this isn’t about your father?” he pressed.
“I’m sure. I haven’t heard from him since he escaped from jail.”
And she didn’t want to get into that sore subject now. Declan had arrested her father, and then her father had escaped. It wouldn’t do any good to mention that she believed her father was innocent of at least the most serious charge—attempted murder. That really wouldn’t help in getting Declan to cooperate if she questioned his lawman’s skills of apprehending a guilty suspect.
“Could you at least move the gun?” Eden asked. “Because we need to talk. I figure at most I’ve got twenty minutes left before someone will want to know why I haven’t fired a shot.”
She was being generous with that timeline. The mysterious caller had told her to show Declan ASAP what she’d been sent. Why, she didn’t know, but it seemed as if that was only to taunt him.
Or rile him even more than he already was.
Like poking an ornery rattler with a short stick. It hardly seemed wise, but she would show him. And hope for a way out of this.
Declan slid his intense green eyes to the gun, then back to her. “Yes to the talking. No to moving the gun.”
There was just a touch of an Irish brogue beneath that Texas drawl. A strange combination. And one she might have enjoyed hearing if his finger wasn’t on the trigger of the gun pressed to her throat.
“I agreed to kill you because I didn’t have a choice,” Eden explained. No beautiful lilt to her words. Her voice was strained like the rest of her. One big giant nerve. “If the planted info had been leaked, it would have set off an opposing militia group that would in turn kill me, the rest of my family and anyone they thought might be a friend of mine.”
Finally, he let up a little on the pressure to her chest and eased back a fraction. Still close. Still touching. He probably hadn’t realized that he had his right leg shoved between hers. Eden’s gaze drifted in that direction.