Out of Time Read online

  He didn’t know whether she found it, but he gave her an encouraging nod, acting more confident than he felt. “Go ahead. Open it.”

  He resisted the urge to stand, knowing that he had to appear as relaxed and unthreatening as he could.

  As soon as the door opened, Scott knew his instincts had been dead-on. The sheriff had seen him. Beneath the wide brim of his felt hat, the lawman’s sharp-eyed gaze shot directly to Scott, taking in every detail of his scruffy, hard-edged, living-off-the-grid appearance. Scott knew he looked more like a hired hit man than a highly decorated SEAL officer. He’d taken “low vis,” as they called it on the Teams, to heart the past couple of months.

  Natalie stepped in front of the door, trying to block the sheriff’s view, and asked, “Is there something I can help you with, Sheriff Brouchard?”

  She was trying to appear casual and friendly, but her acting skills had apparently gone the way of his operational awareness skills, and her voice was shaking. Of course, if it had been intentional and she was trying to alert the sheriff, Scott was in trouble. From the way the sheriff’s gaze narrowed, he definitely hadn’t missed her nervousness, either.

  “I was in the area so I thought I’d check up on you to see how you were doing. I saw your car was still in town, and I was worried about you being stranded out here.” Scott didn’t like the way the sheriff was looking at her—it wasn’t just neighborly concern in his gaze—and something hot and possessive surged through his veins. His muscles tensed and his posture probably wasn’t quite so relaxed and nonthreatening anymore. The sheriff hadn’t missed the movement, and his gaze shifted to Scott on the couch. “But I see that you have company.”

  There was an unspoken challenge in his gaze that Scott wasn’t going to ignore—even if he should. “She does,” he said. “And she’s being well taken care of.”

  In other words, fuck you and the horse you rode in on, buddy.

  “Who are you?”

  Scott smiled; he knew the law. He didn’t have to answer that. “Not sure that’s any of your business unless you got some kind of warrant there that I can’t see?”

  The friendly tone didn’t mask the underlying words. Another fuck-you.

  Not surprisingly, the sheriff’s suspicion turned to anger. The last thing Scott should be doing was provoking him, but this guy set him on edge. He was sure it didn’t have anything to do with the fact that the sheriff was his size—maybe even a little bigger—looked like a TV star, and was clearly interested in Natalie.

  Natalie hadn’t missed the dangerous undercurrent between the two men and tried to turn the sheriff’s attention back to her. “Thank you so much, Sheriff. I really appreciate your stopping by. I’ll make sure to pick up my car in the morning.”

  The overbrightness of her reply made her anxiousness all the more obvious. If she wasn’t trying to make the sheriff suspicious, she really needed to reconsider the whole spy thing. She might as well be wearing a flashing red sign that read SOMETHING WRONG HERE.

  The sheriff looked intently back and forth between them. “You sure everything is all right?” he asked her.

  Scott hadn’t missed that the other man’s hand had moved toward his holster, as if he was just waiting for her to say the word.

  But would she?

  Her gaze flicked to Scott’s for just the barest of an instant. He could see her temptation. All she had to do was say “yes” and Magnum would jump at the chance to take him in. Scott—or Rob Preston, as his ID stated—would be out in a few hours, but that would be more than enough time for her to get away. And despite what he’d told her about finding her, he suspected she wouldn’t be as easy to track down the next time.

  Natalie could make it even harder on him if she told the sheriff who he really was: an AWOL Navy SEAL who everyone thought was dead. It wouldn’t tie him up for just a few hours.

  Hell, Scott couldn’t even say he’d blame her if she did it. Were he in her position, he just might do it.

  She turned back to the sheriff.

  Scott waited, feeling as if a hammer were pounding in his chest, for what seemed like the longest pause ever for her to answer.

  “I’m fine. He’s my ex, that’s all.” She hurried to add, so there wasn’t any mistake, “Ex-boyfriend—not husband.”

  Scott felt the tension dissipate into relief. He relaxed his posture—and the flare of muscle. He even decided to be a little more magnanimous and throw the dog a bone. “Rob,” he filled in his name for the sheriff. “And I’m working on the ex part.”

  All right, so maybe not so magnanimous.

  Clearly the sheriff didn’t like that part of the answer. He also knew that something was off, but as there wasn’t anything else he could do, he tipped his hat to Natalie. “I’ll be going then, ma’am. But you have my number if you need anything.”

  Natalie nodded, thanked him, and closed the door. A few minutes later—after looking back a few times at the house—the sheriff got in his car and drove off.

  * * *

  • • •

  Natalie watched out of the window, not breathing, until the sheriff’s car disappeared. Only then did she turn on Scott, who was sitting calmly on the couch apparently enraptured by the baseball game on TV. She marched over and stood in front of it.

  “You’re blocking the screen.”

  She ignored him, demanding angrily, “What was that all about?”

  “All what?”

  Apparently she’d found the one thing that Mr. Lieutenant Commander of America’s Top SEAL Team didn’t do well: play dumb.

  But she knew male posturing when she saw it. “I’m surprised you didn’t break out rulers.”

  His gaze went to hers, piercing her with its intensity—and something else. “I didn’t need one.”

  Natalie felt her cheeks and other parts of her body flush, not with embarrassment but with the heat of awareness and memories. He was right. He didn’t. Nor should she be thinking about how much she’d enjoyed that fact.

  God, she almost let out a groan. Dick size didn’t matter. Yeah, right. She’d thought that until she met Scott.

  If he’d meant to fluster her, he had. “You know what I mean.”

  He shrugged, returning his interest to his beer and to the parts of the screen he could still see. “I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”

  She wanted to stomp with frustration and get him to pay attention to her. “You are seeing things then because he was looking at me like a concerned neighbor.”

  “A concerned neighbor who wants to get in your pants,” he said, muffling the last with a sip of his beer.

  But she’d heard it. “Why do men always assume other men are thinking about sex?”

  “Uh, because they are,” he stated as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  Natalie rolled her eyes, refusing to be baited about something so ridiculous. “Even if you are right, why do you care?”

  Something angry flashed in his eyes, but she wasn’t sure whether it was directed at her or himself. He put his beer down with a hard slam. Now she had his attention. “I don’t. I just don’t want him sniffing around while I’m here.”

  “Well, if that was your goal you picked an odd way of going about it. The friendly route might have made him less suspicious.”

  “He was already suspicious. You weren’t exactly making your nervousness unclear. What happened to the cool, confident woman who deceived everyone around her, including me, for the past few years?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I just got tired of being that person.” She didn’t even know who she was anymore. Not the young idealist who’d gone to Washington thinking she could save the world, but not the Stepford Washington insider, either. Natalie’s shoulders sagged. “Maybe I’m just tired.”

  And she was. It was as if the weight of the past few years had finally cau