Undid them. His penis giving a jump as he saw the lace edging on the low-cut pink panties she wore. With two fingers, he played with that lace. Reached to both hips and started to pull downward. Her hands covered his, helping him until he saw pubic hair, and part of a butt cheek, and then halting his motion.

  He swallowed back a choking sound as everything in him cried out. And he lay there, hands off.

  If she needed to stop, so did he.

  No questions asked.

  She didn’t slide off the bed, just rolled to her left hip beside him, reached down to her ankle, and...came up with her gun. Handing it to him.

  Oh hell...what the sight of that unholstered gun did to him...what it shouldn’t have done to him. It wasn’t a toy. Was absolutely not there for anything fun. Hard as a cement wall anyway, he took it and set it gently on the nightstand.

  And donned a condom.

  Getting her pants the rest of the way off her was a joint venture. He took care of the ankle holster, kissing up her leg as he did so.

  And then she was on top of him again, pushing his shoulders back to the mattress and then running those incredibly strong, so slim fingers all over his chest, playing with his nipples, running through his chest hair.

  He was going to die before they finished. Nothing that exquisite could exist on earth.

  So much to touch. To explore. To taste.

  She planted her lips against his, her thighs straddling him, and way before he was ready to be done, plunged herself down on him.

  Crying out with pleasure, he felt her soft, warm cushion against his engorged penis, taking all of him deep inside. He forced himself to remain still in spite of the need to pull out and head back in, to get that embrace again and again.

  “Oh, Joe, you’re... This...” Throwing her head back, she arched, giving him a different angle inside her. And thrusting her breasts out to his happy-to-accommodate hands.

  “Move with it,” he urged softly. Wanting her to take every ounce of pleasure she could.

  “I don’t want it to end.” Even as she said the words, her body pulled up on his, and he grabbed her hips lightly, not guiding, just riding along as she plunged back down, and then again.

  And again.

  He couldn’t think. Could just see her. Feel her. Want her more than he’d wanted anything in his life.

  And needed the moment to last forever, too.

  He heard her cry.

  Felt her pulse.

  And exploded.

  * * *

  McKenna couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t fall down to his chest and hold on tight. She hung her head back as she recovered a sense of self, blinking back the tears that welled from an overload of incredible emotion.

  The one thing that wasn’t allowed in that room.

  As soon as she could trust herself to speak, she sat up. Smiled at him—a saucy smile befitting the moment. Because she couldn’t let it go bad.

  She might only have the one memory, and she would not have it smirched.

  “Duty calls,” she said, sliding off from him.

  Grabbing her clothes and gun, she scooted to the pocket door and into the bathroom. Had it almost closed behind her when she heard his soft, deep, “Come again, anytime.”

  And filled with a need she feared was never going to leave her system.

  * * *

  Joe had the most incredible night. Dreaming awake—and sleeping deeply, too. His bodyguard visited him a second time, after she’d made rounds, lying down next to him, already naked, and stroking him awake with distinctly mimicked moves on his penis. He’d been on top that time. Had shown her his moves. And she cried out even louder than their first coupling when he coaxed the finale out of her.

  He’d hated having her leave him.

  Knew that her doing so meant she could come back again, and sent her a sleepy invitation to repeat at her pleasure.

  The next thing he knew, there was a loud banging on the door of the rig.

  Flying out of bed, getting into shorts, sans underwear, and pulling a shirt from the drawer by the bed, he grabbed his hammer and ran the three steps into the kitchen.

  Getting there just in time to hear the door of the rig shut.

  His bodyguard was nowhere in sight.

  If McKenna was in trouble...

  Throwing open the door, he prepared to take whatever action necessary, and found himself looking down at the curly redheaded woman who’d had sex with him during the night—twice—hugging a man every bit as tall as and broader than Joe was.

  Quite a bit older than Joe, too, based on the gray-peppered hair that was otherwise pretty much the same curly red as McKenna’s—just shorter. The eyes—brown and every bit as expressive as his recent lover’s—were fixed on him.

  Clearly sizing him up.

  “You’re up!” McKenna turned, probably hearing the door open—or maybe sensing the immediate change in what had to be her father. “Let’s get inside, then,” she ordered, leaving Joe little choice but to back up as she charged right for him.

  Sliding his hammer along the wall by the sink, Joe headed for the bathroom. Gave father and daughter time to greet, to acquaint. Gave McKenna the chance to explain Joe in whatever way she felt a need to do.

  He could hear their voices, but with the bathroom’s exhaust fan blowing couldn’t make out the words. Didn’t want to.

  Still stinging from Bellair’s rejection, and trying not to think at all about the possibility that his own father could be complicit in the hell that had become Joe’s life—again—he wasn’t feeling all that favorable toward fathers.

  Not for him.

  Ablutions done, including a fresh shave, hair back in its ponytail, tats still going strong, Joe added underwear beneath his shorts and went to meet the man who’d fathered the most incredible woman he’d ever met.

  The man his bodyguard hoped would agree to help them get Joe out of one hell of a mess.

  Chapter 21

  McKenna might have felt a bit...nervous...having her father and Joe meet after the night she’d just spent with the accountant who’d fallen from grace, but one look at Kyle Meredith’s face once he’d stepped into the rig and all thoughts of anything personal fled.

  The second she’d told him Joe’s name, he’d let her know he’d heard about the case.

  She’d quickly filled him in on what she and Joe were doing there, what they needed from him.

  “Give me the address and I’ll get there,” Kyle said, and then, his gaze tightening, added, “Just tell me one thing. Do you believe he’s innocent?”

  She didn’t doubt for a second that her father would do whatever she asked of him, regardless of her answer, and she told him honestly, “My heart believes he is.”

  It was more honesty than she’d given herself.

  Or Joe.

  The latch clicked on the pocket door and the door slid open before her father had a chance to respond. He reached out a hand to Joe, though, as Joe came to stand by them in the doorway.

  So odd, watching her father—in his jeans, work boots and T-shirt—shake hands with Joe Hamilton. In all the years she’d lived in two worlds, she’d never, ever seen her father’s hand clasped by her grandfather, or anyone else from that world.

  “We need to talk,” Kyle said then, glancing between the two of them. “Your brothers—” he nodded toward McKenna, but kept Joe in the conversation with eye contact as well “—have been following the #wheresjoenow hashtag since it came out that Sierra’s Web was involved. They figured, with your familial associations...”

  He didn’t finish the sentence. Just shrugged.

  “It’s okay, Dad, Joe knows about Mom. He knows who my grandparents are.”

  With a nod, and a concerned frown, Kyle continued, “A new post went viral overnight. Said that though it’s not listed on their site, Sierra’s Web has bodyguard experts on staff and asked if anyone knew who Joe’s was.”

  She swore. Loud and clear. “It won’t be long before I’m the prime suspect,” she said.

  Joe followed up immediately with, “That’s it, you’re fired and I’m out of here.”

  “I’d think twice about that if I were you,” Kyle said, standing shoulder spread to shoulder spread with Joe. “You’re in a world of hurt, and there’s nobody better able to protect you than McKenna and her team.”

  While McKenna glowed with love for the man who’d fathered her, he turned to look at her. “I’ll stop by and see the sheriff on my way out of town. He’ll get a group together to assist you in whatever way you need.”

  Her nod was as firm and professional as always, but her smile trembled a little. Kyle probably noticed but didn’t call her on it as he turned back to Joe. “I have one requirement from you.”

  Gaze piercing and yet respectful-looking, Joe said, “I’m listening.”

  “Don’t go getting all he-man here and barreling out with hammers to fight bullets. You do that, you put my daughter’s life at stake, ’cause then the subject she’s protecting is in open range. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’ll follow every order she gives, no testosterone-induced superhero antics?”

  “I will.”

  “Good, then I have another question.”

  “What’s that?” Hands in his pockets, Joe seemed to relax a bit, and McKenna bit her lip when the thought struck that Joe seemed to like her dad. A wave of happiness shot through her.

  She shoved it away sharply. When it lingered, she allowed that her dad deserved the respect Joe was giving him, and it just felt good to see that.

  Tuning back in, she heard something about Joe having a pair of jeans and wore a size-ten boot.

  “Good, we’ll get you outfitted. The boys are working on a new build, up Old Hill Road. They’ll put you to work. Kenna can get you there.”

  What! “Dad! What’s Joe going to do at a construction site?”

  “I’m a licensed plumber and electrician.”

  Mouth wide-open, her gaze shot to him. “You’re a what now?”

  With a shrug, turning back toward his tiny bedroom, he stopped long enough to say, “I didn’t have a scholarship to college, and no way was I going to start my life out in that much debt. I worked all through high school on construction sites. Just made sense to get licensed and keep working part-time...”

  Joe shut the pocket door behind him, and she turned to her dad.

  “Your brothers did a deep dive on him. The licensing came up. Could have been a different Joe Hamilton, but they found an address that confirmed it was him.”

  “You want me out at the site where Jackson and Kierland can keep an eye out in case I need help,” she challenged, trying to hide her shock—and hurt—at not knowing such a huge thing about Joe. She’d told him her brothers were in construction. That they had their own business.

  “I don’t sell you short, Kenna,” Kyle said. “You’ve proven over and over that you’re fully capable, an expert in your field, by Sierra’s Web terms, but you’re still just one person and this Joe guy—he’s got armies out after him at the moment.”

  “Most of whom are just playing an online game for their own entertainment.”

  “But if there are even two angry people who take this up, who both find out from the same post where he is, and head up here at the same time from opposite directions...”

  He didn’t have to tell her what she was up against. She already knew.

  “The idea is to not have to take any of them on,” she reminded him. “My job is to keep Joe away from them. To stay one step ahead.”

  “And where better to do that than a construction site up on a mountain?”

  He was right, of course. Completely right. Her view of anyone approaching would be extremely valuable.

  And if Joe was busy with her brothers, she wouldn’t have to worry about keeping her hands off him, either.

  Watching him in a hard hat and jeans, though...

  With a nod, she hugged her father, whispered in his ear to be safe in Phoenix, and heard his own whispered “be safe” back.

  She might not share her home with anyone, but as far as family and love went, she was one of the wealthiest people she knew.

  * * *

  Jackson and Kierland Meredith didn’t start out to be as open to having Joe around as her father had been eager to have him on their site.

  Having just made the twenty-minute trip straight up—maneuvering sharp turns around the mountain the whole way—with McKenna more distant than she’d been in a while, he might have been a bit more sensitive to her brothers’ lack of enthusiasm than he otherwise would have been.

  “What’s eating you?” he asked her as, after stiff introductions, he sat down to put on the new boots that he’d just paid Kierland back for.

  “You knew my family was in construction but didn’t bother mentioning that you share their skills? You think it’s beneath you or something? Or maybe I’m just such a brief blip in your life that you thought finding similarities in our lives wasn’t worth the time?”

  Had their situation not been so fraught with tension, with watch-over-your-shoulder-every-second fear, with mistrust abounding from all directions and with the memory of the most incredible night that wasn’t supposed to mean anything—he might have teased her out of the frown she was wearing.

  “I helped build the home I live in,” he told her instead, giving her a straight stare and total honesty. “And if you saw the inside, you’d see that I’m constantly making improvements, even where they aren’t needed. It’s what I do in my private time. In my alone time. My me time. It’s how I both honor and remember the young man who grew me into the man I am today.”

  She blinked. Looked like she might be tearing up. Nodded.

  And he made his escape only to find himself flanked by the two older Meredith siblings. They were at his side, at least one of them, for most of the day—giving him up to McKenna during lunch as they shared catering-service sandwiches that her brothers had brought up with them that morning.

  “I’m guessing you’re a little bored,” he said as he hungrily devoured a roast beef and tomato on thick, freshly made bread.

  “No,” she told him, eating more slowly, keeping a watch on the road leading up the mountain. “I’ve been using the new burner phone Dad brought up to speak with Glen via a very busy coffee shop he never goes to. And I’ve spoken with Sheriff Richards, as well, via the new phone. So far, things are going according to plan.”

  She gave no more. Sensing her unusual mood—hoping it wasn’t induced by their activities in his bed the night before—he didn’t ask questions.

  They ate in silence after that. She didn’t elaborate on her report, nor did she ask how his day was going, what he was doing or anything about her brothers.

  So he didn’t offer the information.

  He did thank her, though, as he stood up to get back to the faucets he’d been installing. The house had twelve of them, all told, laundry room included. He hoped to have them all complete by day’s end.

  “Just doing my job.” McKenna didn’t even look at him as she replied. He caught a glimpse of the phone she was studying, though. And understood when he saw that she’d already loaded the camera app and was currently checking the screens showing her the rig by her father’s cabin.

  The woman left nothing to chance.

  Mostly, he was glad about that.

  But where it left them, as two bodies comingling, he didn’t want to guess.

  * * *

  McKenna watched Joe saunter back to the house where her brothers and the rest of their crew were sitting on a half wall eating lunch.

  She would have to get the sexiest man alive as a client.

  Waiting to hear from Glen, she’d had to force down her sandwich through a dry throat. Because every time she looked at Joe’s hands, his legs—hell, any part of him—she flew right back to the night before. Feeling what she’d felt.

  And Glen had stopped midsentence during their call, saying he’d have to get back to her.

  Something had happened. She didn’t know what.

  So had no way to know if Joe was in further danger or not. Figuring the top of the mountain, with her brothers—both of them fit enough to take most men—close by was about as safe as she could get him, she did what she could.

  Kept keeping watch.

  While intermittently thinking about life. Her life. Her future. The summer Jackson had danced in New York, he’d met a lot of important people. Six months later, at home in Shelter Valley, he’d had a call, a job offer, a part in a Broadway play. Her father had just taken on a new, bigger project with the construction company and needed Jackson’s help to keep costs down. And Jackson was in love. He’d turned down the job, eventually married, become a partner in Meredith and Sons, and had a son of his own.

  She, on the other hand, was living her dream. Doing the work she loved.

  Making her life count in the way that most mattered to her. Saving other people from the horror her mother had suffered. Because the world should be a place where good, loving people could be happy...

  Staring at the road down the mountain, she had her phone in hand and was pressing the answer button the second it rang.

  Two minutes later, she was in the partially built house, interrupting what looked to be a pretty intense private conversation between Kierland and Joe in a very luxurious upstairs bathroom.

  “Joe.” She announced herself before she got close enough to overhear them. The last thing she needed at the moment was to have to tell her brother to back off.

  Joe was a client. Not a potential ’Kenna suitor.

  The two broke apart equally, as though both were guilty of doing something that would anger her. She didn’t have the energy for it.