Page 65 of The Bodyguard's Fall

My cheeks heated while my lips curved in a smile.

“Are we far enough away to get all your research in about the kissing trees?”

I shook my head and smiled, my heart doing its thing at turbo speed. “Autumn-kissed trees.”

“Sounds the same to me.”

A laugh slipped out of me. Before I could stop myself, I said, “You would never kiss me.”

He stopped and turned to face me, disbelief flashing across his face. “What was that?”

I faltered beneath the spark in his eyes, then pressed on. “You wouldn't kiss me. I’m like your sister. This is a job for you.”

“A job,” he repeated.

“Yeah.”

He stared a moment longer, then nodded once, as though settling something in himself, and stepped closer until he was looking directly into my eyes.

“Let's get a few things straight, Rawlins. This is a job. Which means I will prioritize your safety over everything else.”

My breath caught while his gaze held mine.

“But you are absolutely not my sister.”

Butterflies swooped low in my belly, but before they could take flight, he grabbed my hand and got us moving again.

We walked in silence for a while, the crunch of the leaves and the smell of a wood stove burning from somewhere nearby providing immaculate ambiance. I should have been nervous in the woods. Wasn’t that the most cliché place of all for something scary to happen to a person? But I wasn’t. Tate was here, and even amid the flirting, he was holding my hand and watching.

“Do you think Leroy knows I’m not at home?” I asked. I was hesitant to ask, but I needed to know.

“Yeah.”

I sucked in a breath through my nose and forced myself to ask the next. “And do you think he knows I’m here?”

“If he doesn’t yet, he’s probably trying to figure it out.”

“But there’s a good chance he does know?”

“Yeah,” his voice was soft but matter-of-fact. Like someone had asked him if he watched the game.

“Do you ever get scared?” I asked him as we passed a squirrel scampering up a large maple tree.

“About what?”

“About this.” I motioned to our surroundings. “Or with your job? How did you get to be someone who runs toward the danger?”

He huffed out a laugh. “My mom always said I was born without any fear. She has the doctor bills for all my broken bones to prove it.”

I laughed softly.

He scratched his head. “When I was maybe ten or eleven, this kid was picking on me and a friend of mine. It was just stupid stuff, him making fun of us about something. And I remember taking it for a minute, not really sure what to do. Then he gave my friend a shove, and it was like something lit up inside of me. I wasn’t taller than him, but I was faster, and I’d grown up wrestling Ben and Jaxon. So I jumped on him.”

“What happened?”

He smiled. “I got myself a black eye. But I swear he looked worse than me.”

I laughed.