He’d only known the woman a few hours. How could he be jealous? That he was made him a little nervous. Brock signed the credit card slip and thanked the man. Steve nodded and returned to his cleaning without another word.
Brock stepped outside to find Gisella already sitting in the passenger seat with her door shut. He decided he liked seeing her there. Beside him, she tugged at the heart with occasional glimpses of her vulnerability. He admired her tough-as-nails attitude about her job.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, he looked at her. “Too cold to stand outside for very long, huh?”
She laughed and agreed.
“You get your call made?”
Gisella frowned. “He didn’t answer.”
“Who?”
“My dad.”
“And that worries you?”
She shrugged. “No. He and my mom are probably out with their friends from church. He’s left a couple messages on my phone so I thought I’d try him back. No big deal.” She gave him a wry smile. “Trust me, he’ll call again.”
Brock drove about halfway down the building and parked in the almost empty lot, not in front of a room. “Our rooms are four doors up.”
Respect gleamed at him. “I never park in front of my door, either. Why advertise what room you’re in?”
He laughed. “Exactly. I try to make sure I don’t park in front of anyone else’s room either. Wouldn’t want an innocent person to get hurt because someone was looking for me.”
“You think someone’s going to come looking for us?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. This town isn’t exactly May-berry. The sheriff and our rough-looking desk clerk didn’t seem thrilled that we’re here and from what you’ve told me, a lot of people have died because of this case. If anyone here has connections with the Lions, then they’re aware we’re here and that we’re asking questions. Why take chances?”
“I agree.” She smiled and climbed from the car.
Brock watched Gisella haul her overnight bag from the car. “You need some help?”
She shot him a wry look. “I think I can handle it, thanks.”
Inserting the key into the lock, she slipped into her room.
Brock shook his head. Stubborn. And very pretty. What was her boss thinking, sending her into this situation? In spite of the fact that Gisella was confident in her abilities to take care of herself, Brock’s gut clenched as he thought about his former partner, Paul Gomez, and his experience. Paul had had a pretty female partner, too, once upon a time. Tina Lorenzo. Paul had fallen in love with her and she’d been killed.
Brock had been paired up with the man after the tragedy. Paul had lasted three months before quitting law enforcement altogether to see if he could find himself at the bottom of a bottle.
Poor Paul. He’d been planning on asking Tina to marry him the weekend that she was killed. Had even bought the ring and shown it around the station that day. Tina had been working an undercover assignment, one she and Paul had argued about. He hadn’t wanted her to take it. She’d insisted.
Brock blew out a sigh. Was he going to have to babysit the Ranger?
Maybe not if her saving his hide tonight hadn’t been a fluke. He still wasn’t sure how Lenny had gotten the drop on him. But he had. And Brock felt embarrassed that Gisella had witnessed it.
On the other hand, it gave him an idea of who she was. And Brock wasn’t against females in law enforcement. Not at all. He knew there were some good women cops. Had even worked with a few. But this whole situation was a different ballgame as far as he was concerned. The Lions had all kinds of connections. High-ranking ones, apparently. They didn’t hesitate to permanently remove anyone who got in their way. And mistakes were always fatal. What if Giselle’s bulldog determination to catch her boss’s killer caused her to be careless? Make a mistake? She could get them both killed.
And the powers that be in the Ranger department had sent a lone woman down here to investigate. What were they thinking?
Of course he was with her, but still…
Just as he was about to step back inside his own hotel room, Gisella appeared in the doorway next to his. “You all set?” he asked.
She looked up to meet his eyes and his blood pumped a little faster. She had beautiful big brown eyes. Eyes that made a man want to act like a brainless sap and get lost in them. He blinked.
“You bet.” She gave him a funny smile. “You?”
He nodded then said, “But sleep with your gun close by. These locks are pitiful.”
She bent to examine hers. “Actually, it’s not that bad.”
He grunted his disagreement. Gisella shook her head in amusement then said with understanding, “But I know what you mean. My locks at home are much better.” She gave him another soft smile that made his heart do things it hadn’t done in a long time. He gulped and ordered himself not to be attracted to her.
It didn’t work.
And that sent fear skittering through him. Memories of his fiancée’s betrayal flashed across his mind, but this time they didn’t seem to hold as much punch.
And it was easy to see Gisella wasn’t anything like the woman who’d left him for another man. A man with a safe job who would be home every night and wouldn’t be gone for months at a time. He’d done his best to keep in touch, doing small things to remind her that he was thinking of her—like having the florist deliver a rose to her once a week.
But it hadn’t been enough and she’d moved on.
He nearly smiled at the irony of it. Gisella would understand his job, what going undercover entailed. And she understood that because she lived it.
And yet, Brock refused to consider falling for someone he worked with, someone in as dangerous a profession as he was. Thinking about the possible results of loving someone who could be killed in the blink of an eye made him shudder. He simply knew too much about things that could go wrong, how easy it was to slip up, trust the wrong person.
Ignoring his thumping heart that didn’t seem to care what Gisella did for a living, he tuned back into her words. “In the morning we can start out by asking around about those other initials from the book. See if there’s anyone around here with the initials JZ, RP or QV.”
“Sounds good to me. See you in the morning.” He stepped into his room and shut the door.
Slowly, Gisella closed her door, absently thinking that someone needed to oil the squeaky hinges—then decided she was thankful for the built-in alarm system. She leaned against the metal door for a moment, pausing to stare at the ceiling.
Breathing out a sigh, she placed a hand over her pounding heart. “What in the world is going on, Lord? He’s just an attractive man. I work around a lot of attractive men and I don’t even notice them much other than to give them credit for doing a good job. What’s different about Brock Martin?”
Not getting an immediate answer, she finally took in the details of the room. It smelled clean. Simple and sparse and not much to it; nevertheless, the bed looked comfortable.
Part of her itched to take a dive into a pool and do several laps to work off the stress of the day. Something she did at home on a regular basis.
Not holding out much hope, she walked to the phone and dialed the front desk. When the man answered, she asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have an indoor pool, would you?”
“Yes, we do. Right here beside the office.” He told her how to get to it and she hung up, surprise zipping through her. Who would