Homeland Security Agent Rylee Hockings paused on the way into the sheriff’s office at the foul language booming from the side of the building. The deep baritone voice continued in a colorful string of obscenities that made her think the speaker had been in some branch of the armed services.
A military brat herself, she had heard her fair share of cussing during her formative years while being dragged from one base to another, Kyoto to Hawaii to Germany and back to Hawaii. The youngest of six, she had the distinction of being the only one of her family not to join the US Marines. Some of the military upbringing had worn off on her because she still believed that one was judged on performance. It was one of many reasons she planned to kill this assignment and show her supervisor she had what it took to be a field operative.
It was just past noon on Labor Day. Because of the federal holiday, she had not expected to find the sheriff in his office, but stopped as a courtesy. The second day of September and sunny, but the sunshine did not warm this frozen block of a county in upstate New York. Here it already felt like November. The leaves were pretty. Already at peak leaf-peeping season.
She rounded the building and found a tall man with strands of honey-blond hair falling over his flushed face as he jammed a coat hanger in the slot between the weather stripping and the driver’s side window of the vehicle before him.
The vehicle was a white SUV and on the side panel in gold paint was the county seal and the word Sheriff.
The man had his back to her and he had not heard her approach due to the swearing and stomping of his feet on the frozen ground. His breath showed in the blast of cold air. The collar of his jacket was turned up against the chill. His distraction gave her a moment to admire an unobstructed view of one of the nicest looking butts she had seen in some time. His uniform slacks were just tight enough and his posterior just muscular enough to keep her interest for a little too long. He wore a brown nylon jacket, heavily padded and flapping at his sides as he threw the coat hanger to the ground.
“Unsat,” she said, using the US Marine jargon for unsatisfactory.
He whirled and met her gaze by pinning her with eyes so blue they should have belonged to a husky. Her smile dropped with her stomach. Straight nose, square chin and a sensual mouth, the guy was the complete package, and then he opened his mouth.
“Sneaking up on a sheriff is a bad idea.”
“As bad as locking your keys inside?” She squinted her eyes and dragged her sunglasses down her nose. “I could have had an entire unit with me, and you wouldn’t have heard.”
He stooped to retrieve his twisted coat hanger, snatching it from the ground with long elegant fingers.
“FUBAR,” she said.
“You in the Corps?” he asked, referring to the US Marine Corps.
“My father, two brothers and a sister.” She motioned to the sheriff’s vehicle. “No spare?”
“Lost them,” he admitted.
“Why not use a Slim Jim?”
He scowled and thumbed over his shoulder. “It’s in the back.”
She wished she’d checked into the background of the sheriff of Onutake County before this meeting, but time had been limited. Knowing what he looked like would have been helpful right about now. For all she knew, this guy was a car thief.
She made a note to do some background checking as soon as she found a moment.
“You Sheriff Trace?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Rylee Hockings, Department of Homeland Security.” She retrieved her business card case from her blazer and offered him a card, leaning forward instead of stepping closer. There was something other than his vocabulary that urged her to keep her distance. She listened to that voice instead of the one that wondered if he were single. But her traitorous eyes dropped to his bare hands and the left one, which held no wedding band.
He nodded, not looking at her card.
“Didn’t expect to find you on the job today, Sheriff.”
“More calls on weekends and holidays. Just the way of the world.”
He’d have trouble responding without his car, she thought.
“What can I do you for?”
“Just an introduction. Courtesy visit.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, his expression turning skeptical. “So, you plan on treating me like I’m still a marine?”
“Excuse me?”
“Muscles are required, intelligence not essential,” he said, choosing one of the tired jokes members of the army often leveled at the marines.
“So you were army, then.” She knew that much from the jibe toward her family’s branch of the military.
“Once.” He smiled and her heart jumped as if hit with a jolt of electricity. The smile and those eyes and jaw and, holy smokes, she was in trouble. She forced a scowl.
“You know, you should always run a check of your equipment before you lock up.”
“You a newbie, reading manuals, going by the book?”
She was and the assumption was insulting.
“Why do you ask?”
“You still have that new car smell.”
Her scowl was no longer forced. What did that even mean? “I’m not the one locked out of my unit.”
“It isn’t even locked. The alarm is just on and I didn’t want to set it off again.”
Again. How often did he do this? she wondered. “I’ll be doing some investigating in your county.”
“What kind of investigating?”
She smiled. “Nice to meet you, Sheriff.”
“You want an escort?”
“From a sheriff careless enough to leave his keys and—” she glanced through the windshield to verify her suspicion “—his phone in his unit? Thank you but I’ll manage.”
She turned to go. New car smell. She growled and marched away.
“You got a Slim Jim in your vehicle, Hockings?” he called after her.
“I do, but I wouldn’t want to chance damaging yours. Maybe try Triple A.”
“Where you headed?”
“Kowa