Heart of Gold Read Free Page B

gone.
    “I’d like a tour of the house right away,” Shane said, a smug smile tilting the corners of his lips.
    Faith sat back in her desk chair and gave him the most disgruntled look she could muster, considering she found his smile utterly sexy. She didn’t need sexy. She didn’t need Adonis lurking around her house, making her bones go limp every time she looked at him. How would she ever get any work done going around with limp bones?
    But John Banks had just shown her that he was not only as emotionless as the Rock of Gibraltar, he was as immovable as well. He had told her in no uncertain terms that she was stuck with Agent Handsome, whether she thought she needed him or not.
    “I don’t understand your attitude, Mrs. Gerrard,” Shane said, perching a hip on one corner of her desk. He folded his arms across his chest. “You’re being offered protection. All things considered, you ought to be grateful.”
    “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the thought,” Faith said sincerely, her sable eyes begging for understanding. Her slim shoulders lifted in a shrug. “It’s just that I don’t need protection. You’ll be wasting your time.” And upsetting my hormones, she added silently.
    “That’s not what Banks thinks. Your ex-husband and his pals have been making noises about you testifying in the DataTech trial next month.”
    “I know William.” She winced a bit at the memory of the man she had once pledged to love until death. “He’s very good at threats, but I don’t think he has the guts to make good on this one.”
    Doubt immediately surfaced inside her. She didn’t believe William would physically hurt her, but then she’d been wrong about William Gerrard time and again. There was a time when she hadn’t believed him capable of betraying his country either.
    “It doesn’t take much in the way of guts to hire someone else to carry out threats,” Shane said softly, almost gently.
    Faith refused to consider that possibility. It was too remote, too unreal, like something from a television crime drama. To reassure herself, she said, “He doesn’t have any idea where I am.”
    Shane simply lifted an eyebrow as if to say that was a minor problem that could be easily solved.
    Rubbing a trembling hand across her forehead, Faith heaved a ragged sigh. She didn’t want to deal with any of this. She and her daughter were building a new life there on the northern coast of California. She didn’t want William Gerrard to intrude in any way.
    More than anything, she wanted to forget about the way he had lied to her, the way he had used her and Lindy. She didn’t want any memories of that tainting her new life. Shane Callan was a reminder that she didn’t have any say in the matter—at least not until the trial was over.
    “That tour, Mrs. Gerrard?”
    “Please don’t call me that,” she whispered. “I divorced William Gerrard ten months ago.”
    “Just in the nick of time,” Shane muttered half under his breath as he rose and motioned for her to precede him out the door. It wouldn’t do for him to forget that she may well have played a role in her ex-husband’s scheme. He reminded himself of that and pushed away the foreign feelings of sympathy that had been niggling at him as he’d stared down into Faith’s fathomless brown eyes.
    Faith just caught his comment and bit back a retort. What did she care what Callan thought of her? Why waste her breath telling Shane Callan that a charming politician on his way to big things had swept a naive girl from the farm country of Ohio off her feet, that he had wooed her with words of love because he had believed she would be an asset to his “down-home” image. What would a man like Shane Callan know of the heartbreak she had lived with bound to a man who didn’t love her by vows she felt she couldn’t break?
    No, she told herself. She was stuck with Shane Callan. The best thing she could do would be to ignore him.
    Pulling herself up to her full