From behind her, a deep male voice called out in a bland Midwestern non-accent, “The plane is nearly ready. Shall we?”
The hot desert wind fluttered her short skirt around her, and she grabbed the fabric and pressed it to her thigh. She should’ve worn something professional, but Colleen didn’t have anything professional. She’d gone from being a destitute college student to being a destitute retail worker. She owned three dresses, all of which she’d packed, a few pairs of sweatpants and workout clothes, and a whole bunch of jeans, three GameShack uniform shirts, plus five old cosplay costumes that she didn’t have the money to go to conventions to wear.
Anjali had stepped out of her car to give Colleen one last hug, and she whispered in Colleen’s ear, “And his phone number.”
“Got it.”
“Do you want me to stay?”
Colleen gestured toward the guys and the chauffeur who had thrown her suitcase on a luggage cart with the rest of the bags. “Seems like we’re going to be leaving soon. I don’t want you to be late for your next class.”
Anjali hugged her again, trotted to her car, and sped away because time was getting short to get back to the university and find parking.
When Colleen turned, Tristan King had removed his sunglasses and was examining her closely. As she’d seen yesterday at GameShack and the coffee shop, his brilliant blue eyes were also shrewd as hell, and he seemed to be analyzing her so closely that she was half-surprised he hadn’t lasered her clothes off her. “Brought your backpack, I see. I assume that’s your laptop?”
“Yep. You said you needed a computer science consultant, so I brought my laptop. I’d be pretty useless without it, huh?”
Tristan chuckled. “Good that you brought it, yes.” He took a breath like he had the intention of saying something but closed his lips—and what lush lips they were—but then he said, “I know this is an odd question, but by any chance, are you a—”
Gunshots cracked in the air.
Colleen had grown up on the west side of Phoenix in the Alhambra district, a part of town the police don’t enter without helicopter support. So she knew exactly what she was hearing—medium caliber, probably a handgun—and bent her knees to crouch and run behind the black town car still sitting in front of the terminal.
Before she could take two steps, however, Tristan had leaped away from the safety of the car and gathered her under his arm.
“Dude! Get down!” she screamed at him as he propelled her to the airport terminal and flung her through the door in front of him.
Behind them, another shot punched through the air.
Glass shattered and rained upon the pavement.
He grabbed her again, forcing her in front of himself and crouching to make his immense bulk smaller as he frog-marched her through the chaos inside. “Damn nutter.”
The small crowd within the terminal was already moving toward the rear. Men wearing suits with short haircuts and sunglasses directed other, usually older, people toward the hallways off to the sides or to the lower level, which would be shielded from gunfire by the cement planters filled with dirt and cacti.
Before Colleen and Tristan had walked more than a dozen steps, tires squealed outside the building, and two beater cars raced away.
Running people in the crowd jogged to a stop and turned to watch the developments.
Security personnel ran outside the building, holding their guns low and pointed at the sidewalk, while others covered positions near the doors.
Tristan straightened, looking behind them.
Colleen turned with him. The security personnel, maybe mercenaries, were strolling back inside and comparing notes.
He said, “Looks like the kerfuffle is over.”
Tristan’s arm and side surrounding Colleen were warm from the sunlight, and cologne drifted from his clothes. The scent was subtle, like chopped sweet herbs and clean laundry stored in a cedar chest. His chest was beside her ear, and she was aware of how alive this man was, his heart pumping and breath whooshing beside her. She’d wrapped her arm around his waist under his coat, and it was held pretty much straight out from her shoulder.
She felt him relax, and then he looked down at the top of her head, which only came up to his mid-chest. He tilted his head to the side, examining her, and Colleen felt even shorter than normal.
“You are just a tiny little thing, aren’t you? I’d thought you were taller, for some reason. I must be thinking about someone else.”
Colleen straightened and regretted her choice of wearing ballet flats with her short skirt, but she didn’t own any high-heeled shoes that weren’t part of a costume, even sandals. “Wait just a darn minute. What was all that? And I’m not that short. I’m five-two.”
“That’s perfectly acceptable, then,” he said, laughing a little as he looked up. “It looks like the excitement is over. Shall we proceed?”
“Wait, wait, wait. Are you just going to calmly stroll around like nothing happened? Were those guys shooting at you?”
