Read Twice A Target (Task Force Eagle) for Free Online

body tightened and his pulse raced off
to distant planets. The hallway suddenly didn’t have enough air.
    He immediately set her away a step. Then he stepped
back another. “Sorry. Bobby.” The baby’s cry subsided to hiccups and whimpers.
No emergency, to his relief.
    “Thought that was my job,” she said. “Two o’clock
bottle. Diaper change. Like that.”
    “You’re here to spell me when I’m doing ranch work.”
    “A rancher needs sleep.” She returned his scowl,
although humor tugged at the corner of her lips. “Why do you want me here if
you won’t leave Bobby to me?”
    He opened his mouth, closed it again with a snap.
    Bobby cranked it up again. Only taking a breather. His
wail rivaled an air raid siren.
    “If you’ll get out of my way,” she said, tossing her
hair and smoothing her nightshirt so it highlighted her breasts, “I’ll see to
the baby.” The grin popped out, accompanied by a slow perusal down Holt’s body.
“Nice...legs.”
    He blinked, shot a glance downward. Damn, betrayed by
his tented boxers. His Adam’s apple jumped as he swallowed hard. He jerked to
the side along the wall, as if someone had pressed a knife to his side.
“Bobby’s all yours.”
    “Great!” She turned and swung her hips as she flounced
toward the baby’s room.
     
    *****
     
    Closing the door behind her, Maddy stepped to the crib
and gathered the squalling infant in her arms, damp diaper and all. “There,
there, Bobby. Auntie Maddy’s got you.”
    She kissed his downy head, sweet with baby sweat from
his efforts at rousing help. Eyes closed, she rocked him in her arms and let
his warm weight soothe her. Her pulse downshifted, with an occasional blip of
vibration.
    Who had escaped whom out there? She had no business
tempting Holt. He’d gone on the defensive, barely verbal and practically
growling. She’d best remember not to tease the mountain lion again unless she
was prepared to be mauled. Not the best image but it would serve to make her
stop and think next time. Would there be a next time? Did she want a next time?
Her heart raced like that of a frightened rabbit.
     
    *****
     
    The next morning, Holt drove his Silverado into
Rangewood. Guiding the pickup over the long gravel driveway and the highway
gave him time to ponder how drastically life had changed.
    Though he’d made it to town a couple of weeks ago, it
seemed like years since he’d gotten away from the ranch. Calving and little
Bobby tied him to the Valley-D but good. He loved the work nearly as much as he
loved his nephew, but running the ranch shouldn’t turn the place into a prison.
    Having help there would free him to come and go as
ranch chores let him. Then why did he feel so antsy?
    Maddy McCoy. With her flowery scent and her long legs.
She was one reason he beat it out of there early today before the offices and
stores in Rangewood opened.
    To have the woman who’d left his brother at the altar
caring for Rob’s child scraped barbed wire across his nerve endings. A little
voice reminded him he was partly to blame for that but he shushed it. To have
her in his house, eating at his table, sprawled in the living room with her
laptop burrowed under his skin like a tick. To have her sleeping across the
hall in the master bedroom was idiocy.
    He should have switched rooms with her. Better yet, he
should move out to the bunkhouse with Bronc.
    Except he’d be too far from Bobby.
    Not that he needed to be there for the kid during the
night. Maddy had been on the spot when the little screech engine cranked up.
His blood heated with the memory of their midnight encounter.
    He’d slammed back into his room pronto, but that
didn’t eliminate from his brain the image of Maddy in her short silky
nightshirt and maybe nothing else. He had to fight his way back to sleep in
that prissy iron bed. From now on he’d leave to her the privilege of night
duty.
    Beat the hell out of him why he was so obsessed with
her.
    She was as feisty and bold