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make a fire.” If he could remember how.
    As he pretended not to struggle with kindling and fireplace matches, he heard cabinet doors creaking and pans clattering behind him. She sighed again. “I can’t believe I’m actually here. Just me, a warm cabin and someone special to snuggle with.”
    His hands fumbled on the can of matches and they spilled across the hearth. With numb fingers, he began picking them up. What had she just said? From the corner of his eye, he saw her approaching. Uh oh. Maybe she was on the rebound. But so soon? He wouldn’t have pegged her for that type of woman.
    Her knees brushed his back as she skirted around him and reached inside a built-in cabinet next to the fireplace. “There it is. Ten years old and it still looks great,” she said with a laugh, and shook out a thick blanket. She held it up. “My junior high obsession.”
    Jake froze in a crouched position, a handful of matches held aloft. He stared at a life-sized image of Justin Timberlake screen-printed on the blanket. The singer’s hands were behind his head and his eyes smoldered promises that no schoolgirl should even know about. “Your parents let you have that on your bed?” As soon as he said it, he knew he’d crossed a line. And he felt like the dumbest shit ever to be born. She wasn’t on the rebound. She was just happy to be away from the fishbowl she’d inhabited for two months. Masking a wince, he looked up at Carolina.
    But she was grinning. “As I used to say back then: Well, duh.” She laughed and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, heading back to the kitchen. “I was only fourteen, after all.”
    Jake could feel her staring at him and he fumbled the matches again. What the hell was she going to say next? Because she was going to say something, and he needed to concentrate.
    “Speaking of age, how old are you?” she asked casually.
    He smiled to himself. “Thirty.”
    The match he’d been scratching against the brick hearth finally lit. Within a minute he had a fire coaxed to life, and he stood brushing his hands on his pants. “There’s your fire. I think I’ll unpack.” He crossed into the kitchen. “Miss Fulton, I know that—”
    “Carolina,” she corrected, stirring a pot on the stove.
    “Carolina. I’m assuming that the large bedroom belongs to you and your sisters, but it has a giant window with no curtains. I think it would be best if you slept in the other bedroom. Downstairs. For security reasons.”
    She turned with a grin. Her delicate cheeks were even pinker from the heat of the stove. “You’re going to sleep upstairs in one of the twin beds covered with ruffles?”
    He nodded. “Tomorrow night. Tonight I’ll be on the sofa. When Evans gets here we can fight over the ruffled beds. But I get first dibs. Evans will just have to choose from the leftovers,” he answered, realizing that he sounded like an idiot.
    “Fine. If you find my diary, though, beware. It’s booby trapped.” She smiled at him over her shoulder, licked the spoon and went back to stirring.
    Jake ripped his gaze from her mouth. “Not an issue. Be right back. Just stowing my gear.”
    He turned sharply and headed for the stairs. In the little girl bedroom, he flopped his duffle on a bed—not hers—and went to the window. In the dim glow cast from the light on the back deck, he could see nothing but swirling white in a sea of blackness. It seemed they had arrived here just in time. Another few hours, and he would have had to navigate Secret Service protocol around a hotel’s security personnel in Jackson. That would have been a headache.
    But worth it , he reminded himself. It wasn’t supposed to be a chore to do his job. It was a privilege. Most field agents would gnaw off their arms to get the detail he had. Hell, his own father had never been assigned to the First Family. And even though the man had been absent most of Jake’s life and their current relationship was awkward, Jake knew his father