But she wasn’t going to let anything keep her from getting this piece filed with her boss. She smiled at the man across the table from her. The man who’d spent a night in her home, something few besides her brothers had. A tug of regret deep in her gut reminded her that she’d been neglectful of her romantic life as of late. Time enough for that later.
“No buts.” She stood. “I’ll tell Jarvis we’re leaving, get my bags and then we have ten minutes to drive to the high school.”
Holden took her mug from her and walked to the sink, turned on the faucet and rinsed both cups. Bella didn’t stay to watch him perform the morning ritual. The last thing she needed was to imprint the image of Holden moving about her kitchen as if he belonged there.
As if they were more than a reporter and FBI agent, both undercover.
* * *
This was always the most exciting part of any chase. Well, except for when the victim realized they were going to die and had no way to prevent it.
The grin was impossible to hide, but if anyone from the pageant board noticed, it’d be easy to pass it off as being happy to be involved in the thirtieth Ms. Mustang Valley Pageant.
Yesterday had been scary—it all could have ended because of one stupid move. Fortunately Bella Colton was fine and from all indications it looked like she’d be back today. Bella had made the final cut and was going to be pitted against the twenty-three other beauties, but none as pretty or enticing as the green-eyed woman with fiery red streaks in her hair. It’d be better if she had her whole head of hair in a bright red. Maybe that was something they could remedy as part of her preparation to be sacrificed.
“Ten minutes.” The announcement came over the school’s antiquated public address system and the voice sounded tinny in the space behind the stage where so far, no one had ventured since yesterday.
It was the perfect vantage point.
* * *
“We can’t have you walking back and forth on the stage while we’re trying to take the girls through their choreography.” The woman leading the contestants through their opening-group-number dance steps left nothing to interpretation in her angry voice. Holden had completed his sixth circle of the large room, from the back of the auditorium seats to onstage, behind the several rows of curtains that could hide anyone all too easily.
Holden stopped in his tracks, turned and faced the tall, attractive woman who’d so far as he could tell done nothing but agitate her other pageant board members. Selina Barnes Colton was the ex-wife of Payne Colton, an oil tycoon in charge of the billion-dollar Colton Oil corporation who basically owned Mustang Valley. Selina was still on the Colton Oil Board of Directors as its VP and director of PR, and had zero problem throwing her weight around town according to Spencer, who’d filled him in on every pageant board member and judge.
“Just doing my job, ma’am.” He kept to his security dude persona, not wanting to give her the tiniest hint that he had more right to be here than she realized. “I’ll stay out of sight as much as I can, and be quiet.”
“Not good enough. The girls need to feel safe in this space—am I right, ladies?” Selina tossed her hair over a bared shoulder, her figure model thin in tight-fitting clothes. Two dozen women stood in a group onstage, in various types of dance outfits. He’d memorized all of them, and constantly counted heads to make sure no one had crept off or worse, disappeared. A pair of emerald eyes flashed at him and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to not respond to Bella’s wide grin. She was enjoying watching him take on a Colton Titan. But while the other contestants vocally supported Selina with calls of “Yeah, that’s right,” and “Listen to Ms. Colton,” Bella remained silent.
“I’m here at the request of the state pageant director, ma’am.”
“You’re telling me that Bud Langston hired you directly and you’re not here as part of Mustang Valley High School’s staff?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Holden had no problem playing whatever role he had to in order to get his job done. But Bella’s glances communicated her impatience with Selina’
s trauma-drama tactics. He needed her to remain passive to Selina’s theatrics, so that they could both gather as much information and evidence as possible.
“I think having the security guard where we can see him is a good idea. There are a lot of crazies around these days who prey on pretty women.” Bella wasn’t a mind reader. Or if she was, she’d ignored him.
Selina spun on her too-high heels and faced down Bella. Holden’s hand clenched and he forcefully kept himself from stepping forward. He was going to have to handle this protective instinct toward Bella better. His drive to serve and protect was a part of him, but this sense of needing to know that Bella was in no way in any type of danger went deeper. To a place inside himself he didn’t want to journey to, not now, maybe not ever.
To the place where he could get his heart broken again.
“That’s enough, Ms. Colton.” Selina’s head swiveled as she addressed the rest of the crowd. “No worries, we are zero relation.”
“Distant,” Bella contradicted her and Holden wanted to whoop. His stomach constricted. Where was his agent self? He was here to catch a murderer, not cheer a potential victim on as she verbally sparred with a not-so-nice woman who seemed to think the world revolved on an axis named Selina.
“Wait a minute, you’re related to one of the judges?” a contestant piped up, clearly annoyed. Her brunette hair was in two ridiculously juvenile pigtails and she wore an incredibly revealing leotard whose V-neck cut to her navel. Holden had thought this pageant was on the more conservative side but not for this contestant. “That’s absolutely not fair. I demand that this woman be disqualified. No one related to the pageant board, judges or director is allowed to compete.”
“We are not related at all, trust me.” Bella spoke with authority, but it was clear to Holden that the belligerent woman wasn’t going to let it go.
“What, do you spell Colton differently? Because from what I’m reading on both of your name tags, you have the same last name. And everyone knows that if you’re a Colton in Mustang Valley or anywhere in Arizona, you get what you want.” The overdone-leotard woman was on a roll, and several of the contestants murmured their agreement, nodding their heads and folding their arms in front of them. Holden knew the moment could prove an opportune distraction to detract from a killer, so he kept vigilant, walking slowly around the perimeter of the theater, never letting Bella out of his peripheral sight.
“Puuullleeeze, we’re from completely different branches of the family, and we’re not even blood relatives.” Selina didn’t want to be associated with a lowly blogger like Bella, it seemed. Holden stopped fighting his emotions and settled for keeping them hidden from the pageant contestants. At least the focus was off him and his job.
Except, he couldn’t keep his focus off Bella and it wasn’t for pageant reasons. Suddenly she wasn’t a potential victim; she was Bella, the woman he was getting too close to, too quickly.
Chapter 10