Cody Walker's Woman by Amelia Autin Read Free Book Online

we’ll be down there shortly. Where’s your office?”
    He told her. After they hung up he started jotting down cryptic notes of the things he’d mentally listed, but then he paused, pen in hand, and stared at the phone for a few seconds as it hit him. The odd inflection he’d noted earlier but had dismissed suddenly made sense.
    She didn’t like hearing you talk about Mandy, he told himself as his pulse unexpectedly kicked into gear. She didn’t like it, and that must mean—
    Cody tried to shut down that train of thought. Keira was a fellow agent; not only that, she was also working for him now—that made her off-limits. Fraternization between agents was frowned upon and was strictly forbidden between supervisor and subordinate.
    I’m not really her supervisor, though, he temporized. I’m just the agent in charge. It was a fine distinction, a legal nicety, but...it meant he could at least think about her without feeling he’d crossed a line he shouldn’t cross.
    He’d been involved with a few women since he’d left Black Rock...and Mandy. But nothing that had touched his emotions. Nothing that had made him feel. He’d blocked off his heart from the moment Mandy had married Ryan Callahan and had told himself he was better off that way—a lone wolf traveled farther and faster. But deep inside he hadn’t really believed it. That hard, cynical edge was just a facade. Mandy had known the truth about him; but Mandy belonged to Callahan, heart and soul.
    He’d finally, finally cured himself of loving Mandy, but he wanted a woman like her for his very own. A woman who would make him her first priority. A woman who would love him fiercely with every beat of her heart, the way Mandy loved Callahan. A woman who would kill to protect him, just as he’d kill to protect her. A woman like...
    He told himself he was overreacting. That it was just the circumstances surrounding their first meeting coloring his perspective, when a vision of a woman rose in his mind. Translucent skin with a sprinkling of pale freckles; red-gold curls that made a man want to tangle his fingers in them and see if they were as soft as they looked; brown eyes fringed with gold-tipped lashes untouched by mascara—soft brown eyes that refused to cry.
    And faintly pink lips without a trace of lipstick. Firm lips. No-nonsense lips. Lips that hadn’t trembled even when she’d believed she was about to be raped and killed. Lips he’d give a sizable chunk of his next paycheck to discover if he could soften under his.
    You’ve got no business daydreaming about her, he warned himself with stern resolution. He’d barely managed to relegate her to a corner of his mind when a slight movement caught out of the corner of his eye made him look up. Walking toward his office was Trace McKinnon. And right beside him was the woman with the unkissable lips Cody wanted suddenly—and urgently—to kiss.

Chapter 4
    C ody stood at the firing range in the soundproofed subbasement of the agency. Safety glasses and noise-canceling headphones in place, he raised his right hand and fired his Glock 17 at the silhouette target fifty feet away until the 33-round high-capacity magazine was empty. He reeled the target in, noting with disgust that roughly half his shots weren’t in the ten ring, although he had nothing outside a nine.
    He liked the Glock better than the standard-issue revolver he’d carried when he’d been the sheriff of Black Rock—more accurate at a greater distance and more firepower, even without the high-capacity magazine—but guns had never been his thing. Knives had always been his first love, ever since he’d been a kid.
    Cody could remember practicing until both arms were sore and aching, and then practicing some more until he was nearly as good with his left hand as he was with his right. He hadn’t even stopped when his father had roughly told him that knives weren’t much use anymore, not when throwing a knife left you disarmed and gave