Explosive Alliance (Wingmen Warriors 9)

Paige thrust her keys into his hand and tried to ignore tantalizing, oh-so-adult thoughts of all the different ways she could need him.

Bo gripped the steering wheel on the Ford F-250, speeding farther into Dakota farmland.

He needed to get Paige and Kirstie settled back at her place before he returned to base and started digging deeper for info about Paige's life here in Minot.

He didn't like it one damned bit how fast that dude behind the moonwalk had faded into the crowd when confronted. Nothing overt, nothing concrete, but still...just wrong.

Instincts were there for a reason.

Add in the fact that he was certain Kirstie's pouty-lip act had been covering up something, and he had concerns. After all those years at St. Elizabeth's, he knew kids and their maneuverings inside out.

Kirstie had a secret.

Said secretive kid was now tuckered out and snoozing in the back seat while her mama hugged the passenger door as far away from him as possible. The truck jarred in a pothole, rattling fishing poles in the racks across the back window and rocking Paige closer to the middle. For two seconds, before she scooted back.

How many times would she pretend to keep herself busy with shoving a strand of hair into her bandanna? He wanted to kick Kurt Haugen's sorry ass all over again for making this woman so wary of men.

Maybe he could put her at ease with conversation. Bo hitched his elbow on the open window, breeze heavy with hints of fresh-mown hay and country hits from the radio.

His fingers tapped along the steering wheel in a tuneless match to the piano in the country ballad. "I'm glad she's okay."

"I hope so."

"Looks to me like she overdosed on hot dogs and fun."

Her hold on the door loosened. She studied him through slightly squinting eyes. "How does a bachelor get to be such an expert on kids?"

"I grew up in an orphanage."

"Oh, my. I'm sorry." A blond lock slithered free again, whipping across her face.

"It was better than home." He looked back to the road, not that he needed much attention keeping the truck lined up on the straight band of two-lane highway. "My parents are dead."

Of course, his father hadn't died until ten years after he'd dumped his burdensome son at St. Elizabeth's, but Paige didn't need to know that part.

"I lost my parents a couple of years ago, heart attack for Dad, stroke for Mom. They were older, since they had their kids later in life, but it still hurt losing them." Her hand inched across the bench seat as if flat out itching to offer him a sympathetic touch. "I can only imagine how tough it must have been for you so young. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. The nuns made great surrogate moms to all of us. And there sure were a lot of nuns. No one lacked for attention. The whole experience gives me some insight to where your kid's coming from though."

Enough of that. The conversation was getting heavier than he preferred, and he definitely did not want her looking at him with sympathy.

Staring through the windshield at the stretch of rocky farmland, he searched for a subject change. Not much to pick from, just rows of wheat beside bare fields of rock, grain towers, a couple of barns and endless telephone poles.

He'd have to go with the rocks. "What's up with those piles of stones?"

"Sodbusters pile them up as they plow the fields." Her pretty brown eyes went dreamy. "I used to spend weeks following my dad and brother out in the fields after school and in the summer."

"A hard life?"

Dreaminess fled. "A wholesome one I didn't appreciate near enough."

"Sure would be nice if we could learn those life lessons the easy way, but some of us have to be kicked in the head."

She smiled, a helluva lot better than sympathy.

A tousled blond strand caught on her damp lip. Paige finally gave up restraining her hair and reached behind her head to untie the small bandanna. She shook her blond hair free in a satiny curtain.

Blood slugged through his veins. His grip tightened on the wheel in sync with a tightening farther south. Pure lust pumped through him. No dodging or denying.