The Pegasus Marshal's Mate (U.S. Marshal Shifters 2)

ever heard about this woman. How she had acted as mother and friend to a stepdaughter who’d desperately needed someone in her corner. How she’d kept her chin up all through the ordeal of her husband’s trial and its aftermath. How, faced with the end of her life of luxury, she hadn’t despaired but had simply reinvented herself.

She had started over completely. If anyone knew fresh starts after missed chances and tragedies, it was Tiffani Marcus.

“Are you all right?” Tiffani said.

She stepped closer to him. Martin could smell the delicate scent of her perfume, like jasmine and silk.

He made himself ignore what felt like the stampede in his heart.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I’m sorry I got distracted.”

Tiffani smiled that adorable smile and spread out her hands, indicating the still-simmering chaos around them. “I don’t know what you could have possibly found distracting.”

Martin couldn’t help smiling back. “I hope you won’t judge our fair courthouse too harshly just yet. Trust me, most of your days will be much more boring.”

“I didn’t think I would ever say this, but boring sounds incredible right about now. Are you...”

He could see her eyeing him, taking in his height and build.

“...Security?” she finished. “A cop?”

“A Marshal. I work with Theo.”

“Then you must be Martin. I think you’re the only one I haven’t met, and you have—”

“Gray hair?”

“An aura of authority.”

“Being tall helps,” Martin said.

He’d been half-joking, but the pixie-height Tiffani considered this and nodded. “I’ll wear higher heels.”

With higher heels, the top of her head would come almost level with his chin. If he embraced her, that fiery golden hair would brush against him.

“It seems to me like you have an aura of authority already,” Martin said.

“As long as the crowd all still likes juice boxes.”

He wished she wouldn’t sound like she was shrugging off her accomplishment. It was no mean feat to do what she’d done.

“Well, we may have to enlist you for more storytelling. We’re all going to be camping out in the parking lot until the bomb squad arrives and gives the place the all-clear. That can take a while.”

It would make him happy to look over at some point during the long slog of the wait and see her holding the kids spellbound or improvising a hopscotch court with lipstick on pavement.

It would also kill him. Every inch between them, especially with danger and uncertainty in the air, would feel like a torment. Now that he knew that, he couldn’t unlearn it. Now that he’d seen her, he couldn’t go back.

Now that he’d talked to her, he couldn’t even want to.

He said, “I’m so happy to finally meet you.” His whole heart was in those words.

“I’m happy to meet you too. Theo’s said a lot of very good things about you.”

“To be fair, Theo says a lot of very good things about everyone.”

“I know, but—” She hesitated, her full upper lip with its perfect pink Cupid’s bow poised against her gapped front teeth.

God, he wanted to kiss her. He wanted that more than anything.