The Marshal's Hostage - By Delores Fossen Page 0,1

thing might break in half, and she crept out with her friend. The moment the pair was out of the room, Dallas shut the door and locked it.

“I won’t let you do this,” Dallas began.

And Joelle knew what he meant. This had nothing to do with the wedding to a weasel. That was just an added irritation and even more of one because he shouldn’t have cared a pig’s hair if she was getting married.

But hell’s Texas bells, she was marrying Owen.

Joelle threw off his grip and huffed. “You shouldn’t have come.”

“You didn’t give me much of a choice. You didn’t return my calls, and your hoity-toity sounding assistant said you were leaving on a monthlong honeymoon.”

Her spicy brown eyes narrowed to the point that he was surprised she could even see him. “I didn’t return your calls because there’s nothing I can discuss with you.”

“Wrong answer, try again,” Dallas fired back. “We have plenty to discuss.”

She opened her mouth, but her cell phone buzzed. She took a step toward the chair arm where the phone was lying, and Joelle looked at the caller ID on the screen. She mumbled some profanity. Dallas glanced at the screen, too, and he saw the call was from Owen.

“Excuse me a second,” she grumbled, and snatched up the phone. “Everything’s okay,” she greeted her groom-to-be.

Dallas just listened. Except Joelle wasn’t saying anything. Owen was doing all the talking, and Dallas couldn’t make out a word the weasel was saying. But he could guess the gist of the one-sided conversation that was making every muscle in Joelle’s body go stiff.

Owen likely wanted to know why Joelle’s ex-lover was in her dressing room at the church just—Dallas checked the time—fifty-one minutes before she was to become Owen’s bride.

“I’ll take care of this,” Joelle said, and she jabbed the end button. She whirled back around to face him. “You have to go.”

As if that would get him to budge. “You’re within days, maybe hours, of sending your report to the governor.” Who also happened to be her boss.

A report that could crush Dallas a thousand times over.

She huffed again and put her hands on her hips. The move caused the sides of her robe to open in a vee, and he got a glimpse of a lacy white bra and her right nipple that the lace in no way concealed.

Dallas felt that old familiar tug, deep within his body, and he told that tug to take a fast hike. Joelle was no longer a woman he wanted in his bed.

And he was almost certain of that.

Almost.

But just in case he had doubts about it, he didn’t have any doubts about the woman herself. Sexual stuff might still be lingering between them, but he didn’t want her in his life.

No way.

She’d made her choice sixteen years ago. A choice that had broken his stupid teenage heart. And yeah, that was a long time ago, but forgiving and forgetting weren’t what he saw himself doing when it came to Joelle. Actually, to anybody.

“The report?” he reminded her. Reminded himself, too. And he cursed that blasted nipple-peek for distracting him.

“My report is just that, a report of my observations. The local sheriff at Rocky Creek is already investigating the case, but the governor wants to know if he should request the Texas Rangers to go in and assist. So he’ll read what I’ve written and decide what to do.”

No. It wasn’t just a report. And as for the sheriff’s investigation, that wasn’t going anywhere. The sheriff had only been on the job a few months, had little experience in law enforcement. No. If anyone found anything incriminating, it’d be Joelle and her team of hotshot investigators that she had crawling all over the state.

Dallas aimed his index finger at her. “This report could destroy Kirby.” His foster father. And a man he darn sure wouldn’t see destroyed.

Joelle dodged his gaze, turned, and gave him another view of that blasted bra. The left nipple this time. Great day in the morning! He didn’t need this.

Nor the other thing he saw.

He’d missed it at first because the pendant was literally tucked in her bra, but it shifted, slipped out, and he spotted the gold heart locket. Not a flashy piece, this one was coated with fine scratches and even a little tarnish. It looked like the one he’d given her for her sixteenth birthday, but he had to be wrong about that. And even if he wasn’t, if it was indeed