Page 1 of Protected By West (San Antonio S.W.A.T. #1)

TRACY

Walking into a work conference always had the ability to make Tracy a little nervous.

It wasn’t the work that bothered her, it was usually the expectations that everyone had from a glance.

The first thing people did when you walked into a meeting room or a round table was look at your name tag, not for your name but your job description.

And at this particular security conference it was going to be a little worse than normal. They’d opened it to all financial institutions in her area, but as the manager of a Credit Union, she was expecting those from banks to have that inbred issue with where she worked.

She’d yet to meet a manager of a bank who didn’t have that instinctual grimace on their face when they heard the words ‘Credit Union.’ The next morning, when she showed up with her lanyard badge with Military City Credit Union under her name Tracy Fagan, she expected to keep her smile firmly on her lips, but at the moment…

It was likely why she was just about to start her second drink at the hotel bar in Fredrickson, Texas.

That is, if the bartender ever got around to bringing it to her.

The bartender was busy at the other end of the bar, so Tracy made use of her time swishing her cherry around in the remains of her watered-down Cherry Whiskey Sour.

She barely took notice of the chair beside her moving back from the bar.

Barely, because as a woman and the daughter of a police officer she was always worried about who was going to end up in her personal space.

“Mind if I sit here?”

Her eyebrow lifted at his words.

The tone of his voice was nice. Deep, but not too deep. Rich. Warm.

So far so good.

“Go ahead.” She told him. “I’m not using it.”

His laughter sent chills up her arm.

“Good. I was hoping you weren’t waiting for someone.”

“Ha.” She let the cherry stem drop from her fingers and turned to say something quippy, but stopped.

The man settling into the chair beside her looked like what her friend Jaime called a ‘long, tall, drink of water.’

He wore his slacks fitted and his cowboy boots shone in the low lamp-light of the bar. And he wore a plaid shirt under his blazer that made him look part lumberjack as well as cowboy with the way his muscular arms filled out his sleeves.

She wasn’t all that much a fan of the whole beard thing, but on him?

Oh… it worked.

It really worked!

He looked over at her drink and gave her a quick side-long glance. “Do you want another?”

Want another… oh!

“Sure,” Tracy could feel her mouth quirk up into a little bit of a wistful smirk, “that is if I can get the bartender’s attention.”

Handsome as sin beside her cleared his throat and the bartender whirled around, her eyes finding him like a heat-seeking missile.

She sashayed over and leaned on her side of the bar. “Hey, handsome.”

Tracy grimaced inside. She was already calling him that, thank you very much.

“What can I get for you?”

He gestured at Tracy’s drink. “Another one for the lady.”

The bartender turned, leaning on one elbow as she looked Tracy over from head to bar and apparently was unimpressed. “What were you having again?”

Tracy barely held back from baring her teeth in a lupine grin. “Cherry Whiskey Sour.”

“Yeah, I remember now.”

Oh she did not remember, Tracey had to smile at that.

Apparently, the bartender was trying to make a point, turning back to lean on both elbows to look right at the man, and show off her impressive cleavage. “And you, honey? What do you want?”

Tracy saw a muscle tick in his jaw before he replied. “I’ll take a whiskey. Neat.”

“I was kind of hoping…” The bartender pouted a little and Tracy barely managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes. “That you’d like it… wet.” The bartender’s tongue added emphasis to the T at the end of the word and that’s when Tracy lost control and laughed.

She tried to cover it with her hand over her mouth, but she wasn’t fast enough and as the cowboy shook his head at the bartender, the bartender was staring at her with thinly veiled hate in her eyes.

As she walked away, Tracy looked at the cowboy. “Now, thanks to you, I’m going to have to watch to make sure she doesn’t spit in my drink.” She turned her head to watch the bartender as she stepped up to the well.

“You don’t have to do that.”

Her shoulders shook a little at his words. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t like my drinks watered down by anything.”

“I’ll watch her to make sure.”

His reassurance turned her head, and she looked him over again. “How will you do that?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and she found herself wishing that he didn’t have that blazer on so she could see how well that long sleeve plaid shirt fit his body. “I can watch her out of the corner of my eye and look at you at the same time.”

“Ah…” She smiled at him. “That’s smooth.”

“I’m not trying to be smooth,” his smile was exactly that, “I’m trying to get your attention.”

Tracy looked down at the wrap dress she was wearing. It was one of her favorites and she knew he looked good in it. Good for him. He had good eyes and was a fine judge of women if his reaction to the bartender was any indication.

She moved without thinking, reaching down into her glass, she plucked the cherry out by the stem and opened her lips, dropping the cherry between her teeth.

Then the burst of flavor from the fruit flooded her mouth.

Tracy closed her eyes and sighed.

Or rather… she moaned.

And so did he.

Smiling to herself, she opened her eyes and looked over at the handsome cowboy beside her.

He shook his head. “I think I should have ordered what you’re having.”

She smiled at him. “This is kind of a scene from When Harry Met Sally, isn’t it?”

Shrugging, he chuckled. “I’ll take your word for it.”

“Oh?” She teased. “Are you a Western movie fan? Or is it any kind of action?”

“Action?” He questioned her back. “Is that because I’m wearing these boots?”

She looked down, following the gesture of his hand because it was what he was inviting her to do, but the length of time it took her to lift her gaze back to his face was all her own. “Just making an assumption,” she answered him. “Am I wrong?”

His smug grin softened. “No, you’re not wrong. But I have been known to watch more than just action.”

“Oh? Have you?” She leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer with the Heat Miser in stop-animation?”

He looked away, his face thoughtful. “I think the Heat Miser was in one of the Santa Claus films. You’re thinking of the Burgermeister.”

Tracy gave him a suspicious look and then picked up her cell phone from the bar where she’d laid it facedown. She brought up her web browser as the bartender set their drinks down and walked away with a little huff of annoyance.

When Tracy set the phone back on the bar face down again, the cowboy was grinning at her with his glass held up in his hand. He winked and took a drink. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Yes,” she admitted, keeping her gaze fixed on his face, “but you knew you would be.”

“I did.” He lowered his hand to the bar but kept a hold of his glass. “Our family watched those movies over and over again through the years. I think I have them all memorized.”

“Huh,” she grinned at him and lifted her glass to take a drink. “I don’t think I have any movies memorized… except for Rio Bravo.”

“Your favorite?”

She shook her head. “I remember my dad watching it when I was a little kid. For some reason it stuck.”

He smiled at her. “Does your dad still watch it?”

She looked away for a moment and settled her features before she looked back at him. “New topic, please...”

He lifted his head and dropped it in a nod. “What brings you to Fredericksburg?”

Tracy smiled and the tension in her shoulders bled away. “I’m here for the conference on safety.”

“Me, too.”

Damn, this was almost… too lucky??

“Oh? Which bank… I mean which financial institution do you work for?” She waited for his answer thinking, ‘Please don’t say bank. Please don’t say bank.’

“Oh, I’m not from a financial institution. I’m here as a presenter.”

Oh? Nice.

She relaxed a little more when he held up his glass, bringing them closer together.

“I’m glad I got to come up here a day early so I could meet you…”

She lifted her class and gently clinked their glasses together. “Tracy. Tracy Fagan.”

His eyebrows lifted as if the name was familiar somehow.

“Nice to meet you, Tracy,” his grin made him look super sexy. “My name is Weston Cooper.”

She grinned at him. “Weston Cooper, huh? You sound like one of those sheriffs in the old west,” she laughed softly. “Thank goodness you’re not.”

She took a sip of her drink and saw him slowly lifting his glass to take a drink of his own.

WEST

He hesitated before taking his drink because he was pretty sure she’d just said that she was happy he wasn’t law enforcement, but he wasn’t about to say anything just at that moment.

It’s entirely possible that she’d said something and hadn’t thought it through, but… he watched her as she lowered her glass to the bar top.

Tracy didn’t strike him as someone who just threw words out for no reason.

He liked that in people and sadly, he’d rarely found that in women he wasn’t working with or related to.

But since she hadn’t asked him outright what he was presenting he decided to keep that on the back burner for later. At the moment, he wanted to make an impression on her and that didn’t have anything to do with his job.

He hoped that it had everything to do with him as a man.

“So, if you weren’t here for the conference, what would you like to be doing on a night like this?”

She gave him a little smile that made his cock twitch in his slacks, making the fit across the front a little uncomfortable.

Actually, since he’d seen her at the bar, her face reflected in the mirror and her sweet, sweet ass wrapped in floral fabric, he’d been hard.

The fact that she had empty seats on either side of her had given him hope.