Free Hot Pursuit by Suzanne Brockmann Page A

City office.
    It was wall-to-wall shoulders in there, and still they came through the door: Jacked, Steamy, Parka Man, Lucky, and Hot Cowboy Dad, who was actually carrying a cheerful and heavily bundledbaby in a frontpack sling thing. And okay, those weren’t their
real
nicknames, but rather accurately descriptive monikers Jenn herself assigned them as they greeted her with a handshake and a smile.
    Their real names were Zanella, Lopez, Starrett, Gillman, and Vlachic, and as good as Jenn was with names, they’d rattled them off so fast she’d lost track of everyone but Lopez, whose parka was the kind worn by explorers on an expedition to the summit of Mt. Everest.
    The one she thought was Starrett—the Hot Cowboy Dad—had blue eyes that put Detective Mick What’sHisName’s to shame. He also had that adorable baby, who looked an awful lot like the Trouble shooters team leader, a seemingly diminutive and strikingly beautiful woman with short dark hair. She came in last, shutting her cell phone as she introduced herself. She was, of course, the one and only Alyssa Locke, and she was seemingly diminutive only in comparison to her hulking team.
    Jenn wasn’t quite sure why, but she’d always pictured Alyssa as being a blonde, like Savannah.
    Instead, she was at least part African American, which of course didn’t mean that she couldn’t have been a blonde, either from a bottle or even naturally. And there was something about her that was oddly familiar. “I’m Jenn. I’m the assemblywoman’s assistant and—You didn’t by any chance go to SUNY Binghamton?”
    Alyssa shook her head.
    “Or maybe to law school at—”
    “No law school.”
    “You look so familiar,” Jenn admitted.
    The woman winced. “A few days ago, I did a bodyguard assignment for a movie star. There was an incident and pictures are everywhere.”
    Jenn shook her head. “Not in
The New York State Assembly Quarterly.”
    Alyssa smiled. “Thank goodness for small favors.”
    “Maria’s on a conference call right now. She’ll be free in a few minutes, so …” Jenn looked around at them all. “Can I get anybody anything?”
    “I would love a glacier,” the tallest one—Jacked—requested, “or even an avalanche would be nice.”
    At first she didn’t understand. Were those California drinks like wheatgrass or acai berry juice?
    But then Hot Cowboy Dad chimed in. “Mind if I use the conference table,” he asked Jenn in a Texas-laden drawl that on a less attractive man would have been annoying, “to peel some layers offa Ashton, here, before he parboils?”
    And then she understood. “Of course. Please. Yes. Please. Take off your coats.” The office
was
nearing hypertropical today. She’d taken off her pantyhose hours ago.
    “Excuse me,” Alyssa said as her cell phone rang and she checked the incoming number. She looked from Jenn to her husband. “I’ve got to take this. Will you … ?”
    “I got him,” the Cowboy said as he took the baby to the table. “You must be from Florida, Jenn. Or maybe Death Valley … ?”
    “No,” Jenn said, with a laugh. “And I am sorry about the climate in here, but this building is old. In order for the heat to reach the top floors, the radiators down here need to overperform. It’s like this all winter.”
    “There should be a valve,” Steamy said, as he went over to the ancient thing, which lurked in a grill-covered box in front of the window that overlooked the street, “to allow for a bypass.”
    “It doesn’t work,” Jenn said. “Believe me, we’ve—”
    “Mind if I take a look?” he asked, already doing just that.
    “I’ll help.” Parka Man was right behind him, taking off his rather ridiculous jacket and hood as he went. He had a thick sweater on beneath it, and as he pulled it off as well, his shirt nearly camewith it, revealing a set of abs that could have graced the cover of
Fitness
magazine.
    My goodness, he was a well-constructed man. Jenn turned away, not wanting