Beyond Risk

by Connie Mann

  She eyed Pete and Josh, both in uniform. “I’m pretty sure Natalie and Dad can get me home without an armed escort. Go back to work, guys. I’m going to be fine.”

  “We just want to make sure you’re okay, squirt,” Pete said, leaning down to kiss her cheek.

  “And now you know I am. Go. Catch bad guys. I’m going home to sleep. Sure didn’t get much here last night.”

  “That’s because they—” Josh started, and she held up a hand.

  “I know the drill. Sheesh. Would you guys go, already?”

  Josh also gave her a kiss on the cheek, then both men exchanged some mysterious man-look before they nodded to her dad, kissed Natalie, and left. Hunter, Charlee noticed, hadn’t budged from where he leaned against the wall. Her brothers had pretended he wasn’t even in the room, the big lugs. She looked him over, from his freshly shaven jaw to the way his crisp uniform stretched over that hard chest. No man should ever look that good. When he caught her eye and sent her that slow, easy smile, she suddenly felt ugly and self-conscious in her hospital gown and tangled hair.

  Charlee eased out of bed and changed clothes in the bathroom, wincing at her reflection. She carefully ran a brush through her hair, but there was no hiding the white bandage or the dried blood streaked near the wound. She pulled her shoulders back and forced a smile as she stepped into the room. Never let them see you sweat.

  When the nurse came in with a wheelchair to escort them out, Hunter stepped forward and turned to her father. “Why don’t you let me take her home, Mr. Tanner, let you and Natalie get back to the Outpost. I know Charlee appreciates you covering for her while she recuperates.”

  Natalie looked from Charlee to Hunter and back again, shaking her hand in a “hot” motion where Hunter couldn’t see. Charlee felt a blush creep up her cheeks and sent her sister a glare. At twenty, Natalie was all about hot guys.

  Charlee looked up in time to see another man-look pass between Hunter and her father. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  Her father turned to her. “Nothing, sweet girl. I know he’ll get you settled.” He checked his watch. “I really don’t like to leave your mother for too long, but if you need me to stay—”

  She interrupted before he could finish. “Dad, go. Please. It’s just a few stitches and a concussion. Certainly not a first for this family.”

  He laughed, as she’d meant him to, and some of the anxiety faded from his eyes. Charlee turned to Natalie. “You need to get back to school. I won’t have you missing classes on my account.”

  Charlee wasn’t the only stubborn Tanner. Natalie’s chin came up. “I’ll help at the Outpost another couple days while you rest up. I’m doing some online classes this semester.”

  A load of guilt slammed into Charlee, on top of the guilt she already felt. Shortly after JJ drowned last year, her mother had had a stroke, a bad one, and recovery was slow. They said Mama’s stroke wasn’t from stress over Charlee’s situation, but what if it was? She’d resigned from FWC, moved into a little cottage on the property, and had taken over Tanner’s Outpost, so Dad could focus on Mom. It was the least she could do.

  Since then, Dad had talked about her taking over permanently, mentioned having legal papers drawn up to make it official, since none of her siblings wanted the place. But Charlee didn’t want it either, didn’t want to be anywhere near the water, but somehow couldn’t work up the courage to tell them. Because if she didn’t want it, then what? They sold the place to strangers?

  And if she didn’t run the Outpost, what would she do? Did she want to go back to FWC? She had no idea, and with Mama’s recovery going so slowly, she’d shoved it aside.

  Right now, Natalie needed to go back to Gainesville, but without Charlee to run the office, that only left Travis, who worked part-time around his class schedule at the local college in Ocala.

  She should head straight there, but her head still felt like the entire high school marching band, complete with cymbals, stomped around in there. What she wanted and what her body could do today were two different things.

  Frustrated, she bit back the guilt and smiled at her sister. “Thank you for filling in for me. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

  “You don’t owe me a thing. We’re family.”

  After more kisses and hugs and promises to check in, a nurse wheeled her out of the hospital, Hunter walking alongside. They waited while he went to get his FWC truck.

  “You are one lucky woman to have a man like that hovering over you, child,” the nurse commented. “You ever get tired of him, you just send him my way, you hear? I’ll take real good care of that boy. Um, um.”

  Charlee sputtered and finally laughed because, if he was her man, oh yeah, she’d take real good care of Hunter Boudreau. As long as he quit hovering like the rest of her family.

  Her unruly brain conjured up several more wholly inappropriate ideas, so she was grinning when he helped her into his truck and went around to climb in. “What are you smiling at?”

  Charlee felt her cheeks redden and hitched a thumb over her shoulder. “The nurse just told me that if I ever get tired of you, I should send you her way. She’ll take reaaall good care of you.”

  He flicked a glance in the side mirror at the dark-skinned nurse waving in front of the door, and a flush crept up his cheeks. Hunter, blushing? Would wonders never cease?

  He didn’t respond, just drove away from the hospital with the same economy of motion he did everything. Smooth, unhurried, as though he had all the time in the world. He reached behind the seat and handed Charlee her backpack.

  She reached inside, relieved to find her gun and knife right where she’d left them. “Thanks for taking charge of this for me.” She’d worried, when she woke this morning, where it had ended up. She should have known Hunter would take care of it.

  “Why did you kick everyone out?” she asked.

  “I didn’t kick anyone out. They all had things to do.”

  “And you, Lieutenant, have nothing better to do than chauffeur me around?”

  He sent her a quick glance and didn’t say another word for the next ten minutes. Charlee bit her tongue to keep from babbling to fill the silence. She wasn’t really a silence kind of girl. She liked noise and voices and laughter.

  “Do you believe someone tried to pull me under?” She hadn’t meant to ask it right then; it just popped out. But after her experience with Rick, she had to know.

  He kept his eyes on the road. “I don’t doubt what you said or what you believe. I saw the bruises myself. The implications open up a whole host of ugly questions.”

  Something inside her settled at his matter-of-fact tone. She bit her lip, then told him the rest. “I think someone came into my room last night. Told me I’d messed up his plans, but I wouldn’t be able to do it again.”

  His head snapped in her direction, and she shrugged. “But I had really weird dreams, so maybe I imagined it.”

  They stopped at a light. Hunter shoved his sunglasses up on his forehead, speared her with those green eyes. “When? I was in your room most of the night.”

  Charlee ignored the happy little twang in her heart at that statement and focused on the question. “Before you came, I think.” She thought harder. “Yes, I’m pretty sure. It was after they stitched me up and I fell asleep. Someone woke me. I thought it was a nurse, but it wasn’t. The voice was male, gravelly. After he left, I pressed the call button, hoping they could find him, but by the time someone came, I knew it was too late.” She looked away. “I felt dumb for calling, so I asked for some pain meds. Or maybe I imagined the whole thing.”

  “Doubtful, but we’ll find out, cher. And if you’re right, we’ll track him down.”

  She glanced over as he slid his sunglasses back in place and drove through the intersection. His face had gone hard, and he looked every inch a warrior.

  Sure, this was
his job, but the way he took her words at face value shored up another piece of her battered confidence. She sat up straighter. “What happens now?”

  “I take you home to rest.”

  “And then you’re going back to work.”

  He glanced into the side mirror. “After a while.”

  So much for his belief in her. “Oh, no. You’re not going to hang over my shoulder like everyone else in my family.” He pulled up in front of her tidy little cottage and cut the engine. She laid a hand on his arm, then pulled it back, feeling a snap of awareness at the contact she’d think about later. Right now, she had to make sure he understood. “Look, Hunter. I appreciate it. I do. But I’m a big girl. I’ve had stitches before. And a concussion, too. I’ll be fine.”

  He ignored her. Just came around and opened her door, extending a hand to help her down. She ignored the hand, but her knees started to buckle, and he grabbed her arm before she fell flat on her face, completely ruining her “I’m fine” speech. “Okay, so maybe I’m not one hundred percent yet, but I will be.”

  Once her feet were firmly on the ground, he put both hands on her arms, effectively caging her between his hard body and the car door. She was always surprised, somehow, by his size and strength. “Your family hovers because they care. You want them free to do what they need to do, then you’re stuck with me for a while.” He reached into his truck and slung her backpack over one shoulder.

  “You don’t have work to do, Lieutenant?” she asked again. Somehow, using his title kept him at enough of a distance that she could at least draw breath. It also reminded her that throwing herself into his arms was probably a very bad idea.

  “I have some phone calls and paperwork, which I can take care of from your kitchen as well as anywhere.”

  He was right about her family, dang it, and that just made her more irritated. They all needed to get back to work. “I don’t like anyone hovering.”

  He turned her toward the house, keeping one hand on her upper arm. “Duly noted.” She let him guide her up onto the porch and into the living room. Had it always been this far in from the car? She stiffened her spine. She would not collapse at his feet like some helpless ninny.

  She made it into the bedroom, suddenly aware she hadn’t made the bed yesterday morning. Flowered sheets, pillows, her duvet were still in the tangled mess they’d been after a sleepless night. Thank goodness there were no lacy unmentionables lying about. Of course, given she didn’t own anything with lace, that wasn’t an issue. She plopped down on the bed. Her brain was a complete mess.

  Before she could stop him, Hunter gave her shoulder a gentle shove and pushed her down on her side. He tucked a pillow under her head, slid her flip-flops off her feet, and tucked her in.

  Then he set the backpack by the bed, pulled out her gun, and set it on the nightstand. “Get some rest, cher. Doctor’s orders. I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me.”

  She met his gaze, touched that he understood her need to have her firearm nearby. But still, he was hovering. She should protest. Say something. But the sense of safety Hunter’s nearness provided was all her body needed to slide into sleep.

  * * *

  Hunter surveyed her kitchen and shook his head. The results of her cupcake baking marathon littered every available space. He didn’t bake, though his grandmere used to, so he knew the dozens of cupcakes she’d brought to the Outpost took a while to make. She obviously hadn’t slept much the night before last. Not surprising, given what had happened a year ago.

  Had the lack of sleep affected her judgment? As soon as the thought registered, he discarded it. Charlee was not only a trained cop, she was a protector at heart, with a big dose of nurturer. He’d been drawn to that from the moment he’d met her. She wanted to protect people, care for them. Especially her family. She’d smack him if he told her she did exactly what she accused her family of doing: she hovered. And like her family, she did it because she cared.

  She could pretend all she wanted, but she hadn’t been fine yesterday morning. He’d seen it in the tension around her chocolate-brown eyes, the slight tremor in her hands. But she’d put on a good show for her family, her guests. Tried to distract them with cupcakes. He knew it hadn’t worked, but he gave her points for trying.

  He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the hospital while he ran hot water in the sink, squirted dish soap onto a sponge. The hospital operator transferred him to the nurses’ station covering Charlee’s room, and he asked if she’d pressed her call button during the night. He spoke with a nurse, who confirmed Charlee had requested more pain meds about nine p.m. last night. Hunter thanked her and hung up. So someone had been in her room. He’d have Sanchez check the hospital security cameras, see if they got lucky and caught the person’s face. He didn’t think they’d catch the shooter that easily, but he could always hope.

  Once the baking utensils were washed, he turned to scrub the counters and stopped. At the far edge of the old wooden table in the middle of the kitchen, a piece of paper peeked out from under a dusting of flour. He picked it up by the edge, shook the flour off it, and used the side of his hand to wipe off the rest.

  No wonder she looked rattled yesterday. “I’ll make sure you never forget” was scrawled in red marker over last year’s newspaper article. He swore. She shouldn’t have kept this reminder in front of her, tossing guilt in her face all night long.

  He marched to her bedroom to demand answers, but she was curled up on her side, sound asleep. Something stirred in his heart at how vulnerable she looked, so he eased the door shut and went back to the kitchen. He’d grill her later.

  He grabbed his laptop from his truck. Like her brothers, his radar twitched at the timing of these two incidents. Even though last year’s drowning had been ruled an accident and Charlee proclaimed a hero for saving the girl, the boy had died. That didn’t help you sleep nights. It could also make family members seek revenge.

  He logged in and reread the report of the incident on the Suwannee River in White Springs, about two hours north. Charlee had worked for an outfitter there on her days off from FWC. Rick Abrams had been working with the lead investigator. He set that aside and focused on the report. The weather had been iffy, at best, when they set out. Charlee’s boss was quoted as saying that he’d trusted his guides and told them all to make their best decisions when it came to weather. At the time Charlee’s group set out, so had three others, and all of those had returned from their trip down the rapids wet but without incident at the appointed time.

  So what went wrong on Charlee’s trip? How had they gotten separated? That it had taken her a while to get back to them, he understood. He’d paddled plenty of rapids, knew about fighting the current. He was more impressed that she’d been able to get back to them at all.

  He was halfway through Rick’s pompous-sounding essay when he caught a whiff of her vanilla scent. “What are you doing?” she asked, voice rough with sleep.

  He closed his laptop. But he hadn’t had a chance to move the newspaper clipping.

  She looked around, blinking. “You cleaned up. You didn’t have to do that.”

  He shrugged. “I needed a place to work.”

  She casually grabbed the article, but he stopped her with a hand on her wrist. “When did you get this? Does your family know about it?”

  She shook off his hold, but wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Of course they know, since I came home afterward.”

  He stood, moved in until she had to meet his eyes. “Don’t play dumb, cher. It doesn’t become you.”

  She sidestepped him, folded her arms around her middle, and paced the small space. “It came in the mail three—no four—days ago.”

  “Did you keep the envelope?”

  Her eyes snapped to his. “No, but it was postmarked Lake City. I figured it was from either Tommy or Sally Jennings, JJ and Nora’s parents. They were obviously devastated
by the whole thing. Or maybe James, Tommy’s brother.” A haunted look slid over her face, telling him she was reliving that awful day.

  “Did you tell your family about this?” His tone snapped her back to the present.

  She frowned. “Why would I? They all have enough on their plates. It was sent to me. I understood Tommy—or his ex-wife—needed to make sure I didn’t forget.” She snorted. “Like that will ever happen.”

  “It wasn’t your fault, cher. You know that.”

  “Really, how do I know that, exactly? They were my group, damn it, and their safety was my responsibility.” She slammed a fist on the table, then winced and held her head in her hands. “I failed, and JJ died. How can that not be on me?”

  He pulled her into his arms and held tight, offering comfort without words. He refused to think about how good it felt to have her plastered against him, how much he’d like to nuzzle that sweet spot right behind her ear. She needed him to be a friend, never mind that he wanted to blow past those boundaries. Focus, Boudreau. He couldn’t let his growing need for her distract him, or worse, cloud his judgment. She needed his A game in this investigation.

  She looked up at him, anguish in every line of her body. “It’s happening again. Brittany might not make it. Someone shot her, for crying out loud. Who does that?”

  “She’s tough. The doctors are optimistic she’ll pull through, cher. Don’t give up on her.”

  She pulled back and glared at him. “I’m not giving up. I’m furious that someone would do this.”

  “Can you walk me through it? The whole trip?”

  She nodded, and he watched her spine stiffen as she started talking. She was as tough as she was beautiful, and his admiration grew. “Everything was going fine. I got Brittany to stop texting and look around. The other two boys took Wyatt under their wing, and they all goofed off together, which was nice, because Brittany spent most of her time saying mean things to her brother. She dropped her phone and dove down after it. When she didn’t come back up, Troy dove in after her.”