Harlequin Intrigue March 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Cindi Myers

  “Really,” Bruce pushed. “Who is she this time?”

  She, Lucas thought, was the smart, sassy, fun-loving woman he’d met on campus his junior year at Bellemont College. The same woman who’d promptly and irrevocably stolen his heart. Then broken it.

  “You never bring your ladies out anymore,” Bruce said. “Some of us are married, but we’re not dead. We liked seeing your flavors of the month.”

  “Month?” Another detective laughed. “You mean week?”

  Lucas glanced over his shoulder and shook his head. It was too easy to keep up the facade. These guys did all the work on their own.

  A woman cleared her throat in front of them, and Lucas spun back. The group halted sharply, rocking collectively on their heels. “Pardon me, detectives,” Officer Kim Lake said, looking wholly unimpressed by the conversation she’d clearly overheard. “Detective Winchester is needed in the conference room.” She hooked a thumb over one shoulder, indicating the open door several feet away.

  The group clapped him on the back as they strode past, probably thankful not to be the one held up at quitting time.

  Lucas did his best not to seem disappointed. “What is it, Kim?”

  “There’s a woman asking to see you.”

  Lucas frowned back at her. “Someone’s here to file a report?” He didn’t normally take the reports. Cases were assigned to him.

  “No, she’s asking for you. By name.” Kim crossed her arms. “And I don’t think she’s here on a personal visit. She looks too smart to put up with any of your nonsense.”

  Lucas grinned. “Fair,” he said. “Reporter?”

  “Didn’t say.” Kim turned to stand beside him, staring in the direction of the open conference room door. “She seems shaken, so I wouldn’t peg her for a reporter, but she wouldn’t say more. Only that she needs to talk with you, Luke Winchester.”

  “Luke?” he asked, moving around Kim toward the open door.

  “Yeah.”

  No one had called Lucas that in years. No one at the precinct ever had.

  Instinct clawed at the back of his neck as he lengthened his strides. “Thanks.”

  He knocked on the door frame with a spear of anticipation, determined to look both professional and approachable. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Detective—” The words clogged in his throat. His limbs froze, and his heart rate spiked at the sight of the barely recognizable woman before him.

  But even six years later, her wild red curls tamed into a bun and wearing a high-end pantsuit instead of cutoffs and his old concert shirts, Lucas knew her instantly.

  “Gwen.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Lucas led Gwen into O’Grady’s Pub, a place they’d frequented together in another lifetime, and one he’d avoided every day since. Still, O’Grady’s had seemed like the best alternative when Gwen insisted on speaking privately, but not at the precinct. She hadn’t said much more than that, and her silence had Lucas’s nerves on edge. As if it wasn’t enough that she’d shown up out of the blue like this, now she had a secret, too.

  He scanned the multitude of faces as they threaded their way through the tightly packed space. Music thumped from overhead speakers and voices rose in waves, cheering at televised ball games and real-life rounds of darts. The beloved pub was only a few blocks from campus and downtown, making it a hotspot for civilians and especially unpopular with the cops who took too much interest in Lucas’s personal life. For that reason alone, the place was perfect.

  “Wow,” Gwen muttered, taking in the static decor and general commotion. “This place hasn’t changed.”

  “Not at all,” he agreed. “The nostalgia is strong here.” Thankfully, so were the drinks.

  His thoughts, however, were erratic, confused and demanding. What had brought Gwen back to West Liberty after all this time? Why hadn’t she told him yet? And why not just call?

  Probably because she never called, he thought dryly. Not in six years.

  She stopped at a small corner booth away from the crowd. “This okay?”

  He dipped his chin, slightly aggravated by the secrecy and mild theatrics that had never been Gwen’s way.

  She dropped her purse on the heavily lacquered table, then slid onto the cracked red vinyl seat, facing the door and window.

  Reluctantly, Lucas settled on the bench across from her with his back to the door. He clasped his hands on the tabletop and waited. Patience was a skill preached endlessly at the academy, one he wasn’t any good at. “Ready to tell me what this is about yet?”

  Her wide brown eyes snapped to his, and she matched his posture, twining her fingers on the table. “I’m sorry I didn’t call first.”

  He shrugged. “It’s no problem.” He couldn’t get a bead on her mood. Nervous, obviously, but why? Being back in this town? Being there with him? She’d marched into the precinct wanting to see him for something. It’d be great if she got around to explaining what that was. He clenched his jaw against the possibility she’d come to announce she was getting married and didn’t want him to hear it from anyone else first.

  “Do you need to call anyone?” she asked, projecting her voice against the din of rowdy patrons.

  The question caught him off guard and drew him back to the moment, confused again. “Who?”

  Gwen frowned. “From where I was sitting earlier, it sounded as if you might have a hot date.”

  Lucas fought the urge to laugh, opting instead to remove his jacket and toss it onto the bench beside him. Heat coursed up his neck at the memory of Bruce and the others teasing him in the hallway. “I don’t need to call anyone.”

  She rolled her eyes. “How are your folks?”

  “Good. Yours?”

  “Fine.”

  “Gwen,” he whispered, leaning across the table. “Whatever brought you here. Whatever you want to say. Just say it. I can’t react until I know what this is about.”

  She shifted, pulling her hands into her lap. A flash of uncertainty crossed her pretty face, and she chewed her bottom lip. “Someone invited me to homecoming.”

  “Homecoming?” Lucas let the words circle, then settle, in his heart and head. After what had happened to her at homecoming six years back, it seemed a strange and senseless statement. Who would do that? And why had she made the trip to town to tell Lucas? “Do I know him?” he asked, hoping it wasn’t one of his idiot college roommates. Should he care if it was? Did she want him to care?

  “I don’t know,” she said softly, dragging the silver zipper open on her purse. She reached inside and removed a folded sheet of paper with trembling fingers. “It could be nothing,” she said, her expression both apologetic and hopeful. “If it’s nothing, then I don’t want to talk about it, and I’ll be on my way. But if it’s something, I knew I couldn’t talk to anyone other than you.”

  “Let me see.” Lucas took the paper and fanned it open with unnecessary force, then smoothed it on the table between them. “Join Bellemont College staff and students for a week of homecoming fun,” he read. He’d seen variations of the same flyer posted all over town, printed in the newspaper and splashed generously across local media all month. “I don’t get it.” He raised his eyes to hers once more, trying and failing to understand the reason one folded flyer had drawn her out of hiding and delivered her to his door.

  A tear slid over the curve of her pink cheek, and she swiped it away with one shaky hand. “I know.”

  Her whisper gonged in the too-loud, overcrowded bar, pounding straight through Lucas’s heart. He released the flyer to scrub a palm across his mouth. “Sorry.” Coming back to West Liberty wasn’t easy for her. The least he could do was be patient while she got to her point. Assuming she had one. “Who invited you to homecoming?”

  Another tear fell, erased by a quick, determined hand. “I don’t know.”

  Lucas straightened, eyes n
arrowing. “What do you mean, you don’t know? Where’d you get the flyer?”

  “I found it tucked under my windshield wiper after work.” Gwen swallowed and wet her lips. “No one else’s car had one.”

  Tension wound through his limbs. A hundred heinous thoughts presented in his brain. “When you said you were invited to homecoming. This is what you meant?” Suddenly things made more sense. Her visit. Her mood. “You think it was a message?” He bit his tongue against the thing neither of them would say. A message from her rapist. A man who had never been caught.

  Her eyes misted, and she pressed her pink lips tight.

  “Hey, y’all!” a perky blonde called upon approach. Her O’Grady’s T-shirt and apron over blue jeans announced her as pub staff. “What can I get y’all started with?”

  Gwen worked up a smile. “White wine. And fries.”

  The waitress grinned. “Gotcha.” She flicked her gaze to Lucas. “For you?”

  “House ale on tap,” he said, not caring what she brought. The beer was officially a prop to put Gwen at ease. Her visit wasn’t personal. It was business, which meant Lucas was on duty. Hopefully the glass of wine Gwen ordered would help her relax enough to tell the rest of her story in detail. The more he knew, the better chance he had at helping.

  “Anything else?” the waitress asked.

  Lucas trailed his gaze over Gwen’s narrow jaw and frame. “Chips and salsa. Burger sliders. For the table.”

  Gwen waited for the waitress to leave before returning her attention to him. The tears were gone and fresh resolution burned in her eyes. “I started feeling as if I was being watched about three weeks ago. I wasn’t sure at first, because I still get paranoid like that sometimes. Usually, it’s a moment here or there. Nothing that sticks. Then a few weeks ago, the sensation never really left. Instead, it’s gotten progressively worse, and today after work, there was a flyer for homecoming on my windshield. I understand it could be nothing, but I think it’s time I get a second opinion.”

  Lucas ground his teeth at the possibility someone was following her, frightening her. “Any chance someone you know is messing with you?” he asked, trying to rule out the more likely and less dangerous possibilities first. “Maybe this person doesn’t know the extent of what you’ve been through, only that you never visit your alma mater, and they wanted to tease you about it for some reason?”

  “No.” She kneaded her hands on the table. “I’ve never told anyone about what happened to me at Bellemont. No one even knows I went to college there. I didn’t include the school on my résumé.”

  He frowned, wondering selfishly if she’d erased him from her revised history, as well. “What do you do for a living that didn’t require your degree?” he asked, sticking to a safer subject. He didn’t know a lot about fashion, but the suit, heels and handbag all seemed to scream corporate. And when he’d met her, she had been on track to be a very successful engineer.

  “I’m an administrative assistant at the Noble Architecture and Design Firm in New Plymouth.”

  “New Plymouth.” The town name nearly took him as off guard as her career choice. Gwen was living only one town away. “How long have you been back from Florida?”

  Gwen lowered her eyes again, choosing to study her manicure, then their surroundings. “I only stayed with my parents for a few months. I told myself I had to come back and get on with living.” She shrugged out of her coat and folded it on the bench beside her, then set her purse on top. “I got a job, eventually bought a home. But I couldn’t bring myself to go back to Bellemont and finish those last few classes, so I didn’t. What was one more change when my life was already topsy-turvy, right?”

  “I suppose.” Lucas took a moment to process the information and appreciate the subtle changes.

  Gwen was beautiful as always, if thinner. Her formerly curvy figure was lean, almost willowy and her skin slightly sun-kissed despite the plummeting temperatures.

  “You’re still jogging.”

  She grimaced, as if he’d hit a sore spot. “It used to be the only time I felt completely unburdened, but that’s different now, too.”

  The waitress returned with their drinks, and Gwen took a long sip of her wine. She traced a fingertip along the condensation of her glass, then told her story in full, filling Lucas in on the significant details of her last few weeks. How she felt unsafe at her usual jogging spot and hated the new one. How she felt watched outside her home and work. And worried she might be losing her mind.

  “Have you considered getting a guard dog?” Lucas asked.

  “I have,” she said, “but I wouldn’t want to leave him home alone all day while I’m at work, and I wouldn’t want to go out alone at night to walk him.”

  “How about a husband?” he asked, hoping to sound playful instead of jealous at the thought.

  “No men,” she said, her tone strangely sharp. “I don’t date.”

  Lucas lifted his palms in apology, obviously hitting another nerve.

  The waitress returned with their food and a second glass of wine for Gwen, then vanished into the crowd once more.

  Lucas sipped his beer and processed all he’d learned. He pushed the chips and sliders into the table’s center, indicating Gwen should help herself. His insides had tightened beyond the ability to eat the moment he’d realized she could be right. The son of a gun who’d left her for dead could be back and coming for her again. And what could Lucas do to stop him?

  She snagged a fry and forced a tight smile. “Well, what do you think, Detective Winchester? Do I have reason to worry? Or am I being paranoid?”

  Lucas flicked his attention to the flyer before leveling her with his most protective stare. “I don’t like it,” he said honestly. “And I don’t believe in coincidences. But you can be sure I won’t let anyone hurt you again. Not ever.”

  * * *

  GWEN LET THE fervor of his words strengthen her. If anyone understood what she’d been through, it was Luke. He’d lost everything right alongside her. And when she’d asked him to, he’d had the grace to let her go, as well.

  She dunked half a fry in the paper cup of ketchup at the edge of her plate and tried desperately to relax. But so much had changed. Her. Him. Them. He didn’t even go by his nickname anymore. The female officer had nearly laughed when Gwen had requested to speak with Luke Winchester.

  “Are you doing okay?” he asked, concern marring his handsome brow.

  “Not really,” she admitted. Being back in West Liberty was harder than she’d expected, and so was seeing him.

  He’d aged unfairly well, of course, filled out in all the right places and seemed impossibly more fit than he had in college. He carried himself differently now, too, no longer the dorky future architect she’d fallen in love with. This Luke, Lucas, she corrected herself, had a coolness in his eyes and tension to his limbs she’d never known in him. “You’ve barely touched your beer.”

  “The night’s young,” he said, absently, his gaze searching the crowd.

  “Is it? Or are you on duty right now?” she asked. “Because you seemed agitated when we sat down, now you’re clearly on edge.”

  His lips curled into a cocky grin. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Don’t do that,” Gwen snapped, the words coming more harshly than she’d intended. She pulled her shoulders back and pressed her lips together briefly before going on. “Don’t pretend like I don’t know you. You’re scanning the crowd on a regular circuit, and you’ve angled yourself on the bench for a better look at the door and front window. You’re obviously on alert, and if it’s because of what I told you, I need to know. The fact that you’re nursing that beer makes me think you want to keep a clear head, and I worry that it’s because you think what I’ve told you is cause for concern and that I might be in danger.”

  He swiveled forward, eyes hot and jaw locked. “I don’t
know if you’re in danger. I didn’t even know you lived twenty minutes away until thirty minutes ago, but for what it’s worth, yeah. I think you were smart to trust your instincts. And I don’t believe in coincidences.”

  Gwen’s stomach rolled. The wine and french fries revolted in her gut. As they should have. She wasn’t twenty-two and carefree anymore. This night was too much. The whole day was too much. She rubbed her fingertips against a napkin and pushed the plate aside. “I should probably use the ladies’ room then head home.”

  Lucas stood silently and waited at the end of the table while she gathered her things and slid out.

  “What about your sliders?”

  “I’ll get a box.” He stretched one arm toward the hallway in the back of the pub, then trailed her as she made her way to the ladies’ room.

  The protective gesture warmed her heart and stung her eyes.

  He leaned against the wall outside the restroom while she hurried inside.

  She splashed cold water on her face, then ripped the pins and elastic from her hair, letting her curls fall free. She plucked the creamy fabric of her silk blouse away from her heated skin a few times, then dabbed a wet paper towel along her neck and collarbone. “You are safe,” she told the wide brown-eyed reflection staring back at her. Lucas was clearly still perfect, impossibly sexier than she’d remembered and on her side. If there was anything to fear, he would let her know. Until then, she’d finger-comb her crazy hair, wipe the drops of water from her face and go home for some much needed sleep.

  She reopened the bathroom door and Lucas smiled.

  “Hey.” He reached for her with an apologetic look in his eyes, and she nearly leapt into him. “I should’ve done this earlier,” he whispered into her wild and unruly hair. His protective arms wound around her, tucking her in tight. “It’s nice to see you, Gwen. You look stunning as always, and I’m glad you’re here.” He released her too soon, gripping her shoulders gently and fixing her with a determined gaze. “I don’t know what’s going on back in New Plymouth, but I meant what I said about protecting you any way I can. A lot of things have changed between us, but not that. Never that.”