Heroes in Uniform: Soldiers, SEALs, Spies, Rangers and Cops: Sexy Hot Contemporary Alpha Heroes From NY Times and USA Today Bestselling Authors

by Sharon Hamilton

  And, Katelyn herself wasn’t feeling all that patient and calm. No matter where she went, she ran into John. When he took her hand in his today and looked at her injuries with such care, he’d damn near taken her breath away. Jerk.

  She didn’t want him taking her breath away if he wasn’t going to act on it. Which, apparently, he wasn’t. Katelyn winced. She was really off her game when it came to reading men. Broken man radar, she thought. It sure wasn’t working when she dated Devan and it still wasn’t working now. Seeing John left her edgy and annoyed.

  It hadn’t helped that she’d caught the scent of pine cleaner on her way in today. The smallest whiff of pine could send Katelyn’s head reeling, whipping her into a nightmarish memory she knew only existed in her mind. She had no idea why the scent of pine brought forth the false memory of her mother’s scream, but she forced it out of her head and grit her teeth against nightmares she knew weren’t real.

  Her father’s voice drew her out of her thoughts.

  “I want you to talk to the doctors, Katelyn. They’re keeping me here when there’s nothing wrong with me.” Katelyn didn’t point out the jaundice, or the way his abdomen was swollen and distended from the fluid pooling in it as a result of the liver disease. Pointing things like that out just served to pull him out of his dementia too harshly. The resulting jolt would cause him such distress, she’d rather let him rail at her than give him a reality check that would break his heart.

  “I’ll talk to them today, Dad,” she said softly, swallowing the sigh that threatened as she thought about having another talk with the doctors. She had spent the morning on the phone with a nursing company discussing options for in-home care, and then surfed the Internet to find somewhere to rent the hospital bed and monitors she’d need to bring him home.

  Her answer somehow just ramped him up even more and he began to yell about conspiracies to rob his insurance company blind. “Just because I have a good pension and health insurance, they think it’s okay to bilk the insurance company for every procedure they can think up. They’ll take everything if you give them an inch, Katelyn.”

  Well, that was good. At least he saw her standing next to his bed instead of her mother this time.

  “Hey, Alan, thought I’d swing by for a game of cards. Hi, Katelyn,” said Charlie as he walked in the door, pulling a deck of cards from his chest pocket. Seeing how patient and easy Charlie was with her father made Katelyn grateful for the friendship that had stood the test of so many years. Having Charlie here to help through such a debilitating disease was a blessing to Katelyn and her father.

  Charlie could usually snap her father out of his foul moods and he seemed to have patience when hers was wearing thin. Her father was taking more out of her than she’d like to admit as she tried to come up with a way to get him the care he needed from home instead of the hospital.

  “Charlie!” her father said, and suddenly became the jovial friend everyone in town remembered him as. Charlie and her father had been best friends for as long as Katelyn could remember. She kissed her father goodbye and slipped out the door, feeling guilty for leaving so quickly, as Charlie pulled a chair up to the side of the bed and shuffled the deck. Charlie winked at her as she looked back, but her father was already picking up his cards and talking baseball with his friend. Katelyn gave a relieved smile and a small wave of thanks to Charlie then took her sore body back home to bed.

  Everlasting: Chapter Seven

  It was about a week before Katelyn could walk without limping. Running during that time had been out of the question. It seemed the skin down the left side of her body was going to take a lot longer to heal. It felt stiff and tight whenever she moved, not to mention the itching as the scrapes scabbed over. Still, by the following week, she felt a lot better. She began to get out for shorter runs again, always being sure to wear a vest with reflective patches now and sticking more to the main roads.

  The doctor still hadn’t cleared her father for home care, even though Katelyn had planned out the nursing care and equipment she’d need. Alan needed to have the liquid drained from his stomach routinely now and they felt if she took him home, she’d only be back with him in a day or less.

  She’d met Ashley and Cora for lunch at Tiny-Bob’s earlier in the day. They’d been right. The pork ribs melted in your mouth and the brisket was better than anything she’d tasted in Austin, which was hard to believe given how many award-winning barbeque spots they had there. Katelyn knew she’d turned bright red when Ashley asked her how John was, but they’d all laughed over her response. They laughed even harder when Cora had the same response to Ashley asking Cora about Justin.

  Apparently, despite Cora’s talk about setting Katelyn up with Justin the other night, she was really the one who wanted to be set up with him. Katelyn was tempted to ask her why she didn’t go for it if she liked him, but didn’t feel like she knew Cora well enough yet. Besides, with Ashley for a sister, Cora was probably getting enough pressure as it was.

  Katelyn looked around at the progress being made in her studio space and smiled. Her life in Austin might have imploded, her father’s health was swiftly declining, but this, at least, was going right. Her fingers tingled with the urge to get back to her art, but the build-out had to be done before she could set up the studio. Seeing the progress Charlie’s foreman, Sam, and his crew were making, made Katelyn feel hopeful at the end of what had been a very long day of talking to doctors and listening to her father ask about going home.

  It was late by the time she’d left the hospital, but she had stopped by the studio anyway. Charlie had given her a key even though she hadn’t technically taken possession yet. It was quiet and still at night, but she could picture what it would be like when she opened. She could see her pieces displayed throughout the gallery. Her sculptures in the center and her newer paintings mounted on the walls.

  She smiled as she ran her hand over the half wall that would separate her downstairs work space from the gallery. It would be hard to get used to having people watch her work, but she had talked to several artists who’d done this type of open-studio concept and the results had been great. Besides, she’d have her full studio upstairs and that would be closed to the public. Many artists felt an open studio brought more foot traffic in the door, and people seemed more likely to buy after feeling they had a connection to the artist.

  Things were coming together. With a final look around the room, Katelyn flicked off the work light and let herself out the back door. As she turned back to slip the key in the lock, a shadow crossed behind her and her thoughts went to John, happy he had stopped by to check on her. She couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face. Her belly filled with butterflies at the thought of seeing his smile, those dimples.

  Even if they only had a few minutes of flirting before he had to get back to work, she’d take it. The man could make her stomach do flip flops when he ran a hand casually down her arm or stood just that tiny bit closer than necessary as they spoke. And, whenever she saw the heat in his eyes as his gaze raked over her, she felt tingles lighting her body up. When that happened, she couldn’t help imagining what it would feel like to have his hands join his eyes in their exploration. What would it feel like if his mouth joined his hands?

  Katelyn grinned as she turned, eager to see John, but her smile quickly dropped. She felt someone shove her from behind and immediately knew this wasn’t John. This was all wrong. She cried out in pain and shock as her body hit the door she’d just closed and she fought for some semblance of balance. All she found was confusion, panic and pain as her mind whirled.

  “Time to leave, Katelyn. You don’t belong here,” came a growling voice in her ear. The person shoved her harder against the door of her studio, slamming her head into the cold metal. The arms she raised to try to block the blow were useless against the strength of the person behind her. The crack of her head hitting metal resounded in her ears. The sound alone would have sickened her but the sharp bolt of pain to
her skull brought its own special nausea with it and bile flushed her throat.

  She couldn’t see who was pinning her to the door. There was a hood pulled down over his face, and he pressed his arm into the back of her neck preventing her from turning to look at him. She opened her mouth, but no sound escaped. Her mind raced as she tried to control the panic setting in, but the situation was quickly overwhelming her.

  She shut her eyes and tried to stop the sob that wracked her body, but she couldn’t. Fear gripped her, building deep in her belly, her heart racing as her throat constricted. She could smell the man’s breath, foul and laden with alcohol. He wreaked of body odor as though he hadn’t washed in days and the realization that he had her so completely at his mercy hit her hard. She opened her mouth to scream, but before she could, he gripped the back of her hair and slammed her head into the door. Once. Twice. Again and again, and she began to pray. For what, she didn’t know. For him to stop? For her to be spared the pain, the fear. That he wouldn’t rape her? Kill her?

  Katelyn held on for as long as she could, trying to raise a scream to the surface, to call for help. Then blackness swallowed her as she felt herself fall.

  * * *

  John turned his cruiser onto Lilac Street and drove through the dark quiet of Evers. He’d take one pass before dragging himself home for the night. It had been a long day. He’d had to go to the county prison for what turned into a three-hour meeting, and then over to the opposite edge of his county to help out on a prisoner transport because half his deputies were out with the flu. With his luck, he’d catch the flu and bring it back to the rest of his men in Evers.

  The town seemed to be locked up tight as he looped behind the businesses to cut through the alley on his way home. They didn’t have much crime in Evers, but John always thought having a police force that was embedded in the community was one of the reasons for that. He liked to tuck the town in at night when he could.

  He neared the galleries and his thoughts switched to Katelyn—not an unheard of event nowadays, since she was on his mind at least ninety percent of his waking hours. Shoot, she was on a hell of a lot of his sleeping ones, as well. He wondered how her studio was coming along. A glance at the clock told him she was probably at home already, maybe getting ready for bed. His thoughts ran to images of Katelyn slipping out of her clothes for bed and he groaned, shifting in his seat. He really had to stop torturing himself like that.

  John’s headlights swept over a crumpled form at the back of Katelyn’s studio. They didn’t have a big homeless population in Evers, but there were a few guys who might have a little too much to drink and end up passing out on the steps of one of the businesses instead of making it home. John aimed his headlights toward the figure and threw the car in park. With any luck, he could rouse the person and figure out who he needed to call to help them home. Then, he’d get home to his bed and hit the shower before crawling between the sheets for a few hours of sleep before his next shift.

  Two more steps and he saw Katelyn’s blond hair splayed out on the pavement. His stomach pitched wildly as he ran to her, a vicious curse on his lips.

  “Kate!” John knelt next to her, his eyes going to the blood seeping into her hair from the wound on her temple. “Talk to me, Kate,” he said, praying for once she’d listen to him. Or sit up and argue with him. He’d take that, too.

  Her eyes fluttered and she mumbled something. John squeezed her hands, probably harder than he should, but he needed to get her to wake up. He radioed for an ambulance and tried to get her talking, but all the while he could feel the rage building in him.

  This wasn’t a fall. The amount of blood, the tear in her shirt at the neckline. Someone had done this to her. Someone had hurt her on purpose.

  John schooled his voice, ensuring that the anger building in him wouldn’t come through. “Hang on, honey, the ambulance will be here in a minute. Can you talk to me? Do you know where you are?”

  “John?” she said and her eyes grew a bit panicky. He held her down gently, one hand on either shoulder.

  “Shhh, honey. Don’t try to sit up. We’ll just wait here together. Do you remember what happened?” The look of fear in her eyes told him she was reliving it right in front of him. He heard the ambulance coming and focused on looking her in the eye. Keeping her talking, as calmly as he could. His mind raced as he tried to think of something to ask her that wouldn’t make her even more fearful.

  “I’m here, Kate, I’ll stay with you. Tell me what day it is, can you remember?” Idiot. That’s all you can come up with? All his training and experience in handling a crisis seemed to have flown the coop.

  “Friday,” she answered, and John smiled as the EMTs came up behind him. He shifted to let them in with a backboard, but didn’t drop her hand.

  “That’s right, honey. Friday. You had lunch with the girls today, right? What wild things did Ashley have to say today? Anything good?”

  He kept right on with the ridiculous conversation through the whole ambulance ride. He even laughed when Katelyn told him Ashley had talked about his butt at lunch and filled her in on all of his ex-girlfriends in town. Great.

  John knew when they got to the hospital he’d have to take her statement to find out who had attacked her, but for now, he just wanted to keep her calm until they could get her to a doctor. He didn’t think his heart had ever had the kind of scare it had when he’d seen that blood painting her hair red like that. John took a steadying breath as the ambulance pulled into the emergency bay. He needed to switch back into law enforcement mode, make the change to someone who would collect evidence, bag her clothing, question the victim, and find her attacker. But, damn if having Katelyn as the victim didn’t make that hard.

  * * *

  “Lean on me, sweetheart.” John said, wrapping his arm around her middle and pulling her close, as he walked her up the front steps of her father’s house. He had been nothing but sweet, and gentle, and solicitous since he found her unconscious outside her studio door.

  He had stayed with her every minute at the hospital, and she’d seen him almost come out of his chair when the doctor asked if she’d been raped. She was weak with relief that she hadn’t been, but she’d never forget the fear of thinking it was possible as her attacker’s hands slammed her into the wall.

  John told the doctor he’d spend the night with her, waking her every two hours to check for signs of concussion. And Katelyn had let him with no argument. She didn’t want to be alone right now. She had no idea what had happened, what the man who attacked her had meant when he’d told her it was time to leave town. But, she wanted to sink into John’s strong arms and imagine she was safe again.

  “Thanks,” she murmured as he helped her down onto the couch. She’d already told him everything she could remember about the attack while they were at the hospital. She hadn’t seen the man who attacked her, hadn’t been able to identify him from his voice, which sounded like he had been masking it anyway. She doubted he really spoke in the gravelly voice he’d used to warn her off.

  “Wait right here. I’ll get you some water and crackers.” They’d already given her pain medication at the hospital, and the doctor recommended lots of water and nibbling on crackers to see how her stomach handled food. She honestly felt like she could eat a cow. It had been hours since her last meal.

  John returned with the water, helping her take a few sips before putting it on the coffee table in front of them and handing her a cracker. He sat down at the other end of the couch and lifted her feet onto his lap. His hands played up and down her legs and Katelyn couldn’t help but stare at them as they warmed her body. Was that friendly concern or something more? Before she could figure out what it meant, John was back in that cop mode she’d come to recognize. He wasn’t outright grilling her. This was his cajoling mode. The one where he tried to convince her she’d seen something when she was little.

  “Kate, the only way this makes any sense is if someone is afraid you’ll remember somethi
ng you saw when you were little. Something they can’t take a chance on you remembering.”

  She sighed and tried to draw her legs up to her chest, out of his lap, but he clamped an arm across her knees and glared at her for a second, then went back to his slow exploration. An exploration that was making her head turn to mush, making it hard to focus on telling him he was crazy with his cold case theories. Nope. Not a hint of friendly concern in that touch. Those hands had a mission that had nothing to do with friendship. And if the warm heat building between Katelyn’s legs meant anything, her body was fully on board with that mission.

  “Think about it, Katelyn, why would anyone tell you to leave town if you weren’t somehow a threat to them?”

  Katelyn shrugged. She didn’t really have an answer for him and she was pretty sure she didn’t want to talk about this now. “Maybe they wanted to lease the studio space and Charlie leased it to me instead.”

  That earned her a raised eyebrow.

  “I doubt that. The space has been open for over a year. If someone wanted to rent it, they had plenty of time to do that before you came along.”

  John’s hand traveled up her leg, running over her thigh, melting her resolve, along with her panties. Good heavens. Katelyn sat up, swinging her legs off John’s lap and instantly winced, doubling over at the sharp pain in her head. Her forehead was black and swollen with a small row of six stitches she hoped wouldn’t leave a very noticeable scar. Her head was pounding, and nothing seemed capable of settling the storm of waves roiling and thrashing in her stomach.

  John was right there, laying her back down again as she fought off the wave of nausea that hit as the pain began to subside.