by Dawson, Zoe
“Well, I can’t exactly walk around civilization carrying a battle axe or with a shotgun hanging from each shoulder.”
“Not exactly.”
“So, I have a theory there are two kinds of men. Zombie killers and…ahhhh…zombie food.”
He laughed again, utterly besotted.
Her eyes twinkling, she continued. “The food are usually classified as cerebral guys—”
“Ah, the nutrient-rich guys… brainiacs.”
She tapped her temple. “Exactly. Rich in nutrients for the average zombie. Then there are the muscled guys who can build things.”
“Sure, because not only can they protect you, but once civilization is destroyed, you’re going to need someone with skills.”
“Or a skill saw.”
He burst out laughing.
“But after talking to you, I have to adapt my model.”
He leaned forward. “Really. Why?”
She leaned in, too, until their faces were close. “I think there’s a rare hybrid of man out there.”
Her lashes were really thick, her eyes a stunning cobalt blue. “Who would that be?”
She blinked, drawing out her answer, her widened eyes twinkling. “The G.Z.K.”
“I’m on tenterhooks,” he whispered, his hand itching to push back her hair, trail over her soft skin.
“The Genius Zombie Killer. Not only can he hack, but he can strategize.”
“You’re some kind of wonderful.”
“I know, right?” she said with a grin. “Hard to believe people think I’m weird.”
“Hard to believe,” he said softly, his gaze lingering so long on hers, she looked away. “So I take it you like horror movies.”
“Not all of them. I don’t like the Krueger stuff or Saw. To me that’s not entertainment, it’s just ghastly. There’s no skill in that. Horror should be all about the startle not the disturbing. Oh, God. Look at the time,” Poe said catching sight of her watch. “I’ve really got to go. You distracted me with my zombie theories, and we haven’t even worked out a schedule.”
“I’m free whenever you are. Send me a schedule.” He reached into his jeans pocket and pulled out a card. “There’s my email and phone.”
“Taylor Security.” Her eyes flashed to his.
“Lame?”
“No, straightforward. Like you.” She rose and secured the two leashes around her wrist.
He popped out of the chair and headed for the street. Her stalker was back. “Let me call you a cab?”
#
“No, I can walk.” Thank God that came out more nonchalant than she was feeling.
He frowned and she could tell that he was going to go all macho on her. His eyes strayed to her bruise and a frisson of heat jangled in her chest.
“How far away is your apartment?”
“Not far,” her voice was firm.
He stepped closer and tilted his head. “I’d feel like a no-account if I didn’t make sure you were safe.”
It wouldn’t matter what this man said. She feared her response would have been the same—an instantaneous quickening, a flash of warmth, reduced lung capacity. His breath was warm against her cheek. She stepped back to diminish his effect. Otherwise she might have let him call her a cab. “I got some news for you, G.Z.K.”
“What’s that?”
“I can handle getting myself home. I’ve been doing that for some time now. Just because I was mugged doesn’t mean I’m in any danger now. So, although I appreciate your white knight tendencies, I’ll be fine.”
“I guess I’d feel better if you at least had some bacon on you.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it, in spite of the fact that she was trying to be so tough. Charming did not even begin to describe this man. Not only had he listened and participated in her theories, but he was good about trying to put her at ease. She was a little bit afraid to walk home, but that was all the more reason to do it. She wasn’t going to let that masked man win. She also wasn’t going to swoon and cower like a girl, even if she was one. She stopped being the baby of the family when she moved away from home, and she certainly wasn’t going to take up that role again.
“You’re worse than Harper.” At his blank look she said, “Oh, that’s right. You don’t know her. She’s a gigantic pain in the butt and a really good friend. Maybe you can meet her some time.”
“Maybe,” he said noncommittally.
Daisy woofed at her, and Poe bent down to give her a goodbye ear rumple. “She’s so cute. I’ll call you, Jared.”
“Sounds good.”
She turned and started walking briskly down the street, her pique dissolving. She desperately wanted to look back to see if he was watching her. But she resisted the impulse. At the corner, she paused, and when she turned her head to glance back at him, he was watching her, intently. His penetrating look was pure warrior again, and power emanated off him in dark, lethal waves like the heat from overcooked asphalt.
He waved and she lifted her hand, her heart fluttering.
It only took her a quick fifteen minutes to get home. As soon as she walked in the door, closed it and locked it, she released Edgar and Allan. Before Edgar could wriggle away, she snagged his collar and ran her hand over his ribs on the side he’d been injured. There was still a small swelling, but it was almost gone. She breathed a sigh of relief and headed right for her bedroom. It was getting late and she had to get some sleep, because she had surgery first thing in the morning. Routine feline spaying. And she was meeting the girls at the dog park in the afternoon.
There must have been some citrus in one of her perfumes. The moment she smelled it, she was back there in the studio, all Jared’s sleek, heavy muscles surrounding her with that scent.
Keep your eyes on the tether ball, chickie, she scolded herself, or it is going to smack you right in the face. She had one burning goal, and it wasn’t to ogle the way his jeans molded over that fine ass. It was to make Jared into a dancer, not her lover.
Oops. How did that sneaky, tantalizing little thought get into her head?
Damn her overactive imagination.
Her cell chimed and she dashed back into the living room to scrabble for it in her zombie purse. When she answered her blood froze.
“I’m going to get you and your little dogs, too!” The caller’s voice seethed with anger.
She pressed the button to end the call. Her stomach did stalls and loops before dropping to her feet. She cupped the side of her face, where the bruise started to throb again. Closing her eyes, she fought with her fear. “You’re not going to win,” she said in a whisper, then repeated it in a stronger voice.
In her rummaging attempt to get to her phone she’d dislodged Jared’s card. Her fingers trembled as she bent down to pick it up, and for one panicked moment, she thought about calling him.
She shook her head and tucked the card into her wallet so she wouldn’t lose it.
She went back to her room and changed out of her clothes into a pair of grey shorts and the t-shirt that had “badass” spelled across it in red letters. She went to the fridge and grabbed a yogurt. While spooning up the thick, cold, pudding-like stuff into her mouth, her thoughts strayed back to Jared Taylor. “Mmmm,” she said softly, as she licked the spoon clean and it had nothing to do with how good the yogurt tasted.
She called her boys and they scurried up onto the bed. With their warm bodies bracketing her, she lay down and closed her eyes.
After a moment, she got up and snapped on the bathroom light and cracked the door. Back in bed, she closed her eyes again, thinking about the protective expression in Jared’s moss-green eyes.
Chapter Four
Jared tied Daisy to one of the chairs. He jumped off the curb and raced across the street to the alley, where the guy saw him coming and turned and sprinted away.
Jared amped up his speed and caught up to the guy. Grabbing a fistful of the stalker’s shirt, he swung him around hard and seized the arm with the flyin
g fist aimed at his jaw. He pivoted neatly and slammed the lowlife face-first into the wall just a bit harder than necessary.
“Let go of me!”
Jared responded by pushing him harder against the wall. “Listen you little creep, why are you following Poe?”
“I wasn’t.”
“I saw you following her, and then staring at her. This is your notice that if I see you around her again, I’m going to break you in half.”
“I wasn’t following her! I work at the coffee shop, but my shift doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes!”
“Then why the staring?”
“I think she’s gorgeous.”
Jared stepped back and spun him around. He couldn’t argue with that. The guy’s hair was dark, his eyes a light blue. He had a ring in his nose and his ears were pierced with big black stretchers. He was probably more enamored of Poe’s Goth look than he was of her. He could see he was nothing but a kid. “That doesn’t give you the right to stare at her from the shadows like that. It’s downright creepy. What’s your name?”
“Colin.”
“She’s much too old for you, Colin.”
He hung his head. “I know.” His chin thrust out. “Are you her boyfriend or something?”
“Or something,” Jared said. “Let’s just say I’m the guy who’s going to kick your ass if I see you creeping on her again.”
“Fair enough.”
“Now get going before you’re late for work.”
“Yes sir.”
The kid shambled off and Jared did feel sympathy for him. Poe was out of his reach. But the kid was a dead end. Definitely not the mugger or the letter-writer.
Jared went back and scooped up Daisy, hailed a cab home, got his truck and drove to Poe’s apartment building.
He left Daisy in the truck snoozing and cased Poe’s apartment complex. There were two entrances, but both had security doors. That was at least something. However, even though a visitor had to be buzzed up or use a code, it wouldn’t take much to piggyback into the building after the door was opened for a legitimate guest. He would get one of his techs to rig up security cameras on both doors. Jared would be able to monitor them with one device. He entered her building right behind another tenet. Just as he thought. Not all that secure. He located her apartment in case he needed to get to her in a hurry, making a mental note where it would be on the outside of the building.
He also needed to work up a schedule. Since he did have to sleep, he’d need to put some of his elite people on her to keep her safe. Several of his employees came to mind. Two men and two women. He called each and left them a message to get in touch with him for their assignments.
As for tonight, he was going to sit in his truck, watching out for her until he saw her head off to work.
It was past ten when he settled back in his truck. Daisy didn’t even stir, even when he absently petted her while he watched the building. There were some stars in the sky, making him wish for the wide-open spaces of the Texas range. The vastness of the sky above and the endless twinkling of the stars that lit up the night sky were truly a thing of beauty. He’d enjoyed ranching to a certain extent. It was hard work, but satisfying. Some of the best days of his youth had been spent with his father, learning to ride, rope, and brand. How to “read” cattle and those slippery calves, anticipate a horse and break him in. There was nothing like a good cattle horse under him and the nights below that huge, starry sky.
He’d felt both incredibly insignificant and, at the same time, somehow strangely empowered. As if the vastness was a coded message once unraveled told the story of a huge universe, but that he wasn’t as earthbound as he thought he was.
The night sky still had the power to make him feel that way. It was just a little harder to really see it in New York City.
He shifted his gaze back to Poe’s building and the glow of light emanating from somewhere in her apartment. He kept expecting the light to go off, but it didn’t. He had the sudden overwhelming urge to go up there and find out why she needed the light on all night.
His mind drifted to Colin, and he again felt sorry for the shy, smitten teenager.
Jared would classify himself as pretty square compared to Poe. He was staid and boring, just like his brother had said. No way would a woman like Poe be interested in him, except maybe in a physical way, tearing up the sheets. He swore softly under his breath at the vision of what Poe would look like all mussed up beneath him. He shook his head to clear those provocative thoughts. He wasn’t here to date her or bed her. He was here to protect her. So, whatever she thought about him was moot.
He needed to create distance and it all had to be mental. He had plenty of practice during Afghanistan in schooling his mind. But Poe was the wild card, as unpredictable as which direction a bucking bronc would go. He couldn’t afford to be clouded, and especially didn’t want his judgment to be off because of his attraction to her. One misstep could be disastrous, just as it had been in Afghanistan. He closed his eyes at the cries of agony and the cacophony of shells and gunfire that still echoed in his mind. The mind-bending pain of his wounds and the bitter agony of his regret nearly overwhelmed him again.
Daisy licked his hand. Startled, he snapped out of his reverie and looked down at her. She made a soft sound and then went back to sleep. Could she have sensed his emotions? Dogs were somehow aware of such things. Jared looked back up at Poe’s apartment, saw the light still glowing in the small window like a beacon against the shadows, or was that fear of what lurked in the darkness?
After Poe emerged from her apartment early Wednesday morning and hailed a cab, Jared drove home, his eyes scratchy from lack of sleep.
As he received the expected phone calls from his staff, he gave them their schedules and when each of them was responsible for tailing Poe. She was expected at the dog park in the afternoon and he had to get some sleep, so in this instance a tail was necessary. He then called his secretary to let her know that he would be in after lunch. He showered first and then lay down on his bed.
Just as he was drifting off, he heard a soft whine. Glancing down, Daisy sat on her hind legs and gave him that so-sad basset face. She looked so cute. “You want to come up?”
The tiny wag in her tail was her only response. He bent down and lifted her up. She walked to the end of the bed, stepping on her long ears more than once due to the uneven surface. Settling at his feet, she yawned.
Jared stretched, yawned and turned to his side, drifting off to sleep.
#
Poe felt a prickling between her shoulder blades and turned around to make sure no one was following her. People moved by on the street. There didn’t seem to be anyone overly interested in her. She wouldn’t put it past Harper to have her Ranger chauffeur tailing her.
She shook her head and relaxed her shoulders. It must be her paranoia getting the best of her. That phone call last night scared the bejesus out of her.
She suddenly didn’t feel safe in her own apartment. After all her I-can-take-care-of-myself blather, she wasn’t so sure she should have turned down Harper’s offer. She hated to admit it, though, because that would make her a baby.
She let herself into the dog park and saw Brooke there with Boxer. He was sniffing around one of the trees. His head shot up when the gate closed. His adorable coloring with that one black eye always made her giggle inside. As soon as he spied The Terrible Two, he gave off one of his rough, bulldog barks and bounded towards them. Her boys danced at the end of their leashes. As soon as Boxer got to them, they jumped around each other in such silly, wild abandonment, Poe was laughing so hard, she thought she’d pee her pants. Both of her leashed dogs had almost tied her up in knots.
Brooke rushed over and released Edgar and Allan so all three could run off to play.
Brooke hugged her and Poe was momentarily taken aback. They didn’t normally hug when they saw each other. But she hugged Brooke back. It was a residual of her mugging that made her friend anxious, and sh
e wasn’t going to make her feel awkward about it.
“How are you?” Brooke asked, her eyes lighting on the black eye.
Poe would be so glad when it faded and the memory of the attack with it.
“I’m fine.”
“That’s good to hear,” Callie said as she entered the park with Tilly and Jack. Father and daughter were magnificent Harlequin Great Danes, and although Tilly’s birth had been touch and go there for a bit, she looked healthy and strong as she raced alongside her sire. She had been part of the litter that had brought Callie and Owen together when his dog, Jill, had run off and mated with her neighbor’s Dane, Jack, without their owners’ knowledge or consent. Both Danes emitted deep-chested doggie greetings and took off as soon as Callie released them. Callie hugged her too, hard.
Luckily this dog park had ample shade, and she and her friends took one of the benches beneath an elm.
Poe spied Harper getting out of her limo, Blue prancing around, eager to get to her doggie pals. Then right behind Harper a big, black and tan Doberman emerged.
Poe nudged Callie. “Did Harper get a new dog?”
Callie shielded her eyes against the bright July sunlight and said, “No, that’s her brother’s dog, Cleatis.”
“Only Harper can pull off a deep red maxi dress with a summer-weight fedora,” Brooke said.
“She looks fabulous as usual,” Callie agreed.
Harper entered the dog park and let Blue loose. The poodle wasted no time rushing to greet her pals.
Harper kept Cleatis on the leash, however, as she made her way over to them.
“Hello, sweeties.” She bent down and hugged Poe, too. Okay, this was definitely something for the record books.
“What a beautiful Doberman,” Poe said, remembering what Callie had taught her about meeting new dogs. No touch, no eye contact.
“Yes, he is. My brother wanted something tough to offset Blue. But he’s a pussycat. Such a good boy.”
Cleatis had dropped down into a sitting position, but when Harper reached down and rubbed the top of his silky-looking black head, he wagged his stubby tail vigorously.
