JACK'S CHRISTMAS MISSION

by Beverly Barton

  He went into her office and sat in the chair behind her desk, leaving her alone in the dressing room. He watched her through the open door. She finished laying out her makeup, then got up and started to close the door.

  "Leave it open," he said, his tone sharp.

  "I want some privacy while I change clothes."

  "I've already seen it all," he reminded her, then could have kicked himself for such a crass remark. Okay, so he was pissed at her, but that didn't mean he had to act like a jackass.

  Peggy Jo slammed the door.

  Why the hell did he feel as if she'd just slapped him? And why did he have the overwhelming urge to keep after her until she admitted that she would never forget their night together, that she wanted to be with him again? Because he wanted her and was having a damn difficult time accepting the fact that she apparently didn't want him.

  But she did want him, didn't she? Otherwise why would she be fighting so hard to keep a barrier between them?

  Kayla opened the office door and came in carrying a box of mail, which she set on her desk. "Is she getting ready?" Kayla nodded toward the closed dressing room door.

  "Yeah. She wants her privacy."

  Kayla nodded, then sat down behind her desk and picked up a letter opener. "I gave Chet Peggy Jo's message, but he nearly bit my head off. I've never seen him so upset. Well, maybe one other time. Right after Peggy Jo dumped him."

  Jack glanced at the closed dressing room door. "How long does it usually take her to get ready?"

  "Not long. Why? You aren't concerned about her being in there alone are you? Don't be. The only other door into that room stays locked."

  "Who has a key?"

  "Who has a … well, I do. And of course, Peggy Jo does. And security does. I guess that's it."

  Jack heaved a sigh of relief, then got up, crossed the room and poured himself a cup of coffee. Afterward, he propped his hip on the side of Peggy Jo's desk, lifted the coffee to his lips and while he sipped on the hot liquid, he stared at the closed door. Damn stubborn, infuriating woman!

  * * *

  Peggy Jo changed into a dark-purple wool suit and applied the makeup that would cover most of her freckles and give her plain features a more glamorous look. As she picked up the tube of lipstick and brought it to her lips, her hand trembled. Damn, Jack Parker. He had turned her world upside down. Now he wanted to discuss what had happened between them Friday night. There was no point in talking about the situation, because there was no situation. She had allowed herself to become just one more woman in a long line of women who had succumbed to Jack's charm. She had prided herself on being smarter, on being much too smart to fall for a sexy smile and a pair of broad shoulders.

  Just as she steadied her hand enough to put on a coat of plum lipstick, the side door of her dressing room opened. She gasped in surprise because she always kept that door locked. Chet Compton stood in the doorway, his eyes narrowed to slits and his jaw tight.

  "I was hoping I'd find you alone in here." Chet entered the dressing room, then closed the door behind him and pocketed the key.

  "Jack is outside in my office," she said.

  "No need to involve him," Chet told her. "This is between you and me."

  "I want you to leave now. Otherwise I will call Jack."

  Chet rushed her, and before she could say more, he grabbed her, pulled her out of the chair and slapped his hand over her mouth. She squirmed, but he held her securely.

  "Hell, Peggy Jo, why'd you have to sic the police on me? You know I'd never do anything to hurt you." He nuzzled her neck with his nose. "You know how I feel about you. I'd be so good to you. If you'd just give us a chance, honey, we'd make a great team."

  She maneuvered her mouth just enough so she could bite down on his hand. The minute her teeth sank into his skin, he yelped and jerked his hand away from her mouth.

  "Jack!" she screamed.

  "Damn it! There's no need to call him."

  "You're right." Peggy Jo elbowed Chet in the stomach then followed that move by kneeing him in the groin. "I just called him for backup."

  Growling in pain, he released her immediately as he doubled over, then cursed loudly. Before Chet recovered from Peggy Jo's attack. Jack stormed into the room, assessed the situation and, just as Chet lifted his head, Jack landed a hard right blow directly to his jaw. Chet hit the floor with a thud. Kayla rushed through the door.

  "What happened?" She looked down at Chet. "How did he get in here?"

  "He had a key," Peggy Jo said, then walked over and looked down at Chet. "He was upset about being questioned by the police."

  Jack bent down and helped a moaning Chet to his feet. "Kayla, call Ted Wilkes and ask him to come help Mr. Compton back to his office."

  "I can get … back to … my office." Stunned and slightly winded, Chet jerked away from Jack. "Without any help."

  "Should I call the police, too?" Kayla asked, then when Chet growled, she jumped and eased backward, out of the dressing room and into the office.

  "No, don't bother," Peggy Jo said.

  "Are you sure you don't want to file charges against him?" Jack glowered at Chet.

  "I'm sure." Peggy Jo focused her gaze on the station manager. "As long as you stay away from me and don't pull another stunt like this, I won't press charges. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Yeah," Chet said. "Very clear."

  As Chet left the dressing room through Peggy Jo's office, he grumbled the word bitch quite clearly. When Jack made a move to go after him, Peggy Jo grabbed Jack's arm.

  "Let him go."

  Jack glanced at her hand on his arm. Realizing the intimacy of a mere touch between two lovers, Peggy Jo released him immediately.

  "We'll get the lock on that door changed today," Jack said. "Two keys only. One for you and one for me."

  "That's not a bad idea." Peggy Jo checked her watch. "I'm running late. I should have been on the set five minutes ago. I can't seem to catch up this morning." She hurriedly reapplied her lipstick and ran a brush through her hair. "That'll have to do. Let's go."

  Jack followed her out of the dressing room and into her office, where she picked up a copy of the questions she planned to discuss with today's guests on Self-Made Woman. She had booked two child psychologists with different views on celebrating Christmas and how parents should deal with children's demands for more and more presents. Then she would end the show with a segment on a theme that she was carrying through from a week before Thanksgiving until the final episode of the year—how to eat well but wisely during the holidays.

  As she walked past Kayla's desk, she paused. "Call Dr.

  Harper and Dr. Herbert and remind them to be here at eleven o'clock sharp. And please, when they get here, stay with them and keep them apart. I don't want them using up all their energy on a preshow argument."

  "Will do." Grinning, Kayla continued opening the morning mail and sorting it into stacks.

  Jack escorted Peggy Jo out of her office and down the hall. They had gotten less than ten feet away when Kayla let out a bloodcurdling scream.

  Peggy Jo turned to run back up the hall, but Jack grabbed her arm. "Stay here," he said. "I'll see what's wrong."

  Kayla's continued cries echoed through the corridor as Jack ran toward Peggy Jo's office.

  * * *

  Chapter 13

  « ^ »

  Jack found Kayla standing up behind her desk, her eyes watering and her nose streaming as she coughed uncontrollably. When he approached her, she whimpered but seemed unable to speak. He grabbed her shoulder.

  "What's wrong? What happened?"

  She pointed toward her desk as she continued coughing. Jack surveyed the desktop, noting the stacks of opened mail had been scattered. Lying in the middle of the disarray was a small pile of a finely ground, brown substance. Suddenly Jack's eyes and nose began burning. Damn! He tightened his hold on Kayla and dragged her out of the office. The minute she saw them, Peggy Jo came running.

  "What's w
rong?" She looked frantically from Jack to Kayla.

  "Take her in the ladies' room and help her wash her face. Make sure she splashes water into her eyes and up her nose. I'm fixing to do the same. We've both breathed in some sort of poison."

  "Oh, God!"

  "Go. Now!" Jack bellowed the order, then raced to the men's room. As soon as he washed his face, he realized the water wasn't helping any. He managed to make his way out of the rest room and up the hall to the next office. The local news anchor's secretary looked up from her desk.

  "Call security and have them close off Peggy Jo Riley's office," Jack said. "And tell them not to go inside. Then bring Ms. Riley's car around to the back entrance and have one of the security guards meet us there. After that, call the police."

  "Sir, you're Ms. Riley's bodyguard, aren't you?"

  "Damn right. Now stop wasting time and make that call!"

  "Yes, sir."

  By the time he got Peggy Jo and Kayla outside to the car, Ted Wilkes was waiting for them. Good thing, too, Jack thought, because his eyes were watering like crazy and he was coughing his head off. He wasn't in much shape to protect anybody at the moment.

  "Wilkes, I need one of your men to go with us to the emergency room," Jack managed to say between coughs. "And make sure Detective Gifford has been contacted. I want him to meet us at—" He glanced at Peggy Jo. "What's the name of the damn hospital?"

  "Erlanger," Peggy Jo said. "Jack, get in the car. Now!"

  "Wilkes," Jack called as he crawled into the back seat, while Kayla got in the front. "Don't let anybody near Peggy Jo's office."

  "I've got Phil stationed by the door, and I'm going with y'all," Ted Wilkes replied. "We've already called the police. Gifford is meeting us at the E.R. and he's sending somebody over here."

  "Fine. Get in," Peggy Jo said as she slid behind the wheel.

  The minute Ted hopped into the back seat with Jack, she shifted the car into gear and roared out of the back parking area. Jack held his breath as Peggy Jo pressed her hand down on the horn and raced through downtown Chattanooga traffic, running a couple of stop signs and several red lights.

  * * *

  Detective Gifford entered Peggy Jo's office the following morning carrying a travel mug of coffee and looking as if he'd just gotten out of bed. His bleary eyes focused on Jack's dark sunglasses.

  "You're damn lucky you didn't get any closer to that stuff," Gifford said. "By the way, how's the girl … Gayla … Kayla? I understand she actually touched the stuff."

  "The doctor told us she'll be fine," Peggy Jo said. "Her breathing has cleared up, but her eyes aren't quite back to normal. She's taking the rest of the week off, as much to recuperate emotionally as physically."

  "Yeah, I can imagine." Gifford pulled a chair up to Peggy Jo's desk and slumped down into it, then rummaged around inside his overcoat pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. "Got the lab report back."

  Jack rose from where he'd been sitting on the edge of the desk. Peggy Jo had tried her best to get him to stay at her house and had even offered to cancel today's show, but Jack had adamantly refused. Damn stubborn man! His only concession to having a severe eye irritation was wearing dark glasses to shield them from light and to conceal their bloodshot appearance.

  "And just what can you tell us about the substance Kayla dumped out of the envelope addressed to Peggy Jo?" Jack asked.

  Gifford scanned the report. "First of all there were no identifiable fingerprints, other than Kayla's, on the envelope. The address was hand-printed in black ink. The envelope itself was the kind you can buy anywhere. We're running a DNA test, just in case there's any saliva on the flap or the stamp, but we don't expect to find anything.

  "Now as to the chemical inside the envelope—that brownish powder was Malathion, which is used to wipe out bugs on lawns and plants. There were also trace amounts of—" he glanced down at the report again "—capsicum, which is a component in pepper spray."

  "A nice little surprise package," Jack said, a grumbling agitation evident in his voice. "Nothing deadly, unless consumed, but poisonous enough upon breathing to cause eye irritation and minor breathing problems for anyone coming into close contact with it."

  "I'm sure he was hoping I'd open the envelope myself." Peggy Jo felt guilty about what had happened, guilty that Kayla and Jack had suffered at the hands of her stalker.

  "Maybe he was. Maybe he wasn't," Jack said. "But either way, he knew that if you or someone in your employ opened the envelope, he'd get his point across. He can hurt you and those near you. This was just a warning. He's getting more deadly."

  "Parker's right," Gifford said. "This guy isn't going to back down. He's going to eventually move in for the kill."

  "Damn, Gifford!" Jack's words roared from his scratchy throat.

  "Sorry, Ms. Riley," Gifford said. "I'm a plainspoken man. You're in danger and there's no point in pretending otherwise."

  "I understand." Peggy Jo couldn't ignore the truth. Someone hated her enough to torment her, to harm those around her, and probably enough to want to see her dead. "Recently you said that you didn't think my daughter or my housekeeper were in danger. What do you think now?"

  "My guess is that he won't harm them unless they're in the way when he's trying to get to you," Gifford said. "But you can't be a hundred percent sure when you're dealing with a nutcase like we have here."

  "Thanks for sharing this report with us." Peggy Jo held out her hand to the detective.

  He shook her hand. "By the way, we found out where your ex-husband is living."

  "What?"

  "Where?" Jack asked.

  "He's living in Sale Creek. Not that far away. He's working for a man who owns a nursery and greenhouse out there. Forbes's record is clean … except for a few domestic-violence charges. Seems Buck's got a thing for beating up women. In the past thirteen years, three former girlfriends and an ex-wife filed charges and then dropped them. His third wife recently left him and took her two children and is living in a shelter right now."

  "Poor woman," Peggy Jo whispered.

  Jack eased up beside her so quietly that she wasn't aware of his presence until she felt the weight of his big hand as it splayed across her back. At first she tensed when he touched her, then when she reminded herself that this was Jack—gentle, caring, understanding Jack—she relaxed.

  "We appreciate the information," Jack said.

  "Yeah, well, I'm just sorry that we didn't take this problem more seriously from the beginning." Gifford looked directly at Peggy Jo. "We're taking it seriously now, Ms. Riley. And so is the FBI."

  "The FBI?" she glanced from Gifford to Jack.

  "Yeah, I got a call from an Agent McNamara this morning. He said he was flying into Chattanooga today to head up the FBI's investigation into this case."

  "Good ole Sawyer." Jack grinned.

  "I take it that he's a friend of yours?" Gifford asked.

  "He's an acquaintance," Jack replied.

  "Let's hope he can help us." Gifford headed for the door, paused momentarily and glanced over his shoulder. "Don't let her out of your sight for a minute."

  "I don't intend to." Jack maneuvered his hand across Peggy Jo's back and around her waist, then pulled her up against him. "If this guy wants to get to her, he'll have to come through me first."

  * * *

  By that afternoon Jack had removed his sunglasses. His eyes felt much better. Only a slight irritation remained. Peggy Jo had rescheduled the guests from yesterday's show, and today's segment had gone off without a hitch. She had called to check on Kayla again, and they'd both been relieved to know that the young woman wanted to return to work on Thursday. For the second day in a row Ross Brewster hadn't shown up for work. He had called in sick this morning. Jack couldn't help wondering if the boy was running scared with good reason or if the police had frightened him so much that he was simply steering clear of Peggy Jo altogether.

  Peggy Jo came out of her dressing room, two apples in her hands,
and tossed one of the apples to Jack. "Midafternoon snack," she said. "I'd prefer a couple of doughnuts, but I'm being good and watching my girlish figure." She patted her hip and laughed.

  "I happen to like your womanly figure," Jack said.

  She bit into the apple, chewed and swallowed, all the while her gaze connected to his. He tossed his apple into the air and caught it, then lifted it to his mouth and took a bite. He had hoped she'd respond to his comment about her figure, but she didn't take the bait. Apparently she had decided not to let him involve her in any personal conversation about the two of them.

  "I'm thinking about sending Wendy and Hetty to my cousin's farm in Spring City," she said. "I had planned to take Wendy up there for a few days after Christmas, but with the way things are here, I wonder if Wendy's safe."

  "Getting them out of town might not be a bad idea. When were you thinking of sending them?"

  "As soon as Christmas break begins. In two weeks."

  "You might want to think about doing it sooner."

  "Why? Do you know something that I don't?" she asked.

  Jack shook his head. "No, not really. Just call it a gut feeling."

  "About my stalker?"

  "He's going to strike again. Soon. Then he'll back off and wait a few days before he makes another move. If Wendy or Hetty are in the way… Protecting you would be easier if I didn't have to worry about them."

  "I can't send Wendy away before the school play this Thursday. It would break her heart if she didn't get to be an angel."

  "Then let's make plans for Hetty and her to leave over the weekend." Jack considered several different ways of distracting Peggy Jo's stalker so that he wouldn't be aware of Wendy and Hetty's departure. "I'll need to call in another Dundee agent to help us get them out of Chattanooga."

  Before Peggy Jo could respond, Jack sensed someone's presence, then heard a knock at the door. Peggy Jo gasped. Another knock. Jack crossed the room and opened the door.

  "Sawyer." Jack grasped the FBI agent's hand. "Come on in. Detective Gifford said you'd called him this morning."

  "Yeah, I did a little finagling so I could take this case myself instead of sending a flunky down here."