Assignment: Marriage

by Jackie Merritt

  “They probably were. Probably got the license number, just to play it safe.”

  “But the Department of Motor Vehicles doesn’t give out names and address to just anybody, does it?”

  “No, but there are ways,” Tuck muttered. Realizing then that he was scaring Nicole, he said no more.

  Frowning intently, Nicole stared out the side window at the beautiful, sparkling lake. Even if Lowicki and his companion unearthed her name and address from her license plate, they would never find her here. And if by some slim chance they did figure out where she was, Hannigan would protect her.

  Her heart started pounding like a wild thing. How capable was Sergeant Hannigan? Did a brooding, sullen attitude indicate anything beyond a cold, unfriendly personality? He had killed two men, she reminded herself, so he wouldn’t hesitate to use his gun if necessary. And certainly he was cautious. God, his caution had driven her to the brink several times during their drive north.

  She flicked his rock-hard profile a harried glance. Whatever he was, however capable or inept he was, she had to put her trust in him. Hannigan was all she had, the only barrier between her and two killers.

  Shuddering, she faced front and told herself to stop thinking about it. Not only did she have to trust Hannigan, she had to have faith that Captain Crawford had chosen the right man for the job. Without faith, she could drive herself crazy with worry.

  It amazed Nicole that Hannigan could shop with her, decide on the quality and quantity of various food supplies, and still remain so aloof. Ice man, she thought. He was a man without a dram of warmth for the human race or much of anything else, either.

  She noticed, though, that he saw everything, although his eyes never seemed to dart nor did he appear to be ostensibly alert. He was wearing khaki slacks and a short-sleeved tan shirt. They looked like any ordinary couple filling their weekly grocery list.

  But Hannigan wasn’t at all ordinary, she realized. She was becoming somewhat attuned to his behavior, his stern expressions and terse comments. Easily he was the handsomest man in the supermarket they’d chosen, though she was positive he couldn’t care less about his looks.

  The one thing he couldn’t camouflage with common clothing, she decided while they were transferring sacks of food from the cart to the car, was his eyes. Another cop would recognize him as a fellow officer, she would bet. Flinty eyes. Cop’s eyes. See-all eyes.

  She sighed at the inanity of her thoughts. Hannigan was different than anyone she’d ever met, and that was the long and the short of it. Cop’s eyes, indeed. Her imagination was running wild.

  “Do you want to cook or should I?” Tuck asked while wolfing down a banana. The food was put away, except for the ground beef and salad greens slated for their dinner.

  “Makes no difference to me,” Nicole replied evenly. It didn’t surprise her that he could cook, though it did birth an interesting question. “Do you do the cooking at home?”

  “Since I live alone, yes.”

  “Oh, you’re not married.”

  He didn’t bother to comment on that remark. “I’ll cook and you clean up.”

  Nicole’s left eyebrow shot up. Was she the maid here, or what? “I’ll cook and you clean up.”

  He tossed the banana peel into the trash can under the sink, then leaned his hips against the counter and folded his arms. “I’ve got a better idea. You cook and clean up. I’ll do the other chores, like bringing in wood for the fireplace.”

  “I hardly think we need a fire in this weather.” What a con artist!

  “Yeah, but I like wood fires, and it cools down at night. It was plenty cool last night when we got here, only you were too out of it to notice.”

  She waved her hand in disgust. “Do what you want. I suspect you usually do. I’ll make dinner and I’ll do the dishes, too. Just don’t stand there and watch me.”

  “‘Watching you’ is what I’m being paid to do.” It was also a pleasure, he was beginning to realize uneasily. She moved like a woman, which was a ludicrous observation since she was a woman. But there was something special about the grace of her movements. Very feminine and very sexy. He shouldn’t be noticing.

  She turned with snapping eyes. “Get the hell out of the kitchen, Hannigan, or you can do all the cooking and all of the cleaning up.”

  He grinned, shocking Nicole to speechlessness. He could smile, and what a smile it was. Gorgeous white teeth flashed at her, and the most disarming crinkles appeared at the corners of his eyes.

  But the grin disappeared almost immediately. “Guess you’re giving the orders today, huh?” With that reminder of her resentful remarks against giving and taking orders yesterday, he walked out.

  Nicole stood there recalling his grin. There was a peculiar sensation in the pit of her stomach, one that definitely shouldn’t be there. Trying to ignore it, she got busy with dinner. But her brain wasn’t very cooperative and she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about her rather pitiful love life.

  She was thirty-two years old and there had been several men in the past who had been important for a while. But it had been almost two years since her last sexual relationship, even though there had been plenty of opportunities for casual, overnight sex. Most of the men she’d been dating— fewer and fewer over the years—thought that an evening together—dinner, dancing, a movie or what have you— should end up in his place or hers. She didn’t agree, which usually forestalled a second date. The men who were egotistical enough to think a second date would bring her around were sadly disappointed, which abruptly ended the relationship.

  In a few cases Nicole was disappointed herself. She would have liked the opportunity to know the man better. There was one, in particular, Chuck Harding, who also worked at the Monte Carlo, that she would have liked to date again. He was fun to be with and good-looking, as well. But after her second refusal to go to bed with him, Chuck had written her off.

  She had tried to explain her point of view, but he really hadn’t given a damn about her feelings. She knew he thought of her as a prude, and short of throwing herself at him there was no way of getting his attention again. All he wanted was sex from any woman he dated, an attitude she simply couldn’t accept.

  Now, here she was, trapped in a cabin with a man who had made her feel like a woman with one smile. Dangerous business, she cautioned herself. Very dangerous. While Hannigan was “watching” her, she had better watch her step around him. Anything else would be foolhardy and definitely out of character for her.

  Nicole minced onions to mix with the ground beef, which she shaped into patties and oven-broiled, prepared the green salad, popped potatoes into the microwave to bake and boiled two large ears of corn.

  Aware that Hannigan was outside wandering around and seemingly deep in thought, she called out the back door, “Dinner’s ready.”

  He came in at once. The table was set nicely and the platters and bowls of food made his mouth water. “Looks great.” After he’d filled his plate and taken a few bites, he realized it was great. “You’re a good cook.”

  “It’s simple fare, but thanks.” A feeling of discomfort invaded Nicole’s system. Sitting down to eat with Hannigan felt like intimacy, and there were countless meals ahead of them. An unknown number of days and nights to get through, and he had already let her know that he wasn’t going to let her out of his sight. Which meant that he wasn’t going to permit her to take the car, for example, and go off by herself, no matter how smothered she might get to feeling by his constant vigilance.

  Sighing, she buttered an ear of corn.

  “Something bothering you?” he asked.

  “Need you ask?”

  “You don’t like it here.”

  “This place is beautiful. I like it very much.” Her eyes rose to meet his. “But it’s really just a prison, isn’t it?”

  “And I suppose I’m the warden?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  He shook his head. “You have an odd way of looking at things.”


  “Well, how would you describe the situation?”

  They were eating while talking, enjoying the good meal despite the disruptive topic of their conversation.

  “You’re not in prison,” Tuck said gruffly. “There’s only one restriction on your activities, and it’s that you can’t go wandering off by yourself.”

  “No, you have to go with me.” Nicole laid down her fork. “Now, really, do you actually believe anyone in Vegas knows where I am? How could they? I think you’re being much too cautious.”

  Tuck leaned forward. “You really haven’t grasped the kind of men we’re dealing with, have you? They will go to any extreme to eliminate anyone who can place them at the scene of their crime. They may be the worst kind of criminals there are, but they’re not stupid. By now I’d be willing to bet anything that they know everything there is to know about you, including your name, your address and where you work. Don’t underestimate them, Nicole.”

  A chill went up her spine. “Okay,” she said weakly. “I’ll concede to your experience and professional knowledge. But how would they know you brought me to Idaho? Why not Montana, or Florida? Do you see my point? I could be in any one of a million places.”

  Tuck thought of that white sports car, which could mean nothing or everything. He’d kept a sharp eye out for it today in town and hadn’t seen it. But he had an uneasy feeling about it all the same. For one thing, if Jillian Marsden had any connection to Nick Lowicki and had left Las Vegas at Lowicki’s bidding the same night he and Nicole had, then there was a leak in the department, someone who’d caught wind of Crawford’s plan to protect his witness and passed it on to Lowicki. If that was the case, Nicole was in grave danger.

  On the other hand, that car traveling north on their schedule could be mere coincidence. What it boiled down to was that he wasn’t willing to take that chance. Until he knew otherwise, Jillian Marsden’s trip north was highly suspect.

  Not that he was going to inform Nicole of his suspicions. Obviously she felt relatively safe here, which was good. At least she wouldn’t be walking around jumping at every sound and seeing a killer behind every tree. But she was going to have to put up with his cautionary measures, like them or not.

  “We’re going to play it safe,” he told her, speaking forcefully enough that Nicole’s lips thinned with resentment. “Sorry if you find that offensive, but that’s the way it is.”

  They finished the meal in silence. Nicole got up to clear the table and Tuck went outside to smoke. “Overbearing jerk,” she resentfully mumbled, watching him through the window above the sink. The kitchen was well-equipped, containing even a dishwasher. Nicole loaded it quickly, wiped down the stove, table and counters, rinsed and dried her hands and then went to her bedroom for some hand lotion.

  The sight of her suitcases pained her, but her clothes should be hung in the closet rather than getting more wrinkled by the day. She set to work, but even this chore irritated her. Everything going on irritated her. She should be in her own home, living her normal life, not confined to. a cabin in northern Idaho. Confined was the right word, all right. As pleasant as this cabin was and regardless of Hannigan’s supposedly expert opinion, it was a prison.

  Five

  Dusk was settling in. Nicole walked through the cabin, looked out the kitchen window and saw nothing of Hannigan. Going to a front window, she spotted him down by the lake. She glared at the lone figure. He could take walks by himself, but she couldn’t.

  Angrily she left the cabin and marched down the hill to where Hannigan was standing. “In case you didn’t notice, you left me alone in the cabin. Isn’t that exactly what you said would never happen?”

  He turned with a cool expression. “Are you mad at something again?”

  “Oh, go to hell,” she muttered, and took off walking along the shore. Coeur d’Alene Lake was the most beautiful body of water she had ever seen. Heavily forested mountains made a scenic backdrop for the water, which was sparkling silver and gold from the setting sun.

  “That’s far enough,” Tuck said brusquely.

  She was about fifty feet away from him, and she turned with a well-defined scowl. “What do you think is going to happen out here in the open? For crying out loud, you can practically reach out and touch me.”

  “Come here.”

  “What for?”

  Tuck heaved an impatient sigh. “There’s something you need to hear.”

  Sullenly, Nicole walked back to him. “What is it?”

  “It occurred to me that someone could easily reach this place with a boat.” As before, he didn’t want to frighten her, but she was much too defiant and maybe needed a little scare.

  Nicole’s eyes darted to the lake. She had thought only of its beauty, certainly not that it provided easy accessibility to the cabin.

  “Oh,” she said, swallowing the sudden lump of fear in her throat, her gaze returning to Tuck. The twilight made his skin, hair and eyes appear darker than they really were. He looked hard as nails, tough as shoe leather, and unutterably handsome.

  Tuck was thinking similar thoughts about his charge. Nicole Currie wasn’t just pretty this evening, she was beautiful. Maybe he’d just now noticed how really striking she was, he thought uneasily. But noticing her looks wasn’t the only thing on his mind. The fear in her eyes made him want to take her in his arms and tell her to forget what he’d just said, tell her that nothing or no one would ever harm her as long as he drew breath.

  He shoved his hands into his pants’ pockets to keep from doing something foolish. “Let’s go back to the cabin.”

  Nicole nodded and they started trudging up the hill. She glanced back at the lake with a furrow of concern between her eyes.

  “I didn’t tell you that to scare you,” Tuck said quietly, though it was a most definite lie about something he now regretted. “I just want you to be careful. And watchful.”

  The evening air was cooling down considerably, but Nicole’s shiver wasn’t from feeling chilly. It was beginning to sink in, deep and sure, that the danger wasn’t all in Hannigan’s mind.

  “I will be,” she said meekly.

  Her tone surprised Tuck and he sent her a glance. Wanting to rid her mind of the fear, he said, “This would be a great place for a vacation, don’t you think?”

  “You mean, if one didn’t have to constantly watch for people trying to eliminate you?”

  “Uh, yeah. Nicole, try not to think about it.”

  “Be watchful and careful but don’t think about it. That’s a tall order, Hannigan.”

  A speedboat racing along close to the shore drew their attention. They stopped and turned to watch it rushing past, going so fast its bottom barely touching the surface of the water.

  “Lots of boats on this lake,” Tuck commented casually.

  “Yes, lots,” Nicole murmured, squinting at the vanishing craft. He wasn’t fooling her one bit with his nonchalant remarks. The lake presented accessibility, thus danger. It wasn’t something she would have thought of on her own, and now, she could tell, he wished he hadn’t mentioned it to her.

  They started up the hill again. Nicole’s distraught thoughts weren’t on the ground, however, and she caught the toe of her sandal on a tree root and found herself falling forward.

  A pair of strong arms caught her before she hit the ground. “Take it easy,” Tuck said, bringing her upright and on her feet again. But he didn’t let go of her. “Are you all right?” His eyes searched hers.

  She gulped. Her heart was beating fast—from the near fall, she supposed—and her breathing was a little off kilter. “I—I think so.” Why didn’t he let go of her? Was he going to kiss her? Her tongue flicked to moisten her lips.

  Why Tuck kissed her, he would never know, other than that she was beautiful and sexy and they were alone in the trees. His first kiss was a simple brushing of his lips against hers, but when she didn’t object or pull away, he placed his mouth firmly on hers. He was instantly aroused, but what really shook
him was the way Nicole was kissing him back. Her arms locked around his waist and her breasts pushed into his chest. Her mouth opened and he felt her tongue. Her response and his own was startling; it was too much, too fast, and he was a damn fool.

  He lifted his head, pulled her arms away from his waist and stepped back. “Sorry,” he said harshly. “I shouldn’t have done that.” His brain was heaping curses on his own head. What in hell had gotten into him?

  She blinked at him. “I—I knew you were going to kiss me, but I didn’t know I was going to kiss you back.”

  “Neither did I. Come on.” The anger he was feeling was for himself, but Nicole couldn’t tell the difference. He sounded as though he was blaming her for that kiss.

  “It wasn’t my doing,” she said defensively, trudging beside him. She could still feel the imprint of his mouth on hers, the firm but yielding sensation of his lips and the configuration of his lean, hard body against hers. It was unnerving to realize that she would like to sample another of Sergeant Tuck Hannigan’s kisses.

  “Who said it was?” Tuck said darkly. “Don’t worry. It won’t happen again.”

  Hurt at his hostile attitude, she took off jogging toward the cabin. In retaliation, she hurled back at him, “You’re sure right about that!”

  Conversely, Tuck slowed his steps. That had been the most stupid thing he’d ever done on a job. They had spent only a few days together and he was already making passes? Had he lost his mind somewhere between Nevada and Idaho?

  He sat on the porch steps, staring broodingly at the view of trees and water. He never should have taken this “cushy” job. He could be somewhere by himself right now, not worrying about protecting anyone, and certainly not making a horse’s rear end out of himself by kissing a woman whom he shouldn’t even notice was a woman.

  Even though it was early, Nicole went to her bedroom, slipped into a nightgown and crawled into bed. She didn’t want to see Tuck Hannigan again tonight. Damn him. He’d kissed her and then acted as though she had made the pass.