All Kinds of Tied Down

by Mary Calmes

  I smiled at Dennis as Ian took hold of my bicep and tugged me after him.

  “How come you changed outta my boots?”

  “Not stylish enough for this outfit,” I patronized.

  “Got it.”

  I snorted out a laugh. “You have no idea why I changed at all, do you.”

  “No.”

  I shook my head. “I really gotta take you shopping. You have a woman to impress now.”

  “I don’t think clothes are gonna fix it.”

  “Fix what?”

  “Nothing,” he said, draping an arm over my shoulder. “Come on.”

  We returned to the kitchen, where Emma was still holding court.

  “You give someone else a turn, sweetie?”

  “Course,” he answered sharply, squinting at her.

  I grabbed his sweater and pulled until he stood next to me, shoulder to shoulder. “Be nice.”

  “I’m always nice,” he grumbled under his breath.

  “It’s an alcohol-to-blood imbalance,” I instructed Emma as she smiled at me. “When there is more beer in him than blood, you’ll notice an improvement in tone and mood.”

  As she chuckled, a guy I didn’t know moved up beside me.

  “Hey, Em,” he greeted softly.

  “Oh, Phil, you made it,” she said quickly, her voice catching.

  “Of course,” he replied, his attention quickly landing on Ian and then shifting back to her.

  Something was up, but when I turned my head to check if my partner noticed, I found his focus elsewhere. He was far more interested in the man who had just come in the front door.

  “What?” I asked, leaning in close to him.

  He dipped his head, his face in my hair as he murmured in my ear. “Is that guy dealing over there?”

  Leaning back, I found the man in question, passing out tiny baggies of goodies for Dennis’s guests. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  “Oh Miro,” Emma said suddenly, sounding edgy, nervous. “I meant to ask when you came in—how is your wrist feeling?”

  “Roland!” One of the women standing beside Emma squealed and then slipped around the hostess to bolt over to the man.

  “He’s fine,” Ian answered for me absently, his eyes never leaving the stranger who had passed Emma’s friend what looked like something wrapped in foil. “That’s acid or Molly, fuck him.”

  “You strapped?”

  “Course.”

  We both turned around to lean on the counter, and I surveyed the room, taking note of the front door.

  “Ian.” Emma whimpered behind me. “Please. This is Dennis’s party. I’m the one who insisted on inviting you.”

  “Really,” he said, lifting his foot and rucking up his jeans so he could reach down into the biker boot he was wearing. “So your brother didn’t even want me here.”

  “No, Dennis just—it was fine as soon as I told him Miro was coming.”

  He chuckled as he raised what I called his SIG Sauer P228 semiautomatic and he said was an M11, to shoulder level. Whatever name it went by, wielded by Ian Doyle, it was deadly accurate. Reaching into my back pocket where the badge normally clipped to my belt was, I pulled my ID and lifted it high. What was interesting was that it was me, and not my partner with the gun, that the man saw.

  “Sir,” I directed. “I need you to lace your fingers over your head.”

  He finally saw Ian and took a step back.

  “And get on your knees!”

  He glanced from Ian to me.

  “Now,” I commanded even as I saw him decide.

  Turning, he bolted.

  “Fuck,” I swore, realizing that because I wasn’t carrying—it was a party, for crissakes—I had to do the running and tackling. I couldn’t be proper backup; Ian had to be mine.

  The front door was crowded with party guests coming in, which accounted for him running toward the balcony. Maybe. The choice really didn’t make a lot of sense. But when he darted, I shoved my ID at Ian and then was right there on Roland’s heels. People started yelling, screaming, and I saw the blond man cross his wrists over his face before he went straight through the glass patio door.

  I didn’t even think to slow down.

  Following fast, I used him as a shield against the glass flying toward me, got my hand on the back of his overcoat, and hung on as he hit the railing and sailed over.

  Flipping backward, I saw everything in a slow-motion arch: the dark night, the snow falling gently through it, the lights of other buildings and street lamps, and finally, thankfully, the fire escape.

  When we went over the side, we switched places so I was falling first, propelled through the icy air. Grabbing for anything with my one good hand attached to the working arm, I reached out and caught the ladder as Roland slammed into the railing and then tumbled over onto the platform, winded and gasping for breath.

  The way I was hanging was bad: all my weight held only by my right hand, but that was why we practiced those damn dead lifts. Pulling myself up, I got a foot on the railing, pushed, twisted, let go of the ladder, and flung myself forward onto a slow-rising Roland. There was no air left in his body after I crashed on top of him, driving him facedown under me. It was loud and bracing, everything shook and rattled, and if I didn’t wake up the people in the apartment I faced as well as those directly below, I would have been surprised.

  As if on cue, a light went on in the apartment and I had a shotgun pointed at my head through the glass.

  “Federal marshal,” I yelled, both hands held high, chest heaving.

  The man lifted his head, which was a good sign because it meant he wasn’t aiming anymore, not that he had to, as close as he was with the weapon in his possession. “Show me your badge.”

  “I can have my partner bring it up,” I offered.

  He squinted and then leaned close to the window and glanced down at the man unconscious under my knees. “That’s Roland Morris.”

  “I just arrested him for drug possession,” I explained.

  The man studied my face as I began shivering with cold and my quickly ebbing adrenaline.

  “You have a broken wrist.”

  And I did, but it was a strange time to notice. “Yes.”

  “You carrying?”

  “No sir.”

  He scrutinized me a second before leaving suddenly.

  When my phone rang a second later, I answered. “Hey,” I said before I coughed. “Everything all right up there?”

  “The fuck should I know, I’m in the elevator!”

  “Why’re you mad?”

  “Why am I mad?” he yelled. “You jumped off a fucking building!”

  “Ian—”

  “What the fuck?!”

  “C’mon, what’s the big deal? You jumped off a balcony the other day.”

  “That was different and you were right behind me!” He was indignant and really loud.

  “Technically—”

  “Shut up! Shut the fuck up!”

  He was furious, and I was starting to worry. Normally I could tease him out of any mood. “Ian, it’s—”

  “Jesus Christ, Miro!”

  “Listen, if I’d had my gun, I would have let you do the jumping.”

  “I wouldn’t have done it!” he barked.

  “The hell you say,” I retorted. “You would have done it in a heartbeat.”

  “Fuck you, Miro. I’m not that reckless!”

  I scoffed. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

  The line went dead as a window opening caught my attention. Shotgun man was back, but this time he had the gun under his arm and he was holding out a blanket for me. He then flipped open a badge and I saw a Chicago PD shield.

  I took the chenille throw and wrapped it around me in relief. “Miro Jones, US Marshal.”

  “Henry Bridger, narcotics.”

  “Oh,” I sighed, chuckling. “Can I interest you in a drug dealer, Detective, and all the paperwork that goes with it?”

  “Yes,�
� he said, grinning at me. “You most certainly can.”

  “I’ll go to the precinct with you.”

  “Lemme get changed.”

  “Okay.”

  “Does your partner have your coat, too, or you wanna borrow one of mine?”

  “He’ll bring it down with him.”

  “Where the hell were you?”

  I pointed up.

  “I thought marshals only put people into protective custody or chased down fugitives.”

  “Oh, no, Detective, we’re full service.”

  “I’d have you come in, but—”

  “He could wake up, I know,” I agreed, taking the Glock he passed me. “I carry a 20 loaded with 40 caliber, but this 34 is sweet.”

  “The GTL 22 attachment is nice, right?”

  I nodded, lifting it, testing the weight. “I should get a light for mine too.”

  “You have to get a special holster, though.”

  “True,” I said, a little unsteady as I stood up. “If my partner wants in….”

  “I’ll buzz him up.”

  “Thanks. What’s the number?”

  “I’m in 801.”

  Eighth-floor apartment. God, I really didn’t need my boss to get even a whiff of this. I could only imagine the comments from the others, from White and Sharpe—Sanchez’s replacement—Dorsey or Kowalski—all of them lived to give me crap. But worst of all would be the explanation: why, yessir, I did jump off a balcony. The idea was about as appealing as a tooth extraction.

  “Jones!”

  The yell came from the alley below.

  Leaning over, I looked down at Deputy US Marshal Ian Doyle and waved.

  “You fuck!”

  I shushed him.

  His shoulders fell and his head tipped as he glared up at me.

  “801,” I called. “Come help me.”

  He ran, tearing down the alley, and disappeared around the side of the building. I took a seat on the bench beside me and then checked on Morris to make sure he was still breathing. Minutes later, still shivering in the night air, I heard the one-man wrecking crew at the window.

  “Hey,” I greeted my partner as he climbed out onto the fire escape.

  “Ten fuckin’ years off my life,” he growled, squatting down in front of me, taking my face in his firm, callused hands.

  “Not dead,” I confirmed.

  He checked me over roughly, huffing out a breath as he turned my head right and left, finally lifting it before sliding his hands over my throat, chest, down my sides, and across my abdomen. “Anything hurt?”

  “Everything,” I admitted, hoping my confession would hide the hiss of pleasure over being manhandled.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” He was clearly scared and the emotion deepened his voice, his gaze concerned as it held mine. “You’re all flushed.”

  I cleared my throat, easing free of his clutching hands. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  “What can I—”

  “After we book this guy, can we eat?”

  Ian’s smile, the way his eyes warmed and his gaze lingered, sent my stomach into a familiar tumble. The look of blatant ownership never failed to send blood rushing straight to my cock. And the man had no clue.

  I had thought when it was new, us as partners, I was reading too much into the way I would glance up and fall into his smile, catch him glancing my way, or feel the weight of his stare on my back. No other man who didn’t want to fuck me had ever reacted that way, would look right back at me, unwavering, before softening—happy, it seemed, to simply be in my space. But he did. Ian did. And it was a constant source of both unease and pride.

  IT TOOK a couple of hours, the paperwork. We sat at Bridger’s desk and he typed into the computer as Ian wrote out what he saw and I recorded what I had witnessed. Other people at the party were still being questioned, and as Bridger made more notes, I turned so I could scrutinize my partner.

  “What?”

  “Do you have a plan to make up with Emma?”

  The glare was another of my favorites, used when the glower or squint wasn’t enough. “Make up with her why?”

  “You busted her brother.”

  He glanced at Bridger, who nodded, before returning his attention to me. “I’m not the one who invited a drug dealer to my house.”

  “Yeah, but you could have given her, and the others, fair warning about what you were doing. You could have gotten them out before they got swarmed by policemen.”

  “Yeah,” Bridger agreed. “Man, you better make with the groveling.”

  “I was doing my job,” he defended himself.

  I shook my head.

  “Is he kidding?”

  “Sadly, no,” I told the detective.

  Bridger whistled low and went back to typing.

  “What else?” Ian prodded begrudgingly.

  “I think I’m crippled,” I complained, my body starting to cramp from sitting so long.

  “That’s what happens when you jump off buildings,” a new voice growled.

  Fuck.

  I winced and lifted my head slowly, which did nothing to lessen the intimidating presence of the man I didn’t want to face. At six four, covered in hard muscle and in possession of the coldest pair of steel-blue eyes I had ever seen, my boss, Sam Kage, was not the kind of man you messed with. And it wasn’t just me who walked on eggshells around him. Ian was a badass Green Beret, an Army captain, but he didn’t mess with our boss either. There was something about him: a fierceness, a tenacity, so that you knew he would get you, hurt you, make you pay. And while I had only witnessed that resolve applied to criminals, I didn’t want to tempt fate.

  “I didn’t have a gun,” I hastily explained. “We were at a party.”

  All the men in my life squinted at me like I was an idiot.

  “So I went after the suspect to tackle him,” I rambled on.

  “Where were you?” he asked Ian.

  “Securing the scene, sir.”

  Kage moved closer to me. “You do it again, Jones, and I will bust your ass to court duty until you die.”

  I coughed. “Yessir.”

  “Go to the hospital and get checked out.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Before tomorrow or your ass is sitting home,” he barked. “Until further notice.”

  Shit. “Yessir.”

  His attention moved back to Ian. “You keep letting him get hurt, and I’m going to start questioning your decision to be a marshal, Doyle. Maybe this job is too tame for you. Can’t keep your head in the game without the threat of imminent death?”

  “No sir,” Ian said sharply.

  “Sorry?”

  “I said, no sir.”

  Kage grunted. “When I added to my original five-man team, with Ching, Becker, and then you, Kohn, and lastly Jones, I figured you’d all be with me a good, long time.”

  Ian kept silent.

  “But if your plan is to not actually watch out for your partner, I can find someone who will.”

  The muscles in Ian’s jaw clenched.

  “We’re a team, Doyle.”

  He cleared his throat. “Yessir.”

  Kage turned to Bridger. “Let me know what else you need from my office, Detective.”

  Bridger nodded, taking the card from Kage with a sharp inhale. It made sense; the man was really scary. His height, the powerful build, the icy stare: all of it gave you the impression that if you fucked up, you’d be gone. I certainly never wanted to be in a position to test him.

  “What floor is homicide on now?”

  “Fifth,” Bridger answered quickly. “May I ask why, Marshal?”

  “I need to speak to one of the detectives I’m supposed to be meeting here.”

  “Which one? I can call up for you; check if he’s here this late.”

  “He is, because, again, we scheduled a meeting. And it’s Duncan Stiel.”

  After a moment, Bridger chuckled. “Oh, you mean the billionaire’s boyfriend?”
r />   Big. Mistake. Ian wished he could scowl with such icy contempt. Bridger actually swallowed.

  “No,” Kage said flatly. “I mean the highly decorated homicide detective.”

  Bridger coughed.

  “Fifth floor, you said.”

  “Yes.”

  “I can find him myself.”

  Bridger remained silent.

  His gaze landed back on me. “Hospital.”

  As though I would disregard a direct order from the man. “Yessir.”

  Kage glanced at Ian and then turned and strode out of the room. People scuttled out of his way as he moved down the corridor we could see through the glass windows on the far side of the room.

  “He’s sort of intense,” Bridger commented. “That’s gotta be loads of fun.”

  “That’s true,” Ian agreed. “But lemme tell you, when you’re stuck somewhere, there isn’t anyone you’d rather have either coming for you himself or insisting someone else get off their ass and ride to your rescue.”

  “Yeah,” I said, chuckling. “The term ‘moving heaven and earth,’ that was made for him.”

  “It was,” Ian agreed. He glanced at Bridger. “Is he done? Because we have to make our second trip to the hospital in so many days.”

  “When’d you break that?” Bridger asked, tipping his head at the cast on my wrist.

  “Two days ago.”

  “Holy shit. How?”

  I repeated his motion but tipped mine at Ian.

  “Oh.”

  “Fuck you, M. Let’s go.”

  I started laughing and Bridger widened his eyes.

  “So all you marshals are a little on the scary side.”

  “Hell yeah,” I said as Ian hauled me to my feet.

  “And you all gotta have the same haircut? Even your boss?”

  Kage’s cut was basically military, above the collar in the back and around the ears. Ian’s was shorter since he still served in the Army Reserve. My hair was longer and thicker and I put product in it to make it messy and stand up. But we had a dress code that our immaculately put-together boss vigilantly enforced.

  “We have to all look alike so the bad guys can’t tell us apart.”

  “Uh-huh,” Bridger said, nodding like I was nuts.

  In the elevator, I found I was a little light-headed.

  “Hold on to me.”

  Putting a hand on Ian’s shoulder, I followed him out of the police station.