Sudden Engagement

by Julie Miller

  “I’ll hold you to that promise.” Sid grinned weakly. He rolled his face back up toward the ceiling and closed his eyes. “She’s a keeper, son.” His hand went slack inside Brett’s as fatigue and the effects of pain medication won out. “A real keeper.”

  “I love you, Dad.”

  But sleep had already claimed the Taylor patriarch. A wealth of suppressed emotion tightened like a vise deep inside Brett. He squeezed his eyes shut and dropped his head, sending up a silent prayer to heal his stricken hero.

  “Brett.”

  A gentle tug on his arm matched the soft voice. He opened his eyes at the unspoken request and looked down into Ginny’s upturned face. A halo of silver-gold hair fell in shimmering wisps against the lines of concern and compassion etched beside her eyes.

  He toyed with the urge to bend down and kiss her, to take the compassion she offered. But her rationality was rubbing off on him, and he couldn’t quite trust that the offer was real.

  Still, she had come through for Sid when he needed her. And for that, Brett would always be grateful. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” Her lips compressed into a tiny frown.

  He covered her hand where it rested on his arm, and studied the contrasts of callused and smooth, large and small, male and female between them. The vise inside him tightened a notch. “For making Dad believe in us.”

  Ginny pulled away and left the room. Unwilling to break the tenuous connection of comfort between them, Brett followed. He fell into step beside her. Their unhurried pace took them past another patient’s room and on toward the empty staff lounge at the end of the hall.

  “Your dad’s easy to like,” Ginny explained. “I wouldn’t want to cause him any more pain.”

  Yeah, Brett conceded, his family was easy to like. Safe, loving and supportive. Plus, they had nothing to do with the case against Alvin Bishop’s killer.

  But maybe it wasn’t so easy to like him. For Ginny, at any rate.

  He was her last chance to solve a murder and find the truth about her sister’s death. He was the risk she’d had to take, the ally she didn’t want, but couldn’t help needing.

  And he’d taken advantage of that. Lord, how he’d needed her today. Her feminine scent, her soft hair, her shy presence and succinct voice. The vise inside him broke beneath the twist of emotion and he reached out.

  He snatched her wrist and pulled her into the lounge and shut the door behind him.

  “What are you doing?”

  In answer, he gathered Ginny into his arms and buried his nose in her hair, inhaling her sweet softness. Miraculously, her arms curled around his waist and he felt her fingertips pressing into his spine, holding him close, drawing him near.

  The delicate weight of her breasts branded him through his shirt. He ran his hands along the length of her back, skimming her from shoulders to hips, finding the hard bulk of her gun and the soft indentation of her waist. He pulled his hands back up, underneath her blazer. His palms tickled at the friction of denim, soothed at the touch of soft cotton, zinged to life at the discovery of silk and lace and feminine curves beneath it all.

  “Ginny,” he whispered a ragged plea against her ear, and turned to press his lips to the silky hair at her temple. “I need you.”

  He longed to feel the heat of her, skin to skin. He longed to taste her. She was life and strength and escape for a man whose foundations were broken, whose well of faith had run dry.

  “I can’t.” She squirmed in his arms, blindly seeking to free herself, though her hands had balled into fists at his waist, grabbing on to his shirt and refusing to let go. “I don’t know what you want.”

  “Just let me,” he promised, finding a strength all his own in her tentative surrender. He framed her face in his hands and stilled her halfhearted struggles. He locked on to her gaze, calming the turbulence there with a smile of pleasures yet to come. “Just let me.”

  Brett closed the distance between them and kissed her. A light sweep of his tongue coaxed her lips to part and he claimed her for his own. Leaving the splendor of her moonlit curls, he lifted her hands to his neck. She rewarded him by stretching up on tiptoe and holding on, pulling herself into his kiss.

  As their tongues and lips played a heady game of search and surrender, he moved his hands to her waist. With desperate speed he untucked her blouse and slipped his hands inside. A groan of sheer delight rumbled in his throat at the tactile heat of creamy skin and supple muscle there. His suddenly unsteady feet shifted beneath him.

  Ginny tumbled into his chest. He carried her with him as he backed up, seeking to brace himself against the unexpected mix of passion and compassion in her soft, seeking lips.

  When his hips butted against a desktop, he sat and pulled her snug into the V of his legs. She slid down the length of him until her feet touched the floor, tormenting his body and bringing hope to his aching heart.

  He left her mouth to run his lips along the delicate line of her jaw. He tipped her back over his arm and explored lower, supping at the sensitive curve of her neck, drinking his fill at the fragile bone beneath her collar.

  He dragged his fingers to the front hem of her blouse and pushed it higher, exposing the flat of her stomach. With one broad hand, he soothed the ragged catch of breath there. He inched the material even higher, and pressed his mouth to the boundary of silk and breast, right above her pounding heart.

  His own pulse hammered in his ears at this reckless abandonment of rationality. He’d broken through to Ginny’s precious emotions. That volatile heat she locked inside her forged them into one, lifting him high above the concerns for his family, the fears for himself and the impending destruction of the future he wanted to build with her.

  Ginny teetered on the edge of an abyss. She’d lowered her guard and Brett had quickly rushed in.

  She gasped for air as his tongue teased the tip of her breast. Soft flannel gave way to the hard heat of Brett’s massive shoulders and chest as he crushed her in his arms. Surrounded by his strength, she felt so weak, so vulnerable. The darkness surrounded them and could destroy her at any moment. But right now Brett needed her.

  He needed her.

  And so she let him in.

  The scruff of his day-old beard nearly burned her hands as she caught him to her breast. His mouth closed over the distended nipple, claiming her through the sheer lace of her bra.

  Ginny tumbled over the edge at the raw jolt of electricity that shot through her. Crying out his name, she struggled to save herself. She tangled her fingers in the silky mane of his hair, holding on as he murmured lusty little praises against her skin.

  But it was too much.

  Too much, too fast, too dangerous. She flattened her palms against the sensuous curve of his skull and guided his mouth back to hers.

  She wanted the reassurance that Brett knew this was her. Ginny. She wanted him to know that he sought comfort from a woman who had loved unwisely, a woman who had shamed herself before a group of her peers, a woman who had steeled her heart in self-defense. A woman who knew more about guns and criminals than she knew about trust and love.

  “Brett?” He allowed her a breath between a smattering of kisses.

  “Hmm?”

  Her own lips scudded across the square jut of his chin as she tried to pull back. “We need to talk.”

  “Right this minute?” A heavy puff of air lifted the curl beside her ear as he sighed. Fascinated by the movement, he turned his attentions to the soft skin of her earlobe. “Put the badge aside for now, angel.”

  His dark voice skittered along her neck and made her catch her breath. He adjusted her in his arms to give his lips better access to that tender spot. Her hip brushed against his jeans, leaving her no doubt that she had some effect on him, too.

  Her teeth stuttered together as she tried to form words. “It’s not about the investigation.”

  At last he lifted his head and looked at her. If the drowsy shadows in his sapphire eyes counted as a look.


  Ginny moved her hands to his chest and pushed a little space between them. The subtle shove didn’t go unnoticed. His breathing slowed into a steady pattern, and the tiny crow’s-feet beside his eyes deepened as his expression grew serious.

  “What’s bothering you?”

  “This.”

  “There’s not a damn thing wrong with this.”

  She shook her head, caught the loose curl at her jaw and tucked it behind her ear. “It’s me.”

  “There’s not a damn thing wrong with you, either.”

  His dark blue eyes drilled into hers, daring her to contradict him.

  Ginny stepped back, fighting to gather her scattered thoughts and turn them into reason. But Brett’s hands held firm on her hips, as if he knew she’d slip away entirely if he let go. She pulled down the hem of her blouse, feeling exposed enough without the air-conditioning chilling her heated skin.

  “You’re worried about your father,” she began.

  “Yeah.”

  “We’ve been through some heavy stuff lately. We’ve had to deal with the worst memories of our lives.”

  He didn’t argue with her. “What’s your point, Sherlock?”

  “My point is, you’re not thinking clearly right now.” She held up her left hand between them, waving her fingers until the twin diamonds caught the light. “These might be real gems, but it’s not the real thing between us.”

  “It can be.”

  “Can it?” She curled her hand into a fist and dropped it to her side. His words stirred a longing within her. But she could tell his desire was cooling, and she was starting to make sense.

  Holding her now by one hand, he used the other to flip the lapel of her blazer back into place. “You’re fire and I’m water, is that it? The two can never exist together?”

  Finally, he let her move away. When she had the length of the room between them, she turned. “The last real relationship I had was twelve years ago. And I screwed it up.” He stood, swallowing up the space of the room. His overwhelming size made her point easier to make. “I need my distance, Brett. It’s how I keep myself from screwing up again. If you get too close to me, I know…” She crossed her arms over her stomach, afraid of baring her soul to this man. “I know you’ll be disappointed.”

  Ginny withered in the dreadful silence that followed. Brett’s low-pitched whisper shivered through her veins. “That bastard must have hurt you pretty badly.”

  Her heart hadn’t been broken so much as her faith in her own judgment had been shattered.

  “He kept me from being here for my sister. He kept me from possibly saving her life.”

  Brett raked all ten fingers through his hair, and caught it behind his neck. “Maybe we have more in common than you think.”

  He lowered his arms, splayed his hands on his hips and took in a deep breath to add something more. But the lounge door opened, and a flick of a switch flooded the room with fluorescent light.

  “There you are.”

  Half hidden behind the open door, Ginny watched Sophie Bishop sashay across the room and throw her arms around Brett’s neck. Without rising on tiptoe, she kissed him full on the mouth. Ginny’s own lips compressed into a resigned frown.

  Both tall, both dark, Brett and Sophie fit together. They shared history. “I’ve been looking all over this hospital for you. How are you holding up?”

  “Your timing stinks, Sophie.” Even Ginny started at the dismissive growl in his voice. He grabbed Sophie’s wrists and unwound her from his neck.

  “I know you’re upset, but I came as soon as I could.” Ginny wondered if Brett could hear the hurt in her voice. “I’ve been up to my eyeballs getting the last-minute details taken care of for your fund-raiser.”

  “What?”

  “The ball at Union Station. Five hundred dollars a head to raise money for your renovation project?” Sophie reached for Brett again. “Oh God, Sid must be worse off than I thought.”

  This time, he dropped his arm around her waist and accepted the hug she wanted to give. “Sid’s going to be fine.”

  With an old friend to supply him the comfort he needed, Ginny snuck around the door, intending to leave while she still had any pride left.

  But Brett had no intention of letting her take the cowardly way out. “This conversation isn’t over.” His promise stopped Ginny in her tracks.

  A possessive gleam in Sophie’s smile warned her it had to be over. “Are you two lovebirds having a tiff?”

  A bit of the Irish toughness that had seen her through grisly crimes and wasted heartache stiffened Ginny’s spine. “It’s none of your business. We were talking about you earlier, though.”

  “Really?” Sophie looked less stunned by the switch in topic than Brett.

  Slipping into the one role she knew how to play well, Ginny asked, “I wondered if you know about a set of wind-chime bells your father stole from Pearl Jenkins’s apartment.”

  “This is hardly the time to bring up something like that.”

  “Tell us about the chimes, Sophie.” To her surprise, Brett joined the questioning.

  At Brett’s urging, Sophie finally answered. “Yes. He took them from the Jenkinses upstairs and kept them.” Turning her back squarely on Ginny, Sophie sidled up to Brett. “Is that the best your detective fiancée can do? Can’t she find a real clue to who lured my father downstairs and left him to die?”

  “The chimes,” he insisted. “We need to see them.”

  “I don’t have them. Eric packed up Dad’s things for me and put them into storage.”

  He pushed on while Ginny listened. “Where?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Soph, honey. We’re trying to help you here. We’re trying to help Mark.”

  Ginny watched the play of Sophie’s shoulders tensing, then forcibly relaxing, as Brett’s words stirred an unpleasant memory. But her voice revealed nothing but detached cooperation. “I’ll ask Eric. He’s meeting with some associates at the casino this evening. But I’ll see him in the morning.”

  Brett looked beyond Sophie’s shoulder to Ginny. “Is that what you needed to know?”

  “I need to see those chimes. See if there’s a bell missing.”

  Brett looked intently at Sophie. She threw her hands up and shrugged. “Fine. If you think it will help, Eric and I will go to the storage unit and bring you the chimes tomorrow.”

  “Thanks.” He squeezed Sophie’s hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow night at the ball.”

  “With a tie,” she reminded him.

  “With a tie.” The strain of the day, maybe even of their last few minutes together, told in the weary tilt of Brett’s smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to drive my fiancée home.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “You don’t have to do this.” Ginny watched the elevator buttons light up, steadfastly ignoring the way Brett’s big body consumed the tiny space around her.

  “Yes, I do. I’m not letting you run away this time.”

  He stood close enough for her to smell the odors on his clothes, the faint detergent, his mother’s delicate perfume. Even the scent of her own skin lingered on him, reminding her of how close they’d been, how close she’d come to forgetting everything but kissing him, loving him.

  She didn’t bother to argue. She was running. But apparently not fast enough nor far enough to escape and give herself some time to get her head on straight.

  A real relationship with Brett could never work. He was big and brash and seized the world with both hands. She was woefully ill equipped to be his equal. She doubted he would settle for anything less. She didn’t want him to.

  As the elevator neared her floor, she tried one last time to keep him out of her sanctuary. She had a terrible feeling that if he broke through her self-protective walls there, she wouldn’t have the strength to push him away a second time.

  “We can talk later. You must be exhausted.” She ventured a glance up at the dark stubble of beard shading his jaw
and neck. Telltale shadows ringed the stern expression in his eyes. A tender compassion swallowed up her heart and squeezed it tight.

  “I’m fine.” He punctuated the lie with a Brett-size yawn. She wanted to smile at the boyish contradiction, but his next words sobered her. “You were about to tell me something important, and I intend to hear it. Tonight.”

  Before she could think about the wisdom of her action, she reached out and touched her fingers gently to his forearm. “Please, Brett.” But was she asking him to take care of himself? Or to leave her alone?

  His larger hand covered her own, thanking her for the gesture, but not allowing her to dissuade him. “I can be as single-minded about things as you are, Gin. And right now, you are the only thing on my mind.”

  As he bent closer, Ginny pulled away. If she could just get to her apartment and close her door—with Brett in the hallway—she could get some precious time to herself, regroup, think of a way to make him see that he wouldn’t want to be with her once the investigation was over.

  She could spare herself the humiliation of giving her heart to a man, then finding out he didn’t want it, after all.

  When the doors opened on the seventh floor, she quickly stepped out, not even worrying about whether the lights were on or off. She had to get away from Brett, put distance between them. She set off at a brisk pace, restraining the urge to run from him to the haven of her apartment.

  But Ginny’s life had never been about easy escapes from conflict.

  Halfway down, the door across from hers opened and Dennis Fitzgerald appeared. “Ginny.” He hurried down the center of the hall, blocking her path. “Thank God you’re here.” The flush of excitement staining his face all the way up to his receding hairline turned her sense of urgency in a new direction. “I didn’t know how to contact you, so I called the police.”