Steal Me

by Lauren Layne

  He turned icy eyes to her, and she wanted to cower beneath the disdain there. Wanted to, but didn’t.

  “This isn’t your business,” she said firmly.

  His eyes held hers. “Did you pay for your father’s rehab?”

  “Yes.” She refused to be ashamed.

  “Rehab he didn’t finish. Rehab he barely even started,” Moretti clarified.

  “He wants to get better,” she shot back. “If it was your father asking for assistance, you’re telling me you wouldn’t move heaven and earth to get him help?”

  Moretti’s face didn’t soften. “How many times?”

  She blinked. “What?”

  “How many times has he gone to rehab?”

  Maggie licked her lips. “It doesn’t always work the first time. Alcoholism is a complicated disease—”

  “Don’t say another word, Bug,” Cory said, standing up beside her so they were shoulder to shoulder, facing off against Anthony. “We don’t even know this guy.”

  “She knows me,” Anthony said, his eyes never leaving hers.

  Her brother gave her a scathing look. “Don’t tell me you’re seeing this guy. A cop? Bug, seriously? You—”

  Maggie was saved from having to respond by a tired-looking doctor who approached them. “Are any of you here for Charles Walker?”

  “Yes,” she and Cory answered in unison. Her hand instinctively wrapped around her brother’s, looking for comfort.

  He didn’t squeeze it in reassurance like she wished he would, but at least he didn’t shake her off.

  “I’m his daughter,” Maggie said, her voice surprisingly steady. “This is my brother.”

  “I’m Dr. Kim,” the woman said, giving them both a perfunctory handshake. “Your father’s out of surgery and in recovery. There was major internal bleeding and he’s dislocated his shoulder. We were able to stop the bleeding and the shoulder will heal. He’s got a nasty bump on his head, so a concussion is probable, but we’re not seeing any brain swelling.”

  “So he’ll live?” Cory asked bluntly.

  “He’s stable. His condition is still serious, but yes…I believe your father can make a full recovery.”

  Maggie’s knees buckled, and a strong arm wrapped around her waist, steadying her.

  Not her brother’s arm.

  Anthony was there, lending her all his strength, despite the fact that she’d just bit his head off. This, after he’d driven her forty-five minutes and waited with her for over two hours…

  She should free him from this. Release him from the toxic grip of the Walker family. But for now, just for a moment, she let herself lean.

  For someone who was used to everyone needing her—using her—it was nice to need someone else. Nice for someone else to let her need them.

  “When can we see him?” she asked.

  “I can let you in there for a few minutes now, but he won’t be awake for a while yet, and when he does come around, he’ll likely be groggy. One of the nurses will show you back,” Dr. Kim said with a nod at one of the nurses who’d been hovering at the front desk.

  Cory headed in the direction the doctor indicated, and Maggie started to follow, easing away from the wonderful warmth of Anthony reluctantly.

  Dr. Kim touched her arm. “Ms. Walker.”

  Maggie turned. “Yeah?”

  The doctor gave a questioning glance at Anthony, who started to back away, but Maggie instinctively reached out and grabbed his hand. “He’s with me.”

  He stayed.

  Dr. Kim’s voice was quiet. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of your brother, who seems…upset. But your father’s blood alcohol level…”

  Maggie squeezed her eyes shut. “I know.”

  The doctor’s face softened for the first time since she’d entered the waiting room. “In situations like this, the police will be involved. You should be prepared for questions, and when he wakes up…”

  “We’ll deal with that when he wakes up,” Anthony interrupted.

  The doctor gave him a sharp look, but relented at whatever she saw on his face. Anthony wasn’t in uniform, so Dr. Kim couldn’t know he was a cop, but it wasn’t hard to read the authority on his face.

  “Yo. Bug. You comin’?” Cory asked impatiently from where he hovered in the doorway with the nurse.

  “Yeah,” she said before glancing at Anthony, realizing she still held his hand.

  “It’s probably family only,” she said quietly.

  He nodded once and let his fingers slide from hers.

  She looked up at his unsmiling face and, for the first time, realized that his features weren’t harsh so much as strong. And oh how she wanted that strength now.

  And it was precisely because of that longing that she needed to let him go. She wouldn’t let a man like Captain Anthony Moretti get tangled up in the mess that was the Walkers.

  She was willing to bet that he’d never been even close to the other side of the law, and that’s exactly what he would be if he had to stand by her when she was questioned by the New Jersey police.

  “Thanks for the ride,” she said, dimly aware of Dr. Kim stepping away. “I…you can’t know how much I appreciate it. Not just because of the convenience, but because…” Maggie licked her lips, wondering how much to say. “It meant a lot that you waited.”

  He nodded, still saying nothing.

  “I can take a cab home,” she said quietly. “Or Cory can give me a ride to the train station.”

  His head tipped back slightly at the dismissal, and though his eyes didn’t betray emotion—any emotion—she had to think he was relieved.

  “Do you need anything?” he asked.

  You. I need you.

  “No, I’m okay. Not much to do until he wakes up, I guess.”

  Anthony crossed his arms. “And you’ll let me know when he wakes up? Keep me updated?”

  “Yeah. Sure. Of course.”

  “Bug!”

  She glanced over her shoulder at her brother. “Coming.”

  She turned and headed toward her impatient brother and then followed Cory and the nurse into the harsh white lighting and cold floors of whatever lay beyond the sliding glass doors.

  Maggie couldn’t stop herself from glancing over her shoulder.

  But Anthony was already gone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Anthony was no stranger to hospitals. No police officer was. There were times you needed to question victims. And suspects.

  But he hadn’t been in a hospital for personal reasons since before his brother Marco had gotten stabbed in the shoulder after a convenience store robbery on the Lower East Side.

  It had been a flesh wound and Marc had been out of the hospital within twenty-four hours, but Anthony had never forgotten what it felt like to be trapped in a hospital waiting room, desperate for information.

  The waiting had been agony.

  But today he’d experienced a different kind of agony.

  Helplessness.

  He’d never realized that watching someone else’s pain could be worse than experiencing one’s own, but watching Maggie try to physically hold herself together had nearly ripped him apart.

  And that wasn’t even the worst part; the worst part was that he was damned sure her father didn’t deserve her. Didn’t deserve her love, or her devotion, and he definitely didn’t deserve her money.

  Money she didn’t have.

  He’d seen Maggie’s apartment. It was tiny. Old.

  And he remembered the genuine dismay on her face when he’d accidentally caused her to knock her leftovers from the diner onto the ground.

  Christ.

  The woman could barely afford to feed herself, and she was tossing away God knew how much money on an alcoholic who hadn’t made it past two days of rehab.

  Sure, the fact that her father had even taken a step toward rehab was important. Vital even.

  But Anthony hadn’t made it to Captain without some damn good instincts, and his instincts
were telling him that Charles Walker had known that the word “rehab” was the only way he’d get a penny out of his daughter.

  And he was also betting the man had known exactly the refund plan when he’d entered rehab.

  If he’d even gone in for treatment at all.

  Anthony’s hand fisted around his empty coffee cup, crushing the cheap paper before chucking it with more force than necessary into the garbage can.

  He’d never met the man. Never even seen him. But if Charlie Walker were taking his daughter’s hard-earned money to spend it on booze, only to wrap his car around a light pole, Anthony would find a way to make his life miserable.

  He’d said as much to the New Jersey state trooper who’d come in to get a statement from the doctor. He hoped they threw the book at the bastard. And maybe her useless brother too.

  Anthony slumped into the uncomfortable chair, eyes locking with a little girl who’d been playing some noisy game on her dad’s phone while he paced around the room anxiously.

  She grinned at Anth, probably too young to understand that a hospital waiting room generally meant bad news.

  He smiled back, although the gesture felt awkward. Strained.

  God, was he out of practice at smiling?

  He was. He’d forgotten how to smile.

  The little girl went back to her game, her purple-sneakered feet kicking happily back and forth.

  He rubbed a hand over his face. He could leave. He probably should leave. Maggie had all but begged him to when she’d followed her brother back an hour ago.

  But no way was he going to let her take a cab back to the city, and he sure as fuck wasn’t going to let her get into a car with her brother. Cory Walker was a chip off the old block in the worst way. The man had reeked of booze.

  Anth wondered if Maggie had noticed, or if she was just used to it. And where the hell was her mother? How long had it been just Maggie and two alcoholic moochers?

  It bothered him that he didn’t know these details about her, but at the same time, he knew he shouldn’t ask. He already cared too much. It was hard enough to stay away from her when she’d just been the irresistible girl at the diner.

  Now that he knew she had a criminal ex-husband and two degenerate family members? It made him want to fold her into his arms. Into his family. Into his life…

  …where she’d be even worse off than she was now. Shackled to a cop who’d put his career first, every time.

  She deserved more.

  “What the hell am I doing?” he muttered, pushing to his feet.

  Even if she were happy to see him when she came out, it would give her the wrong idea.

  He—

  He was too late.

  “Anthony?”

  Shit.

  He turned around, prepared to tell her that he was just leaving…that he’d only come back for his cell phone or some lame excuse.

  And then he saw her face and realized there was no way in hell he’d leave her.

  He was in front of her in two big steps, his hands reaching for her, hesitating only briefly before finding her upper arms, tugging her forward gently.

  And then he hugged her. Without agenda, without thought. Just because it was the right thing to do. He absorbed her shuddering breath, felt her hands find his shoulders, as though to push him away.

  And then she sank into him, her forehead tilted forward until it rested on his shoulder, her hands slowly dropping downward until they slipped around him, settling just above his waist.

  “You stayed.” It was the tiniest of statements. Barely more than a whisper, but he heard it. Heard the surprise in it.

  Of course I stayed.

  “Where’s your brother?” he asked instead.

  She shook her head. “He took off a while ago. Said to call him when Dad woke up.”

  Asshole.

  “Did he?” Anth asked. “Wake up?”

  “No. They said it might be a while. That I should go home and they’d call me, but—”

  His hands stopped their stroking motion on her back. “No buts, Maggie. I’m taking you home. And whenever you want to come back, I’ll take you.”

  She blinked up at him. “But what if you’re at work?”

  She couldn’t have known what a stab to the heart that was, but he felt it anyway. It was said without Vannah’s snotty, passive-aggressive tone, but the message was the same.

  What if you can’t be there for me?

  He forced a smile. “I promise, the Morettis will find a way to get you there. If not me, then Luc or Vincent. Plus, Elena loves making use of her company car. And if none of them, I’ll pay for the cab.”

  The confusion on her face ripped at his heart. She looked utterly baffled that anyone would help her out.

  “Anthony, I—”

  He gave her a stern look. “You’re not about to get weepy on me, are you?”

  She smiled. “I admit, I was considering it. Between your kindness and the fact that my brother didn’t even say good-bye, and then there’s the fact that my dad is lying unconscious in a hospital bed…”

  “He’ll be okay.”

  She inhaled a long, steady breath. “You sound so sure of that.”

  “I’ve talked to plenty of doctors in my day, either updates on victims or the bad guys. If his condition was iffy, she would have said something to prepare you.”

  She nodded, and he saw her swallow bravely.

  “Let’s get you home,” he said gently, holding out his hand.

  She set her palm against his. Trusting him.

  And damn, her trust felt good.

  The ride home was silent, but not awkwardly so. He sensed she needed quiet to process everything, and he was more than happy to give it to her. Happy just to be near her.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden in a car,” she said when they were nearing Brooklyn.

  He glanced at her. “That’s true of most New Yorkers. Beyond a cab of course.”

  She drummed her fingers against her knee. “I can’t remember the last time I was in a cab either. They’re sort of a luxury on a waitress salary, you know?”

  It was on the tip of his tongue that perhaps she’d have a bit more money for the occasional taxi ride if she wasn’t writing blank checks to her father, but he didn’t. That discussion hadn’t gone over well in the hospital waiting room and it wouldn’t go over well now.

  “Do I need to give my family a talking-to about their tips?” he said jokingly.

  “Your family is more than generous.” She glanced at him across the darkened car. “So are you.”

  He shrugged, and she twisted to face him. “No, I’m serious. Whenever you’ve come in alone, your tips are outrageous. Even before…”

  Anthony glanced at her. “Even before you stopped spilling food and drink all over me?”

  “I was going to say even before you kissed me.”

  Her words were like a bomb in the small space and he jerked his eyes back to the road. “I—”

  “You shouldn’t have done it,” she said on a weary sigh. “I know.”

  Did you want me to do it? Do you want me to do it again?

  They were silent for several minutes, the car barely moving thanks to road construction.

  “Do you ever look at your life and wonder how you got there?” she asked.

  He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and considered. “No.”

  Maggie let out a little laugh. “I guess I already knew the answer to that. You’ve always wanted to be a cop, and that’s exactly what you are.”

  He shrugged.

  Maggie sighed and looked out the passenger window. “You’re lucky.”

  “I take that to mean you haven’t always wanted to be a waitress.”

  This time when she turned to face him, her expression was withering. “Does anyone? I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a decent job. And it has some of the hardest-working people you’ll ever meet, hauling around heavy trays for mostly ungrateful customers.�
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  “But it’s not the dream,” he completed for her.

  “Definitely not.”

  “Then what is?”

  She pursed her lips. “You’ll think I’m silly.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s your dream. Doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.”

  She plucked at the skirt of her diner uniform. “I want to be an author.”

  “Nothing silly about that.”

  Her laugh was short. “It’s a long shot. I read somewhere that like eighty percent of people want to write a book.”

  “Sure, but I’m guessing that most of them don’t even try.”

  “Maybe,” she murmured.

  “Have you?” he asked, turning onto her street.

  “Have I what?”

  “Tried. To write.”

  “I’ve tried. I am trying.”

  “Yeah? What do you write?”

  “Kids’ books. Well, teens, specifically. I know it sounds weird, but I like the awkwardness of the age. The longing, you know?”

  He pulled up to the curb in front of her apartment building. “I don’t think teens have an exclusive on longing, Maggie.”

  Anthony hadn’t meant the statement to be as loaded as it came out, but there it was. He didn’t look at her as he turned off the car. Couldn’t. Knew that he wouldn’t be able to resist hauling her onto his lap and kissing away all the pain and stress of her day.

  He could show her longing. He lived it.

  “No,” she whispered. “I guess that doesn’t stop after our teen years, does it?”

  They both stared straight ahead as he contemplated his options. He could either wrap a hand around the back of her neck. Tug her to him and kiss her like they both wanted.

  Or he could…

  “Looks like my babysitters are right where I left them,” she said, leaning forward slightly and peering across the street.

  Babysitters? Realization washed over Anthony like a brutally cold shower.

  The cops outside her apartment. He’d totally forgotten.

  He pulled a hand over his face. This woman messed with his head.

  Anthony reached for the door handle and shoved it open before he could do something idiotic, like make out with Maggie with two of his officers watching.

  Anth went around her side of the car, but she was already climbing out, not looking at him. All of the warm, sexual tension of the past moments completely evaporated.