by Lisa Childs
Serious injuries.
Fatal injuries.
The man flinched as if he’d felt Blaine’s pain. “He has some bumps and scratches,” he admitted. “And a couple of small burns. But he’s fine. Or I wouldn’t be here.”
Even though Blaine had asked him? But then, he would have been too distraught over the loss of his friend to worry about her.
Maybe Blaine wasn’t gone.
The dark-haired man sighed. “Of course, I have no place to go right now...”
“It was your house he was staying at,” she realized. And that Blaine had let her stay at, as well. He should have taken her to a motel. It might not have protected her, but it would have protected Ash Stryker’s house. “I’m sorry...”
“It wasn’t your fault,” he assured her.
“But whoever set the fire is after me,” she said. “So I feel responsible.” She felt responsible for the house and for those injuries Blaine had suffered. How badly had he really been hurt?
Agent Stryker moved closer to the bed and assured her, “You’re not responsible for any of this.”
“I wish that was true,” she said. “I shouldn’t have stayed at your house. I shouldn’t have stayed with Blaine.” Or made love and fallen in love with Blaine.
He chuckled. “Blaine was right...”
“What was he right about?”
“He said that you couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the robberies,” Ash said. “He said that you’re too good a person to be consciously involved.”
He thought she was a good person?
“I figured Blaine was only thinking that because he grew up with sisters and has this whole chivalry thing going on,” Ash said.
She nodded. “He is very chivalrous and protective.” The man was a hero like she had never known.
“I also guessed that you’re pretty,” he said.
She didn’t feel pretty now. She felt bedraggled from the smoke. Maybe it was good that Blaine wasn’t there. He would have regretted sleeping with her.
Maybe he did regret it. Maybe that was why he wasn’t here—with her. Had he even checked on her?
“Where is Blaine?” she asked.
Ash sighed. “He’s determined to end this,” he said. “He wants these guys caught.”
“He wants to avenge Sarge’s death,” she said. “Sarge is—”
“I knew Sarge, too,” Ash said with a grimace of regret and loss. “He was also my drill instructor.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing,” he said. “None of this is your fault. Blaine is going to prove that. He’s going to find out who the hell is responsible and bring them to justice.”
She breathed a small sigh of relief. He had to be okay, then. He had to be strong enough to want revenge. But her breath caught again as she realized that he was putting himself in more danger.
“You should be with him,” she said. “You should make sure he’s really all right. The doctors wanted to keep me here because they’re worried about my lungs having a delayed reaction to all that smoke. I think it’s called hypoxia.” That was why they were keeping her on oxygen.
Blaine wouldn’t have oxygen with him. He wouldn’t have anyone to help him if hypoxia kicked in, depriving his body of oxygen. He could die.
He wasn’t just in danger from whoever was trying to kill them. He was in danger from his own body shutting down on him.
That muscle twitched in Ash’s cheek again. He was worried, too. Blaine must have checked himself out against doctor’s orders.
“Have you heard from him?” she asked.
He shook his head.
Maybe it was already too late to help Blaine.
Chapter Sixteen
Maggie was okay. So was her baby. Blaine hadn’t left the hospital until he’d learned that. He hadn’t left the hospital until Ash had shown up. He wouldn’t have trusted anyone else to protect her. He probably shouldn’t have trusted Hernandez and Jackson since he wasn’t sure how the robbers had discovered where Maggie was staying.
He’d been so careful to avoid being followed—to avoid anyone discovering where he had hidden her. But he hadn’t kept her safe. Ash would. Or at least he would try...the way Sarge had tried.
Maggie was in too much danger. She and her baby had survived this time. But eventually their luck would run out.
Blaine had to focus on finding the robbers. He couldn’t think about her—or what they’d done right before the fire started. He couldn’t think about anything but suspects.
He was determined to find the one who had so far eluded him. So he went back to Mark Doremire’s house.
His wife opened the door and stared at him through eyes wide with surprise. At first he thought it might have been because of the hour; it was barely dawn. But she was looking at him instead of the sky.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
He felt as if a roof had fallen on him. But then, it had. He’d been fortunate to come out with only a few scrapes and light burns. The firemen had used their own bodies to protect him. His lungs burned, though, from all the smoke he’d inhaled. The doctor hadn’t authorized him to leave the hospital. He’d wanted to keep Blaine for observation—something about a delayed reaction to smoke inhalation.
But Blaine felt time running out since each attack on Maggie had been harder for her and for him to survive. So he had refused to stay and checked himself out against the doctor’s orders.
“No, I’m not fine,” he admitted. “I’m about to arrest you for obstruction of justice if you don’t tell me where your husband is hiding.”
She shrugged but continued to block the doorway to the kitchen the best she could with her thin frame. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
He could have pushed her aside and searched her house. But he’d had someone watching it—someone with thermal imaging who’d detected only one person inside the house. Mark really wasn’t there. “You don’t know where your husband is?”
She shook her head. “I figured he was following Maggie around like his brother used to. But it seems as though you’re doing that now.”
“I’m just doing my job,” he said. But it was a lie. Protecting Maggie had less to do with his job than with his heart. He had fallen for her.
And just as Dalton Reyes and his boss had warned him, he’d gotten distracted. Because of that, he had nearly lost his life and hers, as well. He had to put aside his feelings for her and focus only on the case. He wasn’t going to be like Special Agent Bell and leave this case unsolved.
The younger Mrs. Doremire snorted derisively as she recognized his lie. “So you’ve let sweet Maggie get to you, too,” she said. “Something about her makes a man feel more important, more manly. That’s what killed Andy. That dumb kid actually thought he could be a soldier—for her.”
“That was Andy,” Blaine said. “What about his brother? He’s your husband.” He wanted to goad her—to piss her off at Mark—so that she would give up his whereabouts.
“But I don’t need him like dear sweet Maggie does,” Tammy replied. “It doesn’t help that before Andy left for his last deployment he asked Mark to watch out for her. Why do you think we moved here?”
Blaine shrugged even though he could have guessed. The robberies...
“Because she moved here,” Tammy said. “I left behind my friends and family for Maggie.”
“You hate her.”
She laughed. “That’s the thing about Maggie. You can’t hate her. She’s too sweet. But she’s also manipulative as hell. She’ll suck you in and ruin your life.”
“Has she ruined yours?” he asked, wondering why the woman resented her so much.
“She ruined my marriage. I haven’t seen Mark in days,” she said. So she blamed Maggie for all the problems in her marriage instead of blaming her husband. “I have no idea where he is. So if you want—arrest me. Take me in for questioning. Drug me with truth serum. I’m not going to be able to tell you what I don’t k
now.”
“Who would know where he is?” Blaine wondered.
Tammy sighed and leaned wearily against the doorjamb. Her red hair was tousled, and she wore a robe. But somehow he doubted she’d had any more sleep than he had. “Like me,” she said, “Mark left his friends behind in Michigan. Maybe his mom or dad would know where he’s gone.”
“His dad only talks about Andy,” Blaine admitted.
“Everybody loved Andy. He was sweet—like Maggie,” she said. “But genuinely sweet. He was a good man who died too soon.”
“What about Mark?” he asked. “Is he a good man?”
She shrugged again.
“Could he be involved in the bank robberies?”
She gasped in surprise.
He narrowed his eyes skeptically at her surprise. “You didn’t figure out that’s why I’m looking for him?”
“I had no idea why you’re looking for him,” she said. “I thought you were just a friend of Maggie’s.”
He was so much more than just friends with her.
“I’m a special agent with the FBI,” he said. “And I’m working the bank robberies—the one where the suspects wear zombie disguises.”
She sighed. “Mark wouldn’t have gotten involved in the robberies on his own.” She laughed now. “God knows he’s no criminal mastermind. He would have only gotten involved because someone asked him—or manipulated him—into getting involved.”
He suspected what she would say next, on whom she would place the blame, but still he had to ask, “Who?”
“Maggie, of course.”
“You think she’s a criminal mastermind?” He could have laughed, too, at that thought. Not that Maggie wasn’t smart. She was. She was also too honest and open to take anything from anyone.
She hadn’t even been willing to take a compliment from him. But then she’d taken his desire—his passion. She’d made love with him, too.
“I think she’s a desperate single woman who’s about to be raising a baby alone,” Tammy Doremire said. “She just might be desperate enough to start stealing.”
He doubted Maggie Jenkins was a bank robber.
And Mrs. Doremire must have seen that doubt because she added, “She’s not above stealing, Agent. Even you think she probably stole my husband.”
He doubted that, too. She thought of Mark as an older brother. But maybe Mark didn’t think of her as a little sister. Maybe he saw her for the sweet, desirable woman that Blaine did.
He pressed his business card into the woman’s hand. “If you see your husband, give me a call. I need to talk to him.”
“If anyone knows where he is,” she said, “it’ll be Maggie. You should ask her where he is.”
“If Maggie knew where he was, I wouldn’t be here,” he said with certainty. He had wasted his time talking to her.
Tammy Doremire glanced down at the card he’d handed her, then called after him when he started walking toward his SUV, “Be careful, Agent Campbell. The most danger you’re in is from Maggie Jenkins.”
He couldn’t argue with her because he suspected she was right. Maggie was dangerous to him—to his heart. But somebody else was a danger to her, and Blaine wouldn’t be able to leave her until he found out who and stopped that person.
* * *
“IF YOU DON’T find him, I will,” Maggie threatened as she struggled to escape her bed. But the oxygen line tugged at her nose and face. And the IV held her like a manacle.
Ash stretched out his hands, as if trying to hold her back. “Maggie, you have to stay here for observation.”
“You don’t,” she said. “Go find him.”
“I’m here for observation, too,” Ash said. “I’m here to observe you.”
“I don’t need observation,” she said. “I need to know that Blaine is really all right. And if you won’t find out for me, I will find out myself.” She struggled to sit up again.
“Blaine will kill me if I leave you,” Ash said. “I promised him I’d watch out for you.”
“Have someone else stand outside the door,” she suggested. “A deputy or another agent.”
“I’ll send one of them to look for him.”
She shook her head, rejecting his offer. A stranger wouldn’t know where to look for Blaine. “You’re his friend. You care about him. I trust you and only you to find him and make sure he’s okay.”
Ash replied, “I am his friend. And that’s why he trusted me to protect you.”
“You’re not protecting me,” she said. “I’m not supposed to get upset because of my blood pressure.” She had been warned that she had to watch it, that she had to make sure that it didn’t stay high. “And not knowing if Blaine is all right is upsetting me.”
“Maggie...”
“Please, go find him,” she urged his friend. “That’s what you can do to protect me.” Because not knowing whether or not Blaine had really survived the fire was the greatest risk to her health.
Ash sighed in resignation. “Damn it, if he’s okay, he’s going to kill me for leaving you. But I’ll make sure the man who replaces me on protection duty can be trusted.”
She wasn’t worried about herself right now. She wasn’t even that worried about the baby. The doctors had assured her that he was fine. Now she needed assurance that Blaine was, too.
Just knowing that Ash was looking for him eased her mind some—enough that she eventually drifted off to sleep. And Blaine popped vividly into her mind.
Naked, his golden skin stretched taut over hard muscles. He had made her feel emotions she had never felt before: lust, passion and love.
She hadn’t wanted to fall in love with him. But it was too late. She had lost her heart to Special Agent Blaine Campbell. And now she may have lost him.
He should have stayed in the hospital—stayed where they could give him oxygen and monitor him to make sure he had no serious aftereffects from the fire. But he’d gone off on his own to track down killers.
Those zombie-masked men had been dangerous enough when Blaine was in full superhero mode. But in his weakened state, with his injuries...
She shuddered to think of what might have happened to him. But she clung to hope the way she clung to the memories of their lovemaking. With her eyes closed, she relived every kiss, every caress.
Her skin grew hot. But not with passion. She smelled the smoke again and felt the heat of the flames. And in her mind those flames began to consume Blaine...
She jerked awake with a scream on her lips. But a hand covered her mouth, holding that cry inside her. So that she couldn’t alert anyone to his presence?
With the lights out, even the bathroom one, she saw only a big, broad-shouldered shadow looming over her. This couldn’t be whoever Ash had asked to take his place protecting her. An agent or a deputy—a real one—wouldn’t have been standing over her in the dark.
Who was this person?
What were his intentions? To smother her with a pillow? Or simply with his big hand?
She reached up, trying to fight him off. And she smelled the smoke again. This time it wasn’t just a vivid memory. This person had been at the fire, too.
Chapter Seventeen
“I’m sorry,” Blaine said, his voice gruff from the smoke that still burned in his throat and saturated his hair and clothes. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” He slid his hand from her lips. But he wanted to cover her mouth again—with his. He wanted to kiss her.
Maggie sat up and threw her arms around his neck. “You did scare me—so badly,” she said as she trembled against him. “I thought you didn’t make it out of Ash’s house.”
“Where is Ash?” he asked, furious that his friend hadn’t been the one guarding her door. Dalton Reyes had been standing outside, and while Blaine admired what he’d done with the Bureau, he wasn’t sure he could trust him, even though Ash obviously did.
“I begged him to look for you,” she said.
Begged or manipulated? He shook off the thought, angry with hims
elf for letting Tammy Doremire get to him. She was probably the real manipulator. “Why?” he asked.
“I wanted to make sure that you hadn’t had aftereffects from the smoke,” she said.
“I’m fine.” But he wasn’t. He was in even more danger than her almost sister-in-law had warned him about. He was in love with his witness.
“Then where were you all this time?” she asked, her eyes glistening in the darkness as she stared up at him.
Guilt and regret tugged at him for leaving her alone. After the fire, she had to have been terrified. But apparently she’d been more concerned about his safety than hers or she wouldn’t have sent her protection away. She wouldn’t have sent Ash out to find him.
Anger at Ash flashed through him, but then, he couldn’t blame the man for letting her get to him. She had gotten to Blaine, too.
“I was working the case,” he said. “Trying to track down a suspect.”
“Mark?” she asked. From her tone it was obvious that she was still reluctant to believe Andy’s brother could have anything to do with the robberies.
“I went to see Tammy Doremire to see if she’d heard from her husband yet.” Mark was definitely one of the robbers—probably the mastermind, no matter that his wife thought he was an idiot.
“Has she heard from him?” she asked with more concern than suspicion.
He shook his head.
“He’s her husband,” she said. “How can she not know where he is?”
“I don’t think their marriage is that great,” Blaine said. His sisters would have killed their husbands if they’d gone hours, let alone days, without checking in with them. Hell, Buster probably knew where her husband was every minute of every day.
“Is he seeing someone else?” Maggie wondered.
“Maybe.” He was thinking of Susan Iverson, but he added, “She thinks you know where he is.”
She gasped. “I don’t.”
“She thinks you two may have been involved.” He could believe that Mark had been interested in Maggie. But he believed that she thought of the man only as an older brother—maybe as a link to her dead fiancé.
