Not Without Risk

by Sarah Grimm

  Surely that couldn’t be. Paige shifted her gaze to Justin, as his mother continued without pause.

  “He has this idea that women start to think they have certain rights after spending time at his place. Though how he would know is beyond me.”

  An easy smile played the corners of Justin’s mouth. “Wonderful, isn’t she?”

  His mother laughed in response. “I don’t mean to give away all of your secrets.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “Not at all. Doing so was not in my plans when I stopped by this afternoon. I only wanted to drop off my shower gift for Allan and his wife.” As she spoke, Thelma motioned through the swinging door Paige had left propped open, and toward the kitchen table where a large box sat, artfully wrapped in pale yellow and tied with varying shades of the same color. “Their baby shower is today, isn’t it?”

  “You’re asking me?”

  “Really Justin, the man is your best friend as well as your partner.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “But you don’t know whether Suzanne’s shower is today?”

  “Must have slipped my mind. Baby showers just aren’t my thing.”

  Smiling, Paige watched the interplay between mother and son. Now that she looked closer, it was easy to see the two shared genetics. They both had the same dark brown eyes, the same smile, even the same dimple in their left cheek.

  “You know, Justin, it might do you some good to pay attention to these things. Someday, you know—”

  “Mom. Please don’t start. It’s been a busy week.”

  “Do tell.” Thelma placed her hand on his forearm.

  “You know I can’t talk about work.”

  She sighed and turned her attention to Paige. “Paige, what a beautiful name. Were you named after someone?”

  “Not that I was ever told, no.”

  “Interesting. Justin, he was named for my great-grandfather who was killed in The Great War.”

  “World War One, really?” Paige wondered whether Thelma Kincaid was always this friendly, or if the fact that she’d walked in on her son in a clinch with a woman had anything to do with it. She sent a questioning look at Justin.

  “Yes,” he said, answering her unspoken question. “She’s always like this.”

  His mother ignored him. “Tell me, Paige, where did you meet my son?”

  “Work,” Justin replied before Paige could answer.

  Thelma’s eyes widened. One perfectly arched brow rose.

  “A friend of mine was murdered,” Paige explained.

  “I’m so sorry, dear.” All humor left her face. “Were you hurt, too? Is that what happened to your face?”

  “Umm…”

  “Yes,” Justin said, saving her from a long explanation. “That’s what happened to her face.”

  “That’s terrible. It looks so painful.”

  Paige opened her mouth to reply but Thelma never gave her the chance.

  “Did they catch whoever hurt you? What about your friend, did my son catch whoever killed your friend?”

  “Mom.”

  Her gaze never left Paige. “It’s all very interesting, isn’t it?”

  Maybe if it happened to someone else.

  “Don’t worry dear,” Thelma continued, undaunted by Paige’s lack of response. “My son will…Justin?”

  The knife-sharp edge of concern in his mother’s voice drew Paige’s attention to Justin. His expression stilled and grew serious. He aimed a slight, almost imperceptible shake of his head to his mother, who continued without acknowledging.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Justin, your arm.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “But—”

  “Mom,” he countered instantly, his tone evoking no argument. “Let it go.”

  Thelma Kincaid nodded as she slid off the back of the couch. “Fine,” she stated softly, worry wrinkling the fine lines about her eyes. It was not difficult to see that she wanted to say more. “I’ll just be on my way. Make certain Allan gets that gift, will you? A pleasure meeting you, Ms. Conroy.”

  “Nice meeting you.”

  The room fell silent as Thelma made her way to the kitchen. When the door clicked shut behind her, Paige turned to Justin. “What’s going on?”

  The slow curving of his lips was meant to reassure. “Nothing.”

  She pushed her hand through her hair and told herself she should let it go. She couldn’t. She reached out and closed her hand over his arm. “Justin, my God, you’re trembling.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  Before she could argue, he slid his arm out from under her hand and stood. He tucked the fingers of his left hand into his jeans pocket and rolled his shoulder three times, the entire time watching her with an ‘I dare you to argue with me’ gleam in his eyes.

  She opened her mouth to do just that when the sudden ringing of a telephone stopped her. Justin crossed the room, retrieving his cell from atop the desk.

  “Harrison.” He listened for a minute, his mouth turning down into a frown. “I’m on my way.” He replaced the phone before turning back to her. “I gotta go.”

  “Work?”

  “Yes.”

  Meaning someone had died.

  Shoulders squared, he disappeared into the bedroom. A few moments later he came back out, a chambray shirt tucked into his jeans, boots on his feet. Silently, he returned to the desk and pulled open the bottom drawer. She watched him as he strapped his shoulder holster into place. Watched, as he slid his back-up weapon into his boot and then clipped his gold shield to his belt before scooping up his cell phone.

  As she watched, she waited for the fear that normally accompanied any reminder of his job to grab her by the throat. For her heart to begin thumping wildly against her sternum and her breath to back up.

  It didn’t.

  She didn’t know what to make of that.

  The change in his eyes and stiffening of his stance told her he had already slipped into work mode. She waited for him to close her out, or forget her presence altogether. That didn’t happen either.

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be,” he said, crossing to her. Justin slid his right arm around her waist and brought her to her feet. He drew her to him slowly, until their bodies met, and pressed his mouth to hers for a single, closed-lipped kiss. “Lock the door behind me.”

  Taken aback, Paige found herself unable to reply. He released her, headed through the kitchen and walked out the door.

  Mechanically, she followed and did as he instructed.

  * * * * *

  With the orange glow of the setting sun streaming through the clear glass, Justin stood before his living room window, his unfocused gaze aimed at the cool, spring night. Dressed in jeans and a gaping chambray shirt, he raked his fingers through his hair and waited for the absolute silence of the house to soothe his jagged nerves.

  In his years as a homicide detective, today’s was not the first murder/suicide he’d worked. Not the first time he’d felt the sadness wash over him as he studied the outcome of domestic violence, the frustration of being too late to save the life of the innocent child caught in the middle.

  It was, however, the first time he couldn’t seem to let it go. He’d remained away from his house for as long as he felt he dared. Yet even now, hours after leaving the scene, his emotions ran too close to the surface. His hands fisted at his sides and his blood churned over the senseless destruction of human life.

  Unbidden, the images returned. The tricycle in the driveway, wedged beneath the front bumper of the family sedan. The blood trail that led through the living room, into the baby’s room—to the young mother sprawled on the floor in front of the crib. Gut shot and bleeding to death, her only thought had been to protect her child from the monster unleashed in their home.

  The child’s father.

  Her husband.

  Ruthlessly pushing the memory away, Justin could only be thankful that Pai
ge had turned in early and wasn’t around to witness his state of mind. She wouldn’t want to be with him now, when he had nothing to share with her but this driving need to purge his mind of the images burned into the backs of his eyelids. To forget, just for a moment, the horror one human being could inflict upon another. And did, with what lately seemed to be increased frequency.

  He dragged in a slow breath, acknowledging it wasn’t just the homicide he’d worked that had his stomach churning with anxiety and frustration, but the ache in his side and the numbness in his left hand. Since his return to active duty and the murder of a Boston narcotics officer, his pain had become progressively worse. Twice this week his side had gone into spasms severe enough he’d sought solace in his brown bottle of pills. He wanted those pills now, their sweet oblivion. Especially after turning to his physical therapist for help, only to be told that he pushed himself too hard.

  Pushed too hard? Damn his pain and his fragility. He had no other choice but to keep pushing himself. Not if he meant to keep the woman, who at this very moment lay asleep in his bed, safe. And he would. No matter what it took, no matter how long, he would keep her safe.

  He had to, for over the past week she had become very important to him. He’d never wanted a woman so much in his life. Not the way he wanted Paige. What he wanted from her was on a far different level than what he’d wanted from any other woman before her. Frankly, that scared the hell out of him. He knew nothing of relationships past the pain of being left behind when someone walked away from one.

  Suddenly weary, Justin pressed his fingers against his closed eyelids. What had she said about relationships?

  “You enjoy someone’s company—spend time with them. Talk.”

  He could do that. Right now, he wanted to talk to Paige almost as much as he wanted to catch the sweet scent of her skin as he slid inside her warmth and lost himself in mind-numbing sex. Only, faced with the choice, he was fairly certain he would opt for the sex. And with anger still coursing through his veins, boiling his stomach acid, he couldn’t take the risk. If he hurt her, in his race to escape the images still tickling his retinas, he would never forgive himself.

  No, he couldn’t turn to her now, when he wasn’t one hundred percent. When the stench of death still clung to him, a testament to the violent end of one young family’s future. He couldn’t turn to Paige, or move to his desk and swallow one of those damnable pills.

  A vicious case of frustration had him balling his hands into fists. When an answering stab of pain shot down his left side, Justin cursed under his breath.

  He was in for a long night.

  Alone.

  With nothing more than his thoughts to keep him company.

  None of them pleasant.

  Chapter Eleven

  Paige hadn’t known sorrow had a scent. That it could pulse off a person like perfume and emanate throughout a room. Be drawn into her lungs and set off an answering ache inside her. She hadn’t known, until she stepped into the living room and discovered Justin before his front window.

  He stood with his back to her, his spine rigid, body held perfectly still as if he had a board strapped between his shoulder blades, making it impossible for him to relax his stance. Like so many times in the past few days, he had his left hand securely tucked in his pocket, while his right clenched and unclenched against his thigh.

  She wrapped her arms around her middle, wishing she had grabbed something more substantial to put on than one of his T-shirts when she heard his key in the door. She was suddenly cold all over, the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing up.

  As one hour alone shifted into two, then two into three, she’d begun to suspect the worst about what had called him out on a Saturday afternoon. His stiff, unyielding posture and troubled expression as he stood across the room and watched the night confirmed her suspicions. It had been bad, the scene he worked today. Bad enough to follow him home, to haunt him all these hours later.

  The need to staunch his pain grabbed her by the throat. How could she have ever mistaken this man for the hardened, unaffected cop Rick Preston had been? Both men might define themselves the same, by their job, but that’s where all similarities came to an end.

  Drawn by the iron set to his shoulders, she walked toward him, laying her hands upon the tensed muscles of his back. “Justin?”

  “Go back to bed, Paige.” His gaze locked with hers in the window’s reflection. “You don’t want to be around me right now.”

  “Are you okay?”

  He stepped away from her touch and turned to face her. “Fine.”

  But he wasn’t. His words were clipped, his stance even more severe and in his eyes, she could clearly see both pain and burning anger.

  “You can talk to me, you know.”

  “No.”

  That hurt. More than she wanted to admit. “You don’t think I would understand?”

  He shook his head. His eyes closed and then opened quickly as if something he didn’t wish to remember remained behind his lids. “There are some things you are better off not knowing about.”

  She reached up and cupped her hand to his face, smoothing the fingers of her left hand to his cheek. His pain was tangible. Her heart bled for him. “You have to let it go. There’s nothing more you can do tonight.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Justin—”

  “I’ve seen things that would make you sick. I know, because they make me sick. But it’s what I do, Paige, what I am. I’m a cop.”

  A tiny shiver ran down her spine. She moved marginally closer to him. “Is it me you feel the need to remind? Or yourself?”

  “I know what I am.”

  “So do I. You’re a man, with feelings that are eating you up inside. Tell me how I can help you.”

  Anything, she’d do anything to help him.

  “Go back to bed.”

  Except that.

  “If you want to rage, I’ll rage with you. If you need to break down, I’ll hold you. Whatever it is, I can take it. I’m here for you.”

  His nostrils flared. The intensity in his brown eyes shifted. Sorrow vanished like a wisp of smoke, leaving behind fire and devastating need.

  “Whatever I need?”

  No one had ever looked at her quite like that before. A burst of heat snapped along her nerves. She leaned into him, breathed in his spicy scent and placed a soft kiss against his throat. “Whatever you need.”

  His hand came up then fell back to his side without touching her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “You won’t.” A tiny shiver rippled through her as she splayed her palms against his shoulders and pushed his shirt down his arms to fall to the floor at his feet. “You won’t hurt me, Justin.”

  Her fingertips grazed the skin along his collarbone before sliding lower to circle his nipples. She turned her hands over, used the back of her fingers to follow the trail of hair down to the quivering muscles of his stomach, memorizing his body inch by inch. She skimmed her lips slowly across his shoulder, to the curve of his throat, pressed them against the steady beat of his heart. Her fingers splayed, slipped up his sides.