But that didn’t mean he was looking forward to the moment Dan figured it out.
Kelly was still staring at him, and he realized he hadn’t answered her question. “She’s keeping herself together. You know how strong she is.”
“Yes, I do. I also know that she won’t let her fear show to those around her.”
J.T. knew that, too. “I know. And she’s scared. But she trusts me—us—to keep her safe. And I’m going to.”
“I have no doubt you will.” Kelly squeezed his hand and leaned against his shoulder. J.T. hugged her quickly, knowing she didn’t really like it when people touched her too much. He knew quite a bit about her past at the hands of an abusive mother.
Whereas Emma had apparently coped by dreaming about the day she returned to her father who loved her, Kelly had coped by withdrawing.
He and Josh—a victimologist and criminal profiler—had discussed the Reynolds daughters quite a few times before.
“You need a break? We’ll stay here and wait for her, if you do.”
J.T. considered it. But he’d told he would be the one out there waiting for her. “Just a quick trip to the restroom. I told her I’d be here when she finished.”
Josh had a look in his eyes that told J.T. his friend at least suspected something more was going on. He and Josh would have to talk the first chance they got. “I’ll be right back.”
“We’ll stay right here.”
Chapter Fifteen
It actually disappointed her to see her sister and Josh waiting with J.T. when she left her class. She’d wanted to run to him and throw her arms around him and celebrate what she knew was an aced test.
One she’d struggled with and had spent eighty percent of her study time preparing for.
Instead, she forced herself to play it cool as she approached the three of them.
Her sister hugged her, hard. “Em…I’m sorry this is happening. I can stay with you at J.T.’s if you want.”
And crimp her plans with J.T.? “No. I don’t want you to. I don’t want you put in the middle.”
“Em…”
“Kelly…” Emma sent her sister a significant look. One that let Kelly know Emma meant it. She didn’t need her sister in between her and a stalker, for goodness sake. That was the whole reason she’d agreed to stay with J.T.
Well, no it wasn’t.
She wanted to be with him. But Kelly didn’t know how Emma felt about J.T. Emma had never told her.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“We just flew in from Indy.”
“How did it go?”
“It was ok. It’s done.” The strain around Kelly’s eyes told a different story. Her sister had always hated testifying. “Let’s focus on finding the creepoid doing this to you.”
“J.T. and Dad have it covered, Kel. I promise. I’m not worried. And I’m not stupid. I’ll be ok.” She knew why her sister was so freaked out, after everything that had happened to Kelly. She’d been shot and then blown up because of a crazy stalker after one of her best friends. It had left an impression on all of them.
And J.T. had been there for Emma when she’d needed him because he cared about her father. And that was what people who cared did.
Emma decided to heck with it. She wrapped her fingers around J.T.’s. And didn’t pull away.
She wasn’t ashamed of the changes between them.
And she hoped he wasn’t either.
He had a surprised look in his eyes. She smirked at him. Tightened her hand on his.
J.T. smiled, then laced his fingers through hers and pulled her closer. “I’m taking care of your sister, Kelly. I can promise you that.”
“Uh…well…ok. Guess I didn’t see that coming. If the two of you are sure of what you’re doing…then…ok. I guess. Does Dad know?”
“He knows I’m staying with J.T. obviously. Look…” Best to just get it over with, wasn’t it? To cut off the questions before they even started. “I’ve had feelings for J.T. for a very long time. And I finally told him. So, yeah, there has been a huge benefit to all of this. I finally stopped being a chicken.”
“And J.T. finally stopped being clueless.” Josh pushed J.T.’s shoulder. “I wondered what it would take for him to get the hint.”
“You knew?” Emma asked. Of course Josh knew. He was one of the most perceptive people Emma had ever met. And the one who’d spent the most time with her and J.T. outside of her father’s house. “Of course you did. Well…anyway. I have another class in ninety minutes. I usually find lunch and a quiet place to study. There’s a food court four buildings over. If you two are planning to join us?”
“You might call it that. Consider me J.T.’s backup detail for the next few hours.”
“I just tagged along to check on you before going to Dad’s this afternoon.” Her sister was still looking at her, a worried expression in Kelly’s eyes.
No surprise, Emma knew the truth—Kelly worried about everything, though she rarely let that show to outsiders. It was a shell she’d developed thanks to their mother.
Their mother had targeted Kelly from the moment they’d lost their father. Or rather…been taken from him through their mother’s lies and deceptions.
“I’m ok, Kelly. I just want to focus on my exams today and then finding the stalker. I want him finished and out of my life so that I can focus on the next plan. I’m about to graduate. I don’t want this guy giving what should be one of the highlights of my life right now a dark tone. I want to celebrate this, not be afraid to enjoy it.”
“And you will celebrate. We will. This is just one guy,” Kelly said. “Up against all of the best the FBI has to offer. All Dad—or J.T. and Josh—have to do is ask the best profilers in the world who this guy may be. Then J.T. or Carrie Lorcan can do their magic. We’ll have a list of names and we’ll find him.”
“I hope it’s that simple.”
Chapter Sixteen
J.T. wished it was that simple. But Kelly had gotten the gist of the process right. They enjoyed a lunch in the food court, the four of them. Emma was cuddled up against his side, right where she belonged.
She ate half his French fries, but he didn’t mind. It was good to see her laughing and cutting up, rather than frightened of a faceless threat.
And it was obvious she enjoyed being in her sister and Josh’s company. That made things simpler for him, too. Josh was his best friend, and he spent a lot of his spare time with the other guy. Like Emma spent a lot of her spare time with Kelly.
After she was settled into the second final exam, with him sitting in the corner working on his tablet thanks to a more sympathetic female professor, it occurred to him the direction his thoughts had taken him.
He was already planning out how they’d spend their free time together.
Did that make him weird? Or was he just thinking positive? Thinking that he could so easily build a real relationship with Emma? A future?
It did feel right.
And for a strange reason that idea didn’t terrify him.
***
“I did it!” Emma saw J.T. standing in the hallway next to her dad. She jumped into J.T.’s arms and he caught her, like she knew he would.
She kissed him, quickly but enthusiastically. Then she wiggled out of his hold and hugged her dad. She jumped up and down and repeated it. “I did it!”
“Jumping the gun? You might have bombed…” J.T. said.
“I know I passed. I can only think of one or two questions that I wasn’t entirely certain of. Let’s go celebrate!” She turned to the other important man in her life. “Daddy? Want to go get a drink at Smokey’s?”
Her dad was looking at her and J.T. and it hit Emma what she’d done. In front of him.
“You two go ahead. I have a few people I’m going to talk to here on campus. Enjoy yourselves.” He looked at J.T. “I’ll call you with anything I find. We’ll talk, then, son.”
***
J.T. knew what that conversation would be a
bout and he forced himself not to feel nervous. Whatever happened between him and Emma, it had nothing to do with her father. And he’d made his choice.
She’d made hers, too.
In the meantime, he’d take her somewhere to forget the threat against her, and let her father find the guy responsible.
He’d protect, her father would defend. That would work for all of them.
J.T. had parked as close to the building as he possibly could, for the added security bonus. Cars under streetlights were statistically better protected.
“J.T., your car…” Her hand tightened on his arm. His free hand dropped to the gun he wore at his hip. He saw it, easily.
His windshield had been busted out, and the word bitch had been scratched it the surface over the passenger side door. “Back inside. We’ll let your dad deal with this once I know you are safe.”
“Why is someone doing this?”
“Because they’re sick in the head.” He kept her close at his side until he got her back inside the building they’d just left.
The one the stalker was most likely still in. “Call your dad, tell him to get here now.”
Chapter Seventeen
Every bit of euphoria Emma had been feeling evaporated in an instant. Had she actually forgotten why she was with J.T. in the first place?
Her dad and J.T. went into super-agent mode the instant her dad was informed about J.T.’s car.
His car, because of her.
Why?
It wasn’t right that someone thought they had the right to make someone else feel this way. To decide who and what someone else could do.
To terrify someone this way and try to control them.
Why?
She tried to stay out of the way. To let the people who knew what they were doing work. Her dad had called in a few favors, and Ed Dennis, boss of the entire PAVAD division of the FBI, showed up fifteen minutes later. With half a dozen of the people her dad worked with. Paige and her fiancé Mick were there, Josh had rejoined them, and some of J.T.’s teammates.
They were there, to help her.
That mattered. A lot.
It made it hurt a little less.
Chapter Eighteen
They had four names, including two of the three professors she’d been with that day. It was a sobering thought, but one that wasn’t completely unexpected.
J.T. knew the statistics, and knew she’d most likely spent at least a small portion of her time in the same room as her stalker.
But that he hadn’t been in the room with her while she was with those two men pissed him off. What if they’d tried something while she’d been in the room with him?
With him out in the hallway, he might not have been able to help her in time.
He kept a tight hold on her, but sensed she didn’t mind. Her hand clung to his just as tightly.
Dan had mobilized agents to talk to her professors and to the two classmates who’d had prior records for stalking type offenses. Nearly a third of all stalkers had stalked before, and while that wasn’t a majority, having four possibilities out of all the people she came into contact with on a regular basis was a good place to start in J.T.’s book.
After his car was processed and towed away to be repaired, Dan insisted on driving them to J.T.’s house.
It was a mostly silent ride.
When they arrived, Dan accompanied them in, but left his engine running.
After they were certain the house was secure Dan headed for the door. J.T. walked with him.
“Dan…I…”
Dan held up a hand. “Make her happy, and I’ll be your best friend. Make her unhappy…well…we both know what I am capable of.”
J.T. swallowed.
Dan laughed. “Relax, son. I’ve known how she’s felt for a long time. I am her father, after all. And she wants to be with you. I have to say I’m proud she seems to be able to judge a man appropriately.”
The compliment humbled J.T. “It surprised me. I guess I was afraid a girl like her could never be interested, so I didn’t let myself think about it.”
“And that’s one of your faults. You don’t see yourself the way those who know you do. You’re a good man, and we both know there are those out there she could have encountered who cannot say the same thing. Yes, she’s my baby girl. But she knows her own mind. I’ll just repeat…take care of her.”
“I’ll do that. I promise you that.”
“On that note. Josh and Chalmers have agreed to sit your street tonight. Just as a precaution. And Mick Brockman’s going to take a day to help run down the guy. We’ll sic him on this guy. Plant the fear of God in him.”
“Thanks. I can’t think of anything else more terrifying. That’s legal, anyway.”
Chapter Nineteen
Emma heard the door shut behind her father, and then it was just her and J.T. When he entered the kitchen area where she was pacing around the island, she stopped and just looked at him. “Well. Now what?”
“Now…we wait. We let your dad and the people who are good at this do what they do.”
“You’ve done this for other people. How do they deal with the fear?”
“By not letting it guide their lives. I’m not saying they do something stupid, like try to confront the guy themselves, but they can’t live their lives afraid.” He looked at her with blue eyes that were so serious. “The fear eats at some. And I can’t blame them. Stalkers affect one in six women, and one in nineteen men. That isn’t right. Ever.”
Emma shivered, thinking about the victims out there who didn’t have people like J.T. or her dad to help them. “No, it’s not.”
He stepped closer and Emma slipped into his arms.
He held her, feeling perfect and right and safe. “I just want this to end.”
“And it will. Promise you that.”
***
J.T. kissed her hair. She clung to him, making feel like a hero—and an ass. He should have found this guy by now. Given her the real reassurance that the guy wouldn’t bother her again.
But he couldn’t do that. All he could offer her was the reassurance that he was there for her, and that the best of the FBI was working the case. It wasn’t technically a PAVAD case, but the director could call it as he saw it.
And Ed Dennis owed both Dan and J.T. some serious favors.
Some of the information J.T. had been tasked with ferreting out for the director over the years had been questionable in legality. Had J.T. not liked, trusted, and respected the director, he wouldn’t have felt so comfortable going out on that extra limb.
But he had, and the director had pulled him aside to make it known that the director had J.T.’s back on this matter.
As did Dan.
“Hey, we’ve got the best of the FBI on this. It’s just a matter of time. Then you can go home, and we can redo the whole movie thing, this time with me aware of the way things are supposed to be.”
“I went home convinced there was no way we’d end up like this that day. Glad to see I was wrong.”
She gave a watery smile, one that had him melting again.
Damn. He had it bad for this woman, didn’t he?
He probably always would.
Chapter Twenty
Emma knew he was going to kiss her again. And that was exactly what she wanted. Mostly she just needed held. Apparently he understood that. He kissed her, then had her gasping for breath when he lifted her and carried her into the living room.
He lowered her to the couch in a perfectly romantic, surprising-for-J.T. style move. It had her struggling to catch even a bit of breath.
She ran her fingers through his hair, the strands a warm golden blond that stuck up all over his head with only a little encouragement from her hands. He was absolutely perfect.
“I think…given half the chance, I could fall completely in love with you.” Too soon, definitely. But Emma had never believed in beating around the bush. He needed to know how she felt, and the only way to make things cl
ear to him was to tell him. “I don’t want that to scare you, but it’s how I feel. I’ve cared about you for almost as long as I’ve been in St. Louis.”
His expression was one of sincerity. “And I’ve had a thing for you almost from the moment you stepped on your dad’s porch. I was just too stupid and too scared to do anything about it. And then I convinced myself there was no chance, and that we were better off keeping it as friends. I’m glad you made me see the error of my ways. So…we’ll keep this going, see what happens?”
“I’m all for that…if you are.”
“I most definitely are.” He grinned at her. She reached up and straightened the glasses on his nose.
The window shattered around them.
Emma screamed.
J.T. yanked her off the couch and down between the couch and the coffee table. He covered her with his own body. “Stay down!”
Chapter Twenty-One
J.T. had his weapon pulled and had his body between hers and the window at all times. And he knew there would be backup arriving soon.
But the knowledge that there were agents outside on their way in did little to reassure him that she was safe in that instant.
It hadn’t been gunfire through the window. He would have heard that and it was a sound he’d heard before. He wouldn’t have mistaken it.
And the bright blue splotch of paint splattered across his ceiling and back wall told him it had been a paintball gun.
Still, if it had been a real weapon one or both of them could have been dead by now. What the hell had happened?
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