Protection Detail

by Julie Miller

  “More like words to die by.” He drilled her with a glare, demanding an explanation for that glib riff of sarcasm. She pulled the covers up over her lap and hugged her knees to her chest. “It’s part of the tattoo on Badge Man’s neck. I want all the details to be fresh in my mind, so I at least have a chance to see him before he k...finds me.”

  Kills me. That’s what she’d been thinking. Before he kills me. Did she believe that was the only way this was going to end? His chest was hurting again.

  Thomas pried the notebook from her hands and tucked it into the drawer of the bedside table. “That’s the last thing you need to be reading before you go to sleep tonight.”

  “Who says I’m going to sleep?”

  “Scoot over.”

  “Thomas, you shouldn’t be here.”

  “And you shouldn’t be playing bait for a serial killer. You shouldn’t have to be afraid.” Before she could slide out from under the covers on the opposite side, he was climbing onto her bed, lying on top of the quilt and gathering her into his arms. “How long will it take you to fall asleep tonight?”

  The quilt tangled between them as she squirmed. “I don’t know.”

  “Are you even planning on trying to sleep? Or will you be up roaming the halls again?”

  She pushed at his chest and squiggled in his grasp. “I’m sorry if my insomnia disturbs—”

  “Frankly, Ruby and I won’t be sleeping at all, worrying if you’re in here facing the nightmare of what happened three years ago. Reliving what happened Friday night and this morning. It’s fresh for you all over again. You got scared. Rightly so. I’ve seen your scars. I’ve seen pictures of what Badge Man does to his victims, and I know you saw it firsthand. I’d have been seriously concerned if you hadn’t reacted. Dad said you did some pretty crazy driving to stay ahead of that guy, and though you seem to think it’s a weakness, you went and got help when you needed it. You handled it the smartest way you could under the circumstances. Nobody got hurt. That’s always a good thing.”

  Jane stopped fighting him halfway through the lecture. He was more aware than he should be of her hands resting against his chest, of his thigh thrown over hers. Even with his beat-up nerves and a quilt between them, he could feel the sleek, warm curves of her body pinned against him. She wasn’t fighting to get away anymore. Her fingers had curled into the cotton of his faded gray KCPD T-shirt, and her hips had gone still against his.

  And that smile, on lips that didn’t smile often enough to suit him, might well be the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “Ruby worries about me?”

  Making her smile like that made him feel whole and powerful and potent.

  Thomas brushed a satiny fall of hair off her cheek and tucked it behind her ear. “She loses a lot of sleep over you.”

  “Does she now.”

  “Yes.”

  Jane was stretching up to meet him as he lowered his mouth to claim hers. Her lips parted, welcoming his hungry foray over every soft, silky centimeter of that smile. She scraped her palm over the stubble of his jaw and slid her arm behind his neck, running her fingers through his short hair and kneading his scalp. The tips of her breasts rubbed against him and pearled, branding his chest. He turned his attention to her sculptured cheekbone, the soft hollow underneath. He nibbled his way along the line of her jaw to the warm beat of her pulse beneath her ear. While he buried his nose in the citrusy clean scent of her hair, her teeth gently closed over the point of his chin, igniting a raw heat inside him.

  Her clever, confident hands roamed at will over his hair and face and neck and shoulders. And when one slipped beneath the cotton of his shirt to palm the flat of his stomach, his muscles jumped, each cell eagerly volunteering to meet her touch as she explored his chest and flank. Her hips twisted between his thighs, rubbing against his swelling heat, triggering a whole new kind of want inside him. Thomas tugged at the covers, needing to erase the barriers between them. He hooked his foot behind her knees and palmed her bottom, squeezing and pulling her into the helpless thrust of his hips. Reclaiming her mouth, he rolled her back onto the bed, partially covering her body with his weight. She kissed his neck, beneath his jaw, the corner of his mouth, before her fingers tangled in his hair and guided his mouth back to hers.

  Thomas willingly accepted the command, drinking his fill of the passion erupting between them. He fought with the quilt and the sheet and the elastic waistband of her pajamas until he could get his hand inside to grab a handful of her smooth, round bottom and angle her hips into his stiff arousal. She dug her fingers into his back and mewled in her throat as if she was as frustrated by the layers of material between them as he was.

  Drawn to the sexy purr, Thomas’s lips skidded over the tip of her chin to capture the sound of mutual desire. He touched the small knot of puckered skin and a warning bell went off inside his head. By the time he reached the second scar and pressed the gentlest of kisses there, he knew his timing was off. He must be sorely out of practice to think ravishing Jane was the smartest way to keep her safe.

  Exhaling a bone-deep sigh filled with the longing and regret that battered at his rusty emotions, he lifted his head and rolled back onto his side. He propped himself up on one elbow, willing the need stretching his shorts and jeans to defer to common sense. He pulled her pajamas back into place and tugged the covers over her.

  “Thomas?” Her eyes were dark with desire, almost completely green as she looked up at him. “Did the scars bother you?”

  “No.” It irritated him for her to even consider that he didn’t think she was beautiful. “Do mine bother you?”

  “No.”

  Her hand cruised over his hip toward his mangled leg, as if to prove her point. Reminding himself that he was trying to do the right thing here, he grabbed the straying temptation and brought her fingers up to his lips to kiss each one before splaying them over his heart. “As much as I’d like to finish this right now, you need your sleep.”

  Jane shifted onto her side, mirroring his position. She searched his face before reaching up to smooth down the wayward spikes of his hair. “This scares me—you and me.”

  “Haven’t you got enough to be scared about?”

  “Thomas, I never thought I’d have feelings for another man after Freddie.” She slid her fingers through his hair one last time before an earnest frown dimpled her smooth skin. “Given everything that’s happening, I don’t think I’m the best choice for you—for any man. Not until this is over. And it may never be over.”

  He leaned in to kiss the frown mark, gentling the spot until the tension eased beneath his lips. “Stop thinking and go to sleep.”

  She closed the few inches that separated them to rest her cheek against his shoulder. “Thank you for everything today. Will you stay with me?”

  “I thought I made that decision clear.”

  “Maybe instead of barging in and telling me, I wanted to ask you.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d say yes.” Thomas’s pulse quieted as he listened to the hushed tone of her voice.

  “Yes. My answer is yes.”

  “I didn’t ask yet.”

  Thomas growled. Was she teasing him with this battle of he said-she said?

  “I’m just talking about sleep,” she explained. “You’re right. I’d love to see where this chemistry between us leads, too. But the timing is off. We both need our rest so we can do our jobs and stay alert to our surroundings. But I seem to be cold a lot lately. I’d appreciate something warm to cuddle up against.”

  “Fine. I’ll be your furnace.” He rolled onto his back, slipping his arm behind her and snugging her to his side. “We’ll lie here for a while until you get warmed up. I can even get Ruby up here if you’re still cold.”

  “I think you can handle the job.” He held himself stil
l until she found a comfortable position to rest her arm across his stomach, and then she burrowed into him. “Did that hurt your feelings when I told Mutt and Jeff we were just friends?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “So it did. I’m sorry. I could tell they thought we were a couple. I didn’t want to embarrass you.”

  Thomas scoffed at the notion. “Why would that embarrass me? I’m the one who’s twenty years older than you. If it was true, they’d think I was a lucky son of a gun, and that you were stuck with me.”

  She braced her hand against his chest and pushed herself up onto her elbow beside him. He’d seen that chiding look in her eyes before when his dad said or did something she didn’t agree with. “No woman would ever be stuck with you. There’s not that big an age gap between us. And if there was, it wouldn’t matter. Not to me. You’re a grown man and I’m a grown woman. We both know how relationships work. Whatever we feel for each other...” He held his breath, waiting for her to finish that sentence. She changed course instead, settling back down beside him. “You’re already doing me this huge favor. I think things are too new between us to identify yet. I mean, this morning I was a crazy lady, and tonight you’re in my bed. There’s that whole boss-employee relationship I’m supposed to respect that’s clearly gone out the window, and I don’t even know if you still have feelings for your wife.”

  Why did tonight’s conversations all seem to come back to his late wife? “Mary’s been gone twenty years.”

  “There’s no timeline for grief. I lost a husband—I know. Most days I’m okay. I treasure all the laughs we shared, and how thoughtful he was. I’ve closed that chapter of my life and moved on. I’ve had to. But sometimes, I miss the plans we made that never came to fruition. Every now and then something completely unexpected will trigger a memory of Freddie, and his loss will feel fresh all over again.” She fell silent for a few moments, as if one of those memories had just hit her. But then she quietly added, “Mary’s picture is over the mantel in the living room. And you still have a picture of you and Mary on your wedding day in your bedroom.” Apparently, being still didn’t come easily for Jane. She pushed herself up again to find his gaze in the lamplight. “I wasn’t spying. Millie asks me to bring your laundry up with mine so she doesn’t have to do the stairs.”

  Thomas sifted his fingers into the fall of dark honey hair that brushed his chest. “The pictures are for my children. I always want them to know how much Mary loved them, and that her spirit will always be with them. As for me...” How did he feel about Mary now? He’d been lucky to have her in his life for even a short time. “There’s a part of me that will always love her. I think of her when I see her blue eyes in Keir, her love of books in Niall, in Duff’s big stubborn heart. And Olivia’s a dead ringer for her mama. I was shell-shocked when Mary died. I grieved for her. I was angry. Afraid about raising my kids on my own and being enough for them.” He tucked her back to his side, guiding her cheek to the pillow of his shoulder. “I made sure the men who killed Mary were arrested, and they will stay in prison for the rest of their lives. But I’ve put her to rest. I’m not stuck in the past if that’s what you’re asking. I’m not looking to replace her. If love comes around again, with the right woman, I’d be ready for it.”

  “Is there a woman, Thomas? Maybe you shouldn’t be in bed with me. Maybe I shouldn’t even be in this house with you.”

  When she started to pull her arm from his waist, he caught her hand to hold it in place and keep her beside him. “Go to sleep, Janie. There’s no other woman.”

  And hell. There wasn’t. Jane was the first woman to jump-start his heart since he lost Mary. It wasn’t all about the sexual attraction that hummed through his blood every time he saw her or touched her or talked to her. It wasn’t just about her needing him—needing a cop, needing his badge and experience to allay her fears and have her back. He was more alive arguing with this woman, kissing this woman, loving this woman, than he’d been with anyone else in years. He’d been dead inside, his feelings dormant. Like some little girl’s fairy tale, he’d been asleep until that first day at the hospital when Jane had challenged his authority over Seamus and she’d awakened his heart. No other woman besides Mary had ever possessed that kind of magic power over him.

  Maybe he’d be smart to think this through before he admitted anything like that, though.

  “Is there another man?” He should have asked that sooner. “Even with those baggy clothes and high collars you hide behind most of the time, you’re a pretty woman and I know they’re looking.”

  “Right.” She snorted against his chest. “Have you ever seen me go out on a date? Men aren’t comfortable around me. Most of the time I know what needs to be done so I take care of things. A lot of people interpret that take-charge personality as being, well, bitchy.”

  “Jane—”

  “Don’t think I haven’t heard your sons refer to me as Battle-Ax Boyle.” Before he could protest, he felt her mouth soften into a smile against him. “And don’t go calling any of them to chew them out on my behalf, either. Once I established myself as a member of this household, Duff, Niall and Keir treated me with nothing but respect.”

  Thomas was glad to hear that. But he still wasn’t happy to hear her describe herself as being some kind of witch who frightened men away. For all her strength, he was learning that there was an equal degree of vulnerability in her. Maybe that was why she insisted on being so stubbornly independent. “For the record, I’m not intimidated by you.”

  Her arm tightened around him in a hug. “Clearly. Or you wouldn’t be here. Most men turn away when I put on my back-off-and-leave-me-alone armor. But not Thomas Watson. He doesn’t scare easily. That’s one of the things I...like...about you.” She pulled her hand back between them, almost curling herself into a ball beside him, as though thinking she’d said the wrong thing or revealed too much. The teasing energy left her voice. “The only other man in my life is your father.”

  Like. Right. This was just a friendship clouded by fear and fatigue. She wasn’t going to admit to anything like love, and he wasn’t going to force her to turn a little bit of lust and gratitude into something more. “Dad doesn’t count. I think he’s sweet on Millie.”

  “He is. But he doesn’t think he’s the right man for her. With his injury and age, he doesn’t feel like he could make a relationship work.”

  Yeah, there was a lot of that going around. A deep breath eased in and out of Thomas’s tight chest.

  “I doubt I’ll get much sleep tonight,” she went on. “It’s already late and you’ve taken on the extra job of watching me, so you must be tired. If you want to go back to your room, I understand.”

  He tightened his arm behind her back, wishing he could squeeze the tension out of her body. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  But she was still trying to make light of the intimacy of their conversation—and of the deeper revelations that weren’t being shared, but that hung in the shadows around them. “I can take care of myself, you know. Insomnia is a classic symptom of PTSD. If the nightmares come or I hear something outside and get scared, or my thoughts are going ninety miles an hour and I have to get up, I will deal with it. I’ll try not to wake you. I’ll go out in the hall to pace so you and Ruby can still get your rest.”

  “Will you stop talking and relax? Do an old man a favor and go to sleep. I’m not leaving you. You need me—I’m here. You’re safe.”

  Jane nodded, perhaps finally believing him. “You’re not an old man,” she murmured, snuggling into his side. A big yawn turned her next words into a mumble that sounded a little like, “Too sexy for cats.” Since Ruby wouldn’t tolerate a feline in the house, he suspected she’d paid him a very nice compliment.

  Thomas smiled and pressed a kiss to her citrus-scented hair.

  She was asleep before he reached over to turn out the light.r />
  * * *

  THE UNHAPPY MAN smiled as he watched the light go out in the upstairs bedroom window.

  Even from this distance, sitting in his dark car, blending in with all the other vehicles parked along the street, he had a pretty good idea of the scene playing out in Thomas Watson’s house. He’d gotten a glimpse of the shadows moving through the hallway at the top of the stairs—Thomas’s big frame and the woman’s shorter, slighter silhouette. They’d been standing awfully close to each other.

  Had they gone to bed together? Was Thomas defiling his wife’s memory with that worthless substitute even now?

  His blood burned in his veins. His knuckles turned white on the steering wheel and he felt like he could break it in two beneath his hands.

  Thomas didn’t deserve to get laid. He didn’t deserve to find happiness with another woman. Mary Kilcannon should have been his. He’d loved her in a way Thomas never had. Mary never would have died so senselessly on his watch. Not if she’d been his.

  Thomas had to pay for taking Mary from his life.

  He’d ruined the wedding of Thomas’s daughter.

  He’d put Thomas’s father in the hospital, made sure Thomas and his sons and daughter would never rest easy because they didn’t know where the threat to their family was coming from.

  Now he wanted to break Thomas’s heart the way his old friend had once broken his. There were only a few days more until the anniversary of Mary’s death. And then Thomas’s punishment would end.

  Thomas Watson would end. Along with that little tramp he had the hots for.

  He opened his grip on the steering wheel and flexed his fingers, taking in several deep breaths to cool his vengeful temper back to rational thought. He relived the fun he’d had earlier yesterday morning, playing dress-up and driving like he was on a NASCAR track. He’d enjoyed it so much more than hiring someone else to do the job for him. At first, he’d been concerned about someone recognizing him and spoiling his retribution. He’d been content to watch the Watsons’ lives implode from a distance.