by Julie Miller
“I need to call the police.” Robin pulled her cell phone out of the same bag and hooked the flowered backpack over her uninjured arm. “Do you think it’s okay if we go back inside the shop? I want to get her out of the rain.”
She wanted him to move with the baby? The little thing stretched out, nestled her butt in his palm and turned her face into his chest as if she was settling in for the night. Hell, the thing was so tiny, he barely felt the weight of her lying across his arm. What if he stumbled? Or squeezed his big hand too hard? He was armed and dangerous, for Pete’s sake. “Lady—”
“Robin.” She’d already punched in the number and lifted the phone to her ear. “Call me Robin. And this is Emma.” She touched the infant again and nodded toward the green-and-white awning with the Robin’s Nest Floral Shop logo painted on it. “I must have wrenched my shoulder. I’d feel better if you carried her. Come on.”
Okay. Fine. If Robin was hurt, he could carry the baby. Carefully watching the infant in his left arm, Jake tucked the bat beneath his right elbow and nudged Robin into step ahead of him. “Let’s get you both inside.”
In just a couple of minutes, all the lights were blazing inside Robin’s shop and office, and Jake was more uncomfortable than before, if possible. He’d set the bat behind her office door and was pacing back and forth, from door to barred alley window, waiting for Robin to finish her conversation with the KCPD dispatcher and rescue the baby from him. Emma Carter was just so small and fragile, and he was so big and rough around the edges. He didn’t think it was a far-fetched possibility that he might accidentally snap the soft little thing in two.
Subduing a creep beating up a woman in a back alley, he could handle. But holding a tiny baby? Making civil conversation? Worrying about the stiff way Robin Carter was carrying herself? Trying not to peek while she tucked in her torn blouse and refastened her belt and jeans? Not his best thing.
Making the decision to trust him had sprung from the necessity of the situation. But the unfamiliar expectations that trust engendered made him a little nervous. As soon as she was done making her report, Jake intended to have her lock the door behind him and leave.
“Hey. You’ve got the touch.” Robin ended the call and came over to stroke Emma’s cheek. “I guess she’s decided she’s not afraid of you, either.”
It wasn’t until that moment that Jake realized the kid had stopped crying. He held his breath, afraid to move in case he’d done something wrong. “Is she okay?”
“She’s asleep. Haven’t you been around a baby before?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
Her gaze flashed up to his and Jake looked away. Normally, he didn’t slip like that. But no way was he going to share the blank page of his life.
Apparently, Robin was okay with his lack of an explanation. Or just more concerned about her daughter. She touched the baby’s cheek again and the little thing buzzed a tiny sigh through her pink lips. “I tried everything to get her to sleep tonight. She must feel your warmth and strength. Emma feels safe when you hold her.”
This time, Robin bobbed her head, her gaze chasing his, insisting his eyes lock on to hers. Once they did, he couldn’t look away from their gray-blue beauty and what just might be a hint of longing there. Like she thought it might be a good idea if he held her, too.
The last thing Jake needed was a distraction like that. He’d already spent too much time with the Carter girls. The smell of baby powder and flowers filled his nose. The baby’s implicit trust in him was already short-circuiting the perimeter he liked to keep between him and other people. He didn’t need Robin Carter’s more womanly scent clinging to him, too, lingering on his skin and clothes when he got back to his apartment, reminding him of everything that was missing from his life.
A woman and a child were things normal men had. Men cursed as he was couldn’t afford the indulgence.
Best to clear all those warm fuzzies out of his head right now. He handed Emma back to Robin and purposely retreated beyond arm’s length. “She’s just exhausted because it’s so late.”
“When she’s too tired, she usually fusses all the more. I think she likes you.”
“I hope her taste in men improves as she gets older.”
“Don’t.” Robin’s eyes snapped back to his.
“Don’t what?” He could see her bottom lip quivering despite the reprimand in her eyes. She was rethinking her decision about seeking help from such a villainous-looking stranger.
But she pressed those expressive lips together and pushed aside whatever doubt she was feeling. “I don’t know who you are, Mr. Lonergan. But I know who you are tonight. And I won’t have you trash-talking the man who saved me and my daughter.”
Huh? She was lecturing him? Most people scared off a lot easier than this woman did. A harsh glance or gruff word usually nipped any overtures of friendship in the bud. She was a stubborn one. Or crazy.
He watched how gently Robin carried the sleeping infant to the white bassinet in the corner and unsnapped the fuzzy yellow sleeper she was wearing. She undressed the baby, diapered her, put on a clean sleeping outfit and cap without the kid making another peep. “I don’t see any marks on her. She may just have been in the way of whatever that man wanted.”
“Thugs with knives and baseball bats don’t steal car seats.”
“He had a knife, too?” She gave him a sharp glance, then winced at the sudden movement.
“He pulled it on me. Used it to slice through that seat belt, too, I’m guessing. You’re lucky he didn’t cut you.”
The color in her cheeks was fading again. “So why hurt Emma if he wanted to rape me?”
“I’m guessing he just wanted her out of the way. She’d be dead if that was what he wanted.”
Robin’s weary sigh made him regret the harsh honesty. She covered Emma with the flannel blanket before looking at him. “You’re not much for giving a girl hope, are you?”
Nah. He wasn’t much of one for hope of any kind.
Better stick to the tough words and keeping his distance to remind himself that spending these few minutes with Robin and Emma Carter was a one-time thing. He could save her from being raped or worse. But he couldn’t do the whole you’re-my-hero domestic bliss thing. “So what were you two doing out so late in this part of town?”
Robin opened a cabinet behind her desk and pulled out a thin baby towel that she tossed across the room to him. Apparently, he’d finally made his desire to keep some distance between them clear. He dried his face and arms while she pulled out a second towel to dab at her own pale skin. “I own this shop. Emma usually doesn’t fall asleep for the night until around eleven or twelve. I thought I’d take advantage of her schedule and catch up on some work.”
“Well, don’t do it again.”
“No. I won’t.” She towel-dried her hair, scrunching it into sable-colored waves that framed her face. “I shouldn’t have let work take over like that. I was worried something was wrong and I wanted to fix...” She stopped that excuse on a purposeful sigh. “I know better. With the Rose Red Rapist still around... Do you think that was him?”
Jake shrugged. Even amongst criminals there was a hierarchy of what was acceptable and what was not. A lowlife who preyed on a woman with a small baby in tow was pretty low on the list—at least in Jake’s book.
Maybe she hadn’t gotten the distance message, after all. She circled the desk and plucked the damp towel from his hands. “Did you get a look at his face? All I saw was the mask...and the baseball bat. When he dragged me behind the van, I thought...” She hugged the wadded-up towels to her chest and that full bottom lip quivered again. Jake’s human impulse was to reach out and offer some kind of comfort. But his survival instincts curled his fingers into a fist down at his side, instead. “All I could think of was that I had to stay alive for Emma’s sake.”
“Yeah.” He wasn’t real comfortable making small talk and keeping her company until the police arrived on the scene—e
ven though he knew several of the officers and detectives in this precinct because they frequented the Shamrock Bar where he worked most nights. He was even less comfortable with the unfamiliar desire to pull those slender shoulders against his chest and shield her from the fear that lingered in her eyes.
No connections. No commitments. No caring.
Those were the three Cs he’d lived by for the past two years. They were the only way he could guarantee that the nightmares from his forgotten life couldn’t come back and destroy anyone else before he had the chance to remember the truth—good or bad—and to deal with it.
“Mr. Lonergan?” He realized she was still waiting for him to answer her question. “Did you see him?”
“I didn’t see his face.” She carried the towels to a hamper beside the bassinet and dropped them inside. “But he was short for a man—not much taller than you. And he could run like the devil.”
“Would you have tried to capture him if you weren’t worried about me?”
Jake considered the honest answer. True, he couldn’t have run the guy down. But he could have pulled the gun from his ankle holster and shot him—probably hit his mark, too. Even in the dark. In the rain. Although he hadn’t shot a man in the two years he could remember, Jake had the strongest feeling that he was able to make a shot like that. How else could a man handle a knife the way he could, and know so much about weaponry and choke holds and throwing a punch?
But there was honest, and then there was too much honesty. He suspected that informing Robin Carter he carried both a gun and a hunting knife, and that he possessed the skills to use them better than most, wouldn’t give her the reassurance she was looking for right now. He shook his head. “One good deed for the night’s all I got in me.”
“I asked you not to say things like that.”
“Look, lady—”
“Robin,” she corrected him. “I also asked you to call me Robin.”
He blew out a long sigh, conceding to her will—for the few moments longer he intended to be a part of her life. “Robin. You don’t really know me. You shouldn’t automatically trust me.”
“I trusted you because I had to. You haven’t disappointed me yet.”
Oh, hell. That sounded like some sort of relationship had been forged between them.
Jake was relieved as much as he was on edge when he heard the sirens in the distance outside. He nodded toward the back door where they’d come in. “You stay here with the kid. I’ll wait outside and show the police in.”
It was one thing to serve a cop a drink. It was something else to stand there and answer his questions, maybe come under scrutiny himself for wandering the streets so late at night. And being armed the way he was bound to raise a few suspicions.
Jake surmised the distance and direction of the approaching flashing lights. He paused for one shameless moment to admire the apple-shaped curve of Robin Carter’s backside, emphasized by the clinging hug of her wet jeans, as she bent over the bassinet, tending to her sleeping baby again.
The cops were close enough. She’d be safe.
“Thank you again, Mr. Lonergan. By the way, you never told me your first name...”
He never heard the end of her sentence. By the time she straightened from the bassinet, he was gone.
Chapter Three
“You take care of whatever you need to and don’t worry about Emma.” Hope Lockhart pulled her toffee-blond hair from beneath Emma’s head where it nestled on her ample bosom and shook the loose, sleep-rumpled curls down her back. “I’ll take her across the street and get the spare room ready for you two. It’ll be a lot quieter in my apartment and she can sleep. You know I like hanging out with sweetie-pie here.”
Robin followed her friend into the hallway outside her office and pulled the blanket up over her sleeping daughter’s head. “I’m so glad you came over, Hope. Thank you.”
“Not a problem. When I heard the sirens and saw all the lights... You know what I thought.” Hope’s fearful expression echoed what every woman thought whenever KCPD, reporters and an ambulance gathered in this part of Kansas City—the Rose Red Rapist had claimed another victim.
Robin adjusted the ice pack over her bruised shoulder and gave her friend a hug. “I’m okay. At least, I will be once all the craziness calms down.”
When she pulled away, Hope’s deep gray eyes had narrowed into a frown behind the glasses she wore. She was looking beyond Robin’s shoulder to the three KCPD investigators inside her office. “Can’t you tell these people to go away and leave you alone, at least until daylight? It’s not fair that the victim has to deal with all this after being attacked. I don’t think I could handle so many people poking into my life, wanting something from me.”
Robin summoned a smile as she pulled together the gaping collar of the trench coat Hope had thrown on over her nightgown before running downstairs from her apartment above the Fairy Tale Bridal Shop she owned across the street. Her shy friend was stronger than she gave herself credit for. “Who came charging over here in the middle of the night when she thought Emma or I might be hurt?”
“I didn’t stop to think about it—I just did it. And you are hurt.” Hope tucked a damp, frizzing tendril behind her ear. “But talking to those detectives in your office without stumbling over my words and sounding like an idiot? Trust me, I’d rather babysit.”
“Well, I’m grateful.” Robin leaned in and pressed a goodbye kiss to Emma’s soft, warm cheek. She pulled back with a stern, sisterly warning for her friend. “Make sure one of the officers walks you across the street. Even that short distance isn’t safe anymore.”
“I will. I saw Maggie Wheeler outside, blocking off the parking lot with crime scene tape. She’s a client of mine. I’m planning her wedding to that Marine, remember? I ordered her flowers through you—”
“Detective Montgomery?” The back door slammed shut and a man’s deep voice called out, interrupting Hope’s soft gasp. The pungent smell of wet dog tickled Robin’s nose a split second before Hope hugged Emma tightly to her chest and retreated a step.
“Hope? What is it?” Robin turned at her friend’s stricken expression to see a K-9 officer with his brown-and-tan German shepherd partner striding down the hallway. The dog paused when his handler did, and shook himself from nose to tail. The cop pulled off his black KCPD ball cap and knocked the excess water against his pant leg, leaving a similar spray of water droplets on the concrete floor.
“Detective Montgomery?” The officer rapped sharply on the frame of the door to Robin’s office. His square jaw warmed with a shade of pink when he realized the two women were staring at him. “Sorry, ma’am. If you point me to a mop, I can clean up after Hans and me.”
Robin suspected the blush on those rugged features meant the apology was sincere. “That’s okay. I deal with plenty of water around all these flowers. That’s why the floor is sealed and the walls have moisture-resistant wallpaper. I’ll wait until everyone’s done before I tackle the footprints and rain we’ve all tracked in.”
“Pike?” Spencer Montgomery, the red-haired detective who seemed to be running this whole show, looked up from the notepad where he’d been jotting information and joined them at the doorway. He tucked the notepad and pen inside the pocket of his suit jacket. “Did you two find anything?”
“Rain’s washed away any scent we can track.” The nameplate on the officer’s uniform identified him as E. Taylor. Pike must be a nickname. “Looks like there was a scuffle in the alley, though—away from the loading dock where Ms. Carter said she ended up. The perp could have escaped through there easily enough. As for the man you claim rescued you—”
“He did.”
“—I’ve got no clue where he disappeared to. There’s no car, no footprints, no sign of him anywhere.”
Spencer Montgomery nodded. “His sudden departure might mean he has reason to avoid talking to the police.”
The need to defend the man who’d saved her life charged Robin’s weary body
with renewed energy. “And it might mean he had to get to work at an early morning job. Or go home to his family.”
As soon as she said the words, Robin wondered if there was any truth to them. There was something about Mr. No-Name Lonergan—his reluctance to hold Emma, his gruff demeanor and brute strength, that odd comment he’d made about not knowing if there were any children in his life—that made Robin think he was a man without any familial connections to civilize him. What kind of man roamed a downtown neighborhood in the middle of the night during a storm without benefit of umbrella, raincoat or even a cap? Where had he come from? Why had he disappeared? Where had he learned that choke-hold thing he’d done to her attacker? He’d never given her his first name, and she’d been too out of it to even think to ask. What if Lonergan was a criminal? He certainly looked the part of a TV or movie villain with that scarred face and misshapen nose that indicated he’d seen more than one fight in his lifetime.
But something about the sense of isolation that had fit him as tightly as the T-shirt he’d worn tugged at her compassion. She didn’t suppose he owed her anything, not even the courtesy of a proper goodbye. But she owed him everything. Bad guy or not, he’d been her hero. Robin swore to herself, not for the first time that night, that she would track down her mysterious savior and thank him properly for being there when she and Emma had needed him.
“Maybe.” The detective seemed to consider her reasoning and then dismissed any option but his own. Lonergan was still a person of interest, if not a viable suspect, on his list. Spencer Montgomery glanced up at the K-9 officer and gave his orders. “Keep an eye on things until the CSI’s are done processing the scene. And keep those damn reporters out of everyone’s way. We’ll debrief later this morning.”
“Yes, sir.” After he’d been dismissed, and the lead detective had returned to his conversation with his partner in her office, the brawny K-9 officer looked down at Hope, still frozen in place beside Robin, and winked. “Hans won’t hurt you, ma’am. Not unless I tell him to.” The officer’s teasing grin vanished when Hope’s eyes widened like circles rippling across a lake. He quickly raised a gloved hand. “But I would never give him that order. I just meant he only does what I tell him to. Ma’am?”
