The Promise He Made Her

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “I get the idea she has a mind of her own and doesn’t plan to let that creep husband of hers hold her hostage.”

  Minor discomfort became not so minor. “Meaning?”

  Shaking her head, her ponytail swaying, Chantel twisted her mouth and said, “I don’t know, Sam. She’s a hard one to read.”

  Not if you knew her well enough.

  The thought came unbidden to his head. He held on to it.

  “Anyway, I’ve got a thing with Colin tonight and I know you wanted to be with Bloom when Freelander’s officially released, so can you get her from work? Stay with her until I get there?”

  He welcomed the chance. “Any idea how late you’re going to be?” he asked, because it seemed like an expected response.

  “If that rich and powerful fiancé of mine had his way it would be all night. But I’ve already told him I’ll attend his fund-raiser with him as long as he has me back to my car by eleven.”

  Which would put her at the house by eleven-fifteen. Give or take five.

  “You going to show up in your finery?” He’d heard talk around the station of the astonishing change she could pull off in very few minutes, but he’d never seen it for himself. From what he’d heard, she’d never seen it either until she’d been forced, while working as an undercover dilettante, to buy some designer clothes and learn how to wear makeup.

  “I’m stopping by my place to change,” she said, shrugging. And then grinned. “It drives Colin nuts, and it’s good to keep him on his toes,” she said. “Keeps him from taking me for granted.”

  He harrumphed. Had no interest in being privy to any romantic entanglements between...anyone.

  “I thought you were living with him.” He only thought about the arrangement because she’d been the talk of the station a few months before. A real Cinderella tale. And he’d had his doubts about how a beat cop tomboy would fit in with the highfalutin lawyer’s fanciness. Eating off fine china every day.

  “Him and his sister, at the family estate,” she said. “But I kept my place, too. Colin’s actually started to like slumming with me a night or two a week. Gives us time alone. And gives Julie, his sister, a chance to entertain without us around.”

  He’d heard about the girl only enough to know she’d been a victim of date rape. He nodded politely, ready to move on, and noticed his captain coming toward them.

  The grim look on the black man’s face didn’t bode well. If it was a case that was going to take him out of commission he’d have to pull some kind of favor and get out of it.

  “You’ll be getting the email shortly, but I wanted to tell you personally, you didn’t get the approval for extra coverage,” Captain Salyers said. He didn’t sound happy. “With the new regime, with everyone looking, we can’t pull favors. Most particularly not for the town’s elite.”

  The words running through Sam’s mind weren’t for speaking.

  Chantel’s booted feet landed on the floor. “How is it a favor to protect a woman whose ex has threatened her life and who’s getting out of jail on a technicality? How is that not a given?”

  “That’s just it,” the captain said, looking between the two of them. “The threat against her life hasn’t been substantiated in any official way. And the reversal on the case wasn’t our mistake. The commissioner said to take it up with the prosecutor’s office. Get them to come up with the money for off-duty cops. If the prosecutor’s office does it, it’s fair pay for wrongdoing. If the commissioner allots funds, without wrongdoing on the part of the police department, it’ll look like he’s doing favors.”

  And the new commissioner had some heavy footsteps to obliterate.

  “Because we don’t have a crime here,” Sam said succinctly. Nodding. He understood. Cops weren’t officially in the business of prevention. Only cleanup. It was messed up.

  But nothing he was going to change in time for his purposes.

  Salyers made a couple of suggestions regarding requests made to the district attorney’s office, who to contact, what he might want to say. Sam could feel Chantel’s gaze on him as he listened to his superior. He nodded, took down a name and thanked him.

  “You think the DA’s office will move on this today?” she asked as soon as Salyers was out of earshot.

  “I’m not going to risk it,” he told her. He’d put in the request. Stupid not to. And if approval came at some point, great. But in the meantime, “I’m on to plan B,” he told her.

  “You can’t afford to pay for round-the-clock protection on your own, Sam.”

  “I made a promise to that woman. I promised that if she testified she’d be safe.”

  “You promised her her ex would be in prison for the rest of his life.”

  Chin jutted, he nodded slowly. “He will be. And I intend to keep her safe until that happens.”

  “I’ll talk to Colin...”

  Sam’s head shot up. “I did not ask you to help me with this to get money out of that rich fiancé of yours.”

  “You didn’t ask, period, Larson. I’m on the High Risk Team, too, remember? I offered. And Colin donates money all over the state. He’s giving regularly to The Lemonade Stand now...”

  A unique women’s shelter in town that was changing the world one life at a time. Sam had been there several times, interviewing victims. It was a good place. Necessary. Deserving of any monies it could get.

  Bloom had spent time there after the trial...

  “Colin’s sister was a victim of an unethical police commissioner,” Chantel reminded him. “He’ll gladly support someone who is now caught in the system due to the commissioner’s professional demise. And even if he wouldn’t, Julie would. She has half of the Fairbanks fortune.”

  Sam wasn’t feeling charitable. Mostly because he couldn’t afford to be as charitable as Chantel’s intended. Or Bloom’s ex.

  Or Bloom, either, for that matter.

  All night he’d been aware of the fact that he’d taken the lovely princess out of her castle. Wondering how Bloom was acclimating.

  She was “slumming it,” as Chantel had just said about Colin. And Sam’s home was the slum.

  The dichotomy was not lost on him.

  And shouldn’t matter. He was in her life to do a job. Period.

  “I’ll make some calls,” he told Chantel. “Get a crew together. I’ll plan to pay them. If you come up with donations, they’ll be appreciated.”

  He’d only been married once. Hadn’t made any more money than his wife had so he hadn’t had to pay alimony. He’d acquired the cottage at a steal. Lucy didn’t care about diamonds or furs; she ate out of a forty-pound bag. And he made a good salary and had enough put away to pay for protection. For a while, at least.

  Plus, he had years ahead of him to rebuild his heirless savings.

  What good was a safety net if it couldn’t be used to keep someone safe?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SHE’D BEEN EXPECTING CHANTEL. Had been looking forward to making spinach salad for the woman who was giving up time with her new family—living in an old cottage with her instead of the mansion that was now her official home—just because Ken was getting out of jail.

  Hating that people were having to rearrange their lives because of her, she was more determined than ever to contact Ken as soon as possible. He knew her, but she knew him, too. Better now than she ever had before. She knew his weaknesses. His vulnerabilities. She knew why he had issues. And her biggest advantage was that he knew she knew.

  He had to beat her at mind games. Period. Had to prove to himself that he was superior to any woman. Every woman. Because of the humiliating things his mother had done to him when he was a kid. Making him pay for the fact that he’d been born male right after his father had left her for another woman. For getting in her way when she’d brought jerk after
jerk home to take his father’s place.

  The woman had done bad things. Inconceivable, really, for a mother to do to a son. Nothing as overt as hitting him. She’d left no external bruises. Had inflicted very little physical pain. Bloom had fallen in love with the man that little boy had become. It was only years later that she’d been forced to confront his shadow side.

  Or rather, now was when she was going to confront it. She’d only been its victim in times past.

  A youngish-looking man waiting in the vestibule opened the door for Bloom as she headed out of her building, on her way to meet the man waiting at the end of the walk to escort her to her car. Chantel had called to let her know that Sam Larson would be picking her up after work.

  “Have a good evening,” her door-holder said, giving her a head-on, but otherwise situation-appropriate look.

  That was when she realized she’d seen him in the hallway earlier when she’d left her office to go down the hall for a soda. Pretending that her insides weren’t suddenly shaking, determined to act as though her evening was going to be like any other, she nodded and moved past him, bracing herself for any sudden move he might make. She stared at Sam, hoping he was getting her telepathic message. The able-bodied twentysomething’s interest in her was personal.

  She was certain of it.

  “How was your day?” Sam asked as she reached him, turning toward the parking lot with his hands in his pockets.

  “There’s a guy up there...”

  Though there was no visible change in him, she could feel him stiffen. And heard the change in his breathing. He glanced around them without removing his hands from his pockets, but she saw his elbow reposition slightly, as though he were prepared to go for the gun she knew was beneath his suit jacket.

  It was her job to be aware of minute changes in body language. To interpret what they might be telling her about the emotional and mental inner workings of her patients.

  Still, she felt him so acutely.

  “Up on the steps,” she said, continuing to walk. “He held the door for me.”

  Sam’s shoulders dropped. His breathing evened out. Even his pace softened.

  “That was Gomez,” he said.

  “Gomez?”

  “You’re being provided with twenty-four-hour protection,” he told her. “Someone will be in the house with you anytime you’re there, and you’ll have a bodyguard the rest of the time.”

  “A bodyguard?”

  Gomez’s interest had been personal. She wasn’t losing it. But he’d been there to protect her. Not hurt her.

  “An off-duty officer who is being paid to guard you. And before you get all peeved on me, you’ve been failed by the judiciary system. That entitles you to protection. At least until Ken is settled.”

  Sam made perfect sense. And she felt better.

  * * *

  SAM WAS A professional through and through. He could sit with a beautiful, fascinating, independent and curiously needy woman without messing up. Or getting involved. In any way.

  Marriage had proven to him, if nothing else had, that his work was his life. Which didn’t explain the restlessness trickling through him as he thought of the evening ahead—spending hours in his own home while acting like it wasn’t home.

  He could come clean. Chantel had already told him, more than once, that he should do so. She had been somewhat mollified by his assertion that if Dr. Freelander knew that she was putting him out of a home she’d refuse to stay.

  Chantel had been appeased after spending the evening with Bloom the night before. But she still thought he could let her know the house was his. Chantel seemed pretty certain that Bloom was in full agreement with their arrangement to keep her in a safe house. At least for the time being.

  He led the way out of the ritzy part of town that housed her office, keeping Bloom’s Jaguar in sight in his rearview mirror. She was making it easy. Staying close. It helped that she knew where they were going.

  And he thought again about the long evening hours to fill. With a list as long as his arm and leg added together of things he had yet to do to the place, there was plenty to keep him busy. He and Lucy spent pretty much every night on one project or another. But it would be kind of hard to explain to the occupant of the home why all of his tools and supplies were locked in the shed a few yards from the cottage.

  Lucy was not only going to be disgruntled, but she was going to be wound up when he arrived home at eleven o’clock that night expecting to go to bed. Used to having the acres around the cottage as her playground, and at least running on the beach below his place the night before, his late-night walk around the block with her would not suffice. They’d practiced that morning. Exercising and doing her business that way. That was only after working her for half an hour to get her to agree to walk on a leash. In city boundaries it was the law, her being on a leash, but he couldn’t seem to impress the importance of police detectives following the law on her. She’d wanted to run. Once, when he’d made the mistake of getting within a block of the beach, she’d practically pulled his arm out of the socket.

  They were only a couple of miles from the cottage. And he’d gotten no closer to a decision on what he was going to do with himself that evening. He could watch TV. He wasn’t certain that would be enough of a distraction.

  From what...he didn’t want to think about.

  He punched the newest speed dial on his phone. Waited for the Bluetooth to connect and then ring through.

  “Hello?” He could see her talking when he glanced in the rearview mirror. But she hadn’t removed her hands from the steering wheel. Of course the Jaguar would have come equipped with in-car calling.

  “I’d like to take a bit of a detour, if you don’t mind,” he said, making one decision only to realize he’d just given himself another problem.

  “Of course. I’ll follow.”

  No questions. Just...acquiescence. The woman was a kind person. In his world he didn’t see enough of them.

  “I... Do you like dogs?” he asked, thinking too late that she might not. There’d been no evidence of pets in her life.

  “I haven’t been around them since I was a kid. But I used to...”

  Her voice faded off. As though she’d gone to a different place. A different time. He wondered what it was like for her there.

  And when he realized that his wanting to know had nothing to do with the case, he swore to himself.

  “I have a red setter,” he stated a bit more baldly than he might have if his brain had been working. “She’s...staying...where she stays right now when I’m at work, and I’d like to swing by and get her. It’s going to be late by the time I head home and it would save me a stop.”

  Going back to the room to get her. Taking her down to the beach. And then back home to the room. That stop.

  But he wasn’t about to tell Bloom that he was living in a dingy, converted motel room apartment. Renting by the week.

  And while getting Lucy was for the girl’s benefit, it was for his, as well. Not because of the walk on the beach, but because he needed the distraction. A third party with him and Bloom at all times. His girl keeping him firmly aware of who and what he was.

  And what he wasn’t. He was not a man who got personal with other human beings. No matter how desirable she might be. Or how alone they were in his very secluded home.

  “Oh. Okay...”

  He wasn’t sure what her hesitation meant, but didn’t ask. Sometimes what he didn’t touch wouldn’t burn him.

  Occasionally. If he got lucky.

  He was lucky that Lucy hadn’t shredded the already threadbare carpet in their room. Or peed or pooped on it, either. The girl nearly knocked him over in her exuberance to see him, and while he might have boxed with her a minute or two—a game she’d grown to expect—he held the door o
pen and said, “Car.”

  He’d left the passenger door ajar for her before he’d unlocked their room, and Lucy made it from the carpet to her seat in two bounds. He was right behind her.

  Bloom, her car still running, was stopped by the entrance to the motel.

  His phone rang before they’d pulled out of the lot. “That’s an odd place to drop your dog for day care.”

  Something about tangled webs came to mind. He pushed it away. His life was filled with tangled webs. Just usually ones that had been tangled by others. Not ones he’d tangled himself.

  “People who live in these places are usually the ones who need money the most,” he said. Shaking his head at the whole situation as he stopped at a red light and rang off.

  Lucy was staring at him. Probably because he was talking, and not to her.

  He stared back.

  Until Bloom honked behind him. The light had turned green.

  Half a mile from home, he glanced at his passenger again. “Do you have any idea how it makes me feel, telling her I live in a run-down shack compared to that place she owns?” Or that, outside it, all he could afford was a dingy motel room?

  The girl didn’t seem to understand the magnitude of his humiliation.

  Or maybe she just didn’t get why it mattered.

  For that matter, neither did he.

  * * *

  AT SAM’S INSTRUCTION, Bloom stayed in her Jaguar while he left the dog whining in his car and checked out the place.

  He was back out in no time. Which made the dog turn in circles on the front seat and paw at the door. It wanted out. Or him. Sam told her to go inside. As soon as she’d closed the screen door behind her, she heard his car door open and close. The huge dog was loose, and Bloom suddenly felt twice protected.

  The kitchen had come fully stocked. She’d investigated the night before and had planned a week’s worth of meals from everything she’d found. So maybe the spinach salad could be a complement to something filling enough for a man.