Protective Instincts

by Shirlee McCoy

  She shivered, hurrying downstairs and stopping short when she reached the kitchen. All three men were there. Andrew, Chance and the redhead Jackson had called Boone.

  He smiled, held up a package of cookies that she’d left on the counter. “I hope you don’t mind that I snagged a couple of these. I’m starving.”

  “I can make you something.”

  “No,” Jackson said as he stepped into the room behind her, his arm brushing hers as he walked past. Her skin tightened, her body humming with an awareness she wasn’t comfortable feeling. She’d closed herself off after the accident, locked herself in tight, because she hadn’t wanted to risk her heart, hadn’t wanted to ever again feel her soul shatter, her world shift, everything she’d understood be turned upside down.

  “Boone is a food addict,” Jackson continued. “If you start feeding him, you’ll be feeding him from now until the cows come home.”

  “I resent that accusation, Jack. I might like to eat, but I can stop anytime I want to. The thing is, I don’t want to.” Boone pulled a cookie from the package and popped it into his mouth.

  “I hate to interrupt the fun and games, folks,” Andrew said. “But I think we have more important things to discuss than anyone’s eating habits. Did you find the photos, Raina?”

  “No.” She opened the freezer and took out a plastic container of chicken noodle soup. It was so much easier to do that than to think about what those missing photos meant, to speculate on who took them and why.

  “I helped Destiny pack the boxes, but most of the people there were your coworkers. Lucas was there. I remember that.”

  “I can ask Destiny who the other people were.” She opened the container, dumped the frozen lump of soup into a pot. She’d made the chicken noodle for a church soup-and-sandwich meal, but she’d decided at the last minute not to go. She hadn’t wanted to sit at a table filled with single men and women who all seemed to want nothing more than to find their soul mates.

  All she wanted was to find some peace, but that was as elusive as mountain mist.

  “I’ll call her myself. See if we can get some answers for a change.” Andrew sighed. “I’d better head out. I’m going to have to take the photos as evidence, Raina. I can’t promise that you’ll get them back.”

  “It’s okay.” But it wasn’t really. Now that she’d seen the photographs, she wanted them desperately. Which was silly. She had plenty of pictures in her bedroom and tucked away in photo albums in her closet. She didn’t need two more. Especially two with the faces scratched out of them. Still, sending them with Andrew felt like sending away a piece of her heart.

  “I’ll call as soon as I know something. In the meantime, stay safe. No more going for walks without an escort.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it, okay?” Andrew’s gaze was sharp, his expression hard. “I don’t like the way things are playing out, and if you’re not careful, what happened to Butch will happen to you.”

  It sounded more like a threat than a warning, and Raina’s skin crawled. She touched her throat. It didn’t take much to crush a windpipe. A little more pressure and the guy who’d attacked her could have done it easily.

  “I’m heading out.” Andrew nodded curtly, no humor, no kindness, no compassion in his gaze, just that same implacable expression. “You have my cell phone number. Call immediately if anything happens.”

  “Do you want me to—”

  “I want you to stay in this house behind closed doors until this is over. That’s all I want you to do,” he snapped.

  He stalked from the room, brisk footsteps tapping on the floor, the front door opening and then shutting with a little too much force.

  “Guy has a temper on him,” Boone commented, pulling another cookie from the package.

  “How well do you know him, Raina?” Jackson’s brother asked.

  “Really well. I’ve known him since we were kids. After I got married, he and my husband were good friends.”

  “I see.” Chance crossed his arms over his chest, his expression unreadable.

  Raina didn’t know what he saw, but she had a feeling it wasn’t anything good. “If you’re thinking that Andrew has something to do with the trouble I’ve been having, you’re thinking wrong.”

  “At the moment, I’m not thinking anything. Except that someone did a number on your head.” His gaze dropped to her throat, and she resisted the urge to touch the bruises she knew were there. “And your throat. A little more pressure, and you’d be dead.”

  Exactly what she’d been thinking, but she wasn’t going to admit it to Chance.

  “Ignore my brother, Raina,” Jackson cut in. “He gets grumpy when things are out of his control.”

  “I get grumpy,” Chance ground out, “when my brother gets questioned by the police.”

  “I think we’ve covered this before,” Boone said. “How about we skip the replay and have some of whatever is in that pot? It smells great.”

  He leaned in close, inhaled deeply.

  Raina couldn’t help smiling. He was good-looking, laid-back and a lot easier on the emotions than Jackson. “It’s homemade chicken noodle soup.”

  “What kind of noodles?”

  “Egg.”

  “You put carrots in it?”

  “And celery. Roasted chicken and some seasoning. It’s my grandmother’s recipe. Passed down for three generations.”

  He whistled softly. “I think I’m in love with your grandmother.”

  “You haven’t even tasted the soup yet.” She laughed.

  “But I will, and once I do, I’m going to be smitten. It’s just the way it is.”

  “My grandmother will be flattered, but since she’s been married for sixty years, your love is going to be unrequited.”

  “Maybe I can convince her to adopt me, then.” He grabbed a spoon from the drying rack and dipped it into the stone-cold soup.

  “It’s still half-frozen!” she protested, but he scooped a spoonful into his mouth and sighed blissfully.

  “Yep,” he said. “Love. Just pour about half of that in a bowl for me. You and the brothers can share the rest.”

  “Selfish a little?” Chance asked, but even he seemed amused by Boone.

  “Hungry a lot. Seeing as how that’s mostly your fault for sending me off without enough cash to adequately nourish my body—”

  “You had plenty of money,” Chance protested.

  Raina smiled, enjoying the banter and the obvious camaraderie between the men.

  “The soup will be ready in a few minutes,” she interrupted. “If you want to grab sheets and blankets in the linen closet in the hall while you’re waiting, you can make up some beds on the couch. I’d offer beds, but I don’t have any spares.”

  “There’s no need for that,” Chance said, his smooth baritone nothing like his brother’s deep Southern drawl. Despite the soot that stained his dress shirt, he looked polished and put together, his black slacks pressed, his wool coat a deep black with no sign of fading or wear and tear. A shoulder holster peeked out from beneath the coat, but the gun remained hidden. He might look more polished, but Raina had a feeling he was just as tough as his brother. “Boone and I aren’t planning to stay.”

  “We’re not planning to drive all the way back to D.C., either,” Boone mumbled through a mouthful of cookie.

  Chance frowned. “You have a better idea?”

  “Yeah. We take the lady up on her offer, make beds for ourselves and sleep until the sun comes up. I, for one, could use a little shut-eye.”

  “You can sleep in the car.”

  “You’re not hearing me, Chance,” Boone said. “I don’t want to drive, fly or jog anywhere tonight. After all the travel I’ve been doing for the company the past few months, al
l I want to do is lie down. Doesn’t matter if I’m lying down on a bed, rocks, a ledge or the floor, as long as I get to sleep and no one disturbs me.” He closed the package of cookies and wiped crumbs from his shirt.

  Raina stirred the soup and let the conversation wash over her. It felt nice, the words filling the room in a way nothing had in the past few months. It wasn’t just the men’s physical presence. It was their energy, their obvious connection and fondness for one another. They were family, and that made the house feel like a home.

  She hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that until it was there again—the warmth, the joy, the simple pleasure of being together.

  She grabbed a spoon from the drainer near the sink, her eyes burning, her chest tight. Life was moving on. She was moving on. She felt that more than she ever had, felt the slow shifting of focus from the past to the future.

  It was the way it should be, but it still hurt, because moving on meant letting go, and she didn’t know how she could ever do that.

  She turned on the water, rinsed the already clean spoon because she didn’t want the men to see the tears in her eyes.

  Something moved in the window above the sink. A face, pressing against the glass, skin white, eyes as black as the deepest darkness.

  She screamed, stumbled back.

  Screamed again as the lights went out and the kitchen plunged into darkness.

  FIFTEEN

  Jackson sprinted to the back door, adrenaline surging through him. Someone had been staring in the window. He’d seen the face, turned off the light to keep whoever it was from having a clear view of the interior.

  “Boone, stay with the lady,” Chance barked, coming up on Jackson’s heels.

  They hit the edge of the back deck at the same time, pausing in unison, a team, ready to work together, fight together, do whatever it took to succeed together. They had their differences, but when it came to the job, they were always absolutely in sync.

  “Be careful, bro,” Chance muttered. “I don’t want you taken out by some small-town thug who has a crush on your lady friend.”

  “You be careful, too,” Jackson responded. “Mom would ki...”

  His voice trailed off as he caught sight of a dark figure moving slowly toward the corner of the house. Very slowly.

  He touched his brother’s arm, gestured to what looked to be an ancient man. White hair, white nightshirt tucked into baggy black sweats.

  A disguise, Chance mouthed, but Jackson didn’t think so. The guy moved as if every bone in his body hurt, his feet shuffling through dry grass as he picked his way across the yard. If he was trying to make an escape, he wasn’t doing it very effectively.

  “Sir!” Jackson called out, and the old guy paused, glancing over his shoulder and scowling.

  “Go back to whatever shenanigans you were up to,” he spat. “I’m going home to call the cops.”

  “I’d say the shenanigans are more on your part,” Chance responded. “Peeking into other people’s windows is a crime.”

  “She’s not other people, son. She’s my neighbor. I have an obligation to check on her when every light in the house is on and cars are filling up the driveway,” the man snapped. “Too many people on this road lately. That’s the problem, and you can rest assured, I’m going to let the police know about it.”

  “Larry?” Raina peered out the open door, her face a pale oval in the darkness. “Is that you?”

  “Who else would it be? Now, like I said, you just go on back to what you were doing.” He started shuffling away again, but Raina hurried onto the deck, probably would have gone after the guy if Jackson hadn’t grabbed her belt loop and pulled her to a stop.

  “I’m making chicken noodle soup, Larry. Come on in and have some before you go home.”

  “Come into your den of iniquity? I don’t think so.” But Larry stopped again, gnarled fists settling on his narrow hips. “What would Matt think? That’s what I want to know? A Christian woman like you with three grown men in her house.”

  “There’s a woman here, too,” Raina responded, pulling at Jackson’s fingers and trying to loosen his grip on her belt loop.

  Wasn’t going to happen. Larry might be old, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t responsible for Raina’s troubles.

  “And that makes it better?” Larry huffed, shuffling back toward them, his slow plodding movements almost painful to watch.

  He made it to the steps, and Chance took his arm, helping him onto the deck. “Sir, I think you’re misunderstanding the situation.”

  “What’s to misunderstand? A beautiful young widow and three men who are taking advantage of her grief. I’d say I’m not misunderstanding a thing!”

  “Actually, Larry,” Raina said, “these men are from HEART. The organization that rescued me from—”

  “I know where you were rescued from, Raina. It was all over the news,” Larry snapped.

  “If you’re following the news, then you’ve probably seen the stories about my efforts to—”

  “Bring a kid over here. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve seen it. What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

  “Everything,” Raina responded with a lot more patience than Jackson was feeling. “Samuel’s flight got canceled because of the storm we had. Jackson and a coworker drove him here.”

  “And now they’re all staying the night? You think that’s appropriate?”

  “Yes, actually,” Raina said kindly. “I do. We aren’t supposed to turn away strangers who are in need. Why would we turn away people that we know?” She took Larry’s arm, led him into the kitchen.

  The light was already on, and Boone was standing over the soup pot, several bowls on the counter beside him. “Looked like things were under control, so I thought I’d keep the food from burning.”

  “Good to see your priorities are right.” Chance sighed, dropping into one of the kitchen chairs. He looked worn, the fine lines near his eyes deeper.

  “Go ahead and have a seat, Larry.” Raina pulled out another chair. “I made my grandmother’s chicken noodle soup.”

  “Can’t be better than Dora’s,” Larry muttered, but he eased into the chair, his bones creaking.

  “Dora?” Boone asked, spooning soup into a bowl and setting it on the table in front of Larry.

  “My late wife. May God rest her soul.” Larry took the spoon that Raina handed him and dug into the soup with more gusto than Jackson expected. From the way he was eating, Jackson would say he hadn’t had a meal in a while.

  Raina must have been thinking the same thing. She frowned and opened an old-fashioned bread box that sat on the counter. “How about some bread with that, Larry?”

  “I wouldn’t want to impose,” he said, but he took the slice she offered him, layering it with cold butter Raina took from the fridge.

  “You want some?” Boone asked, pointing the serving spoon in Jackson’s direction.

  “No. Thanks.”

  “Suit yourself. Me? I’m going to eat seconds.”

  “When did you have firsts?” Chance looked up from the bowl Boone had set in front of him.

  “While the ol—” He glanced at Larry. “While Larry was heading back across the yard. Took him a while and that was just enough time for me to eat soup.”

  “I’ve got old bones, kid. You don’t understand because you’re young and healthy, but just you wait. Your turn is coming, and you’ll be the one shuffling across a yard you used to do backflips in.”

  “Good to know,” Boone said without ire. He had the patience of a saint. “Want some more soup?”

  “I think I will.” Larry held out his bowl. “It’s good soup, Raina. Not Dora good, but good enough to eat more.”

  “Thanks, Larry.” She smiled, her eyes red-rimmed and deeply shadowed. “I’m maki
ng another batch tomorrow. I’ll bring some over for you.”

  Jackson doubted that making soup had really been on her agenda for the day, but Larry’s collarbone was prominent above the neckline of his nightshirt, his cheeks hollow. He either didn’t have money for food or didn’t bother eating. Either way, he needed to be fed.

  He handed the guy another slice of bread. “You said there’s been too many people on this road lately, Larry. What did you mean?”

  “All kinds of cars driving up and down the road.”

  “You mean the cars that are in the driveway?” he pressed, because the guy might be thin and ornery, but his eyes seemed to be working just fine. If he’d seen something or someone skulking around the house, Jackson wanted to know it.

  “Do you think I’m dense, son?” Larry retorted. “The police car drove away ten minutes ago. Five minutes after that, a car drove down to the end of the road, did a U-turn and left again. That’s when I decided enough was enough.”

  “Did you see what the car looked like?”

  “Black. A sporty little sedan. Not an American-made car. Some foreign model.” Larry sniffed. “You’d think people would want to support their own country’s economy, but that’s the kind of world we live in. Everyone for them—”

  “Have you seen the car around here before?” Chance cut him off, obviously trying to keep the conversation on track.

  “I can’t say that I have.” Larry frowned, dipping buttered bread into his soup and letting the broth drip down his chin as he ate it. “Of course—” he grabbed a napkin from a holder that sat in the middle of the table and wiped his chin “—I haven’t seen the Jeep in a couple of nights, so maybe the guy got a new car.”

  “What Jeep?” Raina asked.

  “How should I know what Jeep? All I know is that it’s been coming around here for a few months.”

  Jackson’s pulse jumped, and he met Raina’s eyes. “Are you sure you don’t know anyone besides Destiny’s boyfriend who owns a Jeep?”

  She bit her lip, shook her head. “No.”