Duty to Defend

by Jill Elizabeth Nelson

  “Hang in there, Daci,” he murmured. “You’re safe now.”

  With a little gasp, her eyes popped open. Those rich mocha depths and the small smile she offered were the most beautiful things he’d ever seen to date, bar none.

  “Sorry I wimped out on you,” she whispered.

  “Wimp is never how I’d describe you.”

  Their hands met and clasped. Electricity was invented for that moment.

  A throat cleared behind them. With an inner pang, Jax broke the connection, released her hand and turned toward Daci’s brother. Noah’s brown gaze held none of his sister’s warmth, but it wasn’t chilly, either. More like coolly speculative.

  Jax drew himself up tall, meeting the assessment with a cool gaze of his own. He’d need time and quiet space to examine what had just passed between him and Daci, to know what it meant. But he wasn’t about to let anyone else see how shaken he was by a simple look and meeting of the hands. More so even than being shot at and chased.

  “Know any doctors who do house calls?” he managed in calm tones.

  “On the way.”

  Daci murmured her brother’s name. Noah brushed past Jax and took a seat on the edge of the bed.

  “Hey, Mamasis. Welcome home. You look like something the cat dragged in and smell like you’ve been crawling through a sewer.”

  The brotherly teasing drew a grin onto Daci’s face.

  Jax let out a chuckle and sniffed at his own clothes. “This sewer cat needs to find the officer in charge around here, get a status update and ask someone to retrieve our luggage from my wrecked car. Then I’m all for a shower.”

  “And a little antiseptic for that cut on your ear.” Noah swiveled toward him. “Thanks for saving my sister. Again.” There was no reservation in the sincerity written on his face.

  Jax nodded. “My pleasure.”

  There was no reservation in his sincerity, either. Sure, he’d go to the mat to defend any helpless human being. It’s what he did daily—though not usually with bullets flying. At least not since he’d quit the Marshals Service. But this ferocity over Daci’s well-being was far beyond the everyday passion of his calling. This was something else. Something more. Something he hadn’t felt since Regan. And that’s what terrified him.

  If he had begun to love Candace Marlowe the way he’d loved Regan, how could he bear that kind pain all over again if this madman who was after her achieved his goal? But regardless of his heart’s peril, he had to keep his head in the game and make sure that didn’t happen. Only after this vendetta was stopped and the perp was in custody could he take the time to figure out his feelings and if she reciprocated them, because right now emotions were irrelevant.

  * * *

  Two mornings later, a conclave of law-enforcement personnel sat around a massive mahogany table in the mansion’s formal dining room. Daci occupied the seat at the head of the table, still wearing loose-fitting clothing but looking bright eyed and with good color in her face. Jax flanked her on her right and Noah on her left. He was the only civilian in the bunch, but since he’d need to be in on what was being planned, Daci had insisted on his presence and met little resistance from the PD or the Marshals Service.

  DC Bartlett from the Boston office of the Marshals Service stood at the foot of the table. The man’s craggy face wore what Jax could only call a triumphant smirk. The man clapped square hands together, and conversation ceased as all eyes turned toward him.

  “We’ve received a piece of good news—not just for Deputy Marlowe’s present safety, but for many others who might have been targeted through this man’s services. The person calling himself The Connection has been identified and taken into custody.”

  A cheer swept around the table.

  “Who is it?” Daci asked.

  The DC’s expression sobered. “The same person your IT system clue led us to arrest. Unfortunately, he has lawyered up and isn’t talking, so we’re still digging the old-fashioned way to expose his double-dealings.”

  Jax drew in a breath. The mole in the Marshals Service had not only been selling inside information, but brokering hits, too. Quite a coup to bring the pariah to justice. Quite a black eye that the traitor was unearthed within their own system.

  “Springfield or Boston?” Jax asked.

  “Boston,” the DC answered. “Interestingly enough, HQ hired the guy away from the Boston PD about a year after your carjacking. In one of your reports, Deputy Marlowe, you said you were looking for an explanation why Samuel Clayhorn’s mug shot wasn’t among those presented to you when your grandmother was killed. We think this guy was on the take back then, too. Probably got paid to yank the photo.”

  Jax locked gazes with Daci. She offered a small nod with the barest hint of a smile. At least the culprit wasn’t Randy from the Springfield office.

  “Why is this such good news?” Noah asked.

  Daci touched his arm. “This Connection creepazoid is the one who was brokering the bounty on me on behalf of whoever wants me dead. With the broker apprehended, the hitters will stop coming, because they have no chance of getting paid.”

  A smile bloomed across her brother’s face. “You’re home free?”

  “Not exactly,” Jax said. “The person who contracted the hit is still out there, but we’ve bought some time, because it should take him or her a while to find another broker, or a new way to get to Daci.”

  Noah scowled. “What are we going to do about that?”

  “I have an idea,” Daci announced with an inquiring look toward the DC.

  Brow furrowed, the man settled into a chair. “I suggest you share it.”

  “Jax and I have discussed this.” She folded her fingers over his on the table. “But we kept the idea to ourselves because of the mole issue that’s just been resolved.”

  Jax was tempted to jerk his hand away because he still hated her auction idea. Unbelievably risky. But he hated remaining on the defensive even worse. As she explained, Jax’s gaze met Noah’s and found a reflection of his own conflicted opinion there.

  The PD and Marshals Service representatives expressed no such conflict—they were openly approving of the idea. Specifics were debated until the plan started to take shape. Daci, along with Jax and Noah and any of her other siblings who could help, would spend the next three weeks handling arrangements for the auction. Meanwhile, all available law enforcement personnel would get out there turning over rocks in hopes of exposing the culprit. The case would be a priority right up there with tracking down Liggett Naylor.

  “And finding Serena and Chase,” Daci inserted.

  Jax seconded the thought, but realistically understood the investigation into their disappearance had gone cold until new information surfaced. He prayed it would, for the child’s sake. But even more intensely, he prayed that the commitment to protect one of their own would drive the law-enforcement community to lengths beyond heroic to find Daci’s deadly enemy before she had to become bait at her own auction. Either way, whether the auction went forward or not, it would take a nuclear blast to remove him from her side until her would-be killer was brought to justice.

  Ten

  Seated in a soft chair in the sunroom, Daci frowned down at her colored pen creating designs in the leather-bound notebook Jax had given her. The journal, along with all of their personal items that had been in Jax’s trashed car, had been retrieved by law enforcement the very day they’d run the gauntlet to the estate. In the two weeks since then, she’d added to her hospital-time doodles and made significant inroads on the pages, but not so much progress in coming up with theories or even ferreting out old memories that might lend a clue as to who was targeting her for death.

  Even more disheartening, the PD investigation had confirmed her speculation that, at the time of her grandmother’s murder by a carjacker, Uncle Conrad had been working at an illegal chop shop. He
may even have provided information as to when and where Daci and her grandmother shopped so the jacker could come grab the car. Only the operation had turned out anything but quick and clean. She and Grandma Katie must have returned to the car sooner than anticipated, catching the thief in the act and rewarding Grandma with a bullet. Her uncle had been indirectly responsible for his mother’s death. What a horrible betrayal of family ties, and what a burden to carry through life!

  Little wonder he’d been a bitter man who pushed people away. Few would be fretting that the memorial service for him had been postponed until this matter of the attempts on her life was resolved.

  “The furrows on the paper are almost as deep as the ones on your brow.”

  Daci jumped at Jax’s voice, and a pang shot through her middle. Her physical recovery was progressing nicely, but quick movements still brought pain.

  “You startled me!”

  “Sorry.” Jax settled onto the settee opposite her.

  He looked positively delicious in blue jeans and a pale green polo shirt smudged with the dust and sweat of strenuous activity. This hopeless attraction to him was another thing she couldn’t seem to resolve. Through her internet discoveries while she was in the hospital, she understood why, for him, a romance with someone in law enforcement would be taboo—way too emotionally wrenching. And she did, indeed, plan to return to the Marshals Service as soon as her would-be killer had been caught. She’d been in love with the idea of helping and protecting others for as long as she could remember.

  Jax leaned toward her, elbows on his knees. “Nate and I have finished sorting through the old carriage house, and we need you to come put your stamp of approval on potential auction items.”

  Noah had gone out on assignment yesterday, and Nate had shown up for duty this morning.

  Daci smiled and laid her notebook and pen on a side table. “Sounds a lot simpler than brainstorming against a blank wall.”

  “Still baffled about the person behind the hit on you?”

  “You got it.”

  “Frustrating!”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Jax rose and held out his hand. She took it, reveling in the strength of the fingers wrapped around hers, as he helped her to stand. Physical weakness was the other frustration she faced daily, but the doctor kept assuring her that she’d fully recover—eventually. The process was much too slow to suit her, especially right now.

  As soon as she was on her feet, Daci disengaged her hand from Jax’s. She instantly missed the touch, but restoring professional distance was for the best. He offered a lopsided smile, but his eyes were sad, as if he understood her reasoning and regretted it, too.

  They went out the glass door into the sunshine and crossed the lawn toward the carriage house. The detritus of centuries had accumulated in that building and in the attic of the main house, which had already been scoured for trash and treasures. Anything that fit the former category had met its fate in the Dumpster; much of the latter had been tagged for auction.

  Even though Daci hadn’t been in on the physical labor, a sense of accomplishment filled her. From the attic, items of small intrinsic value but great historical value had been donated to museums; items of great intrinsic value but small sentimental value had been tagged for sale, and items with great sentimental value—which were few—had been brought out of storage and displayed in the house where family could enjoy them.

  Now, the same process was taking place in the spacious early-1700s building that used to house several carriages, horses and staff. Since the early twentieth century, the building had become a garage down below and a junk repository in the second-floor living quarters. Sometime during the transition from horse and buggy to horseless carriage, it had become a Marlowe family tradition to hire a couple who became housekeeper and chauffeur and lived in the pool house, rather than the carriage house. At the moment, neither lived on-site, and Daci had no plans to ever hire a chauffeur, so Jax occupied the pool house.

  She and Jax stepped through the door of the garage and nearly collided with Nate. Her brother halted with this odd twinkle in his gaze as he looked from one to the other of them. Daci narrowed her eyes. The twins were up to something, or else they had the wrong idea about her and Jax. Before he left on assignment, Noah had been looking at them like that, too.

  “I’ll go whip us up some burgers,” her brother said. “My gut needs grub. Come on back to the kitchen when you’re finished here, and I’ll have dinner on.”

  “Sounds great. Will do.” Jax stepped aside for Nate.

  Daci peeked her head out the door and watched her brother stride across the lawn, whistling. The housekeeping and lawn-care services they employed were day workers. Events like the upcoming auction were catered, but for the most part, this generation of Marlowes preferred to look after their own basic needs like cooking personal meals, doing their own laundry and cleaning their rooms. At least, that’s the way she’d brought them up, and none of them complained. Well, not anymore. She was desperately proud of them all.

  “You have a lot to be proud of in them,” Jax said, as if hearing her thoughts.

  He seemed to read her well quite often. The habit was disconcerting and gratifying at the same time.

  She turned toward him with a smile. “What have you got to show me?

  Jax started toward the interior stairs at the far side of the garage area. Daci followed, but her leg brushed against the Lexus’s bumper, a car she’d never driven since the day the carjacking had happened, but hadn’t had the heart to sell. She stopped with her hand on the fancy silver vehicle’s hood, eyes squeezed tightly closed. Fear-soaked memory swept through her—a wild-eyed man wielding a gun, the sharp report of a shot, the shock on her grandmother’s face as a blood rose erupted from her chest and she crumpled to the tarmac.

  A whimper left Daci’s throat, and, moments later, strong arms enfolded her. She buried her head against Jax’s chest as tears came. What was the matter with her? She hadn’t fallen apart like this over that long-ago event since shortly after it happened. Being wounded by a bullet herself must have unlocked reservoirs of that deep hurt.

  “It’s okay to feel,” Jax murmured to her, his breath warm across her scalp. “Grief is like that. It jumps on you out of nowhere—even years later. Believe me, I know.”

  Daci hiccuped and sniffled and pulled back from Jax’s embrace, wiping her hands across her wet cheeks. “Thanks. I know you know. I admire how you’ve gone on with a productive life.”

  “Productive? I aim for that. Lonely? I don’t aim for that, but I’ve hit the mark anyway.”

  Daci blinked up at the chiseled face that had softened into vulnerability.

  “I can’t stop blaming myself.” His eyes went wide, and the words blurted from his mouth as if he wanted to stop them but couldn’t.

  “Why do you blame yourself?”

  Jax turned away and leaned back against the Lexus. “My pregnant wife was riding with me in a Marshals Service vehicle when some wacko who hated cops pulled up next to us at a stop sign and opened fire with an automatic weapon. If she hadn’t been sitting between me and the shooter, I’d be the one dead, not her. Not my baby.”

  His legs seemed to give way, and he slid down the side of the Lexus to sit on the floor, hugging his knees. Ignoring twinges from her midsection, Daci sat down next to him. She wasn’t going to let this opportunity to see into his heart slip by her.

  “Then she’d be the one grieving your loss.”

  “Sure, but at least she’d have the baby. They both would have been well taken care of. I made those arrangements as soon as we were married.”

  “You’re a conscientious person, but no one can anticipate the irrational actions of others.”

  “You don’t understand.” He glared at her, then went back to studying the garage floor. “She shouldn’t have been with me in a federal vehicle
. Even the tabloids said so.”

  “Right, the tabloids. None of the reputable news services hinted at such an unfair judgment. I read all the news stories regarding the incident. Your wife’s car wouldn’t start, and she was going to be late for her prenatal doctor’s appointment. She called you to come get her. You were returning from a witness interview and were closer to your house than the office where you’d parked your personal vehicle, so you called in to request permission to pick your wife up in the work vehicle. DC Reynolds gave you that permission. Do you blame him, too?”

  Jax stared at her as if she’d gone off her nut. “Of course not. He was doing me a favor.”

  “And you were doing your wife a favor in the best way you knew how.”

  He let out a bitter chuckle. “I know that up here.” He tapped two fingers against the side of his head. “Can’t figure out how to convince this.” He put a hand over his heart.

  “I guess I’ll pray God helps that happen for you then.”

  “You’re praying?” His gaze was a hopeful.

  Face warming, she shrugged. “More than I had been since my grandma died. I’ve come to realize she’d want me to and that God’s been waiting for me to be ready to break the silence. Thank you for nudging me in the right direction. Hearing you talk about your faith after what you’ve suffered sort of wised me up.”

  “You’re welcome. And thank you for listening to me and not agreeing with the tabloids.”

  “That’s what friends are for.”

  His gaze went shuttered, and he turned his head away. “Yeah, friends.”

  Awkward silence fell.

  Daci studied the laces of her sneakers. He’d said the word “friend” like it wasn’t exactly his favorite. Had she misspoken? Wasn’t that the most either of them could ask for from the other? But what if it wasn’t? What if he wanted more? Could she go there? Could he? Judging by what he’d been telling her about the state of his heart after the loss of his wife, the answer was no. Not now. Maybe not ever. Best they remain nothing more than friends, as difficult as that might be when she could so easily fall for this guy.