by Julie Miller
“You representing the little guys? Wow. It’s something to consider. But only if it’s what you want to do.”
She sank back into the sofa beside him. “I don’t know what I want.”
“That’s because you haven’t slept in two days.”
“I wonder if I used to know—in my life before I forgot faces and days and...”
The wistful despair in her voice pricked at something tender and protective inside Keir. He needed to hold her. He needed to do something to help her or he was going to have to go for a very long run in the rain. But what did a woman he’d only known for a couple of days need from him? He lifted the computer off his lap. “Everything saved?”
She nodded and he shut it down and set it on the coffee table. When he leaned back, his heavier weight shifted the cushion and she tilted toward him. Her shoulder bumped his. And when she rested her cheek against him and breathed a heavy sigh, he didn’t mind that he’d booked it down the stairs, fearing the worst, and she hadn’t responded to his shouts. Her hand drifted over to rest on his knee and they watched the muted show together for a few minutes before Kenna curled her legs up on the cushion beside her. Keir stretched his arm across the back of the couch and she snuggled up against his chest. Nope. With that clean, citrusy scent of her shampoo filling his nose and the heat of her long, lithe body warming his side, Keir didn’t mind, at all.
Thunder rumbled outside, rattling the windowpanes on the patio doors. Kenna shifted, resting her back against him and pulling his arm down over her stomach like a second blanket to watch the first drops of rain fall. He tried not to notice how his forearm was tucked beneath her breasts. Maybe it was all the electricity in the air outside that made his skin tingle, but even through the crocheted afghan and cotton knit of her pajama top, the small, pert mounds teased the hair on his arm with every inhale of breath.
The first wave of gentle rain quickly passed. Then sheets of water poured down, drumming with a growing fury against the slate and glass as the wind picked up. A streak of lightning forked out of the sky, followed a second later by an answering crack of thunder. “Your brother must have worked out there for an hour.”
Keir’s nostrils flared with a frustrated sigh. “And the only useful trace he found was the blood on the brick.”
“But he thinks the shape of the wound at the back of my skull is consistent with hitting the sharp corner on that wall. Do you think out there—right outside my own home—is where I was attacked?” Her breasts swelled with a deep breath against his forearm. “That means my attacker was someone I know—someone I thought was a friend, or someone I was meeting because of work. I wouldn’t let a stranger through the gate, would I?”
“I doubt it.”
“Do you think Niall will find an answer that can help me?”
“He may be able to determine that you hit your head on the brick, but between all the rain and Marv Bennett’s handiwork, any other evidence we might have found out there is probably nonexistent.” He tried to concentrate on the conversation, but she kept toying with his fingers until he splayed them out. She slipped her fingers between his and he gently closed his grip around hers, hoping she found comfort, assurance and the unique connection they shared in this simple contact the way he did. “We probably won’t even be able to prove it was anything more than an accident that you hit your head.”
“I didn’t trip and fall and get these hash marks on my face.”
“You haven’t sent those letters or made those phone calls, either. But a good attorney would want us to prove cause and effect. And right now we can’t prove that the harassment and your injuries are related.”
“Really?” She squeezed her hand around his in a gentle reprimand. “You’re throwing the attorney card at me?”
“No. I don’t want there to be any doubts.” And then he whispered a vow. “I want the guy who hurt you to know we nailed him.”
He pressed a kiss to the crown of her hair and wrapped the other arm around her. He turned, scooting his back against the pillows. He lifted her onto his lap, stretching his legs out beneath hers on the long couch. Just as their hands fit so perfectly together, just as their mouths had meshed in those kisses upstairs, Kenna fit his body as if hers had been made for him. Their toes touched as their legs tangled together. Her bottom nestled against his groin. Her long, lithe back leaned back against his chest, and her head rested on his shoulder, allowing him to simply turn his cheek to rub it against the softness of her hair.
His body was reacting to this quiet intimacy. Something deeper inside—something protective, something hopeful, something warning him of what he could have—what he could lose—was reacting, too. Another woman, another time, another circumstance, and he might have acted on the arousal simmering in his veins and swelling between his thighs. But right now there was no other woman, there was no other time that mattered. He’d loved and lost a woman before because he’d taken too long to admit what he felt. But in the short span of time he’d known Kenna Parker—really known her—he was more certain that this was something serious than in the two years he’d been with Sophie. Maybe the difference was being a young buck hungry to establish himself as a success outside his older brothers’ shadows—and being a mature man who’d seen enough of the ugly side of life to know that if he wasn’t comfortable in his own skin, then he’d never be happy anywhere.
But that was a lot of thinking, a lot of feeling and wanting and fearing, to make a smart decision right now. So Keir ignored the messages his body and heart were sending and stuck to the conversation about his investigation. “I’m just pointing out that we haven’t gathered all the evidence we need to make a case yet. The jerk who did this to you still has the advantage of anonymity—unless that blood somehow turns out to be his. Even then he’d have to be in a database somewhere to be identified.”
“What if I have to spend the rest of my life wondering if I know that face? What if I pass him on the street or meet him in the courtroom or at a cocktail party, and never even know I’m looking my attacker in the eye? My coworkers? My clients? The people who work for me? What if I think he’s a friend and I blithely follow him out of a room, and he pulls a knife to finish what he started? I’ll never see the threat until it’s too late. If I never remember what happened, he’ll always have the advantage over me.” The moan in her chest was almost a cry of sorrow. “I can’t imagine how I’m ever going to resolve those kinds of trust issues with people.”
She squirmed in his lap at the disquieting thought and Keir hugged his arms more securely around her, pressing his lips into her fragrant hair. “Do you trust me?”
After a moment, she nodded, stirring her hair against his mouth and releasing that heady fragrance. “I think so. As much as I can anyone right now.”
“Then trust me when I tell you that I’m not going to leave you until this guy is caught and behind bars.”
With that vow, she pushed his arms away and scooted onto the edge of the sofa so she could turn and face him. “You have to go back to work on Monday. You can’t promise me twenty-four/seven. Even if the storm or you being here keeps him away tonight, he’ll try again. And chances are you won’t be here. What if it takes days to identify him? Or months? Years? What if I never—”
He caught her face between his hands, carefully avoiding the marks on her cheek and jaw. “He’s never going to hurt you again, Kenna. I promise you that.”
Gray eyes locked on to his, searching, deciding. And just as he thought she was going to nod or say she had that much faith in him, or even argue that he was being unrealistic, she pulled away, spinning toward the coffee table. “Wait a minute. The BED file. That’s not the name of the file. It’s the name of the person.”
Keir tried to keep up with the abrupt change in topic. “You know someone named Bed?”
She picked up her laptop. “Initials. Brian Elliott. There
’s no D in his name, but I did defend him. Maybe it means Brian Elliott Defense. I don’t remember his face, but I remember the trial. The newspapers nicknamed him the Rose Red Rapist because he left a rose with each of his victims. Could the rose petals have something to do with me representing him? He always claimed he was innocent.”
Keir pressed the top of the laptop back down when she opened it. “He was caught in the act, attempting to rape a woman he’d abducted. She’s now married to the cop who rescued her. They both made extremely reliable witnesses.”
“Yes, well, the man’s delusional and completely sociopathic. He doesn’t have to really be innocent to be upset that I didn’t get him off at his trial.”
“The man is in prison.” Keir moved the laptop back to the table and pulled his phone from the front pocket of his jeans. “I can call and confirm it if you want. But I’d have gotten a department-wide alert if he’d escaped. Elliott didn’t do this to you.”
“Has he made phone calls? Had any visitors?” She touched his wrist as if he kept that kind of information on his phone. “The man is a billionaire. He has plenty of assets to hire someone to do his dirty work for him.”
“I’ll request the communication logs from Jefferson City. They’ll fax them to the department tomorrow.” Keir pulled up his contacts and scrolled through to find a number for the prison office. The assistant warden wouldn’t be there, but he could leave a message requesting the information. “I’d have to get a court order to look into his finances.”
“I need to see that BED file.” If Keir was exhausted, he knew that Kenna had to be running on fumes. Still, while he placed the call, she jumped up and hurried to the phone in the kitchen. He watched her pick up the receiver, but pause with her finger on the keypad. Frustration at obviously forgetting the number she wanted to call was evident in the sag of her shoulders. But the woman was nothing if not stubbornly resilient. She replaced the phone in its cradle and pulled open a drawer to retrieve the phone book. She muttered out loud as she flipped through the pages. “It’s probably at work. I can call Hellie to borrow his keys or let me in until I get my set replaced. I know we keep hard copies of completed cases on file. I need to see a list of Elliott’s known contacts.” Keir ended his call and followed her to the kitchen. “Maybe a witness who testified against him or one of his surviving victims—”
“Kenna.” He closed the phone book and pushed it to the back of the counter. When she started to protest, he cupped the uninjured side of her beautiful face and brushed the long damp bangs away from the wounds on the other side. “It’s midnight. People are sleeping. You should be, too. You need to rest. And heal. Elliott’s not going anywhere. You can call Bond in the morning and I’ll drive you into the city to your office.”
“It’s midnight?”
“Yeah. The deadline’s passed.”
She nodded, then shook her head. “Just because nothing happened doesn’t mean...”
He feathered the heavy silk of her hair between his fingers and tucked it behind her ear, letting his hand linger against the warm pulse at the side of her neck. In one moment he was soothing her manic energy; in the next, he was dipping his head and claiming her mouth in a sweetly drugging kiss. Even as he tasted the soft, full curve of her lower lip, even as he teased the seam of her mouth with his tongue and she welcomed him into her warm, decadent heat, he sensed her energy flagging. Her hands settled at his waist, singeing his bare skin, igniting the impulse to pull her onto her toes and bury his tongue inside her mouth, to bury himself inside her body and surround himself with her heat.
But this wasn’t the time to give in to the passion that sparked inside him. The hour was late, the woman was exhausted and the danger was still out there, lurking, stalking, waiting for the opportunity to strike again. With a reluctant groan, Keir pulled his mouth from hers. He planted one more soothing kiss on her lips, another in her hair. Then he pulled her into his arms and cradled her head against his shoulder. Her arms snaked around his waist and she relaxed against him with a contented sigh.
“I’ll be with you while you sleep,” he promised. “And I’ll make sure you wake up in the morning.”
“That’ll be another one I owe you, Detective.” Her lips tickled his skin as she spoke.
He squeezed his eyes shut at the unintended caress and tried not to notice the tips of her breasts beading against the plane of his chest or the way her fingers splayed across his spine. He hoped she didn’t hear the hitch in his breathing when she adjusted her stance to snuggle closer, inadvertently stroking across his own sensitive flesh and coaxing his nipples to proud attention. “Told you, I’m keeping tabs.”
“Send me the bill.” She tried to give the teasing right back, but her mouth opened in a big yawn that blew a whisper of warm breath across the hollow of his throat. And yeah, that touch triggered a little crazy inside him, too. But what surprised him more was the almost painful grasp of tender heat squeezing around his heart.
And that was the impulse he acted on.
“Come on.” He reached down to hook a hand behind her knees and swung her up into his arms. “No more brilliant ideas or arguing with me tonight, okay? We can catch the bad guys tomorrow.”
She wound her arms around his neck. “Promise?”
“You’re like a dog with a bone.” He wasn’t sure if that was a kiss or a smile he felt against his throat, but he’d treasure either one. Keir carried Kenna back to the couch and tucked her in with the afghan. He picked up the remote and pushed the volume up again before settling into the cushions beside her. “Now tell me all about this time-traveling doctor and why you’re so fascinated with him.”
“Well, if you had a Scottish accent, you’d remind me a little of...”
Her voice trailed away and she was gone. Relieved to see her finally succumb to much-needed sleep, Keir turned off the television. He pulled his gun from the back of his jeans and slid it beneath the end pillow. Then he stretched his legs out beneath her on the sofa, draped the afghan over them both and, while the storm outside thundered around them, surrendered to sleep.
Chapter Eight
“Thank you, Hellie.”
Helmut Bond met Kenna at the curb with an umbrella as she climbed out of Keir’s car in front of the high-rise building housing the Kleinschmidt, Drexler law offices in downtown Kansas City. With his arm circling her back, the older man held the umbrella over their heads and dashed inside the main lobby of the building, leaving Keir to drive on down the street to find a parking place as if he were nothing more than a chauffeur to her.
She’d survived a 147-day countdown to a dire threat that she suspected had happened one day early for some unknown reason. But the fact that the presumably connected assault was out of sync with her stalker’s meticulous timeline, and the fact that she was still alive, made her believe the danger wasn’t over by any stretch of the imagination. Until she could either remember her attacker or piece together enough circumstantial evidence to identify him, she wouldn’t be able to shake the fear that must have plagued her every waking thought for the past four and a half months.
“I was coming in anyway this afternoon to meet with a client.”
“A client? On a Sunday?”
“He was free. I was free. He said he’d be in the city, so I gave him a call.” Hellie stopped on the mat inside the door and shook the excess water off the umbrella and the shoulders of his trench coat. “I was hoping for a break in the weather, though.”
Kenna wiped at the spots of rain on the sleeves of her navy blue geometric-print sweater set and the knees of her skinny jeans. A few moments later, Keir shoved open the glass door behind them and joined them. He straightened the collar of his black KCPD jacket that he’d turned up against the curtain of rain falling outside and shook the water out of his hair, spraying both Kenna and Hellie.
Kenna smiled at the boyish
disarray of sleek dark hair spiking out in a dozen different directions, but Hellie wiped a spot off his cheek and grunted. “I see the police department is still offering you protection.”
Irritated with Hellie’s condescending tone, and simply because she wanted to touch it, she reached up and combed her fingers through Keir’s short, wet hair, smoothing it back into place. That’s right, Hellie. Keir Watson means a whole lot more to me than just the hired help. “Yes, Detective Watson has been taking very good care of me.”
Keir winked as if he understood the point she was making for the other attorney’s benefit. Hellie must have observed the personal interaction, too, because his tone didn’t change. “I’m glad to know my tax dollars are being put to good use. Shall we?”
Keir wrapped his hand around Kenna’s and gestured toward the bank of elevators. “By all means, Mr. Bond. Lead on.”
Once inside the first elevator, Hellie pushed the button for the fifth floor. “I must say you’re looking better than you did a couple of nights ago at the hospital. You actually have some color in your face—and I don’t mean the bruises.” He chuckled at his own joke.
“Getting a good night’s sleep helped.”
She squeezed her fingers around Keir’s, silently thanking him for the gift of serenity he’d given her last night. Being held so securely in his arms, surrounded by his heat, was the only thing that had allowed her to drop her guard, shut off her brain and finally relax enough to sleep. The rest had been healing and rejuvenating for her spirit and energy, although waking up with a firm arousal wedged against her thigh and a warm hand cupped possessively over the curve of her bottom had stirred up a very different sort of energy inside her—one that still hummed with a sensual awareness of the man holding her hand.
As tender, protective and compassionate as he’d been with her over the past two days, she suspected that Keir Watson would be a skilled and generous lover. And she’d been half tempted to run her fingers over all that warm, firm skin that stretched tautly over his shoulders and chest, and initiate a kiss to test her theory about just how good they could be together. But when he’d caught her staring her fill of his interestingly handsome face, Keir caught her hips between his hands and lifted her away from the evidence of his desire to set her on the cushions beside him. “Sorry about that. Not exactly stellar timing for that sort of thing, is it?”
