The Closer He Gets

by Janice Kay Johnson

  He felt the escalation at work. A hard bump of a shoulder as someone walked past him. Glares, sneers. He found a couple of ugly drawings and block-printed threats in his mail cubby at work.

  Thursday, he checked his cubby warily, pulling out what looked like a flier printed on copy paper. He unfolded it and froze. Fury and near-panic pumped through him.

  What he held in his hand was a photograph that had been blown up and printed. Clear as could be, Tess, smiling a welcome, was holding her front door open to let him into her house. His head was turned enough that his face, seen in profile, was recognizable. The crosshairs of two gun sights had been drawn in by hand, one targeting his temple, the other the center of Tess’s forehead.

  His hands trembled as he folded the piece of paper again. He debated skipping Sergeant Perez and going straight to the top, but had just enough self-control to handle this the way he should.

  At the rap on the door Perez called, “Come in.” Animosity must be leaking from Zach, because the sergeant let out a long breath and sat back in his chair. “Now what?”

  Zach let the piece of paper flutter to the desk blotter. He did not take a seat. He wasn’t sure if he was capable of sitting still.

  Perez unfolded the paper and looked at the photograph in silence. His eyes were black with anger when he lifted his head. “How’d it get to you?”

  Zach told him.

  “Don’t suppose there’s any chance of fingerprints, but whoever he was might have been careless. Say, when he put the paper in the printer?” He produced a file folder from a drawer and gently enclosed the newest and best threat.

  “What do you intend to do about this?” Zach hoped he sounded more civil than he felt.

  “I’ll take it to Stokes and, if necessary, Sheriff Brown. They need to put out the word that this is unacceptable and anyone caught pulling this shit will be fired on the spot. As leaders of this department, they have to understand that they set the tone.”

  “Oh, I think they understand. We both know they are setting the tone around here.”

  “Not Paul.”

  “No?” Zach’s teeth were clenched so hard, it wasn’t easy to loosen his jaw enough to speak. “Then Stokes is not trying very hard to convince his boss that his stance is going to backfire. If this keeps up, he can kiss that election goodbye.”

  Perez’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll see to it personally?”

  “If anything happens to Tess—” His throat closed. “These bastards are going down.”

  “Watch yourself, Carter. You’ll regret it if you lower yourself to this level.” He nodded at the photograph.

  “I haven’t started sending anonymous notes yet. But my temper is getting a little shaky.”

  “I hear you. Now get out on the road. Don’t let this rattle you so you can’t do your job.”

  “I’ll do my job.” His jaw flexed. “I’ll leave you to do yours.”

  By the time he reached his assigned patrol car, he realized he was damn lucky Perez hadn’t called him on insubordination. He must have seen that Zach was vibrating with rage, and understood.

  Gripping the steering wheel, he thought, Tess. He couldn’t let her be hurt or killed. The memory of Sheila’s naked body, legs sprawled, head twisted horribly to one side, had never left him. What he’d seen in that first horrified moment hadn’t softened or blurred in the least with the passing of the years. There’d been an instant of disbelief—that was a doll, not really his sister. The eyes were too blank, the skin too waxy. What would Sheila be doing out here before Mom and Dad had gotten up? And then his stomach had heaved and he’d begun yelling.

  What if he found Tess...? Hunching his shoulders, he shook his head. No. It wasn’t happening.

  He’d survived the loss of his sister, although he knew it had shaped his life more than he probably let himself recognize. But if Tess, a woman he hadn’t even met six weeks ago, was killed, too? If he failed to keep her safe—found her body or even saw it happen...?

  A raw, inarticulate sound escaped him.

  She had touched him as no one else ever had. He loved his mother, had kept loving his father and Bran, he guessed, but with reservations. He hadn’t wanted to ever feel this way about anyone, but he hadn’t had any say in it, and now it was too late.

  God, he thought, closing his eyes. I love her.

  And somebody had just threatened to kill her.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  TESS HAD BARELY arrived home from work Thursday when Zach showed up. He’d called midafternoon and said, “I’ll bring a pizza for dinner. Six o’clock.”

  When she’d stuttered, “Wait...w-why?” all the answer she got was “Later.”

  Now she peered out cautiously and saw that he had abandoned his usual skulking. His new truck was parked in her drive and, in broad daylight, he was walking up to her door carrying an extra-large pizza box.

  His expression was as closed as she’d ever seen it.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head. “Let’s eat. I never stopped for lunch.”

  Barely vanquishing her curiosity, Tess led the way to the kitchen where she set out plates as Zach tore a couple of paper towels off the roll in lieu of napkins. He chose a bottle of beer she had kept in the refrigerator for him and she poured a glass of white wine.

  As they ate, she felt compelled to fill the silence. Or was it to talk him down?

  She found herself making a funny story out of the young woman who’d come in to the store to browse wallpaper books, bringing two preschoolers with her.

  They’d sat still for about thirty seconds before pulling books from the shelves. Mom didn’t seem to notice. That got boring, so they went out into the main showroom, where they hid from each other behind racks of carpet samples. They ran laps.

  Mom didn’t even seem to notice how many wallpaper books were heaped on the floor. She picked more out and slowly leafed through them, also not noticing that her children had disappeared from the small room.

  Tess had the pleasure of seeing some of the tension on Zach’s face ease and a smile curl one side of his mouth. “So you got to babysit. Sounds like my job some days.”

  “Yes, and you want to know the kicker?” Tess was still mad. “I asked if she wanted to borrow any of the books and she said she’d written down the information she needed to price the wallpaper online. She didn’t even apologize!”

  “Can she order the same wallpapers you sell online for cheaper?”

  Tess’s mood plummeted. “Probably. They don’t have to pay overhead for a store that can hold a huge selection of samples.”

  “And a playground,” he said almost straight-faced.

  She huffed.

  He laughed, which helped.

  “If she comes again,” he said, “I’ll bet you won’t be anywhere near as nice about her hellions.”

  “You’d better believe it.” Watching as he took his fourth slice of pizza, she judged the time to be right. “Are you going to tell me what had you so grim when you got here?”

  He set the pizza down on his plate, wiped his fingers with a paper towel as if to give himself a moment, then met her eyes. “Yeah. I’ll tell you.”

  When he was done, she didn’t know what to say. Even what she felt. She discovered she was rubbing goose bumps on her arms. Did that mean she was afraid? Yes, she thought, but it wasn’t only that. It was knowing, absolutely for sure, that someone was watching her through a telephoto lens that allowed him to see her as if he was only a few feet away. He had photographed her when she’d had no idea she was being watched.

  “I feel violated,” she said at last. “My skin is crawling.”

  Zach watched her. “We knew they were probably keeping an eye on both of us.”

  “Yes, but—” She shuddered. “This make
s it real. Are they watching all the time? Do I dare glance out my window? And...there’s no way to protect myself from a high-powered rifle.”

  “No.” It was the first time she’d ever seen emotions so naked on his face. His fear and frustration turned his voice into a growl and darkened his eyes. “If it were short-term, I’d push you to take a vacation. But this could drag on for a year or more.”

  “Do you trust this Sergeant Perez to do anything?”

  He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Yes. But whether he can get any action out of Brown or Stokes? I don’t know.”

  “What can they do?”

  “They could launch a serious investigation.”

  “Assigning it to whom? Delancy?”

  He sighed. “There are some decent investigators in the department. Probably goes without saying that Bran can’t work this.”

  Tess nodded.

  “We need the sheriff to get behind changing the culture in the department. To say, ‘This isn’t acceptable.’” His shrug didn’t express a lot of hope.

  “So...why does this mean we don’t have to sneak around anymore?” Tess asked. “If that’s what you’re suggesting by showing up when anyone can see you?”

  “It got me thinking. Why should we have to?” he countered. “Everybody knows I’m determined to protect you. If that led to a personal relationship, whose business is that but ours?”

  “And if a defense attorney tries to imply we’re in collusion?”

  “We tell the truth. We say the same thing we have from the beginning. We had never met before that day. Never even set eyes on each other, as far as I know. We might not have exchanged a word again unless we met going in or out of the courthouse for Andrew Hayes’s trial, if the defendant and his friends hadn’t decided to try to pressure you into retracting your statement.”

  Nice to be reminded he wouldn’t have bothered to call her had she not needed a protector.

  But...was that true? Tess didn’t know. She couldn’t forget the way his gaze had burned into hers as they’d looked at each other across Antonio’s body. The huskiness in his voice, the gentle quality, when he’d talked to her.

  Her chest continued to ache, though, as if she’d strained something, while he talked about the calls he’d made that day to Lieutenant MacLachlan and Detective Easley at CCPD.

  “For what good it did. ‘We’ll look into this.’ What kind of bullshit answer is that?”

  “What did you think they’d say?” she had to ask.

  A nerve twitched beneath his eye, his jaw muscles tightened. Then he gusted out a sigh. “Exactly what they said. What I’d have said in the same situation.”

  Tess managed a small smile. “Don’t you hate having to admit that?”

  “Oh, yeah.” He laughed, a rusty sound. “I’m like a doctor who has cancer and is suddenly a patient. He knows what should be done but has to put his treatment in someone else’s hands.”

  “And hates every minute of it?”

  He grunted his agreement then drained his can of beer, his throat working as he swallowed.

  Tess couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away. Why should a throat be sexy? But his was.

  “I’m sorry I bought the house,” Zach said suddenly. “If I was still in the apartment, I’d ask you if I could just move in. I’d be here to protect you and we’d limit the number of targets the perps have.”

  A constriction around her rib cage threatened her ability to take a breath. She wanted nothing more than to live with him, to come home to him every evening...but not if he was here to stand as her bodyguard.

  Only once had she fallen for a guy enough to let him move in with her. It hadn’t lasted quite a year. The takeaway for her had been that the deterioration of a relationship was magnified if you lived together—and the hole left after the split was devastating.

  And yet she’d have had no hesitation at all in saying yes, if she believed Zach loved her.

  He watched her with increased wariness as she sat silent. “I take it that would have been a resounding no,” he said wryly.

  “No,” she said. “I mean, not necessarily. I mean...”

  He cocked a dark eyebrow.

  “I might have said yes,” she finished softly, feeling the heat in her cheeks. “But you do own a house, so...?”

  “You’re right that I’m afraid to leave it completely empty, but we can’t leave your house completely empty, either.” He scowled at her as if it was her fault. “And I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  “You’ve been leaving your house empty a lot at night.” Seeing that his interest in pizza had waned, Tess closed the box, thought about standing and putting it in the refrigerator, and decided it could wait.

  “I have. I want them to target us here.”

  “Because of the cameras?”

  “Right.” He looked older, as if the lines on his face had deepened. “I put in a couple at home, too. But I don’t see them vandalizing my house, not if they’re capable of learning from their mistakes. They went after my truck and I just got madder.”

  Subtext: he still thought she was the weak link. With a tiny shiver she thought, And he might be right. But then she straightened her spine. Damn it, she was just getting madder, too.

  “I guess I’m asking if I can mostly move in for the duration.” The wariness or at least apprehension had reappeared in the way he looked at her. “I’ll probably spend days off working on my house, maybe a couple hours after work some evenings, but I want to be here at night.”

  Her squeeze of panic was back. “You’ve already been here most nights.” She was talking just a little bit too fast, her voice maybe higher than usual. “And now you’re asking permission?”

  “I don’t want to sneak out before dawn and go home to shower and change clothes,” he said. “If I could, uh, at least put some of my stuff in one of your spare rooms.”

  And his razor on the counter beside her sink, his toothbrush in the holder with hers, his shampoo in the shower...

  And he would be in her bed, all night, every night.

  Isn’t that what she really wanted? Would he really be so passionately worried about her if he didn’t feel a whole lot more than a mere sense of responsibility? Maybe this was one of those times when she should just close her eyes and jump.

  In full faith a parachute would open, even if she hadn’t been wearing one when she’d stepped out of the airplane.

  Tess nodded, almost steadily. “Yes, of course. That’s fine. Um, there’s probably room for both of us to park in the garage, too. It’s not like I have a workbench or anything taking up space.”

  The signs of his relief were so subtle, she wouldn’t have noticed them if she hadn’t been looking closely. “Thanks,” he said roughly. “As it happens, I threw a duffel bag in the truck.”

  “Taking me for granted,” Tess said way more lightly than she felt.

  He smiled. “If you’d been reluctant, you would never have known about the duffel.”

  She’d stood to put the pizza in the fridge when she stopped dead. “Oh, no. Dad.”

  Silence behind her.

  “Does he have to find out?”

  She made herself move again. “I do have him over to dinner sometimes, or I go there.”

  “I can make myself scarce, as long as he isn’t given to dropping by unannounced.”

  It hurt. He couldn’t have said any more clearly that this was not the beginning of something important between them. Instead of friends with benefits, it was bodyguard and pro bono client with benefits.

  As if she hadn’t already known that.

  Tess closed the refrigerator and turned to face him. “You don’t want him to know you’re staying here?” she said, striving to sound unconcerned.

  Zach hadn’t moved. His e
yes were alert on her face. She had no idea how much he could see. “Do you?” he asked.

  What was she going to do, put him on the spot? Not a chance in hell.

  She shrugged and said, “Something short-term, it’s probably best not to. He’s worried about me already. I don’t want to freak him out totally.”

  This time his relief wasn’t subtle at all.

  That hurt a lot more.

  “I’ll go get my bag,” he said.

  “Why don’t I open the garage and we can reshuffle vehicles to see if we can’t get your truck in, too?”

  “I can wait until tomorrow.”

  “There’s no camera out in front, remember.”

  Zach winced. “Yeah, okay. You’re right. Although your driveway is pretty exposed.”

  “Why take a chance?” Tess was proud of her casual tone.

  He came to her, slid a hand beneath her hair and kissed her, so softly, before stepping back. “Then let’s do it, oh, wise one.”

  * * *

  THE SCENE IN the kitchen left Zach confused. By the end, he hadn’t been able to tell what she really wanted or felt, and he wasn’t any too sure what he felt, either.

  He’d spent the day trying to convince himself that, of course, he wasn’t in love with Tess. Things had just been...intense lately. And, yes, protecting her was his first priority. Shouldn’t it be? Even thinking about the things associated with love—such as marriage and kids—made him twitchy.

  At the same time, if she’d said no way, sorry—

  Damn it, he didn’t want to think about that, either. He hadn’t much liked her off-handed agreement that it would be better if her father never knew about Zach, even if he’d been the one who suggested it. That made no sense, he knew.

  Of course, if she had insisted on having her dad to dinner to announce the deeply significant change in her life and show off Zach, he might have freaked. Meet the parents? Words to turn a man into a coward.

  By the time they managed to squeeze both vehicles into her garage, Zach’s tangled emotions had settled in his stomach like a heavy serving of pancakes.