by Rebecca King
“She has to be returned to her guardian,” Peregrine hissed. “She cannot stay here. We have Morton to find and can’t get involved in a young woman’s personal issues. I will grant you that three and twenty seems a little old to need a guardian, but if that is what her father wanted for her, and if she isn’t married, there is nothing we can do.”
Dean hadn’t quite closed the bed chamber door when he had left. Pheony could hear every word the men were saying seeing as the kitchen was directly beneath the bed chamber, and the house was quiet. A few words were mumbled, so she crept closer to the door. She heard something about them sending her back and felt sick at the thought that all her trouble had been for nothing. She tried not to sniff miserably because if she could hear the men downstairs then they would be able to hear her, and she didn’t want them to know that she was listening and feeling more betrayed than ever.
“I have to leave,” she breathed. But now, she was in an even worse situation than she had been in when she had left the tavern because she had no clothing except for the soaking wet dress she was in. “I have money. If I stay away from rivers, I should be all right.”
But as she thought that the window behind her suddenly shattered as did the door beside her face. Pheony screamed and whirled around so quickly that she forgot about her knee again and stumbled against the dresser when pain lanced up her thigh. It was that stumble that saved her life because she was lying slumped against the dresser when the second bullet lodged in the door jamb inches above her head.
“Dean!” she screamed.
The sound of running footsteps thundered through the house. Within seconds, Dean slammed into the room. “Get down!” he bellowed when another bullet whizzed past his ear and lodged itself into the wall of the hallway behind him.
Peregrine leaned backwards as he stared at the hole. “A gunman,” he snarled to Hamish, who was halfway up the stairs. “Go! Go!”
Pheony threw herself boldly at Dean the second he appeared in the doorway and another bullet blasted through the window, showering them both in glass. She landed against him so heavily that her body weight propelled Dean out into the hallway. He wound his arms around her waist as he stumbled backward and hit the ground. The second they landed on the floor with a heavy thump, the plasterwork above their heads exploded and covered them both in dust.
“Get down!” Dean bellowed at Joshua who was about to step around them and enter the room. “The gunman is in the trees outside.”
Joshua glared at Pheony. “Just what kind of bloody trouble are you in?”
“It isn’t me,” Pheony protested. “He isn’t anything to do with me.”
With a blistering curse, Joshua raced back downstairs, and left Dean to get details out of her.
Dean lay where he was. He knew that he should move. The hunt was now on for the gunman who had stupidly fired at the Star Elite’s safe house, and he needed to join it, but he couldn’t find the will to release her.
“I will help you,” he promised her suddenly, and didn’t stop to think about whether he wanted to. He had to. It was as simple as that.
“Great, now you decide to help me,” she muttered in disgust before wriggling and squirming to get out of his arms. Pheony knew that she needed to keep him at arm’s length because he made her want things she couldn’t have.
And he wants to return me to Augusta.
Dean grinned. He had no idea why. It might have been that he could feel her relax against him, or the honest if disgusted reaction he received from her that he sensed was the real her. Whatever it was, he was happier than he had felt in a while.
“Did you see the gunman?” he prompted.
“He was dressed from head to toe in black. How he expected to blend in with the trees is beyond me,” Pheony murmured. It was a little exciting to have something new to think about other than her own rather boring problems. “Who is he?”
“I was rather hoping that you might be able to tell me that.”
“It is strange, but I cannot see Augusta as the kind of person who would lurk in bushes and want to shoot me. She may hate me, but she isn’t a killer,” Pheony snorted. “That gunman has to have something to do with one of your investigations.”
That simple, matter-of-fact statement was enough to make Dean’s smile fade. Deep inside, he went cold. The light that had been in his eyes died almost instantly, and his face became cold and hard as he stared at her. “What makes you say that?”
Doing her best to ignore the swift change in him, Pheony retreated behind a wall of frankness that left her staring fiercely at him as she said: “Well, I have never had anybody shoot at me before you turned up in my life.”
“Damn,” was all Dean growled because he saw the honesty in her eyes and knew then that he had inadvertently brought her more trouble than she could ever bring him.
Whatever he wanted to do, he had to protect her and make sure that the killer didn’t claim her life now. It galled him that he had been so immersed in trying to find her and get to the truth of the problems she faced that he had completely forgotten about Finlay Morton, the man the Star Elite had been chasing. It was possible that he had seen them in Sprankley and had followed them back to the safe house. Dean and his colleagues had been so focused on Pheony that they hadn’t stopped to even think about Morton, much less look out for him as well.
“Damn it all to Hell,” Dean hissed, wondering if things could get any worse.
“What do we do?” Pheony whispered.
“We do not do anything. You are going to sit here, on the floor, and wait for me to come back. Don’t go into that room. Don’t go downstairs. Wait here until I return.”
“Where are you going?” she demanded when he immediately lunged to his feet and ran toward the top of the stairs. “What do I do if the gunman comes back?” Even as she spoke the words, the sounds of gunfire followed her voice, but this time it was met by returning gunfire from the Star Elite.
“I think the gunman has other issues to deal with now,” Dean warned. “Someone will be downstairs, protecting the house. Just make sure that you don’t creep up on him. He is here to protect you and the house, not engage you in conversation. Save your questions for later, eh?”
The sound of Dean’s voice faded as he disappeared down the stairs. He left Pheony to stare at the empty spot where he had been standing and wonder what else could go wrong. So much had already happened since her arrival at the tavern yesterday that she almost wanted to stomp her foot and demand that it stopped. But it would do no good because there was nobody around to make it stop. She couldn’t go outside and challenge a gunman. The Star Elite were all busy doing it. Unfortunately, Pheony knew that she couldn’t challenge the Star Elite to let her go on her way either. She now had to escape them too, and that was going to be difficult when they were guarding the house while the rest of them searched the area for a mysterious gunman.
And that is assuming that I don’t get shot at by the gunman lurking in the bushes.
As she sat in the silence of the upstairs hallway and listened to the sounds of fading gunfire, Pheony knew that she hadn’t just replaced one set of problems with another but that this time she was wholly unequipped to get herself out of the mess. What didn’t help matters was that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to escape Dean’s rather dubious protection. Despite being shot at, nearly drowned, and injured while climbing out of the window, Pheony suspected that being with the Star Elite was the safest place to be right now.
“But I have to leave,” Pheony whispered.
“And Dean will come after you when you do,” Hamish warned. He had been climbing the stairs and had heard what she had been muttering. He made a mental note to warn Roger about it.
“I don’t see why. He doesn’t like me,” Pheony protested. She struggled to keep her hurt out of her voice, but the sadness in her eyes was unmistakeable.
“He is a member of the Star Elite,” Hamish said softly, hunkering down so he could look her in the eyes. “H
e may be a little er, unpolished, and a little rough around the edges, but he means well. He is, rather cackhandedly I will admit, trying to protect you. He wants to help.”
“You can’t help me with this,” Pheony whispered. “You deal with legal matters.”
“You aren’t in any kind of trouble.” It wasn’t really a question. Hamish already knew that someone like Pheony was hardly the hardened criminal type. She was far too honest. Her softness was far too natural for her to be a thief, liar, or a cutthroat criminal.
She is also stunningly beautiful. It is not difficult to understand why Dean is so intrigued by her.
Hamish ran a weary hand down his face. He wished now that he hadn’t drunk so much last night. It had made his headache, his thoughts difficult to focus on, and his hands shake just a little too much. Moreover, he had already started to have the now familiar doubts about his life return to haunt him. Now that he had seen the swift change in Dean’s attitude toward romancing women, Hamish stupidly began to wonder if it was time that he made changes in his own personal life. After all, he couldn’t remain a member of the Star Elite forever, and he wanted someone he could spend his life with when he was ready to stop chasing criminals across the country.
It just can’t be Letitia.
“No, I am not in any kind of legal trouble,” Pheony replied firmly. “Can I leave now?” To her dismay, Hamish shook his head.
“Did you get a good look at the gunman?”
“Well, no. He was dressed from head to toe in black,” Pheony replied.
“But you did see the gunman out there?”
“Yes,” Pheony replied honestly.
“Was he tall or short.”
“Tall, and slender.”
“Then you have seen enough to be able to identify him. You cannot leave.” Hamish pushed to his feet and held a hand out to her to help her up. Pheony took it but once she was standing before him, he looked down into her eyes. “Don’t hurt him,” he urged softly.
Pheony opened her mouth to tell him that Dean was more likely to hurt her only to realise what that would reveal to Dean’s friend about her feelings for him. It was then that Dean appeared at the top of the stairs.
Dean felt as if someone had smacked him on the back of the head when he saw Hamish holding Pheony’s hand while standing right in front of her, staring deeply into her eyes. From their positions, Dean wondered if Hamish had planned to kiss her. A surge of fury slammed through him that was so fierce it made Dean want to yank Pheony away from Hamish, so she didn’t get in the way when he punched his friend. Shaking his head, he glared at his friend, but was too shocked to do anything more than growl: “Roger wants you on guard. I am to stay in here apparently.”
Annoyed, Dean raked Pheony with a dark look before turning his back and stomping back downstairs. He tried to assure himself that he was glad she was the kind of woman who had no loyalty to him, and that he had found out what she was really like before he wasted too much time on her. But deep inside he knew it was all a lie. He did care. He was hurt. And he was annoyed that not only was she prepared to betray him, but his Hamish was too apparently.
“Just what in the Hell do you think you were doing? You do know that she was in my bed chamber last night, don’t you?” he announced when a sheepish looking Hamish appeared in the kitchen several moments later.
“It would be a bloody blind idiot who didn’t realise that, Dean,” Hamish replied. “I helped her stand up. Do you care to tell me why she thinks you would hurt her?”
Dean froze. “What?”
“She thinks that you are more of a danger to her than she is to you. I mean, you have made it clear that you don’t care about her, yet she is here. One minute you are telling us that you don’t want to get involved with her and her problems and the next, you are protecting her and getting fierce if one of us goes anywhere near her.”
“She is pretty,” Joshua added with a sage nod.
“And you are married,” Dean snapped.
“I am just saying,” Joshua shrugged. “You may not want her, but other men will. If you are too stupid to appreciate what God has put before you then you deserve to lose her.”
Dean ran a frustrated hand through his hair, something he had started to do more and more of late, but only since he had met Pheony. He briefly wondered if he would have any hair on his head left if he had a lifetime with her, or if he would have pulled it all out of his head in sheer frustration by then.
“I don’t want a woman in my life,” Dean growled.
“Maybe you should have kept your hands off her then,” Joshua muttered.
Dean started to grind his back teeth. There wasn’t much he could say to that because his friend was right. Being drunk was no excuse for what he had done. While wonderful, he had made a stupid mistake that he was now bitterly regretting.
“It isn’t fair to take your annoyance with yourself out on her,” Hamish warned. “Don’t be so harsh on her. She is alone. Confused. Scared, and worried about her future. Whatever happened between you two, at some point before she leaves you are going to have to sit down and talk to her and be honest and open with her if only so she doesn’t live with any false expectations of you. It is the least you can do.”
Dean sighed. “Every time I get anywhere near her, I seem to stomp through our conversations like a marauding buffalo and make a complete mess of things. Calmness, logical order, and common sense go completely out of the window when I am with her. All I seem to do is spend my life buggering things up and making situations worse. Everything I say seems to offend her. I don’t know if I should run like Hell for the hills or grovel at her feet and beg for forgiveness. I don’t know if I should keep my distance or stand on guard by her side to make sure that neither of us makes any more of a mess out of this situation. I want to help her, but I don’t know what help she needs. I want to be able to protect her but then I have brought her here and put her right in the middle of one of our sodding investigations. I have tried to do right by her, but everything turns out wrong.”
“Welcome to the club,” Joshua grinned.
“You sound like a worm on a fisherman’s hook, wriggling this way and that to try to escape, but you are already hooked. I know you, Dean. If you weren’t attracted to her, she wouldn’t have crossed the threshold in your bed chamber in that tavern no matter how drunk you were. If you wanted her off your hands you would have let her leave and left yourself but made sure you went in the opposite directions.” Hamish paused when Joshua started to chuckle and said: “You have some grovelling to do, my friend.”
“What? Why?” Dean was confused. As far as he was concerned, he had done nothing wrong that he needed to grovel for.
Except for getting her shot at, nearly drowned, hurt by falling out of a window, oh, and that I didn’t do everything I could have done to make sure that there aren’t any repercussions from last night.
That last thought was enough to leave Dean feeling pale and shaken. He stumbled over to the chair and took a seat. He barely noticed the goblet of wine Hamish pressed into his hands moments later. All he could think about was what had happened, and how dense he had been to not think of the potential consequences.
“Shit,” he breathed. He was horrified, shocked, appalled, and terrified, in ways he had never experienced before. He was dumb struck, awe struck, disgusted with himself while amazed that it might be possible. Unsure what he should feel, he looked down at the goblet in his hand but winced because he knew that alcohol was the root cause of his current predicament. Consequently, the contents of the goblet went promptly into the fire.
“Think very carefully about what you want before you go anywhere near her again,” Joshua warned. “We are in the middle of an investigation. There is still a lot of work to do before we can get Morton behind bars for all the crimes he has committed. It is going to take some time before we can move on to another investigation and even then, we will have the new men with us. Life isn’t going to be easy.”
> “Courting her is going to be difficult,” Hamish warned.
“I am not going to court her.”
“Marry her then,” Daniel growled. “For God’s sakes, we have known you for years and have never seen you like this with anybody before. What in the Devil’s name is wrong with you?”
“Shut up,” Dean growled when Joshua mouthed ‘love’. He knew it couldn’t be. He barely knew her. Pheony was just a brief acquaintance, a mistake, a one-night stand, nothing more. She couldn’t be anything more. He didn’t want anything more. He wasn’t the marrying kind.
But as he contemplated that, Dean was teased by the mental image of what might appear in a few months’ time. His child. His son. His daughter.
“Mother of God,” he hissed in disbelief. It had been a foolish mistake, but it was one that if it did materialise was either going to make or break him and there wasn’t a damned thing that he could do about it.
“She has to stay. She can go nowhere. You need to help us track Morton. Roger suspects he is the gunman,” Daniel announced. “So, set all of this to one side for now. We will take turns on watch. Dean, you are on first tour with me and it is outside.”
Dean groaned in disgust. He wanted nothing more than to go back upstairs and talk to Pheony like Joshua had suggested. He wanted – needed – her to know that she wasn’t to expect anything more from him than one night. But as he contemplated that, Dean wondered if he should do something more to help her. While he wasn’t prepared to marry her, he couldn’t let her wander the streets either, especially if she was carrying his child.
When he left the safe house a few minutes later, he was already plotting what he could offer her that didn’t include marriage but provided her with a place to stay, and somewhere to call home. The problem was even he felt that it was insulting to her and that Pheony deserved better.
Later that night, Pheony tossed over in bed and listened to the measured tread of someone walking past her window. She knew it was the night guard because she had already watched Roger patrol the gardens around the huge house the Star Elite called home several times in the last hour. She was exhausted, cold, and hungry, but couldn’t bring herself to eat the food Daniel had delivered to her room. Moreover, she couldn’t be bothered to add more coal to the fire either. Consequently, every time she stuck her head out from beneath the covers her breath fogged out before her face. She was utterly miserable and had never felt so alone in her life. The problem was that the only person she wanted to talk to was Dean.
