Private Eye Protector

by Shirlee McCoy

  Chance didn’t like the direction his thoughts were taking, but he couldn’t find another path for them to go.

  Something was going on.

  Something more than an accident.

  If he wanted to keep Rayne and Emma safe, he had to find out what.

  “Did you get a look at the car?”

  “What? You think my life is so dull, I look at every car that drives by my place?”

  “It was a simple question, Fred.”

  “And I’ll give you a simple answer. My life is that dull, and I did see the truck. Dark and foreign. Newish-looking.”

  “Should I ask if you got a plate number?”

  “Should have, but didn’t. There a reason why you want it?”

  “Just a feeling I have.” A bad one.

  “Always go with your gut. That’s my motto. I’ll keep my eyes and ears open. If I see it again, I’ll let you know.”

  “Thanks. I need to get going. I’ve got a meeting this morning.”

  “More of that private eye stuff?”

  “It’s not stuff. It’s a job.”

  “There are plenty of jobs to do around here, son. No need to go looking for more.”

  “It takes money to do the kind of jobs this place needs. No job, no money.”

  “Guess you’ve got a point. Just be careful. Your ma already lost her husband and one boy. She don’t need to lose another.”

  Fred’s parting shot followed Chance as he walked through the mudroom and into his mother’s kitchen.

  Bacon.

  Biscuits.

  Eggs.

  He recognized the scents but didn’t see the food, couldn’t seem to see anything but Rayne. Blond curls springing around her face, deep bruises on her forehead and cheek. Pale skin. Pale pink lips. She looked exhausted.

  She also looked good.

  Worse than good, she looked like she fit.

  Right there in the same chair Jessica had sat in when she’d come to meet the family. Only Jessica had looked too polished, too perfect, her exotic appearance overshadowing the room’s old-time charm. Rayne’s beauty added to the charm, warmed the room, made it seem even more like home.

  “Hi. Again.” Rayne’s gaze skittered away as if she sensed his thoughts.

  “Is Emma in bed?”

  “In bed and sleeping soundly,” his mother responded, setting a plate of food in front of Rayne, and then shoving one into Chance’s hands.

  “I don’t have time to eat, Mom.”

  “You will if you stop talking and chew.”

  Rayne laughed, the soft sound drawing Chance’s attention back to her pink lips, her smooth skin, her misty-blue eyes.

  “You’re laughing, but you haven’t started chewing yet, either.” Lila placed a glass of orange juice in front of Rayne, and Chance remembered her doing the same for him hundreds of times ever since he was a kid. No matter how old he’d gotten, no matter that teenage years had turned him truculent, the breakfast routine had never grown old.

  “Are you always so tough, Lila?” Rayne asked. Then she must have realized it was something she should have known. Her amusement faded, and she pushed a piece of bacon around her plate with a fork, lost in thoughts she didn’t share.

  “Only with people I care about.” As always, Lila took things in stride, pouring coffee into three mugs, dumping three sugars into one and handing it to Rayne.

  “It’s nice and sweet, dear. Take a sip. Maybe it will put some color in your cheeks. I’m going to start a fire in the living room. The wind is howling today, and this house isn’t well-insulated.”

  “Let me take care of that, Mom.” Chance set his half-empty plate on the counter, but his mother was already at the threshold of the kitchen.

  “I can manage.”

  And then she was gone, humming under her breath as she moved through the house, humming because she was finally getting what she’d been wanting.

  Chance and Rayne alone.

  “Your mother was right. The coffee is helping,” Rayne said, as she set the mug on the table, ran her thumb over the rim. Refused to look him in the eye.

  “My mother is right about most things.” Though she was wrong if she thought that Chance and Rayne would end up together.

  “I haven’t known many men who would say that.”

  “Then maybe you haven’t known many of the right men.”

  “No?” She finally looked him in the eye, her half smile just enough to showcase the dimple in her cheek.

  “Real men appreciate their mothers’ wisdom.”

  “Is that your two cents for the day?” she asked, her smile broadening.

  “For the week.”

  “I wish you’d given it to me three years ago. I could have avoided…” Her voice trailed off, and she shook her head. “Never mind.”

  “Let me guess.” He dropped into the chair across from her. “Your ex called his mother five times a day and lived in her basement but had absolutely no respect for her opinion?”

  Her eyes widened for a moment, and then she laughed. “Hardly. Michael had a gorgeous house in the Phoenix suburbs, and he lived by himself. But he thought he was smarter than his mother. Based on your two cents, that should have been a clue that something wasn’t right.”

  “Sounds like Michael is a fool.”

  “Michael is very smart, very accomplished and very charming.”

  “Yet he’s in Phoenix, and you’re here. As I said, he’s a fool.”

  “I’m sure if he were here, that would be up for debate.” She crossed the room, dumped the contents of her plate into the slop bucket near the mudroom door. Did she remember doing it before or was she simply mimicking what his mother did every morning?

  “Looks like you’re familiar with the slop bucket.”

  “The one that your mom feeds the pig from? She told me all about it this morning. I think she was afraid I’d be embarrassed about all the things I can’t remember, so she tried to point out some things I should know.”

  “So no memories of your life here?”

  “None.”

  “And none of the accident?”

  “That would make life easier, wouldn’t it? I could explain things to my insurance adjuster and to the police and to everyone else who asks what happened. Unfortunately, it’s not the way things are. I can’t remember anything. The more I try, the emptier the void seems to be.”

  “So don’t try. It’ll come back to you. One way or another.”

  “That’s what the doctor said, but…”

  “What?”

  “I checked my answering machine in the apartment this morning. No one called here last night. No message from a friend waiting for me at the airport. I tried to check emails, but everything was gone. No emails before this morning.”

  “Is that typical?”

  “I clean out my email files about as often as I clean out my purse.”

  “Which means?”

  “Not often enough. Every few months, I get sick of the mess and go to work. I guess yesterday was my day to clean out my inbox.” She shrugged, her face tight with frustration, exhaustion and pain.

  “You checked for deleted files?”

  “I checked everything and found nothing. Two months of my life is completely gone. I can’t find one clue as to what I was doing, where I was going, who I was communicating with.”

  “There may be a way to retrieve the files. Want me to look into it?”

  “Will it make any difference? I went to the airport for some reason. I got into an accident I don’t remember. I’m alive. I’ll be fine. That’s all that matters, right?” She leaned her hip against the counter and smoothed her hair, her sweater riding up just enough to reveal a sliver of skin.

  Soft.

  That’s how she looked. Soft sweater. Soft jeans. Soft eyes.

  But she wasn’t soft.

  She’d moved away from everything she’d known, started a new job in a new town without any help from friends or family, and she’d done
it all with a baby in tow.

  In Chance’s estimation, that made her pretty tough.

  Tough enough to handle what he was about to say.

  “There was someone in your hospital room last night, Rayne.” He laid it out. Plain and simple. No sense in doing anything else.

  “I was hoping it was just a dream.”

  “Do you remember what he looked like?”

  “Medium height. Thin. I couldn’t see his face, but…”

  “What?”

  “It sounds crazy.”

  “Say it anyway.”

  “Just looking at him scared me.” She shivered, her face a shade paler than it had been.

  “Do you have a reason to believe someone would want to hurt you?”

  “Not that I can remember.”

  “No enemies back in Arizona?”

  “There was an incident a couple of months ago.”

  “Incident?”

  “I worked at a shelter for abused women. The husband of one of the residents threatened me.”

  “A verbal threat?”

  “He had a gun. I found out later that it wasn’t loaded. At the time, though, I really thought I was going to die. That’s one of the reasons I moved to Spokane. I wanted a fresh start and a job that didn’t put me in that kind of danger.”

  It’s what she’d wanted, but was it what she’d gotten?

  Trouble had a way of following people, and it was possible the gunman had followed Rayne.

  Stood in the doorway of her hospital room.

  Meant to finish what he’d begun in Arizona?

  He didn’t know, but Chance planned to find out.

  “Did the gunman go to prison?” If so, he’d call the Phoenix P.D. and see if he was still there.

  “Since the gun wasn’t loaded, the judge gave him probation.”

  “So he might have followed you here?”

  “If he did, he’ll go to prison for violating the terms of his probation.”

  Good.

  Except that sending the guy to jail for violating probation wouldn’t do Rayne a whole lot of good if she were dead.

  FIVE

  Someone had been in her hospital room.

  The thought filled Rayne with cold dread, and she grabbed her coffee, sipping the warm, sweet liquid. It did nothing to ease the chill.

  “I have a meeting this morning, but if you give me the guy’s name, I’ll check with Phoenix P.D., see if he’s still in town. Once we know that, we’ll know a little more about what we’re dealing with. Or what we’re not dealing with.”

  We.

  He’d said that before.

  She hadn’t liked it then.

  She liked it even less now.

  Because she wasn’t sure she could say no to the partnership. Wasn’t sure she could turn her back on his help. She felt weak, shaky and unsure. Tired beyond anything she’d ever experienced.

  Relying on Chance was a dangerous temptation, but if she gave in to it, there might not be any way to go back.

  “I can call them myself.”

  “Before or after you collapse into bed and sleep for a week?” he asked, his light eyes staring straight into hers, daring her to deny that sleeping had been her plan.

  “It shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes to find out what we need to know.”

  “It shouldn’t, but it might. Let me take care of this for you, okay? And if I ever have a concussion and need to call the police department, you can take care of it for me.” He brushed strands of hair from her shoulder, his hand resting there, and she thought that if she listened to his voice, looked into his eyes for even a second longer, she might agree to anything he had to say.

  So stop looking into his eyes and say something!

  “His name is Darren Leon.”

  Say something. Not that.

  He smiled, his hand dropping away. “I’ll be back around noon.”

  He walked out of the kitchen, and Rayne could breathe again.

  Breathe.

  Think.

  Wonder what had possessed her to agree to his plan.

  No more relying on other people.

  That was rule number one for heart-healthy living.

  Rule number one.

  Broken.

  She rinsed out her coffee cup, her legs unsteady, her hands shaking. She blamed both on the concussion, but that was only part of the problem.

  Something about Chance unbalanced her.

  Had she felt that way the day they’d met? Felt that way during the time they’d known each other?

  Or was her reaction some strange side effect of her head injury?

  Either way, she needed to get over it, because she could not break rule number two. If she did, rule number three wouldn’t be far behind.

  And if she broke that one…

  It didn’t bear thinking about.

  Not when she had so many more pressing things to worry about.

  Someone had been in her hospital room.

  She shuddered, hurried out of the kitchen and back into the living room. Empty. No sign of Chance or his mother, but a fire burned in the fireplace, the flames crackling and warm. She wanted to sink down in front of it, rest her eyes for a while, but she needed to check on Emma. Normally cheerful and happy, the baby had fussed from the time she’d awakened at four until she’d fallen asleep several hours later. She hadn’t been feverish, but Rayne couldn’t help worrying.

  She walked down the hall and into the guest room. Set up as a nursery, it sported a cherrywood crib with soft blue bedding, a rocking chair and a changing table.

  Emma lay sleeping in the middle of the crib, her cheeks pink, her hair curling. Rayne touched the baby’s forehead, relieved to feel cool, dry skin.

  Still no fever.

  Maybe Emma simply needed more sleep.

  Rayne knew she did.

  “Is she still sleeping?” Lila whispered as she stepped into the room.

  “Like a log.”

  “Why don’t you go lie down for a while, too? I have some cross-stitching to do, and I’ll just sit here and keep an eye on Emma while I do it.”

  “Cross-stitching?” It didn’t seem like Lila’s style. Spunky and energetic, Rayne’s landlord seemed more like the kind to chop wood than stitch wall hangings.

  “A gift for a friend who had hip replacement surgery.” Lila settled into the rocking chair and pulled out the project.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Great. The surgery was five years ago, and she hasn’t had a problem with that hip since. The quilt I bought and gave her while she was recovering is hanging on the wall in her living room. This—” she held up the cross-stitch pattern “—sits beside my bed and reminds me to never, ever try to cross-stitch a gift for a friend again.”

  Rayne laughed, cutting the sound short when Emma whimpered.

  The baby settled down immediately, falling back into deep sleep.

  “You’d better lie down while you still can. Chance will be back at noon, and I thought we’d try to get you to the doctor sometime after that.”

  “I’d rather just spend the day sleeping.”

  “That’s exactly why you need to go to the doctor,” Lila said in a tone that brooked no argument.

  That was fine.

  Rayne was too exhausted to argue.

  Too tired to do more than walk into the living room, lie down on the couch and pull a blanket over herself.

  Silence.

  Warmth.

  She couldn’t keep her eyes open. Didn’t even try. Just let herself slip into darkness and dreams.

  He’d followed her.

  She knew he had, and she clutched the steering wheel with both hands, her heart pounding with frustration and anger.

  No more discussion.

  No more talks.

  He had to be held accountable for what he’d done.

  Headlights illuminated the interior of the car, splashed across the pavement. His headlights?

  Coming fast.
Too fast for the conditions. Passing her. Disappearing around a curve in the road. Gone?

  She rounded the curve. Saw the car too late.

  She jerked the wheel, felt the tires slide on ice. Felt terror and grief for what she would lose if she died.

  And then, nothing.

  “Rayne?” Someone touched her shoulder, and she came up swinging, her fist just missing a hard, stubble-covered jaw.

  Stubble?

  Jaw?

  She blinked, saw a familiar face. Familiar eyes.

  “Chance?”

  “Who were you expecting?”

  Who had she been expecting?

  The man who’d chased her in her dreams. She just shrugged. “I don’t know. What time is it?”

  “Nearly twelve-thirty.”

  Twelve-thirty?

  She’d slept for over three hours?

  “I need to check on Emma.” She jumped to her feet, and the world spun.

  “Not so fast, Rayne. Your ending up on the floor won’t do Emma any good.” Chance’s hands gripped her waist, his fingers warm through her sweater. She wanted to lean her head against his chest, close her eyes and block out the spinning motion.

  Wanted to.

  Didn’t dare.

  Rule number two: no men. Ever. No matter what.

  “I’m okay.” She backed away, trying hard not to look into his eyes.

  That’s where she’d gone wrong with Michael. She’d looked into his eyes, imagined all kinds of things that weren’t really there and fallen straight into dreams of happily-ever-after.

  “So is Emma. My mom is feeding her a bottle, and we need to get going. You have a doctor’s appointment in an hour.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since my mother made it for you.”

  “She’s very…efficient.”

  “She’s very bossy.”

  “I heard that, Chance Richardson,” Lila called out from the kitchen, and Chance grinned.

  “She also has great hearing.”

  “You’re right, I do. And what I hear is the two of you chattering like you have been all day. You don’t have time. The receptionist squeezed Rayne in between patients. If you’re not at the office on time, she can’t guarantee the appointment.” Lila walked into the room, Emma babbling happily in her arms.

  Rayne took the baby, kissed her chubby cheek. “You look like you feel better, Little Miss.”