Live-In Lover

Only one eyebrow raised. “I would be delighted.”

He would be delighted. She had to smile at that.

Damien Perry just took her breath away. She loved to hear him talk. If only the subject matter were a little less macabre, she would just sit back and enjoy the daylights out of it.

But she hadn’t called him in on this because he sounded cute or because his fantastic looks made the backs of her knees sweat. She needed a man who could handle the situation. She had no doubt that when Damien Perry said he would—delighted or not—he surely would.

Suddenly she realized she was still holding his hands between hers and released him. “Oh, sorry,” she mumbled.

“Quite all right,” he said, flexing his fingers as though she had squeezed them too hard.

Molly rose, her movements deliberate and careful as she poured two cups of steaming coffee, placed them on the table and took her seat. She peeled the paper cup from a muffin, reached over and placed it on the tray of the high chair.

Sydney promptly christened it with apple juice, leaned over and bit off the soggy top.

“Have a muffin. I’ll fill you in on what’s happened so far.”

His aristocratic nose wrinkled the tiniest bit when Sydney grinned at him, her mouth full of purple mush. “Thank you, no. I believe I’ll pass on the muffin.”

Molly shrugged. Maybe it wasn’t fair to bring a friend of her brother’s in on this. But Damien Perry had struck her from their very first meeting as a man who could take care of business. Even wounded as he’d been at the time, he had projected an aura of strength and capability that impressed her.

She flatly rejected the thought that there might be another reason his name came to mind when she needed help.

So what if he was handsome as sin itself? Was it a crime to admire his good looks? She was human, wasn’t she? And an artist, too. One who appreciated beauty in all its forms. That’s all she felt for this man, admiration and appreciation.

All right, maybe she’d felt a little infatuation for him initially, but surely that was normal. Every woman he met must feel that. As soon as she got used to him, it would go away.

Damien was a man of the world and, she suspected, a loner. And that was fine with Molly. That signaled safety. She was definitely not looking for another man in her life when she couldn’t even dodge the mistake she’d made the first time.

All she wanted was Damien’s help. Then he could go on his merry way and she could enjoy a couple of secret fantasies about him now and then. No harm in that.

“Tell me about it,” he suggested softly.

Molly jerked her head up and stared into those azure eyes. She almost blurted out exactly what she was thinking, then caught herself. “Oh, you mean about Jack.”

He nodded, an all-too-knowing look in his eyes. “Of course. What else?”

Chapter 2

Damien wondered exactly what Molly Jensen saw when she looked at him and why he seemed to disconcert her so much. It couldn’t be his job. Her brother was also an agent, so that would hold little awe for her.

He supposed it could be attraction on her part, because it certainly was on his. If that was the case, acting on it would suit him just fine, but he knew it was out of the question. Women like Molly didn’t engage in casual sex and brief affairs. They were nurturers at heart, earth-mother types, wife material. Not for him.

She began explaining in a matter-of-fact way how she came to know the man she had married, how he had browbeat her for months until they’d endured a showdown that had ended it all.

During Molly’s recital of events, Damien watched with some interest as she gave her daughter more food.

The child had disgusting habits, Damien thought as he sipped his coffee. For all he knew, maybe all children did. So far, this one had done nothing to endear itself to him. He supposed he could claim admiration for the high decibel level it could reach. It could feed itself, which surprised him.

Somehow he had expected it would still be bald and practically toothless. But this one had grown considerably since Molly had taken those photos of it. It had hair now, curlier and a much lighter red than Molly’s. The wide eyes had a greenish tint, but not so green as hers. Bluer, he noted.

They dressed exactly alike, mother and daughter, in dark green sweats with bright red hearts stitched on the left breast. She fascinated him, this odd little Molly Jensen clone, almost as much as her beautiful mother did.

“So, what do you think?” Molly asked.

“Hmm?”

“Oh, that’s what I like in a man. Attention. Were you even listening?”

“Of course. Your ex made the calls, you’ve gotten the protection order…and…?”

“The police won’t arrest him unless he does something to me. Something they can nail down, anyway. By that time it could be too late. I sent him to jail, Damien, and I’m afraid he’s going to kill me for it. And he might kill Sydney, too. He hates that she exists.”

Damien gave her his undivided attention. Whether she had real cause or not, Molly Jensen was convinced their lives were in danger. He still thought she was probably blowing things out of proportion and overreacting to the harassment.

No doubt her ex was bitter about spending a night or two behind bars. The cops had likely hauled him in for disturbing the peace and to give him a chance to cool off after the argument she’d mentioned. Now he was playing on Molly’s fear to get back at her for it. Once Damien scared the life out of him, he’d back off quickly enough.

“Is there any way to make him stop?” she asked quietly.

Too quietly, he thought. She sounded like a child herself at the moment. A very frightened child who had no idea what to do next. Her deep green eyes looked to him for answers and her bottom lip quivered slightly.

Damien felt something turn over in his chest at the sight. At the moment, he wanted to strangle Jack Jensen with his bare hands for putting that look on her face.

He could do that, but he wouldn’t, of course. Was it possible that she thought he would? He had no idea what her brother had told her about their brief encounter.

Six months ago he had gone undercover as an assassin for hire to apprehend right-wingers who wanted rid of a senator visiting in Nashville. One of the Bureau’s informants had blown that scheme out of the water while Damien was recuperating from a gunshot. Good thing, since Damien’s cover had evaporated with the shooting and resulting publicity. Once he’d recovered, he had gone down to Florida on his next assignment.

Molly might think that his badge made him immune to prosecution, that it would allow him to act as judge, jury and executioner. He’d have to set her straight on that. Intimidating Jensen into behaving himself was about the best he could offer in this situation.

“We’ll think of something,” he assured her. He would have a talk with the police, then throw a scare into Jensen. That should take care of it.

Those long, graceful fingers of hers worried her trembling lip a second or two before she spoke. “It…it’s not as though I did anything to deserve all this, you know?”

Damien almost reached for her then, but clenched his fists instead. “No, no, of course you didn’t! The thought never entered my mind.”

With a sigh she crossed her arms and faced him again. “I’m not imagining this, really,” Molly told him. “He nearly succeeded the last time he tried to kill me.”

“He what?” Damien demanded, straightening in his chair.

“Tried to kill me,” she said with a shiver. “And he meant business. You should have seen his eyes.”

Damien noted the way her fingers dug into the fabric of her sleeves where she grasped her upper arms. She paid no attention to the child who was rhythmically banging her palms on the tray of the high chair.

“Find a paper and pen. Begin at the beginning and tell me everything, in minute detail,” Damien ordered curtly. “I want dates, times, names of anyone who was involved.”

Molly pulled a magnetic notepad and pen off the refrigerator, ripped off her grocery list, tossed the leaf in the trash bin and sat down. She pushed the ballpoint and small tablet across the table to him.

“Well, you see, we had this fight,” she said, avoiding eye contact as though the fact embarrassed her. He watched her absently rub the side of her head with two fingers. “Jack did two years in County for assaulting me. He swore I set him up but I had a great lawyer and a very sympathetic judge. She gave him the maximum sentence. When he got out, he called and said he wanted to get back together. I said no.” She uttered a mirthless little half laugh. “Actually, I phrased it a little more harshly than that.”

Damien tensed. Two years? What the hell had Jensen done to her? “How badly were you hurt?”

Molly smiled and made a fist, massaging the backs of her knuckles with the other hand. “I gave almost as good as I got. Landed a good one on his jaw. Amazing what you can do when you’re cornered.” She shook her fist as though it still ached from the blow she had delivered.

“He hit you,” Damien growled.

“Mmm-hmm. And choked me. After I broke away and slugged him back, he got in the parting shot.” She shrugged. “I fell backward and hit my head. Bled quite a bit and had a…concussion. Guess I looked pretty bad.”

Damien clamped down the sudden, murderous fury that shook him and struggled to remain objective. Molly was no frail victim. She was tall, strong, and courageous as hell. But she was still a woman. And, judging by the age of the child, she must have been pregnant at the time of the attack.

Damien decided he had better not dwell on the incident or he’d come totally unhinged. He cleared his throat and concentrated on taking notes.

“After you refused to reconcile, has he done anything overt to make you think he might resort to violence again?”

Molly looked down and flexed her long-fingered hands with their short, unpolished nails. “Oh, yeah. After I had a date.”

“A date,” Damien repeated, writing it down. “Which date and with whom?”

“My first and only since the divorce. The date took place a week ago. I went to a concert with Joe Malia, a guy who worked at the museum where I was a receptionist.”

Damien looked up at her. “I thought you were in graphic arts.”

“I freelance. Brochures, logos, illustrations for ads and such. My day job was part-time at the state museum downtown. I got fired yesterday. Jack’s responsible. Or rather, his father is. The man has connections on the board.”

Damien understood that Molly would probably attribute everything bad that happened to her to her ex-husband and his family. A natural assumption, and he wouldn’t argue it just yet. It might be true.

“You used past tense for the man you dated. Was Malia fired, as well?”

Molly looked directly at him then, her eyes darkened with sadness and roiling anger. “Joe died two days after we went out together. Hit-and-run.”

Damien almost broke the pen. “Murder, you think?”

“Well, Jack called me the next day and warned me nicely to be extra careful crossing the street.”

When Damien said nothing, she swallowed hard and went on. “Look, Jack was always insanely jealous, but I swear he had no reason to be. He wouldn’t believe that, though, and accused me of having someone else’s baby. That’s what the fight was about, the one that he was jailed for.”

The one he was jailed for? That indicated it was not an isolated occurrence.

Damien stared down at the notepad, hoping she couldn’t detect his rage. All she needed was another irate male around her. He had to remain calm about this and get all the facts.

“I see,” he said finally, though he didn’t see at all. How could she have stayed with the man after the first episode of violence? He had never understood it. Why would any woman do that, especially this one?

Damien could understand a man being jealous of Molly, but he doubted Jensen had gone after Malia with a car. The hit-and-run was most likely an accident and Jensen had merely used it to frighten Molly when he heard Malia was dead.

Using a vehicle to murder someone left too much to chance. No one with any sense used that method. Then again, Jensen certainly could be homicidal without being sensible.

The baby broke the silence. Her dainty hands continued to pound the layer of purple pudding she had concocted out of the muffin and juice mixture.

Slowly, Molly got up and began to clean up the mess as though it was a morning ritual. “I really need to get Syd and my mother out of town as soon as possible. Only I can’t think of where they could go that Jack couldn’t find them. He knows everybody we know. Well, except you, of course.”

“That would be wise. I’ll handle it,” Damien said.

Arranging for a safe place would be relatively easy. Getting Molly to go and then stay with them might pose a problem.

“Thanks,” she said quietly with a look of profound gratitude, and reached out to squeeze his hand.

The brief touch, just like the others, triggered something unfamiliar inside him. Not lust. Desire was already a given and had been since she had opened the door this morning. Maybe even before that, if he were honest with himself. There had been a stirring of it when he’d received her message in Florida and remembered her from their first meeting. This other not-lust thing, however, he didn’t want to examine too closely.

He silently observed while she microwaved a bowl of instant oatmeal with cinnamon and sat again, this time to feed her daughter properly with a spoon.

“My mea,” the child announced, sticking her finger in the bowl and addressing Damien directly for the first time.

“Yes, I see,” Damien answered, unsure how to converse with anyone that age but glad for the momentary diversion.

“Seeee!” she parroted, spewing fine bits of the oatmeal through her teeth and onto his favorite jacket.

“Stop that, Sydney!” Molly ordered firmly. “Don’t spit on the nice man.”

She shot him an apologetic look. “Sorry, Syd’s only nineteen months, but I think she’s hitting the Terrible Twos a little early.”

Damien watched the small lips quiver. Poor little thing. She hadn’t meant to spit.

“It’s all right, really,” he said, hoping to avoid another test of his tolerance for high-pitched sound. “She did stop when you said she should.” He smiled at the child to reassure her he wasn’t angry.

Molly nodded. “Yep. Syd’s brilliant.”

“Mmm,” Damien murmured noncommittally. It seemed a typically mother-like thing for her to say.

Damien had never thought much about motherhood and all it entailed, likely because he couldn’t remember the woman who had given birth to him. His uncle, a widower in his fifties, had adopted him when Damien was orphaned at age three.

A succession of housekeepers had provided only glimpses of what a mother around the house must be like.

Damien suddenly felt a tremendous lack, where before there had been only a blank space inside him he hadn’t realized existed.

He couldn’t chance that what had happened to him might happen to this child. Losing a parent must be the worst event possible for a little one.

Unless, of course, it was a parent like Jensen. He had to keep Molly safe so she could continue to give all she was giving to her child.

“You’ll go with your mother and daughter, of course,” he informed her.

She shook her head firmly. “Can’t do that. Jack would just wait until I came home and start all this again. I think we’d better get this settled while you’re around to help me, don’t you?”

She had a point, he admitted reluctantly. Molly was right about one thing, the police would not intervene unless her ex-husband did something they construed as dangerous.

Maybe he should allow her to stay here. Together, they might draw Jensen out, make him lose his cool in front of witnesses and threaten her publicly. Even if that was not enough to get the local cops to arrest him, Damien might be able to frighten him severely enough so that he’d give up his plan for revenge and leave Molly alone.

It was a long shot and probably not a permanent fix. The success of it would depend directly on Jack Jensen’s sanity. Unfortunately, there were few alternatives.

“Do you have an extra room by any chance?” he asked.

She laid the spoon down and looked at him with such hope, he felt guilty that he had ever considered not helping her even if his hesitation had lasted only seconds.

“You’ll stay here? With me?” Her relief was nearly palpable. “You’re terrific, you know that? I am so grateful, Damien. Ford will be, too.”

As if anyone could drag him away, Damien thought with a wry twist of his lips. Regardless of the reason for it, that brother of hers might not be all that thrilled with the idea of a virtual stranger bunking in with his sister. From the way they had acted in the hospital, Damien knew Molly and Ford must be quite close.

How would it be if Molly touched him with a bit of that caring she showed so easily to her daughter and her brother? She must have some to spare. It needn’t be anything permanent, or anywhere near the depth of what she felt for her family.

Love certainly wasn’t necessary, or even something he wanted from her. That would be a little too deep for comfort. He only wished for a taste of how it would feel to know someone cared a bit, that was all.

“I have an idea,” he said, using his most business-like tone. “How do you think Jensen would react to your having a live-in lover?”

Her beautiful mouth dropped open and her eyes widened with shock. Then she laughed. Ah, that full-bodied, head-thrown-back laughter he remembered from when he’d first met her. His own smile widened in response to it. Even the child giggled and patted its sticky hands together.

Was it so ridiculous, his suggestion?

“Jack would go berserk, if he’s not there already,” she said with a droll expression. “Not that he still cares about me, even in a twisted way. But he sure wouldn’t want me to find anybody else. After him. He always said…” Her voice trailed off and her expression darkened. “No, I don’t want what happened to Joe to happen to you, Damien. We’d better scratch that plan.”

“We have to draw him out somehow and I believe this will work. I can take care of myself, Molly. And I’ll take care of you, as well. Trust me?”

She worried her bottom lip with her teeth for a moment, then nodded.

He stood and held out his hand to her. Molly hesitated only a moment and then shook it to set their deal. To his surprise, she held on.

“Me!” the baby demanded, reaching for him. Hesitantly, Damien extended his left index finger. The small oatmeal-coated hand closed around it, wagging in parody of a handshake.

For a moment Damien stood there speechless, a part of something for which he had no frame of reference. But it felt incredibly good.

Then he cleared his throat, disentangled himself and rested his hands on his hips. “Fine, then. Why don’t you pack some things for the child while I make some arrangements by phone? Then we’ll collect your mother and—”

“We’ll have to wait until she comes home from work at six,” Molly interrupted.

He nodded. “Better to make the move at night, anyway.”

She turned away then and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’ll miss Syd.” Damien watched her supple fingers knead her upper arms. A self-comforting gesture, he supposed.

Before he knew what he was doing, Damien had placed his hand on her shoulder to add what he could to that comfort. “Everything will work out, Molly,” he assured her. “I’ll see to it.”

Her sudden smile was a thing to behold. “We’ll see to it together,” she said. Then she patted his hand and moved out from under his grasp to retrieve the child from her high chair.

“Go stow your gear in the guest room, lover,” she quipped with a brave chuckle that sounded forced. “I have to wonder if anybody in the world’s going to buy this hoax.”

Again, she laughed, ruefully this time, as she shifted the baby to one hip. “You…and me together? An unlikely match, for sure.” She shook her head, rolled her beautiful eyes heaven-ward and sighed as though the whole idea seemed incredibly bizarre to her.

Damien wasn’t laughing. “Oh, they’ll buy it,” he said softly, seriously. Then to himself, “I’d buy it if I could afford it.”

The hours crawled by as they waited for six o’clock. Molly tried to make the time comfortable for Damien, while he seemed determined to make her even more nervous that she already was.

Instead of watching television to while away the time, he watched her. Everything she did, from unloading the dishwasher to folding clothes, he apparently found fascinating.

Syd got the same treatment. She might as well have been an alien from another planet under close observation by a scientist. Damien kept his distance, but rarely let either of them out of his sight for long.

The few breaks they’d had from all that attention were trips to the bathroom and once when he excused himself to make a fairly lengthy phone call to arrange a safe place for her mother and Sydney.

He also checked her security. She already knew it was little better than adequate. There were no fancy cameras or laser beams installed, but there would be an alarm at the police station if anyone broke in.

She’d known she couldn’t depend on simple door and window locks and so had bought an inexpensive alarm system. Under the circumstances, she would have gone without groceries to finance that.

And speaking of groceries, it was time to buy some if she planned to feed a full-grown man. He’d been a sport about eating the peanut butter sandwiches and macaroni and cheese for lunch, but that wouldn’t satisfy a guy his size for long.

She plopped down onto the sofa beside him and plumped up the pillow next to her. “What shall I buy to cook while you’re here? Any preferences?”

“We’ll eat out,” he said decisively.

“Not every meal, surely!” she exclaimed. “That’s way too expensive.”

“I’ll take care of it. We need to be visible as a couple if we want Jensen to find out about us.”

She punched the pillow. “Oh, Jack will find out, all right. Don’t worry about that. I wouldn’t be surprised if he already knows I have a man in the house.”

“If he really was responsible for Joe Malia’s death, then we should expect him to react to this fairly soon. Probably within the next few days.”

With effort, Molly tamped down her fear enough to sound matter-of-fact. “I almost hope he will, just as soon as I get Syd and Mama somewhere safe. This waiting for the other shoe to drop is making me crazy.”

“I can well imagine,” he said.

She sighed. “I’d sure like to get this straightened out before Ford gets home. I’m afraid he’ll go after Jack and get himself in trouble.”

“How long will he be away?” Damien asked.

Molly wondered if they ever discussed their cases with each other when they weren’t working together. “A month, maybe more. He’s on that detail as liaison with your European counterparts.”

“Ah, the car smuggling ring?” he asked.

“That’s it. Mary’s there in Bonn with him. They said they’ll be going on to Switzerland for a vacation after he’s finished working.”

“Well, they should enjoy that,” he said, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“I’m surprised they didn’t send you, too,” Molly commented. “After all, I expect you’re more familiar with that part of the world than Ford is.”

Damien smiled and fiddled with the stack of magazines on her coffee table. “I was busy with another matter. We take whatever lands in our laps. That’s the way it goes. Not often do we have much choice.”

Molly touched his arm, willing him to look at her. “Damien, I feel like I’ve jumped the gun, asking you to do this. I appreciate your coming when I called, but you do have a choice here if you want to back out. Ford wouldn’t hold it against you. He’d understand and so will I. Your work is dangerous enough, but this could be downright deadly.” She shuddered, just thinking about what had happened to Joe.