Watching Over Her

He had also wanted to get out of Ash’s small house before he lost all objectivity where Maggie Jenkins was concerned. She was too damn beautiful for his peace of mind. He couldn’t lose the image of her hair tangled from sleep, her body all soft and warm and sexy. When she’d tossed back the blankets and revealed her bare legs and the shapely curve of her hips, he had been tempted to crawl into bed with her.

She sighed again. “But I learned quickly why her boyfriend had kicked her out.”

“The woman can’t be trusted.” Blaine wondered if this one could. He wanted to trust Maggie Jenkins; he wanted to believe she was every bit as sweet and innocent as she seemed.

But he couldn’t rule out any possible suspects yet. And she was a possible one—even after the attempts on her life. Or maybe because of them. Her coconspirators could be trying to prevent her from giving them up.

He led Maggie to a back office, near the rear exit, where he had had the bank security footage set up across six small monitors. He pressed a remote and started it rolling.

“What is all this?” she asked.

“Security footage.” Sarge’s security footage. “I want you to watch it.”

“All of it?” She sounded overwhelmed. The six monitors probably were a bit daunting.

Blaine was used to it, as he often watched days, sometimes weeks or even months, of security footage when he was investigating bank robberies. But this time while they watched the monitors, he saw only Maggie—her full breasts and belly pushing against his old T-shirt. Those long, bare legs...

How would they feel wrapped around him? How would she feel when he buried himself inside her?

He shook his head, shaking off the thoughts. They would never happen. She wasn’t just pregnant with another man’s child; she was still in love with that man. It didn’t matter that Andy was dead. A love like theirs—where she had told him everything—was deep and enduring.

Blaine had never had anyone in his life to whom he’d told everything. He had learned at a young age that if he told his sisters anything they would tell everyone. So he’d been keeping his own counsel for a long time—which was good because he had no intention of sharing his thoughts about Maggie with anyone else. In fact, he wanted to forget all about them.

So he focused on the video screens playing out on the monitors in Sarge’s office. It might have been hard to be there, if Sarge hadn’t been like Blaine and Ash—too nomadic to personalize any space. It wasn’t as if they would be there long enough to put down roots anyway. If Ash hadn’t inherited that house in the Chicago burbs, he would have just had an apartment like Blaine had in Detroit—something devoid of decoration and sparsely furnished.

Days of security footage passed before his eyes in a blur—slow enough to pick out faces but fast enough that hours passed in minutes. His head began to pound—maybe more from his mostly sleepless night than from watching the footage.

If staring at those monitors had affected him, he worried how it was affecting Maggie. “Are you okay?” he asked her.

Maggie nodded. “I’m fine.” But her fingers touched her temple and she closed her eyes.

“We can take a break,” he offered.

“I don’t understand why we’re watching these videos,” she said as she gestured at the screens. “All of this happened a week or more ago.”

Had she expected him to show her the footage of the robbery? That would have been too much for her—to relive those terrifying moments, to relive Sarge getting killed...

He may have already told her. So much had happened that he couldn’t remember exactly, so he asked, “Do you know why I showed up when I did yesterday?”

“Because you’re working those bank robberies.”

That was what he’d told the state troopers in the alley. “Sarge called me,” Blaine said. “He told me that he thought the bank was going to be hit.”

She gasped in surprise. “He knew?”

“Yeah, he must have realized that someone was casing the place.” And hopefully that someone had been picked up on the security footage.

She shrugged. “But I don’t know how to tell who’s casing the place.”

“I do,” he said. While he’d worked his way up in the Bureau through other divisions, he specialized in bank robberies now. To date, his record was perfect; he always caught the thieves.

Always...

And this time he had even more incentive than his record and his career. He had Sarge. And Maggie...

“So what am I looking for?” she asked.

“Someone you know.”

She laughed as if he’d said something ridiculous. “I know a lot of these people.”

He could tell. Even though she hadn’t been at this branch that long, she often stepped out of her office to talk to bank clients, her face breathtakingly beautiful as she smiled welcomingly at them. They all smiled back, charmed by her friendly personality.

But he stopped the footage on one monitor as he noticed that one man smiled bigger than the others. And he hadn’t left his greeting at a smile. He had gone in for a hug—a big one that had physically lifted Maggie off her feet. She hadn’t looked happy, though; she had looked uncomfortable.

“Who’s that?” he asked.

She stared at the screen, her eyes wide and face pale as if she’d seen a ghost. “I always forget how much he looks like Andy...”

“Who is he?”

She released a shaky breath. “Mark—that’s Andy’s older brother, Mark.”

“Does he have accounts at the bank?”

She shook her head. “No, he just came by to see me. To check on me.”

Blaine’s senses tingled as he recognized a viable lead. “Did he use to come by the other branch you worked at?”

“Sometimes.”

He nodded.

“It’s not what you think,” she assured him.

She had no idea what he was thinking. People rarely did. He wasn’t even thinking of the case. He was thinking that the man wasn’t just looking at her with concern or familial affection. He was looking at her with attraction. The way Blaine looked at her...

But in the footage she wasn’t looking at the man at all. Like the ring, it was as if she couldn’t bear to look at him. Because he looked so much like her dead fiancé?

He was a good-looking man. With their frequently inappropriate comments, his sisters would’ve gone on and on about his dark hair and light-colored eyes. And Andy had looked like that?

A weird emotion surged through Blaine—anger or resentment? Jealousy?

He was jealous of a dead man...

* * *

“WHAT AM I THINKING?” Blaine was asking her, his voice gruff with a challenge as if he doubted she could read him.

Few people probably could. The man was incredibly guarded. But he’d let that guard down, briefly, to mourn the loss of his friend and former drill instructor. So Maggie felt as if she had found a tiny hole in his armor.

“You’re thinking that Mark is involved in the robberies,” she replied. “And that’s ridiculous.”

Blaine turned back to the monitor and studied the frozen frame of Mark lifting her off her feet. That muscle twitched in his cheek—almost as if it bothered him that another man was holding her.

But her thought was even more ridiculous than his thinking that Mark Doremire was a robber. Blaine Campbell was not jealous of another man touching her. Blaine had no interest in her beyond helping him figure out who the robbers were.

“Why is it ridiculous?” Blaine asked.

“Because he’s Andy’s brother.”

A blond brow arched, as if that made Mark guiltier. Because of what she’d told Andy? If only she’d kept her mouth shut...

Maybe her mother had been right—she talked too much. Or, in this case, she’d written too much.

Once again, she defended her best friend. “Andy was the most honest person I’ve ever known.”

Blaine didn’t challenge her opinion of Andy. He just pointed out, “That doesn’t mean that his brother is honest, too.”

“I understand their personalities being different. But not their fundamental beliefs. They were raised by the same parents—raised the same way,” she said. “How could they be that different?”

“You are obviously an only child.” He laughed. “I have three sisters, and they are very different from each other.”

“How?” she asked. She had always wished she’d had siblings. But her dad’s career was demanding, and he hadn’t been around that much to help her mother. So Mom had won the argument to have only one child.

He laughed again. “Sarah is a car salesperson—with that over-the-top bubbly personality. Erica is a librarian—quiet and introspective. And Buster...”

“Buster?” She’d thought he’d said they were all sisters.

“Becky is her real name,” he explained. “She’s in law enforcement, too. She’s a county deputy. So my sisters are absolutely nothing alike.”

“Maybe not personality-wise,” she said. Mark and Andy hadn’t been that much alike, either. Mark had liked to tease and joke around, and Andy had always been so sensitive and serious. “But morality and ethics...”

“Sarah sells cars,” he repeated. “I’m not so sure about the ethics...”

She laughed now. From the twinkle in his green eyes, it was obvious how much he loved all of his sisters—even the car salesperson.

“Mark has been coming around because of his ethics,” she said, “because he made a promise to Andy—the last time Andy left for a deployment—that he would take care of me if something happened to him.”

That blond brow lifted again with a question and suspicion. “How is he taking care of you?”

If he was asking what she thought he was...

She shuddered in revulsion. “Not like that. Mark is like my brother, too. We all grew up together.”

Blaine clicked the remote and unfroze Mark’s image. Andy’s brother kept smiling at her...before Susan walked up and started flirting with him. “What about with her?” he asked. “Is he brotherly with Susan Iverson?”

She hoped not. “Mark is married. He’s not interested in Susan.” But as she watched the footage, she wondered. “Maybe he’s just a flirt...” Sometimes it felt as if he was flirting with her, which always made her extremely uncomfortable. Because she really thought of Mark as a big brother and only a big brother.

“I need to talk to Mark,” Blaine said. “Where can I get hold of him?”

“I think I have his address somewhere in my office. He and his wife invited me to dinner before.” But she had politely declined because it was so hard to see him. “I can call him...”

She would really prefer calling him to seeing him.

But Blaine shook his head. “I’ll get his address from your office. Then I’ll put you back into protective custody.”

“Because that worked out so well last time?” she asked. “How is that young officer?” Before they had left the little bungalow for the bank, Blaine had called the hospital to check on him, but all he’d told her was that the young man had made it through surgery.

“He’s still in critical condition,” he said.

“Then just let me call Mark,” she urged, her heart beating fast with panic at the thought of being separated from Blaine again. “You can talk to him—you’ll know that he had nothing to do with the robberies.”

But Blaine shook his head in refusal. “No, I have to see him face-to-face.”

So he had to leave her again.

And every time he left her, there was another attempt to grab her. One of these times the attempt was destined to be successful.

Would this be the time?

Chapter Ten

Every time Blaine left her alone or in someone else’s protection, Maggie Jenkins was in danger. He didn’t want to risk it again. It was better that she stayed with him. So she sat in the passenger seat of the FBI-issued SUV that had replaced his rental sedan as he drove to her almost brother-in-law’s address.

But now was he the one putting her in danger?

He shouldn’t have brought her along with him. But he couldn’t risk a phone call that might have tipped off Mark Doremire to his suspicions. If the man was one of the robbers, he certainly had enough money to escape the country—to one where there was no extradition.

Hell, he was probably already gone.

But then, who kept trying to grab Maggie or kill her? And why? If she could identify them, wouldn’t it be easier to escape now than to stick around to try to kill her?

“This trip is a waste of time,” she remarked from the passenger’s seat. “Mark won’t be able to help you, either—just like I couldn’t help you this morning at the bank.”

She had helped him. He’d found a possible suspect. She just didn’t want to see that her dead fiancé’s brother could be a suspect.

“I watched all that footage and I didn’t notice anyone casing the bank,” she said, her soft voice husky with frustration. “I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. And I didn’t at the first bank that was robbed.”

He should have brought up that footage, too. But she’d already admitted that Mark Doremire had been at that bank. Both banks had been robbed—it was a coincidence that was worth checking out.

But he should have checked it out alone. “You really shouldn’t be along with me,” he said regretfully.

“No,” she agreed, even though it had been her comments that had talked him out of risking her safety to someone else’s responsibility. “I don’t want to see Mark. And I really don’t want to see one of those zombie robbers again.” She shuddered with revulsion. “Maybe I should go stay with my parents in Hong Kong.”

His pulse leaped in reaction to her comment, to the thought of her going away where he couldn’t protect her, where he couldn’t see her. “You can’t leave the country.”

“Why?” she asked, her voice sharp with anger. “Am I still a suspect?”

He wasn’t sure what she was. Entirely too distracting. Entirely too attractive...

He couldn’t let her leave. “Right now you’re a material witness.”

“Some witness,” she said disparagingly. “I can’t help you at all. I didn’t see anything on that footage. And during the robberies I only saw what everyone else saw—trench coats and zombie masks.” She shuddered again at mention of the disguises.

She obviously hated those gruesome masks.

“You heard one of them speak,” he reminded her.

She shrugged. “But I didn’t recognize his voice.”

So it hadn’t been Mark Doremire who’d spoken. But it could have been someone he knew—a friend of his. “You might if you were to hear it again.”

She sighed with resignation. “That’s true. I doubt I’ll forget him announcing the robbery the minute they walked into the bank.”

Like the guns and disguises hadn’t given away their intentions.

Announcing a robbery made them seem more like rookies than professionals. But then, they hadn’t been robbing banks that long. Less than a year—barely half a year, actually. Blaine would catch them before they went any longer. If he had his way, the last bank they robbed would be the one at which Sarge had died.

“Which house is it?” he asked as he turned the black SUV onto the street on which Mark Doremire lived. The SUV would probably give away Blaine’s identity, but he tucked his badge inside his shirt.

“I don’t know,” Maggie replied. “I haven’t been here before.” She leaned forward and peered at the numbers on the houses. “That one...”

This neighborhood wasn’t like Ash’s. Nobody looked out the windows. They probably looked the other way. The houses were in ill repair, with missing shingles and paint peeling off. If Mark had stolen any of the money, he hadn’t spent it yet—at least not on his house.

“I’ll stay in the car,” she offered.

Blaine turned toward her. Her face was pale, as if she’d already seen a ghost. “I can’t leave you in the car.”

“Why not?”

“Someone could have followed us.”

She glanced around fearfully. “Did someone?”

He doubted it; he had been too careful. “I don’t know. But I don’t want you out of my sight.”

He didn’t want her walking into the line of fire, either. So he handed her his cell phone. “Call him.”

“But we’re already here...”

If she tipped Mark off now and he ran, Blaine was close enough to catch him. He’d also radioed in his intentions to speak to a possible suspect. So other agents and the local authorities knew where he was and there was a deputy in the vicinity.

“Call him.”

She sighed but looked down at the piece of paper that had Mark’s address and cell phone. Then she punched in a number. “It didn’t even ring. It went straight to his voice mail. Do you want— Oh, his voice mail is full.” With another sigh, of relief, she hung up the phone.

Straight to voice mail? That wasn’t a good sign—especially since the house looked deserted. Maybe he had already left. Just then an older car, with rust around the wheel wells and on the hood, pulled up across from them and parked at the curb in front of the house.

“That’s his wife,” Maggie said as a red-haired woman stepped from the car.

Nobody else was inside the vehicle, so seeing no threat to Maggie’s safety, Blaine opened his door. “Mrs. Doremire.”

She jumped as if startled. But then, in a neighborhood like this, it probably was strange for someone to call out her name. It was probably strange for anyone to even know her name. She slowly turned around and stared at him. “Yes?”

“Tammy,” Maggie called out to her.

The woman peered around him and noticed Maggie inside the SUV. She smiled and waved. “Hi, there. Mark will be thrilled that you finally came over to visit.”

“Is he here?” Blaine asked.

Tammy turned her attention back to him, and her brow furrowed with confusion. “I’m sorry...”

“Blaine.” He introduced himself with his first name only. If the press had mentioned him in any reports about the bank robbery, it would have been as Special Agent Campbell. “I’m a friend of Maggie’s.”

And, really, friendship was all he could expect from her—even though he wanted so much more. He wanted her.

“I’m sorry,” Tammy Doremire said again, as she crossed the street to the SUV. “Mark isn’t here right now.”

“Where is he?”

She sighed. “He’s at one of his folks’—probably his dad’s.”

“Dad’s?” Maggie asked. “Mr. and Mrs. Doremire aren’t together anymore?”

“They split up after Andy died,” she said. “It was too much for them. So Mark keeps checking on them, like he checks on you, Maggie. He’s trying so hard to take care of everybody since Andy’s gone.”

Maggie’s voice cracked as she apologized now. “I’m sorry...”

It wasn’t her fault that Andy had died. It was whoever had set the damn IED where the convoy would hit it. But Mark’s wife didn’t absolve her of guilt. She only shrugged.

“Sometimes he’ll stay the night at his dad’s,” she said, “so you’ll probably want to come back tomorrow.”

Maggie nodded in agreement. But Blaine had other plans.

“It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Doremire,” he said as he slid back behind the wheel.

She nodded, but her brow was furrowed again—as if she’d realized she hadn’t really met him. He had only told her his first name.

“We’ll come back tomorrow, then,” he lied.

“Why?” Maggie asked after he’d closed his door. “You can tell Mark has nothing to do with the robberies. He’s too busy taking care of everyone.”

“Where does Andy’s dad live?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“You don’t know?”

“I didn’t even know they had gotten divorced,” she pointed out, and that guilt was in her voice again, as if she considered herself responsible, “so how would I know where either of them is living now?”

“One of them might have kept the house where they lived before Andy died,” he said. “You know where that is.”

He felt a flash of guilt that it might have been the house where Andy had grown up—a house where she and Andy had shared memories. It would be hard for her to go back to that.

“I know,” she admitted and then confirmed his thoughts when she added, “but I don’t want to go there.”

He wished he didn’t have to take her there. But he had to find Mark before his wife had a chance to warn him that a man, a friend of Maggie’s, was looking for him. Because then the man would run for sure...

* * *

BLAINE CAMPBELL CARED only about his job. He didn’t care about her or he wouldn’t have made her give him directions to Andy’s childhood home in southwestern Michigan. He wouldn’t have kept her in the car to go with him. He wouldn’t have made her keep revisiting her past and her guilt.

Everything had fallen apart since Andy’s death. And that was all her fault. If she had told him the truth earlier, he wouldn’t have reenlisted. He wouldn’t have needed the money for the damn ring she had never wanted.

Blaine Campbell had taken it as evidence against Susan Iverson. She hoped he never returned it.

Maggie stared out the windshield at the highway that wound around the Lake Michigan shoreline. She had always liked this drive—until she had traveled it up for Andy’s funeral. Then she had vowed to never use it again.

She hadn’t wanted to go back. It wasn’t home without her best friend. She had to make a new home for herself and for her baby. But she was afraid that she hadn’t found one yet—at least, not one where they would be safe.

“Andy’s been gone awhile,” Blaine remarked.

“Nearly six months,” she said. But sometimes it hadn’t sunk in yet. Sometimes she still looked for his letters in her mailbox or an email in her in-box or a call...

“Did you even know that you were pregnant when you learned that he’d died?”

She nodded. Since her cycle had always been so regular, she’d taken a test on her first missed day. She hadn’t been happy with those test results because she’d known that Andy would insist on marrying her. He had always been so old-fashioned and so honorable. But now he was dead...

Blaine’s gaze was on the road, so he must have missed her nod. She cleared her throat and replied, “Yes, I had just found out.”

“You’re strong,” he said.

She nearly laughed. Had he already forgotten how she’d screamed her head off that first day they’d met? She wasn’t nearly as strong as she’d like to be. If she was, she might have saved Sarge. “Why do you say that?”

“Some women might have lost the baby,” he explained, “because of the stress.”

“I was fine.” She hadn’t had any problems then; she hadn’t even had morning sickness. She was more afraid of losing the child now.

As if he’d heard her unspoken thoughts, he reached across the console and squeezed her hand. “I’ll keep you safe,” he promised. “I’ll keep you both safe.”

Andy had made promises, too. He’d promised that he would return from his last deployment. So Maggie knew that some promises couldn’t be kept. She suspected that the promise Blaine had just made was one of them.

He didn’t believe that, though. He thought it was a promise he could keep and his green eyes were full of sincerity as he shared a glance with her. Then he turned his attention back to the road and to the rearview mirror. His hand tensed on hers before he released it and gripped the wheel.

“Hold on!” he warned her as he pressed harder on the accelerator.

Maggie instinctively reached out for the dashboard, bracing her hands against it, just as the SUV shot forward. “What’s going on? Why are you driving so fast?”

She had felt safe with him earlier. But not now.

“Just hold on,” Blaine said again, as he sped up some more.

Tires squealed as he careened around a curve.

“What are you doing?” she asked again—with alarm.

But then more tires squealed and metal crunched as another vehicle slammed hard into the rear bumper of the SUV. The SUV fishtailed, spinning out of control toward where the shoulder of the road dropped off to the rocky lakeshore below. Nobody had ever broken a promise to her as fast as Blaine just had.