A Surprise Family: Against The Odds

“Maybe not, but it’s definitely intriguing.” Ridiculous to feel let down by her revelation. And stupid to admit he’d been waiting for something more. Something she’d give freely that had nothing to do with desire, and everything to do with a modicum of trust.

And that was just humiliating. If he didn’t watch himself he’d be turning into a damn woman with all these notions of sharing, and then where the hell would he be? Well, on his back, actually, because if he were a woman he’d have sex all the time, just because he could, but that wasn’t the point. The point was Lindsay didn’t trust him. Not enough to tell him whatever the hell she was running from. And though everything inside him wanted to push, he held back. He’d conducted enough interviews to know when confidences couldn’t be rushed. You coaxed the secrets out, built up rapport. It’d obviously take more time to do the same with Lindsay.

“How about you? Any hidden talents you want to brag about?”

“If you still have to ask…” He jumped a little when she plucked at his chest hair, a little harder than necessary. He’d forgotten about that mean streak of hers. “All right, hold on.” In the interest of self-preservation, he covered her hands with one of his. “We’d have been a pair at twelve because I believe it was about that time I’d perfected the art of belching the entire chorus of ‘Happy Birthday.’”

A helpless laugh escaped her, and he smiled. “Since I don’t want you to think I was completely without charm, I’d like to add that two years later my claim to fame was being named most valuable player when I competed in the junior hockey league.”

“Hockey?” She eyed him suspiciously. “In California?”

He shifted, settling her more comfortably. Maybe this talking after sex thing wasn’t so bad. He did, after all, have Lindsay stretched out on top of him. Naked. “We have indoor rinks here, too. Got a full ride later to USC. I was good at skating and I liked to knock people down. Seemed like a calling.”

“Hockey.” She sounded bemused and he was oddly pleased that he’d managed to surprise her.

“Speaking of claims to fame.” He leaned forward to nip her bottom lip, not quite gently. “I’m sort of surprised you haven’t had reporters camped out on your doorstep already. I doubt you can count on that luck holding. You might want to hang out at Jolie and Dace’s for a while. Unless I can convince you to stay at my place. My motives, of course, would be completely pure.”

That stillness came over her again. He could feel the tension shooting into her muscles. “Reporters?”

Smoothing her hair back from her face, he studied her without seeming to. “You’re the woman of the hour. Those heroics of yours? Splashed all over the media. Radio, TV, newspapers.” He’d chased more than one reporter away from her hospital room that first night, before having a little talk with the hospital security. Must’ve done some good, because apparently her address hadn’t been leaked yet.

“Well.” Her smile looked forced. “A celebrity doesn’t stay famous long, even in Metro City.”

“Not just in Metro City,” he reminded her. Didn’t the woman ever turn on a TV? “You made CNN. The story ran national.”

Lindsay felt her organs turn to ice, one by one. Glaciers bumped through her veins. A freight train ran through her chest, roared through her ears. Jack’s voice seemed to come from a distance.

“I’m not going to lie. The pictures weren’t the most flattering. But you looked suitably heroic. Wouldn’t be surprised to hear the mayor was planning a ceremony in your honor.”

National news. The words drumrolled in her head. And pictures. Of course there would be pictures. Now she remembered the flash of bulbs as they carried the stretcher to the ambulance. And it would all end up on the Internet. The cold radiated from her insides out. Jack felt it, tugged the sheet up over her. But his efforts were in vain. In that moment, she doubted she’d ever be warm again.

No reason to panic, she told herself a little wildly. What were the chances Niko would see that particular broadcast, even if it were on the national news? And if he had, what was the likelihood that he’d recognize her? She’d been careful. Her hair was shorter, colored. A different style. And though she hadn’t used colored contacts for this identity, he’d never be able to determine eye color from a newscast. Her picture would have flashed on the screen for only a few seconds. He’d have no reason to look further into the story.

Although all true, the thoughts did little to chase the chill away. She’d ignored her instincts when they first began to warn her it was time to move on. But she couldn’t afford to ignore them any longer.

“You know that food you were talking about earlier?” She hoped her voice sounded normal. Because her smile felt forced. “All of a sudden I’m ravenous.”

He was silent a beat too long. “You want me to heat up some soup?”

“I was thinking Thai. Ming’s is over on—”

“I know where Ming’s is.”

She rolled off Jack, avoiding his gaze. And felt far worse than she’d expected to for lying to him. “They don’t deliver, though. Maybe we should call for pizza instead.” She held her breath.

“No problem. I can go pick it up and be back in forty minutes.”

Jack sat up and swung his legs over the bed, then rose, unabashedly nude. Lindsay wrapped the sheet around herself, too miserable to enjoy the view. The thought of sneaking away like a thief in the night seemed low, but spending even another hour in Metro City under the circumstances was too dangerous even to contemplate.

And that, she thought bitterly, was what she got for lowering her guard, ignoring her better judgment. For reaching out and taking what she wanted, even for a few hours. Experience should have taught her that everything came with a price.

Jack had his jeans on, was buttoning his shirt. “What do you want?” When she looked at him blankly, he elaborated, “From Ming’s. What should I get you?”

There was a vise in her chest, squeezing the breath from her lungs. “I don’t care. Surprise me.”

He nodded. “I’ll do that.”

She watched him move to the door, walk through it. And then stared at the closed portal as if it held solutions for a problem she’d spent three years running from.

Hauling in a shaky breath, she swiped a hand across her burning eyes. There was only one solution to be had, and if she wanted to stay alive, she had to get moving. But it was peculiarly difficult to haul herself out of bed and head toward her closet.

Moving like an automaton, she pulled on clothes and shoved her gun and money into the bottom of her purse. After a moment she also threw in the bags containing the prescriptions and medical supplies. Then she dragged out her duffel bag and tossed the remainder of her meager belongings into it.

It took all of ten minutes to pack everything she owned. And that, in and of itself, was some sort of commentary on her life. But it wasn’t one she wanted to spend time examining at the moment. She looked around the apartment, checking for anything she might have forgotten.

There was a jagged pain in her chest at the thought of leaving without a word to Jolie and Dace. She’d use a pay phone to contact Jolie, she vowed, on her way to wherever she was going. This was the reason she’d always avoided ties. They just made it more difficult—painful—when it was time to go. There was a weight in her heart, slowing her movements. Lining her stomach with lead.

She pulled the key to the apartment off her key ring, laid it on the counter, and forced her mind back to the matter at hand. Her rent was paid up until the end of the month. She’d repaid Jack for the hospital bill and prescriptions.

Jack. Nerves jittered. He’d be back in twenty or thirty minutes. She needed to hurry. If she left now she could catch a bus and get off near the interstate. And then she’d try her luck heading south.

Her feet began moving, ahead of her will. She’d never been to the southwest. Maybe she’d lose herself in Tucson or Phoenix. She pulled open the door, a flare of urgency urging her faster. Hurrying down the steps, it occurred to her that she should have taken another pain reliever. Her headache, miraculously absent while in bed with Jack, had raged back stronger than ever. She rounded the corner of the garage, intent on taking the sidewalk to the bus stop.

And ran full tilt into a rock-solid chest.

Two hard hands came up to steady her, failed to release her. Her mouth opened as she stared up at his face, but no sound came out.

Jack’s smile held grim satisfaction, with an edge of mean. “Surprised yet?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lindsay stared at Jack, shock dulling comprehension. “I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” she blurted.

One black brow winged up in derision. “Obviously.”

Reason filtered in belatedly and she tried to tug free. He still didn’t let go of her arms. “I thought…While you were gone I figured I’d drop off a bag of stuff I promised to Dora Jenkins. My landlord,” she improvised rapidly. “She’s taking a load of Christmas donations to Goodwill.”

He eyed her bag. “Now that’s interesting. Because lousy detective that I am, I figured you were running out on me. I’d also hazard a guess that the bag is full of every blessed thing you had in that apartment.” There was a little smile playing around the corners of his mouth that owed nothing to amusement. “Should we see how far off base I am?” He released her to reach for the bag.

Lindsay tightened her grip on it. And for the first time noticed that his hands were empty. “You never went to Ming’s!” So her outrage was hypocritical. There was an urgency building that made niceties a luxury. He’d obviously been to his car, because he was wearing his gun and shoulder harness. But he’d also obviously not gotten farther than that.

“Because your sudden hunger didn’t appear until after I’d told you about the publicity.” With hard hands he forcibly turned her and gave her a little nudge in the direction of her apartment. She tried to stand her ground, but she was no match for him when he placed an implacable palm at the base of her back and propelled her forward.

“So I thought I’d stick around a few minutes,” he continued, voice terse. “Actually started to think I’d overreacted. Been too suspicious. But here you are, hurrying toward the bus stop like your ass is on fire. So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not inclined to believe it’s due to a sudden burst of generosity. Although I know from recent experience just how generous you can be.”

That earned him a hard elbow jab to the gut, which, if he hadn’t been crowding her so closely, wouldn’t have hit its mark. As it was, he made a satisfying sound of pain, but it didn’t slow him appreciably.

“Stop pushing me around,” she ordered, seething. When they got to the stairs he grabbed one of her arms and practically hauled her up the steps, which only infuriated her further. “I said—”

“Yeah, I know what you said. It’s what you didn’t say that I’m interested in. So you’re not going anywhere until you tell me what the hell has you so spooked. Who you’re running from.” They were on the landing now, outside her apartment. But when he guided her toward the door, she managed to break free and dodge around him. Only to be caught, when he turned, between the railing and a wall of pulsing angry male.

“It’s none of your business—” she began.

He shoved his face close to hers, his dark eyes shooting enough sparks to singe her with his fury. “The hell with that. I’m not going to stand here and debate it with you. It is my business. We’re connected, you and me, no matter how much you want to deny it.”

She desperately wanted to. But the denial when it came to her lips refused to be uttered. She could only stare at him, a wistful sort of sadness twisting inside her. Because it had been a long time since she’d wanted to be tied to any man. And despite her better judgment, Jack Langley had called out long-dormant feelings in her from the first.

His expression, fixed on hers, softened marginally. “You’re in trouble. Think I can’t see that? But you have to trust someone, sometime. I think that someone should be me.” He reached up to cup her face in his palm. “Now.”

One of her hands rose to cover his as she fought the surge of longing that swept through her. How did he do that? she wondered wildly. How could he so deftly smash through logic and good sense to elicit a response based solely on emotion? Give the man another few minutes and he’d have her spilling everything, and that would put her in all-too-familiar territory.

A cop had been told the story once before. Disaster had followed.

Swallowing, she battled to wall off feeling, fought to summon reason. “I can’t do that. It’s not your—”

She felt the wood splinter near her hand at the same time she heard the muffled shot. Jack shoved her down behind him and drew his gun, crouching in front of her. “Get inside,” he shouted.

The second shot sounded and he didn’t have to tell her again. She’d left the door unlocked, and she practically dove inside, landing on her knees with enough force to snap her head back, increasing the hammering in her temples.

But when Jack didn’t follow her moments later, she crawled to the still-open door. “Get in here!”

He tossed her a quick glance. “Use your cell to call 911. Give them the address and tell them there’s an officer in need of backup. Go!”

“What are you doing?”

Jack continued down the stairs, his back against the wall of the apartment, gun ready. He shouldn’t have been surprised that Lindsay failed to immediately follow his order. But at least she was no longer in the line of fire.

Because given the circumstances, with someone shooting at them, it was almost certain that she was the target.

Jack scanned his surroundings as he moved. The shooter was hidden somewhere in the backyard separating the garage and the main house. From the direction of the bullets, the gunman would have had to be hidden at an angle to the landing of the stairs.

The adjoining yard was heavily landscaped, with a man-made goldfish pond, complete with arched bridge. A multilevel deck covered the back of the house, leading down to a barbecue pit. The mass of green lawn was punctuated with carefully tended clumps of flowering shrubs.

But it was toward the gazebo in the center of the yard that Jack headed now, taking cover where he could along the way. Whoever had fired at them had to be close. That hadn’t been a rifle. It had been a revolver fitted with a suppressor, from the sounds of it. Most likely a .45 semiautomatic. It wouldn’t be particularly accurate from a distance.

He stopped behind a large boulder and studied the partially open building across the yard. He hadn’t seen anyone running from the area, which meant the shooter was likely still around. Jack took an instant to throw a glance over his shoulder. Lindsay had shut the door, he noted with relief. She was safe for the moment.

Considering his options, he decided to try circling around the far side of the gazebo. It was longer, but going the other way would take him across the deck. If the shooter was still out there, a shot fired in his direction could hit the house.

He ran in a crouch toward a nearby thatch of low-lying shrubs, taking a flying dive when the next shots were fired. Hitting the ground heavily with his shoulder, he rolled, rose to his knees. A figure in black was racing across the yard and Jack’s finger began squeezing the trigger.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw movement. Turning, he observed the elderly lady leaning to peer out of the back door of the main house. “Get inside,” he shouted, his finger easing on the trigger. She closed the door, but remained framed in its window.

Jack cursed, rose and started racing after the fleeing figure. The houses in the area were pricey, each surrounded by an acre of yard. The man—and he was fairly certain it was a man—veered toward a ten-foot brick privacy fence and scrambled up a rope ladder dangling on the side. Long before Jack reached it, the ladder had been yanked over the top.

He came to a halt in front of the fence, breath heaving, and took a moment to scan the area. No way to tell if the gunman would cut across the private yard and over the other side of the fence or go out the front. Weighing the odds, Jack raced toward the front of the house, looked up and down the street. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he ran around to the other side, but there was no one in sight.

The old wound in his thigh was screaming, and there was a hitch in his gait when he jogged up to the front door of the huge stone house. He wanted a look in its backyard, but there was a growing certainty in his gut.

The gunman had already gotten away.

“You poor thing,” Dora Jenkins crooned, pushing a large mug of fresh, steaming coffee into Lindsay’s hand. “Drink this. You need your strength.”

Maybe it was adrenaline crash, or it could have been the shot of vodka Dora had laced the last mug with, but Lindsay’s head was swimming. Come to think of it, it might be the alcohol combined with the pain reliever she’d taken earlier. In any case, another mug was going to knock her on her butt.

Then again, the expression on Jack’s face when he and the cop he was talking to glanced her way warned her that she was going to need fortification. She accepted the mug, sent a wan smile to Dora. “Thanks.” Her fingers wrapped around the cup, seeking the heat transference. Her insides were infused with ice.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw those men running across my yard with guns drawn,” prattled Dora. She was a small, plump woman with a head full of gray pin curls, circa the 1940s. They danced and shook with her words, as Dora Jenkins did everything with a flourish, even speaking. Especially speaking. “It was just like something out of the movies. Especially that one…What was the name? Cary Grant was a detective. Or was it Gary Cooper? No, I really think it was Cary Grant, because I saw it with my husband, when we…”

Lindsay tuned out, trying to compose her thoughts, which were chasing around her mind like a cat after a mouse. It could be coincidence. An inner voice jeered at that, but she clung stubbornly to the idea. Maybe Jack had enemies. Or maybe the guy they’d stopped in the Blue Lagoon a few nights ago was angry about the charges filed against him. She’d broken down and written out a statement while she’d waited with Jolie to be dismissed from the hospital.

The thoughts continued to swirl, but there was a cold spear of certainty lodged in her middle. Because there was only one person likely to shoot at her.

Niko Rassi.

Bile filled her throat and she clutched the mug tighter. He would have had to move fast. How long ago had that newscast gone national? Yesterday? The day before? He would have had to act immediately, travel over two thousand miles in less than forty-eight hours. Was that even possible? Paranoia and logic battled. She couldn’t be sure.

Her attention was diverted by something Dora said. “I’m going to go right home and take inventory. Martha Grimes’s home was robbed just last month. And Sid Balkey said just yesterday that he’d seen strange cars driving up and down the street lately. Casing the places, that what I think. Why, how do I know he hadn’t already been in my house? Could have killed me in the middle of my afternoon Pilates.”

“You…There’ve been robberies on the street?” Lindsay’s brain felt sluggish, but she seized on the information like a starving hound on a bone.

“That’s what I’ve been saying.” Dora patted her shoulder again. “You’re overwrought. I don’t blame you for being a little out of it. Why, if you didn’t happen to have that police detective at your place, there’s no telling what shape we’d all be in right now.”

Lindsay huddled closer to the railing of the stairway, where she was seated on the bottom step. “No telling,” she murmured.

Interest sharpening in her voice, the older lady’s expression turned shrewd. “Just what was that police detective doing here, dear?”

Over the woman’s shoulder, Lindsay saw Jack headed her way, and took a quick gulp from her mug for fortification. “He…ah…needed to go over my statement. From before.”

“Of course.” But the elderly woman’s look that passed between Lindsay and Jack as he approached remained speculative.

“Ms. Jenkins.” Jack’s tone was professional. “Detective Paulson will take your statement.” He pointed to the man he’d been speaking to earlier, who was standing at the curb.

Dora straightened, beaming, and fluffed her hair, her earlier curiosity forgotten. “My statement. How exciting. Maybe he’ll help me take inventory at my house, too.” She hurried toward the driveway.

Lindsay saw the puzzlement on Jack’s expression and explained, “Dora says there have been some burglaries on this street. She’s convinced this was a casing gone wrong.”

He propped his foot on the step beside her, leaned in. “That’s one idea.”

The proximity, coupled by the frenzy of her thoughts, had her nerves skittering, tumbling one over the other. She took another swallow, although alcohol right now was probably not a good idea. She needed all her wits about her for this conversation.

And to plan how she was going to slip away from all the attention and get out of town, without leaving a trace.

“You okay?”

The husky timbre of his voice, the note that hadn’t been there when he’d addressed Dora, added another degree of weakness to her muscles. “I’m fine.”

He accepted the lie for what it was and lifted his head to look around the area. “I can’t say that I share Ms. Jenkins’s opinion, though. Unusual for a burglar to come armed, in daylight. Especially unusual to fire, other than in self-defense. It’s not like we were a threat. Never even saw the bastard before the shooting began.”

She gripped the mug almost tightly enough to crush the pottery and strove for an even tone. “I’ve been thinking that it might have something to do with the restaurant shooting. Maybe Mitch had a brother, or family members upset about the way it ended.”

“And decided to take it out on you?”

It sounded thin, even to her own ears, but it was the best she could come up with, given the fact her focus was splintered into a thousand fragments. “Some of the witnesses at Piper’s got the idea I was cooperating with Mitch. And he wasn’t exactly singing my praises before you…before he…” He’d spent his last moments, she recalled now, her stomach sinking even further, cursing her fluently and imaginatively. She could have told him he was wasting his breath. She’d been living under a curse for the last several years.

“It’s a thought.” His voice was mild. Which should have warned her. He reached into his pocket and withdrew a clear plastic evidence bag. “Doesn’t explain this, though.”

He held the shell between thumb and forefinger and Lindsay stared dumbly at it. Read the engraving on the side. The engraving she’d known would be there.

“Any idea who ‘Gracie’ is?”

It was like staring into the headlights of an oncoming train. Knowing it was bearing down on her didn’t lessen the impact. She couldn’t respond. The simple act of drawing breath into her lungs was beyond her. Panic careened through her system, sprinted up her spine.

Somehow, she managed to shake her head. But she couldn’t manage words. Not yet.

The last time she’d seen that shell, or its twin, she’d had Niko’s hand wrapped around her throat.

See this? If you don’t tell me where it is, this one has your name on it. Are you listening to me, Gracie?

She’d listened. And she’d managed, somehow, to convince him of her ignorance. Until she had the chance to get away. And kept running so the bullet encased in that shell wouldn’t find its mark.

Caught in the past, her lungs ached for oxygen. She released the pent-up breath in a long rush, one hand going unconsciously to her throat.