Protective Instincts. Julie Miller

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СКАЧАТЬ his expression as he inched his way around his grandmother’s leg and craned his neck to look up into Sawyer’s face.

      “I can’t talk to stwangers,” he announced very wisely.

      Sawyer nudged the boy’s age up to four, or maybe twelve or thirty-six, judging by his verbal abilities. “That’s smart.” He held out his ID again, now that the woman at the door had her glasses on. “Did your mom teach you that?”

      “How come you’re so big?”

      Laughter was the only option with a question like that. “My mom’s a good cook. And I’m a good eater.”

      “I’m a good eater, too.”

      “Of course.” The woman snapped her fingers in recognition, drawing Sawyer’s focus back up. “You’re that man who came to visit Melissa in the hospital. The co-worker from when she was waitressing at the Riverboat Casino. I don’t know that she was ever awake while you were there. For a long time, I didn’t think she was going to come out of that coma. I’m Fritzi Teague, Melissa’s mother. This is her son, Benjamin.” Her welcoming chatter slowed into suspicion once more. “I thought she said you were a bartender, though.”

      “That’s how she knew me at the time. But I was working a case. I assure you I’m a cop.” He wondered if he should offer to let her call in his badge number for verification. “It’s a long story. Is Melissa here?”

      “She’s at her accounting class tonight. She usually gets home around nine-thirty.” Fritzi hugged little Benjamin closer to her leg and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Is something wrong? Has something happened to her?”

      “No, ma’am,” Sawyer quickly reassured her. “I wouldn’t be asking for her here if I thought she’d been hurt in any way.” Logical words in almost any case. Still, a tremor of uneasy awareness rippled over his shoulders at the idea that Ace Longbow had somehow survived his bloody escape and had already found a way to get to the Kansas City area and track down his ex-wife. “I’d like to wait and speak to her in person if I could.”

      The older woman’s gaze darted down to her grandson. She offered Sawyer an apologetic smile when she looked back up. “My daughter doesn’t like anyone to come inside when she’s not here. Especially at night.”

      Sawyer glanced over his shoulder at the steady curtain of rain whipping ahead of the wind. A soft drumbeat of thunder mocked him in the distance. But even as he shifted inside his soggy clothes, he had to admire the Teague women’s efforts to keep their little family safe. “No problem, ma’am. I’ll be out in my truck.”

      “Wait.” Fritzi called him back from the edge of the porch. “It’s not like you’re a complete stranger. And since you’re the police, well, I just made a pot of decaf coffee. I don’t suppose it could hurt if you came inside and warmed yourself up. Just let me get the door.”

      As she closed the door to unlatch the chain, Sawyer made a mental note to ensure there were secure locks on every entrance to the house. If Fritzi Teague thought that flimsy chain would keep unwelcome visitors out, she was living with a false sense of security. He hated to tell Melissa’s mother that he could have cut through the screen and busted down the door with little more than a shove. If she didn’t keep the dead bolt fastened, the chain and the knob lock would barely slow him down, much less stop him if he wanted to get inside. And they sure as hell wouldn’t stop a fanatic like Ace Longbow.

      Sawyer fixed a smile on his mouth and, for the moment,

      kept his concerns to himself when she reopened

      the door and invited him inside.

      MELISSA TEAGUE SPOTTED the black-and-white police cruiser parked in front of her house the moment she turned her old Pontiac around the corner.

      The ingrained alertness that had become as much a part of her as breathing kicked up to warning levels, speeding her pulse and sharpening her senses. She squeezed the steering wheel in her fists and pressed a little harder on the gas.

      She didn’t recognize the black truck, either.

      Melissa splashed through the lake pooling at the end of her driveway and parked her car up beside the house. She left the bag of groceries tipped over in the passenger seat, grabbed her keys and climbed out into the rain.

      “Mom?” She turned up the collar of her trench coat, blinked the beads of moisture from her eyelashes and spared a glance for the officer in his car. Drinking his coffee. Just sitting. He wasn’t on his radio or writing up a report as though the truck was illegally parked or stolen, or if there’d been a break-in. Still, surprises had never been a good thing for her. Especially this close to home. “Benjamin?”

      Forcing her lungs to breathe deeply and evenly, she ran across the slick grass to the porch. She quickly unlocked the knob and dead bolt, cursed when she discovered the chain wasn’t fastened and pushed her way inside. “Mom!”

      The screen door slammed shut behind her as she hurried toward the light streaming through the archway from the living room. “Ben? Mom? Why won’t you answer—”

      She turned the corner and froze.

      Her mother was sitting on the sofa, cradling a coffee mug between her hands and laughing with rare abandon—laughing at the man wrestling with Melissa’s precious son on the braided rug.

      For one awful moment she thought that Ace… But no, Benjamin might be a dead ringer for his father with his black hair and olive skin, but her ex had never claimed him. He’d seen their child as a threat—as competition for her love. To Ace, their son was an abomination. A betrayal. Ace had never accepted any other males in her life—not even his own child.

      All the more reason to hold her little boy close and keep him safe.

      The man’s deep voice cracked as he teased Benjamin with a high-pitched plea for mercy. “Aagh! Big Ben got me!”

      “Get me! Get me!”

      “You asked for it.” Her four-year-old squealed in delight as the dark-haired man closed him in a scissor hold between his knees and rolled back and forth on the floor.

      You asked for it. Melissa blocked out the painful memory the words conjured and found her voice. “Mother!”

      The wrestling ceased in an instant. Her mother’s smile vanished. “Melissa.”

      “Mommy!” Benjamin beamed from one flushed cheek to the other. “’Tective got me!”

      Melissa gripped the door frame and retreated half a step as the man sat up and scooted Benjamin onto his lap.

      Oh my God.

      She wasn’t ready for a reunion like this.

      “Hey.” The slightly breathless laugh that lingered in their guest’s bass voice should have reassured her with its familiarity. His lazy grin should have struck a pang of welcome recognition instead of tensing every muscle with the urge to turn and run from the remembered horrors of her old life.

      Melissa Teague didn’t run anymore. But standing her ground still didn’t come easy.

      She knew this man. Not exactly a stranger. Not exactly an СКАЧАТЬ