Warrior Without A Cause. Nancy Gideon

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      Stan rolled his eyes. Then the merriment was gone. “Watch over her, Jack. Keep her under wraps until I can find out if there’s any truth to what she’s saying.”

      Jack gave a snort. “Or to what she wants to believe.”

      “Somebody beat the hell out of her. I’m not willing to take any chances that it wasn’t just a coincidence.”

      “You think her father is innocent, Stan?”

      The P.I. frowned a minute then answered. “Right now, I don’t care. Rob D’Angelo is beyond their reach, but she isn’t. I don’t want anything else to hurt her, Jack.”

      “What about the truth?”

      “By the time I find it, she’ll be ready to hear it. Like I said, she’s tougher than she looks.”

      Jack shrugged noncommittally. “If you say so.”

      “What shall I tell anyone who asks about her?”

      “Tell them she’s going to camp.”

      “Saying your goodbyes to the old homestead?”

      Tessa, who’d been staring up at the curtain-covered windows of her apartment, gave a start then a rueful smile. Saying goodbye to the sleepless nights, to the insidious terror that had her checking behind doors and under the bed in a manic cycle of fear? Good riddance was more like it. Whatever she was heading toward had to be better than that.

      She suddenly realized that she didn’t want to return to the rooms with the upscale address she’d so proudly decorated with trendy furnishings that toted her independence. She now saw the shadowed corners of the second-floor rooms as a prison when they’d once represented her freedom. She couldn’t open the front door without seeing the glass glittering on the floor, without hearing the sinister whisper of her attacker’s voice.

      No, she would never put her belongings back in that place where she no longer belonged.

      For now, she was making her home with Jack Chaney. And after that…Well, she’d just have to improvise.

      “Let’s go, Mr. Chaney.”

      “Before you change your mind?”

      She met his smug assertion with a cool glance. “Or you change yours.”

      He opened the door for her to climb up into the four-wheel-drive vehicle, then scowled at the sight of the cat carrier on the floor of the passenger side.

      “Not an animal lover, I take it.”

      “Sure. I love them with gravy and potatoes on the side.” He shut her inside the truck before she could manage a curt reply.

      Sticking her fingers through the wire grid, Tessa murmured, “Don’t mind him, Tinker. He’s just being…difficult.” A wet nose touched her fingertips in seeming agreement.

      Chaney dropped behind the wheel and started the vehicle, provoking the engine into a series of coughs and grumbles. The smell of something scorching filled the cab.

      “We could have taken my car,” she posed diplomatically.

      “Your car is easily traced to you. Just swallow your pride and enjoy the ride.” He shifted and the beater shuddered away from the curb with a roar. “From now on, you’re officially undercover.”

      And off the face of the known world, she mused, staring out the window as familiar scenery whizzed by. She let it go without regret.

      “You never asked where we were headed,” her driver observed as he checked the crooked rearview before blending into freeway traffic.

      “It doesn’t matter,” was her philosophical reply. Then, after a pause, she asked, “Where are we headed?”

      “No place you could ever find on your own, even if a map existed. No man’s land.”

      No woman’s land, she’d be willing to bet as she studied his profile. A nice profile. Clean, strong, good bones, firm chin. Handsome in a dark, effortless way. Like a pirate.

      He was the kind of guy who would have had girls lining the street in front of his house when he was a teen. With his easy confidence and dark, melting eyes, he could have been anything from class president to class clown, star quarterback to under-the-bleachers bad boy. But studying him more closely, she figured him for the cool, sardonic loner who could have had anything he wanted and shunned all of it. She’d hated guys like that, the ones who never lived up to their potential. Had Jack Chaney grown up knowing he wanted to be a government hit man? Had he planned from an early age to skirt the fringe of acceptability with a wry, indifferent scorn?

      She could see ex-military in him. In the way he carried himself, erect, alert, even when he seemed relaxed behind the wheel. She saw it in the crisp cut of his glossy black hair and squared-away look of his clothing. Efficient, without an extra inch or ounce on him. His dark eyes were always on the move, cutting between the mirrors in a precise circuit that allowed for no surprises.

      And it disturbed her to find that he made her feel safe.

      Suddenly uncomfortable with the turn of her thoughts, she tried distracting them with conversation.

      “So how do you know Stan?”

      “What did he tell you?”

      “He did a lot of talking but never really answered my question.”

      Jack nodded his approval and for a minute Tessa didn’t think he would answer. Then, with a casual shrug, he said, “He and my father were partners on the force a lot of years ago.”

      “The police force?” Why did the notion of Jack coming from a law enforcement family surprise her so? Because usually law and order was passed on as a tradition. Apparently not in his family.

      “You said you owed him.”

      “I said too much,” he muttered, but he didn’t withhold the information. “About twenty years ago they got caught in a cross fire. My dad was hit. Bad. Stan could have left him and gotten to safety but he didn’t. He stayed at my dad’s side, keeping him from bleeding to death, keeping the scumbags off until reinforcements showed up. He rode with him to the hospital and later broke the news to us that Dad had been shot and would never walk again. Stan stayed with my dad through therapy and bankruptcy—with a whole lot more loyalty than my mom who figured the going wasn’t going to get any better so she got going and never looked back. They don’t come any better than Stan Kovacs in my book. That answer your question?”

      And then some.

      “Stan said your call sign was Lone Wolf. That sounds a little…”

      “Unfriendly? Aboriginal?” he finished for her. His tone hadn’t changed but a certain tightness sharpened the edges of his swarthy features until she could see the hint of American Indian in the sculpted highs and lows. “On my mother’s side, way back. Just enough so I could run a casino if I wanted to. But that’s not where I got the moniker. Lone Wolf isn’t my Indian name, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

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