Assumed Identity (16 page)

“I hurt you.” He gripped the back and arm of the couch, fighting what his body wanted to do. “I didn’t mean...” And then her warmth and strength and stubborn spirit moved past the guilt and fear, and Jake wound his arms around her, squeezing her tight. “Oh, God, honey, I need...” He needed the warm human contact to ground himself back in reality. “I just need to hold you. Can I hold you?”

She nodded, rubbing her cheek against his. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

“Safe?” He swiped at the tears that stung his eyes and buried his face in the fragrant softness of her hair. “
I’m
supposed to protect
you
.”

Her palms slid up against his scalp and across his back, wrapping him up in her shielding strength. “You’re not going to win this argument. Just talk to me.”

He almost laughed at the idea of her bossing him around. But it had been too long since he’d laughed, too long since he’d shared any part of himself with another person.

She pressed a kiss against his grizzled cheek and pulled back enough to stroke her fingers beside his eyes and beside his mouth. “Your face was contorted in such pain. You were thrashing and moaning. You scared me.”

“I’m sorry.” He leaned forward and stole a quick kiss. “I didn’t mean to. Usually, I just deal...” Her hands settled atop his shoulders and she waited expectantly for him to continue. “That’s why I was there that first night you were attacked.” He reached down to pull her legs from around his and settled her squarely on his lap. “I’d had a nightmare, and I thought a cold, long walk in the rain would clear my head. At first I thought...” He tangled his fingers into her sleep-mussed hair and tucked it behind her ear. “When I heard you scream, for a split second I was reliving...something. I had to save you. I’ve got this thing about saving people.”

“I know.” Her hands never left his skin; her gaze never left his face. “Was it the same nightmare tonight?”

Jake nodded. She asked a question—he tried to answer. That was the deal. Every time Robin forced him a little closer toward that civilized behavior she kept insisting on, the easier it became. “In my dreams, I have to kill someone or I’ll be killed.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I’m killing shadows—stabbing, shooting, strangling with my bare hands—any way I can.” She gasped softly at the graphic images he described, but let him continue. “I think I’m saving lives but maybe I’m just saving my own skin. Either way, I’m failing. I’m bleeding. I’m...”

“Do you think it’s a memory trying to surface?”

“It sure feels real.” He clenched his teeth so tight against the images he’d seen that the muscles in his jaw were shaking. “You and Emma were there tonight, mixed up in all the violence. I couldn’t save you.”

“Oh, Jake.” She squirmed against his groin, waking something far more basic than the gentle warmth she stirred in other parts of his body as she lay her head on his shoulder and wound her arms around his waist. He felt the bead of a firm breast brush across his skin and every muscle she leaned against quivered in response. “Shh. We’re okay. Both of us are okay.”

Jake didn’t want to be feeling this desire heating his blood. Robin was lean and soft, wearing cotton pajamas that were far too thin for her not to notice the swelling response of all this touching and talking and tenderness. He pulled his fingers from her hair and set her on the rumpled sheet beside him. He pushed to his feet and stalked across the room, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I damn near snapped you in two. How is that okay?”

“I’m still here, Jake. I’m in one piece. I think you must have some kind of post-traumatic stress. I know you didn’t mean it.” He silently cursed the face reflected in the mirror above the empty fireplace. But Robin came right after him. She pulled his hand back to her cheek and turned her face into his palm. “I’m not any part of your nightmare. I’m real. I’m now.”

With that much of an invitation, his fingers inevitably wound into the silky waves of her hair. “I wish I could remember. The doctors said with an injury like mine, the memories sometimes never come back.” The moon outside filtered through the windows, casting a cool light over her beautiful face. “I wish I knew if I was a good guy who deserved you, or some murdering S.O.B. you need to be running from.”

“I can’t imagine what that’s like, to have lost so much of yourself. But I do know this. To me, you’re Jake Lonergan. You’re the man who saved my life and my daughter’s. And that makes you a very good guy in my book.”

“But what if—”

She pressed her fingers over his lips and cut off his argument. “No what-ifs. Only certainties tonight, okay? Maybe you’ll never get your past back. But you have the present. And you have a future. A man gets to choose who he wants to be every day of his life. Decide who you want to be right now. Choose to be a hero. Choose to be with us. Forget about whether or not you killed someone, whether you did it out of self-defense or... Oh.” A pink blush stained her cheeks as she pulled her hand away with an apology. “
Forget
was a poor choice of words but—”

Jake cupped her face between his hands, pulled her onto her toes and kissed her. Hard. She tumbled into his chest and he kissed her again. “I get it. I choose you.” He thrust his tongue into her mouth, surrendering to her stubborn faith in him, claiming the compassion and understanding she gave. “I choose here. Now.”

Her lips chased after his, parted, welcomed. He took anything she offered, and damn, the woman was generous. She braced her hands against his chest and curled her fingertips into his skin, igniting ten hot spots of desire that fed the need simmering deeper inside him.

“I need you, Robin.” One more kiss and his body was just as hot as it had been during the throes of that nightmare, but in a very different, much more pleasurable way. “I need to hold on to you. And reality.” She nodded, understanding, and Jake swung her up into his arms and carried her back to the sofa. “I need you.”

“Yes.”

The single word was a gift he didn’t deserve, but one he needed to hear as he laid her on the overstuffed cushions and slid on top of her. His jeans and shorts were uncomfortably tight and he couldn’t help but rub against the juncture of her thighs. She held on to his neck and kissed his throat, his jaw, the corner of his mouth, fueling the fire that was already burning dangerously beyond his control.

Jake pushed up the hem of her shirt, running his hands over her smooth skin, exposing her pretty breasts to the moonlight and feasting his eyes on the tight, rosy peaks. “I need you to keep the nightmares away.”

“This is you and me. We’re real. I want—” He closed his hungry mouth over her breast, suckled the pebbled tip against his tongue and she bucked beneath him, gasping his name.

Oh, damn. He’d hurt her.

“It’s too much, isn’t it. Too intense.” Denying his own raging need, he pushed himself up, carefully pulling his body away from hers. “You don’t have to do this. I can take a cold shower.”

“Don’t you dare.” With a determination that shouldn’t have surprised him, Robin pushed him against the back of the sofa and climbed into his lap. She straddled his arousal and reached for the hem of her pajama top, stripping it off over her head and shaking her hair loose around her face as she tossed the shirt aside. She was the most glorious thing he’d ever seen. “I need you, too. I’ve been on my own a long time, Jake. It’s hard to be alone—even if you can manage it. And I’ve never been drawn to anyone the way I’m drawn to you.”

He groaned at the need pulsing through him and fisted his hands on the couch. “I haven’t been with a woman since... I can’t remember.”

She reached for his hands and placed them over her breasts, showing him with her body that he hadn’t hurt her at all. “Then we’ll rediscover how it’s done—together.”

There were no more words and not nearly the finesse this woman deserved. In a flurry of bumping hands and stolen kisses, they shed the rest of their clothes. He found a condom in his go-bag and she rolled it onto him. Jake palmed two handfuls of her round, beautiful bottom and lifted her over his lap, nudging at her entrance before pushing into her tight, welcoming heat.

Her fingers dug into his shoulders as he moved beneath her, sliding in faster, deeper—growing impossibly harder with every feverish thrust. He captured her nipple in his mouth again and drew on her until she moaned his name and her moist sheath began to spasm around him.

“Jake.” She leaned back, rocking her hips against his. He palmed her breast, tunneled his fingers into her hair. “Jake.” He tightened his grip around her buttocks and thighs, anchoring her to him as he thrust up inside her. Everything in him rushed to the spot where they were joined—all the guilt, all the doubt, all the need, all the fire. He could scarcely breathe. He could barely think. But he could look. He could feel. Her body gripped him like a firm, urging hand and he shook with his release deep inside her. “Jake!”

He’d never forget the wondrous look in her eyes as she flew apart in his arms.

He’d never forget her cuddling close as he stretched out on the sofa and pulled her down beside him afterward. He spread the quilt over them both as their bodies cooled, and he savored the skin-to-skin trust of Robin dozing off beside him.

He’d never forget how right and humbling and perfect it felt to be fully in the here and now, making new memories with Robin to store in his mind and heart.

“You need to sleep, too,” she whispered some time later, perhaps sensing that he’d been awake, trailing lazy circles along her hip, watching over her. She snugged that perfect little bottom against the cradle of his thighs and laced her fingers together with his, pulling his arm across her stomach. “Were you thinking about the nightmare again?”

Jake ignored the leaping impulses of his body, waking again at the intimate contact. There was something more than sex he needed from Robin tonight. He needed the peace this woman brought to his fractured mind. He needed the light she brought to his frozen heart. He needed to be the man—that good man—she believed he could be.

“No.” Jake pulled her hair aside and pressed a kiss behind her ear. “Can we hear Emma in here if she wakes up?”

Robin nodded. “I brought the monitor with me when I came to check on you.”

“Good.” He nuzzled the nape of her neck. “Because I don’t think I’m a strong enough man to let you go right now.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Jake. Promise me you won’t...go anywhere, either.”

He could guess she wasn’t just talking about staying with her physically. “I’ll do my best.”

After checking to make sure his knife was beneath the pillow, and his gun was within easy reach beneath the coffee table, Jake let his eyes drift shut. With his body sated and Robin tucked safely against him, he slept through the rest of the night.

Chapter Ten

Jake pulled a T-shirt on over his jeans and reached for the pair of socks he’d laid out on the sofa. “Hey, you.” One of the socks had tumbled over the side onto the blanket where Emma lay beneath an arched baby entertainment center. But instead of batting at the plastic animals dangling overhead, she’d found the plain white sock and was noshing on that as if it was her favorite toy. “Trade you.”

He knelt down to gently pry the sock from her fingers. She fussed a little, and while he was beginning to learn that the soft coos and protesting noises were just her way of communicating, Jake still got a knot in his stomach at the sound of distress and quickly guided her hands up to the blue cat hanging over her head. When she buzzed her lips in satisfaction, Jake smiled.

Jake Lonergan, babysitter. Not a job title he ever would have imagined for himself.

He tilted his head toward the soft humming coming from the shower in the master bedroom. “Your mama’s pretty skin must be pruning by now. Good thing you and I ate breakfast before she got in there.”

Emma’s blue eyes looked right at him and he imagined her smile was a “yes” to his conversation. With the Carter girls both temporarily occupied, Jake finished dressing.

He’d already showered and come back to the family room in his shorts and jeans to watch Robin sleep for a few minutes until he heard Emma fussing over the baby monitor and he’d leaned down to wake Robin with a kiss. He could see she was tired, despite a smile and a “Good morning.”

If surviving his nightmare and a round of lovemaking with him on a couch didn’t wear a woman out, then single parenting did. She’d pushed her hair out of her eyes and glanced at the antique clock on the mantel with a weary sigh. “Is she awake already?”

Jake heard the words coming out of his own mouth even before he’d fully thought them through. “If you get a bottle ready for her and trust me to change a diaper, I’ll feed Emma breakfast while you take a bath or whatever you need to do.”

“Really?” Robin had sat right up, clutching the sheet to her naked breasts. “A long, hot, private shower where I don’t have to have Emma in her carrier in the bathroom with me? You’d do that?”

“If you trust me with her.”

“Always.” Robin had gathered the sheet around her like a sarong, stretched up to kiss him and run down the hallway to the nursery before he fully comprehended what his offer might mean to the woman.

“Take your time,” he’d called after her. A man couldn’t turn down a response like that any more than he’d been able to turn down Robin’s whispered request a couple hours earlier. She’d rolled over on the sofa just before sunrise and asked if he had another condom in his bag. Making love that second time had been slower, sweeter, saner, yet no less earthshaking than that first wild ride on the sofa had been.

For a man who didn’t want to care about anything or have any connections to anyone, he was already in pretty deep with these two.

The phone in Robin’s kitchen rang before he got the first sock on. With a quick glance down the hallway to verify that the water was still running in the shower, he got up and went to the kitchen to answer it. “Yeah?”

“Is this the Carter residence?” The man’s voice sounded familiar, but Jake wasn’t taking any chances that this was one of those harassing phone calls like Robin had received at her shop.

“Who’s asking?”

“Spencer Montgomery, KCPD.” Jake carried the cordless receiver back to the family room so he could keep an eye on Emma. “I take it this is Mr. Lonergan?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t bother explaining why he was at Robin’s home this early in the morning. Nor was he going to tell the detective that she’d been soaking in the shower for the past twenty minutes. “She isn’t available right now. Can I take a message?”

“Actually, I’m looking for you.”

Spencer Montgomery didn’t strike Jake as a man who did polite chitchat, either. “What do you need, detective?”

“I just got a call from the DEA asking about you. The database search I ran on you flagged in their system.” Jake pulled out his beat-up black satchel and unzipped the pocket that held the badge with J. Lonergan emblazoned on it. “Your picture in the morning paper put you on somebody’s desk.”

“Morning paper?” Jake slipped the badge into his jeans pocket and opened the
Kansas
City
Journal
that he’d pulled from Robin’s mailbox during his early morning reconnaissance of the place.

“Check page three. You’re getting to be a regular legend in the city.” Yeah, like a Bigfoot sighting.

Jake tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear and spread the paper open on the coffee table. “Ah, hell.”

There he was, in black and white. The bastard who’d taken his picture from the speeding car must have been Gabriel Knight. Or someone who’d sold the picture to the reporter.
Is
this
the
city’s
unsung
hero
?

The detective gave him a few seconds to let the image and caption below it sink in. “Looks like the Ghost Rescuer has finally been unmasked. Although it doesn’t look like Gabe Knight got a very flattering picture of you.”

There were no flattering pictures of him. Jake quickly skimmed the article. Still no name listed, but if a blurry, nighttime photograph was enough for Spencer Montgomery to recognize him, then it wasn’t unreasonable to suspect that someone who knew him well would recognize him, too. It wasn’t exactly a forgettable face. Worse yet, with Robin’s Nest Floral Shop painted on the awning behind him, they’d know exactly where to come find him.

Or who they could use to get to him.

Jake closed the paper and pushed to his feet again. “Who called from the DEA?”

“A Charlie Nash. You know him?”

Jake tried to envision a name and a face. But all he came up with were blanks. “No.”

The running water at the back of the house finally stopped. He could imagine Robin’s sleek, wet body stepping out of the shower. He could see her pale skin blushing pink as she toweled herself dry from head to toe. She was a practical, cotton pajama kind of woman, but he couldn’t imagine anything sexier than Robin Carter naked.

And now he had to leave her.

That would be what the cagey, self-preserving survivor in him would do. The DEA knew he was in Kansas City? Then he had to go. If he was on the DEA’s radar, he must be wanted for something.

Emma squealed at his feet, excited by the red and blue animals swinging over her head. Jake knelt down beside her to still the hanging toys. She batted at his big finger and he turned it into her palm, letting her latch on and pull it to her mouth for a sweet, slobbery lick. She buzzed her lips against his skin and they both smiled.

Right. Like he could leave this one alone and unprotected with a clear conscience.

A sense of inevitable doom sank like a rock in Jake’s gut. The violence from his past was closing in, and now these two women might get caught in the retribution for whatever horrible things he’d done.

“Agent Nash says he’s flying in later today from Houston. He wants to meet with you.”

Montgomery had to be giving him a heads-up for a reason. Maybe he was fishing for information, too. “Did he say why?”

“Nash said it had to do with an investigation he couldn’t discuss with me.” Jake stood at the detective’s telling pause. “Why would the DEA be interested in you, Mr. Lonergan?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

Jake pulled out the badge and traced his thumb over the letters that could have been carved in Cyrillic, for as much as they meant to him. He considered the passports in his bag that said he’d been in and out of the country several times—to countries with known drug trafficking. A tough guy—a killer—like him would be just the kind of enforcer any one of those cartels hired. His chest hurt. Two weeks ago, news like this would have sent him packing to a new town where he could hide until whoever was tracking him lost their lead and gave up.

But two weeks ago, he had no ties to anyone. Two weeks ago, he hadn’t given his word that he’d keep the Carter girls safe.

Two weeks ago, he hadn’t been in love.

Ah, hell.

“Lonergan?”

“I’m here.”

“Does Robin Carter know what kind of man you are?”

After yesterday and last night, he didn’t suppose there were any more secrets between them. “Yeah.”

“Do I need to advise you to walk away?”

“Wouldn’t do you any good.” If the DEA could track him down, that meant others could, too. It also meant that whoever was terrorizing Robin might become harder to identify if there were more than one threat circling around them. “Montgomery?”

“Yes?”

“I promised Robin I’d provide protection for her until these threats stop and you catch the man who attacked her.”

“I’m listening.”

“If something should happen to me, would you be willing to supply back-up? I need to know they’ll be safe.”

The detective held things pretty close to the vest, so it was hard to get a good read on whether he was an ally or an enemy. But Jake was betting that Montgomery would put solving his case ahead of whatever suspicions he might have about Jake. “You can call me. I have a feeling Ms. Carter is important to our task force investigation.”

“Thanks.”

“What should I tell Agent Nash when he shows up?”

“Tell him I’m busy.”

Jake disconnected the call and set the phone on the coffee table. He pulled out his go-bag and armed himself. Knife. Gun. Spare magazine in his pocket.

“Jake? Did I hear the phone?” Robin appeared at the end of the hallway, wrapped up in a fuzzy white robe and towel drying her hair. “Has something happened?”

“Are you sure you have to work that wedding today?”

She draped the towel over her shoulder and went straight to Emma to pick her up. She hugged the baby protectively against her chest. “It’s my job. The Vanderhams are good customers. You didn’t answer my question. Did the person who’s been harassing me find my home number?”

Thus far, the sicko calling Robin and sending her those threats had acted anonymously. Even the night she’d been assaulted, and when she’d been locked inside that refrigerator, the coward had waited until she was alone to attack. Surely, he wouldn’t change his MO now and try something with all the people who would be around her at a wedding.

“No.” He threaded the knife sheath onto his belt while she waited for an explanation. He’d promised to answer her questions, but wasn’t sure if telling her the DEA was now looking for him would inspire the kind of trust he needed from her if the threat escalated and he needed to take action to keep her and Emma safe. He opted for a half truth. “Detective Montgomery called while you were in the shower.”

“Did he find the man who attacked me?”

“Not yet. But he did stress that you were important to his case. He wanted to make sure you had sufficient protection.”

“I have you. Right?”

Damn straight. He tucked the Beretta into the back of his belt, wanting quicker access to it than what the ankle holster allowed. “Can you take care of Emma now?”

“Of course.”

“Good.” He dropped a hard, far-too-brief kiss on her mouth and headed for front door. “Then I’m going to walk the grounds and check the car, make sure everything’s as secure as it needs to be while you get dressed.”

She and Emma followed him right to the door. “You’re doing it again. What did Detective Montgomery say? Why are you arming yourself like this?”

“You can’t change a man overnight, Robin.” As soon as the harsh tone left his mouth, Jake regretted it. He pulled his hand from the doorknob and touched her damp hair, apologizing. “You can’t...fix me. I got a feeling something bad is coming. You have to let me do what I know how to do.”

* * *

“O
VER
HERE
, L
EON
.”
Robin waved the man carrying the second part of the Vanderhams’ altar arrangement up to the front of the church. The younger man tilted his head to peek through the stand of red and white roses to find the step, and Robin hurried down to help him. She grabbed one end of the arrangement’s brass base and helped him steer around the pulpit. “This goes inside the ring I’ve already set up. Careful.”

He heaved it onto the center of the altar. “Don’t let those cascading ones get caught underneath.”

“Got it.” It took several more minutes to make sure all the flowers were set properly. Robin pulled out a couple of broken red stems. “We’ll need to replace these. Run out to the van and bring in the box of spares.”

“Um...” Leon nervously ran his fingers inside the collar of his uniform. “There’s nothing else in the van. I must have forgotten that box.”

“You forgot? I specifically wrote that down on the manifest. How many things have to disappear before—?” A muted rumble of thunder rattled the stained-glass windows and Robin shivered. Lordy, she was jumpy today. And she was already running behind schedule setting up for the ceremony.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. Do you want me to drive back to the shop and get some?”

Robin eased a calming breath through her nose. “No, I’m sorry. There isn’t time for that.” She glanced over at Emma in her carrier on the first pew, sleeping peacefully through the hubbub. Oh, to be stress-free like that right now. She turned to Leon and apologized again for snapping at him. “We’ll make do.”

True, setting up for the Vanderhams’ renewal ceremony required a lot of work in a short time frame, but that wasn’t why she was so short-tempered this afternoon. She glanced to the back of the church where Jake stood outside in the lobby by the front doors, keeping an eye on both the interior and exterior of the building. Beyond the church’s open front door, the overcast sky threatened rain, driving some early arrivals inside the lobby, where they mingled, waiting until her staff cleared the sanctuary. More people for Jake to watch and worry about, she supposed. Maybe that explained the grim impatience lining his features.

His ice-blue gaze met hers. He held up his wrist and pointed to his watch. Right. He was antsy about something she was certain he hadn’t shared with her. That hyperalertness made her edgy, too. Maybe she should give Detective Montgomery a call to find out just what he had discussed with Jake to send him into commando mode.