Assumed Identity (3 page)

The same backpack also served as an easy handle for her attacker. He latched on to the straps and dragged her several feet away from the car. Terror poured into her veins, thrusting aside the shock that had addled her thoughts. This was it. She was about to become the Rose Red Rapist’s latest victim. She needed to shake off this oxygen-deprived stupor, ignore the pain and fight. She had a child to live for and protect.

Her world spinning, her lungs burning, her legs wobbly as a toddler’s as she pushed up onto her hands and knees, Robin quickly realized three things. Her attacker’s hands weren’t on her anymore. She squinted against the strobing effect of the lightning flashes overhead to see that he had stepped over her prone body and was rifling through the contents of her car. Her attacker was dressed in black from head to toe. There was no face, no hair color to see and identify. And he carried a baseball bat in one gloved hand.

Clarity seeped into her brain with every breath, each one stronger and deeper than the last. Maybe this wasn’t a rape. Maybe he wanted her purse. Or it could be a carjacking. And that meant...Robin staggered to her feet and lurched toward the figure in black. “Get away from my baby!”

She stuck the whistle between her lips and blew. The shrill alarm pierced the air. She blew it again as she lunged for the arm with the bat. Robin got her hands on his wrist as he whirled around. She banged it against the fender of her car, trying to shake the weapon loose.

Despite her assailant’s muffled curse, he quickly regained the upper hand, spinning Robin to one side. With her arms up to struggle with the bat, she left her body exposed and her attacker seized the advantage, ramming his fist into her already sore ribs, doubling her over and robbing her of breath. Robin’s grip on the man loosened and he easily pulled away, raising the bat. He grunted with the effort of his swing as he brought it down toward Robin’s head.

She ducked to the side, saving her life as the bat crashed into the top of her trunk, denting the metal hard enough that the blow must have tingled through her attacker’s arms and hands. He hesitated a moment, flexing his fingers, and Robin slipped away and reached into the car for Emma. “Come on, sweetie.”

Before she could release the latch to remove the carrier from the car seat, she was struck again. She absorbed another blow to the backpack that drove her to the ground.

“Stay down!” her attacker whispered on an angry curse. Yet, almost as soon as he’d issued the order, he was hauling her up to her knees.

“Take my purse. Take my car. Take whatever you want,” she begged, slapping at his gloved hands and struggling to get to her feet. “Just let me get my baby!”

“Shut up.” Huffing and puffing from the exertion of the attack, the man fisted his hand around the straps of Robin’s backpack and dragged her across the parking lot. This was more than getting her out of his way this time. He was hauling her to the alley behind the shop, around the far side of the loading dock, hiding them from any view from the parking lot, much less the street.

With her hood long gone, the rain splashed in her face, reviving her will to fight. “Let go of me!” Robin clawed at his grip. She twisted and kicked. “Please,” she begged. “I just want to save my baby.”

“Shut up!” He dropped her behind the delivery van, glanced up and down the alley as though making sure they were all alone. “I gotta do this.”

Cold, stark terror swept through Robin like the rain soaking into her clothes. She smacked at his hands as he ripped open her jacket and unhooked the belt at her waist. “Stop!”

He popped the buttons on her blouse and unzipped her jeans. The cold rain hit her stomach, soaked into her panties. Robin thrashed and clawed at him. She was in mortal danger, about to become the next victim of the Rose Red Rapist.

And her baby was all alone. Abandoned once more. Helpless, without a mother. Alone at night in the rain.

“Please. I have a child—”

“Quit fightin’ me.” He cuffed her across the face, stunning her. He rose to his feet and straddled her. “You want it this way? Then this is how we’ll do it.” As the man raised the bat, Robin kicked out, aiming for that most vulnerable part of his anatomy.

But the man was quicker. The bat switched its target, swinging into her calf and deflecting her blow.

But the bruising strike didn’t stop her. Ignoring the pain, Robin rolled into the man’s legs, knocking him back against the side of the van. With one swift, jerky movement she got to her feet and limped around the bumper of the van toward freedom.

“Emma?” Robin gasped the word on a determined breath.

But bruised and battered, she was no match for the stronger man. She never saw the bat this time. She only knew the stinging blow that caught her at the juncture of her shoulder and neck, spinning the world out of focus and knocking her to the asphalt.

This time, he grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her back to his killing place. He flipped her onto her back and stood over her. The stocking mask he wore obscured his face, but she had no doubt about the hateful displeasure in his voice. “Is this the way you want it?”

Robin got up onto her elbows and tried to scoot away. “I won’t leave my baby.”

But he followed. Shaking his head, he closed the distance between them. Her back hit the concrete wall of the loading dock and she knew there was nowhere left to run.

“This ends now.” The bat swung up again and Robin braced for the blow.

But it never came.

A white-haired ghost materialized from the rain with a guttural roar. Strong hands closed around the bat, wrenching the weapon from her attacker’s grip.

The bat skittered away into the darkness as the ghost lifted her attacker off his feet. Her mysterious rescuer wrapped a meaty forearm around her assailant’s neck and carried him off into the shadows. The attacker’s body went limp and her savior tossed him aside into the alley.

Robin grabbed hold of the wall behind her to push herself to her feet. But her knees buckled and her world blurred as the ghost’s craggy, disfigured face came into view in the light above the loading dock. He was real. Big. Frightening. He growled something her stopped-up ears couldn’t make out and lunged for her.

Icy blue eyes and her own scream were the last things Robin remembered as her world faded to black.

Chapter Two

“Lady? Lady!” Jake caught the woman before her head hit the pavement. Nothing like a scream of terror to make a man feel every inch the monster his nightmares purported him to be. Still, he adjusted the woman in his arms as gently as he could, then laid her on the wet asphalt. “You’re welcome.”

He squatted down beside her, trying to block some of the rain that hit her face, looking her over from head to toe. She was long and lean and pale as milk. The backpack she wore was soaked and stained from her struggles, but he lifted her slightly to pull the squishy pack beneath her neck to cushion her head. He snapped her jeans closed and pulled her raincoat together to cover her body. Thank God the bastard hadn’t completed what he’d started. Didn’t mean he hadn’t done some damage. Jake pushed aside the collar of her blouse. Carefully avoiding the puffy red-and-violet welt across her collar bone, he pressed two fingers to the base of her throat. Her skin was creamy soft, chilled by the rain. But she had a pulse. The scuffed-up raincoat was moving up and down, too, so she was breathing.

She just wasn’t awake.

He sifted his fingers through her wet brown hair, moving the heavy waves from side to side to check her scalp for any contusions that could explain her unresponsive state. Nothing but silky hair. Jake pulled his hand away, feeling a little guilty that his fingers had warmed and lingered, mistakenly thinking the first-aid check had felt like some kind of caress. He knew how to nip that sensation in the bud. Remember the scream. Forget the niceties. He gave her cheek a couple of gentle smacks. “Come on, lady. Open your eyes.”

He heard a moan behind him in the alley and Jake turned, springing to his feet. His gaze zeroed in on the loser with the mask who had the idiot idea he was coming back for round two. Jake almost felt sorry for the guy. The woman’s attacker had the skills of an amateur. He’d probably subdued the woman with an initial blitz attack. But he was out of his league going up against someone who could fight back. Even now, he was already advancing before he had his balance centered over his feet.

And then Mr. Amateur had the bright idea to pull a knife. The thin steel blade gleamed in the next flash of lightning. He choked out a breathy warning. “This isn’t about you.”

Jake glanced down at the woman behind him, lying still and vulnerable at his feet. Decision made. Without taking his eyes off the approaching threat, Jake pulled the hunting knife from his boot, flipping the weapon in his hand to warn the guy he knew how to use it. “It is now.”

That’s
right. Mine’s bigger than yours,
he taunted silently, watching the eyes go wide behind the stocking mask.

Just then a cat howled across the parking lot, and the attacker’s head jerked toward the interruption. Although the mewling was muted by the rain and thunder, Jake tuned his ears to the sound, as well, wondering if the guy was that easily distracted or if he needed to be on guard against some other threat. A quick glance revealed little except darkness, rain and the empty street beyond the parking lot.

Whatever had spooked the guy was evident in the rapid rise and fall of his shoulders as his breathing quickened. Or maybe he was finally wising up to the idea he wasn’t getting past Jake. With one last heave of breath, the shadowy figure cursed. “You should have minded your own business.”

And with that, he turned tail toward the opposite end of the alley.

The instinct to run after him jolted through Jake’s legs, but he stayed rooted to the spot. The woman was still down, out cold and completely unprotected. He needed to stay here. Besides, what the little creep lacked in skills, he made up for in speed, and Jake would have a hard time catching him.

What could he do when he caught the guy, anyway? It wasn’t like he could arrest the pervert. And though Jake had intimidation down to a science, outside of the bar where he sometimes had to show a rowdy customer the door, he preferred to keep his skills on the down-low. Calling attention to himself with the police or anyone else wasn’t something he could afford to do until he figured out whether he was the law, or running from it. Besides, the unconscious woman had to be his priority.

Once the figure in black had darted around the corner out of sight, Jake risked turning to the woman again. He tucked his knife back into its sheath and knelt down to test the chill on her wet cheeks. He could feel her warm breath, but she didn’t even flinch at his unfamiliar touch.

“Ma’am?” He hadn’t felt any bumps on her head. Did she have internal injuries? Was this shock? A blow to the carotid artery could interrupt blood flow to the brain, and that bruising welt was placed in about the right spot to make that happen.

Jake swore. How the hell did he know things like that?

He tapped her cheek again. “Come on, lady.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the squeal of tires on wet pavement in the distance. Was the little creep really that fast? Or did he have an accomplice waiting for him to make a quick getaway? What had they wanted with this woman? And how many men did they think it took to subdue a skinny slip of a thing like this, anyway?

Lightning flashed in the clouds overhead and a bad feeling crawled across Jake’s skin. The violence surrounding this woman didn’t feel random. An attacker and an accomplice sounded planned.

All the more reason to get her up and out of here.

He glanced down at the sleeping beauty. Despite the scrape along her jaw and the wet hair that clung to her forehead and cheeks, trailing sooty rivulets across her skin, she was stirring something more than concern and worry inside him. Being attracted to an unconscious woman couldn’t be a good thing. With his life in the state of flux it was, it wasn’t a good thing to be attracted to anyone. Angry at the damn hormones and feelings brewing inside him tonight, Jake swiped the water off his own stubbled face.

That’s when he got the idea to cup his hands to catch the rain. While he waited for his palms to fill, Jake thought about what had brought him to this spot in the first place, playing nursemaid to an injured woman.

He’d heard a scream on his late-night walk. He’d heard a lot of screams in his lifetime. He wasn’t sure how or why he knew that, but he knew the sounds of a woman in distress had always gotten under his skin and somehow gotten him into trouble.

For a few seconds, he’d considered ignoring it. Maybe he could report it anonymously when he got back to his apartment. He had too many problems of his own to get involved in somebody else’s trouble. But then he’d heard the whistle. Over and over. He’d heard the panic in that shrill sound piercing the rain and an alarm had gone off inside him.

Maybe he’d been itching for a fight, something to expel the frustrated energy that consumed him. Maybe it was the bar bouncer in him, trained to neutralize any ruckus before it got started. But when he’d cut through the alley behind the buildings to answer that alarm, he’d seen that loser dragging the woman out of sight behind the van—going after her with a baseball bat. Something inside Jake had snapped. The woman was in danger, and something in his DNA that he couldn’t remember had been compelled to save her.

Pity that beating down a man with his bare hands came to him a lot easier than waking a sleeping woman.

With the rainwater overflowing his palms, Jake pulled back and tossed it on her face.

Her eyes instantly shot open and she sputtered. Her hands fisted on the pavement and she shook her head, flinging more water onto his boots. She blinked, focused, caught sight of him and immediately shrank away with a choking huff of fear. Even as he held his hands up in surrender, showing he meant her no harm, she was cowering away from him, scrambling to sit up. He reached out one hand to help her and she scooted away on her bottom, until her back hit the wall of the loading dock.

“Get away from me!” she rasped, her voice tight with fear.

Could be an instinctive reaction to finding a man kneeling over her after fighting off that coward who’d assaulted her. Could be she’d just got a good look at his harsh, beat-up face.

The reaction in those suspicious gray-blue eyes was enough to sour any attraction he might feel.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

But she wasn’t buying it. No way. She pushed her hair out of her eyes to really size him up. If anything, the woman breathed harder, went even paler as she calculated his strength and the size of his fists. She was probably wondering how he’d gotten the scars and if he was as violent a man as he looked.

He knew the military cut of his prematurely gray hair didn’t leave any handsome possibilities to the imagination. The face and bulk and no-nonsense demeanor created an intimidating combination that made his job as a bouncer/bartender an easy gig. They got the job done, too, when it came to keeping his friends few and strangers who asked questions he didn’t want to answer even fewer. The ugly mug was who he was. It had probably served him well in his former life—kept people from messin’ with him.

Although it played hell when he was trying to convince a frightened woman he meant her no harm. “I’m not the man who hurt you.”

She surprised him completely when she jerked her head in a nod. “I know. You’re bigger than he is. He was dressed in black from head to toe. You...startled me. That’s all.”

Startled
was putting it kindly. But at least she was thinking rationally. Probably no injury to the head, then. Cautiously, Jake pushed to his feet. Big mistake. Now he was towering over her. She visibly cringed. But six feet two inches of muscle, scars and a broken face wasn’t something he could change. He held his arms out to either side and kicked the ball bat over to her, giving her the option of arming herself against him if it made her feel safer.

Not that he still couldn’t overpower her if he had to.

She knew it, too. Smart woman. With a determined tilt to her chin, she braced her hands on the wall behind her and staggered to her feet, ignoring the bat. “Please. I have a child. I need to get to her.”

Jake shook his head. They were alone in this alley now. “I didn’t see any kid.”

“You didn’t...? Emma?” She straightened against the concrete wall and looked beyond the van. “She’s over there. He pulled me from my car.”

Jake glanced behind him. Ah, hell. That explained the wailing he’d heard. It was the kid, crying, not a cat. “Is that your car?”

She nodded. “I need to get...” She took two steps before her right leg buckled and she fell back against the loading dock.

Jake darted forward, catching her by the arms to help her stay on her feet.

“Don’t touch me.” She instinctively reached out to push him away. But just as quickly, her fingers curled into the front of his shirt. He felt the unsteady tug on his skin all the way down to his bones. “Apparently, I need your help. So I’m deciding not to be afraid of you.” She actually pointed a warning finger at him. “Don’t make me regret that.”

At that brave statement, the corner of his mouth hitched up into an admiring grin and Jake adjusted his grip to firmly cup her elbow. “No, ma’am.”

“You know, you’re not as scary when you smile.”
As
scary
. Interesting distinction. The woman was smart
and
honest. She brushed the water from her face and gifted him with a smile of her own. “Thank you for saving my life, Mr....?”

“Lonergan.”

“Thank you for saving me, Mr. Lonergan.” She tried to adjust the backpack on her shoulders, but winced in pain and nearly doubled over. “Ow—”

“Easy.”

She braced her hand against his chest and fell into him, hanging on as his arm snaked behind her waist to give her the balance she needed. “I do need your help, don’t I.”

The lightning overhead illuminated her face for a split second. Her lips pinched thin against whatever pain or dizziness she was fighting.

While he waited, Jake asked, “What’s your name, brave lady?”

“Robin.” She sucked in an easier breath, and then another. “Robin Carter.” She tilted her gaze to meet his. Her gray-blue eyes squinted against the fall of rain as she focused in on him. “My daughter?”

Jake loosened his grip, expecting her to recoil now that she was getting a close-up look at the violence of his face. Instead, her fingers curled into his wet T-shirt, grabbing some of the skin underneath. The unfamiliar burst of heat that raced to the muscles she clung to reminded him just how long it had been since he’d had a woman in any way, shape or form. All of a sudden, he wanted this one. Badly.

She was wrong not to be afraid of him.

“Let’s go,” he said roughly, squashing those urges and pulling her into step beside him. Jake released her only long enough to grab the baseball bat. Even though her attacker was long gone, there was no sense in giving anyone the opportunity to be armed out here except for him.

He helped her around the van, noting that her balance grew stronger with each step, even though she was still favoring that right leg. She lost her footing once on the slick pavement and her hand flew to the middle of his chest again. Jake tried to concentrate on the accidental pinch of chest hair and not on the needy tugs on his skin that awakened something primal and male deeper inside him. He easily took her weight against his side until her wet tennis shoes found traction again.

“Emma?” She eased her death grip on his soggy T-shirt and kept moving forward, despite a hissing catch of breath.

The woman was a slender rail of shapeless raincoat and stubbornness, although the top of her flattened wet hair reached his chin. His blood boiled to think how much damage that jackass with the baseball bat might have done to her. “How bad are you hurt?” he asked, scanning back and forth as they crossed the empty parking lot for any signs of Mr. Amateur or his accomplice coming back for round three. “He didn’t, um...?”

“I’ll live. And no, he didn’t rape me. He... You stopped him.” So nothing major, although he was guessing a broken leg wouldn’t have slowed her march toward the abandoned car. The crying grew louder as they approached the blue sedan. Jake had to lengthen his stride to keep up with her quickening steps. “Emma? Mommy’s here.”