KCPD Protector (17 page)

“Make that call, then get your butt upstairs and help me find
Elise.”

* * *

E
LISE
COULD
SENSE
Shane’s growing agitation with every step.
When his getaway out the front door, parking garage or fire escape exits had
been thwarted by crowds of people or storm damage that would require him to
holster his gun and risk Elise screaming for help or making a break for it,
Shane had decided to head up the stairs.

But every floor they tried to enter had cops on it, searching
through rooms. Elise recognized some of the detectives and uniformed officers.
A. J. Rodriguez and Josh Taylor, detectives who’d worked together for years,
were on the third floor, righting desks and chairs and cubicle walls. Shane
avoided a tall K-9 officer and his German shepherd peeking into a room on the
sixth floor. She saw Nick Fensom’s stocky figure. He was wrestling with his cell
phone to get some decent reception on the eighth floor leading to George’s
office. But she didn’t dare call out to him. The hand crushing her arm and the
gun bruising her ribs wouldn’t allow her to risk it.

Her lungs were beginning to ache with their steady climb. But,
like a cornered animal, Shane seemed to think he had no place to go but up. When
he heard voices on the stairs two flights beneath them, he forced her into
double time, taking her up the last few stairs onto the roof.

When he pushed open the last door, Elise instinctively drew
back from the slap of rain on her face. It was pouring outside. The air smelled
of dust and ozone, but felt cleaner than the stale musk of Shane’s nervous
perspiration. Streaks of lightning forked across the sky, pricking the hairs on
her forearms and at the back of her neck. Thunder rumbled loudly, as if a
marching band was waiting on the roof to greet them.

Shane released her just once, to push aside the wreckage of a
satellite dish that littered the steps leading up to the helicopter pad, air
conditioners and power units that served the entire building. She’d only backed
a few feet away before his gun was trained on her again. He reached down his
hand to her, leaving her no choice but to join him up top.

The rain soaked her to the skin in seconds and the wind
whipping through her hair made her shiver. “What are we doing up here, Shane?
There’s no place left to go.”

“We’re together.” He had her by the arm again, adding five more
bruises to the marks he’d already left there. “That’s all that matters to
me.”

He ducked his head against the driving rain and hiked across
the empty helipad to the concrete wall at the edge of the building. “Shane, what
are you doing? There’s lightning up here. I don’t think it’s safe.”

Elise tried to pull away when he leaned over the side. “Look at
our city,” he said, the tone of his voice matching the drama of the sky above
them. “I thought it’d be in shambles. But it’s still standing. Cars are moving,
see?” He pulled her to the wall, and for the first time that day, she prayed he
had an unbreakable hold on her. “See?”

Elise forced herself to look. She saw broken windows and
toppled trees, lines of streets with streetlights on and others that were
dark—and way too much distance between her and the ground below. Magnificent
view. If she wanted to die.

“Shane, you’re scaring me.”

“What? Why?” He let her back away from the edge, but sat down
on top of the wall, pulling her onto the slick seat beside him.
Don’t look behind you. Don’t look down.
Shane moved
his hand to her knee, where his grip proved just as effective at holding her
captive as her arm had been. “I love you. And you love me. I won’t let you get
hurt. I’ll save you.”

The rain loosened the blood that had dried on her temple and
cheek, and it dripped into her lap. So this was how her sorry, second-guessing
life would end. “How do you know I love you?”

The wind buffeted them and the rain chilled. Shane rested the
gun in his lap, with the barrel pointed at her. And he smiled. “Every day, you
talk to me. Every day, you smile. I’m one in a million, you said.”

She said hi to him every morning because he was the first
person she’d see when she stepped off the eighth-floor elevator. She talked to
him because they worked together. She smiled because...she smiled at nearly
every person she met. It had become a brave mask to hide behind when she felt
unsure of herself or needed a boost of self-confidence.

“We’ve always been friends—”

“It’s more than that. Your loyalty is one of the things I
treasure most about you. I’ve had other people say they love me. But they
didn’t. They lied to me. They left.

“I’ve got my degree,” he went on. “Soon I’ll have my master’s.
I’ll make detective and I’ll be commissioner one day. And you’ll be right there
with me. Supporting me, just like you always have.”

When he took her hand and got down on one knee, Elise nearly
retched. “Shane, don’t.”

When tears joined the rain rolling down her cheeks, he smiled.
“I love you, Elise Brown.”

“Put the gun down, son. Step away from the edge of the
roof.”

“George!” Her relief was so intense that she nearly forgot her
precarious perch. But the stony eyes boring into hers across the roof sent a
warning instead of a promise.

In a flash of movement, like Jekyll and Hyde, Shane jumped to
his feet and pulled Elise in front of him like a shield. Although he stood a
head taller, she imagined the target he presented to the gun George aimed at him
wasn’t very big.

“Get back!” Shane warned, pushing his gun against her neck. “I
don’t want you here.”

Whether he was yelling at George or the other detectives and
uniformed officers she saw climbing up the stairs and taking positions beside
him, she couldn’t tell.

George’s rock steady hands never wavered. “Elise, are you
hurt?”

She sniffed back her tears as she clawed at the arm cinched
around her throat.
Be brave.
This was her last
chance to seize the life she wanted with no regrets or second-guessing. “Nothing
serious. Yet.”

“I wouldn’t hurt her,” Shane insisted, despite the blood and
bruises and terror. “I love her.”

George took two steps across the roof. “Shane, this isn’t going
to end well if you don’t put down that gun and let her go.”

How could she help? How could she make George’s job easier? How
could she save herself?

And then she knew. “It’s all right, George. Shane and I have
been talking. We’re friends.” She erased the tremor from her voice, blinked the
rain from her eyes so she could see that face filled with so much life
experience and love. “We’re more than friends. He’s been watching over me. I
think he wants to marry me.”

Shane’s arm eased its choke hold on her neck. “What? What are
you saying?”

“Weren’t you about to propose to me?”

George was slowly shaking his head. “Elise, what are you
doing?” He put out his hand to warn the other officers to keep their distance,
then cradled the gun again. “Honey?”

“If this is a trick...” Shane tapped her neck with the barrel
of his gun, reminding her of his control over her.

“I will never leave you.” Elise petted the arm she’d dug her
nails into just moments earlier. “You promised me a lot, Shane. But you have to
ask. A girl likes to be asked.”

She felt him nod behind her. And then, with a streak of
lightning cutting through the sky over their heads, he took her hand and knelt
down. But when she stepped to the side, he knew.

She’d lied.

Shane clamped his hand over her wrist, swinging the gun toward
George, and charging toward the edge of the roof, dragging her behind him.
“She’s mine!”

“Drop it, Shane!”

Before her knees hit the wall, gunfire rang out, drowning out
the thunder.

Elise couldn’t count how many bullets there were. But she felt
the spatter of blood on her neck, and the tug on her arm as Shane’s body
crumpled to the roof and pulled her down with him.

“Elise!” George was at her side in an instant. He kicked
Shane’s gun from his lifeless hand before holstering his own. “What a damn
waste.”

Before she could get to her feet, he scooped her up into his
arms and carried her away from her captor while other officers swarmed in to
secure the scene.

“Put me down, George.” She pushed against his chest. “Put me
down.”

“What’s wrong? I’m trying to get you out of the rain.” When she
pushed again, he stopped and set her down beside the broken satellite dish at
the top of the stairs. “Are you hurt?” He clasped her face, checked the cut on
her head, ran his fingers along her arms, cursing at the bruises already forming
there. “What did he do to you?”

Elise threw her arms around his neck and hugged him so tightly,
even the rain couldn’t fall between them. “This is what I need. I need you to
hold me.”

“Okay, honey.” He sighed in relief, folding his arms around her
at last. He pulled her into his chest, surrounded her with his body and rubbed
his smooth cheek against hers. “Okay. I’ve got you. I need to hold you,
too.”

They stood together like that for endless moments, cheek to
cheek and heart to heart. Elise cried out her stress and fear, and absorbed
George’s strength. When she was spent, when she was breathing normally against
him, he leaned back, his face as grave as she’d ever seen it. And then he was
kissing her, hard, thoroughly. Just as quickly, he tore his mouth from hers to
press a far gentler kiss beside the wound on her forehead. “Damn it, woman, I
won’t survive another day like this.”

Elise curled her fingers into his collar, squeezing the water
from it and smoothing it against his neck and chest. “Dealing with a
psychopath?”

“No.”

She glanced up, surprised by his answer. “Surviving a
tornado?”

“Thinking I was going to lose you.”

This time, Elise stretched onto her toes and kissed him,
sliding her fingers into his hair and pledging with every stroke on his lips,
every slide of her tongue that she was no one’s but his. Elise felt the rain
running against her scalp beneath her hair. She heard the thunder rumbling
overhead. But all she knew was the taste and power of this man’s kiss.

“Damn, Uncle George—get a room.” Nick Fensom walked up beside
them and squeezed his uncle’s shoulder. It was a gesture of love and relief, and
probably the only way he could interrupt this relationship that wasn’t supposed
to exist. “Does she need a medic?”

George never took his eyes off her. “Do you?”

Elise shook her head. “Not yet. I probably need stitches, but
I’m not ready to go down yet.” She never took her eyes off George, either. “We
need to discuss
this
first.”

While a smile spread across George’s handsome face for her, his
voice commanded Nick and the others. “Clear the roof. Get him off my building.
Find the next senior officer on-site and tell him to get me a status report on
casualties and damage.” At the last second, he turned to Nick. “In twenty
minutes.”

Nick grinned. “I can buy you twenty minutes, old man.”

Someone brought a morgue bag and others carried the troubled
officer’s body down the stairs. A few detectives snapped pictures of the scene,
but it was raining too hard for them to preserve any evidence beyond the body
itself. Elise tucked her head beneath George’s chin and held on until they were
all alone.

But it was George who spoke first.

“Twenty minutes may not be enough time to say everything I want
to.” In the pouring rain, with a streak of lightning dancing over the skyline
that still stood tall and proud over Kansas City, George Madigan spoke the words
in his heart. “For years I’ve been trying to turn myself into someone I’m not.
Because that’s what Court wanted. But you get me. I can be the man I want to be
with you—the man I’m meant to be. You needed me to be that man. I’m a cop.
Always have been, always will be. Okay, so I’m a cop who puts together budget
sheets and personnel charts, but I’m still a cop.”

“Protect and serve your city. That’s you, George. I never
doubted it for a moment.”

With a wry laugh, he smoothed the wet hair off her face and
tucked it behind her ear. “Not even when I did. You and I fit together in a way
no other woman has. You make me happy. And whole again. I need you, Elise
Brown.”

She spoke the words in her heart, too. “I need you.”

And somehow, with the way he was kissing her, with the way she
couldn’t let go of him, “I need you” became “I love you.”

He left her mouth to lap up the cool rain from along her jaw
and warm the skin there. “I know you’ve got a thing about dating your boss—”

“There are KCPD rules and regulations to consider.” She nibbled
on his chin, kissed the grooves of laughter beside his eyes. “You’re a superior
officer. You have to uphold them.”

“I’m going to marry you even if I have to fire you.
Understood?”

Elise blinked the rain from her lashes and framed his face,
too, smiling up at him. “You could just transfer me to another office.”

“I’m in charge of that stuff, aren’t I. I could do that.”

“Yes, you could.”

“It might mean a cut in pay. For now. Or getting stuck with
some tyrant for a boss. But I will fire his ass if he gets out of line—”

Elise pressed a finger against his lips to hush him. “Do you
think money is what I want? Do you think I can’t handle some grumpy old
curmudgeon? Do you think there’s an office out there I can’t run?”

“I’m going to miss you at work, Elise.” His smile faded for a
moment, and the man who never minced words seemed unsure of what to say. “But
I’ll see you in bed every night and across the breakfast table every morning.
Right?”

“Is that an official proposal, Deputy Commissioner?”

“Yes. If you’ll have an old man.”

“I won’t.” Elise stretched up on tiptoe to kiss his lips into a
smile. “But I’ll have you.”