KCPD Protector (6 page)

The silent violence in the evening sky felt appropriate. Ominous and hopeless somehow. She’d become a lightning rod for suspicious people and unexplained events. She hadn’t forgotten the returned roses or the missing key.

Bringing her gaze down, she studied the windows and doors, making sure nothing looked out of place. The flowers wilting on the porch needed a good soaking, but they hadn’t been moved. There were no footprints in the grass, no packages left on her front steps. Maybe the key disappearing had been a fluke. As upset as she’d been with James’s visit last night, she could very well have simply misplaced it and not remembered.

The only way she was truly going to know if a thief or vandal had stolen the key and broken in was to march up those steps, unlock the door herself and give the house a thorough search.

Fisting her keys in her hand and steeling herself with a resolute breath, Elise slammed the car door.

Spike barked an instant mix of excitement and welcome. Only it wasn’t the muted sound of the dog announcing her arrival through the window from the back of the couch. This was louder. Clearer. Closer. What the...?

“Spike?” Elise turned toward the sound. He was outside. “Spike? Spike!”

She heard the jingle of his tags hitting together before she saw him dash around her neighbor’s hedge and run to meet her.

“Spikey?” Elise dropped her shoes and scooped him up as he leaped into her arms. She kissed his head and hugged him tight, alarmed by his panting and how hot his little body felt against her chest. “How did you get out?” She checked the rapid beat of his heart and looked into his dark brown eyes. “Are you okay, sweetie? Have you been out all day? Did I...?”

She swung her gaze toward the house. Surely she hadn’t left him in the backyard in this heat. With no water? Had he climbed the fence or dug underneath it to escape? And she never let him out in the front without being on a leash. “I know I put you inside.”

But she’d been out of sorts and running late this morning, so she must have forgotten him. She seemed to be forgetting a lot of things today. What was happening to her?

A lick on her earlobe, demanding more petting and less thinking, cut through Elise’s confusion. She scratched his belly and tried to shake off that nagging sense that she was losing it. “It’s just you and me. I’d never forget you.”

Yet here he was, running through the neighborhood, waiting for her to come home.

“Come on, sweetie.” She moved the toodle to one arm and bent down to pick up her pumps. She didn’t care that they’d gotten scratched on the concrete. She was fighting hard to stop second-guessing herself and stay in the moment. “Let’s get you something to drink.”

Instead of going straight up the front steps, though, Elise carried the dog around the side of the house to the backyard. “Good.”

She’d gotten at least one thing right today. The gate was still latched. She opened and closed it behind her, carrying the panting black dog up onto the deck. Pulling her keys from the outside pocket of her purse, she quickly glanced around the yard for possible escape routes. There were no holes in the dirt or gaps in the fence that were readily visible. But she’d investigate the hidden places behind the bushes and landscaping later. Right now, she needed to get Spike into the air-conditioning with a wet towel and some cool water to drink. He didn’t seem bleary-eyed and shocky. Hopefully, he’d stayed in the shade or made himself at home with a friendly neighbor. But she wasn’t taking any chances with her dearest companion.

Elise inserted the key into the back door, feeling another glimmer of relief to discover the knob and dead bolt were both securely locked.

Once inside, she carried Spike straight to the kitchen and set him down in front of his water bowl. While he greedily lapped up the reviving liquid, Elise set her things on the counter and turned on the faucet to wet down a kitchen towel. “Feeling better, sweetie?”

Spike nosed the food in his dish—a good sign that he wasn’t feeling the ill effects of the heat, she hoped—before going back for another noisy, messy drink. Elise turned off the running water and wrung out the towel before stooping down to wrap it around the dog. “Easy—”

A loud noise banged overhead.

Spike barked a warning and lurched from her grip. But Elise grabbed him before he could get away from her. She picked him up, wet towel and all, and hugged him against her racing heart. “Spike?”

Elise looked up as the dog tipped his nose to the ceiling and barked again, a cautious little yap followed by a squeal of alarm and a high-pitched growl in his throat. It was enough of a distress signal for Elise to push to her feet. She grabbed her keys from the counter, looped her purse over her shoulder and retreated toward the back door at the sound of footsteps on the floor above her.

Footsteps running from her bedroom.

Someone was in her house.

Chapter Four

“Ma’am, I’m sorry. I just don’t see any signs of forced entry.” Denton Hale pointed to the television, jewelry box and smart tablet on Elise’s dresser and bedside table. “And you yourself said that nothing’s been taken.”

Elise’s head was throbbing with too much stress and a lack of food. She held herself together by hugging her arms tightly around her waist and glancing over at Spike, who was curled up next to the pillows on her bed. She schooled her patience and tucked her hair behind her ear before turning back to the uniformed officer and articulating every last word. “He was in my house. I heard him running down the stairs and out the front door.”

She’d said the same thing a dozen times in the past half hour, to both Hale and his partner. She’d said it when she’d met them at the front sidewalk, said it again in every room they’d gone through together. A man was in her house. She was certain it had been a man by the heavy tread of his step.

A man who sent her flowers and stole her key?

Or some other threat, altogether?

“You didn’t get a look at this guy?” Officer Hale asked.

“No. I didn’t want a confrontation with him in case he was armed or wanted to hurt me.” If the man hadn’t made a noise... If Spike hadn’t barked... She rubbed at the goose bumps dotting her bare arms and tried to block out the horrible what-ifs swirling in the back of her mind. Harming her could very well have been what the intruder had wanted since theft didn’t appear to be the motive. “I called 9-1-1 on my cell and went to the Kecks’—the retired couple next door.”

“The front door was locked when we came in, Elise. May I call you that?” She didn’t care. She just wanted him to believe her. “None of the locks have been tampered with, and there are no broken windows.”

“So he locked it when he ran out. I told you the key was missing.”

“Are you sure?” Officer Hale pulled his gloved hand from where it rested on his thick utility belt and touched her elbow. His eyebrows arched with a sympathetic smile. His tone patronized as if she was an imbecile—or a desperate woman who was making this all up to get some attention. “It’s there now. You opened the box in the flowerpot and showed it to me. Remember?”

Why not just pat her on the head and say, “There, there”? Elise jerked her arm away and took a step toward her closest ally. “Spike and I both heard him.”

Hale shrugged, sounding exasperated with her seeming lack of reason. “Unfortunately, I can’t take the word of a fuzz mop.”

Apparently, he wouldn’t take her word, either. “I’m not lying. He could have taken the key and made a copy,” she argued, still looking for a reason to explain what she knew to be true.

“I didn’t say—”

“Elise!” After a quick rap on her front door, a deep, clipped voice bellowed from the foyer below.

With a woof, Spike sprang to his feet.

“George?” She swung her head toward the sound of the deputy commissioner calling her name through the rooms on the main floor.

“Ma’am, wait.” Officer Hale put his arm out to block her rush toward the bedroom door, but Elise skirted around him. “We don’t know who—”

“I do. G... Commissioner? What are you doing here?”

Spike hurried down the steps after her. The broad back of George Madigan’s navy suit jacket turned to reveal an open collar and that inviting chest. At the last second, common sense reined in Elise’s relief, and she stopped herself from running straight into his arms, denying herself the haven of security he offered.

But he clasped her shoulders anyway, his slightly rough hands making contact that shot through her skin like a bolt of lightning, exciting frayed nerves and weakening a resolve that couldn’t handle many more demands on it. “I heard your address on the scanner driving home. I called Dispatch to verify that you’d reported an intruder. Officer Boyd just let me in.” Although he lowered the volume of his voice, there was no less authority behind it. “Are you okay?”

Denton Hale loomed up like a shadow behind her on the stairs. “I didn’t know you two were...” The tone of the officer’s voice snapped to attention. “The scene is secure, sir.”

Without asking permission or apologizing for startling her, George tucked Elise to his side, draping an arm around her shoulders to keep her snugged against his solid flank. “She works for me, Denton. That’s all you need to know. But it doesn’t matter who she is. Get outside with your partner, Boyd, and double-check that everything’s secure, from the basement to the attic. Don’t forget her car and the garage, too.”

“Her car wasn’t here when the alleged intruder—”

Elise snapped her gaze up. “Alleged?”

She felt a squeeze on her shoulder as George moved them out of the uniformed officer’s path to the front door. “Do it. Canvas the neighborhood, too. Get statements from anyone who saw anything around Miss Brown’s house today. Ask if there have been any other break-ins or suspicious activity in the area.”

“Boyd is already doing that.”

“Good. Then you’d better get out there and help him. There are a lot of homes on this street.”

“Yes, sir.” Denton pulled his cap from his rear pocket, squeezing it in his fist before turning to Elise. “Ma’am, if anything I said or did—”

“Now.” George dismissed Hale before he finished his apology. As soon as the door closed behind the officer, George tugged Elise into step beside him and crossed through the arch into her shrouded living room. “So what did he say or do to upset you?”

“He took my statement.”

“And?”

Elise’s feet didn’t seem to be moving under their own power. “I don’t think he believed me.”

George may have muttered a curse. But whether it was aimed at Officer Hale or the cluttered state of her house, she couldn’t tell. Other than a pause to orient himself to the drop cloths and sawhorses in front of the fireplace, George led her to the furniture that had all been stacked against the opposite wall. Even a small black dog sniffing around his feet didn’t slow him down or alter the purpose of his stride. “Don’t you generate any heat, woman? It’s a hundred degrees out and you’re freezing.”

He shrugged out of his jacket and wrapped it around her. Elise shivered at the shock of his scent and lingering body heat sliding over her chilled skin.

“There was a man in my house.” She sounded like a worn-out recording.

“I know.” George pulled the paint tarp off her sofa and tossed it to the floor. He unloaded the two end tables she’d stored on top of the cushions before he took her hand and urged her to sit.

“I think he let Spike get out the door when he came in. Or else he put him out on purpose.” It was the only scenario that made sense. If any of this made sense. Elise clutched the suit jacket together over her dress, shaking at the knowledge of what could have happened to her if she’d met him face-to-face. “He was in my bedroom.”

The cushion beside her sank and her balance shifted as George sat down. “I believe you.”

“Even if there’s no evidence?” Elise glanced up to see if he was simply trying to placate her the way Officer Hale had. “The doors were locked. And nothing’s missing.”

“You may have scared him off before he had a chance to take anything. And a barking dog changes a lot of intruders’ minds.” He pulled both her hands between his and gently rubbed them. “Besides, you’re too cold for me to doubt you. That means you had a real shock. It happened.”

George Madigan’s matter-of-fact tone did more to make her feel safe than two armed police officers and a robotic sounding dispatcher had. His simple statement of faith in her sanity swept out the cobwebs of self-doubt and touched her bruised heart.

Curling her legs beneath her, Elise pushed herself up, looping her arms about George’s neck, knocking him into the back of the couch. “Thank you.”

“For what...?” After a momentary hesitation, his chest expanded with a deep breath, meeting hers. When he exhaled, there was no more gap between them. He folded his arms around her, flattening one hand against her spine to anchor her to his body. He pushed aside the jacket’s collar and threaded his fingers into the short hair at her nape to massage the tension in her neck. “You’re okay. You’re safe now. No one’s going to hurt you.”

Elise turned her cheek into the soft rasp of his evening beard stubble, feeling the vibration of his deep voice against her ear. Her own fingertips brushed against the dark silk of his hair as she rode each measured breath on his chest, absorbing his heat. George was solid and real. There was no mistaking this vital, caring man for a figment of her imagination. “I almost wish they would.”

“Hurt you? I’m going to disagree with that idea, if you don’t mind.”

“But all this is making me think I’m going crazy. There are too many things that I can’t explain.” He took the edge off her raw nerves with his calm voice and soothing massage. “I’m not crazy. I’m not.”

“What do you mean by ‘all this’?” His fingers stilled when she shook her head, reluctant to answer. He unwound her arms from his neck and let her slide down onto his lap. Pulling the jacket back over her shoulders, he urged her grasping hands to settle at the lapels. Once she was holding the coat together at her neck, George brushed the hair off her forehead and pressed his lips against the spot. “Talk to me.”

It was the gentlest of kisses, and maybe the most dangerous. Because, while a lingering kiss to the forehead was soothing, patient, kind—the caress also gave her a glimpse of what George’s lips might feel like against hers. They were firm. Masculine. Pure, incandescent heat. She had a feeling that a man of his experience might know exactly what to do with those lips, too.

Elise’s breath locked in her chest at the desire suddenly humming between them. Her fingers slipped from the jacket to the starched crispness of his unbuttoned collar. “George?” she breathed.

“Beats sir.” For a split second, his gray eyes locked on to hers. They were so close, she could read every hue of granite, smoke and steel in the irises there. Then his gaze dropped lower, to her mouth, and a deep-pitched groan rumbled beneath her hands.

George dipped his head, touching his mouth to hers, kindling a slow, liquid fire in Elise’s blood that chased away the chill of doubt and fear. The kiss was as tender as the graze across her forehead had been. A simple meeting of skin against skin. At first.

When she didn’t resist, George’s lips urged hers apart. His warm breath rushed in to mingle with hers. Elise’s fingers fisted in his shirt. Her tongue darted out to sample the smooth, male plane of his bottom lip, and his own tongue forced hers back to taste the soft skin inside her mouth. The cold she’d felt moments earlier shattered with bursts of heat inside her belly and at the tips of her breasts.

It was, by far, the most potent, most surprising, most spontaneous response she’d ever had to a man’s kiss. Every place they touched—her lips, her earlobes and neck where he held her against his mouth, her fingers clinging to the muscles of his chest, her hip and bottom nestled against his thighs—was on fire.

And that’s when the alarm bells went off inside her head and she knew she had to stop. She eased her grip on George’s collar and pushed at his chin, leaning back when he moved to resume the kiss. “What are you doing?” she asked on a throaty whisper.

George’s fingers tensed before he untangled them from her hair. “I’m more rusty at this than I thought if you have to ask.”

She’d loved Quinn Gallagher with hopeless devotion. She’d given herself to Nikolai Titov out of loneliness and lust. But this was different. She’d never felt this alive, this desired, this needy in a man’s arms before. And if anything frightened her, it was the knowledge that she could very easily fall for George Madigan—for the wrong man—all over again. “I...I can’t. We can’t.”

“My mistake.” His eyes shuttered as he moved his hands to her waist and lifted her off his lap. Elise landed on the seat cushion beside him, catching herself before she tumbled back into his side.

“No. I was a part of that as much as you were. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking for a minute there. I was just...scared.” She pointed to his grim expression, then to her own shaky smile. “Boss, assistant—remember?” He might think she was quoting departmental protocol, but reminding herself of the hazards of getting into a relationship with this man was more a matter of her own emotional survival. “I shouldn’t have encouraged you—”

“What else has happened besides the intruder and the mystery of the roses?” George’s tone was as sharply articulate and impersonal as it had been hushed and indulgent moments earlier.

Although the worst of the spooky chill that had numbed her of self-sufficiency and common sense had dissipated inside George’s embrace, Elise reluctantly shrugged his jacket off her shoulders. She folded it neatly in her lap to return to him, fearing it was too much of an imposition to reject his kiss, yet still ask for his comfort. “George. It’s not you. It’s—”

“What else has happened?” So they weren’t going to talk about that kiss. Because this, whatever it was, didn’t—couldn’t—exist between them. She’d said as much to him this morning. George rolled up his sleeves, literally and figuratively transforming himself into work mode. He nodded at the dog sitting at his feet, staring at them as if he wanted the people to make room for him on the crowded couch. “So this is the guy on your desk at work. What’s his name?”

“Spike.”

“Is he friendly?” Elise nodded, holding out the suit coat to return to him.

Instead of accepting the jacket, George reached down with one hand to scoop up the miniature poodle mix and set him on her lap. Spike immediately curled up on George’s jacket and made himself at home. Elise would have tried to protect the coat if George wasn’t already scratching the spoiled dog around his ears and making an instant friend. She tried to ignore the warmth of George’s hip and thigh butting against hers. She tried to make sense of the mature, no-nonsense cop wooing her closest ally. She tried to dismiss the confusing emotions warring inside her.

George was her boss, fourteen years her senior, a workaholic like herself. He carried weighty responsibilities on his shoulders. Responsibilities she’d sworn to support. Not the man she would have chosen to be so viscerally attracted to.