Moonlit Embrace (9 page)

He called in five large pizzas and held her close while they waited. He kept the tone light, easing her into conversation about everything other than yesterday’s events. Inside, his chest ached with rage and worry. He’d never killed before, but would have no problem doing it now. He hoped for all their sakes that the cops found her shooter before he did.

They caught a rerun of last night’s news while flipping through the channels. Jack’s face blazed across the screen as the winner of an unexpected shootout. No wonder he’d been celebrating. Two men captured. Grainy surveillance images picked up a third masked man, but there were no more leads. The first two claimed only to have just met him – that he’d planned this himself and invited the druggies for backup. They said he’d had a hard on for murder. “We’ll find the man who did this to you.”

“I know.” But her shaky voice didn’t carry the confidence of her words. She had to know he’d protect her. She’d never live in fear again.

“No one will get close enough to hurt you. You know I mean that.”

“Uh huh.” Johanna turned on her side grimacing and grabbed the remote.

“And this Jack guy is my back up.”

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Just thank him for what he’s done.”

“I invited him to the opening.”

“Yeah.” She buried her head into the crook of his arm and curled into a tiny ball as if she wanted her whole body to just disappear. Her shudder reverberated deep into his bones.

“Johanna?”

“I don’t want to go back.”

“You’re not. Baby, I meant what I said. I’m not a rich man, but I can take care of you.”

“You’ve known me for a month. Less.”

“My heart was ripped out of my chest when I thought you were dead. You’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future.”

“I can’t ask you to do that.”

“It’s for purely selfish reasons. How can I focus on becoming a successful restaurateur, if I’m worried about my girl?”

He’d make it work. Somehow. Even if it meant using a little of the startup cash to pay her rent. So what? It might mean not hiring another person for a while, but he’d manage it. Whether she knew it or not, she was his to keep safe.

All the more reason to tell her one tiny, white lie. She’d given her statement to Jack already. There would be no reason for her to go anywhere until the trial. And who knew how long that would take? Why not let it slip that they’d captured
all
of the robbers? They would eventually. Noble lies had their purposes...

*****

B
eing shot wasn’t working with her schedule. It took another week on her back, nursed in turns by Baron and Kate, before she was deemed well enough to do things by herself. Not that she did. There was a natural comfort in being close to Baron and she went with him to the restaurant for several days straight. She helped where she could by reviewing costs and expenditures and making calls when necessary. It kept her from thinking of
that.

“You look good here.” He winked at her over a stack of boxes in the corner of the restaurant.

“It feels good here.”

“That’s what knowing where you belong feels like. One day you’ll realize it. I’m patient,” he said, then lugged a box to the kitchen.

Even after everything they’d gone through, it was still too dangerous to dream this could be something permanent. He’d dropped the M word once or twice a day, accepting it as stone cold fact. So why the crap couldn’t she?

Mate
.

The connection had been there from the start. His presence filled an emptiness that she’d once thought bottomless. And yet...

She tried avoiding the issue by concentrating on the restaurant, but even that was tricky territory. She started to think of it as ‘theirs,’ instead of ‘his.’

But why? She was a woman of numbers and logic. There had to be a reason. She was lonely and he cared. A lot. That must be it.

Although, it didn’t explain things from his end. Sharing a bed was one thing, even playing nursemaid, but what kind of man opened up his
business
to a woman?

She kept her eyes locked on his flexing muscles when he came out the kitchen for another box. His tight, white shirt hugged in all the right places and was made even better by a black, stained apron. He stopped and shrugged. “What?”

“What if you’re wrong,” she asked, in a voice just for him.

“About?”

“Us. What if you wanted to be Mated for so long that you fell into the delusion that this is it?”

“Hmm.” Baron put his hands on his hips and sucked his teeth. “Hell of a delusion.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“But if I believe we’re meant to be together and I want us to be together, what’s the difference?”

She shook her head. The man wasn’t getting it. “What if Mating isn’t real? Maybe it’s a biological construct like wolves in the wild. Or...or what if all those people who thing they’re Mates are just really in love?”

“Love? You’re right. That really would be terrible.”

“I’m serious. It’s crazy when you think about it.”

Baron picked up another box and headed to the back. “We can always be crazy together.”

Through the cutout between the front of the house and the back, she watched him going about work as if this was no big deal. She set up camp on the long side of enraged until she replayed all he’d just said. How many times had he told her that she smelled like home? About as often as he’d changed her bandages or brought her food in bed.

As often as he’d bathed her or massaged her aching muscles. If Mating didn’t exist, that left one bizarre thing as the culprit. The man really did love her.

“What are you smiling about?”

She looked up to see Baron eyeballing her from the back. He’d used his normal speaking voice and the rest of the staff turned in her direction. Jerk. Cute jerk. Her jerk.

Her...yeah...Mate.

“I can’t believe how fast this is happening. The restaurant, I mean.”

“Crazy, huh? How somethings click into place. The restaurant, I mean,” he added with a wink. Baron pointed to his sweating crew and gave them a thumbs up. “Five days. I think we can handle it. The last of my food gets here over the next forty-eight hours. Two deliveries today.”

“Don’t forget the aprons.”

“Huh?”

She waved a slip of paper in the air. “You were supposed to pick them up from the embroidery shop two days ago.”

“I’ll send one of the boys.”

The boys, all college age guys, were better suited to the lifting and unloading that still needed to be done. “It’d be a waste to send them. I’ll go.”

“No.” Baron came to the front, wiped his hands on his pants and grabbed his tablet. “Give me thirty minutes to finish going through this purchase order. Scratch that. I need an hour. I’ve got a new recipe cooking and –”

“I can go by myself.”

He didn’t bother looking up to shoot her down. “Ten minutes.”

“You have to review the menus, sign and date that whole mountain of paperwork and manage these guys. I can handle bringing a box down the street.”

Only after another minute of this back and forth did he abandon the tablet. He replaced it with her hand and slid into the booth. “What if I’m not ready for you to be alone? It’ll take two seconds for me to walk with you.”

“And two seconds for me to go by myself. All this you’re building, that’s going to dominate your time for a while. I’m shaken, but I need to get used to not having you or Kate at my side every four seconds. People have survived far worse.”

“That doesn’t minimize what you’ve gone through.”

“True, but I’m alive. It’s a lot more than the shooter can say. I’m not gonna let this ruin my life.”

The lines around his mouth tightened and he looked away. “I don’t care about him. Baby, you jump at every loud sound. And when was the last time you slept without having a nightmare?”

“All the more reason.”

“I’ve got a better one. It’s one thing to explain to these people that you weren’t shot
that
bad, but it’s something else to say it to the folks who held your guts in. What if you meet Tony on the street?”

“The building is in the opposite direction. Not that it matters. They’re busy running reports this time of day. None of them will be outside.”

“There’s always a chance.”

“So? I’ll tell them it’s part of my rehab. And it is, in a way.”

He nodded to the light crew reviewing the fire safety plan with the newbies. “I told them that you were grazed by two bullets and they think you’re a hero. I won’t have to worry about anyone slacking for a while,” he said and cracked his knuckles. “There’s no talking you out of it?”

“No.”

“I’ve got a gun in the office. You know how to use it?”

“I don’t want to see one of those up close again. I’ll call you when I get there and call on my way back.”

“Johanna...”

Indecision played out a tune on his face in twitched cheeks and pursed lips, but he wouldn’t stop her. She had something to prove to herself. To the both of them. “Trust your Mate.”

His eyes softened and he let out of lungful of air. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“You fight dirty.”

“Yep.” Feigning self-assurance she sure as crap didn’t have, Johanna snatched the purchase order from the pile, popped a kiss on Baron’s grinning cheek and shimmied out the other side of the booth. “I’ll be right back.”

She started shaking the second she got out the door and almost turned back. She knew what she would find if she did – Baron there with arms at the ready to catch her.

That’s what got her moving. If something went down, he
would
be there, but she had to try to do it on her own. The alternative was a future of fear. She deserved better than that.

Before the robbery, she’d have been on her phone or humming along to buds in her ears. Now she kept her head on a constant swivel.

For years, she heard. Today, she listened. Each sound she categorized as harmless or a potential threat. Worse than the exhaustive hyper-vigilance was the overwhelming sensation of being watched. She tilted her head back, pretending to look toward the approaching dark clouds. In reality, she tried to isolate any unusual scents.

Duh.

They all were. She was on a flipping street.

She shook herself, squared her shoulders and powered through the jumbling crowd.

Oomph!

She stumbled into a man whose face was obscured by a baseball cap. Now she really was losing it. Her stupid little mind whispered that she’d scented one of the robbers.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.
She wouldn’t let this panic choke her. Baron told her that Jack captured the last man. What she smelled now was all in her head. She stuttered out an apology to the faceless man who tilted the brim of his hat and stepped around her.

With renewed purpose, she hustled her way down the sidewalk, eager to get this over with. More a rabbit than a wolf now, she shook under the invisible gaze of phantom threats. When her hands grazed the embroider’s door, they slipped, wet with fear.

The owner’s weathered and knobbed fingers twisted over themselves as they ushered her in. The woman’s gray brows furrowed with concern. “Are you okay, dear?”

“Yes ma’am. Hi, I’m...” She stopped for a gulp of air and found there wasn’t nearly enough of it. A paper bag would be nice. After a few shallow breaths, she tried again. “I’m here for the aprons.”

“Mr. Wyatt called to say you were on the way. Give me one minute,” she said, looking back over her shoulder as she turned away.

Johanna wanted several more than that. Her panic from the walk lingered, heavy and smothering. It followed her in here, but she wasn’t ready to venture outside again either.

“Anything else? Perhaps a cup of tea? Shall I call someone?”

“Don’t worry about me. I get a little overheated.”

“In this weather? Dear, it’s about to rain buckets and you’re sweating bullets. I’ll give Mr. Wyatt a call.”

“No, please. I’m sending him a text that I’m on the way right now.”

The woman’s brow pinched, but the bell over her door twinkled and she turned to her next customer.

No choice now. Johanna forced herself back into the world long before her lungs started working, but she’d be damned if she kept Baron from doing what he needed to. She’d put him through too much already. He deserved a break from her freakouts. A few city blocks wouldn’t defeat her.

World still closing in around her, she didn’t leave the small space in front of the building until Baron responded to her text. The aprons had been stored in a light, though oversized box. Its awkward shape left her walking blind. She shifted it constantly, peering over the top, or leaning around one side to watch her next step.

The feeling of being watched crept back and weighed down her steps. Full blown paranoia constricted her breaths. She glanced around her unwieldy bundle at the next crosswalk, but stumbled.

A helpful stranger shot out a hand to keep her upright. Her unknown assistant disappeared before she could thank him, but his scent hung around. She’d been pushing too hard. To her jacked up mind, he smelled just like the man she’d bumped into on the way over.

Rest. That’s what she needed.

Lots of rest and lots of Baron.

Soon, his thick and sweet aroma reached around the corner, pulling her in and quickening her feet. He met her at the door, arms crossed and eyes wide.

“There’s my girl. I knew you’d be fine. No problems, right?”

Johanna dropped the weight in hands and tried to shake off the invisible one on her shoulders. “Nope. All good. I told you not to worry. I’m here for whatever you need.”

W
hat he needed was for Johanna to get the hell inside. Her fear snaked around him so cold that he shivered with it. Respect for what she was trying to do kept him from running down the street and meeting her halfway.

His nose tingled as she passed.

A sliver of dread drilled itself into his mind. There it was again. He shifted through smells around her, dialing in on one out of the many. Baron prayed his nose was wrong again, but knew it wasn’t.