Sweet Seduction Shield (7 page)

I chose to
pretend that exchange had never happened and placed the container
back on the table with a contented sigh.

"Good coffee,"
I declared.

"The best," he
agreed.

"Good
choc'lit," Daisy added, letting us know she was quite capable of
keeping up with our conversation as she coloured in the yellow
feathers on her penguin.

"Also the
best," Pierce agreed. But didn't reach for a Kelly King Penguin
morsel for himself. Instead he gently pushed the plate towards
Daisy, who looked up at him with adoration in her eyes.

I did roll
mine at that. Buying a five year old with sweets. How typical. He
should know better, considering his occupation. Daisy snatched one
up without checking with me first. I gave her The Mother stare and
she ducked her head a little.

"He didn't
want it," she defended.

"You should
ask first," I replied, in my best I'm-your-mother-listen-to-me
voice.

"Please," she
said with a wide chocolate tooth covered smile.

"Just the one,
we'll save the other for later."

"Wokay," she
chimed happily.

And as I had
done so many times over the past few hours my heart began to ache,
as I watched her smiling. Her attention back on the drawing for
now, happy in her project, safe with her parent, excited to be out
of school at a grown-ups café eating treats.

How was I
going to do this? How was I going to keep her safe?

How?

"You don't
have to do this alone," Pierce said quietly to my side. "Let me
help you, Marie. This is what I do. I'm good at it. The best in the
country, in fact."

My head jerked
up at those words. What exactly did he mean?

I searched his
face for the subterfuge. For the ego that explained his confident
words. I expected to see something, I was adept at using confidence
to hide my fears, I assumed I could spot someone else using the
same emotion to hide their lies too. But there was only sincerity.
Concern. Worry. He was either better at this than me, and I'd been
pretty damn good over the past five years, or he was just a
genuinely caring man.

Were there
such men out there?

"How?" I
asked. The all important question.

"I need to
know what I'm up against," he replied steadily. "Preferably how
badly he wants you and why?"

I shook my
head. That wasn't going to happen. Would he deny us help because I
wouldn't open up about my past?

"OK," he said,
too easily. "We can work up to that." I didn't think so, but I'd
let him believe it for now. "But in order for us to go forward, you
will need to make a statement about yesterday afternoon."

"Yesterday
afternoon?" I asked, wondering just how much he already knew about
the chase.

He crossed his
arms over his chest, making his jacket stretch across his thick
biceps.

"One of
McLaren's men was spotted chasing you down Ponsonby Road. By the
time we got there, you'd fled."

Oh.

"And the man?"
I asked.

"No
trace."

He watched me,
waiting for me to offer up an explanation he wasn't going to get.
At least I didn't need to rehash the pursuit.

"Look," Pierce
said, leaning forward in his seat again. "I can protect you. Both
of you. But you've got to give me something to go on here. Tell me
at least, why does McLaren still have the hots for you?"

I frowned at
his choice of words. My eyes flicking over Daisy to see if she
picked up Pierce's terminology. She seemed oblivious, but that
could all be a ruse. Kids her age are notoriously good at flying
under the radar, but picking up on every nuance and reaction with
ease.

I turned back
to Pierce and offered the only solid explanation I could. I still
needed him, for protection for Daisy. I had to make it seem worth
his while.

"It's like you said yesterday in my office. I witnessed
something he would rather not have the courts made aware
of."

"And that's
it?" he asked, disbelievingly I think.

"That's
enough, isn't it?" I bluffed.

Pierce stared
at me for a long moment and then ran a hand over his goatee beard
in contemplation.

"OK," he said
finally. "The problem is he's still got one 'worker bee' out there
following his instructions, given through his attorney we believe.
We can't cut the lawyer off, but with some time we will apprehend
the 'helper'."

I wondered if
the terms he was using were chosen because Daisy was here, or
whether Pierce spoke in code like this all the time. Clearly
'worker bee' and 'helper' was meant to describe the tattooed
freak/goon. If it wasn't such a vile and dangerous situation, I'd
have smiled.

The good news was though, that the Police believed only
one
of McLaren's men was still at
large.

"Are you sure
it's just the one guy?" I asked, needing clarification. Surely
catching one man was easier than catching a platoon of them. And,
with only one man after us on McLaren's orders, then surely we
could hide until he was caught.

Then
disappear.

"We're sure,"
Pierce replied firmly. "He slipped the net when the taskforce went
in, because he was overseas on holiday at the time."

Goons take
holidays. Go figure.

I let a long
breath of air out.

"OK, so what
now?" I asked when I was done deflating.

"I need you to
make a statement about yesterday."

"I'm not going
to the Police Station."

"You don't
have to," he replied instantly, shaking his head to back up the
statement. "We can do it remotely."

I nodded
slowly. I could sign a statement about the guy being in our flat
and then chasing us. That wouldn't give too much, if anything,
away. It was obvious McLaren wanted us, or more to the point me,
and the reason I'd given - witnessing Rick's death - was not news
to the cops. And it fit into the scenario nicely.

If I could
keep their attention on just that, then they wouldn't find out
about the rest of it.

"And until we
can secure this loose thread," Pierce was saying, "we can place you
and Daisy in a safe house."

"What's a safe
house?" Daisy piped up, letting us know Pierce's carefully chosen
euphemisms hadn't quite been careful enough.

He didn't even
bat an eyelash, just launched into a suitable description for a
five year old mind.

"It's a
special place people holiday in when they can't go back home right
away."

I had hoped
Daisy would focus on the word holiday, just as I'm sure Pierce had
hoped too.

"Why can't we
go home?" Daisy asked, eyes flicking between me and Pierce. "Is it
because of that man?"

My heart
shattered, cleaved right in two. She'd been so resilient, I'd begun
to think everything that had happened had slid right off my
daughter's back. But of course she remembered it all. Right down to
standing on our doorstep and hearing the crashing going on inside.
Right down to my frozen terror at the realisation we had an
intruder in our home and who had probably sent him.

"Daisy,"
Pierce said softly, leaning forward over the table top to give her
his full attention. "Do you know what a detective is?"

"He's a
Policeman who doesn't wear uniforms," she announced with pride at
her knowledge.

"That's true,"
Pierce said, picking at his jacket purposefully. "Do you also know
what they do?"

She scrunched
up her little face and thought hard about that for a moment.

"They fix
things," she said eventually. "They find things people took and
bring them back."

Pierce nodded
solemnly at my daughter.

"And do you
know what else they do, Princess Daisy?" He didn't wait for her
answer. "They help people who need it. They look out for them, keep
them safe, take care of them when things get a little bumpy."

"Bumpy?" she
said, eyes slowly coming back to mine.

"Yeah bumpy,
baby," I said, reaching out and taking her hand into mine.
"Yesterday was a bit bumpy, eh?"

She nodded
vigorously, making another crack appear in my heart.

I
was
doing the right thing. I
was getting help. I just prayed Ryan Pierce was going to be able to
provide it.

"Guess what I
am, Daisy?" he said, still giving my girl his undivided
attention.

Her eyes
widened in realisation, then she whispered in an awestruck voice,
"You're a deetetiv?"

He smiled and
chuckled softly. "Not just any detective," he replied. "I'm your
very own personal detective."

She stared at
him for a long moment and then said in her innocent child's voice,
"Can I call you Kelly too?"

"No, Daisy," I
said trying not to laugh. "Detective Pierce's name is Ryan."

She blinked,
then said simply, "Wokay." Returning her attention to the last of
her drawing, as though the subject was officially closed.

And I guess it
was. My daughter approved of our 'very own personal detective'. I
stared at him, as he smiled across the table at Daisy's head. He
seemed totally besotted with her, in that isn't-she-just-so-cute
kind of way adults can get around kids. As though he was thinking
about his own children, or maybe if he didn't already have them,
about those he could have in the future. Comparing them to my
Daisy.

He could do
worse. She was a great kid, the best child, a beautiful little
soul. She was a little piece of me and a little piece of a man I
once loved with all my heart. I may have a hell of a lot of pent up
anger at where Rick eventually took us, which has crushed that
young-person love I once had. But I am not so unforgiving that I
don't remember what it was like before our world crashed down
around our ears.

Rick did love
me, he just loved the money and lifestyle McLaren offered more. And
he paid dearly for that love in the end.

Pierce cleared
his throat and my eyes came back up to his. I hadn't realised he'd
stopped adoring my daughter and was studying me instead.

"Where did you
just go?" he asked softly. An almost intimate question in
itself.

"To a place I
have no right to visit anymore." The reply was out before I could
stop it. I almost cringed. I think I might have looked a little
shocked, because Pierce stilled for a moment, and then slowly let
the air out of his lungs.

"OK," he said,
either dismissing that little second of overindulgence, or deciding
it was best to move things along. "I have a place set up for you
both to stay. A colleague who has an extremely safe house
and..."

"We're not
staying somewhere with you?" I blurted, and did cringe on that
one.

He smiled back
at me. "Oh, I'll be there, whenever I can. But I've also got a
worker bee to catch and a case to prepare for court."

I almost said,
"But it's you I trust." Managing to stop myself before I became a
cliché.

Pierce, being
the perceptive policeman that he is, picked up on my thoughts
anyway.

"I trust this
man and his woman completely. And you can too. They understand
where you're coming from. More than you'll probably ever know."

I tilted my
head slightly to the side and tried to interpret what he'd just
said.

"I don't
know," I said eventually. "It was hard enough coming here," I
admitted.

"I know," he
whispered, moving closer to me in his chair. "Trust me then."

I held his
intense gaze, the browns in his eyes so deep and reassuring,
mesmerising enough to make me feel like I was falling into their
depths.

"This is what
I do, Marie. Let me do it," he encouraged further.

I looked at
Daisy. Then I took a quick glance around the larger than life, yet
completely welcoming environment of Sweet Seduction. At Genevieve
and Kelly behind the counter. At the smiling happy faces on all the
customers. At a place Pierce had provided me as a refuge, and
hadn't been wrong. We'd found a sanctuary here. A haven. A busy
port in a safe harbour.

Could I trust
him? I think I already did.

"OK," I said
with a small nod of my head, and felt his hand slip into mine and
squeeze. Just once. Just briefly. Then he was gone again, as though
he knew he'd overstepped the mark. But strangely, I hadn't even
jerked, nor felt any of that familiar panic at the unexpected
contact.

He bustled us out of the store then, making sure Daisy had
suitable time to hand over her masterpiece, and accept the praise
and payment of half a dozen Kelly King Penguins in return. Then he
made sure I was buffered from the harried and hurrying customers,
even the pedestrians out on the populated sidewalk, until he could
safely deliver us to his car.

I wasn't sure
if I should be scared of Detective Pierce. Not like I'm scared of
Roan McLaren. Or scared of a stranger touching me uninvited. Or
scared of appearing less than confident. This fear was all for the
way he made me feel. For the brief moment of peace he brought me.
The sense of security and safety I could become accustomed to.

That was a
fear that threatened to spiral out of control.

He slipped
into the driver's seat beside me, turned to check on Daisy with a
dazzling and comforting smile, then flicked his glance to me. He
held my eyes a little longer than necessary, then cleared his
throat and started the car, pulling out into heavy traffic.

"Their names
are Ben and Abi," he said out of nowhere. "They both work for a
security and private investigations firm aptly called Anscombe
Security and Investigations. Have you heard of them?"

I shook my
head, he caught the movement out of the corner of his eyes.