The Lawman's Nanny Op (12 page)

“If I hadn’t awakened when I did, he would have succeeded. He would have been on top of me and strangled me to death before I could make a sound.” She wrapped her arms around her middle, as if possessed by a deep chill. “Thank God I managed to scream. And when Layla yelled that she was coming, that she had a gun, that sent him back out the window.”

They pulled up in front of Layla’s house and she got out of her car and walked back to passenger side of his vehicle. Portia lowered her window.

“I would have flat-ironed his ass,” Layla said and Caleb was grateful for the sharp burst of laughter that left Portia’s lips. It lasted only a second, but it let him know she was going to be all right. He admired the strength she possessed in not falling into hysterics about what she’d endured.

“Thanks, Layla,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you. You saved my life tonight.”

Layla flashed Portia a bright smile. “When this is all over buy me lunch and we’ll call it even.”

“Done,” Portia replied.

Caleb remained in the driveway until Layla was safely inside her house and then he pulled out and headed toward his place.

The drive to his house was silent. Portia leaned her head back and closed her eyes and Caleb tried desperately not to look at the marks around her throat.

She was wrong about one thing. If he’d been in that bedroom when the person had been throttling her, Caleb would have killed him. There would have been no arrest, no judge and jury, just justice done with a vengeance.

The attacker had been stupid to try to get to her tonight when she hadn’t been alone. Maybe he’d thought he was big enough, strong enough to take them both out. Whatever the case, it spoke of a hatred so intense the potential killer was willing to take big chances.

As he pulled into his driveway and turned off the engine, Portia opened her eyes and sat up. “What happens now?” she asked, her voice holding a weariness he’d never heard before.

“Right now we get some sleep and then we figure things out in the morning,” he said. He got out of the car and she did, as well, her gaze furtive as she looked around the immediate area.

Caleb grabbed her suitcase from the backseat and then took her by the elbow and led her to the front door. “You’ll be safe here, Portia,” he said, not a hint of doubt in his voice. There was no way in hell he’d allow anyone to get to her while she was under his roof.

She raised a hand to her throat and nodded as he unlocked the door and ushered her into the living room. “Do you need some ice to put on that?” he asked as he dropped her bag to the floor.

“No, it will be okay,” she replied and lowered her hand to her side.

“What about your jaw? It looks like it’s going to bruise, too.”

“It’s all right. I just need to get some sleep. I’m sure things will look brighter in the morning.” She tried to smile but tears filled her eyes. “Won’t they look brighter in the morning, Caleb?”

Although he absolutely refused to fall in love with her again, there was no way he could see the need, the fear in her and not respond.

He pulled her toward him and she burrowed into him, pressing her trembling body tight against his. He knew the emotion that drove her into his arms was nothing more than fear and the residual horror of what she’d just been through, but that didn’t stop him from responding to her nearness.

As he stroked his hand down her back in an effort to soothe her, his head filled with the dizzying scent of her hair, and the warmth of her sweet curves lit a tiny fire in the pit of his stomach.

He held her for only a moment, then stepped back, afraid she might feel his arousal. “Let’s get you settled in,” he said. He picked up her suitcase from the floor and carried it down the hallway to the guest room.

“It’s not much,” he said as he set the suitcase on the bed. He followed her gaze as it tracked around the room. There wasn’t much to see. A single-size bed was against one wall covered in a drab, brown bedspread. A dresser stood against another wall, the top holding only a small vase with plastic yellow daisies.

“It’s fine,” she said.

“The bathroom is right across the hall,” he said.

“I’ll be right back.” She left the room and went into the bathroom. While she was gone Caleb pulled off the bedspread and turned down the sheet. What he wanted to do was lay her down and make love to her until that fear in her eyes was replaced with passion. But he knew that wasn’t what she needed. By the time he finished with the bed she came back into the room.

“Thank you, Caleb, for bringing me here. There was no way I could go back to sleep in my room, in my house.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and looked at him with those beautiful hazel eyes. “Would you mind sitting in here for just a little while, maybe until I go to sleep?”

He hated the fear that darkened her eyes, the slight tremble of her lower lip. Those lips were made for laughing, for kissing, not for trembling with fear.

“I’ll stay here as long as you want me to,” he replied.

She took off her robe and laid it on the end of the bed, then slid in beneath the sheet. Caleb turned off the light and then sat on the edge of the bed.

The light from the hallway allowed him to see her face and even though she closed her eyes he saw the tension that rode her features and knew sleep wouldn’t come easy for her. “Want to talk about it?” he asked softly.

She opened her eyes and looked at him. “I just wish somebody could tell me why this is happening, what I’ve done to deserve this.”

“You don’t deserve this, no matter what you might have done,” he replied.

“Maybe this is the end of it,” she said as her eyelids drooped with sleepiness. “Maybe after tonight whoever it is will give up and go away.”

“Maybe,” he agreed, although he was certain that wasn’t the case.

He couldn’t forget that the person who wanted to harm Portia had taken a chance tonight by attempting to get to her with somebody else in the house. That move smelled of desperation and mindless rage.

Caleb’s stomach twisted into a cold, hard knot. As much as he’d like to assure her that he saw a swift and just ending to all this, he didn’t. What he did see was darkness and danger and a cunning assailant with murder on the mind.

As Portia drifted off to sleep, fear twisted in Caleb’s heart.

Portia awoke with a gasp, for a moment disoriented as she took in her surroundings. Then the events of the night before came crashing back into her mind. The intruder, the hands around her throat, the fight for her life—the horrible visions flashed like a horror movie and all she wanted to do was leave the theater.

You’re safe,
a voice whispered in the back of her head. She sat up and drew a deep steadying breath. Her last memory before sleep had overtaken her was of Caleb’s presence next to her on the bed.

Hopefully nobody saw him take her out of her house the night before. Hopefully nobody knew she was here. Surely she’d be safe now.

Although there was no clock in the room she could tell by the cast of the sun streaming through the window that it was late. The house was silent and she assumed that Caleb had probably left to go to work.

As she got out of bed her jaw ached and her throat hurt, but it was a manageable pain. She grabbed her robe and pulled it on, then left the bedroom with coffee on her mind.

She’d scarcely looked at her surroundings the night before and so as she entered the living room she gazed around with interest. There wasn’t much to see.

In between a nondescript beige chair and matching sofa was a wooden table with a beige lamp. An entertainment center held a television and stereo system and on one shelf was the only thing that indicated who lived here. That shelf contained photos of the Grayson family.

She stepped closer, her heart constricting as she gazed at a picture of Caleb and Brittany. She couldn’t imagine the pain the Grayson men were all going through as they wondered what had happened to their sister.

“Good morning.”

She jumped as Caleb appeared in the kitchen doorway. “I didn’t know you were here,” she exclaimed. He motioned her into the kitchen and to a chair at the table. She glanced at the clock on the stove and saw that it was just after ten. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“You are my work for now,” he replied as he poured her a cup of coffee and set it in front of her. “In fact, you’re going to be my work until we figure this all out.”

She looked at him in dismay. “Oh, Caleb, I don’t want to take you away from everything else you should be doing.”

His eyes were almost black. “I don’t want you alone now, Portia. I want you here with me until we figure out what’s going on. Nobody but Layla knows you’re here and that’s the way I want to keep it.”

“But that’s crazy,” she protested. “You need to be working on finding your sister. You can’t just drop everything because of me.”

“I can’t do anything right now to help Brittany. We’ve reached a dead end at the moment.” His voice rang with a hint of his agony. “Until that changes I can try to keep you safe from harm.”

Portia wrapped her fingers around her coffee mug and gazed at him intently. “And you would go to all this trouble for anyone in town?”

“You’re not anyone,” he said. “You’re somebody I once loved, somebody I still care about although not in the same way I once did. Now what do you want for breakfast?”

“Nothing, I’m really not hungry,” she replied. She wasn’t sure why his words hurt her just a little bit. After all, she felt the same way about him. He was somebody she still cared about but not in the romantic, loving way she’d once felt.

She couldn’t deny that there was a strong physical attraction to him, but that had nothing to do with love. The idea of being cooped up here with him for the next few days filled her with a sense of peace and a simmering sense of anticipation.

She had no doubt that Caleb would keep her safe from whoever wanted to do her harm, but she wasn’t sure who would keep her safe from Caleb. And did she really want to be kept safe from him?

“I forgot to tell you, Joe Castle stopped by my house last night,” she said in an attempt to banish thoughts of Caleb and sex from her mind.

His eyes narrowed and he sat in the chair next to hers. She caught his scent, a pleasant fragrance of minty soap and his familiar cologne. A flicker of desire lit in the pit of her stomach.

What was wrong with her? Her life had fallen apart, somebody wanted her dead and all she could think about was making love to Caleb. Maybe she was in some sort of shock, she thought.

“What did he want?” Caleb asked.

She took a sip of her coffee, hoping the warm liquid would banish her crazy thoughts. “He wanted to assure me that he had nothing to do with anything that’s been happening to me. He was upset that I would even think him capable of doing anything to hurt me.”

Caleb frowned. “Maybe I need to have another talk with him, find out where he was at two this morning.”

She wanted to protest, to assure him that Joe couldn’t have been the person who had crawled through her window, the person who had wrapped his hands around her throat and tried to squeeze the life from her. But she didn’t. Other than Caleb and his brothers and Layla, she didn’t know whom to trust in the town of Black Rock.

Portia finished her coffee and got up from the table. “I need to take a shower and get dressed for the day. What are the plans?”

“I’m going to get Benjamin to come over and sit for a while and I’m going to head over to Joe’s and have a chat with him, then when I get back we’ll go out and get some lunch.”

“Surely I’ll be okay here alone for a little while,” she said halfheartedly. She hated taking another deputy away from his duties.

“You might be willing to gamble with your safety but I’m not,” he said firmly. “Besides, it’s our job to keep the people of Black Rock safe and Benjamin won’t mind hanging out here with you. Now go shower, and I’m going to give Benjamin a call.”

Even though she hated that she was being a burden on anyone, she was also relieved that Caleb wouldn’t be leaving her all alone. Although she’d tried not to think about what had happened the night before, the truth was that the taste of terror still lingered in her mouth, still chilled her to her bones.

She didn’t want to be alone for any length of time. She wanted small talk and somebody else’s presence to keep away the fear that threatened to overwhelm her.

She felt better after a long, hot shower and dressed in a pair of white shorts and a bright yellow blouse. When she returned to the kitchen she was surprised to find Caleb already gone and Benjamin pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“Portia, you look surprisingly good for what you went through last night,” he said in greeting.

She smiled and shook her head as he offered to pour her a cup of coffee. “No thanks, I’m jittery enough without too much caffeine.”

There was definitely something reassuring about a man in a khaki uniform with a gun strapped to his hip. Portia had always liked Benjamin, who was soft-spoken and always pleasant.

“I appreciate you being here, Benjamin. But I hate that I’m taking you away from your job,” she said as she sat at the table.

He smiled and sat in the chair opposite her. “This is my job,” he replied, “although Caleb has taken this on like a personal crusade. I pity the perp if Caleb gets to him before any of the rest of us. Have you been able to think of anything else that you didn’t tell us last night?”

She frowned and shook her head. “It all happened so fast and the room was so dark. I wish I would have thought to try to get that ski mask off.”

“You were too busy trying to stay alive,” he replied. “Sooner or later whoever it is will make a mistake and we’ll get him.”

“I hope it’s sooner rather than later. I want my life back.” And she wasn’t at all sure she liked the idea of spending her days and nights here in Caleb’s house, where his scent permeated everything and his presence reminded her of a passion she’d only experienced with him.

Benjamin leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his coffee, his warm brown eyes gazing at her over the rim of the cup. “You doing okay?”