“I don’t know what we should be thinking at the moment—other than keeping my daughter safe.”
“Copy that,” Ed said, looking up the hallway. “You and I both know that she’s not safe here. If they want money and can’t get it from her husband, then they’ll be back and if they hit the corridor with force, I can only delay them and take out as many as I can.”
“Ex-husband,” her father corrected. “As much as I don’t want to remove her from the hospital, I’ve seen the personnel files you gave me. Your medical team is top notch, but are you sure the other arrangements are safe?”
“The security team and medical nurse are on standby. Given your news, I want to be out of here within the hour—unless the medical risk of moving her is greater than the risk to her life in staying.
“Where am I going?” She called, watching Ed almost run from the room, mobile phone in hand and her father packing up her few belongings.
“You’ll be staying with Edison for a while.”
“You want me to go with him?” Things were moving too quickly, and she needed them to slow down until she caught up. “I don’t even know him,” she pleaded. Hudson had been kidnapped and no one seemed to care.
“Staci, I need you to listen to me.” Her father had that trusted Colonel voice happening again, at least he didn’t look as scared as when she first awoke. “I trust Edison with my life and he is about the only man alive I will trust with yours.”
“You’ve said that, but …” she started as Ed came back into the room.
“Miss Vaughan,” Ed said so formally that she almost believed they had never met.
“Please call me Anastacia.” Only her father and closest friends could call her Staci.
“I live alone in a secure apartment with three bedrooms. You’ll have your own room for privacy and we’ve already fitted out additional security cameras and one of my team will be with us at all times. You will be safe however there are some rules.”
“I’m not good with rules,” she said, looking to her father who refused to smile.
“Staci,” he warned.
“First, no one must know that you have left the hospital. We need to keep that ruse for as long as it takes to track down and neutralize the risk.”
To her dismay, her father agreed without protest.
“I’ve already given your father a burner phone. Here’s one for you. I need all other digital appliances turned off or left in this room. When you use the burner phone, it will only be between the three of us. Is that agreed?”
“But my friend who was with me at the ball?” she asked. Bella wouldn’t accept hospital rules about not visiting her room.
“Miss Vaughan, as far as your friends know, you were attacked and remain unconscious. Your doctors are refusing all visitors and the police have your phone. When it is returned, it will be held in this room to convince anyone tracking it that you’re still here.”
Ed turned to her father, “Sir, you can never have your real phone anywhere near where we keep your daughter. Either leave it in the office or here.”
“I know this is serious, but don’t you think that’s a bit of overkill?”
“Not at all.” Ed looked like he was about to continue when her doctor interrupted.
“Ms Thielman, glad to see you awake.”
“Please call me Anastacia, I don’t want any more reminders of that man.”
“Ms Vaughan then, I’d like to discuss those breaks with you if I may.”
Oh no! She wanted a sinkhole to open up and swallow her so she never had to see the shock in her father’s face—or the rage in Ed’s eyes.
“I thought you said it was only bruising?” She could only watch as her father had to deal with yet another shock.
“About that,” Anastacia said to her father, eyes filled with tears. She’d tried so hard to keep the truth from everybody including herself but clearly the hospital had run X-rays which wouldn’t lie. The only question was which breaks had been discovered. “It’s not a big deal, at least not anymore. Most of them healed naturally without any help.”
“What did you take for the pain?” her doctor asked. “I need to know so we can manage any built-up tolerances.”
“I guess, I just got used to it. Making a fuss made him angry, so unless something needed setting, I just took some light pain relief and washed it down with alcohol.”
“Staci, tell me what happened.” Her father’s calm rage was far more terrifying than simple anger. In a way, she hoped whoever was holding her ex-husband killed him quickly, before her father could take his time.
For years, she’d held her secret close, crying alone with silent tears. Now, safe and struggling to deal with shock after shock, the bottled-up pain and regret came flooding out, “Sometimes, I did things that displeased him; talked to the wrong people or for too long, wore the wrong dress or too much make up. Once, my dog ate one of his shoes. He never hit me where people could see—he always wanted to protect his reputation.”
“The breaks?”
“We laughed those off by me always being clumsy.” Anastacia couldn’t help crying, “Daddy, daddy, don’t let him take me please, daddy.”
From across the room, it was the man she’d kissed and not her father’s soldier friend who said calmly and decisively, “Colonel, I’ll keep her safe now, and we’ll deal with the bastard later.”
Maybe, just maybe, the kiss hadn’t been a lie.
Escaping from her hospital bed would have been more fun if she was watching it as a movie rather than being her lived experience. Leaving her room on a gurney, fully covered by a sheet with the orderly passing her off as a gunshot victim from the drug wars. Then sharing a van with the real corpse to a funeral home, waiting in a back room for grieving families to view their loved ones.
Ed arrived, suddenly a man of few words. “Ready?”
She nodded as his arms held her upright. “You’ll need to pretend to walk, but I’ll take as much of the weight off you. I know it’s going to hurt, but your cries will come across as grief not pain. Okay?”
Nodding again, tears fell from the pain of moving through the viewing rooms. “It’s okay, it will be okay,” Ed encouraged her until they could get to his car.
All a necessary ruse so “Anastacia Thielman” could continue to lie in the hospital room, regularly attended by her doting father.
Driving through the city in silence, Anastacia grimaced at each bump or corner. She tried to focus on the man driving. Without his masquerade mask, she could enjoy Ed’s bright blue eyes and chiselled cheekbones. Even though all they’d shared was a night of dancing and kissing, she couldn’t deny feeling as though Ed had always been part of her life, and would always keep her safe.
Pulling into an underground car park at the end of a long cul-de-sac, Anastacia didn’t know what to expect from Ed’s apartment. Would it be filled with memorabilia like her father’s home or sparse representing a man without roots?
“Ahh,” she moaned, trying to get out of the car.
“I think this princess needs to be carried,” Ed picked her up as if she was as light as a feather, carrying her up to his apartment.
“Welcome to my humble home,” he joked, unlocking the door and helping her inside.
“Aren’t you supposed to check all the rooms before I go in?” Anastacia asked.
“I will after today, but right now whoever took you has no idea who I am, and as far as the hospital records are concerned, you are still heavily sedated in hospital and will be for at least another 72 hours. Anastacia grimaced as he gently helped her onto the two-seater couch. She wanted to be strong, hide her pain but it had been hours since her last dose and not a part of her body felt without bruises. If it was her ex-husband, why would he have let someone else have all the fun that he enjoyed? Or would he come back to finish the job?
“The nurse has been caught up in traffic but will be here soon,” Ed said, handing her two white tablets and some water. “I’ll give you the
full tour later on, but try and get comfortable here while I make you a cup of tea.”
His kitchen was off to the side, not far enough away to hide his muffled conversation. Anastacia tried to listen to the snippets while waiting for the pain meds to take hold. It was probably her father, no, it was someone else and things had already gone wrong.
The full impact of Ed hit her when he came back into the room baring a cup of tea. She didn’t think she’d ever met a more gorgeous man, who was graceful in his bulk and gentle with his hands. But this time, his furrowed brow tried to hide his concern. One thousand scenarios ran through her brain.
“What happened what’s wrong, please don’t lie to me—is my father okay?”
ED
He didn’t want to tell her. No training prepared him for giving this sort of news—and definitely not to a woman who was in his home and under his protection. A woman that only two nights ago, had been in his arms and could have quite easily ended up back here in a different context.
“Ed, you’re scaring me.”
He steadied himself to deliver the news, knowing she’d react, and he’d support her. Not because it was his job, but because she was and always would be, his woman in red.
“Ed, please talk to me and don’t treat me like a child.”
“Are you sure you really want to know?” He owed her the chance to stay innocent of the facts. “I mean, you could just let your father and I handle it.”
“Ed, if we’d been honest about who we were the other night, I would never have been attacked. You would have known who I was—and I would have at least known your name.”
“Would you have still danced with me?” he asked, wanting to know, while also wanting to change the subject.
Anastacia’s laugh was music to his ears, “Of course not!”
“I thought so.”
“Right now, I don’t know you well enough to know whether the dance was worth what they did to me—but I know you’re evading my question. What happened?”
He set aside the cup of tea, holding her hand. “They found the taxi driver.”
“And?”
There was no easy way to tell her, not without her thinking about what could have been. “He’s dead.” Ed quickly pulled off the metaphoric band-aid and waited for her reaction.
“What?” Anastacia asked quietly, her body still and face bland. “There’s more, so tell me what happened.”
“The taxi driver was found stuffed inside the boot of his own car.” Ed paused while Anastacia waited for him to continue. “A single gunshot to the head and a single laceration in exactly the same place as where you were stabbed.”
“Are you kidding me?” Anastacia cried as her full body shaking started. Ed grabbed the throw rug from the end of his couch – the only way he could think of helping her through the shock was to wrap her within the rug and his arms.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” he crooned, sitting on the end of the couch and taking her full weight as she cried against him. “It’s okay, it will be alright, it’s okay.”
Just when he thought she was settling, she sat up and cried, “No! Stop saying that! It’s not okay and I can’t pretend anymore that it was a nightmare. Someone is dead!”
“I know, sweetheart; but he’s the one who did this to you.”
“But he’s dead. They let me live but killed him? Why?” At least now she cried into his shoulder.
Lieutenant Colonel Edison Alexander could have and should have been reaching out across the globe to track down her ex-husband and the bastards who kidnapped her. Instead, he did the only thing that truly mattered—and held Anastacia until she cried herself to sleep.
As he carried her into the freshly made up bedroom, with sheets purchased earlier that day with her in mind, Ed tried to lock away his feelings. Whatever they had, and whatever that could have been needed to be put aside—her life depended on him being the professional soldier that her father trusted.
Adjusting the blinds so she could sleep as long as possible, Ed couldn’t believe how much two days had changed his life.
The woman he’d been asked to baby sit. The woman in red dancing in his arms. The beautiful woman beneath the bruises and bandages who’d survived what no person should ever experience. Now, there was no question that Anastacia remained in danger and a corpse lay in a morgue to prove it.
ANASTACIA
Anastacia didn’t know how long she’d slept but there was still sun trying to shine through the thick blinds. Slowly making her way out of the bedroom that she assumed was now hers, she edged her way out to the loungeroom, grabbing anything that seemed stable as support.
The warmth of Ed kiss wasn’t evident from his apartment, but at least someone who lived here knew how to cook. She followed the smell of garlic and cumin to the kitchen.
“Afternoon, princess.”
“You really need to stop calling me that.”
“Here …” He helped her onto a stool, but when she didn’t have the balance to hold still, he pulled the comfortable single-seater lounge chair around towards the kitchen so she could watch him while he cooked. “Okay?”
A question she couldn’t answer. Her father trusted the soldier, but she still didn’t know whether to trust the man. At the back of her mind, Anastacia still couldn’t reconcile the coincidence of the night they met. Her father knew she would be there, he’d spent hours trying to talk her out of going—could he have said something that Ed then used to get her attention?
“Here,” he said, handing her a fresh cup of tea to replace the one she hadn’t drunk hours ago. “Heaps of milk and sugar.”
“I don’t have sugar.”
“Drink it anyway.” He turned back towards the stove, stirring what she assumed from the over-whelming aromas, was a beef chilli. “Look, you’ve had a shock and I wish I could tell you that it’s over but it’s not.”
She closed her eyes, perhaps if she couldn’t see him, the words couldn’t be true. Still, he continued, “I can tell you that right now, you’re safe with me. I can also tell you that I’ve promised your father that I’ll do everything within my power to keep you safe.”
He paused to sprinkle more herbs into the pan. “If that means finding out who has been threatening you, then not only will I find them, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re safe.”
Anastacia took a moment to hear what Ed had said.
“What do you mean ‘threatening me’?”
When Ed didn’t answer straight away, she thought back to her ex-husband’s last words that refused to be ignored when she wanted to sleep, “You don’t know who I am or what I’m capable of. You don’t get to walk away—not from me.”
At the time she couldn’t believe, no didn’t want to believe he would hurt her outside of their normal “marital fights,” but if it wasn’t him then who?
Ed hadn’t answered, so she pressed, “I have a right to know. How were threats made if I don’t know about them?” A small lie, but her father didn’t need to know about the texts and emails from an angry husband.
“Your father received them and was trying to protect you.”
“How can he protect me if he doesn’t actually talk to me?” What the hell—were there more messages that she didn’t know about? If she had—would it have made a difference? “I need to know. Don’t you think I have the right to know?”
The longer she waited, the less she was going to find out. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
“Trust me.”
Damn him—she didn’t have a choice. “Then tell me about the kiss.”
“What do you mean?”
“You heard me, Lieutenant Colonel Edison Alexander, and yes, my father told me he reached the rank before you; tell me about the kiss.”
“What do you want to know?” Such a simple question, yet the answer could only be anything but.
“Did it mean anything?”
“Of course, it meant something,” he snapped before controlling h
imself, turning back towards the stove. “It was a lifetime ago. We’ve both moved on.”
Only in his mind, she thought. The way he kissed, danced and escorted her to the waiting taxi cab. No, there was no way he could have been involved in her kidnapping. He had been everything she wanted that night, willing to let her go rather than insist on staying and pushing his claims.
“Did my father know about us when he asked you to look after me?” They’d already had this conversation, but she needed to be sure.
This time Ed couldn’t either look at her, or loose himself in the cooking. He walked away, closing the blinds against the setting sun, turning on the dimmed lights. She had no reason to question what he did, other than as a way for buying time before he answered.
“It was a simple question,” she prompted.
“I wish the answer was as simple,” he slowly replied, kneeling at her chair. “You want to know whether I meant the kiss?”
She nodded as if it was the only thing that mattered.
“What if I did—what if out of all the women in the room, you were the only woman that I wanted to dance with, that you were the only woman that I wanted in my arms and you were the only woman I wanted to kiss?
Anastacia couldn’t get the answers from his eyes—not any that she’d believe. She wanted him to tell her that everything she’d felt from that first glance across the room, meant something. That even though she’d known instinctively that he was Defence and represented every male she swore to avoid, that the kiss meant as much to him as it had to her. She needed to know that falling for a man in the same career as her father, she wasn’t just a stereotypical Defence-brat.
The longer she waited for an answer, the harder the words had to be for him to say. Actions of themselves, told her everything she needed to know.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said carefully, “Whether I meant the kiss or not. The truth is, your father asked me to do a job not only as my commanding officer but also as a friend.”
“I know that,” she said, wanting to make saying the words easier.
Defend Her: A military suspense romance (Aussie Military Romance Book 4) Page 7