Single Mom's Bodyguard

by Lisa Childs

  Was he her boyfriend or her bodyguard?

  “We just found him like this,” Dane said. “We didn’t do this. Talk to Nikki—your sister. She knows. We were with her before we came here.”

  That was the problem. Nick was related to too damn many people. He couldn’t risk being accused of favoritism. He needed to err on the side of caution so he didn’t let a murderer walk just because of who he or she knew.

  He reached out and clasped his hand around Dane Sutton’s arm. The guy was huge, nearly as big as his friend who’d proposed to Nick’s sister. If he tried to resist, Nick wasn’t confident he would be able to subdue the guy without shooting him.

  He didn’t want to shoot him, though. For one, he wasn’t sure a bullet would stop him. He was that damn big. For another reason, he didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with the man about to become his new brother-in-law.

  Lars Ecklund wasn’t going to be happy that Nick had arrested his sister, though. So it probably wouldn’t matter if Nick shot his best friend, as well.

  “I have to do this by the book,” Nick explained. “There can be no hint of impropriety here.” He’d spent months cleaning up the River City PD. He wasn’t going to risk looking corrupt himself.

  Nor was he going to risk a suspect getting away with murder—no matter who the hell she was related to.

  Chapter 16

  Emilia had already been read her rights. She’d been booked and photographed for a mug shot—all under the suspicion of murder, even though no charges had actually been pressed.

  Yet.

  She knew that the murder weapon would come back with her prints and with her DNA on it. She was going to go to prison for a murder she hadn’t committed.

  She didn’t need to be read the riot act, too.

  “Stop lecturing,” she implored Lars. He hadn’t even waited until they’d left the police station.

  He yelled at her in the crowded lobby. “I can’t believe you didn’t come to me. Didn’t you learn anything from what happened last time?”

  She flinched.

  “You nearly lost your son and your life,” he reminded her.

  And she murmured, “I know...”

  She would never forget what had happened no matter how much she wished she could. But that was the past. Right now she was worried about the future.

  She was worried about her son.

  He was with Nikki. He was safe.

  But he’d started out the first few weeks of his life without his mother. Now he was about to lose her again, maybe for the rest of Emilia’s life.

  “So why didn’t you tell me about the crying and the phone?”

  Nikki must have filled him in on everything Emilia had shared with her. She doubted he’d talked to Dane.

  Dane stood behind him in the lobby. Lars hadn’t even acknowledged his presence. All his anger was directed at her right now. And she was about to buckle beneath the guilt and pressure of it. All she wanted was to go home to her son. To hold him as long as she could.

  No. That wasn’t all she wanted. She wanted Dane, too.

  But she’d already caused him enough trouble. She’d cost him his friendship with her brother. Maybe his job. And now possibly his freedom if he was arrested as an accomplice to the murder she hadn’t committed.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. The words weren’t for her brother. They were for Dane. But like Lars was ignoring him, he was ignoring her. He wouldn’t even look at her.

  He probably hated her for all the trouble she’d caused him. And she couldn’t blame him.

  And she couldn’t help but love him.

  * * *

  Dane closed his eyes. But it didn’t matter. He could still see her face, pale with fear and weariness. And he could hear her brother ranting and raving.

  He needed to just walk away. Lars knew everything now. He would make sure nothing happened to her. But Lars was hurting her. She’d actually flinched over some of the things he’d said. Nobody knew Lars better than Dane. The guy was impulsive and reacted with emotion rather than logic.

  But he needed a little sensitivity now. He wasn’t helping Emilia at all. He was only making her feel worse. And Dane, who never lost control, lost his temper.

  “Shut up!” he yelled. And all conversation in the busy police department lobby ceased. “Shut the hell up!”

  Lars turned toward him. “Don’t you dare talk to me,” the bigger man warned. “You’re not my friend anymore—you proved that!”

  “I don’t give a crap about your friendship,” Dane said. And at the moment, he didn’t. He only cared about Emilia.

  He’d promised to protect her. He hadn’t realized he might need to do that against her own damn brother. He stepped between the siblings and took Emilia’s hand in his. Her fingers were trembling. And her slight body shook, too—probably with exhaustion and shock.

  “Don’t touch her!” Lars growled in warning. “Don’t you dare touch her!”

  Lars had no idea exactly how much Dane wanted to touch her again, like he had the night before. But it didn’t matter what he wanted right now. He only cared about what she wanted.

  “Are you sick of listening to his big mouth?”

  Her lips curved into a slight smile, and she nodded.

  “Then I’ll get you out of here,” he offered.

  But before he could lead her to the exit, a big hand clamped over his shoulder. “She’s not going anywhere with you,” Lars threatened.

  “She’s not a child,” Dane said. “She gets to choose where she goes and with whom—not you.”

  Dane kind of choked on the words as he uttered them. He doubted she would choose him. No one else had. Or if they had, they’d regretted the choice.

  Lars’s throat moved as if he were spluttering with anger.

  Emilia squeezed Dane’s hand with suddenly steady fingers. Then she told her brother, “I’m leaving with Dane.”

  “No!” Lars bellowed. “He won’t keep you safe!”

  “He has,” Emilia insisted.

  Lars gestured at her wrist. “You were attacked and now arrested. He’s been no help to you. He’s hurt you.”

  Dane shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that. You’re the one who’s hurt her, yelling at her after all she’s been through.” That was why he hadn’t been able to walk away, why he couldn’t leave her with her brother. Lars didn’t understand all she’d been through.

  Lars’s face flushed. He should have been embarrassed over how he’d treated his sister. Instead he must have been angry—because he swung out.

  His hand held in hers, Dane couldn’t deflect the blow. It caught him on the chin. He must have been tired because he staggered back a step before regaining his balance.

  Like he had stepped between the siblings, Emilia stepped between them now. She shoved Lars back. “Stop it!” she yelled at him. “You’re an idiot. Dane saved my life. You should be thanking him. Not hitting him.”

  “Em—” Lars reached out for her.

  But she stepped back to Dane’s side and slid her arm around him, as if he needed her help now. “Stay away from me!” she told her brother. “Stay away!”

  Despite his chin throbbing from Lars’s blow, Dane felt sorry for his friend. His heart hurt with the thought of her telling him the same thing, to stay away from her. He suspected eventually she might tell him that, if he didn’t do all the things he’d promised.

  If he didn’t protect her...

  From the man terrorizing her and from a murder charge.

  * * *

  “You are an idiot,” his ever-supportive fiancée told him. Nikki Payne was incapable of being anything but direct. And right. She was always right.

  While she was the first to claim that, Lars couldn’t argue with he
r. His head throbbed as if he’d taken a blow. Emilia’s words had hit him hard, almost as hard as the tears he’d seen in her eyes when he’d railed at her.

  “I couldn’t stop myself,” he admitted. “The words just kept spewing out...”

  “You yelled at her,” Nikki said.

  “I was so scared,” Lars admitted.

  He’d come so close to losing Emilia again—forever this time. That bandage around her wrist had been stained with dried blood. But what if the knife had hit an artery?

  She could have bled out in her bathroom. She could be dead. That was so much worse than being arrested.

  But she’d been arrested, too. He could lose her to prison, as well. He might have already lost her to his own stupidity and temper.

  She wasn’t the only Ecklund who’d been arrested today. Cuffs had been snapped around his wrists before Emilia had even walked away with Dane. His friend had done him a favor, though. He’d told the officer arresting Lars that he didn’t want to press charges. But there had been too damn many witnesses to the assault.

  Assault?

  It had just been a little tap. Really. Dane must have been tired, or he wouldn’t have even stumbled back. Unless he’d done it for the benefit of those witnesses...

  Fortunately Lars hadn’t had to make bail. His future brother-in-law had released him on his own recognizances, just as Emilia and Dane had been released. They hadn’t even been charged like he’d been.

  He’d only gone down to the police department to pick her up. But he’d made everything worse.

  Small but strong arms wrapped around him. He sat on a stool near the computer desk in Nikki’s office/gun safe/home gym. If he hadn’t been sitting, she wouldn’t have been able to reach his neck where she pressed a kiss to the tense muscles.

  “You are an idiot,” she said. “But you are also the most loving and loyal man I’ve ever known.”

  “I shouted at her,” he miserably admitted, his voice cracking with emotion.

  “You were scared,” she said. “My brothers have yelled at me so many times.”

  Because Nikki had scared them so many times. The woman constantly put herself in danger.

  But Emilia...

  She wasn’t like Nikki. She wasn’t invincible. She was vulnerable. And Dane had taken advantage of that vulnerability. He’d stepped in to play her white knight. But Lars knew he was no such thing. Someday Emilia would learn the same, and then her heart would be broken.

  “She yelled back,” Lars said, which had surprised him. Emilia had never yelled at him before—until that other day when he’d struck Dane. “She jumped to his defense.”

  “She loves him.”

  Lars groaned. “He’s going to break her heart.”

  “Why?” Nikki asked.

  “Because he’s Dane,” Lars said. “He doesn’t care about people.”

  “He’s your best friend,” she said.

  “But—but—”

  “He put his life on the line for you how many times?” she asked.

  Lars groaned again—for another reason. Guilt.

  “You told me he’s saved your life before,” Nikki reminded him. “And he’s risked his to help you and now to help her.”

  Lars had already felt bad. Now he felt worse.

  “He’s always been a good friend to you,” Nikki said. “He wouldn’t be if he didn’t care.”

  “I am an idiot,” Lars said with a heavy sigh. He’d alienated his sister and his best friend.

  “Yes,” Nikki agreed. “And now we won’t be able to convince Emilia to let us help her. She won’t stay here where we can protect her.”

  He groaned again as misery and frustration gripped him. He’d screwed up so badly.

  “So we’re going to have to trust Dane to do it,” Nikki said.

  Lars wasn’t sure he would ever be able to trust his best friend again. “He should have told me what was going on. She should have told me.”

  Nikki squeezed her arms around him. “They were both worried you’d do what you just did—overreact.”

  “She was nearly killed,” Lars said. “And she’s now a murder suspect. I don’t think I overreacted at all.” But he could have handled himself better, could have held his temper. He was just so scared. And if he were honest with himself, he wasn’t just scared for Emilia. He was scared for Dane, too. He was afraid that he was going to lose his sister and his best friend.

  Forever.

  Chapter 17

  “I am so sorry,” Emilia said as she held the ice pack to Dane’s swelling chin.

  “Stop apologizing,” Dane said. “You’re not the one who hit me.”

  “No,” she said. “But my idiot brother did.” Emilia’s only satisfaction at the moment was knowing that Nikki was probably giving him the lecture he had given her. Unfortunately, they had both deserved it.

  “He’s my idiot friend,” Dane said.

  “Was,” she corrected him. “I doubt you’re friends any longer.” And that was her fault, too. “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop apologizing,” he said again. He took the ice pack from her hand and tossed it onto the counter. It landed next to the knife block that was missing one knife.

  The knife buried in Bradley’s chest.

  “Lars shouldn’t have made you feel bad,” he said.

  She shook her head. “It wasn’t Lars...”

  “Zeinstra?”

  Seeing his body hadn’t made her feel anything but horror. She’d felt bad that he was dead. But she hadn’t felt any sense of loss or regret. She couldn’t believe that she had ever been attracted to him. He had really been just a boy.

  He hadn’t been a man. Like Dane.

  She shook her head again then sighed. “I’m sorry he’s dead. But...”

  “You’re not upset about it?”

  “Brad used me,” she said. “He never cared about me. And I was a fool to think I cared about him when I didn’t even know him.”

  Did she know Dane any better? How could she when his own best friend claimed he didn’t even know him?

  “He was a bigger idiot than your brother,” Dane said.

  She sighed. “I can’t be mad at him, though. He gave me Blue.”

  The baby was upstairs, asleep in his crib. She’d barely seen him that day, what with finding Bradley and then being questioned in his murder. Maybe she needed to get used to not seeing him. She’d been worried about him being taken away from her again. But she would probably be taken away from him.

  And taken to prison...

  As if he’d read her mind, Dane pulled her into his arms and held her. “We’ll figure this out,” he promised. “You won’t go to prison.”

  “If I do,” she said, “I probably won’t go alone.” He could be arrested, too—like he had been today—when the acting chief had slapped cuffs on his wrists.

  Because of her injury, she hadn’t been cuffed. But she’d been put into the back of a police car and driven to the police department like Dane had. Separately.

  They’d been questioned separately, too, as if being tested to see if their stories would match.

  “I’m not worried about that,” Dane said. “I’ve been in worse places than prison.”

  She’d probably been, too, when she thought of that cold, abandoned warehouse where she had nearly bled to death after giving birth. She shivered as she remembered the cold that had penetrated her flesh and bones.

  Dane pulled her closer. “You’re cold. And it’s late. You need to get some rest.”

  Before she could head toward the stairwell, he lifted and carried her. Without his help, she wasn’t sure she would have made it on her own to the bedroom—to the bed where he laid her. She was that exhausted.

  But then he
began to undress her and a new energy surged through her with desire. Her skin heated and tingled. “Dane...”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I can’t not be with you.”

  He made love to her gently—with a tenderness of which she would have never believed him capable. He kissed her softly and skimmed his lips over every inch of her.

  Emilia had never felt so cared for. But she didn’t deserve his gentleness, not after everything she’d put him through, everything she had cost him.

  She owed him for his protection. For his sacrifice. So she pushed him off the bed until they were both standing beside it—although her legs trembled. And she undressed him. First she removed his holster and settled it onto the table next to the bed. Then she tugged up his shirt and pulled it over his head, baring his muscular chest and washboard abs.

  Her fingers trembled as she unbuttoned his jeans.

  And he sucked in a breath.

  Then she lowered his zipper and his breath escaped in a ragged sigh.

  “Emilia...”

  She dropped to her knees on the hardwood floor, and she made love to him with her mouth. She moved her lips up and down the length of him, taking him deep into her throat.

  He groaned, and his fingers clutched in her hair. “Emilia...”

  She flicked her tongue over the head of his erection. He tugged her away from him, found a condom and sheathed himself. Then he lifted her. Muscles bunched in his arms as he held her up. Then, still standing, he eased inside her. She wound her arms around his broad shoulders and locked her legs around his waist.

  While he moved inside her, he lowered his head and kissed her. Then he lowered his head more and flicked his tongue across the taut tip of her nipple.

  She moaned as sensations spiraled through her. Tension built inside her. And she rode him, seeking release as the tension became unbearable.

  He thrust his hips, moving deeper inside her. And deeper and deeper.

  She didn’t know where he ended and she began. She’d never known she could feel like this—so full—so complete and yet crazy with desire, too.

  All her fears and exhaustion dropped away, leaving only desire. Then the tension broke as pleasure overwhelmed her. Her body shuddered as she came.