Saving Joe (U.S. Marshals, Born And Bred Book 1)

by Laura Marie Altom

  “Would you stop with that? Willow’s death was not your fault. You avoiding Meghan in the name of protecting her is.”

  The look he cast her was so elemental, so raw with pain, she wished more than anything to take her words back.

  If she were brutally honest with herself, maybe she so desperately wanted Joe to move on with his life so he’d see what a great woman sat beside him.

  Just thinking such a thing filled Gillian with guilt. But there it was. Out on the table.

  She had a thing for Joe Morgan. But as long as that thing never went any further than the confines of her own heart, they’d both be just fine.

  “Meghan needs you,” she softly said. “Okay, so she might be growing up like some pampered princess with Willow’s folks in Beverly Hills, but can you honestly tell me all that money makes up for one hour spent playing catch with you?”

  “Why won’t you leave me alone?” He planted his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. “What kind of spell do you have over me that makes me want to spill stuff I never—”

  “And admit it, Joe, it feels good, doesn’t it? Just like when we went on that picnic, it felt good laughing again and—”

  “What’s with you?” he raged, pushing himself up from the sofa to yank open the front door. “Why won’t you mind your own business?”

  “You’re the one who started this! Remember?”

  Too late. He was already out the door.

  Where the perimeter alarm went off.

  Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!

  Bud howled, then scrambled after his master.

  Gillian turned off the alarm, then, when Joe was safely out of earshot, radioed an all-clear.

  What she didn’t tell the guys in the boats circling the island was that while Joe was physically safe, in his head and heart, he was an official mess.

  “DAMMIT, WHY ARE YOU following me?” Joe asked an hour later at the windswept bluff where they’d had their picnic.

  “It’s my job.” Standing beside him, Gillian hunkered into her too-thin coat, wishing away the cold, damp wind.

  Bud leaned hard against her left leg, and she reached down to rub behind his ears.

  High, thin clouds streamed over a crescent moon reflecting light off the windshield of Team One’s cabin cruiser. Knowing she wasn’t alone should’ve brought her comfort, but it didn’t. Out here in the open, exposed, she felt like a sitting duck. What was the right thing to do in a case like this? Force Joe back to the cabin at gun-point? He thought he was safe. Kavorski and the rest of the team thought Joe was safe. Why was she the only one who couldn’t get past this constant sense of unease?

  “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”

  Because of the wind, Gillian couldn’t be sure she’d heard Joe right, but had he actually apologized?

  “I shouldn’t have gone off on you like that, but dammit, Gillian, I asked you when you first got here to lay off about Meghan, and I mean it. She’s sacred. Like some priceless museum artifact that must never be touched. Only admired from a safe distance.”

  “Give me a break,” Gillian said, working hard to hold in a sarcastic snort. “She’s a kid. What? You think she’s gonna get hurt from a hug? I grew up without my mother, Joe, and I’ll tell you what’s hurting Meghan most. And that’s—”

  He spun around and headed back for the cabin.

  Bud stayed with her.

  Shoulders braced against not only the wind, but the monumental task she’d apparently taken on in trying to convince Joe his little girl needed him, Gillian sighed. The very last thing she wanted to do was spend one more second traipsing after him in the dark, but that was exactly what she did.

  HOURS, MAYBE YEARS, LATER, Joe lay in his bed in the darkness, listening to the occasional pop of the fire, to tree limbs scraping the shake-shingle roof, to the sporadic grunts of the dog stretched across the hearth, even to the purely imagined sounds of Gillian’s peaceful dreams.

  He listened to anything that got his mind off the battle raging in his head. The one where he kicked himself for yet again being such a jerk with Gillian. She hadn’t deserved his explosion, so why had it happened? What was it about the woman that brought out the worst in him?

  Yeah, he knew it was past time for him to have more contact with Meggie, but what if he screwed her up? Made her as big a head case as he was? Then what? No matter how bad he craved the smells and feel of her little girl softness, there was no way he was putting her at risk.

  With Willow’s parents, she was safe. Their home had state-of-the-art security. Whenever she left the house, she had two highly trained bodyguards following her.

  What she really needs is her dad.

  Deep in his throat, Joe groaned in frustration. There she was again. Gillian, butting into his every thought and action.

  For a split second, at the picnic, after he’d told the story of how he’d proposed to Willow, she’d cocked her head just the slightest bit to the left. She usually shoved her long hair into a messy ponytail, but that afternoon, it had been down. Down and long and whiskey-blond and pretty in mellow afternoon sunlight.

  That had been the exact moment he’d systematically set about trying to hate her.

  How could he have spoken about Willow in one breath, then admired Gillian’s hair the next? The whole afternoon had been spoiled.

  Even Gillian would agree. And if she wouldn’t…well, it didn’t matter, because he never planned to tell her.

  “Joe?”

  After an initial start, he looked toward the couch. “Yeah?”

  “You awake?”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Guess I didn’t like how we left things. Seems like I read somewhere it’s unhealthy for a relationship when a man and woman go to bed mad.”

  “That what we have, Gillian? A relationship?” He closed his eyes, heard the sweet whisper of her pushing back the covers, then slipping from her sofa nest. With her every silent footfall, he imagined the floor’s chill on the soles of her feet.

  He swallowed hard, wishing she’d stayed in her assigned spot. Better yet, in her tent.

  He opened his eyes to find her standing before him, backlit by the fading fire’s orange glow. Her sleep-tumbled hair looked like a halo, and she wore those damn black porn-star long johns that’d bugged the hell out of him a few nights ago. She was a wisp of a woman. A mere hint of his former wife, so why, why was he compelled to look away from her or else pull her hard against him?

  Pure desire, thick and hot and wrong, burned in his groin. Forbidden wanting. Traitorous need. Need that in his heart he prayed had nothing to do with her. The way she stood there, staring. The way she licked her lips, sending out an unconscious invitation to kiss.

  The two of them were ships drifting upon vastly different seas. His was windswept, roiling turmoil and angst. Hers was calm. Placid, welcoming and warm. Just this one night, he could ease into her waters, selfishly seek comfort in her depths. Just once, he could sneak by the past to catch a glimpse of an unencumbered future.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she quietly asked.

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes…yes, you can.” She knelt beside the bed, brushing his fevered, unshaven cheek with her cool hand. A shudder rippled through him and he closed his eyes and swallowed. “Why are you doing this?”

  The innocent answered his question with a question. “Doing what?”

  Joe groaned. Covered his eyes with the heels of his hands.

  He felt her still there beside him. Nothing between them but a cushion of heated, supercharged air. He wanted to kiss her like he wanted his next breath. Worse yet, he wanted more. But it wasn’t a noble want. Merely a reflection of long-repressed physical needs. He’d be using Gillian. And that was wrong.

  “I—I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what made me come over here. I just felt…”

  “That’s okay. Me, too. I mean, I’m sorry for earlier.” It’s just that I’m changing inside. And it scares me.
Ever since you showed up, I’ve been a mess. Life was simpler alone.

  “You ready to try getting some sleep?” she asked, her voice barely overriding the keening wind.

  I might never sleep again. “Sure.”

  “Yeah, me, too.”

  Chapter Eight

  Bright and early the next morning, Gillian wrinkled her nose. “What are you doing?”

  Glancing up from where he knelt on the kitchen floor with a dustpan and broom, Joe said, “What’s it look like I’m doing?”

  “Duh. I can see you’re sweeping, but what made this mess?” What looked like crushed cracker crumbs lined the floor beneath the cabinet hugging the outside wall.

  “I woke up hungry, so I thought I’d get a snack, only to open the cabinet and find this.” He wagged a tooth-marked wax paper wrapper. Sweeping the last of the mess into the dustpan, he rose to dump it in the under-sink trash. “Hungry mice. One of the many benefits of island living.”

  “Eeuw. Bud doesn’t bark at them?”

  “What do you think?” Joe asked, jerking his chin the dog’s way. Bud was in his usual spot, curled up on his big, red plaid pillow in front of the hearth, napping. On every other exhalation, he snored.

  “Okay, dumb question,” Gillian said. “You ever trap them?”

  He laughed. “Caught two since you moved in.”

  She shuddered. “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “Why?” Eyes crinkled at the corners from the size of his grin, he asked, “Just so you could worry about it?”

  “Where do you put their little bodies?”

  “I don’t kill them. I just catch ’em, then set ’em free in the woods.”

  “And you’ve done this with two while I’ve been here?”

  He nodded while getting a wet dishrag from the sink, then wiping out the scene of the nibbling crime.

  “And how is it I wasn’t with you?”

  “You were in the shower or sleeping.”

  “Okay, what happened to my rule about not leaving my sight?”

  “Hey, you want me in the shower with you, I guess that’s your call.” The minute the words were out, Joe regretted them. Or did he?

  Grinning, yet shyly looking away, she’d never looked more pretty to him. She had a morning freshness. Innocence. A kind of intrinsic dewy hope he couldn’t help but be drawn to. His initial thought was that the attraction was wrong, but seeing how they’d soon be leaving for the trial—then he’d return here, or head on to one of his other remote hideouts, never to see her again—he supposed a few days living in her light wouldn’t do him harm.

  “Okay, the shower’s one thing,” she said, “but while I’m sleeping? How do you manage to skulk around without setting off my alarms?”

  He shrugged. “Easy enough to step over now that I know what I’m looking for.”

  “Wow. You make me feel like one hell of a screwup at my job.”

  “Don’t go getting pouty just ’cause I managed a couple escapes. I came back, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, but if I can’t even keep you in, how am I supposed to keep the bad guys out?”

  “I thought that’s what your fellow marshals on the boats were supposed to do?”

  “They are, but—”

  “You want to do everything on your own—even knock off the bad guys should they arrive?”

  Reddening at his uncannily accurate assessment of the situation, Gillian said, “Got a problem with that?” All her life she’d had an overbearing father and three know-it-all brothers trying to do everything for her. This time, she’d once and for all prove she didn’t need their help.

  “Nope.” He crossed his chest. “From here on out, I solemnly swear never to leave your sight—especially when that task involves the shower.”

  “STAY STILL,” Gillian said that afternoon in the cabin’s sun-drenched front yard. With their backs safely to the exterior log wall, she had an unencumbered view of their surroundings. On her latest check-in with Kavorski, he’d again reassured her that the mission to protect Joe was a cakewalk. But she felt better remaining alert.

  On the beach, seagulls screeched over an early supper. Normally, she would’ve been dragging the rich blend of conifer and saltwater and damp earth deep into her lungs, but at the moment, the only scent worth noticing was the one she’d learned to associate with the man she’d sworn to protect.

  Joe sat in a kitchen chair she’d brought out for the occasion, grumbling with every snip of the scissors. “I still say this whole thing is unnecessary.”

  “Oh, so you want to show up at your trial looking like Grizzly Adams?” She took a little more off behind his left ear, trying not to notice the warm tinglies climbing the backs of her fingers every time she grazed his warm neck.

  Had she been at a five-star hotel, the view of sky and ocean would’ve set her back a couple of hundred bucks a night, so how come the sight that normally took her breath away now seemed dull in comparison to the fascinating dip at the back of Joe’s neck?

  “Why can’t I get a haircut once we get to town?”

  “Because you’ll be on lockdown when we get to town.”

  “Yeah, but what if I look like a dolt with a bowl cut?” She cleared her throat before stepping around him to enter his line of sight. “Excuse me, but you forget I had three brothers and a dad to practice on. Believe me, I’m way advanced over your average bowl cut.”

  “Hope so.”

  She threatened him with the scissors before resuming, only she had to straddle his knee to get to the best cutting angle—definitely not one of her better calls. Still, trying to hold tight to her professionalism, she finished her task, then stepped back to admire the view.

  She meant to shoot off something witty and devil-may-care sarcastic, but suddenly found her mouth dry.

  Joe had been good-looking before, but with a fresh shave and haircut, he was beyond-belief gorgeous.

  “I look okay?”

  The moist warmth of his breath fell between them. Was it just the sun’s rays that had her so overheated? Joe looked way more than okay. He looked amazing. Amazing enough to have almost made her forget she was on the island to do a job—not admire the local wildlife. “Yeah,” she said past a frog in her throat. “Much better. Definitely passable for any court in the nation.”

  Not to mention any woman!

  “QUIT!” GILLIAN SHRIEKED the next morning while struggling to keep Bud in the rusty galvanized tub they were using to give him a bath. “You’re getting more soap and water on me than him—and it’s cold!”

  Because she looked so pretty in dazzling sunshine, with her equally dazzling smile, Joe flicked more suds her way.

  Bud barked, lunging to escape, but Gillian held tight. “I think I got the raw end of this deal.”

  “Oh, like getting my hands in rabbit poop or fish guts or whatever it is he rolled in is fun?”

  “He is your dog. I shouldn’t be helping at all.”

  Admiring the way her soaked navy T-shirt hugged her curves, Joe hastily looked away. “I know dog washing isn’t in your job description, but thanks for your help.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  The smile she flashed was different from any he’d previously noted. He’d seen them playful and flirty and sarcastic and sad, but this smile he didn’t begin to know how to label, as the sexy-sweet play of her lips didn’t quite match up with the wistful melancholy in her eyes.

  Joe finished scrubbing Bud’s back and hind legs, then held the dog while Gillian drew fresh water from the hand pump to rinse him, in the process getting way more icy water than necessary on Joe’s head. “You did that on purpose,” he said, letting Bud go.

  Playful smile firmly in place, she flung down the plastic bowl she’d been using. It landed with a clunk on the dirt trail leading alongside the cabin. “What if I did?”

  “Then you’re gonna pay.”

  The chase was on.

  With Gillian’s laugh filling the air, Joe ran after her. But not only was
she slippery, she was fast, darting through tall weeds and around boulders like they were some kind of rookie obstacle course.

  Once, he thought he’d caught her beneath the pungent-smelling limbs of an extra tall pine, but Bud joined forces with the enemy, getting in the way right when Joe had been going in for a tackle. “Hey, no fair! You can’t use my own dog against me.”

  “What can I say?” With a cocky wink, Gillian said, “I have a way with males of the canine persuasion.” And to prove it, she kissed Bud on top of his still-wet head.

  The chase was back on, only this time Joe was determined to beat out his dog for a kiss.

  He chased and he ran, finally tackling Gillian on a bed of dandelions that looked pretty against her hair.

  “You cheated!” Breathless and laughing, she tried squirming out from under him. “Coming after me like that, knowing full well Bud abandoned me to chase a rabbit.”

  “You know what they say about all being fair in love and war.”

  “So which is this?” she asked, pupils wide, licking her lips. “Love or war?”

  Right before kissing her, he said, “Maybe a little of both.”

  “NEED HELP?” That night, Joe eased onto the hearth, feeding kindling into a struggling fire.

  “No, thanks.” Gillian pulled one of her trash can casseroles from the oven.

  “We okay?” he asked a few minutes later, while she was scooping the concoction onto their plates. He’d stepped up behind her, pausing just close enough that she knew he was there by his heat.

  “About what?”

  He cleared his throat, pulled out a chair at the table and sat. “You know. This afternoon. You didn’t do a whole lot of police work.”

  “I’m not a cop.” She scooped canned green beans from a saucepan, adding them to their plates.

  “You know what I mean.”

  Yeah. She swallowed hard. She knew exactly what he meant. That afternoon. After washing the dog. After sharing one kiss, then another and another. They’d lazed about in the grass, talking, laughing, dreaming. She’d told him about her hopes of making a professional name for herself. He spoke about making a home for himself and Meghan. About both of them again being safe. He’d taken Gillian’s hand, told her that because of people like her, people dedicated to protecting innocent folks from the bad guys, someday that dream would come true.