Her Lawman Protector

by Patricia Johns

  “You okay?” he murmured.

  “Yeah. Fine.” She glanced up and found him looking down at her with concern in those dark eyes.

  “You don’t look fine,” he whispered back, handing her a plastic cup of punch.

  “I’m—” She met his gaze. She had been going to tell him that she was perfectly fine, but she wasn’t. And somehow he’d picked up on that. “I hate these, but I’ll survive.”

  “Okay.” He nodded slowly. “But if you need an excuse to get out of here...”

  “Don’t tempt me,” she said, shooting him a smile. “I have to stay a polite amount of time.”

  The party went on with games and nonalcoholic toasts. More family arrived, and Liv milled through the groups of people, Jack sticking close. The Hyltons supported one another, if nothing else. Babies weren’t brought into the family without getting a royal welcome.

  After Viola opened the presents, music suddenly started to play, and a ball made out of wrapping paper and bound up with ribbons from the gift opening was handed from person to person as fast as they could pass it along. No one needed the rules to this game explained—it was a Hylton tradition. The person left holding the ball when the music stopped would be the next one to have a baby, or father a baby, whichever the case may be.

  Liv’s heart sank. She hated this part...now, at least. There had been a time when her superstitious nature used to thrill at the thought of being left with the ball in her hands, but not anymore.

  There was laugher and squeals as people pushed the ball from one set of hands to the next.

  “No, no, no!” a middle-aged aunt yelped, laughing. “Here you go—I’m done with babies!”

  One of Liv’s older uncles playfully held on to the ball for a couple of beats while his wife wagged a finger at him. “Not with me, you don’t!”

  Liv looked toward the food table again, wondering when the cake could be cut so she could leave already. Then the ball of wrapping paper was thrust in her hands just as the music stopped. The silence was absolute and as heavy as lead.

  Her heart thudded to a stop at the same time, and she looked down at the ragged ball in dread. She shut her eyes for a moment, wishing it away. They knew—everyone knew—and she could feel all the eyes turning toward her. She felt tears well up in her vision. What was she supposed to do now?

  “Hey, I thought love and marriage was supposed to come before the babies,” Jack’s good-natured voice boomed out. “Give us some time, would you?”

  He plucked the ball from her hands and tossed it toward another young couple, then he slid a strong arm around her waist, tugged her against his muscled torso and his lips came down on hers. The kiss was warm and firm, just longer than a peck.

  Everyone started to laugh, and some of them whooped in encouragement.

  “Go, Liv!” one of her cousins called out, and Liv’s eyes blinked open as Jack pulled back.

  “Let’s go,” Jack whispered.

  She nodded, and Jack kept his arm around her waist and led the way through the kitchen and toward the side door they’d come in by. He was taking control of the moment, she realized, and she was deeply grateful. Even though she had no idea how he’d realized how hard this was for her... Was she that transparent?

  All she wanted was to get away. Jack pulled open the door, nodded and smiled at her cousins, and then they were outside in the biting chill of an October afternoon, and the tears she’d been fighting spilled onto her cheeks.

  * * *

  JACK TUGGED LIV after him, kicking the screen door shut behind them. He knew exactly why this baby shower was hard on Liv...he just wasn’t supposed to know yet. So how was he going to explain himself for taking over in there?

  He’d seen her face when that ball of wrapping paper had hit her hands—the pain in her eyes. He couldn’t just let her flounder, everyone staring at her...

  “You okay?” he asked tentatively.

  Liv’s chin trembled, and more tears slipped down her cheeks. He pulled her against his chest, smoothing a hand over her hair, and she let out a shuddering sigh into his neck. He closed his arms around her, resting his cheek against her silken hair. He wanted to fix this—make it better somehow—but he knew he couldn’t. This was well out of his control.

  And he wasn’t supposed to be trying to fix her problems. He was supposed to be taking advantage of moments like this. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  “Hey...” he murmured against her hair. “Hey.”

  Jack wasn’t sure what to say. But holding her seemed to be helping, so he tightened his arms around her. After a few more sniffles, she pulled back and wiped her cheeks with the palms of her hands.

  “Sorry about that kiss,” he said, his voice low.

  “At least it gave them something better to think than Poor Liv,” she said, forcing a wobbly smile.

  “Let’s get in the car,” he said. “I can drive.”

  Liv handed him the keys, and they headed to where her car was parked. It would be better to get away from prying eyes, anyway. He knew she needed to talk about the baby she had lost. He didn’t want this private moment recorded by the police department, though. She deserved her privacy when it came to such a personal matter, and they’d already invaded it once. So after they got into the car, Jack turned toward her.

  “What happened out there?” he asked.

  “Baby showers are hard for me,” she said with a sigh. “I lost a baby three years ago. I’d wanted to be a mom so badly, and when I got pregnant, I was over the moon. I told everyone. I didn’t wait—you’re supposed to wait, you know. Not that it would have mattered. I was four and a half months when I lost the baby, so...” She glanced toward him.

  “I’m really sorry,” he said quietly.

  “Evan wasn’t as excited. He was...awful, really. He said stuff like, ‘Don’t get your hopes up. You never know what will happen’...that kind of thing. Anyway, it turned out he was right.”

  Jack felt a wave of anger rolling up inside of him. Evan Kornekewsky was a real piece of work.

  “He’s an ass,” Jack muttered.

  “Yes.” Liv shrugged. “And he was cheating on me at the time, so maybe he already knew he was going to walk out on me and didn’t want the complication of a child in the mix.”

  “I don’t care what his reasons were,” Jack replied. “You needed support, and that baby was his.”

  “It was an awful time,” Liv said, pulling a tissue from her purse and dabbing at her eyes. “I was heartbroken. We hadn’t found out the gender of the baby yet, but I was already in love with the little thing. When I miscarried, we found out it was a girl.”

  Jack reached over and moved her hair away from her face, letting his fingers linger on her damp cheek for a moment.

  “I’d already bought some maternity clothes, and I’d started to show—” She dabbed her nose with the tissue. “But I have to get over it. Life goes on.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Jack replied. “Life might go on, but you’ll never forget her.”

  “No, I never will.” She looked up at him and gave him a teary smile. “It helps to talk about her. Thank you.”

  “Whatever you need.” And he was serious about that, he realized. In this moment, he wasn’t the cop investigating her, he was...a friend? That couldn’t be right. Maybe he was just a decent man supporting a woman who needed a little comfort right now, who’d been done wrong one too many times by her idiot of an ex.

  “What I need is to be able to celebrate other people’s babies,” she said with a shake of her head. “I thought I could today.”

  Liv tucked the tissue away and then slowly looked toward him.

  “Why did you kiss me?” she asked suddenly.

  “I—” How was he supposed to explain himself. “You looked like you needed an escape, and it seemed like the most expedie
nt way out of there.”

  “Oh...”

  “Was I right?” he asked uncertainly.

  “Probably.” She smiled wanly. “Can we just go home now?”

  “Yeah.” He adjusted the mirrors, then turned the key. “At the very least, everyone is now talking about you and that handsy boyfriend.”

  Liv laughed softly. “Yes, they are. That’s a guarantee. When all this is over, I might not tell them the truth at all. I might just say that you and I broke up.”

  “What reason will you give?” he asked, shooting her a rueful smile as he put the car into Reverse and backed out. He got turned around and signaled a turn onto the road.

  “Oh, I don’t know...maybe you’ll have turned out to be a mama’s boy.”

  Oh, really? So that’s what she thought was under the surface? He had an undeniable urge to set her straight. “I’m not a mama’s boy.”

  “No?” She eyed him teasingly. “Then maybe you’ll have been a career-focused cop, and I realized I was doing the same thing I always do—going for the wrong kind of guy.”

  “I could even give you a grand public gesture, trying to get you back,” he said with a laugh. “They might like that.”

  “Would you?” She sounded so sincere that he looked over at her to check, but there was laughter in her eyes. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t put you through that. I’m imagining you outside my window with a boom box held over your head.”

  Jack groaned. None of this mattered. He was joking around with her, forgetting that when all of this was over the criminal charges would be laid, and that protective family network would be stunned at what had been going on right under their noses.

  But a nagging uncertainty had taken up residence at the back of his mind. He wasn’t quite as convinced of her guilt as he’d been before. There was a threat out there, and it wasn’t coming from them. It was possible that Liv was a better actress than he was giving her credit for, but he’d seen the fear in her eyes by the road. When people were scared, they got honest. And she’d been scared by the things the cops had set up, and by these new threats, as well. But she hadn’t cracked, or even shown signs of strain. While it was hard to believe that a husband could be involved in this level of fraud without his wife knowing, it was possible. Normally, the wife was in on it—they benefited, too, after all. And while Evan had divorced Liv, she had moved back to the very town where Evan had been pressuring the elderly to sell.

  Her joint accounts with her husband had been involved with the sales. And there were an awful lot of coincidences. But it was possible that they were only that—coincidences. They needed proof, not suspicion.

  The drive wasn’t long, and within a few minutes they’d parked behind the store in Liv’s regular spot.

  “Thank you for the rescue today,” Liv said. “I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t there.”

  “It’s all part of the job,” he said, but he knew that was wrong. That hadn’t been the job—that had been something more personal.

  They got out of the car and headed around to the front of the building, but as they approached the door, Jack saw something taped to the store window—an envelope.

  “What’s that?” Liv asked, and she stepped past him and pulled it off the glass.

  “Let me—” Jack pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and put them on before taking the envelope from her fingers. He shook it, then tore a strip off the side so he could slide a folded piece of paper out and into his palm. This wasn’t familiar. If there was going to be another plant, he would have been advised.

  Jack unfolded the paper and looked down at scratchy handwriting across the page.

  Liv, Liv, pretty, pretty Liv—you know you don’t belong here. Don’t you? You know that. Don’t make me prove anything. I don’t like to be forced. I don’t like myself then, Pretty Liv.

  Jack’s blood ran cold. This wasn’t the police department’s work—he was willing to bet on it. To be sure, he’d contact the chief right away, but the wording... Whoever had written this sounded stark raving mad.

  “Oh, my God...” Liv breathed, and she put a hand on his arm, her fingers digging into his shirt. Jack slid an arm around her waist to stabilize her.

  “I’ll have an officer pick this up,” Jack said, forcing himself to sound more self-assured than he felt. “But yeah...this is serious.”

  “I don’t get it!” she exclaimed, her voice trembling. “Who would do something like this? It’s sick!”

  Jack looked up and down the street twice, searching for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing. Then he picked up his phone and dialed the chief’s direct number. He didn’t use this number unless it was an emergency, and this counted.

  “Let’s go upstairs—” He pulled open the door and gestured her inside as the phone rang against his ear. He scanned the stairwell as Liv bent to pick up some mail that had landed in a pile on the floor.

  “Talbott?” the chief said as he picked up.

  “That’s right, sir,” Jack said. “We’ve got another letter—this one taped to the window.”

  “Wait—” the chief’s voice lowered “—we didn’t drop one.”

  “I know.” Jack put a hand on Liv’s elbow and they started up the stairs together. “And this one is...worrisome.”

  “Is Ms. Hylton with you right now?” the chief asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Any suspicions of who might have dropped this one?” the chief asked.

  “No, sir.”

  “I’ll send an officer down to pick it up. You’re at Ms. Hylton’s home, I take it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  There was the muffled sound of voices, then the chief came back on the line. “McDonald will be there soon. Obviously, protect the evidence. We’ll scan for prints and anything else we can get off the paper.”

  “You bet, sir. Thanks.”

  As Jack hung up the phone, they reached the top of the staircase. The game had officially changed. Before this, they were the ones trying to scare Liv, but someone else had joined in—someone much better at writing threatening notes. Up until this point, Jack had simply been managing her experience, but it looked like he wasn’t the one in control anymore.

  A new player had joined the game, and Jack had no idea who.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  LIV WATCHED JACK lock the door—the dead bolt as well as the regular lock. There was something different about Jack now. He’d gained an edge she’d never seen before. He scanned the room twice—steely gaze moving over every surface, delving into every corner—and then he went to the window, his eyes slicing up and down the street.

  “Jack?” she said tentatively.

  Jack continued his surveillance out the window for another few beats before he turned back toward her.

  “Hmm?”

  “Why is this letter freaking you out more than the others did?” she asked.

  “It isn’t,” he replied with a frown. “I’m just doing my job.”

  That was a lie—she could read it all over him. After being married to a cop, she knew their lines. Everything hard was “just the job,” and whenever they got scared or angry, they hid behind that badge. They used it like a shield to cover their human frailties.

  “I told you about the woman in the rain—that was creepy,” she said, “and you didn’t react like this. You’ve seen both a threatening letter and a pile of pictures left gift-wrapped on my doorstep, and you didn’t act like this.”

  “Like what?” he said irritably.

  “This whole surveillance thing you just started. Door-locking, scanning the room, watching for intruders. You suspect something more this time, don’t you?”

  Jack sighed. “This letter has a different feel to it. It’s...creepier.”

  It had all been pretty creepy in Liv’s opinion, but so
mehow this letter had hit Jack differently. He was seeing something she couldn’t—something that should probably scare her more deeply than it already had. What was she missing?

  “So in your professional opinion, what is this?” she asked, trying to keep her voice level.

  “I wish I knew.”

  “Then you aren’t blaming this on Evan anymore?”

  “I haven’t decided,” he said.

  “Don’t you have an idea, at least?” she pressed.

  Jack scrubbed a hand through his hair but didn’t answer.

  “What, you can’t tell me? This is my life at risk, Jack! This is my shop being threatened! And you won’t tell me what we’re looking at here?”

  “Whoever is threatening you will have to get through me to get to you!” he retorted. “I’ve got it under control.”

  “No, you don’t!” she shot back. “You’re freaked out!”

  Whoever this was had just frightened the muscle-bound cop assigned to protect her. That was not a good sign.

  “I’m not freaked out.” His took a deep breath. “I’m fine. You’re fine. I’m very good at my job, and you have nothing to worry about as long as you stick close to me.”

  Like she’d even consider taking off on her own now. Whatever was happening, she needed protection. And as uncomfortable as it might be, Jack was the best option.

  “I’ll cooperate,” she said seriously. “No more giving you the slip.”

  “Good.” His expression softened. “Now, what’s that?” Jack gestured to the pile of mail in her hands. She’d forgotten about it in the panic of the moment.

  “Just mail... I picked it up,” she said feebly, glancing down at the envelopes in her hand. The first few were junk mail, but the last envelope looked like it was from the town of Eagle’s Rest.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary?” Jack asked.

  She shook her head, then glanced at that last envelope from the city. She used to leave all the business mail for Evan to take care of. Though they’d had joint accounts, she’d never seen the statements, or even thought to check up on accounts that weren’t her basic checking and savings. She was all about the retirement savings—the money she wouldn’t let him play with when it came to property buying and house flipping. She wanted that safety net, and he wanted the risk.