by Maya Banks
Sawyer slouched into the first armchair, and Cam settled on the couch at Reggie’s feet. He slid his hand up the leg of her sweats to rest just below her knee.
“What’s going on, Hutch?” he asked.
Sawyer leaned forward in his chair, his elbows propped on his legs, his fingers forming a vee at his mouth.
“Someone broke into the house while we were gone,” Hutch said in a low voice.
“What the fuck?” Sawyer immediately turned his head away to staunch the outburst then turned back again. “What?” he asked in a quieter voice.
“Reggie stashed Birdie in the upstairs closet and went after him with one of your baseball bats.”
“Christ,” Cam muttered.
“It’s worse,” Hutch said. He looked at both Cam and Sawyer. “They think it might be the same guy who attacked her the other night.”
“Who is they, and why would they think that?” Sawyer demanded.
Hutch scowled. “I spoke to Jeremy after Birdie took Reggie home to get her gun.”
Cam shook his head then dug his fingers into his hair. He could feel the beginnings of a headache plaguing him.
“Start over. I’m confused. Someone broke in. Cops show up and think it’s the guy who attacked Reggie the other night, and she went home to get her gun?”
Hutch nodded. “In a nutshell.”
Sawyer gave Hutch a look of understanding. “She held out on us, didn’t she?”
“Yeah. She did.”
“You going to fill us in then?” Cam asked.
“Jeremy said they think it’s personal, that Reggie was the intended target, not the woman the attacker killed. Apparently he called her Reggie, which is something no one but us calls her. While he had his hands wrapped around her neck intending to strangle her, he told her that it was ‘time to make him pay.’”
“Son of a bitch,” Sawyer growled.
“Do they know anything else?” Cam asked.
“All Jeremy said was that they think it’s possible it could have something to do with her father. Politicians attract nutjobs with agendas. Maybe he doesn’t agree with Peter Fallon’s politics. Who the fuck knows. But they think he was the one who broke in today. No fingerprints. Just shoe prints outside that match the ones at the murder scene from the other night.”
“And we left her here with only Birdie for protection,” Cam said in disgust.
“Where is Birdie now?” Sawyer demanded.
Hutch turned to look at Sawyer. “She’s at home. Reggie’s department and the county guys are alternating patrols by her house. She lives just a block from the chief, so he’ll be looking in on her too. I wanted her to come out here, but she insisted on going home.”
“I’ll call her in a little while to check in on her,” Sawyer said. “And I’ll run by there tomorrow morning to make sure her security system is working properly.”
Cam nodded. “That’s a good idea. We need to think about beefing things up around here. Obviously we can’t leave Reggie alone again. Not if this asshole is stalking her.”
He glanced down at Reggie again then frowned when he noticed the brace around her wrist was gone. Hutch followed the line of his gaze.
“She irritated it wielding that bat,” Hutch explained. “It swelled, and the brace was bothering her. I took it off and iced it down for a while and made her take a pain pill.”
Frustration beat at Cam. He wanted Reggie where she belonged. With them. But not like this. He wanted her to choose to be with them, not forced to remain because they insisted on protecting her.
He rubbed the back of his neck and stared up at the ceiling.
“What’s got you worried, Cam?” Sawyer asked. “You seem to be stressing a lot lately, when you were the most confident going in.”
Cam looked at Sawyer and then at Hutch and found the same worry reflected in Hutch’s eyes. Yeah, he supposed to them he had appeared confident. He was always the one telling them it would work out. He was a goddamn fraud. The truth was, he was scared shitless.
“I’m worried that we won’t be able to make her happy. And now I’m worried that we can’t keep her safe. I’m worried that I’ll lose her,” he said truthfully.
“I think we all have those same concerns,” Hutch said. “But at some point we have to stop worrying about the what-ifs and focus on only the things we can control.”
“And what would those things be?” Sawyer asked dryly.
Hutch turned to Sawyer with a dark stare. “We can’t control how Reggie feels about us. We can’t control her fears. All we can control is how we react to the situation. And we can damn well make sure we present a united front. This will never work if Reggie senses we’re divided in any way.”
“He’s right,” Cam said quietly. “We can’t convince her this will work if we can’t even convince ourselves.”
Sawyer’s hand skimmed over his bald head in agitation. Damn good thing he kept it shaved or he’d probably yank his hair out anyway.
“We’ve been over this.” Frustration leaked from Sawyer’s voice. “Why do we have to keep going over it? I understand that we have to work together, but I won’t spend every goddamn minute of my time with her in a group setting.”
Reggie stirred beneath Hutch’s hand. Cam shot Sawyer a warning stare and held a finger up to his lips. Then his gaze dropped back to Reggie as her eyes fluttered open.
“Cam?” she whispered.
He smiled. “Heard you had some excitement while I was gone, Reggie darling.”
She made a face and tried to sit up, but she put her injured hand down to press against the couch. It folded beneath her, and she emitted a gasp. Hutch caught her and pushed her weight off her wrist.
As Hutch helped her sit up, Cam reached for her wrist. He turned it over in his hand and examined the swelling.
“That’s what happens when you try to play baseball with an injured wrist,” he murmured.
“It wasn’t baseball. I was planning to play T-ball with his head.”
Sawyer chuckled. “I wouldn’t have appreciated blood on my stuff, Reggie. Which one did you use anyway? Tell me my Biggio bat isn’t now in police custody being logged as evidence.”
She glanced over and smiled at Sawyer, and Cam felt a pang of jealousy. As stupid as it was, as much as they’d all lectured about presenting a united front, he was sitting here resentful of the way Sawyer could draw a reaction from Reggie. It wasn’t always a good one. Sawyer could piss her off in one breath and have her laughing in the next. But she wasn’t the least bit indifferent to him. Sparks flew between the two of them anytime they were in the same room.
Hutch reached up and tucked a curl behind Reggie’s ear.
“Why didn’t you tell us the man was after you?” he asked.
Her lips twisted in annoyance. “Because there’s no way to tell if he was. And there still isn’t.”
“Jeremy didn’t seem to think it was too much of a stretch that this guy was targeting you. Neither did your chief.”
She stared at Hutch, her lips drawn into a tight line.
“If there wasn’t enough evidence to support the idea before, there certainly is now,” Cam said. “He followed you here, Reggie. He broke into our home while we were gone. Which tells me he was watching. And waiting for his opportunity.”
Her gaze fell to her lap, where she held her injured wrist with her other hand. Tension boiled off her body. Cam wanted to touch her, but even Hutch pulled his hand away from her hair.
“I can’t stay here,” she said. She kept her head down, refusing to meet any of their gazes. When she finally looked up at Cam, there was steely determination in her eyes.
Ice blue. It was a comparison he’d made often when staring into Reggie’s eyes when she was being a hard-ass.
Cam glanced at Hutch and Sawyer. Neither seemed inclined to ask the obvious question. Or maybe they were simply ignoring it, telling her precisely what they thought of that particular statement.
While he could understa
nd their frustration, it wasn’t the way to handle Reggie. There were times when he wished he could go all he-man on her and she’d comply, but then she wouldn’t be the Reggie he loved so much.
“Why can’t you stay?” he finally asked.
As expected, Sawyer gave him a look that suggested he was a dumbass. Cam ignored him and focused his attention on Reggie.
“I would think it’s obvious,” she said in her oh-so-patient tone that suggested she didn’t have any patience at all. “There is someone who has a beef with me. Therefore anyone around me is also in danger.”
She cradled her injured wrist in her hand and rubbed her thumb lightly over the swelling. “Birdie could have been hurt or killed,” she said quietly. She glanced back up at Cam and then slowly turned to look at Sawyer and finally Hutch. “He broke into your house. Any one of you could have been here. He’s already killed one person. What’s another?”
“How did I know you’d say something like that?” Sawyer muttered.
“So you think a better alternative is for you to hole up in your house alone?” Hutch demanded. “You’re smarter than that, Reggie. Start acting like it for God’s sake. This martyr bullshit isn’t like you.”
She bolted to her feet and whirled around, her eyes flashing with anger. And to think, Cam had been thinking about how Sawyer could always elicit a reaction from Reggie. Cam looked at Hutch in a new light. The usually laid back, calm Hutch was teetering on the edge.
“No one said I was going to stay at my house alone, asshole,” she said in a near growl. “Just because I’d prefer not to put the people I care most about in danger doesn’t make me a fucking martyr.”
Hutch stood, shoved his hands in his pockets and hovered over her, staring down into her eyes. Anger rolled off him in waves.
Reggie didn’t back down an inch, and Cam wondered if he was going to have to get between them. Hell, what was up Hutch’s ass? It was usually Hutch getting between Reggie and Sawyer.
The irony wasn’t lost on Sawyer either. He regarded the two with undisguised amusement.
“Maybe,” Hutch said behind clenched teeth, “the people who care about you don’t like the idea of some asshole trying to kill you.”
He inched forward until there was no space between him and Reggie.
Cam sighed. “Come on, you two. I swear you’re acting like a pair of pit bulls.”
Reggie and Hutch both rounded on him. Reggie glared, and Hutch’s brows drew together in an angry line.
“Nobody asked you,” Reggie snarled.
She turned back to Hutch and poked him in the chest with a finger. “I can damn well take care of myself. I don’t need you and the others hovering over me like nursemaids. Yeah, I got hurt. It happens in my line of work. But I’m not going to let it turn me into some goddamn girl.”
Sawyer broke into laughter. “Reggie, honey, I hate to tell you this, but you are a girl.”
“Shut up, Sawyer.”
Hutch shifted, and Reggie dug her finger back into his chest. “And so help me, if you kiss me or do something else to distract me, I’m going to hurt you.”
A slow smile worked at the corners of Hutch’s mouth. “Are you saying my kisses distract you, baby?”
She backed away and bumped into Cam. Cam reached up to steady her then pulled her down into his lap. She started to reach down and shove away, but he held tight.
“Damn it, Cam,” she hissed.
“Stop running,” he said calmly. “You tell us you aren’t afraid but every time we get close, you make tracks in the opposite direction.”
She trembled against him. There was a multitude of emotions in her body language. Fear. Anger. Confusion.
He caught her wrist in his hand, careful not to press too hard.
“This needs to be iced again, and then the brace needs to go back on.”
“Why do I feel the sudden urge to go beat my head against a wall?” Reggie muttered.
Cam smiled and stroked a hand through her unruly curls. “You’re stubborn, Reggie darling. However, I’m not sure you realize how stubborn I can be as well. Maybe I’ve given you the impression that I’m a pushover, but you’re about to find out that when it comes to you, I’m anything but.”
She turned to stare at him, her eyes bright with confusion. “Cam, I’ve never thought you were a pushover. When did I ever give you that idea?”
He cupped her cheek and rubbed his thumb over her lips. “I said I might have given you that impression. I do tend to weaken when you turn those blue eyes on me. In any other matter, I have no doubt you’d get your way. But this has to do with your safety, and I can be more of a hard-ass than you when it comes to that.”
Her lips turned down into a frown. He smoothed a corner with his thumb, coaxing it upward again. “I much prefer you smiling.”
She sighed. “You’re absolutely no fun to fight with. You’re supposed to keep pissing me off so I can stay mad at you.”
Cam chuckled. “If I kiss you, will that piss you off?”
Her breath caught then expelled in a jerky rush. A spark ignited in her eyes, and she ran her tongue nervously over her bottom lip.
“Or you could kiss me,” he said in a low voice.
Her hand came up to his cheek. He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. When he opened them again, her lips were hovering just inches above his. Uncertainty glittered in her beautiful eyes, but to his satisfaction, there was no fear.
He itched to move to her, to complete the kiss, but he waited instead. He wanted her to come to him. It seemed like forever until she softly pressed her lips to his.
It was a gentle kiss, sweet, so incredibly sweet. The tip of her tongue feathered over the seam of his lips, and he opened for her, wanting her deeper inside so he could taste her, absorb her.
She pulled away, and it was all he could do not to groan his protest.
“I shouldn’t want this,” she whispered. She glanced over her shoulder to where Hutch still stood, and Sawyer sat just a few feet away. Then she turned her gaze back to Cam, and he could see the guilt in her eyes.
“Reggie, stop,” Cam said. “Enough with the guilt. Why are you tearing yourself up over this? We’ve been straight with you. Do you think Hutch and Sawyer are going to beat the shit out of me because I kissed you? Or does it bother you that they aren’t?”
He let the last question hang heavy in the air. Her eyes widened a fraction.
“No. I mean, no, that’s not what bothers me.”
“Then what is it?” Cam pressed.
Sawyer moved from his chair to the couch, where he could see Reggie and where she could see him. He reached over to take the hand that was resting on Cam’s lap.
“Honey, we know what we’re asking is a lot. God knows it won’t be easy for you. But we’re willing to do whatever is necessary, whatever it takes to make you happy, to prove to you that this can work. None of us wants to be without you.”
“We’ve laid it out on our end,” Hutch said quietly.
Reggie turned to look at Hutch, and he stared back, his expression intense.
“What we haven’t talked about is how you feel about us, baby. We can sit here and tell you how we feel and what we want all day long, but it won’t mean shit if we don’t know what’s going on in your head.”
“What about it, Reggie?” Cam asked softly as he touched the curve of her neck. “Have you got the balls to look us in the eye and tell us what you want?”
CHAPTER 12
Regina’s pulse quickened and raced so hard, she could feel the steady thump at her temple. They wanted answers that she couldn’t give. God, she had no idea what to say or how to articulate the mass of confusion that had taken up steady residence in her brain ever since that night a year ago when the three of them had made love to her.
Just thinking about it made her panic.
How did she feel about them? Were there even words to describe such a thing?