by Julie Miller
“Let’s change up the protocols,” Quinn suggested, thankful that someone in the room could keep his head. “I want your best men on this, David. And find out who the hell drugged those guards.”
“Daddy?” A soft voice from the hallway turned all four adults toward the open door. Fiona hugged her doll against her chest, her blue eyes wide as they sought out Quinn’s. “Why you angwy?”
Quinn glared at the guard lurking behind her in the hallway. A grown man couldn’t keep a little girl in her room for an hour?
“She insisted we come down here,” the man apologized.
Condemning his own raised voice, Quinn dismissed the guard and scooped Fiona up into his arms, turning her so she wouldn’t get a glimpse of the mutilated doll on his desk. “What are you doing here, sweetie? I thought you were watching the new movie Santa brought you up in your room.”
Her small fingers splayed across his cheek. “Petwa wants more cookies.”
Quinn shifted his gaze to the fraying embroidery of the doll’s blue eyes. “I think Petra has had enough sweets for one day.” He pressed a kiss against the delicate fingers on his cheek. “So have you, young lady.”
Her tiny mouth stretched with a yawn and Quinn checked his watch. As much as he loved the sweet weight of her in his arms, he had work to do. Above anything else, it was his job to protect her. And that required changing security codes and talking revised strategies with David Damiani and Michael.
So he handed Fiona over to the new nanny. “It’s after seven now. It’s time to get Fiona to bed.”
“Wha—?” Quinn held on a moment longer, worried for a moment that she wasn’t even going to wrap her arms around his daughter. “But we haven’t finished debriefing. What’s our next plan of action? I won’t know the new security protocols. I don’t know the old ones yet.” Miranda’s hands finally closed around Fiona’s back and thigh, and she shifted her onto one hip. “I don’t even know where her bedroom is.”
Miranda’s eyes were dark like a pine forest now, yet wide with panic. The woman should never play poker. Definitely a puzzle.
“Fiona can show you.”
Given a mission to do, Fiona sat up straight, excitement chasing away her fatigue. “I know.” She squiggled down to the floor, catching Miranda’s hand along the way. “Come on.”
Quinn exchanged a glance with Miranda as Fiona led her out of the room. Do your job, he warned silently.
If he wasn’t mistaken, Miranda’s arched brow read something like What do you think I’ve been doing? Or maybe it was Help! as she disappeared around the corner.
The need to go after them, to make sure his decision to hire Miranda to protect his daughter wasn’t a mistake, jolted through his legs. But what harm could come to a three-year-old and an armed SWAT cop going upstairs to Fiona’s bedroom?
Ignoring the tension that refused to go away, Quinn forced himself to return to the two men at his desk. “Do we have any leads at all on who took out the guards and left this vile message?”
David shook his head. “Holmes and Rowley couldn’t have been out for too long because they made their thirty-minute check-in.”
“Increase it to fifteen-minute reports. Go through the security camera footage to find out when they got that coffee, if they stopped anyone at the gate, or if anyone walked up to the car.” Quinn pulled off his glasses to rub at his tired eyes. “We need to find out who’s behind this. First, a foreign base of operation. Then the GSS offices here in KC. Now my home. He’s getting way too close for my comfort.”
“Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Quinn put his glasses back on to bring the security chief into focus. “Of course.”
“I know your judgment is a little skewed right now with the threat against Fiona.” David thumbed over his shoulder toward the empty doorway. “But Dirty Harriet there is a loose cannon. She pulled a gun on my men.”
“They were unconscious.”
“What if they weren’t? We’d have had a fire fight in the middle of the street on Christmas night.” He pulled back the front of his jacket to prop his hands near the holster at his waist. “Do you really want someone like that around your daughter?”
“Considering she detected the threat against this home when your men couldn’t, yes.”
Chapter Five
“Is that choking you, sweetie?” Miranda frowned at the neckline of the long pink underwear-looking pajamas she’d put on Fiona as she tucked the quilt around her in the canopy bed. She’d spent too much time familiarizing herself with the layout of the bedroom suite, complete with retractable steel window shields and a panic room she could access inside the walk-in closet. She should have given a little more thought to pajama etiquette. “Maybe they snap in the front.” She tossed the covers back and smiled an apology to the little girl. “Will you stand up for me?”
They ought to put directions on these things for first-timers like her. But Fiona was more than happy to jump to her feet on the bed. She weighed next to nothing as she braced a hand on Miranda’s shoulder and dutifully picked up each foot so that she could turn the pajamas around and get them back on the right way.
Miranda fastened the last snap up beneath the girl’s chin and slid her fingers inside the neckline to make sure they fit more comfortably this time. “All righty. Down you go.”
With a giggle that made Miranda smile, Fiona plopped down on her bottom and then leaned back into the pillows.
“Good night, Fiona.”
But a small hand grabbed the cover before she could pull it up to her young charge’s chin. The quizzical narrowing of Fiona’s round blue eyes reminded Miranda of another Gallagher who seemed to find fault with a lot of the things she said or did. “We didn’t bwush my teeth.”
“Oh.” Duh. Even though she wasn’t familiar with the needs of three-year-old girls, at the very least Miranda should have been thinking about her own nighttime routine. “We’d better go take care of that. We don’t want all your teeth to fall out of your head.”
The joke must have needed an older audience.
Miranda shrugged off the confused response and kept smiling.
“Show me where you keep your toothbrush.”
Using one of the posts at the foot of the bed, Fiona climbed over the safety railing to the floor, then reached back for that ever-present doll. With “Petra” in one hand, and Miranda’s fingers in the other, Fiona led her into the connecting bathroom.
It was almost a reversal of roles as Fiona showed Miranda each step of her routine. First, she climbed onto a stool just inside the bathroom to turn on the light. Then there was another step stool in front of the sink. There, she filled a plastic cup with water and wet the brush herself before squeezing a fistful of toothpaste onto the bristles. Miranda arched an eyebrow at her reflection in the mirror over the sink. She was on a steep learning curve here. Pj’s close in front. Prep the toothbrush for her. Watch out where and how high this one climbs.
After the task was done, and Miranda had wiped away the extra foam from Fiona’s face and hands and the countertop, she tried putting her to bed again. Pajamas on the right way. Teeth brushed. Doll and girl tucked in. Head for the light switch. She’d already spotted the night-light in the plug beside the bathroom door, but she knew some children had a fear of the darkness. So she paused a moment to ask, “Is it okay if I turn the big light off?”
The blue eyes blinked, but never looked away.
“What?”
“What about my stowy?”
“You like a bedtime story?”
Fiona beamed with a smile and nodded.
Miranda located the white bookshelf nestled between the windows overlooking the second-story porch and crossed to it. Picture books. Beginning readers. Classic chapter books. Alphabet books. Overload. “What do you like to read?”
Fiona giggled again. “I can’t wead.”
“No, I mean, what do you want me to…?” That laugh was a delightfully musical sound. Maybe the jokes all had
to do with her own incompetence in the bedtime arena, but Fiona’s giggle went a long way toward easing Miranda’s fears that she was going to warp the child for life as long as she was in charge of her care. “What shall we read this evening?”
“The pink pwincess one.”
It took a search through five different princess books to find the right adventure Fiona was looking for. “Okay. Here we go.”
Miranda started the story in the rocking chair beside the bed. But two pages in and Fiona was up on her knees with the covers thrown back, twirling around like the princess in her ball gown. By page five, they were both growling like the dragon who wanted to eat all the flowers in the kingdom.
Miranda was on her feet, playing the part of the prince, dueling the bedpost with a toy broomstick sword while Fiona giggled and roared away, when she realized there was another presence in the room. A tall, bespectacled, steely-eyed presence filling the doorway. As much as Fiona’s laugh delighted, Quinn Gallagher’s scowl sobered her up.
“Uh-oh.” Miranda stopped mid–dragon growl and tossed the chubby-handled broom back into the toy chest before closing the book with her finger marking the place. She wished she didn’t feel quite so much like a little girl who’d been caught making too much noise at a slumber party. She hugged the book to her chest, subconsciously turning it into a shield between her and Quinn. “Fiona said she needed a story.”
“A story, yes. Not a live reenactment.”
“We were using our imaginations and having a little silly fun. You do allow your daughter to have fun, don’t you?”
He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, the corded strength of his forearms straining beneath the rolled-up sleeves of his button-down shirt. No, perhaps he was a man who didn’t do silly. “Her bedtime routine is supposed to be a quiet time to help her relax and go to sleep.”
Lois Lane had it all wrong. Clark Kent was the hottie. Or maybe Miranda was the one who was all wrong. Get it together, Murdock. It must be the late hour, or those extra lonesome working-on-a-holiday genes, kicking in. She was here to protect this family, here to do a favor for the captain. Lusting after her cranky boss wasn’t part of the job description.
She exhaled a sigh of frustration and returned the book to the bookshelf. “I told you I wasn’t any good at this.”
“Let’s go, sweetie.” Quinn picked up Fiona and smoothed the dark curls off her flushed face before laying her in the bed and pulling up the covers. “Daddy will tuck you in.”
“The dwagon goes grrrr,” Fiona roared with high-pitched enthusiasm, curling her fingers into a little claw the way Miranda had. “And the pwince and pwincess…e-yah, e-yah.” She thrust out her fist into Quinn’s chest, mimicking Miranda’s rebel charge perfectly.
“I’ll ‘e-yah’ you, young lady.” Quinn caught her little fist and kissed it before tucking it under the cover, as well. “And the dragon and the prince and princess became friends and planted a garden and lived happily ever after.”
“Wandy tells it better.”
“Maybe that’s a story you should read during playtime, not when it’s bedtime.”
“I’m not sleepy…” Fiona’s big yawn was Miranda’s cue to exit. Fiona turned her face into the soft cotton of her doll. “’Night, Daddy. ’Night, Wandy.”
Being included in the three-year-old’s goodbye warmed Miranda like a gentle squeeze of her hand, chasing away some of the loneliness and inadequacy she’d been feeling. “Good night, Fiona.”
Miranda was in the hallway, almost to her room next door, when a real hand snagged her wrist. Instinctively, she twisted free and spun around to face her opponent. But she had no place to go when Quinn closed in on her. She had to flatten her back against the wall and stay put, ignoring the poke of her gun and holster at her waist. Either that, or she could shove her boss’s best friend in the chest or disable him in some other, considerably more painful, way. Miranda opted for standing tall and staying put.
Quinn braced his hand on the wall beside her head and leaned in. “I do not need you to question me in front of my people. Or my daughter. We have routines in this household for a reason.”
“Control freak much?”
“You’re the damn nanny. Not my conscience. I need you to do what I say when I say it.”
Their voices were charged, hushed, intimate, as they kept their argument beyond the earshot of anyone else in the house. “I’m here to protect your daughter, not to be bullied by you.”
“Bullied?”
“You have all the money, all the power—you’re used to people jumping to do your bidding.” His eyes were blue, blue, blue, up close like this. Even the refraction of his lenses couldn’t distort their color. Miranda felt like a specimen under a microscope as they evaluated every nuance of her words and expression. “Maybe that’s how this crazy countdown to New Year’s got inside all your state-of-the-art security—because you haven’t thought of every possible threat. Smart as you are, Mr. Gallagher, you don’t know everything.”
“Are you always this much trouble, Officer Murdock?”
“Pretty much.”
They weren’t touching, but they were both breathing hard as the furtive exchange of tempers and opinions mutated into a different kind of heat. Their breaths mingled and their chests nearly brushed against each other with every inhale. Her head filled with the spicy scent of shaving cream or soap on his skin. Her body warmed with the proximity of his body lined up with hers. She wasn’t even aware of the holster poking into her backside anymore. Quinn’s gaze fixated on her lips, and Miranda couldn’t look away from those laser-blue eyes.
This was crazy. She was crazy. She was the bodyguard and he was the boss and they butted heads, and she really shouldn’t be wondering what it would be like if he kissed her right now.
She wrapped her fingers around the chair rail on the wall behind her to conquer the urge to brush that stray lock of hair off his forehead. But she couldn’t. She shouldn’t. Finally, in a breathy voice, she summoned the will to whisper, “You’re in my personal space.”
“I am.” There was something bold and sexy about the statement of fact and the idea that he must be feeling this, too, or he would have retreated by now. “I don’t get you, Miranda.”
“I am a little different from the average woman,” she conceded wryly.
It was the opening those niggling self-doubts needed to sneak inside her head. But when she lowered her gaze and looked away, Quinn’s hand was there, gently pinching her chin between his thumb and forefinger and tilting her face back up to his. “One way or another, I’m going to figure you out.”
It sounded like a vow.
Any sensible reply lodged in her throat. As little as she knew about raising little girls, she knew even less about healthy romantic relationships with grown men.
Fortunately, she was granted a reprieve from those shortcomings piling on the growing confusion inside her.
“Daddy?” a soft voice called from the bedroom.
Just like that, Quinn’s touch was gone. He took his uniquely masculine scent with him as he shoved his fingers through his already mussed hair and put the width of the hallway between them.
“That shouldn’t have happened.”
Miranda hugged her arms around her middle, feeling strangely chilled. “Nothing did.”
Technically, that was true.
Quinn’s jerky nod indicated that he didn’t quite believe that a sensual awareness hadn’t just erupted and continued to simmer between them, either. But she understood the signs of dismissal in his posture, and the need to return to the business at hand.
“I’ll sit with Fiona for a few minutes and get her settled. David Damiani and the guards on duty at the house this evening are gathered in the command center to meet with you. He’ll get you a card for the electronic locks and explain the pass codes, panic rooms and security lockdown procedure.” Fiona called out again, and Quinn moved toward his daughter’s door. “The command center is down on the basem
ent level. I’ll join you as soon as she’s asleep.”
“Quinn?”
“Please. Do not argue with me this one time.”
“I was just going to say that I’ll do better with Fiona. I can get online tonight, or go to the library tomorrow. There have to be some tips and tricks somewhere to teach me how to do the nanny gig.”
His eyes narrowed into that quizzical frown. “You’re doing just fine. I haven’t heard that kind of laughter from her for a long time. I’m the idiot who’s being too critical of too many things right now. I’m just…” His broad shoulders rose and fell with a weary sigh, letting her know that she wasn’t the only one plagued by self-doubt in this house. “I want to know who the hell has the nerve to threaten my daughter.”
“We’ll find him,” Miranda promised. Although whether she was talking as a cop or a woman, she wasn’t sure. She checked her gun at her back and offered Quinn a smile. “Captain Cutler always says we have to trust the team. So let us all do our jobs. No one is going to hurt Fiona. Not on my watch.”
Miranda just prayed that, for this overwhelmed father and his sweet little girl, she wasn’t the member of the team who let everyone down. Again.
THE IMAGE OF THE BLOND-HAIRED woman in the black uniform on the computer screen went dark at the punch of a button.
This was an interesting new development. Imagine GSS, a global force in personal security technology, bringing in outside help to keep its own CEO and his daughter safe. It was ironic, really. So the king of Gallagher Security Systems was feeling insecure.
That was satisfaction to take to the bank.
Of course, having the woman on the premises would make it a little harder to get to Fiona Gallagher. But it wouldn’t be impossible, not by a long shot. It simply meant adding one more tally to the body count.
A trail of dead bodies, from the Kalahari Desert to Kansas City, Missouri, would certainly put a crimp in the almighty Quinn Gallagher’s sterling reputation. If the man behind GSS couldn’t keep his own people safe, then why would anyone trust his company to protect them? He’d be ruined.