Guardian Groom

by Shelley Cooper

  “Where’s the kid?” he asked George.

  George looked shamefaced. “I’m sorry, Steve. He got away.”

  Steve swore. The curse was vulgar, highly descriptive and nothing he should have uttered in front of a woman. But that was how he felt at the moment, and he didn’t have the strength, or the lung power, to apologize.

  “How could he get away? You were supposed to have been positioned to cut off all escape routes.”

  “He ran like the wind,” George explained. “And he seemed to know the neighborhood even better than we do.”

  “Did you get a good look at him? Would you recognize him if you saw him in a line-up?”

  Again he saw regret on George’s face. “It was too dark, and he was careful to stay away from the streetlights. All I know is he was about six-two, skinny and wore jeans and a T-shirt.”

  “Well, that certainly limits our list of suspects.” Steve didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm.

  “I’m sorry,” George repeated. He looked so disheartened, for a minute Steve thought the man might actually cry. “It’s all my fault. I allowed my attention to be diverted. I should have known the disturbance in the park was just a decoy.”

  Steve held up a hand. “There’ll be plenty of time for recriminations later. We don’t have much time to speak, since the police will be here in a minute. Did the kid leave anything behind?”

  “A backpack full of books. There was also another note.”

  “What did it say?” When George aimed a tentative look at Kate, Steve added, “She’s going to find out sooner or later. It might as well be sooner.”

  “The note said that her—” George inclined his head at Kate “—I mean your...time is running out.”

  Steve had expected as much. Whoever had done this had planned it out thoroughly. “What about the books?”

  “You’re not going to like it,” George said.

  So what was new? “Just tell me.”

  “All black market. The subjects cover kidnapping, bomb building, assault rifles and ways to obtain them, how to commit murder without being caught. You get the drift.”

  Yes, he got the drift. The sadistic SOB who called himself Kate’s biggest fan was toying with them, and enjoying himself thoroughly in the process. To him, they were marionettes on a stage, and he was pulling the strings and making them dance to his tune. It was only a matter of time, though, before he tired of his games and tried to make good on his promises. The note he’d left in the backpack said as much. If the look on Kate’s face was any indication, she was thinking the same thing.

  The sudden force with which the fury that was the bane of his existence surged through him took Steve’s breath away. Struggling for control, he dug his fingers into the grass. A hard, hot hatred coursed through him, bathing everything he saw—Kate, George, the house, the yard—in a glow of red blood-lust. At this very moment he longed only to resort to one thing: violence. Specifically, violence against this un- known fan. The bloodier the better. How he longed to use his fists against the man, to pummel him to a bloody, unrecognizable pulp. How he ached to wrap his fingers around this psychopath’s throat and squeeze until the man’s eyes bulged out. Given time, Steve knew he could come up with a thousand different ways to torture and torment his adversary past the limit of all human endurance.

  The pleasure he felt at his thoughts sent a wave of disgust through him. He was little more than an animal. Was this keen yearning that felt almost sexual in nature how his father had felt in the moments before he’d unleashed his temper on Steve and his mother?

  The violence stops here, he repeated to himself, over and over again. Though it seemed that hours had passed, he knew it was only seconds until his fingers finally relaxed their death grip on the grass and his emotions were once again under control. Now, of all times, it was important that he not give in to the darker side of his nature.

  He glanced at Kate and despaired, as he’d done a thousand times before, that anything short of an exorcism would ever be able to make him the kind of man she needed. The kind of man who wasn’t tortured by murderous thoughts and rages every time his anger was aroused. The kind of man who would never hurt her. How appalled Kate would be, and how repelled, if she ever knew of the dark forces that swirled through him. How terrified she would be if she realized the tenuousness of the hold he had on them.

  “The evening hasn’t been a total loss,” she said, surprising him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “First, answer me this. That boy who threw the smoke bomb. He wasn’t my biggest fan, was he?”

  “No,” Steve said. “The boy doesn’t fit the profile. Whoever your biggest fan is, he’s not some pimply faced teenager.”

  She nodded as if she’d expected as much. “Then we’ve learned something tonight. Something important. Whoever my biggest fan is, he isn’t working alone.”

  That was the problem, Steve thought, as a chill raced up his spine. This fan of hers, whoever he was, was no ordinary stalker. Ordinary stalkers normally didn’t have the wherewithal to get others to do their dirty work for them. Nor did they want others to do that work. For ordinary stalkers, the thrill was the fear or love or whatever emotion they wanted to engender in the object of their fixation.

  The good news was, the man had finally done something that would guarantee him a lengthy jail sentence. Still something was definitely wrong. What happened tonight made no sense at all. Stalkers just didn’t behave this way. At least, none of the stalkers Steve had encountered in the past had. Obviously he was missing a piece of the puzzle. A vital piece. And he’d better locate it pronto, if he wanted to keep Kate safe.

  “What I’ve been thinking,” Kate said, “is that maybe he never was working alone. Maybe he wasn’t the one who pushed me in front of that bus. Maybe he wasn’t the one who broke into my house. You know what that makes him?”

  “What?” Steve asked, still wrestling with the problem.

  “A phantom. A man without substance. A man who can appear and disappear at will. A man who is impossible to catch.”

  The torment in her eyes and the hopelessness in her voice caught at his heart. He felt the anger within him begin to stir again and ruthlessly suppressed it.

  “We’re going to find him,” he promised. “And when we do, he will be punished.”

  She bit her lip and looked away. “I wish I could feel as confident about that as you seem to.”

  “I won’t let you down, Kate,” he said, and prayed that it would be so.

  The sirens were much closer now. The police would be arriving any second, and there would be no time for him to think, much less plan what their next step should be. The new variable that had been added to the equation that was her biggest fan would have to be analyzed later.

  “Oh, no!” Kate cried. Scrambling to her feet, she lunged past him and headed for the front door.

  Because her action caught him off guard, it took him a second to react. When he caught up to her, heart racing, she’d nearly reached the house. Barring her way, he demanded, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  She tried to dodge around him, but he anticipated her move and successfully blocked it

  “Fred and Wilma,” she cried. “They’re still in there. They’ll suffocate!”

  Steve bit off an epithet. Those damn birds again. “You’re not going back in, Kate. Not until the smoke has cleared and it’s safe.”

  She appeared not to have heard him, because once again she tried to get around him. “I can’t leave them in there. They’ll die!”

  He reached out and steadied her with his arms, his grip firm without being brutal. “You’re not going back in,” he repeated when she stopped struggling. “It’s too dangerous.”

  She gazed up at him imploringly. The tears that gathered in her eyes shimmered in the glow of the outside lighting. Please, God he prayed. Tell me she isn’t going to cry. I won’t be able to bear it if she cries.

  One lone tear made its wa
y down her cheek, and she inhaled on a sobbing breath. “You don’t understand. I’m all they have, Steve. They’re depending on me. I can’t just let them die. I can’t.”

  Why were those blasted birds so important to her that she was willing to risk her life for them? he wondered in desperation. Out of the blue, the answer came to him. Molly. Though she probably didn’t realize it, to Kate, the birds symbolized the child they had lost. Though she’d done everything in her power to give her unborn child a healthy start in life, Molly had died. It didn’t matter that what had happened wasn’t Kate’s fault. She still blamed herself.

  The way he still blamed himself.

  Dangerous or not, Steve knew he was going to go in after the birds. He hadn’t been there when Molly and Kate had needed him most. At least he could be here for Kate now.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll go get them. But only if you give me your solemn promise that you won’t budge from this spot.”

  “I promise,” she said immediately.

  Over his shoulder he nodded at George. “Guard her with your life. If she moves so much as a muscle, tie her up.” Putting the towel to his face, he sprinted toward the open door.

  “Steve!” Kate called after him.

  He turned. “What now?”

  “Be careful.”

  For one last minute as several police cars screeched to a halt at the curb, lights flashing and sirens wailing, Steve’s gaze held hers. Then, taking a deep breath, he plunged inside.

  The minute Steve disappeared from view, Kate wanted to call him back. What had she been thinking? That was the problem: she hadn’t been thinking. She’d merely been reacting. And, in so doing, she’d put Steve in danger. If she’d been thinking, she never would have let him risk his life for a couple of birds. Much as she loved them, Fred and Wilma were replaceable. Steve was not.

  So, if anyone’s going to get hurt, you’d rather it be me. Is that it? The words he’d spoken on the day she hired him echoed in her ears. When she recalled her reply—Isn’t that your job?—shame filled her.

  How arrogant she’d been! Add to that thoughtless, self-righteous and self-serving, and the picture that developed wasn’t pretty. Yes, she’d hired him to protect her. Yes, there was an element of risk assigned to that protection. But the last thing she’d ever wanted was for Steve to get hurt. The mere thought made her heart ache. She’d never forgive herself if something happened to him.

  Some of what was going through her mind must have shown on her face, because George said, “Don’t even think of it, Kate.”

  “Think of what?” she asked, playing innocent.

  He nodded toward her front door. “Going inside after him. You heard what Steve said. If you make a move toward the house, I will restrain you.”

  Kate believed him. Given his size and apparent strength, George could probably accomplish the task without breaking a sweat, even if she put up the mother of all battles. Before she could figure out a way to get past him, her brother Carlo thundered across the lawn.

  “What happened?” he demanded.

  Kate returned her gaze to the front door. As long as she didn’t look away, she told herself, as long as she maintained her vigil until Steve reappeared, he’d be fine. “Someone threw a smoke bomb through my living room window.”

  Carlo immediately began barking orders. Kate only half listened to the activity going on around her as her brother scattered men across her yard and throughout the neighborhood. When he sent another man back to the station in search of a gas mask, Kate knew that meant he was preparing to go inside to assess the damage and see what evidence could be recovered.

  A gas mask. She wished Steve was wearing one now. How long had he been inside? Seconds? Minutes? Was he okay? Or was he lying on the floor, unconscious?

  Come out, Steve. Please come out. I don’t care about Fred and Wilma, just you. Please be okay. No matter how hard she prayed for him to appear, however, the doorway remained stubbornly empty.

  “Are you okay?” Carlo asked.

  No, she wasn’t okay. She wouldn’t be okay until Steve was safely at her side. “I’m fine,” she said, her gaze fixed firmly on her front door.

  “We need to talk, Kate. The sooner you tell me everything that happened, the sooner we can start tracking whoever did this. I don’t want to waste any time. I want to strike while the trail is still hot.”

  Kate couldn’t talk. Couldn’t Carlo see that? There was room in her mind only for Steve. Until he was safe, she had no energy to focus on anything else.

  “If you’d like, I’ll fill the officer in on the evening’s events,” George volunteered.

  “Thank you, George.”

  “Who’s this?” Carlo said, his tone suspicious.

  “This is George. He works for Steve. He’s one of the men guarding me ”

  “Doesn’t look like he did that great of a job tonight.”

  Kate’s chin went up, and she stole precious seconds from her vigil to glare at her brother. She wasn’t about to let Carlo criticize Steve and the job he was doing. Not now. Not ever.

  “I’m here in one piece, aren’t I? If Steve and George hadn’t been with me, who knows what might have happened?”

  Carlo looked around him. “Speaking of Gallagher, where is he?”

  Once again, her fear for Steve’s safety overwhelmed her, and her gaze flew to her front door. “Inside.”

  “He didn’t come out?” Carlo asked sharply.

  “Yes, he came out. He went back in.”

  “Why?”

  “To get my birds.”

  There was a brief silence as Carlo digested her words. She didn’t have to look at him to know that he was shaking his head in amazed disbelief. When he spoke, she knew her hunch had been right.

  “I knew the guy was a fool when he let you divorce him, but even I didn’t think he was this stupid. I can’t believe he went back in there for a couple of dumb birds.”

  Once again, Kate felt compelled to defend Steve. “He’s not stupid. He only went in after them because he knows how much Fred and Wilma mean to me.”

  “So what you’re saying is that even though he knew better he went in after those birds because you love them.”

  “Isn’t that what I just told you?”

  She sensed Carlo’s gaze narrowing on her. “What’s going on between you two? You’re not falling for him again, are you?”

  “No, Carlo,” she said calmly. “I’m not falling for him again.”

  Her words carried the ring of truth, because that was what they were. The truth. After all, how could she fall for him again, when she’d never fallen out of love in the first place? She knew that now. Her bitterness and anger over his uncommunicativeness while they were married, and his seeming indifference when she’d asked for a divorce, had simply masked those feelings until tonight.

  She still loved Steve. With a ferocity that was soulshaking. Heaven help her.

  “Good,” Carlo said, his satisfaction evident. “See that you keep it that way. The man’s all wrong for you.”

  Long ago, she’d come to the conclusion that the man whom all her brothers would approve of had never been born. Even in the remote likelihood that he had, if she actually met him, she knew he’d be so saintly and dull he’d bore her to tears within seconds. Still, she didn’t need Carlo telling her that she and Steve were all wrong for each other. Her short-lived marriage had more than taught her that lesson. If there was one thing she knew, it was that her love for Steve was hopeless.

  “Talk to George,” she said wearily, waving a hand at the other man. “He saw everything that happened. I didn’t”

  A minute later, the two men were deep in conversation. Kate tuned them out and returned to her vigil. As the seconds continued to tick away and still Steve didn’t appear, her anxiety grew.

  Come out, Steve. Please, please come out. I’ll do anything you say without putting up a fuss. I won’t goad you anymore and try to pick a fight. Just come out.

 
“Are you okay, dear?” a voice asked.

  With a start, Kate realized that Mrs. Edmund was standing by her side. She’d been focused so hard on her empty doorway, she hadn’t heard the elderly woman approach. Now that she thought about it, she was surprised that both Carlo and George had let the woman onto her property. But then, both men knew who she was, and that she was no danger to Kate. Plus, if she wasn’t safe with all these policemen milling about, she’d never be safe.

  “I’m fine, Mrs. Edmund.”

  “What happened?”

  “Someone threw a smoke bomb through my front window.”

  “How terrible! Is this related to the problem Steve told us about tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “You really are in danger, aren’t you?”

  The only danger Kate could think of was the danger Steve was facing. At the moment, everything else seemed immaterial. “It would appear so.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Inside.”

  “Is it safe?”

  “No, Mrs. Edmund, it’s not.” Kate bit her lip. “He went back in to get my birds.”

  “My hero!” Mrs. Edmund exclaimed, clasping her hands to her heart.

  Kate looked at her neighbor in surprise. “Excuse me?”

  When she spoke, there was a faraway look in Mrs. Edmund’s eyes. “A hero is always easy to spot, Kate. He’s not necessarily handsome—although Steve is certainly that—or rich, but he is always larger than life. He also has integrity and honor, and he’s always kind to the weaker and less fortunate. In a word, he has character. Show me a man who will put his life on the line for a pair of parakeets, and I’ll show you a genuine hero.”

  As she silently willed Steve to come out her front door, Kate thought about what Mrs. Edmund had said. She didn’t know of any other man who would have done what Steve had tonight. Whether that made him a fool or a hero, she wasn’t entirely sure.

  She felt a touch on her arm and turned to the woman at her side. “There’s something I want you to see,” Mrs. Edmund said:

  “Yes?”