Guardian Groom

by Shelley Cooper

  A nerve pulsed in his jaw. “How can you be so sure? You were all alone. If I’d stayed, maybe I could have gotten you to the hospital quicker. Maybe Molly would have had a chance.”

  To see tears shimmering in his eyes, and to witness his proud shoulders bowed beneath the weight of his pain, was almost more than Kate could bear. Swallowing back her own tears, she shook her head.

  “No, Steve. You couldn’t have saved her. If you had stayed home with me that night, Molly still would have died. It was just one of those things that sometimes happen, and it happened to us.”

  His throat worked. “I thought you must hate me.”

  She laid a gentle hand against his cheek. Then, closing the gap between them, she folded her arms around him. With a shudder, his arms tightened around her like a vise.

  “I could never hate you,” she said.

  “Oh, God,” he cried brokenly. “It still hurts so bad.”

  “I know, I know,” she soothed, her tears joining his. Children weren’t supposed to die before their parents. It was not the natural order of things.

  Arms wrapped around each other, their tears mingled together. When they quieted, Kate felt a healing calm spread through her veins. It soothed her heartache, made her feel whole once more. She looked again at the small marble headstone, and the overwhelming grief was gone.

  They’d needed this, she realized. They’d needed to open their hearts to each other, to share their pain in a way they hadn’t been able to after Molly died. Now they could finally heal.

  “I think I’ll be able to come here now,” Steve said.

  “And I think I won’t have to come so often.”

  He took a step back from her, and her arms fell to her sides. “It’s time to move on, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she agreed with a nod.

  Moving on meant not forgetting their daughter, but accepting that she was gone, that their lives would and must continue without her. Although she’d never felt closer to Steve than she did at that moment, it also meant accepting the death of their relationship. He had opened his heart to her in a way he never had before. Would it be so foolish to hope that this could lead to a new beginning?

  Something whistled past her cheek, and Kate heard what sounded like two hollow pops. The pops were followed by the splintering of bark on the old oak tree. Before her startled brain could process what was happening, she found herself facedown on the ground. Steve lay on top of her.

  “What are you doing?” she complained, spitting out blades of grass.

  “Someone’s shooting at us.” His voice was tense, and she saw that he’d drawn his gun. “We have to move, Kate. We’re an open target right now. When I count to three, you’re going to keep as low to the ground as you can while running for the other side of the tree. I’ll cover you. Okay?”

  Heart thudding with fear, she nodded.

  He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you. Trust me?”

  Above their heads, the bark of the tree splintered again. Kate flinched. What about Steve? she wondered. Who was going to make sure nothing happened to him?

  “Yes,” she said, her voice shaky. “I trust you.”

  “Good girl. Ready?”

  She drew a deep breath. “Ready.”

  “One, two, three. Run!”

  An adrenaline surge propelled her to her feet as shots continued to ring out around them. The two seconds it took them to reach the safety of the tree seemed an eternity to Kate. When they finally crouched behind it, her heart raced like a jackhammer.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, eyeing him for signs of blood. “You weren’t hit, were you?”

  “I’m fine,” he reassured her. “What about you?”

  “I’m okay.”

  One minute passed, then two. There were no more hollow pops, no further splintering of wood. An eerie hush settled around them. The birds had stopped chirping in the trees. The grasshoppers had stopped rubbing their wings in the grass. Kate heard nothing but a nerve-racking quiet.

  The sudden silence was almost worse than being shot at. Was her biggest fan on the move? she wondered. Was he creeping up from behind them while they surveyed the ground in front of them? The thought made the hackles rise on her neck.

  “Where is he?” she whispered.

  “I don’t know.” Steve spoke into his mouthpiece. “Kent thinks he’s closing in on him.”

  Kate bit her lip. “He was lying in wait for me, wasn’t he? Since he didn’t know where I was, he just decided to wait here for me to show up. And I, like a fool, walked right into his trap.”

  “I told you we shouldn’t have come.”

  So much for their new beginning. “I don’t think now is exactly the time for I-told-you-so’s,” she said.

  “You’re right,” he agreed. “I’ll save them for when I get you out of here.”

  And, if she was smart, she’d gladly listen to every one of them a dozen times over, if it meant they were safe.

  “For what it’s worth,” Steve said, “I don’t think he meant to kill you just yet Standing out in the open like we were, he would have had plenty of time to take aim. Either he’s a lousy shot, or he deliberately missed. Given the number of shots he fired into the tree, I’d vote for the latter. The bastard’s still toying with you.”

  With a shiver, Kate remembered the whistle of sound past her cheek. It had been a bullet. If her biggest fan was indeed still toying with her and had intended to miss, he’d cut it awfully close.

  Far off to the right, she heard a shout. When she turned to look, she saw a figure dressed in black fleeing into the distance. About a hundred yards behind, Kent raced after him.

  “Damn!” Steve swore into his mouthpiece a minute later.

  Kate sagged. “He got away, didn’t he?”

  Steve nodded grimly.

  As Kate looked around at the open expanse of the cemetery, for the first time she understood the enormity of the task Steve had undertaken in trying to protect her. She certainly hadn’t made it easy on him. If anything, she’d made a tough job even tougher.

  Two attacks in less than thirty hours. Things were picking up. Her biggest fan had moved from bare hands to smoke bombs to guns. What weapon would he choose next? And how long, she wondered, until he wearied of his games and decided to put an end to things?

  “If this guy really wants to kill me, he has a good chance of succeeding, no matter what we do,” she said. “Doesn’t he?”

  Steve’s mouth was a tight, grim line. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you since you hired me.”

  Off in the distance, Kate heard the first wail of a police siren.

  “Who called the police?” she asked.

  “Kent.”

  She should have known. Unfortunately, if the police were on the way, her brothers wouldn’t be far behind. The last thing she wanted at the moment was another long interrogation—with the police, or her brothers.

  “I don’t suppose we could duck out of here before they arrive?”

  Steve stood up and extended his hand toward her. “No, Kate, we can’t.”

  She took his hand and allowed him to pull her to her feet. “That’s what I thought.”

  Despite her exhaustion, Kate couldn’t sleep. She had too much on her mind: Steve, her biggest fan, the tangled mess that her life had become. After tossing and turning for over two hours, she put on the robe Liza had purchased for her and headed barefoot for the library. Since she couldn’t stomach warm milk, she hoped that if she read for a while, she might be able to numb her brain to the point where she could nod off.

  At the foot of the spiral staircase, she stepped onto the cold marble floor of the foyer. To her right, she saw that the sliding wood doors leading into the living room had been closed. From behind them came the strains of a flute. So Steve couldn’t sleep, either. At least here, in this huge house, the sound didn’t travel the way it did in her much smaller home. Here, he could do his
playing in peace. And she wouldn’t be tormented and tantalized beyond all measure by its beauty and emotion.

  She tiptoed past the closed doors. The one thing she didn’t want to do was alert him that she was still awake. She’d had enough I-told-you-so’s for one day. Plus, seeing Steve, and feeling the jumble of emotions. that the sight of him always aroused, was guaranteed to keep her awake, not put her to sleep.

  Fred and Wilma chirped joyously when she entered the library.

  “Shh!” she whispered, finger to her mouth. “Not so loud. We don’t want to disturb you-know-who.”

  After lavishing attention on the birds, she perused the floor-to-ceiling shelves that lined an entire wall of the room. Steering away from the leather-bound first editions, which she deemed far too expensive and in too pristine a condition to be touched by mortal hands, Kate concentrated her search on the bottom shelf, far right corner. Nearly hidden from view until one was almost upon it, it was stuffed with paperbacks. Smiling, she cronched down and pulled out a medical thriller. This was definitely more her speed.

  She was about to turn away when she saw the scrapbook. Intrigued, she pulled it out and opened it, then caught her breath when she saw that it was filled with newspaper columns. Her newspaper columns.

  Had Steve cut these out, collected them? Since he was the only one living here, the logical conclusion was that he had. From the looks of things, except for the week he’d spent as her bodyguard, he’d saved every column she’d written from the day they met. Why? Why would he bother to keep tabs on a woman he no longer loved? Assuming, that is, he’d ever loved her to begin with.

  With a snap, Kate closed the book. There was only one way to find out. Leaving the medical thriller behind, she marched out of the room.

  Chapter 15

  Kate hesitated before the closed living room doors. Why was she even bothering? She was just setting herself up for more frustration. Because she knew what would happen when she confronted Steve with the scrapbook. He’d put her off with some excuse or other, the way he always did. She wouldn’t learn anything.

  The strains of “Too-ra-loo-ra-loo-ral” floated into the foyer. The song, about a mother singing a lullaby to her child, was beautiful. The notes were rich and soaring, the emotion that fueled them raw and heartfelt.

  Was Steve thinking of his mother as he played? Were memories of his tragic past still haunting him and driving him from his bed each night? Was he allowing the notes of the song to speak of his pain and suffering, the way he wouldn’t allow his voice?

  Her hands clenched at her sides. If so, it was wrong. All wrong. He should be disclosing his pain. his anger and his confusion to another human being, not the cold, unfeeling instrument in his hands.

  Barring the scene in the graveyard, though, he’d never willingly confided in her. He’d shared his laughter, but not his anger and his pain. Other than a brief mention when they’d begun dating, he’d never spoken of his mother, or of the beatings they’d endured at the hands of his father and the awful way she had died. He’d always kept his deepest feelings to himself. She’d loved him, loved him still, yet she hadn’t been important enough to him for him to unburden himself to her.

  Kate’s anger grew with every moment that passed as she stood there, listening to him play. When the melody reached a fever pitch, she could contain herself no longer. Shoving both doors wide, she stormed into the room.

  He stopped playing immediately. “Is something wrong?”

  “Yes, Steve, there is.” Her voice vibrated with her fury, and she could feel her body shaking from the force of it. “Night after night, you pour your heart out to that flute. You tell it things you’ve never told another living soul—things you haven’t told me, anyway. And it’s driving me crazy. Will you, for Pete’s sake, put that thing down and talk to me? Tell me what you’re telling it. For once in your life, stop running and hiding. Tell me what’s bothering you.”

  Slowly, his gaze on the flute, he lowered the instrument to his lap. “If you want to know the truth,” he said, still looking down, “I’m getting tired of running myself. I don’t want to do it anymore. It’s not getting me anywhere.”

  A surge of hope obliterated her anger. “Then don’t,” she said softly. “Talk to me, Steve.”

  For one of the few times she could remember, the eyes he raised to hers were totally unguarded. “What do you want to know?”

  “Why don’t we start with this?” She held up her hand. “What does it mean?”

  His lips curved wryly at the sight of the scrapbook. “So you found it.”

  “I was looking for something to read. It was stuffed in with the paperbacks. And you haven’t answered my question.”

  “What does it mean?” He drew a deep breath. “It means, Kate, that you’re the first thing I think of when I wake up in the morning, and the last before I go to sleep each night. When I can sleep. It means, dammit, that I love you. I always have.”

  Her heart lurched with joy. She was the reason he couldn’t sleep at night. He loved her. They did have a chance, after all.

  Instead of leaping into his arms and smothering him with kisses, the way she longed to, Kate forced herself to remain where she stood. Now that he’d started talking, she wasn’t about to let him stop until he’d told her everything she wanted to know.

  “That’s the first time you’ve ever spoken those words to me,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Say them again.”

  “I love you, Kate,” he said seriously.

  “You could sound a little happier about it,” she joked, smiling.

  He didn’t smile back. “I’m not happy about it.”

  Some of the joy leaked out of her heart. Could it be, even after she’d all but spelled it out to him, even after the way she’d thrown herself at him the other night, that he didn’t know how she felt?

  “Would it help,” she said, “if I told you that I still love you? That I’ve never, for one minute, stopped loving you, either?”

  For a brief moment, sheer joy blazed in his eyes. Then the emotion was snuffed out, like the flame of a candle.

  “No, Kate, it wouldn’t.”

  She felt the first stirring of unease. “Why not?”

  “Because, in the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that nothing has changed, as you so rightly pointed out when I told you about Lyle Benedict. We, as a couple, won’t work. The problem that broke us up in the first place still exists. It’s not going to go away.”

  She didn’t understand. “But you said you were tired of running. You’re not going to walk away from me anymore. When the going gets tough, you’re going to stick around and fight it out. That’s all I’ve ever asked, Steve.”

  The expression in his eyes was bleak. “I said I’m tired of running, Kate. I didn’t say I was willing to fight. I’ll never be willing to do that.”

  And until he was willing, they had no future. They both knew it, although she didn’t want to believe it.

  “Will you at least tell me why?” Her voice was thick with unshed tears as she watched her hopes for a future with him shatter and fall away. “I think you owe me that much.”

  “Yes, I’ll tell you, Kate. For what it’s worth. There seems little point in trying to hide it any longer.”

  He stood and crossed to the fireplace. Back to her, he placed his hands atop the mantle and stared up at the oil painting hanging there.

  “I won’t fight with you, Kate, because I’m just like my father. I’ve got this terrible rage lying deep in my soul, and if I ever let it loose, I’m terrified I’ll hurt you. Or worse.”

  Even though she should have seen it coming, given what she knew of his past, his words took her completely by surprise. Why had she never glimpsed this fear before, never guessed at it? Because it went beyond her powers of belief to think that Steve would undeservingly raise his hand to anyone.

  “You’re nothing like your father,” she protested hotly. “You chase into smoke-filled b
uildings so that two birds don’t suffocate, for goodness’ sake. How could you ever think you’re like him?”

  He raised a hand, and she fell silent.

  “Once, when I was eight or nine, after one of his rages, I balled my fists at him and threatened to kill him when I got bigger. Know what he did? He laughed. I’ll never forget what he said next. He said, ‘You’re just like me, boy. You’re just like me.’ And his voice was filled with pride.”

  Steve turned to face her then, and she saw the agony in his eyes. “I screamed at him that I wasn’t, that I never would be. Then I ran into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. That’s when I saw my reflection in the mirror. And the face staring back at me was his. I had the same murderous glint shining in my eyes that I always saw in his. And I knew at that moment that he was right. I was just like him.”

  He was breathing hard. “God, the hatred that filled my heart! I knew then that I had to harness it, to keep it deep inside me, so I wouldn’t hurt the people I loved the way he hurt my mother and me. That’s why I won’t fight with you, Kate. Now or ever. I couldn’t bear it if I ever harmed you.”

  Kate’s heart ached for him. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  “Because I was ashamed. Because I was afraid you’d look at me with fear and loathing.”

  “You were just a boy,” she said, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “A boy being manipulated by a master manipulator. Can’t you see that?”

  “No, Kate, you’re wrong. Until the day my father set me straight, I was also a boy who used his fists whenever he felt he’d been crossed. Kids were terrified of me. It took me years to harness my temper. Since then, I’ve only lost it once. And the lesson I learned only reinforced that, at all costs, I have to keep it in check.”

  “What happened?”

  He sighed. “It was after I first joined the police force. Quincy and I were on a routine drug bust. Somehow, things went wrong, and Quincy ended up being held at gunpoint. I managed to get the gun from the perp, but in the struggle to do so, I nearly beat the man to death. Only Quincy’s intervention stopped me from killing him.”