Caroline made a whimpering sound in her sleep and curled in on herself, taking her little thumb into her rosebud mouth.
Raine’s heart nearly burst. Her baby. Hers. From the silky blond curls to the blue button eyes, this baby beauty queen was hers and hers alone. The only blood family Raine had ever known. As much as she loved and adored Georgie, they weren’t related. Only through years of shared circumstances had an unbreakable bond formed between them. In every way that mattered, Georgie and Raine were sisters.
She nearly jumped out of her skin when the living room phone chimed to life. Letting the curtain slide back into place, she checked the caller ID, then grabbed up the receiver.
“Georgie?”
“Did he follow you to the house?”
“I don’t think so.” She inhaled a deep breath, trying desperately to calm her nerves. “I lost myself in the crowd at the market and hurried home. Do you think he knows? He must suspect something. Why else would he be in Santa Barbara?”
Her worried gaze drifted over to the baby, sleeping like an angel on her tummy. One leg of her denim pants had ridden up, revealing a plump little calf and one bare foot where her sock had come off, exposing five tiny pink toes.
“Raine,” Georgie was saying, “listen to me. It’ll take us another four hours to get there, but there’s a man, one of Ethan’s agents.”
“Ethan? Who’s—”
“He’s the private investigator I told you about.”
Raine crinkled her nose in surprise. “That hunky Darling guy you mentioned? Did you tell him about Mrs. Beebes?” she said, using their code name for the baby.
“Yes.”
“Georgie!”
“It’s okay, Raine,” Georgie hurried. “Ethan has an agent already in Santa Barbara. His name is Lucas Russell. He’s on his way to the house and should be there any minute.”
She turned her head away from the receiver just in time to hear a car pull into the driveway and park behind hers.
For the second time that day, her heart began to race.
“Somebody’s here. Maybe it’s him. Hold on.”
Setting the receiver down, she went to the window and peeked through the drapes. A tall man emerged from the car, thirty-something, athletic build, light hair, dark glasses. Not Paul.
She returned to the phone. “Describe this Lucas Russell.”
Raine listened while Georgie relayed from Ethan what Lucas looked like. It sounded like the right man.
“How do I know I can trust him?” she said. “I mean, I don’t know who the Corcorans might have paid off. And why is this guy in Santa Barbara, anyway?”
“There’s no way the Corcorans could even know Lucas Russell, so I wouldn’t worry about that,” Georgie said. “Ethan told me he’s in Santa Barbara on another assignment, but he’s being reassigned to watch over you.”
Rainie’s brows snapped together. “Why do you trust this Ethan Darling all of a sudden?”
“I don’t know that I do. Not completely.”
“Well, then why in the hell—”
“I had no choice, Raine. I swear. I needed help, needed to find a way to protect you and Caroline, just in case Paul showed up. I’ll, uh, I’ll explain more when I see you.”
The doorbell rang, and the baby stirred in her sleep.
“Georgie, promise me this guy’s okay.”
“Let him in. He’ll protect you and Caroline until we get there. I have Ethan’s word on it.”
She glanced at the door as the bell rang again. “All right. I’ll let him in, but if I suspect for one second he’s working for Corcoran, he’ll never know what hit him.”
“If he’s working for Corcoran,” Georgie said slowly, “there will be two bodies floating in the channel—his, and Ethan Darling’s.”
Raine said a quick good-bye, then set the receiver back in its cradle. Moving toward the door, she lowered her head. “Who’s there?”
A deep, masculine voice answered. “My name’s Lucas Russell, Ms. Preston. Ethan Darling sent me. I have ID, if you need to see it.”
Dread filled her as she debated whether to let him in. Finally, she eased the deadbolt back. Opening the door a crack, she was met by the sharpest blue eyes she’d ever seen. His arm moved, and her eyes fell on the ID he held up. Scanning it, she decided he was who he said he was.
“All right,” she said. “You can come in.” Her stomach churning, she stepped aside to allow him entry.
His presence was overpowering. He stood nearly a head taller than she, and seemed even bigger now that he was in the room. Quickly, she put some distance between them by moving back toward the playpen.
That was when she saw what was in his hand. Not the hand that held his ID, but the other one. The hand with the gun in it.
Chapter Fourteen
Make sure “his” side of the bed has easy access (no exercise equipment or overflowing laundry baskets, please!). Empty half of your dresser drawers, leave some space in your closet, and keep an extra toothbrush on hand. If you fill up every square inch of your house with you, there won’t be any room for him. When you demonstrate your willingness to share your space with someone special, you encourage Mr. Right to make himself at home!
Georgiana Mundy’s Feng Shui for Lovers
After a hasty good-bye to their confused hostess, Ethan had given Georgie a quick kiss of assurance that everything would be all right, tossed all of her stuff into the trunk, and pointed the car toward the nearest freeway.
An hour had passed, and now they were speeding along U.S. 101—next stop, Santa Barbara. The Sunday morning traffic was light, and they were making good time. Moving smoothly around a lumbering furniture van, he checked his speedometer—slightly over the legal limit, slightly under bat-out-of-hell.
In the seat next to him, Georgie sat with her eyes closed, her fingertips gently massaging the bridge of her nose. Abruptly, she opened her eyes and turned to him.
“You’re sure this Lucas guy can be trusted? You’re positive?”
“Next to yours truly,” he assured her, “he’s Paladin’s best. Former police officer.”
“And he won’t let anything happen to Raine or the baby.”
“He’d die first.”
Why make her more nervous than she already was? Going into Lucas’s background would only confuse the issue, and the chances were everything in Santa Barbara was just fine, Lucas was doing his job, and all their worry and haste was for nothing.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Georgie’s brow furrow. “He’d die first?” she said. “That’s quite a sacrifice to make for an assignment, for woman he doesn’t even know.”
He kept his eyes on the road. “It’s a matter of ethics, Georgie. Commitment. You take the pay, you do the job.”
She sent him a skeptical look, then snorted. “He’d actually die before he’d let anything happen to a total stranger. I find that hard to believe, and not a little alarming.”
“Believe it,” he said. “Besides, Lucas knows that if he didn’t put himself in the line of fire for a client’s safety, I’d kill him myself.”
“Between ripping Lucas Russell’s balls off for being tempted to kiss me, as you so delicately put it yesterday, and killing him for not protecting a client, it’s a wonder the poor man doesn’t pee his pants at the mere sight of you.”
“How do you know he doesn’t?” He shot her a quick grin.
She was silent for a moment, then said, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.” He already knew what she was going to ask. They all did, eventually.
“When you were a police officer…” Her voice trailed off, almost as though she were afraid to ask, afraid to know the truth. “When you were a police officer, did you ever have to, I mean, did you ever—”
“Yes,” he said, sparing her having to say the words. “Once. I was still in uniform.”
He could feel her watching him, waiting for more, unsure what to say.
“It was just before I
was promoted to detective. My partner and I responded to a domestic. Guy was high on something, beating the shit out of his girlfriend. She was screaming, terrified he was going to kill her. Cath was good at talking people down, so she approached. Out of nowhere, he pulls a weapon, aims it at her head.”
“Cath? Your partner was a woman?”
He nodded once. “The guy had her cold. He was going to do it. I had no choice.” Then again, softly, “I had no choice.”
And he hadn’t. A split second’s hesitation, and Cathy would have been dead. The board had agreed, his use of deadly force had been deemed justified, and the case had been closed.
But that night had changed everything. Not only had he taken a life, he and Cathy had bonded in a way unique to people who faced down death together. Their relationship had begun that night, and when he’d been promoted to detective, and she’d gone on for special training in hostage negotiations, they’d stayed close. They’d fallen in love. They’d made plans.
Maybe they’d cheated fate that first night. Maybe the next three years of Cathy’s life had been borrowed time, and the bullet that finally took her had simply taken three years to find its mark.
“What’s it like?” Georgie asked. “Having a woman for a partner?”
“It works.”
“What happened to her? Did she become a detective, too?”
He cleared his throat. “No.”
She sat back in her seat, crossing her arms over her stomach. As soon as she chewed away on all this new information, she’d come back at him again. It was simply the way she was, but for a few minutes, anyway, he had a little time to think.
Forcing Cathy’s memory away, he turned his mind once more to Lucas. Sure, he trusted Lucas, but…
It was that but gnawing away at him now. Something wasn’t right about this whole setup, and hadn’t been from the beginning. In the years Lucas had worked for Paladin, there hadn’t been a hint of unethical behavior or unprofessional methods. Ethan knew, because he’d monitored the guy twenty-four/seven, three-sixty-five for nearly three years. What Lucas had done to get himself kicked off the police force seemed to be behind him. But it was like a woman who’d been unfaithful one time. Once, but never again? The doubt would always be there. Broken trust was hell to repair, and when it came to personal security, it could be fatal.
When Lucas had first come to Paladin, Ethan had taken one look at his résumé and shut the file. No way was he going to hire a “bad” cop, reformed or not. But when Lucas explained his motives, and how he’d turned his life around, Ethan had reconsidered, and brought him on board. In time, he’d begun to trust Lucas more and more, until finally he’d become 99.9 percent positive the guy was a changed man.
It was that .1 percent, however, that was like a gnat in his ear. Had he made a mistake in trusting Lucas? Had the guy just been biding his time until he had a scenario he could exploit? If Vaughn Corcoran was involved in Georgie’s case, then huge sums of bribery money could be at stake.
Was Lucas really above all that now, or had Ethan put his faith in the wrong man?
“I swear to God, on my mother’s grave, on a Bible or any holy book you choose,” Lucas had said on the day Ethan had turned down his job application. He’d stood straight, looked Ethan square in the eye. “I swear I’ve changed. Gotten help. I need a break, Ethan. I take complete responsibility for the shit I was involved in, for my dismissal from the force. My fault. Nobody else’s. Jesus, everybody deserves a second chance. I guess I’m begging you for one. If I fuck up, you can deck me and I won’t put up any kind of fight.”
“If you fuck up,” Ethan warned, “I’ll do worse than deck you. If you fuck up and you run, you’d better keep running, because when I find you—”
“I won’t screw up. I’m on the level, I swear to God. I’m not asking for forgiveness or blind trust, just a chance, Ethan. Just a measly second chance to make things right. You won’t be sorry.” A flash of hope snapped in his sharp blue eyes, cop’s eyes. “So you’ll take me on?”
He could say no. Even though he and Lucas had been on the force together way back when, even though the guy had been a solid police officer when the chips were down, even though…
“You’re not expecting any special favors because Cathy was your half-sister?”
“I’m not,” Lucas bit out. “No special favors. I don’t deserve any. I’m just looking for a chance. If you don’t want to give me one, I’m history.”
He’d turned for the door, but Ethan’s next words stopped him. “I’ll take you on, Russell. But don’t expect anything glamorous. You’ll pull the midnight-till-dawn surveillance, lost-parakeet patrol, and every shit job Paladin has to offer, and like it.”
Facing Ethan, Lucas said, “I can do that.”
And in nearly six years, Lucas hadn’t fucked up, not even once. He’d excelled at everything he did. No BS, he did his job, kept his mouth shut, satisfied the clients, and lived within his means. He’d given Ethan no reason to question Lucas’s dedication or his ethics.
But that damned outside .1 percent had begun ripping a hole in his spleen, and he hated that he couldn’t do anything about it.
With one hand on the wheel, he slid his cell phone from his pocket, flipped it open, and pressed the autodial.
No answer. At the end of Lucas’s voice-mail prompt, Ethan growled, “Call me.”
A thousand reasons ran through his head, reasons his almost-brother-in-law couldn’t answer the phone. Lucas should have called in when he’d reached Raine Preston’s house. Why hadn’t he?
That same .1 percent began turning the contents of his stomach to carbolic acid.
Tossing a quick look at Georgie, he said, “Give your friend a call, would you? Ask her how things are going.”
“What’s wrong?” she asked, her voice a little on the thin side. “Is something wrong? Who did you just try to call?”
“I just want to make sure everything’s all right.”
Her small nod wasn’t accompanied by a smile. She pressed a button on her cell. A moment later, she flipped the phone closed. “Voice mail.”
They sat in silence for a mile or so, tension humming between them like a spindly melody. Everything was okay, he assured himself. Lucas was probably getting settled in, making sure the house was secure.
He shot a glance over at Georgie, who was staring out the passenger-side window. Her hands were in her lap, fingers all twisted around themselves in a white-knuckle knot.
“Ten bucks for your thoughts,” he ventured, trying to ease the anxiety they both felt.
Without looking at him, she said, “I heard it was a penny.”
“Inflation. Besides, I’m willing to pay the going rate to hear what’s on your mind.”
“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”
“Men don’t talk.”
“No, it’s men don’t listen.”
“Hmm? What?” He gazed vacantly over at her as she turned to face him. “Did you say something?”
“Very funny,” she said softly. “Do you really think Raine and the baby are okay?”
“Yes,” he said, hoping to hell it was the truth.
Lowering her eyes, she fiddled with her fingers. “Look. Ethan. I, uh, I don’t know how to be today, with you, you know, after last night. Our relationship changed from a kind of business arrangement to a really personal, physical, you know, thing, then right into this bizarre scenario where we’re flying down the highway, not knowing if my family is in danger…but my mind hasn’t finished processing the personal physical thing yet, and I feel a little off-kilter. I sort of need to talk about it.”
He grunted.
She frowned over at him. “That’s it? A grunt? No comment?” Her mouth flattened into a tight line, her eyes warning him she was ready to do battle. “Tell me how you feel about last night.”
Jesus, women and their need to talk things to death. This was neither the time nor the place to delve into his feelings about last nigh
t. Distracting Georgie from worrying about her friend was one thing; confessing his emotional attachment to her would have to wait until the situation at hand had been resolved. If he started getting romantic right now, it would splinter his concentration. Raine Preston could be in real trouble, and until he knew for certain she was safe, he needed to stay focused.
“Georgie, you should know by now that men don’t talk about their feelings.”
She made a clicking sound with her tongue. “That’s a pretty pat answer,” she charged. “I opened myself up and was honest with you, and now you’re shutting down? I hope what I said was worth ten bucks. You can pay on your way out.”
“I need to stay on task, Georgie. Last night meant a lot to me, but we need to set that aside until we have more time to get into it.”
“We’re in a car, alone, with nothing to do but talk about it for the next couple of hours, but you need to stay on task? What task?”
He gripped the wheel, trying to keep his mounting temper under control. “Okay, look. Last night was incredible. I want to do it again, soon, very, very soon. But you need to understand—”
“Wanting to have sex with me and having feelings for me are two different things, Ethan.” She sank back into her seat and crossed her arms in angry defiance.
He checked the rearview mirror, then changed lanes. “I would think you’d be more worried about your friend than what my feelings are about last night.”
She raised her hands in the air, then slapped her knees with open palms. “I am worried about Raine! I’m terribly, terribly…Oh, damn—”
She broke off her sentence, and her hands suddenly flew to her face, covering it in a gesture of helplessness. Between her fingers, she stumbled, “You h-have no idea how worried about her I am. I’m so far away. I’ve always hated how far away I am, but it was necessary to protect Raine and the baby. And now Paul may have found her anyhow. I’m terrified he’ll hurt her, or kidnap the baby, or…I don’t know what!”
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