by Julie Miller
“Look out,” a gruff voice called as she swung the door open.
“Excuse me.” She scooted past Jake Lonergan and the flats of beer he was carrying out of the walk-in fridge.
There was still no hint of recognition, which should have been a good thing. But until she could sit him down in the daylight and look into his eyes, she wasn’t going to spend any more time getting acquainted than she had to. Besides, Junior was demanding her attention right now.
A few minutes and a clearer head later, Josie stood at the bathroom door, wondering if Robbie had come back, any of the waitresses had stayed late or Jake had gone home. Perhaps staying after closing to fill out paperwork wasn’t the wisest thing to do anymore, especially if her only company was a man she didn’t know.
If Jake Lonergan was the RGK in disguise, and they were alone, he could have sliced and diced her and been long gone by now. So, it was probably safe to go out this door. But Rafe had said that the elusive serial killer liked to stalk his victims first—torment them right up to the moment he killed them.
Standing here in the tiny bathroom with her hand on the knob, unsure whether or not to unlock this door—wishing she’d brought her cell phone or a security camera or some psychic intuition with her—was definitely torture.
A sharp rap on the door startled her back a step. “Josie?” Rafe’s deep voice called with another knock. “Josie, you in there?”
Relief rushed in as the initial stab of adrenaline ebbed away. With a steadying breath and a teasing smile, she opened the door to a wall of Rafe Delgado’s chest. Her gasp of surprise filled her nose with his woodsy, masculine scent and made her voice breathy. “Yes?”
Her body warmed with an instant, primal heat. His arms were braced against the door frame on either side of her, the black sleeves of his uniform rolled up to expose his sinewy forearms. A late-night stubble shadowed the sexy angles of his jaw and mouth. If only that mouth was smiling. “Are you all right? You were in there for almost ten minutes.”
A gentle push to the center of his chest urged him back and gave her brain a chance to assert itself over the rapid-fire beat of her pulse. She turned down the hallway. “What, you’re timing my potty breaks now?”
Rafe followed her into Robbie’s office. “You done here tonight? It’s after one. We’ve both had a long day.”
“Just a few details left.” She untied her apron and pulled it off over her head. “How did your conversation with Detective Montgomery go?”
He moved aside a stack of papers and sat on the front edge of Robbie’s walnut desk while Josie circled behind it to drape her apron over the chair and reopen the safe. “Montgomery said the lab found a half dozen prints on your car. Mine, for sure. Yours. And the others he’s running through the system to see if we can get a hit. Although they’ve never recovered any usable prints from the RGK’s crime scenes, so I don’t know what he’s comparing them to. I’ve got him running a background check on Lonergan, too. I don’t like the timing of a new guy entering your life when all this is going on.”
“Are you going to be investigating every man I meet?”
“If he gives you a weird vibe or makes you think of Donny Kemp in any way, yes. I want to find this guy before he finds you.”
So her suspicions of the new bartender had been that obvious? If it turned out to be nothing, she’d owe Jake a serious apology for being so uncharacteristically unwelcoming. Josie took her time to double-check that the low numbers she’d come up with were correct, then tucked the deposit slip and cash back into the safe. She’d worked for her uncle long enough to know what the intake for an average night should look like, and the cash just wasn’t there.
“Have you seen Robbie?” she asked, wondering if Rafe could read the concern she was feeling on that topic as well.
“Not since he locked the front door.” He raised his gaze, indicating the apartment above them. “Did he turn in already?”
“Without taking the deposit to the bank or saying good-night?”
Rafe pulled out his phone. “Do you want me to call him?”
“Please.” While he punched in the number, Josie saved the order forms on Robbie’s computer and powered down the system. Then she pulled a sheet of paper from the printer to write him a note.
“Voice mail. We’ll run up and check on him when you’re done here.” Rafe snapped his phone shut and returned it to the clip on his belt. “I also told Montgomery you’d be staying with me indefinitely.”
She looked up at the stark pronouncement. “What did he say to that?”
“I wasn’t asking his permission.”
Josie signed her love to her uncle and pushed away from the desk. “Why do I get the idea that the two of you don’t get along?”
“I didn’t hide the fact that I disapprove of how he’s handling you as a witness. He should have put you in a safe house from the moment you gave him that description of the RGK.” A hint of teasing colored his husky voice, making him sound, for the moment, like the old Rafe. “But then you probably wouldn’t have cooperated with him any more than you have with me, right?”
That earned him a little smile when she circled around the desk to face him. “I’m stubbornly independent. What can I say?”
“It’s that Irish blood. You need a little more Italian running through you to melt some of that bullheadedness.”
Her smile softened into something serene and she touched her belly knowingly. She had some Italian genes growing inside her now.
“Does it hurt?” Rafe’s voice was little more than a gravelly whisper.
“What? Being pregnant?”
“I picked up a book after dinner tonight, but I haven’t had a chance to read it.” Rafe Delgado bought a book on pregnancy? Did she dare think his interest was personal and not practical? “Is that why you were in the john so long? Are you suffering any because of what I’ve done to you?”
The tortured doubts shading his eyes crumbled the fragile armor she’d been building around her heart. Could he really think this baby was some sort of penance she had to bear for the needy, unguarded night they’d shared six months ago? He hadn’t been alone in that truck. True, this pregnancy wasn’t planned, but she couldn’t imagine herself carrying anyone else’s baby. It might be the only part of Rafe he’d ever let her love the way she wanted to.
“You need to read that book,” she advised, crossing to where he sat on the edge of the desk. His knees parted and she walked between them to cradle the line of his jaw in the warmth of her palms. “Everything is completely normal. The baby and I are healthy, and the pregnancy is progressing just the way it should.” She stroked her thumb across the stubbled point of his chin, trying to ease the tension she felt in him. “Sure, I had some morning sickness, which isn’t too pleasant. But that’s done. I’m getting stretch marks and I had to switch to maternity clothes because my regular things were getting too tight. I get a twinge in the small of my back when I’ve been on my feet too long—something about my balance being off. My fingers and ankles swell sometimes, but not anything like they’re expected to in that last month. So far, it’s all boringly normal. Thank goodness.”
He threaded his long fingers into her ponytail, studying the long, wavy strands for a moment before tilting his gaze straight into hers. “Jose, I’m so sorry. I never meant for my out-of-control needs to make things so miserable for you.”
“I’m not miserable at all.”
“But you just said—”
“Shh.” She covered his mouth with her fingers, noting the contrast between his supple lips and the coarser skin surrounding them, just as she noted the mix of pain and apology in his eyes. “Being pregnant is a wonderful adventure. Every day brings something new. I can feel the baby move now, did you know that? I have pictures from the ultrasound, but I can’t tell if it’s a boy or a girl yet.” Her laugh sounded low and sensual to her own ears as she shared these intimate details with him for the first time. “Heck, without my obstetrics class, I’
d have hardly been able to tell it was a baby. But the nurse-midwife has her suspicions.”
His hands settled on her hips as he leaned back to look down at her belly. The hardness beside his eyes softened with a bit of boyish wonder. “You can feel the baby?”
“Sometimes. Especially when I’m trying to rest. That’s when the little one seems to want to have a party. Here.” She pulled his hand from her hip and lifted her blouse to guide him to the elastic panel of her jeans.
But a hail storm of glass breaking near the back door, followed by a wail of angry shouts, ended the lesson before Rafe could touch her.
Rafe shot to his feet, pulling her behind him and warning her with his hand to stay put while he unstrapped the holster on his thigh and dashed down the hallway with his hand resting on the butt of his gun. The startling violence of sound left her frozen in place, nodding her understanding.
Until Rafe swung open the back door and disappeared outside.
Until she heard her uncle shout a curse that ended with the ear-chafing grind of the trash bin slamming into the bricks and a moan of pain.
“Robbie?” He was hurt. Her feet were moving.
“I paid what I had—”
“Do you understand?” a strange voice warned.
“KCPD! Get down on the ground!” Rafe shouted.
Josie ran to the shattered door in time to see Rafe fly at one of the two men beating her uncle to the ground in the parking lot behind the bar.
The two men hit the pavement hard and rolled.
“Sammy! Move it! Move it!” The second man dashed to a waiting car, its doors wide open, its engine running and ready for a quick getaway.
A meaty fist clipped Rafe’s chin, knocking him off the first man. The bald muscular man pushed to his knees. “Damn it, Marco, wait for me!”
The black-haired man named Marco stopped in his tracks and wheeled around. She saw a flash of shiny metal slide from Marco’s jacket. She heard Robbie moan. Rafe kicked out with his legs and snaked his feet around the bald man’s knees, toppling him to the ground. Marco charged.
Josie’s stomach plummeted to her toes. “Oh, my God…stop! Stop it!”
“Josie!” Rafe cursed, grunted, picked the smaller man up and slammed him to the ground.
“Get out of here, girlie!” Robbie clawed his fingers into the bricks and tried to stand. His eye was swollen, his mouth bleeding. “It’s none…your concern.”
When he collapsed, Josie ran to him, wedging her shoulder beneath his arm and pushing with her legs. “Get up!”
Marco changed course. “Yeah, girlie. Get out of here.”
Josie pushed harder. “Come on!”
Robbie found a hand grip on the wall and got his legs beneath him. Rafe jammed his knee in the middle of the bald man’s back. “Josie!” he rasped. “Get inside!”
The glint of metal took the shape of a knife in Josie’s peripheral vision. They were nearly at the door when she felt the hand in her hair. “Unless you want to make some kind of payment on what Robbie owes us?”
And then all movement seemed to stop.
“I wouldn’t.”
Her hair went limp at Rafe’s low-pitched warning. Marco’s breath caught on a shocked gasp and Josie turned to see Rafe standing behind him, his gun pointing to the back of Marco’s skull. “Drop it.”
For a few milliseconds, all Josie could hear was Rafe’s labored breathing. All she could see was the deadly intent in his dark eyes. The rock-steady hand. And the gun.
Then the knife clattered to the pavement. Rafe swung his free arm around and pointed to the handcuffed man who was struggling to sit up. “Don’t even think about it.”
And then Robbie’s knees buckled and Josie turned all her attention to locking her legs and steadying him against the wall until his wooziness passed and she could walk him to the door.
Jake Lonergan materialized in the doorway, and quickly shifted to grab Robbie’s other arm and take the bulk of his weight off her. “I heard the commotion and already called it in,” he announced to Rafe. “KCPD’s on its way. Is every night at the Shamrock this exciting?”
Josie hesitated to follow the new bartender in. But Robbie was trying to laugh while he bled from a cut in his lip and Rafe was holding two thugs at bay with one gun and some frankly intimidating attitude. The least she could do was to swallow her fear and suspicion and get the injured man inside where she could be of some help.
“Thanks, Jake,” she finally answered. “Let’s get Robbie to a chair and put some ice on that face.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Josephine.” Oh, man, how she hated that name. About as much as she hated seeing the forbidding look that darkened Rafe’s handsome face when she met his gaze. “You and I will talk later.”
She nodded and hurried ahead of Robbie and Jake to get a towel, some ice and a bottle of whiskey. It would be basic first aid. But Robbie would be all right. Rafe had saved him from something far worse than a beating. His quick reactions and specialized training had saved them all.
And in the process, the tender, vulnerable man who’d opened up to her and the baby a few minutes ago in Robbie’s office, had vanished.
“YES, SIR, IT’S all under control here,” Rafe reported to his captain, Michael Cutler, over the phone. He switched his cell to the other ear and turned to watch the uniformed officers taking Sammy and Marco away in handcuffs. “If you wouldn’t mind, call Trip, Alex and Randy and tell them to head back home. I appreciate you guys being on the alert to back me up with Josie’s protection. But this is something else. It’s not related to the RGK.”
“Do you need anything else from us?” the captain asked. “You know we all have a personal stake in getting that serial killer off the streets. And if protecting Josie will do it, you say the word and we’re there.”
The flashing strobe of red, white and blue lights finally died as the black and whites cleared the parking lot and took the two thugs up to Fourth Precinct headquarters for bookings on assault and various other offenses. Lingering frissons of adrenaline and his frustration over the foolish risk Josie had taken by disobeying his command to stay put inside were the only things keeping his bruised body standing at this point.
He checked his watch and headed for the Shamrock’s back door. “Well, sir, in about three hours I’ll have been up twenty-four straight with a false bomb threat and a beat down in between. Once I get Josie back to my apartment, I’m gonna crash hard. Can I get somebody to set up watch outside my building for about eight hours?”
If Cutler okayed the request, then Rafe knew he could drop his guard for a few hours and that Josie would still be well-protected. A shuffle of movement in the background gave him his answer before his commanding officer spoke. “I’m on my way over there now to take first watch. Jillian’s out of town at a PT conference and it’s hard to sleep without her here, anyway. I’ll notify the others so that your place is covered around the clock.”
“Thanks.” Rafe stopped to inspect the impromptu repair job Jake had done on the back door’s busted window. The man did good work. He wasn’t ready to give a man he’d just met today his complete trust, but they’d been lucky to have him around tonight. “I’ll check in again at ten hundred hours tomorrow.”
“Put down your badge for a few hours, Sarge,” the captain ordered in that friendly voice of experience tone of his. “Go take care of Josie. And take care of yourself. You’re no good to any of us if you’re running on fumes. Good night.”
“Good night, sir.”
More certain of the backup from SWAT One than he was of Captain Cutler’s personal advice, Rafe hung up and headed for the sharp voices coming from Robbie’s office.
“Ow!” Robbie whined. “You’re doing that on purpose, girlie. It stings.”
“It’s your own fault. Stupid loan sharks. You’re about all I have left, Robbie.” Her voice was husky, as if she’d been crying—or arguing. Or both. “Get some help before I lose you, too.”
The plea in her tone quickened Rafe’s pace. He walked in to find Josie dabbing some ointment on his split lip and urging him to keep a cold compress over the eye that had swollen shut. “Is everything okay?” Rafe asked.
He spoke to Robbie, but his gaze was drawn to Josie’s weary posture and the fist she kept rubbing at the small of her back as she packed up the first-aid kit. “The patient will live.”
“We’ll see about that,” Robbie protested, finally holding the compress without her help. “I think Nurse Pain here needs to retake the course on bedside manner.”
“I’m inclined to let the torture continue if it’ll knock some sense into you.” Rafe grabbed a chair from against the wall and set it beside the desk so that Josie could sit while she fussed over her uncle. “How much do you owe this time?”
“Eight large.”
“Eight thousand?”
“I just made a down payment with all the bar’s profits from this weekend and tonight. But by the time I get the rest of what I owe, their interest will have doubled the price.”
“At least that explains where the money went,” Josie groused. “Those men could have killed you.”
Robbie slowly shook his head. “Can’t get money from a dead man.”
She caught his thick-fingered hand and squeezed. “Not funny. What if Rafe had gotten hurt rescuing you? Or…” She glanced toward Rafe without quite meeting his gaze. “Or the baby?”
“What if Josie had gotten hurt?” Rafe pointed out. He didn’t know how much Josie had told her uncle about the identity of the killer she’d seen visiting Patrick, but whether the threat came from the RGK or a pair of leg breakers, she’d put herself at risk tonight. “She was out in the open. I was a little preoccupied. You were down. If somebody wanted to hurt her, she’d have been an easy target tonight.”