YULETIDE PROTECTOR

by Julie Miller

  But even as she remembered how the detective had seen to her safety and taken care of her yesterday, Bailey was reconsidering this attraction to a man who surely only saw her as the means to finally closing his task force investigation. After all she’d been through, she got the logic of falling for a man who was such a no-nonsense protector, a man she could trust.

  But what happened to taking care of herself? To asserting her own independence as part of the healing process? She didn’t have time for romance right now. She wasn’t sure she was ready to fall in love and be the strong, self-sufficient woman that a man like Spencer Montgomery deserved. She had so much growing yet to accomplish, so much healing left to do.

  Whatever she was feeling for Detective Montgomery needed to be buried away as a schoolgirl crush on a heroic man, or her hormones finally getting over the shock of the rape and latching on to the first available male to stir her interest in more than a year.

  “How’d I do, doctor?” she chided herself in the rearview mirror as if she’d been discussing her thoughts aloud with her therapist. “You tell me, Bailey,” she answered, imagining Dr. Kilpatrick’s kind yet challenging response.

  Bailey nodded her understanding as if she were in the middle of a counseling session. “Get a grip on those emotions,” she advised. “Find something meaningful, practical and tangible to do to rebuild your self-confidence and keep you too busy to second-guess every thought or action.”

  Winking at her reflection, Bailey took the therapist’s advice to heart. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She was learning to trust her instincts again, to allow herself to feel emotions like fear and anger without them crippling her. Now she needed to put those rusty skills into practice.

  “Meaningful.” Making a decision would be a good place to start.

  “I’m going to do something practical.” A workout would provide both a mental and physical health benefit.

  “Now, make it tangible.” She shook her head at the obvious solution. How about figuring out how she was going to get to her gym for a workout now that she was driving in the opposite direction?

  Her pulse settled into a normal beat as her thoughts centered and her fears calmed. She pulled into the turn lane at the next stoplight to get off the main traffic way and circle back to the tony neighborhood where her apartment and the nearby gym were located.

  Bailey sat there for a couple of minutes, waiting for the light to change. She watched car after car drive past in front of her—silver cars, white cars, dirty cars, black cars. A shiver of unease rippled down her spine, despite the self-talk that had shored up her confidence.

  Was that the same black car driving across the intersection? Had the photographer changed directions and tracked her down again?

  Turning after the light changed, Bailey tried to block those suspicions from burrowing back into her imagination. She went on to the next through street and turned right again, heading back in the right direction, at least.

  But her gaze kept sliding to her mirrors. Had the man with the camera slipped back into traffic behind her when she wasn’t looking? There was another black sedan following the pickup truck behind her. And another even farther back.

  One black car—no problem. Two? A silly coincidence. Three? Four? Suddenly, it was hard to tell the black cars apart. Was that driver peeking around the truck to check on her or the heavy traffic? Had that one darted into the lane behind her to avoid detection or to stay on her tail? Maybe one of the oncoming cars was the photographer searching for her again—signaling to someone else that she’d been spotted.

  “Stop it.” Bailey slowed at the next light and turned. “The threat isn’t real,” she told herself. “This is all in your head.”

  The truck zipped straight through the intersection and the black car turned and pulled right up behind her. But with the lights and the snow flurries, she couldn’t make out the driver. Was it a man? A woman? The Cleaner was a woman. The Cleaner wouldn’t want her to testify.

  Bailey muttered an unladylike curse, hating the automatic turn of her thoughts. “Really? You’re going make yourself scared of everything?”

  To prove she was creating a problem out of nothing, she made two more random turns. But the black car stayed with her.

  Was that still a coincidence?

  Pressing on the accelerator, she raced through a yellow light.

  The black car picked up speed and followed.

  With her breath catching in her throat, Bailey glanced into the rearview mirror. “That’s not my imagination.”

  Forget her craving for independence. Forget risking embarrassment with the first man to awaken anything inside her since the rape. She had a responsibility to the D.A.’s office, the women of Kansas City and herself to fulfill. There was paranoid, and then there was stupid.

  After turning onto the interstate, the busiest road she could find, Bailey pulled Spencer’s card out of her pocket and reached for her phone.

  Chapter Five

  Spencer leaned back in his chair. “Detective Montgomery.”

  “I don’t want you to think I’m crazy.”

  Odd way to begin a conversation. But he’d recognize that soft, sweetly articulate voice anywhere. He turned his mouth closer to the phone. “Bailey?”

  “Yes. I know you’re a busy man. But, you said if I felt... If I...” Her long pause lingered in his ear long enough for him to identify the traffic noise in the background. “I’m not sure what to do.”

  “Where are you?” Her gasp triggered something urgent and wary that he’d rather not feel. He sat up straight when she didn’t immediately answer. “What’s wrong? Bailey?”

  Spencer’s dark-haired partner, Nick Fensom, looked up from the desk across from him. “Problem?”

  Possibly. But the woman wasn’t making much sense. “What’s going on?”

  “My mistake,” she announced abruptly. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “Hold on.” When she started to hang up, Spencer tossed the file he’d been updating onto his desk and turned his full attention to his phone. “Why did you call?”

  The next pause transformed his concern into a vague irritation rising beneath his skin. Either she was searching for a good lie to tell, or the woman was addled. And he didn’t believe there was a thing wrong with that brain of hers. Just as he opened his mouth to prompt an answer, her words spilled out. “There was a black car. I swear it was following me. But it just pulled off onto four thirty-five south, and I’m still headed east on seventy. And now I’m counting up exactly how many black cars are on the road. There are hundreds of them, aren’t there? I probably imagined it.”

  To her credit, she didn’t lie. But the tremulous quality in her voice told him something about the black car had spooked her. And that fear didn’t sit well with him, either.

  Spencer rose from his desk. “Did you see the driver?”

  “Not clearly.”

  “Get a plate number?”

  “Missouri?” That wasn’t much to go on. “The angle was wrong or I was going too fast.”

  “And you’re safe now?”

  “Yes.” Her laugh wasn’t very convincing. “Other than surviving the perils of rush-hour traffic.”

  “Why did you think he was following you?” Spencer waved off Nick’s sotto voce offer to call in backup.

  “He wasn’t. Look, I’m sorry I bothered you. It’s just that there was a reporter earlier who took a picture, and I thought...” Her deliberate pause to breathe in deeply and slow her words only made him more suspicious. In his experience, there were very few random acts—sometimes, people did things without conscious thought, but there was always a reason behind the choices they made.

  Bailey Austin had chosen to call him. No way was this a random mistake. “Was it Gabe Knight? Vanessa Owen?”
/>   “I don’t know. I couldn’t see.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “On my way to the gym. I figured I’d be safe with a bunch of people around, and there’s always a big crowd after work.” At least she had some self-preservation instincts in her. “Look, I really am trying to follow your rules, detective. But I suppose I’m still off-kilter after seeing Brian Elliott yesterday, and was projecting...”

  What? Whether the cause was legit or not, there was no mistaking the fear in her voice. A fearful witness might change her mind about testifying. And Chief Taylor had charged him with making sure the woman showed up in court. “Bailey?”

  “I should have thought it through before I called. My apologies. Goodbye.”

  “Don’t—”

  She’d hung up before he recognized there was something more than professional concern fueling his questions. Yeah, he was a busy man. He stayed that way for a reason. But he was also a cop, and when someone was scared, his instinct was to respond to the threat. To find the source of that fear and negate it. He didn’t need Chief Taylor to give him that order.

  Even if Bailey Austin hadn’t intended to call him, Spencer was the man who’d answered.

  And now he was the man walking through the front doors of a popular workout franchise to see with his own eyes that the witness who could put the Rose Red Rapist away forever wasn’t in any real danger.

  After identifying himself at the front desk, Spencer clipped his badge to the top pocket of his wool coat and pushed through a second set of doors to locate Bailey. It hadn’t taken much detective work to track down the gym where she was registered, but she’d been right about the crowd. Judging by the size and popularity of the place, it’d take a stroke of luck to find her here.

  He scanned the rows of men and women walking or jogging on treadmills and stair-climbers, searching for the chin-high blonde with stylishly short layers of sunny-gold hair. He swept through the weight room, taking note of anyone more interested in a cop strolling through than he should be.

  No reporters. No TV cameras. No one who looked out of place.

  He found Bailey in the back of the workout center, wearing gray yoga pants, a pink tank top and fingerless gloves as she pummeled a heavy punching bag. Spencer’s concern eased considerably, seeing her in one piece. But then he got close enough to hear how hard she was breathing, and see the vee of perspiration that darkened the back of her top. Every punch, every muttered word, told him she was working through some visceral emotions that he rarely indulged.

  “Stupid.” Smack. “Curator.” Punch. “Wouldn’t even give me—” Left, right, left, right.

  “So how was that interview?”

  Bailey gasped when he announced his quiet approach. She slipped halfway behind the heavy bag, holding it between them, hiding from the thing that had startled her. Her big blue eyes locked on to his, then narrowed as her initial fear dissipated and her flushed skin cooled to its natural color.

  “Why don’t you wear a bell around your neck?” Bailey chided him, wiping at her parted lips with the back of her wrist.

  Her small, firm breasts rose and fell as she calmed the deep breaths of exertion and surprise. Her porcelain skin glistened, and even in those modest workout clothes, he could see she was built slim and sleek like a racehorse. She looked at lot different than the demure sweater-and-pearls lady who’d clung to his hand at Precinct HQ yesterday. How could a skinny, sweaty society debutante like Bailey Austin be so hot?

  Oh, hell no. As soon as the electricity humming through his body registered, Spencer glanced away, burying his primal reaction to an unexpectedly sexy woman beneath a cool sweep of their surroundings. As oblivious as she’d been to his arrival, was she equally unaware of the curious weightlifters watching to see what the cop wanted with her? Or the wannabe boxer with the straying eyes sparring with a punching bag just a few feet away? A pointed look from Spencer earned an apologetic wave and turned the younger man’s interest away from the curve of Bailey’s backside.

  Seriously? Now he was making some kind of proprietary claim? Although he’d like to think he was simply acting like a cop, defending an innocent woman from a sneaky leer, Spencer was honest enough to identify the latent attraction simmering between him and Bailey—and smart enough to know nothing should ever come of it.

  Pulling back the front of his coat and jacket, Spencer slid his hands into his pockets and offered her a nonchalant shrug. “Instead of me wearing a bell, why don’t you be more aware of what’s going on around you?” he countered. “You need to know when people are approaching you. Or following you through traffic.”

  “That was a mistake.” A delicate fist against the leather bag punctuated her irritation. She pointed a warning finger at him before going to task with the bag again. “I told you that on the phone.”

  “You did.” Take note, Montgomery. Bailey’s emotions, bubbling so close to the surface, were all the evidence he needed to remind himself that she was not relationship material for him. Not only was she younger than the women he usually dated, she was the prime witness in the case that could make his career and put him on the fast track to making captain—if not chief or commissioner one day. But most importantly, as the survivor of a violent crime, she needed the kind of sensitivity and empathy that a man so distanced from his own emotions could never offer.

  “So why are you here?” she asked.

  He let the cop in him do the talking. “Because you did call. I’d like to know why.”

  The rhythm of her dancing hips stuttered and she dropped her fists to her sides. “Your card was right there, in my pocket. I punched the number in before I thought it through. Everything turned out to be just fine. I got here safely. I hope I didn’t take you away from anything important.”

  “I’m off the clock.”

  “Oh, so now I’m intruding on your personal life, too. Sorry.”

  Considering he didn’t have a personal life, it wasn’t much of an inconvenience. “Why do you assume that you made a mistake? Maybe that reporter was following you, and simply turned off when he reached his exit or once he realized you were on to him.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better? No, I’m not crazy, but yes, someone is after me?”

  Watching the fire drain from her posture shouldn’t be nudging at that locked up door inside him that wanted to care about someone again. Ignoring the impulse, Spencer easily fell back on the skills that made him such a successful investigator. Instead of offering her some meaningless reassurance, or asking her directly about the car she’d mentioned, he invited her to talk about something else. Just to get her talking. Because he didn’t believe for one minute that she’d contacted him by mistake. Despite her assertion that everything had turned out “just fine,” something had spooked her. And he wasn’t about to risk the successful outcome of his task force investigation on the chance that a man taking her picture was a perfectly innocent coincidence. “Tell me about your interview today.”

  She made a decidedly unladylike scoffing noise. “It was a joke.”

  “So you didn’t get the job?”

  “No.” Spencer stepped onto the mat when she turned to the bag again to vent her frustration. “Mr. Stern asked how much Jackson would donate if I took the PR position. As if my stepfather has to buy me a job. I think that was the only reason the foundation would even consider hiring me.” Breathless from the exertion, she stopped punching and tilted those azure eyes up to his, frowning. “He didn’t even ask about my work experience. Not that I have much except for some retail jobs when I was in college. He barely looked at the portfolio of campaign projects I created during my senior internship. The only qualification he was interested in was Jackson’s money. I love my stepfather dearly, but...”

  One more punch punctuated her wounded self-esteem. And though the petulant action reminded Spence
r of the pampered society princess he’d once pegged her to be, there was something about the trembling line of her jaw tilting upward that spoke of depth and determination, something about the squaring of her shoulders that spoke of a fatigue that went beyond the physical exertion of an intense workout. This wasn’t the same woman he’d known before her assault. That woman had been beautiful, sharp-witted, oh-so-young and off-limits. This Bailey was layered, mysterious, all grown-up...interesting.

  Sexy and complex—a dangerous one-two punch for a man who didn’t do relationships. He inhaled a steadying breath to cool the desire firing through his blood.

  He should turn around and walk away. The last time Spencer had gotten involved with a witness, the results had been disastrous. But his will was stronger than the libidinous urges sparking inside him. His obsession with seeing the Rose Red Rapist case through to the very end didn’t mean he was involved with Bailey Austin. Instead, he rationalized that he was a dedicated professional who was still working the investigation. He hadn’t gotten the answers he’d come looking for yet. “Why’d you take up boxing?”

  Her eyebrows arched as if she suspected his random questions might have a more specific purpose. But she played along. “My trauma counselor suggested I take up some kind of exercise that would build up my strength and give me a physical outlet for my...temper.” She shrugged, curving her finely sculpted lips into a wry smile. “I never even knew I had a temper. I’ve always been the peacemaker in my family.”

  That meant she’d probably downplayed her emotions for years. But a traumatic event like a rape—or the murder of someone you loved and swore to protect, a cruel little voice inside him taunted—changed a person. Spencer had locked up tight, subjugated his emotions beneath logic and levelheaded thinking so that he’d never make that kind of mistake or feel that kind of pain again. But with Bailey, everything she was feeling, everything she’d once schooled beneath a ladylike facade, was rising to the surface.