Sworn to Be His (The Archer Family Book 3)

by Allison Gatta

  When the investigation had closed for the day, Jade walked by his side silently all the way to the car. After she settled into her seat and closed the door, she looked down at her hands, that same ashen expression on her face. Pained. Like she'd just witnessed the greatest tragedy of her life.

  And maybe she had.

  He took a deep breath, trying to find the words he would have wanted to hear. "It's not your fault, you know."

  "That girl...she trusted me. She counted on me to protect her and I let her down."

  "That girl knew the risks of what she was doing and sometimes..." Sometimes you just couldn't control the odds, the obstacles. Sometimes there was no winning no matter how battle-trained you were.

  He took a deep breath, willing himself to remember that day. He'd blocked it off for so long, had kept it in the little corner of his mind where he promised himself he'd never visit it.

  But if he wanted her to feel better, if he wanted her to know just how much he understood...

  "You know why I never talk about the service? Why I left?"

  She shook her head, but her gaze didn't meet his.

  "Let me tell you," he said, and then he began his story.

  The first thing about that day was the music. Will had been in charge of manning the radio in the Humvee after drawing the shortest straw—one of the rare cases where everyone else was forced to suffer while the short straw prevailed. As they rolled through the desert, Will had blared "Poker Face" and sung along at the top of his lungs, occasionally slapping his seat and singing louder when the other cadets complained.

  "If I have to hear this goddamned album one more time—" Someone in the back grumbled as they ripped open an MRE and Derrick laughed, holding out his hand for some candy as he steered the tank forward.

  It was a dusty day, even for Afghanistan. The way the sand drifted over the land made it nearly impossible to see a hundred feet out, let alone yards or miles. Or maybe he'd just told himself that in the years that had passed. Whatever the case, he couldn't remember the road. Couldn't remember anything but the way the gritty fruit-flavored sugar had tasted on his tongue as he crunched on one skittle after another.

  "Fine, fine, if it's that much of a problem, I'll change it." Will rolled his eyes and slid another CD into the player. Within seconds, the Beatles started wailing about being back in the USSR.

  "Way to set the mood," Derrick had said, and Will smiled at him.

  Will's smile had been crooked. Derrick remembered that. With one jagged front tooth that stuck out a little too far.

  He was the youngest of their platoon, a recruit straight out of high school. In a way, the kid reminded him of himself. He was always talking about his kid sister whom he'd left behind, and of a girl back home who'd promised to wait for him. The guy had kept both pictures in a little pocket on the front of this uniform, but Derrick would be damned if he could ever remember which was the sister and which the girlfriend.

  They all just looked so damned young.

  From the back, the guys called jeers and prayers for Lady Gaga's return.

  "Free bird!" One wiseass shouted.

  "Ignore them. You got the radio. They can fuck themselves," Derrick said, and Will laughed.

  "Thanks." The kid hummed along with the song and Derrick turned his attention back to the road. To where something tiny glinted in the sun so close that he didn't have time to inspect it. Didn't have time to stop.

  The explosion was quick and devastating. One second he'd been sitting in his seat, relaxing and listening to Will's off tune crooning and the next he could hear nothing but the long, prolonged sound of chalk scratching on whiteboard over and over again. His ear rang with it, and as he stretched one hand out, he found that he couldn't move it. He could only stare around absently, taking in the wreckage of their convoy.

  The Humvee had been flipped over, and few of the men still clinging to the sides of the windows. Their gaze met his and he knew they were alive. He'd thought...

  He'd been so stupid.

  In that moment, when he saw them, he really thought everyone was safe. That it was a mistake, but he'd been the only one to suffer for it. That he'd be able to manage.

  Then he looked in the other direction and saw another pair of eyes, glassy and brown, gazing lifelessly back at him. A snaggle front tooth still prominent in his gaping mouth.

  "Will, " he called for the other man, but he still couldn't move. Hell, he could hardly speak. The words grated on his throat and he pushed past the pain to focus on the other man. No, not a man. A boy. A boy who'd died because he'd been too much of a damned fool to pay attention to what he was supposed to be doing.

  Derrick shook his head. That image was always the one he woke with—of Will staring back at him, unspoken words still hanging from his lips.

  "I was almost up on my contract at that point," he forced himself to say, forced himself to remember that Jade was still here. Listening, expecting.

  He cleared his throat and went on, "So when my tour ended I decided to come back to Hawaii and stay for a while. I didn't reenlist. You should have heard how happy my sister was about it. Like she thought she was getting me back after all those years. The thing people don't get, though, is that you don't come back. You never come back. Not really."

  Jade was silent, waiting.

  "The thing is, though, that even though I should have been paying attention, Will knew the risks of deployment when he signed up for the Army. Just like I did. Just like anyone else. It was the same way with this girl. She knew the risks of talking when she shouldn't. It's not your fault, Jade."

  Jade folded her hands in her lap. "It probably wasn't your fault either," she said, almost too quietly for him to hear.

  But he did. And he almost smiled.

  "I've had a long time to deal with this. It might take awhile for you, too. And I'm not going to lie to you. You might not really come back. But you're going to be okay. That much I can promise you."

  "Can you?" Her bright blue eyes met his at last and he held her gaze.

  "Yes, I really can. Now let's focus on what's important. This case."

  He paused, waiting to see if he'd made the right choice, but there was simply no way to know. No way to judge.

  "This case isn't right, Jade," he tried again, gently.

  "I know, I know it." She shook her head and slid lower in her seat, wringing her hands as if they might have some kind of answer for her.

  "No, I mean...I looked at everything. There's no recent ex-boyfriend. No current boyfriend. The other investigators say there are no clear suspects."

  "You know who did this as well as I do," Jade whispered.

  "I do...but what I don't understand is how."

  "What do you mean? She talked. They punished her for talking."

  "But you haven't filed the paperwork. There's no record that she said anything."

  "What about the recordings?" Jade asked.

  "They always take at least a week to get filed."

  "So you're saying there's someone on the inside? Someone watching the tapes?"

  "Maybe..." Derrick gripped the steering wheel tighter.

  "What?" Jade asked.

  "Have you talked to anyone about this case?"

  "What?" She furrowed her brow.

  "I mean, have you spoken with anyone within the department about our plans or our trip to the strip club."

  "No...just Zac, I think."

  Zac. Yes. It all made sense if it was Zac, didn't it?

  He was so keen to work every angle of the case, to squeeze every little detail he could. And he'd know that he could use Jade for whatever he wanted. Knew she'd be vulnerable to him.

  "What's going on?" She asked, her soft voice breaking him from his thoughts.

  "Do you think it's possible Zac could be involved here?"

  For a moment Jade was silent, then she said, "Zac? You mean like he killed her?"

  "Possibly. Or maybe he told someone she informed. Maybe he's the gu
y on the inside. He's the newest in the group. It would make sense."

  "But..." Jade looked blankly out at the road for a moment, then she said, "You know, I think this is about jealousy."

  "Jealousy?" Derrick raised his eyebrows.

  "Yeah, you're jealous of my feelings for Zac, so you're going to pin all this on him?"

  "You have to be out of your fucking mind." He said it casually, but inside his stomach was roiling.

  Her feelings for him? As in, her continued feelings for him? Like what they'd done had been nothing to her?

  Was he still just a pawn in this ridiculous game she'd concocted? He'd thought...

  But it didn't matter what he thought. That wasn't important right now. Right now, what mattered was justice.

  "How crazy would I have to be in order to pin a murder on someone because I thought you had the hots for them?"

  "That's not really the question at hand, is it?"

  "I really think it is." He shot back.

  "You know, I'm surprised at you. That you would react like this. If you have feelings for me, you can just come out and say them."

  "What, like you would?" He shot back a little too quickly, and she was silent as they rolled into the parking lot in front of the station.

  "You know this makes sense," he said and she studied him for a long moment, her blue eyes clear and shrewd as she surveyed him.

  "I know that you're jealous. What else it is, I don't know. Maybe you're trying to make me feel like this isn't my fault like you did before."

  "You think I told you all that because..."

  "I don't know why you do anything, but I'm not buying it." She sniffed and he gripped the steering wheel harder as she opened the passenger side door.

  Everything. He'd told her everything about his past, his secrets, and what had she done? Ignored it.

  He gritted his teeth, and when the door had closed behind her, he backed out again and sped back onto the street.

  Chapter 9

  "I'm an idiot." Jade stared down at her cat, not bothering to scold the tabby for jumping up onto the table for the third time that evening.

  At this point, she was just glad to have someone to commiserate with. Someone who, based on their indifference, knew exactly how colossally she'd fucked up today. After everything Derrick had shared with her, why couldn't she just put everything aside and tell him the one thing that still hung between them, unspoken?

  That it was him she wanted. That nobody mattered but him.

  That she...cared for him.

  She stirred her coffee lazily with her spoon and then took a long sip. She'd have to come up with some way to make this up to Derrick. And she would. Just as soon as she worked up the courage to see him again.

  She glanced out the window, studying the droplets of rain careening down her window panes. It was the perfect night for a good cup of coffee and some well-deserved sleep. Maybe if she went to bed now, things would seem slightly less fucked up in the morning.

  Maybe—

  The doorbell clanged in the front of the house and she got up from the dining room table and shuffled into the adjacent room, careful not the look at the spot where she'd made love to Derrick on her living room floor.

  Again the doorbell rang and she sprinted the last few feet before swinging the door open.

  Then there he was, rain dripping down his nose and making his dark grey shirt cling to his muscles. Derrick, his dark hair soaked through.

  "Can I come in?" He asked, and she stepped aside wordlessly.

  "I was just thinking about you. I—"

  "No. You need to know something." He cut her off.

  "Derrick," she said.

  "Jade, I'm not jealous. I've never been a jealous man and I have to tell you and I'm still not."

  "I—"

  He held up a hand to silence her, then took another step toward her until his wet clothes began to dampen her own. "I can't be jealous because I know you're mine and I can have you whenever I want you. I know that you want me."

  He cupped her chin in one hand and lifted her face to his. "I know you want me right now."

  She couldn't deny it was the truth. The second he stepped into the room, her heart had beat fast and her mouth had gone dry. She wanted to lick the rain from his neck, to taste it on his lips. To feel his chilled skin against her own warm flesh.

  "I shouldn't have said you were jealous. And I shouldn't have—"

  "I don't care about that, I don't regret telling you anything. I want you to know all there is to know about me."

  "Then, what do you want? Why did you come here?"

  "Because I want you and I'm going to have you." Without another word, he wrapped an arm around her waist and hoisted her into a fireman's lift, carrying her up the stairs, down the hall, and into the bedroom. Gently, he laid her down on the bed and then closed the door.

  The next morning Jade blinked awake, the world blurry as she shifted in her bed. Or, at least, as she tried to shift. Something big and hard and warm was curled around her, and as she raised her hand to touch it, she felt a long gush of warm air against her hair and smelled the sweet spice of aftershave.

  Then she remembered.

  Derrick.

  He was still here in her bed, his arm wrapped protectively around her as they slept. What was more, if her senses were anything to go by, he was still naked from the night before, his hard length pressed to her back as he slept.

  Derrick.

  She wanted to sigh just at the thought of his name—like a wistful heroine thinking of their knight in shining armor. It was so strange, so silly to think that for all this time she'd had him right in front of her, only a few inches from her reach, and she'd never understood. Never really saw him.

  Not until now.

  Gently, she clasped his wrist and ran her finger along the delicate hairs on his forearm, closing her eyes as she studied the heat of his body on hers. As she remembered the way he'd stormed into her house and taken her.

  Commanded her.

  ...Loved her.

  But no, it was too soon to be thinking like that. Even if she did know him inside and out, the Derrick she knew was her friend, her partner. This new Derrick was her lover, her companion. Maybe even her knight in shining armor.

  A warm pair of lips pressed against the shell of her ear, and then she heard his low, deep groan.

  "Did I wake you?" she whispered.

  A scratching against the sheets let her know he was shaking his head. "No, it's Saturday. I'm on call this weekend."

  "No," she moaned. "Can't you call in sick?" She twisted in the bed and faced him. His mouth was pouty in the morning, his cheeks the slightest bit red with sleep. His eyes were still half-closed but for some reason that only made him look even sexier. Brought out the fullness of his lashes.

  "Yeah, I'm sure that would go over well. We've got serious issues on the Scaglietti case, and I'm calling in sick to secretly bang my partner."

  She curled a leg around him and pulled herself in tighter, until their bodies were flush and the length of his still-hard erection was pressed against her belly. "It does have its benefits, though." She smiled and then he leaned down and kissed her, prising her lips apart to make way for the slow, sinful teasing of his tongue.

  She moaned against his mouth, willing him to roll on top of her and stay there all day long. He didn't even have to make love to her. He just had to be there.

  A ringing sound hummed from the edge of the bed and then something clanged against the metal footboard. She looked down at the white metal scrollwork to see that it was shaking.

  "Dammit," he mumbled. "My phone."

  "But Derrick..." She groaned, not knowing what else to say. The truth of the matter was she knew how important the call might be. Knew better than to interfere.

  He slid from the bed and she bit the inside of her cheek as he bent over in front of her to grab his phone.

  Double Dammit. One more minute and I might have been screaming s
o loud we'd never have noticed the damned phone...

  He checked the call screen, then thumbed the glass and held the little square to his ear.

  "Detective Archer," he said, instantly all gruff professionalism.

  She clutched a sheet to her chest and sat up in bed, waiting for some clue or sign. He gave none. Instead, he answered in yeses and nos and other vaguenesses until at last he said, "On my way," and tossed the phone onto the bed.

  Wordlessly, he pulled on his pants and scanned the room for his shirt.

  "What's going on?" she asked finally.

  His face was grave when he met her gaze, his mouth a solid line of resignation. "All our notes are missing."

  "Wha—what do you mean?" she asked, but she knew. She just couldn't believe it. Didn't want to.

  "All the Scaglietti files have been combed through. They found some documents in the shredder, but the rest are just plain gone. If our intel gets into the wrong hands, they might know all about who was working the case, who knows what—"

  "But we're police officers. They wouldn't—"

  "Kill us?" Derrick raised an eyebrow.

  She didn't speak. She knew that answer, too.

  "I have to go in and see what we can find on the security footage."

  "They're smarter than to leave a trace there."

  "Maybe, but if we can find out how Zac did this—"

  "Zac?" She blinked.

  "Jade, you have to know by now that there's someone on the inside. Zac is the most logical choice. He'll know that, too. I'm betting there's going to be some heavy-handed framing involved. I have to make sure we get the right man."

  "And what makes you so sure that man is Zac?" She shot back. She didn't know why she felt so strongly about it. Maybe because she'd known Zac for so long—had been around all his friends in school.

  She couldn't have grown up alongside someone who worked with the mob. Those sorts of people were raised in blackboard jungles or in the mean streets of Brooklyn. Not here, not in a tiny hamlet on Oahu.

  "Jade, we don't have time for this argument. My only concern is getting you someplace safe right now."