by Julie Miller
“Stop!” She dropped the bag and ran straight down to Blake, putting herself between him and Lynch.
“Mr. Rush?” Lynch’s dark eyes fixed on her upturned face as he called down to his boss. For a split second, his big fist hovered in the air, but he stayed his hand. He pulled back the front of his coat, needlessly reminding her of the gun he carried. “Don’t do this, girl,” he warned. “Get out of the way.”
Blake’s clumsy hands clamped down on Jillian’s shoulders and her knees nearly buckled as he leaned his weight against her in an effort to stay on his feet. “I traded tit for tat with her. I didn’t do anything wrong,” he spat beside Jillian’s ear.
“That’s not how Mr. Rush sees it.”
“He sees what he wants. Takes what he wants.”
“Blake, shut up.” She turned and slid beneath his arm, propping him up as she tugged at his waist. “Let’s just go.”
“Jilly.” Isaac Rush turned the corner, blocking their slim escape route around Lynch’s broad shoulders. “You decided to take me up on my offer, after all.”
“No.” When he reached for her hand, Jillian jumped back, knocking Blake back into the wall, accidentally jabbing her elbow into his ribs. “I’m helping out a friend. We just want to leave.”
Blake cursed, too blinded by pain and the drug in his system to understand the danger they faced. “You tell him, baby.”
Isaac sneered. “Is this what you ended up with, sugar? A man who pays to get laid? I was first class with you all the way. I can hook you up with something good, I promise. Nothing cut-rate like Loverboy here.”
Loverboy?
The unfortunate choice of words pierced the bubble of adrenaline that had sent her charging down these stairs and fueled her defiance. Now she could see the folly of trying to rescue anyone.
Out of bravado, but not out of hope, she turned a pleading eye up to Mr. Lynch. “Let us go. Please. The same way you let me go that night. I know you remember.”
The hand on the gun never wavered. “I remember.”
“What’s she talking about, Lynch?” Isaac didn’t sound pleased.
“You don’t belong here, girl.”
“Neither does he. Please let us go.” She thought she detected a subtle shift in Lynch’s position, screening Isaac from direct view. Jillian didn’t wait for a better opportunity to escape. She tugged. “Come with me, Blake.”
But the idiot still had enough ego in him to keep his mouth going. “You’ve gone soft, Lynch. You’re not so tough against both of us, are you?”
Lynch made a growling sound and lunged at Blake.
Blake yanked Jillian in front of him like a shield. Their feet tangled and Blake fell, pulling her with him.
Glass shattered. Men shouted. Someone cursed.
“Jillian!”
She heard her name, but her chin clipped the railing, and her skull rang with the impact, distorting the voices around her. Blake came down on top of her and her knee cracked against a step, shooting pain all the way down to her toes. She curled into a ball as much as she could and tumbled down to the next landing where she landed with a jolt on top of Blake.
“Jillian!”
“KCPD. On the ground. Now.”
“Back off!”
“Easy, pal. Don’t move.”
“I’ll take that.”
Hands were on her, pulling her off Blake’s chest, lifting her from harm’s way. Her head throbbed. Her leg ached. Every movement seemed to reveal another bruise.
“Careful,” a deep voice snapped beside her ear. “Cover him.”
“He’s clean, boss.”
Twin steel bands caught her behind her back and legs, and her cheek lolled against solid, encompassing warmth. The pure, clean scent of soap filled her nose and nubby wool tickled her skin. She was sinking into a cozy heat until a jolt of pressure stabbed her chin. “Ow!”
Her eyes blinked open. Her foggy brain began to clear.
“Jillian?” Long, sure fingers were unzipping her jacket. “I need your sweatshirt, okay, sweetheart?”
She nodded, trusting the voice if not fully comprehending the words. Jillian sat up and lifted her arms when requested. The long fingers were red and wet with blood. She looked down and watched it drip onto her polo shirt. Her blood. “Oh. Did I…?”
“Are you hurt anywhere else? Twist anything?”
“I bumped my knee.”
A firm hand probed her leg and she winced when it found the swelling around her kneecap.
“Nothing broken.”
“She okay, boss?”
The last of the fog drifted away and Jillian realized she was sitting in Michael Cutler’s lap at the bottom of the stairs. She was hurt, but he was here, pressing her wadded-up jacket against her chin to stanch her wound. She was safe. With him around, she would always be safe. “Michael?”
Dark blue eyes locked on to hers, searching for something. And then he nodded. “She’ll be okay. Delgado?”
“This one’s out cold. But he’s still breathing.”
“Taylor?”
“The girl’s coming around, but she’s pretty mellow.”
Delgado? Taylor? She knew those names. Jillian lifted her gaze to follow the angle of Michael’s commands.
The stairwell was swarming with cops—three of them, at any rate. Alex Taylor came from upstairs, his badge hanging from a chain around his neck over the football jersey he wore. He guided the blank-eyed hooker onto the step beside Isaac Rush, who sat glaring into space, his hands bound together by his own necktie. Michael tossed a pair of handcuffs to the blond she recognized as Holden Kincaid in the lobby. He wore his badge clipped to the front pocket of his jeans and a gun tucked into the back of his belt. A second gun he held in his hand never moved away from the supine form of Mr. Lynch, even as he locked the cuffs around the black man’s wrists. A third cop, Rafe Delgado, with blue-black hair and olive skin, knelt over Blake’s body on the landing above her.
Blake’s body? Jillian jerked in Michael’s lap, trying to scramble to her feet.
“Easy,” Michael warned, looping his arm around her waist and anchoring her into place.
“Is he…?”
“He’s alive, ma’am,” Delgado answered. “But we need to get him to a hospital.”
“Lucky bastard,” Isaac whined. “He was willing to sacrifice Jilly to get out of here in one piece.”
“Enough.” The short cop in the football jersey pulled his gun and urged Isaac to be silent.
“Holster that, Taylor,” Michael ordered. “These are too tight quarters and somebody might get hurt.”
“Yeah, Taylor,” Isaac mimicked, “put that gun away before you hurt the boss’s lady.”
Jillian felt the tension that stiffened Michael’s body, but his steady gaze never blinked as it shifted to Isaac. “Put a muzzle on it.”
Isaac shrugged. “Hey, we were trying to keep the lady safe, too. Jilly and I are old friends. Mr. Lynch and I were trying to convince her to leave when Rivers there went nutso on us.”
Old friends? The gulf between Michael and Jillian widened. It didn’t matter what she felt for him—that she was falling in love with him. A veteran cop who commanded men like these and a former teen addict who’d run the streets and spent time with the likes of Isaac Rush? Yeah. That was a relationship that was gonna happen. Try introducing her as Mike’s stepmom or taking her to a dinner with his departmental colleagues. Whatever Michael felt for her, he didn’t want to feel. He was just a good cop. A good man. Doing the right thing. He’d protect her. He’d be her friend.
But love her?
Maybe her heart should set its sights a little lower. Maybe she should focus on her work and her patients and forget about a happily-ever-after with this man.
Suddenly, the shelter of Michael’s body felt like a trap, one she was embarrassed to be caught in. Jillian pushed against the arm at her waist and struggled to get to her feet.
Instead of freeing herself, she wound up clinging to Mic
hael’s shoulders as he shifted his hold on her and stood with her in his arms. “Rafe, you have things under control here?”
“Yes, sir. Bus is en route for this guy. Perps are secure.”
“Good. Wait for the local boys to get here and make the arrests. I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes. I’m taking Jillian out to my truck.”
“Put me down.” Jillian flattened her palm against his chest and tried to push away. “It’s just some bruises and a cut on my chin. I can walk.”
“Humor me.” He strode across the lobby, his boots crunching over shattered glass from around the door lock. “Seems the only way I can know you’re safe is to hold on to you.”
“I was only trying to help.”
“Just keep that cloth on the wound. I think you’ll need stitches.”
Resigning herself to the humiliation of causing this man more trouble than she was worth, Jillian dutifully wound her arm around his neck and wedged her jacket beneath her chin. “Kincaid,” he snapped. “Get the doors and take that bag out to my truck. I’m driving her to the E.R. myself.”
“Yes, sir.”
The few curiosity-seekers who’d gathered to see what the crookedly parked vehicles and flashing red and white lights were all about moved in to get a closer look at the tall man with the black-and-silver hair carrying the injured woman with the pale resignation on her face across the street. They cleared a path for him, and scattered entirely when a man built like a tank got out of the cab of Michael’s truck and circled around to open the passenger-side door. Another cop?
Michael finally set her down on the passenger seat and secured her safety belt over her lap. “Thanks, Trip.” He dismissed the off-duty officer who’d stayed outside to protect Troy and Mike. “Better get across the street and keep these people from contaminating the scene until backup gets here.”
“Yes, sir.” He tipped the brim of the KCPD ball cap he wore. “Ma’am.”
As soon as Michael closed the door and opened a bin in the back of his truck to secure the bag and pull out something else, Mike and Troy scooted forward.
“Jillian?”
“You okay?”
With the combination of blood and being carried out, the boys were understandably concerned.
She reached over the back of the seat to squeeze their hands. “Cuts on the head and face bleed a lot because the blood vessels are so close to the surface. It probably looks worse than it is.”
“It looks sick to me.” Troy pointed to her chin. The driver’s door opened and Michael climbed in. “Did that guy attack you? Did you see his face? Did the cops arrest him?”
“The police have everything under control, Troy,” Michael stated, turning the key in the ignition. “We’re all safe.” Except maybe Jillian, judging by the death ray of don’t-you-ever-scare-me-like-that-again shining from his eyes. “Everybody buckle up. Here.”
He reached across her to pull a first-aid kit from the glove compartment. With swift, sure fingers that were still marked by her blood, he unwrapped a wad of gauze and ripped open some adhesive tape. He tossed her ruined jacket to the floor at her feet and replaced it with a more sanitary wrap.
His movements were precise, yet gentle, as he shook out his black insulated KCPD jacket and tucked it around her like a blanket. “Don’t you go into shock on me.” He tapped the crude bandage on her chin. “Keep the pressure on that.”
Mike reached over the seat and rested a hand on Jillian’s shoulder. “I’ll make sure she does.”
Touched by the maturity of his concern for her, Jillian covered his hand with hers and held on.
Michael flashed his lights, honked his horn and pulled out. With some hard turns, he wove his way through the parked vehicles his team had left in the middle of the street and stepped on the accelerator.
“Did I get hit on the head, or did the cavalry just come to my rescue?”
Mike squeezed her shoulder. “Dad called his team as soon as you left the truck.”
Michael slowed to take a corner. “Fortunately, they were all in one place. The Shamrock’s not that far away.”
“The Shamrock Bar?” Jillian asked.
“You know it?”
“A lot of the PTs and hospital staff go there for happy hour.”
“A lot of cops do, too.”
They fell into a long, awkward silence as Michael sped through lights and zipped through downtown Kansas City to get her to the Truman Medical Center.
The bright lights marking the emergency room’s canopied entrance were in sight when she spoke again. “I was just trying to help a friend.”
“I know. You’re always out to save somebody, no matter what the risk is to yourself.” He pulled into the parking lot and found a space close to the entrance. After he shut off the engine, he turned to her. “Did you ever consider that maybe one of those friends is particularly grateful for what you’ve done for them?”
“You mean the letters?” She patted the air, silently asking him to drop the subject in front of the boys.
“What letters?” Troy asked.
But Captain Cutler was nothing if not thorough. “I mean the letters, the flowers, the watching, the favors you don’t want, the making you afraid.”
“A friend wouldn’t do that to me.”
“A friend wouldn’t use you as a shield in the middle of a fight, either.”
“Blake didn’t…he wouldn’t.”
“He did.” He pulled his phone from his belt and held it up in his fist. “I heard every damn word.”
“Dad!” The crackle of worry in Mike’s voice shushed the debate. “Scaring Jillian won’t help right now. You didn’t lose her. We…didn’t lose her. Just get her inside and make sure she’s okay.”
Michael’s face betrayed pain when he looked back at his son. Then he scrubbed his hand over his jaw, taking the emotions with it. “Smart kid.” He reached back and cupped Mike’s cheek. “Damn smart kid. I guess I’m the one who’s scared.”
He gave Mike a fatherly pat and then got out. When he opened Jillian’s door, she’d turned to climb down, but Michael blocked her path. He cupped her face in the same tender gesture he’d used on his son, only there was no good-ol’-boy pat on the cheek. “You’ve touched a lot of lives, Jillian—ours included. I think you know the man who is sending you those letters. He’s around you somewhere in your life, a lot closer than you might think. He doesn’t care about the good you put into the world. That’s what scares me.”
And then he kissed her. In front of his son, in front of Troy, in front of the waiting E.R. attendant with a wheelchair. No subtle touch, no secret room. He kissed her softly, gently, thoroughly. Jillian snuggled inside the heat and scent of Michael’s jacket around her and leaned into the kiss. His lips cherished hers, his calloused fingers soothed her feverish skin. Inside, she was melting, wanting, weeping at the poignancy of his tender kiss.
There was no more falling in love with this man. She was there. She wasn’t sure how the two of them together could ever work beyond moments like this, but there was no doubt in her heart that she loved him.
Perhaps succumbing to the “whoa” and “Go, Captain” and nervous laughs from the backseat, Michael broke off the kiss with an aching sigh, picked her up and set her down in the waiting wheelchair himself.
But out of earshot of the boys, he had one more sobering warning to whisper against her hair as he pushed her inside the hospital. And a promise. “Tonight we were lucky. My men were close by. But I’m not going to trust that will happen the next time. When I take Troy home with us tonight, you’re coming, too.”
Chapter Nine
“I’d have bet good money that two sixteen-year-olds with pizza, pop and no school to worry about would have been pulling an all-nighter.” Michael opened the door to what had once been Mike’s bedroom before the leg braces and wheelchair had forced him to move down to the first floor. He raised his voice so that Jillian could still hear him in the bathroom across the hall as he tossed a set
of sheets onto the bare mattress and started making up the bed. “Mike and Troy are both zonked out downstairs. I turned off the game they were playing and covered them up.”
“It’s awfully late, even for night owls.”
Michael turned at the breathy voice in the doorway behind him—in time to catch Jillian in the middle of a yawn that stretched her freshly washed face. After a couple of hours in the E.R., getting stitches in her chin and an X-ray of her knee to ensure that nothing was broken, the hot shower had gone a long way to wash away the memory of seeing her dazed and bleeding at the bottom of a stairwell with an armed Goliath, a known drug dealer and that weasel of an ex-boyfriend all trying to get their paws on her.
Now he wished he’d thought to offer her some fresh clothes to replace the ones she’d put back on. Her sweatshirt jacket and royal-blue polo had been stained with blood and grime, and disposed of at the hospital. That left her in a white tank top and her torn khaki pants—and the black KCPD jacket she’d adopted since he’d covered her with it in No-Man’s Land. With the insulated sleeves rolled above her wrists and the collar turned up around her neck, it seemed as though she’d turned his working jacket into a robe.
The shoulders were too big for her, and her slim, athletic frame swam inside the girth of it. But he decided he liked the way it looked on her. It was probably some male instinct dating back to Neanderthals, seeing the woman he cared about wrapped up in something that belonged to him. As if the woman inside belonged to him, too. His weary body hummed with an electric response at just how feminine and delicate she seemed inside those ordinary, masculine clothes. Barefoot. No makeup to hide her smooth skin and wide, full mouth. Sleek, long hair glistening like the richest cup of coffee.
Yeah. He probably liked her in that shapeless black jacket a lot more than he should.
Shaking his head, Michael tucked in the corner of the fitted sheet near the headboard. It had been a helluva long day for him, too, to let some primitive, emotional reaction to her appearance lead his thoughts off track like that. “I take it you’re not a night owl?”
“I prefer the morning sun.” She was plaiting her damp hair into a loose braid and he had to force himself to look away from the unintentionally sensual display. “Too many memories of late nights and wasted days.”