In His Protective Custody

by Marie Ferrarella

  The only sound in the kitchen was the sizzling of the omelet as it cooked. Alyx hardly breathed.

  Zane pushed on. He’d come this far, he might as well get it all out this one time. Maybe it was even good for him to unburden himself this way.

  “After she read my father’s letter, my mother just fell apart. Guilt I guess. She started drinking, too.” He punctuated the revelation with a half shrug. “So it was up to me to take care of my two younger brothers, my mother and myself.”

  She felt her heart ache for him. “And you were ten?”

  Zane thought for a moment, trying to remember. It felt like another lifetime. “Around that age. Maybe eleven.”

  “No one should have to go through something like that as a kid,” she cried.

  Watching the omelet, Zane laughed shortly. “There’s never a good age to watch your parents self-destruct,” he pointed out. “But I got through it.”

  She noticed that he’d only mentioned himself. “And your brothers?”

  Growing up, Billy had always been the delicate one, the one who could never roll with the punches. The one he’d always tried to protect. Eddie just cut himself off from all of them, existing in his own little world. The minute he graduated high school, he was gone. He had no idea where Eddie was now.

  “Not so much,” he told her honestly. “One brother just disappeared when he turned eighteen, the other seems to be under the impression that alcohol or drugs—or some combination thereof—can erase all his problems. He hits bottom, swears he’s learned his lesson and promises to straighten out and fly right.”

  He moved the frying pan off the burner but still left the lid on it. “And for a while, he does. Until something else blows up on him, or he thinks it blows up on him, and then it starts all over again. The games and the lies—” He stopped abruptly and glared at her. “How did this turn into a therapy session?”

  “You wanted to talk about it,” Alyx answered him quietly.

  Zane looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. Where the hell had she gotten that idea? “No, I didn’t.”

  Her eyes met his. “I haven’t known you all that long, Zane, but I’ve already learned one important thing about you. That if you don’t want to do something, you don’t do it. Isn’t that what you said earlier?” she reminded him. “That if you didn’t want to do something or be somewhere, then you didn’t or you wouldn’t?” She waited for him to deny it.

  Zane blew out a breath. She had him. “You listen to everything I say?”

  Her mouth curved. “One of my better qualities,” Alyx quipped. As she watched, Zane removed the lid from the frying pan and set it aside. “So, is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Yeah. You could’ve learned how to stock your refrigerator with a few more things so I could have made this omelet interesting,” he suggested.

  “You already have,” she said, her mind on what he’d just told her about his childhood. It couldn’t have been easy, talking about that. “I could go to the store if you want,” she offered. The next moment, she was heading toward the front of the apartment and the door. “There’s this deli around the corner—”

  He held his hand up, calling her back. “Too late. This is just about done,” he told her.

  The containers that had held the flavored breadcrumbs and the parmesan cheese were lined up on the counter, empty. He would have put in a drop of milk as well, if she’d had it. There was a small container of creamer, for her coffee he imagined, but it was presweetened with French vanilla flavoring and the taste would have been all wrong for the omelet.

  Testing the consistency of the omelet with the side of his spatula, he was satisfied with its firmness. “Dinner’s ready,” he announced.

  Zane flipped the omelet over to its other side. The first side had already reached a golden brown. It took the second side half the time to reach the same color.

  Zane deposited the giant omelet onto a plate, cut it in half and then slid one of the halves onto the second plate.

  “Dig in,” he told her, moving the plate in front of her, “so I can tell Detective Santini that I followed his orders down to the letter and made sure you ate.”

  “You looking for a promotion?” Alyx teased, sliding onto the stool beside him.

  “If it comes, I’ll take it,” he told her. “After all, that’s the goal, isn’t it? You work hard so you can advance.”

  She studied him for a moment. She had a hunger to know things about this man, she realized. And not just so that she could make conversation more easily. “Is that what you want to be, a detective?”

  “What I want to be,” he told her with honest sincerity, “is happy.” Something he’d decided a long time ago that he could never be. It wasn’t in the cards. His father hadn’t been happy and neither had his mother. As for Billy, well, if he was even halfway up that road, he wouldn’t be trying to anesthetize himself all the time. And who knew where Eddie was? Or even if he was. For all he knew, Eddie was dead. Why should he be the lucky one? What made him so special to merit the prize?

  “That sounds doable,” Alyx replied.

  “It’s harder than you might think,” he countered. “Especially considering the kind of gene pool I have working against me.”

  “Happiness isn’t the result of a gene pool,” she told him. “Happiness is something that’s inside everyone. You just have to not be afraid to let it out.”

  He stopped eating and looked at her. Talk about a Pollyanna attitude. “Wow. What color’s the sky in your world, lady?”

  “Blue. Just like yours.” And then she grinned as she looked down at her plate. The omelet was almost gone. She’d almost finished it without realizing. “This is good,” she pronounced. “You’re a good cook. See, a bad situation turned good in one small way.”

  “Thanks,” he murmured in response to her compliment. At the same time, he disregarded the rest of her statement.

  What he wasn’t prepared for was the tiny sliver of warmth he experienced in response to her praise. There and gone within a heartbeat, he had to admit that it still felt good.

  Very, very good.

  Chapter 10

  W hen the time came to leave, Zane found himself reluctant to go for a number of reasons. Only one of which had to do with Alyx’s safety.

  He’d never been one to believe in the endless stories in praise of “chemistry,” predominantly because he had never really experienced the effects himself. Desire, yes, temporary attraction that, stripped down, was really more about basic, sexual arousal, yes, but chemistry? No. He’d never found himself in its crosshairs.

  Chemistry implied that something unusual, something almost magical or mystical, was happening, involving all the senses plus a mysterious “X-factor” that managed to fill up all the nooks and crannies of a person’s existence. That had never been the case for him.

  But he had to admit that if he allowed himself to lower his guard, to open himself up the way he refused to ever since his parents had split, the woman could really get to him. In some fashion, shape or form, she had already gotten to him.

  Or at least had begun to.

  Which was all the more reason to leave.

  And also a reason to stay.

  He forced himself to his feet, leaving the counter and his empty plate.

  “I’d better get going,” he told her. And still he hesitated. “Are you going to be all right?” he asked abruptly.

  “You mean am I going to sleep with the light on?” She gave a casual little shrug. “Maybe. Is what happened last night just next door to me while I went about my life going to haunt me? For at least a while, yes, it will. Is either situation something that anyone can help with? No,” she told him honestly. “I’m going to have to work all that out for myself.”

  He looked at her closely, searching her face. “So you’re not worried?”

  That had come out of left field and she wasn’t following him. Alyx cocked her head. “About…?”

  Maybe this
little talk was a bad idea. He shouldn’t have begun to press the issue. If she wasn’t afraid, he had no right to open up this can of worms and possibly put the idea of fear into her head.

  “That you’re not going to be able to sleep.” At the last moment he grasped at a straw and threw it at her, hoping she didn’t think he was crazy—or question him further. If he thought he’d been successful with the eleventh-hour substitution, he was sadly mistaken.

  “That’s not what you meant,” she told him as if she could see right into his head. “The only reason you would use the word ‘worried’ is if you were asking me if I was afraid that Harry hadn’t skipped the state and was going to come after me because, in his twisted mind, he somehow blames me for his wife’s death. Maybe even thinks that I drove him to it somehow.”

  By the look on Zane’s chiseled face, she’d guessed right. Alyx grinned. “You look surprised.”

  He supposed he was. He wasn’t accustomed to civilians being clearheaded. “If you ever decide you don’t want to be a doctor, you’d make one hell of an investigative cop.”

  “So I take it I guessed right?” she asked with a knowing smile.

  He nodded. “Look, I could hang around for a while,” he offered. “You know, keep watch from the sofa if it would make you feel more secure.”

  He was serious, she thought. That was rather nice. But unnecessary. “I’m not the one who’s worried,” she pointed out. “Besides, I just made a simple suggestion to her. I never got Abby to register a complaint against him. If anything, I got her to cling to him even more.”

  He waved his hand dismissively at her words. “You’re talking as if McBride is operating with a logical mind. He isn’t. In his mind, he might even hold you responsible for what happened because Abby might have mentioned something to him like, ‘Maybe I should file abuse charges against you like Alyx said.’ And because he has a volatile temper, that would have been enough to make him lose it and start beating her up. That would be all it would have taken—and your name was invoked, which is what he would remember.”

  “What’s going to make tomorrow different?” Alyx asked.

  Zane watched at her, confused as to what that had to do with anything.

  “Maybe he’s going to lie low now, but he’ll work himself up and wind up coming tomorrow night,” she explained. “Or maybe he’ll restrain himself for a while and come to even the score with me next week. Are you going to plant yourself in my living room and take root here for the unforeseeable future?” she asked. “He might even turn out to be the patient type and won’t strike for a couple of months.”

  “Are you deliberately trying to scare yourself—and me?” he added. What she’d just described would be like living with a time bomb that could go off at any time—or not.

  “No,” she explained, “I’m trying not to entertain any fear right from the start. If I give in tonight, then it’ll be that much harder to face being alone tomorrow night, and the night after that—”

  “So maybe you should move in with one of those doctor cousins of yours,” he told her. “There’s safety in numbers.”

  “But not always dignity,” she countered. “Being afraid interferes with my own self-esteem. I don’t see myself as being a cowardly person,” she told him.

  He nodded. He could see where she was coming from. As they talked, he forced himself to start making his way to the front door. Otherwise, he wasn’t going to leave, no matter what she decided.

  “Maybe,” he agreed, “but at least you’ll be alive to have those self-esteem issues.”

  She stopped for a moment to look at him, really look at him. “Are you always this pessimistic?”

  “I’m not a pessimist,” Zane corrected, “I’m a realist.”

  “What you are is depressing,” she countered sadly. “We’re really going to have to work on changing that about you.”

  He found her choice of pronouns interesting because there was no “we.” Moreover, there were no plans for them to evolve to that particular state. It would be better for everyone if he just pulled back so no misunderstandings flared between them. What he had offered her was strictly professional, nothing more

  Yeah, right, an inner voice mocked him.

  “You have my card?” he asked, suddenly intent on making good his getaway.

  “Yes, somewhere,” she answered vaguely.

  He frowned and pulled out his card. Flipping it over, he wrote down his personal cell phone number, the one that, until now, only Billy had access to. Holding it out to her, he said, “Now you have another with my cell number on it,” he added.

  She took it from him and glanced at the writing. She could read the numbers, but just barely. “Maybe I’ll start a collection.”

  The frown deepened, spreading to a furrowed brow. “This is serious, Alyx.”

  “And this is how I deal with serious,” she informed him glibly.

  And it was. Alyx had always used humor as a defense mechanism, as a shield and as a way to knock off steam when she felt particularly stressed. Humor saw her through a crisis and she was grateful for it.

  She placed the card right next to the phone in the living room. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep it right here.” She patted the card for emphasis. “If Harry shows up, you’ll definitely be the first person I call.” The straight face she tried to maintain finally broke up and she grinned.

  He wanted to tell her it wasn’t funny. That he would feel better, despite her sensible argument, if she’d let him hang around, keeping watch. He couldn’t do it while he was on duty, but his off hours were his own to do with as he pleased. Still, he knew Alyx needed to do what she felt she had to. It wasn’t up to him to force her into agreeing.

  Besides, more than likely, Harry was nowhere to be found. They had an APB out on him covering the state, but his suspicions were that Harry was halfway across the country or into Mexico by now.

  “See that I am the first person you call,” he told her gruffly. With that, he started to cross the living room to the front door.

  “Zane?” she called after him.

  He stopped to glance over his shoulder. “Yes?”

  Her smile was soft this time, and all the more gut-twisting for it. “Thanks for worrying.”

  When he found his tongue, Zane started to protest that he wasn’t worrying, that it was his job to make sure the citizens of this city were safe and she was a citizen. But he had a feeling she could see through that, too.

  So instead he just mumbled “Yeah” and continued on his way out.

  She stopped him dead in his tracks with a quick, fleeting kiss. Just the barest contact of lips touching lips, hers in a smile, his not. A mystifying tidal wave of hunger rose within him.

  He could feel himself weakening. Wanting to give in. To test the waters and the boundaries of this situation and really kiss her back. But doing so would be out of the box for him, not to mention bordering on harassment. He couldn’t take advantage of the situation—or of her, no matter what she might protest to the contrary about being the master of her own fate. He knew better than anyone that people could be manipulated into doing things. Into being made to think, for a little while, that what was happening was by their choice or that it was somehow their fault.

  Zane forced himself to step back from her, despite the fact he wanted to remain just where he was, becoming familiar with every aspect of this woman who stirred him.

  “Call me if you remember something. Or if you need me.”

  Or just because you want to call me, he added silently.

  Turning on his heel, Zane left. Before he couldn’t.

  Tonight, Alyx thought, would have been a good time for one of her cousins to drop in and avail themselves of one of the two other bedrooms in the apartment. But even as she mentally crossed her fingers, no one came by.

  When the phone rang, she all but leaped on it. The silence was getting to her. “Hello?”

  “It’s your fault,” the voice on the other end of the line r
umbled. “It’s your fault she’s dead.”

  McBride. Was he close by? Unable to help herself, she looked around, even though she knew he couldn’t be that close. “The police are looking for you,” she said, sounding braver than she felt.

  “They’ll never find me,” he said with confidence. “But I’ll find you,” he promised malevolently. “There’s no place for you to hide.”

  With that, the line went dead.

  Poor choice of words, she thought, hanging up. McBride was playing mind games, trying to scare her. Well, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

  She also wasn’t going to call Zane. He’d be over in a heartbeat, but he had enough to do without adding bodyguard to his duties.

  She checked the chain at the door, then wedged a chair beneath the doorknob. Better safe than sorry, she told herself.

  She spent the next hour trying to get to sleep. Of course, she failed. Her mind was just too keyed up to let her rest. Especially after McBride’s phone call.

  Giving up, Alyx abandoned tossing and turning and twisting her sheets and got out of bed.

  The night stretched out long and dark before her. She thought of turning on the TV more for company than anything else, but there wasn’t anything interesting to watch at this hour.

  She decided to do a little internet surfing. There was always an endless supply of medical updates to wade through. Because she couldn’t sleep, she might as well be productive. If nothing else, she thought with a suppressed smile, reading the various reports might succeed in putting her to sleep.

  Walking into the third bedroom, which had been partially converted into a study, she turned on the computer and sat down. The machine hummed to life, its monitor slowly opening up like a huge, sleepy eye that blinked and focused before becoming fully alert.

  As the first order of business, she opened up her in-box, then spent the next half hour deleting mail that promised her everything from doubling her bank account to enabling her to find her one true love if only she’d fill out the form on the next screen.