Love Inspired Suspense January 2014

by Shirlee McCoy

  There were plenty of reasons why she should.

  She’d been through too much because of Joe. She didn’t want to risk her heart again. She was perfectly capable of living her life without a man in it.

  She could sit down and write reason after reason, but none of them meant anything when she was looking into Hunter’s eyes. “I think it is.”

  “Think?” he murmured. “I’d rather you know, because I do.”

  “I—”

  “Hunt? You up there?” Burke called from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Yeah.” Hunter walked to the doorway, his gaze still on Annie. He wanted an answer, and he deserved one.

  Finally, he broke eye contact and looked out into the hall. “What’s up, Burke?”

  “Just got a call from the St. Louis P.D. Fiske wants to talk to you.”

  “About?”

  “He says he knows who’s responsible for the bombs and the threats against Annie.”

  “And he’s just coming forward now? That information would have been more useful to him before the trial.” And the fact that he was willing to reveal it now put Hunter’s guard up.

  He stepped into the hall, met Burke at the top of the stairs.

  “He said he didn’t have the information until a few days ago, and he was trying to decide how he wanted to use it.”

  “That sounds like Fiske. Always looking for the next deal.” The guy had a rap sheet filled with petty crime and illegal deals. He knew how to manipulate the system, and Hunter had a feeling that was exactly what he was trying to do.

  “He’s hoping the judge will give him a lighter sentence if he cooperates with us on this,” Burke said. “At least, that’s what he told the lieutenant who just called the office. Serena passed the information on to me.”

  “I’m surprised she didn’t pass it to me.”

  “Your shift ended three minutes ago.” Burke crossed his arms over his chest, looked past Hunter. “You look gorgeous tonight, Annie,” he said without missing a beat, his flirtatious smile working its way under Hunter’s skin.

  “Thank you.” Annie stepped up beside Hunter, a subtle flowery perfume drifting in the air as she moved. His muscles tightened with longing, every cell in his body responding to her. He didn’t reach for her, but he wanted to.

  Annie wasn’t the only one who’d been itching for more freedom. He wanted it, too, with a desperation that surprised him.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, her gaze jumping from Burke to Hunter.

  “Fiske says he has information about the person who’s been threatening you,” he responded. “He wants to give it to me.”

  “Tonight?” She frowned, her dark eyebrows pulling together.

  “Sentencing is tomorrow, and he’s hoping that the judge will give him a break if he helps us out,” Burke offered.

  “I don’t think he deserves a break,” Annie said, her eyes flashing with indignation.

  “You’re right, but if it means getting another criminal off the street, I’m willing to listen to what he has to say.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Burke said. “Want me to call St. Louis P.D. and let them know you’re on the way?”

  “Sure.”

  “But…” Annie’s voice trailed off, and she shook her head. “I guess this is more important than dinner with my family.”

  “There’s no reason for you to miss out on that,” Burke cut in before Hunter could respond. “I’m on duty anyway. I can bring you.”

  Not a good idea.

  That was what Hunter wanted to say, but there was no reason for Annie to skip dinner. He’d arranged everything, made sure only a few people knew the plan. She’d be safe as long as Burke was with her. “What do you think, Hunter?” Burke prodded. “You want me to go ahead with the dinner plan?”

  Hunter met Annie’s eyes. She wouldn’t complain if he said no, but he’d made a promise. The only way he’d break it was if he thought that keeping it would put her in danger.

  So far, his team had been able to keep her whereabouts secret. Though the computer forensic team had come up empty in its search for the marshals’ information leak, there hadn’t been any further breach of confidence. There was no reason to believe that things had changed.

  He still wanted to be with her when she visited her family.

  He met Burke’s eyes. He probably knew exactly what Hunter was thinking.

  “That should work,” he said, but he wasn’t all that thrilled about it. “Just make sure you stick around while she and her parents are eating dinner. They’ll be out in public and—”

  “I’ve been doing this job for a long time, Hunter. I think I know how it works,” Burke said drily. “Besides, the likelihood that we’ll run into any trouble is slim to none. The trial is over. Whoever was threatening Annie has nothing to gain from continuing.”

  “You’re probably right, but I like to err on the side of caution.”

  “I think you know me well enough to know that I feel the same,” Burke responded, smiling in Annie’s direction.

  She looked tense, her expression tight and closed.

  Whatever she was thinking, she kept silent, snagging Sophia as she tried to toddle past.

  “If it’s going to be a problem,” she murmured, “we can skip the visit.”

  “No problem at all,” Burke said cheerfully. “It looks like you and Sophia are ready, so I’ll run and get cleaned up, and then we can take off.”

  He jogged down the stairs, probably heading to his room.

  “You okay with this?” Hunter asked, pressing his hand to Annie’s back and urging her down the stairs.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “I don’t know, but you seem tense.”

  “I guess I’m just used to having you drive me everywhere. It will seem strange to have someone else doing it.”

  “If you want me to put off the meeting with Fiske—”

  “That would be a ridiculous thing for me to ask you to do.” She cut him off.

  “But if you asked, I’d do it.” He handed her Sophia’s coat, then took hers from the closet.

  “I know,” she sighed as he helped her into the coat. “That’s what makes you so hard to resist.”

  “Who says you have to resist me?” He pulled her coat collar up around her neck, his fingers sliding against cool skin.

  “Common sense. I don’t want to let myself believe in something that isn’t possible.”

  “Anything is possible, Annie. Even us spending time together after you leave St. Louis.”

  “At what cost? You giving up everything you love, everything you’ve worked for for me?”

  “If that’s what I decided to do, would it be such a bad thing?” He wanted to know. He needed to know, because he’d been thinking about it a lot, wondering if he could let Annie and Sophia walk away and not spend the rest of his life regretting it.

  She shook her head. “You’re not thinking clearly. You’re letting momentary feelings interfere with your long-term goals.”

  “You don’t know what my goals are.” He didn’t know what they were. Not anymore.

  “No, but I know this. I gave up everything for Joe. All the dreams about having a house in the country and a white picket fence and going back to college—I let go of those things because it wasn’t what Joe wanted. I don’t ever want to do that to someone else. I’m not going to let—”

  Burke walked into the room, cutting off whatever she planned to say.

  “All right,” he said, his gaze jumping from Hunter to Annie and back again. If he sensed their tension, he didn’t comment on it. “I’m ready.”

  “Great,” Annie responded, turning her back to Hunter, her shoulders stiff. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She headed for the laundry room, but Burke grabbed her hand, the gesture a little too familiar for Hunter’s liking. “Give me two minutes to switch the car seat, then come out to the garage.”

  “I can help,” Annie insisted, but Burke shook his
head. He was following protocol, doing what he was supposed to do. Hopefully, he’d keep that up for the rest of the night.

  “All right.” Annie glanced at her watch, at the wall, at the door to the laundry room. She looked at just about everything but Hunter as Burke walked away.

  “You can’t avoid looking at me forever,” Hunter pointed out.

  “I can try.” She offered a wry smile and finally met his eyes. “I don’t want you to make a mistake, Hunter. I don’t want you to give up something perfectly good for something that might be—”

  “Even better?”

  “That’s not what I was going to say.”

  “But it’s how I see things. If I decide to follow you into witness protection—”

  “I told you, I can’t let you do that!”

  “If I do, it’ll be because I think that what I’ll have with you and Sophia is better than what I’ve found in my job.”

  “But—”

  “Nothing needs to be decided right now.” He cut her off, because discussing it wouldn’t change the way he felt. He’d already requested a few weeks of personal leave, because he needed time to clear his head, think things through. “It doesn’t even need to be decided tomorrow. So, how about you just go enjoy dinner with your parents, and we’ll talk about it later?”

  “Later, I’ll be in Montana,” she reminded him with a sad smile, “starting my new life, and you’ll be here living your life. Before either of us knows it, we’ll have moved on and forgotten each other.”

  “In that case…” he said, snagging her wrist and tugging her closer.

  Burke had been right. Hunter’s shift was over. He’d completed the job, had gotten Annie to trial, made sure she’d testified, done all of it by the book.

  Now he was done playing by the rules, finished being the marshal protecting a witness.

  “…I’d better give both of us something to remember.”

  “What?” Her eyes widened, but she didn’t back away.

  “This,” he murmured, his lips brushing hers.

  Her muscles tensed, then relaxed, her body leaning into his, her free arm wrapping around his waist.

  She pulled him closer, their lips touching again, their breath mingling.

  Every thought fled, every worry gone. All that mattered was that moment and that kiss.

  “Annie!” Burke called. “You coming?”

  Annie broke away, her cheeks pink, her breath heaving.

  Hunter wanted nothing more than to pull her back into his arms again.

  “Annie?” Burke’s footsteps sounded on the kitchen floor.

  “Coming!” Annie said, her voice shaky, her eyes filled with the same longing Hunter felt. “Good night.”

  Then she turned on her heels and ran from the room.

  EIGHTEEN

  He’d kissed her.

  She’d kissed him!

  Annie couldn’t stop thinking about it. Not as she buckled Sophia into her car seat or got into the car beside her. Not as Burke pulled out of the garage or drove through the quiet neighborhood.

  They’d be meeting her parents soon. For the first time in a year, Annie would get the chance to hug her mother and father, talk to them, tell them how much she’d missed them. That should be all she was thinking about, but she could still feel the heat of Hunter’s lips, still feel the warmth of his hand against her waist.

  “You excited about seeing your folks?” Burke asked, glancing into the rearview mirror and meeting her eyes.

  Thank goodness the sun had set an hour ago, and her pink cheeks were hidden by darkness. “Yes. Where are we meeting them?”

  The words sounded shaky to her, but Burke didn’t seem to notice.

  “At the house of a retired marshal. Bud Hollingsworth. You’ve met him, right?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you haven’t. We’re just going to park outside his place and pick your folks up.

  “Hunter allotted two hours at the restaurant. After that, I’m supposed to take you back to our place so you can pack up and get ready for tomorrow.”

  He didn’t seem to be asking questions about the plan, but she nodded anyway. “That’s right.”

  “It’s a reasonable plan, but I’m not sure that we have to follow the schedule exactly. You’d like to spend a little more time with your parents, right?”

  “It would be nice, but we should probably just stick to Hunter’s plan.” She was already packed, the one suitcase that she’d brought to Milwaukee when she’d left town and then carried with her when she’d returned stuffed full of the things she’d be taking to her new home.

  In Montana?

  She’d loved the idea from the moment she’d seen photos of the state, but she wasn’t sure how she felt about it now that Hunter was talking about leaving the marshals.

  For her.

  “You and Hunter seem to get along well,” Burke said casually, but she didn’t think there was anything casual about the comment.

  “I get along well with everyone on the team.”

  “True, but after tomorrow, you’re not going to spend much time thinking about any of us.” He turned onto Steven’s street. “I’m sure you will spend a lot of time thinking about Hunter.”

  “And?” She wasn’t going to deny it, but she wasn’t going to have a long conversation about it, either.

  “Nothing. I just wanted to make sure you and Hunter are on the same page. I might like to give him a hard time, but we’ve been friends for years. I don’t want to see him make a big mistake.”

  “You think I would be a mistake?”

  “I think that leaving what is certain for something that isn’t could be a big mistake, but I’ve always been a risk taker, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t enjoying seeing Hunter turn into one.”

  “I wish he weren’t.”

  “Why?” Burke pulled up to the curb in front of a beautiful two-story house and turned to face her. “The best things life has to offer can’t be found in an office or at a job. If Hunter has finally figured that out, who are either of us to try to tell him differently. And that,” he said, opening his door, “is the end of my free advice session. You want any more, you have to pay.”

  “Thanks.” She laughed.

  “Don’t mention it. Now, stay put while I come around. Hunter will have my head if I don’t follow protocol.”

  He got out and shut the door. Darkness pressed against the car windows, but lights shone from the house where Annie’s parents waited. Annie was pretty sure that she saw her father peering out from behind the closed front curtains. “We’re here,” she said to Sophia as she lifted her from the car seat.

  Burke opened her door, cold air bathing her cheeks and spearing through her coat.

  “Okay. We’re going straight to the front door,” Burke said, his voice tight.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t think I like that you’re not one hundred percent sure.”

  She got out of the car. The front door was only a few hundred feet away, her parents waiting just beyond it. She wanted to run to the front stoop, open the door and throw herself into her parents’ arms.

  “Come on.” Burke glanced at the lot across the street. It looked dark and foreboding, the trees that edged the property clumped close together, their shadows stretching across pavement lit by streetlights.

  She took a step away from the car and a gunshot split the night, the sound shattering the winter silence.

  “Get down!” Burke shouted, knocking her forward as another gunshot exploded. She fell to her knees, just barely managing to keep Sophia in her arms.

  “Stay down,” he muttered, pulling his gun from its holster, something wet and dark spreading across his shoulder.

  Blood!

  “You’ve been shot!” she cried.

  “It’s not serious. Just a flesh wound, and I deserved it for making a rookie mistake. I should have parked
in the driveway close to the door,” he growled. “We’ve got to find better cover than this car. I’ll distract him. You try to get around the side of the house. Stay down, though. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” But she was terrified, her heart beating so loudly that she could barely hear Sophia’s soft cries.

  “It’s okay,” she murmured to her daughter, holding her close as Burke straightened, firing several gunshots in a row.

  She crawled toward the thick shrubs, freezing when gunfire erupted from the trees across the street.

  Burke grunted and fell back, lying still on the ground.

  She darted toward him, realized her mistake a moment too late.

  A dark shadow sprinted around the side of the car and snagged her arm, a tall hulking figure dragging her farther from safety. Black ski mask. Black gloves. Glittering eyes that she could just see peering out from the knit mask.

  Cold metal pressed against her forehead, the pressure so hard, tears burned in her eyes.

  “You fight me and the kid dies. You hear what I’m saying?” her attacker hissed.

  She nodded because she couldn’t get any words past the fear in her throat.

  The front door of Hollingsworth’s house flew open, and her father appeared. He was older than she remembered, his lined face clearly visible in the outdoor light.

  “Let her go!” he shouted, stepping out onto the front stoop. “We’ve already called the cops. They’ll be here any minute.”

  “Go back inside, old man.” Her attacker raised his gun, aimed.

  “No!” Annie knocked his arm and the bullet shattered the light above her father’s head. The lights inside the house went off as well, the entire yard going dark.

  “Dad!” she shouted, dodging toward the house and nearly falling backward as her attacker grabbed her collar.

  “Shut up! Get in the car,” he growled, shoving her into Burke’s car, snagging keys that had fallen from Burke’s hand. “One more stunt like that, and I will kill your daughter. You’ll get to watch her die. Would you like that?”

  He pressed in beside her, forcing her into the passenger seat as he got behind the wheel.

  Annie thought she heard sirens as he slammed the door, but her heart was pounding so loudly in her ears that she couldn’t be sure.