Not Without Risk

by Sarah Grimm

  The mirror before him reflected the bartender’s moves as he placed a neon-pink drink before a doe-eyed blonde at the opposite end of the bar. A small part of his brain acknowledged the inviting smile the blonde sent him, but his energy remained focused elsewhere.

  He awoke that morning to a clawing ache in his side and weakness in his left arm. A scalding hot shower helped ease the pain but did little to soothe his foul temper, so that by the end of his shift, with no telephone records, no coroner’s report and no Detective Jon Brennan, Justin snapped and bit at everyone who dared speak to him. Which left tensions high, relationships strained and a partner who’d taken about all of him he could take, eager to return to the solitude of his home and the loving arms of his eight-months-pregnant wife.

  Which in turn left Justin more than a bit envious.

  Yet his day had been far from over. A glitch in the precinct’s voice mail system that left everyone unable to retrieve their messages, combined with him having left his cell phone on his kitchen counter, meant he’d missed the call from his mother informing him of a change in the evening’s plans. So by the time he retrieved his cell, changed his clothes and stepped through the door of the pre-determined restaurant to meet his mother for dinner, he was over an hour late.

  Pushing his fingers through his hair, he gave his reflection an acrid smile. As lousy as his day had been, nothing could have come as more of a surprise than when, over a plate of prime rib, he discovered not only did his mother’s new beau not put him off, but he actually liked the man. Justin still couldn’t wrap his mind around it. Nicholas Parsons, corporate CEO, seemed like a decent guy. With manners as impeccable as his suit, he’d been funny, attentive and appeared to genuinely care for Thelma. In fact, throughout the meal, Parsons hung on Thelma’s every word.

  Maybe it was stress and frustration making him soft, but the evening gave him hope. Something about the couple, the shared intimacies and the joy that shone through whenever his mother looked at the man she planned to marry just felt…right. For his mother, of course, he reserved his hope for his mother. He wouldn’t consider the possibility there just might be someone out there, a partner, for him. He didn’t want a partner. He wasn’t the marrying kind. He knew first-hand that attraction dulled, need faded. And love? He didn’t believe in the emotion. Not between a man and a woman. Not the forever kind. In the end, someone was always left hurting, bleeding as the other moved on.

  No, he decided, setting his jaw. Marriage wasn’t for him. Still, he thought of Allan and Suzanne and wondered. What it would be like to have someone he could care about. Someone who cared about him in return.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Justin watched the blonde, frothy pink drink in hand, sashay her way to him. She slipped onto the stool at his side and leaned forward in just a way to give him an unobstructed view of what not long ago would have attracted him like a moth to a flame.

  “Hi, my name’s Candi, with an ‘I.’”

  Her voice was too throaty, her line too obvious, and the hand she placed high on his thigh had absolutely no effect on his heart rate.

  “What’s your name?”

  He slid her a look and said nothing as she leaned even closer so that her breast brushed his arm. The overpowering scent of her perfume engulfed him.

  “You do have a name, don’t you, handsome?”

  The trill of his cell phone stopped the none-too-subtle brush-off that hovered on the tip of his tongue. He managed to dislodge her hand before answering. “Harrison.”

  “Justin?”

  “Paige?” The reception in the bar was touch and go. The line crackled and hummed. Yet the strain in Paige’s voice came through loud and clear. As did her fear. Any thought of unwinding faded away as quickly as the blonde at his side and the noise about him.

  “You gave me your business card,” she reminded him unnecessarily. “You said to call…if I needed anything.”

  The tremble in her voice tightened his chest. Tossing a few bills on the bar, Justin slid off his stool, shoved through the bar door and out into the parking lot. Immediately, the reception cleared. “Paige, has something happened? What’s wrong?”

  “I…need you.”

  “I’m on the way.”

  * * * * *

  With the glow of the pulsing red and blue lights bouncing off the darkened buildings and drawing him like a lighthouse beacon, Justin could only assume he’d arrived at the correct destination. He pulled his GTO to the curb, angled between the two police cruisers, and raked his gaze across the scene. It would help if he knew what he was looking for. But demanded explanations had been the farthest thing from his mind when Paige called, and something she hadn’t voluntarily offered.

  I need you.

  He should be ecstatic, happy as hell to hear her utter the words he’d hoped for from the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. Instead, fear—cold and dark—slid through his veins. Paige needed him. But not for the myriad of erotic images he could call to mind with only the slightest effort. No, her tone, the knife-sharp edge of alarm, told him everything he needed to know, driving him from his stool and halfway to the exit before she uttered more than his name. Paige had called for the badge, not the man behind it.

  Pushing away the lingering disappointment, Justin popped the trunk of his car and removed his shoulder holster and sidearm from the leather duffel he habitually carried within. He took a few moments to fasten his Glock into place. A few more to pull himself together.

  Previous visits allowed him to piece together what little he could garner in the darkness. The flicker of reflection from the tape cordoning off the front of the building remained unchanged, as did the glass that littered the ground. The broken front window was boarded from the inside, keeping curious eyes from what stood behind it. Keeping him in the dark.

  With nothing to go on, no visible sign as to Paige’s recent trauma, he could only imagine what brought him to her. Something he preferred not to do since experience gave his imagination a much too graphic picture.

  “Help you?”

  Shield clipped to his belt, he faced the uniform suddenly at his side. “Paige Conroy.” Is she Okay? In one piece? Broken and bleeding? He left the melodramatic questions unspoken and worked to remain focused. “Where is she?”

  “Second floor. She said something about a friend coming. I guess that would be you.”

  “I guess it would.”

  Her studio was lit up like the sky on the Fourth of July. Once inside, a cursory glance provided no more clues than the exterior of the building. Again, with the exception of the two cops at the base of the stairs, everything appeared the same as on his last visit. Nothing seemed out of place, missing or broken. Everything appeared nice and tidy. Too nice and tidy, he decided as his scalp prickled. The need to see Paige, to uncover the urgency of her situation, drove him up the stairs.

  On the second level, he stepped into what he knew to be her living area. Where her studio was a sea of neutrals, of cool professional lines, the upstairs he found to be more personal. Its pale upholstered furniture stood out against the cherry hardwood floors and forest green walls. Spacious and open, one room artfully blended into another while remaining discernible by the unique placement of furniture. Windows covered two walls of the space, and potted plants sat everywhere, so lush and overgrown that they resembled small trees.

  Yet it was not the homey atmosphere, the myriad of artwork, both hers and others, that drew his attention. Even the over-sized bed, complete with netting that hung from the ceiling to attach to the four posts couldn’t compare to the woman pacing before it.

  In place of her usual business suit, Paige wore silk boxers and a tee—testament to the fact that she had either been pulled from bed or on her way when her evening abruptly turned. Her hair hung down, long and silky around her shoulders, dark ends swishing a few inches above her trim bottom as she abruptly turned and started in the opposite direction.

  The sight of her did what the blonde at the bar had
not. That quickly, cold fear turned to hot desire. His body tightened, his pulse tripped along at an increased rate. Since she had yet to notice his arrival, he took a few moments to just look at her, to see with his own eyes that she was in one piece.

  As he watched, she continued her journey, back and forth before that grand bed. Despite her cool dismissal of him two days before, he wanted to gather her close and channel that pent up energy into something more fulfilling. He closed his eyes against the wave of longing, only to feel her in his arms, to hear her pleasure as he slipped inside her.

  “Sergeant, what can I do for you?”

  Justin blinked once, twice, to clear the sudden, unbidden image from his mind. Damn, he was hard as a rock. He tried to moderate his breathing, forced each deep breath as he strode for calm. “I’m here for Ms. Conroy,” he informed the lone officer at his left.

  She turned at the sound of his voice, and like every time their eyes met, something hot and dangerous sparked between them. They stared at each other for a long, intense moment as the air between them buzzed and crackled. Hunger rose like a white-hot wave to wash over him.

  He didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of finding calm anytime soon.

  Setting his jaw, Justin faced the uniform. “What can you tell me about what happened tonight?”

  “Break-in, or so she says.”

  “You don’t believe her.” He didn’t phrase it as a question. The man’s tone held the answer.

  “Sir, there are no signs of forced entry and nothing missing. In fact, the alarm system was tripped by the first on the scene.” In a move guaranteed to press his importance, the officer settled his hands upon his utility belt and flared his chest. “Ms. Conroy admits to being overtired and overstressed. What with her last altercation barely two days ago, she’s letting her imagination get the best of her, hearing things that aren’t there.”

  Unimpressed, Justin leaned forward and checked the name on the man’s severely starched uniform. “It could be, Officer Carlton, that she’s justifiably afraid and hearing things that are there.” He met the man’s glare. “What with her last altercation just two days ago.”

  Carlton’s self-importance still firmly in place, he puffed his chest out a few more inches. The lines of his face settled into a frown.

  “Why don’t you take off, go file your report. I’ll handle Ms. Conroy.” For a good sixty seconds, the officer held his ground. Twenty more, he looked as if he might argue. And then, just when Justin thought things were going to get ugly, Officer Carlton turned and headed for the stairs. Justin didn’t wait any longer. He crossed the room to Paige.

  She looked terrible. How long had it been since she’d gotten any sleep, something to eat? In the four days he’d known her, she’d dropped enough weight that her cheeks no longer appeared sculpted, but hollowed, the vibrant green of her eyes, dulled.

  As predicted, she had one hell of a shiner. Varied in shade from black to raspberry, it covered her left eye from just above her brow to her cheekbone. He could tell her, from personal experience, that her bruise would turn a hideous shade of green before fading. Instead, he chose to keep that bit of information to himself.

  “How are you doing?”

  She curled her bottom lip between her teeth and studied him as if considering her answer. “I’m better than when I called you.”

  “Some of your swelling has gone down. Does your head still hurt?”

  She stiffened her spine, pulled her strength around her like a blanket. “Not much.”

  Justin tucked his hands in his pockets, determined to remain cool and detached, the competent professional, just as she wanted him to be. He nearly broke out in a cold sweat from the effort to keep from reaching for her. He wanted to touch her, hold her. She didn’t appear to need his support, definitely wouldn’t welcome it. The desire was there, just the same. “What happened tonight?”

  “Someone broke into my house.”

  He had to hand it to her, even faced with Carlton’s patent disbelief, she held tough to her belief of an intruder. She must have heard the officer’s comments, but she didn’t back down. He admired that about her. “Go on.”

  “I woke up, heard someone downstairs.”

  “The sound of the intruder woke you, or something else?”

  “Something else.”

  “You don’t know what?”

  She worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “No.”

  “What exactly did you hear?”

  “The first sound, I’m not sure…” Her eyes closed, as if returning to the moment. “Breaking glass, I think. Then, I heard the darkroom door. It squeaks.”

  “That’s it?”

  ”Yes.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  The moment he left her alone, Paige felt vulnerable once more. She wrapped her arms about her middle and fought the urge to pace. He wanted to know what woke her. She wasn’t about to admit to him the truth.

  For days she’d walked a tightrope of anxiety and stress. Jumping at shadows, starting at the most minor, out-of-place sound. She’d taken to sitting with her back to the wall, alert, aware, even in the privacy of her own home. Always, no matter how she tried to fight, sleep pulled at her and when she could go no longer and her lids would droop, her muscles relax, she would sleep. And dream. Horrifyingly realistic dreams of pain and death, of eyes in the dark, watching her slumber, silently moving closer and closer until they hovered just above her.

  A shiver worked through her muscles. She shook the returned images from her mind. Justin didn’t need to know the truth. She wouldn’t admit that bad dreams roused her from sleep tonight—every night—only to leave her alone and frightened. Longing for him.

  At the echo of his booted feet ascending her stairs, relief surged. The sharp edge of her anxiety smoothed. She straightened, mentally brushing aside all hint of vulnerability and weakness. It was insane, really, her inability to brush aside thoughts of him as easily. She’d only known Justin a few days, most of that time spent trying to prove to him that she was not what he thought, yet sometime in all of it he’d become her lifeline. It grew increasingly difficult to keep her thoughts from drifting to him. Always to him.

  Right now, she had enough on her plate without trying to analyze why.

  “Your locks don’t appear to have been jimmied,” Justin said as he stepped before her. “And the board covering the front window doesn’t seem to be disturbed.”

  “That’s what Officer Carlton said, too.”

  “Your security system, it’s code protected?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who besides you has the code?”

  “No one.”

  A frown creased his brow. “Did you remember to set the system tonight?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “The uniformed officers tripped it when they arrived.”

  “Not before, when you heard the noise?”

  “No.” Like the uniforms before him, he hadn’t found any sign of a break-in. The first hint of doubt settled in. Her arms found their way back around her middle. “Look, I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  The compassion in his gaze didn’t help her sudden feelings of guilt. “For interrupting your evening.”

  “You didn’t.”

  Their voices blended, rolled over each other as she continued to speak even as he replied. “For getting you out of bed for this.”