FRIEND, LOVER, PROTECTOR

by Sharon Mignerey

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  Chapter 11

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  Another creak followed the first, so faint that Jack might not have heard it had he not been listening for it.

  Swiftly, silently, he returned to the bed, leaned over Dahlia and pressed a finger across her lips. When he felt her come awake, he whispered close to her ear. "Get up, sugar. Someone is in the house."

  She stretched. "Jack?"

  "Shh. C'mon. Get up." He pulled her from the bed, the slide of sheet no more than the merest rustle.

  Silent as a shadow they crossed the room, and he urged her toward the open closet door. There was damn little that he could do to reassure her in the five or ten seconds they had, even though he knew she was more asleep than awake. He brushed a kiss across her cheek and whispered in her ear, "Stay put, Dahlia." He held her face close to his until he felt her nod. Then he added, "And, sugar, be quiet. Real quiet."

  Again she nodded.

  He moved back to the open doorway, standing to one side.

  The thought of these guys touching her sent a surge of pure terror and deep anger through him. For about a second he let himself feel all of it. Ruthlessly he shoved it down. His mind went to that state of readiness where his senses sharpened. He saw beyond the dark shadows of the room, smelled everything, heard everything. To that place where his years of training became reflex that didn't require thought.

  These guys were as good as dead. All he had to do was remember that dead wasn't an option. Just enough force to take them out.

  There was that faint sound on the stairs again.

  Was it the guy who worked alone—Mr. Pale Eyes? Or the other three? He listened intently for any sound, any clue that would let him know if there was one man or several. Little by little, he knew. Two men creeping closer. Just two.

  The shades of black within the hallway moved, and a nearly invisible shadow crossed over the threshold.

  With the patience of the sniper that he was, Jack waited. One second, then two.

  The stocky form of a man cautiously crossed the threshold. Shorter than Jack by far, but weighing at least as much as he did.

  Jack let him take another step into the room before he attacked. With brutal efficiency he caught the man behind the knees, then clipped him in the kidney. With a nearly silent whoosh of surprise the man turned around. Jack hit him with the one-two-three series of punches, a clip across the chin, one in the middle of his face and the last hard into his flabby midsection. With a grunt the man collapsed.

  Before he hit the floor, Jack pushed him back out of the room, using the man's weight to knock down his companion who was poised a scant three feet behind him. Jack dealt with the second man just as efficiently. In the span of fifteen seconds it was all over.

  He stared down at the two men, flexing his hands, reminding himself that dead wasn't an option and that he'd accomplished what he wanted—taking these guys out. He glanced back toward the bedroom, which was now lit, illuminated from the light in the closet, he realized. Dahlia, clad in a bathrobe that skimmed her ankles, appeared at the door, a squirming Boo in her arms. As yet the dog hadn't barked.

  "You okay?" he asked.

  She nodded, her gaze wide as she took in the two unconscious men on the floor.

  "Call 911," he said.

  She nodded, and he watched her a second longer as she moved to the bedside and picked up the receiver. Her little dog came toward the doorway, growling slightly as she smelled the two unconscious men. Jack frisked the two men, disarmed them both and turned them onto their backs, automatically crossing their feet and arms, which indicated they had been searched—a Ranger habit so deeply ingrained he was scarcely aware of it. Just as automatically, he pressed the magazine release button on the .38 he found in the first guy's waistband, and the magazine slid out of the grip into his palm. These two had meant business—a wicked-looking switch blade and stun gun added to their arsenal. He gathered up the weapons and dumped them in the bathroom sink.

  Listening to Dahlia talk softly on the phone, he went to the front bedroom and peered out. In the driveway was the dark silhouette of a car. Every now and again, there was the glow of a cigarette as the man behind the steering wheel waited.

  The guy didn't yet realize his companions weren't coming back. So far, so good. Jack retrieved the pair of webbed straps that he always carried from the bottom of his duffel bag.

  As he was tying up the first man, out of his peripheral vision he saw Dahlia reach for the light.

  "Leave it off," he called softly to her. "There's one more guy in the driveway, and I don't want him to know that plans have changed."

  He tied up the second man, then came back to the doorway of Dahlia's bedroom. "The guy outside—I'm going to go get him before he hears the cops coming."

  She stood and came toward him.

  Again his breath caught as he imagined what could have happened if he hadn't been here. This feeling in his chest went far beyond making love with her, far beyond taking care of her just because he'd promised his best friend. You don't do permanent, he reminded himself. You don't make babies, and you don't have sex with a woman you can't walk away from. The familiar code burned through his chest, and he knew without a doubt that it belonged to the most selfish son-of-a-gun that he knew.

  "What do you want me to do?" she asked.

  Mostly because he needed the reassurance of her touch, he took her hand and laced his fingers through hers. "Nothing." With effort, he let her go. "You stay put."

  He grabbed the guy closest to the stairs and hauled him down like dirty laundry. He came back up and took the second guy down stairs in much the same way. Again he checked them both to make sure they were still securely tied up.

  From the bottom of the stairs, Jack softly called back up to Dahlia, "You go back in the bedroom and close the door. You hear anything you don't like—anything—and you call the cops and go back out like you did the other night. Got it?"

  She nodded. "The cops will be here any second. Let them take care of the guy outside."

  He shook his head. "As soon as the guy hears the sirens or sees the lights, he'll make a run for it. We get these guys, and it ends tonight. You're gonna stay put, right? So I don't have to wonder where you are."

  "Don't worry," she said softly. "No more decisions by committee. Be careful."

  "I'm nothing but." He waited until he heard her close the bedroom door, then swiftly made his way through the house. Since the front door was still barricaded, he went to the kitchen. The sliding glass door was wide open. Jack stood to one side for a moment, watching, listening with all his instincts. When he was sure no one was outside, he slipped out the door. The gate at the side of the house was also wide-open.

  Silently Jack skimmed along the edge of the property, not nearly hidden enough to suit him, but the guy in the car never saw him coming.

  After determining there was only one man in the car, Jack reached through the open window and touched the man's neck. He violently started. Jack hit him with the flat of his hand on the side of guy's neck, opened the door of the vehicle with the other and dragged him out of the car. Two more well-placed punches and it was done. The guy was out cold.

  From down the street, he heard the fast approach of two vehicles coming from the same direction. They came to a skidding halt side by side in front of Dahlia's house. Jack stepped away from the car.

  Blinding lights clicked on. Jack squinted into the lights, unable to see a damn thing. "Hands over your head," a voice called to him. "Lock them behind your head."

  Jack did as ordered, lacing his fingers together and placing them behind his head. He couldn't blame the cops for being cautious, but all he had on was a pair of boxers—surely these guys didn't think he was the intruder.

  "Now, come toward me with your back facing me," came the commanding voice again.

  "There are three of these guys," Jack said, again doing as requested. "This one on the lawn, and two more inside."

  "Y
ou were here the other night, weren't you?" another of the cops said, his voice closer. "There was a break-in."

  "That's right." Jack glanced over at the officer. "I haven't searched this guy yet."

  "And you said there were two more inside."

  "That's right. They're tied up and lying in the front hallway."

  The officer turned on a flashlight and flicked it over the man lying on the lawn.

  "He'll wake up in about ten minutes," Jack told him, still keeping his hands laced behind his head. The quicker the cops figured out he wasn't their problem, the quicker he could get back inside to Dahlia.

  "You can put your arms down," said the officer who said he remembered Jack. "Anyone else in the house?"

  "Dahlia Jensen and her dog," Jack said. "They're upstairs."

  A third police car pulled up, and after a moment's consultation the first two officers accompanied Jack back into the house. Jack turned on the lights as they came through.

  "Where are these other men?" an officer wanted to know, his name tag reading James Callahan.

  "Right through there," Jack said, pointing toward the hallway. The stockier of the two men was awake and struggling to sit up.

  "Take it easy," Callahan said, bending over the guy to search him and removing his wallet from a hip pocket. He replaced the web strap with handcuffs and hauled the guy to his feet. "What's your name, sir?"

  "He beat the hell out of me," the man said instead of answering the question and glowering at Jack. "I want to press charges."

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah." Callahan opened the wallet. "Is this your ID, sir?"

  "Yeah," he muttered.

  "Do you have any weapons or drugs on your person?" Callahan asked.

  "He had a switchblade and a .38." Jack nodded upstairs. "Weapons are in bathroom sink. And his buddy, here, had a stun gun, also in the sink."

  The other officer frisked the second man, who was still unconscious, and as Callahan had done, put handcuffs on the guy.

  "This sounds a little more serious than your average burglary," Callahan said, then read the ID. "Thomas Rio. Hope you haven't been driving, son. This license expired several months ago."

  "I've been busy," Rio said.

  "I bet you have. Let's go." Callahan caught Jack's gaze. "Any other weapons I should be aware of?"

  "I didn't search the guy outside—the ones in the sink are all these two had. My 9mm is in the bedroom." He watched one of the other officers climb the stairs who came back out of the bathroom a second later and nodded at Callahan.

  "And you took these guys down without a weapon."

  Jack shrugged. "I didn't need it." He looked at Rio, committing the man's face to memory. The guy was more kid than man, not any older than the nineteen-year-olds that came through Ranger training. "This guy is working for somebody, and I'd like to know who. Mind if I go put some clothes on?" Jack asked.

  Callahan shook his head.

  Jack took the stairs two at a time and rapped on the bedroom door. "It's me, sugar." He opened the door, and Boo met him, her stubby tail wagging briefly before she went back to Dahlia.

  She had gotten dressed, but she still looked far too vulnerable for his peace of mind. He crossed the room to her, touching her cheek, the only thing he allowed himself.

  "You okay?"

  She nodded.

  "I don't know why Boo didn't bark," he said.

  "Why do you think I named her Boo? It's only after you turn on the lights that she's brave enough to bark."

  He pulled on a pair of jeans, then took her by the hand and led her through the hallway. Downstairs he breathed a sigh of relief that the two thugs had already been taken away and introduced her to Officer Callahan.

  "I was here the other night," he said to Dahlia after she sat down at the kitchen table. He nodded toward Jack. "Do you live here, too?"

  "He's visiting," Dahlia said. "He's on leave."

  "Where are you stationed, sir?"

  "Fort Benning."

  "Georgia." He took off his hat and resettled it on his head. "It's going to be hot there within another month."

  "Yeah."

  "Tell me what happened here," Callahan said.

  It was another hour before the police were finished asking Dahlia and Jack questions. Every single one left Dahlia feeling more and more out of control.

  After Richard left three years ago, she had written out a detailed plan of how her life was going to be. Buy a house that was hers alone. Stand on her own two feet without asking her parents or anyone else for help. Work her plan for having her own grants and becoming a full professor.

  No more being out of control. Despite the vow, here she was again. To be sure the circumstances were different, but the feeling was exactly the same.

  These guys had broken into her home. And what did she do about it? Stand around and wring her hands and wait for Jack to take care of things.

  As if realizing how close to the end of her rope she was, Jack sat her down on the couch and put a glass of water in her hands. He sat at the kitchen table with Callahan.

  As she listened to Jack relate the events of the past several days, cleanly and precisely, she kept remembering the sounds of the attack. The crack of his fist against the guy's jaw, the muffled thump when he hit the man's stomach. Worse was remembering his expression when she came to the doorway and he looked up at her. His eyes blazed, and there was something so deadly in his expression that she didn't dare think about it. What kind of man was he?

  She hadn't just wanted him in her bed, she would have begged for him to be there. His big hands had been so gentle on her body, taking her to heights she'd never reached before. And those same hands had efficiently beaten three men. He knew where to hit and just how hard.

  She shuddered.

  "Dahlia?"

  She looked up and found Jack standing over her, looking impossibly large. The officer, she realized, was gone, and Jack had closed the sliding glass door.

  She stood up, tightening the belt of her robe.

  "They aren't going to be back."

  "I know."

  "We've got three of them."

  "Maybe the other guy will give up." Even as she said the words, she didn't believe it. Lily would have, though.

  Dahlia stared at Jack, wondering what advice her oldest sister would have about this man. Lily would be telling her that Jack was a good man, to be sure. Since she always saw the best in others, she'd also had the same opinion about Brandon, then Richard. Lily genuinely didn't understand how one of them could have cheated on her and the other stolen from her. Dahlia was sure that her sister had grieved more for Brandon after his death than she herself had.

  Jack took a step forward and slowly folded his arms around her. "We've done okay so far."

  "You've done okay," she corrected. "As for me—I haven't done a damn thing."

  "You sound mad," he said.

  Closer to tears than she wanted to admit, she stepped from his embrace. "Of course I'm mad. These guys break into my house, not once but twice. Some other guy follows us around, and let's face it. If you hadn't been with me I'd be … I'd be—"

  "You sell yourself short," he said.

  "And the alarm—"

  "Never went off." With a scowl he went to the alarm panel.

  "This damn thing is still set," he said, stalking toward one of the windows. As soon as he opened it, the beep-beep that warned the alarm was breached sounded. "Disarm it, will you, please."

  She went to the panel and punched in the code to turn off the alarm.

  "Do you remember if it beeped when we came into the house tonight?"

  She stared at the panel trying to remember. The phone had been ringing. But had the alarm been beeping? "I don't honestly remember," she said.

  "He's good." Jack pulled the contact off the door frame.

  "Who?"

  "I'm betting Mr. Pale Eyes did this. I'm betting it's been shorted out just like the other one."

  "What other one?" Dahli
a wanted to know.

  Jack continued as though he hadn't heard her. "These guys tonight—they're strictly muscle." He met her glance. "Yesterday, when we came back from Emmet's house, the contact on the basement window by the washing machine had been shorted out. I might not even have looked at it if the window hadn't had a crack in it."

  "You noticed a crack? And you didn't tell me about it?" She tried to imagine the window, and she couldn't have honestly said whether it was cracked or not.

  "I didn't want to worry you. Besides, I replaced the contact."

  "And look where that got us." She folded her arms over her chest.

  "Okay. You're right. I didn't check the others, and I should have." He scowled again. "Stupid."

  She took the contact from him. "You're telling me that someone can short these out and get into my house without the alarm going off."

  "With the right sophisticated equipment, yeah."

  "Great. All that money and time, and the system doesn't work."

  "It works," Jack said. "Against the kind of riffraff who are likely to break into your house, it works." He came toward her, his eyes very serious. "I'm sorry they got in, sugar. They shouldn't have."

  His apology disarmed her. "No, they shouldn't have." She met his gaze and gave the contact back to him. "So now what? Do you have any more parts—can you fix this? Or maybe we should just forget the electronics and go for something obvious, like boiling oil that would dump on him when he comes through the door."

  "If sugar, not 'when.'" His mouth kicked up in that lopsided smile that she was beginning to love. "Boiling oil—I would have never figured you for bloodthirsty."

  "Seriously."

  "Seriously, I've got one or two tricks up my sleeves yet."

  She made a point of looking at his bare chest. "If you had sleeves, I might be more reassured."

  He closed the gap between them and picked her up off her feet and slowly whirled her around. "Want to help me for about a half hour?"

  She nodded, thrilled and surprised that he'd been able to pick her up, especially as she remembered he'd been limping again.

  He let her slide down the length of his body. His cheek rested against hers, his breath warm against her ear. "When we're finished, want to make love with me again?"