Her Lone Protector

by Pam Crooks

  “You should’ve trusted me to take care of the Sokolovs without you,” he said.

  Unexpected emotion pushed into her throat. The risks he’d taken for the justice she craved. “Why should I let you?”

  “Because you had no idea what you were doing. I did.”

  “Louisa Briganti is my mother. Not yours. I do not believe you can care about her as much as I do.”

  A storm gathered in his eyes, darkening their depths like burnt almonds, reminding her of the groves that grew them in her beloved Sicily.

  “You think I wouldn’t have done the same for my own mother?” he grated.

  She tried to imagine him as a loving son. She tried to imagine the woman who gave birth to him, too, and raised him from a small boy into full-fledged manhood. His mother would’ve helped shape his ideals, his strengths, the honor so much a part of him.

  Yet he warred with his father, clearly a man with ethics, who worked hard to build a ranch this size, too huge to see in one day. A great accomplishment in itself. A man who had different dreams than his son about who he should be.

  Gina knew these things only by the words Creed didn’t say. The resentment he wasn’t always able to hide.

  “I would have.” He stepped back, as if offended she might think otherwise. “If it was the last thing I ever did for her.”

  “Yes.” In the small confines of the little shack, her voice was hushed, subdued. She contemplated him, his family, his life, and the curiosity unleashed in torrents inside her. “Who are you, Creed?”

  His hard gaze held hers, as if he probed into her reasons for asking. “Maybe you shouldn’t know.”

  “Maybe I should.”

  A muscle moved in his jaw. Eventually, he nodded. “All right. I’ll show you.”

  He took the pocket pistol from where she’d laid it on the cot and put it on the table, next to his disguise. Beside it, stretched out full length, he laid his holster, displaying two Smith and Wesson revolvers. He added the Remington rifle, several boxes of cartridges, the wide-bladed knife, a switchblade, a set of nickeled handcuffs and brass knuckles.

  The lantern light glinted over all of it. His personal armory of deadly weapons. And the blood pounded heavier in her veins.

  “That’s who I am, Gina,” he said.

  Her stare lifted. She was almost afraid to ask. “Are you with the police?”

  “No.”

  Her dread deepened. “Someone in the Mafioso? Or—”

  “Nothing like that.”

  She believed him and felt a little better. “You are with the American government.” The memory came back, the reason Graham Dooling needed him. “A soldier.”

  “More than a soldier, Gina. A mercenary.”

  Her fingers pressed against her lips from what that might entail. “Oh.”

  “I work for the War Department. They hire me to do what ordinary soldiers can’t.” He paused. “Or won’t.”

  “I do not know what you mean.”

  “I have skills you don’t even want to know about.”

  “To protect the United States.”

  “Very good.” He gave her a cold smile.

  She needed a moment to absorb it all.

  “I’ve fought on foreign soil to protect the freedoms you use every day, Gina. I work undercover to collect intelligence for the War Department. They think no price is too high to pay for my services.” One broad shoulder lifted in a careless shrug. “I’m that good.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  He regarded her, as if he wondered if she really did. “I planned to retire. Lead a normal, civilian life. That’s why I came back to California.”

  She recalled his elaborate disguise for Nikolai, his skill in infiltrating the secret anarchist meeting.

  “But you do not retire yet,” she said.

  His gaze remained on her; the air between them shifted. “I met you and my plans changed.”

  “I think it is Graham Dooling who changes your plans,” she said quietly. “Not me.”

  “Let me explain something to you.” He spoke in a low, rough tone in deference to the confidence he was about to share. “Graham works for the Secret Service. It’s part of his job to keep the president of the United States safe. The War Department ordered Graham to contact me to help him protect McKinley when he arrived. Originally, I told him no.”

  The words rolled through her. Creed’s importance, the power he held in the eyes of his government. Their respect for him.

  Their need.

  And yet he’d chosen not to protect the most important man in the country?

  “Like I said, I had plans of my own,” he said, as if he read her confusion and understood it. “I’d intended to leave America to fight abroad. But after I saw how much you and scores of others were hurt from the fire, I knew I had to hold the Sokolovs accountable. I delayed my plans to leave. I couldn’t walk away.”

  Instead, he’d risked his life, again and again, for her. For everyone. The realization moved her.

  “Until Nikolai announced the news at his meeting tonight, President McKinley’s trip here was top-secret information,” he continued. “But whoever informed Nikolai committed a serious breach of confidentiality. In the mind of the military, Gina, the brothers and their informant are guilty of treason for planning to assassinate McKinley. Their behavior is inexcusable.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly.

  “It can’t be tolerated.”

  She drew in a slow breath. “No.”

  “If necessary, I’ll kill them.”

  She let it out again with a shudder. “Oh, Creed.”

  “Does that scare you about me?” he asked.

  “I think it does.”

  “Don’t let it.” He took a step toward her. “I’d never hurt you.”

  A few more steps, and he was right there. In front of her. He terrified her and excited her, all at the same time.

  “Nikolai will hide until the day McKinley arrives,” he said. “Then he’ll show up with guns blazing. By then, it could be too late.”

  “I hope you are wrong.” She prayed he was.

  “I’m not. That’s why I have to find him. I have to keep him and the rest of his band of fanatics from assassinating our president.” He reached out a long, muscled arm and knuckled her chin upward. His whiskey-colored eyes smoldered over her. “And I have to keep him from hurting you.”

  Her world tilted from his nearness and all he’d told her. The implications of what she’d done—the regret from it, most of all.

  “Do you understand, Gina?” he asked.

  “Everything you make very clear, yes.”

  “Hell of a predicament you’ve gotten yourself in, isn’t it?” he murmured. His fingers, slow and sure, slid under her hair to curl around the back of her neck. “Nikolai wanting revenge on you.”

  His tawny gaze held hers. She couldn’t look away from him if she tried. Which she didn’t. “It is not a good thing, no.”

  “You need my protection, for sure. He’ll kill you if he finds you.” His glance drifted downward, unhurried and male, and settled over her mouth. “Should I exact a price from you for my services?”

  Warmth pooled deep in her belly from the game he played. A strategy meant to entice a woman.

  And if she wasn’t very careful, he would win.

  “Only if it is one I think I can pay,” she said, her tone amazingly cool.

  “You can. Rather well, I suspect.”

  The heat in his eyes was like a caress that lingered on her skin. She craved more. Only the fear of what she would lose kept her from it.

  “But I am only a poor Italian immigrant,” she said, her tone demure. “I have little to give, so the price, it must be one I can afford.”

  “I’m sure we can come up with something…beneficial for both of us.”

  It was all she could do to continue his ploy without giving him the advantage. “I have learned not to make the bargain until it feels right—” she laid a hand over he
r breast “—in my heart.”

  A faint layer of surprise flickered over his shadowed features. After a moment, he inclined his head, giving her the win, after all.

  “I’m a patient man, Gina.” He released her and stepped back, robbing her of his warmth, the awareness that came with having his body close to hers. “Get some sleep. You’ve had a hell of a day.”

  She breathed a little easier at the reprieve he’d given her. “So have you.”

  “I’ve had worse. Believe me.”

  A few steps took him to the table. He repacked his weapons into the saddlebag, keeping their ugliness from her. The reminder of who he was.

  Her glance trailed over him. The shape of his strong body. How his shoulders tapered to a narrow waist. The sun-bronzed skin stretched lean and sinewy across his broad frame. The muscle that rippled with every movement he made.

  His power.

  Pure, unadulterated male, this Creed Sherman. He would know the ways to make a woman appreciate being female.

  What would it be like to be kissed by him?

  He turned back to her and caught her staring. He knew what she was thinking, of course. He had cleverly manipulated her so she would. He pushed his arms into his shirt, giving her a glimpse of the dark thatch of hair under each.

  “Damn shame the cot’s not big enough for both of us, isn’t it?” he asked.

  Her pulse leaped. “It is a good thing it is not.”

  His mouth curved. He found his bedroll and headed toward the door. “I’ll be outside if you change your mind.”

  Giving her a final, lingering glance, he left.

  She stared at the closed door.

  Not only kissed, but to make love with him, too?

  She sighed….

  And chastised herself for thinking of him in ways that could never be. He’d told her he wouldn’t be in America much longer. Days, if that. Only until President McKinley no longer needed his protection and the Sokolovs were captured.

  She had to barricade her fickle heart against her attraction to him, and she forced her thoughts down a different road.

  Obviously, being a mercenary had accustomed Creed to sleeping outdoors. Still, the night was chilly, and a guilty worry niggled at her while she changed her dress for her nightgown, unpinned her hair and gave her face and teeth a thorough wash. After dousing the lantern, she tugged the cot’s wool blanket free from the mattress and climbed beneath it, then settled against the lumpy pad and thin pillow to get comfortable.

  In the silence of the darkness, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Outside and alone.

  Or that she would never forget him, no matter what happened with Nikolai.

  Gina shifted to her side, and the mattress crackled. A few hours ago, she was sure she’d done the right thing confronting the Russian with a weapon in her hand, vengeful enough to use it.

  Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  Creed had every right to be angry with her. If not for him, she’d be dead right now, felled by Nikolai’s gun. If Graham hadn’t asked Creed to change his plans, convinced him he was needed here in Los Angeles, he could’ve been anywhere in the world tonight. Wherever the War Department needed him to be.

  Instead, Creed chose to stay with her. To protect her from Nikolai.

  She owed him for that. Just like he said she did.

  Resolutely, Gina got off the cot and pulled the blanket with her. Hardly noticing the cold against her bare feet, she flung the covering around her shoulders, opened the door and stepped outside.

  Chapter Fourteen

  He heard the faint creak of the hinges, and he went still.

  Her feet padded closer, then halted beside him. Anticipation erupted within Creed. The satisfaction from why she’d come.

  He glanced up. Starlight glinted on her hair, a halo of sable silk flowing down her shoulders. She stood over him, swathed in a blanket, slender and beautiful.

  She said nothing, did nothing. He sensed her uncertainty, her unwillingness to make the first move.

  Coming out had been enough. He’d take it from here.

  He threw back half his blanket. Her hesitation seemed to melt, like morning dew under a hot sun. She unswathed herself from the wool and draped it over him, adding it to his own.

  She came to him, then, Venus herself, unfolding her body to lie beside his. He covered her up to her neck, but already her warmth soaked into him. He raised himself up on his elbow to see her better. And waited.

  A moment passed. Her head swiveled toward him. “I come because of what we talk about tonight.”

  His manhood stirred. So did his imagination of how her lips would taste against his. “The fee for my services.”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re ready to haggle a price?” he asked, hopeful.

  “Not yet.”

  He forced himself to be patient. “What then?”

  “I come out to tell you I am sorry.”

  “For what?” he asked, making her say it.

  She tore her glance away. “I should have listened to you and not go to the anarchist meeting.”

  He grunted. Cost her some pride to admit it, he knew. The apology she refused to give earlier.

  “If I have a disguise as clever as yours, then Nikolai would not know me, and I would not have made the mistake.” She bit her lip. “Now it is done and I cannot change it.”

  “We’re stuck with the consequences, aren’t we?” he said, not giving her an inch on it.

  “Yes.” She stared up at the stars. “And I cannot shoot Nikolai in cold blood.”

  “Things would’ve turned ugly if you had.”

  As it was, he’d barely had time to get her out of there before both of them were shot for their trouble.

  “Yes,” she admitted.

  “You could’ve been thrown in jail, and then what would you have done?”

  Or him, for that matter, besides go crazy with worry? Would’ve taken some legal wrangling to get her out again, for sure.

  “I think of those things, yes.”

  So had he. Over and over.

  She shifted to her side, rustling the blankets to face him, their bodies a feather’s breadth apart. Embers stirred, deep in his groin, the desire to feel her pressed full against him. Soon, he hoped, he would.

  “But now we know the brothers plan to kill the president. They are guilty of two things,” she said.

  He nodded. “Arson and an assassination plot. Both of them are damned serious crimes.”

  “I want to help you arrest them.”

  He refrained from explaining he was a soldier, not a policeman, and that she had no business trying to arrest anyone.

  “They’ll get their justice due them,” he said. “As soon as possible.” His mind sifted through the judicial process. The solid evidence they’d need for a jury to convict the brothers for either vindictive act. Evidence he lacked. “But not yet.”

  “When?” she asked.

  “Right now, it’s their word against ours. I’m going to make sure we have everything we need to throw them in prison a long time.”

  “I am a witness for you. Is that not enough?”

  “No. There’s more to their plotting, Gina. I have to dig deeper to find it.”

  He could feel her disappointment. He laid his thumb against her lips and traced their shape, one side to the other, coaxing away the pout, learning their fullness. Liking it.

  “About the only good thing that happened tonight is that we gleaned some valuable information,” he said. “I’ll pass along every piece to Graham first thing tomorrow. He’ll want to get some safeguards in place before McKinley’s arrival.” Creed was reluctant to open a window into the twisted minds of fanatics, but there was no help for it. Under the circumstances, she needed to understand. “Nikolai is working with someone in Washington. Someone on the inside. I have to find out who he is. McKinley won’t be safe until I do.”

  She made a little anxious sound with her tongue. “It is my fault the brother
s hide and you cannot find them in time to get this information.”

  “Gina.” He rolled to his back and brought her with him, settling her on top of him, her body soft and supple through her nightgown. “We’ve discussed it enough. What happened tonight, happened. Worrying about it isn’t going to change a thing.”

  “Maybe this is true.” Her body relaxed into his. She stacked her hands on his chest, rested her chin on them.

  “Main thing is you didn’t get hurt. I aim to see that you don’t. Ever. Same with the president.”

  “I know.”

  “So from here on out, let me take care of the Sokolovs. I’ll take care of you, too.”

  “I do what I can to help you,” she said firmly.

  Like hell she would.

  But he kept his mouth shut. Her stubborn pride would only fight him on it.

  Then, while his mind was furthest from it, she cupped his face between her hands, lowered her head and touched her lips to his.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  The kiss was over before he’d had a chance to know it was coming, much less enjoy it. She slipped off him, but Creed switched their positions and pinned her beneath him.

  “You want to kiss me?” he demanded gruffly. “Then you’ll do it proper. The price for my protection, remember?”

  Startled laughter erupted from her. “I only want to thank you for all you must do for me and my mother, the president and for everyone in America. You do not like the payment I offer?”

  “I’m charging you the full amount, woman. Not a penny less.”

  It’d been a long time since he kissed a woman. A noble and incredibly stupid decision to save his affections for Mary Catherine, since he was planning to marry her and all.

  And what a waste that proved to be.

  He had some catching up to do, and there wasn’t a finer, more desirable woman than the one he had right here, sharing the blankets with him.

  “So kiss me again,” he growled. “And do it right this time.”

  He took her mouth before she could barter with him further, and the need in him grew needier as the kiss lengthened. A hunger that swept through him, consuming his every thought. Holding him prisoner.