Her Lone Protector

by Pam Crooks

  Firing up his blood.

  Her arms lifted, wrapped around his neck. Creed fisted his hand in her hair. Angled his head. Hardened the kiss. He craved more, the taste of her only the beginning. Her mouth opened under his, allowing him the sweet delights waiting for him inside.

  Her breathing turned ragged, the passion in her building. Matching his. He craved still more, and his hand left her thick mane to splay down her back, pulling her closer, wanting to absorb her into him.

  Man into woman.

  Her nightgown was a thin barrier to the pleasures of her body. His palm dragged along the curve of her hip, the dip that formed her waist, upward to her breast….

  And the fire raged hotter.

  His fingers flexed around the full, pliant globe. Pure, delicious female, this Gina Briganti. She quivered, and a shredded little moan left her throat. Damned if she didn’t have him all but aching and desperate at the sound of it.

  He reached down to her thigh and grasped her gown to pull it up. Unexpectedly, her hand flew to his and stopped him before he could.

  “Please,” she said in a jagged whisper.

  He needed a moment to drag himself out of the flaming lust…

  “I cannot,” she whispered and pushed against him.

  …the reality of what she denied him. His head lifted, his ardor cooling fast.

  “Gina,” he said, his voice husky, her name suspiciously on the brink of a plea.

  “The price you charge me, it is too much,” she said and pressed her fingers to his mouth, stopping the kisses. An attempt to regain the composure she’d all but lost. To be strong enough for both of them.

  In the shadowy moonlight, he glimpsed her lips, wet and swollen from the ravaging he’d given them. The passion and desire still on her face.

  He’d expected more than he should have. Wanted more than she was ready to give. She was too vulnerable yet. Her world fragile. And what right did he have to plow his way into it?

  “Okay.” Reluctantly, he drew back. “Sure.” His palm rested on her belly, flat and smooth, his restraint admirable as he kept himself from fondling those luscious breasts only a short trip farther up. “But you’d best know I’m going to keep on protecting you. The price won’t be paid in full for a while yet. I’ll wait as long as it takes until it is.”

  It’d been part of his success as a mercenary. Being ruthless and patient. Waiting until the precise moment. Then making his move. Taking what he wanted.

  And he wanted her. She was worth waiting for. He couldn’t scare her away, not when she’d begun to mean something to him.

  “It is time for me to go inside,” she said and lifted the edge of the blanket to rise.

  He nudged it back down again. “Stay with me, Gina.”

  “Sleep with you?” She appeared surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “I swear it.”

  Her lips softened knowingly. “I do not think you will let me do such a thing.”

  “Try me. I’m lonely out here.”

  She laughed again, and something moved inside his chest, something deep and warm. Her amusement faded, and she touched his cheek gently. “I think I will be lonely on the cot, too. So I will stay with you. But only if you do not—how do you say?—charge me too much.”

  He grinned like an idiot at his victory. “Fair enough.”

  She rolled over, then, as easy as that, wiggled a bit backward, fitting her bottom casually to his groin, like it was meant to be there.

  He pulled her closer. The scent of her hair surrounded him. The warmth of her body. The prospect of being with her the whole night through, especially.

  For now, it was enough.

  Creed sipped his coffee in the shade of the line shack and watched her sleep. The morning sun kept her relaxed and comfortable under the blankets without him.

  She was a snuggler, for sure. A female tangle of arms and legs. She was born to spend her nights with a man. Curl herself around him without even knowing she did. Give him pleasure from it, too.

  Contentment.

  He stared down into his brew. Trouble was, he couldn’t feel content about anything right now, including a woman. Gina. Time was ticking. Once the Sokolovs were captured, he’d be heading off America’s shores. South, most likely. It was inevitable he’d have to leave her behind.

  But it was going to be hard.

  Real hard.

  He couldn’t give her anything more than a brief, passionate affair. A lusty roll in the sheets. Hadn’t the desire he barely held in check last night proved he’d wanted that very thing?

  He would’ve taken her if she’d let him.

  Good thing she hadn’t. She would’ve only been hurt by him in the end.

  After the horrors of the past days, she deserved happiness and stability in her life with a man she could depend on to be right beside her. Every day. And night. Forever.

  It wouldn’t be him.

  He was a soldier. He had to leave, to fight, no matter how much he’d miss her. He wanted to go. It was who he was.

  So why did he feel like a part of himself would stay behind with her?

  Grimly, he shook off the melancholy. Wasn’t like him to feel like this. He reminded himself he had a job to do, the next step of it being a ride into Los Angeles. And the morning had already crept too far past dawn.

  Determined to be more focused on the battle he had to fight, he strode into the shack and refilled his cup. He did the same with a second and brought them both outside.

  He hunkered beside Gina, making sure his shadow shielded her. He’d learned she was slow to start her day without coffee to get her going first. Waking to bright sun wouldn’t make it any easier.

  She stirred, then rolled away from him, covering her face with the blanket. His mouth curved; he set one of the cups down, reached over and pulled the blanket back down again.

  “Hey, Gina,” he said.

  One dark-lashed eye peeped at him. “You are up already?”

  Her voice sounded husky, slumberous. Stirred his blood hearing it. Bothered him, too, that another man someday would have the privilege of hearing her like this every morning of his life.

  “For a while now. Here.”

  She glanced at the brew, sat up, arranged the blanket over her lap. He handed her the cup.

  “Thank you,” she murmured and sipped.

  “You’re welcome.”

  His gaze riveted on her. The way she looked all tousled from sleep.

  She drew her knees up and tilted her face into the sun. Her expression turned so pensive, Creed had to find out why.

  “What do you see up there?” he asked.

  “I see the new day.” She pulled her gaze back to him. “When I first open my eyes, it is there. On my skin.”

  He recalled her dreary apartment, the lone front window she valued so much. He thought, too, of how dark her bedroom at the back would always be without one. And how he’d always taken something as simple, as basic, as a bright morning sun for granted all his life.

  “Have you never slept outside?” he asked.

  Her gaze held his, soft and alluring. “Not with a man before.”

  A peculiar satisfaction settled over him at that. “Ever?”

  “A few times, yes, when I am a young girl. In my Aunt Rosa’s yard in Sicily.” She smiled at the memory. “My cousins and I think it is an adventure.”

  An adventure. So many times for Creed, it’d been a necessity, when he’d been on the move, hunting for an enemy. Or on the run from one.

  Her smile faded. She stared into the black liquid in her cup. “I had another visione last night, Creed.”

  “Did you?” he asked, curious in spite of himself.

  “Again, my mother is in a dark place. I cannot see her face, but I know she is there. I hear her crying, and my heart, it breaks. She tells me she is afraid for me. She tells me again of the evil.” Gina lifted the cup to her lips but didn’t drink. “I believe she war
ns me about Nikolai. And because she helps me believe this, I know she is alive.”

  Creed fell silent. Real easy for her to get caught up in her visions and interpret them against what was happening in her life. Made sense she’d think the evil applied to the Russian brothers, too. They were trouble all right.

  If nothing else, the dreams gave her comfort in a peculiar sort of way. They helped her get through the worry about her mother, and who was he to tell her anything different?

  She seemed to pull herself from her reverie, and her brows furrowed. “What day is it? Monday?”

  “Yes.”

  “It is strange I am not at the factory. Every Monday, I am there.”

  “Yes.” Given her routine existence, he knew she would have been.

  Her expression grew troubled. “I must go back into the city.” She tossed aside the blanket, careful not to spill her coffee. “I should have been ready to go there by now.”

  Creed braced himself. “I want you to stay out here.”

  A tempest brewed in the depths of her eyes. “No.”

  “It’s not safe for you to go back.”

  She made a negating gesture. “Maybe my mother is found by now. Maybe there is word about her.”

  “If there is, I’ll hear it. And I’ll tell you.”

  “What? You?” She stood, her coffee forgotten, her nightgown rumpled, her dismay building. “You go into the city, and you do not want to take me with you?”

  “That’s right.”

  Aghast, she pressed a hand to her breast. “I am her daughter. I should be there.”

  “Under different circumstances, yes.”

  “Then I go without you.”

  “Damn it, Gina!” He tossed aside his coffee and stood, too.

  “I should be keeping vigil for her. Serafina, Sebastian, they will all be shocked I am here with you instead.”

  “Well, they don’t have a bunch of lunatics after them, do they? Have you forgotten what happened last night? Every man who was in that warehouse office knows your name. They know you’re a seamstress from Premier. And you know they’re plotting to assassinate the president. You think any of them will have any trouble tracking you down to keep you from talking?”

  Her teeth sank into her bottom lip.

  “What good would you be to your mother dead?” he persisted, his tone quieter but no less fierce.

  “I do not want to stay here and do nothing. Maybe she needs me somewhere.”

  He stepped toward her, hooked an arm around her neck and pulled her roughly to him. “I know. But you’ll just have to trust me to do what I can for you alone.”

  Her arms curled around his waist and to his back; her forehead dropped to his chest. “How long will you be gone?”

  “The afternoon. No later.” He hoped.

  “You will talk to Graham? Tell him what we know?”

  “Yes. First thing. I’ll go to the infirmary to see if there’s news about your mother right after. I promise.”

  For a long moment, she didn’t say anything, taking the time she needed to convince herself. “Then I hold your promise in my heart.” She pushed away and squared her shoulders. “I can make a soup for us while you are gone.”

  “Good.” He slid a finger under her chin, tilted it up slightly, making sure he had her full attention. “But if you take off after me like you did last night, I swear I’ll find you again, and you’ll be damn sorry when I do. You hear me?”

  She rolled her eyes. “How can I not? You almost shout at me.”

  He grunted. She had no idea what he could do. He’d track her down or die trying.

  He headed toward the palomino, already saddled and ready to ride. He mounted up, but his worry lay in the bay, tethered in the lean-to. Free for the taking.

  And he gritted his teeth with the hope Gina and the horse were still there when he came back.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It didn’t take Gina long to freshen up, change back into her good Sunday dress and tidy up the line shack. After a light breakfast of bread and canned peaches, the day stretched ahead of her with little to do but wait for Creed to return, and the hours seemed like forever.

  She was unaccustomed to having so much idle time. Always, it was important to work, all day every day, week after week, to make the money she needed.

  And to save for her dream. The most important thing of all.

  Had it all been for nothing?

  Again, the fears came and churned in her stomach. The haunting knowledge of the deplorable life she’d have without Mama and their menial jobs at the factory. Would it be worth living?

  Her gaze snagged on her sketches, lying neatly on the cot. They were all she had to keep herself from drowning in worry and despair, and tendrils of hope, of renewed determination, budded inside her. She clung to the hope and refused to let go. Until she found her mother again, as her visione promised, her designs would keep her from going crazy.

  She must keep her dream alive. She couldn’t give up, not now when she needed more than ever before to be strong, focused, and, resolutely, she took her sketches and went outside.

  She settled herself on the blanket still spread on the grass and busied herself with putting the finishing touches on her newest design, an elaborate tea gown in la maison Rouff style, newly popular in Paris.

  It was Gina’s favorite. She envisioned it made of the most expensive of fabrics, peau de soie perhaps, in a shade of old-rose and brocaded with delicate pink and blue flowers. The sleeves, luxuriously shirred, fuller at the shoulders, and the skirt split to boast of an apron of crisp pink mousseline de soie. She penciled in a large bow on the left waist, which would be in blue, trailing the ends clear to the skirt’s hems.

  Elegant. Glorious.

  A woman couldn’t help but feel beautiful wearing such a creation, she mused, darkening the edges of a row of small ruffles with the tip of her pencil, the black satin which would be sewn on as a finishing touch. Regal and pampered, too.

  Slowly, her coloring strokes halted. She studied the design again, the extravagance of it.

  Creed had made her feel beautiful when she wore something not nearly as special—the dress she wore now. Her navy one with its simple little flowers.

  The dress of a seamstress, that was all.

  She remembered the look in his tawny-brown eyes when he first saw her in it, as she rushed to get ready for Mass. They had smoldered, warmed her blood like hot whiskey, and she had known.

  For him, an expensive tea gown didn’t matter.

  Gina’s spine straightened. For her, though, it did. The gown would make her someone special. No longer a poor Italian immigrant, but a success with her designs in her very own dress shop. With them, in time, she would profit in America.

  She refused to be poor forever. Her pencil resumed its shading with more purpose, but her mind continued to think of him, and soon, her pencil slowed again.

  Not only did he warm her blood with his eyes, he warmed her with his kisses, too.

  Her fingers touched her lips, and a fluttering began, deep in her belly. Last night, his mouth had been both rough and gentle. Thorough and intoxicating. A man’s passion, meant to seduce a woman.

  He had almost succeeded.

  How she’d managed to stop him, she didn’t know. But she couldn’t allow him to sweep her away, to steal her heart and body, only to carelessly toss her aside when he was through.

  In that, she must be strong. He lived the exciting, dangerous life of a soldier of the world. A mercenary. He claimed to want to retire, but how could he ever be happy settling down in one place?

  And certainly not with a boring factory worker, like her.

  He would never stay. This she knew for sure. His government, the War Department he revered, needed him too much.

  Her concentration lost, she set aside her pencil and sketch with a bemused sigh. Compelled by an inner need to be soothed by the peace of the land around her, she rested her chin on her knees.

  He
r gaze dallied along the horizon. The Santa Monica Mountains towered over the city with their majestic tips whitened from snow. Lower, the chaparral with its pines and brushes. At their foot, the sprawling rangeland of the Sherman ranch, alive with its oak woodlands and range grasses and wildlife, too many for Gina to name. All of it, open and free.

  With not a single dingy tenement in sight.

  How easy it would be to live here. To thrive and be happy. How could Creed want to leave such a place behind? His home, cut out from his life. Did he not know how fortunate he was to have such a legacy?

  She couldn’t understand, and the sadness swept through her. She had nothing so valuable, not since she left Sicily, and why should it bother her what he had and didn’t want?

  She stood up. She had to stop these restless thoughts. The self-pity. It wasn’t up to her to decide what Creed should want and not want, and it was only because he left her alone with so much time on her hands that she tortured herself from thinking about it.

  She strode into the shack. Better to busy herself with the Stracciatella, the simple soup of her people, and one Mama had made many times. Gina chopped the last of the veal cutlets into chunks and added them to the broth. The soup would be a hearty lunch for them.

  And making it would keep her from thinking so much.

  She had just finished spooning semolina into an egg and parmesan cheese mixture when she heard the leisurely staccato of a horse’s hooves. Her head lifted in surprise.

  Creed had returned already?

  Quickly, she beat the thickening mixture until it was the right consistency, then stirred the mix into the boiling broth. All the while, her pulse sang with anticipation from seeing him again, hopefully with news about her mother.

  Leaving the pot simmering, she hurried to the shaving mirror he’d left on the table. The glass showed her cheeks flushed from the stove’s fire, and she fanned them as best she could. A quick check of her hair showed her pins intact, at least. She rushed to the door and flung it open.

  But it wasn’t Creed’s palomino outside, reins dragging. And it wasn’t him striding in her direction, either, with a puzzled stare at the blankets and sketches she’d left on the ground.