When Love Intrudes (When the Mission Ends)

by Christi Snow

  With shaking hands, she finally got her own door unlocked. As soon as she entered, she turned and dead bolted it behind her. Sam, her chocolate Labrador retriever, met her at the door, his tail wagging. She wished she’d taken him with her on her run. Then those jerks would have thought twice about bothering her, but he’d had surgery on his hip three weeks before and she didn’t want to tax it yet. Reaching down, she settled her shaking hands into the thick coat at his neck, letting his presence settle her.

  “It’s okay, isn’t it, boy?” she murmured into his ear.

  He whined low, sensing her distress.

  She took another deep breath and steeled her spine. Pull it together, Toni. You can handle this.

  First thing, she needed to find her cell phone and make sure Nathan was okay. Where the hell did she leave it? She glanced frantically around her messy apartment. See, this is why she should put things away, so she could find them in an emergency. Scattering the piles of papers and books, she finally spotted it buried under the pile of mail on the counter. And dammit, there was her pepper spray, too. She had to get more organized.

  Her fingers shook as she found her contacts and scrolled through, locating Nathan’s number. Wrapping an arm around her stomach, she paced and listened to it ring. Sam followed right on her heels, obviously feeling protective.

  As she listened to the ring through her cell, she heard a ring on the other side of the wall, the wall she shared with Nathan. His phone was in his apartment. Damn, where could he be?

  Lost about what else to do, she called the police. She told them about the drunk and disorderly guys, the state of their clothes and hands, and that they drove off, obviously drunk. The dispatcher thanked her for her call, but said unless they were caught probably nothing would come of it. She also promised to have a police cruiser drive through the apartment complex to check things out.

  Toni hung up her cell phone and sank onto the couch, overwhelmed and shaky after the adrenaline overload. Where was Nathan? She looked down at her cell phone screen for a moment before dialing him again. When his voice mail picked up, she left him a message. “Nathan, it’s Toni. There were some rough looking guys at the apartments tonight and I just want to make sure you’re okay. Please call me when you get this. I know I’m probably over-reacting and you just forgot your phone when you went out, but call me, okay? I don’t care what time it is.”

  She sat there for a moment with her breath shuddering through her. Everything was fine now. There was absolutely no reason to freak out over this. Not all violence ended in death.

  But even as she told herself that, past visions of blood, gore, and violence swam through her brain, sharpening her panic.

  She thought about calling him, knowing he’d come to her rescue. The urge to hear his calm powerful voice was strong, but he’d made it clear she had no place in his life. He wasn’t an option. No, not going there again, not even in her mind.

  Jumping up from the couch, she frantically searched around her apartment for something to distract her. She couldn’t stay here immobilized by fear. Doing something productive would help.

  Finally her glance caught on a shirt hanging askew off the corner of her bed through her bedroom door. Laundry. She could do laundry. With a relieved sigh, she scooped up the dirty clothes into her basket, grabbing her pepper spray, phone, quarters, and detergent as she stepped out of her apartment.

  “I’ll be right back, Sam.” She awkwardly patted his head with the stuff tottering in her grasp.

  For a moment in the doorway, she hesitated, questioning whether she should leave the safety of her apartment, but she knew those bastards were gone. She’d watched them leave. She was strong again. She wasn’t going to let fear rule her life. Hopefully by now, the police had picked them up off the highway so they weren’t a menace to sober drivers.

  Determined, Toni squared her shoulders and pulled the door closed and locked behind her as she cocked her laundry basket on her hip. The bottle of pepper spray sat along the top edge, close to her hand-hold if she needed it quickly.

  The laundry room sat in a building by itself in the middle of the apartment complex. The nice thing about having no social life was it almost guaranteed Toni would have the entire place and could use as many washing machines as she wanted.

  As she entered the room, it was deserted just as she’d expected. It was also extremely dark which was odd. The lights in here were always on. As she fumbled along the wall for a light switch, her foot kicked something on the floor, something that moved and groaned. She dropped her laundry basket and screamed, clutching her pepper spray in front of her.

  Once the initial seconds of panic receded, she realized there was a person on the floor, one that sounded like he was in pain. Fumbling along the wall again, she frantically searched and found the light switch and flipped it on. Her heart sunk at the sight before her. That lock of brown hair, even matted with blood was familiar. Nathan, beaten and bloody, curled into a ball, his clothes ripped and torn. He didn’t even react to the light although he’d moaned when she kicked him so she knew he was at least alive. She dropped down to the floor beside him. His groan must have been a natural reaction because as she bent down to check on him, he was unconscious.

  Afraid to move him too much, because everything looked like it hurt, she lightly caressed his shoulder. “Hang on, Nathan. I’m gonna get help.”

  As she dialed 911, she looked him over, trying to categorize his injuries. There was some bleeding, but nothing that looked life threatening. But who knew what was happening internally from the amount of bruising she could already see on his arms and ribs where his shirt had ridden up. His clothes were ripped, his jeans pulled down. Oh God, they hadn’t raped him had they?

  His hands covered his face where he’d obviously tried to protect his head from the assault. Gently she pulled one of his hands aside and couldn’t stop her gasp. If she didn’t already know this was Nathan, she never would have recognized him with the swelling and bruising.

  Tears filled her eyes as he started to shiver, although she didn’t know if the shivering was a result of the pain or the cool fall evening air. She grabbed a towel out of her basket to cover and protect him.

  Finally after what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few seconds, a 911 dispatcher came on the line. Toni requested an ambulance and then quickly hung up as Nathan moaned again.

  She ran her hand through hair that normally hung in his eyes. “It’s okay, Nathan. You’re safe now and an ambulance is coming. You’re gonna be okay.”

  Suddenly he jerked up and away from her. The one eye he could get open darted around the room in terror as he scrambled away from her on the floor. The movement had to hurt as he immediately crumpled back to the floor moaning and curling into a ball.

  She followed him across the floor and gingerly touched his back in soothing motions. The single eye he could open was unfocused in his terror and pain. “Nathan, honey, it’s okay. It’s Toni, your neighbor. Hold still, hon, so you don’t hurt yourself anymore. I promise I’m not going to let anyone hurt you again.” She re-covered him as his entire body shuddered under the weight of his tears and pain.

  “Toni?” he questioned through raspy sobs which broke her heart.

  “Yeah, it’s me. It’s gonna be okay. Just hang with me okay until the ambulance gets here.”

  He gave a single nod, but then haltingly asked, “Don’t leave, okay?”

  She swallowed again against the unfairness of it all. “Of course, honey. I don’t know if they’ll let me ride in the ambulance, but I’ll follow in my car. Don’t worry. I’ll be there with you.” No one deserved this kind of treatment, but especially not Nathan. He was only seventeen years old and already his life had been filled with too many challenges and hardships. And the thing was, he was one of the greatest kids she’d ever met, always polite and friendly.

  They’d formed an unlikely alliance in the last few months as she nursed her broken heart and he’d learned to live
on his own after his father beat him up, kicked him out, and abandoned him. They’d learned to lean on each other.

  He watched her warily for a moment as if he expected her to abandon him, too. But then his eye shut and he sank back into unconsciousness. She felt for a pulse, just in case, beginning to panic about how long it was taking the ambulance to arrive.

  Finally, she heard the siren pulsing through the neighborhood. Leaning down, she whispered, “I’ll be right back. Let me go get the paramedics so they can get you taken care of. I’m not leaving you though.”

  She wouldn’t do that to him. She knew what it meant to be alone and scared, and she would make sure that this kid never had to suffer through that again.

  * * *

  Detective Brian Barnes strode down the hospital corridor, ignoring the tingle of dread spinning down his spine. After his gunshot wound five months ago, which left him short a kidney, he had a hard time entering the hospital. Too much time spent here and way too many horrible memories to keep him up at night. Unfortunately, too much of his time was spent here as part of his job with the police department investigating crimes. A job which he used to love and live for, but in the last five months had him questioning his entire life plan.

  All because of her.

  But he gave up his right to even think about her when he kicked her out of his life and made her face her own life. She’d never forgive him for that. Hell, he couldn’t forgive himself for that, but now wasn’t the time to worry about it. He had a case of assault to work on tonight. He’d been delayed by a rash of Friday night crimes, most of which were a waste of taxpayers’ money and his time, because the criminals would manage to get off. Some days it definitely felt like he was on the hamster wheel of life, with no hope of getting anywhere.

  It was close to one o’clock in the morning when he stepped into the kid’s room after talking to his doctors. According to them, Nathan Morrow was one very lucky kid. He’d sustained a broken arm, multiple cuts, bruises to both kidneys and several ribs, and a concussion. But besides mental damage, none of his injuries would have a permanent physical impact. There hadn’t been a sexual assault although it sounded as though they’d used a broom handle to threaten him with one, bruising him heavily with it.

  The hospital staff told him the kid only had his sister to help him and she was also a witness. While she hadn’t seen the assault, she could identify who’d perpetrated it. He hoped she had some good information for him so he could send the punks who’d done this to jail.

  The lights in the room were dimmed when he came in. The kid looked even worse than he’d expected, his face a mélange of red, purple, blue, and green bruising and swelling. Outrage on his behalf roiled through Brian’s gut. This is why he did this job, to get criminals off the street that preyed on others.

  At that moment the kid moaned in his sleep and a woman bolted out of the chair in the corner. He hadn’t even seen her sleeping there. As she quietly soothed the boy, she sensed his presence and looked up at him. He found himself once again drowning in the depths of those turquoise eyes which haunted his dreams, both day and night.

  Toni.

  Seeing her was like a blow to the gut. Thoughts about her still hurt, but seeing her completely out of the blue like this, after a long damn night, was almost too much.

  But wait a minute. She didn’t have a brother. What was she doing here with the assault victim?

  She scowled at him obviously not any happier to see him than she was the last time he’d seen her. But then her eyes had been filled with angry, heartbroken tears. If he lived to be one hundred years old, he hoped to never see that look in her eyes again.

  She glanced back at the bruised, wounded boy with a finger to her luscious lips. Lips he spent hours obsessing over in the dark of the night when sleep eluded him. She gently shoved him out the door, pulling it partway closed behind her so not to disturb the kid’s sleep.

  In the light of the hall, he got a better look at her. She must have come here from the gym, her long hair, silky smooth now, was pulled up into a high ponytail, lighter in color than it had been the last time he’d seen her. Lycra and spandex encased her amazing body from head to toe, the skin tight fabric emphasizing her luscious curves and made his cock stand up and take notice. Everything about her had always appealed to his cock, that traitorous bastard. That had been true even when he’d been critically ill and shouldn’t have even been able to get it up because of the enormous quantities of painkillers in his system.

  Her face was scrubbed clean of any sign of makeup, and he could see the lines of exhaustion and worry that marred it. Her normally glittering turquoise eyes appeared tortured with an unspoken pain and hurt. Right now, he wasn’t sure how much of that was because of their situation. But really, how egotistical was that? He hadn’t seen her in five months. The odds were good that she never even considered him anymore.

  So that left the question about how much of it was because of the boy who lay in that hospital bed? A boy who she claimed to be related to, although he knew for a fact he was no relation to her whatsoever.

  He didn’t realize he’d just been staring at her until she asked, “Are you in charge of Nathan’s case?”

  “Nathan Morrow, yes,” he said, referring to his notes. “I was also told that his sister was here with him.” He narrowed his eyes at her. “I’m assuming that’s you, although I know you don’t have a brother.”

  She bit her lip and glanced away. “I didn’t know he was my brother. I just found out about him.”

  Lie. He spent his days cross-examining criminals. Toni was no criminal and sure as hell didn’t have the skills needed to lie to him. He knew her too well for that to work. The question was why was she lying? Who was this kid to her? She didn’t need to take on the difficulties that would come with an underage kid in the mess this one currently found himself in.

  “Okay, you and I both know that’s not true. Tell me what’s going on here, Toni.”

  She sighed deeply. “He’s my neighbor and he doesn’t have anyone else to be with him. If I hadn’t told them I was his sister, they wouldn’t have let me stay with him. He’s only seventeen years old. His dad kicked him out of the house last year when he told him he was gay. Legally, he’s emancipated, but he’s still just a kid. I will not leave him to face this all alone. He’s scared and hurt and you cannot make me leave. I won’t do it, besides not even you can be that cruel.” Those gorgeous, imploring eyes looked up at him pleadingly and his heart twisted just a little bit more. “Don’t make me leave, Detective, please.”

  Detective. Once upon a time, he’d been Brian to her. She’d known him at his lowest of lows and he’d betrayed that. Now he was Detective and hated it even if it was his own fault.

  He rubbed a frustrated hand over his face, exhaustion pulling at him. “Toni, I won’t make you leave. I’m not heartless. I was told his sister,” he emphasized the word sister, “could identify the guys who did this. Is that you?”

  She nodded and then glanced back around the door to make sure the kid was still sleeping. “Do you want to do this here?” she asked. “He’s not sleeping very sound. They’ve sedated him, but he’s scared. I don’t want to leave him, but I don’t want to wake him up either.” She bit her lip, obviously worried and frazzled.

  He needed to finish up with her so she could get what little rest she could during the quieter night hours. “Yeah, give me the basic overview of what happened tonight. Then you can come in and give your official statement tomorrow morning.”

  He took notes in a small notebook in the hallway while she relayed the facts of the evening to him. When he realized how close she’d come to the same fate as that kid in the hospital room, he had to tamp down the urge to howl in rage. They already had suspects in custody. It would feel so good to go and interrogate them personally. With his fist. And his boot. And whatever foreign object was handy—if it was a broom handle, well then, all the better.

  Taking a deep breath, he struggled
for control to hide his rage. Toni didn’t need to know how protective she made him feel. Hell, she didn’t know how deeply she made him feel about absolutely everything. He needed to keep up his professional façade, solve this case, and get out while he still could.

  He closed his notepad as she finished talking. “Okay, Toni, we have the suspects in custody. Do you think you can come in this morning,” he glanced down at his watch, “say at around ten, and make your official statement as well as identify them in a line up?”

  Her eyes flew to his. “You already caught them?”

  Nodding, he gave her a slight smile. “You did well with the description of the car. They were arrested for drunk driving and resisting arrest. With your identification of them, we can add felony assault and possibly even attempted murder to those charges.”

  She glanced again at the door. “I don’t want to leave him alone. Let me call Julie in the morning and see if she can sit with him while I come in. Can I give you a call when I know for sure?”

  Julie had been the other innocent victim who’d been caught up in that mess with Pete. Brian was happy to hear their friendship had survived all the stress from that incident five months before. “Yeah, that’s fine. My number hasn’t changed. Do you still have it?”

  She hesitantly nodded, flushing red. He tried not to read too much into that blush, but he liked the thought that she’d purposefully kept his number even after the awful way they ended things.

  “Okay, just call me tomorrow, then. I’ll also need to interview Nathan, but I won’t wake him up tonight.”

  She nodded, worrying at her lip with her teeth and the urge to pull her into his arm to reassure her overwhelmed him. But he resisted. Instead he asked, “Are you going to be okay here tonight by yourself?”

  Immediately her shoulders squared and her chin tilted up. Yeah, that was the Toni he knew, tough to the very end, even when she was trembling inside. “Yeah, I’m fine. Goodnight, Detective.”

  And there it was again. Detective. He’d been dismissed.