As it was, she’d smashed Angus in the nose with the snow globe. Blood had spurted out, and she’d run.
She was fast, but her uncle had almost been faster.
Because her hair—the long red hair that Brent loved so much, that Angus had used to stop her the first time—had caught in mangrove branches and nearly kept her from escaping.
Never cut it. Never dye it.
How many times had Brent said that?
“Not even if it’s going to get me killed?” she muttered, walking to the supply cabinet and yanking open one of the drawers. Gauze. Bandages. Tape. She pulled open the other one and found suturing kits, alcohol wipes and scissors.
She didn’t think through what she was doing.
One minute she had the scissors in her hand. The next, long strands of hair were falling to the floor. The scissors were dull, and she was tired, and the tears she’d been fighting for weeks kept trying to slide down her cheeks.
This wasn’t the life she wanted.
This wasn’t the way things were supposed to have worked out. She should be planning her wedding, not her escape from a federal officer, a crazy uncle, a corrupt brother.
“Everything okay in here?” Ian called.
“Fine,” she responded, her voice catching on a sob. “Fine,” she repeated, and this time she sounded almost normal.
Good. Because there was no way she was going to let him know how broken she was.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
She was still cutting her hair. No mirror. No way of seeing just how badly she was butchering it. Just the scissors slicing through thick strands, the hushed rasp of that the only sound in the now silent room.
She couldn’t escape out the window, but she could do this.
She’d learned her lesson. Ponytails were weapons that could easily be used against women.
“Esme? I’m coming in,” Ian said, his voice soft and soothing.
Had she made some sort of noise? A quiet sob she hadn’t heard?
She touched her cheek, certain it would be wet from tears, but it was dry and hot, strands of hair sticking to it. She wiped them away as the door opened.
She heard his footsteps on the tile floor, but he didn’t say anything. Not until he was beside her, his muddy boots surrounded by dark red hair.
“Need some help?” he asked, taking the scissors from her hand. For some reason, she didn’t try to stop him. She didn’t protest or speak or tell him to leave the room.
She wanted to sit for a minute. Catch her breath. Try to stop the images that were filling her head. Blood and death, men she loved who’d proved to be nothing like what she’d thought they were.
Her uncle.
His hands on her throat.
“Breathe,” Ian said quietly, the scissors snapping off one thick hank of hair after another.
She sucked in a lungful of air.
“There you go.” He ran his fingers carefully through her hair, cut off a few more strands. “Wish I were a hair stylist, Esme, but this is probably the best I can do.”
She met his eyes, then saw the concern she hadn’t been privy to before.
It surprised her.
She hadn’t thought Ian had it in him to care. Not for someone with a name he seemed to despise from a family he obviously hated.
“He wouldn’t have had the chance to strangle me if it hadn’t been for the stupid ponytail,” she explained. As if he’d asked. As if he really did care.
But, of course, she knew he didn’t.
He was part of a well-oiled machine, all of it working toward one outcome, one result: shut down the Dupree crime family.
“Your uncle?” He set the scissors in the sink, his dark gaze never leaving her face. He was reading her. Easily.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.” He bit each word out. “Sorry we didn’t do a better job of keeping you safe.” His gaze dropped to her neck, probably to the bruises that still dotted it.
“I’m sorry my family’s business is making money illegally. I’m sorry my brother has no moral values, no conscience and no regret. I’m sorry that my uncle is making your job more difficult. And I’m really, really sorry neither of them are who I wanted them to be.”
“Or who you thought they were?” he asked.
“I wish I could say that. I wish I could say it and know that I had absolutely no suspicions, but I’m not a fool, and neither are you. My brother had a boatload of money to spend on whatever he wanted. I was suspicious and worried about where it was coming from.” She released a quavering breath. “I admitted that during my interview with your people. It’s why I hadn’t spoken to Reginald in a few months and why I only had contact with him once or twice a year.”
“You accepted a client who was deeply affiliated with him.”
“I accepted a lot of clients who knew Reginald,” she clarified. “If I turned every one of them away, I wouldn’t have a business.”
Of course, when she’d agreed to plan the Wilson-Arnold wedding, she hadn’t known that Maverick Arnold was deep in her brother’s pocket. She hadn’t known that he’d gone to the police and sold some information about the way Reginald ran his business. She hadn’t known that Maverick was a snitch or that Reginald had found out or that she was going to walk into the house Maverick and his fiancée shared and see her brother pointing a gun at her client.
Esme rubbed her arms, willing some warmth into her body.
“I see,” Ian said, lifting the photo from the exam table and studying it.
“No,” she responded, snatching the photo from his hand and tossing it into the trash. “You don’t. You’re living in your cloistered world of law enforcement, and you’ve been assigned the task of protecting a woman you despise—”
“I don’t despise you.”
“From a family,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, “you hate.”
He didn’t deny that.
She hadn’t expected him to.
“All you’re doing is your job.” She nearly spat the words. “I’m living my life, and right now, it’s not a very good one.” She kicked the pile of hair, whirling away on her bad ankle and nearly toppling from the pain.
She limped to the door.
He’d left it open, and she walked into the hall, ignoring the surprised PA who was walking toward her, a thick roll of gauze in his hand.
He didn’t try to stop her.
Maybe her new haircut made her look unstable.
She felt unstable, emotions roiling through her so violently she could barely breathe.
Ian didn’t try to stop her, either.
But he was following. She could hear the click of King’s claws on the tile floor.
She didn’t turn around.
She had nothing left to say. Not one word.
The light went off as she reached the lobby, plunging the clinic into darkness. She stood where she was, velvety darkness pressing in, surprised voices calling out.
She knew where the exit was.
She could have crossed the lobby and walked outside, but lights didn’t go off for no reason. Not in a place like this. There was no storm. No wind.
She stepped back, bumping into a solid wall of muscle.
Ian.
She knew it before she tried to move away, before his arm wrapped around her waist, holding her still.
“Wait,” he whispered, the words ruffling her newly shorn hair and tickling her cheek.
“For what?” she whispered back.
Somewhere outside, an engine roared, and Ian yanked her back as lights splashed across the lobby windows and the world exploded into chaos.
Bricks. Sparkling glass. Dust. Lights. People shouting.
She was moving, dragged backward away from the front end of the truck that had plowed into the building.
“Move, move, move!” Ian was shouting, dragging her into the still-dark hallway, the sound of gunshots following them.
And she finally understood. Finally got it. Finally realized that the driver of the truck hadn’t just misjudged or made a mistake. He was there to finish what her uncle had started.
Suddenly, she didn’t need to be prodded or pulled.
She ran, her ankle pain forgotten, her heartbreak gone. All the emotion she’d been feeling, everything that had been filling her up, replaced by cold hard terror and the driving need to survive and make sure her uncle and brother didn’t have the opportunity to hurt anyone ever again.
* * *
Ian had been prepared for trouble, but he hadn’t been expecting such a bold attempt on Esme’s life.
He should have been, and he was angry with himself for the lack of foresight.
Reginald and Angus were desperate.
Desperate people did desperate things.
Including trying to kill someone in front of local law enforcement.
He scowled, his hand tight on Esme’s wrist, his fingers digging into her smooth warm skin. He had to be hurting her, but she didn’t complain. She was running through the hall beside him, her shoulder brushing against his arm.
Ian took a right turn at the end of the corridor, heading for the emergency exit that had been marked on a building map posted to the wall of the exam room. He’d noticed that, just like he’d noticed that the front of the clinic was comprised of large glass windows and a couple feet of bricks. Not a difficult facade to breach if someone really wanted to.
Yeah. He’d noticed. No extra points for that.
He and King worked protection more than anything else. They were good at it, but they generally worked with one or two other members of the team.
Right now, they were working alone, local law enforcement scrambling to contain the threat, but none of them specifically assigned to guard Esme.
He unhooked King’s lead.
“Guard!” he ordered, and King growled, the sound deep and low. Not a warning. More of an acknowledgment that he was on duty and he knew it.
Good. The corridor was pitch-black. Even with his eyes adjusting to the darkness, Ian could barely see a foot in front of him. No generator cutting on to give some light to the situation. If there was a generator, the perp had taken that out, too.
They reached the emergency exit, nearly plowing into the door.
He felt Esme’s arm move, knew she was reaching for the door handle.
“Wait,” he cautioned.
“For what? The truck driver to come around the corner, guns blazing?”
“For me to open the door.” He nudged her back until he knew she was against the wall. “Give me a minute to check things out.”
“I’d rather—”
“Let’s not waste time,” he said, leaning in so close he could see her pale skin in the darkness, smell the fragrant soap on her skin. “The police probably already have the truck driver, but we don’t know if he has friends.”
She nodded. One quick, curt move of the head, and he turned back to the door, felt King pressing in close.
“Ready?” he asked, and the dog barked. “Let’s go.” He opened the door, and King sprinted out, racing across an empty lot that shimmered beneath a half-dozen streetlights.
Ian’s cell phone buzzed. He ignored it.
His focus was on the dog.
He could see him running across the lot, heading toward a sparse stand of trees. He disappeared for a moment, the shadows swallowing him, then appeared again. Ian had trained other dogs, but none of them compared to King. The Belgian Mal was as smart and as driven as they came.
He waited for the dog to indicate. One quick sharp bark would be a warning that someone was nearby.
King was silent, loping from one area of the parking lot to the next until he was finally done and returning, tail waving jauntily in the artificial light.
“We’re clear,” Ian said, reaching for Esme’s arm and pulling her closer.
“Are you sure?”
“He’s my partner. We live by protecting each other’s better interest. I trust him to keep me safe. He trusts me. You could probably learn a little from that.”
“I learned plenty about trust from my family. I don’t plan to ever forget the lessons they’ve taught me.” She followed him outside, her hand on the back of his jacket, her fingers clutching the fabric as if she were afraid that he might abandon her like so many other people had.
He could have told her that he wouldn’t.
But King was moving ahead, scruff raised, tail stiff.
He sensed something.
Whatever it was, he didn’t like it.
“This way,” Ian said, tugging Esme into the deep shadows near the corner of the building. Not wanting to alarm her more than she already was.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered, and he knew she sensed it, too. The change in the air. The sudden charge of electricity.
King was off, running so fast he was just a blurry shadow in the streetlights as he headed back to the trees. To the darkness. To the shadows that could easily hide someone.
Ian pulled his gun, aiming in that direction. Not surprised to see the flash of light as a shot was fired. The bullet went wide, slamming into the back of the building a few feet from where Ian and Esme crouched.
A man shouted, then screamed.
No more shots. Just the vicious sound of King barking and growling.
A police cruiser raced around the side of the building, blocking Ian’s view and his aim.
In any other circumstance, he would have run straight into the fray, gun drawn as he shouted for the perp to drop his weapon.
But these weren’t other circumstances.
He had Esme to protect and no team members to guard her while he went after King.
The police officer jumped out of the cruiser, his gaze on the trees, his gun drawn.
“That your dog?” he said, his attention never wavering.
“Yes.”
“FBI, right?”
“Right.”
“You want to call him off or you want me to go in there?” the officer asked.
“The perp has a gun.”
“I heard the shot.”
“I’m not calling my dog off until I know he’s disarmed.”
“If I go in there and your dog attacks, I’m not going to have a choice as to how I react.” The officer was issuing a warning, and Ian wasn’t going to ignore it.
He shouted the command for King to return, praying the dog had managed to disarm the gunman. If not, there was a chance King would be shot as he ran away.
And Ian would have to live with that.
Live with the fact that he’d risked his partner’s life for the sake of a woman whose family had destroyed his. The choice he’d just made only brought home the truth: he didn’t want to protect any of the Duprees.
That was a fact.
It was also a fact that he’d walked into the exam room and seen Esme, scissors in hand, hair falling around her, and his heart had jerked with the kind of sympathy reserved for those who’d done absolutely nothing wrong but had still found themselves in untenable circumstances.
She deserved better than what she’d gotten.
That had been his first thought, his knee-jerk response.
She deserved better, and he could make sure she got it.
He would make sure she got it.
His first response, and maybe it was his second and third response, because he still felt it. Still wanted to turn back the clock and keep her from walking in
on her brother’s crime. Her only wrongdoing was having a name that made his blood boil. Her only mistake was in taking on clients that her brother sent her way. Those weren’t things she should be punished for. They weren’t things a rational man could hold against her, and he’d always considered himself rational.
Except when it came to the Duprees.
Maybe it was time for that to change.
He’d had more than one friend tell him he had to put aside his anger and move forward with his life. He’d told more than one of them to keep their opinions to themselves.
Not a very Christlike attitude.
His father would have told him that if he’d been around. He would have told him to let go of the need for revenge, to focus on justice and mercy and grace.
Ian didn’t know if he could do that, but he could stop looking at Esme like she was the enemy. He could start viewing her as the victim she was. He could give her the protection she needed, offer her the support that was necessary when a person lost everyone they loved.
Could and would, because it was his job, because it was the right thing to do and because his father wouldn’t have expected anything less from him.
He called King again, was relieved when he barked in response. Seconds later, King emerged from the trees, tail high, ears alert.
“What a relief,” Esme said, and he could hear the sincerity in her voice, see it in her face.
He turned away, focusing on King, on the darkness, the trees, the chaos still playing out. For now, they were safe.
He planned to make sure they stayed that way.
SIX
King raced back across the parking lot, silent, focused.
He stopped at Ian’s feet, sitting at attention, looking straight into his handler’s face.
“Good job,” Ian said, scratching him behind the ears, his focus on the police officer who was jogging across the lot.
The dog didn’t look like he believed the praise.
His happy smile was gone. In its place was tension that even Esme could feel.
“You did do good,” she assured him and then felt foolish.
She’d never been much of a dog person.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like dogs.
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