Agent to the Rescue (Special Agents At The Alter Book 3)

by Lisa Childs

  The guy sighed. “Thank you, Agent Reyes, and thank you for saving Elizabeth. I don’t know how little Lizzie could have handled losing another person in her life.”

  “She’s not going to lose me,” Elizabeth insisted. “I’m going to be here for her—just like I promised Patricia and Kenneth that I would be.” An earsplitting cry drew away her attention, and she hurried back upstairs to the upset child.

  The man sighed again. “That should have proved to her that their deaths were no accident or murder,” he said. “They knew they weren’t going to be around to raise their little girl, so they made Elizabeth make those promises.”

  It made sense in that “dying man getting his house in order” way. But how could Patricia have known what Kenneth had planned for them?

  “They made Elizabeth her guardian?” He watched the man’s face for any sign of resentment or anger.

  Gregory Cunningham just nodded. “Elizabeth was their best friend. They named their little girl for her.” He chuckled. “They always said Lizzie was more like her than either of them—as if the baby actually was her biological child.”

  He picked his jacket from one of a row of hooks by the door. The hooks were actually crystal doorknobs, though. “I am just a doting uncle.”

  “You don’t live here?”

  He shook his head. “Not in this house. But I live in the area, and I work in Grand Rapids.”

  “So I’ll be able to find you if I have more questions?”

  The man nodded. “Thank you, Agent Reyes, for saving Elizabeth,” he said again. “That little girl can’t lose anyone else she loves.”

  Dalton didn’t want to lose Elizabeth, either.

  * * *

  ELIZABETH’S ARM HAD grown numb, but she didn’t want to move the little girl. She wanted to hold on to her forever. “I’m sorry,” she murmured to the sleeping child.

  How could she have forgotten her—even for a moment? How could she have forgotten her promise to Lizzie’s parents?

  “I’m sorry,” a deep voice murmured.

  She raised her gaze from the curly-haired child to the man standing in the doorway to the nursery. He was so ruggedly handsome—with his dark hair and muscular body. But his handsome face was etched in a slight grimace. Maybe the so-very-pink princess room that Patricia had created for her daughter made him uncomfortable.

  Or maybe it was whatever he’d learned about the investigation into Kenneth’s and Patricia’s deaths.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again.

  And she grimaced and shook her head. “No...”

  “I talked to the investigating officer,” he said. “He’s certain that it was what it looked like...”

  Murder-suicide.

  “I don’t care what it looked like,” she said. “It wasn’t what happened.”

  She had been watching Lizzie that weekend a few months ago so that Kenneth and Patricia could sneak away for a romantic getaway. But then she’d gotten the call that their bodies had been found in their little lakeside cabin.

  She shuddered even now, remembering it, and the child stirred against her. She didn’t want to wake her. Marta said that she’d slept very little while Elizabeth had been gone. She had left her willingly to return to Chicago to handle a work crisis, but then she hadn’t returned.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured to the baby.

  “I asked Jared Bell to review the case, too,” he said.

  But she heard it in his voice—the belief that Jared would be wasting his time. So why had Dalton asked him to look into it? Just to humor her?

  She didn’t care what his motivation was, though. At least someone else would look into what had happened. Maybe they would finally discover the truth.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  His head moved in a slight nod. He looked tired, but then, they hadn’t slept that much the night before.

  Her face heated as she remembered why. She had been insatiable. And she still wanted him.

  “Do you want to lay her down in her bed?” Dalton asked.

  She had been sitting with baby Lizzie for hours—so long that the sky had grown dark outside the windows. “My arm fell asleep,” she admitted.

  “You let the nanny leave,” he said.

  She nodded. “Marta needed a break.” Like Elizabeth, the nanny had relived the tragic loss of Kenneth and Patricia. She had worked for the couple since the baby had been born two years ago, and she had loved them like family. “She’ll be back in the morning.”

  “You should get some sleep,” he said. “You must be exhausted.” He stepped forward so that he stood over the rocking chair in which she sat with the child.

  “Because of last night?” she asked.

  A spark flashed in his dark eyes. “Because of today,” he said. “You’ve been through a lot.” He touched her, accidentally, as he lifted the little girl from her arms.

  But her skin heated, and desire flashed through her. He gently cradled the child in his muscular arms and carried her toward her crib as if he’d been carrying a baby for years. He looked more comfortable than she had been—in those early days when she had first been granted guardianship of the little girl based on Kenneth and Patricia’s will.

  “Have all your memories returned?” he asked.

  She shrugged, and her shoulder burned as the numbness left her sleeping arm. “I don’t know. I still feel like I’m trying to read a book with a lot of pages missing.”

  “At least some of it’s returning,” he said.

  She sighed. “The part I didn’t want to remember,” she admitted as she joined him by the crib. “Maybe I forgot on purpose.”

  “You had a concussion,” he reminded her. “I don’t think you had a choice.”

  Guilt clutched at her as she stared down at the sleeping child. “I feel horrible that I forgot about her.” The child blurred as tears filled her eyes. “She deserves better than me as a guardian. She deserves her mother and father.”

  “Forgetting that they’re dead won’t bring them back,” Dalton said. He slid his arm around her and drew her tightly against him.

  Weary and grateful for his support, she leaned heavily on him. “I know.”

  “Even if Jared finds out that you’re right about their deaths, it won’t bring them back.”

  “But it’ll clear their names,” she said. “It’ll take the taint off their love, of their memory for their daughter.”

  He squeezed her shoulder. “They were right,” he said, “to ask you to raise their daughter. You’re the perfect person. You’re just pretty much perfect.”

  How could he think that—after getting a glimpse into her real life? She laughed. “You must be exhausted,” she teased him. “You’re getting delusional.”

  He chuckled.

  And the child stirred at the unfamiliar sound. Kenneth hadn’t had a deep voice like Dalton’s. Neither did his brother. And she couldn’t remember if Tom had ever spent much time around the little girl.

  So he wouldn’t wake baby Lizzie, she took Dalton’s hand and tugged him from the room. Then she closed the door.

  “Her baby monitor is wired into intercoms,” she explained. “There’s one in the kitchen.” So she could have brought him downstairs. But it was late and she wasn’t hungry...for food. “And in the master bedroom...”

  She opened the double doors to the corner room. “I didn’t think I would be able to sleep in here,” she admitted as she stepped inside the large, airy room with its vaulted ceiling, lightly stained hardwood floors and pale blue walls. “But I had to because of the intercom.”

  She shook her head in amazement that she had automatically felt so comfortable in this room. She remembered that—she remembered everything about Kenneth and Patricia and baby Lizzie. “And somehow it felt right...”

  And for some reason, it felt right that Dalton joined her in that room and closed the doors behind him.

  “Like last night,” she said, reaching for his hand to pull him farther into the
room with her. “Last night felt right.”

  It was all she managed to say before he pulled her to him again and covered her mouth with his. He was hungry, too; his hunger was in the urgency of his kiss and in his hands as they tugged off her clothes.

  She was every bit as anxious, tearing at his buttons and snaps until he was naked with her. But as he had the night before, he put his holster and gun within easy reach of the bed—on one of the end tables. Then he laid her on that feather-soft mattress beneath the wispy canopy. But within seconds he joined her. Then their bodies joined.

  She arched up, ready and eager for him, and took him deeply inside her. She clung to him as if he was her anchor in the storm of emotions as her memories returned—along with the danger.

  But Dalton brought out more emotions in her, emotions she never remembered feeling before, even though she wore another man’s ring. She was falling in love with Special Agent Dalton Reyes. She opened her mouth to tell him, but his lips covered hers before she could utter a word.

  Maybe that was for the best. He was unlikely to believe her anyway. He would probably just think that she was grateful that he kept saving her life. And she was grateful.

  But she was so much more than grateful. She met each of his thrusts. And she kissed him back with all the passion he aroused in her. She would show him how much she loved him—even though she dare not tell him yet.

  She would wait until the killer was caught—as Dalton had promised. And her memory had returned. Then she would tell him—if he was still around. Because once the case was closed, Dalton would have no reason to protect her any longer. If he moved on to the next case, then she would be grateful that she hadn’t shared her feelings with him.

  Her body tensed, but then he thrust deeper. And ecstasy filled her. He joined her again—with a low groan—as he found his own release.

  But he didn’t let her go. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly against his side—as if he would never let her go. But she worried that he would—as soon as her case was solved.

  * * *

  A DOOR CREAKED, drawing Dalton from his sleep. Elizabeth was curled yet against his side, her cheek on his chest. So it wasn’t her moving around the farmhouse. And the little girl was too small to have crawled out of her crib.

  Had the nanny returned?

  Elizabeth had said that Marta wouldn’t come back until morning. The older woman had been upset and had looked exhausted, probably with worry over Elizabeth not checking in. So it probably wasn’t Marta moving around downstairs.

  He reached for his gun and pulled it from the holster. Elizabeth murmured in protest over his moving away from her. But he had to leave her—to protect her. He shouldn’t have been with her at all tonight; he should have been guarding her while she slept—instead of sleeping with her.

  Now he hoped he wasn’t too late to protect her and the little girl who called her Momma now.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Elizabeth shivered as her skin chilled. She patted the sheets, but Dalton was gone. Moonlight, shining through the tall windows, illuminated the bedroom enough that she could see his gun was also gone.

  Why had he taken the gun? But then he always carried his gun. It didn’t mean that he needed it—that he had heard something.

  Then she heard something, too. First, creaking, like a door or maybe the stairs. Was it Dalton going down the stairs or someone else coming up?

  Marta wouldn’t have come back. Elizabeth had implored the older woman to spend time with her daughter and granddaughter and to rest. Marta had promised that she would—and that she wouldn’t come back until late the next morning.

  So it wasn’t Marta.

  Was it only Dalton?

  She heard a shout—then something else. Something heavy fell over. Something cracked. Something broke.

  Dalton was not alone.

  He was fighting with someone. Someone had broken into Kenneth and Patricia’s home—to kill her. Her hands shaking, she grabbed her clothes from the floor and hurriedly dressed. Then she looked around for something she could use as a weapon. Kenneth hadn’t believed in firearms, so there were none in the house.

  That was what had been so unbelievable about the murder-suicide claim. How could he have shot Patricia and then himself when he hadn’t even owned a gun?

  Now she wished for one. But it didn’t matter whether or not she had a weapon. She had to protect Lizzie. Maybe the best way to do that was by staying away from her. If the killer wanted Elizabeth, he could have her—as long as he left the child alone.

  A gunshot rang out, rattling the windows and shaking the floor. A cry slipped through her lips. Had Dalton been shot? Or had he shot the intruder?

  She wanted to rush out and check on him. But fear had her frozen to the spot. She couldn’t even move when the doorknob began to turn. But then she heard baby Lizzie cry. Maybe the killer was using the baby to draw her out.

  It worked. She grabbed a sculpture from the bedside table. The glass dolphin was small yet delicate enough that it had sharp edges. She could use it to stab him—if he got close enough. He wouldn’t need to get close to her if he just shot her.

  She clutched the sculpture so tightly that the glass cracked inside her palm. Then the doors opened and the man stepped into the room.

  In one arm, he clutched the crying child. In his other hand, he clutched a gun.

  She screamed. And he stepped closer, and the moonlight washed over his face. His handsome face...

  Her breath shuddered out with relief that Dalton was okay.

  * * *

  DALTON WAS FURIOUS. Even more than an hour later, his temper hadn’t cooled. How the hell had the guy gotten the jump on him in the dark? He had nearly lost his gun. He had nearly lost his life. And then Elizabeth’s would have been lost, too. Maybe even the little girl’s.

  Lizzie—little Elizabeth.

  Her friends had loved her so much that they had named their child after her. And then they’d given her their child. She was so easy to love, though, that he was fighting the feeling himself—as he had fought the man in the dark.

  “You should have had backup,” Jared Bell said as he surveyed the broken glass and furniture in the formal dining room.

  Blaine Campbell had come along, too. Neither of these guys worked cases like this. Jared had ruled out his serial killer as a suspect. And Blaine worked bank robberies.

  But then, Dalton didn’t work cases like this, either. He worked organized crime. There was nothing organized about the attacks on Elizabeth.

  He grimaced over the broken china plates and colored glass. They had even smashed a couple of the oak chairs and toppled over the heavy oak table, they had fought so violently.

  As he surveyed the damage, Blaine asked, “Are you okay?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m pissed. I don’t know how the bastard got the jump on me.”

  “He’s a pro,” Jared reminded him.

  Dalton shrugged. “I’m not so sure. He went for my gun instead of pulling his own.”

  “What’s the point of pulling his if you shot him first?” Blaine pointed out. “That’s probably why he went for your weapon.”

  “We fought over it,” Dalton said. That was when the furniture had gotten broken. “I managed to squeeze the trigger.”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t get hit,” Jared said.

  He had taken the risk—to protect Elizabeth and the child. “I think I hit him...” The guy’s breath had whooshed out, as if Dalton had delivered an even harder blow than the ones he’d already hit him with.

  His forehead furrowed, Jared looked skeptical. “If he was hurt, how’d he get away?”

  “The baby cried—when the shot went off,” Dalton said. “We were below her bedroom. I wasn’t sure if the bullet hit him or went into the ceiling.”

  The room bathed in light, he could see no holes in the coffered ceiling.

  “So you let him go?” Jared was appalled.

  Dalton wanted
to hit him. And Blaine must have sensed his intention because he subtly stepped between them and replied for him, “Of course he’d be worried about the child. You’ll know when you have a kid of your own.”

  Jared shuddered. “Not going to happen...”

  “That’s what I once said, too,” Blaine replied. His baby wasn’t his own, though. His wife had been pregnant with another man’s child when Blaine had saved her from bank robbers. But he loved that baby as if he was his own.

  The way Elizabeth loved little Lizzie...

  “It’s not like I let him go,” Dalton defended himself. “The baby crying distracted me for just a second and he wriggled free.”

  “You didn’t chase him?” Jared asked.

  “He had to check on the baby,” Blaine reminded him.

  And Elizabeth. He had wanted to check on Elizabeth and make sure that someone hadn’t gotten to her while the other man served to distract him.

  “I didn’t know for sure if there was only one guy in the house,” he explained. “I had to check on Elizabeth and the baby.”

  Jared finally nodded in approval. “Of course, there could have been two.”

  “There are two, at least,” Dalton reminded him. “The hired killer and the killer who hired him.”

  A gasp drew his attention to the dining room doorway—to where Elizabeth stood with the baby. She held a hand over the child’s ear, as if the little girl would understand what they were saying. Elizabeth’s pale gray eyes widened with fear; she understood—how desperately and deceitfully that someone wanted her dead.

  “Reyes?” Jared held up a hand smeared with blood. “You did hit him.”

  Blaine nodded. “We can track him now.”

  “We may have to wait till daylight,” Dalton pointed out. But dawn wasn’t far off. The sky was already growing lighter. And so was Dalton’s heart. He may have let the guy get away, but he hadn’t been unscathed.

  How badly had he been hurt? Enough to seek medical attention? “But in the meantime we can check with the local hospitals and clinics for someone with a GSW.”

  Blaine nodded. “I’m on it.”

  “And I’m in the way,” Elizabeth murmured as she stepped back out of the dining room.