Kick A** Heroines Box Set: The UltimatumFatal AffairAfter the DarkBulletproof SEAL (The Guardian)

by Karen Robards

He called out his good-byes to Skip and Celia before donning his coat.

  “Chief? Thank you for understanding why I have to do this.”

  “I would’ve done the same thing myself. In fact, your dad predicted your little speech almost down to the last vowel. We were ready for you.”

  “Well, sheesh,” she huffed. “Here I was thinking I’d handled you, and I’m the one being handled?”

  “You gotta get up a lot earlier in the morning to get one past a couple of crusty old vets like us. Truth is, we would’ve been disappointed if you’d done it any other way. You’re a chip off the old block, Holland.”

  “Thank you, sir. You couldn’t pay me a higher compliment.”

  “I know.” He glanced toward the kitchen. “You think about what it would do to him if something happens to you. It’d be the end of him. You think about that.”

  “Yes, sir,” she whispered as she watched him go down the ramp.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  WITH NICK OUTSIDE on the phone, Sam went into the kitchen where her dad was reading the bill.

  She bent to kiss his cheek. “Thanks for the help. I hate feeling like I’ve totally missed the point on this one.”

  “Don’t know for sure yet that you have. Just because it’s taken a few twists and turns doesn’t mean you aren’t on the right path.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Seems like a nice kid.”

  “Who? Higgins?”

  “No,” he said grinning. “Nick.”

  “Oh, right.” She wasn’t ready to go down that path with him just yet. “So, hey, I hear you’ve been keeping secrets.”

  “You’re one to talk, and which secrets are you referring to?”

  Sam raised an eyebrow as she slipped into a kitchen chair.

  “Oh. Celia.”

  “Uh huh,” Sam said, delighted by the faint blush that appeared on his ruddy cheeks.

  “Well, I was going to tell you.”

  “Except you were too chicken so you got her to tell me.”

  “Something like that.”

  Sam laughed. “I’m happy for you.”

  “Really? You are?” His relief was almost as comical as his embarrassment.

  “Of course I am. She’s terrific. What would we have done without her the last couple of years?”

  “No kidding. Thing I can’t understand is why she’d want to shackle herself to this?” With his eyes, he took in his useless body, the chair, the whole situation.

  “She loves you. I think it’s that simple.”

  “She’s not in it for the house or the pension, in case you wondered.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Sure you did, because I’ve trained you to be as cynical as I am.”

  “Well, maybe it crossed my mind for an instant, but listening to her talk about you…she’s genuine.”

  “I think she is,” he said, seeming incredulous. “In fact, she wants to sign something that says she gets nothing, you know, after…”

  “Which says to me she should get it.”

  “See? That’s what I think, too. It wouldn’t bother you or your sisters if she got a cut?”

  Sam stood up to rest her hands on his shoulders and brought her face down to his. “All I want is you, here with us, for as long as we can have you, for as long as you want to be here.”

  “You haven’t forgotten, have you? About our deal?”

  Sam thought of the prescription bottle she had stashed in a safety deposit box. “No.”

  “And you’re still willing? If the time comes…”

  Fighting back the sting of pain in her belly and her heart, she kept her voice steady when she said, “If the time comes.”

  He released a long deep breath. “Good. Okay. Let me get back to this. I’ll report in if anything jumps out, Sergeant—or should I say Lieutenant?”

  “Not quite yet.” She kissed his forehead. “Thanks for the help.”

  “My pleasure.”

  And she could see that it was. He seemed more vital, more alive in that moment than he had in a long time. She should’ve been bringing him into her cases on a more formal basis all along and vowed to do so going forward. His mind was as sharp as ever, and if using it gave him a reason to stay in the fight, then she’d use it and no doubt benefit from it.

  * * *

  NICK ENDED THE call with Christina and stashed the cell phone he’d borrowed from Sam in his pocket. He rested against the porch rail and let his eyes wander up and down the quiet street. Some of the townhouses were painted in a variety of bright colors while others were fronted by brick or stone. The red brick sidewalks sloped and curved over tree roots. Black wrought iron gates added a touch of class to the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

  Was someone out there right now watching him? Hoping to get another shot at Sam? Or at him? The thought sent a chill chasing through him as he contemplated the sudden changes in his life. Last Saturday, he spent the morning in the office and then played in a pickup basketball game at the gym. He went out for a few beers with the guys he’d played with and went home alone.

  Now, a week later, John was dead, he was in love with Samantha Holland and someone had tried to kill them both. Any doubt that he was in love with her had evaporated during the interminable trip through shattered glass to get to her after the bombing. He’d had just enough time to imagine a return to the empty existence his life had been without her to be certain he loved her.

  Three doors down on Ninth Street, a metal “For Sale” sign caught his attention as it banged against a brick-front townhouse. The creepy sound reminded Nick of ghost towns and spaghetti Westerns. Another trickle of fear crept along his spine as he took a long look up and down the deserted street.

  “What’re you doing out here in the cold?” Sam asked as she joined him on the porch.

  “Nothing much.” He extended a hand to her. “Where’s your coat?”

  “I’ll share yours.” She slipped her arms around his waist and burrowed into his coat. “Mmm. Warm.”

  As Nick held her close, he wondered how he had survived, how he had lived without her for all the years since he first met her. He closed his eyes and rested his cheek on the top of her head.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  He couldn’t tell her he loved her. Not now. Not in the midst of murder and chaos and not when she wasn’t ready to hear it. Later, he decided. There’d be time. He would make sure of it. “That you showed a lot of spine before, letting them know you planned to stay on the case.”

  “Yeah, well, apparently they predicted that’s what I’d say and had planned for it.” She looked up at him. “I just cashed in every good judgment and sterling moral code chip I’ve earned in twelve years on the force to bring you into my life.” With a coy smile, she added, “I hope you’re going to be worth it.”

  Realizing the huge step she was taking, he framed her face with his hands and kissed her. “I will be. I promise.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  She brought him down to her and sucked the breath out of his lungs with a passionate kiss.

  “Sam,” he gasped, burying his face in the elegant curve of her neck. “God.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “When I think about what might’ve happened.” He raised his head, met her sparkling blue eyes and was grateful. So very grateful. “I know this is all so new, but the thought of losing you…again…I don’t want to lose you.”

  “You won’t. Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

  “They could take a shot at you right now. We’re totally exposed standing out here.”

  She reached up to caress his face. “You can’t do this. If you’re going to be with me—”

  “If?”

  She smiled. “I get hurt every now and then. I have close calls—not like I did today—but stuff happens. You can’t let fear rule you. That’s no life for you—or me.” She hesitated, as if there was something else she wanted
to say.

  “What?” He sensed her tension before he felt it. “Babe. What?”

  “When I was married,” she said haltingly, “Peter obsessed about my safety, my whereabouts, my cases. It wasn’t healthy, and while it wasn’t the only problem we had, it made a bad situation much worse. It was totally suffocating.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, and I understand. I really do. I’ll do my best to give you room to breathe, but you’ve got to give me some time to adjust, okay? I’m not used to the woman I care about being nearly blown up in my front yard. It’s going to take me a while to get used to the dangers that go with your job.”

  “Fair enough.”

  He brushed his thumbs over the deep, dark circles under her eyes and pressed a gentle kiss to the lump on her forehead. “You’re whipped. Do you think you could sleep for a bit?”

  “I guess I could try, but my mind is racing. I want to get everyone here later when Freddie gets back to start all over again. We’re missing something. I know we are.”

  “You won’t be any good to anyone if you run yourself into the ground. How about a nap to recharge?”

  She flashed that coy smile he’d come to love. “Only if you join me.”

  “Here? With your dad in the house?”

  “He can’t shoot you.”

  “That’s not funny. He can have me killed. Easily.”

  “I was married, Nick. He knows I’ve had sex.”

  “Not with me.”

  “I’ll bet he doesn’t think we were baking cookies last night.”

  “That’s what we were doing. If he asks, that’s exactly what we were doing. Baking cookies—all night long.”

  Laughing, she took his hand to lead him inside. “We’re going to crash for a bit,” she said to Celia. “Freddie is due back later tonight. If we conk out big time, will you wake us up when he gets here?”

  “I sure will, honey. Can I get you two something to eat?”

  “I don’t think I could eat yet,” Sam said, running her hand over her belly.

  “Me either,” Nick said. “But thanks anyway.” He glanced at the kitchen where Skip was still engrossed in the immigration bill. “If you could fail to mention to Chief Holland that I’m upstairs, too, that’d be cool. In fact, I’d pay you.”

  Celia chuckled and waved them up. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Feeling like a teenager sneaking into his girlfriend’s room—a goal he’d never managed to achieve back then—Nick followed Sam up the stairs.

  She closed the bedroom door and pulled off her sweater.

  He winced at the ugly purple bruise on her chest. If he hadn’t stopped breathing, he might’ve enjoyed watching her strip. “I agreed to a nap. I didn’t agree to nudity.”

  “You want me to sleep, right?”

  “Uh huh.”

  She wiggled out of her jeans and panties and came at him with intent in her eyes. “I sleep best in the nude.”

  He took a step back and encountered wall. “He’s going to know. If a babe like you is my daughter, I’ve got her room bugged to make sure guys like me don’t get in.” Without allowing his eyes to leave her face, he said, “So he’s going to know I’m up here with his daughter—his beautiful, sexy, naked daughter—and he’ll call some of his cop buddies. They’ll drag me into a dark alley to rip the limbs from my body one by one, and then toss what’s left of me in the Potomac.”

  Laughing, Sam slipped her hands under his sweater and eased it up and over his head, catching him off guard when she nuzzled his nipple. That’s all it took to make him rock-hard.

  “With an imagination like that, you should consider a career in fiction.”

  He kept his hands limp at his sides. Maybe if he didn’t leave prints on her he’d walk away with his life.

  “You really think you can resist me?” she asked, trailing kisses from his jaw to his collarbone as her breasts rubbed against his chest.

  “My life depends on it.”

  Her lips glided over his chest to his belly. “All that tough talk from before…” She unbuttoned his jeans, pushed them down and sank to her knees in front of him. “I think I’m about to make you my lapdog.”

  Sensing where this was going, he tried to escape.

  In a move that both startled and stirred him, she pinned him to the wall.

  He groaned, his fingers rolling into fists as her hot mouth closed around him. “Sam…please. I thought you liked me.”

  “I do,” she said, dragging her tongue in circles that made his head spin. “I really do.”

  A bead of sweat rolled between his shoulder blades, straight down his spine. “He’ll know, and he’ll kill me.”

  She managed to laugh as she sucked. Hard.

  “Jesus.” His breathing became labored, the heat of her mouth unbearable. “Sam, honey, come here.”

  “So you’re willing to play now?”

  “Yeah.” He helped her up, lifted her and sank into her in one easy movement. “Hell, you only live once, right?”

  She gasped from the impact.

  “Okay?” he asked.

  Her arms encircled him, and he bit back a moan when she made contact with the bump on the back of his head. “Yes,” she sighed. “So okay.”

  If he had to suffocate, he decided, he wanted to do it between Samantha Holland’s spectacular breasts, engulfed in her jasmine and vanilla scent. Dropping a gentle kiss on the bruise, he walked them—carefully, since his jeans were still twisted around his ankles—to the bed and lowered her.

  “Nick.”

  “What, babe?”

  “Fast.” She clung to him. “I want it fast.”

  His heart staggered, and he had to bite his lip to keep from losing it right then and there. Knowing she could be noisy, he captured her mouth as he gave her what she wanted. Had anything ever been this good? No. Nothing. Ever. She was tough and courageous on the job, yet here with him she was all girl—warm, soft, fragrant girl. Her moan echoed through her and into him the instant before she lifted off.

  He muffled her cries, or at least he hoped to God he did, before he pushed hard into her one last time and let himself go.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  FREDDIE SAT IN front of Patricia Donaldson’s two-story home for a long time. He couldn’t imagine asking her the questions he needed to ask but knew it was long past time he got over the queasiness that struck him whenever he had to ask people personal questions—especially about their sex lives.

  Perhaps if he got a sex life of his own, then he wouldn’t be so put off by asking about what other people did in their bedrooms. He’d been raised a Christian, had taken his religion seriously and had saved himself for marriage. That’s how he ended up a twenty-nine-year-old virgin, a fact he had shared with no one, lest he be ridiculed by his colleagues.

  He’d had plenty of girlfriends and had done his share of fooling around, but he’d yet to have the full experience. Lately, he’d been thinking too much about what he was missing. And with no marital prospects on the horizon, he wondered how much longer he could hold out.

  Since they’d interviewed that personal trainer the other day, Elin Svendsen, he had fantasized about her obsessively. The way she hinted at the nasty stuff she had done with Senator O’Connor…What Freddie wouldn’t give for one night with her. Maybe once they cleared the case, he’d be in the market for some personal training of a different sort.

  In the meantime, he needed to go into that house and ask Patricia Donaldson if her son was John O’Connor’s son, if she’d continued a sexual relationship with the senator and if so, what kind of sex she’d had with him. The thought of asking those questions of a woman he’d never met made him sick.

  Even if he sat there all night, he’d never be fully prepared. And since Sam was waiting for him to get this information and get it back to her, Freddie emerged from the rental car and headed up the flagstone walkway. With one last deep breath to settle his nerves, he rang the bell. Chimes echoed through the house. He wait
ed a full minute before a fragile-looking blonde opened the door. Her blue eyes were rimmed with red, her pretty face ravaged with exhaustion. If this woman hadn’t recently lost someone she loved, Freddie would turn in his badge.

  “Patricia Donaldson?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am. I’m Detective Freddie Cruz, Metro Police, Washington, D.C.” He showed her his badge.

  She took the badge from him, examined it and handed it back to him. “This is about John.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I wondered if I might have a few minutes of your time?”

  With a weary gesture, she stepped aside to let him in.

  Freddie followed her to a comfortable family room, noting the photos of the handsome blond boy scattered throughout the house. The place appeared to have been professionally decorated, but had retained a warm, cozy atmosphere.

  When he was seated across from her, Freddie said, “You were acquainted with Senator John O’Connor?”

  “We’ve been friends for many years,” she said softly.

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Her raw eyes filled with tears. “Thank you.” She brushed at the dampness on her cheeks.

  “You were just friends?”

  “Yes,” she said without hesitation.

  Freddie reached for a framed photo on an end table. “Your son?”

  “Yes.”

  “Handsome boy.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I can’t help but notice his striking resemblance to the senator.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe a little.”

  Freddie returned the photo to the table. “Is your son at home?”

  “He went to do an errand at school. He’s a junior at Loyola.”

  Relieved to know the boy wasn’t in the house, Freddie pressed on. “In the course of our investigation, we’ve uncovered a series of regular monthly payments Senator O’Connor made to you for the last twenty years.” Even though he knew the facts by heart, Freddie consulted his notebook. “Three thousand dollars, paid by check, on the first of every month.”

  Her hand trembled ever so slightly as she reached for the gold locket she wore on a chain around her neck. “So?”

  “Can you tell me why he gave you the money?”