Unforgettable Heroes Boxed Set

by James, Maddie

  “No, Jack, you didn’t,” she said in a rush.

  He stood, staring down at the diminutive dark-haired elf who’d wreaked havoc on his heart. “No,” he said softly. “I let you make a fool of me.”

  Straightening to his full height, he turned to her father. “Mr. Nichols, I think you should know I planned to speak to you while I was here today, but it looks like….” Lead. A weight heavier than lead pressed down on his shoulders. Disappointment more lethal than a hail of bullets punctured his lungs and pierced his heart. He rubbed at the ache in his chest. “Maybe that’s not the best idea.”

  “Speak to me?” the older man repeated, lowering the long-forgotten burger to his plate.

  A sharp intake of breath had all eyes swiveling to the opposite end of the table. “Oh, God! He wanted to speak to you, Marcus!” Ellie’s mother wailed.

  He dared a glance at Ellie, only to find tears welling in her eyes and tangling in her dark lashes. Color rose high in her cheeks. Embarrassment or pleasure, he didn’t have the guts to find out. His gaze traveled over her mother’s anguished grimace, her grandmother’s fading triumph, and her sister’s expression of stunned sympathy.

  “Excuse me…I’m sorry. I think I need some air.”

  Somehow, he made it to the front door. He heard Ellie call his name, but he couldn’t make his feet stop. The shallow porch steps proved to be little impediment. He leapt over them in one bound. The keys in his pocket bit into his thigh, not so gently reminding him of the car parked in the drive. He spared it a quick glance then dismissed the thought, striking out in the opposite direction.

  His long legs gobbled up a half block before he heard the storm door slam behind him. Jack didn’t trust himself enough to look back. To ensure she wouldn’t catch up to him, he broke into a brisk jog. By the time he rounded the next corner, sweat ran like a river down the center of his back. Twenty minutes later, he was drenched to the skin and ready to go home, whether Ellie chose to go with him or not.

  ****

  Jack trudged along the sidewalk, each step heavy and plodding, clearly conveying his dread. She saw him eye his SUV longingly, but he kept coming, his tennis shoes scuffing the brick walk as his steps slowed to a stop. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his shorts. His keys jingled. The once-crisp madras shirt he slipped into after their shower that afternoon clung to his shoulders and stomach, wrinkled and drenched in sweat.

  Ellie reached under her bent knees, pulled out a bottle of beer, and held it out to him as a peace offering. He twisted the cap from the bottle and chugged half its contents in three gulps.

  She tore her gaze from his bobbing Adam’s apple. “I didn’t want to jinx it,” she said softly.

  “Jinx what?”

  “Us.”

  His dark eyes shone with hurt and confusion. “How would telling people about us jinx it?”

  She turned away, focusing on the scraggly evergreens in the front flowerbed. “The last guy I introduced to my family dumped me a week later.”

  “Because he didn’t like your family?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” She shrugged. “I mean, they didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing more than the usual embarrassing family stuff.” Her bottom lip was swollen and raw, but she chomped on it anyway, savoring the tinge of pain and the faint tang of blood. “Might have been a coincidence,” she conceded at last.

  “You could have warned me,” he said gruffly.

  “That I’m crazy?” she asked, lifting her gaze to meet his.

  “Yes.”

  A grim smile twitched her lips. “I’m nuts, Jack.” When he nodded, she let the smile unfurl a little more. “I’m so nuts about you I do crazy things like keep you in bed all morning because I don’t want to share you.”

  But the smile faded as she lowered her eyes to stare at the cracked concrete steps. Humid summer air filled her lungs, and the words she needed to say threatened to strangle her if she didn’t let them out.

  “I’m so crazy about you I haven’t told my mother or my sister or grandmother that I’m in love… Hell, most of the time, I’m scared to tell you.”

  “Why?”

  Her eyes swelled with tears and she raised her head. He swam in front of her, golden, glistening, glimmering in the light of a sultry summer evening. “I don’t want to jinx it,” she whispered.

  His beer bottle clinked against the step as he squatted in front of her. Broad palms covered her knees; long fingers grazed the hem of her shorts. His voice, slow and soft, gruff and sexy, made her shiver despite the heat shimmering around them in waves.

  “I’m not going anywhere, Ellie. I’m staying right here in Chicago, waiting, wondering, and hoping one day you’ll come home.”

  “Promise?”

  “Swear.”

  His kiss was tender and her response instantaneous. She kissed him back, soft and searching, seeking reassurance and forgiveness.

  He sighed when he pulled away. “Besides, your family probably thinks I’m the one who’s crazy.”

  Ellie shook her head, the tip of her nose grazing his. “They know me too well.” She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to his. “Did you mean what you said about talking to my dad?”

  “Yeah,” he croaked. “Yeah, I did.”

  Smiling, she kissed him again then leaned back to look him in the eye. His sheepish smile turned the devilish dimple in his cheek loose. She brushed her hands over her shorts and pushed him away as she rose from the step.

  “I have to go help clean up. For God’s sake, don’t smile at my Grandma like that. It isn’t safe.”

  “I figured you would protect me.”

  “Speaking of not safe,” she began, fixing him with a stern glare. “What about this job of yours?”

  He pressed his finger to her lips. “We’ll talk about that later. Right now, I need to strap on my Kevlar and find your dad.”

  Ellie stared at him in wonder. “You’re really going to talk to him? Still?”

  He smiled and nudged her toward the door. “We might talk baseball. I hear the Cubs are doing fairly well this year.”

  “Jack!” She stumbled when he propelled her into the house.

  “Elfie,” he growled.

  “Stop that.”

  “Booger?”

  “Elfie,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

  He smacked a pert kiss to her lips, turned her toward the kitchen, and gave her a gentle shove in the right direction. “About time you started seeing things my way. Now, which way to the lion’s den?”

  Labor of Love

  Ellie was a woman on a mission. For four long hours she drove like a bat out of hell, daring the troopers along I-65 to try to stop her. Eight weeks. She’d survived another never-ending eight-week stretch without seeing Jack. Barely. Okay, not even barely. If she’d been stuck in Labor Day weekend traffic just one more hour, she might have spontaneously combusted. Luckily, she was heading into the city when most were trying to get out. The bottleneck broke free before she had to start ramming cars to get them out of her way.

  Hunched over the steering wheel, she tried to ease the knots in her shoulders and neck, but they wouldn’t budge. These aches weren’t simply the accumulation of hours in the car following a stressful meeting with her Regional Manager. Something had to give, and that something was her. It had to be. She was the one who’d nearly blown everything she ever wanted sky-high.

  At least, she hoped it was only nearly blown. These days it was hard to tell. Everything seemed okay between them. On the surface, anyway. They still talked every night. Jack still told her he loved her. It was just that things weren’t quite the same as they were before she visited over the July Fourth weekend, and a part of her feared they never would be again.

  That afternoon at the Chatham Hotel-Indianapolis confirmed all of her suspicions. As she sat there waiting for her boss to give her the meeting he’d agreed to, she couldn’t help inspecting the hotel that used to be her second home through the eyes of the
woman she was now. The woman she’d become because of Jack. Just two short years earlier, she left Indy heartbroken and seeking refuge in her work. The promotion that provided her means of escape led her to Little Rock, and in a roundabout way, to the man who changed everything.

  She’d resisted. God knows she tried so hard to resist him. But after months of being pursued by Special Agent Jack Rudolph, the surrender of her heart seemed inevitable—as inevitable as he believed their future to be. But her feelings for him and his for her weren’t what tripped her up. Her downfall came when she let her fear give Jack cause to doubt her commitment to him.

  Ellie hadn’t shared their relationship to her family. She’d kept Jack her secret while he planned to ask her to be his wife. She hadn’t told the people she loved first about the guy she loved most, and that hurt him. And in trying to keep her heart safe, she hurt herself even more. After all the fuss and furor, Jack didn’t pop the question, and she couldn’t blame him.

  Ellie hooked a left and exhaled with a whoosh as she scanned the street. Cars parked bumper to bumper with barely an inch to spare. Her parallel parking skills were nowhere up to this level. She wasn’t sure she could handle this solo.

  The last time she visited, she flew into O’Hare and Jack picked her up outside the baggage claim. She didn’t have to do a thing. He hoisted her bag into his car then hauled her into his arms. When they arrived at his condo, he parked his SUV in the fenced lot behind his building and whisked her into his new home. He smiled as they drove to her parents’ house in the suburbs. Smiled because he had a plan. A plan he never put into motion because she was too afraid to let their relationship move forward.

  This trip would be nothing like the last. From the looks of things, this time she’d be parking somewhere outside of a ten-block radius and clutching her pepper spray all the way to his front door. A breathy laugh escaped her. If Jack knew she would be walking the mean streets all by her helpless little lonesome, the man would pop a vein. She kind of hoped he would. Not literally, but maybe the teensiest bit figuratively.

  Since that disastrous weekend, the distance in their long-distance relationship seemed to grow exponentially. Suddenly, they were back to square one. Like a couple of punch-drunk boxers, they circled each other, relearning their patterns and keeping their relationship at arm’s length. She didn’t know how much she’d miss his overbearing protectiveness until he backed off. But she did. She missed it so much, her throat ached in anticipation of his imagined hissy-fit. If he still cared enough to have one.

  Slowing to a crawl near a gap in the lines of parked cars, she eyed the spot warily. A group of overgrown teenagers idled under a street light. A couple stumbled arm in arm from the sketchy-looking bar on the corner. She stared at Jack’s building, trying to count windows. Golden lamplight glowed in one of the fourth floor units. The other was dark. She double-parked alongside a Ford that had seen happier days. For the life of her, Ellie could not remember if his loft faced the street or the alley. They hadn’t spent a lot of time admiring the view the last time she was here.

  Rooting for the console, she unearthed her cell phone. She wiped her damp palm on her skirt as she powered through the interminable seconds it took for the speed dial to connect. She held her breath, waiting for the thick, dark honey of Jack’s baritone to flow through to her.

  “Elfie.” She didn’t even flinch at the use of the hated nickname. She was too busy trying not to burst into tears. “You’re calling late tonight.”

  She swallowed the burning lump in her throat. Before the whole debacle at her parents Fourth of July cookout, he would have called her. Hell, there would have been at least two or three messages waiting on her phone if she hadn’t called until ten o’clock.

  But not these days.

  These days he only called her when he was calling her back. Despite the new job with the Chicago field office and a schedule more flexible than hers, he hadn’t come to see her in eight weeks. Eight long weeks. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t even suggested a visit. That was the straw that broke Ellie’s back.

  He answered the phone and she said only, “I think we need to talk,” in greeting.

  His sharp intake of breath cut the silence that hummed between them. He let it go with a hiss and punctuated the sentiment with a low grunt. “So talk.”

  “I’m downstairs, but I can’t find a parking spot.”

  “What?”

  The shock in his tone triggered a smile. For once, she got one over on her very special agent. “Surprise.”

  “You’re here? In Chicago?”

  “Right in front of your building, Rudolph,” she confirmed. “Do you think you can come down and guide my sleigh to a parking spot? I might need your nose to scare off the creepy guy lurking in the alley a couple of blocks over.”

  Jack hesitated for a moment. Her stomach dropped to her toes as she heard the rustle of bedclothes. He juggled the phone. “Uh, hang on.”

  The echo of a woman’s voice sent shivers down her spine and alarm bells started clanging in her head. Mortification burned hot in her cheeks. It could have been the TV. She hoped with all her heart it was the TV. She was almost one thousand percent certain the voice came from the TV. Still….

  “Maybe I should just go to Laurie’s.” The thought of turning up on her sister’s doorstep in a flood of tears wasn’t particularly appealing, but it beat the crap out of coming face to face with the infinitesimal chance that he wasn’t watching TV. Oh God, what if he wasn’t? Why did she ever think it was a good idea to just show up?

  Jack’s derisive snort yanked her back. “Are you kidding me?” The exasperation in his tone stoked the dying embers of hope in her heart. “Come down the alley. I’m opening the gate to the lot. My neighbor’s out of town this weekend. You can park in his spot.”

  The TV. The voice had to be coming from the TV. Surely Jack wouldn’t be cruel enough to invite her in if he was…entertaining company. Niggling doubt chased her taillights. She held her breath as she made the sharp turn from the narrow alley into the crowded lot.

  “Joe’s space is next to mine,” he huffed.

  Ellie pulled into the spot and killed the engine as the back door opened. Fluorescent light spilled into the parking lot. He stood silhouetted in the doorway. The gate rolled shut behind her, trapping her there. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to open the door. She cast a glance over her shoulder as she climbed from the driver’s seat, keeping her hand wrapped around the top of the door. She had questions she needed to ask, and she was hoping the reinforced steel could shield her from any answers she didn’t want to hear.

  Pressing the phone tight to her ear, she stared straight at him. “Do you still love me, Jack?”

  He lowered his hand and stared down at the phone’s display, a wrinkle of disbelief bisecting his brow. “What?”

  Her heart jackhammered in her chest. It was hard to drag enough air into her lungs to make more than a squeak, but she’d come this far and she wasn’t about to shy away now. “Do you still love me?”

  His thumb jabbed the disconnect button and the call ended. She gripped the car door and held her ground as he approached, trying not to be swayed by his deliciously rumpled hair and shadowed jaw. She couldn’t let herself fall victim to the power of Jack in his bare feet and holey T-shirt. If she did, she’d never make it out alive. Once he was within reach, he drew to a stop and cocked his head, eying her like some kind of overgrown cocker spaniel. A cocker spaniel she’d just kicked. Again.

  “How can you ask me that?”

  She searched his face for some clue, but his expression was blank. Cop face. Her Jack was giving her his cop face, and she couldn’t stand it. Only the tiny rasp in his voice gave him away, and that was enough to cut the tears clogging her throat loose. “I don’t know anymore,” she whispered.

  “How? How can you not know?”

  “Do you, Jack?” she persisted. “I can’t help wondering because I love you, and this….” She relinquished
her hold on her shield, gesturing to the space between them. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I hurt you. You’ll never know how much it hurts me to know I hurt you.” The tears she’d been fighting for weeks spilled onto her cheeks. “I didn’t mean to, I swear…And I can’t stand…this.”

  His eyes locked on her hand. He caught her fingers on the fly, wrapping them up tight in his warm grip. “I love you, Ellie. That’s something you never, ever need to wonder about. I thought you knew that.”

  She stepped out from behind the door and slammed it with a flick of her wrist then launched herself into his arms. “I did know. I did know before, but I was scared and I blew it.” Her tears soaked through the thin T-shirt he wore. She sniffled softly and snuggled into his embrace. His chest was warm and solid. His heart beat strong and steady against her cheek. Drawing a deep breath, she sucked it up enough to say the things she needed to say and ask the questions she needed to ask. “I knew before, but I…I’ve missed you….”

  “I missed you too,” he murmured. His lips brushed the top of her head. A sigh of hot breath stirred her hair. “What are you doing here? I thought you had to work all weekend.”

  “I do,” she mumbled into his chest.

  He framed her face between those wide, warm palms and tipped her head back until she met his gaze. Bewildered amusement danced in cocoa-colored eyes. “You do remember that you work in Louisville, right? That’s in a whole other state, Elfie.”

  “I know.” She sniffled then forced a smile. “Give me a lift back to Kentucky, Rudolph?”

  “I haven’t eaten any magic corn lately.”

  “Damn.” She pursed her lips, an impatient hint that he didn’t catch. Ellie sighed and shook her head. “I guess I’ll just have to drive back in the morning. Can I borrow your couch?”

  His eyebrows rose, but the amusement that lit his eyes fled. “No, but you can sleep in my bed.”

  Rising to her toes, she kissed his lips then settled her cheek against his chest once more. “I was hoping you’d say that.”