by M. A. Grant
That shut her up.
Douglass and Kai returned shortly, pleasantly surprised to find their respective paydays waiting. “Just because we take the money now doesn’t mean we’ll ditch out on you,” Kai assured Emmaline.
“What’s the plan now, sir?” Douglass asked with a look at Peirce.
“Get her off the street and wait out Gregson until he figures out we got away. I don’t think those idiots are going to share that information any time soon.”
“Where are you taking her?”
“You have room at your place?”
“Hell no, sir,” Douglass said. Peirce could understand that. He didn’t know any man who liked having his nightmares paraded in front of a complete stranger. During the wars when a guy had night terrors, everyone else just rolled to their other side and pretended not to hear the whimpering.
“Kai?”
“Not unless she wants to join me and my lady friend tonight.” He waggled his eyebrows at Emmaline, but she laughed and shook her head no.
One option left. He didn’t want her to realise how many lines he was crossing, so he attempted to make it sound casual. “Fine. My place.”
Emmaline nearly choked on her own tongue. “Your place?”
“It’s clean,” Taggart said.
“Ish,” Douglass corrected.
“At least it was a few years ago,” Kai chimed in.
“I...I was just going to check into an inn.”
Taggart snorted and her temper flared. Again. “And why shouldn’t I do that?”
“Have you ever checked into an inn before?”
She hated his condescension. “No,” she responded primly. “But it can’t be that hard.”
“Oh, no, it’s not,” he agreed, but she could hear the biting sarcasm in his voice. “Too bad they require palm and retinal scans. An account chip on file in case of damages to the room. Not so useful for people who are trying not to be found.”
Douglass turned to her, worry in his dark eyes. “If Richard Stone is involved, you can be sure that he’s flagging any scan you show up in.”
“Isn’t worth the risk,” Kai said seriously.
She swallowed, realising she was still out of her element. Taggart looked at her lazily over his shoulder. “So...my place.”
Oh, the taste of defeat was bitter. “Fine.”
“Great.” He motioned for Douglass to start up the Stallion. “You can drop us off at the service elevator.”
“Service elevator?”
“No cameras.” He chuckled at the expression on her face. “The better half never wants to see how their servants live, Miss Gregson. I guess privacy is a benefit of being one of the mindless rabble.”
The service elevator was not at all what she’d expected. True, there was trash strewn on that lower level of the underground garage, but the elevator itself was somewhat clean. She and Taggart had exited the Stallion after he promised to update the men on any new developments. Standing beside him in the tiny metal box, especially now that she could fully appreciate how intimidating his body armour and small weapons cache made him, was comforting and maddening at the same time.
Taggart wasn’t looking at her. In fact, since they’d exited the Stallion, he’d made a concerted effort to pretend she didn’t exist. The numbers ticked slowly higher.
She asked, “Do you live at the top?”
His look was all amusement, but didn’t extend past his eyes. “The penthouse? Hell no. There are better things to spend money on.”
“Like what?”
“Guns. Toys.”
Her mind flashed to the neon advertisements they’d passed rolling through the red light district. He’d teased her about her naivety when she’d asked what they were for.
“Oh. I see.”
This time he actually threw his head back and laughed. The breath left her body at the same instant a wave of heat flashed through her. His laughter was rich, deep and rumbled in his broad chest. But when he was done, he looked her straight in the eye and smiled.
Books she’d read had claimed that a man’s smile could make one’s knees buckle, but it had never happened to her personally. At least, not until now. It softened all the harsh angles of his face and the dirt smudges only heightened the whiteness of his teeth.
“Not those kinds of toys,” he said in a lazily sensual tone.
Her cheeks were burning, but she was grateful for his tact. Coming from a blue-blooded family, she knew she was embarrassingly innocent on the subject of sex. Still, she expected him to take advantage of that and use the knowledge to put her in her place. Instead, he sidestepped the clear opportunity to shame.
She cleared her throat. “Um, what did you mean then?”
“Vehicles. Aircraft. You know, mechanical stuff.”
That made sense. He wore mechanic’s gloves, assorted tools had their places on his belt and, on more than one, occasion she’d seen him leaving the estate’s garage with his welding goggles resting comfortably atop his head; they were currently hanging from a belt loop.
“You like building things?”
“Building, fixing, whatever.”
The elevator dinged and halted twenty floors from the top. She couldn’t resist asking, “Why this floor?” He had money to burn, after all…
“Direct access to the express way,” he explained as they stepped out of the elevator. “Being an ex-Lawman has its privileges.”
“Most people in this section of town don’t have cars, do they?”
“Or private garages.” His eyes twinkled with barely contained glee. He looked younger and she couldn’t help trying to imagine the Taggart she knew—a war-hardened vet with a cynical streak ten metres wide—as a tow-headed child.
They passed down a narrow hallway. There wasn’t much noise behind most of the doors. “Is it always this quiet?”
“Usually. Lotta guys are either ex-Lawmen or are still enlisted.”
“You like their company?”
“I like their respect of boundaries.”
She fidgeted with the sleeve of her jacket as he stopped at a door and held his hand to the palm scanner. “I’m sorry about this,” she told him as he punched in a complex key code.
“Why?”
“I can understand why you like your privacy.”
“You’re paying me to protect you. This is what it requires.”
“So you normally bring employers here?”
He didn’t insult her intelligence by trying to supply an idiotic answer. Her respect for him grew a bit.
“Thank you,” she said into the silence.
He shook his head and moved in place for the retina scan. “You haven’t seen my place. I wouldn’t thank me yet.”
The door’s locks clicked open.
Gods, he hoped she wouldn’t freak out when she saw his place. In the two weeks he’d gotten to know her, she hadn’t struck him as the type of woman who would put him down just because of where he lived. But he’d been surprised before.
Peirce held the door open and motioned Emmaline inside. The one benefit of working all the time: he was never home long enough to get the apartment dirty. Closing and locking the door behind them, he realised she’d stopped in the hallway, taking in the room before her.
Coming from the wealth she did, it probably didn’t look like much. Sterile, with bare floors and minimal furniture. The walls showed some water damage, but he’d never really cared since he wasn’t around long enough to notice. He waited behind her nervously, wishing he could see her face, gauge how she was feeling.
Which immediately led to the question, what kind of pansy-ass am I?
He was Peirce Taggart, former Lawmen commander, honourably discharged with medals of highest merit for his efforts during the wars. He had gone toe to gun with some of the worst scum, dragged them to interrogation and watched them crumble under his careful attentions.
So why the fuck was he growing a vagina and worrying about her feelings?
He pus
hed past her, refusing to alter his normal pattern just because she was watching. Telling himself he didn’t care if she followed him or not, he made his way to the bedroom.
Guns removed from their places, checked, reloaded and placed down one at a time on the bed before being moved to their respective pegs. Utility belts unclipped and laid out on the dresser, extra magazines left standing in perfect rows. Gloves removed and stacked on top of each other. Boot knife alongside the flashlight and goggles. Cuff and comm facing the bed in case he had to get to them fast.
The calming routine slowed his mind and let him focus on what was at hand. It allowed him to forget—no matter how briefly—the massive changes Emmaline’s rescue would cause to the next week or two of his life.
He unclasped his boots, stepping out of their heavy weight and placing them to the side of the shelves he used to store his armour. The cold floor felt good against his feet, helped him stay grounded. A real soldier didn’t need comforts like carpet.
His good arm undid one row of clasps holding his armour in place in no time, but as he raised his other hand he realised the problem. His shoulder felt better after visiting the med-centre, but he still didn’t have his regular range of motion. If he pushed his luck, he’d rip the staples. He wasn’t in the field right now; he could afford a day of downtime.
Even if it bugged the hell out of him to admit it.
He opened his mouth, about to ask for help, but the words stuck in his throat. He wasn’t asking for help from her. Not from a blue-blood.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow he’d take it easy.
He took a deep breath and kept stretching, knowing it was just a matter of time before he’d be able to hit the clasps. He could feel the skin straining around the staples, the warning signs that it was ripping a little. Sweat beaded on his brow.
Just a little farther—
The clasp suddenly went but he hadn’t reached it yet. He looked over his shoulder and saw Emmaline standing behind him, her slim, delicate fingers undoing the entire seam.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
She just nodded and focused on her task.
The familiar split in the armour is what told him he was finally home. With a sigh of pleasure, he took the chest piece off, making sure to wipe down the inside with a rag before storing it on the shelf. Emmaline had held onto the back plate and for a split second he wondered if he liked the silence that came when it didn’t fall to the floor.
The sign that he was no longer alone.
She handed it to him without a word, eyes lingering over the tight white tank that fit like a second skin. He ignored her reaction and repeated the wiping process. When it was finally stored, he took a breath and peeled off the tank, throwing it into a corner of the room.
Her shocked gasp hurt, but he didn’t try to hide as he dug a fresh tank out of his drawers. She was going to see the scars at some point.
Chapter 4
Today was full of new lessons.
Lesson one: Peirce Taggart had absolutely no sense of comfort or décor.
Lesson two: He was fastidious to the point of OCD.
Lesson three: Watching him unload the tools of his trade had done strange things to her, things that made her want to try some moves she was pretty sure were illegal in the Republic.
Lesson four: Taggart in a tank top had given her a hot flash.
Lesson five: Taggart without a tank top was even hotter.
Then she was distracted by the scars.
They crisscrossed his body, some so faded from time they were nearly gone, others so fresh they looked as though they’d just finished closing. The pockmarked indentations of bullet holes. The sweeping lines of knife wounds. Across the left side of his ribcage, three bite marks with such a radius she was sure some prehistoric creature had inflicted the damage.
The scars were so prominent, she almost didn’t notice the tattoo—the Lawmen’s crest—sitting on his hip, running parallel to the blonde hair that trailed down the muscular slabs of his abdominals into the top of his pants.
She would have ogled him longer, but he turned away from her to his drawers, dragging a clean white tank top out. He didn’t grimace when he put it on, even though she could see him favouring his injured shoulder.
That newest bullet wound fit into the canvas well, despite the blood weeping from his overexertion. She frowned at the sight, noting the growing stain on the white fabric. “Do you have a towel you don’t mind getting bloody?”
He raised an eyebrow at her, but motioned toward the bathroom. It was small, but all the basics were there. On the inset shelves near the sink were nearly all the trappings of a med-centre. Her gut pitched to see that many of the supplies were clearly used on a regular basis.
It’s all part of the job, she told herself firmly. He knows what he’s doing.
She found a washcloth and got it wet. Taggart had joined her by now, leaning his uninjured shoulder against the doorframe as he watched.
“Turn around,” she told him.
He did, but cautiously. She ignored his clear mistrust and began dabbing at the wound.
“What are you doing?” He sounded confused.
“It was bleeding again.” She dug out a large square of gauze from the shelf supplies and taped it down over the gunshot. “There.”
She didn’t like the look on his face. It was far too calculating and she wasn’t willing to dissect her motives. It was far easier to rationalise the care as part of her desire to have an effective protector. Admitting that she’d really wanted to do it because she hated the thought of him being in pain was far more complicated.
The fact that she’d also been itching to get her hands on his bare skin didn’t even factor into it.
“Do you mind if I shower?”
He reached past her and turned it on. “The water starts out cold. Give it a minute to heat up.”
“I will.”
He shifted awkwardly, finally hooking a thumb over his shoulder and blurting out, “I’ll be in the garage.”
He closed the door behind him as he went and Emmaline slumped against it. She was going to be stuck here with him—only the gods knew for how long—and even worse, he was actually being nice.
“Too bad he can’t stay such a pompous ass,” she mumbled to herself.
She felt far more human after her nearly hour-long shower, even if she did have to put on the same dress. It wasn’t filthy but she missed the sensation of clean fabric against her skin. The corset went on with a fight. Until she had different undergarments she didn’t intend to put on a show, but she did compromise and didn’t tie it as tightly as her father or his high-class friends would have wanted. This small act of rebellion thrilled her.
She emerged from the bedroom carefully, trying to get a feel for the layout of the apartment. The kitchen was small but practical and the living space was empty. Apparently, Taggart hadn’t been lying when he said his money was best spent on toys. That made the garage intriguing.
The door leading out of the kitchen took her into a small room with a sink and laundry tub. Several bottles of cleaners sat in neat rows above the sink. A pile of carefully folded rags sat nearby. The mirror above the sink was the only chaotic area, almost completely covered with pictures, most of them taped up haphazardly.
The one that caught her attention featured a younger looking Taggart with a pretty, blonde woman. They had their arms around each other and it was clear that the picture was taken while the woman was laughing. Emmaline’s heart constricted. Taggart wore a carefree smile that left strange butterflies in her stomach. A smudge, clearly grown over time, obscured the bottom right corner of the picture. She leaned in to take a closer look but a strange sound from the room beyond distracted her.
The adjoining door opened easily and she was assaulted by the scent of oil, dirt and hot metal. There was a flash of bright light but when she turned to look, it was gone. All she saw was Taggart, arms cording as he pulled at a hunk of metal on some rust bucket. Another gru
nt and tug and the plate came off. He tossed it to the side, picked up the torch and spotted her.
Gods, what a man.
The tank top she’d been trying to keep clean was already a mess, covered in rust, dirt and speckled with oil. He’d changed into thick canvas pants that were equally thrashed. The welding goggles were down, hiding his light blue eyes. A bemused grin was offset by a long smudge of something across his cheek.
He wiped his forehead with a forearm as he put down the torch and another smudge appeared. So that’s how it happens.
“You may not want to wear that out here,” he called to her while gesturing at her dress.
“Why not?”
“I’d hate for it to get ruined.”
The thought had never crossed her mind that this was her only dress. She felt horrible for her accidental indifference. Taggart’s suddenly shuttered expression said he’d figured her out. She’d grown up with money and dresses often were only worn once, but it pointed out yet again how different their lives had been.
“I needed to talk to you,” she said. Nervousness was starting to creep in.
He shut off the torch, peeled off his gloves and the goggles and strode toward her, business-like. “What?”
“How long am I going to be here?”
“Not sure.”
“Can I go out?”
“Nope.”
That rankled, even if she’d been expecting it. “Why not?”
“Because I said so.”
She frowned. “That’s a horrible answer.”
He slapped his gloves against his pants, sending up a small cloud of filth. “And I’m a horrible person. Next question?”
“How am I supposed to pawn the jewellery I brought with me?”
“Let me take a look at it later. I know a few different people, but it depends on what you grabbed.”
“Okay.”
His head tilted. “Anything else, or can I get back to my baby?”
She looked past him at the hulking pile of metal. “What is that?”
“She asks with disgust.” He sounded amused. “That is an Antonian cruiser. I bought it after the wars, but haven’t had a chance to work on it till now.”