She shook her head. “No, no, of course not. You’ll be a hero, Dale. You’ll be the one who brings down Luther Mills.”
He shook his head and sighed. “You’re pathetic, Jocelyn. And condescending and superior as hell. Do you really think I’m going to fall for your bullshit?”
Her blue eyes widened with feigned innocence.
“I know you too well,” he said. And maybe that was why he should have been prepared when she lunged at him.
But the letter opener struck him, stabbing the corner of his eye. He blinked at the sting of pain and blood that trailed from the wound. Then he grabbed her wrist, squeezing hard until the letter opener dropped to her desk.
“You bitch!” he said. And he swung his other hand at her beautiful face, striking her hard.
Then he reached for her throat. He wasn’t even going to use his tie this time. No. This time he wanted to squeeze the life from her body with his own damn hands.
But she wasn’t done fighting. She clawed at his hands and tried kicking out—struggling so much that she knocked her chair over and fell to the ground.
He leaped over the desk and jumped on top of her. Her breath whooshed out as his weight hit her lungs and stomach. He grinned as he stared down at her.
She was so scared.
So beautiful...
Maybe he’d take a little more time before he killed her. Maybe he would take what she’d denied him...but had freely given to her damn bodyguard.
CHAPTER 24
Fear pounded in Landon’s heart as he rushed up the stairwell. He’d had to argue his way past the security guard in the lobby, who’d informed him that Jocelyn wasn’t alone on the district attorney’s floor. Dale Grohms hadn’t left yet either, which had surprised the guard, who’d remarked how much the male ADA was in and out of the office.
Landon’s heart had sunk then as he’d realized Grohms had to be the one working for Luther, the one who’d tried to kill her. But would he try again when the security guard knew he was present yet in the building? On the very same floor with Jocelyn?
Not wanting to alert Grohms to his presence, Landon had taken the elevator up only as far as the floor below the district attorney’s. Then he’d switched to the stairwell, running up the last flight of steps. As he pushed open the door at the top of the stairs, he’d heard her scream.
And his already madly pounding heart had slammed against his ribs. He’d never heard her like that, despite all the dangerous situations they’d found themselves in. He’d never heard her sound so terrified.
He drew his weapon and ran toward her office. Grohms must have been the one trying to kill them, so he had a gun, too. One he drew and fired as Landon neared the doorway. A bullet whizzed past Landon’s head and broke the window on the door across from Jocelyn’s.
He heard another cry, but it didn’t sound like Jocelyn’s, and something clattered to the floor. Barrel raised, Landon darted into the room. Dale didn’t fire at him, but he charged, knocking him aside as he headed toward the hall.
Instead of running after him, he checked on Jocelyn to make sure she was breathing. “Are you okay?” he asked.
She nodded, but her cheek was already swelling from a blow. And her hair was tangled around her face. She clutched a letter opener in her hand, blood dripping from the blade onto her desk.
Instead of him saving her, she had probably saved Landon, for Dale’s gun lay on the floor. She must have stabbed him to make him drop it. He wanted to reach for her, to pull her into his arms—not to comfort her, but to comfort himself. He had to make sure she was really all right.
She gestured with her letter opener at the doorway. “Get him, please.” Then she stumbled back and, trembling, dropped onto the edge of her desk.
“Jocelyn...”
“We need him to testify against Luther,” she said.
And he nodded. If they got Dale to turn, there might not even have to be a trial. Luther might realize he needed to plead guilty.
Landon rushed off in the direction Dale had run, toward the elevators. But he hadn’t waited for one of them. The door to the stairwell clicked as it closed, drawing Landon’s attention there. He shoved it open to the echoing of footsteps striking against the steps.
He ran down those stairs, trying to catch up with Dale. The man was bleeding from the wound Jocelyn had inflicted. A couple of times Landon slipped on droplets of blood and nearly fell. “Dale, stop!” he yelled after the man. “You need help.”
And he would probably need more if Landon caught him. He wanted to kill him for what he’d put Jocelyn through—for all the times he’d tried to kill her.
But despite his injury, Dale didn’t stop running. Another door clicked as it swung open. Landon caught up to him just as Dale darted out into the parking garage. “Stop!” he yelled again.
And Dale suddenly stopped, his body going stiff before he dropped to the ground. Gunshots reverberated off the concrete walls.
Landon cursed as he raised his weapon. Someone else was out there, in the shadows of the garage. “Come out!” he yelled. “Show yourself!”
But the only thing he heard was the sound of footsteps running away. He dropped to his knees next to Dale’s bullet-hole-ridden body.
“Hang in there,” he said as he pressed his hand over the wound in the other man’s chest. Blood pumped from it as his heart pumped its last. Landon reached for his cell with his other hand and punched in 911.
But he knew help would not arrive in time to save Dale Grohms. He heard more footsteps coming from the building and turned with his gun.
Jocelyn ran toward him. “What happened? Did you shoot him?”
He shook his head. “Somebody was waiting out here,” he said.
But he wasn’t sure if that person had been waiting for Dale or for him and Jocelyn in case Dale had been unsuccessful. He kept his gun clutched in one hand now, the barrel swinging toward the shadows.
“They shot him and ran off,” he said. And he peered around, trying to see how far they’d run.
She dropped to her knees beside them. “Tell me, Dale. Tell me that it was Luther. Tell me you have proof that it was,” she urged him.
But the man stared up at her with a blank gaze. He was beyond help—for Jocelyn or for himself.
He was already gone.
* * *
The chief did not like this. They’d caught the leak in the district attorney’s office. Hell, they’d caught two, since the security guard was apparently the one who’d shot ADA Grohms. He claimed it was because he’d thought Grohms was armed. But the man had dropped his weapon in Jocelyn’s office—when he’d tried to kill her.
After Landon had headed up to the DA’s floor, the guard was seen on the security footage placing a call on his cell phone. To Luther Mills?
At least Luther had given him the order to kill Grohms instead of Landon and Ms. Gerber. Or maybe he had wanted them dead, but the guard had worried about being blamed for their murders. Now that Detective Dubridge had busted him, with the help of the man’s own security footage, the guard was trying to act the hero—even though he couldn’t explain why he’d run away from Landon.
The chief sighed with frustration as he paced his office at the River City PD. A knock rattled his door moments before it opened to the beautiful face of his bride.
Penny walked across the office and right into his arms, as if knowing how much he’d needed her warmth and love. He held her tightly against his madly pounding heart.
She leaned back and stared up at him, her brown eyes wide with worry. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. “Just worried.”
“About?” she prodded him, tilting her head to the side and tousling her auburn curls. She was so incredibly lovely and loving.
“Everything,” he said. He was worried about everything. “We almost lost Ms. Gerber tonight.”
“Oh, no, is she all right?”
He nodded. “Thanks to Landon Myers. He saved her.” But had that been enough to earn her forgiveness? Would she let him remain as her bodyguard?
She had to know that she needed one. Even with Dale Grohms dead, she was still in danger. Hell, they all were.
With the trial being moved up on him, Luther Mills had to be getting desperate. There was no way he could escape justice this time—not with the eyewitness and the evidence against him.
And Jocelyn Gerber prosecuting the case.
Penny ran her fingertips along his cheek. “There’s something else bothering you.”
Woodrow groaned. “I think I’ve got one of those feelings you get.”
Penny Payne-Lynch was infamous for her premonitions of danger. “You feel like something bad is going to happen.”
“I don’t just feel it.” Although the sensation seemed all consuming. “I know it...”
His sweet wife didn’t try to assure him nothing bad would happen—probably because she had never lied to him. She just hugged him closer, offering him comfort.
* * *
Jocelyn couldn’t stop shaking, and not just over how close she had come to dying. Dale had been determined to kill her and had probably intended to assault her first. He’d reached for the buttons on her blouse just as Landon had pushed open the door to the stairwell. Then her coworker had pulled the gun she hadn’t even realized he’d had tucked into the waistband of his dress pants. And he had fired that gun at Landon.
She’d grabbed the letter opener from the desk and swung it into his biceps. She hadn’t wanted him dead; she’d just wanted him to drop the gun—which he had. But then he’d run off to his death.
“Do you really think the security guard was acting on Luther’s orders?” she asked Landon, who was checking all the doors and windows in her house despite having activated the high-tech alarm. If he was trying to make her feel safe, he wasn’t succeeding. She felt more vulnerable now than she ever had.
But that had nothing to do with Luther Mills and everything to do with him.
He turned away from the windows and walked over to the couch where she sat, petting a purring Lady. He nodded. “Yes, I do.”
She shivered, and the movement made Lady jump up off the couch and head toward the kitchen.
“Unfortunately, I think a lot of other people could be working for him, too,” Landon said. “We don’t know who to trust.”
She groaned and closed her eyes and murmured, “I can’t trust you.” Not after what he’d done, after he had tried to have her arrested.
But then when she’d needed him, he’d been there for her. He had saved her life. Again.
“I’m sorry, Jocelyn,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
She felt him settle onto the couch next to her. He didn’t touch her, but she still felt the heat of his closeness. As always, his nearness made her pulse quicken, her skin tingle, but he also gave her a feeling of comfort she hadn’t felt since she’d realized Dale Grohms was the one trying to kill her.
“I was an idiot,” Landon berated himself. “An idiot in love.”
She opened her eyes now and stared at him. His handsome face was twisted with a grimace.
“That’s why I did it,” he said. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you being in danger any longer. I wanted to make sure you would be safe.”
She loved him, too—so much—but she had no hope for a future with him. “You’ve seen all those other threats,” she reminded him. “You know that I’m always in danger.”
He flinched.
“And you need to know and accept that I’m not going to stop doing what I love because of those threats or even because of the attempts on my life.”
He drew in a deep breath and said, “Then I guess it’s good you’re going to have a bodyguard around all the time.”
“I am?” she asked.
He nodded. “Even after this trial is over, I don’t want to leave you. Ever...” He reached out then and covered her hand with his. “Please, Jocelyn, forgive me for being an idiot. Don’t make me leave.”
Her heart ached, then swelled and filled with warmth. But while she loved him, trusting him was going to be harder for her. “You’re not going to keep pressuring me to give up this case or my job?”
He shook his head. “I promise. I know that your job means everything to you.”
But she shook her head now. It didn’t mean everything. Not anymore. He did.
He continued, “And it’s a part of you, makes you who you are—and that’s the woman I love. If you lost that part of you, that job, that quest for justice, I wouldn’t love you like I do.”
She pulled her hand from beneath his, and he lowered his head, as if defeated. “Landon...” She reached up and cupped his face in her hands, tipping it up again. He was so handsome, but he looked so miserable, too. “I love you, too.”
He released a shaky sigh. “I thought I wasn’t good enough for you.”
She shook her head in denial and regret of the cruel things she’d said to him. “I didn’t mean that. I was just trying to get you to quit—to protect you.” Which was really no different from what he’d done. She’d hurt him in order to try to protect him. Smiling at the irony, she said, “We’re both idiots.”
“Yes, we are,” he agreed. “We’re idiots in love.”
She smiled bigger, her heart overflowing with love for him. “I do love you...so much...”
He leaned closer and brushed his mouth over hers. The kiss was so tender that tears sprang to her eyes. His love was in that kiss and in the look he gave her, his eyes so warm and adoring.
She linked her arms around his neck and clung to him as he lifted her from the couch. Then he carried her up the stairs to the bedroom. They undressed each other, tearing at buttons and zippers in their haste to be naked, to have nothing separating skin from skin—soul from soul.
Once her bra and panties dropped to the floor, Landon staggered back a step as if she’d struck him. But she wanted him closer, not farther away, and she held out her arms for him.
He shook his head. “I just want to look at how gorgeous you are...” But his gaze met hers and held. Then finally he stepped forward and pressed his muscular body against hers.
His erection swelled between them, prodding at her. She needed him inside her, needed him joined with her again. But he was focused on her, on kissing her lips, then her neck and her shoulders.
Her legs began to tremble, threatening to fold beneath her. So she fell back on the bed. And he followed her down. But he held his body off hers, as he moved his mouth over every inch of her skin.
She squirmed and writhed from his attention, needing release from the pressure he built so tightly inside her. His lips closed around a taut nipple, and she arched off the bed, crying out at the pleasure.
She clutched at his shoulders, his back, trying to pull him down with her. But he moved down her body instead, making love to her with his mouth.
The tension broke, making her cry out again with pleasure. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. She wanted him.
But he rose from the bed before she could pull him down onto her. He was only gone a second, though, to roll on a condom, before he joined her again literally, easing inside her. She wrapped herself around him, clinging to him, as they found the rhythm that was theirs alone. They moved together, perfectly, in their own dance.
The tension wound through her again, building and building, until it let go, and she screamed Landon’s name. And her love. “I love you! I love you!”
He tensed and then yelled as he found his release, too. For a moment, he rested his forehead against hers. Staring deeply into her eyes, he said, “I love you.”
Then he pulled away, disappearing for just a few moments to clean up, before coming back into bed.
He slid his arm around her as he untangled the covers and pulled them up, over them both.
But she wasn’t shivering and trembling anymore. She felt safe and warm...with him.
He stroked his hand down her back, but his fingers trembled slightly. Was he worried about the trial?
“Are you okay?” she asked him.
“Yes...”
But she heard the concern in his voice. She settled her head against his shoulder and murmured, “We need to trust each other. I need to trust that you’ll stay safe protecting me and you need to trust that you’ll be able to protect me.”
He tensed for a moment, but then his body relaxed beneath hers. “We will,” he said. “We have. We’ve survived everything Luther has thrown at us.”
Jocelyn knew, though, that Luther wasn’t done trying. He wasn’t going to give up. He had probably already begun to formulate another plan to get away with murder while committing more.
Landon knew it, too, because his arm tightened protectively around her. But he just squeezed her in assurance as he said, “Together—with our love—we are too strong for even Luther Mills to hurt.”
He was right.
Together they were much too strong for Luther to hurt. But she had no doubt that he would try.
EPILOGUE
The trial...
Court had gone even better than Landon had expected. But then Jocelyn—when she had all the evidence and an unshakable eyewitness—was damn good at her job. If she’d had the evidence and witnesses she’d needed for any of Luther’s many previous crimes, Javier Mendez would not have died.
Nor would have so many members of Luther’s crew that he’d sent after the Payne Protection Agency and the people they had been hired to protect.
Landon still felt horrible over all those times he’d doubted her and had thought she might have purposely failed to get indictments against the drug dealer. Jocelyn Gerber was too honorable for anyone to bribe and too zealous about justice for anyone to threaten and manipulate.
Harlequin Romantic Suspense July 2021 Box Set Page 63