Guarding His Witness

by Lisa Childs

  His green eyes widened with shock. “How is that?”

  “I went to see Luther to strike a deal with him,” she explained. “I told him that I wouldn’t testify if he would leave you alone. I didn’t want you getting hurt anymore because of me.”

  “Why?” he asked again.

  And here it was, the moment of truth for her. She drew in a deep breath before releasing it in a shaky sigh. “Because I love you.”

  He shook his head. “No, you hate me.”

  “I wanted to hate you,” she admitted. “But then I got to know you the past few days, and I realized I didn’t hate you at all. Ever...”

  “But Javier—”

  “What happened to Javier was not your fault,” she said. “I was wrong to blame you for it. I was just so upset that he was gone. I was so full of anger, but I turned that anger on the wrong person.”

  He shook his head. “No, you didn’t. I am to blame for his death.”

  “Luther Mills is to blame,” she said. “And I never should have offered not to testify against him. But I was so worried. You kept getting hurt. And that last time...” She shuddered as she remembered thinking that he was gone. “You and Parker could have been killed.”

  Would have been—if Clint had not reacted so quickly.

  Tears rushed to her eyes, blurring her vision, so that she couldn’t even see his handsome face anymore. She blinked away the tears and said, “I couldn’t risk losing you.”

  “You won’t,” he said. And he closed his arms around her. “You won’t lose me.”

  Rosie reached up and looped her arms around his neck, pulling his head down to hers. Then she kissed him hungrily. They had come so close to dying only a short while ago.

  So close to never being able to be together again.

  She couldn’t wait to be with him—in every way. Even as she moved her lips over his, she reached for his shirt, trying to pull it up.

  He wasn’t wearing his holster. He’d taken to tucking his gun into the back of his jeans. She remembered that moment he’d approached her and Officer Maynard with his hands empty and at his sides.

  She had thought that he was unarmed. She’d thought he was going to die. Tears stung her eyes again. “I can’t lose you,” she murmured.

  She’d already lost one man she loved. She couldn’t lose another.

  “Shh, don’t worry about me. I’m not going anywhere.” he assured her. And then he kissed her back, just as hungrily as she’d kissed him. He moved his hands from her back over the curve of her hips to the hem of her long dress. He pulled it up and over her head until she stood before him in just her underwear. These were borrowed from one of the safe houses. Just plain beige satin, but he gasped as if she were wearing fancy lingerie. “You are so beautiful,” he murmured. “So damn beautiful.”

  She had never considered herself anything special—until now. Until the way that Clint looked at her like he had in the SUV, with such intensity in his eyes. With such emotion.

  He said nothing more, just picked her up and carried her through one of the doors off the living area of the cottage. The bedroom was bright and light, too, with shimmery sheer curtains at the window and creamy yellow sheets on the bed. Then she was on the bed, too, as he lowered her to it.

  But instead of joining her, he stepped back and to her relief, finished undressing. Then he stood before her, gloriously naked but for the bandage on his shoulder.

  It was still a crisp white. He had stopped bleeding. He was healing.

  And finally, so had Rosie. She’d let go of the anger over Javier’s death. And while she would always miss him and regret his loss, she knew she would be able to be happy again—like he’d wanted her to be...with Clint.

  She reached out for him. But he stayed standing for another long moment, just staring down at her. And that look on his face...

  She shivered, but it was a delicious shiver, one that had her skin tingling and her heart racing. “Clint.”

  He didn’t join her, though. Instead he dropped to his knees next to the bed. But he leaned over and kissed her. And as he kissed her deeply, sliding his tongue between her lips, his hands moved over her body.

  He traced every curve before removing her underwear. Then he traced those curves all over again.

  Rosie’s skin tingled everywhere he touched, and tension began to build inside her. She needed him to be closer. She needed him inside her.

  She reached for him, sliding her palms over his chest to his back. Muscles rippled beneath her touch. But he stayed on his knees beside the bed. And he continued to focus on her. He replaced his hands with his mouth, kissing all the curves he’d just caressed.

  He closed his lips over one nipple, tugging at it gently until she cried out at the pleasure. Then he moved his mouth lower, over her stomach to the small mound between her legs. And he made love to her with his mouth.

  She arched and writhed on the bed, desperate for release—which he gave her with shattering intensity. She cried out again, screaming his name. But it wasn’t enough yet. She still ached inside—for him.

  Then he was there. After rolling on a condom, he finally joined her on the bed, and he joined their bodies. She lifted her legs and arched her hips, taking him as deeply as she could. He was so big...yet he fit inside her as if they were meant for each other.

  She realized now that they were. She locked her arms and legs around him, but he turned, flipping onto his back so that she straddled him. She squealed in delight as he moved even deeper inside her.

  Then he locked his hands around her hips, and together they found a rhythm. She rocked back and forth, up and down, building that tension inside her again.

  Sweat beaded on his lip and glistened on his muscular chest. She braced her hands against it and moved faster. His hands clenched her hips, but he didn’t still her movements. He helped her, and together they found release—each tensing as the orgasms rushed through them. Spent and satiated, Rosie collapsed on his chest.

  “Staying here until the trial won’t be so bad,” she murmured. Not if they spent all their time like this.

  But Clint, still clutching her hips, lifted her away from him. And as he got out of bed, he said, “We’re not staying here.”

  “But the chief assured us it’s safe.”

  “We’re leaving,” Clint said. “And we’re not coming back for the trial.”

  He walked away, leaving her in shock as he stepped into the bathroom. What the hell was going on?

  He’d wanted her to testify. He’d been angry when she’d told the assistant district attorney that she wasn’t going to. Why had he changed his mind?

  When Clint stepped out of the bathroom, he found Rosie exactly how he’d left her, sitting up in bed with a stunned expression on her beautiful face. He wanted to crawl back in that bed with her, wanted to pull her naked body into his arms and hold her all night.

  But instead he picked up his clothes from the floor. “We need to get out of here, as far away from River City as we can get.”

  They could leave the country. That would be the smart thing to do. That would get them outside of Luther Mills’s reach. It would have to.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “You were mad when I changed my mind.”

  Clint still couldn’t believe she’d done that for him—because she loved him. How was that possible? No matter what she said, he was responsible for her brother’s death. He’d thought she would never forgive him, let alone fall in love with him.

  “I didn’t know why you were doing it,” he said. “And I didn’t realize—until Officer Maynard said it—how stupid it was to expect you to testify.”

  She shook her head. “It’s not stupid. It’s the right thing to do—for Javier.”

  He hated that she’d thrown his words back at him. “Javier made me promise to keep you safe,” he said.
“This is the only way I can do that, by not letting you testify.”

  “Is that the only reason you want to keep me safe?” she asked. “Because of your promise to my brother?”

  He shook his head. “No. It’s because I love you, and I don’t want to lose you.”

  Her brown eyes widened. “You love me?”

  He snorted at her surprise. “I loved you from the first moment Javier introduced us. You are so beautiful, but more than that you’re smart and strong and loyal and fierce—”

  She jumped up from the bed and threw her arms around his neck, pulling his head down for her kiss. She kissed him passionately before breaking away to murmur, “You love me...”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s why I can’t risk you testifying.” He shuddered as he remembered everything Officer Maynard had said. “It’s too risky.”

  “Not with you by my side,” she said. “You’ve saved me over and over again. You will keep me safe during the trial. And until the trial, we will be safe here together.”

  “But if something happened to you...” He would never forgive himself.

  “It wouldn’t be your fault,” she said. “Just like Javier’s death wasn’t your fault. It was Luther’s. And he needs to pay for that. He needs to be put away in such a high-security prison that he will never be able to hurt anyone else.”

  She was right.

  “Damn you,” he murmured.

  And she laughed. “You know it’s the right thing to do. For Javier, for your cousin...”

  He nodded.

  “But it means so much to know that you would put me before them,” she said. “Before justice.” She blinked back the tears brimming in her beautiful eyes. “I have never been loved like you love me.”

  He shook his head. “Your brother loved you. He wanted to make you proud.”

  The tears spilled over. “He did. He did make me proud.” Her breath hitched, and Clint pulled her close again, holding her as she cried for Javier.

  But she didn’t cry long before she pulled back. And she was smiling again. “You’re not the only one he got a promise out of before he died.”

  Clint furrowed his brow as he stared down at her. What could Javier had wanted from her? He’d said she’d already given him everything. “What?” he asked.

  “He used his last breath to tell me that you and I belong together,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. “He made me promise to give you a chance.”

  “Instead you told me to go to hell,” he reminded her.

  “I’m stubborn.”

  “Don’t I know it,” he murmured. But it was that obstinacy that had kept her in school and then college. She’d worked hard, but it was her perseverance that had ensured her success.

  “Will you honor his promise now?” Clint asked. “Will you give me a chance?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I think Javier was right. I think we do belong together.”

  Javier was right. But Clint had always known it, too. And he would do his best to honor his promise to her brother. He would keep her safe...for the rest of their lives.

  * * *

  “What the hell do you mean?” Luther shouted into the cell phone. He didn’t care who overheard him talking. Sure, the guards were getting nervous. They knew they were being investigated. But if they didn’t do what he wanted, he’d threatened that he would help the assistant DA with her little investigation.

  “We can’t find the witness or Clint Quarters anywhere,” the man replied.

  This was the man—the one high enough up to give Luther the information he needed. Until now.

  “You have to know,” Luther insisted.

  Was this man getting nervous, too—like the correction officers were?

  Did he think their alliance was about to be discovered? Luther had other sources, but this was the guy who’d found the Payne Protection Agency safe houses. This was the one he needed the most.

  “I don’t think anybody knows where he took her,” the guy insisted.

  Luther snorted. “They couldn’t have just disappeared.”

  “Looks like that’s exactly what happened.”

  “Clint Quarters is just a bodyguard now. Rosie just a nurse. They would need to use credit cards or at least make withdrawals from their savings.” They couldn’t live off love. The thought sickened Luther. “You must be able to track down where they are.”

  “I tried. There’s been no activity on any of their accounts. Are you sure they’re not dead?”

  “Yes.” If someone had offed them, that person would have been bragging to Luther for respect and begging for the big reward he’d offered. “You need to keep looking.”

  “I will.”

  But it was clear he wasn’t hopeful that he’d find them. Maybe that was good, though. Maybe they’d run away and Rosie really had no intention of testifying against him.

  Of course Luther still wanted her dead and Clint Quarters deader than dead. But he would worry about that later. Right now he had to shift his focus.

  “That crime scene tech has to go next,” Luther said. “She’s not been as easily intimidated as I’d thought she would be.”

  None of them had been, though.

  Did they not realize who they were dealing with? Luther Mills never lost.

  “Wendy Thompson has a Payne Protection bodyguard, too,” he was warned.

  “Who?”

  “Hart Fisher.”

  Luther laughed. Another former vice cop. Another officer who had quit because he hadn’t been able to get him.

  This was going to be fun...

  * * *

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  Shielded by the Lawman

  by Dana Nussio

  Chapter 1

  Another day, another death. A continual supply of senseless carnage. Solutions buried deeper than the corpses fallen by their own hands.

  Jamie Donovan squeezed his eyes shut and took several gulps of dank air to slow the pulse pounding like hi-hat cymbals in his ears. He would give anything for the pu
mmeling inside his head to let up, even if the deluge pelting his hoodie refused. But he couldn’t keep pacing in the frigid early April rain outside Casey’s Diner like a despondent person. Did he want someone to call the police on him?

  So, he yanked open the door and ground his molars as the wind caught it and clanged those obnoxious bells against the glass. He stomped inside and wrestled the door closed. Rain dripped off his coat and puddled on the mat. As if to punctuate his misery, water trickled from his hood to his nose. He brushed it away with a soggy sleeve.

  Why had he agreed to come at all? The answer to that was clear, even before nearly a dozen expectant faces turned to him from the line of tables on the far wall. If he hadn’t at least made an appearance at the diner tonight, his fellow Michigan State Police troopers would have known he was not okay after the events that occurred during his shift. And they’d have had proof that he’d lied when he said he was. How was he was supposed to fake normalcy when the usually delicious scents of frying bacon, cinnamon and fresh-baked somethings were rolling his insides like six-foot swells trapping a boat on Lake Michigan?

  “Whoa there, Hercules!” Sergeant Vincent Leonetti called out.

  The others laughed the way they usually did at Vinnie’s jokes, but the sound fell flat. Everyone was trying too hard. They all thought he was just sensitive to the type of case he’d investigated tonight. Weak-stomached even. If they only knew. But because they seemed to need him to pretend, Jamie pushed back his hood and started toward the table.

  Suicide attempt. Why did they call them attempts? Like a gymnast trying out an amazing, double-twist dismount. That guy’s effort wasn’t an attempt, anyway. It was a frigging success, with blood spatter like a Jackson Pollock painting on the living room wall to prove it.

  Jamie had been too late. Again.

  Though his face felt hot, a chill edged up his spine and gooseflesh peppered his skin beneath his sleeves. Bile that he’d forced back earlier crawled from his stomach again, lukewarm and bitter. He had to get control. As he turned his head to the side, he hoped to avoid eye contact with any of the officers who knew him too well and yet not at all.