Not Without Risk (9 page)

He wanted Paige Conroy.

When had she done it? When had she stolen past his defenses? He didn’t get involved.
Sure as hell never became hung up on one woman, the way he seemed to be hung up on
Paige. What was it about her that he couldn’t seem to shake her image from his mind?
And why her and not any of the other women he’d known?

Sleep pulled at him, but his mind refused to shut down. He fisted his hands as her
image came to him, beaten and bruised for sure, but still able to rattle him like
no other. Her smile, her scent—not perfume, but something far more subtle that he
had yet to place. The way she said his name, her voice like a caress against his flesh,
just before cutting him off at the knees with four little words.

“I don’t date cops.”

Frustration burned like acid in his gut. His shoulder throbbed. He pushed the heel
of his palm into his chest and rubbed. Stopped suddenly when he realized his focus
centered above his heart, instead of his side.

Disgusted, he set his jaw and told himself to stop acting like a fool. He didn’t know
the woman well enough to feel anything stronger than frustration, perhaps resentment.
His reaction to her sudden dismissal was ludicrous, what should he care that she didn’t
want to see him again?

But he had to admit he did care. He cared a great deal. And in his melancholy mood
he couldn’t shake the unfairness of the situation he found himself entrenched in.
Paige Conroy didn’t date cops. With her past, her firsthand experience of the worst
side of law enforcement, he couldn’t blame her. But hell, it wouldn’t surprise him
to learn he bled blue. He was all cop.

He didn’t know how to be anything else.

She dreamt of echoing gunfire and the stench of death. Of sunny days, quiet evenings,
and pain far greater than that of the flesh. Paige leaped into wakefulness with a
jolt that caused her stomach to lurch. She stared at the darkened ceiling above her,
heart skittering in her chest, nerves snapping and popping as her temple pounded.

It had been two days since her concussion diagnosis. Two days of nausea and lightheadedness
and, contrary to popular medical belief, two days of insomnia. She slept in fits and
surges, dozing off only to awaken abruptly when the demons of her mind chased her
into alertness. She kept waiting for it to end, for her life to move forward, for
her body to heal. Yet her pain persisted.

She nearly accepted it, this new ripple in what once had been a very stagnant life.
She turned a blind eye to her bruises, her discomfort and, in a vain attempt to feign
normalcy, she worked. But work took concentration and concentration became impossible
with her boarded-up front window casting the room in darkness, even at the brightest
hour of the afternoon.

Mindful of the stitches at her brow, Paige pushed her fingers into her hair and away
from her face. She pulled her knees to her chest and allowed herself a moment of dejection.
She yearned for someone to confide in, to talk to about her nightmares, her worry
and her fear. She might be an independent, self-reliant woman, but she wished she
had someone to lean on.

Her eyes searched through the darkness to the sofa upholstered in pale, muted tones
and tossed with pillows in varying shades of green. The urge to curl into the corner
of it, to dial the telephone and reach out for reassurance was strong. In the past,
whenever she needed someone, whenever her world fell apart and she needed a shoulder
to cry on, she’d gone to her father. Closest to her in temperament and personality,
he understood her in a way that her mother never would. He was her rock, the one person
she could count on to always be there for her. He would be there for her now. All
she had to do was pick up the phone.

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t risk exposing her father to any of this. There was
no guarantee that by his standing at her side, she would be any safer. Stronger, perhaps,
but the risk to him far outweighed the promise of temporary stability. She would have
to face this—alone.

Knowledge brought an ache, deep down in the center of her being. When had she done
this? When exactly had her search for independence, her escape from the pain her complete
reliance on Rick and his subsequent death brought her, managed to alienate her from
the rest of the world? In the past three years, she’d not just become self-reliant,
she’d become lonely.

And so, in the darkness of the midnight hour, when she could no longer deny what during
the light of day she possessed the strength to ignore, Paige had nowhere to turn.
She blinked against her pounding headache and accepted the truth. She couldn’t sleep,
couldn’t work, couldn’t even eat—not from the return of lost memories or the discomfort
of her injuries, but from fear. Fear that coursed through her like a living, breathing
entity. Fear that grew stronger with each passing day until even her security system
provided little reassurance. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she admitted
she had never been more afraid.

Until the sudden, unmistakable burst of breaking glass from her studio pushed her
terror to a new level.

Paige realized she was on her feet only when the movement brought about a surge of
nausea. She fisted her hand against her abdomen and listened, waiting for the din
of her alarm, for any further hint as to the basis of the sound. It couldn’t be an
intruder. There was no way past her security system, no way in without triggering
the alarm.

“Get a grip,” she whispered. But the silence that hung throughout her building failed
to calm. Her discomfort shot up another notch. Skin prickling, she glanced over her
shoulder and located her telephone. Two days before, she’d placed Justin’s business
card alongside it. Absently she wondered if he’d had late night phone calls in mind
when he’d given her the card.

Seconds later, the ominous creak of dry hinges as her darkroom door swung open had
her whirling back toward the stairs. Her heart stopped. When it started again, it
was skipping beats. Breath heaving, Paige slowly backed up and picked her keys off
the bedside table. She depressed the alarm button on her security remote once, twice,
biting back panic when her system failed to respond. With a last searching glance
through the darkness, she snatched her phone up and tiptoed toward the bathroom, the
only room in her house with a door that locked.

Her sudden indrawn breath and gasp of pain sounded unbearably loud in the silent room.
She fought against the urge to crumple to the floor as her weight came down upon something
unidentifiable in the dark and her injured knee twisted painfully. The relative safety
of a locked door overshadowing any concerns about noise, she quickened her pace, limping
noisily toward the door a few feet away.

Finally, she was there, twisting the lock and backing against the cool tile wall.
She punched in the number.

“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

“Someone’s in my house.”

* * * * *

The dark atmosphere of the dimly lit bar fit Justin’s mood. At this late hour, occupancy
was sparse and continued to dwindle as couples paired up and made their way to the
door. That suited him. He didn’t want laughter and camaraderie. He wanted to be left
alone to unwind, to think. And this was just the place to do it, complete with frosted
mugs and enough nicotine in the air to let him know that they didn’t always follow
the smoking ban.

Justin drew the secondhand smoke into his lungs, welcoming the burn as he lifted
his mug toward his lips. He fought a sigh when the burn took on an edge sharp enough
to bring tears to his eyes. A fitting end to a day that had started out bad and gone
downhill from there.

The mirror before him reflected the bartender’s moves as he placed a neon-pink drink
before a doe-eyed blonde at the opposite end of the bar. A small part of his brain
acknowledged the inviting smile the blonde sent him, but his energy remained focused
elsewhere.

He awoke that morning to a clawing ache in his side and weakness in his left arm.
A scalding hot shower helped ease the pain but did little to soothe his foul temper,
so that by the end of his shift, with no telephone records, no coroner’s report and
no Detective Jon Brennan, Justin snapped and bit at everyone who dared speak to him.
Which left tensions high, relationships strained and a partner who’d taken about all
of him he could take, eager to return to the solitude of his home and the loving arms
of his eight-months-pregnant wife.

Which in turn left Justin more than a bit envious.

Yet his day had been far from over. A glitch in the precinct’s voice mail system that
left everyone unable to retrieve their messages, combined with him having left his
cell phone on his kitchen counter, meant he’d missed the call from his mother informing
him of a change in the evening’s plans. So by the time he retrieved his cell, changed
his clothes and stepped through the door of the pre-determined restaurant to meet
his mother for dinner, he was over an hour late.

Pushing his fingers through his hair, he gave his reflection an acrid smile. As lousy
as his day had been, nothing could have come as more of a surprise than when, over
a plate of prime rib, he discovered not only did his mother’s new beau not put him
off, but he actually liked the man. Justin still couldn’t wrap his mind around it.
Nicholas Parsons, corporate CEO, seemed like a decent guy. With manners as impeccable
as his suit, he’d been funny, attentive and appeared to genuinely care for Thelma.
In fact, throughout the meal, Parsons hung on Thelma’s every word.

Maybe it was stress and frustration making him soft, but the evening gave him hope.
Something about the couple, the shared intimacies and the joy that shone through whenever
his mother looked at the man she planned to marry just felt…right. For his mother,
of course, he reserved his hope for his mother. He wouldn’t consider the possibility
there just might be someone out there, a partner, for him. He didn’t want a partner.
He wasn’t the marrying kind. He knew first-hand that attraction dulled, need faded.
And love? He didn’t believe in the emotion. Not between a man and a woman. Not the
forever kind. In the end, someone was always left hurting, bleeding as the other moved
on.

No, he decided, setting his jaw. Marriage wasn’t for him. Still, he thought of Allan
and Suzanne and wondered. What it would be like to have someone he could care about.
Someone who cared about him in return.

Out of the corner of his eye, Justin watched the blonde, frothy pink drink in hand,
sashay her way to him. She slipped onto the stool at his side and leaned forward in
just a way to give him an unobstructed view of what not long ago would have attracted
him like a moth to a flame.

“Hi, my name’s Candi, with an ‘I.’”

Her voice was too throaty, her line too obvious, and the hand she placed high on his
thigh had absolutely no effect on his heart rate.

“What’s your name?”

He slid her a look and said nothing as she leaned even closer so that her breast brushed
his arm. The overpowering scent of her perfume engulfed him.

“You do have a name, don’t you, handsome?”

The trill of his cell phone stopped the none-too-subtle brush-off that hovered on
the tip of his tongue. He managed to dislodge her hand before answering. “Harrison.”

“Justin?”

“Paige?” The reception in the bar was touch and go. The line crackled and hummed.
Yet the strain in Paige’s voice came through loud and clear. As did her fear. Any
thought of unwinding faded away as quickly as the blonde at his side and the noise
about him.

“You gave me your business card,” she reminded him unnecessarily. “You said to call…if
I needed anything.”

The tremble in her voice tightened his chest. Tossing a few bills on the bar, Justin
slid off his stool, shoved through the bar door and out into the parking lot. Immediately,
the reception cleared. “Paige, has something happened? What’s wrong?”

“I…need you.”

“I’m on the way.”

* * * * *

With the glow of the pulsing red and blue lights bouncing off the darkened buildings
and drawing him like a lighthouse beacon, Justin could only assume he’d arrived at
the correct destination. He pulled his GTO to the curb, angled between the two police
cruisers, and raked his gaze across the scene. It would help if he knew what he was
looking for. But demanded explanations had been the farthest thing from his mind when
Paige called, and something she hadn’t voluntarily offered.

I need you.

He should be ecstatic, happy as hell to hear her utter the words he’d hoped for from
the moment he’d first laid eyes on her. Instead, fear—cold and dark—slid through his
veins. Paige needed him. But not for the myriad of erotic images he could call to
mind with only the slightest effort. No, her tone, the knife-sharp edge of alarm,
told him everything he needed to know, driving him from his stool and halfway to the
exit before she uttered more than his name. Paige had called for the badge, not the
man behind it.

Pushing away the lingering disappointment, Justin popped the trunk of his car and
removed his shoulder holster and sidearm from the leather duffel he habitually carried
within. He took a few moments to fasten his Glock into place. A few more to pull himself
together.

Previous visits allowed him to piece together what little he could garner in the darkness.
The flicker of reflection from the tape cordoning off the front of the building remained
unchanged, as did the glass that littered the ground. The broken front window was
boarded from the inside, keeping curious eyes from what stood behind it. Keeping him
in the dark.

With nothing to go on, no visible sign as to Paige’s recent trauma, he could only
imagine what brought him to her. Something he preferred not to do since experience
gave his imagination a much too graphic picture.

“Help you?”

Shield clipped to his belt, he faced the uniform suddenly at his side. “Paige Conroy.”
Is she Okay? In one piece? Broken and bleeding?
He left the melodramatic questions unspoken and worked to remain focused. “Where is
she?”

“Second floor. She said something about a friend coming. I guess that would be you.”

“I guess it would.”

Her studio was lit up like the sky on the Fourth of July. Once inside, a cursory glance
provided no more clues than the exterior of the building. Again, with the exception
of the two cops at the base of the stairs, everything appeared the same as on his
last visit. Nothing seemed out of place, missing or broken. Everything appeared nice
and tidy. Too nice and tidy, he decided as his scalp prickled. The need to see Paige,
to uncover the urgency of her situation, drove him up the stairs.

On the second level, he stepped into what he knew to be her living area. Where her
studio was a sea of neutrals, of cool professional lines, the upstairs he found to
be more personal. Its pale upholstered furniture stood out against the cherry hardwood
floors and forest green walls. Spacious and open, one room artfully blended into another
while remaining discernible by the unique placement of furniture. Windows covered
two walls of the space, and potted plants sat everywhere, so lush and overgrown that
they resembled small trees.

Yet it was not the homey atmosphere, the myriad of artwork, both hers and others,
that drew his attention. Even the over-sized bed, complete with netting that hung
from the ceiling to attach to the four posts couldn’t compare to the woman pacing
before it.

In place of her usual business suit, Paige wore silk boxers and a tee—testament to
the fact that she had either been pulled from bed or on her way when her evening abruptly
turned. Her hair hung down, long and silky around her shoulders, dark ends swishing
a few inches above her trim bottom as she abruptly turned and started in the opposite
direction.