She was with the cops again while they finished up a few more last-minute details about her vehicle. He didn’t like being shuffled away for the second time. Who did they think he was? An overbearing boyfriend in a wife-beater T-shirt? He told them he hadn’t seen the woman in five years, but cops didn’t have reason to trust what people said.
Might as well make the best of this time alone. He figured he had about a half hour to catch his breath before he would see her. Then they would start to make plans to move in together—strangers who knew what the other looked like naked. Except he didn’t look the same anymore.
Regardless, he would be out of this place by morning.
He would be living with a woman for the first time in ten years. Holy hell, he really did need a shrink after all because this was the craziest thing he’d ever done and in his line of work, he’d taken more than a few insane risks. Rick shook his head and focused on practical concerns, rather than perfumed and n**ed notions of sharing a place with a female.
Practical. Focus. Living at her house would serve a dual purpose. He could provide some extra protection, and he could push himself harder on the rehabilitation path than they allowed him here.
A win-win situation.
His cell phone rang from the table beside him, jerking him back to the present. Scooping it up, he checked the screen…and cursed. Truth was he lived to see that number. Now he didn’t know what to say to her.
His kid. His daughter. Not a baby anymore.
At fifteen years old, Lauren had expectations and rightly so. Even at full speed, he hadn’t been the best of dads, but at least he’d been someone she could brag about. She deserved that hero father who could do more than hobble in and out of her life. He’d never been much when it came to the emotional quotient—just ask his ex. Still, in the minimal time he’d spent in the States he’d tried his best to do something with his daughter. Camping and hiking. Amusement parks and air shows. Beach surfing marathons.>“The originals are with the police back in Charleston, South Carolina, where I’m stationed, but I keep these with me at all times in case another comes when I’m on the road so I can show local cops.”
She watched while he thumbed through the stack of her stalker’s notes about how he was watching her. How he’d seen what she chose at the mall. When he’d noticed the specific date she’d come home from a flight.
An outfit of hers he liked most.
The low hum of life in the hall continued while he read. A cart rattled by. A television squawked and talked and blared laughter. Conversation echoed from the chow hall.
All the while Rick’s jaw grew tighter with each Xerox copy before he finally replaced the stack into the envelope. “The explosion’s not coincidental.”
“I don’t think so.” She’d kept the notes because the police instructed her to do so, but she hadn’t taken the whole thing too seriously until now. She’d been so certain her training would be enough to protect herself against anything anyone could bring her way.
She hadn’t factored in car bombs.
“Jesus, lady. How can you sit there so calmly?”
He thought she was calm? Hah.
She pulled a tight smile. “Trust me, my heart’s racing like a newbie pilot during a check ride.”
“Have you had other accidents like this?”
“This was the first, actually. Before now, I’ve only gotten letters. I lead a simple life. Work and more work.” Of course he was curious, but she’d answered these questions so many times she wanted to bang her head against a wall. “Believe me, the police and I have both been over and over this. We have no idea.”
“What about an ex?”
Was he asking about a boyfriend? “There’s none in the picture, and certainly none of the psycho type.”
“What about your ex-husband?”
More questions about her love life? She certainly didn’t have any romance going on now or anytime recently, and she didn’t dare wrap her brain around the notion Rick might be interested in jump-starting their short-lived affair. “Peter Grant and I haven’t been together in over five years. I even went back to my maiden name the minute we separated.”
Which brought to mind the fact that she and Rick had been together just after her marriage breakup, a timing he apparently noticed, as well. The remembered weekend tingled through her mind, as real as if it had happened yesterday as she stared into his eyes, seeing herself and want reflected.
He blinked slowly, without looking away. “Who else could it be then? Stats show a stalker is usually someone you know.”
She shook her head to break the contact more than to negate his statement. “This has to be some bizarre coincidence, a threat meant for somebody else, like your mobster theory. I’m not even home, for heaven’s sake. And the letters… I can’t even hazard a guess. It has to be some freak, one of those strange people you walk past who decides there’s some cosmic connection and reads signs where there are none.”
“Whatever his reason, there’s a huge leap from letter writing to blowing up your car.”
His face went hard, protective, a visage she recognized well from working with these guys on a daily basis. He was in defender mode, and all she could think was that Rick had been injured because of her.
She reached to touch his shoulder gingerly. “I’m sorry about your back.”