Nine-Month Protector
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Julie Miller
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Chapter One
July
Sarah Cartwright ran into the posh gold-and-porcelain appointments of Teddy Wolfe’s bathroom and puked.
She knelt in front of the commode, clutching her stomach and grinding her knuckles against her mouth until the worst of the humiliation had passed.
What an idiot. What an idiot!
“Sarah?” The millionaire owner of the Riverboat Casino rapped on the door. “Will you be all right?”
Only if the tile floor opened up and swallowed her whole.
Her mouth opened to form words, but she couldn’t speak. What was there to say after what she’d just learned? After what she’d just done? Was there anything she could say that could make this whole evening go away?
She could hear Teddy outside the door, getting dressed. Fine leather creaked—a belt? His Italian oxfords? The holster and Beretta she’d seen lying on his desk?
She’d known he wasn’t the average sort of sweet and dependable guy she usually dated. That air of danger about him, that unpredictability, had been what had made him seem so exciting in the first place. She should have known she was out of her league. Out of her depth. Out of her mind when she’d started trading phone calls and had accepted this date with him.
“Well,” he continued in that suave British accent that she’d foolishly fallen for. “Take as long as you need. Make use of any of the facilities in my suite. Order room service from the restaurant or a bottle of champagne from the bar. But you’ll have to enjoy the bubbly by yourself. I have some business to attend to. My people will take care of you.”
She heard the whisper of silk sliding against silk outside the door as he continued to dress. Or maybe that was the smooth sound of careless, heartless—meaningless—seduction that she’d succumbed to like the naive, wide-eyed homebody she was. Her stomach churned again and she leaned forward.
After growing up the daughter of Austin Cartwright, she’d always fancied herself so smart about the world. But how could she not have seen this coming? Had she really felt so lonesome? So bored with her life? So left behind in the relationship world, after marrying off friend after friend—and even her own mother—that she’d refused to see the obvious?
She couldn’t call it rape. She’d been a willing participant. It had been fun and daring, and she’d had no desire to say no.
She’d been exactly the exciting new woman she wanted to be. It was the adventurous relationship she’d wanted to have.
But she hadn’t known. If only she had known.
“Sarah?” Teddy sounded impatient now, irritated with her silence. His evening hadn’t turned out the way he’d planned, either. He probably expected her to thank him.
“I’m fine,” she squeaked out on a whisper. She cleared her throat and reached for one of the crystal glasses on the counter. She pulled herself to her feet, filled the glass with cold water and took a swallow before repeating in a louder, stronger voice. “I’m fine.”
It was a lie, but it didn’t matter. That was all Teddy wanted to hear. Teddy with the smooth line and smoother kisses. Teddy with the money. Teddy with the gun. Teddy with the awful, awful words.
“You can tell your father we’re square.”
“What?” Not exactly the romantic pillow talk she’d expected after their first time together. Sarah pushed herself up on her elbows and pulled the straps of her sundress back onto her shoulders while Teddy disposed of their protection, stood and zipped his pants.
“I’ll consider his debt paid in full. For now. Until the next time he loses more than he can afford to.”
Whatever sense of adventure had driven her to risk her heart so quickly faded in a haze of confusion. “What are you talking about?”
“The two-hundred-and-sixty grand Austin owes me. Owed me. There’s no need to worry about your father now. I’ll make sure nothing happens to him.” Teddy was speaking so matter-of-factly, like they’d just conducted a business transaction instead of an impulsive makeout session on the leather couch in his private suite above the casino. He picked up his shirt and leaned over to kissher. “That was just what I needed. Thank you for the lovely evening.”
Oh, no. No.
“Was my father in danger?” What had Austin gotten himself into this time? Her stomach twisted into knots. “And I…? This was just…?”
Sarah couldn’t even bring herself to say the horrible thing she’d just done. Her own father had put a price on her head.
She grabbed her shoes and her purse and dashed into the bathroom, locking the door, locking out the nightmarish mistake she’d just made.
“Yes, well, it’s been fun, hasn’t it?” Teddy was moving outside the door, ready to leave. “We’ll have to do this again sometime.”
Sarah gripped the edge of the sink. I don’t think so. Never.
Teddy’s voice grew louder as he leaned against the bathroom door. “Austin raised a gem in spite of himself. Good night.”
After the outside door to the suite closed, Sarah splashed some of the cold water on her face and neck. She stared at her reflection in the light-studded mirror. She didn’t look any different—straight blond hair, slightly askew around her face. Big green eyes framed by the tiny lines of worry she’d earned in her twenty-seven years. She was as frustratingly petite and tomboy-ishly slim as she’d always been.
But there was something different about her. Something hollow in her expression. A weariness of the world that came from a lesson learned too late.
“I need to get out of here.”
Before something so useless as tears could take hold, Sarah scrubbed her face clean, zipped up the back of her dress and fastened her strappy sandals around her ankles. She fished her keys from her purse, put her ear to the door to make sure she was alone and pushed it open.
“Go home,” she advised herself. “Go home, regroup, pretend this never happened. No, call Dad and tell him he and I are done.” She crossed the Persian rug with a more purposeful stride. “There’s not a damn thing he can say to make this one right.”
Austin Cartwright was a sick man. His gambling addiction had cost the family plenty over the years. College funds, the dissolution of her parents’ marriage, a deep rift between father and brother. Trust.
Still she’d persevered. Austin Cartwright was her daddy. The man who’d carried her on his shoulders as a little girl. The man who’d taught her how to fish, how to hammer a nail, how to keep a box score at a baseball game. He’d taught her how to have fun. Sarah remembered having fun when she was little. She’d had fun without second-guessing the motive behind an activity, without doubting the sincerity behind the companionship.
Long after her mother had left Austin to protect her son and daughter from his illness and the resulting moods and dangers, long after she’d learned that gambling was an addiction—not unlike drug or alcohol abuse—and that it diminished her father’s reliability and tainted his love, she’d tried to help him. Sarah had tried to keep him in Gamblers Anonymous, tried to steer him away from the casino he’d practically rebuilt with his own hands. She’d tried to be patient, tried to listen, tried to be tough with her affection. She’d continued to be there for a man who was difficult to love.
But this was too much.
This was the ultimate betrayal.
This one she couldn’t forgive.
And she’d been too blinded by her need to crash out and take a break from the heavy responsibilities of her devotion to even see it coming.
Her father had sold her to repay a gambling debt.
Sarah Cartwright knew exactly what she was worth to her father now. Two-hundred-and-sixty-thousand dollars and a clean slate to start betting the odds all over again.
“Yeah, Dad, we’re done. I can’t forgive you this—”
She jumped as someone pounded on the outside door. “Teddy? Teddy!”
The woman’s shrill voice stopped Sarah in her tracks. Damn. Her escape was cut off. No way could she handle a confrontation right now. No way did she even want to be seen anywhere near Teddy’s suite.
“I know you have another woman in there. It’s that slut…”
But Sarah was already running in the opposite direction. A suite of rooms had to have another exit, didn’t it? A back door? A service elevator? A dumbwaiter? Hell, she’d open a window and dive into the Missouri River at the base of the floating casino if that were the only way to get out of this humiliating predicament without being seen.
Sarah opened a door with shuttered panels. Walk-in closet. She closed it and moved on. She found a connecting door with a dead bolt and turned the lock. A matching door greeted her on the other side. The angry, unhappy woman’s voice faded into a terse, hushed conversation with someone else outside in the hall. Sarah didn’t try to make out any words or identify the speakers; she was focused on her escape.
Once the second bolt slid aside, she pushed open the door and discovered a second suite, mirroring the office and living quarters of Teddy’s rooms. There was a second bathroom, a second closet, a second office. That meant there’d be a matching exit. Sarah ran to it.
“Don’t throw yourself at him.” A man’s voice, deeper than Teddy’s but tinged with the same articulate accent, spoke in soothing tones outside the door. “There’s a difference between passion and possession.”
Damn! How crowded could this supposedly private wing be at three in the morning?
Sarah backpedaled, looking for another option. Any option.
The man was talking to a woman out in the hall. The same woman who had shouted at the other door. Her anger spent, the woman sniffed back tears. “But I love him. You know, the money doesn’t really matter. I just want him…I want us to be a family.”
“Don’t make it so easy for him to have you. Teddy likes the thrill of the chase.”
A key scraped inside the door lock. Sarah froze. They were coming inside!
Run.
Where?
Sarah’s heart hammered in her chest. She swept her gaze back and forth. Sofa. Door. Desk. Toilet. Her feet itched to go one direction but her brain argued another route would be safer.z
Think.
“But Mr. McDonough,” the woman pleaded, apparently stopping the man’s hand on the doorknob. “I told him the truth. He said he loved me. But tonight I saw him with…”
Step by silent step, Sarah retreated. She did not want to be caught here. Did not want to have to explain to anyone why she was in Teddy’s suite. Being an invited guest sounded like a lousy excuse right about now. And being the bartered payoff for her father’s debt…? Could these people take one look at her and guess how she’d been duped? Would they laugh at her? Spread rumors? Blame her? How could she possibly defend herself? The woman outside was talking about love. And she’d…She’d…
The lock snapped open. Oh, hell. Sarah swung open the closet door and ducked inside. She closed the door behind her and hunkered down behind a row of tobacco-scented suits, clinging to the back wall of the closet, merging with the shadows, holding her breath in the darkness as the outside door opened and the couple came into the suite.
Their voices became clear, their actions easier to judge by the sounds they made. The woman was clearly upset. The man handed her a tissue or handkerchief and offered to pour her a drink. The woman sat on the leather couch. “Just water, thanks.”
The man crossed to the connecting doors between the suites and paused, as though wondering why they’d been left open. Sarah heard a click and a grate as he closed and locked the connecting doors. Her stomach tumbled. She curled her arms around her bent knees and forced herself to breathe evenly, silently, through her open mouth. She was trapped.
“There.” The man crossed back into the room. “I told you Teddy was gone. There’s no other woman here for you to fret about.”
Sarah’s cheeks heated with embarrassment, then grew cold as she listened to more of the sad repercussions of her uncharacteristically impulsive actions.
“I’m not making this up, you know,” the woman went on. “I really am pregnant.”
The sofa creaked again. He was sitting beside her. Comforting her? “So you’re carrying the heir to the Wolfe International fortune?”
“I don’t think of it like that. To me, it’s just Teddy’s baby.”
Teddy had fathered a baby? And he’d put the moves on Sarah? “That was just what I needed.”
Creep. Bastard. Sarah seethed in silence.
“Dawn, you understand that Teddy’s father is very traditional in a number of ways, despite his innovative business ideas. Family means as much to him as his reputation does. He’d expect Teddy to marry you. He’d want you and Teddy to move back to London.”
“But that’s what I want.” The woman named Dawn sniffed, sounding hopeful. “I mean, I could live in London or anywhere he wants. I know he doesn’t want to be tied down, and he has so many responsibilities here at the casino—”
“The casino can run just fine without him. Better, in fact.”
“Better? What do you mean?”
Mr. McDonough of the deep accent and solicitous voice scoffed. It was a derisive sound, full of contempt. But was it meant for Dawn? Or for Teddy? “Fathering a grandchild for Mr. Wolfe would be the one thing Teddy could do to get back in his father’s good graces.”
Dawn sniffed. “What are you talking about?”
“Here. Rest your head. Go on, lie down.” The man named McDonough soothed away the concerns his hushed aside had brought on. “I’ll have a talk with Teddy. He’s thirty years old. He needs to grow up one day. I’m sure he has feelings for you.” He was consoling her, holding her perhaps, tucking her in to sleep off her distress. If only Teddy had such a heart. If only her father could remember what real caring meant. “I’ll take care of everything,” he promised. “You just leave it all up to me.”
The sofa creaked.
“What are you doing? What is—?”
Thwap. Thwap.
Sarah lurched inside her sandals. She pressed her hand tightly over her mouth to keep from crying out.
She knew that sound.
Gunshots. Muffled by a suppressor, but no less distinct.
Her mother was a cop. Commissioner of KCPD.
Her brother was a cop. Used to be, at any rate.
Her brother’s best friend and half the people she knew were cops. She’d been around guns all her adult life.
Someone had been shot.
It was way too quiet in the other room. The crying had stopped.
Sarah’s pulse throbbed in her ears, making it difficult to hear the words from the other room as the weight shifted on the sofa. “You were a damned inconvenience, Dawn. But I think now you’ll serve my purpose very well.”
When Sarah heard footsteps tapping over the tile floor in the bathroom—a whole half a room away—she scrambled across the closet and knelt on her hands and knees, peering through the slats at the door.
Oh, God. Oh, my God.
Dawn, a pretty woman she’d seen working in the casino on previous visits, lay across the couch, her head nestled against a pillow, her arm dangling to the floor. The long, blond hair at her temple was matting with sticky crimson.
The man she’d sought comfort from—Mr. McDonough—strode back into the room. Sarah flinched, instinctively backing away from the threat carrying a gun in his hand. But still she watched.
He was older than Teddy, though not yet her father’s age. McDonough was well dressed, well groomed with super-short hair and dark, nearly black eyes she would never forget.
Those cold eyes showed no emotion whatsoever as he unscrewed the suppressor from his gun, holstered the weapon and knelt beside Dawn’s body—and the infant inside her who would now die as well. “There will be no grandchild, dear. Teddy’s been a disappointment to his father for a long time. I can’t have you changing that.”
He wrapped a towel around Dawn’s head and the pillow. Then he pulled out a roll of kitchen plastic from the wet bar and wrapped it around her body from head to toe, lifting and dropping the dead woman as though she were a rag doll instead of someone’s daughter or lover or sister—or mother.
Sarah wanted to curl up into a ball. She wanted to curse his cruelty. She wanted to cry out.
But all she could do was hold herself perfectly still, down on her hands and knees, setting aside the humiliation of her evening and swallowing her shock and horror. She silently watched McDonough wrap the plastic mummy of Dawn’s body in one of the rugs. He called maintenance for a cart and rolled her out the door like so much trash.
Nearly an hour passed before Sarah could move again. Her fingers were numb from their tight grip in the carpeting; her skin was ice-cold. She finally breathed her first decent breath and crawled out of the closet.
What the hell was she supposed to do now?
Hide? Find Teddy? Warn him of McDonough’s treachery? Ask about Dawn? Run for her life before McDonough came back and discovered her here?
She’d been hoping she could just walk away from the nightmarish mistake of her night with Teddy Wolfe. Bury her head in the sand and nurse her ego alone in the privacy of her apartment for a few days.
But all that had changed.
Sarah Cartwright might have trained to be a fourth-grade teacher instead of a woman of adventure, but the blood of law enforcement—of justice and honor and doing the right thing even when it was tough—ran in her veins.
Wanting to put some distance between her and McDonough, she hurried across the casino’s deserted parking lot, praying the dark of night would cover her escape. She climbed into her car and locked herself inside. Glancing in the rearview mirror to make sure no one was following her, she pulled onto the street heading toward home. Then, she finally picked up her cell phone and dialed 9-1-1.
She knew the drill, knew what she had to do.
“Kansas City 9-1-1 Emergency Assistance Center. How may I direct your call?”
Sarah swallowed hard. “I need to report a murder.”
“I JUST NEED YOU TO CHECK on her for me, okay? I know you didn’t sign on for babysitting duty, but it’d be a load off my mind.”
Detective Cooper Bellamy listened to his partner’s request, already pulling a clean T-shirt from his drawer and tucking it into the jeans he’d donned as soon as his phone had rung in the middle of the night. Though he’d be dressed and on the job before this conversation was done, he had to put up some kind of argument when Seth Cartwright had called to tell him he was worried about his twin sister’s safety.
“I’m sure it’s in the fine print somewhere, buddy.” He could almost hear the hitch in Seth’s Dragnet-serious voice as Coop harassed him into a relieved harumph. “I provide intel. Report to the chief. Save your ass. Babysit your sister. I do it all.”
“You’re a god among men, Coop.” Seth could dish it out as well as he could take it.
“I keep tellin’ you that.”
Coop told a lot of jokes. Laughter had always been his antidote for dealing with the crap that life threw at a man. If he didn’t admit to the pain, then he didn’t have to feel it. If no one saw him hurting, then they’d trust that he was strong. They’d find strength in his confidence. Believe in his abilities. He never wanted to look into a loved-one’s eyes and see that worry, that fear—that lack of faith in him again.
He’d never have to look into his partner’s eyes and see any doubt that he’d come through for him.
Coop slipped his holster straps over his shoulders and unlocked the Glock from his bedside table. Trust was everything between cops. Especially when one was working a dangerous undercover assignment, and he was the man assigned to ghost him. Coop was the detective whose job it was to take care of everything else—including checking on wayward family members—so that the inside man didn’t have to risk blowing his cover and could concentrate on getting the evidence and staying alive.
Cooper and Seth had been recruited from the Fourth Precinct to serve on a special vice squad task force. On this assignment, Seth had infiltrated Wolfe International—the corporate front for a mob family putting down roots in Kansas City. Seth had the trust of the Wolfe family in his back pocket.
And Coop had Seth’s.
But if Seth had any inkling that Coop’s teasing flirtations with his pretty, petite sister had a ring of real longing in them, then—partner or not—Coop would be the last person Seth would call on to help.
An appreciative wolf whistle at seeing Sarah Cartwright in a dress for the first time had been enough for Seth to jump his case.
“If you weren’t my partner, my best friend…If my life wasn’t still in your hands for the next few days, I’d lay you flat out.”
Coop raised his hands in surrender. “Hey, I’m just being an observant detective. So what if your twin sister puts on a little lipstick? I still think of her as the left-fielder who ran down that final out in our co-ed softball game against the fire department last summer. Hitting on your sister is a no-no. I get that.”
“That’s nonnegotiable, Coop.”
“Understood.”
Sure. Yeah. His brain understood. He understood even better than Seth himself that he wasn’t the man for Sarah. Not in his wildest dreams could he make something work with a sweet, wholesome girl like her. Not for long. She’d want kids, roots, picket fences…He couldn’t give her that. She deserved a better man. A whole man.
But sometimes the eye…the hormones…other things deep inside him…didn’t always follow the logic.
So he could look. Maybe he could even lust a little. But he couldn’t do anything about it. And he damn straight couldn’t tell his partner what a hottie his sister was.
He had to be her big brother, too.
Coop checked his clip, holstered his gun and hooked his badge over his belt before heading to the front door. On the way out, he picked up his blue KCPD ball cap and pulled it on over his clean-shaven head. “Is she at home?”
“That’s the million-dollar question. I can’t find her. She’s turned off her cell, and all I get at her apartment is the damn answering machine.”
“Sarah’s a big girl, Seth,” Coop tried to reason, climbing into his truck. He started the engine, not particularly thrilled by one obvious possibility. “Maybe she’s on a date.”
“At three in the morning?”
Um, earth to Seth. Big green eyes? Gorgeous smile? Just because Sarah was pint-sized and favored running shoes over stiletto heels didn’t mean any man worth his salt wouldn’t notice her. “You’ve never stayed up late when you were out with a woman you liked?”
“This isn’t about me. You know Sarah and I are cut from different cloth. I’m the evil twin. She’s the reliable one. She doesn’t do wild and crazy and stay out all night.”
Coop shook his head at the self-deprecating comment. He didn’t know whether to remind Seth that he had proven himself one of the good guys time and again, or explain that reliable didn’t necessarily mean stick-in-the-mud. If Sarah wanted to go out and party all night, she had the right. She was on summer vacation, after all. It wasn’t as though she had to get up and teach in the morning.
Instead of arguing either point, Coop turned on the AC and adjusted the truck cab’s interior to combat the muggy summer night outside. His job was to take care of Seth’s needs outside of his assignment, not beat some sense into his stubborn head. It was time he went to work. “Has Sarah been seeing anyone? Can you give me the names of some friends I can call?”
“You know I haven’t been able to keep in touch with her like I should. Hell, I don’t even know if Mom and Eli are back from their honeymoon yet.” He could hear Seth’s frustration. “Mom” was KCPD Commissioner Shauna Cartwright-Masterson, and Eli Masterson was her new husband—an investigator with the D.A.’s office. “All I know is I’ve seen Sarah at the casino on and off the past couple of weeks. Now tonight, I can’t find her. I can’t find my dad, either. But I figure whatever trouble he’s gotten into, he deserves it.”
Growing up in the Cartwright household couldn’t have been easy with an absent father whose gambling addiction seemed to cause trouble whenever he did try to be a part of his family’s lives. Coop knew all about stepping in to fill a father’s place. He’d lost his own dad, a Marine Corps captain, during the first Gulf War, and had helped his mom raise his three younger siblings. Though Austin Cartwright was still alive and kicking, Seth had assumed a similar role. He might be only twelve minutes older than his sister, but Seth took his big-brother role very seriously.
But if Seth was 27, then so was Sarah. One of these days, he was going to have to accept that. “Like I said, she’s a big girl.”
“I just need to know she’s all right,” Seth insisted. He recited the address, and Coop jotted down the directions. “Just check on her for me, okay? Everything’s about to blow here. It’s too dangerous. And if Wolfe finds out I’m still workin’ for KCPD…”
He didn’t have to finish how deadly those repercussions could be to anyone Seth cared about.
Coop backed into the street and headed across town toward Sarah’s apartment, feeling an increased sense of urgency. “Talk to me, buddy. Tell me exactly what the situation is.”
Seth gave Cooper a concise rundown of the night’s events at the Riverboat Casino—the suspected front for Wolfe International’s money-laundering activities. There’d been a big poker tournament there that night, and Seth believed he had proof of how Teddy Wolfe was filtering drug money through the tournament records and payouts. More than that, a Wolfe enforcer that they knew was good for at least one murder had attacked two women—one of them a leggy reporter named Rebecca Page. She was running some kind of investigation on her own, and she had Seth’s focus and libido all twisted up into knots. Coop suspected his partner’s feelings for the reporter ran a lot deeper than even Seth would admit.
And somehow, while Seth was focused on protecting Rebecca and making his case against the Wolfes, Sarah Cartwright had wandered into the mess. She’d been paying several visits to the casino over the past couple of weeks. Seth had monitored her comings and goings as best he could without drawing attention to the personal connection between them. But tonight, with evidence falling into place, a killer to subdue and a crime scene to secure, Seth had lost track of his sister.
“It could be nothing,” Seth continued. “But I don’t want to take any chances. I have to get to the hospital.”
“You hurt?”
“Nah.”
“Rebecca?”
“Not as badly as the other woman. But I want to make sure Bec has a doctor look at her injuries. You should have seen her, Coop. You should have heard her telling him where to stick it. Remind me never to pick a fight with her.” There was an uncharacteristic catch in his voice. It was part admiration, part fear. “I just need to know she’s okay.”
As much as he needed to know his sister was okay, too.
“Go.” Coop wasn’t about to fail him now. “You take care of Rebecca. I’ll track down Sarah for you.”
“Keep her safe.”
“I’ll keep her safe,” Coop promised.
He hung up and merged into the light traffic on I-70 that would take him into the heart of downtown Kansas City, just a few blocks south of Sarah’s restored loft in the City Market district. It was the most sensible place to start. If he discovered anything more sinister than Sarah’s phone being left off the hook so she could get a good night’s sleep, then he’d be at the starting point to retrace her steps for the night.
Cooper Bellamy’s job was to ghost his partner. If that backup meant standing in as big brother while Seth dealt with trouble at the casino, then so be it.
He made it to Sarah’s neighborhood in twenty minutes. It took him another five to locate the converted warehouse and connected parking garage Seth had described. Coop circled the garage until he found her car, then pulled up beside it and got out. He laid a hand on the hood of her sporty Ford Focus. Still warm. So the prodigal sister had been out on the town until the wee hours of the morning.
“Good for you, kid.” She deserved to have a little fun without reporting every move to Seth. Chances were she’d gone straight to bed, and checking on her now would only wake her. Still, a promise was a promise. For Seth’s peace of mind—and, therefore, his own—Coop needed to see Sarah Cartwright with his own eyes so he could report that she was okay. He crossed through the glassed-in walkway over the street to the former warehouse-turned-apartment building.
The lobby here on the second floor was just as empty and quiet as the closed architectural firm on the first floor below him. Bypassing the noise of the 1930s-era elevator, Coop hit the stairs and climbed the two flights to Sarah’s floor.
By the time he reached the tomblike silence of the fourth floor, Coop felt the first measure of suspicion. Why was it so quiet in Sarah’s building? There were plenty of vehicles in the parking garage to account for several of the apartments in this block. Shouldn’t he at least hear boards settling? A loud snore from a neighbor? Water running through the pipes or central air kicking on and off? Or was the top floor so well-insulated—so isolated—that sound didn’t carry up here?
Coop scraped his palm over the late-night stubble shading his jaw. What was a single woman doing, living alone in this big empty place where there were no neighbors to run to for help, no one to hear her in the middle of a night like this, even if she screamed?
Hurrying his pace, Coop quickly reached the single, sliding steel door marked “400.” He raised his fist and knocked. “Sarah?” He pushed the buzzer, then knocked a little harder, hating how his random observations about the building had spooked him into this wary state. Why the hell wasn’t she answering the door? Maybe Seth had been right to be concerned. Despite the apartment’s fortresslike design, he wouldn’t want one of his own sisters to be so cut off from the rest of the world. He pounded. “Sarah!”
The door slid open beneath his fist.
“Coop? What are you doing here?”
Dropping his hand to his side, he swept his gaze over all five feet and not much more of Sarah Cartwright.
Ah, hell. The summery scents of peaches and mango drifted up to his nose, igniting a decidedly nonbrotherly awareness of the woman standing in the doorway. She wore a modest pair of pajamas, with one of those strappy knit tops, and plaid pants that were rolled up at the ankle.
But it was the damp spots clinging to the tops of her small breasts and the flat of her stomach that made the whole package so unexpectedly sexy. She’d come straight from the shower, looking fresh-scrubbed and fragile and utterly feminine—from the damp, darkened strands of her towel-dried hair to the pink painted nails on her tiny bare feet.
For a couple of heartbeats, Cooper forgot why he was standing at this door in the shadows before dawn. It was always like this for him, and it always took him a second to come up with the right teasing line to remind him that this was his partner’s sister he was lusting after.
“Coop?” Sarah brushed past him, looking up and down the empty hallway before tilting those pretty green eyes all the way up to his following gaze. “I thought they’d send a uniformed officer.”
That’s when the frown between the eyes registered, along with the antsy way she rubbed her palms and tapped her fingers together.
Coop’s smile flatlined. “Why do you need a uniformed officer?” That same wariness that had itched beneath the surface of his skin on the way up returned in full force. He wrapped one big hand around both of hers, stilling her twisting fingers. “Sarah?”
She startled with a gasp, as if his touch had interrupted some deep thought process. But instead of pulling away, she turned her hands inside his grasp and held on. “I’m glad you’re here. I could use a friendly face right about now.”
Damn. Despite the warmth of a shower, her skin was generating nothing but chill.
“C’mon.” With a gentle tug, he pulled her back into the apartment, slid the heavy door shut and locked it behind him. He nudged her toward the center of the open living space, then quickly moved past her to check the windows for signs of trouble. Maybe there’d been a break-in. But every window was solid, locked tight. The bedroom area, untouched. The kitchen area was equally clean. The bathroom was a mess of dirty clothes and damp towels, as though she’d stripped and showered and changed more than once.
Ah, hell. A very bad feeling throbbed in the tight clench of his jaw. His nostrils flared as he forced himself to breathe deeply, to check his emotions and silence the bombardment of questions that begged to be asked.
He turned back to Sarah, looking small and vulnerable where she stood in the middle of the room. She stared at a spot on the wooden floor, hugging herself, shivering.
“Sarah?” Coop slowly approached her, demanding that those big green eyes meet his. “Why do you need a cop?”
She didn’t disappoint. Smoothing a damp strand of hair off her face, she lifted her gaze. “To answer my 9-1-1 call.”
“All right. Back up and start this conversation from the beginning.” Any pretense of standing in as big brother vanished with the tears that glistened in the fringe of her lashes. Something had happened. Something very bad. The wary detective in him was already on guard, already alert. But the man in him needed to touch her, needed to make whatever had gone wrong right. He reached out to brush aside the stubborn lock of hair that still stuck to her cheek. “What 9-1-1 call?”
“I…” The instant his finger touched her, a huge sigh rattled through her from tip to toe. Instead of talking, she turned and walked into him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Hold me.”
She aligned herself against him, cheek to chest, breast to stomach, thigh to thigh.
A burst of heat radiated through him in every place they touched. Something tight and controlled inside him began to melt.
Coop hesitated a moment before giving in to the heat and the need and winding his arms tightly around her. He rested his chin on the top of her head and wrapped his body around her, surrounding her in his strength and warmth. Seth was gonna kill him for this. But Sarah snuggled closer, and he couldn’t push her away. He heard the sniffles, felt the clutch of her fingers at the back of his waist. Moments later, the warmth of her tears dampened the front of his T-shirt and singed his skin. He was gonna kill someone if this innocent woman had been hurt. “Sarah, you never answered—”
“Just hold me.” Her lips moved against his sensitized skin, and his body leaped with the need to respond in some elemental way.
He rubbed circles up and down her spine, pressed a kiss to the crown of her head and rested his nose in the fragrant silk of her freshly washed hair.
“I’ve gotcha.”
The cop in him would have to wait.
