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Sarge had been so kind and supportive after Andy’s death. He had kept checking on her. Maybe he had made a promise to Andy. Mark must not have. Or, if he had, it was a promise he’d broken.
Blaine nodded. “He was wearing a vest that was too small for him. I got a shot into his side. He bled out from the wound.”
“Nobody got him help?” she asked, horrified that his coconspirators would have just let him bleed to death.
Blaine shook his head. “No. They got him to the cabin, but they couldn’t stop the bleeding.”
“He wasn’t the one who tried grabbing me at the hospital, then,” she said. “That man was healthy and strong.” It gave her some relief that Mark hadn’t been trying to hurt her. “He couldn’t have been behind any of those other attempts on our lives.”
“No,” Blaine agreed. “It must’ve been whoever he was working with.”
There had been five of them. So four other men were still out there, apparently still determined to kill her and Special Agent Blaine Campbell.
* * *
BLAINE HUSTLED HER quickly out of his sister’s house. It was less for his family’s safety and more for hers. He wanted to protect her. He also wanted to comfort her because he had seen the fear on her face when she’d realized that she was still in danger.
“We’ll be safe here,” he said, as he locked the motel room door behind them. He could have driven her back to Chicago. But night had already fallen, and she was obviously exhausted. She trembled with it and maybe with cold. He turned up the thermostat as she shivered.
“I thought you weren’t going to protect me anymore,” she said. “Didn’t your boss tell you that you shouldn’t?”
He nodded. “And he’s right.”
“You said that last night...”
Before he had made love to her. What the hell had he been thinking to take advantage of her that way?
“I’m sorry,” he said. “About last night...”
“You didn’t start the fire,” she said.
“But I should have been awake. I should have been alert,” he said. “My boss was right. You will be safer with someone else protecting you.”
“I feel safe with you,” she said, and she turned back to him and stared up at him with those chocolaty brown eyes.
There was such an overall glow about her. Maybe it was the pregnancy. But he suspected it was just her—just Maggie’s warm personality. She had even won over Buster and that was never easy to do.
“Maggie, I have to focus on the case,” he said. He hoped she would understand that he couldn’t let her distract him any longer. “I have to dig deeper into Mark’s life and find all of his associates.”
“I can help you,” she said.
“You know his friends?”
She shook her head. “He was older than me and Andy, so I don’t know who he hung out with.” She nibbled her lower lip. “I guess I can’t help you.”
“You need to focus on yourself and your baby,” he said. “Stay healthy. Stay well.”
She touched her belly with trembling hands. “Yes...”
“I will find them all,” Blaine promised. “I’ll stop them.” He just hoped he could stop them before they tried to kill her again. They obviously cared little for human life since they had let one of their own die instead of getting him help. To save themselves...
So, even dead, Mark could lead him to the others. That must have been the reason they hadn’t sought out medical attention or wanted his body found.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I haven’t done anything yet,” he said.
“You’ve saved my life,” she reminded him. “Many times. Thank you for that.”
He shrugged off her gratitude. “I was just doing my job.” But it was so much more than that, and they both knew it.
“And thank you for last night,” she said, “for making me feel desirable. Wanted...”
He wanted her again. But he kept his hands at his sides. He wouldn’t reach for her again.
But she reached for him. Sliding her arms around him, she pressed her voluptuous body close to his. And the tenuous hold he’d had on his control snapped. He couldn’t resist her sweetness, her passion.
She rose up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his, sliding them across his mouth—arousing his desire. He kissed her back.
She eased away from him but only to ease her hands between them and undo the buttons of his shirt. He helped her take off his holster. And his jeans...
She gasped, as she so often did, as she stared at his nakedness. “You are the most beautiful man.”
Maggie’s words filled him with heat and pride.
She touched him, her fingers caressing his skin. “You were hurt last night.”
He had some scrapes, a couple of first-degree burns. “It’s nothing.”
She shuddered. “When that roof caved in, I thought you were gone. And then when we heard that radio call...”
“About the castle tea?” he teased.
But she didn’t laugh. In fact, her eyes glistened with tears. “I was so scared.”
He drew her against him and held her close. “I hate that you were scared.”
But he was scared, too. He was scared that he’d irrevocably fallen for her.
“Make me forget my fears,” she challenged him. “Make me forget about everything but you. Make love to me...”
He couldn’t refuse her wishes. He helped her off with her clothes and then helped her into bed. Joining her, he kissed and stroked every inch of her silky skin. And with every kiss and every caress, she gasped or moaned and squirmed beneath him. Then she caressed him back, running her soft hands over his back and his hips and lower. She encircled him with those hands. He nearly lost his mind, but he fought for control. He wanted to give her pleasure.
So he made love to her with his mouth. She cried out. But this was a cry he loved to hear from her—a cry of pleasure as she found release. Then, carefully, he joined their bodies. He tried to move slowly and gently.
But she arched and thrust up her hips. And her inner muscles clenched around him, tugging him deeper inside until he didn’t know where she ended and he began. They were one. And as one, they reached ecstasy—shouting each other’s name.
He held her close as they both panted for breath. He held her and waited—for the next attempt on their lives. He didn’t know if it would be another fire or more shooting. He didn’t know what it would be; he just knew that it would happen. As if on some level he had known that he would fall for Maggie Jenkins.
She had taken his heart. Now he just had to hold on to his life...
Chapter Twenty
Maybe it had been only days. But it felt like weeks since Maggie had last seen Blaine. She knew he was busy working the case. He had explained that he had to hand off her protection to someone else so that he could focus.
Had she distracted him?
She was working again, too. But she was preoccupied by thoughts of Blaine. It wouldn’t matter how long she went without seeing him; she knew she would never not think of Special Agent Blaine Campbell.
A noise at her office door startled her, and she jumped.
“Sorry,” the bank manager said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“It’s not your fault,” she assured him. Even though no attempts had been made to kidnap or kill her the past few days, she was still on edge. Still waiting for the robbers in their hideous masks to burst through the bank doors or into her apartment with their guns drawn.
“Has everything been all right?” he asked.
She nodded instead of uttering a lie. Because everything was not all right—not without Blaine. She ached for him.
“Things are back to normal now,” Mr. Hardy said with a sigh of relief as he gazed around at the bank. The glass had all been repaired. Everything was back in its place as if the robbery had never happened. “And with one of the robbers found dead, maybe the others have gone into hiding.”
“Agent Campbell will catch them,” she said with unshakable confidence.
“Hopefully,” he said, but he sounded doubtful. “I understand that the robber that was found dead was related to you.”
“No,” she said.
“Well,” he said again, his voice rising with a slight whine, “he would’ve been had your fiancé not died.”
She wouldn’t have married Andy, though—even after finding out she carried his child. She hadn’t wanted friendship love in her marriage; she’d wanted passionate love. She had wanted to be in love, not just to love someone. She had finally found that with Blaine, but he didn’t want the instant family he would have with her. He probably didn’t even want a relationship. He was totally focused on his career—so much so that she hadn’t even heard from him.
Mr. Hardy was looking at her strangely. Then Maggie recognized the suspicion. “I was not involved in the robberies,” she said. “I had nothing to do with them.”
Except for those damn letters she’d written. Did he know about those, too?
He nodded. “Of course you didn’t...”
But she heard the doubt in his voice. “I need this job, Mr. Hardy. I wouldn’t have done anything to jeopardize it.”
“Susan Iverson thinks you may have been involved with that man.”
“Susan may have been,” Maggie said. “But I wasn’t. He’s just someone I used to know.” And apparently she hadn’t known him nearly as well as she’d thought she had. “Like Susan, he proved to be someone I couldn’t trust.”
“She claims that the agent totally misread the situation when he found her in your apartment—”
“Stealing my engagement ring,” she said.
“She assured me she wasn’t stealing it,” he defended the blonde bank teller. “That she was only looking for evidence that you were involved in the robberies.”
Maggie shook her head. She’d had enough of people lying and scamming her. “She used my credit cards,” she said. “She can’t explain that away.”
“You owed her rent money.”
Anger surged through her, and she stood up. “That’s a lie. And if you choose to believe her lies over me, maybe I don’t need this job as much as I thought.”
He held out his hands. “Calm down, Maggie. I know this is an emotional time for you. Susan needs her job, too, and if you drop the charges against her, I think you could work together again.”
Blaine had caught the woman in the act of stealing. It wasn’t up to Maggie whether or not charges were pressed. But she didn’t bother explaining that.
“Why are you defending her?” she wondered. And then, as color flooded his face, she realized why. He was involved with the young teller. “Oh...”
“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” he said fearfully, as if he actually did know, “but you’re wrong.”
“No, you’re wrong.” Especially if he had betrayed his wife with the blonde opportunist. “There actually is evidence against her, and she will be prosecuted. I couldn’t drop the charges even if I wanted to.”
Maybe Susan had been involved in the robberies, too. Maggie wouldn’t put anything past the woman. She was a user. Mr. Hardy would figure that out soon enough. Disgusted with him, she grabbed her purse and said, “I’m going home.”
“Yes, get some rest and think about it,” he suggested.
Maybe Maggie needed to return to the branch where she had previously worked. She couldn’t work for Mr. Hardy anymore. She couldn’t work with Susan Iverson. Maybe she needed to join her parents in Hong Kong. It wasn’t as if Blaine would miss her. He had gone days with no contact.
As she headed out the door, her new protector followed her. The burly young man, Truman Jackson, was something with the Bureau—maybe a new recruit. Since there had been no recent attempts to grab her, she doubted they would have wasted a special agent on babysitting duty. She had been lucky to have Blaine as long as she had.
“Are you all right, Miss Jenkins?” the young man asked as he helped her into his unmarked vehicle.
“Maggie,” she corrected him as she had the past few days. “And I’m fine.”
“But you’re leaving early...”
She hadn’t done that the past couple of days. In fact, she had worked late, trying to catch up from the time the bank had been closed for repairs.
“I’m tired,” she said. And that was no lie. She was exhausted. From looking over her shoulder. From worrying.
From missing Blaine.
“So you want to go right back to your apartment?” Truman asked.
“Yes, please,” she said, and happy that he was driving, she closed her eyes and relaxed as much as she could.
“Do you think I’ll need protection much longer?” she asked. If no more attempts were made on her life...
“I couldn’t say, Maggie.”
“Do you know if Special Agent Campbell has gotten any closer to apprehending the other bank robbers?” She wanted to know what was going on with the case, but most of all she wanted to know what was going on with Blaine.
Was he okay? Had he recovered completely from the fire? Had anyone tried to kill him again?
Truman shrugged his broad shoulders; one of them nudged hers. “I don’t know,” he replied. “Do you have his number? Could you call and ask?”
No. She hadn’t been given his number. He had barely looked at her as he’d passed off her protection to someone else.
“I don’t want to bother him,” she said. And that was true. She didn’t want to distract him anymore. He had a job to do, and she had only been part of that job to him.
Truman had lost interest in their conversation, his attention on her apartment door as he pulled into the parking lot. He reached for his holster. “Who is that?”
A woman stood outside the door. She wore dark glasses that obscured most of her face, but Maggie recognized the bright glow of her red hair.
“It’s my...” almost sister-in-law? “...friend.” But Tammy had never really been her friend—not even when they were younger. Like Maggie and Andy, Tammy and Mark had dated all during high school. Tammy had actually been there when Mark had sneaked her and Andy into that horror movie. She had thought Maggie’s fear funny—as Mark had. And recently Tammy had been suspicious and resentful of Maggie. She had even suspected her of cheating with Mark.
Was that why she’d come here? To lash out some more in her grief? Maggie wasn’t certain how much more she could take today.
* * *
BLAINE GRABBED AT his tie, struggling to loosen the knot. He felt suffocated within the walls of his new office, and he felt buried beneath the files atop his new desk. He would rather be out in the field, physically tracking down solid leads instead of fumbling through piles of paper.
He would actually rather be with Maggie, making certain that she was safe. There had been no new attempts on her life. But he was not a fool enough to think that it was over, not with so many of Mark’s associates out there yet. Blaine was only a fool for Maggie—for falling for her.
As he’d had to so many times over the past few days, he pushed thoughts of Maggie from his mind and focused on the case again. He grabbed a file from the stack and read over the names of Mark Doremire’s friends and family. Was old man Doremire one of the robbers?
Hell, was Andy? Maybe the guy wasn’t really dead.
Blaine shook his head. He was losing it. Andy was gone. But another name on his list looked familiar. He shuffled through the other folders for the report from the security chief at the hospital, and he pulled out her list of employees. One of the names matched.
Mark Doremire’s brother-in-law worked security at the hospital. Hadn’t Tammy Doremire told him she had no friends or family in the area? Why had she lied to Blaine?
Had she been trying to protect her brother since she must already have known that she’d lost her husband? If her brother had been in on the thefts, she would have known that Mark had been hurt.
Maybe she had even been along for the robberies. Blaine touched his tablet and played some of the security footage from the holdup. There had been a robber who was smaller than the others. It was the one who’d dragged Maggie to the back door of the bank, the one who’d pulled her into the van.
Tammy Doremire wasn’t just related to a couple of the robbers. She was one of them.
He just had to find the other two. They might be associates of her brother’s. Or...
His phone rang, drawing his attention from all those files. He clicked the talk button. “Campbell.”
“Special Agent Campbell?”
“Yes.”
“This is Truman Jackson,” a male voice said.
“You’re the guard on Maggie.” Blaine’s heart slammed against his ribs as fear overwhelmed him. Before letting Truman protect her again, he had made certain that the man had not been compromised—that he could be trusted. Ash Stryker had vouched for him, so Truman had been chosen as her new protector. Had he failed his duty?
“Is she okay?” Blaine anxiously asked. “Has there been another attempt on her life?”
“No, no,” the man quickly assured Blaine. But there was concern in his voice.
That concern had Blaine grabbing his keys and rushing out of his office. But even outside the confining walls, he couldn’t breathe. Now panic and concern suffocated him.
“What’s going on?” he asked. What had compelled the man to call him?
“I brought Maggie home from the bank,” Truman relayed, “and there was a woman waiting at her apartment door.”
At least she had been at the door and hadn’t let herself inside the way Susan Iverson had. But maybe Susan had learned her lesson about doing that.
“Who was she?” Blaine asked.
“Maggie,” he said, “told me that the woman was a friend but...”
“But what?”
“I don’t know,” the man replied. “But I didn’t pick up the friendship vibe from her. Maggie insisted on speaking alone with the woman, though, so I left them together in Maggie’s apartment.”
Blaine clicked the lock on his SUV and jumped behind the wheel. “Did you check the woman for a weapon before you left them alone?”
“Of course,” the man replied, as if offended. “She wasn’t armed. And she’s too thin to do any physical harm to Maggie.”
That didn’t ease Blaine’s fears any. “Who is she?”
“A red-haired woman,” Truman replied. “I checked her license.”
Blaine didn’t even need her name for confirmation. He knew who was with Maggie.
“Tammy Doremire...”
The robber from the bank—the one who had tried bringing Maggie along. Probably the only one who really wanted her dead...
Chapter Twenty-One
Maggie handed Tammy a cup of tea. Brewing it had bought her some time to gather her thoughts since she had no idea what to say to the new widow.
But Tammy must not have wanted the tea because she set the cup on the coffee table in front of her. Maggie kept hers in her hands, hoping the heat of the mug would warm her. But she still shivered—maybe more with nerves than cold.
“You still have a bodyguard,” the other woman said.
It hadn’t been a question, but Maggie nodded in reply. Truman had searched Tammy to make sure she carried no weapon, so of course she would have realized he was a bodyguard.
“But there haven’t been any attempts lately,” Tammy said. “It seems like the FBI wouldn’t want to waste manpower.”
“I don’t know,” Maggie replied. She had no idea why Tammy cared about the bodyguard or the FBI, let alone how she would have known about the attempts on Maggie’s life.
Unless...
No, she refused to suspect the worst of everyone; she refused to be as cynical as Blaine had been. But Blaine had been right about Mark...
“Having protection for you is probably Agent Campbell’s idea,” the woman continued, her voice sharp with bitterness as she said his name. “I’m surprised that he’s not still personally protecting you.”
“He’s busy,” Maggie said. At least that was what she was telling herself to salve her wounded heart.
Tammy sighed. “It doesn’t matter.”
But it did matter to Maggie that she hadn’t heard from Blaine—that she didn’t know exactly what he was doing. Or feeling.
Since the mug was beginning to cool, Maggie set it beside Tammy’s on the coffee table. But she didn’t join her on the couch or settle onto one of the chairs across from her. Maggie didn’t feel comfortable enough with this woman to sit down with her.
But she should have gone to see her earlier out of respect. “I’m glad you came over,” Maggie said.
“You are?” Tammy asked skeptically.
“Of course. I’ve been wanting to talk to you, wanting to tell you how sorry I am about Mark.” Of course she hadn’t known how to express sympathy for a man dying in the commission of a crime—of a murder. If only Mark hadn’t been involved in the robberies...
Both he and Sarge would be alive. How could Maggie express sympathy for that?
The woman ignored her remarks and pointed out a box that sat on the end of the coffee table. Wrapping paper with little rubber ducks covered the box, and a bright yellow bow topped it. “What’s that?”
“I don’t know,” Maggie said. She hadn’t noticed it earlier. Tammy hadn’t had it with her when Truman had searched her body and her purse. He would have found the brightly wrapped package. “It wasn’t here this morning.”
“Maybe it was delivered today,” Tammy suggested.
Maggie shook her head. “Then it would have been left outside the door.” Not on her coffee table.
“Maybe your elderly janitor brought it inside for you.”
Maggie’s skin chilled as she realized that Tammy wasn’t offering a possible explanation but a fact. She knew because she had given it to Mr. Simmons to bring inside for her. Why?
“This is yours?” Maggie asked. “You brought this for me?” Despite what she’d told Truman, they weren’t friends. Why would the woman have brought her a baby gift?
“Yes,” Tammy replied. “But let me open it for you.” She tore the ribbon and easily slipped the top off the box. Then she smiled and lifted a gun out. “Now tell me how sorry you are about Mark.”
Fear slammed into Maggie as she stared down the barrel of that gun. She covered her belly with her palms—even though she knew there was no way to protect her baby from a bullet. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to do what we should have done at the first bank so you wouldn’t have time to figure out it was us and report us to the FBI,” Tammy said. “I’m going to kill you.”
“But the guard is just outside the door,” Maggie reminded her. “Truman is going to hear the shot. You won’t get away with this. He might even shoot you.”
“You think I have anything to live for?” Tammy asked, her face contorting into a mask of pain and hatred nearly as grotesque as those zombie masks. Tammy must have chosen them; she had found it funniest that Maggie had been so afraid during that movie. “Mark’s dead because of you.”
“I didn’t shoot him,” Maggie said.
“No, your FBI agent shot him,” Tammy said. “I had hoped that he was the one protecting you. That he would be here, so that I could kill you both.”
“You’ve got your wish,” a deep voice murmured as the apartment door opened with a slight creak of the hinges. “I’m here.”
Maggie had spent the past few days missing Blaine and longing to see his handsome face again. But not now. She would rather have never seen him again than to have him die with her.
* * *
BLAINE HAD EXPECTED the gun because he’d met Mr. Simmons at the door. The older gentleman had wanted to make certain that Maggie got the baby gift that he’d put in her apartment for the red-haired woman. He’d thought the box was heavy for a baby-shower gift.
Of course it held no gift for Maggie or her baby. It had held the gun.
Tammy was clever—so clever that she had probably been the one who had actually plotted the bank robberies. She had probably been the one who’d read Maggie’s letters.
“This is perfect,” the widow said with a smile of delight as she stood up with the gun clutched in her hands. At least the barrel was pointed at him instead of Maggie, who stood trembling on the other side of the coffee table from the deranged woman.
“This is stupid,” Blaine corrected her. “There’s nothing specifically linking you to the robberies. No evidence that you were aware of the crimes your husband and your brother were committing. You could have gotten away with it all.”