One Season Collection
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As usual the kitchen was deserted.
A bubble of exhilaration formed in her chest as she made it to the short hallway at the other side of the room. Tantalizingly close to the exit and secure in the knowledge she had an ally on the gate outside, she allowed the music in her head to become a low rhythm on the tip of her tongue. But as she reached for the handle a loud crunch made her still.
When she turned around Detective Party Pooper was leaning against the larder door with an apple in his hand.
‘The Mission Impossible theme is appropriate,’ he said with his mouth full.
Miranda gritted her teeth. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Overtime,’ he replied with a nonchalant shrug of broad shoulders. ‘Reckoned I’d keep an eye on things till the rest of the new detail is up to speed.’
How diligent of him.
She noted his appearance: the lack of a jacket, the loosened tie below an unbuttoned collar, the rolled up sleeves over tanned muscular forearms. When her pulse sped up she ignored it, refusing to have a physical reaction to his presence when she disliked him so much. Instead she focused on how quickly he’d settled in—standing there as if he owned the place and had been there forever.
‘I’m trying to decide if this counts as another strike when you haven’t left the building yet.’ He nodded firmly. ‘I’ll get back to you on that.’
When he nudged off the wall and went into the kitchen Miranda fought the need to growl. She hadn’t thrown a hissy fit since she was eight and denied a puppy, but it was tempting after a day in his company. Aiming a longing glance at the exit she sighed heavily and retraced her steps. He was standing at the island in the middle of the room when she walked in, casually flipping over the pages of a newspaper.
‘No disguise,’ he commented without looking at her. ‘Means you were going somewhere people know you.’ Another page of the newspaper flipped over. ‘Narrows it down some...’
Miranda swore she would never kiss another handsome stranger. She’d learned her lesson. They could turn into frogs. Now if her fairy godmother could just drop a bolt of lightning out of the sky and incinerate him, she promised to be a very good girl for a very long time. Even if she’d already been there and felt she’d earned a break.
In the absence of magical intervention she considered the options left open to her. She’d be damned if she was retreating to her bedroom. Neither was she staying for a friendly chat over coffee the way she used to with the members of the team she’d liked. Giving him anything resembling an order obviously wasn’t going to work and she sincerely doubted any attempt at negotiation would end in anything but a migraine.
‘I was going to stretch my legs,’ she said when the silence began to bother her.
He shook his head as he turned another page. ‘Lying sways you closer to strike two.’
‘I’m glad the trust part of this relationship is going so well.’
‘Stop treating the guys in this unit like idiots and they might trust you a lot quicker.’
Miranda bristled at the accusation. ‘You’ve been here five minutes. You don’t know anything about—’
‘How many of them do you reckon you got fired?’
‘I...’ Miranda faltered and frowned at the hesitation. She hadn’t got anyone fired. If she had she would have done something to fix it. ‘The bodyguards who left the mansion chose to leave.’
‘Ever ask yourself why?’
She lifted her chin. ‘Mac said he missed riding in a squad car.’
She’d liked Mac. He was a straight-up guy. Happily married with a young family, he’d done a lot of community policing when he left the academy and said he wanted to get back to it. They’d joked around about the squad car but when it came down to it he missed being in a position where he could talk to people. She understood that but was sorry to see him go. Unlike some people, he’d been really good about letting her make unscheduled stops for shopping or lunch when she needed to take a breather. On his last day she’d given him season tickets for the Giants because he loved football so much. She leaned back against the counter and folded her arms. Detective Smarty-pants knew squat.
‘Yeah, those things are a real sweet ride compared to the low-spec models you have parked outside.’ His gaze lifted. ‘Don’t know much about guys and cars, do you?’
‘I’m reliably informed there’s a little more to your job than the toys which go with it.’ She nodded at the gun holstered at his lean waist beside his shield. ‘It would be nice to think they don’t hand those out to everyone who thinks it’s cool to carry one.’
When he studied her more intently the memory of how he’d looked at her in the alley that morning entered her mind. For a second she’d thought he was going to kiss her again. A few hours in his company was all it had taken to dissolve her fantasy. At least she’d thought it had. But for that long stretched-out moment—as irritated as she’d been by him—she’d wanted him to kiss her.
He raised his right arm and tossed what was left of the apple through the air. As it dropped neatly into a swing-top trash can at the end of the counter he grabbed his jacket off the countertop. ‘Come on, then.’
Miranda’s eyes narrowed. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Said you wanted to go for a walk, didn’t you?’
‘I don’t need your permission.’
‘No,’ he said in a low voice as he turned towards her. ‘But since you don’t get to go alone, either I go with you or you go back to your room—your call.’
‘Even if it’s not on the itinerary?’
‘Why do you think we stick to that schedule?’
Miranda lifted her gaze to the ceiling. ‘Gee, that’s a tough one.’ She looked into his eyes again. ‘But I’m going to guess it’s so I know where I’m supposed to be at certain times of the day.’
‘There’s another reason.’
She batted her lashes. ‘So the people I’m going to see know I’ll be there?’
‘Try again.’
‘So you know where to drive me?’ She pouted.
She didn’t mention it was the tip of an iceberg that could sink her if she thought about it too much. Every moment of her day was planned to the last detail: when she got up, what she ate for breakfast, the visits she made to places her parents couldn’t slot into their busy days. She clawed back control where she could—getting to choose her own wardrobe had certainly been a leap in the right direction—but it wasn’t enough any more.
It hadn’t been for a long time.
‘Every place on that list is checked by an advance.’
Oh, for goodness’ sake. How long did he think she’d been doing this? ‘They search every room, run any necessary background checks and organize escape routes. When they’re happy they brief the security details who in turn plan the route to and from the venue.’ She raised a brow. ‘Are there bonus points if I can tell you everyone’s call sign?’
‘Don’t take losing well, do you?’
‘If I’m about to go for a walk in the park when I want to, how have I lost anything?’
‘Guess it depends on whether or not that’s where you were headed, doesn’t it?’ he challenged in return. ‘And I didn’t say anything about the park. The grounds of the mansion will do.’ When she didn’t reply he tossed his jacket down. ‘But if you don’t want to go out...’
‘Fine,’ she snapped as she turned on her heel and headed back towards the exit. Getting out of the house was better than nothing. ‘But don’t feel you need to make conversation to pass the time.’
‘Just remember if you rabbit it’ll be the last time we try this,’ his deep voice rumbled in warning behind her.
Miranda looked over her shoulder. ‘Rabbit?’
‘Run,’ he translated as he rolled down a sleeve.
It was as if he spoke a different language. She pushed the door open and stepped outside, the last throes of a humid summer surrendering to the first hints of autumn in the evening air. Where was he from?
The silent question opened the floodgate for a string of others. She wanted to know how long he’d been a cop, where he’d been before he transferred to the Municipal Security Section, what age he was, if he had a family.
As she crossed the gravel to the lawn another thought occurred to her. Since the absence of a wedding ring meant nothing she didn’t even know if he was single. Asking him would be the obvious solution if he was remotely in the region of forthcoming—the fact she still didn’t know his name being a prime example. If she found out he was married she would have several names for him; none of them nice.
Ramming the baseball cap onto her head, she frowned beneath the cover of the peak. Considering how much of her mind was occupied by thoughts of him even when he was right there, she didn’t have a choice. She had to get to know him better. Ordinarily it was something she enjoyed: talking to people, listening to what they had to say and getting small glimpses of lives that were so much freer than hers.
With him it felt different, more necessary to her survival, most likely because the silence was starting to turn her into a crazy person.
She just needed to figure out a way of getting him to start a conversation when she’d told him not to.
Had to pick now to follow an order, didn’t he?
FIVE
At first Miranda’s pace was rushed, the irritation she felt at his presence obvious, particularly when he walked beside her instead of taking up the more usual position on point or a few steps behind. When she slowed and started to take everything in Tyler studied her reaction as she breathed deep and a small smile formed on her lips.
Either she’d never walked the grounds before or she was up to something. He assumed it was the latter.
Without warning she changed direction and headed for the river, stopping to look from side to side when she got to the railing. After a couple of minutes of the same thing he inevitably asked, ‘What are you looking for?’
‘Mmm?’ she hummed absent-mindedly.
‘You’re obviously looking for something.’ If it was a place to jump in the river and swim to freedom she could forget it.
‘Baby seals.’
‘What?’
‘Baby seals,’ she repeated. ‘Fuzzy bundles of joy that mummy and daddy seal made together as a token of their love for one another.’ When she shot a sparkle-eyed glance at him from beneath the peak of her baseball cap he got the impression she thought she’d won some kind of victory. ‘Didn’t they teach you about reproduction in high school?’
Like most teenage boys it hadn’t been the reproduction of seals he’d been interested in but Tyler didn’t say so out loud. Instead he checked the grounds and the river, the water still busy with tugboats and barges. There was no immediate danger but he couldn’t relax. Every muscle in his body was wound tight, ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice. Without a means of release the tension grew, making him hyper-aware of the smallest details.
The name of the tugboat closest to them—the man standing on the prow of a barge—the water lapping against algae-covered rocks—the way a breeze from the river brushed a loose tendril of flame-red hair against the sensitive skin on her neck. He frowned as it swayed back and forth in a whispered touch that made his fingertips itch.
The ability to store large quantities of miscellaneous information in the back of his head until he needed to call on it was something Tyler had always taken for granted. It allowed him to focus his mind and manage the most immediate tasks. In many ways his brain acted like a computer with several open programs, a dozen others working in the background and plenty of spare memory. If that was the case she was messing with his operating system. Every time his eyes opened an image of her the screen froze.
‘They’re supposed to be around here somewhere,’ she continued. ‘There was a picture on Twitter.’
‘Right,’ he said dryly. He’d never been a Twitter fan but he knew she was popular there. It was the one area he hadn’t been allowed to suggest changes.
From a protection standpoint he thought regularly reporting her location to all and sundry was an unnecessary risk. From the perspective of the mayor’s press office her online presence was a valuable publicity tool. That they wouldn’t budge on the subject still bugged him.
But not as much as all the standing around he’d been doing since he reported for duty.
‘I don’t think they constitute a breach in security if that’s what you’re worried about.’ She glanced up at him again. ‘Isn’t it supposed to be dolphins they train to carry explosives?’ When he didn’t say anything, she leaned an elbow on the railing and turned toward him. ‘You don’t have a sense of humour, do you?’
‘Would it save time if I told you I wasn’t here to make friends?’
‘I’m shocked,’ she replied without batting an eye.
Tyler fought his nature. Normally he gave as good as he got; with a woman who looked the way she did it would probably involve a heavy dose of flirting. He could lay on the charm when he set his mind to it. But even if he hadn’t been assigned to the position of babysitter his skills were a little rusty. Hadn’t had much call to use them when he was buried in work was the easiest explanation. Hadn’t met anyone he wanted to use them on was another.
But there was a reason for that.
When the thought conjured an image of long dark hair and soulful brown eyes it didn’t improve his mood.
‘That’s how you got some of the others to turn a blind eye, isn’t it?’
She raised an elegantly arched brow. ‘What are we talking about now?’
‘Your little adventures...’
‘What adventures?’
Tyler cut to the chase. ‘I do my homework. There isn’t anything I don’t know about you.’
There was a melodic burst of dismissive laughter. ‘I very much doubt that.’
He summoned the necessary information without missing a beat. ‘Miranda Eleanor Kravitz, twenty-four, born in Manhattan, raised in Vermont, moved back to New York prior to your father becoming mayor when you were seventeen.’
‘Sixteen,’ she corrected. ‘Elections are in November.’
‘He didn’t take up office until January. Your birthday is December fourteenth. You were seventeen.’ He picked up where he’d left off before she interrupted. ‘You were a straight “A” student in high school, made the honour roll and in the final year took one of the leads in a stage production of Twelfth Night.’ It was probably where she’d picked up her acting skills. ‘Fluent in Spanish and French, studied English literature at NYU. By the time you left you’d danced on a table in a reality TV show and made headlines twice—once when you were caught drunk partying with the same infamous party girl who—’
‘Has my bra size made it to Wikipedia yet?’
When the old Tyler made a rare appearance his gaze automatically lowered to the scooped neck of her T-shirt. ‘No, but I’m willing to go out on a limb and say you’re a—’
‘Eyes north, Detective,’ she warned in a lower voice.
Irritated he’d stepped over the line again, Tyler snapped his gaze back up. ‘The investigation I did before I got here involved more than Googling your name. I talked to every bodyguard assigned to you and know exactly how you roll. There isn’t an escape route I haven’t plugged or a former cohort who hasn’t been reassigned. The guy on the gate tonight is new, too, so you wouldn’t have got far. You don’t have any friends in the security team any more. What you have is people focused on doing their jobs who’ll end up back in uniform if they don’t.’
The gold in her eyes flared. ‘What is your problem?’
‘Until you accept you’re not going anywhere without me or one of the other guys on your new detail, it’s you.’
‘You’re not my keeper.’
Tyler stepped around her. ‘Well, obviously they figured you needed one or I wouldn’t be here.’
‘Who are “they”?’ she asked as she followed him.
‘Who do you think they are?’
She muttered something incoherent below her breath but judging by her tone it wasn’t a word she’d picked up from a study of English literature.
When he stopped and turned around she took a step back and frowned at the centre of his chest.
‘This close to the election you’re a liability,’ he told her flatly. ‘Three weeks back you were photographed sitting on a bar while some random guy licked salt off your neck before taking a shot of tequila.’
She lifted her chin. ‘Jealous?’
‘Personally I couldn’t give a damn what you do.’ Even if his reaction to seeing the photographs after he kissed her might have suggested otherwise. ‘The only thing that concerns me is making sure it doesn’t happen again. Some major favours were called in to keep those pictures out of the public eye.’
Any surprise she felt was hidden behind a mask of ice. ‘It’s just as well there wasn’t anyone with a camera in a darkened hall on Friday night, then, isn’t it?’
When she turned on her heel and headed back to the mansion Tyler let her get a few steps ahead. He needed to take a beat. Her parting shot had been bang on target but that wasn’t what grated him. What did was the indifference in her voice. He wasn’t the only one who got carried away in that hall. The implication he could have been just another guy lining up to lick salt off her neck bothered him a great deal more than it should.
At a very basic level he wanted to march on over there and demonstrate she was wrong. A Brannigan never backed down from a challenge. Trouble was they were also carved with deep streaks of honour and duty and while he knew how close he was to breaking one code, he had to hang on tight to the other. If he didn’t there would be nothing left of the man he was before everything got so messed up.
‘Go home, Detective,’ she demanded when they were back in the kitchen.
‘No can do,’ he informed her retreating back.
When she turned he got a brief glimpse of how angry she was from the flash of fire in her eyes. Then the ice returned. ‘I’ll make a deal with you.’
‘What kind of deal?’
‘I’ll give you my word I’ll stay in tonight and that way you won’t have to camp outside my door.’ She ran an impassive gaze down the length of his body and back up. ‘A good night’s sleep might help with all the tension you’re carrying around...’
Tyler treated her to his patented interrogation face: the one that said nothing short of a nuclear blast would change his position. ‘What’s the catch?’
She shook her head. ‘No catch.’
‘What do you get out of it?’
‘Apart from a break from you?’
The thought he got to her went a long way towards evening the playing field, but there was more to it than that. ‘You want something.’
‘World peace, an end to poverty, freedom and justice for all... I want a great many things, Detective. But for now I’ll settle for your name.’
What was the big deal with his name? He ran through every possible scam she could be running and came up short. But with his Spidey-senses on alert he knew whatever she was doing was part of something bigger. That was okay, he could play the long game, and if giving her a name was what it took to give him a few hours he could put to better use than standing twiddling his thumbs or sleeping...
‘Tyler.’
‘Tyler,’ she repeated in a lower voice as if savouring how it felt on her tongue.
Hearing her say it had a mesmerizing effect he’d never experienced before. Time stretched inexorably while she stared at him, her chin angled in contemplation. As he tried to figure out why his blood had thickened to the same consistency as magma when she hadn’t done anything overtly seductive, she blinked and turned away.
‘I’ll see you in the morning, Tyler.’
‘You leave this house, I’ll know inside five seconds.’
She raised an arm and waggled her fingers in the air. ‘Nighty-night.’
Tyler stood in the same spot after she left, trying to decide whether he trusted her any further than he could throw her. His word meant something—or at least it used to; he wasn’t convinced hers did. Then his cell phone vibrated.
‘Brannigan.’
‘So what’s it like with the city’s version of the Secret Service?’
The sound of his partner’s voice got him moving again. ‘Don’t ask,’ he said as he left the kitchen and headed for the control room. ‘Got anything new for me?’
‘There weren’t any DNA hits in the database.’
‘It took them a month to tell us that?’
‘Backed up in the lab...’
‘What about the known associates we’ve been chasing?’
‘There I might have better news.’
Tyler nodded brusquely. ‘Save it for when I see you. I’ll be at O’Malley’s by nine.’
‘If I end up divorced I’m blaming you.’
‘Because all your kids look like me?’
The response made the corner of Tyler’s mouth lift. It was the closest he got to a smile any more. Pretending nothing was wrong when he was around the people who knew him was wearing him down. From that point of view his day with the mayor’s daughter had been a welcome respite.
He just had to get a handle on his reaction to her while he was still volatile.
There’d been a time when not getting involved had never been a problem for him the way it had for other members of his family. He’d kept his distance and remained detached, gaining a rep for being emotionally unavailable to women along the way. Once he’d made the mistake of thinking he could handle a little attachment he’d fallen flat on his face. To top it off he’d overcompensated and it had cost someone their life.
Sometimes he thought he saw her face in a crowd: dull, lifeless eyes staring at him in silent accusation. She was a ghost who followed him everywhere.
He shouldn’t have left her alone.
The thought gave him a moment’s pause outside the room that housed the security monitors. From inside he could hear the voices of the men whose presence meant he wasn’t leaving the mayor’s daughter unprotected even if there was an immediate threat.
There was no reason for him to feel torn.
A small army of people surrounded Miranda Kravitz and, though they might not have kept her out of trouble, they had plenty of practice cushioning her from the world beyond the walls of the mansion. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have a voice, either. Half her problem with him was he didn’t let her get her own way when she was plainly accustomed to getting whatever she wanted.
Tyler stood up for the people who didn’t have a voice, who didn’t have the opportunities she’d been given or the ability to escape their lives when they felt like it. If she broke her word, she would pay for it. He’d see to that.
She might think he’d been tough on her the first day, but she had no idea how ruthless he could be.
SIX
The small victories gained when she got him to start a conversation and give her the name she so badly wanted to know were enough to allow Miranda to cut him some slack. She wouldn’t break her word. What helped him more was that he’d given her somewhere else to focus her ire. After a night of enforced captivity she was determined to fight for her rights.
‘Good morning, Miranda.’
‘Good morning, Grace.’ She saw the surprise in the older woman’s eyes when she appeared outside her father’s office. ‘Is the mayor in?’
‘He’s having breakfast with the chief of police.’
‘Where is my mother?’
‘I believe she’s still in the morning room.’
When she turned on her heel Grace grabbed her file, rounded her desk and rushed down the hall after her. ‘You have a nine a.m. appointment in Brooklyn at—’
‘Not now, Grace.’ It was rude and she was sorry for that but they both knew the morning briefing was more habit than necessity. Miranda knew where she was going days in advance—weeks for the functions that required more forwards planning. If she didn’t how was she supposed to know what to wear or find time to research things she knew nothing about so she could hold a conversation?
Two sets of eyes looked across the morning room as she entered without knocking. ‘Could you give us a moment, please, Roger?’ Once the door shut behind him Miranda took a deep breath. ‘I won’t be held prisoner in this house.’