“And where do you think you’ll be when those bullets start flying?”

At last she turned. Her face was close to his, her eyes studying his mouth as if analysing the words that just came out.

He tucked a golden strand behind her ear. “I have a hard time with you – Ben, too – being a detail that gets overlooked. Ben’s already growing up without a dad. I couldn’t handle it if he had to grow up without a mother, too.”

She reached up and touched his face with her wet hand, stroking his jaw. “It’s for Benjamin’s sake that I’m trying to be this strong. You saw how upset he got this morning at the diner. He needs to know that I can take care of us.”

“My mum and dad were always stronger together.”

Her tremulous smile cut straight to his heart. She brushed her fingertips across his lips. “I don’t know what that’s like, Sawyer.”

“Let me show you. Let’s be that team.”

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Sawyer Kincaid – This gentle giant discovers a darker side to his personality when his father is murdered. When the woman who once rejected his love is targeted by a killer, will it bring out this Kansas City cop’s protective instincts, or send him over the edge?

Melissa Teague – As a young woman, she married a man who turned out to be her worst nightmare. When her ex escapes from prison, she learns that putting her faith in another man may be the only way to survive.

Richard “Ace” Longbow – Melissa’s abusive ex. He’s escaped from prison to save his own neck from an inside hit, but what’s his plan for life on the outside?

Benjamin Teague – A bright, happy four-year-old who knows nothing about the father who never claimed him. Melissa wants to keep it that way.

Fritzi Teague – Melissa’s mother.

Hank Brennerman – Ace’s cellmate. He likes to talk.

Tyrell Mayweather – An enemy of Ace’s from inside the pen. But escaping from prison makes strange allies.

Riley Holt – The FBI agent in charge of recapturing the fugitives.

William Caldwell – Longtime family friends of the Kincaids.

John Kincaid – Deputy commissioner of the KCPD, Sawyer’s father. Unforgivably, unmistakably dead. But why, and who’s responsible?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julie Miller attributes her passion for writing romance to all those fairy tales she read growing up, and shyness. Encouragement from her family to write down all those feelings she couldn’t express became a love for the written word. She gets continued support from her fellow members of the Prairieland Romance Writers, where she serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” This award-winning author and teacher has published several paranormal romances. Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Ms Miller believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.

Born and raised in Missouri, she now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and smiling guard dog, Maxie. Write to Julie at PO Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162, USA.

Protective Instincts

JULIE MILLER

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For my reading and writing students.

Thanks for keeping me on my toes and being

such cool kids to work with. Remember,

each of you has a talent.

Learn something new every day – it keeps your

brain healthy and makes life more interesting.

Make a difference every day – in big ways or

small, others will appreciate it, and you’ll feel

good about yourself.

Keep working hard.

And thanks for the chocolate!

Prologue

John Kincaid touched his tongue to the coppery tang of his swollen split lip. His words were slurred, his confusion evident. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

“You’re a cop. Does it make any difference?” Dark eyes reflected delight in their power over him.

“Shut up! We’re not supposed to talk.” The one with the colorless eyes shoved the taller man.

“Back off!”

Not good. His enemies were fighting between themselves now. With his wrists handcuffed behind the rusting steel office chair, John sat helplessly in their path, waiting to bear the brunt of their discord.

“Quit playin’ us! You think we’re stupid, old man?”

Three of the fingers on his right hand were already broken when the kick came and crushed another joint. John gritted his teeth, his agonizing scream growling inside his throat.

He’d been tortured like this before, having the crap repeatedly beat out of him, as though pulverizing the muscles and bones would loosen the tongue. But he’d been a young man then. Age and too many years on a desk job had weakened his body if not his will. It was harder to stay awake this time, harder to detach his brain from the violence so that he wouldn’t reveal something he shouldn’t.

Only, that’s what made no sense. These two bastards—the hotheaded one with the prison tattoos and the older, more calculating one with the meaty fists—hadn’t asked him one sensible question beyond verifying his name and position as deputy commissioner of KCPD.

Nothing about an open case.

Nothing about revenge for someone he’d killed or put away over the span of his thirty-year career as a cop.

Nothing about using him as a get-out-of-jail-free card, exchanging one of their buddies for his release.

Nothing but pain and punishment.

John hadn’t recognized either man when they’d abducted him from his Sunday-morning run through the park earlier in the day and brought him to this run-down brick-and-steel warehouse. He didn’t recognize the place, either, though it was near the Missouri River—judging by the wash of water outside the walls, which his ringing ears had detected when he’d first regained consciousness in the bare-bulbed circle of light just outside the warehouse’s office.

He still couldn’t put a name to a face or case beyond Jaw-Smasher, as he’d silently dubbed the big black man, and Bone-Crusher, as he’d nicknamed the wiry smart-ass with the white, nearly shaved, hair.

Senseless violence was not a foreign concept to a man who’d been a cop for thirty years, and who’d served in military intelligence before that. But his kidnapping hadn’t been random. These two knew his running schedule, knew the park, knew at just what stretch of road he’d be alone and out of sight from any other joggers. And they’d come prepared—with some kind of knockout drug that had taken him down before he could put up much of a fight, and a van that John had spotted and dismissed earlier on his run. Real plates. Real business logo. Woman driver.

John’s awareness sharpened a notch and he slyly tilted his chin to peer through his one good eye into the broken shadows and empty spaces of the warehouse around him. Where was the woman now? Was she part of this? A girlfriend? Running the show? Another flunky? Or had she already become a victim?

John risked another question. “Where’s your driver? Is she okay?”

The punch that hit his temple knocked over his chair and John turned his swirling brain and battered cheek into the cool concrete floor, letting the oblivion swallow him up.

When John awoke, he was alone. The lightbulb had either burned out or been turned off, and he was sitting upright again. Only the moonlight creeping through the broken panes of glass on the windows high above him offered any reprieve from the darkness.

Crap. Susan would be freaking out by now. Not only had he missed their Sunday date night, but he hadn’t called her—hadn’t been able to. During his ride in the van, his phone had been taken, along with his gun and badge. Throughout the thirty-seven years of their marriage, Susan had always insisted that he call if he wasn’t going to show up when and where he was supposed to. It was the least he could do for a woman who’d been married to a cop for as long as she had. A woman who loved him, a woman who’d done the lion’s share of raising four sons he couldn’t be prouder of.

She’d have called those four sons by now. Three of them, at any rate. One of them might not be answering his phone this week. Not if he was on another bender. Maybe the other boys would be too busy to answer. Maybe Su was alone and frightened and he couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Outside the brick walls, a dog whined from some alley in the distance. The howl was mournful and weak, as though the animal was on its last legs, as though it was all alone and had given up hope. John turned his ear toward the sound. “I hear ya, pal,” he slurred. “I hear ya.”

Damn. Deputy Commissioner John Kincaid cursed the downward spiral of his thoughts and shifted, trying to ease his busted ribs and aching conscience into a more bearable position. Concentrate. He wasn’t ready to leave his family. He wasn’t ready to quit being a husband or father.

Did his wife know how much he loved her?

Would his sons remember the lessons he’d taught them?

His boys were all cops—just like him. All of them as protective of their mother as they were the people of Kansas City.

Despite their overachieving schedules, despite their own problems, they’d take care of her. Even if he never got out of this senseless hell, John knew she’d be taken care of. Believing in that one thing was the only comfort he could find.

But somebody ought to help that dog.

And a drink of water would be nice.

Some aspirin would be helpful.

Freedom would be even better.

The silence of the place hurt his ears. His battered fingers and numb arms made a token effort to escape the cuffs, but there was little his weakened body could do.

He was bleeding inside already. He knew the signs.

Unless a miracle stepped out of the shadows and freed him, he was going to die. He only wished he knew why.

And then an outside door opened. John’s pulse quickened as he heard the sound of footsteps, one set, leisurely in pace but even and certain in stride. Footsteps coming for him.

He doubted it was his miracle.

John squinted his good eye shut as the lightbulb snapped on and its harsh brightness seared his brain.

By the time he’d blinked his waiting visitor into focus, he finally understood why he’d been brought here. He looked into the eyes of an old friend. Resurrected from the past. John had wondered when keeping secrets would finally come back to bite him in the ass. Tonight was the night, apparently. “You.”

“Me.” The visitor was alone. Unapologetic. Unmoved by John’s disfiguring injuries. “I see my men have been a little rough with you.”

Bone-Crusher and Jaw-Smasher weren’t too stupid to know when to back away from a threat like this one. They were long gone. Had they completed their task and been paid off and sent on their way? This one had never liked loose ends. If the two goons were still alive, that meant they were needed for some other purpose. Another job. More people hurt. Maybe even John’s own family. His beautiful wife or one of his sons. “I thought you were dead.”

“Not so much.”

John had neither the strength nor the inclination to laugh. “I wrote about us. And what we did.”

“A memoir. How touching. Those pages will never see the light of day, not unless you break your sworn oath—and all-American good guy that you are, I know you won’t.” His old friend moved closer, braced one arm against the arm of John’s chair and leaned in. The fire in the voice was the same, the chill in the eyes unfazed by so many years apart. “What we did…was make a difference in the world. You. Me. All the others. We were visionaries.”

John sat up as straight as his body would let him. “I never liked your vision of the future.”

“You won’t like yours now, either.” His visitor stepped back, smiling. It was a cold imitation of humor. This smile was deadly.

So was the gun pointed at John’s heart. “Goodbye, John.”

Chapter One

Sawyer Kincaid hated the rain.

He hated the sound of it beating against the green canvas tent top. He resented the clingy mist of it masking the tears on his mother’s pale cheeks, as though it could somehow wash away her grief. He loathed the springtime chill of it running down the back of his neck beneath his collar.

But mostly he hated the way it beaded atop the black stripe that bisected the nickel-and-brass badge he wore on his chest—the way the moisture attached itself to every KCPD badge here.

Of course, he could move closer to the somber ceremony instead of standing back at the fringe of family and friends and colleagues. He could get under the tent, get out of the rain. But he was just too big a man to be standing at the front of the crowd if anyone else behind him wanted to see. Besides, getting closer wouldn’t make the rain stop.

Getting closer wouldn’t make the pain go away, either.

“…but come ye back when summer’s in the meadow, or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow…”

For a moment Sawyer tore his attention away from the rain’s gloomy rhythm to listen to his youngest brother Holden’s rich, melodic voice. Their father would have loved his a cappella rendition of “Danny Boy.”

But how the twenty-eight-year-old baby of the Kincaid family could sing at a time like this was beyond Sawyer’s understanding. Maybe the kid was more put together than he’d given him credit for. Sawyer could barely push the thank-yous and glad-you-cames and Dad-would-be-pleased- to-see-you-heres beyond the tight constriction of his throat. A neck as thick as his wasn’t built for wearing button-down shirts and black silk ties. The last time he’d worn his police dress uniform had been when he’d received his detective’s shield. His dad had been there that day, too, shaking his hand and beaming proudly.

Today, Thomas Sawyer Kincaid was burying his father in the ground.

In the damn rain.

This ain’t right.

The nagging mantra had plagued him since that phone call from the commissioner five days ago. “Your father’s dead, Detective. John was murdered. His body was found in Swope Park—though the lab says that isn’t the primary crime scene. I assure you, we’re giving this case top priority. John was a good man. A good cop. He was my good friend. If there’s anything I can do for any of you, let me know. I’m so sorry.”

Sawyer spotted the lady commissioner standing at the front of the crowd, waiting to say a few words about her colleague and friend. Commissioner Shauna Cartwright-Masterson had been a real class act about the whole thing—paying a couple of visits to his mother, Susan, and steering the press away from the family. But the commissioner could talk until she was blue in the face. There just weren’t enough good words that anyone could say to make this right.

John Kincaid had survived walking a beat in downtown K.C. He’d survived being a detective in vice and homicide. Last year he’d led an organized-crime task force that had brought down the Wolfe International crime syndicate.

He should have survived a damn run in the park.

Sawyer shrugged the dampness and injustice of it all off his big shoulders, and concentrated on staying in the moment. He had to focus on the now, not the past, not the future—or else he’d start cussing or blubbering like a baby. An emotional outburst like that in front of all these people would be a real tribute to his father.

Like hell it would.

He blinked the stinging wetness from his eyes and inhaled a deep breath to cool his lungs. He turned away from troublesome thoughts and emotions and visually sought out the rest of his family.

Holden was wearing his dress blues, too. Standing at the foot of their father’s flag-draped casket, he finished his song, saluted John Kincaid’s memory, then resumed his seat beside their mother in the front row of chairs.

Another brother, Atticus, was in uniform as well, as he sat on the opposite side of Susan Kincaid with a stoic, unreadable look behind his dark-rimmed glasses. Atticus was the cool, calm and collected one. Though they’d all been spending time at the house these past few days, Atticus could keep it together better than any of them and provide the rock of support their mother would need.

The soil squished beneath Sawyer’s size thirteens as he subtly shifted his stance to locate his oldest brother in the crowd of mourners. There, even farther from the main gathering than Sawyer, unshaven and scowling, leaning on his cane beneath an overhang of dripping pine boughs, stood thirty-five-year-old Edward Rochester Kincaid. Though he’d made lieutenant more than two years ago, Edward had refused to wear his uniform today. He’d reminded their mother that he was on disability leave from the force and wearing it would be awkward with all the veteran and active-duty officers in attendance. But Sawyer knew better. His mother knew better. Awkward didn’t begin to describe what Edward must be feeling with all these people around. At a funeral. He hadn’t just been out of touch with the department since the tragic attack that had robbed him of so much. He’d been out of touch with his friends and family. Out of touch with life. The fact that he’d shown up at all was a concession to Susan Kincaid’s grief, and a nod of respect to their father.

But they were all here—Edward, Sawyer, Atticus and Holden. John Kincaid’s four sons. Bonded by brotherhood. Forged into men by the badges they wore. Reunited by grief.

Knowledge of those family ties eased the constriction in his chest and Sawyer inhaled a deep, grounding breath.

“It isn’t easy, is it.”

Sawyer clenched his fists at his sides to mask his startled reaction to the voice beside him. He could do this. If his grieving mother could make nice with well-meaning friends who wanted to offer comfort and sympathy, and maybe find a little for themselves, then so could he. He angled his head toward a black umbrella and the distinguished gentleman who’d come up beside him. “No.” This sucks. Nah, Mom wouldn’t like him to say that here—even to an old family friend. He swallowed the emotion that seemed to paralyze his throat. “It’s not.”

There. He got some words out. Decent ones, too.

“Hang in there, son.” William Caldwell reached up to squeeze Sawyer’s shoulder. He wore his black suit with the same impeccable style as the gray streaking his temples. But underneath the businessman’s facade, Sawyer knew there lurked a man who was more fraternity brother and army buddy to John Kincaid than wealthy entrepreneur and owner of his own computer technology company. “These are tough times. It’s the second funeral for a friend I’ve been to since the beginning of the year. Your dad and I should be gearing up for retirement. Enjoying ourselves. It shouldn’t end like this.”

Sawyer and his brothers had gone hunting or fishing with Bill Caldwell and their dad more times than he could remember. They’d shared crazy stories over campfires. He’d absorbed words of wisdom from the old pros about catching fish and tracking game, talking to girls and living life like a man.

But Sawyer still wasn’t ready to hear the speeches. He wasn’t ready to join in the prayers. He wasn’t ready to talk about the injustice that burned him right down to his soul.

Probably sensing the tenuous control Sawyer held on his civil demeanor, Caldwell patted his arm and pulled away. “You take care now.”

Take care of what? Sawyer planed his hand down his face to clear the rain from his eyes and mouth. He needed to be doing something. He needed to move, to go. His palms were itching with the need to grab somebody by the throat and make them pay.

Even John Kincaid’s easygoing, good-ol’-boy son had a temper inside him. And it was brewing. The emotions would boil over if he didn’t do something about this travesty soon.

So there on the spot, standing in the rain, he gave himself a job to do.

There were plenty of folks here, honoring his father. Missing him. But amongst the honor guards, police and government officials, extended family and friends like Caldwell, Sawyer concentrated on something more important than tamping down his sorrow or anger.

He studied each face huddled inside the tent, standing beneath umbrellas and taking shelter under the green, soggy branches of the towering oaks and ash trees and pines lining the road that twisted through the hills of Kansas City’s Mount Washington Cemetery. But he wasn’t looking for familiar friends or comfort.

Sawyer was looking for a face that didn’t fit. He was looking for someone watching the gathering and admiring the success of his handiwork—someone whose curiosity might be bolder than his brains. A smile of satisfaction amongst all the sorrow. He was looking for the man who’d beaten his father bloody and fired a bullet into his chest.

He was looking for his father’s killer.

“IS THIS A JOKE?”

Sawyer switched the phone to his left ear and paced to the opposite end of the large country kitchen. Staring out the window over the sink into the blackness of the backyard he’d grown up in, he jerked the knot loose on his tie and unhooked the top two buttons of his soggy white shirt.

Finally, he had something useful to do to take his mind off the funeral and the friends and family who’d come to his mother’s house afterward. But he’d trade almost anything for a different assignment.

“I wish. All three of them have vanished. Including our pal Longbow.” Friend and fellow cop Detective Seth Cartwright, the commissioner’s son, hadn’t shown up for the potluck dinner after leaving the cemetery. Now Sawyer understood why. A nightmare from the organized-crime investigation they’d worked together last year had reawakened.

“He’s no friend of mine.”

“Mine, either. I know what that bastard can do.” Like try to murder Seth’s wife.

Sawyer knew Ace Longbow as a hulking, temperamental enforcer for the mob. In exchange for testifying against his former boss, he’d been given the opportunity to spend the rest of his life rotting away in prison, instead of facing a lethal injection himself. But something had gone very, very wrong at a courthouse in Jefferson City, Missouri, that afternoon. “You’re sure he didn’t die in the crash?”

They should be so lucky.

Seth continued. “We’re listing all three as escaped prisoners until we’ve got bodies to confirm their deaths.”

Sawyer scrubbed at the evening beard peppering his jaw. “What happened?”

“The Department Of Corrections in Jefferson City had him out to testify in the Wolfe case, along with two other prisoners who were involved in different federal investigations. From what I understand, there were weapons planted in the courtroom. Artillery fire from a van outside knocked out one of the walls.”

“Artillery fire? Sounds like an invasion. Or terrorists.”

“Somebody had some money and connections behind the escape. One prison escort is dead and another critical. At least three other personnel from the courthouse are hospitalized in serious condition. I don’t know how many others suffered minor injuries. They kidnapped the stenographer, but dumped her before their getaway car went into the river. The feds are already on-site, along with the DOC and local authorities. They’re still cleaning up the mess. State police claim at least one of the prisoners was hit before they rammed the car and knocked it off the bridge. They’re dredging the river where the car went in, but have come up with nothing.”

“Three escapees and at least one accomplice if those guns were planted, but no bodies have been found?” Sawyer didn’t know whether to curse or laugh.

“Not one. No John Doe gunshot victims reported at any local hospitals. No one washed up on the banks. The Missouri has a deep channel and strong currents in that part of the state, so they could be miles downstream by now. Longbow and the others could be anywhere in Missouri, anywhere in the country by now. Hell, if he survived, he could be back here in K.C.”

Sawyer’s muscles jumped with the desire to join in the manhunt. But pacing off the length of the kitchen seemed to be his only option right now. “And there are no leads?”

Seth’s no was colorful and emphatic. “It’s no secret that Longbow’s former boss, Theodore Wolfe, took out a hit on Longbow—to shut his mouth and keep Ace from testifying against him. As easy as it is to off a guy in lockup, why go to all this trouble? Besides, we shut Wolfe down—turned over all his men to Interpol or local authorities. If he still has the connections to pull off something this big, then he’d have left the body to prove it.”

Seth had survived turning on the Wolfes himself. Saywer’s father had survived bringing the Wolfe family to justice. Was John Kincaid’s murder related to Longbow’s escape from prison?

“I thought you should know,” Seth went on, explainingthe real purpose behind this call on this day. “You were there at the casino to provide backup for me while I was undercover with the Wolfe family, and I know you developed some kind of…attachment to Longbow’s ex-wife.”

The pacing stopped.

Melissa Teague. Single mom and cocktail waitress. Sawyer had been playing bartender and bouncer back then and had worked with Melissa. An image of her small, perfectly proportioned figure filling out that skimpy saloon-girl costume the waitresses had worn popped into his mind, as vivid and distracting as the real woman had been. He remembered Melissa as a pretty little slip of a thing—all blue eyes and golden hair. And bruises. Sprained wrists.

And fear.

“We all wanted to take care of her.” But they had all failed her.

The sandwich Sawyer had wolfed down to appease his mother churned in his stomach at the memory of seeing Melissa in a hospital bed, looking small and pale as she lay in a coma, fighting for her life. The last time he’d seen her awake, she’d rolled over in the hospital bed and turned her back on him. Even though he’d told her he’d been working undercover, that he was a cop and the bartender she’d known as Tom Sawyer was really Thomas Sawyer Kincaid, she still associated him with the Wolfe crime family and the place where Ace Longbow had tried to kill her.

Or maybe an oversize, overbuilt truck of a man lurkingin her doorway was too much of a reminder of her abusive ex.

Sawyer hissed a frustrated breath through tightly clenched teeth. He had no special claim on Melissa. She’d made it clear that, despite sharing a few cups of coffee before work, or walking her to her car after closing, she wanted nothing to do with him. Maybe not with any man. Considering her background, he couldn’t blame her. “Why call me?”

“So far, we’ve been able to keep the escapees’names out of the press and the details sketchy. We’ve got every man on this. As soon as we got the wire from Jeff City, we dispatched a car to Melissa’s house to keep an eye on things.” Seth’s long pause bespoke the depth of the favor he was asking of Sawyer. “I know the timing sucks. But I figured she’d rather hear the news from a familiar face than a stranger.”

“Ah, hell.” He finally had it fixed in his brain that he’d never see Melissa again. That was the only way he’d been able to get past the guilt and the wanting.

“Can you handle it tonight? If not, I’ll take a break and go over there myself. She should know that her ex-husband escaped, and that he’s either dead or missing.”

Sawyer had been a cop for ten years. He’d been John Kincaid’s son long before that. Doing the hard thing—doing the right thing—simply because it had to be done wasn’t something he’d backed down from before. He wouldn’t skip out on his duty now. No matter how raw he was already feeling inside. “No. You know the players better than any of us. You need to be there at the precinct office to keep track of information as it comes in. I’ll go.”

“Thanks, Sawyer.” Seth apologized for his and his wife’s early departure after the funeral. “I’m sorry Bec and I didn’t make it to the reception. You know how much John meant to both of us. But when the call came in—”

“Forget it. I’m glad you’re there to handle it.”

“I had a lot of respect for your dad.”

“We all did.” The heartfelt words should have calmed him, centered him. But for a man who was used to doing rather than talking, the lengthy conversation made him antsy to get this errand over with. “You go back to work. I’ll get over to Melissa’s.”

Seth seemed to understand, and traded instructions instead of goodbyes. “Flash your badge to the man in the squad car. Captain Taylor gave him orders to shoot first and ask questions later if anyone approaches the house.”

“Got it.”

“Is there a problem, son?” The swinging kitchen door closed behind Susan Kincaid as Sawyer hung up the phone. She looked tired, like she wasn’t eating enough, like maybe there were a few more threads of gray in her dark brown hair than had been there a week ago.

But Sawyer still stood up a little straighter when she crossed her arms and tilted her chin with that I-dare-you- to-lie-to-me look that had gotten him to fess up from the time he was a small boy. “I’m sorry. Something’s come up at work. I need to go take care of it.”

That stern-mama look had never lasted for long. It didn’t now. Instead, Susan reached up and tugged Sawyer’s wrinkled tie free from his collar. She smoothed the front of his unbuttoned uniform jacket and straightened his shirt. “Of all my boys, you never were one to sit still and worry things through for very long. Probably why you were the one we always had to drive to the emergency room.” Her hands settled at the center of his chest, warming Sawyer all the way through to his heart. “Staying dressed up and putting on a game face all day long must be driving you crazy.”

Sawyer grinned. “You think you know me that well, huh?”

“Please. After thirty-two years, I know you better than you know yourself. If you need to crash out and take care of something, do it. Your father’s assistant, Brooke, is here to help me, and she’s keeping things running so efficiently that there’s nothing much for any of us to do. Your brothers will understand if you need to leave. I understand.” She turned him toward door and gave him a push. “Now go. Just give me a call later so I know you’re all right.”

Though Susan Kincaid’s will was a force to be reckoned with, Sawyer was twice her size and refused to be ushered out just yet. He turned at the door, scooped her up in a bear hug and planted a kiss on her cheek before setting her down. “I love you, Mom.”

She smiled. It was the first real smile he’d seen on her throughout this long, long day. “I know.”

Chapter Two

Twenty-five minutes later, Sawyer pulled his truck up behind the black and white, killed the lights and wipers and turned off the engine. A smile from his mom had improved his mood if not his trepidation about tonight’s visit to Melissa Teague’s tiny white house in the Kansas City suburb of Independence. The place was neat, but plain and unassuming, showing the signs of its age in the sag of the front porch and the cracks running through the brickwork along the house’s foundation.

He pulled his badge from his jacket and slipped it back into his wallet before checking the gun on his belt and climbing out. Squinting into the rain, he braced his shoulders for the unpleasant task at hand and moved toward the officer in the squad car.

“I’m a friend of the family,” he explained, fudging a little on the friend part as the blue suit read his badge and ID and okayed him to approach the house.

Sawyer caught a glimpse of his drowned-rat reflection when the officer rolled up his window against the moisture splashing into his car. Big scary man coming in from the dark and the storm. Yeah, he’d be a real re-assuring sight.

One more reason to hate the rain.

Muttering a curse that was half damnation, half resignation to the inevitable, Sawyer jumped the torrent running along the curb and hurried across the street. Pausing for a quick scan up and down the sidewalk and into the side yards, he made sure there were no unwelcome eyes watching the place. In fact, other than the officer in the car, the block was deserted. The isolation of locked doors and dark windows nagged at him almost as much as the sight of someone spying on the house would have. But he supposed he was the only one without the sense to stay in on a night like this. Tomorrow, he’d order a rundown on all the neighbors to make sure there were no empty houses and that the residents were who they said they were.

Resolved that he could at least do that much to keep Melissa safe, Sawyer climbed the steps onto her front porch. The wood shifted and creaked beneath his weight, groaning like an ominous portent of unseen danger. But the light beside the door was on, so she’d be able to get a good look at him before opening it.

He pressed the doorbell, then shook the excess water from his unbuttoned jacket, making sure his Glock was tucked out of sight behind his back. He was squeegeeing the rain from his hair when the inside door nudged open a crack.

Sawyer braced for the impact of seeing Melissa again.

But the breath he’d been holding eased from his chest in an odd mixture of disappointment and relief as he caught his first glimpse of the woman peeking over the chain latching the door to its frame.

Not Melissa. Just as petite, though, maybe five foot two or three at the most. Pretty in a soft sort of feminine way that must be an inherited trait. The wary suspicion in this woman’s eyes was similar. But the hair was shorter, curlier, laced with silver amongst the gold. “Yes?”

“Mrs. Teague?”

“Who’s asking?”

Sawyer held his badge up beside his face. “KCPD, ma’am. I’m Detective Kincaid from the Fourth Precinct.”

The older woman squinted. “The Fourth Precinct’s in downtown Kansas City. What are you doing out…? Oh, shoot.” She turned away from the door and shouted inside. “Benjamin? Bring Grandma her glasses. Please.” She looked back through the screen that separated her from Sawyer. “I wondered when someone was going to come up to the house. That police car has been sitting out there for a half hour. I was still cleaning the dinner dishes when he pulled up. Makes me nervous.”

“It’s just a precaution, ma’am. He’s keeping an eye on the neighborhood.” Sawyer tucked his badge onto his belt and retreated a step to hopefully ease her concern. “Is Miss Teague here?”

“Gandma?” Short, chubby fingers pushed a pair of glasses into the woman’s hands, and then a little boy with shaggy black hair, barefoot and dressed in overalls, peeked around her leg.

Sawyer’s pulse hitched in recognition as he looked down into a carbon copy of Melissa’s clear blue eyes.

“Hey, pal. How’s it goin’?” Sawyer grinned at the little guy. He must be three years old. He barely cleared Sawyer’s knee, but there was no mistaking the bold curiosity in his expression as he inched his way around his grandmother’s leg and craned his neck to look up into Sawyer’s face.

“I can’t talk to stwangers,” he announced very wisely.

Sawyer nudged the boy’s age up to four, or maybe twelve or thirty-six, judging by his verbal abilities. “That’s smart.” He held out his ID again, now that the woman at the door had her glasses on. “Did your mom teach you that?”

“How come you’re so big?”

Laughter was the only option with a question like that. “My mom’s a good cook. And I’m a good eater.”

“I’m a good eater, too.”

“Of course.” The woman snapped her fingers in recognition, drawing Sawyer’s focus back up. “You’re that man who came to visit Melissa in the hospital. The co-worker from when she was waitressing at the Riverboat Casino. I don’t know that she was ever awake while you were there. For a long time, I didn’t think she was going to come out of that coma. I’m Fritzi Teague, Melissa’s mother. This is her son, Benjamin.” Her welcoming chatter slowed into suspicion once more. “I thought she said you were a bartender, though.”

“That’s how she knew me at the time. But I was working a case. I assure you I’m a cop.” He wondered if he should offer to let her call in his badge number for verification. “It’s a long story. Is Melissa here?”

“She’s at her accounting class tonight. She usually gets home around nine-thirty.” Fritzi hugged little Benjamin closer to her leg and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Is something wrong? Has something happened to her?”

“No, ma’am,” Sawyer quickly reassured her. “I wouldn’t be asking for her here if I thought she’d been hurt in any way.” Logical words in almost any case. Still, a tremor of uneasy awareness rippled over his shoulders at the idea that Ace Longbow had somehow survived his bloody escape and had already found a way to get to the Kansas City area and track down his ex-wife. “I’d like to wait and speak to her in person if I could.”

The older woman’s gaze darted down to her grandson. She offered Sawyer an apologetic smile when she looked back up. “My daughter doesn’t like anyone to come inside when she’s not here. Especially at night.”

Sawyer glanced over his shoulder at the steady curtain of rain whipping ahead of the wind. A soft drumbeat of thunder mocked him in the distance. But even as he shifted inside his soggy clothes, he had to admire the Teague women’s efforts to keep their little family safe. “No problem, ma’am. I’ll be out in my truck.”

“Wait.” Fritzi called him back from the edge of the porch. “It’s not like you’re a complete stranger. And since you’re the police, well, I just made a pot of decaf coffee. I don’t suppose it could hurt if you came inside and warmed yourself up. Just let me get the door.”

As she closed the door to unlatch the chain, Sawyer made a mental note to ensure there were secure locks on every entrance to the house. If Fritzi Teague thought that flimsy chain would keep unwelcome visitors out, she was living with a false sense of security. He hated to tell Melissa’s mother that he could have cut through the screen and busted down the door with little more than a shove. If she didn’t keep the dead bolt fastened, the chain and the knob lock would barely slow him down, much less stop him if he wanted to get inside. And they sure as hell wouldn’t stop a fanatic like Ace Longbow.

Sawyer fixed a smile on his mouth and, for the moment,

kept his concerns to himself when she reopened

the door and invited him inside.

MELISSA TEAGUE SPOTTED the black-and-white police cruiser parked in front of her house the moment she turned her old Pontiac around the corner.

The ingrained alertness that had become as much a part of her as breathing kicked up to warning levels, speeding her pulse and sharpening her senses. She squeezed the steering wheel in her fists and pressed a little harder on the gas.

She didn’t recognize the black truck, either.

Melissa splashed through the lake pooling at the end of her driveway and parked her car up beside the house. She left the bag of groceries tipped over in the passenger seat, grabbed her keys and climbed out into the rain.

“Mom?” She turned up the collar of her trench coat, blinked the beads of moisture from her eyelashes and spared a glance for the officer in his car. Drinking his coffee. Just sitting. He wasn’t on his radio or writing up a report as though the truck was illegally parked or stolen, or if there’d been a break-in. Still, surprises had never been a good thing for her. Especially this close to home. “Benjamin?”

Forcing her lungs to breathe deeply and evenly, she ran across the slick grass to the porch. She quickly unlocked the knob and dead bolt, cursed when she discovered the chain wasn’t fastened and pushed her way inside. “Mom!”

The screen door slammed shut behind her as she hurried toward the light streaming through the archway from the living room. “Ben? Mom? Why won’t you answer—”

She turned the corner and froze.

Her mother was sitting on the sofa, cradling a coffee mug between her hands and laughing with rare abandon—laughing at the man wrestling with Melissa’s precious son on the braided rug.

For one awful moment she thought that Ace… But no, Benjamin might be a dead ringer for his father with his black hair and olive skin, but her ex had never claimed him. He’d seen their child as a threat—as competition for her love. To Ace, their son was an abomination. A betrayal. Ace had never accepted any other males in her life—not even his own child.

All the more reason to hold her little boy close and keep him safe.

The man’s deep voice cracked as he teased Benjamin with a high-pitched plea for mercy. “Aagh! Big Ben got me!”

“Get me! Get me!”

“You asked for it.” Her four-year-old squealed in delight as the dark-haired man closed him in a scissor hold between his knees and rolled back and forth on the floor.

You asked for it. Melissa blocked out the painful memory the words conjured and found her voice. “Mother!”

The wrestling ceased in an instant. Her mother’s smile vanished. “Melissa.”

“Mommy!” Benjamin beamed from one flushed cheek to the other. “’Tective got me!”

Melissa gripped the door frame and retreated half a step as the man sat up and scooted Benjamin onto his lap.

Oh my God.

She wasn’t ready for a reunion like this.

“Hey.” The slightly breathless laugh that lingered in their guest’s bass voice should have reassured her with its familiarity. His lazy grin should have struck a pang of welcome recognition instead of tensing every muscle with the urge to turn and run from the remembered horrors of her old life.

Melissa Teague didn’t run anymore. But standing her ground still didn’t come easy.

She knew this man. Not exactly a stranger. Not exactly an old friend, either. His straight, coffee-brown hair was shorter than she remembered, his clothes certainly different. Tom Sawyer. No, that wasn’t right. Tom Sawyer Kincaid. He’d said something about his mom being an English teacher who’d named all her sons after characters in books. He’d said something about being a cop—something about asking her out and getting to know her better.

“What are you doing here?” was the only greeting that worked its way past the guarded tension squeezing her throat.

“Melissa—your manners!” her mother chided, setting down her coffee and rising to her feet.

As her initial panic ebbed, an embarrassing self-consciousness took its place. He was looking at her in that way. The way a man who wanted something looked at a woman.

Before she was completely aware of doing it, Melissa combed her fingers through the hair at her left temple, urging a golden wave over her cheek. But just as quickly, hating even that revelation of weakness about herself, she squared her shoulders and marched across the room to pluck her son from the officer’s arms. “Benjamin’s too small for roughhousing with you.”

“Mommy, you’re wet. I want down.”

“I didn’t hurt him. Boys like to wrestle—”

“Get me again!” Benjamin reached for their guest.

“See?”

The man’s lopsided grin was just as innocently boyish as her son’s. In another lifetime, she might have succumbed to its charm.

But this was the life she had to deal with. Despite Benjamin’s squiggles to climb down and resume the game, she wedged him firmly on her hip. “Why is there a police car parked in front of my house?”

“I let Detective Kincaid in, dear,” her mother explained. “He’s only been here a half hour or so. I checked his ID before opening the door. Don’t you remember him?”

“Of course I remember—”

“Better let me handle this.” The man she’d known as Tom Sawyer, a bartender with a sweet but misplaced sense of responsibility for the waitresses who worked with him, smoothed the scattered strands of hair off his forehead and rolled to his feet. He stood. And stood. Melissa’s pulse quickened with an instinctive self-preservation and she backed away.

His warm brown gaze darted to the subtle movement of her feet. But she didn’t apologize or make excuses.

He didn’t ask for any. “It’s good to see you again, Mel.”

She forced her gaze up past the evening beard that studded his square jaw, and acknowledged his greeting with a nod. “Tom.”

He raised his focus and skimmed her face, probably noting the newer, shoulder-length cut of her hair—probably satisfying his curiosity about how her injuries had healed as well. “You look great.”

He looked…male.

Ignoring the little tremor of awareness that blipped through her brain, Melissa concentrated on all the reasons why she’d never picked up a phone to resume their friendship, never encouraged him to turn that friendship into something more. One, he was an old-fashioned kind of guy—the sort who held open doors, sent flowers and who’d try to make everything right for her. Two, nice as he’d seemed back at the casino where they’d worked together, he’d lied about who he was. What he did for a living. Why he’d been so interested in her. And whether or not the lie was unavoidable and he really was one of the good guys, she couldn’t afford to be fooled by good intentions and false promises. She couldn’t allow herself to drop her guard and be taken in by any man—even a nice one. Especially a nice one. She needed her independence in order to survive.

And three? Oh, hell. She remembered thinking Tom Sawyer Kincaid might be the one man in her life with the brawn and bravado to stand up to her ex-husband. The man who’d come galloping to her rescue. But any chivalrous fantasy she might have toyed with scared the hell out of her, too. She’d forgotten just how imposing he could be, with those broad shoulders and thick forearms, every sinew and hollow made blatantly evident by the sticky second skin of his damp white shirt and rolled-up sleeves.

She couldn’t help but compare. There’d been so many times she wished she’d met a man like Detective Kincaid before Ace had ever walked into her sheltered life back in South Dakota. But wishing didn’t help reality. There were no more fantasies to be dreamed, no trust to be given. There was only survival.

So she sloughed off his compliment and ignored the spark of interest her female instincts tried to rouse in her. “I look worn-out from a day that’s gone on way too long.”

“It’s been a long one for me, too.” He splayed his fingers at his hips, drawing attention to the badge with the black stripe bisecting it that was clipped to his belt. Did that black stripe have anything to do with this surprise visit?

“More ‘Get me!’” Benjamin pushed against Melissa’s chest, saving her from the compassionate impulse to ask about that black stripe and the length of his day.

“Not now, sweetie. It’s getting late.” She stroked his silky black hair and hugged him a little tighter, to settle her own nerves as much as his. But she kept her eyes on their guest. She needed a safer topic. “What’s it been? A year?”

“Not quite. I haven’t seen you since last July.”

Not so safe.

Last July she’d been in the hospital, broken and unconscious. Even now, the events that had put her in that ICU bed were hazy. But she remembered his last visit. Though she couldn’t recall his words, she remembered being just as frightened as she’d been pleased to see him. He’d asked for something from her, something she couldn’t—wouldn’t—give to a man again.

Her affection? Her trust? Permission to give those things to her? Was that why he was here tonight? Did he think enough time had passed—could ever pass—for her to give a new relationship a chance?

“So what are you doing here?” she asked again.

He reached for a dark blue uniform jacket draped over the back of a chair, and picked up a holstered gun he’d set high up on the mantel of her fake fireplace. He’d come here armed? With another officer sitting outside? This visit wasn’t personal, after all.

“Can we talk? Someplace private?”

Even if that grin had stayed in place, she would have suspected his motives for showing up at her home unannounced.

After a slight hesitation, she nodded. Giving him a wide berth as she circled around him, Melissa handed Ben off to her mother, trading a reassuring hug with the older woman and giving her son a kiss. “Benjamin needs to be getting to bed. Do you mind starting his bath?”

“Of course not. Thanks for the company, Mr. Kincaid.”

“I appreciate the coffee, ma’am.”

Benjamin stretched out both arms toward his new playmate and curled his fingers into a wave. “Bye, ’tective.”

“See ya, Big Ben.”

Her mother reached out and squeezed her hand. “Honey, Mr. Kincaid isn’t the enemy.” Melissa weathered a sad, maybe even apologetic, frown, then turned away as Fritzi carried her grandson down the hallway toward the bathroom at the back of the house.

“We can talk in the kitchen, Tom.”

He followed her across the hallway to the room where she could turn on the brightest lights and put a solid piece of furniture, namely the width of her kitchen table, between them. “Thomas is my first name, but I go by Sawyer in real life.”

Real life. Ha. She’d been crazy to worry for even one moment about him seeing the changes in her appearance after a shattered face and reconstructive surgeries. Her reality didn’t include old friends stopping by for let’s-get-reacquainted visits. Her reality included living paycheck to paycheck, working when she wasn’t going to school, updating restraining orders and looking over her shoulder.

She flipped on the overhead light switch beside the door and crossed to the sink to turn on the light there, too. But the bright lights and distance between them did little to diminish his overpowering presence. The smells of earthy dampness clinging to their clothes and skin intensified in the smaller room, giving the atmosphere an intimate electricity she shouldn’t be feeling.

Attraction of any kind—emotional attachments beyond her mother and son—weren’t an option for her. She needed to be on guard. Always. The last six years of her life had taught her that.

She unfastened the top two buttons of her raincoat and straightened her collar before crossing her arms in front of her and bracing herself for whatever he had to say. “Okay—Sawyer—does this have something to do with the Wolfes’ illegal activities at the casino? When I gave my deposition at the hospital, the D.A. said he didn’t think I’d have to testify in person.”

“As far as I know, you won’t.” Watching him unhook his belt and strap his gun and holster back into place wasn’t exactly reassuring. “To my knowledge, the case against Theodore Wolfe is still tight. Once the state of Missouri is done with him, he’ll be taken back to London to face international charges.”

“Then what’s wrong? Why are you here?”

“It’s your husband. Ace Longbow.”

“My ex-husband,” she corrected. The handsome man who’d first beaten her the night he’d accused her of getting pregnant to trap him into marriage. The flowers and apologies and diamond ring he’d brought her the next day had fooled her. Ace Longbow, the exciting, slightly dangerous man, who—as a nineteen-year-old barely out of high school—she’d naively thought she could tame.

She’d mistaken passion for love. Control for caring.

She’d thought a divorce would end the torture.

But the man who, to this day, claimed to love her in the letters that went straight to her attorney, had accused her of betraying his loyalty to the Wolfe crime family and had dragged her down to the river to kill her.

Melissa self-consciously touched the scar on her cheek, then quickly turned away to busy her hands with pouring herself a cup of coffee. The bones had mended. And the surgeons had done a good job of rebuilding her shattered face. But the scar they’d left behind was functional, not pretty. And until she could get ahead on her bills, a plastic surgeon was out of the question.

It wasn’t vanity so much as the violence it represented that made her sensitive about the long, curving mark. Every time she washed her face or brushed her hair in the mirror, she saw the brand of her shameful marriage stamped there. “What about Ace? Has something happened to him?”

“I’m sorry. I guess you haven’t seen the news this evening.”

News? Sawyer’s shadow fell over her, consuming her breathing space. The coffeepot rattled against her cup. He rescued the objects from her shaking grasp and set them safely on the counter. But the surprising gentleness of even that impersonal touch chilled her to the bone.

This couldn’t be good.

Melissa curled her fingers into her palms and scooted some distance between them, steeling herself for the worst. With Richard “Ace” Longbow, there was always a worst. “Sorry about what?”

“He escaped with two other inmates from a courthouse in Jefferson City this afternoon. Authorities there believe he was shot. The getaway car they were in ran off the bridge and plunged into the Missouri River.”

The words swam inside her head. She gripped the edge of the counter to stop the dizzying sensation. “Are you telling me Ace is dead?”

Sawyer’s silence lasted a beat too long. Her world instantly righted itself with cold, numbing clarity. She angled her gaze up to Sawyer’s eyes. “You don’t know if he’s alive or dead. You don’t know where he is.”

His big shoulders lifted, absorbing the weight of the accusation. “Since none of the bodies have turned up, we’re assuming all three fugitives are still alive. But they’ve gone underground and disappeared. We don’t know where Ace is or what his plans might entail. But we’re doing everything we can to find him.”

Melissa didn’t bother asking where Sawyer and the prison authorities thought Ace might be headed. If Ace wasn’t dead, there was only one answer.

Here.

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