KANSAS CITY HERO

Scarred inside and out by a past he can’t remember, Jake Lonergan doesn’t know if he’s a heroic undercover DEA agent or the hit man who killed him and assumed his identity. While he is determined to remain in the shadows, it’s Robin Carter and her baby girl who force him back into the light. When the gorgeous single mom is attacked, Jake comes to her rescue…and finds it impossible to walk away from this fragile little family. Now, with a dangerous stalker determined to get his hands on the only woman who got away, protecting Robin and her daughter becomes Jake’s priority. But with his memories still in question, Jake fears what will happen when the bad guy comes calling. Can he prove he’s the good guy Robin is convinced he must be?

“Robin. You don’t really know me. You shouldn’t automatically trust me.”

“I trusted you because I had to. You haven’t disappointed me yet.”

Oh, hell. That sounded like some sort of relationship had been forged between them.

Jake was relieved as much as he was on edge when he heard the sirens in the distance outside. He nodded toward the back door where they’d come in. “You stay here with the kid. I’ll wait outside and show the police in.”

Jake surmised the distance and direction of the approaching flashing lights. He paused for one shameless moment to admire the apple-shaped curve of Robin Carter’s backside, emphasized by the clinging dampness of her wet jeans, as she bent over the bassinet, tending to her sleeping baby again.

The cops were close enough. She’d be safe.

“Thank you again, Mr. Lonergan. By the way, you never told me your first name…”

He never heard the end of her sentence. By the time she straightened from the bassinet, he was gone.

Assumed

Identity

USA TODAY Bestselling Author

Julie Miller

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

USA TODAY bestselling author Julie Miller attributes her passion for writing romance to all those books she read growing up. When shyness and asthma kept her from becoming the action-adventure heroine she longed to be, Julie created stories in her head to keep herself entertained. Encouragement from her family to write down the feelings and ideas 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 this teacher serves as the resident “grammar goddess.” Inspired by the likes of Agatha Christie and Encyclopedia Brown, Julie believes the only thing better than a good mystery is a good romance.

Born and raised in Missouri, this award-winning author now lives in Nebraska with her husband, son and an assortment of spoiled pets. To contact Julie or to learn more about her books, write to P.O. Box 5162, Grand Island, NE 68802-5162 or check out her website and monthly newsletter at www.juliemiller.org.

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CAST OF CHARACTERS

Jake Lonergan—Is he an undercover agent who barely survived his last assignment? Or the hit man who killed the agent and assumed his identity?

Robin Carter—A successful career woman who wants to be a mother more than anything. Does she dare trust her life and her daughter’s to Jake? If they survive, can she trust the mystery man with her heart?

Emma Carter—Robin’s adopted daughter. Is she the real target?

Mark Riggins—The assistant manager at the Robin’s Nest Floral Shop. He runs things his way when Robin’s not there.

Leon Hundley—Robin’s newest hire drives the delivery van…and doesn’t like answering questions.

Brian Elliott—Robin’s former beau is very protective.

Tania Houseman—Emma’s birth mother. She survived one suicide attempt. Will she try again?

William Houseman—Tania’s big brother has his sister’s best interests at heart.

Hope Lockhart—Owner of the Fairy Tale Bridal Shop and Robin’s friend.

The Rose Red Rapist—Is he getting careless? Or changing his M.O.?

For Maggie May McGonagall Miller,

my ace writing companion and champion PR pooch.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Extract

Prologue

Jake wouldn’t mind the nightmare so much if he only knew what it meant.

He thrashed in the bed, knowing he could wake himself in an instant. Instead of saving himself, however, he wrestled with the demons that had haunted his dreams on and off, from nowhere, Texas, to Kansas City, Missouri, for nearly two years now.

The violence and pain had him in their grips again, the sensations as vivid and terrifying as the images were vague and fractured—meaningless flashes of objects and people without a context. But the nightmare was the closest thing he had to a memory, the closest thing he had to understanding. So he let it steal into his bed and wash over him. He invited the torment to become a part of him.

He was hot. Sweat stung his eyes and rolled down his back. He was breathing hard, every inhale the jab of a knife in his side, every exhale a silent grunt of pain. He was hurting bad—the kind of hurt that sent men to hospitals...or the morgue.

Wheezing through the pain that seared him inside and out, he crouched behind a formless shadow in a world filled with ghosts and darkness. A voiceless command echoed in his head, forcing him to press on, demanding that he live. “You let him get away? He’ll destroy everything we’ve worked for if he escapes. You have to stop him. It’s up to you. You’re the only one who can.”

What did the words mean? Who said them? Why did he hurt like this? Where was he? When was he?

What was he?

One of the hazy apparitions moved, darting quickly from night to night. He pulled a hunting knife from a bag at his feet, flipped the blade into his hand as if he’d done the dangerous maneuver a hundred times before. He hurled the knife and the apparition sank into the darkness.

Another shadow rose from the swirling black mist. It took the shape of a man, faceless and unnamed.

He was digging through the bag again. He didn’t know where it had come from, why he had it. It was a heavy black satchel filled with things he couldn’t see, couldn’t identify, couldn’t remember. That’s when he saw the gun in his hand. It was a wicked, streamlined thing of black steel that felt comfortable there, like it was a part of him. Its shiny surface gleamed in the shadows. He knew that gun better than he knew his own name.

He squeezed the trigger and the shadow jerked. But it didn’t fall. He couldn’t see a face, but he could see the gun, pointed at him, and he dove for the ground at the flashes of gunshots exploding in the night.

All Jake knew was the driving need to hunt down prey that was getting away. The instinct to run cramped his sore, weary muscles. But somehow he knew he belonged to the darkness. He had to hide. And wait. And kill.

The barrage of deafening noise came next. Explosions. Thunder. The sounds pierced the darkness, filled it up. Guns and bombs and pain and death. He was stuck in the middle of it. Or maybe he was the cause of it.

“You have to stop him.”

He was stalking the faceless shadow. He was the bringer of death.

The nightmare took a surreal turn as snow began to fall in the darkness. He was hotter than he’d ever been, and it was snowing—but not light, airy flakes. White, acrid pellets stung his nose, melted against his skin, branded him.

The walls were collapsing around him. He needed to get out of there. Now.

But he needed to get the job done even more.

He slung the bag over his burning shoulder and pushed to his feet. Crouching low, he hurried through the darkness, snatching his knife from the dead man’s chest and tucking it into his belt before he flattened his back against a crumpling wall and peered around its black edge into the fire-studded darkness.

He blinked away the snow and sweat and pain, and stilled his breath. There. He spotted the limping shadow and moved from his hiding place. Victory was his. He lined up his prey in the crosshairs of his gun. Jake squeezed the trigger.

A searing pain exploded in his shoulder and he staggered back. A crimson stain added color to the nightmare. The bag dropped to his feet. He clutched his arm to his side and cursed the numbness creeping down to his fingertips.

“You have to stop him.”

He raised his gun again.

There was blood in his eyes now. Red was everywhere he could see. The noise was so loud he couldn’t hear his own thoughts. The very air tasted of sulfur.

He was running out of time. Kill or die.

He squeezed the trigger.

Fire ripped through his skull. Pain consumed him. He was falling, plummeting toward death.

For one blink, there was clarity, understanding.

But the blackness rushed up from Jake’s feet and swallowed him whole, taking a clear image of the man’s face, of his surroundings—of freedom from this nightmare—with it.

Jake came awake on a groan and jackknifed upright in the bed. The sheet and blanket were twisted around his legs. His naked skin glistened with cold beads of sweat in the dampish night air. His chest heaved in and out on deep, ragged breaths as he oriented himself to his surroundings.

He eased open his fists, releasing the pillow he’d crushed, flexing his long fingers against the gray light that filtered into the studio apartment from the street lamp outside his window, verifying that he held neither gun nor knife. The deafening fusillade that had filled his ears a moment earlier faded into the lazy drumbeat of thunder and the soft patter of raindrops on the sidewalk and street below.

Jake turned his face to the screen at the half-open window and breathed in slowly, deeply—noting each fresh, tangible detail of the world around him. His waking world was still dark, but the rain brought a calming sound and the scent of ozone into his room. The springtime temperature cooled his heated skin.

Kicking his covers to the foot of the fold-out bed, he swung his legs over the side and planted his feet on the solid familiarity of worn wood and a discount store throw rug.

Wearing nothing but the boxer shorts he slept in, Jake rose and crossed to the apartment’s lone closet and opened the door. He pushed aside the hangers that held a handful of jeans and shirts and reached behind them to pull out a worn, black leather bag. Its heavy weight was the lone anchor to a past he couldn’t remember, the one tangible reality from the nightmare he couldn’t forget.

With an easy clench of muscle he lifted the bag and dropped it onto the bed. Pulling apart the singed handles, he dug into an inside pocket and pulled out a badge. The nickel and brass were shiny beneath his touch as he rubbed his thumb over the letters and numbers he’d traced so many nights before.

Drug Enforcement Agency. J. Lonergan.

But it meant nothing to him. Not the badge, not the name.

He reached into the same pocket and pulled out three different sets of passports and ID cards. Three different identities, three different home addresses, three different versions of the same grim face staring back at him. None of them stirred a glimmer of recognition, either. What kind of man needed three aliases? Why would he have taken so many trips to Central and South America? He felt no ties to the DEA—no ties to Houston, St. Louis or Chicago, either. He felt nothing but confusion. The badge might be his. But it could just as easily have been taken off one of the faceless shadows he killed every night in his dreams.

Which one of these names was real? Were any of them?

He scraped his palm over the craggy ridges and hollows of his battered nose and grizzled jaw and cursed. Why couldn’t he remember? Why the hell couldn’t he remember anything before that morning he’d woken up in a tiny Texas border-town hospital?

Was he a cop who’d nearly died in the line of duty? Or the man who’d killed a cop and assumed his identity?

After two years, with no one coming to the hospital to check on him, and no image that matched his face on any television screen in any of the towns he’d lived in between then and now that even felt familiar, he was beginning to believe it had to be the latter. He was a cold-blooded killer without any memory of the monster he’d once been.

He tossed the badge and passports back into the bag. The nightmare wouldn’t come back tonight. But neither would sleep. The blank holes and black walls in Jake’s memory—Jake, because he had no idea what the J on that badge stood for—disturbed him more than the violent images in between.

Some nights he took a cold shower. Other nights he bench-pressed the weights in the corner of the room until his strength was spent. On the worst nights he poured shots of tequila to erase the sweat from his skin and numb the emptiness in his head. Tonight, the rain and a long walk would do.

Without turning on the light, Jake quickly dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and work boots. Before putting away the bag, he pulled out a gun and ankle holster and strapped it to his leg. He slipped a hunting knife from beneath his pillow, flipped it with practiced ease in his hand and tucked it into the leather sheath inside his boot.

He couldn’t remember his own name, but he knew how to wake himself from a nightmare without crying out and alerting his enemies—not that he knew who those enemies might be. He knew how to arm himself before walking out into the shabby side of downtown Kansas City after the sun had set and every reputable business had closed for the night. He knew how to survive in the shadows of society without calling unwanted attention to himself.

But he didn’t know how to remember.

Needing something physical, something familiar, something as rooted in the present moment as he could make it to silence the demons from his forgotten past, Jake set the satchel back into the closet, locked his door and disappeared into the stormy night.

Chapter One

“I know it’s late, Emma. But try to help Mommy just a little bit longer. Just one little belch. Please?” Of all the evenings to outgrow her night-owl schedule, Robin Carter’s infant daughter had decided that the one night her mother wanted to stay up late she would be a fussy pants.

Hiding her frown of frustration, Robin shifted the precious weight in her arms to gaze down into drowsy eyes that were fighting hard not to sleep, despite a full tummy and the midnight hour. From the moment she’d first met her infant daughter, barely two months ago, those blue eyes had been irresistible. Robin glanced over at the clock on her office desk, then back to the baby’s agitated plea. They were still impossible to resist.

“You’re right. We’ll figure out how to make the books balance in the morning. Right now we’d better get home to our comfy beds.” She put Emma back to her shoulder and patted her soft back until she heard the burp. Robin grinned, reassured and reenergized by the healthy sound. “Dainty and delicate and tough as a Marine, aren’t you?”

Despite the difficult circumstances surrounding Emma’s birth, and the adoption that had changed both their lives, Emma did everything in a healthy, robust way. Burping. Eating. Crying. Growing silky brown hair. Claiming her new mother’s heart. The four-month-old was all Robin had wanted but feared she would never have.

Relationships had failed.

In vitro had failed.

Robin was closer to forty than to thirty now. She’d put herself through college on scholarships and hard work, built her own floral design business, invested smartly, bought a house with an acreage just outside of Kansas City and landscaped and remodeled it to become her dream home. But her dream could never really be complete if she was all alone.

With her biological clock ticking like mad and no man she wanted in her life, Robin had listened to the advice of her attorney and gotten on a waiting list to obtain the one thing she hadn’t been able to achieve on her own—a beautiful, healthy baby. Adopting Emma was a miracle that had altered Robin’s lonely, workaholic life in wonderful ways she was discovering each and every day as the two of them became a family.

Normally, Emma adapted to wherever Robin took her—errands, shopping, visits with friends. She especially liked coming to work at the Robin’s Nest Floral Shop, napping in the bassinet in the corner of Robin’s quiet office or supervising customer satisfaction and employee workloads from the baby sling Robin often wore across her chest. Maybe Emma loved the shop because of the building’s cool, climate-controlled air, or the friendly employees who doted on her. Or maybe Emma simply loved being close to the reliable, down-to-earth practicality and unconditional love that Robin provided.

But tonight was not normal. And Emma was not a happy camper.

Neither was Robin.

The baby’s restlessness could be attributed to something concrete, like the changing barometric pressure as the spring storm gathered strength outside. But it was more likely that Emma had picked up on Robin’s frustration with the numbers on her computer. Perhaps Emma was being fussy because Robin had been fussing over the business’s books ever since the shop had closed three hours earlier. Her accountant had had some questions about discrepancies between receipts and job estimates and stock manifests. Robin had been away from work far too much since Emma’s arrival, and maybe her employees had gotten lazy about keeping track of everything. But spending the night in her office wasn’t going to make the books balance for her. And although Emma normally stayed up past eleven most nights, she didn’t want her daughter thinking the shop and office were her new home, either.

Robin lay Emma in the bassinet and leaned over to kiss her dimpled cheek, taking a moment to inhale the innocent fragrance that was all powder and baby wash and Emma herself. “Let Mommy make one more check around the place and then we’ll go home.”

She pulled the cotton blanket over her round little body, hoping that second bottle of formula, a clean diaper and the muffled rhythm of the rain and thunder would soothe her to sleep. But when Emma’s face squinched up, promising another bout of crying, Robin hardened her heart against the urge to take the baby into her arms again. “Give me five minutes and we’ll be out of here.”

Emma’s tiny fists batted the air. Robin touched one of the perfect little hands and guided the baby’s thumb into her mouth. Emma started sucking and quieted for a few moments, but Robin had pushed them both long enough for one day. The bookkeeping questions could wait for tomorrow. Her daughter came first.

Turning away before sympathetic tears stung her own eyes, Robin quickly shut down her computer and stuffed the shipping manifests and customer orders into their respective files. Since she’d started carrying the diaper bag, her brief case and purse spent most of their time locked up in her car. She carried the necessities in her pockets or, like these files, tucked them into the flowered backpack that was Emma’s diaper bag. Pulling her keys from the pocket of her jeans, she hurried out into the hallway and closed the door quietly behind her.

Although she’d always been cautious about her safety whenever she worked late at the shop, Robin had become doubly paranoid lately, and moved through the building to recheck the locks on the back loading bay doors, the windows in the stock and workrooms, the massive walk-in refrigerator where fresh flowers were stored, as well as the doors at the front of the Robin’s Nest Floral Shop. It wasn’t just that bone-deep need to make sure her child was safe, whether she brought Emma to work or stayed at home with her. A friend and employee of Robin’s had been abducted from this very neighborhood eight months earlier. Janie Harrison had been raped and murdered, and her abductor, believed to be the Rose Red Rapist, was still at large.

Robin hated the nickname the press had given to the serial rapist. They’d latched on to the colorful appellation because his first victim had been abducted outside the Fairy Tale Bridal Shop across the street. Rose Red, like the fairy tale, instead of simply naming him after the flower he left with his victims after each brutal attack. At one point, KCPD had even suspected the creep had gotten the roses at her shop.

So Robin didn’t stock red roses anymore. If a bride or some other client wanted the red flowers for a wedding or funeral, then she’d special order them. It made her sick to think she’d enabled the creep in even that small way.

Confident that every lock was secure, Robin peeked through the front windows into the wet night outside. Thick sheets of rain puddled on the pavement and created a translucent curtain that dimmed the street lamps and the occasional headlights from vehicles that drove past. Normally, she loved the rain. It made her lawn green up, and the irises she’d planted last fall around her house and in the window boxes in front of her shop were blooming like crazy. The world outside her business near downtown Kansas City seemed gray and quiet tonight—perfect for sleeping or curling up with a good book or rocking a tired infant to sleep.

But the women of Kansas City lived in fear on nights like this, wondering what danger might lurk in the shadows. Robin was no exception. The Rose Red Rapist reportedly came out of nowhere, striking his victim from behind and hauling the woman away in a white van to some unknown location where he assaulted her before bringing her back and dumping her body in this refurbished uptown neighborhood.

As if to emphasize the danger, a bolt of lightning zapped across the sky and a crack of thunder split the air, startling Robin and instantly pricking the hairs beneath the sleeves of the blue oxford blouse she wore. She crossed her arms and inhaled deeply, fighting off the chill that seemed to creep right through the glass to raise goose bumps on her skin.

As her eyes readjusted to the darkness, Robin detected a subtle movement in the shadows across the street. She braced one hand against the cool, damp glass and leaned closer, squinting to bring the lone figure, with shoulders hunched against the rain, into focus. Lightning flashed again and Robin caught a glimpse of the slender figure darting beneath the awning above the front entrance to the bridal shop. A coat or dress swung around the shadow’s knees.

A woman. Alone on a night like this. Robin’s heart knotted with concern. “Oh, sweetie. Be safe.”

The woman pulled a hand from her pocket and brushed her straight, wet hair off her pale face. Then she lifted her head and looked straight at Robin. Maybe. The shop was dark and the nearest streetlight was farther down near the parking lot entrance. Robin should be nothing more than a shadow herself.

But the young woman’s dark eyes never seemed to blink. She stared so hard that she must be seeing Robin watching her.

Robin breathed one moment of uncomfortable trepidation beneath the imagined scrutiny. In the next breath, she considered unlocking the front door and inviting the stranded woman inside the shop where she’d be warm and safe. Robin moved to the front door, pulled the keys from her pocket. Then the lightning flashed again.

But when Robin blinked her eyes back into focus in the darkness, the young woman was gone.

“Where...?” The woman must have found enough respite to gather her courage and run off in the rain and shadows to her destination again. “Be safe,” Robin whispered again.

She needed to do the same. Robin shook off her apprehension about her books, the stormy weather and those mysterious shadows outside and returned to her office. “I’m back, sweetie.”

She was greeted by a soft suckling sound that gave her hope that a ride in the car would coax Emma into a deep sleep that would last for five or six hours—long enough to get a decent rest herself so she could tackle the problems at work with a fresh eye in the morning. Smiling at her daughter’s resilience, Robin picked her up from the bassinet and strapped her into her carrier. She thanked Emma for her patience with a gentle kiss to her forehead and then slipped a yellow knit cap over her hair and covered her with the blanket. Certain her daughter was warm and secure, Robin pulled the cloth protector over the carrier and closed the round viewing vent over Emma’s face to shield her from the rain.

Before turning out the lights, Robin pulled on her yellow raincoat, slipped the diaper bag over her shoulders and picked up Emma’s carrier. Since she’d put away her pepper spray two months earlier, not wanting to risk any accidental contact with her baby’s delicate skin, Robin pulled a security whistle from the pocket of her slicker and looped the lanyard around her neck. Then they were moving through the familiar hallway and workrooms to the employee entrance from the parking lot beside the restored redbrick building.

With the steel door locked solidly behind her, Robin waited a moment beneath the green-and-white-striped awning above the entrance, assessing her surroundings. Pulses of lightning lit up the clouds in the skies overhead, giving her brief flashes of the rain and night around her.

Although the small lot was well lit, the emptiness between the brick walls of her building and the next one on the opposite side of the lot hitched up her apprehension a bit. Besides the shop’s delivery van, parked near the alley behind the building at the end of the loading dock, the only car left was hers, parked in a circle of light beneath the lamppost nearest the street. Lights were working; doors were locked. Street-level shops were closed and the storm seemed to have driven any tenants who lived on the upper floors of the neighborhood high-rises inside.

Still, the rain hitting the awning over her head and rhythmic rumbles of thunder drowned out any telltale sounds that would alert her to approaching footsteps on the sidewalk or to vehicles passing on the street. She knew that, despite all her precautions, there was an inherent danger to a woman walking to her vehicle alone at night in the city. It required a deep, fortifying breath and the knowledge that she had a child to protect from the elements for Robin to pull her hood up over her chin-length hair, stick the whistle in her mouth and step out into the rain.

With her head slightly bowed against the rain drumming on her slicker, Robin hurried across the lot. Hugging Emma’s carrier in the crook of her elbow, she made sure there was no one hiding beneath or around her car before tapping the remote and unlocking the doors.

As challenging as it had been at first to learn all the buckles and straps and tabs and slots of loading Emma into her car seat, Robin now made quick work of opening the back door and sliding the carrier into place. Once everything had locked and the car seat was secure, she spit the whistle from her mouth and leaned inside to open the vent on Emma’s pink carrier cover, hoping to find a sleeping baby inside.

Instead, blue eyes stared up at her. With her darling face crinkled up with displeasure and looking as if the tears were about to let loose again, Emma swung her tiny fists in the air. “Oh, sweetie. Just give up the fight and go to sleep.”

After wiping her wet fingers on the leg of her jeans, Robin reached beneath the damp material that had kept Emma dry and guided a thumb back to Emma’s mouth, earning what Robin interpreted as a resigned whimper that things were okay. For now. “You’ll be just fine in a minute, sweetie. I promise.” She straightened Emma’s cap, cupped her soft cheek and smiled. “Mommy loves you.”

A flicker of movement reflected off the back window. Startled by the darting shadow, Emma grabbed for her whistle.

Before she could blow it, something hard smacked her across the back, throwing her against the frame of the car with bruising force. She thought the wind had slammed the door against her. But just as it registered that the rain was falling in a straight curtain around her car, she was struck again. This time, lower down. Something hard, narrow and unforgiving cracked against the back of her knees, toppling her to the pavement.

Robin screamed as another blow slammed across her back. Her palms scraped over the wet asphalt as she spread-eagled on her stomach, the wind knocked from her chest. As the pain radiated through her legs, and she struggled to inhale through her bruised lungs, she realized the baby backpack she wore had probably saved her from a crippling or killing blow.

The same backpack also served as an easy handle for her attacker. He latched on to the straps and dragged her several feet away from the car. Terror poured into her veins, thrusting aside the shock that had addled her thoughts. This was it. She was about to become the Rose Red Rapist’s latest victim. She needed to shake off this oxygen-deprived stupor, ignore the pain and fight. She had a child to live for and protect.

Her world spinning, her lungs burning, her legs wobbly as a toddler’s as she pushed up onto her hands and knees, Robin quickly realized three things. Her attacker’s hands weren’t on her anymore. She squinted against the strobing effect of the lightning flashes overhead to see that he had stepped over her prone body and was rifling through the contents of her car. Her attacker was dressed in black from head to toe. There was no face, no hair color to see and identify. And he carried a baseball bat in one gloved hand.

Clarity seeped into her brain with every breath, each one stronger and deeper than the last. Maybe this wasn’t a rape. Maybe he wanted her purse. Or it could be a carjacking. And that meant...Robin staggered to her feet and lurched toward the figure in black. “Get away from my baby!”

She stuck the whistle between her lips and blew. The shrill alarm pierced the air. She blew it again as she lunged for the arm with the bat. Robin got her hands on his wrist as he whirled around. She banged it against the fender of her car, trying to shake the weapon loose.

Despite her assailant’s muffled curse, he quickly regained the upper hand, spinning Robin to one side. With her arms up to struggle with the bat, she left her body exposed and her attacker seized the advantage, ramming his fist into her already sore ribs, doubling her over and robbing her of breath. Robin’s grip on the man loosened and he easily pulled away, raising the bat. He grunted with the effort of his swing as he brought it down toward Robin’s head.

She ducked to the side, saving her life as the bat crashed into the top of her trunk, denting the metal hard enough that the blow must have tingled through her attacker’s arms and hands. He hesitated a moment, flexing his fingers, and Robin slipped away and reached into the car for Emma. “Come on, sweetie.”

Before she could release the latch to remove the carrier from the car seat, she was struck again. She absorbed another blow to the backpack that drove her to the ground.

“Stay down!” her attacker whispered on an angry curse. Yet, almost as soon as he’d issued the order, he was hauling her up to her knees.

“Take my purse. Take my car. Take whatever you want,” she begged, slapping at his gloved hands and struggling to get to her feet. “Just let me get my baby!”

“Shut up.” Huffing and puffing from the exertion of the attack, the man fisted his hand around the straps of Robin’s backpack and dragged her across the parking lot. This was more than getting her out of his way this time. He was hauling her to the alley behind the shop, around the far side of the loading dock, hiding them from any view from the parking lot, much less the street.

With her hood long gone, the rain splashed in her face, reviving her will to fight. “Let go of me!” Robin clawed at his grip. She twisted and kicked. “Please,” she begged. “I just want to save my baby.”

“Shut up!” He dropped her behind the delivery van, glanced up and down the alley as though making sure they were all alone. “I gotta do this.”

Cold, stark terror swept through Robin like the rain soaking into her clothes. She smacked at his hands as he ripped open her jacket and unhooked the belt at her waist. “Stop!”

He popped the buttons on her blouse and unzipped her jeans. The cold rain hit her stomach, soaked into her panties. Robin thrashed and clawed at him. She was in mortal danger, about to become the next victim of the Rose Red Rapist.

And her baby was all alone. Abandoned once more. Helpless, without a mother. Alone at night in the rain.

“Please. I have a child—”

“Quit fightin’ me.” He cuffed her across the face, stunning her. He rose to his feet and straddled her. “You want it this way? Then this is how we’ll do it.” As the man raised the bat, Robin kicked out, aiming for that most vulnerable part of his anatomy.

But the man was quicker. The bat switched its target, swinging into her calf and deflecting her blow.

But the bruising strike didn’t stop her. Ignoring the pain, Robin rolled into the man’s legs, knocking him back against the side of the van. With one swift, jerky movement she got to her feet and limped around the bumper of the van toward freedom.

“Emma?” Robin gasped the word on a determined breath.

But bruised and battered, she was no match for the stronger man. She never saw the bat this time. She only knew the stinging blow that caught her at the juncture of her shoulder and neck, spinning the world out of focus and knocking her to the asphalt.

This time, he grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her back to his killing place. He flipped her onto her back and stood over her. The stocking mask he wore obscured his face, but she had no doubt about the hateful displeasure in his voice. “Is this the way you want it?”

Robin got up onto her elbows and tried to scoot away. “I won’t leave my baby.”

But he followed. Shaking his head, he closed the distance between them. Her back hit the concrete wall of the loading dock and she knew there was nowhere left to run.

“This ends now.” The bat swung up again and Robin braced for the blow.

But it never came.

A white-haired ghost materialized from the rain with a guttural roar. Strong hands closed around the bat, wrenching the weapon from her attacker’s grip.

The bat skittered away into the darkness as the ghost lifted her attacker off his feet. Her mysterious rescuer wrapped a meaty forearm around her assailant’s neck and carried him off into the shadows. The attacker’s body went limp and her savior tossed him aside into the alley.

Robin grabbed hold of the wall behind her to push herself to her feet. But her knees buckled and her world blurred as the ghost’s craggy, disfigured face came into view in the light above the loading dock. He was real. Big. Frightening. He growled something her stopped-up ears couldn’t make out and lunged for her.

Icy blue eyes and her own scream were the last things Robin remembered as her world faded to black.

Chapter Two

“Lady? Lady!” Jake caught the woman before her head hit the pavement. Nothing like a scream of terror to make a man feel every inch the monster his nightmares purported him to be. Still, he adjusted the woman in his arms as gently as he could, then laid her on the wet asphalt. “You’re welcome.”

He squatted down beside her, trying to block some of the rain that hit her face, looking her over from head to toe. She was long and lean and pale as milk. The backpack she wore was soaked and stained from her struggles, but he lifted her slightly to pull the squishy pack beneath her neck to cushion her head. He snapped her jeans closed and pulled her raincoat together to cover her body. Thank God the bastard hadn’t completed what he’d started. Didn’t mean he hadn’t done some damage. Jake pushed aside the collar of her blouse. Carefully avoiding the puffy red-and-violet welt across her collar bone, he pressed two fingers to the base of her throat. Her skin was creamy soft, chilled by the rain. But she had a pulse. The scuffed-up raincoat was moving up and down, too, so she was breathing.

She just wasn’t awake.

He sifted his fingers through her wet brown hair, moving the heavy waves from side to side to check her scalp for any contusions that could explain her unresponsive state. Nothing but silky hair. Jake pulled his hand away, feeling a little guilty that his fingers had warmed and lingered, mistakenly thinking the first-aid check had felt like some kind of caress. He knew how to nip that sensation in the bud. Remember the scream. Forget the niceties. He gave her cheek a couple of gentle smacks. “Come on, lady. Open your eyes.”

He heard a moan behind him in the alley and Jake turned, springing to his feet. His gaze zeroed in on the loser with the mask who had the idiot idea he was coming back for round two. Jake almost felt sorry for the guy. The woman’s attacker had the skills of an amateur. He’d probably subdued the woman with an initial blitz attack. But he was out of his league going up against someone who could fight back. Even now, he was already advancing before he had his balance centered over his feet.

And then Mr. Amateur had the bright idea to pull a knife. The thin steel blade gleamed in the next flash of lightning. He choked out a breathy warning. “This isn’t about you.”

Jake glanced down at the woman behind him, lying still and vulnerable at his feet. Decision made. Without taking his eyes off the approaching threat, Jake pulled the hunting knife from his boot, flipping the weapon in his hand to warn the guy he knew how to use it. “It is now.”

That’s right. Mine’s bigger than yours, he taunted silently, watching the eyes go wide behind the stocking mask.

Just then a cat howled across the parking lot, and the attacker’s head jerked toward the interruption. Although the mewling was muted by the rain and thunder, Jake tuned his ears to the sound, as well, wondering if the guy was that easily distracted or if he needed to be on guard against some other threat. A quick glance revealed little except darkness, rain and the empty street beyond the parking lot.

Whatever had spooked the guy was evident in the rapid rise and fall of his shoulders as his breathing quickened. Or maybe he was finally wising up to the idea he wasn’t getting past Jake. With one last heave of breath, the shadowy figure cursed. “You should have minded your own business.”

And with that, he turned tail toward the opposite end of the alley.

The instinct to run after him jolted through Jake’s legs, but he stayed rooted to the spot. The woman was still down, out cold and completely unprotected. He needed to stay here. Besides, what the little creep lacked in skills, he made up for in speed, and Jake would have a hard time catching him.

What could he do when he caught the guy, anyway? It wasn’t like he could arrest the pervert. And though Jake had intimidation down to a science, outside of the bar where he sometimes had to show a rowdy customer the door, he preferred to keep his skills on the down-low. Calling attention to himself with the police or anyone else wasn’t something he could afford to do until he figured out whether he was the law, or running from it. Besides, the unconscious woman had to be his priority.

Once the figure in black had darted around the corner out of sight, Jake risked turning to the woman again. He tucked his knife back into its sheath and knelt down to test the chill on her wet cheeks. He could feel her warm breath, but she didn’t even flinch at his unfamiliar touch.

“Ma’am?” He hadn’t felt any bumps on her head. Did she have internal injuries? Was this shock? A blow to the carotid artery could interrupt blood flow to the brain, and that bruising welt was placed in about the right spot to make that happen.

Jake swore. How the hell did he know things like that?

He tapped her cheek again. “Come on, lady.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the squeal of tires on wet pavement in the distance. Was the little creep really that fast? Or did he have an accomplice waiting for him to make a quick getaway? What had they wanted with this woman? And how many men did they think it took to subdue a skinny slip of a thing like this, anyway?

Lightning flashed in the clouds overhead and a bad feeling crawled across Jake’s skin. The violence surrounding this woman didn’t feel random. An attacker and an accomplice sounded planned.

All the more reason to get her up and out of here.

He glanced down at the sleeping beauty. Despite the scrape along her jaw and the wet hair that clung to her forehead and cheeks, trailing sooty rivulets across her skin, she was stirring something more than concern and worry inside him. Being attracted to an unconscious woman couldn’t be a good thing. With his life in the state of flux it was, it wasn’t a good thing to be attracted to anyone. Angry at the damn hormones and feelings brewing inside him tonight, Jake swiped the water off his own stubbled face.

That’s when he got the idea to cup his hands to catch the rain. While he waited for his palms to fill, Jake thought about what had brought him to this spot in the first place, playing nursemaid to an injured woman.

He’d heard a scream on his late-night walk. He’d heard a lot of screams in his lifetime. He wasn’t sure how or why he knew that, but he knew the sounds of a woman in distress had always gotten under his skin and somehow gotten him into trouble.

For a few seconds, he’d considered ignoring it. Maybe he could report it anonymously when he got back to his apartment. He had too many problems of his own to get involved in somebody else’s trouble. But then he’d heard the whistle. Over and over. He’d heard the panic in that shrill sound piercing the rain and an alarm had gone off inside him.

Maybe he’d been itching for a fight, something to expel the frustrated energy that consumed him. Maybe it was the bar bouncer in him, trained to neutralize any ruckus before it got started. But when he’d cut through the alley behind the buildings to answer that alarm, he’d seen that loser dragging the woman out of sight behind the van—going after her with a baseball bat. Something inside Jake had snapped. The woman was in danger, and something in his DNA that he couldn’t remember had been compelled to save her.

Pity that beating down a man with his bare hands came to him a lot easier than waking a sleeping woman.

With the rainwater overflowing his palms, Jake pulled back and tossed it on her face.

Her eyes instantly shot open and she sputtered. Her hands fisted on the pavement and she shook her head, flinging more water onto his boots. She blinked, focused, caught sight of him and immediately shrank away with a choking huff of fear. Even as he held his hands up in surrender, showing he meant her no harm, she was cowering away from him, scrambling to sit up. He reached out one hand to help her and she scooted away on her bottom, until her back hit the wall of the loading dock.

“Get away from me!” she rasped, her voice tight with fear.

Could be an instinctive reaction to finding a man kneeling over her after fighting off that coward who’d assaulted her. Could be she’d just got a good look at his harsh, beat-up face.

The reaction in those suspicious gray-blue eyes was enough to sour any attraction he might feel.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

But she wasn’t buying it. No way. She pushed her hair out of her eyes to really size him up. If anything, the woman breathed harder, went even paler as she calculated his strength and the size of his fists. She was probably wondering how he’d gotten the scars and if he was as violent a man as he looked.

He knew the military cut of his prematurely gray hair didn’t leave any handsome possibilities to the imagination. The face and bulk and no-nonsense demeanor created an intimidating combination that made his job as a bouncer/bartender an easy gig. They got the job done, too, when it came to keeping his friends few and strangers who asked questions he didn’t want to answer even fewer. The ugly mug was who he was. It had probably served him well in his former life—kept people from messin’ with him.

Although it played hell when he was trying to convince a frightened woman he meant her no harm. “I’m not the man who hurt you.”

She surprised him completely when she jerked her head in a nod. “I know. You’re bigger than he is. He was dressed in black from head to toe. You...startled me. That’s all.”

Startled was putting it kindly. But at least she was thinking rationally. Probably no injury to the head, then. Cautiously, Jake pushed to his feet. Big mistake. Now he was towering over her. She visibly cringed. But six feet two inches of muscle, scars and a broken face wasn’t something he could change. He held his arms out to either side and kicked the ball bat over to her, giving her the option of arming herself against him if it made her feel safer.

Not that he still couldn’t overpower her if he had to.

She knew it, too. Smart woman. With a determined tilt to her chin, she braced her hands on the wall behind her and staggered to her feet, ignoring the bat. “Please. I have a child. I need to get to her.”

Jake shook his head. They were alone in this alley now. “I didn’t see any kid.”

“You didn’t...? Emma?” She straightened against the concrete wall and looked beyond the van. “She’s over there. He pulled me from my car.”

Jake glanced behind him. Ah, hell. That explained the wailing he’d heard. It was the kid, crying, not a cat. “Is that your car?”

She nodded. “I need to get...” She took two steps before her right leg buckled and she fell back against the loading dock.

Jake darted forward, catching her by the arms to help her stay on her feet.

“Don’t touch me.” She instinctively reached out to push him away. But just as quickly, her fingers curled into the front of his shirt. He felt the unsteady tug on his skin all the way down to his bones. “Apparently, I need your help. So I’m deciding not to be afraid of you.” She actually pointed a warning finger at him. “Don’t make me regret that.”

At that brave statement, the corner of his mouth hitched up into an admiring grin and Jake adjusted his grip to firmly cup her elbow. “No, ma’am.”

“You know, you’re not as scary when you smile.” As scary. Interesting distinction. The woman was smart and honest. She brushed the water from her face and gifted him with a smile of her own. “Thank you for saving my life, Mr....?”

“Lonergan.”

“Thank you for saving me, Mr. Lonergan.” She tried to adjust the backpack on her shoulders, but winced in pain and nearly doubled over. “Ow—”

“Easy.”

She braced her hand against his chest and fell into him, hanging on as his arm snaked behind her waist to give her the balance she needed. “I do need your help, don’t I.”

The lightning overhead illuminated her face for a split second. Her lips pinched thin against whatever pain or dizziness she was fighting.

While he waited, Jake asked, “What’s your name, brave lady?”

“Robin.” She sucked in an easier breath, and then another. “Robin Carter.” She tilted her gaze to meet his. Her gray-blue eyes squinted against the fall of rain as she focused in on him. “My daughter?”

Jake loosened his grip, expecting her to recoil now that she was getting a close-up look at the violence of his face. Instead, her fingers curled into his wet T-shirt, grabbing some of the skin underneath. The unfamiliar burst of heat that raced to the muscles she clung to reminded him just how long it had been since he’d had a woman in any way, shape or form. All of a sudden, he wanted this one. Badly.

She was wrong not to be afraid of him.

“Let’s go,” he said roughly, squashing those urges and pulling her into step beside him. Jake released her only long enough to grab the baseball bat. Even though her attacker was long gone, there was no sense in giving anyone the opportunity to be armed out here except for him.

He helped her around the van, noting that her balance grew stronger with each step, even though she was still favoring that right leg. She lost her footing once on the slick pavement and her hand flew to the middle of his chest again. Jake tried to concentrate on the accidental pinch of chest hair and not on the needy tugs on his skin that awakened something primal and male deeper inside him. He easily took her weight against his side until her wet tennis shoes found traction again.

“Emma?” She eased her death grip on his soggy T-shirt and kept moving forward, despite a hissing catch of breath.

The woman was a slender rail of shapeless raincoat and stubbornness, although the top of her flattened wet hair reached his chin. His blood boiled to think how much damage that jackass with the baseball bat might have done to her. “How bad are you hurt?” he asked, scanning back and forth as they crossed the empty parking lot for any signs of Mr. Amateur or his accomplice coming back for round three. “He didn’t, um...?”

“I’ll live. And no, he didn’t rape me. He... You stopped him.” So nothing major, although he was guessing a broken leg wouldn’t have slowed her march toward the abandoned car. The crying grew louder as they approached the blue sedan. Jake had to lengthen his stride to keep up with her quickening steps. “Emma? Mommy’s here.”

Another flash of lightning gave Jake a better view of the car. Both of the driver’s side doors were standing open and the high-pitched sobs were coming from the backseat. Robin was steady enough to break into a limping run. “Oh, my God. Emma!”

Jake let her rush ahead, sparing a few moments to make sure the lot and street and sidewalks were empty before he caught up to her. When he looked over her shoulder, he didn’t like what he saw. The car seat was sitting at a wonky angle in the car and the seat belt anchoring it into place had been cut, sawed through with something sharp. Like that amateur’s knife. A piece of pink material lay in a puddle on the ground outside the door. What the hell?

If the kid hadn’t been bawling her lungs out, Jake would have suspected the baby might be missing or had met an uglier fate than her mother. “Hold on.” He grabbed Robin’s arm before she could pick up the kid. “See if you can get her out without messing with things. This seat has been tampered with. The cops will want to see it.”

“The cops... Right. I need to call 911.” Through a miraculous bit of dexterity that Jake doubted his thick fingers could emulate, Robin unhooked the baby from the car seat and lifted her into her arms. “Shh, sweetie. Oh, you’re all wet. Shh. You’re okay now. Mommy didn’t mean to leave you. I’m back. I’m here.”

“The kid’s not hurt, is she?”

“I don’t think so. She’s just unhappy.” Robin tugged the soggy blanket up over the baby’s head and rocked her on her shoulder, despite the pain that tightened her face. But the kid kept wailing. Did little kids that age know to be afraid? Had she been startled by the half-assed attempt to remove the car seat? Did she just not like the rain? “I wonder how long she was by herself. How long was I out? What kind of mother am I?”

The right kind, he was guessing. She’d tuned in to the baby’s wailing before he had. “It’s only been a few minutes since I showed up.”

The blanket slipped off the infant’s head, revealing wisps of brown hair and blue eyes, just like her mama’s. Tears spilled over her chubby pink cheeks. Great. He’d been lusting after some baby’s mother. Jake glanced at the hand rubbing the baby’s back. No wedding ring. Didn’t mean there wasn’t a man in the picture.

Hell. What was he doing, thinking he was attracted to Robin Carter, anyway? Jake rolled the baseball bat in his grip down at his side. He didn’t need the complication of a woman in his messed-up life. And he sure as hell didn’t need a baby. Still, he had to admire the lungs on the kid. Seemed about as headstrong as her mother. “Is she okay? Can she hurt herself crying like that?”

“No. Eventually, she’ll cry herself back to sleep. But it breaks your heart to listen to it, doesn’t it?” Robin started pacing back and forth, trying to quiet the baby without success. From what little he knew about kids, mostly from the son of a former coworker who sometimes came to the bar to visit her uncle—the bar’s owner—Jake thought they picked up on the mood of the people around them. And right now, Mama here was in desperate panic mode. “Mommy was so scared, sweetie. Are you all right? The man didn’t hurt you, did he? I’m not leaving you again. It’s going to be okay. Mommy loves you.” If anything, the kid wailed louder. “I can’t seem to...” When Robin turned her pleading eyes to him, Jake realized just how tiny that baby was. Only a few months old. It didn’t even look big enough to crawl yet. “Will you stay with us until the police come, Mr. Lonergan?”

Not one damsel in distress, but two. He was toast. “Yeah. I’ll stay.”

“Thank you.” She extended her hand, expecting the civility of formal gratitude. Instead of shaking hands, though, she grabbed his wrist and bent his arm across his stomach. And then she was pushing the baby into his chest. “Do you mind? Make sure you support her neck.”

“Mind what...? Oh, whoa. Hey...”

“Keep her face covered. I don’t want her to get any wetter than she already is.”

With careful, slow-motion control, she shrugged out of her backpack while Jake stood there in shock, afraid to move. And his nightmares were the only thing that ever scared him. “Lady, I don’t think you want to—”

“Here’s a dry blanket. Relatively dry, anyway.” Robin draped the square of cotton flannel, dotted with pink animals, over his arm and the infant, tucking the ends securely around her. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her daughter’s pink cheek before draping the last corner over the baby’s face. “Got her?”

Did he have a choice?

“I need to call the police.” Robin pulled her cell phone out of the same bag and hooked the flowered backpack over her uninjured arm. “Do you think it’s okay if we go back inside the shop? I want to get her out of the rain.”

She wanted him to move with the baby? The little thing stretched out, nestled her butt in his palm and turned her face into his chest as if she was settling in for the night. Hell, the thing was so tiny, he barely felt the weight of her lying across his arm. What if he stumbled? Or squeezed his big hand too hard? He was armed and dangerous, for Pete’s sake. “Lady—”

“Robin.” She’d already punched in the number and lifted the phone to her ear. “Call me Robin. And this is Emma.” She touched the infant again and nodded toward the green-and-white awning with the Robin’s Nest Floral Shop logo painted on it. “I must have wrenched my shoulder. I’d feel better if you carried her. Come on.”

Okay. Fine. If Robin was hurt, he could carry the baby. Carefully watching the infant in his left arm, Jake tucked the bat beneath his right elbow and nudged Robin into step ahead of him. “Let’s get you both inside.”

In just a couple of minutes, all the lights were blazing inside Robin’s shop and office, and Jake was more uncomfortable than before, if possible. He’d set the bat behind her office door and was pacing back and forth, from door to barred alley window, waiting for Robin to finish her conversation with the KCPD dispatcher and rescue the baby from him. Emma Carter was just so small and fragile, and he was so big and rough around the edges. He didn’t think it was a far-fetched possibility that he might accidentally snap the soft little thing in two.

Subduing a creep beating up a woman in a back alley, he could handle. But holding a tiny baby? Making civil conversation? Worrying about the stiff way Robin Carter was carrying herself? Trying not to peek while she tucked in her torn blouse and refastened her belt and jeans? Not his best thing.

Making the decision to trust him had sprung from the necessity of the situation. But the unfamiliar expectations that trust engendered made him a little nervous. As soon as she was done making her report, Jake intended to have her lock the door behind him and leave.

“Hey. You’ve got the touch.” Robin ended the call and came over to stroke Emma’s cheek. “I guess she’s decided she’s not afraid of you, either.”

It wasn’t until that moment that Jake realized the kid had stopped crying. He held his breath, afraid to move in case he’d done something wrong. “Is she okay?”

“She’s asleep. Haven’t you been around a baby before?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Her gaze flashed up to his and Jake looked away. Normally, he didn’t slip like that. But no way was he going to share the blank page of his life.

Apparently, Robin was okay with his lack of an explanation. Or just more concerned about her daughter. She touched the baby’s cheek again and the little thing buzzed a tiny sigh through her pink lips. “I tried everything to get her to sleep tonight. She must feel your warmth and strength. Emma feels safe when you hold her.”

This time, Robin bobbed her head, her gaze chasing his, insisting his eyes lock on to hers. Once they did, he couldn’t look away from their gray-blue beauty and what just might be a hint of longing there. Like she thought it might be a good idea if he held her, too.

The last thing Jake needed was a distraction like that. He’d already spent too much time with the Carter girls. The smell of baby powder and flowers filled his nose. The baby’s implicit trust in him was already short-circuiting the perimeter he liked to keep between him and other people. He didn’t need Robin Carter’s more womanly scent clinging to him, too, lingering on his skin and clothes when he got back to his apartment, reminding him of everything that was missing from his life.

A woman and a child were things normal men had. Men cursed as he was couldn’t afford the indulgence.

Best to clear all those warm fuzzies out of his head right now. He handed Emma back to Robin and purposely retreated beyond arm’s length. “She’s just exhausted because it’s so late.”

“When she’s too tired, she usually fusses all the more. I think she likes you.”

“I hope her taste in men improves as she gets older.”

“Don’t.” Robin’s eyes snapped back to his.

“Don’t what?” He could see her bottom lip quivering despite the reprimand in her eyes. She was rethinking her decision about seeking help from such a villainous-looking stranger.

But she pressed those expressive lips together and pushed aside whatever doubt she was feeling. “I don’t know who you are, Mr. Lonergan. But I know who you are tonight. And I won’t have you trash-talking the man who saved me and my daughter.”

Huh? She was lecturing him? Most people scared off a lot easier than this woman did. A harsh glance or gruff word usually nipped any overtures of friendship in the bud. She was a stubborn one. Or crazy.

He watched how gently Robin carried the sleeping infant to the white bassinet in the corner and unsnapped the fuzzy yellow sleeper she was wearing. She undressed the baby, diapered her, put on a clean sleeping outfit and cap without the kid making another peep. “I don’t see any marks on her. She may just have been in the way of whatever that man wanted.”

“Thugs with knives and baseball bats don’t steal car seats.”

“He had a knife, too?” She gave him a sharp glance, then winced at the sudden movement.

“He pulled it on me. Used it to slice through that seat belt, too, I’m guessing. You’re lucky he didn’t cut you.”

The color in her cheeks was fading again. “So why hurt Emma if he wanted to rape me?”

“I’m guessing he just wanted her out of the way. She’d be dead if that was what he wanted.”

Robin’s weary sigh made him regret the harsh honesty. She covered Emma with the flannel blanket before looking at him. “You’re not much for giving a girl hope, are you?”

Nah. He wasn’t much of one for hope of any kind.

Better stick to the tough words and keeping his distance to remind himself that spending these few minutes with Robin and Emma Carter was a one-time thing. He could save her from being raped or worse. But he couldn’t do the whole you’re-my-hero domestic bliss thing. “So what were you two doing out so late in this part of town?”

Robin opened a cabinet behind her desk and pulled out a thin baby towel that she tossed across the room to him. Apparently, he’d finally made his desire to keep some distance between them clear. He dried his face and arms while she pulled out a second towel to dab at her own pale skin. “I own this shop. Emma usually doesn’t fall asleep for the night until around eleven or twelve. I thought I’d take advantage of her schedule and catch up on some work.”

“Well, don’t do it again.”

“No. I won’t.” She towel-dried her hair, scrunching it into sable-colored waves that framed her face. “I shouldn’t have let work take over like that. I was worried something was wrong and I wanted to fix...” She stopped that excuse on a purposeful sigh. “I know better. With the Rose Red Rapist still around... Do you think that was him?”

Jake shrugged. Even amongst criminals there was a hierarchy of what was acceptable and what was not. A lowlife who preyed on a woman with a small baby in tow was pretty low on the list—at least in Jake’s book.

Maybe she hadn’t gotten the distance message, after all. She circled the desk and plucked the damp towel from his hands. “Did you get a look at his face? All I saw was the mask...and the baseball bat. When he dragged me behind the van, I thought...” She hugged the wadded-up towels to her chest and that full bottom lip quivered again. Jake’s human impulse was to reach out and offer some kind of comfort. But his survival instincts curled his fingers into a fist down at his side, instead. “All I could think of was that I had to stay alive for Emma’s sake.”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t real comfortable making small talk and keeping her company until the police arrived on the scene—even though he knew several of the officers and detectives in this precinct because they frequented the Shamrock Bar where he worked most nights. He was even less comfortable with the unfamiliar desire to pull those slender shoulders against his chest and shield her from the fear that lingered in her eyes.

No connections. No commitments. No caring.

Those were the three Cs he’d lived by for the past two years. They were the only way he could guarantee that the nightmares from his forgotten life couldn’t come back and destroy anyone else before he had the chance to remember the truth—good or bad—and to deal with it.

“Mr. Lonergan?” He realized she was still waiting for him to answer her question. “Did you see him?”

“I didn’t see his face.” She carried the towels to a hamper beside the bassinet and dropped them inside. “But he was short for a man—not much taller than you. And he could run like the devil.”

“Would you have tried to capture him if you weren’t worried about me?”

Jake considered the honest answer. True, he couldn’t have run the guy down. But he could have pulled the gun from his ankle holster and shot him—probably hit his mark, too. Even in the dark. In the rain. Although he hadn’t shot a man in the two years he could remember, Jake had the strongest feeling that he was able to make a shot like that. How else could a man handle a knife the way he could, and know so much about weaponry and choke holds and throwing a punch?

But there was honest, and then there was too much honesty. He suspected that informing Robin Carter he carried both a gun and a hunting knife, and that he possessed the skills to use them better than most, wouldn’t give her the reassurance she was looking for right now. He shook his head. “One good deed for the night’s all I got in me.”

“I asked you not to say things like that.”

“Look, lady—”

“Robin,” she corrected him. “I also asked you to call me Robin.”

He blew out a long sigh, conceding to her will—for the few moments longer he intended to be a part of her life. “Robin. You don’t really know me. You shouldn’t automatically trust me.”

“I trusted you because I had to. You haven’t disappointed me yet.”

Oh, hell. That sounded like some sort of relationship had been forged between them.

Jake was relieved as much as he was on edge when he heard the sirens in the distance outside. He nodded toward the back door where they’d come in. “You stay here with the kid. I’ll wait outside and show the police in.”

It was one thing to serve a cop a drink. It was something else to stand there and answer his questions, maybe come under scrutiny himself for wandering the streets so late at night. And being armed the way he was bound to raise a few suspicions.

Jake surmised the distance and direction of the approaching flashing lights. He paused for one shameless moment to admire the apple-shaped curve of Robin Carter’s backside, emphasized by the clinging hug of her wet jeans, as she bent over the bassinet, tending to her sleeping baby again.

The cops were close enough. She’d be safe.

“Thank you again, Mr. Lonergan. By the way, you never told me your first name...”

He never heard the end of her sentence. By the time she straightened from the bassinet, he was gone.

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