From investigating the evidence

To becoming a killer’s target

Wendy Thompson is used to investigating crime scenes—not being put in peril herself! But once a criminal threatens her life, Wendy enters the protective custody of longtime workplace crush Hart Fisher. Having him guarding her is distracting, to say the least, especially when passions flare. But as Hart tracks the underworld kingpin endangering Wendy’s life, they must decide between love—and safeguarding their lives…

Ever since LISA CHILDS read her first romance novel (a Harlequin story, of course) at age eleven, all she wanted was to be a romance writer. With over forty novels published with Harlequin, Lisa is living her dream. She is an award-winning, bestselling romance author. Lisa loves to hear from readers, who can contact her on Facebook, through her website, lisachilds.com, or her snail-mail address, PO Box 139, Marne, MI 49435.

Evidence of Attraction

Lisa Childs

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09466-5

EVIDENCE OF ATTRACTION

© 2019 Lisa Childs

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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She’d already fallen for Hart Fisher. Long ago…

Even before he’d saved her life over and over.

She was helpless to fight her feelings any longer. She was helpless to fight the passion that overpowered her. She’d nearly lost him—nearly lost her opportunity to ever be this close to him. When he laid her down on a bed, she clung to him, pulling him down on top of her like he’d been that night he’d sneaked into her room.

Their legs tangled, and she felt the evidence of his passion. She moaned and arched against him.

“Wendy…” he murmured as he tried to ease back—away from her.

She might have let him go—if she didn’t see the desire on his face, which was flushed, his eyes glittering. He wanted her, too.

She moved her hand between them, over the fly of his worn jeans. His breath hissed out between his clenched teeth.

“You’re killing me,” he murmured.

She shook her head. “No. I don’t want that to happen. I want you…”

Alive.

Be sure to check out the previous books in the exciting Bachelor Bodyguards miniseries.

Dear Reader,

I’m excited to bring you another story about the Bachelor Bodyguards! If you read Guarding His Witness, you know that the Payne Protection Agency has a dangerous new assignment. Drug kingpin and killer Luther Mills has sworn out a contract against everyone who can put him behind bars—where he deserves to be—for the rest of his life. Fortunately, the police chief brought in the Payne Protection Agency to make sure nobody is hurt before the trial.

In Evidence of Attraction, he ramps up his efforts to get his charges dismissed by trying to have the evidence against him destroyed. But despite the threats crime scene investigator Wendy Thompson has been receiving, she is too committed to her job and justice to compromise either. Bodyguard Hart Fisher has his work cut out for him, though. To prevent Luther’s leak in the police department from finding out the chief is on to them, Hart has to pose as Wendy’s boyfriend. When Wendy begins to bond with the single dad’s young daughter, Hart has to keep reminding himself it’s just an assignment—maybe the most dangerous one of his life.

Hope you enjoy this latest installment of Bachelor Bodyguards!

Happy reading!

Lisa Childs

For my hero, Andrew Ahearne. Thank you for your love and support! Love you!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Title Page

Copyright

Note to Readers

Introduction

Dear Reader

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

About the Publisher

Chapter 1

Lose the evidence or lose your life…

That was the first threat Wendy Thompson had received, tucked behind the windshield wiper on her car. When she’d seen the slip of paper, she’d thought it was a flyer for a new restaurant or a dry cleaner. Of course, as an evidence tech, she’d processed the paper for prints. The couple of very smudged partials she’d recovered had been insufficient for her to match in AFIS, the Automated Fingerprint Identification System.

The next threat she’d received a few weeks later had been a phone call, the voice of the caller a hoarse, unidentifiable whisper. Lose the evidence or lose everything and everybody you love…

She shivered as she replayed the call in her head as she had so many times since receiving it two days ago. Even though she hadn’t recognized the caller’s voice, she knew who was behind the threats. She knew which ballistics and DNA reports, despite all the cases she handled, that someone didn’t want making to trial. Because she knew that, she also knew the threats weren’t idle.

She hadn’t slept since receiving that call, and she worried she wouldn’t sleep tonight, either. She had been lying awake in the dark for hours. She’d already kicked off the blankets, but now that she was shivering, she pulled them back up over her panties and the oversize T-shirt she wore as a nightgown. Maybe she should shut the window, but it was a few feet away, so she would have to walk across the creaky floor to reach it. The noise might awaken her parents, who weren’t used to someone else being in the house.

They already suspected something was wrong because she’d come home the night she’d received that call. She’d claimed her apartment was being fumigated for cockroaches, and they’d seemed to buy that explanation—until she’d started checking locks on the windows and doors. She hoped she’d convinced them that was just a habit she’d developed since living alone.

She hadn’t locked her window, though, because her old bedroom was on the second floor. Her parents had moved their bedroom to the den on the main floor since Mom’s knee replacement surgery a month ago. Wendy probably should have slept down there, as well—to protect them—but then they would have known for certain that something was going on. And she didn’t want to worry them.

She had reported the threats to the chief of the River City Police Department, though, and he’d ordered a patrol car stationed on the quiet suburban street. The officers would notice if there was anyone suspicious in the area. At this hour, anyone outside would be suspicious.

But Wendy felt better being here herself, her service weapon within easy reach on the bedside table. While not all police departments armed their crime scene technicians, River City PD had. Not too long ago, the southwestern Michigan city, which was even bigger than Detroit, had been as corrupt and lawless as the cities in the old Westerns her father watched. And, of course, crime scenes were usually in the most dangerous areas of the city. The FBI had stepped in years ago to help clean up the city, but it wasn’t really safe.

Not yet…

Getting legendary drug kingpin Luther Mills off the street would help. He was in jail, awaiting trial. But he needed to be in prison—a maximum security one—for the rest of his life. That would only happen if the evidence against him made it to trial.

And it would—despite the threats Wendy had received. They had to be from Mills. Or, since he was in jail, from someone working for him. Unfortunately, he had many, many people working for him.

That was why she needed to be here, to make sure her parents stayed safe. Along with some friends, they were the only real loved ones she had—besides her job. Maybe it was because she loved it so much that she had no other loved ones. She was only twenty-seven, though, and eventually work would let up, when crime and Luther Mills went down, and she would have more time for dating.

If she found someone she actually wanted to date, she would make time now, though. But she hadn’t found anyone yet.

A face flashed into her mind. A handsome face with chiseled features: strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, deep brown eyes that could stare right into a person’s soul. Not hers, though…

Hart Fisher had never even looked at her. Of course, he had been married some of his time with the River City PD. But after he had left the vice unit and become a detective, he and his wife had divorced. He would have been available then…if he had ever showed any interest in Wendy. But he hadn’t.

Not too long after his divorce, he had resigned from the force. Wendy had heard he was working for a former coworker, Parker Payne, as a bodyguard.

She expelled a wistful sigh. She wouldn’t have minded him guarding her body. At least then he might have to look at her. But would he like what he saw?

Untamable red hair and freckles that showed even through the heaviest application of makeup. She uttered another sigh. This one was of resignation. If the rumors around the station were true, his ex had been a beauty queen—a former Miss River City—so it was no wonder Hart had never noticed Wendy.

All a woman like Wendy could do was dream about a man like Hart Fisher, and after his divorce, she had often dreamed about him. About him kissing her, touching her…even just smiling at her.

Her sigh turned to a yawn. The past few sleepless nights must have caught up with her because her eyelids grew heavy. With the officers stationed outside, she didn’t need to worry. Her parents would be safe. She could sleep and dream…of a certain former River City PD detective.

But she hadn’t been asleep for long when a noise awoke her. The hardwood floor emitted a low creaking sound, as if someone was walking across it. Had her dad come upstairs to close her window? She could still feel the wind, though, blowing through the sheer curtains and across her body. And the sound was coming toward her, not away from her.

She jerked fully awake and reached for her Glock. But before she was able to grab it, a strong hand grabbed her, wrapping tightly around her wrist. She stared up at the dark shadow looming over her bed. Before she could open her mouth to scream, the shadow’s other hand covered her lips. She thrashed, kicking out, trying to fight.

But then the shadow dropped heavily onto her, a hard body covering hers. She kept thrashing around, trying to get her knee to connect where it would hurt him most. From the grunts slipping through his lips and his overpowering strength, she knew her intruder was male.

It had to be one of Luther’s minions sent to deliver the next threat in person. The first had been paper, the second the call and now…this one…

Was he just supposed to threaten her? Or was he supposed to make good on those threats and kill her?

If that was his intention, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him. Wendy Thompson wasn’t going out without one hell of a fight.

“Stop,” Hart Fisher whispered, pressing his mouth close to Wendy Thompson’s ear. Her soft hair tickled his lips. “Stop fighting me.”

If she kneed him again, he might not be able to stop himself from crying out.

“You were supposed to be expecting me,” he whispered. Somebody—either his boss or hers—had said they would call and let her know he was coming. When she hadn’t been waiting outside for him, he hadn’t wanted to wake her parents. He had also wanted to see how easily he could get past her supposed protection stationed outside the house.

Too easily.

He shivered and so did Wendy, her body shuddering beneath his. Unfortunately, his body was reacting to the closeness of hers, to her warmth, her softness, her scent…

She smelled sweet, like vanilla.

If she kneed him again, it was going to hurt even more than it already had. Even though she should have been expecting him, she kept thrashing around beneath him.

“Stop,” he told her again even though she had stilled, her body tense beneath his. “I’m here to protect you.”

Her lips moved under his hand, brushing over his skin as she tried to talk. At least, he hoped that was all she was going to do—not scream.

“I’m Hart Fisher.” He identified himself before moving his hand away from her mouth.

“I know who you are,” she said in a raspy whisper. “What I need to know is what the hell you are doing in my bed.”

Heat rushed back to his face from where it had pooled in other parts of his body. Had she felt his reaction to her closeness?

He quickly moved off her, hoping that she hadn’t. It had been too damn long since he’d been with a woman if just any female could affect him like that.

But Wendy Thompson wasn’t just any female. She was the one he’d been assigned to protect. He needed to focus on that, on protecting her.

But now he realized he might also need to protect himself. “I was trying to stop you from shooting me. I work for the Payne Protection Agency,” he said.

She nodded. “Parker Payne.”

“Yes,” he said. Until this assignment, Hart had thought Parker was his friend as well as his boss. Now he wasn’t so damn sure. “I was assigned to protect you. The chief or Parker was supposed to call to let you know I was coming over tonight.”

She reached toward her nightstand again, but instead of grabbing her Glock, she picked up her cell. The screen lit up with a notification that she had a voice mail—undoubtedly from the chief or Parker.

“I already have protection,” Wendy said. “I have the whole River City PD looking out for me.”

Hart snorted derisively. He hadn’t been surprised that Luther Mills had got to someone in the police department. Despite the FBI’s efforts over the past few years to clean it up, there was still too much corruption in the force.

She bristled in defense and said, “They are my fellow officers.”

He knew that, as well as getting her master’s degree in criminal science, she had also graduated from the police academy. Because of that, she had the respect of the rest of the precinct. But that respect meant nothing now, since she had been the one who’d collected the evidence against Luther Mills.

“I know,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean you can trust them.”

“What?” she asked, her voice rising sharply above a whisper. She lowered it and continued. “What the hell are you insinuating?”

“I’m not insinuating anything,” he said. “I’m telling you that Luther Mills got to someone within the police department. That’s why the chief hired the Payne Protection Agency to step in and provide security for everyone associated with Mills’s upcoming trial.”

“No…” She shook her head, tumbling her wild red curls around her face. “I just talked to Chief Lynch a few days ago and he said nothing about hiring a bodyguard for me.”

Hart narrowed his eyes at the suspicion in her voice. Did she think he was the one Luther Mills had got to? She must have because she started reaching for her gun again. He caught her wrist. Her pulse leaped beneath his fingers. “If you would have picked up the call you missed, you would have known I am here to take you to a meeting with the chief.”

“In the middle of the night?” She snorted now, like he had earlier. “Yeah, right. How much is Mills paying you?”

Hart felt like she’d kneed him again, but this time her sharp knee struck him right in his pride.

“That’s ridiculous,” he said, not caring that his voice got a little louder with anger. He’d spent years in the vice unit trying to build a case against the notorious drug dealer. But every time anyone had got close to prosecuting Luther Mills, the eyewitnesses and the evidence had disappeared. “I am not working for Mills!”

Wendy shushed him now.

So he lowered his voice when he added, “But someone in the RCPD is, which puts your life and the lives of everyone else involved in his prosecution in danger. That’s why the chief wants to meet with everybody at Payne Protection tonight, so that he can explain everything.”

She shook her head again. “You’re crazy if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”

Back when he was on the force, other officers had teased him that the red-haired evidence tech had a crush on him. He’d laughed off their claims then and it was clear now that they’d just been messing with him. Wendy Thompson couldn’t have had a crush on him since she didn’t even trust him.

Not that he blamed her. Luther Mills wanted her dead, so she shouldn’t trust anyone. But there was one person even more above suspicion than Hart. He reached for his phone. “Play that voice mail on your phone. Or better yet, I’ll call Parker. The chief is with him. Lynch will verify he called this meeting.”

Before he could pull the phone from his pocket, her bedroom door flew open. Light flooded the space, illuminating the pink walls and frilly curtains of a little girl’s bedroom. Felicity would love this room. Pain clenched his heart at the thought of his daughter.

Would he ever see her again?

He was not so sure at the moment because that light also glinted off the gun in the hand of the man standing in the doorway.

Hart might have been called in too late to save Wendy Thompson.

Or himself…

Parker opened the door to the room off his wife’s office at the Payne Protection Agency. A little girl lay asleep in one of the beds in the nursery Sharon had designed for their children. She’d wanted them close while she and Parker worked. But this child wasn’t theirs.

Her hair was pale blond. Her skin was pale, as well. She didn’t look like Hart Fisher’s kid, either. She was tiny and delicate-looking, despite her fierce grasp on the rag doll clasped against her side.

Sharon had opened up the nursery for any of the bodyguards to use for their children. She loved kids so much that the former nanny would willingly care for any and all. And this little girl, already abandoned by her mother, needed extra care.

She needed her father.

Maybe Parker shouldn’t have sent Hart off on this assignment. Sure, Hart had chosen to become a bodyguard and it was probably safer, as well as more flexible, than being on the River City Police Department.

Except for this assignment.

From his years working in the RCPD’s vice unit, Parker personally knew how dangerous Luther Mills could be. The infamous drug dealer was determined not to go to trial, and he would kill anyone and everyone who got in his way. By protecting the evidence tech, Hart was definitely getting in his way. Again.

It wasn’t the first time Hart had made life more difficult for Luther. Like Parker, he’d tried for years to shut down Mills’s illegal business and send the ruthless criminal to prison. Right now Luther was only going after those associated with his trial. But what if he went after anyone who’d ever tried to take him down?

Then Parker was in danger, too, and so was every member of his franchise of the Payne Protection Agency. He’d hired all former vice cops for his team.

Parker pulled his cell from his pocket and glanced at the time on the screen.

Hart should have been back, with Wendy Thompson, by now. Her parents’ house, where she’d told the chief she was staying, wasn’t that far from the agency’s office.

Where were they? If they were running late, Hart would have called to let him know. The only reason he would not have called was that he was not able to.

Maybe Luther had already made good on his threat against Wendy. But if he’d taken her out, he would have had to take out her bodyguard along with her.

Chapter 2

Fear shot through Wendy. But she wasn’t afraid of the man who’d entered her bedroom with his gun drawn. She was afraid that the two men in her room would kill each other. Hart was already reaching for his weapon as he tried shoving Wendy behind him for her protection.

But who would protect him?

“Daddy!” she yelled as she jumped between the men and their guns. “Don’t shoot!” She held a hand out to each of them, pushing Hart back as she held off her father. “Either of you! Don’t shoot each other!”

Her father blinked dark eyes that were still bleary with sleep as he focused on her and the stranger in her bedroom. “What’s going on, Wendy? Who the hell is he?”

“He’s my…my…” She couldn’t say “bodyguard” because her father’s next question would be why she needed one. And she didn’t want to tell her father about Luther Mills and the threats. Not yet. She trusted the police department to keep them safe. But if Hart was telling the truth and someone within the department couldn’t be trusted…then she might have to tell her father, to implore him and her mother to leave town until after the trial. As long as she didn’t have to worry about them, she would be fine.

Despite Luther Mills and those threats, she didn’t need a bodyguard. She didn’t need Hart Fisher. But since he was there, in her bedroom, in the middle of the night, she needed to explain his presence.

“Wendy?” her father prodded.

She felt like a teenager who’d been caught necking on the living room couch with her boyfriend. Except her father had never caught her with anyone when she was a teenager. She’d been too busy studying back then.

“Boyfriend,” she blurted out. “He’s my boyfriend.” Mortified, her face flushed with heat, especially when she felt Hart staring at her in astonishment. She turned to him and silently implored him to play along with her.

She didn’t want her parents to learn about the threats because they wouldn’t be worried about themselves. They would be worried about her, and they already worried too much about her, about if she was taking care of herself, if she was working too much, if she was eating right…

Her father’s brow creased with more lines than he already had. Her parents had been well into their forties when they’d finally had the baby they’d wanted for so long. It didn’t matter that she was twenty-seven now; Wendy would always be their baby.

Her father had kept the gun grasped in his hand. But with her standing between him and Hart, he’d lowered the barrel. “You were arguing,” he said, suspicion in his voice. He wasn’t readily accepting her explanation, but then, it was no wonder since Wendy could not even remember the last time she’d had a boyfriend. “I heard raised voices.”

“He, uh, surprised me,” Wendy said. “Scared me…” That was no lie.

“Of course he did, breaking into our damn house like this!” her father angrily exclaimed. Then he turned his focus on Hart and demanded, “Who the hell are you?”

“Shh, Daddy,” Wendy implored him. “You’re going to wake up Mom.”

And if the police noticed all the lights coming on inside the house, they would probably storm in with more guns drawn.

She glanced down as she realized she wore only that big T-shirt. If the officers saw her like this, she would never hear the end of it around the station. Wendy grabbed a pair of yoga pants and quickly pulled them on.

“Your mother’s knee was bothering her, so she took some pain pills,” Dad said. “She won’t wake up for another six hours.”

That was good. At least, if the police stormed inside, her mother wouldn’t wake up.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Hart said. “I hadn’t wanted to disturb either you or your wife.”

That much Wendy believed was definitely true. Could she believe the rest of what he’d told her, though? That the chief had hired the Payne Protection to guard the principals in Luther Mills’s trial?

It made more sense than his working for Luther. Part of the reason she’d had a crush on him, besides his movie star good looks, was that he’d been such a good cop. He’d made so many arrests.

“I just really needed to see Wendy,” he continued. Then he holstered his weapon and held out his hand. “I’m Hart Fisher.”

Her father stared at his hand for a long moment. “And how do you know my daughter?”

“We used to work together,” Hart replied. “I was a River City detective.”

“Oh.” Her father nodded. “Of course…”

Had she mentioned Hart to him? She might as well have. She’d told her mother about her crush, and her parents told each other everything. Her face heated even more as her discomfort increased. She tended to share too much with her mother.

Her father extended his hand and heartily shook Hart’s. Maybe a little too heartily. Even though he was pushing seventy, her father was a big man, and the former football coach still worked out regularly.

“I’m Ben Thompson.” He greeted Hart, but he wasn’t smiling.

“I am really sorry,” Hart said again. “I just need to speak with Wendy for a few moments, if that’s all right with you, sir?”

Her father grunted. “That’s not up to me.” He looked at Wendy, really looked at her in that way fathers had that made their children squirm. Or in the way that coaches made their players squirm. “Do you want him to stay, Wendy?”

Now she felt compelled to apologize. “I’m sorry, Dad…”

“You’re an adult,” her father said.

Sometimes she wondered if he really believed that, though. But he must have been trying to prove that he did because he stepped into the hall and pulled her bedroom door shut—leaving her alone with Hart Fisher. Her bodyguard.

That was what he was. Not her boyfriend.

She didn’t want him as either. Not anymore. Now was not the time for her to start dating anyone, not when everyone and everything she cared about had been threatened.

Her face was still so hot that she probably could have melted an ice cube on her forehead.

“I don’t want my parents to know about the threats,” she explained. “That’s why I told my dad that you’re my boyfriend.” She didn’t want Hart to think she wanted that—that she wanted him. Just a short time ago, when he’d been lying on top of her, she’d thought he might have wanted her, too.

But that wasn’t possible. He still wouldn’t have noticed her if he hadn’t been assigned to protect her.

Hart nodded. “I get it,” he assured her. “And now I need to get you to that meeting.”

She shook her head.

He sighed. “Do you still not trust me, even after I covered for you with your dad?”

If he was working for Luther, he probably would have shot her father instead of apologizing to him. But just because Hart wasn’t working for Luther didn’t mean she should trust him.

He groaned at her hesitation and reached for his cell. “I’ll call the chief—”

“That’s not it,” she said with a glance at the closed door. “I can’t just walk out of here with you in the middle of the night.”

Her father was bound to have questions if they left the house now. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised to open her door and find him waiting in the hall outside. She had never been a very good liar, so she was already pushing her luck with all the lies she’d already told.

“We’ll go out the way I came in,” Hart told her as he headed toward her open window. After slinging one leg over the sill, he held out his hand to her.

Wendy was scared. Not of falling out the window. She’d climbed out that window a time or two in her youth, but not with a boyfriend. Not even to meet a boyfriend. She’d just climbed out to go to movies that had opened after her midnight curfew. She knew it was a short drop from the window to the porch roof below. Then it was an easy climb down the trestle at the end of the porch to the ground.

No. She wasn’t scared of falling.

She was scared—of spending too much time with Hart Fisher. She suspected she was in almost as much danger from him as she was from Luther Mills.

“You’ve definitely got a problem,” Hart told Chief Lynch as he and Wendy joined him in the conference room at the Payne Protection Agency.

The chief arched a gray brow over blue eyes that were bright and alert despite the late hour. “Did something happen at Ms. Thompson’s home?”

Besides her not waiting outside for him like he’d thought she would be? Besides his making the risky move of breaking in and nearly getting shot?

Hart shook his head. “But that’s the problem. Nobody noticed me sneaking in and out of that house.”

“My father did,” Wendy chimed in with a slight smile.

Hart shuddered as he remembered the older man throwing open the door and training that gun barrel on him. “It’s good that he can protect himself and your mother.” He turned back to the chief, who stood at the end of a long conference table. “Because I don’t trust that unit you have stationed outside their house to protect them.”

The chief flinched.

Hart felt a twinge of regret that he had offended the older man even though Woodrow Lynch shouldn’t have been offended. He hadn’t had much to do with the existing police force. He hadn’t hired or trained them. He’d just recently taken the position of River City police chief after giving up his role as an FBI Bureau chief.

Wendy must have been offended, too, because her elbow jabbed his ribs. Now he felt a twinge of pain—from where her elbow had jabbed him earlier when he’d tried helping her out of the bedroom window. After elbowing him aside, she’d easily slipped over the sill and had moved silently across the roof to the trestle. He’d insisted on going down first, to catch her in case she fell and to make sure nobody could grab her on the ground.

That had been a mistake because, from the ground, all Hart had been able to see was her ass as she’d scrambled down the trestle. She had moved so quickly that she’d slipped. When he’d caught her, his hands cupping her ass, she’d elbowed him again.

That time might have been an accident. This time was definitely not. But Hart wasn’t out of line—not with lives at stake.

“Somebody should have noticed us leaving,” he insisted. What if he had been one of Luther’s crew?

Neither the chief nor Wendy could argue with him now. Lynch sighed. “That’s why I brought in Payne Protection.”

“Why Parker’s team?”

The question came from someone other than Hart. His former coworker Tyce Jackson. The bearded man sat at the table beside Judge Holmes and his daughter, Bella. In the same way Luther had threatened Wendy’s family, the threat he’d used to try to influence the judge was that his daughter was in danger. Woodrow Lynch had been right to call in the Payne Protection Agency. Whatever other motives the chief might have had were beside the point.

Lynch answered Tyce. “I figured Parker’s team had a vested interest in making sure Luther Mills was finally brought to justice.”

Hart winced with regret, frustrated that he hadn’t taken down Luther himself. Tyce might have winced, as well, but with as bushy as his black beard was, it was impossible to tell. When they’d worked Vice—with Parker—they’d all tried for years to bring down Luther. But the drug dealer had been too powerful then. Would he prove to be too powerful now?

“Where is Parker?” Hart asked.

Parker had been in his office earlier, but maybe he’d left to look for some of the others. Not everyone was here yet.

Even as he thought that, the door opened. The assistant district attorney, Jocelyn Gerber, walked in, her bodyguard, former vice cop Landon Myers, behind her.

Then the door opened again and Detective Spencer Dubridge entered midargument with his bodyguard, Keeli Abbott. They appeared to be arguing over who should walk first through the door. The detective might have been trying to be a gentleman, but Keeli, the former RCPD cop, would undoubtedly be offended. When they’d all worked together in Vice, the very capable female officer had accused Dubridge of being a male chauvinist.

What the hell had Parker been thinking when he’d made these matchups? Landon and Keeli might not mind if someone harmed the people they were supposed to be protecting.

“Parker was checking on someone in his office,” the chief told Hart with a smile. He must have known about Felicity.

Hart’s usual babysitter had got sick and had dropped the little girl off at his work. It was a good thing Parker had been here then and that he was good with kids. The backup sitter should be arriving soon if she hadn’t already.

“Then he was going outside to consult with the perimeter guards,” Lynch added.

Parker and the chief had been smart to have extra security for this meeting. If Luther Mills had learned about it, the opportunity of having everyone associated with the trial in one place would have been too great for him to pass up.

Since they had no idea who and where his informants were, Mills might have heard about it. He could have ordered a hit…

Hart tilted his head and listened. But he heard no sound of gunfire.

“The eyewitness isn’t here,” Assistant DA Jocelyn Gerber said, her voice rising with alarm as she looked around the conference room. “Where is she?”

“Parker is checking on that, too,” the chief said.

The woman’s already pale face lost the little bit of color it had had. “This is bad…”

“This is ridiculous,” Wendy said. “We don’t need extra protection. Not even Luther Mills can take out everyone associated with his trial.”

“He doesn’t have to take out everyone,” Gerber said. “Just the eyewitness.” She focused her pale blue eyes on Wendy and added, “And you.”

Because with Wendy gone, it would be difficult to prove that the chain of evidence had remained unbroken. Since she’d collected it from the murder scene, she was the most important link in the chain.

Luther Mills leaned back on the thin mattress in his cell and uttered a sigh. He wouldn’t be here much longer. The plan was already starting to work. He’d just been informed that the eyewitness had gone out a window.

Sure, that hadn’t exactly been part of the plan. The crew he’d sent after her was supposed to have shot her. But her apartment was on the third floor. A fall from that height had probably killed her and the man they’d said had gone out the window with her. Clint Quarters. What the hell had the former vice cop been doing there?

Had he just been checking on Rosie out of guilt? Quarters was the cop who’d got her brother killed by turning him into an informant. That kind of betrayal deserved the death sentence Luther had given Javier Mendez.

It was too bad Luther had had to deliver that same sentence to Rosie. If only she’d learned the lesson her brother should have… If only she had kept her sexy damn mouth shut…

But her testimony wasn’t Luther’s only problem. There was all that evidence from the scene, too.

Evidence that shouldn’t have been found.

That wouldn’t have been found if probably any other crime scene tech had been involved. Everybody knew not to look too closely at a crime he’d committed.

Little Miss By-the-Book Wendy Thompson was as big a pain in Luther’s ass as this damn uncomfortable jailhouse mattress.

But he would get rid of her and the evidence just as easily as he’d got rid of the eyewitness.

Chapter 3

“That’s lucky for you,” Jocelyn Gerber remarked after Rosie Mendez left the conference room with the chief and Parker Payne, her bodyguard, Clint Quarters, trailing behind them.

Wendy was so tired that she didn’t understand what the assistant district attorney was talking about. “What’s lucky for me?”

“That the eyewitness is still alive,” Jocelyn said.

“She might not stay that way if she keeps fighting having a bodyguard,” Hart remarked with a pointed glance at Wendy.

She shivered, but she wasn’t scared for her safety, despite how much Hart and the assistant district attorney seemed to be trying to scare her. She was probably just cold. A thin T-shirt wasn’t enough protection against the chill of the late autumn evening.

And maybe she was a little chilled from the threats, as well. Needing backup, she looked down the conference table at Spencer Dubridge. “Don’t you think this is ridiculous, too?” she asked the detective who had had the pleasure of arresting Luther Mills. “We can protect ourselves.”

He glanced sideways at his female bodyguard and snorted. “I certainly can protect myself better than Bodyguard Barbie can protect me.”

Keeli Abbott glared at him and Wendy suspected Dubridge’s former coworker might be from whom the detective most needed to protect himself.

The conference room door opened and the chief stepped back inside. As if he’d overheard their conversation, he insisted, “Everyone is going to have a bodyguard—” he stared hard at Dubridge “—no matter who they are, until this trial is over and Luther Mills is sentenced to life behind bars.”

Judge Holmes shook his head. “I can’t be party to this conversation.”

“You didn’t need to be here,” the chief told him. “Your daughter is the one being threatened.” Bella Holmes was not a minor; she had to be at least midtwenties.

“And she wouldn’t leave her damn party until her father told her she had to,” Tyce Jackson grumbled through his bushy beard. Even though he didn’t work Vice anymore, he still looked like he had when he’d gone deep undercover.

Hart must have never worked undercover because he’d always been clean-shaved and well-groomed. That was why Wendy had had such a crush on him. He’d always looked so handsome.

Bella Holmes glared at Tyce. “I didn’t know who you were.” Maybe she’d judged him by the way he looked.

Tyce had been one of those vice cops who’d gone so deeply undercover that sometimes it was difficult to return to the life they’d once lived. Wendy suspected that was the case with him.

“If you’d listened to your dad’s message, you wouldn’t have been at that damn party,” Tyce griped.

So Wendy wasn’t the only one who hadn’t played a voice mail that she’d needed to hear. She didn’t feel any better about the situation, though. If she’d listened, she could have spared her dad a surprise and herself having to lie to him again.

“We are not going to stop living our lives just because of these threats,” Wendy reminded the chief. “So how do we explain having bodyguards? How is the rest of the precinct going to feel that you didn’t trust our fellow officers to protect me or Detective Dubridge or even Ms. Gerber?”

“You told your father that I’m your boyfriend,” Hart reminded her. “Maybe we just tell everyone else the same damn thing.”

Heat rushed to her face again, chasing away that chill she’d briefly felt.

Dubridge chuckled. “That’ll work for her. Everybody in the department knows she had a crush on Fisher even back when he was married.”

Wendy gasped in shock that everyone else had known about the crush she’d shared with only a few close coworkers. Maybe Hart was right. She couldn’t trust them.

The detective blithely continued. “But that won’t work for everyone else.”

The judge’s daughter glanced sideways at Tyce and nodded. “I should say not…”

“You’re not my type, either,” Tyce assured her, his voice so deep it was just a rumble.

“And chauvinist pig is certainly not mine,” Keeli Abbott remarked.

The chief groaned. His voice rising with frustration, he yelled, “You’re all supposed to be professionals here. Figure it out!”

“Professional partier maybe,” Tyce Jackson murmured with a glance at Bella Holmes.

She glared at him again.

Wendy didn’t even dare to glance at Hart. What did he think of her? He probably pitied her if he had heard the rumors like Dubridge had. Did he know she’d had a crush on him even when he was married—like some adolescent girl with a crush on a teen idol?

Still arguing, everyone else filed out of the conference room, leaving Wendy and Hart alone. Even the chief had stepped out, deep in conversation with Jocelyn Gerber. But then the door opened again.

Maybe he had returned.

But it wasn’t the chief who had walked through the door; a tiny little blonde girl barreled into the room. “Daddy!” she squealed. “Mr. Parker said you were back.” She jumped onto Hart’s lap.

He closed his arms around her. “You’re supposed to be sleeping,” he admonished. But the rebuke was gentle, as were his warm brown eyes as he stared lovingly at her.

Hart Fisher had a child?

How had Wendy never heard that?

The little girl noticed Wendy and shyly buried her face in the doll she grasped in her delicate-looking arms. Then she suddenly pulled the doll away from her face and held it up near Wendy’s. Her blue eyes widened with shock as she looked from Wendy to the stuffed doll and then back at Wendy.

“She looks like my dolly, Daddy,” she murmured, her voice soft with awe. “She looks like Annie.”

Wendy felt her face heat all over again with embarrassment. First, she was outed for crushing on her bodyguard like a schoolgirl. Now she was being compared to a rag doll.

Her ego had taken a hell of a beating—far more painful than anything Luther Mills or his crew could have doled out to her.

“My dolly’s name is Annie,” the little girl told her. “What’s your name?”

“Wendy,” she replied. An only child who’d grown up around the teenage football players her father had coached, Wendy wasn’t comfortable around little girls. Despite her mother’s best efforts by forcing pink and frills on her, Wendy had never been a little girl herself. She had always been, and probably still was, a tomboy.

“Winnie,” the little girl repeated—incorrectly.

Wendy didn’t correct her. She just asked, “And what is your name?”

“Felicity…” she said slowly, as if she struggled to pronounce her own name. It was quite the mouthful.

“That’s pretty,” Wendy said.

“You’re pretty,” the little girl said with that slow, shy smile.

Something wrapped around Wendy’s heart, tightly squeezing it. Felicity’s mother was reputedly a former beauty queen. Why in the world would the child think Wendy was pretty?

She was obviously just a very sweet girl.

“You are the pretty one,” Wendy said. Felicity looked like a doll, but the kind made of porcelain and kept behind glass—delicate and beautiful—not one made with burlap and bright red yarn.

The little girl scrambled off her father’s lap and climbed onto Wendy’s. She held out her doll for Wendy to admire. “Grandma made me this doll when I was borned,” she said. “Now Grandma is an angel.”

That grasp on Wendy’s heart tightened even more. “I’m sorry, honey,” she murmured.

“Why?” the little girl asked. She reached out and fingered a lock of Wendy’s curly hair. But her touch was tentative as though she thought it would be hot since it was so red. Wendy smiled reassuringly at her, and the little girl smiled back.

“People say that when they find out you’ve lost someone you love,” Hart explained to his daughter.

Wendy hoped nobody would have cause to say that to her. She could not lose her parents. Luther was just trying to scare her into destroying the evidence. Right? He wouldn’t actually harm them…

But then she remembered how the eyewitness and her bodyguard had looked when they’d joined the meeting earlier. They had gone out a window, too, but not like she and Hart had. No, Rosie and Clint had been forced to jump to avoid being shot to death.

She shivered and the little girl snuggled a little closer to her. Her long black lashes fluttered as her eyelids began to droop. She murmured to her father, “I’m sorry, Daddy…”

He touched his daughter’s cheek, which was uncomfortably close to Wendy’s breast. She tensed and drew in a shaky breath. But he didn’t touch her. He was focused only on his daughter.

“Why are you sorry, baby?” he asked. The love Wendy had seen in his eyes was in his voice now.

“For you, Daddy,” she murmured sleepily. “You’ve lost a lot of people you love.”

Her mother? Had he loved and lost her?

Not that Wendy cared. She didn’t care about anything but keeping her family safe. But she didn’t want Hart’s family to be in danger, either. She tightened her arm around the little girl and leaned close enough that her chin brushed the soft blond hair, asking him, “So is this Bring Your Daughter to Work day?”

His face flushed with a bit of color. “A babysitter should be showing up soon.”

“It’s a weeknight,” she said.

He nodded. “Yes, and she’s just turned four. She’s not in school yet.”

“But why do you have her now?” she asked.

His brow furrowed for a moment then cleared. “You think I’m just a weekend father?” He shook his head. “I have full custody.”

While she had no personal experience with it, Wendy had several divorced friends and acquaintances, especially since law enforcement was so hard on relationships.

The long hours officers worked…

The things they saw…

They all took their toll.

And usually because of those long hours, they weren’t granted much more than weekend visitations. But maybe that was why Hart had resigned from the police department. For his daughter…

Then why had he taken another dangerous job with long hours?

She wasn’t going to be responsible for taking him away from his child. Over the little girl’s head, she met Hart’s gaze and told him, “You can’t be my bodyguard.”

“I don’t want to be your bodyguard,” Hart admitted. He hadn’t been certain if his coworkers had been telling the truth or just teasing him about that crush, but he hadn’t wanted to take the chance that it was the truth and Wendy got her feelings hurt.

And she would get hurt if she made the mistake of falling for him. His ability to trust and love were gone.

Long gone…

He had nothing left to give anyone but Felicity.

Wendy expelled a shaky breath that stirred Felicity’s hair. But the little girl didn’t move. She’d fallen fast asleep in the arms of a stranger.

Hart couldn’t believe how his daughter had taken to Wendy Thompson. Felicity was always so shy, but never more so than around women. Her mother hadn’t ever been very patient with her. Monica never would have allowed Felicity to touch her hair. She would have been afraid the child would mess it up or make it sticky.

But Wendy hadn’t cared. As if she’d sensed the child’s fear, she had smiled reassuringly at her. And Hart had felt a strange twinge in his chest—one that he felt again just staring at the two of them.

“Good,” she said. “Tell Parker that you can’t.”

“Already did,” he informed her. “But he refused. Said he had no one else to give the assignment to.” All the other team members had already been assigned someone to protect. Hart suspected Parker, like everyone else in the RCPD, had heard the rumors about Wendy’s crush. Now that crush could be used to explain his presence in her life; they could claim he was her boyfriend—just as she had already told her father.

She shook her head. “I don’t need a bodyguard,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

“Didn’t you hear what the assistant DA said?” he asked. Frustration with her stubbornness had him raising his voice. But when Felicity stirred against her, he lowered it when he continued. “For Luther to get off, the eyewitness isn’t the only one he needs to take out.”

Wendy tightened her arm around his daughter and lowered her voice to a whisper. “He doesn’t need to take me out. Just the evidence.”

Hart nodded. “That’s true. I’m sure he could get to anyone else in your department to get it thrown out.” He would either pay them or threaten them.

Neither of those options would work on someone like Wendy, though. On someone so stubborn.

Her face flushed with indignation, turning nearly as red as her hair. “He can’t get to anyone else in my department,” she protested. “He does not have an evidence tech on his payroll.”

Hart snorted at her naivete. “Then how have all his previous cases got thrown out?” Luther damn well did have someone working for him. Hell, he had a lot of someones working for him.

So nobody could be trusted.

“I don’t know about the evidence in his previous cases,” Wendy said, “but I know nobody’s getting to this evidence but me.”

He narrowed his eyes as he studied her face. “You’ve hidden it somewhere?”

“That prior evidence disappeared from the evidence room,” she said.

“So this evidence is not there?” he asked.

She shook her head. “It’s somewhere safe that won’t compromise the chain of evidence.”

Maybe she wasn’t as naive as he’d thought. “Obviously you don’t trust your coworkers as much as you claim you do.”

“If anyone else knew where it was, they would be threatened, too,” she said, “and I don’t want to put anybody else in danger.”

Now he understood why she’d said what she had. “That’s why you don’t want me as your bodyguard. You don’t want me in danger.”

Her face reddened even more. “Don’t think it’s because of some nonexistent crush I supposedly have on you,” she said, sputtering. She lowered her green-eyed gaze from his and stared down at his daughter. “It’s because of her.”

That twinge struck Hart’s chest again.

“She needs you,” Wendy said. “I don’t.”

He flinched. But he couldn’t argue with her about Felicity. His daughter did need him. She really had no one else. Not now. Not since Hart’s mother had passed away a couple of years ago. She had been the only maternal figure his little girl had ever known when her own mother had failed to ever show any interest in her. After she’d had her, Monica had admitted to only getting pregnant so Hart wouldn’t divorce her. Abandoned as a child, she’d been determined that nobody else leave her; she was always the one who left. Unfortunately, she hadn’t left just him but their daughter, as well.

“Felicity’s not going to lose me,” Hart said. He hoped his daughter knew that. “I’m not leaving her. I’m just doing my job. And I’m damn good at my job.” He’d been a good vice cop and then a detective, so being a bodyguard had come very naturally to him. “Nothing’s going to happen to me.”

But he wondered if he was really telling the truth. He wasn’t worried about being physically hurt, though. He was worried about becoming too entangled with Wendy Thompson—like he had in her bed when he’d first sneaked through her window and had tried to keep her quiet. He was also worried about Wendy Thompson becoming too entangled with him and his daughter.

No. Felicity couldn’t lose anyone else. So his little girl could not get attached to Wendy—because Hart was only going to pretend to be the evidence tech’s boyfriend. He had no intention of ever being involved with anyone ever again.

All that type of involvement led to was betrayal and emotional pain. And that was the kind of pain he wasn’t going to risk experiencing ever again. He’d much rather risk his life than his heart.

Even though he was in jail, there was no escaping Luther Mills. Once he got hold of someone, he didn’t let go and he didn’t let up. One could not say no to Luther—not and live.

Wendy Thompson was so young and naive that she had not yet realized that.

But she would. Soon.

The person crawled under the vehicle parked in the driveway of Thompson’s parents’ house. Hands, in leather gloves, located the brake line. Then a knife cut neatly through the line, spilling fluid onto the asphalt.

By morning all the fluid would have leaked out. Maybe then Wendy would finally get the message all those threats had tried to deliver to her.

The evidence needed to disappear or, just as the messages had warned, everything and everyone Wendy Thompson held dear would disappear instead.

Chapter 4

Her heart pounding fast and hard, Wendy closed the front door of her parents’ house behind her. She leaned back against the solid wood for a moment to catch a breath of fresh air. She felt as if she’d just run the gauntlet, trying to escape the shots fired at her. Those shots hadn’t been bullets, though—just questions her parents had asked her this morning.

They had had so many of them.

“How long have you and Hart been dating?”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“How serious are you?”

“What was so important that he had to see you in the middle of the night?”

Their lives. That was what was so important. In addition to the police car stationed in the area, the Payne Protection Agency had assigned bodyguards to them, as well. But they would not see the bodyguards.

Wendy couldn’t see them, either, when she looked around the house and street as she walked to the car parked on the driveway. Where were they?

The bodyguards weren’t from Parker’s team but one of his brother’s. She’d asked if one of them could protect her instead of Hart. But just as Hart had warned her, Parker had refused to assign her a different bodyguard. And Chief Lynch had backed him up.

Of course everyone thought Hart should protect her. They’d known about her crush on him and, because of that, they’d believed everyone would buy that he was her boyfriend. Heat rushed to her face with humiliation that her attraction to the former detective was such common knowledge. But Hart had never showed any interest in her. That had to be common knowledge, as well.

So would anyone actually believe that he was her boyfriend? That he’d suddenly noticed her now—when he hadn’t noticed her all the years they’d worked together even after his divorce?

Her parents had been suspicious. Or they wouldn’t have fired so many questions at her.

Those questions had been hard to dodge because lying to her parents had never been easy. But in this case, it had been necessary. She didn’t want to worry them.

Like she was worried.

They would be safe, with the police watching them, with Payne Protection bodyguards watching them.

Luther wouldn’t be able to get to them now—not with so many people protecting them. But if the threats continued, she would tell them; she would urge them to leave town for their safety and hers. She would be more careful herself if she didn’t have to worry about them, as well.

She clicked the fob to unlock the car, but before she could pull open the driver’s door, a deep voice murmured, “Good morning.”

She jumped even though she instantly recognized that voice. When she turned to face him, Hart Fisher was very close. So close that their bodies brushed against each other.

Her pulse quickened with excitement, not fear, with the attraction she felt for him—that she had always felt for him. But she didn’t want him to know that she had really had a crush on him. She already felt foolish enough about it.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked as she glanced nervously around.

The curtains swished at the front window of her parents’ house. Someone was watching them.

“I’m trying to do my damn job,” Hart said through gritted teeth as he very obviously faked a grin.

When he’d dropped her off last night, she had refused to let him inside the house. From the dark circles beneath his eyes, he must not have slept at all. Too bad his daughter’s babysitter had arrived at the agency before they’d left. He wouldn’t have been able to take Wendy home if he’d had to take care of Felicity.

But even though his babysitter had shown up, the little girl still needed her father—especially since he had full custody. Where was her mother?

“You need a safer job,” she told him.

“I’m fine,” he said, but his voice lowered even more to a growl of frustration. “It’s my assignment that’s a pain in the ass.”

She smiled—just as artificially as he had. “Then you need another assignment.”

He shook his head. “This is the one I have,” he said. “So I’m going to make the best of it.”

Then he did something she hadn’t expected. He lowered his head until his mouth brushed across hers.

Her pulse began to race and she gasped.

He kissed her again, lingering this time—his lips clinging to hers before he deepened the kiss even more. When he finally lifted his head, she gasped again—this time for breath.

“What the hell was that?” she asked.

He arched his head toward the front window of the house. “For our audience.”

“You’re overacting,” she said because she had to remind herself that was all he was doing. Acting…

He wasn’t really her boyfriend. He wasn’t really attracted to her. He was only pretending.

Yet the kiss had felt real to her, so real that desire coursed through her. She wanted him. But he only wanted to do his job.

She had a job of her own to do, though. “You’re going to make me late,” she said. “I need to get to work.”

“Then get in my SUV,” he said. “And I will take you to work.”

She shook her head. “I need to have my own vehicle.” But her vehicle was actually in a service shop right now. Since her mother hadn’t been cleared to drive yet with her new right knee, Wendy was using her mom’s car.

With obvious skepticism, Hart narrowed his eyes. “If you have to go out to a crime scene, you use the department van to collect evidence,” he said.

“Yes, and you can’t go with me if I’m called to a crime scene,” she said.

He lifted his broad shoulders. “I can’t ride in the van,” he said. “But I have every intention of following you.”

“You’re not going to look like my boyfriend. You’re going to look like a stalker,” she said.

He grinned and leaned closer. So close that his lips brushed lightly across hers again. “Or like a man in love…who suspects a killer might be threatening his girlfriend.”

Her heart skipped a beat until he shuddered as if the idea repulsed him. The idea of being her boyfriend? Or of a killer being after her?

While she curved her lips into a smile, she glared at him and pushed him back so she could pull open the driver’s door. “Since you apparently intend to follow me to crime scenes, you can follow me to the station,” she said. “Because I’m driving myself there.”

Before he could reach for her again, she slid into the seat and jammed the key into the ignition. He cursed, or started to, but she turned the key and the engine drowned him out. He stepped back as she reversed the car into the street.

She shifted into Drive and pressed hard on the accelerator. Since he wasn’t going to make it easy for her to do her job, she wasn’t going to make it easy for him to do his. She intended to be long gone before he could even get to his SUV.

But speeding in a residential area wasn’t smart. So she reached for the brake pedal, pressing lightly on it. But the car didn’t slow. At all…

She pressed harder until the pedal went all the way to the floor. Nothing happened.

The car would not stop. The brakes had gone out. And since her father almost fanatically maintained his vehicles, Wendy knew they hadn’t gone out on their own. Someone had cut the brake line.

She could not stop.

Hart shook his head, disgusted with himself that he’d just let her drive off. But with her parents watching, there was little more he could have done to stop her, especially since he knew her father was armed. Even now he had to force himself not to run to his SUV. He had to keep the smile on his face until he turned away from the house. But then he glanced down at the driveway and his heart slammed against his ribs as he noticed fluid pooled on the asphalt where her car had been parked.

He didn’t have to dip his finger in it to know where the fluid had come from. Her brake line.

He could hear the squeal of tires against asphalt.

A horn blew.

He knew she was already unable to stop.

He ran, jumping into his SUV. His hand shook as he turned the key, fired the engine to life and roared out of the driveway after her.

But she already had quite a head start on him. And she couldn’t slow down.

Fortunately, it was so early that there wasn’t much traffic yet, and the SUV had a bigger engine than her little sedan. He was able to speed enough that he caught up with her.

Despite not having brakes, she managed to steer around a corner. The street onto which she’d turned had fewer houses. But it went downhill, so she was gaining speed.

And she had no way to stop.

Hart would have to stop her before the car went even faster. Or she would die for certain.

He pressed harder on his accelerator and crossed over the center line so that he was next to her. She glanced out her window at him. Her eyes were wide with fear, her face so pale that her freckles stood out even more than usual.

She gripped the wheel tightly.

He gestured at the gearshift. If she could get the vehicle into Neutral…

He clicked the power button to lower his passenger-side window.

She lowered her window. “I have no brakes!” she yelled.

“Neutral,” he yelled back at her.

But the loud blare of a horn might have drowned out his command. Just a short distance ahead of them, a semitruck had backed out of a driveway and was blocking the street. If she hit it head-on, she was certain to die.

So he jerked his wheel and smashed into the side of her car. Metal ground against metal, screeching as it scraped together.

Maybe it wasn’t just the screeching metal he heard. Maybe it was Wendy screaming because her mouth was open as she stared at him in shock.

He’d had no choice, though. He had to get her off the road and out of the path of that truck. He wrenched the wheel even harder, crunching the side of her car as he pushed it off the road.

Her tires hit the curb before the car jumped the sidewalk. He breathed a sigh of relief that she was off the street, until he saw where she was heading—straight toward a tree.

A massive oak with a trunk wider than her little car. He swerved over the curb, too, trying to get between her and the tree. But he was too late.

Her car struck the trunk of the oak, wrapping itself around it. Another horn blared—this one was hers as her body slumped against the airbag that had exploded from her steering wheel.

Had he saved her?

Or killed her?

“What the hell did you say?” Parker exclaimed. Then he pulled his cell phone away from his ear and stared at it.

He could not have heard his sister correctly. Nikki was one of the guards he’d posted outside Wendy Thompson’s parents’ house; he’d borrowed her from his brother Cooper’s team. Maybe their cell connection was faulty.

“What happened?” he asked, seeking clarification.

“I don’t know,” Nikki replied. “First they were kissing…”

Parker groaned. “No…”

Hart was only supposed to pretend to be her boyfriend. They weren’t supposed to really become involved. Of all his bodyguards, Parker had thought Hart, who’d barely survived his short marriage, was immune to the temptation of mixing pleasure with business.

Sure, he was aware that Wendy Thompson had had a crush on Hart when he’d worked for River City PD, and while that was useful for their cover, Parker had never expected either of them to actually act on it.

“The kissing might have been for her parents’ benefit,” Nikki speculated. “They were not very discreetly watching them through the front window.”

His heart thudded heavily with dread. “So did they see what you just told me happened?” He was still hoping that he’d misunderstood. That she couldn’t have said what she had…

But then Nikki repeated it. “Him running her off the road?”

Parker groaned again. So he had heard his sister correctly the first time.

“They couldn’t have seen it,” Nikki said. “It happened a couple of miles from their house. Lars is still sitting on their place and the Thompsons haven’t made any attempt to leave. They must have not even heard the crash.”

Crash. Parker flinched.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “How did they get from kissing to separate vehicles and…?”

What? A road rage incident?

“After the kissing, she jumped in her car and took off,” Nikki told him.

To do what? Report Hart to him or to the chief? This was bad. Very bad.

“It didn’t take long to figure out, from the way she was driving, that her brakes must have gone out,” Nikki said. “Hart was right there. I think he tried to force her off the road so she wouldn’t hit the truck. But…”

“But what?” Parker asked.

“She hit a tree instead.”

Parker shot up from his desk and cursed. “Oh, my God. Is she okay?”

“I don’t know,” Nikki said. “I radioed Hart and he claims he’s got it handled.” But she obviously doubted his abilities. She didn’t know Hart Fisher like Parker did, though.

“If Hart says he’s got it handled, he does.” Parker wasn’t sure if he backed his friend out of loyalty, though, or because he actually believed what he was saying. Hart Fisher had been a good cop—so good that he’d made detective right before he’d quit the force.

Since Parker had hired him, he’d proved to be a damn good bodyguard, too.

Until today.

Today, instead of protecting his principal, he might have put her in more danger.

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