Assumed Identity

chapter Seven



“What are you doing in here, boss lady?”

Startled by the interruption, Robin crumpled the sick note she’d been rereading and stuffed it into the pocket of her apron. She looked up from the stool where she sat in the shop’s refrigerated stockroom to see Mark Riggins standing in the open doorway.

I’m taking your baby.



Mark was unrolling the sleeves of his shirt and buttoning the cuffs at the wrist. “It’s quittin’ time.”

Gathering her wits and taking note of the late hour, Robin set the last handful of gerbera daisies she’d been counting back into their vase on the bottom shelf and entered the number on her clipboard before getting up.

She pulled her sweater more tightly around her neck and hugged her arms at her waist. “Are the boutonnieres for the Vanderham second wedding finished?”

“Packaged and ready for delivery in the morning. Along with two dozen small sprays and the biggest altar piece I’ve ever put together. Tacky and too much, but if it makes the client happy, who am I to complain?” Frowning, he took a step into the cold room. “Are you okay? You look a little pale. Are you thinking about the assault again?”

Was there a moment in the week since her attack that she hadn’t? She slipped her hand into her apron pocket, feeling today’s latest threat burning against her fingers. But her personal problems weren’t Mark’s concern—or anyone else’s, apparently, according to the police’s inability to act on a few prank calls and messages. So she pasted on a reassuring smile. “No. I didn’t realize it was nine o’clock. Is everything locked up?”

“You bet.” Mark inclined his head toward the workrooms in the back. “We’re all getting ready to head out so we can get an early start on tomorrow’s setup. I think Linda and Christine are going out for coffee, but the rest of us are heading home. You should do the same.”

“I know.” Since the assault nearly a week earlier, she’d taken every safety precaution she knew to heart—especially since that first drunken phone call had turned into some sort of anonymous hate mail campaign. Every day there’d been something new in her bills and correspondence at the shop. And each letter, sent from a Kansas City post office with no return address, had grown more disturbing by the day.

The Rose Red Rapist didn’t make mistakes and would come back to finish what he’d started.

A single woman had no business adopting a child.

Emma would be taken from her and Robin would be punished for abandoning her the night of the attack.

Abandon? As if she’d been given a choice.

At one point she’d considered digging out Bill Houseman’s card and calling him to find out if he was behind the terror campaign. He’d claimed to be related to Emma, and this could be his sick effort to get her to reverse the adoption so he could take custody of the baby. But how could the attempted rape be related to a legal claim? Besides, a call to Robin’s attorney had assured her that the adoption was legitimate and airtight, and there was nothing requiring her to have any contact with the birth parents who’d surrendered their rights to Emma.

The motive might not be clear, but the message was unmistakable. Some nut job had fixated on Robin and Emma, and it was up to her to maintain a vigilance that would keep her, and everyone around her, safe.

She pulled herself from her thoughts and smiled her thanks to Mark. “Will you make sure that no one leaves by themselves?”

“Sure. I’ll ask Leon to move the van and secure the loading dock, too.”

“Thanks.” Even though she’d be making the rounds herself to make sure everything was locked up tight before she left, it was reassuring to have a second pair of eyes checking the security of the place. “I need a few minutes to get things back in order here and pack up Emma. Then we’ll be leaving, too.”

Mark let the door close behind him and joined her in the middle of the tall, metal shelves that lined the room. “What are you doing?”

She exhaled a weary sigh that clouded around her face. “Old-fashioned inventory, counting out the flowers we have in stock one at a time.”

“Sounds tedious. Want some help?”

Robin smiled and shook her head. “It’s nearly done. Besides, you’ve been talking about those late dinner plans of yours all day long. You need to skedaddle.”

“My date can wait,” he volunteered.

She waved off the offer and picked up one of the long, narrow boxes she’d set on the floor. “At first I thought maybe a couple of orders hadn’t been logged in. But then you showed me your records and I realized we were just encoding entries differently.” She laid the box on a matching stack and opened the lid. “Now I’m thinking the number error is coming from the distributor’s end. We were shorted two stems in each of these boxes. If that’s been going on the entire time I was gone, that adds up to over two thousand dollars.”

“I’ll call them and ask what’s going on. Get them to adjust the billing.” Mark thumbed over his shoulder. “In the meantime, if you won’t be too much longer, I promised Shirley I’d walk her to her car.”

“You go ahead. I just need to push this pallet out of the main path and shut off the lights in here.” She turned the handle of the pallet mover and released the brake. “I’ll be out shortly.”

“Good.” He pulled the handle on the insulated steel door and pushed it open. “Shirley, my love, are you ready for your escort?”

Robin smiled at his over-the-top charm. She was glad she and Mark had sat down together to work out the bookkeeping issues. It was a relief to finally feel like she’d gotten back into the routine of work and running her shop. Heaven knew that, except for Emma’s bright shining star, her personal life was still a complicated mess.

Inhaling a resolute breath and refusing to let the fear those letters and phone calls engendered take hold of her again, Robin leaned her shoulder into the pallet mover to start it rolling. By the time she’d parked it out of the way and retrieved her clipboard, she was back in cool, calm and collected mode. She went to the door and pushed.

But nothing happened.

She quickly squelched that bubble of fear that had never truly left her and pushed the handle again.

Nothing.

She jiggled the handle one more time and pressed the emergency release latch. Only, something had jammed and it wouldn’t engage the lock. This door wasn’t opening. At least, not from her side.

“Mark?” She knocked on the door to see if anyone was on the other side. “Shirley? Leon?” Robin knocked again. “Hello? I’m in here.”

Someone had gotten a little overzealous with the locking-up directive. At least she hoped it was an accident—that whoever had slipped the locking pin into the other side of the door handle simply hadn’t realized she was in here, and that, considering recent events, this wasn’t some poorly timed joke.

“Hello?”

The same insulated walls that kept her from hearing anything outside the fridge room were probably muffling her shouts, as well. Maybe the guys were walking the female employees to their cars and no one was out there. It was impossible to hear through the thick door unless they were standing in the adjoining hallway.

A fearful suspicion simmered inside her. But she tamped down the panic and tried to think this through. Had she stayed in here longer than she thought? She reached for her cell phone, but that was in the diaper bag in her office. She found the tiny canister of pepper spray in the pocket of her jeans. She’d started carrying it again after that awful night. But she was locked in, not under attack. At least it was a walk-in refrigerator, not a freezer. Things could get mighty uncomfortable, but she wouldn’t die in here. And this door wasn’t the only way out.

“Ugh. Robin.” She chided the foreboding that had momentarily silenced logic and ran over to check the delivery entrance where they loaded and unloaded large orders through the double doors. She rattled the handle on one, tried them both. But nothing budged. Normally, this was padlocked from the outside unless they were using it. “Leon?” Maybe he was back there with the van. She flattened her palm against the cold steel and pounded. “Leon!”

Everything was locked up tight. Just the way she wanted it. Two sets of locked doors to keep anyone from sneaking into the shop from the back alley.

Two sets of locked doors that trapped her in between.

The panic bubbled over and Robin ran back to the hallway door and pounded again. “Hey! Mark? Anyone? I’m locked in!”

Robin was trapped. But that wasn’t what scared her.

She couldn’t get to Emma, who was sleeping peacefully in Robin’s office. Unguarded. Alone.

This was no accident. And it was certainly no joke.

I’m taking your daughter.

Forget cool, calm and collected. Robin pounded on the door and shouted. “Help! Let me out!”

* * *

JAKE LEANED AGAINST the top railing of the fence surrounding the Fairy Tale Bridal parking lot and watched the lights in Robin’s shop go out one by one. Careful not to let the glare from the street lamp reflect off the face of his watch and alert anyone to his presence, he checked the time. 9:00 p.m. sharp. Good. He appreciated punctuality when it came to security.

Robin Carter had been consistent for four nights in a row now. He’d seen her lock the front door, check the windows, turn out the lights and walk to the parking lot with the rest of her staff before loading that bulky baby carrier into the backseat and driving off to whatever all-American suburban home they lived in.

Despite his best intentions to forget the leggy brunette and her blue-eyed baby, despite every lick of sense that said he shouldn’t care about her troubles or get involved any further in their lives, Jake had planned his dinner break from the bar just before nine. And for the past four nights, he’d made the brisk walk around the corner to this hiding place away from the bridal shop’s security cameras, and watched to make sure the Carter girls got safely out of this neighborhood where too many innocent women had gotten hurt.

He justified his sneaky voyeurism as a matter of mental survival. He refused to care about Robin and Emma on any personal level, but a man had to live with his conscience. Jake had enough violence and unanswered questions haunting his dreams. He didn’t need his waking moments to be plagued with doubts and guilt, too. He could watch from a distance without interacting with them, and appease his conscience by making sure they were safe without risking developing any personal connection to them.

Knowing his black shirt and dark jeans helped him blend in with the ivy vines trailing over the fence, he rolled his neck and allowed himself to stretch out some of the kinks of fatigue that came from standing in one position for so long. At least this was an easier gig than that night he’d spent out in the rain waiting for Robin to reappear. Not that he minded the elements. He’d needed to see her that night to make sure she was okay—that his own self-preservation instincts hadn’t left her exposed to any more danger.

Apparently, he still needed to see her to put his conscience to rest each night. But there wouldn’t be any more hand-holding or running his fingers through her hair or thinking about kissing her. There wouldn’t be any more stabs of protective jealousy and charging to the rescue when some other man put his hands on her. Despite his ugly facade, he was a man who wanted and lusted and could learn to care, just like any other man. But Jake knew that the monster he might also be made him too dangerous to ever give in to those normal wants and needs. If he knew he was responsible for hurting Robin or her daughter, it would open up a wound no one would ever see, and from which he might never recover.

Jake stilled again to watch the progression across the street. Like clockwork, the back door opened beneath the green-and-white awning and the employees of the Robin’s Nest Floral Shop came out.

The dark-haired guy with the bow tie came out with the middle-aged blonde. Good. Bow-tie guy was walking her to her car. They laughed about something before she got in and drove away. Bow-tie guy waited as two more women came out together, got into their cars and drove away.

“Hey!” Hearing the slam of a door, Jake moved his attention back the shop entrance. A young man in a green uniform shirt jogged out and stopped Bow-tie guy outside his car. With his senses going on alert, Jake leaned forward, turning his ear to eavesdrop as their conversation flared into a heated argument.

He was too far away to catch everything, but Jake quickly realized this was not as happy a family of coworkers as he’d expected. Uniform kid said something about “...your fault.”

Bow-tie guy kept his cool while the younger man blew up.

“Ms. Carter...twice now.”

“...not going to lose your job.”

“I’ll take care of it if you won’t.”

Interesting.

Almost as quickly as it had started, the argument stopped. The two men separated to their respective vehicles. Both immediately pulled out their cell phones, either taking or making calls as they got into their cars. The younger man started his car and sped out of the parking lot while the older man sat inside his car, chatting on the phone.

Had Robin made a discovery about the accounting discrepancy she’d been stewing over that night she’d been attacked? Not a smart move to confront Uniform guy on her own. A man wouldn’t have to be built like Jake to out-muscle her if he really wanted to.

Jake’s blood heated in his veins at the thought of Robin getting hurt again. Three more minutes passed before Bow-tie guy ended his call. He watched the back door for two minutes more before checking the time and then driving away. Jake’s feet itched to follow one or both of those men to find out what they’d been arguing about, if it had to do with Robin and what calls were so important that they had to be made before they’d even left the parking lot.

And where the hell was Robin, anyway?

Changing the kid’s diaper? Dinking with those books again? The whole idea of safety in numbers was that she had to be with those numbers.

Jake checked his watch again. It was a full fifteen minutes after closing and her rental car was the only one left in the lot. “Walk out to your car, Robin,” Jake willed, hating the instinct that warned him he needed to get over to that shop now. “Five more minutes,” he argued with that darker urge.

Several more cars were parked on the street in front of the shop—maybe one of those belonged to a last-minute customer. The goal of coming here was to make sure she was safe—not to talk to her, touch her or be some kind of hero to her again. That wasn’t the role he was here to play tonight.

He bargained with the silent red alert churning through his blood by slipping out of his hiding place and moving down the street to scan for the green sedan that had been watching her place the other night. There was no green car, but there was plenty of traffic tonight—people leaving work, others pulling into empty spaces to try out the coffee bar or dance club on the corner.

Funny how nobody noticed a man strolling through the shadows if he didn’t want to be noticed. A trio of women heading into the club breezed right by him, either too eager to get to the party or too ignorant of the dangers of this neighborhood to pay him any mind. A young couple exited the coffee bar. The woman bumped Jake’s shoulder as he turned the corner, and she mumbled an apology without taking her attention away from the man she was with.

Was he really that good at blending in? Or were these covert skills an unfortunate byproduct of having a face that no one really wanted to look at? Pretty good cover for a hit man or whatever kind of lowlife he might have been in his forgotten past.

Swallowing the bile that the possibility of being that kind of man invariably triggered in him, Jake walked another half a block without any sign of the green sedan and turned into the alley behind the businesses to make his way back to Robin’s shop. He hoped her car was gone before he had to get back to finish his shift at the Shamrock. And if she was still there...

What the hell?

Jake pulled back against the bricks when he recognized Bow-tie guy from the shop pulling into a parking space and getting out. Maybe the guy had an aversion to exercise and half a block was too far to walk after work. But those sly looks up and down the street before reaching back into the car and pulling out a flat manila envelope made Jake think this stop wasn’t about laziness. When Bow-tie guy walked to the car parked directly in front of him and climbed into the passenger side, Jake’s suspicions jumped up another notch.

He inched out of the shadows to read the plate number of the first car and try to get a glimpse of the driver. The angle was wrong to see a face, but the dark clothes and general build could have been a match for the man in the green sedan the night of the assault. Was this a different rental car? If so, why would the guy go to so much trouble to cover his tracks and mask his identity? Or was this the guy who’d accosted Robin outside the Shamrock? Could they be the same man?

What was clear were the unmistakable signs of an exchange taking place. Bow-tie guy opened the envelope and pulled out a pair of photographs. Again, the angle was wrong to see the images clearly, but Jake thought he could make out a dark round halo that could be a head of hair. Pictures of Robin? Emma? Something else? The driver quickly pushed the photos down into the seat between them and pulled a business-size envelope from his jacket. He didn’t need Bow-tie guy to open the envelope to know that it was cash.

Jake took another step onto the sidewalk, thinking how easy it would be to get into Bow-tie’s car and be waiting for him when he returned. He didn’t doubt that he could get a few answers out of him. But the driver pulled out a cell phone and Jake saw the gloves he was wearing—on a balmy spring night—and realized that he was the bigger threat.

If this interchange was a threat at all. Jake inhaled a deep, steadying breath as the driver pulled the phone from his ear and asked Bow-tie a question before returning to his call. Had it always been his nature to suspect a conspiracy wherever he looked? What if there was an innocent explanation for this? Bow-tie had printed some pictures for a friend. He’d designed a floral arrangement and been paid a commission for his work. Even if it was something a little less savory, like selling porn or insider trading, it didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the danger lurking around Robin and Emma.

Except... Ah, hell. Of all the people in this busy neighborhood to finally notice him, the driver glanced up into his rearview mirror, then turned in his seat to look right at Jake.

Maybe he suspected Jake was a cop who’d seen the questionable transaction. Maybe the driver just wanted to know why he was curious about his business.

Either way, the meeting was done. The man with the gloves ended the call. Bow-tie guy scrambled out of the car. The driver pulled out and turned the corner, heading north toward Robin’s shop. Jake obeyed his instincts, even if he didn’t understand where they came from. Ducking back into the alley, he ran its length until he burst out into the parking lot, just in time to see a dark-clothed figure scurrying across the sidewalk and jumping into a car parked in front of the shop.

Had he been in the shop? With Robin?

“Hey!” Jake shouted.

Just as the car squealed out of its parking space, the rental car he’d been watching jerked to a stop behind it and honked. The near collision didn’t worry Jake as much as the bad timing.

Breathing hard at the unexpected race he’d run, Jake swore and took off across the parking lot. Robin’s car was still here. And there was no mistaking it was hers because of the car seat strapped into the back. “Fool woman.”

He ran straight to the sidewalk when the car slowed down, making sure the driver could see him there waiting for him in case he was thinking about stopping. Damn those instincts. The car had slowed, but when Jake ran a few yards farther, the brake lights flashed and it jerked to a stop. Jake hustled his legs to catch up to get a good look in the window at the man he suspected was harassing Robin. But when he reached the glass and closed his hand around the door handle, all he saw was a camera flash. “Son of a...”

Blinded for a split second, he could do little more than spin away as the driver gunned the engine. It sped through the yellow light at the next intersection to the screeching protest of car horns and disappeared into the night. Right. Nothing suspicious about that.

“Robin.” Jake’s chest heaved in and out as he muttered her name, unsure whether he was voicing a hope or cursing himself for what he was about to do.

“Robin!” He dashed past the empty car in the parking lot and banged on the steel exit door. But one knock and the door bounced against his fist.

Unlocked.

Not a good sign. Every cell in his body screamed that something was wrong here. Every instinct told him Robin was in trouble.

Reaching down, he pulled the hunting knife from his boot. Then he took a silent, steadying breath, fisted his hand around the door handle and swung it open.

He slid inside to the glow of security lights and flattened his back against the brick wall beside the door, allowing himself a few seconds to acclimate to the eerie shadows. The only hint that anyone was still here was the sliver of light peeking out beneath the closed door of Robin’s office at the end of the hall.

Jake’s blood simmered in his veins. Working late with the back door wide open? A scan through the workrooms revealed the back of the shop was empty and that nothing seemed out of place. Maybe she wasn’t working at all. Maybe her attacker had come back to finish what he’d started. Maybe that Houseman guy outside the Shamrock was here to finish that conversation that had upset her so. Maybe the threat in the phone call she’d tried to tell him about had become a reality and she was lying in that office injured, unconscious again, or worse. How many times did this woman have to be hurt before she wised up and put her safety before her job? How many times did he have to come bail her out?

If stealth wasn’t vital to securing the place, Jake would be cursing up a blue streak. He was as ticked off about Robin putting herself in a position to get hurt as he was the fact that it made him sick to think she might have gotten hurt. Preparing for the worst-case scenario, Jake pressed his back against the hallway wall and crept through the darkness toward that light. He could just bet, too, that she was here alone, that she hadn’t told anyone she was working late. Maybe she was counting on Bow-tie guy to walk her to her car. She’d put her trust in some traitorous schlub who wasn’t coming back....

That’s when he heard the muffled shouts. Punctuated by a thumping that vibrated through the wall at his back, he pinpointed the source of the muted cries for help. They weren’t coming from her office. They were close by. Was there another locked room in here? A closet?

He flipped around to the opposite wall to use his eyes to search.

“Stay away from her.” Thump. Thump. Thump.

Robin? He zeroed in on the source of the sound and found the seams of a door, camouflaged to match the wallpaper around it.

And then he saw the steel pin wedged into the door handle. A walk-in refrigerator, like the one at the bar. The chain that hung from the pin rattled with every thump. She’d been locked inside.

He removed the pin and yanked the door open. “Rob—”

“Stay the hell away from my baby!”

Jake dodged a blast of pepper spray, catching Robin by the wrist and knocking the canister from her grip. But not before the stinging chemical splashed his neck.

“Jake? I’m sorry. I thought...” She froze for a second, her wrist pinned to the wall beneath his hand, her eyes glued to the knife he still held, her face blanched with shock and confusion.

“Ah, hell.” He tucked the blade into his belt and released her. “Don’t you have any sense, lady? You know what I thought?”

Instead of answering, she shoved him back a step. “Emma!”

She charged down the hall and Jake ran after. “I haven’t secured that end of the building yet.” He grabbed her by the arm, but she twisted away and shot through her office door. “Damn it!”

He caught the door before it slammed back in his face and followed her into the room. “I just disarmed you. How are you going to defend yourself now? You’re running blind into an unknown situation. Your outside door is swinging wide open. Nobody else is here. There’s nothing good about this scenario. You want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

Completely ignoring every stern warning, she hurried across the room to Emma’s bassinet.

“Robin—”

“Shh.” Seriously? She pressed a finger to her lips before leaning over the white basket. Then she reached inside and whispered a prayer.

Ignoring the burning skin at his collar and his fuming frustration, Jake toned it down a notch as she pulled up the cover. He sure as hell didn’t want to be responsible for scaring Emma again. “Is the kid okay?”

“Sleeping.” She smiled as tears spilled over her cheeks. “Like a baby.”

And then she crossed the room and walked into him. No, she burrowed into Jake’s chest. She pressed her cheek against his pounding heart and wrapped her arms around his waist, clinging to him the way a drowning woman clung to a life preserver. “Thank you.” She hiccuped a sound and squeezed him a little tighter. “Thank you.”

The emotions that had raged through Jake’s system—concern, anger, suspicion—short-circuited.

“Ah, hell. Robin?” Forgetting that this was all kinds of dangerous, Jake wound an arm behind her waist and palmed the back of her head, holding on just as tight. She quivered against him before settling impossibly closer, nestling her head beneath his chin, imprinting his body with the memory of small, sweet breasts, long thighs and firm hips. Was she crying? Shaking with anger? He’d been chasing a suspicious employee and a mystery player with a lot of money and a collection of photographs. What had she been dealing with in here? “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. You scared the tar out of me with that giant knife. And I was already...” She fisted her hand and pressed it against his shoulder, a friendly reprimand rather than a punch. Good. He was glad she still had the gumption to call him on his crude lack of manners. Made him feel a little less like the bad guy here. But then her fist opened up and her fingers dug into his shirt in one of those clutching grasps that made him crazy, and the skin and muscle underneath danced in response to the needy contact. She was burrowing in again and Jake couldn’t seem to remember why this was a bad idea.

“Already what?” He tunneled his fingers beneath her hair to find chilled skin at her nape. Oh, man. How long had she been locked up in there? His shoulders seemed to shift of their own volition, folding around her to surround her in warmth. He’d rethink this whole embrace thing tomorrow. Right now he felt like he needed to hold on to her, too. Like touching her was the only way he could convince those worrisome instincts of his that she was all right. Just like she’d needed to see and touch her baby to know that Emma was safe. Only, Robin wasn’t all right. She was shivering. “Honey, you’ve got to talk to me. I can’t keep coming over here to watch you every damn night and keep tabs on all the idiots who work for you—”

“You’ve been watching...? Did you just call me honey?”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

“I was kind of hoping you did mean it.” With a heavy sigh that moved against him like a caress, Robin released her death grip and took a step back. “You sure you want to call me that, though? You keep showing up to save me and I bring the police into your life—which clearly makes you uncomfortable—and then I...hurt you.” She gently touched the irritation mark the pepper spray had left on his skin. The faint sheen of tears that sparkled in her eyes at the damage she’d done to him was more apology than he needed.

He pulled her hand away and clasped it between them. “It’s not like I haven’t been hurt before. And by a lot bigger and meaner than you, I’m guessin.’”

“You guess?” She reached up and cupped the side of his jaw, gently tracing the scar there with the pad of her thumb. “You don’t know who did this to you? Oh, Jake.” Lifting her other hand, she brushed her fingers across the rigid scar that bisected his temple. “That bastard should be drawn and quartered for hurting you like this. I can’t imagine how much pain you must have suffered. Is that why you don’t like Detective Montgomery? Because the police didn’t find your attacker?”

She was talking unsolved crime, extending that protective maternal shield to include him in her fierce compassion. But the stroke of her fingers across his skin was eliciting something far more sensual than anything he’d feel for somebody’s mother. And he hadn’t been thinking about the clue he’d inadvertently revealed about his blank slate of a life. He hadn’t been thinking, period.

“Robin,” he prompted, trying to convince them both that that endearment and any mention of his past had been slips of the tongue and nothing more. His body was still warm, his concentration still misfiring, after holding her. He didn’t need her to keep putting her hands on him, touching him the way a pretty woman touched a normal man. If he was smart, he’d put some distance between them. Jake pulled her hands from his hair and face and retreated to the door, ostensibly checking to make sure no one else was in the building. “What’s going on? You didn’t get locked in by accident, did you?”

“I don’t think so.” She swiped the tears from her face and picked up a bulky, plain white business envelope. “I mean, at first, I thought my staff had forgotten I was still here. But I got this in the mail today. There was no message like the others.”

“Others?”

Robin handed him the envelope and backed away as though its touch repulsed her. Then she nodded toward the stack of papers on the corner of her desk. “I’ve gotten something every day, ever since that article about my attack was in the paper. Phone calls, too. I reported them to Detective Montgomery. But he said until the creep actually does something, there’s not much KCPD can do.”

“Do you think Houseman is behind this?”

“I don’t know. He calls me every day, saying it’s urgent we talk, but it has to be in person. At least he identifies himself. I keep putting him off.”

She hugged her arms around her waist as Jake picked up one letter and unfolded it. “Son of a...”

It was a photocopy of Robin, a blurry image taken of her pushing Emma in her stroller on the sidewalk outside the shop. Robin’s face had been x’ed out with a marker and a cryptic message had been scribbled across the bottom. You don’t deserve her.

“Are they all like this?”

“Variations on the same theme. I’m an unfit mother. I deserved what happened to me. He’s coming to take my baby away.” Her gaze fixated on the envelope Jake still held. “There aren’t any words in that one, but I get the message loud and clear. He can get to us. He has gotten to us.”

He opened the envelope to find shredded bits of soiled yellow yarn inside. The frayed strands were of the narrowest skein— The remnants of a baby’s knit cap? “Is this Emma’s?”

The tiny cap hadn’t just unraveled and gotten dirty. Someone had taken scissors or a knife to it. Someone who’d been very, very angry. “She was wearing it the night of the attack. I wondered why I couldn’t find it afterward. He must have taken it as a souvenir. I thought an attempted rape was frightening enough, but this...this scares me.” She moved back to the bassinet to watch her daughter sleep. “I thought he’d locked me in the fridge room tonight so that he could kidnap her. I don’t know how he got in. I was running late, but there should have been someone else here, waiting for us in the parking lot.” She spun around as a new concern hit her and hurried toward the door. “Are they all right? Did anyone else get hurt?”

Jake grabbed her arm before she could get by him and blocked her exit. Before she could voice a protest, he placed the envelope back in her hand and released her. “They all left.”

“They left?”

“Ten minutes after closing, your parking lot was empty.”

“You were watching. But...” She seemed to be having a tough time processing that she’d been abandoned by her employees. Shaking her head, she returned the envelope with Emma’s cap to her desk. “It must have been a miscommunication. Mark thought Leon was waiting for us—Leon thought Mark was.”

“One of them could have locked you in and then driven away.”

“I refuse to believe that.” Would she refuse to believe her employee was selling pictures that could have been of her or Emma? “Everyone here cares about my daughter. We celebrated her arrival. They all want to take care of her when she’s here. They wouldn’t put her in danger. What would be their motive for the assault and these threats?”

“You said you suspected someone was cooking the books.”

The fire in her eyes was coming back as she got defensive of her people. “Why go to all this trouble to cover up an embezzlement? We’re talking about two thousand dollars, not millions.”

“I’ve seen people do worse for less.” Had he?

“The people I know don’t act that way.”

“Then someone you don’t know waited until he could sneak in unnoticed.”

She drifted a step closer. “I thought you were watching.”

Jake braced his hands on his hips and squared off against her. “I thought you’d have enough sense to leave with the others.”

“If you’re going to spy on me, at least do a thorough job.”

“You’re not my responsibility, lady. I don’t owe you anything.”

He raised his voice to match the accusation in hers. The baby cooed in her bassinet, stirring in her sleep.

Robin palmed Jake’s biceps and nudged him out the door. “Could we take this out in the hallway so we don’t wake Emma?” She stepped into the shadows with him, resuming the discussion in a more rational tone as soon as she closed the door. “Are you sure you didn’t see anyone come inside?”

She’d come to him for help, and now she was blaming him? “I left for a few minutes to see if I could find the car that was watching you the other night.”

“Did you see it?”

Jake scraped his palm over his stubbled jaw, stifling a curse. He was to blame. He’d dropped the ball tonight, getting distracted while the real danger was close at hand. “I thought I saw something suspicious, but I can’t be sure. There was a car out front pulling away when I ran back. Still couldn’t make out the driver. A guy in the car I’d been tailing snapped a picture of me and drove off in a hurry.”

“There were two men?”

“Possibly.” Maybe her assistant’s rendezvous hadn’t been about the pictures at all. Maybe it had been a ruse to get him away from the shop so an accomplice could get inside to Robin and Emma. Jake had suspected two people had been involved the night of her assault—the attacker and a getaway driver. Maybe the tag team had been back at work tonight.

“Jake. What are you thinking?”

“That it’s a good thing I came back.” He pulled the knife from his belt and slipped it back into the sheath inside his boot. “I may have scared off the guy before he could get to Emma. I made a lot of noise running through the alley.”

“Why would he want your picture?”

“That was the other guy. He may have been using the flash to blind me.”

When Jake pulled his pant leg down over the top of his boot and straightened, he could see she wasn’t listening to his explanation. She was staring at the weaponry attached to his leg. “Is that a gun?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know how to use it?”

Too well, perhaps. “Yeah.”

She tilted her eyes up to his. “Are you some kind of cop?”

I honestly don’t know. “Don’t worry. The safety’s on. It’s not going to accidentally go off around Emma. Or you.”

She touched her fingers to the middle of his chest. “That’s not what I asked. Why are you carrying a concealed gun?”

“Because I can in Missouri.”

She drew in a soft gasp that echoed in the hallway. “That’s not an answer.”

The security lights were too dim to tell what emotion darkened her eyes, but he could see them darting back and forth. She was trying to figure him out. Join the crowd, honey. She was trying to resolve the dangerous man he was with the hero she wanted him to be. Allow him to clarify. He leaned in, pressing his chest against her open palm, backing her into the wall without moving a step. He moved into her personal space and watched her pupils dilate with fear. “Don’t mistake me for Prince Charming.”

“I dated Prince Charming. It didn’t work.” Her voice hushed to a throaty whisper. Uh-oh. Backfire. Was she flirting with him? Even worse, was he playing this game with her? Their emotions must be too on edge for him to be thinking straight. “You’ve been watching the shop every night? Most people would think that’s creepy—you, armed and dangerous, spying on me from the shadows.”

“I am creepy.”

“No, you’re not.” She brought up her other hand to rest it against his chest. Only, her hands weren’t resting. They were moving, smoothing out the wrinkles in his shirt, petting him. “Don’t say things like that.”

Jake shrugged. She thought that telling him to stop being such a wiseass would get him to stop? He could snap her in two like a toothpick if he wanted to. Yet she somehow saw past the attitude and the ugliness, and never once backed down from arguing with him. Either she was a fool, or he was. And he was beginning to think it was the latter. “I’ve been coming over on my dinner break. You made me feel guilty that day at the bar.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

“Wasn’t it? Didn’t you want me to get involved?” Jake flattened his hands on the wall on either side of her head and leaned in another fraction of an inch. He was making one last try at intimidating her out of this hero-worship thing that toyed so recklessly with the emotions he normally kept in check. But he breathed in her flowery, feminine scent and knew he was toast. His whole body buzzed with anticipation and he hadn’t even touched her.

“Yes. If you were involved... I’m used to handling whatever life throws at me on my own, Jake. Business issues. Personal disappointments. Family responsibilities. But I can’t handle this. If you would help...” She swallowed her nerves and Jake watched the movement all the way down her creamy throat. Her eyes were dark like the twilight sky when she tilted them up to his. “I need you. You’re the biggest, baddest S.O.B. I know. I don’t think that creep will keep messing with us if you’re around.”

Jake nodded. He liked that answer. It was honest. Probably true. He was all kinds of wrong for this woman. But he liked the way she talked. He liked the way her pale skin glowed in the hazy light. He liked the fresh, pure female scent of her filling his head. And he liked the way she touched him, putting her hands on him like she wasn’t afraid to.

A better man would have pushed away from the wall and let the night air cool the heat between them. But Jake wasn’t that man. Instead of walking away, instead of doing the polite thing and retreating a step, he closed the distance between their lips and kissed her. He curled his fingers into the burlap weave of the wall behind her, bracing himself for a shove in the chest. The kiss was as gentle as he knew how to make it, and that wasn’t very. He was hungry to taste what kind of woman she was. All lady? All fire? Some combination of both? He pressed his mouth down on hers, tilting her head back. He sucked her bottom lip between his and stroked his tongue along its cool softness until it warmed and quivered and parted from its mate, releasing a tender sigh across his grizzled cheek.

Confused by her lack of resistance, Jake pulled back, his eyes seeking hers in the shadows. He didn’t realize he’d asked a question, but Robin nodded. “Like this.” Then she tugged on his chin to align his mouth more fully with hers, and stretched up to seal their lips in a decadent, openmouthed kiss.

Branded by an unexpected rush of heat, Jake threaded his fingers into her hair and cupped her head to hold her against the driving force of his desire. Her back hit the wall and his body followed as he plunged his tongue into her mouth, plundering her lips, drinking in her heat and tasting her welcome. He knew how badly he wanted Robin, but he hadn’t known how much he needed her to want him a little bit, too. Not just as some kind of monster to scare away the bad guys, but as a man.

That she’d taken charge of the kiss, that she framed his jaw and pulled him to her, that her lips and tongue were inviting him to do the same sweet things to her she was doing to him, was as heady and healing and normal as anything he’d felt since losing himself to that bullet.

Her mouth was soft and warm and delicious as he claimed it again and again. Her hair was silky and strong tangled between his fingers. Her soft, throaty moans skittered over him like a physical touch, eliciting a husky groan of his own. Her fingertips bit into his chest, his shoulders, then skimmed up the column of his neck to hold on to his battered face again.

Jake needed, and he took. Robin gave and he humbly thanked her. She was sweet and sexy and everything he could ever want. The kiss was raw and passionate and maybe just a little bit rough. They were linked by hands and lips and the fiery heat igniting between them. But Jake felt a connection being forged deep inside him, a bond to this woman that felt more real and right than any hazy memory of the life he’d lived.

And because of that connection, because it was already too late for a man who didn’t want to get involved to deny his feelings for this woman, Jake ended the kiss. He was too weak to completely break away, though, so he rested his forehead against hers. Robin was breathing as hard as he was, but she stood tall and strong with him. Her hands settled at the base of his throat, providing an unexpected cooling balm to the injured skin there. He eased his grip in her hair and opened his eyes to find her looking right up at him. Her cheeks were flushed with heat and the pink abrasion his beard had left around her mouth looked as if he’d stamped himself there. He’d expected her to look as dazed as he felt.

But there was a purpose in those gray-blue eyes, a directness that seemed to indicate she felt that same connection, too. She was asking the silent question now and Jake nodded. “He won’t mess with you,” he vowed. “Or Emma. I’m involved.”

Maybe he’d just been expertly played. Flirt with the big monster. Give him some sugar. Get his heart and hormones racing so hard that he’d do anything to get another kiss, some tender touches and maybe something more—all in exchange for getting involved in Robin Carter’s problems and making them go away.

Didn’t matter if he’d been played or not. And he might well regret it. But he wasn’t going anywhere now. There were too many strange things happening around this tiny family. He intended to keep them both safe. Or die trying.

At last Jake found the strength to pull his hands from her mussed hair and back some distance between them. “Pack your things. I’ll call Robbie and tell him I won’t be back tonight. I’ll need to make a stop by my place. Then I’m taking you home.”