The Marine Next Door (25 page)
And she saw beautiful green-gold eyes watching over her with such intensity that it made her smile.
“That’s it, Sarge.” She was aware of the hand holding hers now, and of other hands, packing a bandage over the wound in her head. “You stay with me.”
Despite the protests of the paramedic working on her, Maggie reached up to pull her oxygen mask down to her chin. “Travis?” she asked.
“He’s safe,” John assured her. “Detective Fensom picked him up and is driving him here now. Danny?” he asked.
“Dead. Lawrence Boyle, too, I expect.”
“Boyle? The bug guy?”
“It’s a long story. But not all the things that have happened were Danny’s doing.” She touched the bump on her forehead and winced. “Although he did do this to me.”
“He’s lucky he’s dead, then.”
She wondered if she would ever regret that Danny had been murdered. She didn’t yet. “Boyle shot Danny to
save
me. Seems all of Danny’s talk about me over the years got Lawrence to thinking I was some kind of ideal woman he wanted to take care of. He started the fire because he loved me.”
“How is that taking care of you? That fire damn near got you killed. Forget it. Just tell it to the cops when they get here.”
She nodded, happy, for now, to save enough strength so that she could turn her hand inside John’s and lace their fingers together in that way that had always made her feel close to him. “And John?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve decided to move out of this death trap. I can’t live here. I can’t be your neighbor anymore.” There had to be a safer, happier, friendlier place to live somewhere in Kansas City.
The paramedic mentioned something about stitches, but John shooed him away for a few minutes. “How about moving in with me? I’m dumping this place, too. It tried to take you from me too many times—in too many ways. I’m thinking about buying a house, investing in something more permanent.”
Maggie’s heart jumped at the idea of being with John. But she’d acted impulsively with her heart once before and had paid dearly for it. She needed to think about this step. She pushed herself up to a sitting position on the blanket where she’d been lying. She could see now that John was wearing a firefighter’s coat, and that his skin was as smudged and dirty as she suspected her own face was. He’d come for her the moment she hadn’t called. He’d been there for her just like he’d promised. He’d saved her.
“I have Travis. I can’t just move in with you.”
He scooted closer so that his damaged leg was propped up behind her back, supporting her. “I don’t like having even a thin bedroom wall between us. I want a family. I want a future. I want you. I love you.”
She’d thought about it long enough.
Maggie’s heart thumped loudly in her chest. She reached inside John’s coat to splay her fingers over his heart and feel its strength beating in time with hers. “I love you.”
Tunneling his fingers into the loose hair at her nape, John dipped his head and covered her mouth in a deep, thorough kiss. Maggie wound her arm around his neck, pulling him close and answering with all her heart.
A ten-year-old’s honest voice intruded. “Eeuw.”
With a laugh, John pulled Travis onto his knees beside them. “This is what you wanted, wasn’t it? The three of us together as a family? Isn’t that why you called me at the fire station that night?”
“I guess.” Nick Fensom politely faded into the crowd and let the reunion unfold. Travis squinched up his face as Maggie pulled him into her lap and John swallowed both of them up in a hug. “I really just wanted you to teach me how to hit a home run.”
John’s green-gold eyes looked downright mischievous as he leaned in to give Maggie another kiss. “That will be the second thing on my list.”
Epilogue
The man rubbed the hand sanitizer along every finger, from knuckle to tip.
The newspaper article by Gabriel Knight in the
Journal
’s weekend edition mentioned that one of the task force members out to catch the Rose Red Rapist had nearly died in a fire in her apartment building. There’d been two other casualties, as well. Two deaths that were of no importance to him tonight.
He massaged the sanitizing gel into his cuticles and beneath his nails and watched the lights go out inside Robin’s Nest Floral Shop.
Even after reading through the article twice, he’d found no mention of any new developments on the task force’s investigation, although the
No comment at this time
by lead detective Spencer Montgomery made him suspicious. Perhaps KCPD did have some kind of lead that they didn’t want him to know about yet.
The voice in his head chimed in, just as he’d expected it would.
That’s exactly why you need to turn this vehicle around and go home. It’s too soon for this. It isn’t safe.
But he wanted, he hungered.
The young woman with short black hair, styled in those sculpted waves that meant she had enough money to go to a salon on a regular basis, came outside and locked the door. She glanced up and down the sidewalk, no doubt concerned for her safety at this time of night. She pulled down the security bars over the front window and doors and locked it, as well.
And then she looked again. Not for lurking danger. She was looking for someone in particular. Someone who hadn’t shown up when they were supposed to.
The man stowed the sanitizer in his pocket and sat up behind the wheel, suddenly interested in the young shopkeeper’s plight.
It’s too soon. You’d be smarter to wait.
She’d
made him wait. And then she’d humiliated him. They were all laughing at him.
He needed her to pay. He needed the laughter to stop.
The dark-haired woman was on her phone now, lambasting someone as she marched up the street. Good money said the person who’d just stood her up was getting an earful.
Was she heading home? Going to the bar around the corner? Meeting someone else?
Whatever her destination, he could guess it wasn’t to meet the missing friend. No, this one was too independent to go home and cry or miss out on the fun just because she was alone.
After slipping on a pair of latex gloves from his bag, he fingered the red rose he’d bought earlier today. The rose he’d bought from her at that very shop.
Don’t do it. You have nothing left to prove.
Oh, but he did.
With the voice silenced and the decision made, he started the engine and pulled onto the street, following her into the night.
* * * * *
Look for KANSAS CITY COWBOY,
the next installment in Julie Miller’s
thrilling new miniseries,
THE PRECINCT: TASK FORCE
coming in August 2012 only from Harlequin Intrigue
ISBN: 9781459227620
Copyright © 2012 by Julie Miller
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