Lisa Childs - Watching Over Her

Like Sarge...

He flinched over the loss of his friend. Instead of dealing with that death, he’d been busy trying to prevent another—to make sure that Maggie Jenkins stayed safe. He’d believed that was what Sarge had wanted. But what if his old friend had been trying to tell him something else about the assistant bank manager?

That she wasn’t just involved in the robberies but maybe that she’d plotted them?

Her fingers trembled as she fumbled with the seat belt. Was she exhausted or was she nervous that he was questioning her? Or nervous that he’d brought her here?

He turned off the car, opened his door and hurried around the car to open hers. She was still having trouble with the seat belt, so he reached across her, brushed her fingers aside and undid the clasp. But now he was too close to her, too close to the curly hair that tumbled around her shoulders, to the big brown eyes staring up at him—to the full breasts that pushed against the thin material of her blouse. He’d never considered a pregnant woman sexy...until now. Until Maggie Jenkins...

Something shifted beneath his arm, which was pressed to her belly, as if her baby was kicking him for the thoughts he was entertaining. He jerked back and stepped away from the car. She slid her legs out first. Since she’d lost her shoe earlier, she wore slippers from the hospital. But she didn’t need to wear heels for her legs to look long and sexy.

Remembering how his sisters had struggled to get out of cars while they were pregnant, he reached out to help her. She clutched his hand but barely applied any pressure to pull herself up. And then she was standing right in front of him, so close that her breasts nearly brushed against his chest.

She tugged her hand free of his, and a bright pink color flushed her face. “I—I don’t have my purse,” she said. “I don’t have my keys to get inside.”

“You live alone?”

“Now I do,” she replied. “But I can get an extra key from my super.” She glanced up to the darkening sky. “If he’s still awake...”

“You don’t live with the baby’s father anymore?” He told himself he was asking only because of the case, but he really wanted to know for himself.

She shook her head. “I never did...” And there was something in her voice and her expressive eyes...an odd combination of guilt and grief.

Blaine wanted to ask more questions but Maggie was walking away from him. His skin chilled. It could have been because of the cool wind that was kicking up as night began to fall. It could have been because he had an odd sense of foreboding—the same sense he’d had as he’d driven up to the bank during a robbery in progress.

He glanced around the parking lot. The complex was big—an L-shaped, four-story redbrick building, so there were a lot of vehicles parked in the lot. Quite a few of them were vans. Could one of them have been from the hospital? Could the robbers have followed them here?

He hurried and closed the distance between them, keeping his body between hers and the exposure to the parking lot. His hand was also on his holster, ready to pull his weapon should he need it.

Maggie rapped her knuckles hard against the door of a first-floor apartment. “My super’s a little hard of hearing,” she explained.

It took a couple more knocks before the door opened. A gray-haired man grinned at her. “Hey, Miss Maggie, what can I help you with?”

“Hi, Mr. Simmons. I left my purse at work,” she said but spared him the details of why. “I’m so forgetful these days.” She’d actually had other matters on her mind, but again she didn’t share those with the older man. “So I need the extra key to my apartment, please.”

His gray-haired head bobbed in a quick nod. “Of course I’ll get that for you. Who’s your friend?” His cloudy blue eyes narrowed as he studied Blaine. Apparently Blaine wasn’t the only one in whom Maggie brought out protectiveness.

“Blaine Campbell. He’s an old friend,” she said, easily uttering the lie.

What else had she lied about?

The older man nodded again, accepting her explanation. “I’ll be right back with the key.”

After he disappeared, she turned toward Blaine and explained. “I didn’t want to worry him. He knows the bank I worked at in Sturgis was robbed, so I told him I left the banking business.”

“What does he think you do now?” he wondered.

“He thinks I work in an insurance office,” she said, “which isn’t really a lie since the bank does offer insurance policies.”

Keys jangled as the old man returned to the doorway. “Have you checked on that renter’s policy for me yet, Maggie?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied. “I’ll bring that quote home tomorrow.” She held out her hand for the key, but the gray-haired janitor glanced at Blaine again.

“You’re an old friend of hers?” he asked with curiosity instead of doubt.

Blaine just nodded.

“Then you must’ve known her Andy?”

Andy? Was that the father of her baby? Blaine just nodded again.

“Thought you looked like you might’ve been a marine, too,” the old guy said with another bob of his head.

“I was, sir,” Blaine replied, and the admission reminded him of the man who had made him a marine. Sarge... “I served two tours.”

“That’s how you knew Sarge,” Maggie said, softly enough that the older man probably didn’t even hear her. “He was your drill sergeant?”

Blaine nodded. As a drill instructor, Sarge had been tough but fair. And he’d been a good and loyal friend.

“Glad you made it home, boy,” Mr. Simmons said and reached out to pat Blaine’s shoulder. “Too bad her fiancé didn’t...”

“Andy,” Blaine murmured, and the older man nodded again. Shocked and full of sympathy for her, Blaine turned toward Maggie. Earlier she’d told him that she was single, but she hadn’t told him why. She hadn’t said that her fiancé died before they could marry.

Her lashes fluttered furiously as she fought back tears over the loss of her baby’s father. The hand she held out for the key began to tremble slightly. “Thank you for letting me use your spare, Mr. Simmons.”

Finally the old man handed over the key she’d been waiting for. The second she closed her fingers around it, she rushed off toward the other end of the complex.

With a nod at the older man, Blaine hurried after her, careful to keep looking around to make sure nobody had followed them—the way someone must have followed the ambulance to the hospital.

But why?

If Maggie really had no idea who the robbers were, why had they wanted to kidnap her so desperately that they hadn’t tried just once but twice?

Blaine stopped at the door where Maggie had stopped, her hand with the key outstretched toward the lock. She gasped. Hearing the fear in her voice, Blaine reached for his gun and pulled it from the holster.

Then he closed his free hand around Maggie’s shoulder. She tensed and gasped again. Peering around her, he saw what she had—that the door to her apartment stood ajar. Since Maggie had said she lived alone now, someone must have broken in.

A thud emanated from the crack in the door. Whoever had broken in was still there. Waiting for Maggie...

Chapter Six

Like a rowboat riding on high waves, Maggie’s stomach pitched as fear and nerves overwhelmed her. It was bad enough that the zombie robbers had tracked her down at the new bank branch where she worked and at the hospital where she’d been treated after the robbery. But had they now found out where she lived?

“Someone’s inside,” she whispered in horror.

But Blaine Campbell had already figured that out since he held his gun, the barrel pointing toward that crack in the door. He stood between her and her apartment. Between her and danger. “Go back to Mr. Simmons’s apartment,” he told her. “And stay there until I come for you.”