Harper Allen - Protector With A Past

She felt a pressure on her knee, and at her feet King whined loudly. He nudged her again with his muzzle, but she ignored him.

“You have to take her away.” Her voice had sunk to a whisper, sibilant with fear. She clutched his arm. “I’ll do something or say something that’ll put her in more danger than she’s in already, Cord. Get her out of here before another child pays for my mistakes!”

The remoteness had vanished from his features, to be replaced with baffled concern. Impatiently he shoved the whining dog away from them and searched her tortured expression. “What the hell are you talking about? You brought more children back than anyone else ever had. You were a damned legend! Lost children, children held hostage, abused children—you were the avenging angel that came in and scooped them up to safety! How many kids out there owe their lives to you, Julia? A liability? For more kids than I can remember, you were their last hope—and you came through for them!”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Her arms were crossed tightly just below her breasts, her fists clenched, and her slim frame was hunched slightly forward at the waist, as if she was trying to protect herself from a blow. Her voice was despairingly ragged, and her eyes were blind with tears. “I’m not a damned legend, Cord—I’m a ghost story! The person you thought you knew is dead, and this is all that’s left!”

She dragged in a shallow, shuddering breath, her lashes dipping briefly to her cheekbones. “I can’t help you,” she said dully. “I just can’t help you.”

He put a hand out to support her as she swayed. “What happened?” he asked harshly. His glance narrowed, searching her face intently. “What the hell happened during your last month at work? Sheila wrote and told me you’d resigned like you’d said you would, but she didn’t go into any details. What in God’s name went wrong, Julia?”

She’d never been able to tell him everything, not even when the bond between them had seemed unbreakable. She’d always held back, and now was no different.

“I don’t want the responsibility anymore, that’s all.” It was almost too tempting to let herself lean against him, to let him take the full weight of her. She was so weary, Julia thought bleakly. She was so damned tired of being alone and fighting the demons single-handed. But it was her fight—hers and no one else’s. She stood straighter, and his hand fell away.

“You should get some sleep yourself, Cord. You’re going to need—”

Just then there was a sharp pain at her ankle, and she gave a startled little cry. Looking down in shock, she saw King, his tail tucked between his legs in abject apology but his stance defiant and stubborn. He barked once as he met her eyes, and then trotted a few steps in the direction of the hallway.

“He nipped me!” Everything else was temporarily forgotten in her shock at the shepherd’s unprecedented behavior. “He’s never done anything like that before!”

“Did he break the skin?” Cord bent down swiftly, and she felt his hand circle her ankle to inspect it. His touch should have felt impersonal, but instead it sent a shiver of sensation up her leg, as if instead of merely examining her ankle he’d taken it much farther…as if he’d stroked her calf, the back of her knee, her inner thigh, with those strong capable fingers that had once known every inch of her.

Hastily she put her foot down, her face faintly flushed. “He didn’t hurt me. But that’s not like him. He’s usually the most gentle—”

King barked again, a sharp, urgent sound. Once again he trotted to the hallway and looked back at them, and suddenly Julia felt a terrible foreboding.

“Lizbet! My God—he’s trying to tell us something’s wrong with Lizbet!”

Her appalled gaze met Cord’s, and the next moment she was running behind him down the hallway after King. The dog bounded ahead of them into the spare bedroom and then stood in the middle of the dark room, barking wildly. As they reached the doorway Cord felt for the light switch on the wall and snapped it on. Looking past him Julia realized that her worst nightmare had finally come true.

The bed was empty. The cushioned pad on the window seat that Davey had sat on for hours so long ago, enthralled with the collie stories of Albert Payson Terhune, had slipped onto the floor.

Lizbet was gone.

The corner of the screen at the low window had been pushed outward. It was small comfort, she thought numbly, but it was proof that the child hadn’t been abducted by someone breaking into the room.

“She can’t have gotten far. I’ll check around the house and meet you down at the dock.” His mouth was set in a grim line. “If she hasn’t turned up by then we’ll have to start searching the shoreline until sunrise, and then we’ll take the boat out. While it’s still dark we’re going to have to try to locate her by sound, and I don’t want a motor running until we can do a visual search.”

“She heard me telling you she couldn’t stay here.” Julia’s fist was knuckled against her mouth, her other hand splayed against the door frame behind her. “Why else would she have run away? I’m responsible for this, Cord.” Her teeth started to chatter, and the shaking spread to the rest of her body as her unfocused stare darted wildly around the empty room. “I told you I’d put her in danger, and I have. This is my fault. It’s my fault!” Her voice rose to a thin whimper that bordered on the edge of hysteria and then she felt strong hands on her shoulders, shaking her roughly.

“You’re the one who’s going to save her, dammit! You used to be able to get inside a child’s head with some kind of sixth sense that no one else had, Julia! Whatever you say, you still have that ability—it’s part of you. Use it, for God’s sake! Find her.”

She tried to avert her gaze from his, but those black eyes seemed to draw her in until she felt as if everything nonessential was being stripped away and only her spirit remained—battered, bleeding and worn almost past endurance.

But not completely defeated.

The trembling stopped. Slowly but powerfully, like a current changing direction far beneath the surface of a river, an almost-forgotten strength began to surge through her limbs, and Julia felt a moment’s fear as she let herself be swept into its flow. If she let it, it could take her over. There had always been that danger, and she was doubly vulnerable now. But she had no choice. Deliberately, she let the last instinctive shred of resistance fall from her, and almost immediately the night outside seemed to grow darker, the wind in the trees more threatening.

She pressed her lips together and nodded tightly, a restrained gesture totally at variance with the near hysteria she’d shown a few seconds ago.

“There’s a flashlight in the cupboard above the stove. Take King with you—I can’t let anything distract me right now.” She saw the hesitation on his face. “Go,” she said hoarsely, her posture rigid and tense. “You know how I work, Cord.”

He reached out and brushed his thumb lightly against the corner of her mouth. “I know,” he said. “I just never thought I’d see the miracle again.” He held her gaze for a single moment, and in that second their lives together raced through her mind as if she was drowning—a blur of frozen images, like a stack of photographs being shuffled swiftly before her eyes. Then he was gone, the dog a shadow behind him.

She was all alone. She was looking for a ghost to lead her to a child in danger.

Flicking the light switch off, Julia took a deep breath and closed her eyes, deliberately freeing her mind from everything around it and letting it reach out into the darkness.

The child—save the child…