Mallory Kane - The Paediatrician's Personal Protector

Reilly Delancey was a bully. Somehow, and she wasn’t sure how, he’d gotten her to agree to ride with him. She sniffed. It was ridiculous. She could drive. A simple wrist cast wouldn’t be that big a problem.

She wriggled the fingers of her right hand. A shooting pain made her gasp. Well, she amended, she could drive if she had to.

She was disgusted with herself. She should have been more careful. She’d seen dozens of children with wrist fractures because they instinctively reached out to break their fall. Tucking arms into the body and rolling was much safer. If one had time to react.

To be fair, she’d had no time. But now she had to live with a pink cast for several weeks.

She held up her hand and grimaced. Pink. Her colleagues in Boston would give her hell about that. Almost any color would have been better than pink. But the EMT had sworn the only colors of paste he had were pink or fluorescent green.

Now that she thought about it, wasn’t the color added after the paste was mixed? And wasn’t the default color of the paste white? At the time she hadn’t felt like protesting. So she had a pink cast and there was nothing she could do about it tonight.

She glanced at her watch. After ten o’clock. Reilly Delancey had told her he’d pick her up at eight in the morning. She needed to get some sleep.

Stepping into the bathroom, she reached up with her left hand to loosen her hair as she looked in the mirror. And stopped cold.

The EMT had applied a pink strip bandage with ladybugs on it. Ladybugs. She frowned at her image. Reilly Delancey was behind this. She was sure of it. He was nothing but trouble, and she didn’t need any more trouble than she already had.

She quickly undressed, dropping the skirt and the shredded stockings into the trash can in the bathroom. Digging into her suitcase, she unearthed her pink satin pajamas.

Staring at them, her face flamed, even though she was alone. Damn those EMTs and Reilly Delancey. How had he known—?

She stopped that thought right there. He couldn’t have known that she loved wearing pretty, feminine lingerie under her utilitarian work clothes. Although—his blue eyes were awfully sharp, and it looked as if he never missed a trick.

After a painful few minutes spent getting the pajamas on, she turned back the covers awkwardly and climbed into bed. But when she tried to relax and clear her mind, she couldn’t stop her thoughts from racing.

—where you came from or you’re as dead as your sister.

—Mr. Moser, do you understand that by pleading guilty, you are giving up your right to a trial?

—I did it. I killed those girls.

Your father has had a heart attack—

Christy turned over and squeezed her eyes shut. But closed eyes couldn’t block the mental image of the emergency room technician loading all the heart monitors and IVs onto her father’s gurney and wheeling him onto the elevator to take him up to the cardiac care unit.

Christy hadn’t been able to take her eyes off her dad. Against the white sheets he looked small, frail, vulnerable. He looked nothing like the man who’d reared her and her sister.

Her eyes stung and hot tears squeezed out between her closed lids. Sniffling and telling herself that tears never solved a problem, she turned over again and tried to find a comfortable position for her wrist.

But despite her resolve, the tears kept on coming. They slid over the bridge of her nose and down her cheek to the pillow. When had her family fallen apart? When had her dad changed from a big, strong parent, raising two daughters on his own, into a deranged killer?

WHEN REILLY GOT TO THE Oak Grove Inn the next morning, Christy was waiting in the foyer.

“Morning,” he said with a smile, which faded as he took in her injuries. “Wow, they weren’t kidding about that bruise. Did you put ice on your forehead?”

“Of course. Otherwise I would have a black eye. You’re late.”

Reilly nodded. “Miss Ella caught me as I was leaving last night. She told me to wait until eight-thirty so you could eat breakfast. French toast day today, right?” He reached out and wiped a speck of powdered sugar off her chin. “Hard to eat with a cast on, isn’t it? Think how tough it would be to drive.”

Christy swiped at her chin with two fingers. “Are you ready to go? “

“Yep.” He opened the front door and stepped aside to let her precede him out the door. This morning she had on brown pants and a cream-colored top with long sleeves that stretched over the cast on her wrist and a short brown sweater. He didn’t see any buttons anywhere. She’d picked an outfit that was easy to don.

“You look nice,” he commented as he followed her to his car.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly. She reached for the passenger-door handle with her left hand, but he stretched around her and opened the door. When he did, her hair brushed his cheek. A bolt of lightning-hot lust shot straight to his groin.

Damn. His reaction surprised him. So much that he’d almost gasped. He immediately straightened, putting the door between him and her, but not before his nose caught a subtle floral scent that was very familiar to him. Christy Moser smelled like the gardenias that grew in his grandmother Lilibelle’s garden.

As Christy climbed into the car, Reilly swallowed. When had he gone from merely admiring her figure and feeling protective of her to lusting after her? Of course, as soon as he asked the question he knew the answer. About two seconds after he’d first spotted her walking across the courthouse lobby.

In fact, he’d woken up in a very uncomfortable state this morning, with the dregs of a sexy dream involving the two of them and dozens of ladybugs floating in his head.

He tried to make small talk on the way to the sheriff’s office. He pointed out the Christmas decorations that lined the streets of Covington and made comments about Christmas in the South, where shorts and sandals were more appropriate attire than parkas and boots.

Christy seemed distracted, staring out the window at nothing. Probably thinking about her attack the night before and the statement she was going to have to make in a few minutes.

As he pulled into the parking lot at the sheriff’s office, she turned to him. “I never heard from Detective Delancey. I need to talk to him.”

Reilly winced. He’d forgotten to call Ryker. “I’ll let him know. I’m going to see him this morning.” He wanted to ask Ryker about Autumn Moser’s case. Whether, after Albert Moser’s confession and the connection between the murders he committed and his daughter’s death, the case was going to be reopened.

If it was—

“You told me you’d let him know yesterday.”

“Yes, I did,” he said rather testily. “But the day got busy, for you as well as me.” He cut the engine and got out of the car. He knew that Christy had more than one reason to be upset and irritable. And he couldn’t deny how beautiful and sexy she was, but he was getting a little tired of her officious attitude.

He walked around the car and opened the passenger door for her.

“Thank you,” she muttered as she got out. He followed her into the building and directed her down the hall to the interview rooms.

Buford Watts was standing near the break room, drinking a cup of coffee. When he saw them, he set the coffee mug down on the top of a bookcase and stepped up to Christy.

“Morning, Ms. Moser.”

Reilly started to correct him, then bit his tongue. If Christy wanted to remind the man that she was a doctor, she could do it herself.

“Good morning,” she responded evenly.

“I’ve got a room set up for us. It’s right through there.” Buford pointed the way to Interview Room Two. The door was open. Christy entered and Reilly followed, but Buford stopped him at the door.