Task Force Bride. Julie Miller
Not anymore, he wasn’t. And though he wasn’t much taller than Hope, he could still point his finger and somehow manage to look down at her. “You watch your tongue. Here.”
He held out a small box wrapped in brown paper and packing tape. Hope pulled her hands back to her stomach, instinctively retreating from his touch. “Go away.”
“Hey, if you don’t answer my phone calls, then I’ve got to come find you in person.” His twangy, low-pitched drawl grated against her eardrums. His face was clean-shaven; his clothes were clean. But Hope could smell the booze on him. Or maybe those were the bad memories. What some people might describe as folksy charm, she knew to be a lie, a facade that hid the monster underneath.
“So it was you,” she accused, referring to the countless unanswered calls and hang-ups she’d gotten on her phone today. “We have nothing to say.”
She turned to the parking lot, but stopped after a few steps when she realized he was following. Apparently, changing phone numbers and ignoring his calls hadn’t sent the message she wanted any more than moving away from the Ozarks when she was eighteen had. Getting rid of her father tonight would require one of those confrontations she hated.
Hope tugged the sleeves of her blouse and suit jacket over her wrists, and turned up the collar of her trench coat. “What are you doing in Kansas City?” As if she couldn’t guess.
“Truck broke down. I need some cash to get parts to fix it.”
“How did you get to K.C. if your truck’s broken?” She followed his glance over his shoulder to see the a middle-aged woman with brassy hair tapping her dark red nails against the steering wheel of the compact car she sat in. “Friend of yours?”
The woman waved when he winked a smoky gray eye, one of the few traits Hope had inherited from him. “Don’t you be rude, girl. I’ve been seeing Nelda for a couple of weeks now. She was nice enough to drive me up to the city from Wentworth. We’re staying with a cousin of hers here in town. Oh, I’ll be owin’ her for gas, too.”
“Then get a job.”
He folded his stout arms over his belly, reminding her of the wrapped package he’d brought her. He nodded toward the front of her shop. “Why don’t you give me one? You seem to be doin’ well enough.”
“I’m not hiring you.”
“I could do odd jobs around the place for you. Sweep up at night. Fix the plumbing and electrical. Help haul all that stuff inside.” He’d been watching her unload her car? Hope started to shake, although she wasn’t sure if it was anger at his lazy rudeness, just sitting there and watching her work, or fear that he’d been spying on her, lying in wait, and she hadn’t noticed—hadn’t even suspected—that heated her blood. “You need a man around the place.”
She didn’t need him. Hope swallowed her emotions and kept her voice calm. “I have someone who takes care of those jobs. I have nothing for you.” And that’s when she saw the canceled stamps above her name on the package. It wasn’t a gift he’d brought to try and buy his way back into her life. “You picked up my mail?”
“Just this.” This time, she took the parcel when he held it out to her. “It wouldn’t fit through the mail slot and was sitting outside your door. Didn’t want someone to take it.” Unfortunately, someone had taken it.
She studied the box for a moment, idly noting the lack of a return address, wondering at the plain brown wrapping when everything she ordered for her store came through a professional delivery service. Whatever was inside didn’t weigh much, but the contents seemed to shift each time she turned the box. She hoped it hadn’t come from her brother, who was currently stationed in the Middle East, because she suspected that whatever was inside had broken. “You do know it’s a federal offense to take someone’s mail? I have every right to call the police.”
That made his silver brows bristle. “I’m your father. I was doing you a favor.”
Hope shook her head. “It’s not worth what you’re asking me for. There’s a reason I don’t answer the phone when you call. And it’s not because I want to see you in person, instead. You’re not a part of my life anymore. Not legally, and certainly not emotionally.”
“That’s a lie, girl. I know how that heart of yours works. I know you want to be a part of something.” He stepped closer and Hope flinched. His eyes sparkled with satisfaction. He probably knew he’d finally pushed the right button to get around her resolve. His gaze darted to the bare fingers on her left hand. “I know you ain’t got a man in your life.”
“And you think being a family with you and—” she gestured to the car at the curb “—Nelda is some kind of consolation prize? No, thanks.”
Ending the late-night conversation, Hope turned away. But five strong fingers clamped down like a vise on her arm. She instantly tugged at his grip, but he jerked her shoulder back into his chest and whispered beside her ear, “We’re family. I paid my debt for what I did. How many ways can I say I’m sorry?”
Her pulse throbbed beneath the scars at her wrist and neck and suddenly she was ten again. Suddenly she felt weak. Trapped. Afraid. “Hank, I—”
“Hank!” A car horn honked at the same time a siren whooped through one warning cycle. Flashing lights reflected in Hope’s glasses and bounced off the windows of her shop as a black-and-white pickup truck screeched to a stop in the parking lot entrance behind them.
Hank Lockhart released his daughter’s arm and shushed the brassy-haired woman who’d sounded the alarm. Hope clutched the package in her hand and rubbed at the bruised skin above her elbow.
She, too, backed off a step when she heard the fierce barking coming from the cage in the backseat of the truck. She held her breath as a wheaten-haired cop in a black uniform and KCPD ball cap jumped out of the hastily parked truck and circled around the front. She recognized the blue eyes and rugged features and felt an embarrassed awareness choke her throat. This was the cop KCPD had sent? Could her night get any worse?
Pike Taylor rested his hand on the gun at his waist as his broad shoulders came up behind her father and dwarfed him. “Is everything all right, Miss Lockhart?”
Chapter Two
Why did that woman jump every time he spoke to her?
Edison “Pike” Taylor bit down on the urge to curse and concentrated on the wiry older man who’d put his hands on Hope Lockhart. With his canine partner, Hans, loudly making it known that Pike had backup—in case six feet four inches of armed cop wasn’t intimidating enough—he subtly maneuvered around the gray-haired coot who smelled as if he’d just walked out of a bar. Despite a nonchalant adjustment to the bill of his KCPD ball cap, Pike turned his shoulder into the space between Hope and her assailant, blocking any chance of the man reaching for her again.
Damn it. She drifted back another step, as if she was just as afraid of him as she was this guy. He and Hans had been patrolling this neighborhood for months now. And, as members of KCPD’s Rose Red Rapist task force, they had answered every call to the scene of a female assault victim in the area, including one this past summer to the flower shop across the street that Hope’s friend Robin Carter—well, Robin Lonergan now that she’d recently married—owned.
Up until that night, Hope Lockhart had been this prim, uptight shop owner—a stereotyped old maid who wore glasses, buttoned-up suits and her hair in a bun. She’d said barely more than “Hello, Officer” to him whenever they ran into each other on the street. She was either too busy, too snooty or too disinterested to make friendly conversation with him, despite his best efforts. It had become a challenge of sorts every day or night he worked for Pike to walk Hans by her storefront and wave or tip his hat to her through the display windows to see her sputter or blush or quickly turn away.
But on the night of the flower shop attack, when Hope had come over to check on the well-being of her friend Robin, and Robin’s infant daughter,