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Protector's Instinct

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Год написания книги
2019
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“Zane, we’ve got to stop.”

She sighed at another one of his nipping kisses, at the feel of him pulling her closer. She’d missed this so much.

But damn it, she didn’t want to get arrested.

“Zane, stop.”

She gripped some of his hair and gave it a tug.

She could tell the exact moment he came back to his senses. His hands dropped from her hair and he all but jumped back from her body.

But it wasn’t until she saw his face that she understood. He was ashen. Distraught.

“Zane—” She reached for him, but he moved farther back.

“Oh, my God. Caroline, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me, I—”

She jumped down from the hood of her truck, desperate to wipe the distressed look off his face. Zane hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d done everything right and she wanted more.

But at that moment Wade yelled from the open door of the bar. “Hey, Captain sent me out here to make sure the two of you hadn’t killed each other.”

Caroline rolled her eyes and turned toward Wade, waving her arm at him over the hood of her truck. “We’re fine. Leave us alone and you guys mind your own business.”

Wade’s chuckle rang out in the still night air as he went back inside.

“So I wasn’t saying, ‘No, let’s stop. I don’t want to do this.’ I was saying, ‘Let’s move this party someplace a little more...’” She turned back to Zane, her biggest smile in place.

But Zane was gone. She heard his truck start on the other side of the parking lot before his tires squealed as he sped onto the street.

Chapter Four (#uf1013233-bc21-5782-ba30-641a26ae6dc7)

Zane woke from the nightmare, heart pounding, sweat covering his entire body despite the cool air coming through the screened windows of his bedroom.

He’d dreamed about the night Caroline had been attacked by Paul Trumpold a year and a half ago. It had been a while since he’d dreamed about it. Although it was no surprise that he’d had it again after what had happened in the parking lot of the Silver Eagle two nights ago.

He probably would’ve had the dream last night if he’d slept a wink.

The dream—really more of a memory—always started the same way: Zane sitting at his desk at the CCPD headquarters, even though it was late at night, doing some work, avoiding doing what he really wanted to do, which was accept Caroline’s invitation to go over to her house when he got off work. He hadn’t wanted to give her the upper hand in their relationship. Wanted to keep her a little off balance like she so often kept him. Wanted to let her know, for once, what it felt like to wonder what would happen next. She did it to him without even thinking. He wanted her to know—wanted himself to know—that he could do it to her.

It all seemed so ridiculous now.

The uniformed cop—a young kid, Zane couldn’t even remember his name—who’d wanted to give Zane a heads-up before he got the official call had run up to Zane’s desk, knowing Zane was lead detective in the case. The cop had been out of breath when he told Zane the serial rapist had struck again.

Zane always remembered that moment in his dream and in his life. Because that had been the last time he’d ever been okay. The last time his world had been whole.

He’d been pissed that the rapist had struck again before they could catch him, but his world had still had a foundation.

He could never stop the next moment in his dream any more than he could in real life: when the cop gave him the address of the rapist’s latest victim.

Caroline’s address.

He’d written down the first two numbers as the cop had said it out loud before he’d realized where it was, then had dropped everything and run as fast as he could to his car, driving way past the limitations of safety to get to Caroline’s house.

Praying the entire time that there had been some mistake. That the address was wrong. That the kid cop, in all his excitement to be helpful, had gotten the numbers wrong or something.

The numbers hadn’t been wrong.

The ambulance at Caroline’s house had thrown him. He’d seen an ambulance there before, one Caroline had driven. Hell, she’d even driven an ambulance to his house to meet him for a quickie once.

But she hadn’t driven this one. This time the ambulance had been for her.

The dream sometimes changed from there. He always had to cross her yard to get to the door of her house. Sometimes as he ran across the yard in his dream the ground swallowed him like quicksand, slowing him from reaching the door. Sometimes there were thousands of people all over the yard and he couldn’t get through no matter how hard he tried.

Sometimes he ran as fast as he could, but the door kept getting farther and farther away.

But no matter what happened, the rapist—Dr. Trumpold—always just stood there laughing at Zane. And when Zane would finally fight his way to the door, the man would turn and whisper, “You know why she opened the door for me? Because she thought it was you knocking. Thanks for the help.” Then he would disappear.

And in his place would be Caroline. Lying on the floor of her own foyer, beaten until she was unconscious. Clothes ripped off her small body. Being treated by her own EMT colleagues, handling her with care even though she was long past feeling any pain at that point.

Zane had just stared, watching his entire world lying broken at his feet. He hadn’t been able to move, hadn’t been able to say a thing, even if there had been something that could’ve been said or done.

In real life Zane had ridden in the ambulance with Caroline, had stayed by her side in the hospital until she’d finally woken up forty-eight hours later and helped them catch the rapist.

But in his dream he was always stuck there in the doorway of her house, looking down at Caroline’s broken, battered body. Knowing she would never be okay again, that they would never be okay again.

And in the worst of the nightmares she would open her eyes from where she lay on the floor—although he knew that would’ve been impossible, since the blows from the rapist had caused both her eyes to be swollen completely shut—and echo her rapist’s earlier comment, in an oddly conversational voice.

Where were you, Zane? I thought it was you knocking at the door.

And he would never have an answer.

He got out of bed now, knowing he wouldn’t get any more sleep. Hell, he’d be lucky if he got any sleep any night this week after what had happened in the parking lot of the Silver Eagle.

He’d flown at least one flight each of the last fifteen days straight, so he should be glad he had nothing scheduled for today, but now he wished he could get back up in the air. After the nightmare, today wasn’t a good day to be grounded. Zane wanted to be up in his Cessna.

Flying had been the only thing that had come even a little close to filling the hole in his life since he left the department. Like Captain Harris suggested, flying wasn’t enough to completely eliminate the void, but it at least did something.

Zane wished he had another organ donor trip. That had been exciting. The deadline, the pressure, knowing someone was counting on you to get the job done.

That had been what his life had been like every day when he’d been a detective on the force.

Life when he’d had Caroline in it.

That wasn’t any easier to think about than not being on the force any longer. Especially after what had happened in the Silver Eagle parking lot.

What in heaven’s name had come over him? How could he have possibly treated Caroline like that?

They’d been fighting just like old times. Yelling at each other.
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