Task Force Bride

“Get back here, girl! You runnin’ from me?”

Hope bolted the door behind her and scrambled up the stairs, desperate to put some distance between her and that huge, horrible monster.

The bugs were gross, a sick joke—maybe even from her dad. Probably meant to scare her into thinking she needed a man here. Maybe he’d even hoped she’d open the box inside her shop or apartment and then she’d hire him to exterminate every last one of them. Never. A bug she could step on.

But the dog...

“Hope?” The pounding on the door pushed her across the landing, past the double door leading to a loft storage area and straight to the restored antique door to her apartment. She dropped her keys when a thundering bark joined the pounding. “Are you in there? Are you okay?”

Knowing she was acting on blind panic, but feeling just as helpless to stop it, she scooped up the fallen keys and unlocked the door.

“Hope? Answer me!” Wood splintered around the lock below as she pushed open the door and ran straight to her kitchen. “Go, boy! Voran! Hope?”

She yelped when she heard the galloping up the stairs, the long legs running her down. The rapid drumbeat filled up her ears and she could barely catch her breath. She swiped away the foolish tears that stung her eyes and reached for the biggest weapon she could find.

Pulling a carving knife from the butcher block on the counter, Hope swung around into the open dining and living area to meet the beast at her front door. A man in black filled up the opening, but he was just the imposing backdrop to the real threat.

Gripping the knife in both hands, Hope prepared to defend herself. Far better than she had done twenty years ago. This time, she was no little girl. This time, she wasn’t weak from starvation. This time, she was armed.

She heard the growl. Saw the rush of movement. Screamed.

“Hans! Platz!”

The charging dog halted as if he’d jerked to the end of an invisible chain and plopped back onto his haunches. He slowly walked his feet forward until he was lying down beside the black military-grade boots of the man in the doorway. Hope didn’t believe that relaxed posture for a moment. The dog was breathing just as hard as she was, and those big, midnight-brown eyes still had her in his sights.

“Miss Lockhart?” The man raised one hand in a placating motion, then stooped down to clip a leash to the harness the dog wore. He dropped his voice to a deep, husky pitch. “Hope?”

Something short-circuited in her brain, cutting off the instinctive fight-or-flight response long enough for her to see what was really happening here. Pushing the falling hair off her face, still breathing deeply and erratically, still holding the knife, Hope blinked Edison Pike Taylor into focus. Clear blue eyes in a rugged, masculine face. Broad shoulders. Black ball cap. KCPD embroidered on the shirt that stretched over a black turtleneck and protective vest. A badge and gun on his belt.

Not her father. Not the damned babysitters. “Get her!”

Hope cringed and looked away from the ugly nightmare that tried to surface.

Pike Taylor slowly straightened, filling up the doorway again. “Why did you run? I turned around and you were gone. I thought you’d been abducted or something—that maybe your dad had come back or...” He took a step toward her and she lifted the knife, gripping it between both hands. He stopped, put up his leather-gloved hand again and drilled her with those startling blue eyes. “Don’t be afraid of me.”

The sharp words, more command than request, pierced the fog of fear that lingered in her brain. “I...I’m not. I don’t think I am.”

“Could have fooled me.” His gaze dropped briefly to the knife she still wielded, and she suddenly realized that with a gun and a guard dog and the sheer size and strength he had over her, she hadn’t stood much chance of defending herself, anyway. But he still didn’t make another move toward her. “Did you see something out there? That van? Was it the bugs? Trust me, they’ve scattered.”

“They’re not especially pleasant, but—”

“Is it me?”

She was the target of Pike Taylor’s piercing blue eyes again. “Not exactly.”

She couldn’t handle the intensity there—the suspicion? The anger? Hope blinked. She blinked again, trying to understand exactly what was happening here. Damn, he was big—more man than had ever been in her apartment before. He’d come by her shop nearly every day for months now—had always tipped his hat and said hello or winked as if they were some kind of friends. And now he was in her apartment, shrinking the wide-open space down to the few feet that separated them.

Why had he touched her hair tonight? And why had she...? Her heart had never raced like that before—not with anything except fear. Why had his fingers tangling into her wayward hair felt like a caress? As if she had the experience to recognize a man’s gentle caress.

Hope shook her head, dispelling the unfamiliar imprint of a man’s warm hand brushing across her cheek and ear. Blue eyes and distracting touches didn’t matter. She couldn’t afford to take her gaze off the black and tan dog. She could smell him now—the heat of his panting breath, the outdoor scents that clung to his thick fur. Hope finally lowered the knife, but only to slide her fingers beneath the sleeves on her right arm and rub at her wrist. The ridges and dots had softened and faded over the years, but she could feel the pain and itch of every scar as if they were new.

“Is it Hans?” At this hushed volume, Pike’s deep voice danced along her fried nerves like a soothing balm.

As embarrassing as her phobia might be to admit, her behavior put her past the point of lying or making a joke about it. Hope nodded. “I’m sorry. I guess I had a panic attack.”

“You think?”

“I haven’t had one for a long time. I usually can control it. But with the running and...and he was tracking so hard, so relentlessly. He’s so strong—all muscle, isn’t he?” She pushed her glasses into place at her temple, then found her fingers sliding beneath the collar of her blouse and loose hair to touch the scar there. She’d lost her big hair clip somewhere, and had probably left a trail of bobby pins on the stairs. Her hair was most likely sticking out in all directions, looking as wild as the pulse beat at the side of her neck felt. “I’m sure it seems irrational to you. I know he’s specially trained, he’s a member of the police force, and that he helps—”

“He’s not going to hurt you.”

“You don’t know that.” She blinked away flashback images of tearing flesh and searing pain. Of a gunshot that jerked through her even now. The final tragedy of two desperate children’s struggle for survival.

“Stay with me, Hope.” Pike stepped forward and Hope retreated.

“I am.” She managed to keep the knife pointed to the floor, although she couldn’t seem to ignore the phantom throb beneath the scars on her wrist. She pulled up a coat sleeve, a jacket sleeve and unbuttoned the cuff of her blouse to massage the skin there. “I will.”

Tall, Blond and Rugged was moving closer again. Hope focused on the black button at the center of Pike’s shirt. She could still hear the dog panting, but she could no longer see him past the width of those shoulders and chest.

“I trust Hans with my life. I trust he’ll do whatever I say. He’s trained to be an extension of me on the job, not a rogue wild animal.” Pike pulled off his cap and rubbed at his short dark gold hair, leaving rumpled spikes in its wake. He dropped his gaze to the leash in his hand and followed it back to the dog lying in the doorway behind him. The dog’s black muzzle lifted up and he tilted his head in some sort of anticipation.

Hope’s fingers tightened around the knife handle.

But Pike raised his hand and the dog settled down again, resting his head on his front legs. When Pike faced Hope again, his narrowed, probing eyes looked straight into hers. “I never had a chance at getting you to trust me, did I. All these months I’ve been patrolling this neighborhood, I’ve been trying to get to know you. Trying to find out if you were stuck-up or just unaware of my efforts.”

Regret followed closely on the heels of her simmering panic, sapping the remainder of Hope’s strength. It was a shy person’s worst nightmare to have her quiet moods and awkward social skills mistaken for arrogance or indifference. It compounded her frustration to discover that the time she needed to process her thoughts, emotions and reactions could be interpreted as a lack of caring. It hurt to know that the fight it took to assert herself sometimes came off as disdain.

“I’ve even been a little ornery about it,” Pike went on. “Making up excuses to come by your shop, demanding that you give me your trust and respect. But you were never going to give me a real chance.”

“I’m not stuck-up,” she whispered, mindlessly massaging the scars again.

“No. You’re terrified. Doesn’t make me feel like much of a cop—or much of a man—to see you look at me like that. I’d like to fix your perception of Hans and me.” He reached out, and for a moment, she thought he intended to disarm her. Instead, he reached past the knife and slowly closed his fingers around her wrist, brushing the warm pad of his thumb across the pale web of scars there. “What happened to you?”

“I...” Gentle though his inquisitive touch might be, Hope jerked her arm away and quickly pulled down her sleeves. What did she tell him? Long version? Short version? Was there any version that didn’t make her sound sad or eccentric or worth anything more than his pity?

Hans raised his head and woofed a split second before Pike turned his head and Hope heard a whisper of sound from the foot of the stairs. The outside door opened.

No version.

She clutched the knife in both hands again. There were knocks at both the shop and stairwell doors.

“Taylor!” a man shouted from the vestibule downstairs. “Pike! You here?”

“We’re not done with this conversation.” Pike adjusted his ball cap on his head and turned to the door. “I’m here!” he shouted. “Hans. Fuss!” The dog jumped to his feet and fell into step beside him. “Detective Montgomery? Nick? What are you doing here?”

Hope followed them out the door to see man and dog jog around the landing and down to the entryway below.

She heard a second man’s voice now. “We saw your rig out front. Thought maybe you knew something we didn’t.”