Chickasaw County Captive

“Don’t do that.” Kristen glared at her foster father, her anger festering. “You’re not my father anymore.”

“You never let me be,” he said bleakly.

Guilt stoked her anger. “All I ever wanted was to be left alone to get on with my life. That’s still all I want.”

“You’re not getting on with your life. You’re hiding behind your badge and your attitude, avoiding anything that scares you or challenges you. I’m not talking to you as a father now,” he added when she opened her mouth to protest. “I’m your boss, and this is a job I think you can do if you put your mind to it. Are you telling me I’m wrong?”

Nostrils flaring, Kristen looked away from Carl. “I don’t think Sam Cooper will agree to it.”

“I think he’ll agree to anything that will keep his daughter safe from another attack.” Carl’s voice dipped an octave. “Fathers are like that.”

Kristen stood up, her legs trembling with pent-up anger and a healthy dose of apprehension. “It’s a terrible idea.”

“But you’ll do it?”

“I don’t have a choice, do I?” She left his office, giving the door an extra-hard push as she shut it behind her. The slam echoed down the corridor behind her.

Foley looked up as she entered the bull pen, making a face at the sight of her scowl. “Good afternoon to you, too.”

“Carl wants me on full-time babysitting duty with Maddy Cooper,” she growled.

Foley’s eyebrows lifted. “Really? I was betting he’d tell you not to go on your movie-night date with Sam Cooper.”

She shot him a dark glare. “It’s an informal interview with a crime victim at his home.”

“Over popcorn and movies.”

“The popcorn and princess movies are for the kid.” Kristen crossed to her desk, grabbed her purse and headed for the door before he asked more questions.

“That kid’s got a thing for you,” Foley said as she passed.

“Then maybe she’ll remember something new and tell it to her new best buddy,” she retorted.

“That’s not fair, Tandy. And you’re not that cold.”

She stopped in the doorway and turned back to look at him. “I have to be that cold, don’t I? Especially if I’m going to be Maddy’s best friend 24/7.”

Foley shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what Carl had in mind. I know Sam Cooper won’t put up with it.”

She sighed, leaning against the doorjamb. “What am I supposed to do? Blow off the assignment? Do you really believe there’s not going to be another attempt to grab that kid?”

“No. I think someone brazen enough to send photos to her daddy is brazen enough to try to snatch her again,” Foley conceded. “But I’ve seen you with kids. You look like you’re allergic. I keep waiting for you to break out in hives.”

She pushed away from the door frame and swung her hair over her shoulder. “I’m not good with kids.”

Foley’s expression was full of pity. “It’s not that you’re not good with them, Tandy. You’re afraid of them.” When she didn’t answer him, he added, “Are you going to do what Madison wants?”

She left without answering, her chest tight with dread.

“LET’S GET SOMETHING straight,” Sam murmured to Kristen an hour later after Maddy had squeezed out from between them to go to the bathroom. “Clearly, you’re not the maternal type.”

Kristen’s eyes met his. The vulnerability that flashed there for a moment stunned him, but it disappeared quickly, leaving her expression unreadable. “No, I’m not.”

“Then, I think from now on, we should limit your interactions with Maddy to formal visits.”

Her gaze remained steady, but Sam saw a flicker of something in the depths of her blue eyes that might have been pain. Again, it slipped away as quickly as it had come. “I was afraid you’d say that,” she murmured. “But—”

Maddy came back into the room and bounced onto the sofa between them. “Unpause!” she said brightly to her father.

Sam hit Play and the syrupy strains of a princess love theme filled the room, ending the conversation with Kristen for the moment. But Sam felt her gaze on his face, sensed the tension buzzing around them, as whatever it was she’d started to tell him lingered, unsaid but unforgotten.

Within an hour, Maddy’s eyes began to droop, and she gave only a halfhearted protest when Sam finally stopped the DVD player and carried her off to bed. He lingered a few moments as she tossed and turned, still not used to the strange bed. She demanded a story, and he complied with a quick reading of Horton Hears a Who. She was asleep within a couple of minutes.

Sam put the book on the nightstand and tucked her in, lingering a moment to run his fingers over the satiny curve of her round cheek. Swaddled in the enormous old wedding ring quilt that had belonged to his grandmother, she looked tiny. So very fragile and breakable.

He felt rather than heard Kristen enter the room behind him. He turned to find her standing in the doorway, her narrow-eyed gaze fixed on his daughter as if looking for something in Maddy’s soft features. Tonight she wore a pale green T-shirt and jeans, her hair loose and a little wild, very different from the buttoned-up police detective he’d spent the morning with. The T-shirt revealed even more new curves he hadn’t seen before, and the snug jeans made her legs look miles long.

His whole body tightened pleasantly in response.

Kristen stepped out into the hallway, and he rose to follow, closing the door to the bedroom behind him. She faced him as they reached the living room, her tense expression working hard to kill the light sexual buzz he’d been enjoying.

“I have something to ask you.” Her voice was tight, as if she’d had to force the words from her throat.

He grew instantly apprehensive. “What?”

“Carl—Captain Madison—believes there’s a strong likelihood that whoever broke into your home is going to go after Maddy again. I agree with him.”

“So do I,” Sam conceded, though her stark assessment made his stomach hurt.

“He wants to assign someone to Maddy full-time.”

Sam frowned. “Full-time? Like a bodyguard?”

“Yes.”

Sam stepped away from her, rubbing his jaw. His beard stubble scraped his palm with a rasping sound. “I don’t know if she’ll take to some stranger coming in to play nanny—”

“It won’t be a stranger,” Kristen said, her voice even tighter than before.

Tension stretched in the air between them as he slowly turned to look at her, understanding dawning. Her eyes locked with his, wide and scared.

“I’ll be Maddy’s bodyguard,” she said.

Chapter Four

Waiting for Sam to break his stunned silence, Kristen didn’t know whether she wanted him to agree or refuse. On a purely visceral level, anything that saved her from spending every day and night with Maddy Cooper would be a welcome response. But it was also a coward’s choice.

She wasn’t a coward, no matter what Foley or Carl thought.