Tall Dark Defender Read online

“Right.” He looked down at the book again, half expecting Haley to ask another question, but the girl stared silently at the stuffed cat clutched in her hands. He could let the subject drop, finish reading the book and escape the topic relatively unscathed. But avoidance never solved anything. More important, he needed Haley—and Annie—to know his true feelings. “You know what? I think your mom’s scar is part of what makes her so beautiful to me.”

  Haley glanced up, giving him a funny, wrinkle-nosed grin. “Really?”

  “Really. To me, it’s like a badge of courage. A sign of her love for you and of her incredible inner strength. Even though your daddy’s in jail, she’s made a new life for you and Ben. Sometimes it’s hard to be a mommy, but she’s one of the best mommies I’ve ever met.”

  Haley smiled and bobbed her head.

  “Her scar tells me she’s willing to do whatever it takes to protect the people she loves.” Jonah tapped the girl’s nose with his finger. “That’s pretty brave, huh? Pretty awesome.”

  “Yeah.” Haley hugged her stuffed cat tighter. “And that’s why you think she’s pretty?”

  Jonah shrugged. “That and her beautiful eyes, and her smile—”

  “And her hair?” Haley volunteered, grinning.

  “Yep.”

  “And her mouth?” She giggled.

  She’d digressed to silliness now, and Jonah groaned internally. He scrambled mentally for the best way to nip the laundry list in the bud. “Head to toe. I think all of your mom is beautiful. Okay?”

  “Like a princess?”

  “Sure. Like a princess.”

  “Are you her prince?”

  “I, uh—” His mouth opened like that of a fish out of water. He should have seen that one coming. Conscious of Annie still listening at the door, he chose his response carefully. “Aren’t princes supposed to be handsome and charming?”

  “You’re handsome and charming,” Haley said guilelessly.

  Jonah chuckled and scratched his jaw. “Well…thanks, sweetie. But I think your mom gets the deciding vote on that.”

  “Mr. Jonah?”

  Fearing another side trip into territory he didn’t want to cover, Jonah waggled the book in front of her. “Shouldn’t we finish the story now?”

  Haley ignored his question and sat up in her bed. Leaning in to hug him, she whispered, “I hope Mommy votes for you.”

  His heart lurched, and a tangled mix of emotions squeezed his chest. For someone who didn’t want to be part of a family again, he’d sure gotten himself in deep with Annie’s. So how did he get out without hurting her or her kids?

  And why did the idea of future bedtime stories stir such a bittersweet longing in his soul?

  Chapter 16

  Annie dabbed at the tears tickling her cheeks as Jonah stepped out of Haley’s room and pulled the door shut. Her heart gave a heavy throb, so full of affection and gratitude, she thought it might burst.

  Clearing his throat quietly, he studied her face. With the pad of his thumb, he dried one of her tears and twitched the corner of his mouth into an awkward smile. “I see you heard my attempt at a Spanish accent. Maybe if we’re lucky, the child won’t have nightmares of monsters who roll their Rs.”

  She grinned through her tears. “Joke all you want. But what you did for her…for me…just now…”

  A knot choked her throat, but she forced it down, determined to tell Jonah what was in her heart. “Just so you know—” She rose on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning into his large, taut body. “I think you are both handsome and charming.” She kissed his cheek. “Gentle and kind.” She brushed her lips over his. “A fierce protector and an honorable man.”

  He heaved a weary sigh and stepped back, his gaze troubled. “Annie, I’m no prince.”

  She studied the deep lines of worry and fatigue in his craggy face. “I…I’m not looking for a prince.”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched, and he met her gaze evenly. “Aren’t you?”

  Annie squared her shoulders, shoving down the knot of disappointment that rose in her chest. “I know better than to believe in fairy tales.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t lie to me. I saw the look in your eyes tonight, the longing and hope.”

  She scowled, disturbed by the notion he saw through her so easily. “What do you mean? When? What look?”

  Jonah edged close again. He tucked her hair behind her ear, leaving the jagged scar on her face exposed, much as her soul felt bared when he drilled her with his dark eyes. “You deserve more than I have in me to give. I will do everything in my power to make sure you and your kids are safe, to stop the people responsible for scamming Michael. But I don’t know how to be what you need after that.”

  A bitter pain slashed through Annie, and she jerked away from his gentle caress. Her spine stiff, she glared at him through hot tears. “I don’t need anything from you. I’ve been alone for most of my life and survived just fine! I’m not your charity case, Jonah. If that’s what you think, then you can just…go. Leave now.”

  “Annie, I didn’t mean—”

  “No, it’s better this way. I don’t want my kids growing attached to you if you plan to leave us when this is over. They’ve been hurt enough.”

  “I would never intentionally harm you or your kids, Annie. Never. If you want me to leave, then I will.” His stubbled jaw firmed, and he set his mouth in a taut line, though his gaze stayed soft and warm.

  Jonah’s eyes really did reflect his soul. Her heart did a tap dance inside her. Her emotions played a vicious tug-of-war. She felt safer with Jonah nearby, but how did she justify depending on him, allowing him to become any more deeply rooted in her children’s affection. Or hers.

  She answered with a jerky nod, and he sighed his resignation. Pain clawed her chest, knowing she’d put that defeated expression on his face.

  He patted his hip where his phone was clipped. “I have my cell with me if you need anything. I’ll be watching your place from my truck and can be back up here in seconds.”

  “Jonah…” An invitation to sleep on her couch again was on the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed it. She’d given him an opening to deny his intention to walk away at the close of his investigation at the diner, but he’d kept silent. Better that she begin untangling him from her life now.

  Nothing had changed, despite the tantalizing glimpses of a better, happier life she might have with Jonah. Depending on a man for her safety, her happiness, her strength, only led to heartache and disaster. Experience had taught her that in the harshest way. She’d be a fool to forget that lesson.

  Jonah was still in his truck, parked just down the street from her apartment, when Annie left for work the next morning. When she spotted him, her pulse leaped like a schoolgirl’s. She’d missed sharing a cup of coffee with Jonah this morning, his hair sleep-tousled, his cheek bearing the impression of her couch upholstery like a tattoo. Being around his easygoing companionship in the early morning hours had started recent days with an optimism she’d not had in years.

  Knowing how cramped and uncomfortable his truck had to have been overnight stabbed her with a sharp edge of regret. She acknowledged him with a raised hand but ignored his signal when he waved her over. Turning, Annie hurried to the bus stop on the corner, hearing him call to her, then crank his engine.

  Accepting a ride from him to the diner as she had done in recent mornings would be the easy way out. With his investigation winding down, she had to return to doing things for herself, looking out for her own interests, breaking the fragile bonds they’d formed.

  “Annie, come on. What are you doing?” he called from his truck as he double-parked on the side street.

  Thankfully, her bus chugged toward the stop just as Jonah climbed from his front seat. She couldn’t bear a confrontation.

  “I don’t know how to be what you need.…”

  His rejection last night had gnawed at her all night, kept her tossing and turning through the dark, lonel
y hours. A heavy ache pinched her chest as she hustled onto the city bus without a backward glance.

  What did Jonah think she needed? What demand had she made of him that he thought he lacked? She’d tried so hard not to ask anything of him, not to assume anything about their relationship. And despite her best intentions, she had developed a relationship with Jonah, though she was at a loss as to how to define it.

  Her skin prickled at the memory of the sweet pressure of his lips on hers, the pleasure of his kiss. He’d wanted her as much as she’d wanted him, hadn’t he? Had she misjudged what happened at the police gymnasium? After all, she had just suffered an emotional meltdown. Maybe he’d just been offering pity sex. Had she thrown herself at him in some desperate moment of weakness like a cheap tramp?

  Her face heated with mortification. Jonah, being a gentleman, had not taken advantage of her and had stopped her from making the next great mistake of her life.

  Her heart squeezed, and she blinked back the moisture that puddled in her eyes. If making love to Jonah would have been such a mistake, why did she still long with every fiber of her body and soul to sink into his arms and lose herself in his kiss, his touch? Deep inside her, she knew Jonah would be infinitely gentle, generous and attentive as a lover. That was the nature of the man she’d gotten to know these past weeks, the man she’d learned to trust, the man who’d stolen her heart when she wasn’t looking.

  But Jonah had made it clear last night the affection was one-sided.

  “I don’t know how to be what you need.…”

  Stifling the self-pity that nipped at her, Annie dug deep inside her for the shreds of determination and hope that she’d clung to like a tattered blanket since she walked out on Walt almost two years ago.

  She’d survived just fine before she’d let Jonah into her life, and she had to do the same again. Though she couldn’t stop him from playing guardian, she didn’t have to indulge the fantasy that he would ever be more than a transient part of her life. As she always had, she’d focus her energy and her life on giving her kids the best childhood she could as a single, working mother.

  The bus slowed with a hiss of its brakes, and Annie made her way to the door, giving the driver a polite smile as she stepped down to the sidewalk. Before she’d even walked a block, Jonah’s truck was beside her on the street.

  “Annie, I know you’re mad. You have every right to be. But your safety has to come before your pride. Please, get in the truck.”

  She waved a hand down the street. “It’s only another block.”

  The car behind Jonah honked, but he ignored it. “We need to talk. About us.”

  She lifted her chin but kept her gaze forward as she strode toward the diner. “There is no us, Jonah. You made that perfectly clear last night.”

  “Annie—”

  She flicked a hand to cut him off. “No, it’s fine. You’re right. I guess I just let the emotions of the day get to me. It’s better this way.”

  “It’s not that I don’t want to be with you, Annie. But I don’t—” He bit out a curse word. “I can’t have this conversation through the window of a moving truck. Annie, please get in.”

  “I’ll be late for work.” Sighing, she stopped walking and faced his truck. “We can talk tonight, if you want. But you don’t need to make any apologies or excuses. There is no us. I get that. I’m okay with that. I just forgot that in a moment of weak—” To her dismay, her voice cracked, and scalding tears clouded her eyes. She pressed her lips in a tight line and swung back toward the diner, her steps brisk and clipped.

  “Damn it, Annie. You’re not weak. Just give me five minutes to—”

  The rest of his plea was silenced as she breezed through the diner’s front door and it closed behind her.

  Jonah appeared at his usual seat at the counter within minutes, but Annie left it to Susan to wait on him. By mutual agreement, their interaction at the diner was to remain casual and all-business. The true nature of their relationship might not be a secret if someone was, in fact, following her, watching her apartment, but she decided discretion was still in order.

  Annie did her best to pretend the weight of Jonah’s gaze didn’t follow her as she served breakfast to the other customers, but the prickle of awareness told her without looking that he was monitoring her every move. Her hands shook as she poured coffee for her customers, and her stomach stayed in knots. Ignoring Jonah was tantamount to pretending there wasn’t a bull loose in the china shop. She felt his commanding presence in every cell of her body.

  “Annie.” His voice thrummed through her as she searched behind the counter for more sugar packets. Cautiously raising her gaze, she met the dark intensity of his eyes, and a shudder rippled through her.

  “May I…have some more coffee?”

  She glanced at his full mug and sent him a skeptical look. “Aren’t you going to be late for your shift at the mill, Mr. Devereaux?”

  He returned a chagrined smile, but the unspoken plea in his eyes raked her heart with razor-sharp talons. He hesitated, then his shoulders sagged. “Touché. Then just my bill.”

  What had put that hint of pain in his gaze? Was it guilt? Regret? Or something deeper and more personal?

  Her throat tightened, and she had to swallow twice before she could speak. “I’ll get your waitress.”

  After Jonah paid for his breakfast and left the diner, Annie tried to bury herself in waiting tables, refilling saltshakers and making idle chatter with customers. But her head and her heart were filled with questions about Jonah and the poignant look he’d given her as he walked out the front door.

  At lunchtime, Annie glanced toward the door as new customers came in. Ginny and her husband gave Annie a smile and a wave as they chose a table and sat down. Her spirits lifted, seeing her friends, and she hurried over to their table.

  “Wow, y’all are a sight for sore eyes.” She gave them a weary smile as she handed them each a menu.

  Ginny cocked a blond eyebrow. “Oh? Something wrong?”

  Annie gave Riley a side glance and shrugged. “Just, um…”

  Ginny’s husband cleared his throat and slid back to the end of the booth seat. “If you’ll excuse me, ladies. I think I’ll…grab a newspaper from the machine by the door.”

  Annie sent the handsome fireman an appreciative grin. “Thanks, Riley.”

  He gave her cheek a friendly kiss as he left her alone to talk to Ginny.

  Ginny’s gaze followed her husband to the front door, her happiness glowing in her cheeks. “For a guy, he’s pretty perceptive.”

  Turning her attention to Annie, Ginny captured Annie’s hands and pulled her onto the seat beside her. “So, what’s up? Would your glum mood have anything to do with the guy you mentioned last time we talked?” She knitted her forehead and waved a finger as she thought. “Jonah? Was that his name?”

  Annie tugged up a corner of her mouth in a wry grin. “Riley’s not the only perceptive one.”

  “Well, don’t forget, I was in a quandary over what to do about Riley not that long ago. I recognize the look.”

  Annie toyed with the string of her apron. “What look?”

  “The one that says you are crazy about this guy, but you’re scared to death to take a shot at being happy with him.”

  Annie leaned back against the booth seat and frowned. “Who says I would be happy with him? What if what I really need is to forget about having any man in my life and concentrate on raising my kids?”

  “Is that really something you want to do alone?”

  “No. But Walt didn’t leave me much choice in that matter.”

  “Sure he did. He divorced you. You can give the kids a new father. Question is, is that what will make you happy? Is Jonah who will make you happy?”

  Annie idly traced a crack in the tabletop. “Ginny, we’re getting way ahead of ourselves here. Jonah hasn’t even said he wants to be more than my guardian until this mess with—” She caught herself and glanced toward the counter where S
usan was ringing up a customer. She lowered her voice. “This other mess I told you about. I still have that hanging over my head.”

  Ginny leaned closer, matching Annie’s quiet tone. “Maybe it’s time you went to the police with your suspicions and the information you’ve found.”

  Annie shook her head. “Not yet. Jonah has a plan and I trust him. When he’s got everything he needs for the police to make their arrests, then he’ll turn it over to the authorities. But he’s afraid if we involve the cops too soon, the people involved higher up will close shop and go into hiding. Or cut their losses some other way to protect themselves. Jonah already suspects that is why Hardin was murdered.”

  A frown dented the bridge of Ginny’s nose. “Annie, I don’t like you being involved in this. Get out. I’ll help you get another job. You don’t have to stay here if—”

  “I can’t quit now. We’re too close to catching the people behind this thing.” She cast another surreptitious glance toward Susan. “Besides, leaving the diner won’t end the threat to me. I have reason to believe these people know I have information about their operation. That threat doesn’t go away just because I quit. You know the saying, keep your friends close—”

  “And your enemies closer,” Ginny finished for her. “Oh, Annie. Please be careful.”

  She nodded. “I will.”

  Ginny’s worried gaze clung to hers for a few more seconds before she shifted in her seat. “And what about Jonah?”

  “What about him?”

  “Do you love him?”

  Annie sputtered, and her face grew hot. “I—I—”

  Ginny grinned. “You’re blushing. I think I have my answer.”

  Annie averted her face. “Ginny, I don’t know how to feel about him. And after last night, it may all be a moot point anyway.”

  Ginny tipped her head. “Why? What happened?”

  A rock lodged in Annie’s gut. “He all but told me he’s not interested in a future with me.”

  Ginny squeezed Annie’s hand. “What exactly did he say?”

  “That he can’t be what I need him to be.”