Tall Dark Defender Read online

  “I got your message,” his caller said.

  Jonah cranked the engine of his truck. “We need to meet.”

  Annie waited all day for Jonah to show up at her apartment. Or call. Something. Anything. But she heard nothing.

  The dinner hour came and went at the diner without any sign of him as well, and Annie’s dread, the certainty that something had gone horribly wrong last night that she hadn’t realized, continued to grow. Was Jonah gone for good? Had he been conning her all along, looking for a vulnerable woman to get in the sack? Had she fallen for pretty lies and smooth talk, and now that he’d slept with her, he’d moved on?

  She swallowed hard, forcing down the knot of hurt and disappointment that choked her. Around ten o’clock, she cleared a table for an elderly couple who’d come in for a late-night dessert.

  “Two apple pies, one à la mode, one plain,” the old man said.

  “I’m lactose intolerant,” his wife volunteered as the elderly gentleman patted her wrinkled hand.

  The loving gesture brought a fresh sting of tears to Annie’s eyes. Was it so wrong to want the kind of love this couple shared? A lover, a partner, a companion for her retirement years? The kind of happiness that Riley and Ginny had? She’d thought Jonah might be the one she could spend her life with, grow old with. But the later it got without word from Jonah, the dimmer that hope looked. As badly as Walt had hurt her physically, the pain of losing Jonah when she’d just begun believing she could be happy with him stung far worse.

  Clearing her throat and forcing a smile for the elderly couple, Annie said, “One plain, one à la mode pie coming up.”

  As she shuffled behind the counter to begin serving the pie, Susan moved up beside Annie. “Aren’t they sweet? Look at him holding her hand.” Susan sighed. “So romantic.”

  “Mm-hmm,” she hummed, and gave a jerky nod, not trusting her voice.

  “Hey, are you all right?” Susan asked. “You look…upset.”

  Annie shook her head. “I’ll be fine. I just—” The rest of her sentence hung in her throat as Jonah strolled in the front door and took a seat at a booth instead of his usual place at the counter.

  His eyes met hers and held for a moment before he glanced away. Annie’s heart thrashed in her chest and rocks settled in her gut.

  “Oh. I see.” Susan’s voice pulled Annie’s attention back from Jonah. The other waitress gave her a smug grin and hitched her head toward Jonah’s booth. “Man trouble. Am I right?”

  Annie released a shuddering breath. “No. I…Don’t be silly. Jonah’s just…a friend.”

  “Riiight.” Susan sauntered away, tossing a knowing grin over her shoulder.

  Annie finished scooping up two slices of apple pie for the elderly couple and carried their desserts out to them before approaching Jonah. She squared her shoulders and pasted a smile on her face, determined not to let him see how his disappearing act and silence had hurt her. “Hi, you. I missed you today.”

  He flattened his hands on the table and gave her a brief grin. “Sorry about ducking out this morning without saying anything. You were sleeping so peacefully, I hated to wake you.”

  She shrugged. “I wouldn’t have minded.”

  He looked away guiltily. “And I had some things to take care of today. I got busy—”

  “Jonah, it’s okay. You don’t…owe me any explanations.” Hating the wobble in her voice, she squeezed the pen in her hand until her fingers blanched.

  “No, it’s not okay.” Jonah grabbed her hand and pulled her down on the seat beside him. “I should have called or stopped by or something. I’m sorry, Annie. Truly. You deserve so much better than to be treated like a one-night stand.” His tone rang with passion, conviction…and regret.

  Her spirits lifted a little, dared to hope.

  “The thing is,” he said, his voice more hollow-sounding now, “I messed up last night, Annie. I shouldn’t have slept with you, shouldn’t have misled you, and I’m sorry.”

  Her heart plummeted to her toes. “Misled me? What do you mean?”

  He sighed heavily and scraped a hand over the bristles of his unshaven jaw. “I never wanted to hurt you, honey. Please believe that.”

  “Jonah?” Her throat closed, and the dread she’d been feeling all day settled on her chest like a lead weight. “What are you saying?”

  He stared down at the table, wouldn’t meet her eyes, and his evasion told her what he couldn’t.

  “You’re dumping me.”

  “Annie…”

  “No, dumping isn’t the right word. That implies we had something to start with, something you were ending.” Anger and hurt sharpened her tone as she struggled to keep her tears at bay. She would not cry over him, would not show him her pain. “But I guess we never really had any kind of relationship for you to dump me from…other than the pity sex, of course.” She shoved out of the booth, and he seized her arm.

  “Annie, wait! You’ve got it all wrong. I care about you. I…I love you, but…”

  Her pulse jumped. Freezing, she gaped at him as he fumbled, clearly as shocked by his confession as she was.

  After a moment to catch her breath, she shook her head. “You can’t say ‘but’ after ‘I love you.’ Love has to be unconditional, or it’s not really love.”

  He raised his eyes to hers, and the anguish and pleading in his green gaze wrenched her heart. “I’m sorry, Annie. I want to be with you, to give you everything you deserve. But I don’t know how.”

  She sank slowly down on the booth seat again, feeling numb, confused, cold. “I don’t understand. If you really love me, then…” She caught her bottom lip with her teeth, her chest tightening until she couldn’t breathe.

  A muscle worked in his jaw, and he chafed her frozen fingers with his thumb. “I tried to warn you the other night not to fall for me, not to put your hope and faith in me. I could tell your deepest desire and dream was to have someone who could promise you a happily ever after. But that someone isn’t me.”

  She glanced toward the table where the elderly couple fed each other apple pie, and she couldn’t deny Jonah’s assertion. She did want happily ever after. But didn’t everyone? Was that wrong?

  “Why do you think we wouldn’t be happy?”

  “Maybe we would be…for a while. But I don’t know how to be a husband, how to be a father, how to be a family. When I think about my dad, the awkward, painful way our family operated, the lies and deceit, the distance, the anger, the isolation…” His voice cracked, and he swiped a hand down his face. “I don’t ever want to go through that again. I don’t want you to have to deal with my ghosts, and I can’t promise you a future when I can’t be sure if I’ll get it right. I want you to be happy—for always—but I don’t know if I can be what you need.”

  “So you won’t even try?”

  “You deserve better than just an attempt—”

  She jerked her hand away from his and lurched to her feet. “Why don’t you let me decide what I deserve?” She drew a shaky breath and blinked back the burn of tears. “I have work to do.” She took two steps toward the kitchen before turning back. “Do you want to order anything?”

  He met her glare with a sad, apologetic gaze that burrowed deep into her breaking heart. “Your forgiveness?”

  His image blurred, and she swiped angrily at the moisture clouding her eyes. “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re fresh out of forgiveness tonight.”

  With that, she hurried to the ladies’ room for the privacy to fall apart.

  As the hour grew later, the diner emptied of customers, and as Jonah watched Annie studiously avoid him, he felt increasingly empty inside as well. He couldn’t leave things so raw and unsettled between them. He needed to talk with her again, make her understand his decision.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re fresh out of forgiveness tonight.”

  Annie’s parting shot replayed in his head, and as always, her words kicked him in the gut. She had reason to be angry, to hate him. Desp
ite his best intentions, he’d hurt her. Deeply. He wasn’t sure he could forgive himself for that.

  A few minutes before eleven o’clock, Farrout and Pulliam came in the front door of the diner, and Jonah braced himself. Farrout said a few words to Susan and swept an encompassing gaze around the empty diner before joining Jonah at his booth.

  Annie stopped what she was doing and watched the men with wide, frightened eyes. Jonah longed to wrap her in his arms, keep her safe.

  When Pulliam flipped the lock on the front door and headed into the kitchen, a chill of suspicion washed down Jonah’s neck. He met Farrout’s narrowed gaze with one of his own. “You have my payout?”

  Farrout lifted a shoulder. “We’ll get to that. First, you have something I want.”

  Jonah didn’t show the other man any reaction, but a cold spike of apprehension drilled his chest. If something was about to happen, if Farrout had caught on to his investigation, Jonah wanted Annie safe, wanted her out of the diner.

  He took a moment to appraise Farrout, then answered coolly, “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I thought you’d say that.” Farrout leaned forward and pitched his voice to a low growl. “I want Hardin’s files. I want whatever you took out of the locker at the bus depot, and I want whatever your girlfriend stole from my office.”

  Inside, Jonah’s nerves were jumping, but he kept his gaze steady, his body still. “For starters, I don’t have anything of Hardin’s. All I got at the bus depot was a bag of my gym clothes I’d stashed there before a trip.”

  Jonah leaned across the table now, matching Farrout’s aggressive cant. “But clearly you’ve been following me, which I resent and which begs the question, why? What do you have to hide?” He paused, but Farrout only glared. “And I don’t have a girlfriend, so I have no idea what is missing from your office. Maybe you should be asking your lackeys these questions, ’cause I sure as hell have no answers for you.”

  Farrout sent a dark glance and a nod toward the counter where Pulliam propped, chewing a toothpick. In a heartbeat, Pulliam circled the counter and grabbed Annie’s arm. Snaking an arm around her waist, he hauled her close, and Jonah tensed, alarm streaking through him.

  “Perhaps we should ask your girlfriend the same questions. What do you suppose she’d have to say?” Farrout asked, his tone gloating.

  Jonah squeezed his fingers into a fist and growled, “Leave her out of this.”

  “Oh, but she is a part of it, isn’t she? She was Hardin’s courier the night a small fortune went missing, and she was with you at the bus depot and later at the police department. I caught her snooping in my office the other day, too. Start talking, Devereaux. What’s your game? What are you after?”

  “I just want the money I won on the basketball tourney. I put ten grand on UNC.”

  Farrout frowned and tipped his head. “I don’t recall any wager like that on UNC. Pulliam, you remember Devereaux placing any bets?”

  “Nope.”

  Jonah struggled to cool the fury rising in him. He glanced over to Pulliam, who had pulled Annie’s arms behind her back. A chill washed through Jonah.

  Dear God, don’t let them hurt Annie.

  Jonah weighed his options and made his decision. “You let Annie walk out of here, and we’ll talk.” He leaned forward, nailing Farrout with his glare. “We’ll talk about how you killed Michael Hamrick.”

  “Word I heard was Hamrick offed himself.” Farrout’s negligent shrug, as if Michael’s death meant nothing, fanned Jonah’s rage. “Anyway, I had nothing to do with his death.”

  “You had everything to do with it. You cheated him out of his retirement savings just like you’re trying to cheat me now. You destroyed his life.”

  “I didn’t make him place his bets. He was an addict. He lost his money all on his own. I’m just a businessman, all too happy to make a profit wherever I can.”

  Jonah forcibly swallowed the bitter reply on his tongue, fought the urge trembling in his arms to smash Farrout’s face. He couldn’t, wouldn’t give Farrout the power to make him lose control. He wasn’t his father, and he would never let his life go down the violent path his father took.

  He glanced again to Annie, whose dark eyes were wide with fear. “Tell your goon to take his grubby hands off Annie,” he grated. “Now.”

  “Give me Hardin’s files and whatever else your girlfriend stole from my office,” Farrout countered. The man’s eyes were flinty, emotionless.

  Jonah didn’t like the imbalance in this standoff. Farrout held all the cards, and Jonah had everything at stake. Because Pulliam had Annie. The woman he loved.

  And that gave his enemy the upper hand.

  Annie’s heart knocked wildly in her chest. She was a liability to Jonah.

  Every time Jonah glanced her way, she became more certain. As long as he was distracted by what Pulliam might do to her, Jonah was working from a disadvantage. She had to do something to even the odds. Stall for time.

  When Pulliam grabbed her, she’d watched from the corner of her eye as Susan sidled into the kitchen. Surely Susan or the fry cook, Daniel, had called the police by now.

  Annie clung to the hope that the cavalry was on the way. Her breath hung in her throat, knowing instinctively that her life was at a pivotal point, a defining moment. What direction fate took her depended largely on her response to the crisis, the choices she would make. She refused to wait helplessly for rescue, refused to be the victim of another man’s abuse. In order to help Jonah, she had to help herself.

  Mentally, she reviewed what she’d learned at the self-defense class, the things Jonah had coached her on. While a plan of attack coalesced in her mind, she followed the tense confrontation between Farrout and Jonah.

  “What makes you think I have anything of Hardin’s?” Jonah said. His body language said he’d gladly leap over the table and rip Farrout’s larynx out at the slightest provocation. That he hadn’t throttled Farrout at his first chance spoke volumes to Annie about Jonah’s control over his emotions, his restraint with the sparring skills he knew so well. Admiration swelled in her chest.

  “Because I don’t believe in coincidence. You showed up in the Fourth Street alley just after Hardin’s delivery got nabbed. Your girlfriend was Hardin’s courier, and she was snooping in my office the day the diner reopened.” Farrout’s glare narrowed on Jonah. “And my man saw you take a gym bag into the bus depot to a locker we saw Hardin use a week earlier. Given all that, what would you think?”

  Annie swallowed hard. Farrout had them cornered. She’d seen enough nature shows to know what even the weakest animals did when cornered. They fought.

  Annie took a deep breath, sent up a silent prayer…and fought back.

  With all the force she could muster, she slammed her head into Pulliam’s nose.

  The thin man wailed in pain and released her wrist to cradle his face.

  Hand freed, Annie grabbed a metal water pitcher from the counter. Twisted. Swung it in a powerful arc toward Pulliam’s head.

  “Damn bitch! You broke my—”

  The pitcher smashed into the man’s head with a resounding thunk. He wobbled, eyes rolling back, then crumpled onto the floor.

  The scuffle of feet behind her yanked her attention to Farrout. The rotund man lurched to his feet. With his black gaze locked on her, he reached inside his jacket.

  Jonah sprang a millisecond behind Farrout, tackling the giant man as he drew his weapon. He kicked Farrout’s feet out from under him with a sweep of his leg and pinned him to the floor.

  Farrout’s gun fired, the blast deafening.

  Annie gasped and stumbled back.

  In a seamless move, Jonah reached for his ankle and came up with a small gun of his own. He jammed the gun against Farrout’s head and grated, “Drop your weapon!”

  Farrout struggled, cursing and bucking. Jonah jerked Farrout’s arm into a painful-looking, unnatural angle. “Drop it, or I’ll break your arm.”

  Growling an obscenit
y, Farrout let his gun clatter to the floor. Quickly, Jonah stuck his own gun into the waist of his jeans and palmed Farrout’s larger gun.

  Annie froze, stunned at what she’d just witnessed. But Jonah had served for many years with the police. Of course he knew how to subdue a man twice his size.

  Jonah dug plastic bindings from his pocket and secured Farrout’s hands behind his back. Bound his feet. Then shackled him to the leg of the nearest table with handcuffs.

  Farrout continued to spout filth, and Jonah grabbed his throat in a hard pinch at his carotid artery. In a moment, Farrout passed out.

  Jonah looked up at her. “Don’t worry, he’s not dead. He’ll revive in a few minutes.”

  Annie released the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. Could it really be over? Relief swept through her, welling tears in her eyes and making her knees tremble.

  Swiping perspiration from his forehead, Jonah asked, “Are you okay?”

  She nodded, a smile blossoming on her lips. But Jonah’s gaze shifted to something behind her and hardened.

  Spinning around, Annie found Susan behind her. The waitress’s mouth was pressed in a grim line. Her glare was icy.

  And she aimed a gun at Annie’s heart. “Not so fast, sweet cakes. We have unsettled business, and the boss is on his way.”

  Chapter 19

  When he saw the revolver pointed at Annie, Jonah’s gut roiled. He shoved away from Farrout’s inert form and, rising to his knees, he swung Farrout’s 9 mm toward Susan.

  Annie had mentioned her concern that Susan had known things Annie hadn’t told her. He’d downplayed the significance, discounted the importance of Susan’s comments.

  He’d screwed up. Failed Annie.

  Acid guilt gnawed inside him, rebuking him.

  “Lower your gun, Susan,” he commanded, his tone firm but calm. “No one else has to get hurt. Just put it on the floor and step back.”

  Susan’s answering laugh had a bitter edge. She stepped closer to Annie. “You wish.”