Serve ‘N’ Protect by Tee O’Fallon
Chapter Ten
Markus hooked the curtain with his index finger, pulling it aside. The Prius and the Camry were still in the same spot they were an hour ago.
He took in the peeling siding paint and the sagging front porch steps of Cassidy’s house. It was a California Craftsman, the same general style as John’s, but hers could use a little work. On the outside, anyway. He stared a moment longer, wondering what the inside looked like. There was no doubting it would be chock-full of her personality. All bright-eyed and chipper.
The woman was a certified Chatty Kathy, but he didn’t mind. Having her around would keep him from getting bored. If her family would leave, they could get started on her rehab.
Markus wanted to get her into John’s gym ASAP, before she chickened out. Trepidation was written all over her face, which was exactly why time was of the essence. She needed to saddle up and get back on the horse. The more time that passed, the more anxious and doubtful she’d be about achieving positive results. That and the fact his time in Leonardtown wouldn’t be all that long. He hoped.
He let the curtain drop then went into the living room to start reviewing the video Kade had sent over. He flipped open his laptop, patting the sofa beside him. Ghost crawled up next to him and stretched out with the top of his head against Markus’s thigh. His dog was definitely a couch potato, had been since the day Markus had brought him home.
Kade’s email was actually a link to a Dropbox containing sixteen files, each with an hour’s worth of recordings from the two cameras outside the rented mansion. He clicked open the first file and hit the play button.
His and Jack Barnes’s shift had started at four. Given that it was late November, the exterior light was already fading. The first catering truck had just pulled through the wrought iron gates and driven up to the main door. Over the next fifteen minutes, truck after truck arrived, unloading trays of food, cases of wine, and champagne.
An hour and ten minutes into the videos, Markus was ready to blow his brains out. He rubbed his eyes and hit the pause button. This is a colossal waste of time. And only fourteen hours and fifty minutes of video to go. He’d much rather have been in the gym with Cassidy.
If she stuck with the plan he had in mind, those baggy jeans would fill out with supple curves in no time. Her strength and balance would return, along with her self-confidence. She’d be a stunner. She already is.
The first thing he’d noticed when he’d come to on the floor were her ocean-blue eyes and wavy, thick blond hair. Despite feeling like death, he’d noticed how pretty she was, but it was more than that. Something about her attracted him in ways other women didn’t. Maybe it was because she didn’t want anything from him, or that she didn’t give a shit about his reticence. She just kept talking as if he was a normal person, not someone who’d grown up with a father that jumped down his throat whenever he said or did the wrong thing, which was pretty much all the time when his father deigned to be home. Around Cassidy, he was comfortable. Despite the fact that they were on totally opposite sides of the social spectrum, she’d managed to engage him in enough conversation that the morning had whizzed by.
His stomach growled, a sign that he’d already worked off the amazing breakfast she’d made for him. Unlike him, she could cook. Yeah, having her around not only kept McMurray off his back but would keep him well fed and…entertained.
He closed the laptop and set it on the coffee table. They did, however, have one thing in common. They’d both been badly injured and were both still in pain. She had guts, he’d give her that. Living alone had to be hard, especially given the weak condition of her legs. He wasn’t surprised when she’d told him she’d been an athlete before her accident. There was good muscle tone in her arms. Not many women could have manhandled 230 pounds of a practically deadweight man out of a house, into a car, then into a wheelchair.
Voices came from outside. Ghost lifted his head, his ears flicking.
“About time.” Markus eased to a standing position then hissed in a sharp breath as pain gouged his abdomen and back. When the moment had passed, he resumed his position in front of the door, pulling back the curtain.
Cassidy and her family stood on the porch. Even if he couldn’t make out practically every word, he could see their mouths moving nonstop. Guess that trait really did run in the family.
For what seemed like an eternity but was probably only another five minutes, they kept chattering away. Finally, they got into their cars.
Ghost pressed his snout against the bottom pane of glass, staring at Cassidy. The tip of his tail flicked slowly back and forth, like a flag in a light breeze. Normally, Ghost growled when someone got too close to either of them. Last night, his dog had seemed totally at ease with Cassidy on the sofa next to them.
She stood on the top porch step, leaning on her cane with one hand and the wood handrail with the other. She released the rail, smiling and waving as they drove off. The second they were out of sight, her smile abruptly faded. Something was up with her and her family, that was for sure. Unlike him, the woman wore her emotions on her sleeve.
When she put her hand back on the rail, it broke and crashed to the grass. At first, she only wobbled, but with her balance off-kilter, she began windmilling her arm.
Markus didn’t think. He just moved.
He unlocked the door and flung it open. Ghost bounded onto the porch, turning to look at him. “Ghost, go!” He pointed to Cassidy, knowing Ghost could get there faster.
Markus hobbled down the steps, gritting his teeth with every step, then ran, following Ghost across the narrow strip of grass separating their houses. They were too late. Cassidy fell hard on the edge of the top step, sliding down to the second. Her cry of pain was like another knife to his gut.
Ghost got to her first, his training kicking in as he stood on the step below her, nuzzling her hand while he waited for a command. Ghost was a hard-hitting, attack-trained K-9 that could take down a man five times his weight, but he also knew when to be gentle.
“Are you okay?” Markus asked between deep breaths as he kneeled on the step beside her. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she rocked back and forth, baring her teeth. “Okay, that was a stupid question.” It was obvious that she was in pain.
A choked laugh bubbled up from her throat. “Ya think?”
“Yeah, sorry.” Instinctively, he rubbed her back in slow circles while she frantically rubbed the top of her right leg. Markus looked over his shoulder to watch a car roll slowly past then turn into a driveway just before the bend in the road. Sitting out in the open like this wasn’t the smartest move but… No man—or woman—left behind. He couldn’t abandon Cassidy.
A few more seconds went by before she opened her eyes and blew out a breath. “Damn, that hurt.”
“Looked like it,” he agreed, continuing to rub her back.
“Oh, darn.” She wiped her eyes. “One more thing that has to be repaired.” The broken wood railing had completely separated from the steps and now sat in three pieces on the grass. The rusty metal pole running through the center of the wood had broken clean off. “If you haven’t noticed, my house is kind of an eyesore.”
“Hadn’t noticed,” he lied.
“Thanks for rushing over. Both of you,” she added, pulling Ghost closer and surprising Markus by kissing the top of his dog’s head.
Ghost responded with a series of yips and yaps that sounded a lot like human conversation, making Cassidy laugh through her tears.
“Just being neighborly,” he joked. Admitting that he’d been watching her house and counting the minutes until her family left would sound weird and stalker-ish. “Any chance you broke something?”
“I don’t think so,” she answered with a shake of her head. “Unless you count my pride. Mostly, I fell on my ass, but you know how the song goes. The ass bone is connected to the thigh bone, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Let’s get you inside and get an icepack on you.” As he pushed to his feet, he grabbed the cell phone that must have slipped from her pocket when she’d fallen. He pointed to her cane now lying at the bottom of the steps. “Ghost, cane.”
Ghost walked down the stairs and picked up the cane.
Markus was about to hold out his hand but hesitated. What he really wanted was to pick her up and carry her into the house.
“Don’t even think it,” she said. “You’ll break those stitches wide open again and bleed all over my front porch. Give me a hand.”
He knew she was right, but it went against his gentlemanly inclinations. When her fingers closed around his, they were warm, her skin smooth against his callused hand. “Ready?” Standing up would be a bitch.
“As ever.”
Her face contorted as he gently but firmly pulled her to a standing position. For a moment, she rested her forehead on his chest, blowing out a long breath through her mouth. He clasped her shoulders, feeling the well-developed muscles beneath her shirt. The last thing she needed was another setback, but today’s fall would probably delay their workout session until at least tomorrow.
Ghost had retrieved the cane and come up the steps, perfectly balancing it in his mouth. Markus took it and handed it to Cassidy.
“Thank you, Ghost.” She gave his dog a wan smile then let Markus help her into the house.
The moment he stepped over the threshold he froze. He blinked, then blinked again.
“What?” She looked up at him, but he was too busy taking everything in. “Oh. You must be in awe of my Christmas decorations. I went a little overboard this year.”
“Overboard?” Regaining his wits, he tugged the door shut behind them and helped her to the sofa. “It looks like a Christmas factory exploded in your living room.”
“I know.” With one hand on the cane and the other still firmly gripped in his, she lowered herself down and put her legs on the only strip of the coffee table that wasn’t covered with stacks of documents, file folders, and a laptop. “I didn’t really celebrate Christmas last year, what with the accident and all. This year, the I’m-just-happy-to-be-alive thing took over and I couldn’t stop myself.”
“I can see that.” An enormous Christmas tree sat in one corner, loaded with tiny white lights, silver tinsel, metallic balls of every color in the spectrum, and so many other ornaments it would probably take a week just to repack them. It was a wonder the tree didn’t topple over from all the weight. The scent of pine was overwhelming, coming not only from the tree but from the half dozen or so wreaths hanging on the walls. Slowly, he took in the rest of her decor.
Between the wreaths, more garland hung on every wall, interspersed here and there with big red velvet bows. What little space there was in the two tall bookcases flanking the fireplace had been crammed with elf, reindeer, and Santa figurines. If there was a place to hang a shiny metallic ball, she’d hung them, even from the chandelier.
Markus never decorated his house at Christmas or any other holiday. He couldn’t recall if his mother had decorated the house for him and Kelly when they were kids. The only thing he did remember was that after she died, they never celebrated anything. Not even birthdays. Steven was too fixated on himself to be bothered with irrelevant things that two small children would have loved.
“Ghost, come here, boy.” Cassidy patted the sofa next to her.
Ghost hopped up and made himself at home, curling up next to her and gently laying his big head in her lap. The two of them acted as if they were lifelong pals. Markus had never seen his dog take to someone so quickly before.
“Do you have a gel pack in your freezer?” he asked, already heading into the kitchen. Like John’s house, the floor design here was open concept, so he could already see that the kitchen was similarly decorated for the holidays. He set her phone on the white tile counter then went to the refrigerator.
“Bottom drawer,” she called out.
Bending over slowly, he pulled open the drawer. He’d asked if she had a gel pack, but half the space was taken up by the frozen blue packages, leaving him with a bad feeling that her injuries were worse than he thought, and his assessment hadn’t been all that great to begin with.
He returned to the living room and handed her two gel packs. “How often do you lose your balance and fall?”
“It happens from time to time.” She eased one of the packs beneath her right hip and the other on top of her leg.
“I’ll cut you some slack today,” he said, “but we’re hitting the gym first thing in the morning.”
“No can do, officer.” She picked up a document from one of the many piles of paper on the table. “Tomorrow’s Monday. In between helping you, I need to keep going on this audit I’m working on, and I’m missing some information.”
Markus sat beside her. “What’s all this, then?” There had to be hundreds of pieces of paper sitting on the table. How could she be missing anything?
“Mostly, a whole lot of nothing,” she said, frustration evident in her tone as she tossed the document back onto the pile. “Aside from a few pages, they’re not relevant.”
“Then why did they send them?” He knew nothing about accounting. He didn’t even bother balancing his checkbook anymore.
“I don’t know. For the moment, I’ll keep formatting the report on my laptop, but there’ll be blank line items. What I still need are the unpaid invoices for the last five years and specific receipts for various things this company sold off.”
“Can you finish the audit without them?”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “I can’t really talk about the particulars of a client’s financial affairs. Suffice to say, the numbers just aren’t adding up. I’m sure the missing documents will fill in the blanks.”
“Can’t you ask them for what you need?”
“Already did. I left a message with the client’s administrative assistant. I hope she gets back to me soon. The faster I finish this job, the more I can impress the client and the sooner I get paid and hopefully get a referral.”
“Okay, then,” he said, shoving aside a small red velvet box sitting on top of what looked like a shopping list. “We’ll work out in the afternoon, as soon as you’re done for the day.”
She shook her head and pointed to the list in his hand. “I have to go shopping after work tomorrow.”
Markus took a harder look at the list. “You’ve got enough here to feed a marine barracks. Not even the White House uses this much food.”
“Mostly, it’s cookie ingredients. I like to stock up early on the things that disappear quickly from the store right before Christmas.”
“Ah.” Now he understood. “Christmas Cookie Week.”
“Exactly.” She smiled. “It’s a long list and, as you know, I’m not exactly getting around like Speed Racer. This could take a while.”
Markus pondered the extensive list. What he should do was let Cassidy take care of the shopping then help her unload it into the house when she got home. Exposing himself unnecessarily was against Captain McMurray’s orders and common sense but… “I want to go with you.”
She shook her head. “What part of someone is trying to kill you did you forget? Among the many things I’m doing to earn my thousand bucks a week is making sure you keep a low profile.”
“Fine,” he grumbled. For now. Less than three days at John’s house and he was going stir-crazy. “How’d it go with your family? They were here a long time.”
Ghost snuggled tighter against her, urging her to pet him. Her slim fingers sifted through his coat, calling Markus’s attention to her manicured nails. Not painted, just neat and clean. Like her house. Unlike the exterior, the inside was clean and well kept. The part of it he could see beneath the hundred pounds of decorations, that was.
“Too long,” she said, a look of exasperation on her face. “I love them to death, and I know they’re only doing it because they love me. But today is Sunday—the one day they finally agreed to leave me alone—and they showed up anyway.”
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“No. Yesterday, I missed all their check-in calls while helping you. Then this morning I ignored their texts.”
“Sorry. Guess their being here is my fault. Why didn’t you tell them to get lost?”
She barked out a laugh, as if his suggestion was the most preposterous thing she’d ever heard. “I could never do that. Family should be there when you need them most, and they were there for me when I did. That was my mother, my youngest sister, Kaitlyn, and my older brother, Jimmy. Having them pop over unexpectedly is a small price to pay for having a family that loves me. It can be frustrating at times, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
As much as he tried to understand, all this family love stuff was foreign to him. Having never experienced it, he wouldn’t know a close-knit family if he slammed into one.
Ghost whined, stretching and allowing her to scratch him under his chin. “I love having a dog around again. We haven’t had one in the family for years. I’ll miss Ghost when you leave. Hugh and I were—” Her face took on a pained expression.
Again with this Hugh guy.
“What I meant to say,” she continued, recovering quickly, “was that I’d planned to get a dog last year after Christmas but ditched the idea after the accident. I wouldn’t have been able to care for one. Not alone, anyway.”
So she and Hugh were going to get a dog together. Markus looked around the room again, searching for evidence that a man had ever lived here. The room wasn’t exactly feminine, but he didn’t see the typical guy-in-residence signs. The TV on the wall was fairly small. To start with, he’d have cleared off enough wall space for an enormous flat-screen. Maybe a big leather recliner.
A phone rang. Cassidy twisted her neck to look behind her. “I think that’s mine.”
“Ghost, phone.” Markus pointed.
Ghost crawled off the sofa and trotted into the kitchen. He rose on his hind legs, setting his front paws on the counter and tilting his head to the side to grab Cassidy’s still-ringing phone in his mouth.
Cassidy clapped her hands. “Bravo. Can he climb ladders, too?” As Ghost presented her with her phone, she took it from him, wiping off the slobber with her sleeve. “It took forever to hang all these ornaments and getting up on a ladder was tough.” She met Markus’s gaze, grinning. “But you already know that, don’t you?”
He arched a brow. “Funny.”
Cassidy finished wiping the phone dry and looked at the screen. Her smile instantly vanished. The look on her face went from one of shock first, then to neutrality, before ending with borderline anger.
“Problem?” he asked.
“Not if I don’t answer it.” She smacked the phone facedown on the table then patted the sofa.
Ghost happily complied, his tail wagging furiously as he leaped up and resettled next to her as if he were a child. A rather large, furry, ninety-pound child.
He nodded to the phone. “Was that another family member?”
“No,” was all she said, averting her gaze.
Subject closed. That he understood better than anyone. He wasn’t much of a talker to begin with, and certain topics were 100 percent verboten. Like Steven. Just thinking about the bastard again was enough to get his blood boiling.
“Where’s your medical file?” he asked, and when she started to get up, he stopped her. “Just tell me where. I’ll get it.”
“It’s in that thick folder on the floor marked taxes.” She pointed to a corner of the living room. Markus retrieved the box and brought it to her. “I had so many medical bills last year that I have enough to warrant deductions on my tax return. First time that’s ever happened.”
As she searched through the folder, Markus picked up the small red box on the table, thinking it must be a tiny Christmas ornament she’d forgotten to hang. He flipped open the lid and—
“No, don’t!” She lunged for the box.
—realized his mistake. This was no ornament box. Overhead light twinkled on the diamond engagement ring. Hugh wasn’t just any guy. He was her fiancé—the key word in that phrase being was, gathering from her reaction just now and every time she’d inadvertently said his name.
Cassidy hung her head. “So now you know.”
“Sorry.” Markus snapped the lid closed. He was a shithead of the highest order. “I thought it was an ornament.”
“Yeah, well…” Her shoulders slumped and she sighed, the mournful sound tugging at his heart, a feeling he was unaccustomed to. “It was a bad breakup. He—” She rolled her lips inward and blinked rapidly. “He left me, and he did it when I needed him most.”
Oh, man. Did the dude really leave her when she was still in the hospital? If so, that was downright cold.
The doorbell rang. Ghost jumped off the sofa, barking as he ran to the door.
Markus bolted to his feet, wincing as the quick movement tugged at his sutures. “Stay there,” he ordered Cassidy.
“It’s probably just one of my brothers or sisters,” Cassidy insisted. “Or one of my friends. I haven’t talked to any of them since I started working again. Whoever it is, don’t shoot them,” she added with a hint of sarcasm.
Ignoring the barb, Markus went to the window and pulled aside the curtain just enough to see who was outside. Ghost didn’t react this way to everyday visitors. A black Dodge Ram pickup was parked at the curb. A man with blond hair and wearing a workman’s coat stood on the porch, tapping a cell phone against the side of his leg. The doorbell chimed again, followed by pounding so hard the door shook.
“Cassidy, open the door!” the man shouted.
“Oh, no.” Her face turned ashen.
“Cassidy?” Markus kept his eye on the angry-looking dude on the porch. Ghost had stopped barking but stood with his head hung low, the hair on his spine threatening to go vertical. Since this guy was apparently here to see Cassidy and not to kill him, the tension in Markus’s shoulders should have eased. Another look at Cassidy…and that tension magnified.
She pushed to her feet, her eyes wide and glassy as she came up behind him and peered outside.
“Who is it?” he asked, never taking his eyes off the guy. “Is it your brother again?” Although why her brother would instill such fear in her didn’t make sense.
“Worse.” She let out a strangled groan, her lips trembling before pressing together so tightly they turned white. “It’s Hugh.”