Serve ‘N’ Protect by Tee O’Fallon

Chapter Eight

Sunlight poured through the open blinds, telling Markus he’d slept through the night and today was already tomorrow. Sunday.

For a moment, he couldn’t recall how he’d gotten into bed last night.

Cassidy.

His lips twitched. The pretty blonde who smelled so good. She had helped him upstairs then examined his sutures. That was the last coherent thing he remembered. Except for how her gentle fingers had tickled his skin as she’d patted his back dry with a towel.

Ghost rested his snout on the bed, huffing warm breath against the side of Markus’s face. Probably what woke him in the first place. His dog was hungry and needed to go out. “Hey, Ghost.” Markus scratched his dog’s ears and was rewarded with a few licks to his chin. “All right, all right. I’m getting up.”

Inch by painful inch, he pushed to his elbows, the wounds on his back and abdomen screaming in protest. Finally, he made it upright. Men of action didn’t sit on their asses, but his body told him he’d have to take it easy for a while or risk another trip to the ER.

“Give me a few minutes to wash up,” he said to Ghost as he slowly swung his legs off the mattress. The blanket slipped to the floor. He couldn’t even remember putting the blanket over himself. “Blanket.” He pointed and Ghost grabbed it in his mouth, handing it up to Markus so he didn’t have to lean over. “Thanks, buddy.”

Using the bedside table for support, he stood, then waited to see if the room would spin. It did, but not at forty-five rpms as it had yesterday when he’d been on that stepladder. He waited until the vertigo-like feeling passed. On instinct, he grabbed his Glock. With someone trying to kill him, he couldn’t be too careful. He went into the bathroom, set the gun on the vanity, then closed the door. Grunting, he reached for a thick terry cloth towel on the top shelf of the closet. His arm bumped against a jug of laundry detergent, which fell off the shelf, nearly hitting him in the head. The heavy plastic container hit the tile with a thunk.

Using his foot, Markus righted the jug, leaving it on the floor where it landed. He hung the towel on a hook, then turned the tub’s hot water tap to full open. It would be at least a week until his new stitches were ready to be removed and he could take a shower. For the moment, wiping off with a wet cloth would have to suffice.

Water pounded into the enormous tub, sounding like a jet engine firing up. While he waited for the water to heat, he stripped off his jeans and underwear, hanging them on another hook. He turned back to the closet to look for a cloth when a noise came from the bedroom.

He grabbed his gun, unholstering and aiming the weapon at the bathroom door. Whoever had made that noise, it wasn’t Ghost.

His heart beat faster as the knob turned. The door whipped open, and Cassidy came stumbling in, gasping for air. Her eyes went wide as she stared down the barrel of his gun.

“Shit.” He grabbed the empty holster and shoved his gun inside. “What are you doing here?” The water pounding into the tub must have been so loud he hadn’t heard her coming up the stairs or into the bedroom. And how the hell had she gotten in?

I know the alarm code and still have the spare key.Vaguely, he remembered her saying that last night right before he’d fallen asleep.

“Oh God.” She slapped a hand to her chest, then her gaze dipped and she clapped the same hand over her eyes. The parts of her face that weren’t covered by her hand turned beet-red. “I’m so sorry. I heard something loud and thought you’d fallen, so I ran upstairs to see if you were hurt. I didn’t realize… I didn’t know…” Her chest still heaved, and she leaned heavily on her cane, her knuckles white. She must have hauled ass up the stairs, and now she was clearly in pain.

“I’m fine.” Markus shut off the water. “You look like you need to sit down.” He guided her to the toilet seat and urged her to sit. Her hand remained firmly clamped over her eyes. Markus didn’t consider himself an exhibitionist by any stretch, but he wasn’t as concerned as most people about getting caught bare-assed. “You okay?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.”

Ghost padded into the bathroom. Using his teeth, he tugged the towel off the hook and brought it to Markus. “Thanks.” He tied it securely around his waist. “You can open your eyes now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.” He bit back a smile. If it weren’t for the pain they were both in, this would be pretty damn comical.

Instead of dropping her hand from her face, she spread two fingers, creating a slit just big enough for her to see through. Her hand slid from her face as she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never seen a man naked before.” With her pretty, All-American, girl-next-door looks, there was no way she’d been single her entire life. Come to think of it, something about a guy named Hugh popped into his head.

“Of course I have. I’ve just never seen you naked before.”

“If you’ve seen one man naked, you’ve basically seen us all naked. What’s the difference?”

“There’s a big difference.” She squeezed her eyes shut, hissing in a breath as she realized what she’d said. “I didn’t mean… I just meant… Ooh, I give up. I’m going downstairs to finish making breakfast.” Cassidy and her cane stormed from the bathroom.

“Thanks for checking on me,” he called after her.

Without turning around she shot back, “Just doing my job.”

Ghost uttered a snort then trotted out and followed Cassidy from the room.

He turned the water in the tub back on then went to the mirror to check on his five o’clock shadow. For a second, he didn’t fully grasp the look on his face. In less than twenty-four hours of knowing him, Cassidy Morgan had managed to accomplish something most people never did.

She’d made him smile.

In fact, he was grinning like an idiot. Growing up, there’d been few things to laugh and joke about. His dad had made sure of that.

Markus stripped off the towel and sat on the edge of the tub. Dad. A word he hadn’t used since he was six years old. He’d lied when he’d told Cassidy his father was dead, but he was dead. To Markus, anyway. The day after they’d buried his mother, Dad had shown his true colors and stopped being anything remotely resembling a parent. He was never there for them. Hell, the man was barely at home at all, and when he was, Markus and his sister, Kelly, never seemed to do anything right.

You’re both the biggest mistakes I ever made.

Words he said to them in private. To the outside world, Steven York was the consummate father, a grieving widower with two picture-perfect children, one the head cheerleader and aces with her studies and the other an athletic dynamo, excelling in football, baseball, track, and any other sport he had played. Little did the world know Markus and Kelly were in a living hell. It seemed like a natural progression that they began referring to their father by his given name. Steven. Because he’d never once been an actual father to them.

He grabbed the cloth, wetting it in the warm water then holding it over his face. The last time he’d seen Steven was a year ago. Kelly had convinced him he should go before it was too late. Steven had cancer. Against his better judgment, Markus had returned home. It had been a mistake.

Markus rewet the cloth, rubbing it over the back of his neck and down his chest. Before that day, it had been fourteen years since their paths had crossed, and that had been the day Markus left home to enlist in the marines. He now understood why he’d really gone home to visit Steven last year. Stupidly, he still wanted—needed—Steven’s approval and respect, none of which he’d gotten. The only thing his father ever valued was himself. The man was a pathological narcissist.

When Markus told Steven about his career in the marines and the Secret Service, his father berated him, reiterating what a disappointment Markus was as a son and a man. Without realizing it at the time, Markus had affronted Steven’s grandiose sense of self-importance, his need to be the best and the center of everyone’s attention. As a corporate executive, he had the power and prestige to fire anyone who didn’t stoke his ego. Hearing that his only son protected the President of the United States threw Steven into a fit of rage because no one ever one-upped Steven York.

Markus cranked off the water and threw the wet cloth into the tub. The man was completely devoid of love and empathy. Any expressions of feelings or emotions by Markus or his sister were met with angry shouting and, in Markus’s case, violence.

That last visit home had been no exception.

As if on cue, the scar on his forehead started to throb. The only thing he’d walked away with that day was a permanent reminder of his horrible childhood. He didn’t even know if Steven was still alive. Part of him would always wonder. Part of him no longer cared.

It was easier to shut off emotions that he had no idea how to express. So that’s what he did. With everything.

Minutes later, he’d dried off then dressed quickly in fresh jeans and a sweatshirt. With difficulty, he managed to bend over enough to strap on an ankle holster. Shaving could wait another day.

The smell of bacon and fresh coffee greeted him as he went downstairs. Not that Markus could blame him, but Ghost abandoned him in favor of the bacon trail.

Before going into the kitchen, he rechecked all the ground-level windows to make sure they were locked, then inspected the window Matt and Kade had boarded up to cover the broken glass. Sorry, John. He’d have to get that repaired before he went back home.

At the front door, Markus pulled aside the sheer curtain covering the side window. A blue pickup truck drove past, slowing as the driver glanced out the window. Markus’s muscles tightened a fraction, relaxing when the pickup continued ambling down the road. He continued tracking the vehicle until it disappeared around the bend.

Satisfied that all was secure, he followed the bacon trail to find Ghost standing at Cassidy’s side in front of the cooktop, his tail whipping back and forth on the floor. Meaning, she’s corrupted him again. In one of the pans, bacon sputtered and popped.

She took an egg from a carton on the counter when he asked, “Did you feed Ghost bacon?”

Cassidy spun and the egg fell to the floor, breaking and spilling egg guts onto the tile. “For God’s sake, stop doing that.”

“Doing what?” He tore sheets from the roll of paper towels, trying to beat Ghost before he hoovered a raw egg, shells and all.

“Sneaking up on me like that.” She put her hand to her chest, the movement mounding the soft curve of her breasts just above the V-neck of her blue sweater. “Do they teach you how to do that in secret agent school?” Just as he started crouching to clean up the mess, she took the towels from his hand. “It’s my mess. I’ll clean it up.” She pointed to the table. “You sit. Ghost has already been fed and let outside.”

Wow. She’d even set the table for breakfast. Considering their little chat last night about how she didn’t actually have to do any of this, he should have been annoyed to find her in the house uninvited and puttering away in the kitchen. Instead, he found it oddly nice that she was there.

Seeing two mugs on the counter, he filled both with coffee, then took them to the table. Ghost curled up on the floor, resting his snout on Markus’s foot. A cell phone with a pink sparkly cover sat propped against one of the trivets. The phone buzzed then lit up, its screen covered by at least five text messages, all from different people. Not that he was looking or anything.

He slipped his own phone from his back pocket then checked for anything new from Captain McMurray, Matt, or Kade. The only message was from Kade, notifying him they’d done a cursory check of Cassidy’s VW bug last night to search for slugs but hadn’t found any. Those things could have ricocheted anywhere in the parking lot. It was a miracle no one else had been out there and gotten hit.

Cassidy cracked more eggs into a skillet with the finesse of a French chef. “You seem pretty handy with a spatula.” He couldn’t cook for shit and was suddenly grateful that she really did take her duties seriously.

“I love to cook,” she said. “I always have. My parents taught me. Do you like to cook?”

“No,” he admitted. His mother had died before getting the chance to teach him even the basics, and his father had never given him the time of day. The incredible smells wafting from the cooktop made his stomach growl. “I like eating, though.”

“Then I’m happy to cook for you. I assume you eat eggs, since there were four dozen in the refrigerator. I was in the mood for them anyway and don’t have any at my house. In a few weeks it will be Christmas Cookie Week and I’m out of just about everything.”

“Christmas Cookie Week?” he asked.

Cassidy skillfully flipped the eggs, something he’d never managed without all the yolk squirting out like a gooey yellow geyser. “I keep notes on all my neighbors’ favorite cookies, especially the kids. The week before Christmas, I stay up all night making them, with a glass of wine, of course.”

“Of course.” Normally, he wasn’t prone to chatting in the morning—or, ever, really—but she was interesting to listen to. And he liked the sound of her voice.

“Then on Christmas Eve,” she continued, setting their plates on the table then sitting, “I go around the neighborhood and deliver them.”

He shoved a piece of bacon into his mouth and nearly groaned as the salty, meaty goodness hit his taste buds. “How many cookies do you make for Christmas Cookie Week?”

She cut into her eggs, pausing, deep in thought. “Somewhere around seven hundred.”

“Seven hundred? In one night?”

“I know it sounds like a lot.” She started chomping on a piece of bacon. “But it’s really only twenty batches of cookies, around thirty-six cookies per batch. At this point, I’ve got it down to a science.”

“And you do this alone? Out of the goodness of your heart?” he added, unable to mask his cynicism. Rarely had he ever come across someone with saintly qualities. In Markus’s experience, most people had more of the devil inside them.

“Well, yeah.” She looked at him with curiosity. “It’s the holidays. There’s no better time to give someone a little holiday cheer in the form of cookies.”

Cookies. The heaviness settling in his chest took him off guard. Until Cassidy had asked him what his favorite one was, he’d completely forgotten about the Hershey’s Kisses cookies his mom used to make for him and his sister. After his mom died, any good memories were quickly smashed to pieces by his a-hole father.

“Speaking of which…” She put down her fork and looked around then through the doorways to the dining and living rooms. “You need to put up some decorations. If John doesn’t have any here, I’ll loan you some of mine. I can put them up for you, if you like.”

“I don’t celebrate Christmas.” Anymore, that was.

“Are you Jewish?”

“No.”

“Not religious?”

“Not really.” Try not at all.

“Then what are you?”

“Private.” He finished off his eggs then washed them down with a long slug of coffee.

“And grumpy. And surly.”

“Okay, Little Miss Redundancy. You made your point.” Seriously, he was having more conversation with her than he’d ever had with someone he’d known for less than twenty-four hours. Funny how it felt as if he’d known her a lot longer. Funnier still was how comfortable he was around her. To say he wasn’t that way with most people was an understatement. “Are you always this chipper in the morning?”

“Yes.” She nodded emphatically. “My whole family is. We’re demonstrative and loud. I have two sisters and two brothers. I’m the second to the youngest. Brianna, my older sister, is married, with a baby on the way. Kaitlyn, my younger sister, is engaged. My oldest brother, Jimmy, is married with three kids—two, four, and seven. My other brother, Sean, is engaged to a yoga instructor.” She sighed. “When Cherisse came into the hardware store that day, it was love at first sight.”

Markus grunted. He wouldn’t know what love was if it punched him in the gut.

“Sorry, I’m rambling.” She picked up her mug. “Do you have any siblings?”

He actually liked her rambling. “I have a younger sister, Kelly.”

“Do you see her much?”

“No.” Every year like clockwork, Kelly sent him invitations. Every year, he declined. Because of his father, he’d turned into an independent, solitary bastard. Isolating himself was just plain easier than dealing with people.

“Do you have a girlfriend, or a wife?” she asked.

“No.” Even as independent as he was, the admission never failed to leave a bitter taste in his mouth. Every relationship he’d been in had ended in disaster. One thing he’d learned in his thirty-five years was that women needed guys to express their emotions, something he’d never been capable of. “What about you?” he asked. “Boyfriend?” He already figured she wasn’t married. No ring and no mention of a spouse.

She clasped both hands around her coffee mug, staring at it. “No.”

“Who’s Hugh?” It was the name she’d mentioned last night before she quickly changed the topic.

She pasted on a patently false smile. “Just a guy I used to know.”

Just a guy. Right. For someone who talked about everyone and everything, when it came to Hugh, she shut down faster than a speeding bullet hitting a brick wall.

Cassidy released the mug and began rubbing the tops of her thighs. It was obvious she was still experiencing significant discomfort. With his training, he could do something about it. If she’d let him.

Ghost went to one of the cupboards and hooked the bottom with his paw, opening it. He stuck his head inside, rummaging around for a few seconds, then came back to the table with a plastic bag in his mouth.

“Here you go.” Markus took the bag and opened it, handing a few round treats to Ghost.

“He’s got a lot of useful skills,” she said, running her hand along Ghost’s back. “I could have used his help when I couldn’t walk at all.”

After finishing his snacks, Ghost lay down at their feet.

Cassidy’s phone lit and buzzed with another incoming text. She glanced at it but didn’t pick it up. “If you’re wondering why I’m not responding, it’s because my friends want me to go out with them, a luxury I can’t afford at the moment. The other messages are from my family, and they’ll only want to come over.”

“And you don’t want them to?” Just last night, she’d said how much love and moral support they’d given her. He hadn’t responded at the time because he didn’t know jack about love, moral support, or anything about family, for that matter.

“They’re wonderful. All of them,” she said with a wistful expression. “I appreciate everything they’ve done for me, but since the accident, they’re smothering me. Some people have helicopter moms. I have a helicopter family.”

“Why don’t you tell them you need some space?”

“Can’t.” She shook her head. “It would hurt their feelings, and it’s not the Morgan way.”

She rose to get the coffee pot from the counter. Walking awkwardly without the cane, she managed to bring it to the table and refill their mugs. Markus didn’t know the extent of her injuries but wondered if she shouldn’t be stronger by now. In his opinion, she was too skinny and with barely enough muscle to fill out her baggy jeans.

“They’re bringing dinner over later.” She sat then poured milk into her coffee. “I’d be happy to share it with you, although I can’t guarantee it’s carb-friendly.”

“Thank you.” Just what he didn’t need more of. Carbs.

Having been a military fitness instructor, he knew the limits of his body. Aside from walking, he wouldn’t be able to get in much of a workout for a while. That didn’t mean he couldn’t help her work out. Whoever her physical therapist was, he or she wasn’t getting the job done.

His phone buzzed with a text message from Kade: How many feds does it take to change a lightbulb?

Markus typed back: Asshole.

A few seconds later, his phone lit with Kade’s response. Three middle finger emojis.

“Anything about the shooting yesterday?” she asked.

Markus couldn’t miss the worry clouding her eyes. Shit, he was the asshole. Having been overseas in the marines, getting shot at stopped freaking him out a long time ago. But Cassidy was a civilian, and he hadn’t even talked to her about it. For all he knew, she could be experiencing PTSD.

“Nothing yet.” Kade and Matt couldn’t get back to him soon enough. Markus was itching to know whether there were any witnesses or if they’d pulled the license plate of the shooter’s car off the hospital cams. “Are you okay? I mean, it’s not every day someone gets shot at. Do you want to talk about it?”

She shook her head, then for a long moment, she stared at the remains of her breakfast, most of which she hadn’t touched. “I realize you don’t know why someone is trying to kill you, but what happened exactly? That is, if you can talk about it.”

“Fair question.” Not that he relished reliving the moment. Considering she’d nearly been killed helping him, he owed her that much. “There were a lot of people visiting the White House that day. Ghost and I worked a double shift. By the time we got home, it was dark out and we were dog-tired.” He leaned back in his chair, remembering everything in graphic, grisly detail. “I got out of my truck, then went to grab something from the passenger seat. Ghost must have seen him because he started barking. I started to turn around when I felt something in my back. The next thing I knew, I was staring at the tip of a blade protruding from my abdomen. Somehow, he managed to stick me right below my body armor.”

“Then it was a knife,” she whispered, her expression turning even more serious. “I thought so. You must have been in incredible pain.”

“I was, but not at first.” Weird how that was. “I looked down at this shiny piece of metal sticking out from my gut and, in that moment, I knew.”

“Knew what?” Cassidy rested her arms on the table, leaning forward.

“That Jack Barnes’s murder wasn’t a random killing and that the same person who’d murdered him was standing right behind me.” He picked up his mug then set it back down. “Jack was also killed with a long blade, probably the same one the killer used on me.” He tightened his fingers around the mug as anger and bitterness swept over him. Anger that they hadn’t caught the guy and bitterness that he’d been so careless.

“Were you able to call for help?” she asked quietly.

“No.” The rest of that night replayed in slow motion. “I yanked my gun from the holster. When I turned to shoot, I didn’t see anything. I didn’t get ten steps before I doubled over and hit the ground. That’s when the pain started. Ghost kept barking, loud enough that eventually one of my neighbors saw me and called 911. By then, I’d lost a lot of blood.”

She smiled wanly. “Losing a lot of blood sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Getting knifed in the back with a blade long enough to gut a whale kinda takes the Christmas spirit out of a guy.” Then again, holiday spirit had never been in him to begin with. After his mother had died, he couldn’t remember a single Christmas.

“I imagine it does.”

A long moment of silence passed before he asked, “Since we’re sharing, tell me about your accident.” Knowing more about her injuries would help him design her a better workout regimen.

“Like I said, it was a car accident.” She took a deep breath then slowly let it out. “It happened about a year ago. Right before Christmas.”

Markus’s phone vibrated with an incoming call. Kade. Adrenaline had his heart pumping faster. The hospital cams were their best lead at catching whoever was trying to kill him. With any luck, one of the cameras would tell them which vehicle the shooter arrived and left in. Maybe it caught the license plate.

This was the call he’d been waiting for.