For Kaitlyn's Sake Read online

  She blinked as she returned his handshake, her hand tiny in his, and still he felt the urge, the need, to protect this particular woman. A need as strong as ever. Though he knew she would resist as much as before.

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “You always hated my ‘gadgets and gizmos,’ as you called my security systems. Said they made you feel like a prisoner in your own home. I figure something drastic had to happen to change that.”

  Drastic? Kaitlyn had forgotten how very astute the man was. How much did she want to tell him? It had to be enough to satisfy that damned curiosity of his, yet not enough to activate his overprotective streak.

  She would have to come up with a convincing story, something unrelated to the note she’d received. If Jake knew about the break-in, there was no telling what he would insist on doing to look out for her. Escorting her to and from home every day. Following her everywhere she went. Always being no more than a short reach away. She couldn’t have him that involved in her life, especially not now that she knew how vulnerable she was to that old chemistry between them.

  She needed to come out of this meeting with an alarm system, nothing more. That would be enough to make her feel some degree of safety until the intruder in her life moved on to another interest. More to the point, she needed as little contact with Jake as possible. That, she knew, would be the safest course of action for her.

  “At the Chamber of Commerce meeting the other day, several other business owners were concerned about breakins,” she stated, figuring this was the best way to convince Jake her reasons were minor and not enough to warrant much concern on his part. “I’ve worked hard to get this business off the ground. I have to look after my interests. So, I put aside my resistance to a little electronic protection.”

  “And you want me to believe that’s all there is to your reasons for calling me?” He settled back in his chair, crossed his legs, then carefully adjusted the crisp crease in his pants.

  Kaitlyn didn’t miss the subtle message. He was prepared to stay planted in that chair until he’d gotten everything he wanted from her.

  Damn him and his “we do it my way” method of operating. She could argue, insist the matter was none of his business, but probably to no avail. She could save herself a lot of trouble and just show him the note. There was the hint of a threat—enough to have her scared, jumping at shadows. It would be a huge relief to tell someone, but telling Jake would pull him even further into her life—a dangerous thing unless she could bring her hormones under control.

  Jake remained silent as she got up and walked over to the window. She was upset. She didn’t want him here, yet she’d called him and not someone out of the Yellow Pages. Something had frightened her enough that suddenly having him in her life was better than the options.

  Those had to be some high-stakes options. During the months they’d lived together, their fights had been frequent and always over the same thing. She wanted to stand on her own, to build, achieve, succeed. He’d wanted to make the way easier for her. Whatever knowledge he could impart, she’d accepted gratefully, and occasionally she’d even taken his advice. But mostly his help, as he called it, was far too hands-on, too up close and personal, to suit her.

  But she needed his help now. The only question in his mind was how much help? Would an alarm system be suf ficient? He had to make sure. He’d already failed someone he cared about—his youngest sister, Candy. He wouldn’t fail again.

  He watched Katie toy with a strand of her red-gold hair. She wore it long now, softly curled, pulled back on one side to show off one sexy ear. He remembered nuzzling her ear as a prelude to making love, kissing her lovely shoulders hidden under that short-sleeved, pale green jacket she wore, holding all of her five-feet-nine inches against him as he ran his hands over her slender frame. Interesting that he could recall each detail so clearly. Interesting and unsettling.

  “Katie,” he said to change the course of his meanderings, “what happened?” He noticed how she squared her shoulders before turning from the window to face him.

  “You’re going to be hardheaded about this,” she said sharply.. “You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you? I’ve grown up, Jake. I’ve realized that you were right about a person protecting what’s hers.” She paused to glare at him. “Want me to say it again? You were right.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Isn’t it?” she demanded.

  He wasn’t buying this offended routine of hers. It was a smoke screen, an attempt to put him on the defensive. There was something she didn’t want him to know and it was obvious she wasn’t going to give him any details to deal with. He would have to be patient—something he’d always found difficult where she was concerned.

  “All right,” he said, holding up one hand in a pretense of surrender. “I apologize. For the way I acted when I came in here and for pushing you just now.”

  “Apology accepted,” she said a bit warily.

  “Surprised, Katie?” he asked when she continued to stand there as if braced for a fight.

  “I expected to have to go another couple of rounds at least.”

  He gave her a wry smile. “Being in business for myself has taught me to pick and choose my battles and to tread easy with some clients.” He got to his feet. “How about showing me around the office?”

  “I’ve got work to do,” she said, sitting down at her desk. “You’ve pretty much seen all there is to see. There’s the outer office and this one, the front door and this door to my right that leads into the back hallway. If you have any questions, Mary can help you.”

  “Mary being your assistant?”

  She nodded, then pointedly pulled some files out of her desk drawer. Jake took the not-very-subtle hint and left. In the other room, he introduced himself to Mary Rowland and took a moment to explain his purpose for being there, then went to counting the number of sensors and boxes he would need and planning how best to run the wires.

  Katie had pulled it all together, he decided, noting the blue-gray speckled carpet, the ivory-and-dusty-blue pa pered walls, the elegant cherry-wood furniture. Look successful from the start. He’d taught her that, those long nights they’d lain awake and talked about starting their own businesses. Look successful to attract the type of clientele you wanted.

  She’d done it. That didn’t surprise him. What did catch him off guard was that it hurt to think she’d done it without him. Very unsettling to say the least, he decided, jotting down some final notes about the parts for her alarm system.

  “I’ll have a crew here first thing in the morning to start the installation,” he told Mary, wondering if he shouldn’t go in and have a final few words with Katie. It would be the polite thing to do.

  “I’ll sure feel a whole lot better when it’s in,” Mary said fervently.

  At that, warning bells went off in Jake’s head. He glanced sharply at her. “You will?” he asked quietly.

  “Sure. I mean, I know the creep isn’t interested in me, but I just don’t like the thought of him breaking in to leave notes on Kaitlyn’s desk.”

  Breaking in? Leaving notes? So something was going on. But what? This sounded serious.

  Memories of Candy and the man who’d stalked her flooded back. She’d nearly died because Jake hadn’t picked up on the signals fast enough—a costly mistake and one he would never repeat. Better to err on the side of caution.

  Katie obviously wanted him to install the alarm system, then disappear from her life as quickly as possible. Well, a person didn’t always get what she wanted. He needed to learn how potentially dangerous this situation might be and he couldn’t do that from his office.

  Part of him wondered at the strength of his need to protect her when she apparently didn’t want him involved. A bit of perverseness on his part, probably. Katie’s stubbornness had always riled him and it seemed that hadn’t changed. But, damn it, sometimes a woman needed a man to look out for her.

  He fl
ipped to a fresh page in his notebook and prepared. to lie through his teeth if necessary to find out exactly how much and what kind of danger she was in.

  “Katie gave me the details about this break-in once, but my briefcase was out here and I didn’t have my notebook to jot them down.” He glanced at the small window between the two rooms.

  Kaitlyn’s head was bent over a folder while she spoke to someone on the phone. Perfect, he thought, giving Mary his most winning smile.

  “She appears to be busy,” he said. “How about I just go over the details again with you? I want to be sure I didn’t miss anything.”

  Mary was only too happy to help. “Sure,” she said eagerly. “He got in here either late Monday night or early Tuesday morning before Kaitlyn and I came in.”

  “Did he take anything?”

  “No, he just left that—” she shivered “—note on Kaitlyn’s desk.”

  “Was the note frightening?”

  Nodding, Mary shivered again. Out of the corner of his eye, Jake could see Kaitlyn calmly carrying on with business as usual. He could cheerfully wring her beautiful neck. She’d called him in to provide an alarm system and, as she used to do with unpleasant events in the past, then put the problem out of her mind to concentrate on other things. She bad to know she’d only put a Band-Aid on the situation, but she would forget about it until reality hit her in the face a second time. It was her way of coping, he supposed, her way of keeping the fear at bay. However, he was apt to worry himself crazy over her safety.

  “I suppose the police took the note to check it for fingerprints,” he said slowly.

  Mary shook her head. “She didn’t call the police. I was tempted to do it myself, but Kaitlyn had enough. to deal with without having to find a replacement for me. There are times you just don’t cross her, and after almost a year of working with her, I’m learning when those times are.”

  Jake chuckled, knowing exactly what Mary meant. But how could Kaitlyn not have called the police? At the least she could have mentioned the incident to Rob Donovan. What was going on with her?

  “So she still has the note,” he mused aloud, half statement, half question. If he could get that note, he could take some matters into his own hands. Providing she hadn’t done something stupid like throw it away.

  “Actually, I saw her put it in our safe,” Mary stated innocently. “I’ll get it for you.”

  Jake couldn’t believe his luck, but he wasn’t going to question his good fortune, not when it was handing him a means of looking out for Katie in spite of herself. He watched as Mary strolled over to the closet and up to the small safe inside. She pushed a strand of her soft brown hair out of her face as she worked the combination and then, once the door opened, extracted a piece of paper. The sheet was unfolded, indicating that perhaps she and Katie might have spared the few fingerprints the man may have left behind.

  “Thanks,” Jake said absently as he carefully took the paper from her. His entire concentration on the handwritten words scrawled angrily across the page, he read the message and the implied threat to Katie. She’d tried to dodge a date with the man and he’d cared enough to make sure she was telling him the truth, then he’d taken the next step to let her know he’d caught her in the lie and was angry as hell about it.

  Katie had to be scared about this, yet she would allow Jake to do only the bare minimum to protect her. The past all over again. She’d been in her last year of college when they’d met and had insisted on going to night classes by herself, walking the dark campus rather than letting him drop her off and pick her up after his shift as a police detective. She’d been robbed twice in her job delivering pizzas before she would listen to him and find less dangerous employment.

  He should drop the matter. She’d asked him for an alarm system and he should leave it at that, shouldn’t get involved. She’d walked out on him once, and seeing her this morning, he’d realized that he still had some of the fallout to deal with. He didn’t need to put himself through this wringer again.

  But, damn it, he couldn’t just walk away. No matter how unwise, no matter what he would have to go through when it was over, he couldn’t shake the need to do what he could to protect her. Whether she wanted it or not.

  As she heard the office door close, Kaitlyn dared to glance out the window dividing her office from the other room. Jake was gone. For the first time since he’d walked in, she took a deep breath and relaxed her tight shoulders.

  Dealing with him hadn’t been such an ordeal after all, not once he’d gotten all the anger out of his system. In fact, he’d been fairly reasonable. He’d also been as virile as ever, and thirty seconds in his presence had been enough to awaken her senses to that masculine sexuality. The old chemistry was still there, amazing as it was, but this time she was smart enough to resist.

  Not that there was anything to resist, she mused, staring at a blank computer screen. He hadn’t even poked his head in the door to say goodbye. Which was well and good, she chided herself. Whatever they’d shared was finally over. So where was the feeling of elation that should be washing over her about now?

  With a sigh, she pushed back her chair and strode into the other room. He’d talked to Mary for quite some time, she decided, checking her wristwatch. Maybe she should find out what they’d discussed about the alarm system.

  “Did he tell you when he’d get it in and running?” she asked Mary.

  “First thing in the morning,” Mary answered with one of her brilliant smiles. “He’s going to put the main box in the closet, then there’ll be a keypad out here and one by the back door. He said to be thinking of a number for the code, something we’ll both remember easily.”

  Kaitlyn grinned. “How about the date I hired the best assistant in the world?”

  Mary beamed. “Thanks. That’s really sweet.”

  “Yeah, well, one day I’ll be able to show my appreciation for your conscientiousness with money as well as words.” She breathed in relief that everything about the matter with Jake was going off without a hitch. “Meanwhile, I’ll let you get the phone,” she said as it rang.

  She turned toward her own office and was almost to the door when Mary finished her conversation and hung up.

  “Not one of the corporate offices I visited this week asking for travel information, I assume,” she said, a bit disappointed. Business was good enough to pay the bills, with a little left over, but she was hoping to pick up a couple of major contracts.

  “No, it was Mr. Riley,” Mary said.

  “Jake? What did he want?” Kaitlyn wondered aloud.

  “He said to tell you that he has a crew available today. They’ll be here later this afternoon to get started on the system. It should be ‘operational,’ he said, before we leave tonight.”

  Kaitlyn frowned, aware of a sense of unease niggling at the edges of her mind. “What’s the big rush?” she mused aloud.

  “The break-in, I suppose,” Mary said with a shrug.

  Kaitlyn’s breath caught. “What about the break-in?”

  “You were busy and he wanted to make sure he had everything written down, so he and I went over all of it together. He took the note with him.”

  Kaitlyn felt her world spinning out of control and heading for a crash of major proportions. Jake had the note.

  Chapter 2

  Damn it, Kaitlyn thought, pacing her small office. Jake couldn’t get what he wanted from her so he’d quizzed unsuspecting Mary. Of all the sneaky, wily tricks. He’d even managed to get that note in his big hands.

  What was he going to do with it? she wondered, forcing herself to sit in her chair. Take it to the police? She’d already called the police. Tuesday morning, after she’d talked to Shelly. The officer she’d spoken with had told her that she could file for a restraining order, providing she had documentation that this man was harassing her.

  She had the proof—or rather, Jake did at the moment. But the idea of filing for a restraining order had terrified her. It would
be admitting that the situation was serious, that she was being stalked—something she wasn’t ready to do. The guy was just hanging around her office and he wouldn’t break in again once the alarm was installed. That avenue closed, he would grow weary of her giving him the cold shoulder and would leave her alone. She refused to believe the situation was any more serious than that. Jake, though, was one to anticipate the worst.

  Would he go straight to Rob with the note? She groaned softly. She hadn’t wanted Rob involved. He had enough cases to solve and a wedding a month away. She hadn’t wanted to add to his workload or take away from what little time he and Shelly had together.

  Kaitlyn pounded her fist on the arm of her chair. It had probably never occurred to Jake to ask her how she wanted the matter handled. In typical fashion, he’d decided what needed to be done and hadn’t bothered to consult anyone. He was like a tank, plowing over everything in his path to get to his goal.

  His intentions were always the best. That’s why she’d often found it difficult to stand her ground with him. He came by his need to protect honestly. He’d been taking care of the people he loved since his father died in a construction accident when Jake was eleven, leaving his mom with three children to raise. He was the eldest and the man of the house.

  Once he’d graduated from the police academy, his mother had allowed him to make all the major decisions for the family. His sisters, especially Candice, had consulted him on everything those months she’d lived with him, and Kaitlyn imagined they still did. He was accustomed to being the one in charge, to having people follow his advice and obey his commands.

  That’s the part she couldn’t take—his methods—she decided as she picked up the airline tickets she had to deliver that afternoon. She recalled how it had been between her parents. Her mother had been fragile, insecure, deferring to her husband’s judgment on everything, down to the way a military wife should dress and comport herself around the top brass and their wives.

  She’d been totally dependent upon him, and during the times his orders had separated them, she’d looked to liquor to get her through until he was back to tell her what she should do. Soon she needed to have several drinks during the course of the day in order to get her through until he came home each evening. Then one day he’d packed his bags and walked out, leaving Kaitlyn to deal with her devastated, helpless, alcoholic mother.