Fight For Me (12 page)

He almost took heart in her saying him dying
would make her suffer, but thought better of it, instead scooping
her into his arms. “No one is killin' either one of us, Cassie. Not
now and not ever.” He kissed her gently. “We're gonna live to a
ripe old age, and bicker then too.”

She settled against him, her fingers tracing
the tribal eagle tattoo on his chest. What was once a symbol of
freedom when Emily had designed it was now a permanent reminder of
her. It had been covered with gauze until very recently and he
waited for her to ask him about it. After long moments of
exploration, she said simply, “This is beautiful.”

“Emmie's design,” he replied softly, the
loss of his sister hitting him in the gut. “I'm not losin' you,
Cassie.”

She placed a kiss on his tattoo. “Don't let
me lose you either.”

“Not a chance.” He shifted her in his arms
to kiss her fiercely, an unspoken promise he intended to keep
forever. “Now, get ready to head out.”

“Yessir.”

~*~

Brandon stood with Steve and Tiffany on the
circular drive of the Everett estate, watching the magnificent
house burn. The firefighters were putting up a valiant effort, but
arson was hard to combat.

“That's one way to terrorize Ms. Everett,”
Tiffany observed from his right. “Blow up her car, break into her
home, paint her boyfriend as unable to protect her, burn down her
parent's house...” She paused for a moment before asking, “How does
the judge's murder fit in?”

“Doesn't that terrorize her, too?” Steve put
in. “Doesn't it say, 'You're not safe, not even in your own
home'?”

“True,” Brandon agreed, but he didn't
discredit Tiffany's question. “Everything else is personal to her.
Her car, her house, her bodyguard, her parents. The judge was a
colleague, maybe a friend, but unless there was an affair she's not
admitted to, he wasn't nearly as close as her family or the man
she's sleeping with.”

“He killed the judge, but hasn't even tried
to kill her,” Steve started.

“Maybe he wants her to watch as things fall
apart, are taken from her,” Tiffany offered. “Maybe that's his
brand of torture.” She stared a moment at the flickering flames
before turning to face the two of them fully, her face bright with
excitement. “We need to find someone who had everyone, everything
taken from him. His motivation for all this,” she gestured toward
the burning mansion, “is losing everything because of her. He wants
to take her life from her piece by piece.”

“I'll buy that,” Brandon agreed, adding,
“after he takes it all, then he'll kill her.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Steve said. “We need a
detail on her parents, her brother.”

In a perfect world, they could do that and
about forty other things. “There are nine of us. Even if we asked
Aylesford PD for help, there's no way we could swing protection
details.” He glared at his partner. The other man knew exactly how
many officers were on staff, yet threw out stupid ideas like
offering bodyguard services.

“Fine, advise them to hire someone, but they
are targets,” Steve tossed back.

“The Everetts ought to leave town,” he
muttered. He was getting annoyed with people obsessing over the
family. What was next, a stalker looking for a doctor husband? A
director infatuated with his next starlet? So they were attractive,
rich, and arguably talented. They were driving him insane, and he
didn't have time to be any crazier than he already was.

“Yes!” Tiffany exclaimed. “Send them out of
town and maybe we can flush this guy out.”

“Caleb Everett won't leave and you know it,”
Steve interjected. “The good doctor won't leave the hospital, even
if it were burning down around him.”

While Caleb was a fixture at Aylesford
Memorial, he doubted the doctor would perform surgery in a blazing
inferno. “Charles and Carolyn might.”

“They have a daughter in New York, right?”
Tiffany asked.

“On Broadway,” Steve affirmed.

She tapped a finger against her pink lips.
“Maybe they can visit her for a while.”

“It won't hurt to suggest it,” Brandon
agreed, although he wasn't at all sure what the pair would say.
They didn't strike him as the running away sort, not if they were
anything like their children. “I hope for their sake they
agree.”

“If they leave and it looks like they're mad
at Cassidy, it will appear his plan worked,” Tiffany mused.

Despite their nights together, he really
hadn't given her enough credit—the woman had a brain to go with the
killer body. Still, he wasn't at all sure that Cassidy's family
essentially storming away in a huff would send the impression that
this arsonist stalker's plan was working. “If your theory is
sound.”

“It's the best theory we've got, Brandon,”
Steve cut in at the same time Tiffany said, “Even if it's not, what
could it hurt?”

He was outvoted, and he couldn't really
disagree. “Very true.”

~*~

“Mom, are you sure you and Daddy are okay?”
Cassidy asked. She was standing in her parent's yard, watching the
firefighters literally fight a fire. Her mother looked fine in her
striped pajamas and bare feet, but she wasn't convinced.

“Honey, we're fine. It's just a house,”
Carolyn Everett assured. “What I'm worried about is you. What's
this about a stalker?”

Yeah, she hadn't really explained much to
her parents, had she? “Looks like someone's got it out for me. The
police are on it, and I'm staying with Dylan.”

Her mother's eyes focused on the man in
question for a moment, and Cassidy wondered what she thought. She
knew what she saw was six and a half feet of muscle wrapped in a
black t-shirt and faded jeans, his hair a little longer and his
beard trimmed a little closer than he'd worn it at the wedding. She
liked it when it was more scruff than beard, and he was happy to
oblige her. She smiled. The man was gorgeous, his golden eyes
seeing everything. She wondered how long he would believe himself
in love with her.

“He's a good boy, that Dylan,” her mother
said. “I wish he hadn't been hurt saving your brother, but I'm glad
you brought him home.”

She almost laughed. She brought him home,
and she'd like to keep him, even if she knew she shouldn't. “Me
too.”

“Does he always look at you like that?”

She looked over her shoulder at him, not
seeing anything strange in his rugged face. “Like what?”

Carolyn's lips turned up into a smile. “Like
you belong to him?”

Oh, that. “Yes, I guess he does.”

“And do you?”

A question for the ages. She wasn't ready to
answer the way her mother wanted her to, so she gave her the truth.
“For now.”

“I think he might disagree,” Carolyn said
with a laugh, and Cassidy both agreed with her and wondered how her
mother could find humor in anything at a time like this. “Mom, how
are you laughing when your house is burning?”

“Easy,” her mother replied. “No one was
hurt. Things are just things, houses are just houses. People are
what's important, and we're all still here.”

God, she wished she could think like her
mother. “You're not angry with me?”

“Why would I be angry with you, dear?”

Had she really just asked her why? “Because
this is my fault. I brought this to your doorstep, Mom. I'm
sorry.”

“This is no more your fault than that
woman's obsession with your brother,” her mother said and Cassidy
bit back a smile at the deliberate understatement and avoidance of
Priscilla's name. “You have Dylan there, the police are
investigating, and it looks like the fire is under control.”

Under control maybe, but how much of the
house had they lost? Her parents had painstakingly chosen every
brick, every stick of furniture, everything in that house, and now
someone had taken it all away because of her. Her stomach turned at
the thought of losing pictures, books, memories, and she brushed
tears aside she hadn't known were flowing. “The police haven't
turned up much,” she admitted.

“They will,” Dylan assured as he wrapped her
in his arms from behind.

She leaned against his hard chest, loving
the feel of both his arms around her even in front of her mother.
“I hope they do. I'm tired of this. I don't want to be scared
anymore.”

“I'll protect you,” he promised quietly.

“I know, and that scares me more than
anything else. I don't want you to die saving me, Dylan. I don't
want you to sacrifice yourself for me.”

He held her tighter, his voice dropping even
more as he whispered in her ear, “My life wouldn't mean anythin'
without you in it, darlin'.”

She melted against him, catching her
mother's raised eyebrow at their public display and ignoring it for
a moment. It was four in the morning in front of a burning building
and the only place she felt safe was right where she was in Dylan's
arms. She would think about her feelings later, justify them,
probably deny them, but right now she just accepted them.

“You gonna make an honest woman out of her?”
her father's voice came from behind her mother and she let out a
startled laugh. Charles Everett never minced words, and this was a
shining example.

“In a heartbeat, if she'd just say yes,”
Dylan answered, his deep voice vibrating through her. It wasn't a
lie, he had asked her to marry him twice since she forgot her
pills. She'd bought a pregnancy test but hadn't yet had the heart
to pee on the stick. She kept telling herself she was stressed and
that's why her period was late, but she was smart enough to know
that might not be the case. She was also smart enough to know a
baby was no reason to be married, and the situation was tainting
her feelings. She snuggled deeper into Dylan's arms and told
herself she could separate the hero from the man, the danger from
reality. She loved his strength, his honesty, his integrity, and
she adored his body, the way he made her feel, the feel of him
inside her, but did she love him? She didn't know. Once she no
longer needed his protection, would she still need him?

“We haven't been together long enough for me
to say yes,” she said by way of explanation, hoping her father
wouldn't push any harder.

“You're looking pretty cozy right now,” he
observed.

“Daddy, I'm a big girl,” she said through a
sigh. “Dylan is wonderful, and just because he's holding me doesn't
mean he has to marry me.”

“He wants to, though,” Charles rebutted.

He thinks he does. “It's been just over a
month, Daddy.”

“A man knows.”

“I love your daughter, Mr. Everett,” Dylan
said. “Cassidy doesn't quite know what to do about that yet, and
that's okay.” He dropped a kiss on top of her head. “She'll catch
up soon enough.”

Both her parents laughed as Dylan held her
tighter against him, and she prayed he was right.

~*~

Cassidy's parents looked none the worse for
wear after losing their home, and Dylan counted his blessings for
that fact. He'd let her down by not taking care of her family, and
he knew she'd never forgive him if they died as a result of his
oversight. He cast his gaze around the room, taking note of who was
assembled to ask questions he was sure no one could answer. Brandon
Davis, his partner Steve Archer, and a tiny blonde officer, Tiffany
Morgan were against one wall, Chris and Jason along another. It
made him think of a middle school dance, boys on one side, girls on
the other, neither one willing to make the first move across the
gym. In other circumstances it might have been amusing, but this
morning it just pissed him off.

“I know y'all hate each other, and I don't
give a shit,” he addressed the group as a whole, his irritation
coming through in both his word choice and his tone, and he didn't
much care. “I don't give a shit if you people want to kill each
other after this is over, but you have to work together to find
this bastard.” He might be abusing his privileges and his
association with both departments, he might be overstepping his
boundaries, hell, he might be jeopardizing the career he'd spent
the last five years building, but none of that mattered. He could
do something else, he could start another business, he could work
for anyone doing anything, but he couldn't lose Cassie.

Chris's dark eyes hardened. “Don't push,
amico
,” he warned.

He shoved away from the table, sending his
chair clattering to the floor when he stood. “Cassidy's life, the
life of her friends and family, hangs in the balance here, and you
tell me not to push?”

“Enough!” bellowed another voice from the
doorway of the conference room and all heads turned to the
newcomer. “Why do we keep meeting in a fucking conference room?”
Gabe McNamara muttered, his heavily muscled frame propped against
the door. “This guy is good, there was nothing of note in the car
bomb, yet here you sit bitching about who's gonna do what when a
two million dollar home is a pile of ashes? Find this fucker before
I have another arson on my desk.”

At that moment, Dylan liked the Ayles County
Arson Investigator more than the dysfunctional set of cops around
the room, and opened his mouth to say as much, closing it when
Brandon Davis spoke first. “We have jurisdiction,” the Tyler
detective sputtered, eliciting a laugh from McNamara.

“No, you don't. I do. There is a bomb and an
arson, no doubt connected. So, how about you all,” he glared at the
room at large, his whiskey-colored eyes boring holes in each of
them, “get your act together and track him down?”

McNamara's words lit a fire under the cops,
causing what had been a quiet room to buzz with conversation. He
let himself smile at his pun for a half second before he turned to
Chris. “If you could find my laptop, I'd appreciate it.”

“You want me to save your girl
and
find your computer? You want me to do everything?”