Fight For Me (2 page)

Chapter
Two

The following afternoon Dylan sat across
from Cassidy at lunch, wishing she'd stop m
oaning
around the cheeseburger in her mouth. She was making him crazy, not
to mention hard as stone. He had to stop looking at her, imagining
her making those noises with him in her mouth, so he stared out the
window instead. Hazy movement caught his attention on the edge of
his vision, and he swung his gaze to the right. A wisp of smoke was
coming from beneath the hood of Cassidy's car, a precursor to
something he'd rather not relive.

“
Get down!” he shouted,
yanking Cassie beneath the table seconds before a huge explosion
rocked the cafe. Even though his ears were ringing, he could hear
her breath coming in shallow pants and he worried telling her what
had happened would make her lose it. “That was your car,
Cassie.”

“
Why? What?” Her teeth
were chattering, her eyes wide and impossibly dark. “Someone blew
up my car?”

He nodded, forcing himself to stay calm.
“
Had to have been remotely detonated. If it had
been tied into the ignition, we'd both be dead.”

“
Thank God for small
miracles.”

“
This was nothing close to
a miracle. This was a warning. Who would want to blow up your car,
Cassie?”

She seemed to notice then that he still held
her and stiffened, the shock he'd seen seconds ago receding. “I'm a
prosecutor, Dylan. I put bad people in prison. Sometimes they don't
appreciate that.”

There she was. “
Any of
those people threaten to kill you?”

Her eyes widened, as if she hadn't connected
a car bomb to attempted murder. “Who would want to kill you? Don't
you catch bad guys too?”

H
e stared down at her,
willing her to see reason, but deciding not to lie. “There are a
few,” he admitted.

“
Anyone I
know?”

“
Maybe,” he
acknowledged.

She thought for long moments before shaking
her head. “I don't know who would want to kill me or Blue.” She
pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. “Shit. Most of
your
clothes were in the car.”

He'd almost forgotten they'd picked up a
second load of his clothes this morning. Trying to make light of
the situation, he flashed her a grin. “
Someone is
determined to keep me naked.”

She looked pointedly at the arm around her
and cleared her throat. “Um... We should probably move.”

She was right. He shouldn't be just sitting
here holding her when he didn't know exactly what had happened.
Enough time had passed as they hunkered under the table that
A
ylesford Fire and Rescue and the PD should have
arrived and begun to catalog the scene. He knew there would be
endless questions he couldn't answer, but was thankful they were in
Aylesford. He'd overheard a fair amount of information about a
certain Detective Davis in Tyler, none of it good. “Let's go talk
to the officers on-scene,” he said. Rest and pain relief would just
have to wait.

H
e found Detectives Chris
Delmonico and Jason Monroe cataloging the empty shell of Cassidy's
Lexus. “What can you tell me?”

“
I didn't think you were
cleared yet, Black,” Monroe greeted.

“
This is Cassie's car,” he
explained. “I was here with her.”

“
I'll just bet you were,”
Delmonico teased with a waggle of his eyebrows.

“
Don't talk about her like
that!” Dylan snapped at his friend.

C
hris closed his mouth,
ran a hand over the back of his neck, and started over, a chagrined
look on his dark features. “Looks like remote detonation, likely a
cell phone somewhere close by. We're canvassing the area
now.

“
Good,” Dylan replied with
a quick nod. “I don't think it was professional—I saw smoke before
it blew.”

“
You know you'll have to
give a statement, Black,” Monroe said on a sigh.

Of course he would. He thought briefly of how
many statements he'd given in the last few weeks and almost sighed
himself. “No problem, but right now, I need someone to take Cassie
and me to my house. We'll pick up my truck and some more clothes.”
He shot a look at both detectives, daring them to say something.
“My suitcase was in the car.”

“
I didn't say anything?
Did you say anything?” Chris looked from Dylan to Jason and back
again.

J
ason chuckled at his
partner before turning back to Dylan. “I'll get O'Halloran to take
you two up to your house.”

“Thanks,” he replied to Jason as he turned
to find C
assidy walking toward them, phone to her
ear. He could hear her side of the conversation with J.D. Easton,
assuring the other man she was fine, and that he didn't need to
come down to collect her.

A
strange feeling coiled
in Dylan's belly. Jealousy. He watched her as she animatedly spoke,
his working hand clenched into a tight fist. What was this woman
doing to him? He was going crazy. When she finally disconnected the
call, he found himself asking, “You got a thing with good ol'
J.D.?”

H
er dark eyes narrowed.
“Would it matter?”

“
Hell yes, it
would.”

S
he glared at him. “No, I
don't have a thing going with J.D.” She walked away a few steps
before turning sharply. “Do you think I would've kissed you if I
had a thing with anyone else?” She marched back to him, her long
finger poised to poke him in his chest. “I told you I don't do
casual.”

F
uck. “I'm sorry. I'm
still jumpy from the explosion,” he lied. He was acting like an
idiot because of her, not because of a car bomb.

S
he softened, her hand
opening against his chest. “PTSD?”

N
ot exactly, but he'd go
with it. “Maybe.”

S
he looked up at him, her
coffee eyes sucking him under, but he refused to fall. Not now, not
today. He cleared his throat. “Chris has a uniform taking us to my
house. We can get my truck and some more clothes.”

“
Truck?” she
repeated.

“
Is that a problem?” he
asked, knowing she'd never admit to a problem even if she thought
one was there. The Bronco could handle almost anything, and as
stubborn as this woman was, there was no way she'd let a truck get
the better of her.

She gave him a small smile. “
Of course not.”

~
*~

“
You have got to be
kidding me,” Mason Everett said after Cassidy recapped the incident
at the cafe. “You were nearly blown up at lunch?”

“
Nearly blown up is a
little bit of an exaggeration, big bro. Blue might be in the great
junkyard in the sky, but I'm fine.” She shuddered at the memory of
her brother's all too recent kidnapping. “You came a lot closer to
death than I did.”

A
sour expression twisted
his handsome face. “We were both saved by a certain former Army
Ranger.”

“
Why the face?”

“
How many more Everetts is
he going to have to save?” He spun on his heel, paced Cassidy's
small living room. “Who's out to get you?” He paced a while longer,
the worry and agitation coming off him in waves. “Someone is trying
to kill you, Cass.” He stopped to sink into her plush sage couch.
“After...” He swallowed, started again. “We can't have something
happening to you.”

“
You won't,” Dylan
declared from the doorway.

D
ylan's words rolled over
her like syrup, thick, rich, and dark. She squashed the arousal his
voice alone elicited. She wasn't going there, and her brother was
in the room. Eww. Instead, she turned to face him. “Why do you need
me if you can sneak through houses?” He pinned her with a look, his
golden eyes nearly burning her. She knew he saw right through her
facade, but she wasn't about to acknowledge that. Sharpening her
tone, she snapped, “What, were you a ninja in a former
life?”

M
ason shot her a “what the
fuck?” look, before he turned to Dylan. “Saving Everetts is your
thing, huh?”

“
It appears that way,” he
answered, his voice strained.

Her brother's face paled slightly.
“
Thank you.”

“
Anytime.” Dylan wasn't
looking at Mason when he said it, instead staring straight at her.
“I mean it, Cassie.”

“
What's going on here?”
Mason asked, his dark eyes going from herself to Dylan and back
again. Her brother wasn't stupid, and although she was sure he was
picking up on the tension, he didn't say anything.

She also chose
to ignore
the obvious heat sparking between herself and Dylan, answering
Mason's question with only facts, “We don't know yet. Someone blew
up my car, and while Dylan seems to think it could only be directed
at me, I wasn't the only person in the car today.”

“
True enough, but it
was
your
car,”
Dylan responded. “There are people who might want me dead, but
they're either halfway around the world or in prison right
now.”

“Same goes
, Master
Sergeant.” So maybe she hadn't been to war, so she couldn't claim
the round the world thing, but she wasn't backing down, and she was
convinced this was about Dylan. No one had actually tried to kill
her until after he came to live with her.

M
ason pointedly looked at
his Rolex. “I'm glad you're both okay, but I have things to
do.”

“
Don't work too hard,
bro,” Cassidy cautioned with a wave.

H
e smiled. “You know
it.”

~
*~

“
What?” Dylan looked up
from his laptop to a glowering Cassidy. If anyone should be in a
sour mood, it was him—he was the one hunting and pecking one-handed
through his email.

“
You're supposed to be
resting, yet a few days ago you saved my life and today you're...”
She tilted her head, her hair swishing slightly. “What are you
doing?”

“
Email.”
Why was it important? He wasn't taking any jobs,
but that didn't mean he couldn't look. Feeling her stare, he lifted
his gaze to meet hers, and saw concern mixed with something else in
her eyes. “Did you need me to be doin' somethin' else?”

Her eyes widened briefly, and he wondered
where her thoughts had gone. “
No, but you're
supposed to be healing.” She looked at the grandfather clock
against the wall. “We have to get you to therapy in about an hour
anyway.”

God, how he hated that word. “
Don't call it therapy, Cassie. Call it PT, or physical
therapy if you must, but not therapy.”

S
he studied him for a
moment and he wished he knew what was running through that quick
mind of hers. Before he could ask her, she gave him a tight smile
and fled the room, “PT it is,” tossed at him over her
shoulder.

H
e watched her go, a soft
chuckle making its way from his chest. His little prosecutor was
nervous around him, had been running away from him for the better
part of a week. After the mind-blowing hallway kisses followed
closely by dressing him like a life-sized CEO doll, she had been
careful not to touch him, but he caught the heat, the longing in
her eyes when she thought he wasn't looking. He had news for her:
He was always looking.