The Protector (16 page)

“I’m here to take you to church. You don’t need to be driving until that hand heals.”

Church. Cassie struggled to reorient her thoughts.

Jack had protested her driving herself to the bookstore yesterday and she conceded the point, letting Linda give her a lift. But today she could have driven herself. She was surprised that he had not called ahead, only to realize if he had she’d ignored the call. “Did Rachel ask you to do this too?”

“I have a few original thoughts. You look pretty, Cassie.”

The compliment delivered with such a lazy smile had her smiling back. She glanced down at the blue pantsuit she was wearing. She’d been after practical and warm. But it was one of her favorites and it did look pretty. “Thanks.”

“You’re very welcome.” His expression turned serious. “I also want to talk to you about the newspaper article.”

“Cole called me last night. He said you had been over to see him after reading it.”

“You should have told me last night you were coming back to work.”

She pushed her right hand deeper into her coat pocket, hating having Jack frown at her. She was worried he would react this way. If he knew part of the reason she was doing it was to try and protect him— “Cole thinks I can help.”

“You’re going to go out on calls to look for the man you saw.”

“I have to do something.”

“Not this,” he replied grimly.

He was pushing down his anger. It was fascinating to see and realize it was being felt on her behalf. “I appreciate your concern but—”

“He’s dangerous.”

She had seen a man who was setting escalating fires, who had written the word
murderer
. “I know.”

“I don’t want you getting involved.”

He wanted to protect her. She was grateful, but it left her between a rock and a hard place. “I’m already involved. To do nothing—that’s not an option, Jack.”

His frustration was obvious, but he glanced away, checked what he was going to say before he looked back at her, then shook his head. “I know, Cassie. But this option is a lousy one.” He pushed away from her car and moved over to his. “It’s cold. We’ll talk as I drive.” He opened the passenger door. “How’s the hand?”

“Sore.” She wrestled to get the seat belt fastened. The heat had been on in his car. And while it had cooled as he waited for her to arrive, it wasn’t as cold as her car would’ve been. She was thankful for that as she settled in.

“You’ll have to give me directions.”

She thought he’d been to the church the department volunteer chaplain pastored in the past, but that assumption had apparently been wrong. She gave him directions as she shifted her feet to be under the floor heating vent.

Jack backed out of the parking spot. “What time are you coming in to the station Thursday?”

“Cole said the shift starts at 8
A.M.
I plan to be in early so I can store gear.”

“When there is a rollout you’ll ride with Bruce, Nate, and me in Engine 81. We’ve got room in the jump seat.”

Procedure was to roll an engine with a crew of three, then to go with a fourth man if only one engine was responding. It would be crowded on the back U-shaped bench if she was joining a complement of four guys. “I thought I’d be rolling with the captain.”

“With the number of calls we respond to he’s often moving from scene to scene. And while your stated purpose is to work with him, it’s going to take about one shift before the rest of the guys in the company know what you are really doing.”

He was right about that. Secrets never lasted very long among a company.

The last thing she wanted to talk about this morning was what she had seen that night, the state of the investigation, and what the upcoming week was going to be like. She tried to change the subject. “Besides chauffeur, do you have other plans for your day off?”

He glanced over at her. “Let’s go get a Christmas tree this afternoon for your bookstore.”

She was startled by the suggestion. “A Christmas tree.”

“Got a better idea?”

“Laundry. Paying bills. Packing for the shift.”

“Come on, Cassie.” His voice was touched with laughter. “You’d enjoy decorating a Christmas tree more.”

“I bet you believed in going out to play before you did your homework too.”

“Absolutely.”

She knew she was going to need help with the tree; she couldn’t move one by herself. Her plans had been to finish pricing books, decorate the front window, then move around furniture to make room for a tree. She could shift that around. “I might be able to find a couple hours if you would like to help haul a tree for me.”

“I’d like to help decorate it too.”

She smiled at that request. “Are you a tinsel fanatic?”

“Definitely, it’s one of my favorite memories from childhood. Life is full of serious people who grew up too soon. I’ve never been accused of being one of them.”

Jack pulled into the parking lot at the grade school where the church met on Sunday mornings.

“Would you like to come to church with me? You know Pastor Luke and his wife Linda. Cole and Bruce both come too. It’s a pretty casual crowd since most of the guys help set up the stage and sound and pack it away in the trailer after services each week.”

“Thanks, but no. Being a Christmas and Easter churchgoer isn’t my style. I’ll be back to pick you up after the services.”

She was disappointed by that but understood his reluctance. So many people felt unless they attended church regularly it was hypocritical to go. And while her church tried hard to make visitors feel welcome instead of the center of attention, it did happen.

An opportunity to share what she believed was in front of her, and she didn’t know how to make it comfortable for Jack to join her. Hearing the truth about Jesus challenged someone to consider what he believed, and it wasn’t always a comfortable experience. She could sympathize, but it was reality of the power inherent in the truth.

She stepped out of the car, then leaned down to look back in. “Jack, yes. I would like to get a Christmas tree this afternoon.”

His smile made it worth it. “Good. I’ll pick you up here at eleven. Tell Luke and Linda hi for me.”

“I’ll do that.”

Fourteen

J
ack, that tree is huge,” Cassie said, trying not to sound too critical.

“I know. Isn’t it great?”

He was straining to hold the center trunk of the tree. He shook it and the branches that had been mashed by the fence the tree had been leaning against settled back into their original shape.

“It looks like a tree that needs to be on a diet. Stuff that falls inside these thick branches will disappear and never be seen again. The lights won’t show unless they are on the branch tips.”

“Have some faith. This tree will hold up for a month. Think about how great it will look with ropes of popcorn and layers of silver tinsel.”

Cassie had been trailing him around the nursery looking at Christmas trees for the last two hours. He was like a kid in a candy store, choosing one, only to go to the next one and decide it was even better.

“Spin it around. Let me see the full thing.” She sipped at the hot apple cider she held. The afternoon was perfect for this—crisp air and sunny blue skies. Leaves crunched under their feet as they walked around the nursery. There were hundreds of Christmas trees to consider, and the discussion around large or small, fat or thin, wide needle or slim had been debated on merits all afternoon.

Jack was a riot to walk around with.

“Admit it, Cassie. This is the one. You’ll have the best Christmas tree in Lincoln Hills.”

“Do you really think you can get that tree into Stephen’s truck?” He had borrowed his brother’s pickup for this adventure.

“Absolutely.”

“Along with about ten feet of pine roping, that gargantuan wreath, three poinsettias, and the musical door chime?”

His grin grew as she reeled off the list of items he had already talked her into. “I’ll even make sure there is room for you.”

It was a beautiful tree. She only had one reservation. “I don’t know if we can get it in the front door of the store.”

“Trust me.”

She gave him an easy smile. “Oh, I trust you. I’m just trying to decide if I want to jump off this particular cliff with you. It will take about a mile of popcorn rope to decorate it.” She was tempted to agree if only for the challenge of it.

The pressure of this morning had been replaced by a relaxing afternoon. She was enjoying Jack. So many men were like Cole, everything close to the vest. With Jack she didn’t have to wonder what he thought. She had seen everything from amusement to occasions of worry and anger. The best thing about him was his laughter was contagious.

Her left hand stiffened as the blisters had tightened. She had a headache from the restless night’s sleep. But the day had improved because of Jack’s company. And it looked like by the end of this day she was going to have spent most of it with him.

“This one?”

She looked at the tree best described as a monster. “This one.”

“Sit,” Jack ordered.

“I’m fine.”

“Cassie.”

She tugged over a stool, loath to admit he was right. She was tired enough the tangles in the strands of Christmas tree lights had already won, and she just didn’t want to admit it. Cassie pulled the entire mess onto her lap.

“I’ll finish them.”

She stubbornly shook her head. “I’ll get them,” she muttered. If only her stiff fingers would simply work. The string of lights were plugged in so that she could find and replace burned-out bulbs. It was a sea of red, green, blue, and white flashes every three seconds. When she tried to hold the strand of lights with her left hand to unscrew a bulb with her right, her left hand would spasm. Clenching her fingers was the equivalent of grasping a live wire. She was beginning to think there actually was a short in the light strand somewhere.

“Patience.”

“Patience isn’t the problem. I just need some wire cutters.”

Jack chuckled as he moved down from the step stool he was using, squeezed her shoulder briefly, and crossed over to the table to get another box of ornaments. He’d long ago finished stringing the lights at the top of the tree.

The tree took over the entire center of the bookstore.

The poor front doorway still showed its scars from where it had lost the fight. The tree won. It had literally been pushed inside, not that Cassie was allowed to help. Jack had called Stephen. She stood by and watched as the brothers wrestled it inside.

They tried placing it by the front window and found, as Cassie suspected, that there was no way to have the tree there without blocking either the counter or the doorway. The guys ended up taking two chairs into the storage room, sliding the main table closer to the display of children’s books, and moving the history book display in order to give the tree enough space.

It had been worth it. The tree was going to be beautiful. After all this effort, that wasn’t optional. It was going to be beautiful, or it was going to be firewood.

The bulbs finally replaced, Cassie plugged the strand of lights into the end of the previous one on the tree and began working to place them.

Jack stepped back up on the step stool. “Do you want me to use all the glitter balls at the top?”

She glanced up at Jack. He was working from the top of the tree downward. His smile— She shook her head and glitter rained around her. “Now I know why you wanted to do the top branches.”

“You look cute wearing the glitter.”

What she probably looked like was a six-year-old who had gotten into the glitter sticks. She had to smile at that image. She leaned back on the stool to check his progress. “They look good up there near the room spotlight. Use all of them there.” She blew glitter off the back of her hand. “Besides, then they can shed on the tree rather than the floor.”

“You need packages under this tree.”

“The tree practically hugs the floor. No one could see packages under it.” It had already proven to be an effective black hole.

Currently somewhere under the tree were his kicked-off tennis shoes, what she was fairly sure had been an orange glow-in-the-dark superball seen briefly as it bounced past after falling out of Jack’s coat pocket, and a handful of French fries she dropped when she tripped over the extension cord to the train set.

“A Christmas tree needs packages.”

“I’m going to wrap the books I’ll use as my Christmas giveaways.” As she now had a twist tie held between her lips, she was forced to mumble her answer as she fought a blue light that didn’t want to stay where she placed it.

“Any comic books?”

She got the strand wedged into place and used the twist tie to secure it, triumphant that she had subdued another wayward light. “Sorry. If you want to enter the drawing you have to like to read.” A small black spider appeared again dangling and she batted it away with the back of her hand before picking up another tie. Jack and his toys…this one was smaller than the one he had offered at her apartment. He’d probably bought them in all sizes in one of those plastic eggs available from a gumball dispenser.