Keeping Her Safe
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Excerpt
About the Author
Books by Sherry Lewis
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Copyright
Galloway had broken in!
Adam crept toward DJ’s bedroom. He stopped and held his breath so he could listen.
A sound. Almost like something brushing against a window.
DJ must be inside, but was she alone? He heard her moan softly, and a second later came another crash. The floor reverberated and DJ cried out in pain.
Adam threw his weight against the door as he propelled himself into DJ’s room.
Inside, dresser drawers lay scattered across the floor and the bed had been pulled from the wall. Counting on Galloway to aim high, Adam dropped to the floor and rolled behind the headboard.
Too late, he heard a footstep behind him. He pivoted and found himself staring into DJ’s narrowed eyes.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” She didn’t sound frightened.
“I thought you were in trouble,” Adam said. “Is everything okay?”
“It was until you broke the door. I’m rearranging my furniture.” And she started to laugh.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sherry Lewis won critical acclaim for her first Superromance novel, Call Me Mom. She followed that success with This Montana Home, and in Keeping Her Safe, her third book for Superromance, she once again proves that her forte is “fast-paced action romance with…wonderful characters.”
Sherry can’t remember when she didn’t want to be a novelist, but she only began her writing career a few years ago. She’s now also published several books in a mystery series. Sherry says she draws her inspiration from the places she visits when she travels and when she’s behind the wheel on long drives. She also loves music and reading.
Sherry makes her home in Utah and is the mother of two daughters, Valerie and Vanessa.
Books by Sherry Lewis
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KEEPING HER SAFE
Sherry Lewis
For my Knight in Slightly Rusted Armor who taught me what true love is
PROLOGUE
LARRY GALLOWAY paced to the end of the interview room, pivoted at the barred windows and started back to his seat. In another ten minutes, he’d be standing before a parole board, smiling prettily and looking sorry in front of a bunch of worthless jackasses who had the power to either keep him in prison or set him free.
He wasn’t worried—not really. He could get out. He’d done it before. He just had to say the right things and wear the right expressions. Just play the game and tell them what they wanted to hear. They never needed to know how he really felt.
His attorney, Winston Jacobson, scowled up at him from his seat near the door. “Sit down, Galloway. You look nervous.”
Nervous? The word didn’t even begin to describe Larry’s present mood. He’d spent eight years in prison for nothing more than teaching that stupid woman a lesson. Mary, that stupid woman who had been so much like Chrissy, he’d had to teach her.
Mary had screwed him over, plain and simple. She’d had no business talking to the guy down the street. No business at all. But Larry had seen her, and he’d confronted her.
Oh, she’d tried to whine her way out of it. She’d tried to confuse him by crying and begging him not to hit her. And then she’d lain there looking pathetic and weak and stupid and pretending he’d hurt her when that prissy cop arrived—the same way Chrissy had done all those years ago, damn her. Damn her to hell!
Larry snorted to himself, then shot a glance at Winston to see if he’d noticed. No, he still had his stupid nose buried in that idiotic magazine—Today’s Celebrity. Larry snorted again and turned away.
“I said sit down,” Winston said without looking up.
Larry didn’t want to sit. He wanted to think, dammit. Turning at the window, he started back across the room.
Winston glanced up from under his too-thick eyebrows. “Sit.”
Moron. Larry sat and worked up an innocent smile. Good practice for the parole board. “I’m sitting.”
Winston closed his magazine and tossed it to Larry. “Read.”
Oh, yeah. Read. Read about movie stars and other witless people who made millions of bucks for nothing. Nothing. Larry flipped a few pages and felt the heat rising up his neck as he looked at the smiling faces of the ugly, stupid people on the glossy pages.
He flipped again, but this time he stopped and stared at the picture in front of him. Dark hair cropped short and shot with gray now that she was older. A smile that had once charmed him into making a fool of himself. And those dark eyes that had hidden her lies and treachery.
Chrissy.
He read the first page and felt his control start to weaken. His temper simmered, his fists clenched, the cords in his neck strained.
She was calling herself Christina Prescott again. Damn her to hell.
She obviously hadn’t suffered the way Larry had wanted her to for what she’d done. Well, he’d found her again after all this time. And now she would pay plenty.
He scanned the article and turned the page. The picture there made his heart race and his throat go dry. Chrissy and Devon. He smiled slowly. The way to get back at her was spelled out for him right here in this stupid magazine.
Yes. That’s exactly how she’d pay. He’d take back what she’d stolen from him—how long ago? Must be thirty years by now.
Larry would make himself the sorriest SOB to ever sit in front of a parole board if that’s what it took to get out—especially now that he had a plan. He wanted to laugh aloud, but even stupid Winston might start to wonder about him if he did that.
Humming softly to himself, Larry settled back in his seat to read the article. And to plot sweet revenge.
CHAPTER ONE
ADAM MCALLISTER tossed the day’s mail onto the kitchen table, stretched to work the kinks out of his shoulders and slipped his jacket off over his holster and side arm. Draping the jacket over the back of a chair, he glanced at his answering machine. No messages. Good. Nothing would ruin his weekend plans with Seth.
Smiling a little, he removed the elastic from the morning’s edition of the Salt Lake Tribune and scanned the front page. But he’d already heard most of the big stories on the car’s radio, and had heard more than enough about the election while he’d accompanied Milo Harrison along the campaign trail.
He tossed the paper onto the table beside the mail and started to unbutton his uniform shirt as he walked down the hall toward his bedroom. But before he’d gone even halfway, his stomach decided to complain about the number of hours it had been since he’d eaten.
True, he’d had dinner—if you could call it that—at Milo’s campaign fund-raiser, but that had been hours ago. He didn’t want to get dressed again and go back out, but unless some good fairy had stocked t
he kitchen in his absence, his cupboards were bare.
Trudging back to the kitchen, Adam tugged open the refrigerator door and checked inside. No surprises there. Nothing but a bit of wilted salad his mother had dropped by days before, two cans of beer, half a six-pack of cola and something else he didn’t even try to identify.
He hesitated for a moment, debating whether to have a beer. Normally, he’d have to pass. Regulations prevented him from drinking anything alcoholic within eight hours of reporting for duty, and he rarely had more than that amount of time between shifts. But with his weekend free, he had almost seventy-two hours to call his own, and right now, the beer looked more inviting than a soda or a dead salad.
On the other hand, he wanted to have a clear head when he and his brother started for Idaho in just a few hours. He didn’t need a headache while he and Seth argued over who should drive. Frowning a little, he ignored the beer, pulled a soda from its pack and swigged a mouthful.
Sweet. Far too sweet. And it didn’t take away the hunger pangs. If anything, it made him almost more desperate for something to eat.
Scowling, he wiped his mouth and glared at the can in his hand. He lifted it for another drink just as the telephone rang into the stillness of his empty apartment. He flicked a wary glance at the cordless phone. A call after midnight could only mean one of two things—a family crisis or Seth calling to cancel their trip.
He snagged the receiver from its base and growled, “Hello?”
“Well?” Chuck Tobler’s. voice charged through the wire much the same way he barged through everything else in his path. Adam added a third choice to his list of late-night telephone callers—his supervisor at Dodge Detective Agency.
“What happened today?” Chuck demanded. “Anything I need to know about? Why haven’t you called in to log off shift yet?”
“Long day,” Adam said. “I just got home a minute ago.”
“And—?”
“And the fund-raiser was uneventful. No trouble.”
“No antiabortion protestors?” Chuck sounded almost disappointed. He’d agreed to take Adam’s place for the weekend, and Adam knew he’d want some kind of excitement to perk up the long days.
Adam hated to disappoint him, but he couldn’t lie. “None.”
“What about those environmentalists from southern Utah?”
“Not a sign of them,” Adam said. “It was a quiet day. Busy, but quiet.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” Chuck said without conviction. “I don’t want anything to go wrong this weekend.”
“Don’t worry,” Adam assured him. “Milo has a quiet weekend planned.”
“What about Mrs. Harrison?”
“She’ll be fine. She might drink a little to work up courage for public appearances, but she won’t cause trouble for Milo.”
Chuck let silence hang between them for a second or two, and Adam could almost see him rubbing his hand across his chin as he thought. “Tell me,” he said at last. “Do you think Kenny could handle the Harrisons?”
“Kenny?” Adam shook his head thoughtfully. At twenty-two, Kenny Masters was still young enough to think he knew everything—a dangerous way of thinking in the security field. “I thought you were going to cover while I’m gone.”
“I am,” Chuck said. “I’m talking about a permanent change of duty.”
Pushing back an unwelcome twinge of apprehension, Adam leaned against the counter and shifted the phone to his other ear. “Why? Is something wrong?” He’d been out of the law-enforcement field awhile now. Maybe his skills were growing slightly rusty.
“No, you’ve done a great job,” Chuck said, as if he could read Adam’s mind. “You’ll rise to the top in no time. But I’ve got a new assignment for you. You’ll like this one—it’s right up your alley.”
Adam wouldn’t lie—he’d like a new assignment. The Harrison campaign detail hadn’t been as bad as he’d feared, but he hadn’t signed on with the agency to spend his days walking half a step behind a pampered politician and his wife. “What kind of assignment?”
“I just got a call from home office,” Chuck said. “From Thomas Dodge himself, as a matter of fact.”
“Thomas Dodge? I didn’t think he worked anymore.”
“He usually doesn’t,” Chuck admitted. “But he’s got a personal interest in this case, and he told me to assign you to cover it.”
“Me? Why?”
“Because of your experience on the police force.”
An all-too-familiar bitterness started to work its way through Adam. He still resented Victoria for having pushed him to leave the force and hated himself for having given in to please her. If he’d had his way, he’d have gone back to police work when he’d walked away from the job he’d taken with Victoria’s father to make her happy. But hiring freezes along the Wasatch Front had kept him from going back to the job he loved.
He’d taken the next best thing—or so he told himself. But working armed security for Dodge kept his hands tied and left him frustrated most of the time. If he were running things, he’d give his first-line people more authority to deal with offenders, and he’d cut the red tape to a minimum. And if he played his cards right, he could work up into a management position that would give him the say he wanted.
“Tell me,” Chuck said, “have you ever heard of Christina Prescott?”
“No. Who is she?”
“She’s an author. Lives here in Utah part of each year. You see her books everywhere—are you sure you haven’t heard of her? My wife reads all her stuff.”
Adam shrugged his indifference. He’d never understood why anyone would sit down with a book if they didn’t have to. “The name still doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Well, it will,” Chuck assured him. “She’s hired us to keep an eye on her daughter and granddaughter.”
Bodyguard work? The assignment didn’t sound so intriguing now. In fact, it didn’t sound much different from what he’d done for the Harrison campaign. “What kind of an eye?”
“Apparently there’s some guy, who’s being paroled from the Utah State Penitentiary sometime this week. His name’s Larry Galloway—a two-bit loser who’s been in and out of institutions for the past thirty years. For some reason, Ms. Prescott is convinced he’ll show up at her daughter’s place. She’s paying us to watch out for him and to keep him from bothering her family—that sort of thing.”
That made the assignment sound a touch more appetizing. “What will I be watching out for? Any specifics?”
Chuck’s chair creaked, and Adam could almost see him leaning back in it. “Your guess is as good as mine. I don’t know whether they’re in real danger or whether Christina Prescott’s paranoid and Dodge is humoring her because of who she is.”
“You mean because of her money.” Adam had run into people with too much money and imagination before. If Ms. Prescott’s daughter was in danger, he’d be glad to help. But he didn’t want to waste his time baby-sitting some spoiled rich girl for her paranoid mama. He’d done enough of that during his marriage to Victoria.
With ability born of practice, he forced down his rising resentment and managed to keep his voice sounding normal. “What’s the connection between Galloway and Prescott’s daughter? Is he an old boyfriend? Ex-husband?”
“I don’t think so,” Chuck said. “We don’t have his rap sheet yet, but I’ve skimmed our preliminary report, and what I’ve read so far makes him sound a little old for that…but you never know. Dodge didn’t give me details, so I’d be ready for anything.”
Adam made a face and sank onto a chair by the table. “Well, that’s helpful.”
“Yeah, isn’t it? From what I gather, Ms. Prescott is convinced Galloway will violate parole. She wants to make sure we’re there when he does so we can put him back behind bars.”
“She wants him sent back to prison? Sounds vindictive to me.”
“You said it, I didn’t,” Chuck replied with a thin laugh.
His reaction did
n’t surprise Adam. Chuck was a company man through and through. He knew how to kiss up to his superiors better than anyone Adam had ever met.
“What did Galloway go to prison for?” he asked.
“This time? Assault with a deadly weapon. Five counts. He’s been on the inside for a little over eight years. I’ll have his mug shot and preliminary report delivered to you tomorrow by courier. You can see for yourself.” Chuck rolled open a file drawer and rustled some papers near the telephone. “Okay, here’s where you report for duty—do you have something to write with?”
Adam grabbed an envelope from the stack of mail and pulled a pen from his pocket. “I do now.”
“Ms. Prescott’s daughter’s name is Devon Jo Woodward, but she goes by DJ. She owns a garden shop on the west side of Salt Lake City somewhere, The Treehouse.” He rattled off an address, flipped a few more papers and did something to the telephone. “It looks like she’s thirty-two and divorced, and she has a four-year-old daughter named Marissa.”
A four-year-old? Adam tried not to groan aloud. He’d spent enough time around his brother Luke’s children to know four-year-olds were too young to understand reason but too old to accept instructions without question. He couldn’t pretend that he looked forward to spending time around some self-centered woman with too many credit cards and a demanding child. For a heartbeat he considered asking Chuck to leave him with the Harrisons.
“Are you there?” Chuck demanded.
Scratch that idea. Chuck sounded annoyed.
Adam grunted a reply and forced himself to pay attention.
“Ms. Prescott’s making arrangements for you to stay in a spare room in DJ’s basement.”