Keeping Her Safe Read online

  ADAM LEFT THE freeway on the Sixth South exit and followed the ramp into Salt Lake’s city center. A brisk breeze stirred the air inside the truck’s cab, buffeted his face and tugged at his hair, but it did nothing to relieve his tension.

  He’d spent half the night thinking about his aborted trip to Boise and resenting Thomas Dodge, Christina Prescott and DJ Woodward for causing the change of plans. He thought bitterly of his lost career and realized he had only himself to blame. His marriage to Victoria hadn’t been worth the sacrifice, but he hadn’t been willing to admit the truth about their relationship at the time.

  He glared at a stoplight and stomped on the brakes. He knew better than this. Dwelling on the past and hoping for the impossible wouldn’t get him anywhere. At least he had a job and a paycheck.

  Giving himself a mental shake, he maneuvered through the early-morning traffic and followed the Fourth South viaduct over the railroad tracks into the city’s west side. But no matter what he told himself, the foul mood seemed to ride beside him in the truck’s cab.

  As he searched for DJ’s address, he stared out the window and took in his surroundings. He hadn’t been in this area for years, and what he saw surprised him. He’d expected to find DJ Woodward living in some preppie locale with inflated property values. Instead, he found her address in the middle of a run-down area full of old houses and vacant buildings with graffiti on the walls.

  The Treehouse sat at the end of a street only two houses long, one of which appeared vacant. Fields of trees and shrubs stretched away from the store in every direction. Several customers strolled through the tree lots, and two young men stacked bags of fertilizer in a shed behind a sagging gate. One young woman drizzled water from a hose over flower boxes in front of the store while another dragged a cart into the parking lot behind a woman in a business suit.

  Circling the parking lot slowly, Adam parked in the shade of an old tree and cut the truck’s engine. From here he could see the store, and he could also study the red-brick house next door—DJ Woodward’s home.

  In contrast to its nearest neighbor’s, the lawn had been recently mowed, the flower beds were virtually weed-free, and the house trim was freshly painted. Terraced rose gardens descended from a redwood deck along the south wall, and planter boxes lined the picture windows and the wide front porch. Huge old trees with slowly reddening leaves bordered the street, and others marked the location of the Jordan River in back.

  He studied the layout and grudgingly admitted the place didn’t look bad. The house looked comfortable, if a little small. Modest, but livable. The Treehouse was larger than he’d expected, but it wasn’t showy or flashy—again, the opposite of everything he’d pictured for the daughter of Christina Prescott.

  As he watched, the front door of the house opened and a small girl with a high ponytail stepped outside. She clutched a rag doll under one arm and dragged a teddy bear across the porch with her other hand. A shaggy black dog followed her toward the steps and flopped down in a spot of sunlight while the child arranged her toys.

  When the door opened a second time, a young woman in jeans and a sweater stepped onto the porch. She’d pulled her long blond hair into a clip so that it bounced with every step she took. She crossed the porch, settled onto the front steps beside the child and adjusted a pair of sunglasses on her nose. Totally oblivious to him, she leaned back to let the weak autumn sun touch her face.

  She had to be DJ Woodward, but she looked like little more than a child herself. A self-indulgent child who sat in the sun while others ran her store and generated her income. Too much like Victoria for comfort.

  He was going to hate this assignment. Next time he spoke to Chuck, he’d have a few things to say about being sent on a job that amounted to nothing more than glorified baby-sitting.

  Heaving a sigh, he told himself to get out of the truck and introduce himself. Get it over with. Procrastinating wouldn’t change anything.

  He’d just have to concentrate on the job and put his personal feelings aside. He could do that. He’d done it before—just not with a woman who’d remind him of Victoria every time he looked at her.

  As he reached for the truck’s door handle, a knock sounded on the window by his ear and a shadow darkened the glass. Years of experience prompted an instinctive reaction. He reached for his side arm half a second before he remembered he hadn’t been authorized to carry it on this assignment. He’d left his weapon zipped inside the duffel bag on the floor.

  The shadow shifted a little, and he found himself staring into the hostile glare of the woman with the cart he’d noticed leaving the store a few minutes earlier. She’d abandoned the cart a few feet to one side, and she stood, hands on hips, glaring at him as if he’d committed some crime.

  He pushed open the door and stood to face her. She wore a pair of overalls, a plaid flannel shirt and steeltoed work boots with thick soles. She looked like a wood sprite—the kind of person who’d be at home deep in a forest somewhere, saving the earth.

  She tossed a dark braid over her shoulder and held his gaze without backing down an inch. “Can I help you with something?”

  He shook his head and flicked another glance at the house. “No, I—”

  “What are you doing lurking out here?” she interrupted before he could even finish his thought.

  Silently acknowledging a grudging admiration for the way she confronted him, he locked his truck’s door and dropped the key into his pocket. “I wasn’t lurking.”

  Her eyes flashed. “You’ve been sitting right here, lurking, for twenty minutes.”

  Biting back a smile, Adam glanced at his watch and started slowly toward the house. “I’ve been here for ten minutes, and I wasn’t lurking.”

  She ran a little ahead of him, then turned and walked backward, facing him. Her expression grew serious, and she met his gaze with a challenge in her deep brown eyes. “You were watching the house. Why?”

  Adam stopped in his tracks and looked again at the blond girl on the porch, then turned his gaze back to his interrogator. The two women were as different as night and day, and he infinitely preferred this one. “I wasn’t watching the house.” It was true—in a way. Pushing gently past her, he started walking again.

  She chased after him. “Excuse me. Just what are you doing here?”

  He glanced back at her, but this time he didn’t break his stride. “I have business with Ms. Woodward.”

  “What kind of business?”

  He supposed there was no harm in telling her the basics. She’d find out soon enough, anyway. “My name’s Adam McAllister. I’ll be staying with Ms. Woodward for a few days.”

  This time, she stopped walking so abruptly he nearly ran into her. “You’re Adam McAllister?”

  He nodded.

  To his surprise, she laughed. Her dark eyes sparkled suddenly and her face became even more appealing. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place? I’m DJ.”

  Adam stared at her for a second, then chuckled softly and shook the hand she offered. It felt warm and firm in his. Capable. Competent. And very soft.

  “I’ve been expecting you—but I must confess, I thought you’d be older. Closer to my mother’s age.”

  And he’d expected her to be younger. Or older. Or less attractive. Flushing slightly, he tore his gaze away from hers and dropped her hand.

  She pulled her hand back quickly and started walking again. “Well, now that we know who we are, I guess I shouldn’t keep you standing out here all day. Mom didn’t call until last night to tell me you were coming, so I haven’t had time to do much to your room.”

  Adam adjusted his stride to match hers. “Don’t worry about me. I can do whatever needs to be done.”

  She tucked a stray lock of hair behind one ear and shrugged lightly. “No trouble. There’s a small table in your room you can use for your computer, but I don’t have any phone jacks downstairs, so if you need a modem, you’ll probably have to work in the kitchen.”

 
“No—” He raised a hand to stop her and tried to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make him sound computer illiterate. “I probably won’t even use one while I’m here. Besides, I don’t want to get in your way.”

  She took his measure slowly with those deep brown eyes of hers. “It’s a small house. We’d have to work pretty hard to avoid each other.”

  A warm tingle raced up his spine and his mouth grew suddenly dry. Half-a-dozen replies rose to his lips, but each one sounded slightly suggestive. He tried to look away, but her gaze held his captive.

  Luckily the child looked up at that moment, saw them approaching and shot to her feet. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy!”

  DJ blinked rapidly and turned toward her daughter. Still shouting, the child raced down the steps and along the driveway. The dog yipped as it ran after her—it looked nearly as excited as Marissa.

  Adam watched as DJ swept the little girl off her feet and twirled her, then reached down to pat the dog’s head. She glanced at him over her shoulder and smiled, a gentle smile that spread all the way to her eyes.

  He tried to smile back, but he couldn’t force his lips to move. Maybe he’d have been better off if DJ had turned out to be the type of woman he’d been expecting. He could have ignored her eyes. He could have disregarded her throaty laugh and the slightly husky note in her voice.

  But this woman—This woman was going to be dangerous; he could feel that already. He’d known her less than fifteen minutes, and already she’d made him all but forget his reasons for being here.

  CHAPTER TWO

  DJ WRAPPED HER arms around Marissa and swung her into the air again. She hadn’t expected Adam McAllister to look like that—dark hair, gray eyes and an intriguing, brooding sort of expression.

  She drew in a deep breath and tried to focus on Marissa as Brittany disappeared into the house, but she was entirely too aware of Adam behind her.

  “Mommy, you’re home!” Marissa cried. “And it’s not even time for lunch!”

  “I’m only home for a minute, sweetheart. I have to go back to work.”

  Marissa pushed out her lip in a pout, but DJ pretended not to notice. She nodded toward Adam and allowed herself another tiny peek. “This is Grandma’s friend. Remember, I told you he’d be staying with us for a little while?”

  Marissa leaned her head on DJ’s shoulder and stared at him. She bit one curled finger and nodded soberly.

  “His name is Adam,” DJ said, then turned to face him fully. “This is my daughter, Marissa. She’s a little shy around strangers—especially men—so don’t take it personally if she doesn’t seem very friendly.”

  Adam offered what he probably thought passed for a smile. “Hello, Marissa.”

  The child ducked her face into DJ’s shoulder, then peeked back up at him.

  He half smiled again. “I don’t suppose you know where my room is?”

  To DJ’s surprise, Marissa almost grinned. “It’s down’tairs.”

  “Good. I like downstairs.”

  “I don’t. It’s dark down there. And scary.”

  Adam frowned at her. “You aren’t afraid of the dark, are you?”

  Marissa nodded.

  “Well. We’ll have to help you get over that, won’t we?”

  DJ started to shake her head. Marissa had defied every one of DJ’s efforts to rid her of her fear of the dark.

  To her surprise, Marissa nodded. “Are you scared?”

  He chuckled. “Not of the dark.”

  “Then what?”

  He glanced at DJ, and her heart stuttered. “Of girls with big brown eyes and long dark hair.”

  Marissa’s eyes widened. “Like me?”

  “Just like you,” Adam admitted, but he let his gaze travel over DJ so slowly she thought her heart would stop completely.

  She rolled her eyes and nodded toward the house. “Why don’t I show you around so you can get settled.”

  He nodded without looking away. “Sounds good.”

  Marissa squirmed out of DJ’s arms and raced up the porch steps. “I can do it, Mommy. I know where the room is.” She held out one tiny hand toward Adam. “Come on, Mr. Man. I can show you.”

  This time, Adam had to look away, and DJ finally managed to draw a steady breath. But when she climbed the stairs, Adam remained just a step behind. She caught his scent and the heat from his body, and she suddenly felt too close and a little uncomfortable. She could feel his eyes on her as she walked, and for the briefest of seconds, she wondered whether her mother had engineered this meeting for some other reason than the one she’d given.

  As soon as the thought formed, DJ forced it away. Her mother had spent most of DJ’s life on her own. She’d never believed a woman needed a man to survive. Besides, Christina spent so much time caught up in the fantasy world of her books, she probably hadn’t even noticed what Adam McAllister looked like.

  DJ reached for the front door at the same time Adam did. Their fingers brushed, and heat spiraled from the point of contact up DJ’s arm. She jerked her hand away and forced herself to smile as she stepped inside, but for the first time ever, she wished she could waltz through life as oblivious as her mother.

  ADAM WEDGED his last suitcase into the back of the closet, then paused to listen to Marissa’s footsteps running down the hall and into her bedroom overhead. From sound alone, he’d decided his bedroom lay directly under hers, which meant DJ’s must be over the storage room he’d looked into earlier when he checked the locks on the basement windows.

  He’d taken less than an hour to unpack his things and plug in the laptop computer, but it had taken him nearly as long again to figure out how to turn the damned thing on. He’d spent the next two hours reading and rereading the preliminary report on Larry Galloway and studying his mug shot while he waited for a chance to check security in the rest of the house.

  He’d found one interesting entry from thirty years ago on Galloway’s report—an arrest and brief incarceration for assault against a woman named Chrissy Galloway.

  Christina Galloway. Christina Prescott. Connection? Or was the similarity in names merely a coincidence? He shook his head and let his breath out on a heavy sigh.

  Maybe he was grasping at straws, trying to find something—anything to tie Galloway to his client. Why did Christina insist on keeping the connection a secret? Why didn’t she warn DJ about Galloway’s release from prison? Why keep the truth from her security people? Why tie Adam’s hands and keep him in the dark? To make matters worse, Chuck had told him she was in Europe on a book-signing tour. He’d have to find the answers on his own.

  He looked back at the report. Galloway had done time more than once in his life. In fact, his last sentence had been a singularly harsh one—a fitting penalty for such an all-around nice guy, Adam thought grimly.

  He tossed the report back into his duffel bag and zipped it closed, then glanced impatiently at the ceiling. DJ had long ago gone back to the nursery, but he couldn’t check out the house with Marissa and the baby-sitter, Brittany, upstairs.

  He paced to his door and pulled it open a crack. As if on cue, Marissa’s footsteps suddenly changed direction and raced toward the back stairs. Scarcely able to believe his luck, he stepped into the shadows and listened while Brittany descended the steps behind Marissa.

  “All right,” she said in a bored voice. “We’ll play for half an hour, then you have to take your nap. Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  Adam quirked an eyebrow at the child he couldn’t see. He’d heard that kind of promise from his nieces and nephew more than once, and he knew how unlikely Marissa was to keep hers. She’d have half-adozen reasons why she couldn’t take a nap when she came back inside, and she’d use those huge brown eyes of hers to make each one more convincing than the last. But that wasn’t his problem.

  Moving quietly, he crept through the laundry room to the foot of the stairs and watched as Marissa and Brittany stepped outside, banging the door closed behind them.

 
Perfect. He had half an hour—that should give him plenty of time to check security upstairs. He moved silently up the steps to the landing. Standing to one side of the door, he watched as Marissa raced across the lawn to her swing set and Brittany settled herself comfortably on the lawn, then he hurried up the rest of the stairs two at a time.

  He looked into the kitchen to make certain DJ hadn’t come home unexpectedly, then crept down the corridor toward the bedrooms. He checked the bathroom window quickly, disturbed by the soft wood of the frame and the weak lock. But the window itself was only a narrow opening high in the wall, and he didn’t expect Galloway to make that his choice of entry.

  Slipping out of the bathroom, he ducked into the first bedroom he encountered. A single bed with a dark blue cover held an assortment of soft stuffed animals and well-loved dolls. A tiny desk just Mari ssa’s size filled one corner, and a shelf of books stretched along one wall.

  Opposite the bed, a sliding-glass door led onto a redwood deck overlooking the side yard. He swore softly and crossed to the door. All that glass might make the room light and airy, but it sure didn’t provide much protection from intruders.

  He checked the lock, relieved to find that the door was still fairly new and the lock sturdy. But no lock would keep Galloway from breaking through this door if that was what he had in mind.

  Standing at one edge of the door, he craned to see outside and tried to determine whether Marissa and Brittany could see the deck from the backyard. He couldn’t see either of them, so he decided to take the risk and check outside while he had the chance.

  He unlocked the door, slid it open and stepped onto the deck. It ran the length of the two bedrooms and provided a pleasant view of DJ’s garden and the huge red-leafed trees that lined her property. Even better, the deck stood several feet above ground level—high enough to prevent anyone from reaching it easily.