Evidence of Attraction Read online

  No. Hart was it for Felicity. She couldn’t lose her father. And Wendy, even though she didn’t have him, didn’t want to lose him, either.

  She was tempted to follow him down the stairs, to make sure he did as he’d said and just turned on that light. But she’d made him a promise and she wouldn’t break it. She wouldn’t risk his daughter’s life—not even for his.

  She pushed the door open again and headed toward the shelf that held her purse. Even with the gun in her hand, she didn’t release the breath she held. It burned in her lungs with the fear that gripped her.

  Fear for Hart...

  And fear of him, of how the feelings she’d already had for him had intensified. She didn’t have some adolescent crush on him anymore. No. What she felt went far deeper than that and scared her almost as much as the thought of whatever Luther Mills might do to her.

  * * *

  Luther stared down at the cell phone in his hand, willing it to ring. The plan was in place now.

  The crime scene tech was going to die. He’d given her a chance to destroy that evidence on her own, to walk away from this trial with her life.

  But Wendy Thompson had refused to heed his warnings.

  So now she was going to pay—with her life—just as the informant had paid for betraying him. And once she was dead, that evidence would be destroyed. He had a plan in place for that, too.

  A person he’d already been able to threaten and manipulate, unlike Wendy Thompson.

  Maybe she’d felt brave, though, because she had one of those damn Payne Protection bodyguards. Sure, Clint Quarters had protected Rosie. But the stupid ex-vice cop loved the beautiful eyewitness.

  Hart Fisher was the one protecting the evidence tech. He was just doing his job. While they might have worked together in the past, they had no present. No future.

  Wendy Thompson probably meant more to Luther Mills than she did to Hart Fisher. To Hart, she was just an assignment. To Luther, she was the key to the jail cell, the key that would release him and secure his freedom.

  She just had to die for it.

  Hart wasn’t like Quarters. He wasn’t going to risk his life for hers. And he certainly wouldn’t give it up.

  No. She was going to die tonight.

  Luther had no doubt about it. He wouldn’t mind if Hart died with her or any other of those damn Payne Protection bodyguards. He’d sent enough gun power to her parents’ house to kill them all.

  No. There was no way Wendy Thompson was going to survive the night.

  Chapter 11

  Hart hesitated with his hand on the switch, concerned that if he flipped it, he might compromise the other bodyguards in charge of protecting the perimeter. If some of Luther’s crew was out there, Hart could actually end up helping them find and take out the Payne Protection detail.

  Or the reverse could be true. He could expose Luther’s crew to the guards. Or, he hoped, it was just some hungry deer marauding Ben Thompson’s garden.

  He drew in a deep breath, tightened his grasp on his weapon and flipped the switch. Wendy had not exaggerated. The floodlight bulb was bright, lighting up the backyard like it was noon instead of nearly midnight. Hart didn’t see any deer clandestinely dining on plants.

  But there was something out there. He couldn’t see people. Just shadows. Hulking shadows...

  They probably belonged to the members of Cooper’s team. All the ex-Marines were giants: tall, broad, muscular.

  Hart should speak with them to find out if they had figured out what Cole Bentler had seen. Their presence alone would have run off the deer and maybe even the other animals—the ones Luther Mills might have sent after Wendy.

  Hart unlocked and pushed open the back door. That was when the night exploded with so much gunfire it sounded as if he’d stepped into the middle of a war zone. He ducked down as bullets struck the house, pinging off the aluminum siding. But not every bullet pinged off; some penetrated the siding and the wood beneath it.

  “Get down!” he shouted into the house. But he had no idea if Wendy’s parents would hear him or if she would. Would she protect his daughter as she’d promised?

  Once she’d heard the shots, she would get them all to safety. Wouldn’t she? In that basement safe room her father had made?

  He needed to get back inside to make sure they did. But maybe it was better that he remain outside to make sure nobody got inside before Wendy got everyone to the basement. Of course, to do that, he had to stay alive.

  The shadows took thicker forms as the gunmen advanced. He ducked even lower, hiding behind the shrubbery near the back of the house, and returned fire.

  But he was outnumbered. Where the hell was his backup?

  Would any of the other guards get around the house in time to help him?

  “I’m sorry,” he murmured. The apology was for his daughter, for putting himself in a situation where he might not return to her.

  He was all she had.

  Her mother had gladly given up all of her parental rights to marry another man and move out of the country. And now, with his mother gone, Felicity had no one but him.

  And Winnie?

  Would Wendy keep his little girl safe?

  He had to believe that she would keep the promise she’d made him.

  But he wasn’t going down without one hell of a fight. Felicity needed him. And he needed Wendy—to protect his daughter and herself.

  That was all.

  Wasn’t it?

  * * *

  Glass shattered, raining down on the floor as Wendy crawled along it, doing her best to shield Felicity. She had one arm around the little girl’s trembling body, pulling her along with her.

  “Get over here!” Wendy’s dad called out from the open door to the basement. “Hurry!”

  She barely heard him over the rapid gunfire exploding all around them. She also barely heard the sound of footsteps behind her, but there was a telltale creak of the floorboards. Somebody had got inside the house. She scooped up Felicity and ran for that door. She slammed it shut behind her just as gunfire rang out inside the house, bullets pinging off the steel door.

  Years ago, when there’d been home invasions in their neighborhood, her father had turned the basement into a version of a safe room with a steel door and a series of dead bolts on the basement side of that door. Standing on the landing at the top of the stairwell, she and her father both scrambled to turn all those dead bolts and lock out the intruders.

  “Come here, sweetheart,” her mother called up from the bottom of the stairs. She held out her arms for the scared little girl.

  Felicity clung to Wendy, though, her face buried in Wendy’s waist. Her shirt grew damp with the child’s tears. The sound of gunshots had brutally jerked Felicity awake, and then Wendy had pulled her from her bed to run down the stairs. The first floor had been plunged in darkness but for the glow of the outside light and the flashes of gunfire.

  Her father must have turned out the lights so nobody would see them moving around inside. But it had made it difficult for Wendy to move. With all the bullets flying, she’d made certain to stay low, beneath the windows. As they’d crawled across the floor, they’d also crawled over glass.

  She picked up the little girl and carried her down the stairs. The fully in-ground basement was brightly lit. Her father’s man cave was quite comfortable with its thick carpet, walls finished in stained and painted barn wood, and padded, comfortable furniture.

  Wendy carried the little girl to the couch and sat her on it. “Let me look at you, sweetheart,” she said. She had to make sure the child didn’t have any glass embedded in her skin, like Wendy could feel in her own palms and knees. But Felicity continued to cling to her. “It’s okay, honey. We’re safe. We’re safe down here.”

  Up there had been another story entirely. She was surprised she’d managed to get t
he little girl and herself down to the basement. The gun shoved in the waistband of her dress slacks had proved worthless, as worthless as the one her father grasped in one hand.

  She glanced at him and her mother. “Are you both okay?” she asked anxiously. If something had happened to either one of them...

  She’d had no time to warn them. No time to prepare them for that sudden burst of gunfire. She hadn’t expected it, either. But at least she’d been upstairs. They’d been down where the shooting had started. She looked up and down both of them, checking for blood or wounds. “Are you okay?” she asked again when they had yet to answer.

  They nodded, their faces tense and pale with shock. She should have told them what was going on, about the threats. Then maybe they wouldn’t have been taken so by surprise. But her father had his gun. Fortunately, he was the type of man who was always prepared to protect his family and himself.

  Like Hart...

  Where was Hart?

  Felicity finally eased away from Wendy and stared up at her. Like Wendy’s parents, her face was pale and tense with shock and fear. Her bottom lip quivered as she asked, “Where’s Daddy?”

  Wendy’s heart broke. She didn’t know. The shooting must have started the minute he’d turned on that damn light. Why had she suggested it?

  Why had she been so naive to think that it was just deer out in the garden? She should have known better. She’d seen the aftermath of what people did to each other. She knew what Luther Mills was capable of.

  Was Hart dead?

  She couldn’t tell his daughter that. Couldn’t tell her that her father had risked his life to protect theirs. Not yet...

  She didn’t want Felicity to know about the danger. She was too young to deal with the gravity of the situation. So she forced her lips to curve into a reassuring smile and told the little girl, “Daddy went outside with his friends.”

  Hopefully he had met up with the other bodyguards, and they were all protecting each other and not just her and her family.

  Whoever had shot at the door must have never reached it. Nobody was trying the handle. And, as she listened intently, she could hear no footsteps overhead.

  But shots rang out in the distance. Or maybe it just sounded that way because they were belowground and within concrete walls.

  “What are they doing?” Felicity asked, her voice trembling with fear.

  Wendy forced her smile wider. “They are doing guy things,” she said with a slight shrug as if it was all no big deal. “They must be lighting off fireworks or something...”

  Her father grunted his disdain.

  But her mother nodded in agreement. “Sounds like fireworks to me.”

  The little girl leaned back farther and stared up at Wendy speculatively, as if she knew she was lying. Wendy hated that she couldn’t be honest with the child. But to tell her the truth would be to scare the innocence out of her. And she couldn’t do that.

  She lowered her gaze from Felicity’s and looked instead at the child’s hands and knees. Except for a small scratch on one knee, she appeared unharmed. Just afraid.

  The fear gripped Wendy, too. But she kept smiling through it.

  “You look like Daddy did when he told me Mommy was gonna get married and move away,” she said. “You’re acting like you’re happy, but I can tell you’re not.”

  A chill chased down Wendy’s spine. The little girl was very intuitive. Too intuitive...

  So Hart had not been happy about his ex-wife remarrying.

  Was it because she’d left her daughter? Or because she’d left him with no chance of ever reconciling?

  When he’d told her about it, Wendy hadn’t been able to tell how he’d personally felt about his ex. All she’d seen was his love for his daughter.

  She listened intently as the gunfire continued outside, flinching at a particularly loud shot.

  “Wendy doesn’t like loud noises,” Margaret Thompson said as she sat next to the child on the couch. “She’s not brave like you are.”

  The little girl glanced up at the older woman then back at Wendy. “Winnie was brave in the car for the roller-coaster ride and the bumper cars.”

  “That happened in the car?” Ben Thompson asked. “You weren’t at an amusement park?”

  Wendy shook her head and a thin shard of glass dropped from her hair. “No,” she admitted. “There was a van that bumped us.”

  “Hard,” Felicity said. “We bounced around, but Daddy drove fast. He won the game.”

  “Yes, he did,” Wendy said. She hoped like hell he was winning this game, as well.

  Wendy’s father gestured for her to join him before he walked away from the couch to the other end of his basement man cave, where he had a fully stocked bar and a popcorn machine. But when Wendy moved to follow him, Felicity reached out and clutched at her.

  “Don’t go, Winnie!” she pleaded, even more intently than she had when Wendy had tried tucking her into bed earlier.

  She forced a reassuring smile for the little girl. “I’m just going to make you some popcorn, okay?”

  Her father must have heard her because he started up the machine. And her mother quickly fumbled with the TV remote, clicked on the television and flipped through the channels until a cartoon filled the big screen. Hopefully all the noise would drown out the sound of the gunshots ringing out around the basement.

  “Wouldn’t popcorn be nice with our movie?” Wendy’s mom asked the little girl.

  All her attention suddenly riveted on the colorful animation on the big screen, Felicity just nodded. Then she let Wendy go as she scooted back on the couch to stare up at the cartoon movie.

  Wendy felt a flash of regret that the little girl was no longer holding on to her. For one, she liked comforting her. For another, Wendy didn’t want to talk to her father. She didn’t want to admit everything that she had been keeping from him and her mother.

  Mom joined them, too. She must have sensed her husband’s anger because when he opened his mouth, she grasped his forearm and squeezed. “We’re okay.” She leaned heavily against him, though. Having to run to the basement had probably not been good for her knee. “That’s the important thing,” she stressed. “That we’re all okay.”

  But she didn’t know that. Hart might not be okay. Hart might be dead. The thought horrified Wendy so much that she began to shake. “I have to—”

  “Tell us what the hell’s going on,” her father interrupted, his voice a furious whisper. “Who the hell is this Hart guy that there are multiple gunmen coming after him? What kind of trouble is he in?”

  Wendy bit her lip and shook her head as guilt and regret overwhelmed her. “It’s not Hart...”

  “What?” Her mother gasped in surprise. “That man’s not Hart Fisher?”

  “No, he’s Hart. But the gunmen aren’t after him,” Wendy said. She drew in a deep breath before quietly admitting, “They’re after me.”

  Her mother’s grasp tightened on her father’s arm again. But this time she used that connection to steady herself as she swayed with shock. “Wendy...”

  “Why?” her father asked.

  “Luther Mills,” she replied.

  It was all she needed to say. Her parents lived in River City. They knew about the upcoming murder trial for the notoriously dangerous drug dealer. And while she had never told them that she’d collected the evidence against him, they must have realized it now because her father emitted a ragged sigh and her mother nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell us before?” her mother asked.

  Wendy sighed. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Why are you here?” her father asked, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “I never believed your story about the cockroaches.”

  “Because he didn’t threaten just me,” she said. “He threatened everyone I love. You’re everyone I love.�
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  Her mother looked over at the little girl sitting on the couch. Her eyelids had begun to droop again, her lashes shadowing her cheeks.

  “We’re not everyone anymore,” Mom said. “Is that why Hart and his daughter came here tonight?”

  “Hart Fisher is just my bodyguard,” Wendy admitted. “And he had no choice about bringing Felicity. He had to because her babysitter took off.”

  Her mother gasped. “And left her alone?”

  “She left her with Hart’s boss.”

  What would become of the little girl if her father was gone? Would she have to go to live in another country with a mother who had abandoned her?

  Wendy’s heart ached and a sense of urgency overcame her. Hart had been hired to protect her, but she needed to protect him. Not just for his sake but for his daughter’s sake.

  “I need to make sure he’s okay,” she murmured with a glance at his daughter, who’d fallen asleep on the couch.

  “You can’t go up there,” her father said with an adamant shake of his gray-haired head. “It’s not safe.”

  “I have to find Hart,” Wendy said. “I have to make sure he’s all right.”

  “And if he isn’t?” her father asked. “What will you have done? Put yourself in danger for no reason.”

  Wendy pointed at the child. “She’s not no reason. She’s the best reason.” Felicity needed her father.

  “I’ll go look for him,” Wendy’s father said as he reached for the gun in his waistband.

  Her mother gasped and clutched at him.

  Wendy shook her head. “No, Dad. I can’t let you do that. This is all my fault.”

  “No, it’s not,” he assured her. “You were just doing your job.”

  She nodded in agreement. “A dangerous job that I’m trained to do. That’s why I can go up there. You can’t.”

  “Wendy...” Her mother reached for her, but Wendy stepped away.

  She knew what she had to do. She had to find Hart. Fear gripped her, though, but it wasn’t just fear for herself. She was afraid that, with all the gunfire, she would find him dead rather than alive.