His Christmas Assignment Page 2

  He glanced around as if just realizing where they were. “I’ve been wanting to get into your bedroom for a year now…” He stepped closer to the bed and ran his fingertips across the sheets. “Silk…”

  She flinched with anger and embarrassment and lashed out, “Of course you’d be surprised a man like me would have silk sheets.”

  “Man?” he repeated, his brow furrowing with confusion. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You just said I was the best man for the job—”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” he said.

  “Why not?” she asked. “Everybody else thinks of me as just one of the guys.”

  He shook his head. “I have never thought of you that way.” He stepped closer now and jerked her into his arms so quickly that she didn’t have time to react. If she’d had time, she would have stopped him—she would have hurt him. Instead she just slammed up tightly against his chest, so that she felt his every breath, his every heartbeat…

  “And I have thought of you,” he said with an intensity in his gray gaze that had her heart racing with excitement, “every moment since I’ve met you…”

  He lowered his mouth to hers but when their lips were just a breath apart, he paused and murmured. “And I have thought of doing this…of kissing you…”

  And then he did—he kissed her with that intensity she’d seen in his eyes. He kissed her with such passion that she had no doubt he didn’t think of her as one of the guys. He thought of her the way she’d been thinking of him.

  And she realized something else—it was too late to escape.

  *

  It was too late. No matter how hard he tried, Garek was unable to escape his old life. It just kept dragging him back in…

  Back into a life lived on the edge, back into a life of danger…

  Maybe it was a good thing that Candace had taken off the way she had, because at least he wasn’t dragging her in with him. He didn’t even know where she had gone—just that she’d finished packing her suitcases sometime that night and she’d left.

  Her leaving had hurt more than the fist that slammed hard into his stomach. He coughed and doubled over in pain, but strong arms held him up so the fist could strike him again. Harder.

  A curse slipped through his lips along with a slight trickle of blood. He didn’t have any internal injuries; he’d just bitten his tongue. Purposely. He’d been beaten harder than this before; hell, his brother had beaten him harder than this before. Of course that had been years ago when they’d been just kids. But he groaned as if he were in agony. The truth was the old man didn’t pack the wallop he had once had. But as the godfather of River City, Michigan, Viktor Chekov commanded respect and fear.

  And with good reason. The guy was a killer. And maybe it could finally be proven…

  With a jerk of his silver-haired head, Viktor called off his goons so that they released Garek. He dropped to the ground with a groan and complained, “What the hell kind of greeting was that…?”

  “How do you expect me to greet you?” Viktor asked. “You just walked away—”

  “I didn’t just walk away,” Garek said. “I was taken off in handcuffs to prison.”

  A muscle twitched in Viktor’s slightly sagging cheek. “That wasn’t because of the work you did for me.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Garek agreed. “But I might have avoided jail time if I’d given up what I did for you, or if I’d set you up…” Like he was setting him up now…

  Viktor swung again—this time right at Garek’s jaw. He could have ducked. But he took it on the chin. And this time he didn’t bite his tongue on purpose. He spit out a trickle of blood and wiped his mouth.

  “If you’d done that, you would already be dead,” Viktor told him.

  And this was why he hadn’t given up or entrapped Chekov. The sentence he’d served out had been for something that hadn’t actually been a crime.

  “I never would have betrayed you.” Then. But he was a different man now. He was actually a man now whereas when he’d worked for Viktor he’d been a desperate kid, living on the streets.

  “You’ve been out of prison a long time, Garek,” Viktor reminded him. “But until tonight you have never come back to the family.”

  Viktor and his organization had never been family. They had preyed on his desperation and utilized the skills he’d learned from his jewelry-thief father before Patek Kozminski had gone to prison.

  “I made my sister a promise,” he said. And while it had been a struggle at times, he had kept that promise—to never leave her again for either a jail cell or a grave. They had already lost their father—first to prison and then to death. “I vowed to her that I would stay on the straight and narrow.”

  “You’ve been working for her husband, that former detective, Logan Payne.” Viktor had obviously been keeping track of him over the years.

  “Still am,” Garek said. Unlike Candace, he wasn’t about to quit a job he loved—even for another job that had to be done.

  “So why are you here?”

  Garek wiped the blood that continued to trickle from the corner of his mouth. Maybe Viktor had hit him harder than he’d thought. “To offer my services.”

  Viktor glanced at his gargantuan goons and chuckled. “You think I need another bodyguard?”

  “I think you need a good one,” he said.

  The two muscular guys glared at him.

  Viktor shook his head. “I am perfectly safe.”

  “But the people close to you aren’t,” Garek said. “I heard you recently lost a member of your family.” Not a blood relative but a very close associate.

  That muscle twitched again in Viktor’s sagging jaw. “It is too late for Alexander.”

  Polinsky had been murdered just days ago—shot in the head execution-style. The feds believed that Chekov had been the executioner.

  “What about Tori?” Garek asked. “Aren’t you concerned for her safety?”

  Viktor’s face flushed with color at the mention of his daughter’s name, so Garek braced himself for another blow. But Viktor didn’t swing his fist. Instead his shoulders slumped. “Tori is safe. Safer without you near her.”

  Garek nodded. “I thought that once, too.” Actually he’d thought the opposite. He was safer if he was nowhere near her. Viktor loved his little princess so much that he would probably kill anyone who made her unhappy. And Garek hadn’t ever seen the young woman happy.

  “Why are you really here?” Viktor asked. He stared at him again, as if trying to see through him.

  “You already checked me for a wire,” Garek reminded him. He needed more than a recording with Viktor’s admission of guilt. He needed evidence. And he had to get close in order to get his hands on it. “I want to make sure Tori is really safe,” he said. “For old times’ sake.”

  “What about that promise to your sister?” Viktor asked, his dark eyes still narrowed with suspicion.

  Garek shrugged. “I haven’t been happy with my sister for a while now.”

  “Then why work for her husband?”

  “Logan didn’t lie to me and Milek,” he said. “Stacy’s the one who kept secrets.” That secret had affected and devastated Milek. While Garek had already forgiven her, he wasn’t sure that their brother ever would.

  Viktor nodded with understanding. He had obviously kept very apprised of not just Garek’s life but Milek’s and Stacy’s, too. A shiver of unease chilled Garek’s skin. He didn’t care about himself but he cared that his past association might have put his siblings in danger.

  “I think Tori would like it if I hire you,” Viktor admitted. “Despite all the years that have passed, I don’t think she ever quite got over you.” He stepped closer, his hand reached out as if to shake, but he slapped Garek instead. “And if you hurt her again, I will hurt not just you,” Viktor threatened, “but everyone close to you.”

  The unease turned into a shiver of dread and foreboding. It was good that Candace had left town;
she would be out of danger. It was just everyone else that Garek had to worry about when he took down the godfather of River City.

  Chapter 2

  The lock rattled—just a couple of quick clicks—before the doorknob began to turn. Candace reached for her weapon, grasping it tightly in her hand as she approached the door to the condo she’d rented at a ski resort in northern Michigan.

  Nobody knew where she was. And nobody here knew her at all. So who the hell was breaking into her unit?

  Had Garek tracked her down—like he had that night at her apartment? Her heart rate accelerated, and her hand trembled slightly as memories of that night rushed through with a wave of heat.

  Embarrassment—she called the heat. She was embarrassed for being such a fool. She couldn’t be feeling desire. Not for Garek Kozminski.

  Not again…

  She lifted her weapon and pointed the barrel at the person stepping through the door. Disappointment rushed through her now. Her intruder wasn’t Garek.

  She recognized the dark curls and eyes of the petite young woman who stepped through the door, her hands raised. “Don’t shoot,” Nikki Payne said, but her smile belied any fear.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Candace asked. “And why are you breaking in? Did Garek Kozminski teach you how to do that?”

  “No, I picked the lock,” another voice replied as the door opened farther to Stacy Kozminski-Payne. The woman dropped a packet of lock-picking tools into her purse.

  “Doesn’t anyone in your family wait for a person to open their door?” Candace asked.

  Stacy shrugged. With tawny-colored hair and dark gray eyes, she didn’t look that much like her brother Garek but for the quick, sly smile that crossed her face. “Why put you through the trouble of answering the door?”

  Since the two women had already stepped inside, Candace closed the door. “See, look, no trouble.”

  But it was trouble that they were here. Neither of these women was her friend. Nikki had resented that her brothers had chained her to a desk at Payne Protection while they routinely assigned Candace dangerous field work. And Stacy…

  Maybe that was more Candace’s fault than Stacy’s. She had disliked the female Kozminski even more than the males—because Stacy had posed such a threat. Candace had thought the woman had been a threat to Logan Payne’s life, but she’d been a threat to his heart instead. Not that Candace had ever had a chance of winning his heart. He’d never been attracted to her the way he’d been to Stacy. The way he still was…

  Candace couldn’t blame him. Even though Stacy had given birth just a few months ago, she’d regained her petite figure with little effort. Candace wanted to hate her. But Stacy couldn’t help that she was beautiful and lovable.

  Candace turned away from her and focused on the youngest Payne. “You went to an awful lot of trouble to track me down.” Since her brothers had strapped her to a desk, Nikki had become a computer expert.

  Nikki shrugged her thin shoulders. “It was no trouble.”

  “I haven’t been using my credit cards.” When she’d taken off, she’d taken out enough cash to cover her expenses for months. She’d only been gone a couple of weeks.

  “You ran a red light,” Nikki reminded her.

  Candace’s face heated with embarrassment over her transgression. She’d been distracted—thanks to Garek Kozminski.

  “I was driving a rental…” She had been so careful to cover her tracks, so that no one would find her. Or at least so she could convince herself that no one could find her. Then she wouldn’t have been disappointed if no one had shown up.

  Nikki snorted. “Ticket goes on your driving record but the registration is also listed for the vehicle you were driving at the time of the violation. And the rental has a GPS locator. So you were easy to find.”

  Despite her best efforts…

  “Why?”

  “The ticket,” Nikki said. “The first one you’ve ever gotten, by the way.”

  Like Candace didn’t know that. “I meant why did you track me down?” She was pretty sure it hadn’t been her idea. “Who asked you to?”

  Garek? But then why hadn’t he come himself?

  “I did,” Stacy replied.

  “You asked her to track me down?” she asked. “Why? To make sure I stay gone?”

  Stacy laughed. “I can understand why you might think that…”

  Candace wouldn’t have blamed Stacy if she had asked Logan to fire her. She—and everyone else—knew that Candace had been in love with her boss. What wife would be okay with a woman working with her husband when the woman was in love with him? A woman who was very secure in his love.

  Stacy confirmed this when she continued, “But I actually wanted to find you to bring you back.”

  Panic, at the thought of facing everyone again, pressed on Candace’s chest. And she shook her head. “No, I should have quit a year ago.”

  “But you didn’t,” Stacy said.

  “I should have,” she repeated. Not because of the embarrassment over everyone knowing how she’d felt about Logan. She’d endured worse things than embarrassment.

  Before joining the River City PD, she’d been an army reservist who’d done a tour in Iraq. And in the River City PD, she’d done a stint in vice—dressing up like a prostitute. That hadn’t lasted long, though, because few johns had tried picking her up. It had been quite the joke in the department. She had been the joke. But she hadn’t left the River City Police Department until Logan had. No, there were worse things than embarrassment—like heartbreak.

  She should have left because of Garek.

  But if she had left…

  Her face heated again and this time it wasn’t with embarrassment. Her entire body flushed as she remembered that kiss and what had followed…

  She shook her head, as much to dislodge those memories as in refusal of Stacy’s invitation to return. “I can’t go back,” she told her. “Logan must have told you…” She doubted he kept anything from the woman he loved. “If I hadn’t quit, he was going to fire me.”

  “You don’t have to work for Logan,” Nikki said.

  Candace laughed. “He’s the boss.” And not just because he was the oldest Payne sibling but also because it had been his idea to start the protection agency. It was his business.

  “He’s the CEO but he’s franchising the business,” Stacy explained. “After all the publicity last year, Logan felt as if he needed to expand to keep up with the demand for Payne Protection.”

  “Cooper and Parker will each have their own franchise now,” Nikki said. “I’m going to work for Cooper. You could, too. He’s bringing in his own team of former marines.”

  Candace hadn’t been a marine. But she had served.

  “Or with Parker,” Nikki continued, her voice lilting with enthusiasm. “He’s recruiting former cops. You’d fit in there, too.”

  “Logan would like you to come back to work for him,” Stacy said.

  Candace shook her head again. If that were true, he would have come himself; he wouldn’t have sent his wife and sister to find her. He might not even know that they’d been looking for her. So it was just curiosity that had her asking, “What’s his team going to be?”

  “Family,” Stacy replied.

  “I’m not family,” she said. “And that was made very clear to me.”

  “Is that why you left?” Nikki asked. “Because you thought there was too much nepotism—with me and Parker and Cooper?”

  “It wasn’t the Paynes that were the problem,” Stacy said, answering for her before Candace had had the chance. “It was the Kozminskis. We were why she quit.”

  Candace flinched at how petty she sounded. She wished that had been the reason she’d quit: pettiness. But fear was what had compelled her to quit. She hadn’t realized it at the time—because she had never acknowledged fear before. She wouldn’t have become a soldier or a cop if she had. So because she’d never acknowledged it before, she hadn’t recognized it.r />
  “Not all of you,” Candace said. “I have no problem with Milek. I actually feel sorry for him.”

  Stacy flinched now and quietly admitted, “I made a mistake.”

  Nikki glanced at her sister-in-law, and while there was affection, there was also disapproval in her dark eyes. “You kept a secret—a really big secret—from him.” The youngest Payne hated secrets and didn’t understand that there were reasons to keep them. To Nikki, there was only black and white.

  Candace understood gray. She had kept more than her share of other people’s secrets; that was another reason that she was always the buddy—the friend. She knew too much but she kept her mouth shut. “It wasn’t Stacy’s secret to tell.”

  A soft gasp of surprise slipped through Stacy’s lips. “I’m glad Nikki tracked you down.”

  Candace shrugged. “It doesn’t matter that you did. I’m not going back.” Not to Payne Protection. Maybe not even to River City.

  “Why not?” Nikki asked the question.

  Candace suspected Stacy knew. The woman’s dark gray gaze was focused on her as she studied her intensely. What had Garek told her?

  She fought the urge to blush. Surely, he wouldn’t have told his sister…

  But what if he’d told anyone else or everyone else? Despite her best efforts, her face flushed again. So she turned away from them to gaze out the window. Snow drifted softly to the ground but melted as soon as it hit the grass. The weather was unseasonably warm for December—which had caused the ski resort to be unusually quiet. “I like it here.”

  It was quiet. It was safe. Due to the weather leaving the slopes more green than white, it was nearly deserted. So it was boring as hell.

  “Why?” Nikki asked the question again, her voice full of confusion. She wanted excitement—had been fighting Logan for years to put her in the field. She didn’t understand that sometimes boredom was good.

  “It’s pretty here,” Stacy answered for her as she stepped closer to the window and Candace and watched the big fluffy flakes fall onto the grass. “And it’s peaceful. I can see its appeal.”

  Candace turned back toward them. Even if she ignored them, they weren’t going away. She might as well hear them out.