Assumed Identity(45)
Instead of answering, she shoved him back a step. “Emma!”
She charged down the hall and Jake ran after. “I haven’t secured that end of the building yet.” He grabbed her by the arm, but she twisted away and shot through her office door. “Damn it!”
He caught the door before it slammed back in his face and followed her into the room. “I just disarmed you. How are you going to defend yourself now? You’re running blind into an unknown situation. Your outside door is swinging wide open. Nobody else is here. There’s nothing good about this scenario. You want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Completely ignoring every stern warning, she hurried across the room to Emma’s bassinet.
“Robin—”
“Shh.” Seriously? She pressed a finger to her lips before leaning over the white basket. Then she reached inside and whispered a prayer.
Ignoring the burning skin at his collar and his fuming frustration, Jake toned it down a notch as she pulled up the cover. He sure as hell didn’t want to be responsible for scaring Emma again. “Is the kid okay?”
“Sleeping.” She smiled as tears spilled over her cheeks. “Like a baby.”
And then she crossed the room and walked into him. No, she burrowed into Jake’s chest. She pressed her cheek against his pounding heart and wrapped her arms around his waist, clinging to him the way a drowning woman clung to a life preserver. “Thank you.” She hiccuped a sound and squeezed him a little tighter. “Thank you.”
The emotions that had raged through Jake’s system—concern, anger, suspicion—short-circuited.
“Ah, hell. Robin?” Forgetting that this was all kinds of dangerous, Jake wound an arm behind her waist and palmed the back of her head, holding on just as tight. She quivered against him before settling impossibly closer, nestling her head beneath his chin, imprinting his body with the memory of small, sweet breasts, long thighs and firm hips. Was she crying? Shaking with anger? He’d been chasing a suspicious employee and a mystery player with a lot of money and a collection of photographs. What had she been dealing with in here? “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. You scared the tar out of me with that giant knife. And I was already...” She fisted her hand and pressed it against his shoulder, a friendly reprimand rather than a punch. Good. He was glad she still had the gumption to call him on his crude lack of manners. Made him feel a little less like the bad guy here. But then her fist opened up and her fingers dug into his shirt in one of those clutching grasps that made him crazy, and the skin and muscle underneath danced in response to the needy contact. She was burrowing in again and Jake couldn’t seem to remember why this was a bad idea.
“Already what?” He tunneled his fingers beneath her hair to find chilled skin at her nape. Oh, man. How long had she been locked up in there? His shoulders seemed to shift of their own volition, folding around her to surround her in warmth. He’d rethink this whole embrace thing tomorrow. Right now he felt like he needed to hold on to her, too. Like touching her was the only way he could convince those worrisome instincts of his that she was all right. Just like she’d needed to see and touch her baby to know that Emma was safe. Only, Robin wasn’t all right. She was shivering. “Honey, you’ve got to talk to me. I can’t keep coming over here to watch you every damn night and keep tabs on all the idiots who work for you—”
“You’ve been watching...? Did you just call me honey?”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“I was kind of hoping you did mean it.” With a heavy sigh that moved against him like a caress, Robin released her death grip and took a step back. “You sure you want to call me that, though? You keep showing up to save me and I bring the police into your life—which clearly makes you uncomfortable—and then I...hurt you.” She gently touched the irritation mark the pepper spray had left on his skin. The faint sheen of tears that sparkled in her eyes at the damage she’d done to him was more apology than he needed.
He pulled her hand away and clasped it between them. “It’s not like I haven’t been hurt before. And by a lot bigger and meaner than you, I’m guessin.’”
“You guess?” She reached up and cupped the side of his jaw, gently tracing the scar there with the pad of her thumb. “You don’t know who did this to you? Oh, Jake.” Lifting her other hand, she brushed her fingers across the rigid scar that bisected his temple. “That bastard should be drawn and quartered for hurting you like this. I can’t imagine how much pain you must have suffered. Is that why you don’t like Detective Montgomery? Because the police didn’t find your attacker?”