Daddy Defender

He glanced at his watch and winced. “Okay, I’ve got to get going. Just call me if there are any other problems, okay? And thank you.” He held up the plate.

He reached over quickly and tickled Chloe’s cheek, causing her to laugh. “Bye, you little heartbreaker. Be good for your mama.”

He was out the door before she could say anything else.

What would she say anyway?

Bring me back my muffin plate tomorrow and when you do, ask me to dinner!

She wished she had the guts.

Summer put Chloe in her high chair and set some Cheerios in a small plastic bowl on the tray. Within seconds, they were spread out all over the tray and she was trying to feed herself with both fists at once.

Chloe wasn’t much of a conversationalist either.

Summer had lost her husband to useless violence so long ago now. She missed Tyler every day, wished he was here to see his daughter and what a beautiful, smart, delightful baby she was. But Summer had long since accepted Tyler wasn’t coming back. He wouldn’t want her to waste her life pining over what couldn’t be changed. He would always live in her heart.

So maybe someday soon she would ask Ashton out. He seemed like a good man, if a little shy, but solid, steady, dependable.

And hot as all get-out.

Summer could use a little solid-and-steady, even if the words sounded boring to her. She’d had enough excitement in her twenty-six years. First Tyler’s death, then eight months ago when a crazy stalker linked to Tyler’s case had taken her and Chloe and trapped them in a burning building.

Some Omega Sector agents who worked with Joe Matarazzo had gotten her and Chloe out. Joe had been able to stop the stalker and save his wife, Laura—whom the psycho had also taken—although only barely.

Summer didn’t remember a lot of what had happened in that building. She’d been drugged so everything had been hazy. She just remembered a man in full combat gear, breaking through the door of the small room where she and Chloe had been placed and carrying them both out to safety—as if carrying them had been no difficulty for him at all. The whole scene had been so chaotic, Summer hadn’t even been able to thank him.

So yeah, she’d had enough of excitement. Was ready for a little bit of boring, like maybe a quiet handyman. Although she doubted Ashton was boring once someone got to know him. At least she hoped not.

Summer almost absently gave Chloe more Cheerios before reaching down to grab the ones that had been knocked to the floor and throwing them in the trash.

Summer dreamed a lot—almost every night. Vivid, lifelike dreams. For a while they had been terrifying ones of Tyler’s death. Thankfully those had gone away.

Now she often dreamed about her kidnapping and the fire. She dreamed about the man who’d gotten her out. Who’d carried her safely in his arms.

Capable. Strong. Calm and steady under pressure.

But in every dream, no matter how it started or what she did differently, there was only one face she ever assigned to her hero: Ashton’s.

Ashton Fitzgerald may be strong. And even capable in a lot of situations. But he was no rush-into-a-burning-building sort of hero. Which was fine. There were all types of heroes. Ashton was just the type who came by early and fixed sinks, rather than leaping tall buildings in a single bound. Summer had no problem with that.

She just wished she could convince her subconscious.

Chapter Two (#u9c6b789b-f83c-56ec-8300-d90dd93a0220)

About an hour north, in a building the polar opposite of any of the lovely condos in Colorado Springs, Damien Freihof was bored.

And generally when he became bored, people started dying.

He took a deep breath and feigned interest in what the other two men were saying inside the abandoned warehouse just outside of Denver, where they all had agreed to meet since none of them knew each other.

One waxed poetic about the need for change. He wore an ill-fitting, charcoal-gray suit with a red tie and paced back and forth. He kept a baseball cap pulled low on his head to make his features, if not exactly indistinguishable, at least more difficult to describe.

“We will rewire the entire American law enforcement system,” he argued from the shadows. The man obviously wanted to keep his face—as he had wanted to keep his name—out of the equation.

Which was fine for now.

Damien raised his fist in the air. “Yes! Fight the power.” He barely restrained from rolling his eyes.

Red Tie stopped his pacing. “We will fight the power. We will change everything by destroying the law enforcement status quo. Once Omega Sector crumbles, other law enforcement agencies will follow. We will stop the corruption.”

It was obviously a rehearsed line. Damien had no idea how deep Red Tie’s following went, whether the man had only practiced his speech in front of the mirror or if he had dozens of soldiers lined up for his cause of restructuring the law enforcement system.

But Damien knew he worked relatively high within the elite law enforcement group of Omega Sector and wanted to destroy it.

That made Red Tie Damien’s new best friend. Inconsequential things like names and faces could come later.

If Damien guessed, he would say the man was some sort of active agent or SWAT member, based on his general discomfiture with his suit. He obviously didn’t like the restriction and was probably used to wearing the superhero uniforms the SWAT team wore. Plus, he was definitely fit. Maybe not quite right in the head, but definitely physically capable of doing harm.

The other man, Curtis Harper, the man Damien had contacted and brought to this meeting, had no qualms about standing in the open, his face and identity known to everyone.

Harper tended to be much more whiny and annoying in general. He finally spoke up.

“Dude...”

Damien had found in his years of experience that nothing intelligent ever followed the word dude.

“Dude,” Harper said again, “I’m not interested in no revolution. I just want to get revenge on the man who killed my father.”

Red Tie stared at Harper, his arms crossing over his chest. Everyone stood in silence for a long time.

“Damien.” Red Tie turned to him. “I’m not sure we’re all on the same page he—”

Damien held out a hand to stop the man’s words. He didn’t want Red Tie to scare Harper away. Harper served an important purpose.

An important, disposable purpose.

Damien walked over to Harper, putting a friendly arm around his shoulders. He led him away from Red Tie, toward the door of the warehouse. “Mr. Harper, you want revenge. Rightfully so.”

“Damn straight.” Harper nodded and moved his jaw strangely. Damien realized he had chewing tobacco in his mouth.

The urge to snap the man’s neck right now rushed through Damien’s body. He could feel the tingling need zip through his arms and fingertips. He’d be doing everyone a service by killing this uneducated, woe-is-me bigot right now. But Damien resisted the urge.

Barely.

“I understand,” he said instead, keeping his hand around the man’s shoulder. “And I want to help you get that revenge against Ashton Fitzgerald.”

Harper’s eyes narrowed. “That bastard killed my daddy. Murdered him in cold blood.”