Dangerous Nights: Tall Dark Defender / Undercover Wife

Instead, she found Hardin sprawled on the office floor in a puddle of blood.

When Jonah arrived for breakfast at Pop’s, a swarm of cops milled around the entrance and crime scene tape barred the gathering of reporters and curious onlookers from entering the diner. His heart rose to his throat as a black body bag was wheeled out by the coroner and loaded in a hearse.

Panic squeezed his chest, and he struggled to recall the waitresses’ work schedule he’d conned Susan into showing him, knowing Annie wouldn’t share her schedule willingly.

Friday. Annie was slated to open the diner.

Dear God.

Adrenaline pumped through him, jangling his nerves. A cold sweat beaded on his lip as he searched the crowd for Annie’s face.

Years of experience with crime scenes that should have allowed him some professional distance vanished. When someone you cared about was involved, objectivity flew out the window.

He spotted Lydia and shoved through the horde of reporters and cameramen. Seizing Lydia’s arm, he spun her around. “What happened? Where’s Annie?”

The gray-haired woman scowled at him and fought his grip until recognition dawned on her face. “Oh, Mr. Devereaux, it’s you. I thought you were another vulture reporter trying to exploit this tragedy for ratings.”

She huffed indignantly and sent a scathing look down the sidewalk to the aforementioned scavengers.

Jonah fought down the rising fear that coiled inside him, forced his voice to remain calm. “What tragedy, Miss Lydia? What happened?”

“It’s Hardin. Poor Annie found him shot dead in his office when she got here this morning to open the place.”

Relief that the body bag hadn’t been for Annie, and a gnawing concern for her trauma, tangled inside him.

Lydia shuddered and wrinkled her nose in dismay. “I can’t even imagine how grisly and horrifying that had to have been for her,” she said, mirroring Jonah’s thoughts.

“Where’s Annie now?” He cast another searching glance over the rubbernecking bystanders. “What happened to her? Is she all right?”

“Shook-up real bad, but not hurt.” The older woman’s face crumpled in sympathy. “Poor dear. Last I saw her, one of the cops had put her in the back of a cruiser to take her statement, get her out of the diner and away from the pushy reporters.” She aimed a finger down the block. “Over there.”

Jonah squeezed Lydia’s hand. “Thanks.”

He jogged down the street in the direction Lydia had pointed, searching each of the numerous police cars for Annie. When he spotted her, a curtain of dark hair shielding her bowed face, her thin shoulders hunched forward, her body rocking rhythmically back and forth on the rear seat of a cruiser, his gut twisted. Her body language reflected abject misery and terror.

A suffocating urgency to reach her, comfort her, protect her, grabbed him by the throat. He darted around the cluster of uniformed officers holding court on the sidewalk and knocked on the car window. “Annie!”

Her head jerked up, eyes wide. A gray pallor leeched her complexion. In seconds, the officers on the sidewalk assessed Jonah as a threat and seized his arms.

“Back off, sir,” one cop ordered as he hauled Jonah back from the police car.

Annie scrambled to find the door handle, beating it with her fists when she found herself trapped in the cruiser’s escape-proof backseat.

“That’s my girlfriend,” he lied. “I just want to talk to her! Can’t you see she’s upset?”

“She’s a material witness. Until the detectives question her—”

“I know the drill!” Jonah released his frustration on the uniform. “I was on the job in Little Rock for nine years! I just want to hold her, calm her down.” He shook free of the man’s grip and shoved past another cop blocking his path.

“Sir, you can’t—”

Jonah stuck his nose in the second cop’s face. “Look, pal, you can stand right next to us and monitor our conversation if you want. We won’t discuss the case. But I am going to let her out of that car.” He met the officer’s narrowed gaze with a dark glare of his own, then grated through clenched teeth, “Now get the hell outta my way.”

With a determined stride around the cop, Jonah snatched open the cruiser door.

Annie lunged from the backseat and fell into his arms. “Jonah!” she gasped, her body trembling. “They killed Hardin! They shot him! Oh, God, Jonah.”

He crushed her slim body to his chest, only to find his arms were shaking as much as she was. Just holding her, knowing she was safe, released the knot of tension that strangled him. He clung to her, stroking her back and sucking in deep restorative breaths.

“Oh, Jonah, it was horrible. There was blood everywhere, and his eyes—”

“Shh,” he murmured into her ear. “Don’t say anything now. We can’t talk about the case until you’ve answered all the police’s questions. Okay?”

She raised frightened eyes to his and nodded. A near-convulsive tremor shook her, and she dug her fingers into his arms.

“Is this my fault?” she rasped under her breath.

Jonah’s gut clenched. “No!”

“But I—”

His grip tightened, and his gaze drilled into hers. “No! You can’t think that way.”

“We both know why this happened.”

Jonah cut a furtive glance to the cop standing a few feet away, listening. He had to keep Annie from saying too much, incriminating herself or blowing his investigation.

She shivered, near hysterics. “A-and I’m the one who lost—”

He kissed her. Just a quick collision of mouths. Not the deep, intimate kiss she deserved and he hoped he could give her someday, but enough to shock her into silence.

Enough to tell him her lips were every bit as soft and sweet as they looked. Enough to fire both his libido and his primal protective instincts.

She blinked. Gaped. Lifted a trembling hand to her mouth.

Guilt kicked him. Perhaps now, when she was already vulnerable, shaken by Hardin’s murder, wasn’t the best time to complicate his tenuous relationship with Annie. Even if the kiss kept her from incriminating herself in front of the eavesdropping cop.

Blowing out a cleansing breath, he turned to the cop. “When will she be done here? I want to take her home.”

The officer arched an eyebrow and flashed a suggestive I-just-bet-you-would grin. Jonah gritted his teeth, battling down the urge to wipe the smug look off the man’s face. But getting arrested for assaulting an officer would do Annie and his investigation no good.

“We just have a few more questions to ask her. She was in shock earlier, and we were giving her time to calm down.”

Jonah brushed the hair back from Annie’s cheek and gently massaged the tense muscles in her shoulders. “You feel up to some questions?”

Annie turned a wide-eyed glance to the policeman. “Can h-he stay with me?”

“Sorry. No.” When her face turned a shade whiter, the man hitched his head toward the sidewalk. “He can wait right there, though. This will only take a minute.”