Beneath the Badge

His lips thinned into a deeper frown. “I’ve processed the crime scene and will be investigating everyone in Miss Landis’s life for motive.”

“What about keeping her safe?” Margaret asked.

An evil grin slid across the ranger’s face. “Well, ma’am,” he drawled mockingly, “I’ve got that covered.”

“How?” Margaret asked.

“I’ve been assigned as her bodyguard day and night.”

Taylor’s stomach sizzled with nerves yet she pressed her fingers to her lips, remembering how gentle he’d been when he resuscitated her. How in the world was she going to endure being near this man when he obviously hated everything about her?

HAYES BALLED HIS HANDS into fists to control his temper. Dammit, Taylor Landis looked all soft and needy. And she’d touched those luscious lips and looked up at him as if she was remembering his mouth on hers when he’d brought her back to life.

Hell. He couldn’t think about that. Couldn’t touch her mouth or any other part of her body again.

So he lashed out at her by taking perverse joy in taunting her rich friend. Maybe it was payback for all the taunting he’d received as a kid.

Margaret narrowed her eyes. “For some reason that doesn’t make me feel any better, Sergeant.”

He threw his head back and chuckled. “Don’t worry, Ms. Hathaway, I won’t let anything bad happen to the little princess.”

“You’d better not.” Margaret’s eyes flashed with emotions that Hayes refused to allow to get to him. “Because she’s going to be my maid of honor at my wedding, and I don’t want her showing up in a cast or on crutches.”

Or not showing up because she was dead, Hayes thought, although he refrained from comment. “In light of the fact that someone tried to kill you tonight, Taylor, you shouldn’t put yourself in the limelight right now.”

Margaret’s face blanched with fear, and Hayes’s gut tightened.

“He’s right,” Margaret said. “I’ll postpone everything until after the police find out who did this to you, Tay.”

“No, you won’t,” Taylor said, shooting Hayes a harsh look.

“But I don’t want to take a chance on you being hurt,” Margaret argued.

“She’s right, Taylor,” Hayes said. “You need to go into hiding until we find the man who attacked you.”

Anger sizzled in Taylor’s sky-blue eyes. “I refuse to run and hide. I’m not going to let some creep scare me from living my life.”

Hayes glared at her. “Then you’re a fool and asking for trouble.”

She turned a saccharine sweet smile on Hayes that was so fake it fueled his temper. “But, Sergeant, you’ll be with me day and night to protect me.”

He met her gaze with a sinister stare, but she smiled again, and focused on Margaret as if he was her minion.

Rage ripped through him. That was how she saw him, and he couldn’t forget it.

AS SOON AS MARGARET LEFT, Taylor fell into an exhausted sleep. Fitful images of the attack drove her awake several times, but when she opened her eyes, she saw Hayes Keller sitting in the chair in the corner watching her. She shouldn’t have found comfort in having him close by, but his big masculine presence soothed her nerves, and she rolled to her side and drifted back to sleep.

The last time she woke, sunlight streamed through the hospital window, and she checked the chair. He was slightly slumped, his head having fallen sideways in sleep, and his massive chest moved up and down with his breath. Catching him off guard in sleep seemed somehow intimate.

She noticed the fine dark stubble along his rugged jaw, the way his thick lips formed a constant scowl, the little curl in his dark hair that made her want to run her hands through it. His jaw was broad, his nose blunt and slightly crooked as if it had been broken and his eyebrows were full and thick, arched to frame his eyes in a way that added to his intensity.

The sound of his breathing floated toward her, a coarse whisper just as masculine as his face and body.

Somehow in that moment, he looked almost…human. And approachable.

He suddenly opened his eyes, his gaze meeting hers, and a tingling started low and deep in her belly. Lord, he was potently sexy. Like a cowboy hero in a Western.

No, no, no. She couldn’t allow herself to fantasize about him.

His eyebrows lifted slightly, and a heartbeat of silence stretched between them, fraught with tension.

She must be insane because at that moment she wanted him.

Then the door swung open and the doctor walked in. “Good morning, Miss Landis. Let’s see if it’s time to dismiss you.”

Hayes pushed to his feet, his boots pounding as he walked to the door. “I’ll be outside. Let me know when you’re ready to leave.”

She nodded, although her throat was too thick to speak. She could count on her hand the number of men she’d actually been this attracted to over the years.

Why did Hayes Keller have to be one of them?

HAYES PACED OUTSIDE TAYLOR’S hospital room. What in the hell had just happened?

After endless hours of being tortured by watching Taylor toss and turn, of wanting to crawl in bed and comfort her when she’d cried out in terror from her nightmares, he’d finally dozed off, only to have his own demons haunt him.

He had been five years old, locked in that damn closet where his adopted parents stuffed him anytime they needed to go out. Or when they just needed some peace and quiet.

Or when they wanted to punish him for being bad. And according to them, he was bad all the time so he’d spent half his young life in that tiny dark closet.

He still had claustrophobia. Hated dark closets, basements and crawl spaces.

Hell, he was a grown man now. Had his own life. A nice little cabin he’d built himself on a small ranch with tons of light where no one could bother him, where he’d never be stuck in that dark place again.

And he wouldn’t…not even in his mind.

He had escaped and had a job to do, and he’d damn well do it without allowing Taylor to get under his skin like she had earlier.

He’d survived that hellhole of a family. He could survive being assigned as her bodyguard.

All the more reason to find her attacker quickly, though, so he could leave Cantara Hills.

The door opened and the doctor appeared, Taylor’s chart in hand. “She’s dressing, then she can go home.”

He nodded. Margaret had brought Taylor an overnight bag. A nurse appeared with a wheelchair, and he went and retrieved his SUV from the parking garage, then pulled up in front of the hospital. Taylor climbed in and fastened her seat belt, and he maneuvered into the early morning traffic and drove to Cantara Hills.

“If we’re forced to spend time together, we should get to know each other,” Taylor said, filling the awkward silence.

He glared at her. “I intend to learn everything about you.”