Why was this happening? Why? What did I do? Not even a day and three hot guys, all three I couldn’t have. One was scary and was the head honcho of a possibly felonious but definitely antisocial motorcycle club, so he was out. One was scary and mysterious and a jerk, so he was out. And this one was not scary, he was gorgeous but he was also the detective assigned to my case which meant he was probably not allowed to fraternize with a victim, namely me, and therefore he was out.

I didn’t lift my cheek from my knee and he didn’t tear his eyes from me as he walked into the kitchen, grabbed a chair, twisted it around to face me, not too close, not too far away, and sat down. With his eyes still on me, he leaned forward, elbows to knees.

“Gwendolyn Kidd?” he asked in a nice, smooth, deep voice.

I nodded against my knee.

“I’m Detective Mitch Lawson.”

Detective Mitch Lawson. Yowza. Great name.

I kept my cheek to my knee when I told him quietly, “That’s the perfect name for a cop.”

His brows went up slightly. This was not what he was expecting. He was probably expecting a “Hi”, or a “Thank you for coming” or a “God, you’re hot”.

“It is?” he asked.

“Mitch,” I whispered. “Strong, the last three consonants that is, but not in a harsh way, in a soft way. And when you’re with someone you care about and you’re close and they say something you can’t hear, you don’t say, ‘What?’ you say, ‘Mm?’ real soft. Put that and the last together, soft and strong, things a cop needs to be… Mitch.”

He stared at me.

I kept babbling. “And Lawson, goes without saying, Law… son. Son of the law.” I pulled in a breath through my nose and then whispered, “Perfect.”

He stared at me some more.

Then he said, “Gwendolyn sounds like a song.”

Uh… nice.

I so totally loved my name.

“A short one,” I replied.

“But a pretty one,” he returned.

Uh… nice.

I smiled at him and Detective Mitch Lawson smiled back at me.

Yowza!

Then suddenly his neck twisted so he could look over his shoulder, his torso went straight and he stood, still looking behind him.

My eyes went there and I kept my cheek to my knee even as my heart skipped a beat.

The Great MM was standing there.

He wasn’t in a fabulous chocolate brown turtleneck, leather jacket and jeans. He was wearing what he was wearing earlier, a skintight, navy, long-sleeved t-shirt that delineated every carved muscle in his chest, shoulders and arms; army green cargo pants and boots. He was also wearing an unhappy expression and his eyes were locked on Detective Mitch Lawson.

Then his eyes moved to me and about a nanosecond later he moved to me, all masculine grace, a big cat on the prowl, fascinating.

My eyes moved with him but my cheek didn’t leave my knee as he got close then bent over me, lifting his hand. I didn’t know what to expect so I braced until I felt his fingers at my temple. They trailed lightly along my hairline, down, behind my ear and I closed my eyes as he slid the hair off my neck. Then his warm hand curled there.

Then I heard him ask softly, “You okay, baby?”

Baby?

My eyes opened and slid to see him bent close to my face.

“Fine,” I told him.

“You don’t look fine,” he noted.

“Well, I am,” I returned.

“Then why are you curled into a protective ball?” he asked.

This was a good question.

I shrugged.

“Heard she was yours,” Lawson noted, MM straightened and turned to him and I was so surprised at this comment, for a variety of reasons, that my head came up so I could put my chin to the space between my knees.

“She’s mine,” MM confirmed decisively.

“I’m not his,” I denied probably not decisively.

Lawson was looking at MM but when I spoke his eyes cut to me. He stared at me what seemed intently for a few beats then one side of his mouth twitched and he looked to the floor a second before he looked back at me.

“I need to ask you a few questions,” he said quietly. “You up for that?”

MM moved to my side, right to my side, in a way where his lower side pressed down my upper side and his hand didn’t leave my neck but it slid to the back.

“Ask,” he ordered shortly, answering for me, Lawson looked at him then sat again.

I lifted my chin from my knees but MM’s hand on my neck didn’t move. His position seemed to be possessive, an indication to Lawson he was claiming me. But that hand… that hand seemed to be supportive, an indication he was worried about my state of mind and, furthermore, he cared.

Now, what did I do with that?

I focused on Lawson and not MM and saw he was leaning forward on his knees again.

“Tell me what happened,” he said gently.

I sucked in breath. Then I said, “I heard a crash, it woke me up and I knew, I knew like you know when you have a bad dream and you jerk awake and your body is all tingly and you just know, you know someone is in the room to hack you up and you can’t get rid of that feeling, you know what I mean?” I paused and he nodded. “I knew like that someone was in my house but I knew it was for real.” He nodded again and I kept talking. “So, I called 911 but not before I thought I needed a baseball bat. But, while I was waiting for you, I decided I didn’t want a baseball bat, I want a crowbar. A baseball bat has more surface area so the force of the blow would be disbursed. A crowbar would work better. What do you think?”

MM’s fingers tightened on my neck but Lawson, clearly not following my ramblings, asked, “What do I think?”

“Baseball bat or crowbar? Which one would you want if you were in a scary situation?”

He paused a second, his eyes holding mine, before he answered softly, “Gwendolyn, I own a gun.”

Jeez. Of course. He owned a gun. He could shoot a bad guy. He didn’t need a baseball bat.

A gun would be handy but I wasn’t sure I was ready for a gun.

“Oh yeah,” I whispered, “right.”

He smiled a small smile and prompted, “So you called 911…”

“Yes, then I grabbed my snow globe because that was all I had,” I told him and his brows drew together.

“The one in the living room?”

I had carried my happy kitty down when I went to greet the police. The officer who took me on a tour of my house eventually had to pry it from my hands and set it aside.

“The one in the living room,” I answered.

“It’s normally on Gwen’s nightstand,” MM added and Lawson’s eyes lifted to him even though he didn’t move his head but I twisted my neck to look up at him.

There it was. Proof. He could totally see in the dark.

“You noticed that?” I asked and MM’s black eyes tipped down to me as his fingers gave my neck another squeeze.

“Don’t miss much, babe.”

Hmm. I suspected as much but, even so, I didn’t think this was good news.

“Unh-hunh,” I muttered.

“Gwendolyn,” Lawson called and I looked back at him. “What happened after you grabbed the snow globe?”

“I walked to the wall and pressed against it, stared at the door and waited. I saw the flashlight first then I saw the hand pushing open my door really slowly.” I stopped because MM’s fingers tightened, this wasn’t a squeeze, this was something else and his fingers didn’t loosen. I had to admit even though I didn’t want to that that strong pressure felt good. “He got it open a foot, maybe more and then there were sirens and he took off. I heard him running down the stairs.”

“Him?” Lawson asked.

“It was a man’s hand,” I told him. “White, um… Caucasian.” I used television show cop speak.

“A man’s hand,” Lawson repeated.

“Um… yeah,” I confirmed.

“You’re sure it was a man’s hand?” Lawson asked and I locked eyes with him.

Then I said softly, “It wasn’t Ginger.”

Another squeeze of the fingers from MM but this time they relaxed.

Lawson sat back and studied me.

“Your sister?” he asked.

“I know she’s in trouble. Bad trouble. And I know that’s why you’re here and eight uniform cops are here for what is normally not likely a priority, all hands on deck call.”

I heard a noise come from MM that sounded like a manly, amused, deep but short chuckle and I looked up at him to see he was grinning. No teeth but he was grinning enough that both dimples had popped out.

When I looked back at Lawson, he had a small, one-sided smile thing going.

“We try to do our best,” he muttered.

“Well, I appreciate it,” I smiled back. “And I hate to disappoint you but Ginger Kidd was not in the vicinity tonight or, if she was, she heard the sirens and took off. Even when she was a kid, she didn’t like cops. I always loved cops, went right up and talked to them, made friends. She ran a mile. We should have known.”

“She did that?” Lawson asked, looking amused.

“Often, first time she was six.”

His face changed as realization dawned and he stated, “You’re not joking.”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“That was likely a good sign of future trouble,” Lawson remarked.

“Don’t get her started on her Barbies,” MM put in, my body jerked and my head shot back to look at him.

Uh... what? What, what, what? How did he know about the Barbies?

My eyes narrowed on him.

“Do you know about your sister’s troubles?” Lawson asked and I tore my eyes away from MM and looked at him.

“No, except I know she owes the Chaos Motorcycle Club a lot of money and that would be a lot, a lot but they already know I can’t help them out with that because I’m not tight with my sister and I don’t have that kind of money to give to them in order to get her fat out of the fryer.”

“They do?”

“I had a chat with Tack today. He’s aware that the Kidd cupboards are bare or at least I don’t have two plus million stashed somewhere.”

“You had a chat with Tack today,” Lawson repeated and something about him had changed and not in a good way. He looked pissed.

“Um… yeah,” I answered.

Lawson’s eyes flicked to MM then back to me. “You don’t know anything else about what’s happening with your sister?”

“No, except that there’s more but I don’t know what it is. And I don’t want to know. I officially disowned her today. Therefore, officially, she is no longer my sister.”

This garnered another squeeze from MM but Lawson was watching me.

“So you wouldn’t have any idea who might come visit you tonight?” Lawson went on.

I shook my head. “No idea. All I know is, they didn’t take anything and they came right to my bedroom. Make of that what you will.”

Lawson stared at me. Then he did it some more. Then his jaw got tight. Then a muscle jumped in his cheek, his gaze lifted to MM, he took in a breath and shook his head. Then his eyes locked with mine.

Then he leaned deeper toward me and he said softly, “I’m gonna tell you what I make of this. What I make of it, Gwendolyn, is if my woman had a sister who I knew was in some serious shit, she would not be havin’ a chat with Kane Allen, she would not be sleepin’ alone and therefore she would not ever have to worry about whether she needs a baseball bat or crowbar because she’d be in bed beside me.”

Oh.

Wow.

MM’s hand left my neck.

Uh-oh.

“Did I just hear you?” MM asked in his scary voice.

Uh-oh!

Lawson’s eyes lifted again and again he did it without moving his head. “You just heard me.”

Uh-oh!

“Um…” I started to take my heels off the chair when MM spoke.

“My boys clocked him on his second drive ‘round to case Gwen’s house. No one was close enough to get to her fast so we called it in to you boys three minutes before he even hit her sidewalk. You had units in the vicinity so he was in the house for less than two minutes before they arrived. Gwen was never in any danger.”

What?

“It’s luck we had units in the vicinity,” Lawson returned as he stood.

“Bullshit, Lawson, your boys have been cruisin’ the neighborhood for two weeks, hopin’ Ginger would make a visit,” MM fired back.

“This area is hot but we don’t sit on her house, Hawk,” Lawson retorted.

Hawk?

I looked up at MM.

“Hawk?” I asked.

He ignored me as he was too busy scowling at Lawson. “Your boys were five minutes out, my boys eight. One way or another, she was covered.”