Internal Affair (11 page)

“This is Detective Parker Li of the Boston Police Department. I’m travelling north bound on 128 and another vehicle is ramming us.”

Smart woman, she’d called the state troopers. With luck, a patrol car would be nearby and lend assistance. If he could only keep this murderous bastard at bay, they stood some chance of getting out of this unscathed. He grunted when once more his car got hit from behind. He changed lanes again, hoping to get to the shoulder. Maybe stopping would be the best solution. With a blare of horns from irate drivers ringing in his ears, he fought the wheel to the right. The pursuer changed tactics and swerved into him from the side. Daire worked to keep the car from rolling into a ditch.

Parker let out a cry as they came crashing into the guardrail and spun back onto the road, narrowly missing a passing car. Daire yanked the wheel back to the right too hard, overcompensating and sending them once more off the road. This time they fishtailed onto a grassy embankment until the car stopped at an angle. As soon as the momentum ended, Daire killed the engine and lunged for Parker. She cried out again, only this time, with relief he hoped as she flung her arms around his neck.

Daire popped his seatbelt so that he could pull her in closer. Clasping the back of her head, he shoved his face into her hair and rubbed his cheek against the silky strands.

“You’re okay. You’re okay.” He murmured the words over and over again, reassuring them both.

He thought he couldn’t hate the people who’d murdered his parents any more than he already did. Thought his anger and thirst for vengeance couldn’t burn any brighter, nor that his determination to bring them down could grow any stronger.

He’d been wrong.

Chapter Six

Parker felt foolish standing at the side of the road with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Blankets were for people in shock, for victims, not cops. She should be over with Daire talking to the state trooper, going over with him again the details of their little adventure.

Except she’d already given as much of an account of what had happened that she could, and honestly, shivers ran through her body every once in a while. She needed the extra warmth, more than she got by gazing at Daire and remembering how he’d held her close once the car had stopped. God, she hated being fragile, but nearly being killed had scared the crap out of her. All she could think as Daire hugged her and she hugged him back was thank God he’d been with her. If she’d gone to interview Lahey alone… It didn’t bare thinking about.

Two SUVs whizzed by the area secured by the troopers before pulling over to the shoulder, the very sight of them sending a frisson of alarm through her body before she recognized whom they carried. The cavalry had arrived in the form of Callaghans and Malloys. They were a formidable looking group. Ronan and Finn led the charge, with Regan close on their heels. Caruso and Nieves joined the pack at a quick pace, and even the sophisticated Ramsey carried an “out of my way” aura. They converged on Daire and the trooper forming a semi-circle of protection and support. Even with the distance between them, she could see Daire’s face lose a millimeter of grim. He nodded in her direction, and Caruso, Nieves, and Ramsey broke free from the group and headed her way.

Awesome. Daire had sent his second string over to guard her. It pissed her off that he thought she needed it and warmed her to the core at the same time. She mustered up a smile for the approaching men. Nieves was the only one to return the look.

“You should be inside,” he said, gesturing to the statey car next to her. “It’s cold out here.”

Parker opened her mouth to tell him the cold actually resided deep inside her, then thought better of it. They were already worried about her if their expressions were any indication. Why exacerbate everything?

Besides, the only man she’d feel comfortable breaking down in front of was Daire. Weird how he’d become so important to her in such a short amount of time. Not that she intended to act on it or anything. They’d agreed to put their mutual attraction on hold until this investigation had finished. Once the staties were done with them, she’d go home, get in the tub, and maybe then have a good, long cry.

“I’m fine,” she finally answered with a shrug. “I have my blanky.”

Kyle got right in her face and scrutinized her. “You look a little shocky to me.”

Parker raised her eyebrows at him. As sweet as their concerns were, she needed to shut this whole macho protection thing down. Not only was she a cop, too, she was the lead investigator, for God’s sake.

“I thought you were a
lawyer
, not a doctor.”

“My aunt is a surgeon. I’m the closest thing we’ve got.”

“Cassidy volunteered to stay with Craig at Uncle Jack’s once we confirmed neither you nor Daire was hurt,” Nieves offered.

“The kid’s on lockdown since Finn and I caught him sneaking beer,” Caruso chimed in.

Parker huffed out a breath. “You didn’t all need to drop everything and come down here.”

“Yes, we did.” It wasn’t quite a Greek chorus but close. Each one of them wore an expression that told her she’d be wasting her breath to try to convince them otherwise.

Fortunately, Daire finished up with the trooper within a few minutes and joined them. He pushed his way through the wall of men and clasped her by the shoulders. “Are you all right?”

Parker mentally rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m fine, just like you. Please stop worrying about me.”

He searched her face, as if gauging the truthfulness of her words. “I don’t think I can. Stop worrying. About you.” He glanced to each side of him. His brothers and cousin had accompanied him to join the Parker party. “About everyone and everything,” he added in a low voice for her ears only. “It’s what I do. What I am.”

“I’m fine,” she repeated because she didn’t want to be yet another person in his life he felt responsible for. “I’d like to go home, though. Are we done here?”

“Yeah, we are, except…” His voice trailed off, and he tugged her farther away from the others. “I don’t like the idea of your going home alone.”

As she opened her mouth to argue, the import of his words hit home. “You think they’re going to try to kill us?”

“I think they already have with this crazy stunt.”

“That’s insane. Surely this was meant to only scare us, assuming it’s related to the investigation.”

“You know it is.” Daire stared down at her, the grim back in force on his face. “They’re either getting bold or desperate to come after us. Please come home with me where I know you’ll be safe.”

Oh, no. Going home with him was a bad idea on so many levels. “I’ll be safe at my place. I’m a cop, remember? I carry a gun.”

“I have a kick-ass alarm system at my place.” He glanced away. “And I can’t stand the idea of your being alone tonight. Please.”

Damn, she could fight machismo but not vulnerability. Plus, even with her training, the thought of being alone while people conspired maybe to kill her made her belly quiver. She wanted to be stronger than that and would have made herself be stronger than that if she didn’t see the desperate pleading in Daire’s eyes. “Okay.”

****

Daire set the alarm as soon as he shut the door behind the last of his familial rescue squad. He’d wanted them all to stay—Jack, Cassidy, and Craig as well—here under his roof with as much safety as he could conjure up. But they were adults and cops, capable of taking care of themselves and those closest to them. Michael and Finn would keep a sharp eye on Craig. Ronan and Diego would form an impregnable shield around their woman. Regan and Kyle were going to spend the night with Jack, and from what he’d seen of the lawyer, he was no one to fuck with. Everyone would be as safe as they could be without him. The one person in particular he worried about had stayed behind within his domain. Protecting Parker had become his number one job for the night.

He stared at the keypad for a few seconds as he often did to reassure himself the system was on and working. Then he returned to the dining table to clean up the remnants of the pizza consumed while they’d all done a postmortem on the road incident.

Incident
. Such an antiseptic word to describe the heart-stopping terror of being run off the road and trying to keep the car from rolling or worse. Parker insisted they use cop speak and not something more provocative to give themselves the right perspective. Right now, he’d do anything she wanted, anything to make her happy. She’d held it together admirably, cool and calm even in the immediate aftermath while she’d been questioned by the staties.

He’d kept it together, too, outwardly and for her benefit. Inside his guts writhed in a seething anger. He wanted blood so badly he could taste it, could feel it with every breath he took. Whether the intention had been to kill them or merely scare them off, the fuckers had put Parker’s life in jeopardy.

Not since the early months after his parents’ murders had he felt this intense fury and fear. He’d be up most of the night checking and checking again to make sure Parker remained safe just as he had with Finn and Ronan. When his brothers had grown up and left home, he thought he was done with this kind of obsession. Apparently not. Now, he had Parker in his life, or at least in his home. Keeping her safe made everything else pale in comparison.

He found her wiping the table with a damp cloth, having removed the boxes already. “You didn’t have to do that.” Even as he said the words, the sight of her being domestic in his home gave him the warm fuzzies. Jesus, he was so far gone with this woman.

She gave him a dubious look. “My mother would disagree.”

“Did you manage to get a hold of her?” Parker had worried their “incident” might have made the news, and she didn’t want her parents to worry about her.

“I did,” Parker replied and walked back into the kitchen. Daire followed her. “She didn’t freak out as much as I thought she would. Of course, I downplayed it, made it sound more like an accident than attempted murder.”

Leaning on the doorjamb, Daire watched her rinse the cloth at the sink. She’d pulled her hair back into a ponytail at some point in the evening and changed into the jeans and T-shirt Regan had brought. It had taken some convincing, but Daire managed to get Parker to agree to give Regan her keys to pack a weekend bag for her. He didn’t want her out of his sight and figured heading straight to Charlestown would be safer. Luckily for him, when she’d accused him of being overprotective, every one of his family and almost-family members backed him up on the point. He was grateful for their support and hers.

“Thank you,” he blurted out. She turned to look at him and cocked her head. “Thank you for agreeing to stay with me. I know it’s an imposition.”

“No, not so much an imposition as a temporary solution. You have to let me back out into the real world at some point, you know.” She gave him a tired smile. “We both have to go back out there and find out who’s behind this.”

“I know, and we will. Just for tonight, at least, I need you here where I can keep an eye on you.”

“I understand just so long as I can keep an eye on you, too.”

“Fair enough.” He straightened. “Look, I fully expect you to sleep in Ronan’s or Finn’s old room, your choice. I don’t want you to think this is intended to be an excuse to jump you or anything.” God, his face heated up. No smooth talker he.

Parker bit her lower lip and sauntered toward him. “What if I want you to jump me? What if I want to jump you?”

The breath left his lungs in a whoosh. “You don’t mean that,” he challenged in a strangled voice.

She stopped mere inches away and craned her neck to look up at him. “Oh, but I do. I’ve had some time to think about this.” She gestured between the two of them. “I’ve been on a self-imposed dry spell with men. I blame it on the emotional fall-out from breaking up with Evan. It’s easier to pin the decision on that. The truth is, though, I’ve been scared. Even while I bitched and moaned about my mother’s meddling, I felt relieved that I didn’t have to put myself out there. Dating is scary and rejection is hard. Immersing myself in my job seemed much easier in comparison.”

“I understand how you feel.” Her story didn’t vary much from his own. When he’d been in deep with raising Finn and keeping Ronan on a short leash, it had given him a good excuse to pull out of the dating pool. Always a bit shy and awkward around girls, he’d gladly grabbed onto the excuse.

“The thing is,” Parker continued, her gaze never leaving his, “I hadn’t met you yet. Being celibate is easy when there’s no one around to tempt you.”

Amen to that!

“I tell myself that getting involved with you is a bad idea all around. The investigation, dating another cop, dating a senior cop.” She ticked off the reasons, and he couldn’t argue with any of them. “Now?” She shrugged. “It might be a cliché, but almost getting killed or at least having the crap scared out of me, has given me a new perspective. Tell me, why is it so wrong for us to act on our attraction? It doesn’t have to be for more than one night.”

Daire took a deep breath and closed the distance between them. He cupped her chin and tilted it back even more. “Yes, it does.” He lowered his mouth slowly to hers, giving her plenty of time to suddenly find sanity despite her assertions and push him away.

She didn’t. Instead, she met him halfway, seizing his lips with a fierceness that put his prudence to shame. As soon as they touched, his control vanished, and wrapping his arms around her, he pulled her into a tight embrace. His tongue pressed for entrance, then swept every corner, tasting all she offered. Not to be outdone, she clasped his ass and squeezed. Her enthusiasm egged him on. The difference in their heights made things awkward, so he lowered his hands, grabbed the bottom of her ass and lifted her. Clever woman that she was, she jumped to wrap her legs around his waist as soon as her feet left the ground.

The feel of her body rocking against his hard cock spurred him to hurry up and move them to a better location. When he turned and headed for the stairs, he forced one eye open to see. He kept his lips firmly in place, taking shallow breaths whenever he left her mouth to scrape and nip. Parker moaned and squeezed her legs even tighter. She tugged his shirt out of his waistband and, sliding her hands under it, raked her nails up his back. The fleeting bite of pain made him shudder. He took the stairs at a trot, anxious to get her in his bed.