Page 27

Polly hesitated. The puppy reared up, paws on her leg, as if begging to be allowed to go on the outing with her new friends. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” Giving in to the relentless impulse to touch her, he feathered his fingers into the silky waves of her ponytail that hung over her shoulder and tucked it neatly behind her back. “I’m sorry I’m not an easy man to be with.”

Her green eyes locked with his.

“Not easy, maybe. But a good man. I’m grateful for everything you’ve done for me.” Gratitude wasn’t what he wanted from her. But he had no time to process the words to tell her that before she braced her hand against his chest and pushed onto her toes, surprising the hell out of him by pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. Every working nerve ending on his face buzzed with awareness. His heart beat faster with the need to take what she was offering and give it back tenfold. But before he could turn his head and seal his mouth over hers, she stepped back like she just realized she’d done it and wasn’t sure if she should be embarrassed. “You remember the code to get back in?”

He nodded. Although he didn’t want her to be embarrassed by anything when she was with him, it was probably smart that she’d pulled away.

“Okay. She’ll need ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. Don’t let Luna eat any neighbors.”

“She’ll be safe with me,” he assured her, understanding what she was really asking.

He zipped his coat shut and buckled Luna’s leash to her harness. The landing outside her condo felt cold and colorless when he opened the door. Hell, the whole world seemed that way without Polly smiling at him. And that kiss? Barely a chaste brush of her lips against his, and his pulse had kicked into overdrive. Before he could give in to the urge to show her how a man really kissed a woman he was attracted to, he closed the door behind him. With his scars, inside and out, Daniel had no business trying to teach Polly Cooper anything about kissing or sex or relationships.

All he was good for was protecting her.

And her pet. Because he’d promised.

He shook his head, feeling a quiver of amusement. Luna strained at her leash and danced around his feet, making him and Pirate look like a couple of old curmudgeons with the young dog’s eagerness to get outside.

With a command to Pirate, they took the stairs quickly, Luna attempting two at a time with all the grace of a baby deer. Pirate shepherded the pup with a gentle shoulder block at the next landing to keep her from tumbling.

Uh-oh. He wasn’t the only one whose protective instincts had kicked in tonight.

Outside, the air had that hush that comes after a light snow. The parking garage’s security lights threw yellow circles across damp concrete. Daniel paused outside the gate and let his eyes adjust. His breath plumed white around his head. A distant siren wound down to quiet. He heard the murmur of voices in the distance, probably from the patrons at the bar, their conversations too far away to distinguish any words.

He led the dogs across the street to the strip of dormant grass between the sidewalk and the lot there. It gave them enough room to do their business, but not enough to get themselves into trouble. Pirate snuffled through the snow, taking in every scent. Daniel scooped up a handful of snow and packed it into a tight ball that he tossed. Pirate rose up on his hind legs and chomped it between his teeth, sending a mini snowstorm out either side of his muzzle. Daniel tossed two more before Luna took an interest in the game. But she just looked stunned when he tossed a snowball at her, and it smushed at the side of her face.

And when Pirate slurped up the snow clinging to the pup’s muzzle, triggering some kind of tongue tag game between the dogs, Daniel felt that tic at the corner of his mouth Polly had touched. Hell. He was smiling. He must be doing that more often if she’d noticed it. Something loosened inside his chest. Polly Cooper had a healing gift. He wasn’t sure he deserved her touches and smiles, but he was damn sure going to protect her sweet, healing nature with everything he had in him.

The dogs played for a few more minutes before Luna paused to squat and Pirate trotted over to mark the same spot. Meanwhile, Daniel kept his head on a swivel, scanning up and down the street, noting the patrons at the bar laughing at some joke, counting the three people who got onto the bus that squealed to a stop at the corner, looking for any sign of the brown car returning to track Polly.

All of the sudden, Pirate froze. The dog’s ears perked up and he stretched his neck above Luna’s antics to focus on something that Daniel couldn’t yet see.

“What is it, big guy?”

Pirate tilted his quivering nose into the air and Daniel narrowed his gaze.

There. Set back in the shadows of the alley, he saw the bright orange glow of a cigarette. Pirate must have seen movement or scented the smoke. Separate from the other smokers at the front of the bar, a lone figure was lurking in the alley. Too far away from the illumination of the streetlight for Daniel to see the man’s face. He only supposed it was a man because what woman would hang out in a dark alley by herself at this time of night?

What he wouldn’t give for a pair of night vision goggles right about now.

Daniel crouched down beside Pirate and quieted Luna into a sit beside them. He snuck his phone out of his pocket and aimed it toward the faceless figure, doubting he could get a decent picture of the guy, but knowing it would be worth the effort if he could lighten up the photo later and get some kind of ID. “You feel him watching us, too?” he whispered, snapping a couple of pictures. “Is that what put you on alert?”

He rose slowly, letting his body slide into stillness. Could be idle curiosity. Could be a fascination with dogs. But Daniel would bet that man’s eyes were pinned on him, just as his own eyes stared into the shadows.

The man in the alley moved first. A tilt of his head moved the glowing end of his cigarette up as if he was studying the stars…or something high up across the street.

Damn it. The creep was watching Polly’s building. He must have seen the two of them together. Maybe he was wondering why she hadn’t come outside with him. Or he was realizing that Polly was all alone right now. Even with the curtains drawn, there was enough ambient light glowing behind the drapes that he could pinpoint her condo on the fifth floor since the floors above and below her were dark.

Daniel cursed out loud and stepped off the grass onto the sidewalk, heading toward the man.

But the guy snuffed out his cigarette and disappeared into the shadows of the alley. The instinct to run him down and demand some answers curled his hands into fists. But with a puppy in tow, he thought better about giving chase. He’d promised to look out for Luna, just as he’d promised to protect Polly.

It would be smarter to punch in the code she’d given him and head back inside.

He breathed once. Don’t get jumpy. The difference between alive and dead, once upon a time, had been that thin line between patience and charging forward balls to the wall.