an explosive temper. And a mean streak as wide as the ocean. She had the scars to prove it. Her danger barometer rang a resounding alarm. The last thing she needed in her life was a man who couldn’t control his anger.
Needing space, Meghan paced as she battled to maintain her composure as well as her peace of mind.
She could feel Ryan’s gaze like a touch as he traced her path. He was angry. Well, so was she. At the situation, at him. So much for her composure. She’d had Georgina in her grasp. Ryan was supposed to have protected them. She glared at him. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
He met her gaze, his icy-blue eyes dark with fury. “No, it shouldn’t have.” He shook his head, his face filled with self-loathing. “I let myself be distracted.”
She frowned. “Distracted? By what?”
His gaze cut over her before he looked away. The muscle at the side of his jaw visibly pulsed. For a long moment she stared at his profile, at the angular lines of his cheekbones and straight nose, until something clicked in her mind. Did he mean he’d been distracted by her?
Her pulse tripped over itself. Her thoughts rewound to the moment inside the house when she’d been holding Georgina. Meghan had looked up to find Ryan in the doorway. She’d heard his voice long before he had appeared, so seeing him wasn’t a surprise. But the look on his face…that had left her reeling.
She’d known from the get-go that this man was dangerous, on so many levels. It didn’t help that every time she saw him she felt a flutter of feminine excitement.
Men in uniform could do that to a girl. And admittedly, Ryan filled out his blue uniform in a very eye-catching way that any woman with blood in her veins would notice.
But that didn’t mean Meghan would repeat her past mistakes. She’d gone down the hunky-guy road before with disastrous results.
Not going there again. Especially not with a Fitzgerald. She didn’t trust him. Couldn’t even say she liked him.
Though admittedly, the wistful, almost yearning expression on Ryan’s handsome face as he had watched her holding Georgina had both confused her and sent her pulse skittering.
Then he’d opened his mouth and all she’d registered at the time were the cold blue eyes and the hard set to his jaw that she’d grown used to seeing over the past six months in her campaign for more to be done in bringing her cousin’s murderer to justice.
“Have you given any consideration to what could have happened had Christina and her thug returned before I got here?” Ryan asked, his blue gaze drilling through her.
She lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug. “But she didn’t.”
“Dumb luck.”
Her gaze narrowed. “I don’t believe in luck, Deputy Chief. I wouldn’t have thought you did, either, considering you’re a churchgoing man.”
“My faith isn’t the issue here. What concerns me is your lack of regard for your safety. For the safety of little Georgina.”
His words drilled a hole through her anger. Guilt wormed its way to the surface. She probably had been too rash in coming here alone. “I should have called you,” she conceded.
“You think?” he muttered. “If you hadn’t been here, I would have been able to control the situation.”
The censure in his tone dug at her, setting her defenses firing. “You don’t know that. Christina Hennessy’s crazy. You saw proof of that. You believe she killed her husband.”
Saying the words aloud felt like stepping into rush-hour traffic. She and Ryan had no control; they didn’t know when they’d be hit. Little Georgina’s life hung in the balance at the hands of an unhinged gun-toting woman and a muscle-bound criminal with no aversion to pounding on people.
Christina Hennessy may not have only killed her husband, but Olivia, too.
Meghan had to keep pushing for justice. Olivia deserved nothing less. And baby Georgina deserved to be protected, cared for.
She squeezed her eyes tight. Tears leaked from the corners. “Please, dear Lord, keep Georgina safe. Please let us find her.”
When she opened her eyes, she found Ryan staring at her with an arrested look on his face.
Not one to usually pray aloud in public, the heat of a blush crept up her neck and into her cheeks. But she wouldn’t apologize. She’d worked hard to reclaim her faith after having spent too many years feeling lost and abandoned by God.
“Why is Georgina so important to you?” Ryan asked. “It’s more than just chasing a story about Burke’s death. So what gives?”
The squall of sirens filled the air and an ambulance roared to a halt a few feet away, followed by a Revere police cruiser, saving her from answering.
She was chasing a story, that much was true. Working freelance meant pitching ideas to various news sources and hoping something stuck. The editor at the Boston City News had been enthused by the hooks she’d dangled: murder, small-town police corruption, a baby without a home.
But there was more, much more to this tale.
Georgina Hennessy was Olivia’s biological child.
And soon she’d have to tell Ryan that Olivia was his half sister. His father, Aiden Fitzgerald, had had an affair with Meghan’s aunt Tara.
Not a conversation she was looking forward to, however necessary. She wasn’t sure how the deputy chief would take the news.
Ryan struggled to stand. Meghan helped him, taking on some of his weight. The heat of his body engulfed her. He was still sweating from the fight. Being so close to him sent awareness skating over her. She forced herself to ignore the attractive draw of Deputy Chief Ryan Fitzgerald.
He was not her friend nor was he someone she could trust with her life or her heart.
* * *
Ryan winced as one of the paramedics wound tape about his midsection. The other paramedic probed at his ankle, setting Ryan’s teeth on edge. He sat on the back bumper of an ambulance, having refused to be loaded on a gurney. He wasn’t that hurt. He had work to do.
He still had to call in a report to the FB police station. Though he figured they’d probably already heard from the Revere Police Department about the injured Fitzgerald Bay officers. Ryan’s gut churned.
Helen Yorke and Officer Jackson had already been transported to the hospital by the first ambulance to arrive. Both had probable concussions. By the time the paramedics had Jackson strapped to a gurney he’d regained consciousness. He needed stitches to his head and had a broken wrist. Apparently Christina had distracted Jackson while Jay snuck up behind him and clocked him good after a brief struggle.
Guilt for the rookie’s injuries piled on top of the guilt Ryan already felt for allowing Christina and her henchman to escape with Georgina. His body hurt, but his injuries didn’t ache nearly as bad as his heart.
It had to be the letdown of adrenaline from his brawl with the muscle-bound Jay and the helpless
