sighed, her relief showing in her smile. “That’s great.”
“Danny, you don’t have to—”
“I am aware. But stakeouts are old hat to me. It’s a piece of cake. Now I’m going outside for a minute to make another call.”
“Who?” Jessie asked, wide-eyed.
“Rafe. He can help grease the wheels to get us started on an order of protection. A restraining order.”
“Good thinking,” Piper said. “Let’s go back inside and relax for a few minutes while Danny does his thing, yes?”
Jessie nodded and followed, stopping halfway across the restaurant to cast a look back to Danny for one comforting moment.
“I really do think I’m falling in love with him,” Piper muttered softly, and they exchanged a grin.
“Yeah,” she replied with a sigh. “Me, too.”
* * *
Danny swiped the page on his tablet, then swiped it back again when he realized he hadn’t retained a single word he’d just read. Despite his anticipation for the release of this third book in a popular series of suspense fiction, he just couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything except the unexpected and jarring resurgence of Jack Stanton.
The guy turned out to be more imposing than Danny had imagined. Tall, muscular, a little chiseled in the jaw line. And far more suntanned than any of the pictures he’d seen. Apparently, Stanton had been enjoying his exile to the fullest. Maybe those visions Danny had of him on a Bali beach sipping exotic drinks weren’t so far off after all.
It wasn’t hard to picture Jack standing on top of a high-end wedding cake with Jessie at his side, or sauntering about that 3,000-square foot Malibu rug he’d pulled out from under his wife.
Wife.
The reference left a bitter taste at the back of his throat. More than just the simple aversion to thinking of Jessie as anyone else’s wife, Danny found it particularly repugnant to envision this particular person tied to her until death they did part. Or until abandonment and possible divorce.
He reminded himself as he gave up and switched off the tablet that there was always the possibility that they’d never been legally married in the first place. He couldn’t gauge how detestable it made him that he found a strange degree of comfort in that painful scenario, but he harbored the secret notion that it should be a relief to Jessie as well.
His startled reaction to the sudden rap on the window sent the tablet flying out of his hand to the floor on the passenger side. He looked up to see Jessie’s face beaming at him from the other side of the glass.
Man oh man, she’s beautiful.
He reached across the seat and pushed the stubborn door of Riggs’s old van until it creaked open. “You scared the living breath out of me.”
“I’m sorry. I thought maybe you’d like some coffee,” she said, lifting a travel mug with a ribbon of steam emerging from the opening on top of it.
“Thank you.”
He reached across the seat to take it from her, but she slipped into the van instead and yanked the door shut behind her before handing him the cup.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she told him, her eyes trained on the deserted, dimly lit street. “My mind is just racing with . . . all sorts of thoughts.”
Danny inched over to the edge of the driver’s seat and angled toward her. The instant he stretched out his arms, she did the same on the passenger seat and fell into his embrace.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” she whispered.
“Not going anywhere,” he returned, and he planted a kiss on the top of her head as he held her.
“Danny, can I ask you something?”
“Always.”
“Do you think Jack is . . .”
He waited, but she didn’t complete the thought. “Do I think he’s what?”
Her voice was raspy and emotional as she finally said, “Dangerous?”
Where had that come from? He’d scammed clients, jilted Jessie, absconded with every cent they’d had, but dangerous?
“Why do you ask that?” he inquired, nudging her away slightly so he could get a good look into those crystal blue eyes of hers. “Has he ever hurt you?”
“No,” she answered then shrugged. “Not physically.”
“What makes you worry about your safety?” He twisted a lock of hair near her face around his finger and moved it back.
“I guess I just realized everything I thought I knew about us—Jack and me—was a lie. It wasn’t real. So how do I really know what kind of man he’s become?”
“I can tell you this,” Danny reassured her. “You know what kind of man I am. Would I ever let him hurt you again?”
Her smile appeared edged with timid confidence. “No.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of all of this,” he promised. “And you’re going to be free of Jack Stanton sooner rather than later.”
She wriggled toward him and planted her head underneath his chin with a sigh. “When you say it, I almost believe you. You’re good at that.”
“Yes, I am,” he teased.
After a few minutes of comforting silence, Jessie tilted her head upward and stared into his eyes.
“What?” he asked, and she smiled.
“You know what else you’re good at?”
“So many things,” he replied.
“Yes. But would you kiss me? I feel safe when you kiss me.”
Without another random word, Danny leaned down and placed his lips on Jessie’s. A muffled sigh came from deep within her throat, and he raked his fingers through the silky hair at the side of her head. When their lips parted, she snuggled beneath his chin again and softly moaned.
“Thank you, Danny.”
“For?”
“All of it. Every bit of being you. Thank you.”
He chuckled. “Glad I could be me for you.”
“Me too,” she said, sincerity apparent in the expression. “I’ve never had a Danny Callahan in my corner before. It’s startling . . .and a relief, really.”
“Yeah. I get that all the time.”
The two of them sat there together in Riggs’s questionable-smelling van for an hour or so as Danny sipped his coffee and Jessie
