heard the click of the lock being engaged. Then he hurried down the hallway to his room, grabbed a sleeping bag and a pillow and returned to bed down in front of PJ’s door. As he stretched out on the floor and worked the kink out of his leg, he reminded himself that it beat sleeping in a foxhole. And he refused to let anything happen to PJ and his precious baby daughter, Charlie.
Once he was settled, he grabbed his cell phone and hit the speed dial number for Hank Derringer.
The older man answered on the third ring. “Derringer,” he said, his voice scratchy and slurred with sleep.
“Hank, Chuck here. Tell me my assignment was just some sick joke on your part.”
Hank sighed. “I take it you met PJ?”
“I did. You didn’t tell me I’d be protecting my ex-fiancée.”
“If I had, would you have taken the job?”
Chuck wanted to tell the man he would have, but truth was, he probably would have told Hank where to go with his job and assignment. “No.”
“And now?” Hank asked.
With a sigh, Chuck answered. “You know damn well I can’t walk away.”
“I take it you met your daughter, Charlie?”
Chuck swallowed the lump forming in his throat. “Yes.”
“Beautiful baby girl, isn’t she?” Hank chuckled. “Looks like her father.”
“How did you know?” Chuck asked.
“Let’s just say I make it my business to know as much as I can about the people I hire. And I have a special interest in PJ that I won’t go into at this time.”
“Now that I’m here and know who I’m supposed to protect, maybe you can tell me why someone tried to kill PJ tonight.”
* * *
AFTER PJ LOCKED the door behind Chuck, she’d leaned her head against the cool, wooden panel, telling herself to breathe.
Chuck still had too much of a hold on her, even after almost a year’s separation. She thought pushing him out of her life had been the best decision at the time. Now she wasn’t quite as convinced. Breaking their engagement had been only a part of it.
Even if Chuck hadn’t insisted on volunteering, PJ suspected she’d have found another way to push him away. They’d gotten too close. She’d fallen too hard, and it scared her.
What was she afraid of? Why had she been so hesitant to allow him past the barriers she’d built around herself and her heart?
All her life, her adoptive mother had kept her from playing with others, refusing to let her out of her sight for long. She’d instilled in PJ a lack of trust in people and a determination to live a life independent of others. PJ had found companionship in the horses she loved at the resort stables, volunteering to muck out stalls and exercise the animals.
Chuck had been there, working quietly around her, his love of the animals equal to her own. Over time, he’d overcome her shyness and they’d gone riding together and talked. He’d taught her how to laugh again, something she thought she’d never do. And PJ had fallen in love with the big ex-football jock cowboy, breaking her self-imposed rule not to invest her heart in anyone but to rely solely on herself.
She’d gone so far as to accept his proposal of marriage and actually started dreaming of a wedding and happily ever after.
Until Chuck’s National Guard unit had asked for volunteers to deploy and Chuck had raised his hand.
PJ’s world had caved in around her. She’d been heartbroken that Chuck would want to leave her and go to war. All she could see in her future was how alone she’d be. Her adoptive mother wouldn’t be around forever, her health having deteriorated over the past several years.
She’d been so upset, she’d thrown his ring in his face and told him she never wanted to see him again. Looking back, she realized how childish she’d been.
She hadn’t been there to see him off when he’d left for predeployment training. Hadn’t told him that she’d missed her period and suspected she was pregnant.
For a short time, PJ thought she could handle being a part of another person’s life. But then Chuck had left. Not long afterward, Terri Franks died of a heart attack, leaving her alone in the world, without money or a home to live in. She’d been saving money for years so that someday she could afford to start college online and study animal husbandry. When Terri died, all the money had gone to pay for Terri’s funeral.
Terri had been renting the house they lived in. When she’d passed, PJ had gone to work instead of college in order to pay the rent. But the rent had been too much for the meager earnings she’d gotten from the odd jobs she was able to get around town. Without family or a degree and any formal experience, she was destitute and alone. Everyone she’d ever loved was gone, making her promise herself never to get too close to anyone, lest they die and leave her.
Then Charlie came along....
A voice outside her door brought her out of her sad memories and across the room to press her ear to the door. From the deep timbre and pitch, PJ could tell it was Chuck. She peered through the peephole but couldn’t see him.
Something shuffled against the outside of the door. What was he doing?
She pressed her ear harder against the door and listened.
“She had a scare, but she’s all right,” Chuck was saying to someone.
Who was he talking to?
“Whoever broke in tonight won’t try again. He’ll have to go through me to get to her.”
PJ smiled, feeling better about going to sleep now than she had a few moments before.
Apparently Chuck planned to sleep in front of her door.
“We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Something bumped softly against the door, and all went silent.
PJ pressed a hand to the door. Chuck was on the other side. So close, and yet a huge chasm stretched between them. She’d kept knowledge of his daughter from him.
Even if he forgave her, she wasn’t sure she could let him back in her life.
Chapter Three
PJ rose early the next morning, fed Charlie, dressed and loaded the diaper bag with frozen breast milk and diapers for the day care. She had to be at the diner for the first shift.
She dreaded opening the door and waking Chuck after he’d spent the night sleeping in the hall. A twinge of guilt pinched her chest at the thought of him lying on a hard vinyl-tile floor all night, while she’d had a soft mattress and pillows to cushion her.
With the words to thank him poised on her lips, she hooked the infant carrier with Charlie in it on one arm and the diaper bag on the other and eased open the door.
The
