Undercover Protector. Cassie Miles

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Undercover Protector - Cassie Miles Mills & Boon Intrigue

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      “I’ll think about it.” She nodded toward the phone. “Go ahead and call the police. Please tell them not to use the siren. I’d prefer if Grandpa slept through the night.”

      Picking her way through the dark house, she went upstairs to change clothes before the Bridgeport police officers arrived. If the gossips in town heard she’d been wearing a slinky nightie and sleeping under the same roof as an unmarried man, they’d assume the worst, even with her grandpa there as chaperone. She had no intention of being paired up with Michael Slade again.

      Before returning downstairs in her jeans and baggy gray sweatshirt, she tiptoed to her grandpa’s bedroom door, intending to close it tightly. There was no need to disturb him. He needed his rest.

      “Annie?” he called from the bed. “What’s going on?”

      Her hand rested on the doorknob. “Nothing. Go back to sleep.”

      A police siren screamed along Myrtlewood Lane.

      “That doesn’t sound like nothing,” Lionel said.

      She explained, “Somebody threw a brick through the window by the front door. We called 911.”

      “The window with roses? Your grandma’s window?”

      “I’m sorry, Grandpa.”

      “Can’t be helped.” He stretched out his long scrawny arm and turned on the lamp beside the bed. With a groan he forced himself into a sitting position. “Hand me a bathrobe. I won’t have the local police thinking I’m an invalid.”

      Resigned to her grandpa’s concern with his reputation, she plumped the pillows and helped him comb his hair. In spite of his emaciated body, he donned an attitude of dignity. He wasn’t about to lie back quietly and accept anybody’s pity.

      And she was glad for his change in attitude. Pride was a whole lot better than depression. Fondly she patted his bony shoulder. “You’re a stubborn old buzzard, Lionel Callahan.”

      “Well, I can’t rest easy while you’re still running around getting yourself into trouble.”

      Neither the attack in the parking lot nor the brick through the window were her fault. However, if it made Grandpa feel better to believe she needed his protection, Annie wouldn’t disillusion him. “I guess trouble is my middle name.”

      “Always has been.”

      “By the way,” she said, remembering Michael’s statement that he’d come here to protect her and Lionel from possible retribution from Bateman. “Did you telephone Michael? Or was it the other way around?”

      “Can’t say that I recall.” His expression was too innocent to be believed. “I was a little hazy after the stroke.”

      Hazy like a fox, she thought. Grandpa had his own special reasons for wanting Michael to stay at the house. “I hope you’re not playing matchmaker.”

      “Between you and Michael?” He gave her a lopsided grin. “The idea might have crossed my mind. I’m not getting any younger, Annie. I wouldn’t mind having some youngsters around the neighborhood.”

      “Great-grandchildren.” She didn’t like being manipulated. “Don’t push me, Lionel.”

      “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

      Downstairs she confronted Police Chief Derek Engstrom himself. Though he was out of uniform, his beige trousers were sharply creased. The plaid shirt under his green Bridgeport Badgers windbreaker was starched and ironed. Engstrom was a tidy person in his early forties, and he was in good physical condition. There was only a touch of gray in his thinning brown hair. As far as she knew, he’d been living alone since his mother died. “I’m surprised to see you, Chief Engstrom. I didn’t think you’d be on duty this late.”

      “I had just stopped by the station when your call came through.” He nodded to the uniformed officer. “Bobby, you remember little Annie Callahan.”

      “Annie was never little.” Officer Bobby Janowski smirked as he eyeballed her from toe to head. “She always was the tallest girl at Bridgeport High.”

      And Bobby had always been the most obnoxious bully. It annoyed her that he’d chosen a career in law enforcement. “Hi, Bobby.”

      “Heard you’re a cop in Salem.” He hitched up his uniform trousers and stood straighter, as if trying to match her height. He was only five foot nine. “That’s a tough job for a woman.”

      “I guess I’m big enough to handle the work. Now, I suggest we go outside and have a look around.”

      “Agreed,” Michael said.

      Engstrom squinted in his direction. His upper lip curled in a disdainful smirk. “I remember you, Michael Slade.”

      Michael didn’t need to verbally respond; his body language said it all. His eyes became cold and hooded, his chin hardened, and he thrust out his chest. He was transformed into an archetypal tough guy, a hoodlum.

      “You were a troublemaker in high school,” Engstrom accused. “A real punk, weren’t you? You got picked up for reckless driving and curfew violations, right?”

      Still Michael said nothing.

      As a fellow law-enforcement officer, Annie should have taken Engstrom’s side. But there was a dignity in Michael’s silence. He didn’t deny his past. Nor did he try to defend it.

      “And drinking,” Engstrom continued with the long-ago rap sheet, “underage possession and consumption of alcohol. Or maybe that was your father.”

      “That’s right,” Bobby put in. “Old man Slade was one mean son of a gun when he got drunk.”

      Annie couldn’t stand it any longer. “Chief Engstrom, we have a problem here. An act of vandalism.”

      But Engstrom was on a roll. He put himself right into Michael’s face. “I’m surprised to see Michael Slade in one piece. With the way he started out, I would’ve thought he’d be dead or in jail by the time he was twenty-five.”

      “Disappointed?” Michael asked.

      “You only had one thing going for you, Slade. You were the finest wide receiver who ever played for Bridgeport Badgers. I still remember that game against the Cougars.” Engstrom stepped back to pantomime throwing a football. “Jake Stillwell was quarterback. You caught four touch-down passes. Stillwell to Slade. It was a thing of beauty.”

      This little trot down memory lane annoyed Annie even more than Engstrom’s former hostility. “If you don’t mind, Chief, we should check the yard for—”

      “It’s okay, Annie,” he said condescendingly. “We’re here now, and we’ll protect you. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

      Her muscles tensed with the effort of holding back a frustrated scream. “You can’t imagine how that makes me feel.”

      “Besides, if anyone was outside, they probably left when we pulled up.”

      “There

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