than putting it off indefinitely.
“Hold the elevator,” he called out, lengthening his stride.
The woman gasped. Maybe he’d just startled her. “Hurry up,” she muttered—to her companion.
John bristled at the whispered slight. Were they trying to get away? Maybe she’d gotten a glimpse of him as well and wasn’t thrilled about the idea of sharing the tiny space with him either. But if he could make the effort to be civil, then the woman attached to that backside could damn well do the same.
“Hold it,” he ordered in a sharper tone. He heard a “Mom,” and then a slender, tanned arm shot out to catch the door as he slipped inside. He looked straight into a pair of emerald-green eyes, silently telling the woman that he knew she’d tried to leave him behind. “Thanks.”
But when the doors closed and John retreated to the opposite corner to rest his boxes on the railing, he wondered if he’d made a tactical error. That verdant gaze, sparkling with defiance or warning or some other kind of intense emotion, followed him all the way to the back of the elevator before the woman blinked and turned away. Seeing her adjust her stance to position herself between him and the chestnut-haired boy with her made John wish he’d waited for the next ride up after all. Nice to meet you, too. He felt her wariness of him like a punch in the gut.
And he’d been worried about making small talk.
This woman meant business when it came to protecting her son from the big, bad strangers of the world. Despite the copper-colored hair twisted up in a bun at the nape of her neck, with a dozen fiery gold wisps popping loose to curl against her skin, she was no dainty female. She was tall, standing nearly six feet, judging by the mere five or six inches John topped her by when he normally towered over most women. She was in uniform and she was armed.
One hand rested on the butt of the GLOCK 9 mm holstered at her waist as she inched closer to the boy who was peeking at him from beneath the bill of his Royals baseball cap. John was pretty sure the protective-mama move was intentional when she turned so he could clearly see the KCPD badge hanging from the chain beneath her starched collar.
“What floor?” she asked politely enough. But her green eyes darted as though they were assessing his height and width and the distance between them.
“Seventh.”
“Travis.” She squeezed the boy’s shoulder beside the backpack he wore, drawing John’s attention to the fact that her skin wasn’t tanned so much as it was dotted with hundreds of freckles.
The boy, whom John put in the nine- to ten-year-old range, slipped his ball glove over the handle of the bat he carried before pushing the button and then twisting from his mother’s grasp. “Do you live on the seventh floor?”
Well, at least someone in this elevator didn’t think he was the spawn of the devil. “That’s why I’m going there.”
“We just came from baseball practice,” the boy announced. “I play in the outfield, but I want to be the second baseman or shortstop. Do you like baseball?”
“Trav.” The redhead chided her son in a soft tone that belied her tough-chick image. “What did I say about bothering people?”
“He’s no bother, ma’am.” Now where did that reassurance come from? He should have been happy she didn’t want to talk to him.
The boy named Travis tilted his face up to John’s, giving him a clear look at the inherited freckles sprinkled across his nose and cheeks. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers, but Mom says I need to know all the neighbors on our floor in case she’s not home and I need to go to a safe place. We’re on the seventh, too. I’m Travis Wheeler.”
Safe place? Although there were other eighty-year-old buildings on this block that were in the process of being reclaimed like this one, one of the reasons John had chosen this particular neighborhood was so that his sister could stop in for a visit whenever she wanted to. The fact that Miranda Murdock was a cop, like this woman, didn’t matter. Big brothers looked out for their little sisters—even if she was engaged to a man who was just as protective of her as John.
This building was safe. The remodeled structure now surpassed fire codes and he’d been assured by the landlord that retired tenants and young professionals—not gnarly devil men who terrorized women and children—populated the place.
“I’m Captain—” normal, civilian conversation, remember? “—John Murdock. I work for the Kansas City Fire Department. Out of Station 23.”
“You’re a firefighter? Cool.”
“Sorry.” Mama clasped her hand over Travis’s shoulder and pulled him back to her without sharing her name and completing the introductions. “You’re new here?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve been deployed overseas or stationed in the DC area for a couple of years now. Moving in today.” There he went, making a rusty effort to put her at ease.
“What apartment?”
“709.”
“Mom, that’s right next door to us.”
“So it is.” The smile for her son faded when she faced John again. “Don’t worry, I’m not looking for babysitters. Travis won’t be stopping by.”
“I’m not a baby—”
“If he needs to—”
“He won’t.” John almost grinned at Travis’s frustrated groan when his overprotective mama hugged her arm across his chest. “There are plenty of other tenants in the building we tru—”
Her gaze wavered and dropped to the middle of John’s dusty gray-green T-shirt where she could read the letters USMC.
Trust?
Yep, no need to worry about polite civility with this woman. He was free to be his moody, isolated self, as far as she was concerned.
So why did it bother him that she turned away to watch the buttons for each floor light up without making direct eye contact with him again?
“Can you play baseball with your leg like that?”
“Travis!”
Mama put her fingers over her son’s mouth and John finally got the silence he’d thought he wanted until the elevator jerked, an alarm bell rang, and the whole car jolted to an unexpected stop. The redhead yelped as she tumbled into the back wall, but she caught her son and clung to the railing with a white-knuckled intensity, keeping both of them upright.
“What the hell?” John swayed on his feet, but the boxes anchored him into place. The light for the seventh floor was lit up above the door, but the doors didn’t open. Beneath the blare of the alarm he listened for any sounds of cables and pulleys reengaging. He reached across the elevator and pounded the alarm button with his fist until it shut off. He tilted his face toward the trap door and machine works above them. Silence. Almost like the building’s electricity had suddenly shut off. But why were the lights in the car still on if there was no power to the rest of the elevator? They were good and stuck. So much for life returning to normal. His gaze zeroed in on the ashen skin of the policewoman. “Does
