The Taken

“Whoever she needs me to be.”

Usually Kit would have worked to smooth over the awkward silence, but Paul’s normally placid face had gone puce in the torchlight. His expression also hardened, not dissimilar to a tiki god about to rip the top off of a volcano. But it was Grif who really held her in thrall. His hands were shoved into his pockets, a casualness belied by his wide stance. And he was too still. Like he was waiting. Like he was hunting.

Paul waved Grif away with manicured fingers, and reached around him for Kit again. “Well, can you give us some privacy, please?”

“No.”

Paul froze. Grif remained still, keeping him in his sights. Kit wished desperately for popcorn to go along with the show. Alas, Nic’s wake was no place for a scene. Sighing, she told Paul, “I was attacked last night after I got home from work.”

He was suddenly listening, which was something, but Kit wanted more, and so she added, “Grif saved me.”

“Jesus, Kit. Why didn’t you-” He stuttered, because she had called him. He lifted his chin, and stood taller. “Well, you can fall back now, Shaw. Katherine doesn’t need protection from me.”

“But she needs it all the same.”

Paul, slightly taller than Grif, stepped forward. “And you’re the man?”

Grif squared up. “I’m just the man.”

Kit sucked in a deep breath and held it, slightly high from all the testosterone. But she should stop this.

In a moment.

“Fine.” Paul blinked first, sniffing before looking at Kit. “I just wanted to tell you that Caleb Chambers is having another ball.”

“You came all the way down here to tell her about a party?”

This time Paul ignored Grif completely, though Kit stayed him with a hand on his arm. It would do no good to push Paul to petulance. Experience had taught her that much. Still she left her hand on Grif’s arm. His warmth and strength and presence had butterflies cannonballing into her gut. “You could have left me a message.”

“It’s a Valentine’s Day benefit for children in need of heart and lung transplants,” Paul replied, like that explained everything. “Most of the players on your list will be there. I can get you a ticket.”

“You’ll have to make it a pair.”

Impatiently, Paul turned and looked Grif up and down. It was challenging, but Grif didn’t wilt. In fact, he seemed to grow two feet under the scrutiny, like a cobra flaring its hood.

“It’s a charity ball,” Paul clarified, his pretty face twisting in an ugly way.

“Oh.” Grif frowned. “Then she probably should go with you.”

Kit snorted before she could help it.

“I’ve already got a date,” Paul said tightly. “It’s Valentine’s Day.”

“I think we’re free. Thank you, Paul,” Kit intervened again, but hoped that somewhere, in some other realm, Nic could see Paul getting cranked up about his ex-wife and some moody stranger.

“So have you learned anything else about the list?” Paul asked abruptly.

“Thought that’s why she gave it to you, ace.”

Though she didn’t want to, Kit put a hand on Grif’s arm. “Grif, would you give us a minute?”

“Yeah,” said Paul, like he’d won the moment.

“Sure. I can do that.” Grif nodded, and began to turn away, but paused halfway to level Paul with the same stare she’d first seen, when he’d been bounding from the shadows to beat another man to the ground on her behalf. “By the way,” he said, “her name isn’t Katherine. It’s Kit.”

And, mouth half-open, Kit watched him stalk to the bar, noting the way the women there opened up to him, reacting as instinctively to that coiled maleness as she did. He glanced back to make sure she was fine, and Kit shivered. She already knew he wasn’t a man who normally glanced back.

“What the hell is up with that guy?” Paul said, face twisted like he’d just eaten something sour. But Grif’s eyes were still trained on her, even with Layla chatting him up, and suddenly Kit didn’t want to talk about him with Paul. In fact, watching Layla gesture animatedly, she wanted to keep him all to herself.

“Do you want to hear about the list or not?” she asked impatiently.

Paul held out his hands, like he’d been waiting for that all along.

Kit chided herself for ever thinking he’d come because of Nic. “I’ve winnowed it to one name.”

Paul’s brow rode high. “In one day?”

“The man who attacked me last night is on there, Paul. His name is Lance Schmidt, but he’s not a politician. He’s a cop.”

Paul frowned. “How’d a cop get on that list?”

That was his response?

“I don’t think you heard me,” she said tightly. “Schmidt attacked me, hit me, and I believe would have killed me if Grif hadn’t been there to stop him.”

“But he was,” Paul said blandly, glancing at Grif like he was the one under suspicion. “Why?”

Oh my God, Kit thought, jaw clenching. How could she have forgotten. It was always, ever, about him. “What time does the damned ball start?”

“What, now you’re pissed?” He put on his wounded pout, then gave an eye roll when she didn’t answer. “Seven sharp.”

“Can you get two tickets or not?”

“Sure,” he said snidely. “Though I can’t promise any cops… outside of security, that is.”

“No, Schmidt will be there,” Kit muttered, staring past him at the bamboo entry. “I know it.”

“Whatever,” Paul said, turning away. “Just dress appropriately. Chambers lavishes his woman with jewels. And tell Joe Friday over there that it’s black-tie only. If he’s got one.”

And before Kit could form a retort, before he so much as mentioned Nicole’s name or death, Paul exited into the night in the exact way he’d exited their marriage. Glancing back only once to make sure she didn’t follow.

Grif watched Kit talk with Paul, wondering how she’d ever gotten mixed up with a piker like that. He was a swaggering suntan. She was a mysterious moonbeam. Their marriage must have been a terrestrial collision.

At least the rum was dulling his headache. As was Charis’s second rescue of him from that wildcat, Layla. Though Charis had told the other woman she needed to speak with him privately, and commandeered a low table in the lounge’s dimly lit corner, he still glanced over to make sure he was out of Layla’s sights before hunching over his weird tiki mug.

“Don’t mind her,” Charis said, one hand rocking the baby in the seat next to her as she caught his look. “She’s a cougar. Or, if you’re being era-appropriate, a minx.”

“And I bet she’s always era-appropriate.”

“About the only thing I like about her,” Charis grudgingly admitted, leaning forward to tuck a blanket beneath her little girl’s chin. The baby immediately pulled it off. “Though she came into a bundle of money, so that helps.”

“A little princess, huh?” he said, meaning Layla, not the pixie next to him.

“Oh, no. She worked for it. Not yet out of her teens and she married a man well into his eighth decade.”

Grif winced.

“Don’t worry,” she said, rocking again. “He died within the year, and Layla’s not shy in talking about it.”

“Doesn’t look shy about much,” Grif replied, and Charis laughed.

Kit had been right. He liked her flighty hens. But Kit herself was too far away for his liking, too close to the front door. Grif had defied fate in saving her, and now anything could happen. If his gut was right, it would also happen fast. But Kit had asked for some space and he’d respect that.

Didn’t mean he had to like it, though.

Leaning back, Charis rested a hand on her belly. “Did you sense a bit of tension between her and Kit?”

“Yeah. I got that.” He sipped some more. Rum… not his first choice, but it was strong. He could appreciate it for that alone.

“Well, that’s why,” she said, jerking her head toward Pretty Paul. “Five years ago, when they were still hitched, and Layla’s lawyer was still wrangling with her deceased husband’s family over his estate, she saw that young