Danger at Her Door

Jack placed a warm hand on her arm to halt her argument. “No apology needed.”

Startled by his touch, Megan darted her gaze up to his. Just as it had yesterday, the heat in his mossy brown eyes burrowed to her core, nudging a purely feminine response…and a quiver of reciprocal apprehension.

“In fact,” Jack said, “I should be thanking you again. My daughter has boundless energy which she uses for getting in to rather…creative mischief. I appreciate your interest in her.”

Megan nodded. “I know her creative mischief is a challenge now, but it also shows her natural intelligence and curiosity. She seems like a very bright little girl.”

“Thanks.” Jack’s grin spoke for his fatherly love and pride.

“Well, I need to run. I’m already late for work.” Mustering another smile for her neighbor, she sidestepped toward the door, only to bump in to Ginny.

“Yeah, I’m running a little late myself.” He inclined his head toward the back halls of the police department.

Megan’s breath stilled. “You’re a cop?”

“No,” he replied, chuckling. “I’m a reporter for the Lagniappe Daily Journal. I’m following up on a story.”

A reporter. Not a cop. But almost as bad.

No doubt he was a pro at asking questions, digging up information. A reporter was not the kind of person she needed to spend much time around if she wanted to keep certain aspects of her past a secret.

Megan felt the blood drain from her cheeks, and she swayed woozily.

Jack’s brow furrowed. “Megan, you okay? You look sort of pale.”

“Yeah. I, uh—”

Again Ginny rose to the occasion. “Well, it was nice meeting you. Tell Caitlyn ‘hi’ for us.”

She took Megan’s arm and pulled her toward the front door.

Jack’s puzzled gaze followed them.

As Megan stepped outside, the Louisiana humidity slammed into her as if she’d walked into a wall. The heat sapped what little energy she had left after rehashing painful details of her assault for the police then losing her breakfast in the ladies’ room.

Ginny gave her curious sidelong glances as they made their way to Ginny’s Jeep Cherokee.

“My, my, my.” Ginny shook her head and clucked her tongue like a mother scolding an errant child.

“What?” Megan drilled her friend with an exasperated glare.

“You’ve been holding out on me.” Ginny colored her tone with an exaggerated note of disappointment.

“Come again?”

“If you want to give that gorgeous hunk of man the cold shoulder, that’s your business. But I thought we were friends. Couldn’t you have sent him in my direction if you didn’t want him? Is that too much to ask?” Ginny gave her a teasing grin and pulled out into the flow of downtown Lagniappe traffic. “How long have you been hiding Mr. Tall, Dark and Dimpled from me?”

Megan gaped at Ginny in disbelief before sighing. Ginny’s teasing normally lifted her spirits. She realized that must have been Ginny’s aim, but the attempt at levity chafed at the moment.

Troubling thoughts about the man sitting behind bars at the police station made joking about anything else difficult. “I’m not hiding him or anyone else from you, Gin. He’s my new neighbor, and I only met him last night.”

“Your neighbor, eh? How convenient.” Ginny’s eyes lit with humor. “So are you blind or did you notice that he’s as attractive as sin?”

Not wanting to encourage her friend on this track, she shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”

“He sure was checking you out.” Ginny cut her glance from the road to give Megan a calculating grin. “I didn’t see a ring. I think you should—”

“Not interested.”

“Megan, he’s gorgeous. And employed! That’s more than I can say for the last bum I dated.”

Huffing her impatience with the direction of the conversation, Megan turned toward the passenger-side window and tried to forget the pathetic impression she must have made on Jack Calhoun this morning. If her bleak appearance wasn’t bad enough, she’d stuttered and jumped at his touch like an idiot.

She studied the buildings as they passed, remnants of a once-thriving downtown. The empty shells of restaurants and banks lined the narrow streets, harkening to a pre-mall era.

On some level, Megan empathized with those dilapidated buildings. Before her attack, she had flourished. But the self-assured graduate student, engaged to her boyfriend of four years and ready to take on the world, crumbled that horrible night.

The trauma left her a ghost of her former self. Graduate school took more effort than she could give while nursing her broken spirit, and she’d dropped out. Like the shoppers who fled downtown for the suburban mall, her fiancé had abandoned her, unable to cope with her withdrawal and impatient with her lengthy recovery. The outgoing, undaunted young woman she’d been now lived behind locked doors and slept with a dog who’d been trained to attack on command.

“May I ask why not?” Ginny’s question intruded on her thoughts, and Megan turned back toward her friend.

“Why not what?”

“Why aren’t you interested in a charming, gorgeous, employed, interested man? Are you planning on living like a hermit the rest of your life?”

Though delivered in Ginny’s typical get-off-your-butt-and-stop-feeling-sorry-for-yourself manner, Megan understood the loving concern behind the sarcastic question.

“I’m not opposed to dating someone. I do want to get some semblance of a normal life back, but…” She paused and chewed her lower lip. An image of Jack Calhoun as he’d looked yesterday, wearing only a towel, filtered through her mind.

Square jaw. Hard chest. Broad shoulders.

Testosterone personified. A tremor raced through her.

“But?”

“But not him.” Megan wrapped her arms around her middle to calm the uneasy quiver.

Ginny frowned and shook her head. “Why not him? He seemed pretty nice, and he’s totally gorgeous. What’s the problem?”

While she tried to verbalize her reluctance, Megan stared down at her shoes. “He’s too…male.”

“Meaning?”

The car bounced over a set of defunct railroad tracks, and she grabbed the armrest for balance. If only she had something comparable to an armrest in her life, something she could cling to for balance and security. From the day she’d met Ginny down at the women’s counseling center, her mentor and friend had told her that “something” had to come from inside her. Things, even other people, made nice security blankets, but real, lasting peace-of-mind and self-assurance came from deep within oneself. Though she’d made significant progress in reclaiming her life, Megan hadn’t yet rediscovered the spring of pure self-confidence she’d lost. But she kept hoping, kept searching.

“What do you mean, ‘he’s too male’?”

With a sigh, and knowing how pitifully weak and irrational her reason made her sound, she expounded. “When I met him yesterday, he was wearing a towel. Only a towel.”

Ginny arched a well-manicured eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? And?”

“And he’s…all muscled and toned and…male!”

“Sounds good to me.”

Her friend’s glib response belied the woman’s insight into what bothered Megan, she knew. Ginny was prodding her, trying to make her vocalize her fears. The first step to conquering the demons was naming them, bringing them into the light for scrutiny. Only then could she begin tearing those little devils apart, piece by piece.

“Look, you know I’m not afraid of men,” Megan argued. “It’s not as bad as that!”

“Then how did you feel when you met him?”

Shutting her eyes, Megan pictured Jack Calhoun in her mind again. “Vulnerable.”

“Why?”

“Because he…could overpower me.” She scowled. That excuse fell short, and she knew it as well as Ginny did.

“So could most men, but you aren’t afraid of other men. Not even Billy. And he bench-presses two hundred and fifty pounds.” Ginny sent her a skeptical glance.

“Billy’s different. He’s your brother. He’s in high school. He—”

“Doesn’t get you hot and bothered like Mr. Neighbor does?”

Megan jerked her gaze to Ginny’s smug expression. “What?”

“That’s it, isn’t it?” Ginny stopped for a red light and turned to face her passenger. Her knowing eyes, honed like razors, cut through Megan’s defenses and denials. “You’re attracted to him, and it scares you. Because attraction could lead to a date, and a date to a relationship and a relationship to intimacy.”

The light changed, but Ginny didn’t move, not even when the car behind them blasted its horn. The piercing intensity in her eyes softened when Megan’s silence confirmed her assertions.

“I’m not ready.” Megan whispered her admission, yet it seemed to reverberate in the quiet car. Swallowing past the knot forming in her throat, she allowed the rest of her fears to float to the surface. She had to face them in order to move past them. “What happens if I get involved with someone, someone I really like, and when the time comes to…be intimate, I freeze.”

“If he’s got any kind of decency at all, he’ll understand and be patient with you, support you and—”

“Greg didn’t.” The icy memory of her fiancé’s desertion due to her inability to make love to him stabbed her heart.

Ginny huffed and shook her head. “Greg was a self-centered ass. We’ve been over this before. There are men out there who can be gentle and understanding and supportive. The ones who aren’t simply aren’t worth your time.”

Megan looked away, unable to stand Ginny’s unrelenting stare any longer. That gaze saw too much. As much as she loved Ginny’s insightfulness and friendship, she hated those qualities, too. Sometimes she wished Ginny would leave her alone, let her hide behind her locked doors and lick her wounds. Instead, Ginny pushed her, probed her, gave her little leeway for excuses. She demanded so much from Megan because she cared that much, too.

“The light’s green,” she told Ginny, hoping her nonresponse would make the point that she hadn’t the energy for any more questions.

She knew Ginny didn’t consider the topic of Jack Calhoun closed. What’s more, since Jack was her neighbor, she knew she’d have to face the reporter—and her disturbing attraction to him—again.

And again.

Somehow she’d have to come to terms with her confusing feelings for Jack Calhoun.

Chapter 4

One evening later that week, Megan sat at her computer reviewing the lesson plan she’d drawn up for the upcoming week, but Sam’s restless barking filtered in from the backyard, making it difficult to concentrate. Grumbling over the interruption, she walked to the window and opened it.

“Sam!” she called through the screen, “Pipe down, would ya? I’m trying to work.”

Sam’s barks softened to a whimper at the sound of his master’s voice.

“Thank you!” Leaving the window open, she strolled back to her computer, stretching the kinks from her shoulders. No doubt her well-trained guard dog was protecting her house from a vicious squirrel again.

Although Sam had been through training similar to a police dog’s, he was first and foremost a dog. A dog who hated squirrels. But for Megan, Sam’s foibles made him that much more lovable.

She’d never regretted the decision to get Sam for protection. His gentle disposition and loyalty made him a trusted companion, as well as her guardian. His presence in the house at night, and most often sharing her double bed, gave her a reassurance she needed. Experience had taught her that danger could find you even in the sanctity of your home.

Ginny called Sam a crutch, but even if Megan didn’t rely on the German shepherd for added protection, she’d keep him for the unconditional affection and companionship he offered. Her self-imposed isolation over the last five years made for a lonely existence.

Returning to her lesson plan, she scanned the calendar for a day when one of the girls in her class could bring her puppy for show and tell. Megan decided to tie in the puppy’s visit to a lesson on responsibilities to pets or similarities between animals or—

Sam’s barking intruded on her thoughts again. But now the timbre of Sam’s bark had become dark and ominous. His snarling and growling sent a chill creeping over her skin. Apprehension accelerated her pulse. Surely a squirrel wouldn’t set Sam off like this. Did she have a prowler?

Megan froze…until the wail of a child’s terrified scream rent the air.

As she flew to her window, Megan realized Sam’s barking had now stopped. From the open window, she searched her fenced backyard for him.

But Sam was gone.

Icy horror washed over her. Where was Sam?

Another chilling scream shattered the quiet neighborhood, coming from the street in front of her house. Moving stiffly, her limbs wooden with dread, Megan made her way to her living room and peered out the front window. Her heartbeat slammed against her ribs as she spotted Sam across the street and two houses down. In Jack Calhoun’s front yard.

Sam stood over the crumpled figure of a dark-haired little girl.

“No!” Denial rattled from her dry throat.

Jack burst through the front door of his house at that moment, leaping down his porch steps in a single bound. “Caitlyn!”

Megan heard the fright, the horrible anguish in the father’s voice, and bile rose in her throat. She’d believed herself familiar with every form of fear that existed.

She’d fooled herself.

The panic that coiled around her heart sprang from the tenderest place in her soul…her love for children. The idea that she could be even remotely responsible, through Sam, for any harm to a child filled her with unimaginable grief. Adrenaline, born from her horror, propelled her to the door. Her sandal-shod feet pounded the pavement as she raced down the street to Sam.

And Caitlyn.

Oh, God! Poor Caitlyn! Please let her be all right! But the nearer she got to the child, the more evident it became that she wouldn’t get the answer she hoped for with her prayer. The girl lay deathly still. Bright red tears on her fragile arm seeped blood into the grass.

Jack snatched up a plastic baseball bat littering his yard amongst other lawn toys and tried to ward off the dog. “Get away from her, you vicious beast!”

Sam snarled and snapped at the bat, but he remained poised over the girl’s body. Jack tried to move in closer to reach his daughter, only to be chased back by Sam’s angry bark.

Sam’s fur bristled, and he squared off with Jack, a low, menacing growl rumbling from his chest.

“Sam!” A sob wrenched from Megan’s throat. She gulped for air as she stumbled up to the grassy lawn. Her stomach knotted when she saw the child’s mauled arm and scratched neck and face. “Oh, no!”

“Do you see what that animal of yours did?” Jack screamed at her, his face dark with rage. “So he’d never hurt a child, huh?”

Her chest squeezed painfully as she heard her assertion tossed back at her in a scathing tone, and she stared at the proof of her apparent misjudgment.

“I—I’m sorry. I never imagined—” Hot tears streamed down her cheeks, and without waiting for a reply, she raced up the steps of Jack’s porch and into his house.

She found his cordless phone on the kitchen counter and punched in 911. Even before the emergency operator came on the line, she grabbed a kitchen towel and was rushing back outside.

“Get your devil dog away from my daughter!” Jack shouted when he saw her return to the yard.

Megan’s throat closed when she tried to call Sam off. Gripping Jack’s phone with a trembling hand, she stepped closer to the dog and child, sucked in a deep breath. “S-Sam, n-no! Down!”

While Megan hurriedly gave the operator Jack’s address and asked for an ambulance, Jack nudged the bat toward the German shepherd again. Sam barked and snapped at the bat.

“Stop poking him! He thinks you’re the enemy!”

“Damn right, I’m his enemy! I could kill the monster for this!” Jack’s face contorted with anguish, and Megan’s heart thundered.

“Please, put down the bat and step back! I have to calm him down!”

He hesitated and cast her a wary, angry glance.

Tears stung her eyes, and his image blurred. “Please.”

Stepping back with a venomous glare riveted on Sam, Jack set the bat on the ground. “There. Now get rid of him!”

Megan shoved the phone into Jack’s hand. A muscle in his jaw ticked, and his hard stare shifted to drill into her. Any trace of warmth she’d seen earlier in the week at the police station had disappeared. Anger radiated from him like the waves of heat rising from the pavement. Pressing the phone to his ear, he said, “No, we haven’t moved her.”

Inching closer to Sam, Megan clucked her tongue. “Easy, boy. It’s okay now. He’s a friend.” She saw Jack’s brow furrow in disagreement with her last statement. Wetting her lips, she focused her attention on the task at hand. “Down, Sam. Come here, boy. Come here.”

Sam turned his head to look at her and wagged his tail. With a whimper, he licked Caitlyn’s face then trotted over to Megan’s side.

Immediately, Jack flew to Caitlyn, falling to his knees. “Caitlyn? Sweetie, it’s Daddy.” His voice broke, and the love and concern in his tone twisted Megan’s heart.

“Down! Stay!” she told Sam fiercely. The dog settled on his stomach and laid his chin on his outstretched paws. The black eyes that peered up at her reflected the same sweet eagerness to please that characterized the Sam she knew and loved. The Sam that could attack a little girl puzzled and horrified her.

Megan hurried back across the yard, crouching beside Jack as he stroked the hair back from Caitlyn’s face. She used the towel still clutched in her hand to staunch the bleeding on Caitlyn’s arm. “Caitlyn, sweetie. Can you hear me?” she crooned.

“Four years old. Almost five,” Jack said into the phone then glanced around at Megan. “A dog attacked her. No, she’s unconscious.”

When Jack fell silent, Megan met his worried gaze. “Let me drive you two to the hospital. I want to do something to help.”

“An ambulance is on its way.” A muscle twitched in his jaw, and he hitched his head toward Sam. “Just get that damn animal out of my yard.”

Though his anger and distrust of Sam were justified, his brusqueness still chafed. Surely he didn’t think she’d let this happen? That she would ever knowingly let any harm come to a child?

Megan gnawed her lip while acid churned in her gut. No matter how it looked, she couldn’t believe Sam had hurt Caitlyn. He was trained to protect, to defend.

Frowning, she stood and took a step back. The distant wail of a siren heralded the approach of the ambulance.

Jack said something to the operator, then with a glance down the street, he disconnected the call.

He sent Megan and Sam another accusing glare as he pushed to his feet. “As soon as I know Caitlyn’s all right, I’m going to call animal control. That dog is dangerous and should be locked away.”

Megan’s eyes widened in shock and dismay, and her chest tightened. “Locked away? But—”

Jack stalked past Megan toward the street to flag down the ambulance, ignoring her protest.

She stayed back, her heart in her throat, as the EMTs assessed Caitlyn’s condition and loaded her into the ambulance. She watched numbly as Jack hopped into his Tacoma to follow the emergency vehicle to the hospital, leaving her standing in his front yard, shaking.

She whispered a prayer for Caitlyn’s recovery then blinked back tears as she stared at Sam. Jack couldn’t take Sam from her. He just couldn’t! She needed Sam’s friendship, cherished his loyalty and depended on his protection.

Her crutch. When Ginny’s assessment rang in her ears, a hollow sensation tugged at her chest. Maybe Sam was a crutch. But weren’t crutches made to help patients healing from an injury?

She was healing, too. Slowly. She’d just had a minor setback this week because of the renewed activity around the Gentleman Rapist case. The revived memories.

And the unsettling reminder, in the form of a handsome new neighbor with sexy hazel eyes, of all she was missing while she licked her wounds.

She had to rejoin the dating world and let a man into her life someday if she was going to have the family and future she wanted. Jack Calhoun brought home in vivid color the rut she’d allowed herself to get into in the name of protecting herself. And now, if he had his way, he would send another piece of her protective wall crashing down.

Because losing Sam, even for just a little while, would mean losing her sense of security.

Leaning over the railing of the hospital bed, Jack gently wrapped his hand around his daughter’s and rested his forehead on his arm. Guilt gnawed at him. He blamed himself for Caitlyn’s injury, for the sorry state of his life. For the way he’d lashed out at Megan.

When Caitlyn mumbled something, he opened his eyes to check on her, but she slept on. She’d drifted in and out of sleep for the past half hour, since the E.R. doctor had admitted her to a private room overnight for observation. Even though the doctor had assured him that Caitlyn would make a full recovery and that Jack had time to grab a bite of dinner before her sedative wore off, Jack had stayed put. He refused to leave Caitlyn and risk having her wake up in her hospital room alone.

His daughter seemed so tiny, so frail lying in that big hospital bed. When he thought about how much worse Caitlyn’s injuries could have been, that he could have lost her, icy fingers closed around his heart. If he hadn’t been so absorbed in the article he’d been writing about the history of the Gentleman Rapist case, maybe he’d have realized Caitlyn had snuck outside again.

Of course, the real culprit in all of this was that monster…that canine terror. Megan’s dog.

Yet he’d seen the alarm and sorrow in Megan’s eyes when she arrived on the scene and as they loaded Caity in the ambulance. An overwhelming protective urge had swamped him, and he’d wanted to draw Megan into his arms and comfort her. Despite the distraction of the devil dog and his deep concern for Caitlyn, he’d still had the gut-level yearning to soothe the troubled look in his neighbor’s eyes. Those big, expressive green eyes.

Jack sighed. He’d been far too harsh with her, allowing his fear for Caity to morph into an ugly, undeserved lambasting of his neighbor. Megan’s anguish tangled inside him even now. He longed to hold her close, calm her trembling, whisper his apologies against her smooth skin. How would she feel, nestled in his arms?

Squeezing his eyes shut, Jack shook his head to dispel the image. What in the world was he doing daydreaming about a beautiful woman when Caitlyn lay injured in a hospital bed?

Caitlyn whimpered, and her head rolled to one side on her flat, hospital pillow.

“Caitlyn, honey? Daddy’s here. Can you hear me, baby?”

“I’m not a baby,” Caitlyn grumbled in a sleepy voice. “My arm hurts.” Her bottom lip poked out in a familiar pout.

“I know, munchkin. I’m sorry.”

Stroking her hand with his thumb, he thought how small and fragile her little hand looked, and his chest constricted. She was so tiny, so dependent on him. He had no room to mess up. He had to do a better job taking care of Caitlyn because she had no one else.

Jack picked up the cup beside the bed. “You want a sip of water?”

She shook her head, her eyes heavy-lidded. “Daddy, do they give awards to doggies if they’re heroes?”

Knitting his brow, he fumbled to answer her out-of-left-field question. He’d become accustomed to her fastball questions catching him off guard, and he’d learned to anticipate, with some success, where the questions might lead.

“I suppose if a doggie did something very brave, they might give him some kind of award.”

Caitlyn nodded and closed her eyes for a moment.

“I think you should sleep now. The doctor wants you to stay in bed until you feel strong again.” Jack brushed a kiss on her forehead.

Caitlyn’s eyes fluttered open again. “I want to watch Cinderella.”