“Did you get a plate number, Ms. Winston?” the heavyset officer asked.
“No. I got a look at the vehicle in the parking lot behind my office. It was a blue Buick sedan. I noticed the Hertz rental plates, but it stayed several car lengths back, and I didn’t think to try to get a license number.”
She should have. Would have if she weren’t so new at this kind of intrigue. “I’m okay now. The car is long gone. I’ll be fine.”
“She’ll be fine,” a familiar voice said as Chase strode down the hall through the back door of the building. “You have my personal guarantee. From now on, Ms. Winston will be under my protection. She’ll be safe, I promise you.”
Harper’s legs felt suddenly weak. As Chase spoke to the officers, she sank back down on the sofa, her insides tied in knots. Chase was the last person she wanted to see. And the person she wanted to see most in the world.
How had her life turned so completely upside down?
The cops took Harper’s statement and left the office, and Mindy went home. Chase was thankful his receptionist had stayed after closing to catch up on some bookkeeping files she was reorganizing. Grateful she had been there when Harper arrived.
Chase had left to run an errand, but he had returned to review a couple of files before he headed home.
Or maybe he just hadn’t been ready to face his empty condo tonight.
Now he wouldn’t have to. Because as soon as he’d heard the reason Harper had driven to the office, there was no way he was letting her go anywhere alone.
“The cops are gone,” he said. “It’s just you and me, Harper. I want you to tell me exactly what happened. Start at the beginning.”
Sitting next to him on the sofa, she sighed and leaned back. She looked pale and shaken. He wasn’t sure if it was because she thought she was being followed or because he had shown up when she was hoping she would find Bran.
She looked nervous and upset, and she looked beautiful. And seeing her tonight, he knew one thing for sure.
He wasn’t giving her up again. Not when she might be in even more trouble without him.
“There isn’t that much to tell,” Harper said. “I noticed the Buick parked in the lot behind my office. It pulled out behind me when I drove onto the street. I remembered a car like it, a blue Buick with Hertz rental car plates, parked on the street near my father’s house the last time I was out there.”
“The morning you told your father you weren’t going to see me anymore.”
Her head came up. “That’s right. How did you...? Oh, I forgot. You were listening.”
“I wasn’t listening. The Feds were. Tanner sent word through Brandon. I appreciate what you did. I know you did it to protect me.”
“Whatever happened between us, I owe you for saving my brother’s life. I didn’t want to see you get hurt.”
He hoped it was more than that. And he hoped it wasn’t too late to fix things. He didn’t mention his encounter with her father’s thugs, but apparently she noticed the bruise on his cheek.
Harper frowned. “What happened to your face?”
Chase managed to smile. “Nothing much. A little dustup. You ought to see the other guys.”
Her hand curled in her lap. “Was it... Was it my father’s men?”
He wasn’t lying to her again. He wanted to hold her, comfort her. He forced himself not to touch her, sure she would pull back if he did.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Harper. I’ve done too much of that already. From now on you get the straight, unvarnished truth. It’ll be up to you how you handle it.”
“So itwashim. My father ordered his men to attack you. How many of them were there?”
“Four. But Bran was there. The truth is, they wound up getting the worst of it.”
“Oh, God.” She pressed her fingers against her lips, sucked in a deep breath of air. “Will they come after you again?”
“You told your father we were no longer seeing each other.”True, at least for the moment.“I don’t think they’ll come after me again.”
She tipped her head back, then sat up a little straighter and looked him in the eye. “Is all of it true? My father is a drug smuggler?”
