Protecting What's His

Protecting

What’s His

Tessa Bailey

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Tessa Bailey. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at
www.entangledpublishing.com
.

Brazen is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC. For more information on our titles, visit
www.brazenbooks.com
.

Edited by Heather Howland

Cover design by Heather Howland

ISBN 978-1-62266-789-5

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Edition February 2013

The author acknowledges the copyrighted or trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction: Chicago Cubs,
Airplane!
, Triscuit, Misfits, Chicago Bulls,
Good Housekeeping
, Saint Anthony Hospital, Wrigley Field, Vanderbilt University, Saint Luke Cemetery.

For Patrick and Mackenzie.

Chapter One

To steal or not to steal, that was the question.

Ginger Peet contemplated the bottle blonde sprawled across the yellowing love seat before returning her attention to the gaping purse full of cash in the woman’s hands. Lips pinched, she waited for the proverbial angel/devil tag team to pop up on her shoulders to dole out conflicting advice.

Nothing happened. And didn’t that just figure?

Instead, her conscience wiggled out of her chest, moseyed across the room, and perched itself on the giant, unused stereo system circa 1992. It crossed its arms and shrugged as if to say, “Union break. You understand.”

Ginger cocked an eyebrow. It appeared her imagination was already overcompensating for the absence of her conscience.

She plopped down on the dingy carpet, pulled her knees up to her chest, and inhaled a shaky breath. Her night shift at Bobby’s Hideaway had been crazy as usual, what with the dueling bachelorette parties and frat guys from Vanderbilt screaming drink orders at her until 4:00 a.m. Typical night in downtown Nashville.

Most nights, she screamed right along with them. Playing the part. Laughing at jokes she couldn’t even hear above the honky-tonk music. Giving as good as she got. Was it pure coincidence that tonight, when she’d been unable to muster a single smile for her good ol’ boy regulars, she came home to find a pile of cash waiting for her?

Furthermore, their mother hadn’t darkened their door in months, but had picked tonight of all nights to stop by and catch a nap. The last time Ginger spoke—okay
argued
—with Valerie, she’d been stripping to make a living. If you called passing through life in a drug- and alcohol-induced haze
living
. At least she’d managed to pass out with dignity and not wake Ginger’s seventeen-year-old sister, Willa, in the process. Willa tried valiantly to hide her depression over their mother’s habitual absences, but Ginger knew it cut her deeply.

Ginger didn’t take kindly to anyone hurting her sister. Mother or not.

She narrowed her gaze once more at the cash-filled purse. No way had Valerie pulled in this much cash twirling around a pole. She sifted through the bulging rolls of hundred-dollar bills held together by rubber bands. What she wouldn’t give to have this much money. The pile of cash in front of her represented freedom. Change. A chance to pursue something other than pouring drinks to support herself and Willa.

Willa.

This could be Ginger’s one and only chance to get her sister away from this broken-down heap called a house. Away from the danger of the strange men her mother brought home when she actually
came
home. Away from the fate of ending up passed out on a thrift-store couch while your twenty-three-year-old daughter debated ripping you off.

And. Yet. Ginger knew with absolute certainty that if she took this money, just walked out the door with it, it would come back to take a chunk out of her ass. Moreover, it occurred to her that this one poor decision moved her one giant step closer to her biggest fear.

Becoming her mother.

Ginger had to believe the pile of skin and bones on the couch had once possessed dreams and ambitions of some sort. Then one misguided choice landed her in a G-string and pasties shaking it for some trucker named Dirk to a played-out eighties anthem.

If Ginger could just be a
good enough
person for
long enough
, she could flip the script for Willa, though. Willa, who’d skipped the sixth grade, swore like a sailor, and took photographs that could make Ginger cry, would have a chance at becoming something. Someone.

She glanced around at the peeling paint, stained carpet, and twice-pawned television set. Without the responsibility of playing parent to her sister, Ginger would have lit out a long time ago, leaving Nashville in her rearview mirror. The thought of falling asleep in her squeaky twin bed in the room she shared with Willa, only to wake up tomorrow and complete the same bleak routine—riding the bus into town to work a double shift, then still struggle to put dinner on the table
and
make rent, all the while looking out for her sister—made her feel nauseated.

I can’t see past tomorrow anymore and that ain’t good.

As her idol Dolly Parton once said, “If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.” Hell, she was going to need a fleet of cement mixers.

And for that, she’d need some cash.

Ginger fanned the money in front of her face, inhaling the musty scent. Surely the guilt would appear any moment and she would stuff the purse back into the crook of Valerie’s arm and pretend she’d never seen it in the first place. She could then fall asleep with a clear conscience and the false hope that her mother had turned over a new leaf and would use the money to feed Willa, move her sister into a nicer home.

Or she could seize the opportunity fate was dropping in her lap and get the heck out of Dodge…

As Ginger picked up the purse and slung it over her shoulder, she learned something very important about human nature. Oftentimes people make questionable decisions. And even though they already taste the fat regret sandwich headed their way, they do it with a smile.

She gave her trembling, wide-eyed conscience the finger and went to pack.

Chapter Two

From his position above the bathroom sink, Lieutenant Derek Tyler stared into bloodshot eyes.
Oh, right.
That’s
why I don’t drink whiskey on an empty stomach.

Derek didn’t appreciate the reminder of his own stupidity, nor did he have time to reflect on it. He had under an hour to make it to Saint Luke Cemetery, so he quickly tossed back three extra-strength pain relievers and adjusted the tie of his wrinkle-free uniform.

Chicago PD would bury one of its own today. One of
his
own. Hence his drinking binge the prior evening. Derek had never lost a man in the line of duty before, and that he’d lost one in last week’s raid on Chicago’s most dangerous crime syndicate burned in his stomach like battery acid.

Unlike Derek, the officer had a family. A family with whom Derek would come face-to-face in under an hour.

As a homicide cop, he knew the likelihood of similar tragedies occurring more than once on his watch was high, especially since he’d only recently turned thirty and had a long career ahead of him. He hoped he never got used to it.

He’d just left the bathroom to retrieve his uniform hat from the closet when his ears were assaulted by high-pitched laughter from outside the apartment building. Derek frowned. He’d specifically chosen this building, a sprawling brick colonial in Hyde Park, for its distance from the constant activity downtown. He preferred the quiet. Especially today, when he felt like an ice pick was firmly lodged in his skull.

“Pick up the end! I can’t carry the whole thing, skunk-vag!”

“Fuck off! You’re only using one hand!”

“That’s because I’m using the other one to flip you off.”

“Well, I can’t argue with multitasking.”

“You would argue with the pope’s mom.”

Christ. These girls, whoever they were, could give the rowdy men in his department a run for their money. Too bad he didn’t allow his men to swear while on duty.

Did he just hear one of them call the other
donkey-queef
?

Derek ground his head against the wall to suppress the pounding in his frontal lobe. He would never drink whiskey again. Normally, the Chicago Cubs were his only vice and that usually proved punishment enough.

With a curse, he strode toward the open window in his sparsely and functionally decorated living room. Thanks to the demands of his job, he spent very little time at home and a couch, television set, and neatly ordered desk completed the space.

From his vantage point at the window, Derek caught sight of a teenage girl pulling a lava lamp from the bed of a rusty, flatbed pickup truck. Her thick black hair hung down well past her shoulders, obscuring his view of her face. Black knee-high combat boots were laced up over purple fishnet stockings.

Judging by the furniture and household items lining the sidewalk, these girls who could curse a blue streak were moving in. The one female he could see certainly did not fit the building demographic. Most of the residents worked in town and kept reliable hours. No loud music or parties. He wondered how these two managed to slip through the cracks.

Unable to connect the second voice to its owner, he started to turn back into the apartment—

The black-haired menace leaned on the truck’s horn, startling a scream out of the second girl and causing Derek to smack his head against the window frame. The ice pick in his skull twisted and he literally saw stars winking behind his eyelids.

Before he could stop himself, Derek opened the window and barked in his sternest lieutenant voice, “Hey! Not everyone needs to be in on your moving day adventure!”

All chatter ceased from below. With a satisfied grunt, he slammed the window, scooped up his hat and keys, and headed for the door. His apartment was located on the second floor, down at the end of a long hallway, and as he locked his door, he noticed the apartment across the hall from his stood empty. The door had been propped open by a giant porcelain statue of a blond woman with massive breasts.

Dear God, please don’t tell me…

“Move to your
other
left, you crackhead!”

“Ow.
Ow!
Put it down. My hand is falling off.”

He turned to find the horn-wailing, black-haired menace staggering down the hall under the weight of what appeared to be a dining room table, looking half-perturbed, half-amused.

Derek’s attention swung to the girl carrying the other end of the table, walking backward toward him. He couldn’t see her face, but he was immediately riveted by the most beautiful ass he’d ever seen.

Wearing jeans so low-cut they should be illegal, the girl had long, perfectly formed legs that were stuffed into brown leather cowboy boots, immediately searing the image of her riding him like a mechanical horse onto his brain.

Please, please don’t let me be getting a hard-on for a teenage girl. Be legal, at least, so I can sleep tonight knowing I’m not a raging pervert.

Derek very nearly had a coronary as she bent over to set down the table and purple lace peeked out over the waistband of her painted-on jeans. His mouth went dry, his vision blurred, and both his hat and keys dropped to the floor.

Surprised by the sudden noise, the girls jumped and yelped, the girl in cowboy boots spinning to face him. And holy hell, if Derek thought he’d been in trouble seeing her from behind, he’d just blasted past the
Danger: Road Ends Ahead
sign and was hurtling over the cliff.

At least I’ll die happy.

Her cloud of chestnut-colored hair flipped over her shoulder as she turned to face him and he was lost. Bright hazel eyes, almost golden in color, landed on him and narrowed over high cheekbones. Pouty lips pursed in displeasure. A sprinkling of freckles dusted her nose, making her a cross between sex goddess and girl next door.

An apparently dangerous combination if Derek’s reaction to her counted as any indication.

Against his better judgment, he allowed his gaze to dip for exactly three seconds to her flat stomach and tease of cleavage above the tight white tank top she wore. An inch of skin lay exposed above her waistband and in that brief moment, he wanted to drop to his knees and open-mouth kiss that spot below her belly button with an intensity that rattled him.

She was sex incarnate and moving into the apartment across the hall. The situation felt suspicious, like someone was playing a joke on the poor, hungover cop, and if he could manage to look away from her for long enough to check, certainly he’d find a camera crew waiting to let him in on the prank.

He knew in that moment that his peaceful existence had been shattered. With her living across the hall from his formerly quiet respite from work, he’d be forced to walk past her door each day, knowing exactly what lay on the other side.

His eyes landed once more on easily the most striking face he’d ever seen. She arched a single eyebrow at his blatant ogling. Derek decided it had been worth it.

“Did that asshole upstairs actually call the cops on us?”

As he watched those fantasy lips move, revealing a hot little country twang, he drew a blank. Then the situation came back into sharp focus. He stood there in full police department regalia because he’d be attending a funeral this afternoon. And she thought he was there for a noise complaint.

Guilt and irritation swept through him. She’d distracted him at a time when he should be thinking about his fallen officer. How selfish could he be? A man lay dead and all he could think about was dragging Ms. Low-Rider Jeans inside his apartment to assuage the growing ache in his pants.

Pull yourself together, Tyler.

“I
am
that asshole from upstairs.”