ROMANCING HER PROTECTOR

ROMANCING

HER

PROTECTOR

MALLORY MONROE

c2011

All rights reserved. Any use of the materials contained in this book without the expressed written consent of the author and/or her

affiliates, is strictly prohibited.

***

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This novel is a work of fiction. All characters are fictitious. Any similarities to anyone living or dead are completely accidental. The

specific mention of known places or venues are not meant to be exact replicas of those places, but are purposely embellished or imagined

for the story’s sake.

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THE PRESIDENT’S GIRLFRIEND

ROMANCING THE MOB BOSS

ROMANCING THE BULLDOG

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SOME CAME DESPERATE

WHEN WE GET MARRIED

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AFTER WHAT YOU DID

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STAY IN MY CORNER

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ONE

When she left the Stop Gap café that late Sunday evening, determined to catch the six o’

clock bus for home, she never dreamed she’d end up making love for the first time in her life,

in a motel room of all places, with a man like Matty Driscoll. But that was exactly what

happened to Shay Cooper when she stepped out of the café, and made her way to the bus

stop.

It started with a downpour when she was but a few blocks away from her destination.

The rains came down in such heavy sideswipes across her small body that it slowed her

progression, causing her to walk nearly sideways to keep her umbrella from flapping, and to

avoid a direct hit from the onslaught. But she kept on walking.

The wind began to pick up, too, causing her to walk even slower, causing her umbrella

to become even more unstable. But she kept on walking. She’d been working at the Stop Gap

café for little over two years now and knew the bus schedule like the back of her hand. She

had five minutes to get there, just five, or she’d miss the six o’ clock and be forced to wait

nearly forty-five more minutes for the next bus to arrive.

Which was exactly what happened when she was within eyesight of the bus stop. The

bus was already there. She ran, and tried to wave her hand, the hand she had been using to

keep the umbrella from ballooning, but it was too late. The bus drove off.

“Ah,
man
!” she said and stomped her feet in the kind of frustration that had been

building all day long. She had two choices: either wait at the bus stop for another forty five

minutes, where there was absolutely no protection from the rain, or walk back the eight blocks

to Stop Gap and see if there was anybody going her way. Although there had been a threat of

rain when she first left work, the downpour didn’t start until she was well on her way. Now it

felt like a monsoon.

It began to pour so aggressively, in fact, that the wind also picked up its whip and twirl

and swept her umbrella upwards into the balloon she dreaded, completely exposing her to the

elements. Within seconds she was drenched.

She heard the horn blow behind her before she realized a car was even there. When

she turned in that direction, still in shock by the heavy rain beating against her, the car, a

Mercedes, drove up beside her and the window rolled slightly down.

“Shay, get in,” the man behind the wheel ordered.

Shay knew him from Stop Gap. He was one of their regular customers who apparently

had business that caused him to journey into town from Baltimore on a consistent basis, and in

so doing stop at Stop Gap four or five times every month. The dude who said his name was

Matty, but all of the older waitresses called Brad Pitt. Although they were certainly friendly,

and she’d recognize him anywhere, she wouldn’t say she knew the man. But Shay had been

raised in the streets, a product of all kinds of bad family ties and even worse luck, and from

where she came from you never really knew people, anyway.

Besides, she’d seen him come and go out of Stop Gap for nearly two years now, and

had snap-judged him to be good peeps. But if he wasn’t good peeps, she thought, as she

dumped her now decimated umbrella and got into his car, her hand firmly on the can of Mace

she kept in her book bag, he’d soon find out that she had it in her to break bad, too.

Matty Driscoll didn’t know why he would even consider picking up some waitress

when he was needed in Baltimore like yesterday. But she’d catch her death in this kind of

weather if he didn’t do something. Besides, this was Dresden, a small college town some forty

miles outside of Baltimore. The school, the historically black Franklin University, was

currently between semesters and, because most of the college kids had gone home on break, it

looked nearly deserted on this late Sunday evening. He was the only rescuer she was likely to

have on this night, was his estimation.

“Thanks, Matty,” she said as she closed the car door. She was immediately horrified as

the rain dripped off of her and onto his car seat and floor mates. “I sure hope this is real

leather,” she said, concern all over her pretty face.

Matty smiled. He always liked that about her whenever he saw her at the café. She

was always so sincere and serious, and such a hard worker, that he wondered why she wasn’t

running the entire establishment. And of all the waitresses that had served him over the years,

she was the only one who didn’t try to get him to take her to some motel room, or flirt with

him shamelessly to gin up a big tip. For that reason alone he always gave her his biggest tips.

“It’s real,” he said, “don’t worry.” Then he just sat there.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, feeling, once again, for her can of Mace.

“Nothing’s wrong,” he said, amazed at how serious she took everything. Often he

would see her working in the café while her coworkers were basically lounging around doing

nothing, and he’d want to tell her to lighten up, too, to take it easy, that it’s not that serious. “I

was just waiting for you to give me some idea where you might have been heading?”

“Oh!” Shay said sheepishly. She always did like Matty, although she wasn’t all out

there with it the way those other females were whenever he walked into Stop Gap.
Brad Pitt

in the house,
the older waitresses loved to yell. Or,
Walking Sexy has arrived
, the younger

ones would proclaim.

He was tall and lean, but athletically built like a track star or a football quarterback, and

he had this great tan, these sparkling bright blue eyes, and this dark-brown hair pushed back

into a silky, almost severely conservative cut. Although the females at Stop Gap always kept

coming onto him and were convinced he was the play-around type, Shay didn’t get that vibe

about him. He liked the ladies, she decided, but she figured his taste tended more toward the

sophisticated,
got her own thing going on
type, not those chain-smoking, cracked-skin, trailer

park older ladies like most Stop Gap’s waitressing staff, or those few college kids like her

trying to work their way through school.

“I stay on campus,” she said. “At Franklin U. Know where it’s at?”

Matty could have said,
I not only know where it’s located, young lady, but my ex-

girlfriend is your Dean of Academic Affairs!
But of course he didn’t go there. His

relationship with Alex Graham ended nearly a month ago, although she still insisted on calling

him whenever she was in a jam, which was why he had been in Dresden to begin with. But it

was a relationship that remained far too complicated to discuss even among his friends, forget

somebody he hardly knew. “Franklin U, it is,” he said instead, pulling away from the curb.

Shay looked at him, understanding why the females went so ga-ga over him. He was

really a very attractive man, with an alluring quality about him she hadn’t picked up when he

was her customer at Stop Gap. Then she suddenly remembered that he hadn’t been coming

around as often as he used to.

“We haven’t seen you much lately,” she said to him conversationally. All she wanted

to do was get back on campus, and out of his car, in one piece.

“It’s been about a month, you’re right.” Not since he was last in town and angrily

walked out of Alex’s home, after literally coming to blows with Franklin U’s head football

coach, who was now her lover. He almost hung up in her face when she phoned him this

morning asking that he come. He came, got into another shouting match with her about same

football coach, and left again. He stopped by Stop Gap to calm himself back down.

“You haven’t missed anything,” Shay said. “Lester’s still working us too hard, and JJ

still dropping plates almost every day.”

“Oh my. He’s still the klutz, is he?”

“For real, though. I don’t know why Les keeps him around, but he does. Not good

business in my view, I mean really. But word around the Gap is that he and JJ a little more

than friends, if you dig where I’m coming from.”

Matty looked at her as if he was affronted, suppressing a smile. “Shay, I’m

disappointed in you,” he said. “Don’t tell me you’re into gossip, too?”

Shay smiled. She always did like Matty. “Nall, but you can’t help but hear it. That’s

all a lot of those ladies do around there. And of course many of those same ladies were all

excited that you were back today. You should have seen them, Matty. And all of them older

than me, some way older, but when it comes to good looking men, they act like two-year-