Read Online The Promise He Made Her by Tara Taylor Quinn - Free Book Online Page B

was when she realized she’d seen him in the hallway earlier when she’d left her office to go down the hall for a soda. Pretending that her insides weren’t suddenly shaking, determined to act as though her evening was going to be like any other, she nodded and moved past him, bracing herself for any sudden move he might make. She stared at Sam, hoping he was getting her telepathic message. The able-bodied twentysomething’s interest in her was personal.
    She was certain of it.
    â€œHow was your day?” Sam asked as she reached him, turning toward the parking lot with his hands in his pockets.
    â€œThere’s a guy up there...”
    Though there was no visible change in him, she could feel him stiffen. And heard the change in his breathing. He glanced around them without removing his hands from his pockets, but she saw his elbow reposition slightly, as though he were prepared to go for the gun she knew was beneath his suit jacket.
    It was her job to be aware of minute changes in body language. To interpret what they might be telling her about the emotional and mental inner workings of her patients.
    Still, she felt him so acutely.
    â€œUp on the steps,” she said, continuing to walk. “He held the door for me.”
    Sam’s shoulders dropped. His breathing evened out. Even his pace softened.
    â€œThat was Gomez,” he said.
    â€œGomez?”
    â€œYou’re being provided with twenty-four-hour protection,” he told her. “Someone will be in the house with you anytime you’re there, and you’ll have a bodyguard the rest of the time.”
    â€œA bodyguard?”
    Gomez’s interest had been personal. She wasn’t losing it. But he’d been there to protect her. Not hurt her.
    â€œAn off-duty officer who is being paid to guard you. And before you get all peeved on me, you’ve been failed by the judiciary system. That entitles you to protection. At least until Ken is settled.”
    Sam made perfect sense. And she felt better.
    * * *
    S AM WAS A professional through and through. He could sit with a beautiful, fascinating, independent and curiously needy woman without messing up. Or getting involved. In any way.
    Marriage had proven to him, if nothing else had, that his work was his life. Which didn’t explain the restlessness trickling through him as he thought of the evening ahead—spending hours in his own home while acting like it wasn’t home.
    He could come clean. Chantel had already told him, more than once, that he should do so. She had been somewhat mollified by his assertion that if Dr. Freelander knew that she was putting him out of a home she’d refuse to stay.
    Chantel had been appeased after spending the evening with Bloom the night before. But she still thought he could let her know the house was his. Chantel seemed pretty certain that Bloom was in full agreement with their arrangement to keep her in a safe house. At least for the time being.
    He led the way out of the ritzy part of town that housed her office, keeping Bloom’s Jaguar in sight in his rearview mirror. She was making it easy. Staying close. It helped that she knew where they were going.
    And he thought again about the long evening hours to fill. With a list as long as his arm and leg added together of things he had yet to do to the place, there was plenty to keep him busy. He and Lucy spent pretty much every night on one project or another. But it would be kind of hard to explain to the occupant of the home why all of his tools and supplies were locked in the shed a few yards from the cottage.
    Lucy was not only going to be disgruntled, but she was going to be wound up when he arrived home at eleven o’clock that night expecting to go to bed. Used to having the acres around the cottage as her playground, and at least running on the beach below his place the night before, his late-night walk around the block with her would not suffice.