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Chapter 11

Dr. Noah Richmond

"ARE YOU A COFFEE DRINKER?"

She blinked up at him, her lovely mocha-brown eyes revealing her weariness, and quipped drily, "Only because I need it to live."

Normally, he would've laughed, but, given the seriousness of her situation, he held back his amusement. "Will it keep you from sleeping?"

Suppressing a yawn, she vigorously shook her head, sending a cascade of lustrous wavy brown hair forward over her shoulder. The glossy waves contained strands of red and gold, the ends gracefully curling over her breast.

Damn. He'd noticed her beauty, her curves, and her sexy-as-fuck sultry voice, but he'd overlooked how fucking cute she could be. He wanted to scoop her up and cuddle her to his chest like a softy, drowsy kitten, as much as he wanted to protect her from the killer on the loose who may or may not be after her.

His phone alerted.

"That's the police file," Keiran advised.

He'd read the full report later, but he took a moment to scroll through the crime scene photos. They were gruesome, but nothing worse than he'd seen in Afghanistan or the many times he'd worked a trauma during his training. Until he saw Fiona's car and another photo, with her in the background, covered in blood like something out of a Stephen King novel.

He and Keiran exchanged glances. Noah knew he was thinking of the problem they'd had not so long ago. A serial rapist had targeted submissives at the club. They'd felt helpless as one after another went missing. Four in all had turned up dead before they'd caught the motherfucker. More recently, Esme had stumbled upon something incriminating at her former job. To shut her up, she'd been threatened, shot at, and hunted. The last in a scary-as-shit car chase on the busy streets of LA, which could have ended tragically.

Since then, a woman alone and in danger quickly became their top priority, particularly a submissive at their club. No one fucked with family.

Fiona yawned—again.

Putting his phone and the gruesome pictures away, he took her hand and pulled her from the chair.

"I'm taking you home and putting you to bed," he announced. When she staggered a little drunkenly, he slipped his hands around her waist.

Blinking up at him, dazed and a little breathless, she informed him, "I have to go by the police station and make my official statement."

He grunted, not liking that she was dead on her feet, but it couldn't be avoided, he supposed.

"All right," he allowed, gripping her hand and leading her out of the office, "but you need coffee first, and gear."

"What kind of gear?"

He took the short hall to the other side of the suite where the downtime room was located, and, inside it, the coffeepot. Before stopping there, he made a quick detour.

The windowless equipment room always had a pungent odor. Fiona noticed and sniffed when they entered.

"What's that smell?"

"Gun oil," he said, flipping on the lights. Along the left wall, behind advanced nanotechnology security glass and a two-factor biometric identification scanner, was the Rossi weapons room. All the men carried their own preferred sidearm, but they kept a full arsenal of less-often-used weapons here, also ammo, scopes, and a variety of explosives, mostly grenades and gas pellets.

"Earlier, I wasn't serious about carrying a gun," she said quietly, staring at the weapons cache with a mix of awe and horror. "I mean, it might have come to that if you hadn't taken my case, but I'd be more apt to shoot myself or someone or something I wasn't aiming at."

"You won't need a gun. That's why you have me."

Her gaze shifted from the shelves of specialty weapons to him, landing on his face first then sliding down his body.

Knowing what she was searching for, he pulled his jacket aside, revealing his holstered 9 mm.

"If this is a bad dream, I'm ready to wake up now," she whispered, visibly trembling.

"I just saw the pictures, Fiona. It's very real. But the nightmare part is over for you. You're safe with me."

He squeezed her hand, trying to reassure her. Noah knew it would take more than that to convince her, however. They needed this done.

Making his way through the orderly storage shelves on the unsecured side of the room, he swiftly gathered the items he needed and returned to her. He extended his hand palm up, revealing a transmitter no larger than a dime.

"This will allow us to locate you if we get separated."

Fiona's words escaped her lips in a frantic rush. "Why would that happen if I have a bodyguard?"

"We try to plan for all contingencies. Breathe."

He eyed the crossbody bag she carried. It was compact, with an outer pouch for her phone and a zippered compartment for her money and cards. Unlike the burdensome, oversized purses some women carried, this bag was practical, holding only the essentials. It told him a lot about her. A lot he liked.

"Do you carry that clutch all the time?"

She looked down at it. "It's a wallet, actually, and yes. It goes where I go."

"Make sure you stick to that. It will be useless if you don't have it with you," he warned, as he extended his hand once more and waited for her to pass it over.

Noah unzipped it, affixed a double-sided adhesive disc to the back of the tracking device, and concealed it within an empty credit card slot.

Next, he held up a compact canister of pepper spray. "This goes on your key ring."

She passed that over too and watched, grim-faced and pale, as he slipped it on.

"What's wrong?"

"Last night, I would have done anything for one of those. I used to carry one, but mine expired and I didn't replace it because I always felt safe here."

What she'd witnessed had changed that forever. She didn't say as much, but he could tell from her haunted expression.

He opened the flap on the outer pocket of her wallet and slid out her iPhone. The keypad appeared, requiring a passcode. "Unlock it. I'm going to enter some must-have numbers into your contacts."

She angled her screen toward her face and handed it back to him.

"Face ID," he grunted. "If you want to keep your phone secure, switch to an eight-digit passcode or higher."

"Why?"

"If someone has possession of your device, and you, they can easily do what you just did."

She grimaced, her furrowed brow staying that way as she replied, "I don't even want to think about that happening. Not today. Maybe not ever."

"Yeah," he replied, wishing he hadn't brought it up. At least not now, with everything she had on her plate, frazzled nerves, and no sleep.

His thumbs moved over the screen as he explained, "I'm adding numbers to favorites. First, the control room here at Rossi. It's manned 24/7. Call them in an emergency, and they'll take it from there. You'll also have my cell, and the landline at my condo, and I'm adding Keiran as a backup."

"A landline?" she asked. "I didn't think anyone under sixty had one of those anymore."

"I like to have another option for calling out." He looked up at her, moving just his eyes. "How old are you, Fiona?"

"Thirty-four."

"Just so you know, I'm not a boomer or old enough to be your dad."

Her already pale face turned ghostly white, and an apology tumbled past her lips. "That wasn't a crack about your age. Really, sir. I was just surprised."

"I know it wasn't. You're tense. I was just trying to lighten the mood."

She nodded, looking down at her hands. "I don't think my mood will ever be light again."

He felt bad for teasing her. "It will," he murmured gently, returning her purse and slipping his arm around her shoulders. "We'll catch this guy, and your life will go back to normal."

Suddenly reminded of something she'd mentioned earlier, he asked, "If they impounded your car, how did you get here?"

"I Ubered."

He should have known. "Your dial-a-ride days in a stranger's car are over. I'll drive you to the station then home." Out in the hall, instead of going left toward the lobby, he turned them right. "One more stop before we go. I want to check your tracker's signal."

He entered the control room at the end of the hall with Fiona in tow. The room was big because it needed to be. When they first opened a few years back, they had to blow out two walls and combine three offices to accommodate all the surveillance equipment.

To his surprise, Tristan sat at the bank of monitors, his eyes fixed on the screens. He glanced up when they entered, but only for a second.

"Where's Vic?" Noah asked.

"Sick with the flu," he grunted in answer. "Mia and the kids too—all seven of them. We're all taking shifts to cover for him. I'm surprised Keiran hasn't hit you up."

"He hasn't had time. I only got back from Ecuador a few days ago. Besides, I just took on a new case."

Tristan's gaze flicked to Fiona for a moment before returning to the screens. "I heard there was trouble last night. Any leads?"

"We're heading to the station to find out. Before we leave, I need to check the status of her tracker."

"T113 just came on line. The signal looks good."

On the way out, she uttered under her breath, "And here I thought this was a personal security company. That looked like central intelligence."

"We're not in the spy business, but we do a lot more than security—surveillance, investigations, and, from time to time, government contracts."

"Holy smokes. You do all that, and you're a surgeon?"

With his hand on her back above her delightfully curvy backside, he explained as they walked toward the front.

"I have a practice in town with six partners. Because of my increased deployment with SVI, my office hours have been significantly reduced."

"SVI?"

"Surgical Volunteers International. There's a lot of need in hard-to-reach places, so I travel when there's a call for an orthopedist. Keiran works with my schedule, but I'm basically ‘as available' with them."

"I'm in awe of people who are so generous with their time and their talents," she breathed. "Do you fix things like cleft palates?"

"That's not my area. My focus is on other congenital defects like clubfoot, joint malformations, and spinal issues. Whatever they need."

"You work with kids?" she asked, genuinely fascinated by it all.

"Mainly. It's rewarding to see how much a simple procedure can change their lives."

"I can imagine. Where have you traveled?"

"Cambodia, Nicaragua, India, but mainly Africa. In here is the coffee," he announced, glad for a change in topic.

He led her through the open door of the employee breakroom, which he was relieved to find empty. She was already on edge and didn't need to be bombarded with more questions.

"How do you take it?" he asked.

"A cream and three sugars."

Noah didn't comment, but his lips turned up in a smile. He should have guessed she took her coffee extra sweet, just like her.

They exited the rear of the building into the dimly lit parking garage. Fiona sucked in a breath, her feet coming to a stilted halt as if stuck to the concrete floor.

Noah berated himself silently, calling himself ten times a fool for not anticipating her reaction.

"This is on me. I should have considered the memories a parking garage could trigger so soon after and picked you up out front."

"I'm okay." Her death grip on his hand told him otherwise. "Can we please just go?"

"Yeah. We're right here." He waved to the Rossi vehicles, all black SUVs with tinted glass, front row reserved parking—thank fuck.

He opened the passenger door and waited for her to buckle up. Her hands were trembling too badly, and he had to help. When he got behind the wheel, he slammed the gearshift into reverse and hauled ass out of there.

She visibly relaxed when they were on the street in the bright California sunshine. But not fully. Her hands clutched the borrowed coffee-filled Yeti with a white-knuckled grip as she stared out the window.

"I'm not usually so fainthearted."

"I doubt your usual includes seeing what you saw last night."

She let out a soft laugh, but there was no humor in it. "This is true."

A loud rumbling echoed throughout the vehicle. Fiona pressed both hands to her stomach. "Excuse me. That was rude."

"How? It's involuntary," he replied, not glad for her embarrassment but that it had shifted her focus and brought a little color to her cheeks. "You haven't eaten, have you?"

"I was too nervous to eat."

"Change of plans. Food, the police report, and then home. Where is that, by the way?"

"Culver City."

"And you work at..."

"Children's Hospital."

"Oh, are you in a medical field? Or support?"

"I'm an occupational therapist. I work for the Richmond Rehab Clinic."

He glanced her way in disbelief and rudely blurted out, "You're shitting me."

Her head swung around. In wide-eyed wonder at his reaction, she replied, "No. Why would I?"

"Have you worked there long?"

"About six months."

"Then you've never met Dr. Richmond, the founder?"

"I haven't yet had the pleasure. He's very busy with charitable works, I'm told."

When he stopped at the light, he turned slightly toward her and held out his hand. "You've had the pleasure now."

She automatically took it but blinked in complete consternation. "I don't understand."

"Fiona. I'm Dr. Noah Richmond."

She gaped at him and then exclaimed, "Now you're the one who is shitting me!"

He burst out laughing. "I shit you not, sweetheart." Then, loathe to do so, he released her hand and faced front because the light changed.

THEY DROVE IN SILENCE. Noah focused on the traffic, which was heavy at midmorning. Only four miles away, it took them twenty minutes to reach the NE police station. Fiona stared out the window without noticing how they got there. She was too preoccupied, puzzling over what twist of fate had brought her to this point.

How did a dominant at the club, who she wanted so badly her bones ached but avoided for weeks because she mistakenly believed larger girls weren't his cup of tea, who she insulted repeatedly and was now her bodyguard, end up being her boss? Holy crap!

"We're here," he announced, turning off the engine.

When she looked through the window, she saw a sign for a coffee shop, and it was located directly across from the police precinct.

"You need to have something on your stomach, even if it's just toast. Afterward, if you're up to it, we'll walk over. Parking closer isn't happening."

It was past the breakfast rush, so they were seated right away and a server quickly arrived to take their order. Noah asked for two eggs, bacon, and coffee.

"And for you, dear?" the waitress asked.

"Coffee," she said when it was her turn. Adding, "And whole wheat toast with strawberry jam," when he arched a dark-blond brow at her.

When she walked away, he leaned toward her. "My last name changes nothing."

"Except that it's on my paycheck. I can't believe I didn't put two and two together."

"I'm only there a few times a year, unless I have a patient I need to see. Mostly they come to me at the office. Board meetings are held off-site, as are charity events. You have the same director and supervisor overseeing your work as before, neither of whom is me."

"Have you ever..."

"Provided protection services to an employee. No."

"That isn't what I meant."

"I've never encountered an employee at the club, either. But if I had, the same rules would have applied." He reached across the table and took her hand. "Don't overthink this."

She rubbed her temples. "I'm surprised I can think at all."

"Me too, after going forty-eight hours without sleep."

"You've got your hands in a lot of pots. How do you manage it all?"

"I'm good at juggling," he replied, shrugging it off.

"No, really. I can barely manage one full-time job."

"I like to stay busy, but I'm thinking of scaling back. The problem is, I'm not sure what to cut. I did my ortho fellowship here in LA and joined a group practice afterward. That pays the bills. But the hardships I saw while in the service haunted me, and I wanted to do something, no matter how small, to help. SVI seemed the perfect way. I enjoy the work I do for Rossi. It challenges me in a different way, which I need after seeing all that I see. Even better, the men I work with are all good friends or former teammates." His gaze met hers and his voice took on an intimate tone when he concluded, "The club fulfills something deeper, providing a sense of belonging and a shared experience that work or volunteering can't touch. What are your thoughts?"

"I couldn't possibly decide for you."

"If you could, what would it be?" he persisted.

"Well," she drawled as she thought it over. "The bills have to get paid, and I wouldn't call traveling the globe volunteering your surgical skills small. If you enjoy moonlighting as a private eye, you should. Life is too short. As for being fulfilled physically..." Her cheeks heated at how very personal this was. "It's at the base of Maslow's triangle, with air, water, and food. What we need to survive, isn't it?"

"Indeed," he replied softly, with a hint of a smile. "So, you see my dilemma. But, enough about me. How are you getting your needs met? You ended your membership at the club, so we know you aren't being fulfilled."

Fortunately, the waitress arrived with their breakfast, and she busied herself with her coffee and spreading jam on her toast.

"Moving on to something that doesn't make you blush," Noah teased. "I'm curious. Even on an OT's salary, the club membership fees couldn't have been easy to swing. The clinic is nonprofit, operating heavily on donations because we never turn away anyone based on their ability to pay. You could do better financially elsewhere."

"But I love working with kids, and the underserved need me."

"Which is why I travel the world with SVI. It sounds like we're a lot more alike than different, Miss Delacour."

"Except I don't have a clinic with my name on it."

"Touché," he replied, inclining his head. "Private practice as an orthopedic surgeon can be lucrative, but I had student loans—believe me. It was my wife's foundation that sponsored the start-up."

The knife fell from her hand and clattered on her plate. She ignored the attention, too focused on his left hand, specifically his ring finger. It was bare, and there wasn't a tan line or an indentation.

His somber expression hinted at the answer, then he said, "She died several years ago."

"I'm so sorry, Noah."

He just nodded and took a sip of his coffee.

"We met during our fellowship. She was a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, too, and loved working with kids. The foundation and clinic in her honor made sense to me."

His buoyant teasing mood of moments before was gone and hers along with it.

"If you're finished, we should probably get across the street and get that official statement done."

She looked down at her plate seeing the toast was gone without her having tasted a bite.

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