Strategically Wed Page 5

  Maggie eyed Griff’s expressionless face, trying to determine his mood. In a shapeless hospital gown, his dark hair mussed, Griff appeared remote, his face creased in stoic ridges. He had declined the last dose of pain medicine, and she couldn’t imagine how he bore the discomfort or the trauma of the past few days.

  Everything seemed to be a blur.

  Noticing his intent gaze, she realized he was waiting for an answer. “If you die, I’ll be your next of kin. That’s why I agreed to marry you.”

  Griff produced a rude sound. “You never did lie very well.”

  “Who says I’m lying? How much would I have gotten if you had kicked the bucket?”

  “Not a windfall, if that’s what you’re hoping for. We both know cops don’t make any money.”

  “They also make lousy spouses,” Maggie replied coolly, pretending to examine her nails.

  Griff turned his head and stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t argue with her. They were especially lousy when they were immobilized and unable to relieve themselves without calling for help.

  He hated the helplessness, the lack of control. Growing up as a ward of the state, he’d always taken care of himself. What choice had he had? Looking back, he was damned glad for it. He’d learned to be independent, not to count on what he couldn’t provide for himself. Part of his decision to become a police officer was his overwhelming need to stay in control and to take charge of any situation. Yet with his right leg immobilized in a cast and his left arm stuck in a sling, he was as helpless as a newborn babe.

  Forcing his mind off his own disgusting weakness, he squinted at Maggie, who was pacing around the room. She and Wylie had taken turns staying with him ever since he’d been wheeled out of recovery. Maggie had been here the most. That surprised him even if she was now his wife on paper.

  His wife.

  Hell, he must have been sicker than he thought. He’d always known if by the remotest chance he was ever so stupid as to get married again, he’d choose a woman who didn’t have too many expectations of him, had a pleasant, quiet disposition and would put up with his being a cop. Maggie Bennington flunked on all accounts. She was even flightier than his late wife had been.

  Of course, he knew he wouldn’t be Maggie’s idea of Prince Charming, either.

  He wondered what Wylie had done to coerce her into signing that marriage certificate. They had always struck sparks off each other—sparks of animosity mostly. But a different kind of fireworks erupted within him the minute he’d spotted Maggie at the other end of the wedding aisle. He hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her or squelch the seductive heat spreading through his loins.

  Maggie had always done her best to be one of the guys. She’d downplayed her femininity, hiding her curves under the formality of her uniform or a pair of jeans overlapped by long-tailed shirts. But she hadn’t been able to hide her female assets beneath that wedding dress. Every part of her breathed femininity.

  And there hadn’t been a part of his body that hadn’t noticed.

  Standing uncomfortably close to her during the church service, her scent teased and fanned the raw want within him, intensifying his desire to an unbearable level. He’d wanted to kiss that frozen snootiness off her face and change it into something real and wanton.

  And that’s exactly what he had been thinking about when he walked out that church door and into the path of a gunman’s bullet.

  He couldn’t believe lust for a woman had overridden his sixth sense. He’d always been able to smell trouble. It was a sense he’d developed and learned to listen to over the years.

  So what had happened? Why hadn’t that uneasiness clawing inside his gut sent him on alert?

  Because Maggie Bennington had donned a wedding dress?

  On some level, he’d always known that Maggie was a dangerous woman. She tried to put on a façade of toughness, but she was too soft for the job. Once he’d witnessed her giving her lunch to a smart-mouthed juvenile who had been caught stealing a pizza from a delivery man. Another time, she had taken several small children home with her so they could wait for their father instead of being turned over to Social Services. And ever since Maggie had been back in Pendleton, she spent several hours each week at a shelter, working with the kids.

  Was Griff now one her charity cases? Was that why she was still hanging around?

  Maggie had deserted her father when he’d needed her most. And then BJ died. Griff couldn’t forget that. But Maggie had insisted BJ had arranged for her to leave. Had he? Why?

  Griff’s inner turmoil came to an abrupt end as Maggie suddenly stopped pacing and swung around to look at him. “Why did you agree to this arrangement?” she asked.

  Griff noticed how she had avoided referring to the arrangement as a marriage. He considered her tight face and the shadows lurking in the back of her eyes. Those shadows had been there ever since he’d met her twelve years ago. She’d been fourteen and he’d been twenty-two. She’d never made it any secret that he was one shadow she didn’t need and wanted to be rid of. He thought that’s what he wanted, too.

  But the image of her rushing to his side after he was shot rose to the forefront of his mind. He remembered too clearly the tension on her face as she’d taken charge while trying to stem the flow of blood with a piece torn from her white wedding gown. She’d muttered nonsensical stuff, blathering on in a soothing, unhurried voice meant to reassure him that his wounds were minor. Yet in the green mirrors of her eyes, he saw the truth, realizing the pressure she exerted was keeping him from floating downstream in his own blood.

  He kept conscious by focusing on her, living for the sound of her voice. For a man who’d lived most of his life on the outside looking in, each word, each gesture had imprinted itself in his head, replaying over and over again.

  Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her face during the long, painful ride in the ambulance to the hospital and how she’d maintained a tight hold on his hand. Or had he gripped hers? He decided it didn’t matter. She hadn’t pulled away. She’d just been there. He had seen little softness in his life and couldn’t help lapping it up like a starving hound.

  Why had she bothered?

  Why did he care? He usually hated that kind of dependency.

  From the closed expression on Maggie’s face, Griff figured she was mentally bracing herself for his answer.

  He turned away and retreated to staring up at the ceiling again. Neither of them needed an extra complication right now. It was better to play it safe and stick to the rules they’d both followed since BJ’s death. “It seemed like the thing to do,” he finally answered.

  Her posture relaxed a bit. Pointing to his water pitcher, she asked, “Do you want me to have the nurse refill that?”

  They both knew he only had to push a button to get anything he needed. He let her go. “Sure.”

  After he heard the door shut behind her, he tried to sort through what had happened and the implications. Why had she worked so hard to save his life? She could have left his side after they tucked him into the ambulance. It certainly would have made sense.

  His partner’s daughter had resented him since the day BJ had brought Griff home and introduced them. She couldn’t hide her animosity anymore than she could stop trying to fix a young punk’s problems. For the most part, Griff considered her a pain in the rear end and had done his best to ignore her.

  Not even after BJ had died and they’d gone through this engagement charade had she changed her opinion of him. And Griff never tried to dissuade it.

  What would have happened if he had?

  She’d even shown up at the wedding wearing something a nun would wear. The minute he caught sight of that damnable mummy dress, he’d known she’d chosen it to provoke him. What she hadn’t realized was how he had fantasized through most of the ceremony about releasing each one of those tiny pearl buttons, one button at a time, and slowly removing the dress from her body.

  Their physical contact when he’d thrown his b
ody over hers to protect her had only given color to his more vivid fantasies. He’d learned Maggie’s curves were in all the right places. She had breasts that begged to be touched. A lush, sensuous mouth that tormented a man to lose his head and take full advantage of the invitation she unconsciously offered. Velvety green eyes that had the power to seduce a saint.

  And he was certainly no saint.

  He’d wanted her. Even in this sterile hospital bed, he wanted a woman he could never have.

  The sound of the door opening, brought Griff back to the present as temptation returned. Every fiber of him responded to Maggie’s reappearance. Griff could easily discern things he tried to keep from noticing. The sexiness of her walk. Her scent. The twitch and sway of her hips.

  She wore a denim long-tailed shirt over faded jeans. A unisex ensemble. The attire would have been successful camouflage before the wedding. But not anymore. He remembered having her sweet body twitch and thrash under his as if it were only ten minutes ago. Recalling her softness and the enticing view of bare thigh made the stabbing throbs in his shoulder and leg insignificant.

  Who would have thought BJ Bennington’s daughter would grow into a siren? The way her body had cradled against Griff’s was proving hard to forget. He wanted nothing more than to bury his fingers into her shoulder-length, untamed hair that was a shade riper than auburn, cup her face and finish the kiss they’d started in the emergency room. It was all he could think about as he’d hovered at the brink of unconsciousness. Thinking of sex had helped him hang on to his wits. Now, it was driving him crazy. He wondered how many stitches he’d pop if he rose from this bed, picked her up in his arms and made love to her right now.

  Two bullet holes in his body were probably less life threatening than tangling with one Maggie Bennington. He would do well to keep that in mind.

  Only he couldn’t forget she’d saved his life. There was an obligation there if nothing else.

  She set the pitcher of water on the tray in front of him. “Anything else you need?” she asked.

  “Do you have a list of wifely duties I can choose from?” The wound in his thigh started to prickle and pain, but he ruthlessly ignored it by directing his full concentration and frustration on Maggie.

  Her gaze narrowed. “Don’t push your luck, Murdock.” Her color was high despite her dampening tone.

  It gave him some satisfaction to know he wasn’t the only one affected by the sexual currents zipping between them.

  She picked up a magazine and pretended to read. That suited Griff just fine as he indulged in the pleasure of watching her, noticing the rosy hue to her cheeks, which made a lie out of her supposed disinterest.

  Most redheads tended to look blotchy whenever a flush oozed across their skin. But Maggie had smooth satiny skin. When rosy and bothered….

  Suddenly Griff realized Maggie was giving him a frosty expression from her side of the room. Had she guessed his thoughts? No. She would go straight for his throat if she could guess.

  He couldn’t resist prodding her. “How much longer are you going to hang around here?”

  “If you hadn’t gotten yourself shot, I’d be gone by now. I’ve got to get back to my job.”

  “You were a cop in Somerstown?” he asked.

  “Are you interrogating me?”

  “You have something else you’d rather talk about?”

  Her gaze lowered to her clenched hands. “The Somerstown Police Department was short-staffed. I worked two years for them.”

  “Are you going back to rejoin them?”

  She shook her head and settled back into her chair, appearing more relaxed than she had when she’d returned to the room. “No, I’m buying a gift shop.”

  Griff’s lip curled. “You’re going to give up trying to save the world from a herd of messed-up kids?”

  She lifted her chin. “There’s other ways to help. Not every problem can be solved carrying a gun.”

  “Tell that to the kids who are better armed than the police.”

  “Maybe they don’t have a choice.”

  “Everyone has a choice, sweetheart,” he drawled. He better than anyone knew that.

  “I’m not your sweetheart!”

  “A marriage license says you are.” He shouldn’t be baiting her, but he liked the green flames in her eyes a heck of a lot more than the frost.

  Maggie rose to her feet, looking ready to throttle him, when Wylie sauntered into the room. The older man’s frown changed to a grin as he correctly interpreted Maggie’s militant stance and the waves of hostility darting between the two of them. “Fighting already? Nothing I like to see more than a happily married couple.”

  Maggie turned the full force of her glare on him. “You’re hardly an authority on happy marriages. Two wives divorced you, Wylie.”

  “But I did love them.” He gave her a roguish wink, a mocking gesture that couldn’t quite hide his own pain. “If only they could have tolerated my demanding mistress.”

  She looked away. “We all know marrying a cop sports a high price tag.” Griff noticed how she softened her words even though she couldn’t quite take out the sting.

  Wylie shrugged. “Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. It depends on the people involved.” His gaze flickered from Maggie to Griff and then back again.

  She wasn’t going to argue the hazards of being married to a cop. The statistics spoke for themselves. She decided it was long past time to change the subject. “What happens after Griff is released from the hospital? I want to leave no later than Friday.”

  The troubled expression Wylie had been wearing when he walked into the room reappeared. He hooked a chair with his index finger and pulled it alongside the bed. “The suspects we’ve interrogated all have alibis. It’s going to take a while to clear everyone. The shooter could be anyone.”

  “What about the guy who set fire to his own house, killing his wife and two daughters?” Griff asked.

  “Guy Fergus is taking a vacation. He’s a changed man—or so his attorney says.”

  Maggie walked over to the window. “That sounds flimsy.”

  “Yeah. So flimsy it’s probably true.”

  She looked back at Wylie over her shoulder. “There weren’t any other clues left at the scene?”

  He scratched the back of his head. “We found a rumpled copy of the wedding invitation across the street. Both of your names were circled several times like a bull’s-eye target.”

  “Any fingerprints?” Griff asked.

  Wylie shook his head. “Not a one.” Anyone who knew the older man well could see the fury he was trying to hold in check. “He must have worn gloves. That’s what makes it even more suspicious. Everyone had to hand over an invitation to get inside the church.”

  “That’s it?”

  “The list of wedding guests has disappeared.”

  Maggie blinked. “Where was it?”

  Wylie hesitated and then admitted, “In a file folder on my desk. It could have been misplaced.”

  “Or it might have been stolen.”

  An ominous silence hung in the room.

  Griff leaned back into the pillows. The movement produced a sharp twinge in his shoulder, only bearable because of the tight lock he had on his jaw. “So it could have been another cop.”

  Wylie sighed. “There’s any number of people who walk in and out of my office every day. It could have been anyone. Either way, this shooting looks premeditated.” He motioned to Maggie. “Sit down, Maggie. Your hovering is making me nervous. We need to create a plan for the two of you.”

  “I’m not part of this. Griff is the one who got shot,” Maggie said.

  “That hole in your veil can’t be ignored. He might have missed you and hit Griff instead. We don’t know who the target was.”

  Griff could see how much Maggie wanted to argue. She reluctantly lowered herself into the chair.

  Wylie retrieved his notebook from his pocket. Flipping it open, he studied several pages. “The reality is w
e’ve got a cop shooter at large. We don’t know who it is, which one of you was meant to take that bullet or why.” Closing the notebook, he tapped it against his hand. “We’ve got a couple of options. One, we could tuck you both away in a hotel room and assign round-the-clock guards.”

  Maggie shook her head almost vehemently. The idea of being shut up with Griff in a hotel room didn’t bear consideration. “Count me out. If everything goes right, I want to open my store within the next month.”

  “I’m allergic to the stale air inside hotel rooms,” Griff said flatly. “Let’s hear Plan B.”

  Wylie pocketed his notebook. “You both can hide out in my cabin in Jonas Falls.”

  Before Griff could voice his objection, Maggie’s chair crashed to the floor as she jumped to her feet. “No way,” she said.

  Wylie motioned her to sit down. “Hear me out.”

  She didn’t return to her seat, but she pressed her lips into a tight line and folded her arms tightly across her chest.

  “Griff, you’ll be out of commission for a while and will need assistance getting around,” Wylie said.

  “I’m not completely helpless.”

  “No, if you were, I wouldn’t even suggest that you leave the hospital. This isn’t the perfect solution, but I know you’re both too damn stubborn to go into protective custody. And I don’t have the manpower to keep track of both of you. So, the next best thing is for you two to play out the marriage angle and go to the cabin. I’ll be the only person who knows how to contact you. And when our guy comes sniffin’ around, he’ll have to come through me.”

  Maggie’s mouth dried. She paced back and forth. “We can’t even get along inside a hospital room. What makes you think we could get along locked up inside a cabin? There has to be another option.”

  Griff didn’t say anything. For once in his life, his brain seemed curiously void of any ideas, even though his fate rested on the outcome.

  Wylie drummed his fingers against the arms of his chair. “I don’t have any other solutions short of locking you both in a jail cell to keep you out of harm’s way. But then I’d worry about the well-being of my officers and the other prisoners.”