What was Blake’s reason?
So Finn asked, “Why do you care so damn much about a woman you must not have seen in five years?”
Blake’s jaw clenched so tightly that a muscle twitched in his cheek—in his left cheek with the deep dimple in it. The same one Juliette’s little girl had.
“She’s yours,” Finn said with sudden realization. “Juliette’s daughter is yours.”
Blake nodded.
“I didn’t know...” Finn murmured. How had the Red Ridge rumor mill missed that juicy bit of gossip? Hell, how had the media?
“Neither did I,” Blake replied.
And Finn flinched for him. Obviously, his cousin had just learned that he was a father—as his daughter was in danger. He reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “I don’t know what to say, man...”
“Say that you’ll accept my help,” Blake said. “These bodyguards are the best.”
Finn sighed.
“And along with the bodyguards, I intend to protect Juliette myself,” Blake said.
Finn snorted.
Blake tensed, looking offended.
“Come on,” Finn said. “You’re no bodyguard.” He was a billionaire.
“The bodyguards will be there, too,” Blake pointed out. “So will your officers.”
“Yeah, so you don’t need to be,” Finn said.
“Yes, I do.”
And from the determination in his cousin’s voice, Finn knew there would be no arguing him out of it. Even if he flat-out told him not to, he suspected Blake would follow her around anyway.
“Why?” he asked again. Blake’s revelation explained why he wanted the extra protection on Pandora but not on Juliette. “Why would you put your life in danger for someone who didn’t even tell you that you had a kid?”
Blake sighed. “This isn’t about me. It’s about that little girl. She can’t lose the only parent she knows.”
Finn echoed Blake’s sigh in agreement. But he had to point out, “She might lose both of you since you’re putting your life in danger, too.”
“Why can’t you come tuck me in, Mommy?” The question emanated from the speakers in Juliette’s personal vehicle since her cell had connected via Bluetooth.
She wanted more than anything to be with her daughter, to hold her in her arms. She had only missed that first night of tucking Pandora into bed, but Elle had assured Juliette that the little girl had been so exhausted she’d fallen immediately to sleep. That was not the case tonight. Tonight, she was so upset that Elle had had to call Juliette to settle her down.
Pandora seemed to be getting more and more upset. She wanted to be with Juliette as badly as Juliette wanted to be with her. They were all each other had ever had. And it was killing Juliette to be away from her.
Last night Juliette had had a distraction—that meeting with Blake. It had gone better than she’d expected it would. While he had been angry with her, he hadn’t been as furious as he could have been with her, as he probably should have been with her.
But he’d been too concerned about the danger she and Pandora were in to focus too much on what she’d done. On how she’d betrayed him. She had no doubt that, despite her apologies, he hadn’t forgiven her, though.
He had just made keeping Pandora safe his top priority. But what would happen once the killer was caught? What would Blake do then?
He would want to meet his daughter. He deserved to meet his daughter. Yet right now that would be putting her at risk—just like Juliette visiting her would. That was why the chief had insisted that if she was determined to keep working, she couldn’t go to the safe house. They couldn’t risk the killer following Juliette to her daughter.
But when that soft voice emanated from the car speakers, breaking with sobs as she pleaded, “Mommy, come tuck me in...” Juliette worried that she’d made the wrong choice. Her heart ached with missing her little girl.
She’d thought that if she stayed on the job, she would be able to find the killer faster than her coworkers. After all, she’d seen him; they hadn’t. Hell, she’d even hoped to draw him out, so that this would all be over soon. So that she and Pandora could go back to their everyday, perfect life together.
But even after the killer was caught, they wouldn’t be able to do that—because of Blake Colton. No matter what, he would be part of their daughter’s life now. And that would make him part of Juliette’s. He wouldn’t be just a nearly five-year-old memory. Juliette focused on her daughter again. “Sweetheart, I wish I could be with you right now...”
But she loved her too much to put her in any more danger than she already was.
“I’m working right now, though, baby...”
A little hiccupping sob echoed throughout the car. “Did you get the bad man, Mommy?”
“Not yet, honey,” she said. “But I will find him pretty soon. Then we can go home.”
“I wanna go home now, Mommy!” Pandora said, and now her sobs became wails of frustration and anxiety.
Juliette’s already aching heart threatened to break. She hated when her daughter cried, which, until the day before in the park, had been very rarely.
“Shh, shh,” she tried to soothe the child. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. We will be together again soon.” They had to be. It was hurting Juliette as much as it was Pandora for them to be apart.
However, she didn’t know if putting the killer behind bars would guarantee that they would never be separated again. What if Blake wanted visitation? What if he would be the one putting their daughter to bed on some nights? But his life wasn’t here in Red Ridge; it was overseas, in various other countries, according to the tabloids. The same tabloids that had published photos of him with models and actresses and foreign royalty.
If not for Pandora, Juliette wouldn’t have believed that night had happened, because guys like Blake never noticed women like her. She wasn’t famous or rich or well connected.
“You gotta catch the bad man, Mommy,” the little girl pleaded. “You have to make sure that he doesn’t make us dead like he said...”
“You are safe,” Juliette promised her. “Nothing will happen to you.”
“Are you safe, Mommy?”
Juliette had thought she was. She’d had a very uneventful day despite spending it on the streets, talking to informants, trying to find out if anyone knew anything about the man Pandora had witnessed committing a murder or at least about the purple-haired woman he’d killed. Since Pandora had seen her with a suitcase of drugs, she must have been a dealer. But nobody had been talking.
Yet. She would keep at them until they did.
But while she’d felt safe during the day, she had an odd sensation now. And Sasha, sitting in her harness in the back seat, must have felt it, too, because the beagle suddenly sat up and strained against the pet safety belt.
“Yes, of course I’m safe,” Juliette assured her daughter. But then she noticed the glimmer of lights in the rearview mirror. She’d been driving