Sweet Seduction Shield (41 page)

Two months
with Ryan Pierce in my life and things I'd thought essential didn't
even register anymore. I was too busy enjoying life, being loved,
having a family.

I sat up
slowly and ran one finger over the delicate locket at my neck.
Inside was a small photo of all three of us; me, Daisy and Ryan. As
well as the note he'd written, and Ben had handed to me, before we
visited the Birdcage Police Bar. I'd nearly forgotten all about it
afterwards - what with the frightful things that transpired - but
luckily cleared my pockets out before I threw my jeans in the wash.
Ryan found me reading it in the laundry and stood silently at the
door... watching. He presented me with the beautiful platinum and
sapphire butterfly inlaid locket the next day; the photo, one Abi
had taken earlier, nestled within. The note has sat inside ever
since.

I didn't need
to pull it out now to remember what he had written, I'd committed
the words to memory that very first day.

Marie,

There are no
rules I wouldn't break to get to you.

Ryan.

Some things
are worth fighting for. Some things stand outside of man-made
law.

"Now, I know
you
would prefer
orange, Tiger," Ryan said, interrupting my musings as he walked in
the door, two tall glasses of orange juice in his hand.

I smiled up at
him, then forgot completely the words that had been on my lips
seconds before. He was wearing faded denim jeans and a form fitting
pale blue t-shirt, that moulded to his body like a second skin. I
knew the trunks he wore were bright blue, with yellow stars
scattered across them. I knew exactly how they hugged his very fine
arse and left me breathless when he drew them on this morning.

I knew they
hadn't lasted long that first time, only a matter of seconds after
he'd pulled them over his hips before they were tugged back down
and my greedy mouth paid homage to the bulge that had tempted me
from the outset.

Ryan hadn't
objected, in fact he'd enthusiastically allowed me my distracted
moment, then promptly followed that up with a greedy session for
his mouth as well.

It had only
been the doorbell and Daisy's fervent cries of, "She's here! She's
here!" coming from the front of the house that had reminded us that
there were other people outside of our locked bedroom door.

The lock was new. Ryan's holiday home hadn't had one on the
master bedroom before. But a few close calls and Ryan's insistence
that he
needed
to be able to touch
me - naked skin to naked skin - without fear of being caught when
in our own room, meant he'd installed a lock on the door two days
after we moved in. Every window in the house had received an
upgrade at the same time. Electronic sensors, deadbolts; an ASI
special.

We'd been here
full-time two weeks now. But Ryan had been in our lives every
single night since Simon Andrews' death. At first we'd visited his
mother's house as therapy for Daisy. That night was on repeat in my
baby's head. But like most five year olds, new memories quickly
overshadowed the bad. Ryan and I made sure that she collected
seashells down on the beach at Okoromai Bay, that those seashells
decorated her bedroom walls, here at the holiday house, which was
now our home. He hung a swing seat in the backyard from a gnarled
old Pohutukawa Tree, where she would often pass half an hour just
staring at the gulls flying and swinging her feet. Next to it, on a
higher branch, sat her hand painted birdhouse from Abi and Ben.

Ryan was in
the process of building a cubby-house in the garden, a place for
her to entertain her new school friends. It had a gabled roof, a
miniature deck with railing, and little windows staring back
towards the main house and out over the Hauraki Gulf. Daisy was set
to paint it when it was done, I'd been given the task of making
curtains. She'd shadowed Ryan every second he was out there laying
the foundations and building the frame, nailing the weatherboard in
place. School had meant she had to reluctantly tear herself away
from his side, but that was when Ryan caught up on his own
work.

And his own
work had been mainly involved in the closure - once and for all -
of the Roan McLaren case. The ledger had done what I had always
hoped it would. And the reach it had was still being realised.

I didn't get
the same feelings of dread I used to have when I thought of that
man though. Time heals. Time with Ryan washes all those bad
memories away. We had a new life, the evil that existed on the
periphery before had been replaced with love and hope. I was in the
process of starting my own accountancy firm up, here in Gulf
Harbour. One of my first clients was the There Is Always Hope
Trust. Ryan had handed over his trust into my care, and surprised
me with the number of rentals he owned, which all contributed to
the New Zealand Women's Refuge.

Life was good,
for all of us, and getting even better.

"Thanks," I
managed to say as he handed me the glass and then sank into the
couch seat beside me.

"Have a good
sleep?"

"Mmmm.
Perfect. I could hear the sea gulls and the kids laughing. No
better way to snooze."

"It's a
beautiful spot," he admitted.

I flicked a
gaze towards him. The haunted look he used to have, whenever he
thought of this house and his birth mother, was gone. Peace painted
a relaxed picture across his façade.

There was more
than just one person receiving therapy by living here.

"What are the
girls doing?" I asked, sipping my drink.

"Daisy is singing, while Caitlin is swinging. I think its a
show of some sort, because they take turns and give each
other
X Factor
advice."

I smiled. "She
loves Caitlin visiting. Someone near her own age to spend time
with."

"She'll make
new friends at school, but Harvey and Sherry need the break right
now. Having Caitlin for a few hours lets them work through a few
things. They've talked about shifting up here, and letting Caitlin
start the same school as Daisy when she turns five in two week's
time."

Daisy would
love that. "How are they going?"

He gave me one
of his intense looks, the one that says a conversation's worth of
words in just one glance. I didn't need to read them though,
because I felt it too. We were lucky to be alive. Harvey and Sherry
were lucky to be alive. Daisy and Caitlin were lucky to be alive.
But even that does not take away the memories.

"Harvey has a
lot of regrets," Ryan murmured. "And the inquiry at work is taking
its toll."

There'd been a very good reason why Harvey had cooperated with
Simon Andrews; Roan McLaren's man. But valid reason or not, he'd
chosen to keep his superiors -
the Police -
out of it, and tried to handle it on his own. It
had backfired miserably. Resulting in a kidnapped five year old and
two dead felons.

The New
Zealand Police had not taken the news kindly. Harvey was on paid
compulsory leave, and Sherry, his wife, was trying to pick the
pieces up. Ryan was helping where he could, unable to turn away
from a friend in need. I didn't blame him. How can any of us know
what we'd have done in the same situation as Detective Harvey
Stone? I will not pass judgement on a parent in abject fear ever
again.

I've lived
with fear, I know it intimately. I also know there is something
beautiful if you make it out alive.

Ryan slipped
his hand into mine, fingers squeezing.

"Do you like
it here?" he whispered, lifting my wrist to his lips for a sweet
kiss.

"I love it
here. Do you?"

"Wherever you
and Daisy are, Tiger," was all he said.

He leaned
forward and placed his glass on the table, then reached for mine
and did the same. Then he lay back down on the couch, pulling me
along the length of his body, shifting slightly, tucking me in
against his side and chest.

I couldn't get
enough of snuggling into this man. I was at my happiest when we
climbed into bed at night and he wrapped me up in his arms, like he
was now. My head to his chest, my leg over one of his thighs, his
arm draped down my back and over my hip. He kissed me in amongst my
hair. Let out a contented sigh. And stroked tender fingers across
my jeans, dipping down over my butt.

"Did you ever
think you'd live here?" I asked, voice quiet and at peace.

"Not in a
million years."

"It's good,
isn't it, Ryan?"

"It's heaven
on earth, Marie."

"I love
you."

"Babe, I've
loved you from the first day I met you."

"From the
moment you laid eyes on my butt?"

He chuckled,
gave said butt an affectionate squeeze, then said, "No. I was
impressed with the butt, but I think something shifted inside me
when you crawled out from under that desk and turned, chin up, face
set, to look at me. I saw it then. I saw it hidden behind that
confident shield. Strength. Control. Conviction. Then when you
looked at Daisy's photo on your desk, I saw something else too, and
I was lost, then and there."

He paused, I
lifted my head off his chest to look at his face. He had a far away
gleam in his eyes, remembering that day probably. I could remember
it vividly too. His concern, his compassion. His understanding. An
understanding only someone who had been through hell like you can
show.

"What? What
else did you see?"

"A slight
vulnerability wrapped up in the perfect shell."

I frowned at
him. He raised his eyebrows back at me.

"I knew," he
whispered, lifting a hand to brush my hair off my face, and then
leaving it cupped around the back of my neck, "that given the right
incentive and care you would prove my greatest challenge and most
wonderful reward. You were everything I wanted in a woman. Strong.
Capable. But someone I could also protect, someone I could do right
by. Someone who needed me as much as I needed them."

He was right.
I did need him. He was my rudder, keeping me level and on track
when the waves got too high and the wind became a gale. He was my
lighthouse in the storm. He gave something better than a shield; he
gave me hope, and belief, and the knowledge that I can reach the
other side.

And I gave him
what he needed too. Someone to watch over, someone to fill that
necessary place inside. That place in his psyche where he felt he
had failed to protect his birth mother. That place in his heart
where he needed to know he'd finally got it right.

Ryan was
always going to be a knight in shining armour. Just because he was
mine and Daisy's, did not mean he wouldn't forever be trying to be
someone else's too. It was just him. Who he now was. A good man, a
moral person, an outstanding cop.

And I loved
him for it. And I could share that part of him from time to time,
because I knew once he'd done his bit to help someone else in their
hour of need, he'd come home to us.

"You're so
beautiful," he whispered, his eyes searing into mine, such an
intensity there, such a depth of longing and love.

"You're pretty
hot, yourself," I whispered back.

He held my
gaze a moment longer, then lifted his head and pressed his lips to
mine. Kissing Ryan was like come home, tasting paradise, and flying
free like a bird all at once. He tilted my head with the grip of
his hand at the base of my hair and deepened the kiss. His tongue
darting inside and dancing with mine.

I may have
moaned.

He may have
groaned.

X-rated was
definitely on the cards.

Then the
thunderous stampede of five year olds as they headed through the
house from the back door.

Ryan dialled
the kiss down, but refused to end it. I didn't complain.

"Daddy!
Daddy!" Daisy urged as she tugged on the back of Ryan's shirt.
"It's time to get back to work! 'Nuff kissing Mummy. We want to
paint our house!"

He pulled back
to looked at me, surprise and awe in his beautiful brown eyes.

They said,
She called me Daddy
.

Mine smiled and replied,
I know.

His laughed,
I don't know what to say.

Mine whispered,
Yes, you do. You were made for
this.

He turned his
face and beamed at Daisy. "OK, Princess. I'm coming, I'm coming.
What colour will we use first."

"Well, duh!"
Daisy replied heading for the door with a prima donna flounce in
her step. "Red of course, silly."

"Of course,"
he muttered, smoothly getting to his feet.

He took a step
away, and then spun back to look at me. I sucked a breath in at the
sight that met my eyes.

"Realised you
want it yet, Tiger?" he asked, the most contented and happy look
gracing his handsome, goatee bearded face.

He didn't wait
for an answer. Just offered a wink, spun on his heel and left.

I stared after them.
My family.
My daughter. The man of my dreams.

And in them,
one day soon, his answer would be a yes.

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