The Protectors
It had been past midnight when he’d left the Kennedy Center. As a rule, none of the security detail could leave until the last car was out of the parking lot.
Once back at the hotel, he had quickly gotten out of his suit and showered, anxiously checking the phone. No call. So he decided to kill time by getting on his computer. He’d convinced himself that had she read the message scribbled on the back of the business card, she would call.
So far she hadn’t.
Granted, they hadn’t officially met, but he figured she had to remember him from that night in Charlottesville at the crime scene. Maybe not to the same extent he’d remembered her, but still. And then, hours ago at the Kennedy Center, with all that sexual chemistry flowing between them, she had to have found what was happening between them just as bizarre as he did.
On the other hand, maybe she hadn’t. After all, she was a psychic. For all he knew, she could get this type of reaction from men all the time. But for him, it was the weirdest thing he’d ever encountered. If he assumed the first time had been nothing more than getting caught up in the moment, what happened at the Kennedy Center pretty much dismissed that idea. It had nothing to do with the moment but with her, and he was determined to find out why.
Quasar checked his watch. It was close to seven in the morning, which meant he’d been up all night. But at least it hadn’t been a total waste. He’d finally decided to research Dr. Randi Fuller. When he couldn’t pull up anything but professional information, he contacted the headquarters of Summers Security, knowing that someone was on call twenty-four hours a day. It was Roland. More than once he and the guys had told their boss he needed a life, and Roland would give them some smart-ass response that Summers Security was his life.
If Roland thought it odd he’d called at two in the morning for access to GRETA, he didn’t let on. GRETA was a state-of-the-art search engine that specialized in information you couldn’t find anywhere else. It was a great tool for those doing investigative work. All you had to do was tell GRETA what information you wanted, and within minutes she would recite all you needed to know.
According to GRETA, Dr. Fuller made her home in Richmond. She was the daughter of famed defense attorney Randolph Fuller; sister to Ross D. Fuller, who was making a name for himself as a top corporate attorney; goddaughter of retired Senator Noah Wainwright and godsister of Senator Zachary Wainwright. He recalled Senator Zachary Wainwright had been among the group she’d been with last night. Connected to that much fame, he understood why she preferred protecting her personal data.
Quasar stretched out on the bed. He was filled with too much caffeine to sleep, so he might as well watch the news. He grabbed the remote. From his hotel room window, he had a view of the Washington Monument standing tall against the bluest sky he’d ever seen.
It was at that moment his phone rang, and immediately he felt a stirring sensation in the pit of his stomach. It was a number he didn’t recognize. “Quasar Patterson,” he said.
There was a brief pause before a feminine voice replied, “Yes, Mr. Patterson, this is Dr. Randi Fuller.”
Quasar sat up in the bed, wondering how any woman could sound ultrasexy and impressively professional at the same time. He immediately remembered her as he’d seen her last night, in that beautiful blue gown. The material draped her curves, and he’d thought she’d looked absolutely stunning in it. For a minute he’d ignored the lobby filled with people, his total concentration on her.
“Thanks for calling, Dr. Fuller.”
“Although you said to call anytime, when I settled in for the night by my standards it was way too late.”
“I understand and I appreciate you calling now. What I didn’t have time to write on the card is that I want to get to know you.”
For the first time in his life, Quasar felt like a man on a mission.
* * *
RANDI NERVOUSLY NIBBLED on her bottom lip. Twenty minutes ago she had still been debating the merits of making this call. Now that she had, she wondered how much, if anything, she should tell him. And just like he wanted to get to know her, she wanted to get to know him. What woman wouldn’t? But for now, she’d let him lead the conversation.
“Dr. Fuller?”
She swallowed. Why did he have to sound so darn sexy? Especially this early in the morning. She hadn’t been able to sleep and had gotten up before seven o’clock to wash her face, brush her teeth and make a cup of tea before calling him. “Yes?”
“Do you have a problem with me wanting to get to know you?”
She considered his question thoughtfully. “It depends on why you want to.”
“I believe you know the reason.”
“Do I?”
“Yes, I think you do.”
Randi drew in a deep breath, deciding for the time being to play coy. “And just what reason do you assume I know?”
She heard him chuckle and knew he was well aware she didn’t intend to make anything easy for him. “Although we haven’t officially met, something is going on between us that defies logic,” he said.
Maybe in his world it did, but not in hers. “Does it?”
“Every time we look at each other, it’s like we’re the only two people in the universe.”
She would admit that was true. “It’s called chemistry, which is a normal, healthy attraction. It happens.”
“Not to me. At least not this way, and not this intense. Has it ever happened to you before?” he asked her.
Randi didn’t say anything for a minute. She could say yes, it happened to her all the time, but that would be a barefaced lie. Her attraction to him was just as intense as he’d described his to her. “No,” she finally said. “It’s never been this way for me before, either.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute, as if he was trying to digest her response. “Don’t you think we owe it to ourselves to find out why it’s happening?”
Truth was, she already knew why, but he would need to discover the reason for himself. “How do you suggest we go about solving the problem?”
“I didn’t say it was a problem. In fact, I find it quite stimulating.”
“Do you?”
“Yes, which is why I want to get to know you. You intrigue me.”
Randi took a sip of her tea. It wouldn’t be the first time a man said she’d intrigued him. He wanted either to get inside her head or to try his luck getting her into his bed. She couldn’t help wondering why, of all the men out there, he had been chosen to be her mate for life.
“I think we owe it to ourselves to explore what’s going on between us,” he said, pulling her mind back into the conversation. “To meet finally would be a great start. However, if you’re seriously involved with someone, then of course I understand.”
Seriously involved? She’d forgotten just how that felt since it had been so long. “No, I’m not involved with anyone.” Seriously or otherwise.
“In that case, will you join me for breakfast? Let’s say in an hour? There’s a wonderful café in the heart of Georgetown. Rocs. I’ve eaten breakfast there before, and it’s good.”
Trey, Haywood, Zach and Anna were taking the kids on a train ride to Delaware today, and she had told them she would join them. Randi figured she could certainly change her plans. She would be honest with herself and admit she wanted to see him again. “Yes, I’ll join you for breakfast. However, you need to make that in two hours instead of one.” She had promised to go jogging with Trey this morning.
“Fine.” He gave her the address. “And another thing.”
She pushed to her feet to get dressed for jogging. “What?”
“I’m Quasar, and I hope it’s okay to call you Randi.”
“It is.”
“Great. I’ll see you in two hours, Randi.”
“Alright, Quasar.”
After Randi disconnected the call, she couldn’t stop the butterflies from swirling around in her stomach. She would get to see Quasar Patterson again. And soon.
CHAPTER FOUR
QUASAR FELT RANDI FULLER’S presence long before he saw her. Since it was a gorgeous day in May, he’d chosen to sit at an outside table in the beautiful historic section of Georgetown. His gaze searched up and down the cobblestone sidewalk, but he didn’t see her.
He would have been the first to admit that nothing about his attraction to Dr. Randi Fuller was normal. He’d been attracted to beautiful women before, but this was different. It was something he couldn’t explain...like what was happening now. When had he actually been able to feel a woman without being buried deep inside her body? All he knew was that he was convinced Randi was close by, either parking her car or coming up the sidewalk...although he had yet to see any sign of her.
“More coffee, sir?”
He glanced up at the waitress, who was smiling at him. She’d been to his table three times now, and his coffee cup was still pretty full. She was young, probably no more than twenty-two. And more than likely a student. He’d seen her looking at him a couple of times, and he’d felt nothing. Not even a twinge of excitement or a flutter of desire. “No thanks. I don’t want any more coffee.”
She gave him a sexy look...or at least she tried to. “Would you like anything else, then?”
He didn’t have to ask, Anything like what? “No thanks. I’m good.”
“Yes, I’ll just bet you are.” And then she walked off, deliberately sashaying her hips as she moved toward another table.
“I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
Quasar quickly switched his gaze from the waitress to the woman standing beside his table. He couldn’t keep his eyes from dragging all over her before staring into the most gorgeous pair of brown eyes he’d ever seen. Up close they were lighter than he’d thought they were. “No, you’re not interrupting anything,” he said, standing.
He liked everything he saw. Smooth, creamy, cocoa-colored skin; high, perfectly sculpted cheekbones; a cute nose; a pair of lush lips and pretty ears with dangling gold earrings. He thought she was gorgeous. Irresistibly hot.
And there was no way he could overlook the thickness of the black hair spilling to her shoulders and framing her face in such a sassy and sexy way. He could imagine her raking her fingers through it or pushing it back off her face. She was wearing a yellow print sundress with spaghetti straps that highlighted beautiful shoulders. And he couldn’t help noticing she had a gorgeous pair of legs. She managed to look both graceful and sensual at the same time.
He extended his hand to her. “Randi.”
She took it. “Quasar.”
Why did his name sound so damn sexy on her lips? And why were they standing there holding hands while something akin to hard-core sexual chemistry flowed between them?
“I hope I’m not late,” she said, finally easing her hand from his.
“Not at all,” he said, sitting back down after she’d taken her seat. “What would you like to drink? Coffee? Tea? Juice?”
“Tea will be fine.”
“Anything else?” he asked, handing her the menu.
“What do you suggest?” she asked, placing it aside and looking over at him.
Quasar focused his gaze on her too-luscious lips and thought he honestly didn’t want to go there. The first thing he would suggest was for them to go back to his hotel room. He could visualize her naked and stretched across his bed while he kissed her all over. He would see if all that creamy cocoa-colored skin was as sweet as it looked. Deciding not to let erotic thoughts get the best of him, he said, “They have delicious pancakes here.”
“Then that’s what I’ll have with my tea.”
“Okay.” He motioned for the waitress, who, unlike all those other instances, seemed to take her time coming to his table. He gave her their order and was glad when she finally left. He liked being alone with Randi. Although there were people sitting at other tables, it seemed as if she was the only one in his little corner of the world.
He knew how dangerous getting this caught up in a woman was, but he brushed the concern aside. He was a man and she was a woman, and the strong attraction between them was nothing more than a normal aspect of human sexuality, right? Even she’d alluded to that. However, he couldn’t shake the idea that the chemistry between them was way too explosive, and there had to be more to it. Randi Fuller was too deeply embedded in his system, and for the life of him, he didn’t know how she got there.
Or how long she would stay.
Other than dealing with an annoying ache in certain places, though, he had nothing to worry about thanks to Lilly Alpine, the woman he’d planned to marry. She’d known the reason he’d gone to prison and had promised to wait for him. She hadn’t. Instead she’d married the person he’d gone to prison to protect. His brother, Doyle. Because of Lilly’s betrayal, Quasar would never share his heart with another woman. So whatever this thing was with Randi, he was fine with it since he wasn’t doing anything foolish like putting his heart on the line again.
He felt his stomach clench when she nervously licked her lips. “Thanks for agreeing to join me for breakfast, Randi. Did you enjoy the gala last night?”
“I did. There was a large crowd.”
“Yes, there was,” he said, leaning back in his chair.
“What about you? I know you were working, but I hope you managed to enjoy some of it.”
“Yes, I did.”
Their gazes held, and he felt a tightening in his chest. He wished at some point he could be unaffected by her but had a feeling that wasn’t possible. Especially when his fingers were itching to run through all that hair on her head. He couldn’t help but be drawn to how it cascaded around her face.
“You did an outstanding job assisting law enforcement with the Erickson case,” he said. “I don’t want to think of what would have happened to Striker and Margo Connelly had we not gotten to the cabin when we did.”
“I’m glad I was able to assist. I got a call from Ms. Connelly thanking me personally, and I enjoyed our conversation. I understand she and Striker Jennings are seeing quite a lot of each other these days.”
Quasar chuckled. “Yes, they are.” There was no need to mention that he had a feeling a wedding would be in the works before the year was out.
“I could tell that night that you, Striker Jennings and Stonewall Courson are close friends. I watched you and Mr. Courson race into that burning house to help get Mr. Jennings and Ms. Connelly to safety.”
Quasar thought about the night and the fear racing down his spine that he and Stonewall would not be able to get Striker and Margo out alive. “The three of us are more than that. I consider them as close to me as brothers.” Then, deciding to be up front with her in case she didn’t know his history, he said, “We served time together in prison.”
He watched her features for some kind of shock. When that didn’t happen, he waited for the questions. They didn’t come, either. He could only assume that she’d known. Evidently her psychic powers were at work.
“Not sure if you’ve heard the federal government has completely taken over the Erickson case,” he said. “They’re determined to find out how he died while locked up at that federal prison. It’s still all a mystery.”
She nodded. “Yes, I heard that.”
“It seems the murderer covered his tracks well. So far there aren’t any leads.”
“Well, I’m sure justice will prevail and the killer will eventually be caught,” she said, tilting her head in that sexy way of hers.
The shrill ring of his mobile phone disturbed the comfortable conversation between them. He tried to hold his anger at bay when he recognized the ringtone. The call was from his father.
“Do you need to get that?” she asked him.
He shook his head. “No. I have the rest of the weekend off,” he said, although he knew the call was personal and not business.
“I like this place,” she broke into his thoughts to say. “It reminds me of a restaurant back home.”
“And where is home for you?” he asked, knowing already but wanting her to tell him anyway.
“Richmond. But I love coming to DC. I attended college here at Howard for my BS, and then Georgetown for my master’s and PhD. Georgetown is my favorite part of DC.”
He nodded. “You come to the nation’s capital often?”
“Often enough. I have family here, and I like visiting them as often as I can. Sometimes my work can take me away a lot.”
“You have a big family?”
She smiled, and he could feel his stomach tighten even more when that smile produced beautiful dimples. “Depends on what you mean by big. Compared to most, I don’t consider it big, but when my parents have family get-togethers, inviting both my mom’s side of the family—the Haywoods, and my father’s side—the Fullers, there are a lot of us. We’re a close-knit group.”
“Is it a coincidence your sister’s name is Haywood, after your mom’s family?”
Her smile widened. “No coincidence. Mom says she’d always been proud of being a Haywood and wanted to pass the name on to her first child, whether it was a son or daughter.”
She’d angled her head to look at him, making a mass of hair cascade even more over her shoulder. “What about you, Quasar? Do you have a large family?”
He could feel his jaw tighten at the question. “No,” he said and decided not to add they were definitely not close-knit.
“Any siblings?”
He immediately thought of his brother. His one and only brother...at least biologically. “Yes, I have a brother. An older brother by four years.”
“And where did you grow up?”
Quasar loved her smell. Why did her scent have such sexy undertones? “Los Angeles.”
“You’re a long way from home.”
And he wouldn’t want it any other way. Instead of telling her that, he said, “Yes, I am.”
Wanting to shift the focus from him back to her, he said, “So tell me some more about you, Randi.”
She laughed and the sound fired his blood. “I would bore you.”
“I doubt that. Try me.”
* * *
TRY ME.
Randi didn’t want to think of all the ways she could try him, and they were ways she’d never thought of until now. She never considered herself an overly sexual being, even when she and Larry had been together. But the man sitting across from her looked so ridiculously sexy, it was hard not to fantasize a little. Um, maybe a lot.
His chestnut complexion, aquiline nose, sharp cheekbones and strong chin were what female fantasies were made of. Then there were his brown bedroom eyes and chiseled jaw that made him appear too handsome to be real. The straight texture of his dark hair that stopped at his shoulders made her curious about his ethnicity. Mexican? Italian? Or other? His mouth was holding her senses captive, namely the shape of his lips. They were the kind of lips a woman would want to kiss and lick until she was sexually silly. Pretty much how she was feeling now.
And when he’d stood, he appeared to be around six feet two or three inches of solid muscle, a lean, well-built physique with great broad shoulders. She couldn’t help but appreciate a body that was so powerfully male. And why did his scent, a masculine blend of soap, aftershave and cologne, travel along her nerve endings? What she found so mind-boggling was the fact that the man sitting across from her, playing havoc on her body from top to bottom, was meant for her.
“I’ll tell you what,” she decided to say. “If I tell you a little about me, then you have to tell me things about you.” This meeting between them was important and would establish the framework for the rest of their lives. Of course there was no way for him to know that.
He shrugged, smiling over at her. “With your psychic abilities, I’d think there’s not much about me you wouldn’t know already.”
Searching his eyes, she considered his words and knew she needed to nip that assumption in the bud. “You’re not showing up on my mental radar,” she said truthfully. “I don’t have the ability to read every single human being.”
“Then how did you know I was an ex-con?”
She tilted her head. “I didn’t until you mentioned it. I had no idea.”
He held her gaze as if trying to divine the veracity of what she’d said. “Then why didn’t you react when I told you?”
She lifted an eyebrow. “How was I supposed to react? Did you expect me to run out of here hollering and screaming?”
After huffing out a short laugh, he shook his head. “Nothing that drastic, but experience has taught me to expect some sort of reaction.”
Randi wondered what kind of response he was used to getting. Was it similar to the one she got whenever it was revealed she had psychic powers? She decided to explain a few things to him. “My father is a defense attorney, probably one of the best...at least I think so. And the one thing he’s instilled in me is the belief that not all people in jail are there because they are guilty. Not saying whether you were guilty or not. All I know is that you’re sitting here, which probably means you served your time.”
“I did. And that’s good enough for you?”
“Yes, Quasar. That’s good enough for me.” When you want to tell me more about that time in your life, you will, she thought to herself. When he didn’t say anything but continued to look at her, she said, “I wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a lawyer.”
“You did?”
“Yes. From the time I found out what he did for a living. I was so proud of him. That wasn’t in someone’s plans for me. But in all fairness to my gift, which I am now very proud to have, I learned early on that it’s meant to help others more than to help myself, which is why I probably can’t read you. I’m meant to find out some things on my own.”
She’d discovered this when Georgie betrayed her and Larry broke things off with her. She’d felt with her paranormal abilities that she, of all people, should have known Georgie couldn’t be trusted and Larry would end up being a jerk.
“You said that now you are proud of your gift. Does that mean that hasn’t always been the case?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding her head. “What fifteen-year-old wants something like that dumped on her? The realization that she has psychic powers? To be considered a freak of nature?”
She forced to the back of her mind Larry’s cruel words to her that day. She figured if Larry saw her that way then others would, as well. “I knew my great-grandmother was psychic as well as her mother, but not in a million years did I think the gift would be passed on to me.”
“How did you come to terms with it?”
Randi immediately recalled that year spent on Glendale Shores. That had certainly helped. But more important had been her relatives. She decided to credit the latter. “My family’s love and support.”
“Then you should consider yourself fortunate to have such a wonderful family.”
At that moment, the waitress returned with her tea and Quasar’s cup of coffee. That was good timing since it gave Randi a chance to dwell on what he’d just said. His words led her to believe that his family was anything but wonderful, not even close.
A part of her wished she didn’t have a mental block where he was concerned. But then, maybe it was for the best. It was up to her to get to know Quasar Patterson and break down any barriers he erected. She had a feeling that doing so wouldn’t be an easy task. He had invited her to breakfast under the misconception that whatever was drawing him to her was purely sexual. Eventually he would discover that wasn’t totally true.
“You know what I think?” he asked.
She met his gaze. “No, what do you think?”
“I think with your proven track record as a psychic assisting law enforcement, especially with the Erickson case, anyone who doesn’t appreciate your gift would be crazy. What you’re doing is pretty awesome.”
A smile touched the corners of her lips. Randi didn’t say anything, but she appreciated his compliment. There was no reason to tell him that although she did have a proven track record, some of her cases weighed her down. She often dealt with the struggles of not having every single case laid out for her, like Erickson’s death. She hadn’t seen it coming. And then there was Levan Shaw, the one who got away. “Thanks.”