KCPD Protector by Julie Miller Read Free Book Online

George’s office, she knew the CSI hadn’t answered his call to take care of family business. She’d come with her lab kit and left with a kiss on the cheek from her uncle-in-law and a promise to try to identify the “numerous prints” she’d found in and around Elise’s desk. Not that Annie was holding out much hope, she’d overheard. There were no fingerprints on the vase itself, not even Elise’s, indicating the glass had been wiped clean. And any prints around the room could be attributed to the KCPD personnel, maintenance staff and registered guests who came in and out of the office on a regular basis.
    The deputy commissioner had ordered Shane to bring her a bottle of water, and then put him to work compiling a list of everyone who’d been on this floor between the time they’d closed up shop the evening before and when Shane had reported for duty this morning. Shane had offered to make a second list of anyone in maintenance or other departments who had keys to access the building offices, earning him some brownie points with the deputy commissioner for his thorough thinking.
    While she was glad George had been there to keep her sane and upright when she might have done something stupid like burst into tears or hurl the vase out the window to the sidewalk below, Elise knew it was important to renew her independence and resurrect the emotional walls that kept her boss at an impersonal distance again. She wouldn’t turn over her trust to a man simply because she needed someone, the way she had with Nikolai. And she couldn’t sit around and do nothing while everyone else around her worked—especially when it was her problem they were trying to solve.
    It had taken two friendly assurances, and finally a third “Go” that was a little more terse, to convince George to leave for his lunch meeting.
    Frankly, Elise was glad to have an hour of quiet while she ate her lunch at her desk and got her day back on schedule and her head back where it needed to be. She’d already sent out two memos with the wrong date this morning before she caught her mistake. Not that being a day off would cause anyone any grief, but the police department prided itself on getting their facts straight, and, as a representative of KCPD, so did she.
    Quiet. Focus. Normal routine. Those were the things she needed to get her day back on track.
    Quiet, she’d managed by staying in the office instead of joining her coworkers in the break room. Typing and filing and organizing were about as routine as her job could get.
    But focus? Elise had turned on a small fan to disperse the lingering odor of the roses that had filled the room, but she was having a harder time dispelling the clean, masculine scent of George Madigan that seemed to permeate every inch of carpeting and upholstery in the adjoining rooms. Or maybe his was just a unique fragrance that had burned into her memory when she’d leaned into him this morning.
    She could rationalize that the remembered scent was a mental association that had to do with strength and security. Thinking of her boss as a man who made her feel safe was perfectly reasonable. But there was nothing rational about wishing she could burrow into that heat and strength and enticing scent, and simply forget about the weird happenings of the past two days. If she wasn’t careful, that need to feel safe, that latent awareness of an attractive man, might blossom into an emotional connection, into those feelings of trust and desire that had been her downfall more than once in her life.
    Elise drank a long sip of iced tea through her straw and wished she’d opted for hot coffee so that the strong smell of brewed java could drown out the imagined scent of George Madigan that lingered in her nose. No matter. By sheer strength of will, she would override her hormones and emotions and concentrate on the job at hand. She needed nothing more, and she wanted nothing less. Right?
    “Right.”
    Popping a baby carrot into her