last night.”
“Is the kid okay?”
“Yes. He touched her, but he didn’t hurt her.” Robin stooped down to check on Emma. Straps, secure. Blanket, fine. Blue eyes smiling and content. “I guess he didn’t do anything except...give me his business card.” She wound her fingers around the edge of the stroller as the strength ebbed from her. “I know this name. I didn’t know him, but the last name...I’ve seen it in legal documents.” She let Emma capture her finger in a tiny fist. “He said he was family.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Houseman. Emma’s birth mother—I never met her but...her last name is Houseman.” She held up the crumpled card for Jake to read. “Like him. Is he Emma’s father? Does he want her back? I can’t lose her.”
Jake didn’t take the card or speculate an answer to her question. Instead, he cupped his hand beneath Robin’s elbow and pulled her to her feet. If she thought he was being polite or showing concern, she was mistaken. He positioned her behind the stroller and gave it a nudge, forcing her to grab on to the handle and get moving before he pushed Emma down the sidewalk without her. “Like I said before—tell the cops about that phone call. This guy, too. And quit wandering off on your own. I won’t always be here to save you.”
Gratitude and irritation warred inside her. “Then why did you? If I’m such a burden, if we’re such an intrusion on your life, why did you come all the way down the block and get rid of Mr. Houseman for me?”
“It’s my job to keep trouble away from the bar.”
“Like men who accost women on the street?”
“Like you, lady.” He scanned the sidewalk and street as they walked, and Robin realized that she, too, was learning to check inside every car and doorway for anyone who might be watching or waiting for them as they walked past. “I’ll take you to the corner, and watch you down to your shop. But then you are no longer my responsibility, understand? We’re done.”
Again.
Chapter Seven
“What are you doing in here, boss lady?”
Startled by the interruption, Robin crumpled the sick note she’d been rereading and stuffed it into the pocket of her apron. She looked up from the stool where she sat in the shop’s refrigerated stockroom to see Mark Riggins standing in the open doorway.
I’m taking your baby.
Mark was unrolling the sleeves of his shirt and buttoning the cuffs at the wrist. “It’s quittin’ time.”
Gathering her wits and taking note of the late hour, Robin set the last handful of gerbera daisies she’d been counting back into their vase on the bottom shelf and entered the number on her clipboard before getting up.
She pulled her sweater more tightly around her neck and hugged her arms at her waist. “Are the boutonnieres for the Vanderham second wedding finished?”
“Packaged and ready for delivery in the morning. Along with two dozen small sprays and the biggest altar piece I’ve ever put together. Tacky and too much, but if it makes the client happy, who am I to complain?” Frowning, he took a step into the cold room. “Are you okay? You look a little pale. Are you thinking about the assault again?”
Was there a moment in the week since her attack that she hadn’t? She slipped her hand into her apron pocket, feeling today’s latest threat burning against her fingers. But her personal problems weren’t Mark’s concern—or anyone else’s, apparently, according to the police’s inability to act on a few prank calls and messages. So she pasted on a reassuring smile. “No. I didn’t realize it was nine o’clock. Is everything locked up?”
“You bet.” Mark inclined his head toward the workrooms in the back. “We’re all getting ready to head out so we can get an early start on tomorrow’s setup. I think Linda and Christine are going out for coffee, but the rest of us are heading home. You should do the same.”
“I know.” Since the assault nearly a week earlier, she’d taken every safety precaution she knew to heart—especially since that first drunken phone call had turned into some sort of anonymous hate mail campaign. Every day there’d been something new in her bills and correspondence at the shop. And each letter, sent from a Kansas City post office with no return address, had grown more disturbing by the day.
The Rose Red Rapist didn’t make mistakes and would come back to finish what he’d started.
A single woman had no business