Page 17 of Babydoll

The woman from all those months ago outside Gage’s building is nothing like the woman I leave in the break room. If I hadn’t had her under surveillance and had every part of her life under a microscope since that night seven months ago, if I hadn’t watched her slowly wither away, the scrubs she wore at her day job going from curve-hugging to beyond loose, I might not even know she was the same woman.

Gone is the curve of the plump ass she once had, as is the innocent shift of her womanly hips. Tallulah Jane Olsen’s life had imploded that night and she’d become a husk of her former self. Now she walks with nothing but purpose. But I still feel a tightening in my gut for her. Maybe Lu, the grumpy, take-no-shit janitor is her real personality, but I doubt it.

This woman is vulnerable, hurting, and in trouble, my gut knows it. The brat she pretends to be is just a wall, a protective one.

One I plan to get over.

And that’s where I’m going to screw everything up. Getting close to Lu is going to ruin my investigation. And not only because she’s a distraction with the things I want to do to her after our little talk, but because I need information and I’m no longer willing to do whatever it takes to get it. I shake my head, chewing the inside of my cheek.

I’ve damn well gone soft. But it isn’t charity or some misguided hero complex. I know I can’t save my sister by saving Lu. But I want to save her all the same. I hang onto the idea that rescuing Lu will thwart Satan’s Ransom, and that’s why I’m a bit obsessed, but I don’t believe it. Whatever she does for them isn’t important enough to cause them damage by taking her out of their grip.

I walk into the security office and drop into the office chair positioned in front of the wall of monitors. Leaning back, I stare at the screen that shows footage from the hall outside the break room. She’s still in there, and I know she’d already finished cleaning the room, which only means she’s probably trying to work through what just happened.

You and me both, babydoll.

How many lines did I cross tonight? Manhandling her to get the pudding cup out of her pocket? What the hell was I thinking? And using her Grizzly Daddy line? I groan, letting my head fall into my hands for a moment. It was both inappropriate and stupid the way playing her daddy had my every nerve flaring with heat. And Jesus, making her lick the pudding lid? Hot as fucking hell, but sexual harassment much?

But even knowing I could be pulled into HR and lose my contract with the factory, I can’t quite muster regret.

Yeah, I’m majorly attracted to Tallulah, but it’s not all sexual. That’s easy, sexual attraction. You can feel it for a magazine model, an actress, or even a stranger sitting on a train. What Ifeel for Lu is not just lust. It’s more. It’s real. It’s protective. It’s possessive.

That last thought gives me pause. I’ve never been possessive of anyone. I’ve definitely been protective, just not for someone outside of my family. I already give the kid in my niece’s karate class the side-eye and he’s only four, but damn, I don’t like the way he looks at her like he wants to share her popsicle and break her heart simultaneously.

Maybe my feelings are a result of watching Tallulah melt away and become someone else. And I don’t mean just physically. The beautiful curvy blonde who stopped to pet and baby-talk to every dog she saw on the street, the girl who laughed freely with her coworkers, and lifted toddlers up to see the new puppies waiting for adoption at the animal hospital, is gone. Slowly at first, but with every Satan’s Ransom meeting, Tallulah shrank away and Lu took over.

I like both sides of her—the sweet and the scrappy. Not a lot of people get to see someone at their best and their worst before they’ve even had a conversation with them.

Tallulah’s wilting.

At the animal hospital, she hangs back now, avoids going out for lunch with her coworkers, and looks uncomfortable with everyone. It’s almost as if she feels like she doesn’t belong or doesn’t deserve to be there. And that breaks my damn heart. I want to nurture her back to her former self, make her take care of herself again, remind her she’s worthy of better, but that’s what Satan’s Ransom does. They break you down until you only feel worthy of whatever they toss your way.

The Lu I know from the factory is more likely to growl at a puppy for piddling on her freshly washed floor than to throw her head back and laugh with abandon as it licks her face and wiggles in her arms. Lu looks like she could take down the Ransom with one hard glare. And even though I know it’s afront, meant to keep herself safe and not the real Tallulah Olsen, I’m not sure the first woman was any more real either. No one is all rainbows and sunshine all the time. And that further intrigues me.

Running my hand over my mouth and down my chin, I watch her leave the break room, a scowl on her face and purpose in her stride.

I’ve never been attracted like this to a subject under my surveillance and not just because they’re usually hairy bikers or dope dealers. There’s the rare woman. She’s usually attractive, often with a sob story, but I’ve never fallen, never even considered the possibility.

Is that what I’ve done with Tallulah, fallen for her?

I don’t get like this with women in general. Most of the time, I have a little fun, make sure she’s having a good time, and remain up front that nothing serious will come of it. Rule number one, taking down Satan’s Ransom comes first, thus my heart stays steady, my mind clear, and my focus on point. I’m fooling myself if I think I’ve done that with Lu though, because my mind is not on point.

I lean forward in my chair, scanning each monitor as soon as she disappears out of the last one. And as I find her on the last screen, pushing her cart into the lobby, my damn heart begins to trot like a colt feeling rain for the first time.

I rise then, frustrated by my own feelings, and in need of a reason to stop following Lu’s every move on the monitors.

Opening my cell, I dial my mother.

“How’s my girl?” I ask, picturing my niece tucked tightly in her bed, her wispy hair splayed on the pillow. Reece is the reason I’m here. She’s the one I’m fighting for.

“She’s good. Fast asleep finally, but she sure is a rascal.” My mom chuckles, making my own mouth curve into a smirk, because don’t I know it. “She managed to negotiate an extrastory out of me, and then when I finished, she critiqued me. Little bum told me you read it better.”

I smile. “Of course I do. I do the voices. Was it the one with the dragon?” I ask, knowing it’s her favorite.

“That’s the one.”

“She loves the voice I give the dragon.” I laugh. “It’s haughty and arrogant, or so she tells me. Mom, what on earth are you teaching her?”

“Haughty and arrogant are perfectly acceptable words,” she says defensively.

---