Duty To Defend. Jill Elizabeth Nelson

      Jax rose. “I know a place a few blocks away that serves the best clam chowder in a fresh-baked bread bowl I’ve ever tasted.”

      “Sam’s Clams?”

      “You’ve eaten there?”

      “The day I came in for orientation. My new coworkers recommended it. Apparently, the charm of the place is an open secret around here.”

      “I remember that from my marshal days.” His grin faded.

      Why was he inviting Daci Marlowe to have lunch with him? It would have been just as easy to wave and walk out to each seek their own meals.

      “Okay, partner, you talked me into it.” Her lighthearted words jerked him back into the moment. “A working lunch it is.”

      A tight coil unwound in Jax’s belly. A working lunch. That’s all this was. He could do that.

      They left the office and walked out the building’s glass doors into the warmth of a New England spring day. The sky was blue and nearly cloudless, and a breeze carried the scents of flowering landscape bushes.

      Crossing the small courtyard to the sidewalk, Jax stuffed his hands into his pockets and fell into step with his companion. “Have you always lived in Springfield?”

      “Moved here from Boston when I got the posting. This is my first duty day.”

      “That’s why you didn’t eat breakfast this morning.”

      She sent him a sharp look as they entered the crosswalk of a busy street, along with a straggling line of pedestrians. “How do you know I didn’t?”

      He smirked. “First day. First assignment. Oh, yeah, I remember what that was like. Hunger was gnawing a hole in my stomach by noon, but if I had eaten breakfast before I reported for duty, I would have puked on my boss’s shoes.”

      A full-throated laugh burst from Daci, and Jax’s heart tripped over itself at the husky, happy sound.

      The roar of an engine and screech of tires yanked his head around. A small SUV jetted around the corner through a red light and roared straight at them.

       Two

      Icy-hot sparks shot through Daci’s middle as she and Jax leaped forward. The SUV whipped past them so close the air current shoved her into a silver-haired woman ahead of her. With a shriek that blended with the startled cries of others in the crosswalk, the woman sprawled to the pavement. Heaving in long breaths, Daci squatted beside her. The silver-haired woman lay on her side, her complexion bleached, her eyes and mouth as round as eggs.

      “Are you alright?”

      The woman blinked up at Daci. “That car nearly ran you over. What is wrong with people today?”

      Daci shook her head. “I can’t answer that, ma’am. Are you able to stand?”

      “I—I don’t know.” She rubbed her elbow and attempted to sit up but subsided with a groan. “My arm hurts...and my hip.”

      “Stay still.” Daci put a hand on the woman’s shoulder. “We’ll get paramedics here.”

      “I’ll call for an ambulance,” a deep voice said from behind her.

      Daci looked up to find Jax gazing down at them. A strange buoyancy filled her chest at seeing him standing there, safe and sound, tapping on his phone to call for assistance. She glanced around to see if anyone else had been hurt. People milled in the street in various stages of wide-eyed shock. On the sidewalk, a few gawkers excitedly chattered on their cell phones. Traffic was at a standstill, though a few impatient souls were starting to honk.

      Sirens began to wail in the distance as DC Reynolds and the desk clerk, Randy Lathrop, hurried out to them in the street. Daci remained beside the injured woman as her coworkers took charge and rerouted traffic until the local authorities could arrive and assume command.

      Daci rose as her boss strode up to her.

      “Glad to see you’re okay,” he said.

      “Just a little shaken, sir.”

      “See what you can do to get witnesses to stick around until they can be interviewed. Folks are trying to slip off and get on with their day.”

      “Will do, but if nothing else, the traffic cam might give us a lead on the perp.”

      Reynolds grimaced. “If it was working. Road construction in the vicinity has been interrupting coverage. I know because Randy has been running automated searches of footage for any of Naylor’s known vehicles suddenly appearing on the road.”

      Soon, law enforcement and emergency personnel had cleared the scene, and Jax and Daci stood together near a squad car giving their statements to Detective Herriman, who was in charge of the investigation. By the familiarity of the greeting between the two men, Herriman apparently knew Jax either from his deputy marshal days or from his current gig as a lawyer.

      “I doubt I can contribute much to the information pool.” Jax scrubbed his fingertips through the hair above one ear. “It was a bright red compact SUV. I have no clear recollection about the license plate, except that it was Massachusetts. Make and model escaped me as I scrambled out of the way.”

      “Understandable.” Herriman made notes on his electronic tablet. “At least your account tallies with the majority of witnesses. A few descriptions we got ranged from monster truck to souped-up sports car.”

      Jax chuckled. “If only the general public had a clue about the unreliability of eye-witness accounts. But I guess I can’t claim superiority in that area.”

      The detective grinned as he turned toward Daci. “Do you have anything to add, ma’am?”

      “Daci Marlowe, new with the Marshals Service.” She stuck out her hand, and Herriman shook it. “I may have a little to contribute. The vehicle was a late-model Toyota RAV4. Definitely Massachusetts license plate. I only remember two digits and a letter. Not necessarily in this order—three, eight and E. The driver was a male Caucasian, mid-to-late thirties. I didn’t see anyone else in the vehicle, and in the blur of leaping out of the way, I didn’t catch any facial details.”

      Jax and Herriman stared at her like she’d grown a second head.

      She stifled a smile. “You might want to write that down.”

      “Uh, yes, absolutely.” The detective pecked at his tablet.

      A short time later, she and Jax were cleared to leave the scene, and they headed up the block toward the restaurant.

      “Do you have any idea how unusual that was?” Jax leaned his head down and spoke close to her ear.

      The sensation of his breath against her cheek was pleasant, but she made herself ignore it and put a few extra inches of distance between them.

      “I agree,” she said, keeping her voice neutral and professional. “Absolutely nuts if he was attempting a hit-and-run in the middle of the day on a busy street. I suppose the perp might have been substance-impaired, but if not, he sure couldn’t claim distracted driving as cause for running a red light. He had to turn a corner. That smacks of deliberation. But why us? Or were we random targets?”

      “Good questions, but no, I meant the details you remembered from a split-second, crisis experience. That’s not normal.”

      Daci stopped and faced him. He must be about six feet three inches to her five feet seven inches, which meant she looked up a significant distance to meet his gaze. Those blue eyes were clear and cloudless. Hers? Well, he was probably glimpsing the fringes of the storm that brooded inside her.

      “You’re right. I’m not normal.” If she couldn’t manage utter calm, at least the tone emerged quiet and fiercely controlled. “With the way my life has gone since