YULETIDE PROTECTOR by Julie Miller Page B

to worry about her competence. Tempting as it might be to surrender herself to the detective’s protection, it wasn’t Spencer Montgomery’s job to drop everything and come to her rescue anytime something spooked her. Besides, she’d probably only look more like a child in his eyes, like that poor little rich girl who couldn’t fend for herself Gabe Knight had accused her of being. And she definitely wanted Spencer Montgomery to think of her as a competent, capable woman .
    Because she was thinking far too often about him—even when she didn’t need a cop.
    A smile curved her lips as panic dissipated and calmer, more intimate thoughts replaced her fear. Despite the difference in their ages, Bailey had felt that subtle spark of interest from the red-haired detective, just as surely as she’d felt those ribbons of heat warming her skin when he’d touched her, waking something feral and feminine inside her.
    What the man lacked in warm fuzziness, he made up for in rock-solid dependability. Spencer Montgomery was a steely-eyed warrior in a suit and badge. He was all male. All mature. All the time.
    He was definitely a man she could lean on. What would her life have been like if she’d been engaged to Spencer a year ago? Would she have stormed away from planning a wedding with him? Would he have allowed her to get hurt?
    But even as she remembered how the detective had seen to her safety and taken care of her yesterday, Bailey was reconsidering this attraction to a man who surely only saw her as the means to finally closing his task force investigation. After all she’d been through, she got the logic of falling for a man who was such a no-nonsense protector, a man she could trust.
    But what happened to taking care of herself? To asserting her own independence as part of the healing process? She didn’t have time for romance right now. She wasn’t sure she was ready to fall in love and be the strong, self-sufficient woman that a man like Spencer Montgomery deserved. She had so much growing yet to accomplish, so much healing left to do.
    Whatever she was feeling for Detective Montgomery needed to be buried away as a schoolgirl crush on a heroic man, or her hormones finally getting over the shock of the rape and latching on to the first available male to stir her interest in more than a year.
    “How’d I do, doctor?” she chided herself in the rearview mirror as if she’d been discussing her thoughts aloud with her therapist. “You tell me, Bailey,” she answered, imagining Dr. Kilpatrick’s kind yet challenging response.
    Bailey nodded her understanding as if she were in the middle of a counseling session. “Get a grip on those emotions,” she advised. “Find something meaningful, practical and tangible to do to rebuild your self-confidence and keep you too busy to second-guess every thought or action.”
    Winking at her reflection, Bailey took the therapist’s advice to heart. “Yes, ma’am.”
    She was learning to trust her instincts again, to allow herself to feel emotions like fear and anger without them crippling her. Now she needed to put those rusty skills into practice.
    “Meaningful.” Making a decision would be a good place to start.
    “I’m going to do something practical.” A workout would provide both a mental and physical health benefit.
    “Now, make it tangible.” She shook her head at the obvious solution. How about figuring out how she was going to get to her gym for a workout now that she was driving in the opposite direction?
    Her pulse settled into a normal beat as her thoughts centered and her fears calmed. She pulled into the turn lane at the next stoplight to get off the main traffic way and circle back to the tony neighborhood where her apartment and the nearby gym were located.
    Bailey sat there for a couple of minutes, waiting for the light to change. She watched car after car drive past in front of her—silver cars, white cars, dirty cars, black cars. A shiver of unease