In the Arms of a Stranger (Entangled Ignite), page 10
Chapter 7
JP wanted nothing more than to get up, walk back to the bar, and sucker punch that damn drunk. For thinking, even for one minute, that he could breathe the same air as Abby Price.
The woman JP wanted.
Damn.
Not going there.
He ruthlessly turned his mind back to the immediate problem. She knew where Wade’s safe house was.
“How long have you known about the safe house?” he asked.
She didn’t look surprised by the question. Or by the fact that he knew about it. “Today. I found the papers with…Wade’s alias, after Steve and Cole left.”
“Where?”
“Buck’s stall.”
JP nodded. The barn. Well away from the house. That made sense. “What else did you find?”
“Nothing.”
“Abby…” he warned.
“Nothing!”
“What did you plan to do when you got here?”
She looked away, refused to meet his gaze.
“Well?”
She faced him again. Fresh and pretty, and so out of place in this cheap bar. He wanted to clear everybody out, make everything perfect for her.
What a stupid, deadly wish.
“I want to know the truth about who my late husband was. All of it.”
And JP couldn’t let her. Wouldn’t let her. Because it would destroy her. And because it might destroy him, too.
“Don’t torture yourself. He was a good man.” JP hoped.
“There’s so much I didn’t know.”
“You knew the important things.”
“I was married to him,” she said, her chin quivering slightly. “He never told me about the house here. A safe house? Safe from what? From me?”
“Stop,” JP said firmly.
“You knew about it,” she accused.
“No. I didn’t know.”
“Then how did you find out?”
“You told me.”
She frowned, then her brow cleared. “Ah. The springs.”
He nodded. “Which is what Wade called Ocean Springs. I knew a couple of his aliases. That’s how I found it.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you find?” She leaned closer.
“Nothing.”
“You had to find something.”
He shrugged. “It’s just a house.”
“On the water,” she said. “How could he afford that? We didn’t have that kind of mon—” Her eyes zeroed in on his. Narrowed. “My God. He did. He had money, didn’t he?”
“He was single for years. Plenty of time to put away a nest egg.” Now JP was rationalizing. As if it would ever be logical that a man like Wade Price could have enough money to buy waterfront property.
“Then why not tell me about it?”
“It’s a safe house. You don’t tell anyone about it. That’s the point.”
“Do you have one?”
He almost didn’t tell her. Almost. “Yeah.”
“Waterfront property?” she asked, her eyes never leaving his.
He smiled. How had Wade kept anything from her? “It’s sort of modest.”
“And no one knows about it but you?”
“No one.”
“Not even your family?”
“No one. That’s what having a safe house means. A place where—”
“You can hide,” she filled in. She leaned forward again. “Then why aren’t you there?”
“Because I’m working on something.”
“You’re running from Brooks,” she said. “You wouldn’t have come if you didn’t think something here would help you stop running.”
He wanted to look away, but for some damn reason he couldn’t.
“I can help you,” she said, her face so open.
He’d thought she would continue to demand answers. He hadn’t expected this. “You can’t help me.”
“I found where he hid the papers about this house, didn’t I? Brooks didn’t. You didn’t.”
“You don’t understand. I don’t want your help.”
She smiled. On her, it was a sweet smile. On anyone else, it would have been a smile of victory. “But you need it. You’ll need me to search the safe house.”
He drew in a considering breath. She was right—he’d searched the damn barn with no luck…and she’d found something important. Because, despite the secrets Wade had kept from her, she did know the way he thought. Maybe better than JP. So, yes, he needed her.
And that was the biggest mistake he’d made so far, JP realized. Needing her.
Wanting her.
Wade’s widow. Shit, how twisted was that?
“This your husband, honey?” the waitress asked, putting Abby’s burger in front of her. The woman was giving him a very thorough once-over.
“Yep, that’s me,” he said before Abby could deny it.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were meeting your husband?” she asked Abby, then without waiting for an answer, turned back to JP. “I didn’t like taking her over to the bar, but I thought Paul would watch out for her. He told me Rayburn came on to her before he got back. Glad you came along when you did.”
“Me, too,” he replied.
“You two been married long?” the waitress asked, her hands on her hips.
“We’re—” Abby began.
“Eight years,” he said with an affectionate smile at her.
The waitress smiled, too. “Kids?”
“Two boys and a girl.” The lies rolled off his tongue. He saw Abby stiffen , the surprise in her eyes. “We’re taking a few days off together. My sister’s watching them for us.”
“Where you staying?”
“My wife’s friend has a house down here.”
“What’s her name?” the waitress asked.
“Him. What was his name again, honey?” he prompted, testing her. Maybe she’d only guessed about the house, the alias, maybe she hadn’t found anything at all, and was just guessing, going to every town with the word “springs” in its name.
Abby kept her eyes on him. “Luke Abbott,” she said.
“How about that,” the waitress replied, her face lighting up.
Yeah, how about that. She had found something. “You know Luke?” JP asked the waitress.
“Sure do. He’s a regular when he’s down here. Haven’t seen him in a long time. Maybe a year and a half? He doin’ okay?”
“He’s out of the country,” JP replied.
“He told me he’d be gone for long periods. That’s why he arranged for the boy next door to watch the house for him.”
“Were you and Luke…close?” Abby asked.
Damn, how he hated this. Hated seeing her ask some worn-out waitress whether she and Wade had a close relationship.
The waitress laughed. “Honey, that man has been mourning his wife since I met him! Can’t say I didn’t try, but Luke is a one-woman man. I figured that out real quick.”
Mourning? That must have been how he kept women at a distance, JP figured.
“How long have you known him?” Abby asked.
“Well,” she said, “I guess since he bought the house. That’s been, oh, ten years or more now.”
He’d met Wade here five years ago and he’d never said a damn word.
…
Abby reached for a French fry to keep tears at bay. Ten years. Wade had known this woman ten years. And Abby hadn’t known him at all.
The waitress walked away.
“Was there another wife?” she asked JP. The question nearly choked her.
“No,” he replied, and she thought she saw sympathy in his eyes. “That was part of his cover.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s an alias. That’s how it works.”
“He had different aliases, depending on the situation?”
He shrugged. “It’s one way to do things.”
Things? “Is JP your real name?”
He smiled, and she realized she hadn’t seen one of his real smiles before. This one lit up his face, made his eyes laugh. There was devilment in the smile. “I don’t know you well enough to tell you that yet.”
Yet?
The look of him, the timbre of his voice, as if he really would know her well enough to—
Her breath caught. She couldn’t look away. That well?
She wanted to frown, to be outraged. But his eyes… Good heavens, his eyes. Everything about him, from his short dark hair, to his smile, to his broad shoulders, he was all captivating male.
Instead, she laughed. It was a totally unexpected reaction. She’d never reacted to anyone the way she did to JP. If that was his name…
And what came out of her mouth next was a total surprise. “When do you think you will?”
“Looks to me like you two need some alone time,” the waitress said, returning to put her iced tea on the table. “Three kids can sure kill the romance.” She winked.
Wonderful. The waitress had seen right through her. Abby wanted to melt in mortification.
Then she felt JP’s hand on hers, on top of the table. Felt him lift her hand…to his mouth. Felt his lips, smooth and firm, as he kissed the palm of her hand.
“Hey, you two. Hope Luke’s got a nice bed.” The waitress laughed. “But from the look in your husband’s eye, honey, you may not make it that far.”
“Bring us the check?” JP asked, his gaze locked on Abby’s. “We’re eating real fast.”
The waitress walked away chuckling.
“There was no need to let her think…you know…” Abby said.
“It’s a role. It’s what you’ll have to do if you want to help me.”
“Pretend to be your wife?”
“Can you handle that?”
She wanted to say it would depend on how far she had to take the pretense. She lifted her chin. “I can handle almost anything,” she said, knowing defiance was a foolish tack to take. She picked up her burger, intent on showing him he had no effect on her.
“It’s not a game,” he said, picking up his own burger, already half eaten.
“I know,” she said with the force of anger behind the words.
He focused his attention on her. It was so different from the repartee they’d enjoyed only moments ago that she had to make herself take a bite of her food. He nodded and began eating. Someone put money into the jukebox and Kelly Clarkson started to sing “Fly Away.” Taking chances was not what Abby was about. She concentrated on her food, studiously ignoring JP, and choked down her burger as he finished his. In silence.
The waitress came back with the check. “Here you are,” she said.
“This will cover it. Keep the change,” JP said, standing. He reached his hand down to Abby. “Let’s go, honey.”
She stood, refusing to give him her hand. She didn’t want to feel the things she felt when she touched this man. A man who was too much like her late husband for comfort. A man with far too many secrets.
He leaned toward her, rubbed his hand down the back of her head, then around to her cheek before tilting her face up.
Then he bent and kissed her. Not a little peck, but a full-blown kiss. On her mouth.
And she knew for sure she was in way over her head.
Because she liked it. Far too much.
…
JP hadn’t planned to kiss Abby. Hell, he’d planned to avoid touching her. It reassured him that he didn’t pull her up hard against him, didn’t allow himself to taste her—much. But, damn, he’d wanted to. Wanted a lot more than just a kiss.
And given the fact that he still wasn’t feeling one hundred percent because of the wound in his side, it said too damn much about what Abby Price was doing to him.
“Was that really necessary?” she asked in her best prissy schoolteacher tone as he escorted her to her car. The sun had set and the growing darkness wasn’t much help when he tried to decipher her expression.
“Was what necessary?” he asked.
“You know exactly what.”
“The game we played?”
“The game you played,” she replied. “I was jerked around.”
Impatient and a little angry that she was totally ignoring the heat—fire, damn it, and yeah, she’d felt it, too—he turned her to face him. “As I said, if you want to help me, you have to play along.”
“I could be your sister.”
He laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”
This time he did see her expression. Utter surprise. Was the woman blind?
“You— I—”
“Look, I’m not going to—” Dance around the attraction between us, as you are. He almost said it aloud. Almost said a whole hell of a lot more. But then, there was always the possibility that he was wrong, that he’d misread her reactions. Hell. “I don’t want you with me.”
“You need me to help find whatever Wade hid in the safe house, the way I found those papers in the barn.”
He should not have saved her from that son of a bitch inside. He should have let her handle it. Then she would have gone running home and he wouldn’t be fighting the practical need for her help with the emotional need to have her gone.
Or the raw need to have her.
Hell!
Damn him for doing what he was about to do. Damn him for using her, for needing what she knew about Wade to help find anything that might help clear his name. “I’ll have to break into the house.”
“You mean…you haven’t been inside?” Even in the dim light shining from the front entrance of the bar, he could see she was skeptical.
“No.”
She studied his face. Deciding if he was telling the truth? God, what she did to him was ridiculous.
“Shouldn’t we stake it out or something?” she asked.
He almost laughed. But the look on her face told him she was serious.
“It’s closed up, remember? The waitress said there’s a neighbor checking on it.”
“You don’t think someone lives there?”
“Like who?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “He could have…another family.” The last two words came out in a rush. As if she was ashamed to say them.
He blinked. He seriously wanted to gather her close. Comfort her. Not a good idea.
“Wade wouldn’t do that,” he found himself saying. As if he knew it for a fact. As if he knew without a doubt that Wade hadn’t forced him to run for his life. The old Wade he knew…thought he knew, would never have done either terrible thing. But this past year had convinced him otherwise. Only in the last few days had there been any hint that he may be wrong. Looking at Abby’s apprehensive expression, he prayed he was. For both their sakes.
She looked up at him, a pretty woman who’d had enough heartache to fill a lifetime, and nodded, as if he’d spoken some great truth.
He let her lead the way to her car. When they reached it, she turned. “Would Brooks have followed me?”
He was proud of her for asking, for thinking.
“He could have. Should have, probably. But I didn’t see anybody when you got here.”
“You’d know that, wouldn’t you? I didn’t even know you were in the bar, but you knew I was, and had checked to see if someone followed me.”
And that said so much. About the lives they led. About their differences.
And about the countless reasons he could never act on the potent attraction they both felt.
…
They waited until darkness settled completely, then Abby followed JP, who led the way in an older model truck. They were well away from town, where there were no streetlights. It was really dark.
Abby was scared.
Scared of what she’d find—of who she’d find—despite the fact that JP said Wade wouldn’t have another family.
She was also scared of her reactions to JP.
Admit it. That’s what scares you the most. She’d already accepted that she hadn’t known Wade at all. That everything she’d learn about him from here on out would probably hurt like hell.
But JP Blackmon did things to her. Things she wasn’t prepared for.
Distracted by her chaotic thoughts, she almost missed when he pulled off the main road. The houses in this isolated neighborhood stood well apart, the numbers on the mailboxes illuminated by her headlights. The house—Wade’s house—was on the right. It was dark inside.
The cedar shingle residence stood on pilings. The vapor light from the house next door lit up the side where a thatch of pampas grass grew, and just beyond that, reeds and water. She stopped her car, trying not to think about where she was. About how the next few minutes might change her life completely.
The sound of tapping on her window made her turn. JP signaled to roll it down.
“I’m going to check out the house. Turn off your lights. Stay here,” he said.
She did as he asked and watched him walk toward the nearest corner of the structure, by a piling, and vanish beneath the house proper. Moonlight shone bright and clear but did not penetrate the darkness where he’d disappeared.
The sounds of night soon returned. The crickets and frogs. Her eyes grew more accustomed to the dark. She thought she saw some movement on the far side of the house, but wasn’t sure.
Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to go home and forget the crazy notion that she could lay her past to rest.
Then she saw him walking toward her. Tall and strong, shrouded in moonlight, dark hair gleaming, face shadowed. Just his walk was enough to make shivers run up her arms. Totally masculine, completely coordinated, at ease with himself. And his life.
And she was so drawn to him. What in the world was wrong with her? Another dangerous man? Another secretive stranger? No. Hell, no.
“It’s closed up tight,” he said, bending to talk to her through the open car window.
She glanced at the house, then back at him. She’d made the decision to do this. She’d come this far. It was time to take the next step.
“There was a key with the papers.” There. It was done. A leap of faith.
He nodded, his gaze steady in the moonlit night. “Were you going to tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
He smiled, then chuckled, just a little. “Don’t change, Abby. Stay honest.” With that he straightened, walked around to the passenger side of her car, and got in. “Turn on your lights and pull into the driveway. Let’s see if your key works.”
