In the Arms of a Stranger (Entangled Ignite), page 22
His hair was mussed and he needed to shave. He should be exhausted. But the smile he wore warmed her down to her toes. And she was very much aware of the solid heat of his erection.
“I want more, Abby,” he said, his eyes boring into hers. “A lot more than this.”
God help her, so did she. But she’d made a mess of one relationship, a mess because she hadn’t demanded truths she should have known.
He seemed to understand her uncertainty and wound his hands into her hair to pull her down on top of him for a long, lingering kiss that made her burn. She pushed herself up and sank down onto him, glorying in the fullness, in his heat, and began moving, watching him. Loving him.
“What you do to me should be illegal,” he said, then groaned. He surged up, thrusting hard and fast. Over and over until he brought them both to climax. Then he rolled her onto her back, and with one fantastically athletic motion, jumped out of bed.
“I’ll get a shower,” he said, looking down at her. “Alone.” He winked at her.
She watched him walk away, his body powerful perfection, still partially aroused, and almost begged him to come back.
But her family was in danger, and she’d avoided thinking about them by taking comfort in pleasure. Time to get back to reality.
She rose and wrapped herself in the towel he’d pulled from her just a short time ago. Her movements reminded her of the things she’d done. They’d done. She had no regrets. None.
She picked up his jeans from the floor and took them to the chair where he’d left his shirt. When she put the jeans down, she brushed against the shirt. Something in the pocket made a noise.
The envelope Wade had sent to the Picketts for JP. She folded the jeans over the chair.
She stared at the shirt pocket.
A note with so little on it. Framed. Why didn’t Wade say more? Why not an explanation? One that would eliminate all questions about any supposed wrongdoing?
Why didn’t JP show it to her? Because there was more?
Because Wade had done something wrong.
That was the only explanation.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the envelope.
She’d risked so much to learn the truth. Her son’s life. Her heart. She deserved to know all of it. Good or bad.
She reached for the pocket, then changed her mind, dropping her hand back to her side.
JP didn’t want her to see this. Being the man he was, he wanted to protect her. Just as Wade had wanted to protect her.
But she had to know the truth.
Before she could change her mind, she plucked the envelope from JP’s pocket and opened it.
With a deep breath, she pulled out the contents.
…
A cold shower and the knowledge that lives were in the balance were enough to bring JP crashing back to reality. But what was reality now? He’d finally spoken aloud what had burned in him for what seemed like forever.
He wanted more than one night with Abby.
She’d said she wanted to know what had happened to Wade. Unsaid went the fact that she wanted to understand her late husband, understand how he thought, what he did, and why. Maybe, just maybe, after the pleasure he and Abby had given each other, the safe haven they’d found in each other’s arms, she wouldn’t recoil from the truth. Because hearing the truth about Wade would mean she would also know the truth about him.
Ah, the infamous truth. The one basic truth he hadn’t told her, the one Wade hadn’t told her, either. Because divulging that single truth would have driven sweet, principled Abby away.
He opened the bathroom door , expecting to see her getting dressed.
“Why didn’t you want me to see this?” She sat in the chair in front of the single table, wrapped in a towel, her knees held tight against her body.
Her words caught him off guard. What was she talking about? He crossed to her, ignoring his nudity. The bloodied receipt lay on top of the table. In front of her. Her late husband’s blood.
“I told you what it said.” But now he knew she hadn’t believed him. She’d wanted to see for herself.
“Then why keep it from me? The blood? I knew he was hurt. I knew he’d been tortured.” The last word came out on a whisper. “He was bleeding and scared, and I didn’t help him.”
“Honey, you couldn’t have helped him. And I didn’t think it was necessary for you to—”
“Be honest. You hid the truth from me,” she said flatly. “Is that what you’ll do when we find out what really happened?”
“Abby, please don’t—”
“No,” she said, “you don’t. Don’t keep the truth from me.” She turned from the scrap of paper. Now that it was all out on the table, figuratively and literally, it spelled the end to the insane hope he’d cradled in his arms all night long. Her love.
Because he now knew she didn’t trust him. She never had. She’d needed him last night, but it had only been for one night.
Her eyes settled on his. There was pain there. Pain…and something else. Longing? But he couldn’t see beyond the pain. She’d closed herself off from him.
This was exactly what he’d wanted to protect her from.
Just as Wade had.
But the truth was ugly. And deadly.
And she couldn’t handle it.
…
The tender lover had vanished. What did you expect, Abby? That he’d smile and actually give you an explanation?
She came out of a quick shower to his curt announcement that they would eat breakfast before going to the airport. He’d been unfailingly polite, but the easy rapport that should have existed between them after the intimacies of the night before, of this morning, had been shattered.
Because he believed she didn’t trust him.
And that was the problem. She didn’t trust him.
But she also did. Both at the same time.
The thing was, she trusted herself even less. Her instincts when it came to understanding Wade and JP were obviously nonexistent.
JP had called Wade a cowboy. But JP was no different. There was that ingrained…protectiveness. That chivalry that was so appealing on one level. Until she ran into the brick wall it represented. Protect the little lady.
Like hell.
This little lady had been protected to the point where her son and brother were in mortal danger, captured by a man who should have been trustworthy, only to discover he was capable of this horror.
Deception and lies.
They’d surrounded her for so many years, years she’d spent blinded by what Wade thought was best. And now by what JP thought was best.
No. Hell, no. That would not happen again.
JP just didn’t understand. She needed full disclosure.
Dressed in jeans and the denim shirt, he sat down on the bed where they’d made love and slipped on clean socks and the scuffed cowboy boots.
“I don’t want to be protected from the truth,” she said to his back.
His motions stopped. He stared at the floor for a moment, then stood and turned toward her.
This was not the man who’d said he wanted more than a single night, not the man who’d spoken so gently to her son. This man almost scared her.
“Let’s get your son and brother back. We’ll deal with everything else after.”
Time became a mind game. The drive to the airport. Wait here for this, there for that. They were in the air before she realized that the guns in their carry-on bags had not set off any alarms.
The only way to ask was to whisper. She leaned toward him. The scent of him, the feel of his cheek against hers, his warmth, made her want to burrow into him. But they were faced with an ugly reality. “Where are the guns?”
He let out a breath and whispered his reply into her ear. “I left them. I’ll get another one when we land.”
And that was it. He was kind, he was solicitous. He was careful. He was not the JP Blackmon she’d fallen in love with.
This was the professional. The international spy.
…
In Mobile, JP bought a shotgun and a Glock from a guy who’d listed them on an online gun forum. He didn’t have time to deal with sighting in a new rifle and scope. The twelve-gauge and the Glock would have to do.
He’d managed to separate himself from Abby, or at least from the sense of betrayal he felt at her lack of trust. But then he realized that by protecting her from the blood, the tangible proof of what had happened to Wade, something she already knew after seeing his body, he’d done exactly the same thing to her that Wade had done. He hadn’t trusted that she could handle the awful ugliness of it all.
And that was what plagued his conscience—all those things she didn’t know, and how she’d react to them.
Trust. Damn, but that was a two-way street. A street he hadn’t ventured onto when it came to Abby. How could he expect her to trust him fully when he hadn’t trusted her with the whole truth?
Now, sitting with her in the rental car he’d picked up at the Mobile airport, he wanted to turn back the clock. To start all over again. But it was too late to change most things.
He could, however, give her hope.
“I’ve been in touch with a man named Jonathan Ethridge.” He scribbled Ethridge’s phone number on the back of the rental agency’s card. “He worked with Wade for a long time. If things go to hell, you can trust him to protect you. Remember his name.”
She nodded, her expression unreadable.
He used a new disposable cell phone to contact Ethridge again, but the other man didn’t answer.
Abby, who’d barely said ten words to him all day, merely watched. Fine. He was on his own.
Protect Abby and save her family’s lives.
When what he was best at was death.
…
They were back where they’d started. Home. But now Abby was forced to face the consequences of what she’d done.
She’d endangered her son and her brother. Put their very lives at risk.
She gave in to the childish desire that she’d wake up and the entire last five days would turn out to be nothing more than a bad dream. A nightmare.
But it hadn’t been a nightmare. She’d made bad choices, and here she was, dependent on a man she didn’t know, a man who’d cut her off totally, even after the incredible passion they’d shared.
Because you didn’t trust him.
None of it made any difference.
She told JP where to hide the car so they could search her house undetected. “Right there,” she said, pointing to an overgrown trail into the woods, off the dirt road where she’d first met him. “No one will be able to see the car.”
JP nodded and turned onto the path. Weeds brushed against the low bottom of the rental car. He stopped and turned off the ignition. “What’s the best way to get into the house without being seen?”
“From the side. I’ll show you.”
“It would be safer if I took you—”
Did he never learn? “No time. Now that I know Wade hid something in the house, I can find it.” She had no choice.
His lips thinned, his expression darkened. She was sure he would argue, but he didn’t.
They got out of the car, careful not to slam the doors. JP carried a deadly-looking shotgun. She didn’t see the handgun, but knew he had it. She was terrified that Ron—Boyle—was out there somewhere. Hiding. Waiting to grab them. Or kill JP. Maybe her.
Or Brooks might be. Maybe it would be Brooks who caught them. She just didn’t know what to think anymore. But she was damn sure Brooks wouldn’t help her get Cole and Steve back. Brooks wouldn’t care about her family—just about capturing JP.
They stood in the woods, which came within about twenty feet of the house on one side. The pump house was the only cover they’d have until they reached the back door.
“Have your keys in your hand,” JP ordered. He held his shotgun at the ready. “I’m going to check things out, make sure the house isn’t a trap for us.” Then he was gone, a silent shadow blending with the trees.
Abby waited in the heavy afternoon heat. She couldn’t help but remember the night when it all started. The storm. The fear. She looked up and said a silent prayer of thanks that the only clouds in the sky now were far away, over the western horizon.
JP came back so quietly she didn’t hear him. He squeezed her shoulder. “Run for the pump house when I wave at you. Wait there until I signal to run for the house.”
She nodded. He released her shoulder and ran. She felt alone. Bereft of his comfort. She’d been without it for hours. But she couldn’t afford to think about that right now and pushed those thoughts away.
She followed his orders. He was, after all, the expert. That didn’t mean her heart wasn’t pounding like a drum by the time she fumbled with the keys and let them into her kitchen. She gulped down air after the sprint to the house and her breathing steadied. Beside her, JP made no sound, as if the run had not fazed him. It probably hadn’t. It was probably nothing compared to what he usually did. She reached for the light switch.
“No!” he whispered.
She jumped, feeling like an idiot. Of course. No lights. If Brooks or Ron were watching, they’d be seen.
“It’s bright enough without lights. Make sure the curtains and blinds are closed if you use a flashlight.” He cast a quick look around the kitchen.
The refrigerator hummed. Everything looked as it should. The kitchen clock ticked loudly. Three-thirty. They had until seven. Unless this was all a ruse, a trap to capture JP.
Oh, God.
“I’m going to check out the rest of the house,” JP said. “Stay here.”
By the time he came back, she wanted to scream her impatience.
“Here,” he said, holding something out to her.
A penlight. She wondered how he knew where she kept it, but didn’t ask. It would be a pointless question.
“Be careful not to aim at the windows.”
This was it, she realized. Do or die. Literally. She had found Wade’s hiding place before, but this time it really mattered. This time she couldn’t afford to fail.
“Don’t worry,” JP murmured. “We’ll find it.”
“It would be a report, right? On Boyle’s illegal activities. That means—”
“Don’t think in terms of a report. Keep your mind open. Whatever it is, it could be thick or thin, small or large. Hidden or in plain sight. Paper or even digital.”
Defeat crept into her thinking. “How can we possibly find it if we don’t know what we’re looking for?”
“Think as Wade would have thought, the same way as when he hid the papers in Buck’s stall, and the things he left in the boat. Something, somewhere, that’s important to him.”
“He loved Cole,” she said, hoping she was right about even that much. “I’ll start in Cole’s bedroom. That would make sense.”
He nodded. “I’ll start in your room.”
She started to protest, to tell him he couldn’t go in her room. It was too personal. But they’d shared something much more intimate than just a bedroom. She simply turned away.
She hadn’t made Cole’s bed. She’d been so rushed, so tired, the morning he’d left. She’d been awake most of the night, thinking about JP and her missed opportunity.
Now she was back, and the lives of her son and brother would end if she couldn’t figure out what the stranger who had been her husband had done with something a killer desperately wanted.
She began by examining the walls, checking behind the colorful posters she’d had framed. Methodically, she continued toward Cole’s dresser. She checked the drawers, then pulled the dresser away from the wall and checked the back, underneath.
An eternity later, after squeezing every one of Cole’s stuffed animals, running clammy fingers over every car, truck, and game he owned, she sat on the floor and bowed her head. A bubble of hysteria surged up her chest.
“Abby?” JP said from the doorway.
She couldn’t afford the luxury of rest. Or panic. She had to move. She had to think.
“Any luck?”
“Nothing,” she said, standing, her throat closing around the word.
“I’ve checked everything in your room. Anything you can think of that would be unusual in there? Any place he might have used?”
“Did you check the walls and baseboards?” she asked, more in control.
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t know of anything else.”
“Which do you think is more likely, the living room, the dining room, or the kitchen?”
She didn’t know. God help her, she had no idea. But she had to. Had to find this or—
No. She wouldn’t think that.
“You take the dining room. I’ll take the living room. Wade hated to cook.”
She followed JP down the hall, her penlight pointed at the dark floor. She remembered the drop of blood she’d found that first night. Ron had been here, too. Checking the phone in her room. Had he searched it then? While she’d been in the bathroom with Cole, had he been searching through her things? If they found nothing in the living room and dining room, she’d go back to the bedroom and check, even though JP had already searched it.
In the living room, she checked the baseboards for any sign of disturbance, the lamps, behind the photos on the wall. Then moved to the furniture. She tried to picture Wade, tried to remember his movements, the things he’d habitually handled. Tried to picture him sitting in this room with her. But so much of him had faded from her memory. She’d forgotten so much, hadn’t known so much more.
When she saw her tears hitting the hardwood floor in the oppressive silence of her house, she realized she was crying.
For all she’d lost. For Wade’s life, for the way he’d died. For everything he’d felt he had to hide from her.
For the fear of losing her son.
…
Abby was crying silently. Sitting on the couch, holding a cushion, crying.
JP wanted to reach out to her, hold her, tell her everything would turn out fine. But everything might not turn out fine. Guilt swept over him. If he hadn’t come here hunting Wade, Cole and Steve wouldn’t be in danger. Abby wouldn’t have gotten involved. None of this would ever have happened.
