Lisa Jackson's Bentz & Montoya Bundle

by Lisa Jackson

  Sam froze.

  “What’re you doing up?”

  Biting her lip, she slipped the computer disk into her purse and turned to the house. Wearing only a pair of dark shorts, Ty was leaning over the railing and staring straight at her.

  Busted.

  “Sam?”

  She let out a long breath. “To tell you the truth,” she said, “I’m escaping.”

  “From—?”

  “You tell me,” she said, not closing the distance. “What are you doing up at this hour and don’t give me some ridiculous excuse about walking the dog, because it won’t wash with me. I know better.”

  “I was meeting with a friend.”

  “Who just happens to be walking down the street at 4 a.m.? Right.” She couldn’t hide her cynicism. “Come on, Wheeler. You can do better than that.” Still clutching her clothes, she added, “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think I’d better leave. This is…this is getting too crazy.”

  He straightened and the moonlight hit him full in the face. God, he was handsome. “I suppose it is,” he agreed, and plowed a hand through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. “I have a confession.”

  She didn’t move. His words seemed to echo across the yard and ricochet through her brain. “You know, those aren’t exactly the words I want to hear right now. I’ve heard way too much about confession, sin and repenting in the last few weeks to last me a lifetime.”

  Ty’s jaw slid to one side. “Then how about an explanation?”

  “That would be a real good idea,” she said. “Real good.” She waited for a few seconds before he finally started to speak.

  “The truth is that I knew about Annie Seger a long time before I met you.”

  “No kidding,” she remarked. She would have appreciated his admission more if she didn’t think he already knew she’d poked through his computer files. “You know, Ty, you could have told me.”

  “I was going to.”

  “When?” she said in absolute disbelief. How stupid did he think she was? “Were you going to confide in me before or after hell freezes over.”

  “Soon.”

  “Not soon enough,” she said, her temper flaring. “Don’t you know what’s going on here? Haven’t you been paying attention? The calls I’ve been getting from ‘John’ and the message from “Annie’ and the damned birthday cake and card—for God’s sake, Ty, just when were you going to break the news to me? After it was too late and this nutcase made good his threats? Or maybe you’re involved in a more personal level. Maybe you know John.”

  “No,” he cut in angrily, but something else darted through his eyes, an emotion akin to guilt. Sam felt dead inside. Cold. How could she have trusted him? What was it about her that she always chose so poorly when it came to men. For a bright woman, she was a disaster in the love department. She’d thought Ty Wheeler was different, but he, like her ex-husband and last boyfriend was little more than a user, another great manipulator. “Or maybe you are John.”

  He was taking the stairs from the porch and starting across the lawn. “You don’t believe that.”

  “I don’t know what to believe,” she said in absolute despair.

  “I’m sorry, Sam. I should have told you sooner.” He was close to her now, too close.

  “Now there’s an astute observation.” She managed to stiffen her spine. “Look, this is all very…edifying, but I’m going home.”

  “Not yet.” Reaching forward, he wrapped strong fingers over her arm.

  “Excuse me?” She flung off his arm. “What do you think you have to say about it?” She tried to pass him, but he grabbed her again and this time her attempts to rip her arm from his grasp failed. “Let go, Ty.”

  “Just listen to me.”

  “Why? So I can hear more lies? Forget it!” She started toward the house, and he, still holding her arm, walked with her.

  “You need to know what’s going on.”

  “Like you’re going to tell me? Give me a break. The only reason you’re confiding in me now is that you know I saw you with the midnight stalker or whoever he is out in the street and that I peeked into your computer records and found out you weren’t leveling with me. Now, let go of me, or you and I are going to have this conversation at the police department. Got it?”

  “Just wait.” Rather than release her, his fingers gripped all the harder. “I think you owe me the chance to explain.”

  “I owe you nothing.” She couldn’t believe the man’s gall. They were up the stairs and on the verandah. “The way I see it everything you said to me from the first time I saw you is a lie. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty damned sure that the disabled boat”—she cocked her head toward the Bright Angel creaking against its moorings—“was a setup.”

  “I like to think of it as an excuse.”

  “Semantics, Wheeler.”

  “There are things you should know.”

  “No kidding. Let’s start with how you’re involved with Annie Seger.”

  “I’m her third cousin,” he said, without batting an eye. Or releasing his grasp. “And I was the first police officer on the scene the night she was found. I got thrown off the case because I was related to her. I’ve always thought the investigation was botched, and Annie’s father wants me to prove it.”

  “Her biological father,” Sam clarified, trying not to be intrigued. For all she knew he was peddling her a new cartful of lies.

  “Yeah. Wally. He never bought the fact that she committed suicide.”

  “So he thinks she was murdered? Why?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “So what about all this other stuff?” Sam demanded as she threw open the French doors and walked into his living room. “What about the calls to the station and the damned cake and the threats?”

  “I can’t explain them, nor can I explain who’s behind all this, but I’m afraid that I somehow triggered all this, that I’m to blame. I’m afraid that somehow someone found out I was working on the book, maybe through my research, or a leak. Someone in the agent’s office or the editorial staff…I don’t know. At least not yet.” His lips flattened over his teeth in silent rage. “But it seems more than coincidental that when I start working on this book about Annie’s death, which happened nine years ago, you start being stalked.”

  “So that’s why you’re hanging out with me, the reason you’ve been around? Out of guilt? My God, Ty, you didn’t have to sleep with me to keep me safe or to ease your guilt, for crying out loud!” She yanked her arm away from him. She had to get away. Now.

  “I didn’t hang out with you because of guilt.”

  “Like hell.” Angry tears burning the back of her eyes, she stomped through the house. Don’t break down, she told herself. Whatever you do, Sam do not break down.

  He was right on her heels. “Just slow down and listen for a minute.”

  “I think I’ve heard enough.” She was up the stairs and inside the house. His house. She started for the front door. “I didn’t mean for us to get involved.” Whirling, still holding her purse and her clothes, she nailed him in an uncompromising glare. “But we did, didn’t we?”

  “That’s the problem.”

  “The problem? For crying out loud, Ty, the problem isn’t that we got involved, the problem is that it was all based on a lie! I’m outta here—”

  “You can’t.”

  “Of course I can. What are you going to do about it? Keep me here. Hold me prisoner? Kidnap me, for God’s sake?”

  “You need my help.”

  “What? No way. You’ve got it all wrong. I think you meant to say that you need my help. The other way around.”

  “Sam, listen to me. There’s a nutcase out there, a very serious nutcase. For some reason he’s targeted you. It could be because I started poking around and somehow, inadvertently gave him ideas. It could be he was involved in Annie’s death, or in her life, or he could just be some wacko off the street who read ab
out the story and is trying to make some kind of name for himself. It could even be all a fraud.”

  “A fraud?” she repeated.

  “To boost ratings. I wouldn’t put it past George Hannah or Eleanor Cavalier.”

  “I don’t see where you’re in any position to call anyone else a fraud. Face it, one minute you’re upstairs in bed with me and then the second I fall asleep, you’re out in the street talking to some man in the middle of the night. Who was that guy?”

  “A friend.”

  “I didn’t think he was an enemy.”

  “A friend who’s going to help us.”

  “Believe me, Ty, there is no “us.’” She walked out the door in a huff. It was only a quarter of a mile and the eastern sky was lightening and a few birds were chirping. If she had to walk barefoot and in slip, so be it. She had to get away.

  Before she did something foolish like trust him again. “The problem is, Sam, I’m afraid I’m falling in love with you,” he said, and his words grabbed hold of her heart and wouldn’t let go. She forced herself to turn and face him again.

  “Well, you should be afraid, Ty. It would be a horrendous mistake,” she said, anger pushing out the words as she stared hard at him. “Don’t fall in love with me, because I damned well will never return the favor!”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The problem is, Sam, I’m afraid I’m in love with you.

  “Yeah, right.” Another lie.

  Sam’s head thundered from lack of sleep, her bad ankle had begun to throb again and her feet were dirty and sore as she stormed toward her house. Fired by her fury at Ty’s deception and thankful no one was up, that none of her neighbors witnessed her dishabille, she strode down the street. The stars were fading, the sky turning a soft lavender as dawn broke.

  Ty’s final words wouldn’t stop reverberating through her aching head, but she wasn’t going to allow herself to believe them. Not for a minute. Words of love had been her downfall in the past, and Ty’s admission that he thought he was falling for her was another lie, a last-ditch effort to control her, nothing more. The way Sam figured it, Ty Wheeler was willing to stoop so low his nose would scrape the ground, all for the sake of his book on Annie, hence his career and fame. His interest in Sam was all predicated on his book. Nothing more.

  “Bastard,” she ground out.

  All she wanted to do was push thoughts of him out of her head, strip out of her damned slip, and shower away all memories of the man and his lovemaking. That she would miss, blast it all to hell. Ty Wheeler was the best lover she’d ever had, hands down, so to speak. Not that she’d had that much experience, but in her limited scope, Ty was the best. The way he found that special spot on the nape of her neck and kissed her there while feathering his fingers over her nipples.

  “Stop it,” she muttered. So he knew how to take a woman to bed. Big deal. That certainly wasn’t the most important quality in a man, though it was right up there. Ty Wheeler and his acumen in the lovemaking department certainly kept her longing for more. “So forget it. It’s over.”

  There will be someone else.

  She wasn’t convinced that there would be, but she couldn’t let her mind wander down that dangerous road. She had too much to do. She had to clear her head and start figuring out who was trying to terrorize her. Ty Wheeler and his sexy body be damned.

  As she reached the edge of Mrs. Killingsworth’s property she resisted the urge to look over her shoulder to see if he was still standing at the edge of his drive watching her march self-righteously down the street. While wearing only her slip. Thankfully she hadn’t run into anyone, not even the paper carrier.

  Until she reached her property.

  A white mid-sized car was parked in the middle of her circular drive, and David Ross sat on her porch swing, leaning forward on his elbows, his hands clasped between his knees as he watched her approach. His face was covered with a day’s worth of beard, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep or alcohol or a combination thereof, his tie loosened around his throat, his once-pressed shirt wrinkled, his slacks looking as if he’d slept in them. Dark hair was unruly, as if it had endured hours of being pushed away from his face.

  “Where the hell have you been?” He pushed himself to his feet. “What the devil happened? You look like…” He took in her state of undress and the wad of clothes she was carrying. “…like…like you’ve had a bad night.”

  That’s putting it mildly. “I did.”

  “Where were you?”

  Sam groaned inwardly at the prospect of dealing with him. She wasn’t in the mood for this. Why now? she thought as her toe caught on the edge of a flagstone. Gritting her teeth, she climbed the steps to the front porch. “I was at a friend’s. Let’s just leave it at that, okay?”

  “A friend’s?” David repeated before his eyes narrowed in understanding. His lips tightened, turning white against his dark beard shadow. “Why don’t my keys work?”

  She slid him a glance that warned him not to mess with her. “I changed the locks because the police suggested it, because of the threats I’ve been getting.”

  “You’ve gotten more?” he asked, and some of his hostility turned to concern. Deep furrows lined his brow. “You didn’t tell me.”

  “I can handle it.”

  “Are you sure?” He waited as she scrounged in her purse and found her keys. “This sounds serious, Sam.”

  About as serious as it gets, she thought but wasn’t about to confide in him. She didn’t need his overly dramatic concern, nor an inquisition. “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “I figured that much. The question is “Why?’ “’ She twisted the key in the lock, pushed the door open with her shoulder, then walked quickly inside to shut off the alarm before it started blasting and waking up the entire neighborhood.

  “We need to talk, Sam. Face-to-face.”

  “You should have called.” She dumped her clothes on a chair in the living room as Charon trotted from behind a potted palm to look up and cry at her as he rubbed her bare legs. “In a minute,” she said to the cat, then skewered David with her gaze. “Look, I don’t know what you expected showing up here, but this isn’t a great time for me.”

  “I just wanted to see you.” He’d followed her into the living room and was standing next to her, close enough that she smelled the lingering scents of last night’s cigars and alcohol. “Is that such a sin?”

  Every muscle in her body froze. “What did you say?” she asked, and when he tried to touch her shoulder she drew away.

  “I was trying to explain that I missed you and hoped that we could talk things over, see if we could find a way back to us again.”

  You’re overreacting, Sam. This is David. You trust him. You nearly married him, for God’s sake, and here you are thinking he’s somehow related to “John” and Annie Seger and all the crap that’s gone on around here. You’re losing it, Sam, losing it. David’s just here being David.

  “It’s too late to get back together,” she said, and bent over to scoop up her cat and hold him close. Stroking Charon’s black fur, she shook her head. “I think you should leave, David. Whatever you hoped would happen isn’t going to. We’ve been through this before. It’s over.”

  “Because you wanted it to be,” he pointed out, and there was more than a trace of anger in his words.

  “That’s right.”

  She was too exhausted to discuss this now. Her feet were dirty, her hair a mess, only half-dressed. As if he was following the train of her thoughts, he waggled a finger at her state of undress. “Why are you only wearing that?”

  “I left in a hurry.”

  “From your friend’s house.”

  She bristled. “I’m not in the mood for a lecture.”

  “This friend sent you home without your shoes…?” he asked, and she saw from the change in his eyes that he was beginning to put two and two together. “But what about your car? I looked in the window of the g
arage. It’s not here.”

  “I left it downtown.”

  “Then spent the night with your friend.”

  “What was left of it, yes.”

  “I don’t think I like this.”

  “You probably don’t. But it’s not your business.” She shoved a lock of hair from her eyes. “You’re not my keeper, David. That was part of the problem with us, remember? Your control issues?”

  “I’ve been working on them.”

  “Good.” She didn’t think she needed to explain anything else, but David wasn’t taking the hint to leave and before she could be more pointed and tell him to take a hike she heard the familiar rumble of an engine. Stupidly, her pulse jumped. Through the open door, she watched as Ty’s Volvo appeared.

  Great. Just what I need. Another male who thinks he knows what’s best for me.

  But she wasn’t surprised. She’d figured that the minute she was out of his sight, he’d climb into his car and track her down. He’d only let her leave because he was giving her time to cool off. In one respect she was flattered, in another ticked off. After all, the truth of the matter was that he was a liar and a user and all things bad that were male.

  “Who’s he…?” David asked as Ty cut the engine. Before Sam could respond, he said, “Oh, I get it.”

  “Yes. My friend.”

  David’s expression turned hard as nails. “It sure didn’t take you long, did it?” he accused.

  “Don’t even say it.”

  Ty climbed out of the car and strode up the walk. He’d taken the time to throw on a T-shirt and damn it all, he looked good. And intense. Sam bristled, ready for another confrontation, one she didn’t need. She met Ty at the door and Charon, quick to sense his escape, scrambled out of her arms. The cat leaped onto the porch before rocketing into the bushes.

  “You don’t know how to take ‘no’ for an answer do you?”

  “No.” His hazel eyes sparked and a cocksure smile spread from one side of his beard-shadowed jaw to the other. Bastard she thought again, but held her tongue. His eyes lingered on her lips for just a second, then he glanced over her shoulder and something changed in his expression; the playful look was replaced by challenge. Obviously he’d seen David.