She didn’t really say much to that. She continued to keep her face covered as she sobbed. “Do you know why I wasn’t driving my car that morning?” she asked. “I was pregnant and had really bad morning sickness, so Tom took the kids instead. He used my car because it was the last one in the driveway and blocking his car in. That goddamn gangbanger was waiting for my car when it passed through a major intersection by our house and he and his buddies pulled up on both sides of it and opened fire. Tom was killed instantly when a bullet hit him in the head and crashed the car into a light pole. Witnesses said that then the cars pulled up behind the crashed car, walked up, and emptied out two or three clips into the car, killing the kids. They never had a chance.”
Reed closed his eyes tightly to ward off the horror of what she was telling him. He felt so sick for her. He lay his head down on her shoulder, his hand still on her back, trying to give her what meager comfort he could.
“I’m so sorry, honey,” he whispered. “I can’t even imagine what you went through. I’m so very sorry.”
Kinley was so exhausted from weeping that the tears were starting to taper off as she recalled that very dark day with great clarity. She could see every moment that passed, feeling every emotion as if just feeling it for the first time. The grief was agonizing but, very quickly, it became numbing as her mind switched into self-protection mode. It was either that or she would surely lose her sanity. She began to take on an oddly glazed look.
“I was feeling so bad from the morning sickness that I had fallen back asleep once Tom and the kids left the house,” she continued. “The next thing I realize, someone is pounding at my door. When I got up, I saw four units outside my house. I really had no idea that anything was wrong, at least not with Tom and the kids, until the lieutenant began to talk. He had to tell me the story three times before it sank in and I could actually comprehend what had happened. After that… I really don’t remember much about the rest of the day other than getting into Tom’s car that night and driving off. And I just kept driving.”
Reed rubbed her back, kissing her shoulder before pushing himself up. “Kinley, don’t think you have to talk about this,” he said softly. “If you just want to go to sleep for a while, I’ll sit here with you so you won’t be alone.”
She turned her head to look up at him, her face with its haunting beauty, etched with grief. “You’re probably wondering what happened to the pregnancy.”
He shook his head. “Not really. I suppose it doesn’t matter in the long run.”
She sighed and looked away, her lids growing heavy as the emotions rolled over her. “I was only a few weeks along,” she whispered. “I guess the emotional upheaval and the fact that I didn’t eat or take care of myself for weeks took its toll; I miscarried the day I ended up at the Hi-Way Café. I flushed the baby down the toilet in the restaurant. That’s why I sat there for so long; I was trying to work up the courage to drive the car into an overpass because I literally had nothing left to live for. My entire family was dead.”
Reed’s gaze lingered on her for a moment before standing up. He removed his Sam Browne belt and laid it carefully on the chair, followed by his uniform shirt. He had a t-shirt underneath, sexy as hell as it strained against his broad chest. Then he took the radio out of the holster on the duty belt and told Dispatch that he was indisposed for the next hour. When they pressed him, he shut them down and turned the radio off. Then, he carefully crawled onto the bed and got in behind Kinley as she lay there sniffling.
“Can I just lay here and hold you for a few minutes?” he whispered. “It would make me feel a lot better.”
Exhausted, and now being swept up in whatever drug he had given her, Kinley managed a weary grin. “It would make you feel better?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’m feeling really sad right now and it’s been years since I’ve held a woman I really wanted to hold. Would it be okay?”
Kinley couldn’t even think about the fact that she was lying in the man’s bed and he had given her a drug of unknown origin. It had been very stupid, in hindsight, but on the other hand, she didn’t much care. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her and, after what she had just experienced, she realized she needed the comfort of human contact. She needed Reed.
“Sure,” she whispered.
Big, muscular, and warm arms went around her and Kinley sank back against him, feeling his heated body come into contact with hers. It was wildly arousing and wildly comforting. All of her restraint left her and she gave in to his heat, gripping his hands and pulling his arms more tightly around her, relishing in the feel of his touch. She was all wrapped up in him, and he in her, as she finally drifted off into a heavy, dreamless sleep.
It was the best rest she’d had in three years.
Chapter Six
WHEN KINLEY OPENED her eyes again, it was to a dark room. For a moment, she had no idea where she was but eventually, she recollected the events that had brought her to this moment in time. Very clearly, she remembered falling asleep in Reed’s arms and it took her no time at all to realize that he was gone. Without his massive presence enveloping her, she felt very alone. She turned slightly, looking at the rest of the giant, king-sized bed, seeing that it was vacant but for her.
The bedroom door was closed but she could see light emitting from the other side. She could also hear pots and pans banging around and she was sure she could smell something cooking. Struggling out of bed, as she found that she was still quite groggy, she staggered to the bedroom door and opened it.
Four very big dogs were laying right outside of the door, their heads shooting up when the door opened. Kinley liked dogs so she wasn’t afraid of them but the truth was she was a bit disoriented and very, very tired, so she carefully moved around the dogs, straining to catch a glimpse of the source of the light. As soon as she stepped out of the room, she was in a corridor of sorts and could see that the front door wasn’t far off to her right. Directly in front of her was a darkened staircase that led up to the second floor and to her left was a rather wide-open kitchen.
There was a lot happening in the kitchen. As soon as the bedroom door opened, Reed swung around to see Kinley looking lost and weary. He set the plate in his hand down onto the counter and quickly went to her.
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” he said softly. “How are you feeling?”
Kinley tried not to yawn in his face. She ended up wiping at her eyes, looking at her fingers and seeing the smeared mascara. “I’m not sure,” she said. “What in the hell did you give me?”
“A Tylenol sleeping pill,” he said. “Those things always help me. Besides, it was the strongest thing I had in the house. I thought it might help you calm down.”
She wriggled her eyebrows, unable to stop the big yawn this time. “No wonder I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck,” she said. She stopped looking around at her surroundings long enough to see that he was looking somewhat anxiously at her. She couldn’t help the embarrassment. “I’m okay. I don’t even know what to say about imploding like that other than I’m really sorry. You must seriously think I’m a complete head case.”
He grinned. “Like I said, you’ve been through a lot,” he said. “I can’t say that in similar circumstances that I would be even half as pulled-together as you are. In spite of what you think about your behavior, I think the total opposite. I see a woman who has suffered through the worst possible situation but she’s survived. More than that, she’s thriving. I think that’s incredibly admirable, Kinley. You’re so much stronger than you give yourself credit for.”
Kinley wasn’t so sleepy anymore as she listened to him. The light of warmth went on in her sleepy eyes. “That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me,” she said softly. “I’m glad you see that part of me because I sure don’t.”
He gave her a wink, a gesture of confidence and sex appeal that gave Kinley that familiar giddy feeling she was coming to associate with him.
“Come on,” he said quietly, reachin
g out to take her hand. “I thought I’d cook for the restaurant owner, so don’t laugh. I’m not much of a cook but I try. I thought you might be hungry.”
Kinley was deeply touched by his gesture as he led her over to the big kitchen that was bright with canned lighting and smelling of garlic. She let him hold her hand. In fact, she held on to him tightly.
“Wow,” she said as she saw the plates and garlic bread and pasta on the counter. “This looks great. What time is it, anyway?”
Reed didn’t want to particularly let go of her hand but he couldn’t hold on to her and serve her at the same time, so reluctantly he let her go and pulled out a chair for her at the breakfast bar.
“Almost seven,” he said. “You slept about twelve hours.”
Kinley took the seat, sighing heavily when she realized that it was well into the evening. “And you were here the whole time?”
He nodded as he went over to the stove and started dishing out pasta and sauce. “I called work and took the day off,” he said. “You were exhausted and I wasn’t about to leave you here alone.”
Kinley looked at him seriously. Her eyes fluctuated, as if there were a million thoughts rolling through her head. It was evident she was pondering his statement, the situation in general.
“You know,” she said after a moment, “I keep thinking that you’re just too good to be true. What guy takes off work to babysit a basket case?”
He snorted. “Me.”
“You don’t have anything better to do?”
He lifted his eyebrows as he brought two plates of spaghetti over to the breakfast bar and put one in front of her. “I’ve got a lot to do,” he said. “But I’ve got you just where I want you and I’m not going to let you out of my sight. How’s that for an answer?”
Kinley giggled. “Are you sure you’re not a serial killer or anything?”
“I told you, only in the winter time.”
She laughed as she inspected the dish in front of her. “I guess I’m still safe for a little while,” she said, picking up her fork. “This looks really good. You did this all yourself?”
He took a bottle of red wine off the counter and brought two glasses over. “I did,” he said. “I used to cook for my boys all of the time, to tell you the truth. My ex-wife was not the cooking type.”
Kinley was already digging into the spaghetti, which turned out to be delicious. “This is really good,” she said, mouth full. “You did a good job.”
He poured her a big glass of wine and then one for himself. “Thanks,” he said. “It’s actually my mother’s recipe. Don’t steal it for the restaurant, okay? If she gets wind of it, she’ll beat me within an inch of my life.”
Kinley giggled as she swallowed her bite and took the wine glass in her hand. “I swear, I won’t steal it,” she said. “We don’t serve spaghetti, anyway, but if we did, all bets would be off.”
He held out his glass to her, their eyes meeting over the plates of spaghetti. There was a warmth in her eyes that hadn’t been there before as he clinked his glass against hers.
“To the future,” he said softly.
For the first time in three years, she felt some confidence at that statement. “To the future,” she agreed.
Reed took a sip of wine, watching her intently as she sipped at hers and set the glass down to reclaim her fork. She dug in with gusto, shoveling down the spaghetti as he began to eat.
“Now that I know the serious things about you,” he began, rolling spaghetti with his fork, “I want to find out the not-so-serious things. Like, what’s your favorite color?”
Kinley laughed softly, covering her mouth with a napkin to mask the fact that her mouth was open. “Quid pro quo, deputy,” she said. “If I tell you something, you have to tell me something.”
He smiled because she was. “Fair enough. But I asked you first.”
“Purple. How’d you get so many dogs?”
“Because I’m a sucker for big dogs and I can’t say no when someone offers me a big breed puppy. How tall are you?”
“Five feet and five inches. How tall are you?”
“Six feet four and a half inches. What kind of movies do you like?”
“Old war movies or anything black and white. How long have you lived at this house?”
“My family has had this land for almost two hundred years and a house has stood here for almost that long. I bought the property from my parents. Are you an only child?”
“No, I have a brother. Are you?”
“I have two younger brothers, both in the military. How’d you get your name?”
“Because it was my grandmother’s name. Do you always interrogate women like this on the second date?”
“Not unless I’m wildly attracted to them. Are you going to want to go home tonight after dinner?”
She stopped in the rapid-fire exchange, fighting off a grin. “Are you going to give me another sleeping pill to knock me out if I say yes?”
“No. I was just asking.”
“I’m guessing you’re asking with a reason in mind.”
He was pretending to be serious. “No reason, ma’am. I’m not trying to keep you here for improper reasons. I just don’t want you to be alone if you’re going to go home and have another meltdown.”
Her smile faded and she sighed, looking back to her spaghetti. She began to twirl it with less enthusiasm than before. “I won’t have another meltdown,” she said softly. “Oddly enough, what happened earlier… well, as I sit here and think about it, I think it helped a lot. I still feel sad and devastated but… but I feel better, too. I think you had a lot to do with that. You were very comforting.”
He watched her take a bite. “I hope so. I tried to be.”
She nodded, chewing before swallowing. “I guess I just needed to let it all out and when you said that I had survived such a terrible thing and even thrived… I guess I have in a sense. But I had to change who I am in order to do it.”
“What do you mean?”
She collected her glass of wine and sipped at it. “I mean that I had to totally erase any past,” she said quietly. “Now, I’m a business owner, a single woman, living in a state I’d never even visited until that day I ended up at the Hi-Way Café. Kinley Connors-Berrington doesn’t really exist anymore as she was. Now, she’s someone completely different.”
He thought on that a moment and picked up his wine glass as well, taking a big swallow. “Actually, I was wondering about that.”
“About what?”
He looked at her. “In order to open that restaurant, you had to have some money. You also had to have a credit application and some kind of bank loan, I’m guessing. You said you left everything behind… how did you manage to open that restaurant with nothing?”
She smiled. “That’s a fair question,” she said. “Actually, I had some money from working at the café but it wasn’t nearly enough to open a restaurant, so as for the cakery… I wasn’t entirely truthful about not having had contact with my family. I have. My brother, in fact. He’s the only one who knows where I am and what I’m doing. He’s the one who took out the bank loan for me and he’s technically the owner of the Coffee Cakery. But he’s keeping my secret; my parents don’t know anything and neither do my friends or my work. I told my brother if he told anyone about me that I really would disappear and he’d never hear from me again, so fear has kept him quiet. He understands my feelings and why I did what I did. He gets me. In fact, he bought me the house I have in Riverton.”
He understood a great deal now. It made sense. “I don’t blame you for asking your brother for help,” he said. “He must be quite a guy to help you like this.”
“He is. I adore him.” She finished her wine and set her glass down, turning to him. “Now that you know my dark and dirty secret, fair is fair. Do you have anything dark and dirty to tell me?”
He thought a moment as he drank his wine. “Not really,” he said. “You know all about Heather and her death, and my ex
and my kids. I guess I’m just not all that exciting.”
She laughed softly. “You’re nice and normal,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “That’s a very attractive quality.”
He looked at her hopefully. “Really?”
“Really.”
He just grinned, now looking rather bashful as he drained the last of his wine. “Is it an attractive enough quality that you might let me take you out on a real date?”
“Of course.”
“How about tomorrow?”
She nodded. “That would be great.”
Reed was feeling just about as hopeful and thrilled as he had in a very long time. Finally, he felt as if they were making progress. She was trusting him and he was joyful and relieved.
“I am very happy to hear that,” he said, noticing that she was finished with her food. “Do you want some more?”
Kinley shook her head and picked up her plate purely out of habit, moving to put it in the sink. “No, thanks,” she said as she turned the water on. “It was really great. Thank you so much.”
“I’ll do that,” he said, trying to gently push her out of the way to take over the dish cleaning duty. “You go sit down and have another glass of wine. Just relax.”
She graciously bowed away. “If I didn’t do this for a living seven days a week, I might give you an argument about it. As it is, I’ll just do what you tell me.”
He smiled at her as he began to rinse off the plates and she moved back to the breakfast bar and the bottle of wine. Pouring herself another glass, she propped her butt on the stool to watch Reed do dishes. More than that, she was now afforded an unobstructed view of his backside and she liked very much what she saw. The man had an amazing form.
“Uh…,” she said, eyeing his fabulous buttocks and thinking the first lustful thoughts she’d had in over three years. “So tell me about this house. It’s been here for almost two hundred years?”
She’d asked the question just to get her mind off his ass but Reed was oblivious to her passionate thoughts. “Parts of the house have been,” he said, opening up the dishwasher. “I’ll show you around in a minute.”
Romancing the de Wolfe Collection: Contemporary Romance Bundle Page 7
