“How are you going to get in?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Weren’t your keys in your purse?”
She grinned and pulled them out of her pocket. “I never keep them in my purse. If it ever got snatched, at least I could get home in my car.”
“Smart girl.”
The grin faded. “Sometimes.”
He felt like an ass for reminding her of how stupid she’d been. Had she really been all that foolish, though? She’d gone to the man’s house in broad daylight, but who would have expected such an outcome? If nothing else, she was smart enough not to repeat her mistakes.
At the door to her apartment, Jake grabbed her arm and pushed himself in front of her. “Are you sure you closed it tight and locked it when you left?”
She tried to peek around his arm. “Positive, why?”
“It’s not closed all the way, and there are scratches on the lock. Pick marks to be exact.” Behind him, she grasped his waist, releasing a shuddering breath.
“Mouse,” she whispered.
The word confused him for a second, but then he remembered the cat. Jake considered telling her to wait there, but then she’d be out of his sight when he searched her rooms. “Stay right behind me. In fact, put your hand on my belt so I know you’re there. Don’t talk, don’t do anything but what I tell you.”
When he felt her fingers grasp his belt, he pushed the door open and lifted his gun, resting the grip on the heel of his left palm. He stepped into the devastation of Maria’s living room.
“Oh, God,” she gasped.
He had shit for brains, should’ve predicted this, should’ve installed her someplace safe and come to her apartment alone. “Don’t let go,” he reminded her and walked into the kitchen. With his side pressed up against the wall and her behind him, he reached over and turned the knob of a door, pulling it open. A pantry, seemingly the only untouched space in her apartment. Strewn all over the kitchen were knives, forks, spoons, and dishes, many broken. This guy had been beyond pissed. Thank God Maria hadn’t been home when Fortunada came calling.
“We have to find Mouse,” she said, her voice trembling.
If the asshole had found her cat, Jake didn’t want Maria to see the result. But he wasn’t willing to leave her behind. He grunted and set off down the hallway. Her bedroom door was ajar and the destruction there was the worst. Her bed had been sliced open, her dresser drawers upended, clothing ripped to shreds. She made a low keening sound, one that Jake feared he would hear in his nightmares. At least there was no mutilated cat.
“Mouse, here kitty, kitty. Come to mommy,” she softly sang.
So fast that Jake almost shot it before he registered what was coming at them, a gray-and-white ball of fur flew out of the closet and straight at Maria. The drawn out meooows and maaahhhs were accompanied by hisses that Jake took to be a scolding from cat to woman. He didn’t really blame the cat. The poor creature must have been scared out of at least three lives when the Devil decided to pay a call. Maria let go of Jake’s belt to wrap her arms around her cat.
“Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. I should’ve come back and got you.”
Did he really just hear her say that? He turned to tell her what he thought about her returning alone, knowing Fortunada had her address. Her face was buried in the cat’s neck and the damn thing rested its paw on Maria’s cheek, his green feline eyes locked lovingly on her as he chatted away. The reprimand died on Jake’s lips.
“Stay here while I check the bathroom,” he said and left them to their reunion. He made a full sweep of the one-bedroom apartment, and as he took in the destruction of all that she owned, his rage grew. This was a warning from Fortunada to Maria. Jake longed for just ten minutes with the man, no guns or knives, just bare fists.
He took out his cell and called Detective Nolan. When he finished reporting the break-in, he returned to the bedroom. Maria sat on the floor, her cat still cuddled in her arms.
Her gaze swept the room, then she looked up at him. “I can’t live here, not even when this is over.”
“No, I don’t suppose you can,” he said, sitting on the floor next to her. Without warning, Maria pressed against him and sobbed. Jake tried hard not to notice the way her breasts bounced over his chest as she cried. It didn’t work. He noticed. He was a very bad man.
Not good with crying women, never knowing what to say, he just held her until she quieted. “Better?” he asked.
“No.”
“Yeah, stupid question. Detective Nolan’s on the way. Why don’t you see if you can scrounge up some clothes and whatever else you might need. As soon as we deal with the police, we’ll get the hell out of here.”
“The sooner, the better,” she said and dumped the cat in his arms.
Jake entered into a staring contest with the creature while Maria dug through the scattered clothing, salvaging what she could. The cat’s green eyes narrowed to slits as if he knew just where Jake’s mind had been a few moments before.
“Good God, what’s wrong with him?” Jake asked.
Maria glanced over her shoulder at Mouse, scrunched up in a corner of his carrier and yowling his displeasure at being inside a car. “He thinks he’s going to the vet.”
Jake glanced at her, a puzzled look on his face. “Why would he think that?”
“Because the only times he’s in a car, that’s where the car goes.”
“Well tell him to stop.”
“Mouse, stop.”
Her cat increased the volume of his protest, and Jake gave her an eye roll. Maria lifted a hand to her lips to hide her smile, the first since she’d stepped into a living nightmare. How she would manage to deal with everything without Jake, she couldn’t imagine. Along with all the other reasons she hadn’t wanted to call her brother, his wife, Dani, was due to deliver their son any day now. Logan wouldn’t have been at all happy to leave Dani’s side.
“Do you know where we’re going? We need to get Sally,” Maria said.
“Yes, and we’ll pick up your precious car on the way. That damn possessed cat’s riding with you.”
They were both almost yelling, trying to talk over Mouse’s wails. “Cut him some slack, he’s had a bad day what with the break-in and the car ride.”
“No worse than mine and I’m not shrieking like one of the Devil’s own minions.”
Jake was starting to sound testy, like his patience was nearing its end. Well, she couldn’t really blame him. He’d been dragged out of his bed—one where he claimed he had a woman—dealt with the stupidity of his boss’s sister, and then sat with her while she told her story to the police, held her while she cried over her destroyed apartment, then dealt with the police again, and now had a crazed cat on his hands. Oh, and he’d lied to Logan because of her and that one probably bothered him more than even the cat.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
The frown on his face dissolved, and he shook his head. “No, it’s not you, it’s me. I can’t stop thinking about your breasts and it’s pissing me off.” His eyes did a rapid blinking thing. “Hell. Tell me I didn’t just say that.”
Maria tried to stop her grin, but failing, turned to stare out the window so he wouldn’t see it. He was thinking about her breasts? Little shivers of pleasure danced their way from her heart to her toes.
“So, if you’re not going to assure me that my mouth isn’t saying things it shouldn’t, then please accept my apology.”
She really wished he wouldn’t apologize as she liked him thinking about her, breasts or otherwise. “Whatever,” she said, annoyed now.
“You know, I hate that word.”
She glanced at him. His lips were pressed together, and he stared straight ahead. Just to mess with him, she said it again. “Whatever.” Mouse followed up her response with an ear-piercing yowl.
“Jesus, I’ve died and gone straight to hell,” he muttered.
“And your punishment is a pissy woman and her evil cat?”
His lips twitched, and his eyes crinkled at the corners. “Don’t forget beautiful. A beautiful, off-limits pissy woman and her devil cat.”
She could live with that. The he thought her beautiful part, anyway, but she was going to have to do something about the off-limits part of the equation, and she knew exactly where that one came from. Her brother was going to get a piece of her mind for putting his nose in her love life. When she got up the nerve to face him, that is.
They turned into the Bluebird Motel’s parking lot, and there was her Mustang, just where she’d left it. Maria breathed a sigh of relief. No one had messed with Sally.
“Follow me,” Jake said once they got her and Mouse moved to Sally. He’d even buckled her in as if she wasn’t capable of doing it herself. His fussing over her was kind of cute, actually. She started to ask him where they were going, but he was already walking back to the Challenger.
About three miles down the road, he turned into a fast-food chicken place, rolled down his window, and pointed at a parking place before getting in line for the drive-thru. Maria backed her car into the slot to wait for him. She glanced at her watch. No wonder she was hungry; it was going on three.
After he paid and was given three paper sacks, he pulled out and motioned for her to follow him again. Mouse had quieted down when she’d turned off the car, but as soon as she started it, he let her know his opinion in no uncertain terms.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” she told him. “He stopped for food, so I’m sure we’re almost there, and I promise we’re not going to the vet.” Mouse apparently didn’t believe her.
Jake headed back in the direction of her apartment but then turned left a few blocks before it. They’d travelled about three miles when her phone rang. It was so unexpected that she shrieked and Mouse, obviously believing all the noise signified the end of the world, went into hyper-super-duper-I-can-be-louder-than-you mode.
Maria grabbed the cell off the passenger seat and looked at the ID. Jake. “What?”
“What the hell’s going on? Why are you yelling and why does your cat sound like he’s dying?”
She considered tossing the phone out the window. “I’m yelling because I feel like it, and my cat thinks he is dying. What do you want?”
“I wasn’t sure if you still had your phone or if it was in your purse.”
Couldn’t he have waited until they got to wherever they were going to ask her that? “I left it on the seat of my car when . . .” she trailed off, not wanting to talk about going to Fortunada’s house.
“Okay,” he said, his voice turning softer, kinder. “I’m going to pull over in a few minutes, and I want you to park in front of me. We won’t be stopped for long. I just want to make sure no one’s following us.”
“Where’re we going, Jake?”
“Almost there,” he said and hung up.
Why the mystery? And how did he know about this place? They were driving down a residential, tree-lined street, not a hotel or motel in sight. It was an older neighborhood but nicely maintained, the homes far apart and set well back from the road. When he pulled to the side of the road, she obediently stopped in front of him. She looked in her rearview mirror to see him doing the same as he watched the road behind them. Without doubt, he knew how to keep her safe and, right now, that was all that mattered.
Her phone rang again and, thinking it was Jake, she almost pushed the icon before she saw it was Logan. Crap. She stared at the ID until the ringing stopped, then checked her messages. Five from her brother, each one more demanding than the last. Double crap. If she didn’t call him back by five, he was headed her way, he’d said on the last one.
Jake waited ten minutes and, apparently satisfied they weren’t being followed, headed out again. He made a right turn, and halfway down the block, turned onto a long driveway and nosed up to the two-car garage, its door opening. He had a remote control for it? Was this his little hideaway where he brought women? All the way to Tallahassee? That didn’t make sense, but nothing else did either.
It didn’t escape her notice that it was only a few miles from her apartment. Her brother claimed the hair on the back of his neck stood up when something wasn’t right, and for the first time, she understood what he meant. She smelled something rotten, and there wasn’t a dead fish in sight.
CHAPTER FIVE
The boss didn’t want his sister to know about this place, so he now had one more reason to kill Jake. Jake closed the garage door, then helped Maria unload her car. Inside, she sat the cat’s carrier down and looked around. He could see the questions forming and tried to think of a plausible story.
“Jake, why do you have a garage door opener to this house?”
“Ah . . .”
She glared at him. “Don’t even think of trying to lie. What is this place for?”
Kincaid planned ahead for everything, so why hadn’t he thought of a cover story? “It’s like this,” he said, then closed his mouth. It was like what? Right now he thought he might prefer to be in Afghanistan, listening to sniper bullets whizz past his ears.
Okay, not really, but finding himself caught between brother and sister was almost as bad. One of them was going to fire him for going behind his back, and the other was looking up at him with dark, coffee-colored eyes he couldn’t bring himself to lie to.
He set the paper sacks of chicken on the kitchen counter and leaned back against it. “Your brother got a little paranoid after Dani was kidnapped, and you know how he plans ahead for any situation. He wanted a safe house close to you.” Jake shrugged. “If it was ever needed.” Along with Kincaid, both he and Jamie Turner had access to this place, just in case.
She walked to the door of the living room and after a quick peek, turned back to him. “So why didn’t he just let me live here?”
Now that was a dumb question. “Then it wouldn’t have been a safe house, would it? Plus, it’s too isolated. He was more comfortable knowing you were in an apartment complex with night security.”
Fire shimmered in her eyes, and the desire to bed all that heat hit him hard. He moved to the table and sat, hopefully before she noticed the bulge in his jeans. A low growl sounded from the carrier at his feet, and Jake glanced down. The inappropriately named feline was giving his crotch the evil eye.
He was losing it. Nothing some food, a good night’s sleep, and about two hundred miles between him and the temptation of Maria Kincaid wouldn’t cure. Maybe.
“Have you both come and stayed here while you spied on me?”
He jerked his gaze to hers. “No, of course not.”
Well, he hadn’t, but the boss had once when she was in the middle of breaking up with the uptight boyfriend. Kincaid wasn’t happy that the kid hadn’t believed Maria when she’d told him it was over. An overnight stay and a few words with the ex-boyfriend had taken care of the problem, but Jake wasn’t about to go there.
But it wasn’t spying, so he wasn’t lying, and, God help him, now he was rhyming. Any time he got near her, his brain short-circuited.
“Maria, bring those bags over here.” At her rebellious look, he belatedly added, “Please.”
She huffed an annoyed-sounding breath but did as he asked, plopping the sacks down in front of him. “What’d you get me?” she asked, taking a seat across from him.
“A chocolate shake, cheese fries, and wings. The kind where you need a fireman standing next to you before you can eat ’em.”
Her pleased-with-him grin went straight to his heart, causing it to do disturbing cartwheels in his chest. She wasn’t his, could never be, but the foolish thing refused to believe it. Turning his attention to the food, he chowed down on his grilled chicken breast, corn, and pinto beans while thoroughly enjoying watching her. No matter her
troubles, she could eat with enthusiasm. Considering what and how much she ate, it was beyond him why she didn’t weigh a ton.
Jake stilled when she licked her fingers after cleaning the bone of her last wing. It was the way she went about it—her eyes closed as if she were in ecstasy as her tongue lapped each finger—that had him straining against his jeans. Jesus. He stood, knocking over his chair, and headed for another room. Didn’t matter which one as long as she wasn’t in it.
“Logan left a message giving me until five to call him.”
Well, that was as good as a bucket of ice water dumped over his head. Returning to the table, he picked up his chair and sat. He’d received similar messages from the boss. Kincaid’s antennae were definitely twitching. “Yeah, he’s left me several. Guess you’d better call him.”
The smile that appeared on her face was one a woman used on a man when she wanted something, and he was pretty sure he knew just what. Although, if she kept looking at him like that, he’d probably agree to anything, a fact he fully intended to keep to himself.
“No.”
Her eyes blinked. “No, what?”
“I’m not calling him first.” Her surprised expression said he’d guessed right. “I’ll listen to what you tell him so I don’t say anything I shouldn’t, but I won’t lie to him so give him the truth.”
“I don’t know where my phone is.”
Little liar. “No problem.” He slid his cell across the table.
She stared at it for a few seconds, then chuckled. “It was worth a try. You know this is going to result in me being locked up for the rest of my life and you being killed for aiding and abetting me.”
“I know.” And even knowing it, he would do it all over again if she asked.
Her hair fell over her face as she lowered her head and punched in her brother’s number. As he listened to her talk, Jake studied the woman who’d fascinated him for so long and tried to understand what it was about her that called to him so deeply.
Someone Like Her (A K2 Team Novel) Page 4
