by Carly Bishop
His dark eyes wide, Tiffer swallowed and shook his head. “No, but—”
“Your dad?”
“No,” Tiffer said, “but Chris, he’s pissed about the alarm system being off, and then I heard on the news—”
“What’s on the news?”
“About you and that lady, and I figured out that Mom turned it off on purpose and if my dad hears that—”
“Tiffer,” Chris interrupted, giving his nephew’s shoulders a small shake. “What are they saying on TV? Exactly. Can you remember?”
“I don’t...” Tiffer gulped and he stared at Chris, too scared just then to remember.
Wrapped in the white terry-cloth robe, Eden scooted around the door into the kitchen. “You’re scaring him, Chris.”
His head jerked around. His eyes swept over her. Memories of their lovemaking made his chest tighten. She looked pale but no longer scared... and incredibly lovely.
He knew she was right. He knew his voice sounded far harsher than he meant it to be, but Tiffer was eleven and he could go off half-cocked for twenty minutes without getting to the point. Right now, he was afraid of what his dad might do.
Chris couldn’t afford to ignore Ed Bancroft’s ire, either. He would assume the worst-case scenario and turn his knowledge of Chris’s whereabouts over to the authorities in a New York minute. But Chris and Eden were in an even more deadly position if, because of the news reports, Winston Broussard had any idea where to find them.
But Eden was right. He was upsetting Tiff, and that was the last thing he wanted to happen.
“Tiff, this is...” His eyes met and locked with Eden’s. “This is my friend. This is Tiffer Bancroft. My nephew. Catherine’s sister, Margo, is his mom.” He watched Eden’s eyes widen, watched her glance uncertainly down at her hands. He wished he could tell her how it was between him and Margo, but that would have to wait.
“The gunshot lady?” Tiffer asked, his eyes darting to her.
“Yes. But I’m better now,” she answered softly.
Tiffer blew out a breath, calmed a little, Chris thought, by Eden’s gentle reassurance. His child’s lips were still pressed thin.
“Tiff, man, I need to know what they said on television. Start at the beginning and just say what you remember. Better sit down now.”
The boy nodded and went over to a chair. He had on one of Chris’s old hockey-club shirts, and it covered his shorts.
He recited what he could recall of the news clip. “They said the hospital had a gunshot lady and that they let her go. They said it was good the hospital didn’t blab about it ’cuz she’s a protected witness —like in the movies. Is that right?”
Chris nodded. “Yeah, like that. Did they say which hospital, Tiff?”
The boy nodded “I can’t remember exactly, though.” His brow puckered. A lock of his dark brown hair fell in his face. He shook it back. “Western something? In New York?”
Chris bit back a curse. Dragging in a deep breath, he exchanged glances with Eden. “That’s right, Tiff. They got it right.”
“But not all right,” Tiffer objected. His freckles stood out and his fists clenched. “That bitch said—”
“Lady, you mean,” Chris warned.
Tiff’s little jaw tightened. “She isn’t a lady, Chris. She said—”
“You know what I mean. Men don’t call women things like that, or hit them or—”
“Chris, leave it be,” Eden interrupted softly. “I’m sure Tiffer knows that.”
Tiffer looked from Chris to Eden, then back. He was old enough to pick up the vibes between them, probably old enough to figure out what they meant, as well. He wasn’t allowed to comment on things like that in his father’s presence, even Margo’s, but he’d always had the straight poop from his uncle Chris—one of the myriad reasons Ed Bancroft detested him.
So Chris could see the question lurking in his nephew’s eyes. “Tiff, look.” He glanced at Eden. “Neither of us knows how things are going to work out right now. I’m in some serious trouble, and there are people trying to kill this lady, so a lot of problems have to be ironed out before I start thinking about ... other things. You following me?”
“Yeah.” Chris’s answer seemed to put that whole guy-to-guy female issue to rest for Tiffer. “But they’ve got things screwed up. They said you’re acting out ... I mean ... like, on your own, and that you took her hostage.” His head bobbed toward Eden. “They say you’re armed and dangerous.” He snorted. “Sure. Dangerous for wise guys. What do they know?”
“Yeah, what do they know?” Chris gave Tiffer’s head a Dutch rub and the two of them roughhoused for just a minute —another one of Bancroft’s pet peeves violated.
Chris drew a deep breath and Tiffer sat back on the chair. Eden leaned against the doorjamb, watching him interact with Tiffer with a longing so naked it hit Chris like a blow to his chest. But there were also deep shadows beneath her eyes, and the implications of what Tiffer had heard were not lost on her.
The guest house was surrounded on all sides by dense woods, and every window covering was drawn. Nevertheless, Chris was unnerved. Given the news reports, if Broussard didn’t know exactly where they were, he must still have it narrowed down now to the radius of a few hundred miles.
But while Chris had that to consider, it wasn’t right that Tiffer had to hear or deal with this. That he had to take sides and feel as if he had to warn Chris about his dad. The boy’s loyalty touched Chris, but Tiff needed to understand that even Chris didn’t believe what was happening and what he was doing were the way things should be.
“Tiff, listen. I didn’t take this lady hostage, but I’m not doing things the way they should be done. That’s because I don’t want to see her or anyone else get hurt. And it’s not the way things should be done for your mom or you to lie to your dad.”
“But—” Tiffer’s hands flailed “—just because he doesn’t like you—”
“I know,” Chris said. “But that’s for your dad and me to solve when somebody else isn’t going to be hurt by it— so I’m going to ask you a big favor.”
“What?”
He shouldn’t have put it like that; his nephew thought he was going to get to do something exciting to help. “You need to go to school, Tiff, and act as if you never saw us. As if you haven’t seen me in a long time.”
“Who cares?” the boy demanded. “I—”
“Somebody might, Tiff,” Chris interrupted firmly. “They might get the idea I was here, and that could be real trouble.” In a school yard, it was vastly unlikely, but there were no certainties with Winston Broussard. “You don’t talk to strangers and you act as if you never saw me, okay?”
Tiffer’s neck bowed. He didn’t say anything.
“Is your dad still at home, Tiff?” Eden asked.
The boy looked at her, then shyly, self-conscious, turned away. “Nah. He’s gone. I turned off the zone again, but he left already.”
Chris socked him man to man on the shoulder. “Are you going to miss the school bus?”
Tiffer nodded. “If I don’t run.” He looked at Chris’s gun. “Uncle Chris, can’t I stay? I could help you—”
“Tiff.” Chris grabbed him up in a bear hug and Tiff clung hard to his neck. “I need you to cover my butt here, buddy. Is your lunch outside?”
“In my pack.” The boy’s chin quivered, only barely, but it embarrassed him. “I gotta go.” He bolted out of Chris’s arms and through the door, but he ducked back in. A tear was running down his face. “They know about the Mustang,” he warned fiercely. “And they got an APB out.”
Then he was gone.
Chris slumped against the wall, staring down at the terra-cotta tiles, his jaw clenched. Eden swallowed the lump of emotion in her throat.
“He idolizes you, doesn’t he?”
“Much to his father’s disgust.”
“He’s wrong.”
Chris cocked a brow. “Tiff or his dad?”
She gave him a warning look,
but she had to smother a smile. “You know what I mean, Chris. Does Tiff have brothers or sisters?”
“One. A baby brother called Jake. Not much of a baby anymore. The little kid’s on hockey skates.”
“And they belong to... Catherine’s sister?”
Chris nodded. “Margo.” He met her gaze. “I have a lot of friends, Eden—”
“I didn’t mean—”
“Margo is the only one who knew about Catherine’s little flings.” He smiled bitterly. “She told me the day I married her little sister that I was setting myself up for one killer heartbreak. I was just...cocksure enough, I guess, to think I could keep Catherine happy all by myself.”
Eden didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t imagine how different her life might have been if she’d had Catherine’s choices instead of her own.
Chris had made love to her with every part of his being, with his mouth and his large, square hands, with his heart, his sex and his soul, and if the devil himself had offered her the chance to marry and be faithful to this man and to have his babies and raise them on skates, she would surely have made any bargain.
But all she could have of him was what he had given her last night because Catherine still lurked in his heart...or the memory of what he’d wanted her to be.
She couldn’t dwell on that, or even regret it. Christian Tierney was the man he was, and the lover he was, because of what he’d been through. And the gift he bad given her last night, the sensation however fleeting, of belonging , was all she had ever wanted.
She took a deep breath and looked straight at Chris. “Do you think Broussard knows all this by now? About the hospital and the car?”
“He knows,” Chris answered grimly.
“Then we have to get out of here, Chris. Before we put that child’s life in danger. And Jake’s and Margo’s.”
“I know.”
“Even her husband.” A sudden thought struck her and she shuddered. “What chance is there that if Tiffer heard the news and put two and two together, that his father won’t do the same?”
“None.” Chris scraped his whiskers with his knuckles. “He spends ten to twelve hours a day in surgery, but if he figures it all out and calls the FBI between cases and tells them he believes we were here...” He didn’t finish the thought. Eden knew as well as he did that Broussard was imminently capable of biting the hand that fed him the information. Of killing them all in punishment for harboring Eden Kelley, of aiding and abetting the flight of his property.
Chapter Thirteen
“I’m going to have to talk to him. And we need to make your call to see if Judith Cornwallis is okay.”
Remembering the shattered mirror and the bullet lodged in the silver backing of Judith’s mirror, Eden’s chest tightened. Blinking back tears, she nodded. “Let’s do it.”
She dressed in her still-damp jeans and sweatshirt, then, along with Chris, plunged into thoroughly cleaning the Bancroft guest house, which included wiping fingerprints off every imaginable surface. Her damp, dirty clothes were a constant annoyance. She longed for a shower and fresh clothing. But there was a mood between them that sent her heart soaring. An intimacy in sharing domestic chores together. Occasional, not-so-accidental touches. Lingering looks.
A fierce and tender awareness that made soggy, filthy clothes unnoticeable.
When they were done restoring the small guest house to order, Eden showed him Judith’s heirloom mirror and the bullet lodged in the silver frame. Grimly, he searched for the bullet hole, and found it concealed by a side-to-back seam and the natural folds of the supple leather. The bullet had also torn through a piece of linen that Eden had been working in a needlepoint design.
She behaved matter-of-factly, as if none of it really counted. He called her on it.
“It matters, Chris,” she admitted. “I ran away last night because I found the mirror like that, all broken to pieces.”
He let her off the hook. She’d had no more than a few moments back in that old woman’s cabin to gather together the things that were important to her, so he wasn’t fooled about the other things, either. He knew these were her prized possessions. A set of thimbles, needles. Her needlepoint. The mirror.
And a few delicate, exquisite pieces of underwear.
He replaced the mirror in the pack and put it down on the kitchen counter. He turned and, leaning against the edge, caught her wrist and pulled her into his arms.
Eden stilled. The experience was still so fresh, their lovemaking still so keen in her mind that the scent of his skin and warmth of his body made her insides ache with longing. Her eyes were at a level with his Adam’s apple. She wasn’t tiny but she felt delicate and womanly in his arms.
She let her gaze wander slowly upward, over the shadow of a cleft in his chin and his unshaven whiskers to his lips. Her mouth watered. His breath warmed her nose. Her hands lay flat on his pectorals and she stared at his parted lips. She rose up on tiptoe and touched her mouth to his.
He growled fiercely and pulled her hard against his body. The power of his response swept through her like wildfire, lit by her, consuming them both. He wanted her, loved her, and knowing that inflamed her more than even his kiss.
More than when he opened his mouth and tasted her lips and her tongue.
More than the arousing sensation of the edges of his teeth gently raking her lips and cheeks and the flashpoint of the tender flesh below her jaw.
“Eden. Eden,” he murmured thickly. “Feel what you do to me.”
Her pelvis rocked back, seeking him. His hands were all over her, beneath her sweatshirt, cupping her breasts, his thumbs flicking her sensitized, hardened nipples. A tide broke loose inside her and she cried out. She never noticed that when Chris stiffened, withdrew his hands and held her hips it wasn’t to torment her with pleasure in some other way.
“Banging a protected witness now, Tierney?” a man’s voice taunted. “That’s got to be a new low, even for you.”
Dazed, confused, Eden turned her head toward the furious voice. In the kitchen doorway stood a tall, impeccably dressed man with razor-cut hair, razor-sharp creases in his slacks and a mean, razor-slashing took in his eyes. And he stood there aiming a double-barreled shotgun.
Chris closed his arms protectively around her. “For an educated man, you have a filthy mind, Ed.”
“You stupid son of a bitch,” Ed Bancroft sneered nastily. “You kidnap a woman, hijack a plane, steal a car, come onto my property, proceed to shack up with her, and I’m the one with the filthy mind?”
The look that came over Chris’s face frightened Eden. Before he could respond, she touched his biceps and stepped back, facing Ed. “Everything Chris has done has been to protect me, Dr. Bancroft—”
“Does that include the screwing?” he inquired, exuding a terrible disrespect.
In one lightning movement, Chris’s left hand darted out and grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, disarming his angry and spite-filled brother-in-law. “Watch your mouth, Ed, or so help me God, I’ll rearrange it for you.”
For an instant, fear played in Ed’s eyes. “Fine, Tierney. Add felony menacing to your laundry list. I’m going to go call the authorities.” He turned on his heel and nearly collided with a small, out-of-breath blond woman who appeared suddenly in the doorway behind him.
Margo. Chris’s sister-in-law looked so much like Catherine Tierney that Eden’s heart plummeted. Her fingers flew to stifle the cry on her lips.
“Margo.” Chris conveyed a hundred apologies in his voice. He turned. “This is the woman I told you about. Eden Kelley.”
She gave a wavery, stunted smile. “Ed, please,” she begged. Her eyes darted to Eden, then back to Chris. “I’m the one who’s sorry. I tried to stop him, Chris, but—”
“And I asked you to stay in the house,” Ed snapped.
“If you would just listen—”
He waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve listened to your excuses for Tierney for fifteen years, Margo. This is bey
ond the pale—”
“That’s true, Ed,” Chris interrupted. “And I’m sorry. But I’m going to have to ask you not to make any calls.”
Ed gave an icy stare. “Ask, Tierney, but what you want has very little to do with what actions I take.” He took Margo by the elbow. “Turn around and leave here with me right now,” he ordered her. “I have a civic obligation to fulfill.”
“Think again, Ed,” Chris warned softly.
His brother-in-law turned back. “What did you say?”
“I said, think again, Ed,” Chris repeated. “I don’t give a damn what else you do, or when you do it, or if you file suit. Just don’t make that call.”
“You have completely lost it, haven’t you? What is there to prevent me? What will you do, Tierney? Shoot me in the back with my wife looking on?”
“Oh, Ed, stop it!” Margo snapped, jerking her arm away from him. “You selfish prig! Isn’t there even one compassionate bone in your body? Why won’t you just leave it alone!”
“Dr. Bancroft, please,” Eden interceded. “You’ll put yourself and your family in terrible danger.”
“What danger?” he demanded.
“The man who wants her dead is not a forgiving sort, Ed,” Chris answered reasonably. “Winston Broussard. Remember the name? He deals illegal arms, Ed. He hired an assassin to take out the only witness against him, and the assassin got Catherine. He kills without compunction.”
Chris droned relentlessly on. “I don’t like it any better than you, Ed, but you’ll have to swallow your fancy-assed indignation and trust me.” He cracked open the shotgun and emptied out the cartridges, then handed the weapon back to Ed. “You don’t want this man to know she’s been here, and sooner or later, if you’ve told the cops, he will know about it.”
“Fine.” The blood had all but drained from Ed’s face. He raised a finger and pointed at Chris. “But I want you to stay away from my son. I want you to stop calling my wife. And I want you off my property inside an hour.”
