“Which is?”
“Kyle.”
She narrowed her eyes. This was nothing more than a delaying tactic. Kyle was gone. The decision lay with John whether or not to sell her the fair. “I’m dealing with you. Not Kyle.” She hesitated. “Aren’t I?”
“Yes.”
Frustration stormed through her mind and hopelessness threatened her heart. “Then what’s the problem?”
He spread his hands on top of the box. “These are papers on everyone Kyle considered of any importance in his life.”
She met his eyes. “Are you in there?”
He flinched like she’d slapped him and Sasha sucked in a breath. What’s wrong with me? What happened to being nice? She closed her eyes. “I didn’t mean... I didn’t mean that Kyle...” She opened her eyes.
His pallor had turned a strange hue of gray. If she bounced a coin off his jaw, Sasha didn’t doubt it would buckle on impact.
“Look, I’m sorry.” She pulled the box onto her lap and lifted the lid. “I assume whatever is in this file, Kyle wanted it kept private. Why are you showing this to me?”
“I want to know if you can shed any light on who these people are.” He shifted forward, his cheeks darkening, returning his skin to its former color. “If you know these people and can tell me how they’re perceived in the Cove, then it might give me a better idea of what Kyle was up to just prior to his arrest. The instructions he left me are sketchy at best. I don’t want to go about my business and end up unwittingly coming face-to-face with someone happy to smash my kneecaps.”
She smiled. “Does Templeton really seem like the kind of place you’d find that person?”
“No, but there was something that kept Kyle here.”
Her smile faltered. “That’s true.”
“He pretty much left things for me to deal with as I see fit, but for some reason he thinks the people in that box will help or hinder whatever path I decide to take. It would be good if I had an idea of who I’m dealing with before they start turning up demanding answers in the same vein you and Freddy are.”
She slowly closed the lid and folded her hands on top. “I think we need to start being honest with each other. I can’t go on like this. Am I putting myself in danger by helping you?”
His gaze was steady. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You can’t promise that. You said you don’t know these people, and we both know Kyle didn’t associate with the nice people around town. You wouldn’t find him at the summer fete handing out fliers or whipping up a blanket to sell at the knitting stall. We need to start being honest.” She drew in a breath and exhaled. “Shall I go first or you?”
He studied her. His cool blue gaze languidly wandered over her face and hair.
Her heart beat hard and her mouth went dry, but enough was enough. This standoff between them couldn’t go on. “We’ve been circling each other like caged animals ever since you got here. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of it. Having time away from here yesterday did me some good.”
Amusement softened his dark blue gaze and he smiled softly. “You mean you actually enjoyed being away from the fair for a while? Or from me?”
“Only you.” She met his smile. It was impossible not to.
Seconds ticked by as they sat smiling at each other and when Sasha’s cheeks turned warm, she dropped her gaze to the box in her lap. “I’m willing to help you work through whatever it is you want to do with regard to Kyle, but you have to give me some sort of incentive to help you.” She forced her gaze to his.
He watched her intently, his beautiful smile gone.
Drawing in a deep breath, she pushed on. “You can’t expect me to get involved with this—” she tapped the file “—without some sort of guarantee whatever I find isn’t going to bring my world crashing down.”
“I wouldn’t let that happen. So, you’re right. Honesty is the best way forward. What is it you want to know?”
Surprised at his ready agreement, she struggled to retain her cool. She gave a curt nod. “Why are you trusting me so much? Why let me learn about Kyle’s associates and what he was doing? What’s in it for you for me to know that stuff?”
“I like you, Sasha, and I know we’ve only just met, but I’m beginning to trust you, too. I want to give you the fair, but I won’t do that until I’m sure it won’t bring more trouble to your door. Regardless of what you think of me, I won’t abandon you to the wolves that could be circling this place. That’s something Kyle would do and, as I’ve told you before, I’m not him.”
Sasha stared. Past hurt was clearly etched on his face, and she prayed hers never showed quite so deeply. She looked at the box in her lap. “I know you’re not Kyle.”
“Do you?”
She met his gaze. His eyes shone with determination. “Yes. I also want to trust you and what you’re doing here, but I’m afraid. Afraid of being let down.”
“You won’t. If I’m convinced it’s safe to give you Funland, I will. We’ll look into the clause that stands between the place being yours and I’ll do everything in my power to get it overturned. I care about you, and I’m not holding back the fair to hurt you. You have to believe that.” He leaned his elbows on the desk. “Kyle’s lying to me. The house in Marchenton we went to see? He had zero intention of giving it up. It was repossessed after he was arrested and that’s just the beginning of the dishonesty I’ll undoubtedly uncover. He hasn’t seen me for almost twenty years, and he’s lying to me. I don’t trust him. I don’t think I ever will, so what he does or doesn’t want is no longer a part of the equation...if it ever was. Once I know everything, I’ll be able to move on and put the past to rest. I refuse to live there anymore.”
His jaw was tight and his gaze icy cold. A shiver of trepidation ran up Sasha’s spine. The past. God, she understood him so much. The similarities between them were as unnerving as anything Kyle could or couldn’t have done to either of them.
She shook her head and desperately pushed away the threat of her demons as they rose and hovered around her like a dark cloud. “I still don’t understand why you need my help.”
He leaned forward and placed his elbows on the desk, clasping his hands together. His knuckles turned white, and Sasha flicked her gaze to his eyes. They were somber. “I think you play a bigger part than either of us knows in Kyle working to get the fair from your grandfather.”
She frowned. “Why would you think that?”
“When he wrote asking me to come to Templeton, he said he’d had enough of running the businesses, but also that he’d done some things he shouldn’t have. Things he deemed worse than the lives he messed up by supplying cocaine for God knows how long.”
“What can be worse than that?”
He closed his eyes and Sasha’s trepidation soared.
“Before my father was sent to prison the first time—”
“The first time? He’s been in prison before? For what?”
“I can’t tell you that. Not yet.”
“I thought we were going to start being honest here.” Just as you are, you mean?
“Once upon a time my father held family as the one true thing in life. The one thing we should respect and cherish.”
Anger shot through her blood in a hot, piercing stream. “You’re lying.”
He snapped his eyes open. “What?”
“How can you say that when Kyle willingly ripped the one thing my family had to call their own right out from underneath them?”
“Exactly.” He stood and came around the desk. When he gripped her hands in his and held tight, preventing her from fleeing as she wanted to, Sasha’s fear of entrapment crawled through her veins.
She glanced toward the door. “I need to get out of here. I need to work. I don’t want to listen to this.”
He squeezed her hands, his gaze darting over her face. “He mentioned your mother. Even said he regretted using her, whatever the hell that means.”
She stared. She
couldn’t believe what she was hearing, couldn’t believe he would say those things. “Why are you doing this?”
“I’m convinced he used your mother’s derision of Funland to get it from your family. For better or worse, the fairground deals in loads of cash every day. It was the simplest way for him to launder money and build new drug contacts.”
Revulsion hurtled through her as the vile words tumbled from his mouth. Her heart raced and her mind filled with images of her mother’s face, twisted in disgust every time Sasha begged her to help keep Funland in their family and not let Kyle turn it into something so loathsome, mothers would stop bringing their children and fathers would want their families to avoid it at all costs.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “My mother wouldn’t do that. Yes, she hated this place. Thought it made our family look like gypsies and felt that made us inferior to others in Templeton, but to let it go to Kyle when she knew what he was...”
“I’m not lying to you. God knows, it’s harder to tell you the truth. It’s you, Sasha. I’m convinced the whole thing with the clause, your grandfather, I think you’re the key to unraveling everything about this place.”
“Why?” She opened her eyes as raw hurt and panic rushed through her. Her heart beat fast. Does he know? Does he know what happened to me here? Does Kyle? “What are you talking about? Your father barely spoke to me.”
“He knew you were likely to go after the fair once he was in prison. He knew and asked me not to sell it to you under any circumstances.”
“Me, specifically?”
“Yes.”
“This is crazy. Is my money not good enough for the great Kyle Jordon?”
His gaze darted over her face, her hair and her lips. “This isn’t about money.”
“Then what the hell is it about?”
“I can only assume he doesn’t want to face what he’s done. How low he sank for greed and money. If you gain full access to the fair, you’ll eventually find out everything.”
“What do you mean everything?”
“I don’t know. Not yet. But I know there’s more.”
She shook her head, hating that tears burned her eyes. “This is madness.” She drew her hands from his. “The Kyle I knew practically spat in the face of anyone who dared judge him. Why worry about my reaction to his misdemeanors?”
“The circumstances have changed forever for Kyle. He knows that and for the first time ever, he’s scared.”
“Why? What are you talking about?”
“He’s dying.”
She stiffened. “What?”
He shrugged. “It seems even the invincible Kyle Jordon quakes at the thought of facing his maker after everything he’s done. Maybe he liked you more than you realize and the prospect of you finding out what he did to take the fair is more than he’s prepared to face.”
“He’s dying?”
He nodded.
Sasha closed her eyes. How could she scream and shout when John was facing the loss of a parent—no matter how wrong or bad that parent was?
“Oh, God. What a mess. I’m sorry your dad—” She opened her eyes.
“Don’t be. I’m not.” He lifted his shoulders, looked above her head toward the door.
He said the words, but the flicker of sad confusion in his gaze belied the casual dismissal of Kyle’s plight. She shook her head. “How will we work this out?” she whispered. “How can you possibly go against a dying man’s wishes? I want the fair and you’re the one with the power.”
“None of this is about power.”
Sadness enveloped her. “Of course it is.”
“It’s not.”
“Then let me undo everything that has gone on here and make things good again. If Kyle cared about me at all, he’d understand giving me the fair is the right thing to do.”
His gaze wandered over her face once more. “Once I’m sure—”
Anger caught behind her rib cage and burst into flame. She leaped to her feet, shoving her chair backward. “Stop saying that. You don’t know me. You have no obligation to protect me. I can handle—”
“Why do you want Funland if your mother hated it so much? Was willing to sell it to the devil? Don’t you wonder what was going on with her before and after she coerced your grandfather into signing it over to Kyle? Everything feels tainted. Maybe it would be better for both of us to forget this place ever existed and get on with our lives. Kyle wasn’t a good man...despite Inspector Garrett saying she saw good in him.”
Sasha stared, confusion marring her emotion. “She said that?”
“Yes.”
Images of Kyle smiling in that disconcerting and friendly way of his floated through her mind; the times she caught him staring fondly at a child with dark hair and blue eyes—not unlike John’s—when he thought no one was looking.
“You have to sell it to me.” Her heart beat like a hammer as she looked into his handsome face. Into blue eyes darkened with concern and care. “You have to.”
“Why?”
“John, please—”
“Talk to me.” He lifted his hand and brushed his thumb across her cheek. “Let me in. What is it about this place that really has such a hold on you?”
He moved closer.
Sasha’s heart picked up speed as his gaze intensely searched hers. She tried and failed to drag some words into her mouth. He moved a little closer and laid his hands at her waist. She knew what was coming but made no move to stop him and instead, leaned closer and smoothed her hands to his rock-hard biceps. He eased her mouth open with lips tender and soft against hers.
His tongue was pliant and enraptured her with the perfect assertion of masculine power she’d failed to accept in any man before. The contact was a spark to a smoldering fire and she met his provocation with ardent fervor as she hungrily kissed him back, a whimper escaping her. Lust that had been building since she set eyes on him fanned to a frenzy by the hurt confusion burning inside and the rightness of being in his arms.
He slipped one hand to the back of her neck and gently tugged her closer with the other. She slid her hands down his arms to grip his strong, sinewy forearms—the part of him she’d wanted to touch in what felt like forever. They didn’t disappoint and all the horror of her memories slipped away. She’d embrace these moments of liberty for as long as they lasted.
Her breasts pressed deliciously against the flat plane of his chest as she and John kissed and tussled, discovered and devoured. Her arousal turned feral and lust ripped through every cell in her body. She didn’t step back and she didn’t slow down. She’d only think when he stopped taking her and they had to face the reality that the fair separated their individual needs, yet it was the catalyst that brought them together.
Control. She had to have control. This was her decision. Not his. She chose when to have sex and with whom. Not the man. Never the man.
So why, for the first time in forever, did she feel John Jordon was the one stripping her of the basic instinct to breathe? Why did the prospect of him taking her feel so exciting, instead of terrifying? Her heart raced with anticipation; her body screamed for his touch. She wanted to have sex with this man. Now. Feel him deep inside her...
Deeper and deeper he kissed her before easing back. She stared at him, silently begging for more. She’d surrender to this moment rather than regret it forever. She felt his pain and heard his plea. She knew this man and, God help her, she really wanted to trust him with all her heart.
“This is crazy, but I want to do this, John. I want to be with you. All of you.”
A low guttural moan escaped him before he whispered her name and dropped his lips to the side of her neck.
CHAPTER TWELVE
JOHN’S HEART HAMMERED as he sucked and nipped at her neck. Her hands moved silkily like brushed velvet over the exposed skin of his arms, driving him insane with the need to have her. He lifted his head. Her dark eyes bored into his, her mouth swollen red and ridiculously inviting. He swallowed. “Are you sur
e? This feels insane, but I want you. I care about you, Sasha. I care what happens to you.”
Her body trembled in his grasp. “Let’s go in the kitchen.”
He froze, his body wired with tension.
Her cheeks flushed as she took his hand. Silently, she led him toward the office kitchen. Once inside, she dropped his hand and closed the door. The key clicked in the lock.
She turned and they faced each other. John’s mind raced and his libido soared. He lifted an eyebrow at the sexy, fiery intention in her eyes. “You want to do this now? In here?”
She nodded.
Indecision battled inside him. Lust versus gallantry battered his conscience. He swallowed. “We don’t have to—”
“Yes, we do.” She lunged forward and gripped his jaw in her strong fingers, before pulling him forward and hungrily closing her mouth over his.
His mind emptied of consideration as he yanked her shirt from her jeans. Their lips separated for the briefest of seconds as he pulled the shirt over her head, and then she went for his T-shirt. He glanced at her breasts, encased in black satin. The sun-kissed orbs showed above their tantalizing constraint. Christ, he longed to touch her, kiss her and take one sweet nipple deep into his mouth.
He pulled her to him and the cushion of her full breasts pressed against his chest. He smoothed his hand over her back, lower to grip her butt and press her fully against his erection. She whispered his name into his mouth before clawing cruel fingernails over his biceps, higher into the hair at the nape of his neck. Lust, disbelief and yearning rushed and battled through him as they kissed harder and deeper.
This woman was a hot, passionate dynamo who made him feel like everything and nothing at the same time. The delight in her eyes when she laughed made him want her. The sadness, when it came, even more so. He wanted to protect her, lift her, make her laugh and scream and shout and cuss. Time after time, women had come into his life and he’d easily let them go. Sasha Todd was different. He was in the deepest shit possible, but no way could he turn away from her now.
What Belongs to Her (Harlequin Superromance) Page 13
