Madison curled her fingers into her palm. “I learned to stay away from her then. She was so quiet, so still, that she scared me. It was as if she were trying to disappear. And then she would go away.” She stared at her lap. “In the end, she was the happiest I’d ever seen her. That’s what made it so horrible. She was happy. We went to a movie together. We’d never done that. The doctors were hopeful, my father talked about us taking a vacation. Then I came home from school one afternoon and there was blood everywhere. They tried to keep me from seeing it, but I saw it anyway. She was gone. I always thought that was why she’d been so happy. She’d finally decided what she should do.”
“Madison, stop.”
She looked at him. “Christopher used to say I was like her. That I was weak and eventually I would take my own life. I said that wasn’t true, but sometimes I wondered if it was. Sometimes I was afraid of what I would become.”
He stood and pulled her to her feet. She had trouble maintaining her balance, so he drew her close and wrapped his arms around her.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her hair. “Sorry for doing this to you. I should have believed you.”
“You were angry,” she said. “You’re not so angry now.”
He bent over and scooped her up in his arms. She relaxed into his embrace, as trusting as a child.
She didn’t say anything on the short journey back to her room. He placed her on the bed and smoothed her hair out of her face.
“You should sleep now,” he told her. “Try to rest. In a couple of hours, the drug will have worn off and you’ll feel better.”
Before he could move away, she grabbed his hand to hold him in place.
“I wish it had been me,” she told him. “Instead of your friend. I wish it had been me.”
Still in the grip of the strong drug he’d given her, he knew she spoke the truth. He would have known it anyway.
“You don’t have to wish that,” he said.
“I know, but I do.”
She released his hand and closed her eyes. He moved to the doorway, where he watched her for several minutes. He might have rescued her and kept her safe from her ex-husband, but he hadn’t earned the right to do what he’d done to her. The kicker was, all the regrets in the world didn’t give him a way to take it back.
Chapter 9
Madison woke with the sense of having lost time. She couldn’t explain the sensation any more clearly than that. It was dark outside, so she knew she’d missed most of the afternoon, but she had no recollection of hours passing or of having slept. It was as if her memory had developed a black hole.
She sat up and silently tested herself with a series of questions. Yes, she knew who she was and where she was. The reasons for her being there made sense and she knew the name of the current president. So why did she have a nagging sense of something being wrong?
There wasn’t any answer. She slowly stood, wobbling only a little. Had she been—
Memory returned. Not much, just the hint of an argument with Tanner. Something about him being angry and her not wanting to take the truth drug. She didn’t recall everything that had happened, but she didn’t like it. Worse, she couldn’t remember what she’d said to him.
She reached up and rubbed her head, as if she could find what was missing. She had the sense of being…violated. Not physically, she thought. But in her mind.
“Not possible,” she whispered. Except she couldn’t shake the belief that it was.
She left her room and started down the hall. Tanner sat in the kitchen, a cup of coffee in front of him. When he heard her, he looked up.
“How are you feeling?”
A simple question, she thought. Nothing upsetting about that. Yet for the first time since she’d met him, she felt afraid. Not so much of him, but in general.
“I can’t remember anything about what happened,” she said.
“That’s what happens. It will wear off.”
“Will my memory return?”
“No.”
So the void would linger, and she would always wonder what happened and what she said.
“You need to eat,” he told her. “That will help get the chemicals out of your system.”
Chemicals he had put there.
She searched his face, looking for hints or clues as to what had happened. There weren’t either, but there was something….
“I’ll fix you some soup,” he said. “Toast. You don’t want anything heavy.”
He made the statement without looking at her, without meeting her gaze. If he were anyone else, she would say he felt guilty.
“What did you do to me?” she asked. “Why am I afraid of you?”
He stood and faced her. Once again he wore all black. The dark, dangerous man who knew how to kill. She took a step back.
“You’re reacting to the drug. It will make you anxious for a few days.”
“No. This is about you.” She forced herself to breathe slowly. To think logically. What had happened? “Did you find out what you needed to?”
He nodded.
“Did you ask more than you should have?”
“You told me more.”
She forced herself to stand in place when she really wanted to step back and move away from him. What had she said? What secrets had she shared?
“Did you try to stop me?” she asked.
He turned toward the stove. “Go out onto the patio. I’ll bring you something to eat.”
She wanted to run out of this house and never see him again. The dull gleam of the security bracelet she wore reminded her that she was truly trapped here. There would be no running without Tanner’s permission.
Tanner fixed soup and toast, as he’d promised. He put both on a tray, along with some tea, and carried them outside.
Madison sat in the dark at the patio table. Although there were lights and switches by the slider, she hadn’t bothered to turn them on. The sun had only set an hour or so ago, so the air was still warm. Crickets called out from the edges of the garden.
She didn’t glance at him or acknowledge his presence. He felt her disapproval and his own guilt.
“I’m sorry,” he said as he set down the tray in front of her. “I was angry about Kelly and I took it out on you.”
“I trusted you.”
“I know.”
“You betrayed that.”
She couldn’t know for sure, but she was right. He had betrayed her.
“Yes.” He pushed the tray toward her. “You need to eat. You’ll feel better afterward.”
“I should listen to you why?”
“Because I’m all you have right now.”
She finally looked at him. Even in the darkness he could see the hurt in her expression. “Gee, what does that say about my life?”
“Madison…”
“Go away.”
He probably should have, but he couldn’t. Instead he took the seat across from her and leaned back in the chair. “You maybe have noticed I have this thing against rich women,” he said.
“Not really.”
He looked at her. “Now I know you’re lying.”
She shrugged, then reached for the tea. “Whatever.”
“There’s a good reason.”
“Good, maybe. Interesting? Unlikely.”
She wanted to wound him. Payback, he thought, knowing he’d earned it.
“I grew up in the barrio of Los Angeles,” he said. “About fifteen miles from here. The only mostly Anglo kid on my street or in my class. My mother died of a drug overdose when I was five and I never knew my father. My grandmother raised me. She was tiny, religious and lived her life in fear of me losing my immortal soul.”
He smiled as he thought about the amazing woman who had raised him. “She couldn’t stop me from joining a gang when I turned twelve or getting arrested more times than either of us could count. By the time I turned eighteen, I’d spent a total of three years in juvenile detention and jail. I didn’t expect to
make it to my twenty-fifth birthday. I’m not sure she did, either. Gang life was hard and dangerous. But she was determined I would be one of the rare ones who made it out. She insisted I go to mass with her twice a week, if I wasn’t locked up, and she never stopped praying for my soul. She wanted more for me.”
Madison started on her soup without speaking. Tanner told himself that silence was a good sign. He didn’t usually talk about his past with anyone, but he knew he owed her something and this was all he could think of.
“She begged me to give up the gang, to find another goal. Something that would give me a future. Two weeks before my eighteenth birthday, Nana was fatally shot in a drive-by shooting. She’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I couldn’t even go after someone for revenge—the shooter was in my own gang.”
Madison raised her gaze to his. “Was it you?”
“No. I wasn’t around when it happened or I would have prevented it. Instead I could only hold her hand as she slowly bled to death.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too. She was…” He hesitated, then figured he might as well say it all. “She’s the only person I’ve ever really loved and the only one who loved me back. I told her I would make things right, but I didn’t know how. You can’t kill someone in your own gang, although I was willing to for her. She told me to forget about the gang and the streets. To leave. She made me promise to join the Marines for one tour. That was all. When that was done, I could do whatever I wanted with my life. So I agreed. I buried her and enlisted on the same day.”
“Things seem to have worked out the way she wanted.”
“Yeah. I got out of the inner city, saw some of the world. Grew up. Once I realized I’d been damn lucky to escape with my life, I never wanted to go back.”
“Good for you.”
He shrugged. “Good for her. For never giving up. After life on the streets, life in the service was a snap. When my tour ended, I found work as a mercenary. I took to it.”
“I can imagine.”
“I worked my way into a job with a high-profile security company. Long hours, great pay and I got to see the world.”
She picked up the toast. “There’s a woman involved, isn’t there?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Rich?”
“Kidnapped daughter of a Swiss banker.”
“Ah. Let me guess. You rescued her and at the same time swept her off her feet with your many charms.”
Despite the tension between them, he smiled. “Pretty much.”
“Really?”
“Are you surprised because you don’t think I’m charming or because it’s such a cliché?”
Madison considered the question. “Both.”
“She was young and spoiled and enjoyed being rescued. I became her flavor of the month. For reasons not clear to anyone, she wanted to marry me. Her father didn’t approve but he wasn’t used to telling her no.”
“You said you hadn’t loved anyone but your grandmother. So you didn’t love her?”
“I thought I did. We set up housekeeping in Paris. I worked European jobs and she went back to her life. Neither of us was especially good at marriage. I realized she’d grown tired of our arrangement when I came home and found her in bed with a Greek shipping tycoon. I could handle the infidelity. It was being a part of a second cliché that did us in.”
“So you come by your dislike of wealthy women honestly.”
“In a way.”
Madison finished the toast. As Tanner had promised, she felt better than she had. At least physically. Emotionally she was still shaky.
He was trying. She could see proof of that. He felt badly for what he’d done. But that didn’t erase the act. She felt violated—as if he’d assaulted her. Not physically, but in her mind. In a way, that was worse.
Hearing about his past made him more human. She liked knowing he had frailties like everyone else. But it wasn’t enough.
“With power comes responsibility,” she told him.
His dark gaze sharpened. “I agree.”
“You blew it big-time.”
“Yes.”
“You manhandled me and you drugged me.”
She waited, wondering if he would use the excuse that she’d agreed to the truth serum as a way to prove her innocence. Funny how that seemed a lifetime ago.
“I can’t justify what I did,” he said quietly. “I can only apologize and offer to have someone else come stay here with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“One of my other men. I have a team. My second in command is very capable. He could stay here while I work the problem from another location. I would continue the investigation of Hilliard, but you wouldn’t have to deal with me directly.”
She hadn’t expected that. Emotions swirled inside of her and she wasn’t sure what they meant. Her overriding urge was to beg him to stay. She didn’t want to start over with someone else.
“Why would you do that?” she asked.
“Because you aren’t comfortable around me. I don’t want to make you feel worse.”
“I thought you didn’t care about me. I thought I was a drama queen.”
One shoulder raised slightly. “That was before I knew you.”
Which meant what? That he felt differently now? That she mattered?
“I want you to protect my father,” she said. “I don’t care if there’s reason to or not. I want someone around to make sure Christopher doesn’t try anything.”
“Agreed.”
Just like that. She studied Tanner more closely. There were shadows she hadn’t seen before. An odd set to his mouth. When he’d drugged her, she’d felt his anger as if it were her own. Now she felt his guilt, remorse and shame. Christopher had never felt anything but satisfaction when he’d hurt her.
“If you could take it back—” she began.
“I’d do everything differently,” he told her. “I’ve never done anything like that before.” He grimaced. “There’s a guy’s line. In this case it’s true. I hate what I did to you. There’s no excuse for it.”
She believed him. Maybe it was dumb or risky, but she did. Still, she had to know what had happened.
“What did we talk about?”
He hesitated before answering. “Your mother.”
Madison hadn’t expected that. “I told you she was crazy?”
“You told me about her going away for rests and how she wanted to disappear. You said you were afraid of being like her and that in the end, she killed herself.”
All her secrets, she thought sadly. Laid bare for him to pick over and judge.
“You couldn’t just ask me about my sex life?” she said with a lightness she didn’t feel. Embarrassment gripped her, making her want to squirm.
He reached across the table and took her hand in his. Strong fingers held hers, offering comfort. She surprised herself by accepting it. After all that had happened, she would have thought she would still be physically afraid of him. Apparently not.
“You’re not crazy,” he said, staring into her eyes. “You’re sane and rational. More than that, you’re strong. You were kidnapped by your ex-husband and held for twelve days. You didn’t crack. Not even close. When I came and got you, you managed to convince me to help you, and I’m not an easy sell. You’re made of steel, Madison. Whatever happens, he’s not going to break you. I think he knows that and it scares the hell out of him.”
She didn’t know what to say. Oddly enough, she wanted to burst into tears, throw herself at Tanner and have him hold her tight.
She didn’t do any of it. “You sure know how to turn a girl’s head.”
“I mean it. I respect you.”
Coming from him, that was high praise. “I appreciate that. I…” She pulled her hand free of his and dropped it to her lap. “I know why you did it,” she said in a low voice. “You were angry about Kelly’s death. You wanted someone punished and I was close.”
“It wasn’t your f
ault. Madison, you’re the innocent in all this. You didn’t ask to be kidnapped and you sure didn’t do anything to make things go wrong. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. I’m the one who sent him on the assignment.”
He drew in a deep breath. “You’re right. I was angry. Beyond angry. He was a great kid with his whole life in front of him. I lashed out and you were convenient.” He turned away and stared out into the night. “I’ve never let feelings get in the way before. I can’t tell you how much I regret my actions.”
The night was still, as if the crickets had stopped their songs just to listen.
“I know.” She believed him because she felt his pain. Because she believed he was basically a good man who had been pushed too far, unlike Christopher, who had never believed he’d done anything wrong.
“Thank you,” Tanner murmured.
Now it was her turn to reach out. She touched his upper arm, just above the sleeve seam on his T-shirt. “Has it occurred to you that neither of us is to blame for Kelly’s death?” she asked. “Doesn’t that lie with the person who pulled the trigger and Christopher, who hired him in the first place?”
“Good point.”
She didn’t think she’d actually convinced him that it wasn’t his fault, but maybe he could consider the possibility. Bad enough to mourn the death of a friend without the added burden of being the reason he was gone.
“You don’t need to leave,” she said.
Tanner stared at her. “Are you sure? I can have someone else here within the hour.”
“Any plans to drug me again?” she asked.
“Don’t joke about that.”
“I’m not.”
“Then no. I’ll never do that again.”
Something had shifted between them. She couldn’t explain it and she wasn’t sure she even understood it. Maybe it was his guilt or his attempts to level the playing field by sharing his past with her. Maybe it was that she believed he thought she was strong. Maybe it was that they’d both been rubbed raw emotionally and that had brought them together. In some strange way, she felt as if she knew Tanner better than she’d known anyone in her life.
Living on the Edge Page 8
