How could she tell this man that she didn’t want to see him anymore? See him, ever again? She’d worked it out in her head. And it had to be another man. That was the only excuse he would believe at this point, because it was more than clear that she found him attractive, that she enjoyed having him in her bed. But she hadn’t admitted to anything beyond that, had been very careful to avoid telling him what was in her heart. So if she claimed to be in love with someone else, there was at least a chance he would believe it.
She’d considered using Sam Bailey, but that just didn’t seem fair, and was extremely unprofessional to boot. Sam was an important client, a good friend, and she wouldn’t feel right abusing either relationship. Plus, she thought as she released Jack from his carrier, watched him jump out of the thing like it was on fire, Jordan seemed to be hung up on Michael as the source of every ill.
And she’d feel much less guilty about using him toward her own end.
Jack glared at her from the passenger seat before he started licking the rain from his paws, and Ava glared right back before setting the climate control to defrost. Yes, it would have to be Michael. She’d never gotten over him, she was looking to reconcile – maybe actively in the process. Last she’d heard, Michael was seeing someone, but Jordan didn’t have to know that – and was sorry for misleading Jordan in any way.
End of story, she thought as she turned her wipers on high, her lights on low, and crept out of the parking lot. End of relationship.
With that thought depressing the hell out of her, Ava eased into the traffic along Abercorn Street, which moved like sludge. Heavy rain was to the south what crippling blizzards were to regular, sane people, so everyone drove like their ninety year old grandpas or else they didn’t drive at all. Vehicles sat off to the side of the road, hazards blinking like frantic eyes, and the occasional truly stupid individual stopped right in the middle of the damn street.
Impatient by nature and in a particularly foul mood due to both weather and circumstance, Ava wasn’t shy about using her horn. And on one occasion, her middle finger. Ava decided Katie would have been mortified.
Katie was also going to be less than pleased when Ava told her she’d dumped Jordan, to say nothing of how Lou Ellen was going to react. Jordan had brought Lou Ellen flowers the other day, for pity’s sake, something about her doing him a favor. Ava had pumped Lou Ellen for information, but her landlord, her friend, had simply said that it was between her and Jordan.
Exactly what was Ava supposed to make of that?
By the time she finally made it home, the storm was at full rage overhead. The evening had gone black as the mouth of hell, and water cascaded down the stairs to her apartment. Ava sloshed through, slipped once, and nearly sent Jack into a panic that had him clawing at her as she unlocked the door.
“Should have left you in the stupid carrier.”
Lightening crashed in an electric burst that literally lifted the hairs on her neck.
“Holy shit.” Dripping, swearing, and shaking from cold, Ava dropped the cat and reached inside to hit the switch for the lights.
Nothing happened.
“Just great,” she muttered. And stepping into the dark living room, slammed the door closed behind her. That last lightening strike must have knocked out the power.
She pulled off her jacket, hung it on the hall tree. Toed off her wet sneakers and kicked them under the bench. She was trying to remember where she’d left the damn flashlight when another bolt of lightening temporarily illuminated the room.
The shadow behind her became a man, and the man’s hand clamped over her mouth.
“Don’t. Scream.”
It backed up in her throat. But she caught the familiar scent, grabbed at the long fingers to yank them away, and whirled toward her uninvited guest.
“Jordan, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Pushing at her bedraggled hair, she gave him a basilisk glare. It was too dark to see his face, his expression – too dark for him to see hers either, for that matter – but she knew the smell of him, the feel of his hand nearly as well as she did her own. “You almost scared me to death. For a moment, I thought you were someone else.”
“That makes two of us.”
Ava fell back a step at the tone. She’d heard him angry before, felt the heat of it that morning he’d found the window smashed in, but never had she heard the sort of cold fury as she did now. The chill of it practically burned her.
“How did you get in here?” she thought to ask.
He held something up, though in the dark it was difficult to make out exactly what it was. “Spare key. Your landlord was kind enough to lend it to me.”
“Something I’ll be sure to discuss with her at the first opportunity.” Keeping her own tone even as she could manage, Ava tried to control the wild thumping of her heart.
All sorts of thoughts flitted through her head, but she couldn’t say any of them were good. But instead of addressing his obvious anger, she took the coward’s way out. Again.
“I might not have been so startled if I’d seen your car in the drive.” She wrapped her arms around herself against the chill. “I guess I was too focused on getting inside.”
“My car’s not in the drive. I parked a couple of streets over, and walked.”
“In this weather?” Her laugh was brittle, chunks of ice that broke as they fell. Shaking, she moved farther into the shadowed room, wanting to put some space between them.
He knew. Knew something, though the question was, what? Not just what, but how much? And how was he going to use it against her?
Of course, she’d been kidding herself to think it wouldn’t come to this. She’d expected it, hadn’t she, from the moment he’d walked into her clinic. “Not exactly the best evening for a stroll,” she pointed out.
“I didn’t want to take a chance on your uncle’s men following me.”
Ava froze, muscle by muscle, bone by trembling bone. The memory of the final scene with Michael blew through her in a frigid gale. And because it did, because she’d been here before, in nearly the same position with a man she loved, she took the cold, embraced it, because it was so much better to be numb.
“How did you find out?” she asked over her shoulder, relieved that her voice didn’t crack. How much worse, how much more painful, if he knew her heart lay quivering at his feet.
Although in reality, it couldn’t have been better timing. She wouldn’t have to use Michael to get rid of him now.
“I was worried about you.” Ava didn’t trust the softness, the deceptive tone. She’d already heard his disgust for what it was. “The car that followed us,” he said. “The slashed tire. The broken window. The visitor at your clinic with the clove cigarette.”
He’d eased back to within touching distance now, though he made no attempt at contact. “I hired someone to do some checking.”
At that, Ava whirled around. “You… you hired someone to check up on me?” She was so fired up that the ice cracked. How dare he? How dare he? “You paid someone to dig into what I told you was none of your business?”
“Actually, I hired him to check up on your ex. Imagine my surprise when he turned up cleaner than you did.”
At that, a storm built inside her to rival the one outside. “I see. So I’m guilty by association. I’m not the prosecutor here, but I’m pretty sure that charge doesn’t stick.”
“No.” Jordan grabbed her arm. “But how about failure to report a crime, impeding an investigation. How about kidnapping and accessory to murder?”
Ava’s sharp indrawn breath told Jordan everything he wanted to know. He grabbed her other arm and shook her, not bothering to be gentle. “Did you help them kill Leslie? Or simply stand by and watch while they did? Or what… you got squeamish at the last minute and decided to back out? The murder of an innocent woman might buy you some time, but maybe you realized that knocking off a prosecutor is a pretty damn serious offense.”
She started shaking beneath his ha
nds. “You…” She gulped in air. “You think I had anything to do with that?”
Where was her anger, Ava wondered again? She needed her anger to warm her up. To fight off the unbelievable hurt. “How…” Oh, she cursed the tremor in her voice. “How can you even think that after –”
“After sleeping with you?” Even in the dark, she could see the disgust plainly in his eyes. Whether for her or for himself she couldn’t be sure. “Wasn’t that part of the plan? Seduce the one guy that could put you away, so that when he figures everything out he’ll be so compromised by his relationship with you that you’ll wind up getting off?”
That did it. Ava found her anger in spades. “You ignorant son of a bitch.” She shook his hands off and shoved him in the chest, hard enough that he actually stumbled back. “First of all, if you’ll search your memory, you’ll recall that you kept trying to seduce me. I wanted nothing to do with you.” She threw her arms out to her sides. “You think you’ve put it all together, do you? Well you don’t have a clue. You want to know what my impression of you was that night, when I happened upon you in that trunk? That you were a big, stupid fool. I spent ten minutes trying to get you to move, ruined my best pair of pants, broke at least three nails, got blood stains on my damn car, and… oh yeah… risked my freaking life to haul your ass out of there before they could kill you. You think I want to be related to him? You think I asked to be a part of this? I wasn’t around to see what happened to your friend, and I’m pretty much regretting that I was around to see you. If I had it to do over, I would have closed the trunk and pretended I never laid eyes on you. You have been nothing – nothing, nothing, nothing – but a pain in my ass since I did.” She emphasized her point by drilling her finger into his chest. “So unless you have some charges you’re willing to press, some reason for being in my face, why don’t you hand over my damn key and get the hell out of my life!”
Her anger seemed to burn the chill from the room, and her labored breath puffed out like steam. Lightening cracked, thunder rumbled, and that icy gaze sizzled where it touched her skin.
Until he hauled her up against his chest.
His mouth crushing hers in a firestorm, Jordan’s arms were the ones that shook. Hot tears leaked out of Ava’s eyes as she felt herself melt against him. So cold. She’d been so cold, and here was the warmth.
Jordan cupped her face, brushed at her cheeks, and pulled back just enough so she could see him. “I’m sorry. I love you, Ava, and I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”
Ava started to sob. “Oh God, Jordan, I love you, too.”
Scooping her up gently as if she were a china doll, he carried her to the sofa.
And held her, pressing his lips to her hair as her heart emptied itself of tears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO“DRINK this,” Jordan coaxed as he handed Ava a cup of hot tea. He’d gotten her out of her wet clothes, wrapped her in a blanket on the corner of the couch, but now that the anger had left her she couldn’t seem to shake the chill.
“I feel a little sick.”
“The tea’s chamomile. Lucky thing you had it.” The power was still out, but he’d managed to ignite the pilot light on the stove and heat a kettle of water. “My mom always swore by it when one of us had an upset stomach.” And he knew she needed the heat now, as she seemed to be suffering a kind of shock.
Hell, so was he.
He’d not only had the rug yanked out from under him, but it had been rolled up and used to beat him when he was down.
Thunder rumbled outside, but the worst of it had died to what he thought of as an old man’s grumbling. “Thanks,” Ava said as he joined her, glancing up out of red and swollen eyes. The candlelight flickered over her tear-ravaged cheeks, and Jordan felt like a big bully.
“I’m sorry.” He sought out her feet under the blanket and tried to rub some heat into them with his hands. No matter how many times he said that, it wouldn’t make up for putting that wounded look on her face.
“It’s too bad this place doesn’t have a fireplace,” she said, shivering.
“I’ll keep you warm.” He tucked the blanket tighter around her. “Ava. Are you ready to talk a little more?”
“Might as well.” She eyed him over the rim of the cup. “You’ve seen my trump card. Why not get the rest of them out on the table?”
He squeezed her foot, drew both of them into his lap. “Okay. I understand the whole chain of events which resulted in you dumping me at the hospital. But what I’m still not clear on is why your uncle would have gone after me in the first place. Most of the drug cases I’ve tried have been fairly small time, and I can’t see how they would have affected his pipeline, his business. It’s not like there’s a shortage of pushers on the street. There’ve been some pretty big meth rings busted up in the past few years, but far as we could tell, they were strictly local. Unless somewhere along the line I inadvertently stepped on his toes.”
Ava shook her head. “It wasn’t supposed to be you. That’s, well, I guess you could call it the irony of the whole situation. I overheard the men who took you, that night at the club. I don’t know how, or why, but they got you by mistake.” She hesitated, and he knew she was struggling against what had to be a knee-jerk instinct for self-preservation. Growing up as she had, who she had, she couldn’t help but see him on some level as the enemy. And though that burned, and badly, he tried to set it aside so they could get past this.
“Ava.” When she wouldn’t look at him, he gently cupped her chin. “Ava. You can trust me. I won’t lie and say you won’t be hurt by this, because we both know some repercussions are inevitable. By I promise you, sweetheart. I’m on your side.” He brushed her lips with his.
He drew back, searched those bruised-looking eyes, and nearly panicked when they watered up again. “Uh-oh. I’m –”
“No,” she said, and blinking furiously, pushed them back. “Don’t be sorry. Don’t. I’m just… I guess I’m just so relieved to hear you say that. I was so afraid. So afraid to lose you, to have to push you away when I wanted you so much. But more, I was afraid for you to look at me as something less. A lot of people have, because of what my family is, or has done.”
“I look at you. And I see more than I ever hoped for.”
“Oh. Well, now that’s done it.” A tear spilled over and she flapped her hand, set the tea aside so she wouldn’t spill it. “Maybe I could just go ahead and tell you the rest, before I start to blubber like a damn baby. It wasn’t supposed to be you,” she continued, drawing a steadying breath. “My uncle was after the federal prosecutor in charge of my father’s trial.”
“Ah.” So things began to make sense. And if he hadn’t been so blindsided by his conversation with Evan, he probably would have made the connection sooner. “Stephen Finch. He was supposed to be the key-note speaker at the symposium I told you about. He called me, last minute, and talked me into filling in. I guess your uncle’s men knew they were supposed to tag the speaker, and assumed I was the one. Pretty big oops. And pretty damn ballsy,” his brows drew together “for your uncle to go after Finch in the first place.”
“He loves my father.” Ava shrugged when he only stared at her. “In his own very twisted way. He manipulates him, needs to control him, and has pushed my father into doing things that he normally wouldn’t have dreamed. Not that my father is blameless – like the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink, but my father drank, and drank deeply. But Carlos was truly upset when my father was arrested, even more so when the indictment stuck. Part of that is self-serving – my father could be, and was, offered leniency if he rolled on my uncle. I think Carlos was prepared to intimidate, threaten, bribe – even murder – to get my father acquitted. He’s used similar tactics before.”
“Except now he’s got a hell of a mess on his hands.” Hesitating, Jordan considered how much to tell her of what he’d learned. But she’d shown her cards, and he figured he owed her no less. “About the men who abducted me…�
� he told her of the bodies in the burned out car. “The evidence isn’t all in yet, but I believe those are their remains.”
“Yes.” She closed her eyes. Wearily, he thought. “Yes, that would be his way. Clean up the mess, eliminate the complications. Make the punishment fit what he saw as the crime. He’s very good at doling out punishment.” And when she reached for the tea again, her hand trembled. “He told me. Knowing I’d feel guilty for going to my father about the harassment, he told me that his men wouldn’t be bothering me anymore. Clean up his mess, make my life more difficult. Two birds with one well-cast stone. Your friend,” she added, as her hand shook and the rain hissed. “The place where she was found, the other remains there would have been my uncle’s doing also.”
The knife of that had already been in his gut. If he was abducted mistakenly, how much more senseless did that make Leslie’s death? But that kind of thinking wasn’t productive.
“My brother… he’s FBI, Ava. They’re investigating the site. The who and the why.”
“They won’t be able to tie anything to Carlos. He’s too slick. Don’t say it.” She held up a hand, looked at him with eyes that broke his heart. “I know that my knowledge of events that night could give them what they need for a warrant. I know you’ll ask me to talk to them. Tell them what I know.”
He squeezed her foot between his hands. “Ava. The man is a threat, to you most of all. I don’t think you have a choice.”
Ava leaned her head back on the sofa, listened to the dying breath of wind rattle the eaves. “Do you realize what it would mean, if I did? I’d have to go into hiding. Change my name, give up my business. Everything I’ve worked for. And even if I could handle that,” she watched the rain slide down the window “I’m not sure if I could handle leaving you.”
“Ava –”
“Don’t.” Slightly panicked, she pushed at the hand he lifted to her face. “I knew it was coming. Knew, from the moment you walked into my clinic, that my life would never be the same. I fought it – fought you – but this is the way it has to be. I won’t let Carlos get away with it anymore. He destroys lives, mine not least among them. He drove Michael away. Brought my father to ruin. And I hold him responsible for my mother’s disappearance. She wouldn’t have simply vanished from a church parking lot if it wasn’t for him.”
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