by Debra Webb
“I have this videotape.”
Keith’s senses went on elevated alert. He’d already decided that this was one smart cookie. If she had something on her ex-lover, it had to be the real thing. She was too smart to base everything on a trumped-up allegation.
Whether her assertions had any relevance to the present, and his assignment, was yet to be seen.
A minute or two of quiet passed with nothing but the sound of the rain drizzling down around them.
“He liked to play rough,” she finally said. “At first, he was very kind and gentle with me. Especially during the early months of the pregnancy.” She scrunched up her face as if she hated remembering this part of her past. “But after Jamie was born, things had changed. He hardly looked at me, much less touched me.”
Somehow the thought of anyone touching her bothered Keith. He gave himself a mental kick for getting stupid and urged her to go on. “You said he hurt you.”
She nodded. “Several times before I took off.”
He focused his attention on the endless ribbon of highway and clamped his jaw shut to keep his comments to himself.
“Once he almost strangled me. He assured me it was a game and that he hadn’t meant to hurt me. But I felt the way he fought to keep me from getting free. I knew he was lying.”
Keith tried to rationalize her words. Could Van Valkenberg be that kind of sick bastard without anyone knowing?
“There were a lot of other women,” she went on. “Mostly expensive hookers who knew how to keep secrets. He bragged that he never bothered with the same one twice.”
Keith winced. “You had to be worried about what he was bringing home to you.” The way diseases spread these days, that was a hell of a scary thought.
She still didn’t look at him. “I was sick about it. For the first five years after I left, I got myself tested every six months. I almost lost my mind with worry. How would I take care of my son if I got sick?” She hugged her arms around herself.
Keith tamped down the urge to reach out to her and assure her everything was all right now. “But you were okay?”
She nodded. “I had myself tested again just a few months ago to be sure. Thank God he didn’t screw me over that way, as well.”
He barely caught the question before it was out of his mouth. It was none of his business if she’d been involved with anyone since. Considering what she’d been through, he surmised that she would have taken every precaution if that had been the case.
What the hell was he doing even going there?
Clearing sex from his mind, he ventured into the evidence she claimed to have hidden. “You feel that his proclivity for dangerous sex threatened your well-being, is that it? Do you have documented evidence of his…bizarre activities?”
He was fishing. She knew it. The look that knifed through the nasty weather left no question.
“The tape has him with a woman that his bizarre activities may have killed. I can’t be sure, but I’m almost certain.”
Taken aback by her revelation, he stopped, grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her around to face him. “You’re telling me that you have evidence of a murder he committed?”
She looked away.
He sighed. “I didn’t think so.”
She jerked her arm free of his hold. “I have a tape of him with a woman who was reported missing two days later. When they finally found her body, she’d been murdered. Strangled to death. The same way he tried to strangle me.” She touched her throat. “The assault that killed her was so vicious that bones were broken.”
Not waiting for his response, she started forward again.
He stood there for a few moments, watched her walking away.
As uncertain as he was as to whether there could be any truth to her allegation, murder would certainly be strong enough motivation for her to have gone to all these lengths to hide.
But what if this was just another of her elaborate escape schemes?
Desmond Van Valkenberg was the agency’s client. Keith owed his loyalty to him. Not to this woman who had reason to want to hide from her own past sins.
Within seconds, he’d caught up with her. He looked up at the sky as he did. Finally. The rain had stopped.
She peered up at the sky, as well. “Now we’ll fry.” She reached into her bag and came out with the sunblock again. “No point in taking any chances.”
His patience way past an end, he waited until she’d coated her skin, then he followed her example. He already had a lump on his head. He didn’t need any blistering to go along with it.
When they had walked another mile or so, he broached the subject that would no doubt be tender. “How much of his money did you take when you left?”
She didn’t stop or look at him but he saw the way her jaw tightened at the question.
“I took only the money he had given me.”
That was convenient. “How much was that?”
“A couple thousand. He’d given it to me to buy clothes. He didn’t want me lounging around his mansion in anything I’d worn before the baby.”
A frown worked its way across his forehead. “He was that domineering?”
She laughed. “You have no idea.”
“Make me understand.”
She stopped, causing him to stop, as well, and then she looked at him. Really looked at him.
“Every move I made was dictated by him. He told me what to wear. When to get up. Where to go. All aspects of my life were controlled by him.”
Keith couldn’t imagine living that way. “You never argued with him?”
She shook her head. “I was stupid.”
“You were young,” he offered, letting her off the hook.
“No,” she countered. “I was stupid. So stupid that if I hadn’t found out about the prostitutes and the murder, I would probably still be with him. Those dirty secrets of his put everything into perspective. I understood just how dangerous he was. I had to protect my son.”
Then she walked off, leaving him to digest that profound revelation. She did a lot of that.
He started forward again, but made no move to catch up with her. “You loved him that much?”
She missed a step but didn’t falter, kept right on walking.
He walked faster now, determined to have the answer to his question. “I asked if you loved him that much.” He didn’t know why it mattered, but it did.
Again she refused to look at him. “I thought I did. But maybe that was a lie, too.”
His fingers curled around her right arm and tugged her around to look at him again as they both drew to a stop. “I have a feeling you don’t do anything halfway, lady. If you loved him, you loved him completely.”
Her eyes shone too brightly and he wanted to kick himself, literally, for putting those tears there.
“Then I guess I did. But that died a long time ago. The only thing I want now is to keep my son away from him.” Her lips quivered and fury replaced the softer emotions. “I don’t want him anywhere near my child. Ever.”
Somehow, standing there dripping wet and quaking with emotion, she looked so vulnerable that he couldn’t pretend not to care. He shrugged off his bag and let it fall to the ground. Hers dropped right next to his and he pulled her into his arms and held her. Nothing else. Just held her tight for as long as she wanted him to.
Not a car in sight, just pavement and trees as far as the eye could see.
She leaned into him, let him hold her without resistance.
Strangely, it felt right.
IT WAS DARK when they reached the full-service station he remembered passing some fifteen miles outside Waynesville.
The guy was just closing up.
It took some talking and a hundred bucks on top of the usual charge, but he agreed to take care of the flat tire right away.
“Do you have a clothes dryer around here?” Keith looked around the place and was relatively certain they were out of luck.
“Got one in my house trail
er.” He jerked his head toward the station. “I live round back. You’re welcome to wait there, dry off, eat, whatever, while I take care of your car.” He grinned. “For a fee.”
Keith blew out a breath of frustration and gave the man another hundred.
He climbed into his work truck and peeled out of the parking lot. Keith took Ashley by the arm and guided her around behind the station.
Sure enough, a single wide mobile home, a rather small one that looked as if it had seen better days, stood waiting a dozen yards away.
Inside was far worse than the outside. Apparently the service station owner didn’t have a wife or a maid.
Leaving Ashley in the tiny living room, Keith checked out the bathroom. He’d seen worse, but that wasn’t saying much.
“You go first.” He held the door open.
Ashley went into the bathroom and stripped off her wet clothes. Her feet and legs were numb with exhaustion. On second thought, maybe her whole body was numb. They had dried once, but then the rain had started again.
She dug out her dry clothes and quickly slipped into them. After dragging her brush through her hair, she realized she wasn’t going to get out of this without using the less-than-sparkling facilities.
Having taken care of that necessary business, she turned the room over to Keith.
He gifted her with a brief smile as he stepped past her. Nice smile.
Keith. She didn’t remember slipping into that informality. But she supposed when you told a guy about your former sex life, you needed to be informal.
She prowled around the kitchen and beyond until she discovered the clothes dryer in a closet in the hall leading to the home’s one bedroom. She tossed her wet clothes into the dryer and set the timer.
Deciding that the dryer looked cleaner than anything else in the place, she slid up onto it and rested her weary bones.
The memory of how he’d held her flooded her mind, making her entire body tingle. She’d needed someone to do that for so long. She could scarcely believe that it was him, of all people. Some P.I. a madman had sent to bring her back to Chicago.
Vivid images of how he’d looked in those soaking wet clothes kept flashing one after the other in her mind. Sleek, muscled body. The man had to be an athlete. He was amazingly agile, too. And strong.
And handsome, that wicked voice she hadn’t heard in more than a decade taunted.
Yes, he was all those things and way, way off-limits.
But, what if there was a chance that he would help her. He seemed disgusted by the things she’d told him about Desmond. Surely he wouldn’t want to be responsible for forcing her back into that kind of situation.
He seemed to care.
She shivered as the feel of his strong arms around her invaded her senses all over again. Her eyes closed and for just a little while, she let herself relive those moments.
It had been so long, and she was so tired. She couldn’t resist.
“I’ll just toss my clothes in there with yours.”
Her eyes flew open. He stood right in front of her, not a dozen inches away. She was usually so much better than this at staying on top of her surroundings.
“Sure.” She propped her feet up on the washing machine so he could access the dryer’s door.
He pitched his clothes inside and pushed the start button. The drum resumed turning beneath her and the heat radiated up, warming her bottom. She shifted, draping her legs back down in front of the dryer.
“We need to talk. Again.”
She looked up just in time to see him coming closer. Her heart stalled and any chance of breathing disappeared. He braced one hand on either side of her and looked deep into her eyes.
“You got one over me again.”
Uh-oh. He’d found the tire wrench.
“I’m not sure what you’re up to, Ashley.”
There he went using her first name again. She refused to let him see her shiver, but it wasn’t easy.
“From now on, we do things my way. You tell me exactly where we’re going and I’ll plot the route.”
She grabbed her courage and yanked it up to where it should be. “Sorry, Keith, I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
He didn’t budge an inch. Kept his face right in front of hers. Too close. The rest of his body was as well.
“Because you’re the enemy. You work for the man who wants my child. The same man who tried to kill me and who I’m certain has killed at least one woman. I can’t do anything your way. Not willingly.”
Those electric blue eyes grew suspicious. “How can I be sure this isn’t just another one of your outlandish tricks?”
She looked straight into those eyes and let him see the truth in hers. “Because I need you to believe me and for that reason alone I’m willing to take a chance on you. But we have to do things my way.”
He stared right back, analyzing, searching, attempting to see any hidden agenda. That she could live with, but when that mesmerizing gaze dropped to her lips, she lost her balance.
And she took a major risk.
She threw her arms around his neck and dragged his face those few inches so that she could kiss him square on the mouth.
He didn’t resist. She had known he wouldn’t. He let her lead. Let her kiss him until she felt ready to melt with the heat roaring through her body.
She let go. He drew back. And she dragged in an unsteady breath. “Seven years.” She touched her lips, hardly believing she’d been so bold. “It’s been seven years since I’ve been kissed like that.”
“I think maybe another one is in order.”
This time, he took charge. Took her face in his hands and drew her mouth up to this. His lips felt soft and firm at the same time. His palms against her cheeks made her want to feel those strong hands moving over her body, one slow inch at a time. She trembled. He kissed her harder.
She let her hands travel down his back, urging him closer. Before she realized what she was doing, she’d parted her thighs, allowing him even nearer.
He groaned, a sound that made her pulse leap. Made her squirm to be closer still.
He stopped.
His lips pulled away from hers, barely a breath apart. For two fierce beats of her heart, he didn’t move. Then he stepped away completely.
She felt cold and alone at his withdrawal.
“That shouldn’t have happened,” he murmured.
Whom was he trying to convince? Her or himself?
“But it did.” She slid off the dryer, right back into his personal space. “Don’t expect me to be sorry. I’ve waited a long time for that.”
Before he could rally a response, she sidled past him and went back to the kitchen. She peeked into the fridge, grabbed a can of soda, the only thing she dared to touch. She searched the cupboards until she located a bag of chips.
At Keith’s look of disapproval, she said, “He told us we could eat.”
She opened the bag of chips and devoured a handful. She moaned in satisfaction. God, she’d been starving and she hadn’t even realized it.
The fridge door slamming yanked her attention back to her companion. He’d gotten himself a soda, as well. She offered the bag of chips to him and he reached in for a handful.
While he munched on the chips, she searched for crackers and peanut butter. She would kill for some crackers and peanut butter.
“Yes!” She reached into the final cupboard and retrieved her bounty.
A few swipes of a clean butter knife later and she was in ecstasy. Food had never tasted so good.
When their feeding frenzy had slowed, she made an effort to clean up their part of the mess in the kitchen though she doubted the owner would notice the difference.
“You have peanut butter…” He swiped a place next to her mouth.
She swallowed at the lump that rose in her throat.
“Got it.”
Funny thing was, he hadn’t stopped looking at her mouth.
“Thanks.”
He nodded, his gaze still glued to her lips.
The front door burst open. “Got you folks fixed up.”
Damn.
Talk about bad timing. Or maybe she should consider herself saved by the intrusion.
“I can give you a lift back to your car,” the mechanic offered.
Keith’s gaze swung to him. “Don’t tell me. For a fee.”
Chapter Eleven
The hum of the tires speeding along the dark pavement came close to lulling Ashley into sleep. Every time she got close, a burst of intense yearning would send off tiny explosions inside her. She tried to block the cause but it was impossible. He sat barely two feet away.
She refused to look at him again. Despite the darkness, the light from the dash gave off just enough of a glow for her to see his chiseled profile.
To make matters worse, the scent of him had seeped into the very pores of her skin. Any aftershave or cologne he’d splashed on the last time he showered had to be long gone. This was him. His skin and the rain and all those amazing male pheromones.
How she had missed that smell. She pressed her forehead against the cool glass of her window and restricted her gaze to the passing landscape. The scent of a man had never made her feel this way. There was something hypnotic about this man.
A shiver quivered through her.
That was the only explanation for her uncharacteristically bold behavior. The very idea that she’d kissed him. Not once, but twice. And the second time, holy smokes! She’d been acting like a sex-starved nympho.
Okay, truth be told, she was starved for a man’s touch. Humiliation roiled through her at the idea that she’d admitted—out loud—that she hadn’t been kissed in seven years. There was simply no other answer; she’d fallen under his spell big-time. Either that, or insanity had overtaken her temporarily.
That couldn’t be it, she thought. Temporary by definition meant short-lived. This didn’t feel as if it were fading one little bit. If anything, the attraction grew stronger, more complicated with each passing hour.
Being stuck in this car for hours wasn’t helping. She needed some space. She huddled closer to her door. Distance. Anything to get him off her mind.
