She didn’t have much experience with “just sex.” She didn’t think she was wired that way emotionally. Even with Jake, when they eventually surrendered, it wouldn’t be “just sex” to her. Not even if he left town the next day and she never saw him again.
That thought made her gut clench. How silly she was being, she chided herself. She hardly knew the man…but she felt as if she did. There was no chance of anything more than lust between them…but it felt as if there was. She felt—and that was the point. None of the men she’d dated had ever made her feel quite the way he did. Everything seemed sharper, clearer, more real with him.
Her pulse pounding, she deliberately forced her attention back to the conversation. “But you don’t kill your lover for refusing to run away with you if it’s just sex.”
“According to the authorities, you do if you find out that what you thought was love was really just convenient sex.”
“So, according to them, Charley was in a relationship and Jillian was having a meaningless affair. Then it seems rage or rejection would have been better motivation for killing her than wanting to run away with her.” She watched a hawk soar in lazy circles over the pond before alighting in a tree on the far side. “Did he have an alibi?”
“Yeah. He worked late Friday, had dinner at the truck stop where Angela worked, then went to a bar to have a few drinks while waiting for her to get off.”
“There was nothing about that in the transcript.” The defense attorney hadn’t offered an alibi or, as far as that went, any real defense at all.
“Charley got exactly what he paid for with his lawyer,” Jake said with a thin smile.
Since Tim Jenkins had been court-appointed, Charley had paid nothing. Except his life.
“We can check out his alibi.”
“I intend to,” Jake said. “The bar was out by the glass plant, a little dive that’s been there probably since this place was named Ethelton.”
“Buddy’s,” Kylie said, earning a surprised look from him. She faked a haughty sniff. “I don’t go there, but it has been there forever. Want to go now?”
He glanced at the sun in the western sky, then his watch. “Actually, I’d rather take you up on your offer. Show me where you grew up, where you learned to be such a prim and proper young woman.” After standing up, he extended his hand and pulled her to her feet and achingly close. “After that, maybe I can show you a few ways to be improper.”
Her breath caught in her chest. She’d been taught to keep her poise in any situation, but at that moment she couldn’t remember any of her mother’s lessons. How to talk. How to hide what she was feeling. How to move. She didn’t want to be poised. Didn’t want to be calm, cool and in control. Did want to learn every improper thing he could teach her.
Her silence—and, likely, the heat radiating off her in waves—made him chuckle. He took a step back, claimed her hand and started across the pasture toward his truck. “I’ve flustered Kylie Riordan. Bet that’s a first.”
Then he gave her a grin and a wink. “Bet it won’t be the last.”
By the time they reached the truck the sun had disappeared behind dark clouds moving in rapidly from the northwest. Jake unlocked the doors as the wind freshened, bringing with it the smell of rain. Good thing they were leaving. This place was sad enough in bright sunlight. Rain—like he’d run through that morning so many years ago—would make it damn near unbearable.
He backed out, then headed down the hill. The visit had gone better than he’d expected. He’d known seeing the houses for the first time in twenty-two years wouldn’t be easy, but it could have been worse. He could have been alone.
At the bottom of the hill he stopped and checked for traffic. The sky was dark behind them; the rain would definitely overtake them before they reached town. Off to the right a pair of headlights identified a fast-moving vehicle in the distance, but it was too far away to be of concern.
“I love rain,” Kylie remarked as he turned onto the paved road. She had rolled her window down, and the wind was whipping her hair, working strands free of its braid. “When I was little, I used to take refuge in a corner on the porch where the rain couldn’t reach me and watch it.”
“I used to go out and play in it, splashing through mud puddles and getting soaked to the skin.”
She gave him a faint smile, enough to tell him that perfect little daughters didn’t indulge in such undignified behavior.
“I bet you wore dresses and patent-leather shoes and big floppy hats,” he remarked, switching the wipers on as the first drops hit the windshield. “You never ran, never got dirty, never slid down the banister or did anything that might muss your appearance.”
“I run three miles a day four or five days a week.”
He grinned. “I knew there was a reason I liked your legs.”
As raindrops began to blow in, she sighed softly and rolled the window up. “You’re right. Most of my play when I was little involved dolls and tea parties. I never stepped in a mud puddle and I never got soaked to the skin unless I was in the shower. I was in school before I got my first pair of pants and in college before I got my first jeans. And I looked absolutely adorable in my big floppy hats.”
“I bet you did.” He couldn’t relate to the kind of upbringing she was describing. Angela may not have been the best mother, but she believed in letting kids be kids. No adults in miniature bodies for her, thank God.
Lights flickered behind him, and he glanced in the rearview mirror to see a vehicle approaching faster than seemed safe in the rain. He steered closer to the right shoulder, leaving the idiot plenty of room to pass. “Did you miss running and splashing in puddles and climbing trees? Or did you like playing with dolls and having tea parties?”
“Maybe I missed it a little. But my mother didn’t encourage that kind of behavior, and truthfully, I was a very girlie girl.”
“Now there’s a news flash,” he said drily as he checked the mirror again. The vehicle was an SUV, black with dark-tinted windows, and was now less than a few car lengths off his rear bumper. Kids, probably, acting stupid as kids often did. Still, he eased his foot off the accelerator and let the truck slow a few miles off his previous speed.
At what seemed the last chance before a collision became inevitable, the other driver swerved into the opposite lane. Jake swallowed a sigh of relief and eased his fingers’ hold on the steering wheel. Then suddenly the SUV swerved, clipping the left rear of Jake’s truck. The impact shuddered through the truck, and he gripped the wheel hard. Across the cab, Kylie grunted as the seat belt stopped her forward motion, but he couldn’t spare a look to see if she was all right.
The truck spun in a tight curve, skidding on the wet pavement before coming to rest on the westbound shoulder, facing the direction they’d just come from. The SUV slowed to a stop in the middle of the road, then the driver backed up a few yards. Again it stopped, the powerful engine idling for a moment, then the driver shifted out of Reverse and drove off.
“Are you okay?” Jake asked, watching the taillights in the mirror until they disappeared.
“Y-yeah, I, uh, think so. Are you?”
“Yeah. Fine.”
“I can’t believe— That moron— He didn’t even stop to see if we were injured!”
Slowly he forced his fingers to uncurl. He rubbed his shoulder where the seat belt had burned before it’d locked in place, then gave her a wry look. “He didn’t intend to hurt us.”
Her face was pale, her eyes wide with delayed fear. “I’m sure he didn’t intend to hit us, but—” Something in his expression stopped her. For a long moment she stared at him, then a muscle in her jaw twitched. “You think he did intend to hit us.”
“It’s a maneuver cops use to stop a vehicle in a chase, called a PIT maneuver. It’s sort of a controlled crash.”
Her face got even paler. “Cops…as in Derek West.”
He shrugged.
“Oh, my God.”
It was little more than a
whisper, but it made him want to wrap his arms around her, hold her close and promise her nothing else would happen. The problem was, he couldn’t make such a promise. Only her father could.
Leaving her to reach the realization that her father and his friends had arranged an accident that involved her—an accident that could have been serious, because even a controlled crash went out of control sometimes—he unfastened his seat belt. “I’m going to check the damage. Wait here.”
The temperature that had been comfortable before the rain was chilly now, especially when he was drenched by the time he reached the rear of the truck. There was a pretty good dent there, but the damage didn’t seem too bad. He would have to replace the panel and maybe the bumper, but the tire and wheel well didn’t appear to be affected.
This book was costing him in ways he hadn’t expected, he thought grimly as he straightened—and came face-to-face with Kylie. Rain ran down her face and dripped onto her blouse. She’d removed the band from her hair and combed it free of the braid, so it hung around her face like damp gold. She looked damned beautiful. She wasn’t just a goddess but a goddess of the sea.
“I thought I told you to wait inside.”
She was looking at the truck. His words brought her gaze to his face. “I called the highway patrol. They’re sending a trooper to take a report.” Her throat worked as she swallowed, then that muscle in her jaw twitched again. “I’ll pay for the repairs.”
“The hell you will.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll bill them to my father.” She started toward the cab but made it only a few yards before spinning around and marching back. “Why would they do this? What if there’d been a ditch or an embankment here? You could have been hurt. You could have been killed! What are they hiding?”
He sluiced the rain from his face with one hand, for all the good it did, then returned her stare. “Who really killed Jillian and Bert Franklin.”
Maybe they knew or maybe they didn’t have a clue. Having an unsolved double homicide wasn’t good for either the elected or the appointed officials of the county. Maybe Charley had merely been a scapegoat.
She wanted to argue with him—he could see it in every stiff line of her body—but she kept her mouth clamped shut. Hugging herself tightly, she walked a few feet away, her back to him, her gaze locked on nothing.
He moved to stand behind her, hands resting on her shoulders. “Whoever it was picked his spot. This is the only section of road between here and the highway that doesn’t have a ditch or an embankment. There aren’t any trees or fence posts close to the road. There was no other traffic. I imagine it’s about as safe a place to run someone off the road as you’re going to find.”
The wind and the rain muffled her voice. “I can’t believe you’re not angry.”
“I’m angry. Hell, between this and the two tickets I got, my insurance rates are going to double. But we’re okay, Kylie.” He slid his arms around her from behind and rested his chin on the top of her head. “Mostly what I am is more determined than ever. I want to know what they’re hiding. Who they’re protecting.”
After a moment she settled her hands on his wrists. “So do I,” she whispered.
Chapter 6
They returned to the truck to wait for the trooper. Leaning over the floorboard, Kylie wrung water from her shirt, then squeezed it from her hair. She was wet, cold and sick to her stomach, but she didn’t complain. She didn’t want to talk, to put her thoughts into words.
Most likely her father had given Chief Roberts the order to scare Jake off. Regardless of intentions, Jake could have been killed. She could have been killed. And for what? To protect the men’s secrets? To protect misconduct, malfeasance, a murderer?
She was shivering inside and starting to shake outside, too, when red-and-blue lights flashed behind them. The car parked on the shoulder, and a figure in a bright yellow slicker strode to the driver’s door. Jake rolled down the window, and Kylie found herself the object of Coy Roberts’s piercing stare.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Bedraggled as she was, she drew her shoulders back and fixed an unwavering look on him. “I don’t appreciate your tone, Chief, or your language. What I do and who I do it with is none of your business, no matter what the senator might say.”
His ears turned red in the dim light as he forced what was meant to be a humbled look. “I’m sorry about that, Kylie. When I heard that you’d been involved in a hit-and-run accident, naturally I was concerned for your well-being.”
More likely concerned that her father would be furious with him for not orchestrating their campaign against Jake more carefully. Of course, the senator had given her orders to keep her distance. She had talked her way around last night’s dinner, but he wouldn’t have expected her to go to the Baker and Franklin houses with Jake. He wouldn’t have expected her to be in the truck with Jake when he was run off the road.
“What happened here?” Roberts asked, trying to look and sound official.
“Ask Der—”
Without looking in her direction, Jake extended his hand to stop her. She bit back the words.
“A black SUV pitted my truck,” Jake said evenly.
“Pitted—” Rain dripped off the brim of Roberts’s hat but didn’t blur the smug arrogance of his smile. “Sounds like you’ve been watching too much Cops on TV, Norris. Why in the world would anybody pit you? Most likely some kid was just driving too fast and clipped the back end of your truck when he passed you. You get a license number?”
Jake shook his head.
“A description besides ‘black’?”
“Two doors. A Chevy, I think. Windows tinted so dark you can’t see in.”
“Doesn’t sound familiar. You know, that kind of tinting is illegal around here.”
Jake’s smile was thin. “And of course no one ever does anything illegal around here, do they, Chief?”
The amusement disappeared from Roberts’s thin face, replaced by disgust. He looked away, then gestured down the road. “Here comes the trooper. He’ll take care of this.”
Take care of this. When did that phrase take on an ominous meaning? Kylie wondered.
Roberts turned to leave, then stepped back into sight. “I’ll tell your daddy you’re okay, Kylie.”
“I’ll tell him myself,” she retorted.
He returned to his car, made a U-turn, then switched off the emergency lights. A moment later another car parked where he’d been. The trooper took the report, agreed with Roberts about careless kids, then left. Long after he’d disappeared into the night, Jake started the engine. “Well, hell.”
An appropriate sentiment.
They didn’t talk on the way into town, not until she gestured to the intersection ahead. “Turn left here.”
“Do you mind if I go by the motel and change clothes first?”
“Sure.” There was a thought to warm her: Jake stripping down to bare skin, rubbing a towel over his body…She was surprised steam wasn’t rising from her own clothes.
He parked next to his room but didn’t invite her in. Because it was still raining? Because the Tepee Motor Court was no place for the senator’s daughter? She would prefer the first. It would be nice to think that someone didn’t care who her father was.
Even if she was just kidding herself.
He returned in under five minutes, wearing another pair of faded, snug-fitting jeans and a black T-shirt under an open slicker. Again without conversation, he drove back across town to the Colby house. He didn’t need directions. He’d probably looked it up his first day in town.
She did direct him past the front gate to a smaller service gate on the south side of the property. The narrow blacktop lane became stone where it joined the main drive. To the right it curved around to the front of the mansion. To the left were the detached garage and the cottage she called home.
“You live here?” Jake asked as he parked near the door.
“You think I’d want to live t
here?” she responded with a nod toward the mansion. In the early dusk, it looked huge, hulking, empty—because it was. The housekeeper was already gone for the day.
“Here, take my jacket—”
Before he could shrug out of the slicker, she opened her door and slid out. “You keep it. I’m already wet.”
It was just a few yards to the door and the overhang that offered protection. She unlocked the door, shut off the alarm, then led the way inside.
The cottage had been built at the same time as the mansion to provide luxurious accommodations for family guests. When Kylie was little, Grandmother Riordan had occasionally taken up residence there, an event that had never failed to displease Phyllis. She’d made an exception in her snobbish ways for her husband, but she’d never liked spending time with his family. Typical tensions between in-laws? Or had she considered the other Riordans beneath her even if she had married their son?
Until meeting Jake, such questions had never occurred to Kylie.
She switched on lights as she moved from the foyer into the hall, then the living room. “Make yourself comfortable. Take a look around. I’ll be right back.”
Hoping to minimize the dripping, she hurried to the master bath, where a glimpse of herself in the mirror made her grimace. She looked like a drowned rat—hair lank and clinging to her skull, shirt revealing every bit of lace and ribbon on her bra, trousers splashed with mud and boots that would never be the same. After discarding it all in a pile, she briskly rubbed a towel over her, chasing away the chill, trying to bring some color back into her skin.
Wishing for time for a hot bath, she towel-dried her hair, then combed it straight back with a scowl. It would take more than a bath to make her look her best. This and dry clothes was all she could manage in limited time.
She padded into the bedroom, put on panties and a bra, then ducked into the closet for clothes. When she returned with a pair of jeans and a sweater in hand, she saw Jake at the bedroom door and came to a sudden stop. “Wh-what are you doing?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
More Than a Hero Page 10
