In the Enemy's Arms

by Marilyn Pappano

  Unlike the other houses they’d visited, this one, though large, wasn’t particularly imposing, at least from the outside. It was simple in design, two stories, white, with a broad porch. The buildings that housed the animals were much larger, elaborately landscaped, much more impressive.

  “The barn and kennels make the house look like an afterthought,” Justin said as he slowed.

  “I guess champion breeding stock get to live like kings.” While orphaned little girls…

  An oversize SUV was parked in the driveway beside steps leading to the porch, and lights shone in a few downstairs windows, uncurtained thanks to the lack of nearby neighbors. Was Luisa in there now, having dinner with her adoptive father? Was one of those dark upstairs windows her room, painted pink or lavender, filled with stuffed animals and dolls, or did it hold the toys a pedophile preferred? Did she go to bed each night saying a prayer for the wonderful life she now lived, or did she cry herself to sleep, wishing she were back at La Casa, safe and loved?

  As the board fence came to an end, Cate checked the photo again. “Up here on the right, there’s a cleared space where we can pull off the road.”

  Neither of them had specified what “scoping out the property” meant, but she had a fair idea from the purchases he’d made at the sporting goods store: a pair of jeans and lightweight jackets for each of them; a couple of powerful mini-flashlights; a pair of night-vision binoculars and two cans of pepper spray. It wasn’t the same strength the police used, the salesman warned, but it was still good for self-protection.

  How much protection would it afford against big ugly guns?

  Justin turned into the clearing and stopped. It looked as if it had been scraped clean for a onetime construction site. Dozed trees and bushes were mounded to one side, and a heap of rotted boards were piled in the middle. Either would hide the car from passersby.

  After surveying the area, he grinned at her. It was the first grin since they’d talked to Amy, and it sent warmth and reassurance through Cate’s veins.

  “I’m hungry. Are you?”

  “You’re always hungry. How come you don’t weigh four hundred pounds?”

  “Do you know how many calories you can burn in an hour underwater? Between 550 and a thousand. Downhill skiing? Six hundred. Mountain climbing? About seven hundred.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t do any of that stuff, and twelve-hour shifts in the E.R. don’t burn as many calories as you’d think.”

  His smile came slowly, strengthening as his gaze moved from her face to her chest, over her waist and hips, and rested a moment too long on her legs. Self-consciously, she uncrossed, then recrossed them. “Let me teach you to dive. Or ski. Or mountain climb. Better yet, we can forget all that and make up our own workout. No equipment necessary but what God gave us.”

  He slid his palm so lightly over her hair that she might have imagined it, but there was nothing insubstantial about his fingertips on her neck, coaxing her toward him. If she leaned forward a few inches, and so did he, they would definitely be within kissing distance, and if he kissed her, she would kiss him back, no doubt about it. She knew in her head that caution was always a good thing, but her heart could throw caution to the wind as quickly as Justin could.

  Maybe she was a bit of a risk taker after all.

  She let him nudge her almost close enough, then she laid her hand on his chest and pushed back. Just a bit of a risk taker, remember.

  “Okay, okay.” Her voice was hoarse enough to embarrass her. “I’m hungry, too.” Before the cocky grin could return, she hastily added, “For food.”

  The sun was setting when they found a restaurant ten miles away, turning the sky delicate pastel shades that faded into blue and purple before finally giving way to night.

  By the time they finished off greasy burgers and the best onion rings she’d ever had, the sky beyond the reach of streetlights and civilization was velvety black, dotted with tiny pinpoints of stars. While he fiddled inside the car, Cate shrugged into the new jacket to cut the evening’s chill, then stood there, staring upward, sending quiet pleas to anyone up above who might listen.

  Let the girls be safe and unharmed. Let Trent and Susanna survive. Let Justin and me survive.

  Don’t let him break my heart.

  The car’s interior lights went dark, though both front doors stood open. Grinning, he slid out of the driver’s seat, then retrieved the rest of their purchases from the trunk.

  He offered her a flashlight, which she tucked into her left jacket pocket. Next he took out both pepper sprays, the cylinders seeming small in his large hand as he shook them the way the sales guy had instructed. “If I give you one of these, will you promise not to spray me with it?”

  “Okay.” She reached, but he caught her hand with his free hand.

  “Huh-uh. Not enough. I’ve noticed you say ‘Okay,’ when what you really mean is ‘I plan to do what I want, but maybe I’ll let you in on it first.’ I want a promise. The kind you don’t break.”

  She lifted her left hand as if in court. “I swear by my Hippocratic oath.”

  His face wrinkled into a frown. “Hm. Let’s see… You’ve smacked me. Pinched me. Threatened to claw my face off. I’m not sure that oath is strong enough.”

  Lazily she took the steps necessary to bring her body in contact with his. Her mouth brushed his jaw before reaching his ear, where she murmured, “I swear if you don’t give me that pepper spray, I will use it on you the first time you go to sleep and leave it unprotected.” Wiggling her fingers into the fist where he clenched the two cans, she got a grip on one and worked it free.

  He stopped her own victory smile by pressing his forehead to hers, staring into her eyes. “Sweetheart, I don’t leave anything unprotected around you. Especially me.”

  The words stilled her in the act of stepping back. Her breath caught in her lungs, and the elephant tumbled a time or two in her stomach. She strained a little closer, until her nose bumped his, then murmured, “That might be the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.” That he considered her a risk. That he was vulnerable to her.

  Something swept through her—warm enough to flush her skin, cold enough to raise goose bumps. Something optimistic and pessimistic and full of potential, good and bad. Something hopeful.

  As she’d done, he brushed his mouth across her jaw, leaving a fiery, tingling trail behind, then whispered into her ear, “If you’re through promising things you aren’t going to deliver, we’d better get going.” He backed off, turned her to face the car and nudged her into the passenger seat.

  Was he talking about her refusal to be pinned down on issues like staying out of the way or taking orders? Or getting close to him, touching him, kissing him, if she had no intention of following through?

  She knew anatomy down to the tiniest, most insignificant bone, muscle and nerve, but she was learning something new: the heart had a will of its own. Her head might know all the reasons a relationship with Justin would be bad, but her heart only knew that she felt safe with him. Comfortable. Protected. Wanted. Her head could keep him at a distance, but her heart had developed a bit of a defiant streak. It might be willing to sacrifice her well-being for its desires.

  And she might be willing to let it.

  * * *

  The ten miles back to the clearing passed much more quickly this time. There was no moon tonight, and once Justin shut off the headlights, darkness settled around them. All he heard in the sudden quiet was the pops and clicks of the engine settling and the beat of his own heart. He opened the door, glad the overhead light he’d disconnected didn’t give away their presence, and picked up the binoculars from the console. He didn’t even suggest that Cate wait in the car.

  He pushed his door shut with a quiet thud, and she did the same, then met him at the front of the car. The jeans she’d picked fitted her nearly as well as the dive skin, hugging thighs and hips and butt before she tugged down the jacket to cover everything interesting.

  “I
s it too cold for snakes to be out?” she whispered.

  “It is. Snakes like the heat.”

  “What about spiders and tarantulas and Gila monsters? Is it too cold for them?”

  He didn’t have a clue about the temperature preferences of desert residents but figured it was in her best interest to pretend he did. “Yeah. Everything’s tucked away in its burrow or web or wherever the hell it lives until the sun warms things up tomorrow.”

  “Good. Then we go that way.” She pointed to a boulder on the west side of the clearing. At first she led the way, then they walked side by side until they reached the scrub. She wasn’t great at following, he’d noticed, but she didn’t hesitate to slide in behind him when the going got rougher.

  It would have been easier with a full moon. Dressed all in dark as they were, they wouldn’t have stood out against the landscape. Instead, they used the flashlights, sheltering them in their hands to minimize detection until they reached a vantage point directly across from the Sutton house.

  He did a quick scan of the ground with the light before dropping down behind the cover of a low, sloping boulder. He wasn’t any more anxious than she to make the acquaintance of Arizona’s creepier life forms, not that he’d admit it.

  The only exterior lights across the road, besides a lone pole lamp that shone on the SUV, were back by the kennels and barns. Those were lit up as if it were midday, making the shadows around the house seem deeper, starker. Lights were on upstairs now, muted by curtains but seeping out from two front windows, two side windows. Weaker light came from downstairs—the kitchen, he saw when he focused the binoculars. It was at the back of the house, on the other side of a large, unoccupied living room. The distortion made him squint and turned his stomach queasy, but what he could see of the room was functional but dated. Neither Sutton was much of a cook or surely they would have modernized the appliances and countertops in the past forty years.

  As he panned across the room, shock stabbed through him. “Luisa,” he whispered, jerking to a stop on the slight form standing at the kitchen sink. She wore a shapeless dress, was barefooted, and her ragged haircut looked as if it had been self-inflicted.

  Cate, on her belly beside him, was damn near vibrating with the need to see for herself, her hands half-

  extended, her fingers shaking. He handed the binoculars to her, and she zoomed in on the large picture window that showed through to the kitchen. “Oh, my God, it is her.”

  “How does she look?”

  “Green” was her immediate response. “Thinner than in the photograph. Someone did a whack job on her hair. She’s scrubbing the sink like an expert. Do you suppose that’s what they wanted her for—a servant?”

  “When you buy someone, I think that makes her a slave.” Then he shoved his fingers through his hair. “Maybe she’s just doing her chores. Most kids have chores, right?”

  She took her gaze from the binoculars for a moment. “Aw, that’s cute. The trust-fund baby knows what chores are. Did you have any?”

  “I went fishing with my grandfather every Saturday six months of every year until I turned sixteen.”

  “Fishing’s not a chore.”

  “Doing it with my grandfather was.”

  She focused on the scene inside the house again. “My sisters and I set the dinner table, cleared it, did the dishes, made our beds, cleaned our rooms, helped with the yard work, did our own laundry by the time we were ten and ran most of the errands once we got our drivers’ licenses.” A sigh escaped her. “Maybe she is just doing chores, but she seems…withdrawn. Sad.”

  “Missing her mom?”

  “Missing La Casa?”

  Or maybe dreading bedtime? God, Justin couldn’t even bear to think of it.

  He rolled onto his side, watching Cate and the sky. She continued to study the Sutton house and the property, and the sky did nothing besides give way to the occasional streak of a shooting star. Did Luisa see the stars? Did she know the American custom of wishing on one?

  He did. He made a lot of wishes on the first one, beginning with Luisa, Trent and Susanna, and ending with Cate.

  Propping his head on one fist, he watched her. “Tell me, doc, do you always overthink your relationships?”

  If the subject change surprised her, she didn’t show it. “Only the important ones.”

  “You didn’t overthink it with Trent.”

  “No,” she agreed. “I didn’t think that one through enough.”

  “How about the one with the cop?”

  “AJ? We were friends, we dated, we had sex, we talked about marriage. It just sort of happened.”

  “So what you’re saying is the only one you’re overthinking is me. Which makes me an important one.”

  That brought her attention back from the house. “No, that’s not…but…”

  It clearly frustrated her that she couldn’t argue with her own words, and that made him grin. “The ones you don’t think much about don’t last. So you’re thinking too much about this because it could last.” His vision now accustomed to the dark, he recognized the somberness of her expression, though he had to strain to hear her words.

  “Because it could end badly.”

  He was glad she could acknowledge that. “You could break my heart.”

  She snorted.

  “What? You don’t think I have a heart to break?”

  “I think I could stop it, restart it and change its rhythm, and with time, medication and compliance, I could heal it, but break it? Me? I don’t think so.”

  He touched her hair, sleek silky strands tucked behind her ears, and she went still, her breath little more than a whisper in the night. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, doc.”

  For a long moment she continued to watch the house—more because she didn’t want to look at him, he thought, than because she did want to look at Luisa. Finally, though, she glanced his way. “Our lives are very different.”

  “Are they? I go to bed at night. Do you? I get up in the morning and eat breakfast. I bet you do, too. I take care of what’s on my schedule, I pay my bills, I visit my family, I hang out with friends. I clean my house, I wash my dishes, I do my laundry and I spend time giving a little help where it’s needed. Which of those things do you not do?”

  She blinked. “You clean your house?”

  “Yeah. I know, you assumed I have a housekeeper. I don’t. But I do admit to having a lawn service take care of the yard both in Mobile and Coz since I do travel a lot.”

  “I hardly travel at all. And certainly not in first class or by private jet when I do.”

  “Is travel a deal breaker? You can’t fa—” he bit off the word and substituted another “—get involved with someone who travels? Even if everything else is good? Even if you’re happy and having a great time and the sex is incredible?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. And what makes you sure the sex would be incredible?”

  He gave an exaggerated eye roll. “Because we’re talking about me, right?” Then his voice got husky. “And you. You’re special, Cate. Don’t try to kid yourself you’re not. And this thing between us… It’s special, too. You know it is, or you wouldn’t be afraid.”

  It was probably an effect of the night, but in that moment she looked softer, more vulnerable, more desirable than he’d ever seen her. She opened her mouth, then closed it, and closed her eyes, too, as if seeking another argument or the courage to give in to his.

  Another argument won. “You live in Mobile. My life is in Copper Lake. I’ve been there a long time. I love my job and my friends and my home.”

  “There are airplanes, trains, buses and cars running both ways.” He was silent, considering the wisdom of what he was about to say, then said it anyway. “I’m not tied to Mobile, Cate. I mean, I’ve lived there all my life except for college, and my parents are there, and I’d hate to leave the kids at the center, but nothing says I have to live there. I’ve just never found a good enough reason to move.”

&nb
sp; She stared at him a long time, making him wish he could see her eyes, see what thoughts were going through her head. That they were getting way ahead of themselves, probably. That agreeing to see each other was a long way from making a life together. That the future they were discussing might never come. That a relationship between them could dwindle off into nothing, just like other relationships in their pasts.

  But then, she was the expert at overthinking. He knew what he wanted, and if she wanted him, too, they could find a way to make it work.

  “Maybe you give me too much credit,” she murmured before raising the binoculars again.

  She didn’t believe she could break his heart. Didn’t believe he could want her, need her, love her enough.

  He stared into the sky again, frustrated with her, with himself, with Trent and the cop and every other man she’d been with. It took a few deep breaths to blow out the irritation, a few deeper ones to calm himself. In another thirty-six hours, this mess would be over, one way or another. If they were still alive, if their lives went back to normal and he was still coming around, still coaxing her, still showing that he wanted her… Sooner or later, she would have to give him a chance, wouldn’t she?

  With a sideways glance, he reminded himself who he was talking about: Cate Calloway, queen of hardheadedness.

  But he was the king of stubborn. He could show her he was serious, not with words but with actions.

  “Luisa’s leaving the kitchen.”

  He rolled onto his stomach in time to see the kitchen go dark. No lights came on over the stairs. Either she was making her way up in the dark, or—

  Dim light appeared from beneath the porch, filtered through curtains or shades. If the Suttons had bothered with landscaping around the house, it wouldn’t have been visible, but there it was, three narrow rectangles.