by Amelia Autin
If she hadn’t already been sitting down, she would have fallen, because her legs were suddenly weak and trembling. Leave her babies? Not just for a few hours, but for however long it took to set and spring a trap? She hadn’t been able to go back to work after her maternity leave ended. How was she expected to spend nights away from them?
Holly’s lips moved, but no words came out, and she forced herself to focus on Chris’s face. “You want me to leave Ian and Jamie with Peg...indefinitely.”
He shook his head again. “Not indefinitely. A few days, a week at the most.”
Could she do it? She wasn’t sure. But did she really have a choice? Chris and his brother were right—she couldn’t keep on running. Not just because the McCays might eventually run her to ground, but also because the constant moving was too hard on Ian and Jamie, especially now that they were getting old enough to notice the change in their environment. She had to close that chapter in her life, and the only way to do it...the only safe way to do it...was to settle with the McCays once and for all. To get them arrested, tried and convicted. To get them locked away where they would no longer be a threat. Not to her, and not to her sons.
“Could I...could I at least talk to them every day?”
“Nobody’s trying to stop you from being a good mother, Holly...except the McCays.” That gentleness was back in Chris’s voice. “But I don’t want you to visit Ian and Jamie at Peg’s, because once we set the trap the McCays will know where you are...and instead of going after the bait and trying to kill you, they could track you to Peg’s house. Secretly. We’d have no way of knowing. And that would put the boys in danger. I know you don’t want that.”
“Of course not,” Holly repeated.
“You can talk to Ian and Jamie several times a day, for however long you and they need. A week, max, I promise. Hard on you. Hard on them. But it’ll be worth it if we catch the McCays in the act.”
“Okay.” She didn’t want to do it, but Chris’s points were irrefutable. She suddenly realized her palms were damp, and she rubbed them nervously on the sides of her jeans. “So when do we start?”
“As soon as I can coordinate things with Sam and Annabel—tomorrow or the next day. And I’ve got to get Jim Murray’s blessing, too.” She raised her brows in a question, and he added, “He’s the Granite Gulch police chief. Sam and Annabel answer to him, so we can’t do this without him giving it the green light. But I don’t see Jim saying no.”
“Can he be trusted?” Holly blurted out.
Chris smiled faintly. “He’s honest as the day is long. I’ve known him since I was a kid, and I would trust him to do the right thing. Always.”
“Okay,” she said again. She didn’t say anything more, but she didn’t leave, either. She knew she should—that would be the safe thing. The smart thing. But suddenly all she could think of was the kiss in her dream yesterday. The kiss that had devastated her with how much she wanted this man she barely knew. And then there was the kiss that wasn’t. The almost-kiss in the kitchen last night. She’d seen it in his eyes—he’d wanted to kiss her. Why hadn’t he?
Then she realized he was looking at her the same way he had last night, as if he was a little boy standing on the sidewalk outside a store window gazing longingly at something he wanted but knew he couldn’t have because he couldn’t afford it. As if—
“Go to bed, Holly,” he told her, his voice suddenly harsh. But she couldn’t seem to make her feet move. “This isn’t what you want.” Oh, but it was, it was.
So when her feet finally did move it wasn’t to leave. Six steps was all it took to bring her right up to Chris, right up to his rock-hard body that exuded unbelievable warmth, just like her dream. She reached up and brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, then let her fingers trail down his temple, his cheek. The slight scruff of his unshaven chin made her shiver with sudden longing, and her nipples tightened until they ached.
Then he pulled her flush against his body, and she wrapped her arms around his waist, holding on for dear life. She raised her face to his, her eyes mutely asking, and he kissed her.
Kissed? If she could think, she’d find a better word for what his lips were doing to hers, but every thought flew out of her head and all she could do was kiss him back. All she could do was match the hunger in him. The need. The frantic longing for something just out of reach, which they both knew could be theirs, if only...
She heard a whimper and realized it was coming from her throat. Heard a moan and realized that was hers, too. She couldn’t seem to get close enough, even though he was holding her in his powerful embrace as if he would never let her go. Don’t let me go reverberated in her brain, and if she’d had the breath she would have said the words out loud. But she couldn’t, because he’d stolen her breath. Stolen her sanity.
He was hot and hard, but not where she wanted him to be—he was too tall...or she was too short. Then his hands grasped her hips and lifted her with unbelievable strength. She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his hips, gasping with relief as she rocked up against the hardness she yearned for.
He was still kissing her and—oh, God!—just like her dream, she couldn’t get enough of him. She was burning up from the inside out, and if he didn’t make love to her in the next sixty seconds she would go crazy, she would—
A sudden wailing from the master bedroom brought everything to a crashing halt.
Chapter 10
Letting Holly go ranked right up there in the top ten most difficult things Chris had ever done, but he did it. He reluctantly let her slide down his body until her feet touched the floor. Compelled his lips to release hers. Forced his arms to set her free. Her breasts were rising and falling as if she was having the same difficulty he was having breathing, and there was a dazed expression in her eyes...one that quickly changed to mortification.
“I...I... That’s Jamie,” Holly stammered, practically running from the study.
Chris followed her, turning on the light in the hallway so she didn’t have to feel her way in the darkness. She disappeared into the master bedroom before he could catch up, and when he turned the corner, she was already lifting a weeping Jamie from his crib.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” she soothed. “Mommy’s here.”
Ian, woken from a sound sleep by his brother’s sobs, started fussing, his face crumpling as if he was going to cry, too. But Chris wouldn’t let him. He lifted the boy out of the crib and propped him up against his shoulder. “Hey, buddy, don’t you start.” He chucked the boy under the chin. “Come on now. You’re okay.”
He glanced over at Holly cuddling Jamie in her arms, his face pressed against her shoulder as she rocked him back and forth. “Bad dream, you think?”
“Probably.”
Holly’s eyes wouldn’t meet his, and disappointment slashed through him as he figured she was already regretting what they’d done. The best thing that had happened to him since Laura died...and Holly was regretting it.
Should have known better, he berated himself. Should never have touched her. You knew that, so why...?
He didn’t want to address that question, but the answer refused to be silenced. He’d touched Holly...kissed her...caressed her...damn near made love to her...because he had to. Because the yearning in her eyes had aroused an ache in him he hadn’t been able to suppress. Because the need to hold her had swept everything aside like a force of nature, the way a river in flood swept away everything in its path.
And now she wouldn’t even look at him. As if she was ashamed.
That was the most hurtful thing of all.
* * *
Chris sat in his study a half hour later. Staring at his laptop, but not really seeing the web page he’d opened. Work, which had been his saving grace after Laura’s death, couldn’t hold his interest. He kept reliving the scene of Holly
and him in this very room tonight. Only this time when he told her to go to bed and she refused to go...this time when she walked toward him and touched his face...this time when she raised her face to his asking for his kiss...this time he didn’t touch her.
Which was what he should have done in the first place.
“Chris?”
He whirled around in his chair when a hesitant voice from the doorway said his name. Then he stood, needing to be on his feet to offer Holly the apology she deserved. In one way he wasn’t sorry—he’d wanted to kiss her since the first time he’d seen her walking up the driveway of Peg’s house, and now he had. And it had been like nothing he’d ever experienced in his life. But in another way he regretted it...because now he knew what it would be like with Holly...and he couldn’t have it. Couldn’t have her.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry.”
Chris spoke first, but Holly’s apology was only a half second behind his. He shook his head. “You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he told her. “I should never have touched you.”
Holly blinked, then her eyes creased at the corners. “I started it,” she said quietly. “I’m not one of those women who blame the man for losing control when—” She broke off and breathed deeply. “You didn’t do anything I didn’t want you to do.”
“That doesn’t absolve me of blame.” Chris tucked his hands in his back pockets to keep himself from reaching for her. “You’re under my protection, Holly. And you’re feeling vulnerable—I knew that. I shouldn’t have taken advantage.”
A fierce expression swept over her face. “You shouldn’t have taken advantage?” Her voice held that same fierceness. “What is this, the eighteen hundreds? If one of us took advantage of the other, it was me. I took advantage of you. I wanted you, and I—” She stopped, then continued bravely. “I wanted you, Chris. I’ve never wanted that way in my entire life, not even with Grant.”
His brain tried to process her words, but they didn’t jive with— “You ran out of the room,” he grated. “You were mortified—no, don’t deny it,” he interjected when she tried to speak. “And in the bedroom you wouldn’t even meet my eyes. You were ashamed.”
“Not for the reason you apparently think,” she said, a tinge of color in her cheeks. “When I heard Jamie crying, I...I didn’t want to stop. Didn’t want to go see what was wrong with him. That’s why I was mortified,” she explained. “Because I wanted you so much that for an instant I actually resented Jamie for interrupting.” Her lips curved up slightly at the corners in a rueful smile. “I didn’t want to be a mother at the moment, Chris. I just wanted to be a woman. A woman you wanted as much as I wanted you.”
He could have sworn he didn’t move, but suddenly he found himself standing right in front of Holly. “I wanted you,” he said in his deepest voice. “I wanted you like I wanted my next breath.” He raised a hand to her cheek and admitted, “I still do.” He let that confession hang there for a couple of seconds before adding, “And when Jamie cried?” His rueful smile matched hers. “I wished him in perdition.”
Suddenly they were both laughing softly, and Chris lowered his forehead to Holly’s. “That doesn’t make us bad people,” he told her, unutterably relieved she hadn’t been ashamed of what they’d done after all. “It just means we’re human.”
“So I’m not a bad mother because I didn’t immediately switch off the woman gene and switch on the mother gene?” she whispered, but in a tone that told him she was teasing.
“Hell—I mean, heck no,” he teased back.
Holly touched her lips to his. “Glad to hear it,” she murmured.
Desire zinged through his veins, but this time he had enough self-control not to follow through on it. “Don’t start something we can’t finish,” he warned lightly.
“We can’t?”
“Holly...” he began, then realized she was teasing again.
“It’s going to happen, Chris,” she told him, all teasing aside. “Not tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow night. But it’s going to happen.” Despite her brazen words, the little flags of color in her cheeks, the not-so-sure-of-herself expression in her eyes and the almost defiant way she said it told Chris this wasn’t normal behavior for Holly. She’s probably never made the first move in her life, he thought. And that turned him on no end. The idea that Holly—sweet, innocent Holly—wanted him that much was incredibly arousing.
But he wasn’t taking any chances. Not tonight. “Go to bed, Holly,” he told her, gently this time. “But I won’t be upset if you dream about me, ’cause I’ll be dreaming about you.” He laughed deep in his throat, and it felt good to laugh, even though he knew he’d go to bed hard and aching and wake up the same way. “Oh, yeah, I’ll be dreaming about you.”
* * *
Holly woke before the twins again and lay there for a moment, enjoying the peace and quiet. Then she remembered how she’d brazenly told Chris last night they would eventually become lovers. Just thinking about it made her cheeks warm—she’d never been that bold with a man. Even when she’d made up her mind to do whatever she could to entice Grant into loving her, she’d never come right out and said it.
But then she’d never felt for Grant what she felt for Chris. Yes, she’d loved her husband, but...she’d never hungered for him. She’d never craved. And that was a revelation. She just wasn’t sure what it meant.
She wasn’t merely drawn to Chris physically, though. He tugged at her heart, too, now more than ever. Her conversation with Annabel yesterday afternoon had explained a lot about his behavior, and she believed she knew him better. But it wasn’t just that. Watching him with her sons—could there exist a man more destined to be a father than Chris? He was a natural, his father instincts always on target. Like last night, for instance, when he’d stopped Ian from crying. How did he know? How did he unerringly know just what to do, what to say in every interaction with Ian and Jamie?
Holly turned over and tucked her hand beneath her cheek. Chris was a triple threat—hotter than sin, a perfect dad in the making and a man whose emotions ran so deep any woman would be drawn to him.
She sighed. Problem was...she was starting to fall for him. Which had epic disaster written all over it, because she wasn’t the kind of woman men fell in love with. Okay, yes, Chris wanted her. She was pretty enough, sexy enough, and other men had wanted her before. Not Grant, though. Except for the night Ian and Jamie had been conceived—and it had taken a few drinks more than he normally allowed himself before he’d seen her as a sexy, desirable woman—Grant’s lovemaking had been...restrained. Good enough in its way, but...restrained. They’d tried hard to make a go of their marriage for the twins’ sake. But Grant had never been in love with her...because she wasn’t the lovable kind.
* * *
Chris told Holly at breakfast, “I called Peg this morning. She agreed to take Ian and Jamie for as long as you need.”
She stopped supervising Jamie’s attempts to feed himself and darted a dismayed look at him. “So soon?”
“The sooner we start, the sooner it will be over,” he said patiently. “But actually, I have something I need to get out of the way first.” She raised her eyebrows in a question and he hesitated, then realized there really wasn’t any reason not to tell her. “I have to visit my father in prison.”
“Visit your father?” The faint way she asked told him he’d surprised her.
“He’s dying,” he said abruptly. “Back in January he promised Sam that if each of his children visited him, he’d give us clues as to where he buried our mother.”
“I don’t understand.”
Chris glanced at Ian and Jamie, but they were completely occupied with eating and weren’t paying the least bit of attention to the adult conversation. “I told you what he did to our mother,” he explained, masking his words for the twins’ benefit. “B
ut I never said that when he did it he took her away and buried her somewhere. Law enforcement searched at the time, but they never found her.” Chris couldn’t keep the hard edge out of his tone. “My brothers and I, and Annabel, too—we’ve been searching for years.”
“But no luck,” Holly stated.
“No luck,” he agreed. “We’ve all been taking turns visiting my father since January. Annabel went last month. Now it’s my turn.” He breathed deeply, trying to tamp down his emotions, then added in a low voice, “We just want to give her a decent burial, Holly. Is that too much to ask?” She shook her head. “I haven’t seen him in nearly twenty years. I never wanted to. But I can’t pass up the chance to find out where my mother is.”
“Of course you can’t,” she said stoutly. Her lovely brown eyes were filled with empathy. “I understand. When my parents were killed in South America—they were missionaries,” she explained, and Chris didn’t bother to tell her he already knew. “I...I was only a teenager. But I knew I had to bring their bodies home. It was a nightmare of frustration and paperwork, but I finally did it. They’re buried together in a cemetery not far from their old church, so their close friends can visit their graves.” She paused, then added softly, “Grant’s buried right next to them.”
Chris saw the tears in her eyes she was struggling to hold back. “Grant’s parents—they wanted him buried in a more fashionable cemetery, but...he loved my parents and they loved him. I wanted them all together, you know?”
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I do.” The silence was broken when Ian accidentally knocked his sippy cup off his high-chair tray. The lid was securely fastened, so only a small amount of milk leaked onto the floor. But Holly jumped up, retrieved the cup, then grabbed a paper towel to wipe up the spilled milk.
After she rinsed off the cup and gave it back to Ian, she resumed her seat, and Chris said, “Anyway, I have to visit the prison today. I was thinking...if you wouldn’t mind...I could take you and the twins to Peg’s this morning. You could stay there until I come back to pick you up. I think you’ll be safe there.”
