The fire crackled quietly. The clock on the mantel ticked. Bit by bit, Dana felt herself relax. She looked at the way Remy’s smile softened his sharp features and deepened the lines beside his mouth. Even her amateur haircut couldn’t diminish his appeal.
There were so many lies between them, at least she could be honest about this one thing, couldn’t she? “You’re a very attractive man.”
“I’ve been a lonely man, Dana. It’s been a long time since…” His smile dimmed. “I’ll spare you the details.”
“How long… I mean, when did your wife die?”
“Last year.”
“You must have loved her very much.”
“We made a wonderful child together.”
She realized he hadn’t really confirmed her statement.
He rested his hand on her shoulder, his fingers toying with the ends of her hair. “What about you, Dana? Have you ever been married?”
She hesitated, but what harm would there be in telling him the truth about this, too? “Yes.”
“What happened?”
“It didn’t work out. I couldn’t give him what he wanted. We divorced two years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I have my career, and my family. I have a great life.”
“Your life is so great, you like to cut yourself off from the world in a closed resort in the winter.”
“I’m staying here to work.”
“Is that the only reason?”
“Of course,” she answered a little too quickly.
He curled a lock of her hair around his index finger and brought it to his lips. “Don’t you ever get lonely, Dana?”
She didn’t like where the conversation was leading. How much honesty did she want to allow herself? Yes, she got lonely. Damn right, she got lonely. Why else would she be stretched out on the floor beside a convicted killer and wishing she could believe this whole crazy charade they were playing?
“Dana?”
“Sometimes,” she murmured.
“I think the nights are the worst,” he said. “When everything’s quiet, and there’s nothing left to keep your mind busy, and all the small things from the day start to swirl around your head. Don’t you wish you had someone beside you then, to talk to?” He stroked her cheek with the ends of her hair. “Or just to hold in the dark?”
She moistened her lips. “Sometimes.”
Firelight reflected in his eyes, making the brown depths glisten. He watched her without speaking for a while. “When we find someone,” he said finally, “it’s not always logical or convenient, is it?”
He’s got that right, she thought. There was nothing logical or convenient about the way she was feeling right now. She had just finished pushing his hand away from her breast, but now she wanted him to touch her again.
He leaned closer.
Oh, God. Was he going to kiss her? What would she do if he did? How could she stand it if he didn’t? Was she crazy?
“Do you believe in fate, Dana?”
Before she could think of an answer—to any of the questions—the hush of the cabin was split by the shrill of the telephone.
Dana started. Her gaze flicked to the phone, then back to Remy’s face.
His hand tightened in her hair, his touch no longer a caress. “Let it ring,” he said.
She tried to move her head but stopped when her hair tugged uncomfortably against her scalp. “It might be important.”
“If it is, they’ll call back.”
The phone rang again. Dana’s stomach lurched. She had been prevented from calling for help this morning. Remy had effectively kept her under surveillance since then. Regardless of who was on the other end of the phone now, this might be the chance she had been waiting for. “John, I have to get that.”
“It could be another wrong number.”
Was she imagining the note of steel in his voice? Was there a tinge of suspicion? “No, I have to—”
“You have to stay here with me,” he said, throwing one leg over hers. “Please, Dana.”
For a mad instant as she looked into his troubled gaze, she almost did what he asked. What if she was wrong? she wondered yet again. What if he really was a lonely widower who was falling in love….
Or what if he decided to drop the act and force her to do what he said? He could. She felt the strength in his thigh where it rested over hers, and she could see the tendons in his neck stiffen as he held himself motionless. He was no longer vulnerable—she had been fooling herself to think that he ever had been.
Yet somehow Dana still couldn’t believe that he would knowingly harm her.
Another ring.
Was she going to lie here forever? Dana decided to go with her instincts. She braced her elbows on the rug and carefully began to lever herself upward, wincing at the pull on her scalp. “Let go of my hair, John,” she said.
“Dana…”
“You’re hurting me.”
Remy saw the flicker of pain in Dana’s eyes and felt as if he’d been struck. Instantly he released her hair and rolled away from her.
She jackknifed to her feet and lunged for the phone. “Hello?”
Remy sat up and rubbed his face. What the hell was he doing? He had been wondering how far she would be willing to go to perpetuate the charade. He should have been wondering how far he would go.
He hadn’t wanted her to answer the phone. Not because she might learn about him or might give him away. No, he hadn’t wanted to let her escape from his arms. He raked his hair off his forehead and rose to his feet. At his movement Dana watched him warily.
He did his best to arrange his face into a harmless John Becker expression as he approached her.
She pressed the receiver to her ear. Her brow furrowed briefly before the corners of her mouth firmed with what appeared to be disappointment. “Yes? Yes, I am.”
Remy weighed the consequences of dropping the pretense and ripping out the phone cord. If Dana knew who he was, she could give him away to whoever was on the other end of the line in the next second. But if she didn’t know who he was, by overreacting now he would give himself away. The best course of action would be to play this out and see what happened. He moved to her side and slid his arm possessively around her waist.
He could hear the tinny drone of a man’s voice from the receiver. He gave Dana a squeeze, pulling her securely against him so that he could hear better.
She smiled tightly at him and shifted the phone to her other ear.
Remy moved behind her back and folded his arms over hers, enclosing her in a lover-like embrace. He dropped his chin to her shoulder to bring his ear next to the receiver.
“…then you might be interested in our pay-as-you-go plan. For a two-hundred-dollar deposit…”
Remy frowned. What was going on?
“I’d like to see some more information,” Dana said. “Could you send someone out to talk to me? I’ll give you directions.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but with the demand for these condominiums we wouldn’t be able to do that. I’d be happy to mail the brochures…”
It was a telemarketer, Remy realized. Not the police, not a concerned friend or a relative, just an anonymous stranger trying to sell something.
Under other circumstances he might have laughed. As it was, he merely pressed his lips to the side of Dana’s neck and sighed.
Was he imagining the delicate shudder that traveled through her body? He didn’t think so. That should have made the role he had to play easier, yet somehow it didn’t.
The conversation ended. Remy loosened his embrace, allowing Dana to pull out of his arms and hang up the phone. She stared at it blankly for a moment, then turned around and looked out the window.
He followed her gaze. Darkness had fallen completely. Against the black shadows of the trees and the deep-blue swaths of snow, the reflection of the softly lit cabin seemed to float just outside the glass. This is what he had hoped would happen when he had
initiated that embrace on the rug. The flat tires on her car and the missing battery from the truck would have delayed their departure anyway, but there was no reason for her to find out about the disabled vehicles unless she had to. “The stores would be closed by now, wouldn’t they?” he asked.
She crossed her arms. “Yes.”
“Sorry. I guess we got sidetracked. We’ll have to take that trip into town another day.”
“Right.”
“Who was on the phone?”
“Just somebody selling time-share condos in Florida.”
“You sounded interested.”
“Sure. I’m always on the lookout for a quiet place to work.”
“There could be a lot of distractions in Florida.”
“There seem to be a lot of distractions here,” she muttered. She turned back to face him. The soft, almost confused expression she had worn while she’d been lying beneath him was gone. In its place was frustration and something that looked suspiciously like…challenge. “You mentioned that you were lonely,” she said.
“Yes. I do get lonely.”
“What about Chantal? I’m surprised you haven’t wanted to call her yet.”
At the sound of his daughter’s name, his muscles knotted. “I…uh.”
“Go ahead.” She watched him steadily. “I wouldn’t mind.”
“I don’t want to impose—”
“As I said, I have a great long-distance plan.” She picked up the receiver once more and held it out to him. “She’s probably eager to hear from you.”
Did she know? he wondered. Was she trying to test him, to call his bluff?
Or did she actually care?
The moment dragged on. He had two choices. Either he played along, or he ended this now.
“Well?”
Remy took the receiver from Dana’s hand. He thought for a moment, then dialed the number of the airport weather service. There was a short beep, followed by a long tone. When the recorded forecast began, he forced a smile. “Hi, Mom. It’s John.”
Dana started. Was it surprise? he wondered.
“Fine, fine. How’s everything with you?”
The temperature would dip to minus twenty-one Celsius overnight and rise to minus twelve tomorrow.
“Yes, I’m still at the resort. How did things go at school today? Did Chantal take her new rabbit for show-and-tell?”
Winds were calm, barometric pressure at one hundred and one kilopascals and steady.
“Yes, that would be great.” He paused. “Hello, pun’kin. It’s Daddy.”
As Remy listened to the details of the low pressure system over the American Midwest, in his head he imagined the sound of his daughter’s voice. It had been months since he’d heard it. His late wife’s parents had found one excuse after another to keep her away from the phone each time he was allowed to make a call. They had never brought her to the Kingston Pen to see him, either. He wasn’t sure he would have wanted her to see him there, caged up like an animal. That wasn’t how he wanted her to think of her father.
But how was she thinking of him now? Did she remember how he used to hold her over his head and spin around to make her giggle? Did she slip her hand into someone else’s as she walked to the playground? Did she still need him to check under her bed for trolls?
Remy pinched the bridge of his nose and swallowed hard. Of all the acts he’d had to put on, this one was the worst. If only it could be real. What he wouldn’t give to be able to hear his daughter’s voice, to be finished with the lies.
“Did Grandma take you tobogganing at the park?” he asked. He paused, as he always did to allow Chantal time to chatter. “You kept your hat on for the whole time? Hey, good for you.”
The chance of precipitation was zero for tonight, ten percent for tomorrow.
“We’ll build a snow fort when I come home, okay? And I’ll make a slide in the backyard, just like last year.”
Ceiling unlimited.
“You be a good girl for Grandma and Grandpa.”
Sunrise at 7:56 tomorrow.
“I promise I’ll be home soon.”
Sunset at 4:20.
“I love you, too.” Heat rose behind his eyes. The recorded voice crackled to a stop. There was a long beep. The line clicked and went dead. “Goodbye, Chantal.”
He leaned over to hang up the phone, exhaling slowly to regain control. When he straightened up, Dana was staring at him. Was it a trick of the lighting, or were her own eyes moist?
“Thanks,” he said, his voice rough.
She rubbed her eyes and turned away. “Don’t mention it.”
Chapter 7
Mortimer should have escaped from the pirate mice’s island by now. He wasn’t stupid. He had stockpiled the cheese and was about to make a dash for his ship, but instead he was watching the pirates play tag with their children. Cute little baby mice were romping and laughing with the desperate outlaws. How could these evil pirates be such caring parents?
Dana groaned and dropped her head to the table. It should have been a simple story, a tale of right and wrong, but the plot that had seemed so straightforward was splintering out of control.
Next time she signed a contract for a book, she would have her publisher provide a sensory deprivation tank. Yes, one of those fluid-filled boxes from a research lab where she could be locked in with absolutely no distractions. That would be perfect.
“Dana? Is something wrong?”
Whoa, not only was he a good liar, he was perceptive as hell. Something wrong? What had been his first clue? Could it be the dark circles under her eyes this morning? How about the overflowing wastebasket beside her work table? Or maybe it was the way she didn’t know how to meet his gaze.
She wasn’t normally a cruel person. Yesterday she had been frustrated by this cat-and-mouse game they had been playing. That was why she had dared him to make that phone call.
He had faked the whole thing. Sure, he had been clever enough to dial a number with the Toronto area code, but he hadn’t counted on how quiet the room had been. He had pressed the receiver tightly enough to his ear to keep her from hearing the voice on the other end of the phone, but he hadn’t been able to muffle the beeps and clicks that signaled a recorded message.
The problem was, the call hadn’t been entirely faked. The things he had said, the way his voice had softened, she would bet her next royalty check those had been real.
At least one thing had been settled. She no longer held out even a smidgen of hope that she might have been wrong. He was Remy Leverette.
Yet instead of the fear she should logically be feeling, she felt anger. She was angry over his continuing deception. She was downright livid at the way he was using her cabin as a hideout, toying with her emotions and playing her for a fool.
Most of all, though, she was furious at the guilt she felt over forcing him to pretend to talk with Chantal.
It had hurt him. He loved his daughter. He missed her, and it had caused him pain to pretend. What had started out as a dare, as a petty bit of revenge for the game he was playing, had backfired on her when she had seen that faraway sheen in his eyes. Physically he was such a ruggedly powerful man that it made the depth of his emotions all the more compelling.
She couldn’t be developing sympathy for the person who was essentially holding her captive, could she? Wasn’t there a psychological term for that? Some kind of syndrome? How humiliating. Was that why she had welcomed his touch?
A broad hand settled on her shoulder. “You look as if you could use a break. Let’s go for a walk.”
She straightened up, brushing off the eraser crumbs that clung to her forehead. “No, you go ahead, John. I have to get this finished.”
He squeezed lightly, then rubbed his hand over her back. “I’ll wait.”
Of course he wouldn’t go without her. It hadn’t even been worth a try. She mouthed a curse and stood up. “On second thought, I might as well do my check of the lodge.” She watched him carefully. “We c
ould take a shopping trip into town afterward.”
Remy probably had no more intention of going into town today than he had yesterday, Dana thought. But if he thought another seduction attempt was going to work this time…
“Sure,” he said, going toward the kitchen. “Let me put some food in Morty’s dish before we go.”
As soon as he saw where Remy was heading, Morty leaped down from his perch on the back of the couch. Ears forward, tail held high, the cat pranced adoringly in his idol’s wake.
Pathetic, Dana thought. Yet more proof that her judgment was no better than a cat’s. Gritting her teeth, she went to get her coat. She was almost across the living room when a glint outside the front window caught her eye.
Sunshine reflected from the windshield of a car as it drove out of the shadows at the bend in the lane. Her gaze went to the light bar on the roof. It wasn’t just any car. It was a police cruiser.
For a paralyzing moment, all she could do was stare. Could it be this easy? After the head games of the past two days, all her attempts to outwit Remy, could it really be over?
The whirr of the can opener came from the kitchen. Morty meowed loudly, doing his starving cat imitation. Dana heard the low rumble of Remy’s chuckle—he was accustomed to Morty’s dramatics by now.
The cruiser slowed to a stop near the garage, where the snowplow did its turnaround. A heavy-set officer emerged from the vehicle, pausing to pull a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his nose.
Dana felt her heart thump hard against her ribs. It was the policeman who had been here before, Constable Savard. He had said he would follow up on her reported sighting of the fugitive. She hadn’t thought he had taken her seriously enough to do it, but obviously he had.
Oh, God. It really was going to be this easy. All she had to do was run outside and cry for help. Savard had a radio. And a gun. He wouldn’t have any trouble overpowering Remy and taking him back to prison.
Yet instead of racing for the door, she hesitated for a crucial instant. She had seen Remy’s mug shot, but she couldn’t picture him locked up. She couldn’t picture him hurting anyone, either. His touch was so gentle, so considerate—
The policeman slammed the car door and started toward the cabin.
Fugitive Hearts Page 10
