Nowhere to Run

by Suzanne Brockmann

  He slipped his foot under her robe, touching the warmth of her leg with his toes. She smiled and opened her turquoise eyes, and a hand appeared from beneath the mound of white terry cloth. She rested it gently on his leg, stroking him slightly as she closed her eyes again.

  Great sex.

  It had been incredibly great sex. In fact, that was the way Felipe had always preferred to think of it in the privacy of his own mind. He spoke to his lovers of “making love,” but love never really entered into it—at least not more than the rather general love he had for all beautiful women. Sure, he’d imagined himself in love a time or two back when he was a teenager. But either it hadn’t lasted or he’d been spurned and his broken heart had quickly healed. So quickly, in fact, that he’d soon come to doubt the truth of what he’d felt.

  But this thing he’d been feeling lately, this lump of emotion that was lodged in his chest was unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

  Maybe it wasn’t love, he told himself. Maybe he was mistaken.

  Caroline sighed and opened her eyes again. “What time is it?” she murmured.

  He didn’t need to glance at the clock on the wall. He could tell by the angle of the sun on the horizon. “Nearly six.”

  She yawned and stretched, her legs entwining with his on the couch, her arms reaching for the high, beamed ceiling.

  Caroline folded her hands behind her head, elbows in the air, and looked down the couch at him. With one foot, she played with the edge of his shorts. “What does ‘tayyamo’ mean?”

  Her question made him freeze. Even his heart seemed to stop beating for a few solid seconds.

  “What did you say?” he said.

  “Tay-yamo,” she said again.

  Te amo.

  I love you.

  He kept his shock carefully hidden from her curious gaze.

  “You said it more than once,” Caroline said. She lowered her arms and began fiddling with the belt of the robe, aware of his sudden complete silence and clearly uncertain how to interpret it. “You remember, back when we weren’t having lunch. Remember, the kitchen table…?”

  Her smile was half shy, half wicked and utterly charming.

  “I remember the kitchen table.” He would always remember the kitchen table. In fact, he would probably be thinking of it, ninety-five years old and on his deathbed. That is, if he lived that long.

  “I was just wondering if…” She looked at him from underneath her long lashes. She wasn’t being coy or trying to act cute. Her nervous shyness was as real as the sweet blush that often tinged her cheeks. It totally contradicted the woman who had brazenly and openly tempted him in the kitchen this noon, but that wasn’t a shock. She was a nest of contradictions and surprises. He expected it by now.

  She took a deep breath. “I was wondering if Tay-yamo was someone’s name. Like an old girlfriend. Or maybe a not-so-old girlfriend…?”

  Felipe shook his head. “It’s not a name,” he said.

  “Then what does it mean?” she asked. She said it again, practicing the unfamiliar Spanish words. “Tayyamo. Am I saying it right?”

  Te amo.

  I love you.

  Felipe could only nod. Had he really told her that he loved her?

  “What does it mean?” she asked again.

  He cleared his throat. “It’s…rather difficult to translate.”

  He’d told her he loved her as they made love. He closed his eyes, and he could hear the echo of his voice calling out those words. Te amo. Yes, he’d really said it.

  Worse than the shock of realizing he’d slipped, of realizing it was only chance that he’d said those words in a language Caroline didn’t understand, worse than that was the sudden glaring knowledge that those words he’d cried were true.

  He loved her.

  She tucked her legs back underneath her robe, moving away from his foot. The sudden loss of her warmth, of the sensation of the closeness was too much for Felipe. He reached forward and pulled her so that she was sitting toboggan-style between his legs, her back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly.

  He couldn’t deny it anymore. He loved her.

  He was doomed.

  “Tay-yamo,” she said again, and his heart clenched. She didn’t know what she was saying, and she probably wouldn’t say it if she did know what it meant. “You really can’t translate it, huh?”

  He shook his head. No.

  How ironic that the tables had turned on him so absolutely. Here he’d gone and fallen in love, and she’d had “great sex.”

  “Tay-yamo. You were…exuberant when you first shouted it,” she mused, that same wicked light in her eyes. “Is it kind of like, I don’t know…yabba dabba do?”

  Felipe laughed, holding her closer, loving her, wishing with all his heart that she loved him, too. But if she did, man, what a mess that would be. A double heartbreak instead of a single one. Because he was going to leave her when this was over. He had to leave her. He wouldn’t risk putting her in danger. It would be easier for her, much easier, if she simply didn’t fall in love with him, if she simply continued to consider their relationship a source of friendship and “great sex.”

  “Yes,” he told her, pulling up her chin and kissing her soft lips. “It’s exactly like yabba dabba do.”

  FELIPE WOKE UP at nine-thirty with Caroline in his arms.

  Morning sunlight was streaming in around the edges of the shades and curtains in the master bedroom, and had been for quite some time.

  He’d never slept so late before.

  But it didn’t surprise him. These past few days had been full of firsts.

  Take, for example, the fact that he was lying here with the woman that he loved in his arms. Loved. That was a very big first.

  Caroline was still fast asleep. He smiled despite the tension in his stomach and shoulders that his thoughts had created. She slept fiercely, her eyes tightly closed and her fists clenched, as if she was fighting to stay asleep.

  He’d kept her up late last night. But then she’d woken him up at dawn…. She was as insatiable as he.

  They’d stumbled around in the gray half-light, searching the master bedroom for condoms. They’d used up the one he’d carried in his wallet, and the others his brother had slipped him before they’d left the halfway house.

  Felipe had been prepared to improvise, or heaven help him, even risk it—now there was another first—when Carrie had dug up a nearly full box. They were Jim’s, and they’d been buried—hidden—way, way back underneath the sink.

  Felipe was going to take every single one with him when they left. Jim wouldn’t need them for a while—his wife, Emily, was five months pregnant.

  He looked down at Caroline again, studying the pattern of freckles that splashed across her nose and cheeks, imagining her pregnant with his child. The want that rose in him was so intense he had to close his eyes and breathe deeply until it faded.

  The baby would look like him, dark hair, dark eyes. He would be big—all of the Salazar babies were big—maybe even too big for Caroline to deliver safely. She was so tiny that the thought of her heavy with child and in possible physical danger because of it, because of him, was nearly overwhelming. If he got her pregnant, he’d spend nine months terrified that she would somehow be hurt…or worse.

  Another reason not to tell her that he loved her. Another reason to walk away and never let her know the way she made his heart sing.

  But—and it was time for yet another first—Felipe was starting to wonder if, when the time came, he’d actually have the strength to leave her.

  Jim Keegan was married. Of course, he spent most of the time worried to hell about Emily. And Jim took precautions, too. He had a state-of-the-art security system and a dog the size of a small horse trained never to leave their yard. When he worked late at night, patrol cars would drive past his house, occasionally checking in with his wife. Felipe had stopped by himself, many times, as a favor to his old friend.
/>   All that worry, all those precautions, and Jim only worked straightforward homicide. He rarely went under cover. His job was known to be far less dangerous than Felipe’s.

  Infiltrating street gangs and organized crime, which was what Felipe was so very, very good at, included a certain risk of retaliation or revenge. If he stayed with Caroline, if he let himself live the kind of life he longed for with her, he’d never be free from worry. His concentration would be off, and he’d probably get himself killed. Or her killed. And God help him, if anything happened to her, he’d never forgive himself.

  No. When the time came, Felipe would find the strength to leave Caroline. Somehow, he’d manage to do it.

  His leg started to ache, and he closed his eyes. Caroline snuggled against him, and he held her tighter, breathing in the sweet, familiar scent of paradise.

  It wasn’t going to be easy. God, even if she was the one who turned and walked away, it wouldn’t be easy. Easier, but not easy.

  Nothing would ever be easy again.

  THE BLOODSTAINS hadn’t quite washed out of Carrie’s dress, but the blue-flowered pattern managed to hide them, at least at a distant inspection. Now that the dress was clean and dry, she’d put it back on. Despite the stains, it fit far better than anything else she’d found in this house of tall people.

  She stripped the sheets from the beds they’d used and put them and their dirty towels in a laundry basket. She left a note on top, apologizing for not taking the time to wash the linens.

  Felipe was in the kitchen, washing up the pots and dishes. He’d been oddly quiet all morning, a strange shadow darkening his eyes. Whether it was the thought of leaving the sanctuary of the beach house or something else, Carrie didn’t know. But he was tense—more so than usual—and seemed lost in his thoughts.

  Making love in a bed had seemed almost anticlimactic after the kitchen table. Still, it had been…lovely. He’d made love to her slowly, so exquisitely slowly. She could have sworn she’d seen love in his eyes, but she was probably mistaken. It was more likely only a reflection of the candlelight.

  She sighed. Felipe glanced up at her and she forced her mouth into a smile.

  “Ready to go?” he asked, wiping his hands on a dish towel, then hanging it on a hook near the sink. He walked toward her.

  “No,” she said.

  He pushed her hair back from her face so very gently. “Neither am I,” he said. “But we have to.”

  He was wearing the jeans, T-shirt and jacket he’d borrowed from his brother Rafe. He’d pulled his hair into a ponytail and his face looked sterner and harder without the softening effect of his long, dark curls. But his eyes were soft and his lips were even softer as he leaned forward to kiss her.

  “Where are we going?” Carrie asked.

  The shadow came back, flitting quickly across his gaze, and he looked away, toward the door that would lead them out of the house. “To a friend’s,” he said vaguely. “I have to get my hair cut. I need to look as different as I possibly can.”

  Carrie reached up and touched his ponytail. “Cut short?” she asked, unable to hide her disappointment.

  He smiled, amusement in his dark eyes. “What? You like it long like this?”

  “Yes,” she said, freeing his hair from the ponytail and running her fingers through it. “It’s…sexy.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, closing his eyes, letting her know he enjoyed her touch. “I’m sorry. I won’t get it cut too short.” He looked at her and smiled. “The police have two kinds of pictures of me—some are with my hair long, like this. The others are with it cut short. You know, I always wore my hair really short until about two years ago.” He looked down at his clothes and made a face. “And this is not my normal wardrobe. I always wore designer suits and ties.”

  Carrie laughed. She just couldn’t picture it. Although he had worn that tuxedo with a certain ease and familiarity…. “I’ll believe that when you show me the pictures.”

  He stepped slightly away from her, putting the rubber band back in his hair. “Time to go.”

  Carrie watched him open the kitchen door. She didn’t want to walk through it, afraid of whatever might be waiting for them in the harsh world outside. She stalled. “What if the van’s not there? What if it’s been towed?”

  “We’re not taking the van.”

  “We’re not?”

  Clasping her hand, he led her out the door onto the back porch. He locked the door and slipped the key back under the flowerpot. “We’re taking Diego’s bike.”

  His…bike?

  Carrie followed Felipe down the stairs and around the house to a detached garage. He pulled up the garage door, and there it was. A big, shiny, chrome-and-black Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Diego’s bike. Of course.

  “Do you really know how to ride that thing?” Carrie asked.

  Felipe wheeled it out into the sunlight, then closed the garage door.

  He glanced at her and smiled. “Yes.”

  “I’ve never ridden one before,” she said.

  “Think of it as riding a horse with a powerful engine and a narrower saddle,” he said. “You did ride horses in Montana, right?”

  “Of course.”

  He smiled at the faintly insulted tone in her voice. “You know how when you let your horse run, really run, you feel it inside? You move together, you even think together—”

  She interrupted him. “You ride?”

  “My uncle Manny works at the racetrack,” he said. “I still sometimes go over there and pick up a few extra dollars exercising the horses that are boarded in their stables.”

  “I don’t really know that much about you, do I?” she said.

  The shadow came flitting back into his eyes. He shook his head. “No, you don’t.”

  “I mean, I had no idea…Are you a good rider?”

  “I think so. But I’m better at riding one of these,” he said, turning away from her and slapping the seat of the motorcycle.

  He swung one long leg over the bike, straddled the monster and slipped a key into the ignition.

  “Climb on behind me,” he said, handing her one of the helmets that had been hanging on the bike’s handlebars. “Put your arms around my waist and hold on tight. Lean when I lean, move with me, okay? And careful where you put your legs and feet. The engine gets pretty hot.”

  She nodded, about to put the helmet on, when he suddenly pulled her tightly to him and kissed her on the mouth. It was a passionate kiss, filled with deep yearning and need, yet it was still sweetly, achingly tender.

  Carrie’s knees felt weak and her bones turned to jelly. When he released her, she nearly fell over. He put the helmet on her head, strapping it securely under her chin.

  He started the motorcycle with a roar, wincing as he jarred his injured leg. The motor turned and caught. “Climb on,” he shouted, strapping on his own helmet.

  She wasn’t too happy about getting on the motorcycle, but after a kiss like that, she’d probably follow him damn near anywhere.

  Carrie took a deep breath, then swung her leg over the seat. The dress she was wearing wasn’t exactly made for riding astride. She tried to secure it underneath her, then locked her arms around Felipe’s waist.

  As he drove slowly down the driveway, she looked back over her shoulder at the beach house, wishing they could have stayed there forever.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ST. SIMONE hadn’t changed one bit during the two days they’d been away. The sun still shone endlessly down from a perfect blue sky, warming the cracked sidewalks and the tiny one-and two-bedroom houses that lined the street. This was the part of town that the tourists never came to visit.

  It wasn’t dangerous like the neighborhood Rafe’s halfway house had been in. It was just quietly depressing. These were beach shacks, and on the water they might even have been charming or picturesque. But here, the ocean was more than a mile away. Here, they were just bleak, cheaply constructed boxes that were crumbling around their financially strap
ped owners.

  Felipe pulled the motorcycle up to the curb and braced his feet on either side as they came to a stop. He cut the engine and the sudden silence was a blessing.

  Carrie lifted the visor of her helmet and looked around. Whoever this friend was that Felipe was planning to visit, he didn’t have much money. It wasn’t Jim Keegan, that was for sure. Carrie couldn’t picture the daughter of the people who owned that house on Sanibel Island living on this particular street.

  Felipe took off his helmet and turned slightly to face her. “We should go inside quickly,” he said. “The fewer people who see us, the better.”

  She climbed stiffly off the motorcycle, and he led the way toward a tiny yellow house. A rusty wire fence surrounded the postage-stamp–size yard, and the gate squeaked as he pushed it open. But the yard was clean, the garden filled with beautiful flowers and the house was well kept, with a fresh coat of paint.

  Felipe limped up the steps to a small landing and knocked on the screen door.

  The inner door swung open and a small, freckled face looked out through the screen.

  “Daddy!” a young voice cried, pushing the screen door wide. A little boy launched himself into Felipe’s arms.

  Daddy?

  Carrie stared at Felipe in shock as the door banged shut. He met her eyes for only the briefest of moments over the top of a bright red head. His expression was unreadable.

  “Oh my God,” another voice said from the darkness behind the screen. “Get inside here, fast!”

  Felipe’s friend wasn’t a he. His friend was a she.

  She was tall, almost as tall as Felipe, with elegant, almost classical features, green eyes and long, wavy red hair. She was obviously the little boy’s mother—the same little boy who’d called Felipe Daddy.

  Good Lord, was this woman Felipe’s wife? Carrie stared in shock, realizing that she’d never actually asked Felipe if he was married.

  The green-eyed woman pushed open the screen door and pulled Felipe and the boy into the house, leaving Carrie out in the cold—only figuratively, of course, since the sun was beating warmly down on her head.