Crossing Nevada

by Jeannie Watt

  “Because I’m in love with you,” he said, sending a wave of shock shooting through Tess. She could deal with it when he said he cared about her. But love...love meant...she didn’t know what it meant.

  “You can’t love me.”

  “Yes, I can.” And then the door clicked shut.

  * * *

  TESS BARELY RECOGNIZED Mikey. The last time she’d seen him he’d been fourteen, a skinny towheaded kid who’d never gotten enough to eat because food wasn’t a high priority in their house. That probably explained why he now weighed well over two hundred pounds.

  But his hair was still blond and his face was the same, once she got used to it being broader, and the teeth were actually better.

  “Terry,” he said, getting off the stool as if to give her a hug, but she automatically stepped back then turned her face so he could see the scars in the dim light of the bar. He gave a low whistle.

  “You really think Eddie did that?”

  “I think he hired the guy as a warning to me...a warning I feel I have to take seriously.”

  Mikey sat back down and Tess gingerly took the seat across the table, holding her oversize bag on her lap as a barrier.

  “You want something to drink?”

  “I just want this to be over,” she said. No drinking, no reminiscing. “Have you talked to, you know?” Damn. She couldn’t even bring herself to say his name.

  “Yes,” he said patiently. “And...you know...said if he gets what’s his, then yes, he’s done with you.”

  Tess nodded, wondering if that was really true. If they had the money, there really was no reason to do anything but forget about her. It wasn’t like she could finger them for anything. After all, as far as they knew, she was passing along drug money, which made her as liable as they were for criminal prosecution.

  “Look,” she said, leaning closer even though the bar was noisy and it was unlikely anyone could overhear. “I don’t know how much is my mother’s and how much is Eddie’s. If there’s anything that’s not Eddie’s I want it.”

  “Meaning?”

  “How much do I owe Eddie?”

  “Five hundred thousand.”

  For a moment, Tess simply stared at Mikey as a wave of what felt like hysteria washed over her. Then she pressed her lips together before she started laughing insanely, managed a small nod and wondered if she was going to have a heart attack. If so, then her problems were over.

  No wonder Eddie had been adamant about getting the money. Who in their right mind would have left half a million dollars with her mother?

  Eddie wasn’t in his right mind, but he wasn’t stupid, either. He must have put the fear into her mother, but never dreamed she’d up and die on him.

  “My mother didn’t give me that much,” she said, her voice low, firm. She only had one hundred thousand if she cashed in everything. She’d hoped that Eddie might have only given her mother 70 or 80K, so she’d have a little left. Five hundred thousand? There was no way she could come up with that kind of money in the time frame Eddie would want it.

  What choice did she have?

  “How much did she give you?”

  “A hundred thou.”

  Mikey shook his head. “That may be true, because, no offense, but your mom was kind of a skank, but Eddie won’t care. He’ll want all of his money.”

  “Maybe I could broker some kind of a deal.” Or spend her life looking over her shoulder.

  Mikey gave her an are-you-kidding look. “Like make payments?” he asked skeptically.

  “I can’t give him what I don’t have.”

  “Then it’s going to be a matter of convincing him you honestly don’t have it.” He gave his blond head a shake. “And you know how that’s going to go.”

  Tess closed her eyes for a moment and Mikey reached out to gently touch her cheek. She instinctively jerked her head sideways then heard the slide of a chair close by. A quick shift of her eyes and she saw Jeff pushing Zach back down into his seat. She had to get this meeting over with, then figure out a way to ditch her guardian angels. Zach didn’t belong in this mess. He didn’t understand how these guys operated. His world was so far removed from theirs.

  He thinks he loves you. What’s he going to think when he finds out you owe criminals half a million bucks?

  “Will you talk to him?”

  “Not unless you have the money, Tess. I can’t get involved. I have a wife and two kids. You’re lucky I’m doing this.”

  She gathered her bag, prepared for flight. Perhaps a flight that was going to last until her family screwed up and ended up back behind bars. It was going to be fun explaining that to Zach. Who thought he loved her.

  Maybe now that he knew the cold hard facts, he’d change his mind on that, because come hell or high water, she was not going back to her ranch and leading Eddie right to someone he could terrorize in order to get at her.

  “Thanks, Mikey. I hope you have a good life.”

  Tess got out of her chair and quickly threaded her way through the crowd, wondering if Jeff and Zach were even aware that she was on the move. What now? Did she just get that cab as she’d planned? Did she send Zach a note or letter or something?

  He deserved that. He deserved to know that he was the closest she’d ever come to loving someone and she would have given almost anything to have been able to see if they could work things out.

  Tess blinked a little as she walked out of the dim bar and across the lobby, eyes on the ugly carpet, heading for the cab stand as fast as she could go without drawing attention.

  Five hundred thousand...

  How was she ever going to come up with that amount of money to buy her freedom?

  She was almost to the door when she ran smack into a solid chest. The guy had to have stepped directly in front of her, because he hadn’t been there a split second ago. He gripped her arm firmly, to steady her, Tess thought until she glanced up and stared into the face of her worst nightmare.

  “Jared.”

  “Got it in one,” he said in that nasty voice she remembered so well. She could feel her arm bruising as he yanked her up against his side so tightly that the knife he held under his sweatshirt jabbed her.

  Mikey had sold her out. She’d known she was taking a risk contacting him, knew she’d have to lie low afterward, but never had she dreamed that Jared would risk coming after her in public. This was not part of the scenario.

  “There are cameras everywhere.”

  “Hat, hoodie and glasses,” he said with a complacent smile, indicating how he’d hid his face pretty damned successfully. “I see you’re wearing glasses now, too.”

  Tess jerked her arm, but he only held tighter, steering her toward the door. “Make a scene and you’ll regret it. A knife between the ribs is a nasty thing and I only have to run a few feet to get out of here. You on the other hand...let’s hope you don’t bleed out.”

  Tess had every intention of making a scene, risking the knife rather than let him haul her off and play with her before he killed her, but the words were barely out of his mouth when Jared’s head suddenly snapped backward. It took her a second to realize that Zach was there; that he’d taken hold of her stepbrother’s hood and yanked. Jared did not let go of her, but Tess stomped on his instep as hard as she could, jammed her elbow into his solar plexus, and when he grunted, twisted free.

  Less than a second later, Zach’s fist crashed into Jared’s jaw, knocking him sideways. Jared reta
ined his balance, barely, but Zach was on him again, jamming his foot into the back of Jared’s knee and sending him down, then locking his arms around his neck the same way she’d once seen him headlock a large calf. And like the calf, Jared toppled, struggling on the floor, bellowing, until Zach nailed him in the kidney.

  Security came rushing in, pulling Zach off Jared. Jeff flashed his badge, said a few words to the uniformed man, and then Tess watched numbly as her stepbrother was handcuffed.

  Zach looked up at her, breathing heavily, a smear of blood across his face.

  But he was very much alive, and as she stared at the knife lying a couple feet away from him, she realized he could have been very, very dead.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” Tess demanded.

  “Saving your hide?”

  “You could have been killed. He had a knife!”

  “Well, I’m not killed,” Zach said, his chest still heaving from the exertion. Tess was not mollified by his answer.

  “What would have happened to the girls if things hadn’t ended in your favor? Did you think about that?” she asked, pointing a finger at his chest. It was too much. Tess turned and started pushing her way through the people that had gathered around. A security guard took her arm. “Ma’am, you can’t go. The police are coming and you have to make a statement.”

  “Fine,” she said, looking down at the ugly casino carpet. Pale blue and violet circles on a black background. A carpet meant to keep patrons’ eyes up, on the machines.

  Zach could have been killed. Because of her.

  Because of his own stubbornness.

  She chanced a glance in his direction, saw that he was getting to his feet and seemed none the worse for wear. Jeff handed him his hat.

  She was so damned mad at him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  IT DIDN’T TAKE long for the police to show up and haul Jared away. Mikey, Tess, Jeff and Zach all made statements in various casino offices and then, apparently in an effort to make certain they weren’t sued for being on the site of an attempted kidnapping, or perhaps out of the good of their corporate hearts, the casino offered Tess, Zach and Jeff rooms, gratis.

  The three of them walked to the elevators without speaking, Zach carrying the light bag that contained Tess’s few belongings. When the elevator hit the fifth floor, the floor his and Jeff’s room was on, only Jeff got out. He walked down the hall alone without looking back.

  “Don’t you have a room?” Tess asked pointedly when the elevator doors closed.

  “I’m not leaving you alone after what just happened.”

  “Zach...this is what I do,” she muttered without looking at him. “I handle things alone.”

  “Do you want to keep doing that?” he asked quietly as the door opened on the eighth floor.

  She didn’t have an answer so he took the key card from her and opened the door. Tess stepped into the room and then stopped dead as reaction started to set in. A different kind of reaction than she’d expected. Not anger. Not fear—not the kind of fear she was used to anyway. It was more like...disorientation. Being set adrift in unfamiliar seas.

  She’d been running on autopilot and adrenaline up until she walked into the room.

  And now she didn’t know what to do.

  Eddie was still out there somewhere, but Jared was a recent parolee in possession of a weapon on the wrong side of the California state line. According to Jeff, he’d be going back in prison for the rest of his sentence and then some for attempted kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon. Everything was on camera and the hoodie hadn’t saved him once Zach knocked him onto his back.

  She suddenly turned to Zach. “Why did you do that?”

  “Tackle him? I think that’s pretty obvious.”

  “You could have been killed.”

  “Me? What do you think that guy was going to do to you?”

  Jared had probably planned to do a lot to her, whether he got the money or not. She hadn’t fully trusted Mikey, but she’d never expected Jared, fresh out of prison, to do something so brazen as to try to nab her in a crowded casino. He never had been big on brains.

  “I didn’t want to drag you into this,” she said.

  “I believe you’ve made that point,” Zach said, setting her bag on the desk. “I dragged myself into it and I don’t regret it.” He took her hand and led her into the room without bothering with the lights. The curtains were open and Reno fanned out beneath them, a brilliant sparkling mosaic of white, yellow and red. It was beautiful and she was tired.

  Tired of just about everything, but most of all tired of having such a screwed-up life.

  “It’s done,” Zach said close to her ear, his breath warm against her skin.

  “I’d love to believe that,” she murmured.

  His lips touched the base of her neck and she shivered then took a step away, putting distance between them. “It’s not over,” she said. “And why are you here after I lied to you?”

  “I told you why.”

  “Zach—”

  “Shh,” he said before he covered her mouth with his in a kiss that stole her words. When he raised his head, he pushed his hands into her hair, brushing it back away from her face, smiling ever so slightly as his thumb moved over the scar as it always seemed to do. Then he kissed her again, more deeply. Tess closed her eyes, let her arms wrap around his solid body, spreading her fingers out over the muscles of his back. “I did what I did out of sheer instinct. You were in danger and I acted.”

  “You took him down good,” she murmured.

  “Physics,” he replied as his mouth traveled over the scars to plant a kiss at the corner of her injured eye. Then he took a step back, his hands still on her upper arms. “Come on. We’re going to bed...and we’re going to sleep.”

  Tess could see he was serious. So she stood there and let him undo the buttons of her shirt and slide it down over her shoulders. She pretended not to notice his erection when he undid her bra and tossed it onto the sofa with her shirt. With an intent expression that made her want to smile, he lowered the zipper of her pants and slid them down her legs. Tess stepped out of them and he tossed them onto the sofa, too, leaving her in her bikini underwear.

  “I have to use the bathroom,” she said.

  When Tess came back out a few minutes later, he was in bed, his clothes in a stack next to hers on the sofa. She slid beneath the covers and he pulled her against him, cradling her.

  “Just go to sleep,” he said.

  Tess took a breath, inhaling his scent deep into her lungs, and feeling ridiculously comforted by him just holding her.

  Maybe she didn’t have to live handling everything alone...maybe knowing that she was quite capable of handling everything alone was enough.

  * * *

  ZACH COULDN’T SLEEP. He held Tess as if he was going to lose her if he let go, which he well might. He’d lost one woman that he loved deeply and he wasn’t ready to lose another before he found out what they might be able to make together.

  Tess would have denied it with her last breath, but she’d been in shock the night before. Who wouldn’t have been with the ape that had once tried to rape her forcing her out of the building with a knife to her ribs?

  His grip tightened on Tess’s shoulder at the thought, causing her to stir in her sleep. He relaxed his hand, stroking her arm as he pressed his lips against her hair.

  It was going to take her a while to get over t
his, and to believe she no longer had to fear her stepfather. Eddie was going to get the message, via his P.O., that there was no money and if anything happened to Tess, his life was going to be a living hell...

  When Zach woke up Tess was gone. He lay still listening, wondering how the hell she’d slipped away. How far she’d gone and if she was going to come back. Because if she’d left again, things were out of his hands. She knew how he felt. The next step was up to her.

  That didn’t make it any easier to accept, though. He tossed the covers back and got out of bed. The bathroom was empty, her clothes and her purse were gone. She was gone.

  The sound of the door opening startled the hell out of him and he grabbed a pillow off the sofa, holding it in front of his crotch.

  Tess came in the door, took one look at him and put her hand to her mouth, fighting back a choked laugh. But a second later her smile disappeared.

  “You thought I’d left again.” He didn’t answer, didn’t even toss the pillow aside. He just stood there. Tess held up a paper bag. “I needed some essentials and I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because every time I woke up last night you were awake. I thought you might need some sleep.”

  Now he did toss the pillow aside and went to sit on the bed. Tess sat beside him.

  “I feel better,” she said without looking at him, holding the bag on her lap. “I went downstairs without an escort. I avoided the lobby where Jared nabbed me, but I did go downstairs.”

  “You did good,” Zach said, realizing this was territory she had to cover alone, no matter how much he wanted to help her.

  “Last night I...” She let out a breath, her shoulders slumping. Then she looked sideways at him. “Not just last night. For a long time I’ve been letting knee-jerk reactions rule my life.”

  “I did the same thing after Karen died. I wasn’t myself for months.”

  Tess nodded. “I can’t promise I won’t keep doing that. Eddie is still out there.”