It looked old and lumpy and her insides screamed at the thought of being down here when he was up there, but she wasn’t alone tonight. For the first night after so many alone, someone was right there with her. She never expected that kind of togetherness to feel so good.
Anything or anyone could lurk outside. Ben promised to stick nearby. When she tried to question where, to make sure the answer wasn’t to spend the night in his car, Connor convinced her to let it go. Ben had a job and he would do it.
Connor had volunteered for his position, but he didn’t appear ready to go off duty for the night. That left her in the situation she’d tried so hard to escape two years ago. All the time checking in and having someone watching over her, sometimes close and other times at a distance. The constant surveillance, even if it was for her safety, exhausted her. It confined and suffocated her.
The bounty on her head died when the people who issued it were killed. Days after, she pressed Witness Protection to get out. They wanted to keep her in until they could guarantee her safety, that all threats had been eliminated. She needed her life back. Not her old one, but a life.
“You take the bed upstairs.” He issued the order without looking up from his work on the sofa.
“I can sleep . . .” His head shot up and his expression suggested she not engage him in another battle tonight. She took the hint because, really, he’d been rock-solid at a time when she needed to fall apart a bit. “Okay. Upstairs it is.”
His stark expression finally dropped away. He didn’t treat her to a smile, but he no longer seemed to be on the defensive. “Was it so hard to agree with me?”
“You tend to say things like a command. I’m guessing that’s because you’re used to being the boss.”
“Sort of.”
“Not here.” She wanted to make her position on this matter very clear. “Not with me.”
He smiled. “Understood.”
She took a minute to study him. Those long legs and broad shoulders. The way his pants balanced on his hips. The way he moved, all confident and in control.
The McHottiePants title fit. When he smiled, she got a little winded. When he frowned at her, she wanted to kiss it away . . . and that was a problem. They weren’t dating. She wasn’t convinced they even liked each other. But the sparks, the unexpected connection that made her want to cling to him when she hadn’t wrapped her life around anyone else’s for years, threw her off balance.
When she focused on him again, she realized he’d stopped fidgeting and cleaning up. They stared at each other across the open sofa bed.
Mattress. Sheets. A confined space. Misplaced adrenaline shooting all over the place. This was going to be a long and confusing night.
“I should shower.” The sound of her own voice broke the power of the strange pull between them.
He blinked a few times. “What?”
“It’s the ritual some folks do before bed.” Naked. Okay, yeah, that was also a problem. They’d be in the same small cabin, only a door apart.
She needed the energy arcing between them to stop. He was just a guy and she was a woman with dangerous loads of baggage. This couldn’t happen no matter how sexy she found his smile and that ass.
He shook his head as he finally broke eye contact. “Uh, right.”
“Are you afraid I’ll use all of the hot water?” The joke fell flat but at least the need to sprint across the mattress and crawl all over him had died down. A little.
She needed to get a handle on the adrenaline coursing through her before she did something really stupid. She had been so careful and dateless for so long that temptation rode her hard. The what-ifs ran through her mind until she struggled to catch her breath.
He exhaled in a way that sounded haggard and a bit out of control. “I didn’t really think through the whole living together thing.”
She needed to stop his thinking on that topic right now. “We’re not.”
“Of course not.”
Uh-huh. Her voice didn’t sound as sure and clear as she needed it to be, so she tried again. “It’s one night. Don’t make this weird.”
He held up both hands as if in mock surrender. “Wouldn’t think of it.”
“You’re kind of . . .” Hot. Perfect. Tempting.
Tall, dark, and smoking.
She could go on for a very long time before she’d reach the not-so-great stuff near the bottom of the list, like his bossiness.
His eyes narrowed. “What?”
She even loved his voice, all deep and serious. Realizing that was enough to snap her control in half. She only knew one way to get it back, and there was a fifty-fifty chance it would backfire. “Okay, this is ridiculous.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Kiss me.”
He looked like he’d swallowed his tongue. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” It was a stupid idea but it was the only one in her head. It had taken over every other thought since they walked in the door and now it pounded inside her. She needed this over, done, and forgotten.
“I can’t really hear anything right now.”
Okay, that was kind of cute . . . as if she needed to find one more adorable thing about him. “There’s some weird charged thing happening between us. Adrenaline. Frustration. Boredom. Whatever you want to call it, we need to burn it off.”
He took a step back and rammed his leg into a table. “Shit.”
“You okay?”
He waved off the concern. “You think a kiss will do that?”
“That’s the only choice we have.”
He winced. “Actually.”
Was he saying no? That made the need inside her rev up faster. “The only one I’m giving you.”
He’d stopped fumbling and running into things and stared at her now. “Okay.”
Okay? Not exactly loads of excitement in his tone, but she wasn’t about to argue.
“So, do it.” She wanted to add now but stopped herself. But she was pretty sure she was yelling. That general loudness didn’t block out the churning inside her or the ringing in her head, but it would happen. One kiss and all of this would be wiped away.
“Maddie.”
She needed this to happen. Now. “Come on.”
“I think the charge is gone.”
Her mind went blank. All the need rushed right out of her and bubbling frustration settled in its place. “What did you say?”
“Yeah, you killed it off.”
Now she could add one very unattractive quality to the list about him. He could be a jerk. Noted.
She grabbed her bag and headed for a door she hoped held the bathroom or this might be the most embarrassing exit of all time. “You had your chance.”
He was an idiot.
She offered and he stumbled around until she started with the shouting. Still, he wanted to kiss her. If his brain hadn’t kicked back to life and thoughts about her safety hadn’t started running through his head, they might be kissing or on the mattress right now.
And that would have been the wrong move . . . right?
He sat down hard on the end of the sofa mattress. A bar dug into the backs of his legs but he ignored it just like he needed to ignore all the date-like parts of this evening.
Dropping his head into his hands, he tried to focus on protection, not seduction. “This can’t happen.”
Bare feet appeared between his shoes a few seconds later. She curled her toes under and into the hardwood floor, but not before he got a peek at those bright red toenails. He’d never cared about nail polish before. Now he did.
“Connor?”
Don’t look up. Don’t look up.
Despite the commonsense advice from his brain, his head shot up at the sound of her voice. “Did you need something?”
She wore pajamas. Navy blue pants with bright pink lip prints all over them and a slim-fitting navy-blue tee that highlighted exactly what she hid under those oversized jackets.
He lost the
ability to spell.
“Just this.” She dropped to her knees between his open thighs.
Sweet Jesus. “Uh, Maddie?”
He was pretty sure his brain stopped working. Just clicked right off.
“Stop me if you don’t want this.” She ran her palms up and down his thighs.
Then her mouth closed over his and he didn’t care if he ever had a rational thought again. Her mouth, all warm and inviting, traveled over his. Not a quick peck good-night. No, she dove in. Her tongue licked the seam between his lips, pressing them open and deepening her touch.
The kiss raged through him and burned past every defense. He wanted to touch her, taste her, run his hands all over her.
Just as he settled his hands on her waist and toyed with the idea of dragging her down onto the mattress with him, she pulled back. Her mouth hovered over his, teasing. Skimming just close enough for him to smell her.
He tried to draw her closer but she shook her head.
Only inches separated their lips when she smiled at him. She slowly rose to her feet, letting her hands drag along his legs and not breaking contact until the last minute.
“You were right.” Her hands dropped to her sides as she stood in front of him. “The charge is gone.”
He felt the shot straight to his gut. More than likely, he deserved it.
She headed for the ladder. “Get some sleep. You have an early handyman date tomorrow.”
He fell back against the mattress. “Lesson learned.”
“Let’s hope so,” she said in one last parting shot as she climbed the ladder.
Chapter 12
Maddie marched into Ben’s office the next morning. It’s not as if she had a choice. Connor dropped her off early so she could man the answering service, then he headed off to Paul’s house. They’d colluded and decided that she needed full-time babysitters. Never mind that she’d been handling the notes and living her life—mostly—without their help and direction for months. The men seemed to believe they were in charge now.
Little did they know it was happening because she was letting it happen. Only a fool would turn down protection when danger lurked so close.
Connor had delayed his visit with Paul until after seven. That left plenty of time for awkward shifting around each other in his kitchen. As much as she wanted to pretend the kiss last night meant nothing, that it didn’t touch her at all, that wasn’t true. Their lips touched and her tongue went numb. Her knees buckled. Her traitorous heart hammered so hard that it blocked every other noise and most of her common sense.
Another few seconds and, head bandage or not, she would have crawled all over him. Not that she ever planned on letting him know that. Sending him the not-impressed vibe was the right answer, no matter how hard it was to hold on to her pretend indifference.
But that was earlier. Right now she had another male problem. This one had a badge and gun.
She stopped in Ben’s doorway and slipped off her coat. When he yawned and sipped on coffee, she’d never felt more bonded with anyone in her life.
She dropped into the chair in front of his desk with her tablet on her lap and phone in her hand in case she needed to take a call for anyone. “Any news?”
“We saw each other ten hours ago.”
“So, no?”
“I didn’t see anyone at Connor’s place last night. Repeatedly checked the perimeter. This morning I got in touch with your old friend Evan Williams and sent the new note for testing.” Ben took a long drink before talking again. “I also managed to sleep about a half hour, right in this chair because I’m a multitasking genius.”
Only one part of all that whining mattered to her. The part that ran headlong into her past. “Go back. Why did you talk with Evan?”
“Really? That’s all you got out of that?”
“Humor me.”
“I called him because you need round-the-clock protection until we can figure this out.”
That sounded far more formal than the babysitting she endured now. And, no. That wasn’t happening. She’d lived that life already. Gave up her name and her life. All of her friends and what little family she had. She walked away. Missed her mother’s funeral. Maddie was an only child to a single mom, and it had always been the two of them against any threat. But when the end came she couldn’t even say goodbye. Every decision made in accordance with the guidelines and rules set by WITSEC, the Federal Witness Protection Program.
The overwhelming majority of the people in the program were criminals. She liked to think her involvement with illegal activity was tenuous, at best. More tangential than actual, but the result was the same. She traded her life for protection, and that’s when she met US Marshal Evan Williams, the fortysomething, serious, lethal dude who taught her to shoot and defend herself. She was grateful, but she needed that portion of her life to be over.
“No.”
“Maddie, Connor is not a professional and I have one assistant who is off island at the moment and two volunteer assistants with families, so they can’t trail you every minute of every day.”
Guilt. Ben had to be exhausted from wielding that weapon. It worked on her every time, but that wasn’t the point. “I gave up the life.”
“The safe one?”
He had to know how the program worked. If he didn’t, he should be able to guess. “The one where I was hunted and on the run.”
“Those notes you keep getting say differently.”
“In WITSEC a handler tells you what you can and can’t do. Where there were rules and practice drills.” She fought back the memories of those days, crawling in the mud and visiting shooting ranges. “Where every move was checked and double-checked, even as they assured me that I could leave at any time . . . and be killed.”
Ben set his coffee mug on his desk blotter calendar. “I could argue you should still be in.”
“But that’s the point. I’m out because the danger is supposed to be over.”
Ben exhaled. “This is the part where I ask you why you were in. Why did you need WITSEC protection?”
She was tempted to sigh right back at him, but she got it. Her failure to provide more information made it hard for him to do his job. “And this is the part where I remind you there are limits on what I can say.”
She’d learned not to share. Secrecy was so ingrained that she didn’t know how to turn the warning switch off in her head. She also wasn’t convinced she should break the rules and drag anyone else into the danger she’d wallowed in for years. The notes proved it still lurked out there, and that held her back from opening up.
“Say something, Maddie.”
Her throat tightened but she kept going. “The people who wanted me dead are no longer around to pay for someone to do the job.”
“They have friends and family.”
“That’s not . . .” She hated the way Ben looked at her, as if he were analyzing her moves and dissecting each one to figure out her past. The flash of doubt almost stopped her, but she needed him to understand why she held back. “You know Maddie Rhine isn’t my name, right?”
“Yes.”
Her throat continued to close but she forced the words out. “It’s the persona WITSEC set up. On purpose, I didn’t go back to who I was before. So divulging all the information, spilling out every detail, is a waste of time. All it does is mentally put me back there.”
“Hey, I get it.” He stood up and moved around the desk to stand in front of her. “But you need to point me in the right direction.”
His hands found her shoulders and squeezed. The comforting gesture came and went. That’s who Ben was. Dependable and nonthreatening.
He also had a job to do and as much as she wanted to ignore that part, she couldn’t. “Nothing is different from when I received the first note.”
“Your point being?”
“Someone wants to scare me.” She folded her arms across her stomach. “Believe me, it’s working.”
“Good.”
Of course he would say that because it fit his needs. “But no one has approached me.”
“Yet.”
She let her arms fall to her sides again. The energy bouncing around inside her didn’t let her stand still. She needed to move, to burn off some of the anxiety pumping through her veins. “Aren’t you the optimist?”
“It’s no longer just about you, though that would be enough for me to call in reinforcements. Connor could be in danger, too.” Ben exhaled as if he sensed an argument on the horizon. “My thought for your protection was, better the guy you know, one who understands your history, than a security guard without any background. That person is Evan.”
“Okay, but one question.” She waited for him to nod before starting again. “At any time during all this thinking did you wonder if you should ask what I wanted?”
“It’s a fair question.”
He capitulated so quickly that it put her on edge. She kept pushing her point, just in case. “I have a job and I’ve had to ask my back-up person to step in and take over the answering service for me the last few days, and I sense she’ll need to do it in the future because everything is so unsettled.”
“Until we know who is sending those notes it’s not exactly safe out there. You need to be careful, and if that means taking a few days off, is that really a big deal?”
She liked to have money, so yeah. “I feel like I’ve spent most of my life being careful.”
A small smile came and went before his expression switched to unreadable again. “You won’t even tell me what we’re dealing with, Maddie. I can’t protect you without facts. Evan has those facts.”
She hated that he used common sense against her. It was tough to battle that. “I just want to forget.”
“I understand.”
Not possible. “Do you? I’m not trying to be a jerk. I’m just saying you weren’t there.”
“I know about crime and bad choices, about wishing you could go back.”
She waited for the phones to ring, for any interruption. None came. So early in the day on an island without much crime, the office might remain quiet for hours. She took the opportunity to broach a difficult subject.
The Secret She Keeps Page 8
