Hearts On Fire

by Childs, Penny

  Grady Summers shrank back a little. He knew he’d screwed up. “How the hell was I supposed to know MacGreggor would be stalking around out there in the woods?”

  “Not the point,” he said, turning on Grady. “The point is you let her get the best of you. A girl kicked your ass.”

  Grady scowled. That girl was a lot tougher than the one he remembered. “I never thought a doctor would fight back. Especially her.”

  “Well, she did. And she recognized you.”

  He lifted a brow and shook his scraggly hair off his brow. “She never saw me.”

  “She heard you speak.” Which he’d been planning on, actually. It would take some of the heat off himself. Shift the focus.

  “Damnit, you told me she’d know where the money is,” Grady complained.

  The truth was he hadn’t been sure if Lizzie would know or not. One thing had been certain, he couldn’t lean on her himself. He’d had to find someone else for the job. And as distasteful as dealing with the likes of Grady Summers could be, losing the money at this stage of the game was not an option. So he’d pay off Summers to do the dirty work. He looked at the man now. Tall, skinny and shaking like a leaf he wore grimy blue jeans and a winter coat that looked like rats had been at it. Things weren’t going too good for Grady, that was evident. It would make him more open to suggestion. “She knows where it is,” he lied. “She’s just holding out on us.”

  “So what’re we gonna do about it?” Grady huffed out a breath in the dimly lit boathouse. “That fuck MacGreggor has her now. He ain’t gonna let her out of his sight for nothing.”

  He smiled slowly. “Oh, he will. I can see to that. You just be ready when I call on you.”

  Chapter 21

  There would be no sleep for him, he knew that. Not with her so near. Not with this irrational fear for her he just could not shake. She was safe now. He kept telling himself that but he just couldn’t get it through his own damn thick skull. He paced by her closed door listening for the slightest sound of distress. When he heard it, a soft cry from her, his heart nearly stopped in his chest. She’s fine, you ninny, he told himself. She’s having a bad dream. You’d have bad dreams too if someone had held a knife to your throat. No one can get to her now. Not here. Not while he stalked the hall outside her room like a lion guarding his mate.

  He shoved his fingers through his jet black hair and let out a long breath. What would have happened had he not taken up vigil outside Katy’s little house? He shuddered to think about it. Would Grady have killed her when she wouldn’t have been able to lead him to the money? “Probably,” he whispered.

  Another slight sound from her, a whispered protest, had him at her door. Without a thought to how angry it might make her he opened the door. She’d left the small bedside lamp on and he could see her laying there, the blankets up to her chin, a fisted hand tucked in under it. The sight of her lying there knocked the breath from him. When she whimpered again he went to her and stroked the hair from her cheek with his fingers. “Shhh, Lizzie. You’re okay.” He wondered what she dreamt, if she was reliving tonight or something else. Her delicate fingers clenched and unclenched. “Lizzie, honey, it’s okay.”

  Her eyes opened then. Blue and disoriented, they fixed on him. “JD?” she asked a little hoarsely.

  “I was walking by and heard you call out,” he lied. But it was just a little lie. She didn’t need to know how he’d hovered out there. She’d think him obsessed. And she wouldn’t be far off the mark.

  “It was… I was just having a bad dream.” She shivered under the covers.

  “Not so surprising,” he told her, touching her cheek one more time before backing away. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. I’ll let you get back to sleep now.” He wanted nothing less than to leave her room. But the soft, sleepy look in her eyes made him think things he had no business thinking. He turned to leave but her voice, soft and fragile, stopped him.

  “JD, please, will you stay with me?”

  Shocked by her request he turned back to her, afraid he’d misheard. Or dreamt it all himself.

  “Just… just until I fall asleep?”

  The need he saw in her eyes and heard in her voice struck down any rational thought he might have had. No way could he deny her. “Sure.” He felt her eyes on him as he rounded the end of the bed and kicked his shoes off.

  “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

  I don’t either, he thought. “You don’t have to be.” As she pushed the covers down for him he slid in, his heart pounding behind his ribs, his gaze locked with hers.

  When he made no move to touch her she smiled, blinking at him sheepishly. “Could you hold me?”

  Hold her without touching her? Without loving her? It would be a test of his will, that was for certain. But he knew sex was the furthest thing from her mind tonight. Tonight she wanted comfort. And that, he knew, he could offer. Taking her in his arms he lay still and in awe as she placed her head on his chest and moments later drifted off into a peaceful slumber. Before he knew it, he followed her there.

  Lizzie woke in stages, slow and content in the cocoon of blankets. Strong arms were wrapped around her, protecting her, a woman who’d thought she’d never accept a man’s protection again. The warmth and scent of his body enveloped her senses, nearly making her dizzy. There had been no more nightmares. But other dreams had come. Dreams of JD coming to her bed. And this, she decided, must be a dream too, feeling him, hearing his breathing, slow and steady. Her eyelashes fluttered open and she found herself staring into dark blue eyes. He said nothing, just smiled softly and squeezed her to him. She felt it then. Arousal. Desire. Both from him and from herself. So this was what it was like to wake in JD MacGreggor’s arms. This was the pleasure she’d always been denied. Reaching out she placed a palm on his stubble darkened jaw. Staring into his eyes she moved toward him, until her lips were but a breath away from his. She saw surprise register on his features. Still saying nothing, she pressed her lips to his gently, experimentally.

  “Lizzie…” His voice was low, almost a groan.

  Was that a protest? She stopped it with another kiss, this one more demanding. When he met her demand with his own she smiled and drew back. “Love me, JD. Please just love me.” She could not think of what would happen after. She could only think of now. And now she wanted him. All of him. She wanted to feel him love her one more time. Just one more before she made him hate her.

  “Lizzie, are you sure?”

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, JD. It’s you I want. It’s you I’ve always wanted. I just didn’t know it until I lost you.” The words, the admission, was a relief to her body and soul. Never had she wanted a man like she wanted JD.

  Lowering his mouth to her ear he breathed softly, “I do love you, Lizzie. I always have.”

  Predawn light painted the window in shades of pinks and purples. Seeing this, Lizzie almost came to her senses. Almost. But hands which were both familiar to her and new touched her. How could she want this man this badly after all these years? And how could he still want her so badly? What kind of love was this?

  He must have read the flicker of doubt in her eyes for his hands stilled on the buttons of the borrowed flannel top she wore and his gaze delved deeply in her soft blue eyes. “Lizzie?”

  A wicked little smile curved her lips and her eyes twinkled with delight. “Getting cold feet, senator?” she teased.

  He chuckled and his own eyes darkened. “Not on your life, woman.”

  “I want this. I want you.” And damn the consequences, she thought. Damn them for now. Later would come when it came. And whatever would be would be.

  He determined he’d never get enough of looking at her. Never enough when she was asleep or awake. Aware of his loving gaze or unaware. Bending down he brushed a kiss across her temple and smiled to himself when she didn’t even stir. This one, he mused, is a hard sleeper. It was something he’d not known of her before. And now that he k
new such a little thing he wanted to know so much more. But he’d seen the fear in her eyes. The doubt. Would she let him back in or would she push him away again? Only time would tell.

  With one last look at her he went to the door and silently let himself out. His cell phone had been buzzing for the last hour but he’d not been able to make himself leave the warmth of her bed. The only thing which did now was the fact he knew what the calls were about. He’d missed a conference call of some importance this morning. Now it was time to get to it, like it or not. But coffee and one of those pastries he’d seen on the counter first.

  In the kitchen he poured himself a large mug of coffee and put a raspberry filled pastry on a paper plate. He was just licking icing off his fingers when he heard the door squeak on its hinges behind him.

  “Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in.”

  JD turned and smiled to his younger brother, taking a healthy swallow of his black coffee.

  Making a show of cocking his wrist and looking at his watch, Josh shook his head a little sadly. “And at the break of… nine-thirty five.”

  “It was a late night.” He leaned back on the counter top and reaching behind himself snatched the pastry off the plate. He was cornered and he knew it.

  Josh’s lip quirked. “You were supposed to help me with the morning feed. Remember?”

  “I do now. Wasn’t thinking of that before dawn this morning. Sorry.”

  “You don’t look very sorry to me.” Josh looked his brother over carefully, then snorted. “No, in fact you look pretty damned pleased with yourself this morning.”

  JD lifted a shoulder casually and took a bite of pastry. It was as good as it had looked in the box. “I’m well rested.”

  “You’re full of shit is what you are. Funny thing is, when you didn’t meet me down here for coffee I came up looking for you. Figured I’d toss some cold water on your sleepy ass. But low and behold, your bed was empty!”

  JD laughed and took another swallow of coffee.

  “So I gotta wonder. Where did you get all this wonderful rest which has made you look so happy this morning?” He saw JD open his mouth to answer and threw up a hand, palm out. “You know what? Never mind. I think I can put it together myself just fine.”

  “I’m sure you can.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d like to make it up to me by taking care of the north pasture fence? It’s busted down. We got the cattle rounded up and got it stitched back together for temporary.”

  JD’s smile was big. “I’d love nothing more than that, little brother. Unfortunately you’re not the only party I’ve wronged this morning. I have a couple calls to make and if I don’t catch up on my email Lorraine will have my ass.” Lorraine had been his assistant for the last two and a half years and she ran his office with an iron fist. Two of the voice mails had been from her this morning demanding he respond to some ‘urgent matters’.

  “Ah, the busy life of a senator.” He waved a hand at JD and smirked. “You can have it, brother.” Hitching a thumb over his shoulder he said, “The study is all yours.”

  Chapter 22

  Finding him gone upon waking hadn’t surprised her or frightened her in the least. In some ways it was a bit of a relief. She wouldn’t have to stare into those love filled, trusting eyes just yet. She wouldn’t have to make him hate her. Yet. But soon. Very soon. Dragging on her blue jeans and pulling a heavy cream colored sweater over her head she bit her lower lip as tears threatened. Sinking to the edge of the bed she bit back on a sob. She could still smell him in here. His cologne was musky, male. What the hell had she been thinking, sleeping with him again? Letting him love her again? And worse, damnit, so much worse, loving him again. She’d handed him her heart and he’d taken it so gently. He’d handed his over to her as well. And look what she was going to do to it. Shatter it into a million pieces.

  “Oh, holy hell,” she muttered to herself, getting to her feet. She found her way downstairs and to the kitchen from what was a vague memory of being led up to her room last night. She smelled coffee, something she was in desperate need of. And whether she wanted to admit it or not she was in desperate need of JD as well. Just to see him smile at her one more time. But instead of JD she found Josh sitting at the little kitchen table, a calculator on the table in front of him, papers scattered on the surface.

  “Morning, sunshine,” he drawled with a grin and a wink for her. “You sleep okay?”

  One look into his glinting eyes and she knew he knew. “Smartass,” she grumbled, finding a mug in one of the many cupboards.

  “Don’t be mad at JD. He didn’t kiss and tell. I figured it out on my own.”

  “You’re a regular Columbo,” she muttered as she poured coffee from a steaming glass carafe and turned back to him. “Where is he?”

  “In dad’s study. He had some things he said he needed to see to. Work stuff.”

  She was nervous and having a hard time disguising it. Her hands shook and her stomach was turning. This was the morning she would have to own up to her lies. Before anyone else could do it. “I suppose I shouldn’t interrupt him.”

  “I get the feeling you could go to him any time you wanted and he wouldn’t think of it as an interruption, Lizzie.” When he saw her eyes widen a little he added, “He never got over you.”

  She felt as though the breath in her lungs had been stolen.

  “Even when mother forbid him to see you he wouldn’t listen. Even when she told him she’d shut him out.”

  “Eventually he listened,” she murmured, remembering the way he’d broken it off with her right before leaving for college.

  “He didn’t break up with you because she made him do it, Lizzie,” Josh told her. “He broke up with you for your sake.”

  It didn’t matter anymore, did it? “It didn’t make it hurt any less.” And it didn’t make what she’d done a couple years later okay either. But they’d both done what they’d done.

  “I just thought you should know. The fuckin’ sap still loves you.”

  Now she managed a grin, but it was fleeting. “I still love him too, Josh. But I think after I say what I have to say to him this morning he’ll never want to see me again.”

  His brows came together and he tilted his head at her.

  “And for better or worse, I better get it over with. Could you do me a favor and make sure we have some privacy for a while?”

  “Sure,” he said a little hesitantly.

  “Especially from your mother,” Lizzie added.

  “Go through the living room and through the front foyer. The study is off the family room. You’ll see it.” Watching her leave the kitchen he wondered just what in the hell she was going to break to his brother.

  This house, the original ranch house, spoke of money in a subtle way which the house Arlene currently occupied did not. Family antiques lined the mantel of the fireplace. The wood floors here shined softly, not garishly like the tile and marble of the new house. For all her life she’d never been able to imagine JD in the mansion Arlene had built. This house, she knew, he’d grown up in. This house suited him.

  She found him sitting in a large room lined with book shelves and photo covered walls. Leather bound books, hard cover books and paperbacks lined the shelves and seemed to be in no particular order. This would have been Lawrence MacGreggor’s room. His man cave.

  JD sat behind the desk looking at the screen of his laptop computer with a frown on his lips and a pair of reading glasses perched on his nose. The black and blue stripped sweater he wore stretched across his broad chest and the sleeves were shoved up over his elbows, exposing his muscular forearms.

  The sight of him sitting there made her knees weak and her heart flutter. What would it be like to come upon him like this on a daily basis? To live in the same house as him? Silly. She shook it off. It would never happen.

  When he sensed her standing there he looked up over the tops of his glasses and when their gazes touched he smiled. “Good, you
found me. I need rescuing for a while.”

  “If you’re too busy…” She found herself almost wishing he would say he was and cursed herself for being a coward.

  “I’m never too busy for you, honey.”

  Honey. The term of endearment should have melted her heart. Instead it was like a stab to her heart. Because she knew he would never say it to her again. “Oh.”

  He cocked his head and pulled the glasses from his face, laying them on the desk. “What’s wrong?” His jaw worked and his worried eyes blinked slowly. “You’re not regretting this morning, are you?”

  Only because I know it will make what I have to tell you hurt all the more. But I would never regret being in your arms again. Never. She shook her head. “No.”

  He relaxed. “Good. Then tell me what it is. I can see something is bothering you.” He stiffened. “It’s not Katy, is it? Nothing has happened to her?”

  “No. She’s fine as far as I know.” It had to be now. Stepping into the office, she reached behind her and softly shut the door. “But I do have to talk to you about something.”

  He looked from the closed door to her, worry lines forming between his brows. A million things whirled through his mind and his heart hammered in his chest.

  Lizzie wrung her hands together in front of herself as she took the seat across the desk from him. Placing her hands in her lap, she met his gaze. “This isn’t going to be easy because I know you’ll be furious with me.”

  “Lizzie, you’re scaring me here. What’s going on?”

  “I… I should have told you this thirteen years ago but I didn’t have the courage. Well, and I was angry with you. So damn angry.” She smiled sadly. “But it’s no excuse for what I’ve done. What I’ve kept from you.”

  He leaned forward in his chair, barely containing the urge to jump to his feet. “What, Lizzie? What is it?”

  She knew if she just sat quiet for a moment he would figure it out himself. But that was the coward’s way out and she was done being a coward. “I’ll just say it. JD, Sean is your son.”