“Oh, God.” Her voice had sunk to a whisper and she crossed her arms as if to hold herself together. “I knew this was going to happen. I’ll lose my job.”
“You won’t,” he said sharply.
“Oh, come on. You’re important—I’m not. I haven’t made any mark at all yet.”
He shook his head. “You don’t get it. If there’s trouble, it will be aimed at me. As your boss, I’m the predator and you’re the victim.”
“Oh, God,” she said again and bent forward as if her stomach hurt.
“You had to know we were heading in this direction.”
She looked at him with a complete lack of comprehension. “What are you talking about?”
“Marriage.”
Cait snorted. “Give me a break. Have you ever thought the word in relation to yourself?”
Stung, he gritted his teeth before responding. “I wouldn’t have said it to George if I hadn’t meant it.”
“To salvage your political career?” Her tone was scathing.
Clearly, she hadn’t been thinking long-term.
Pride made him try to sound matter-of-fact. “If I’d been thinking about my political career, I wouldn’t have brought you home with me at all, much less to spend the night.”
That silenced her for a moment. It didn’t quell the panic in her eyes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I was giving us both time.” He hesitated. “I’d intended to wait until the scum who tried to kill you has been arrested.”
“Because I’m so irrational right now?”
He didn’t say anything.
She puffed out air hard enough to lift the feathery strands of hair on her forehead. “I’m sorry. You were trying to help.”
Once again, he took refuge in silence.
“We can pretend and...well, break it off after a while.”
He gazed straight ahead at his garage. “Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know!” she cried in obvious distress. “Were you being chivalrous? Is that what this is about? Now you think you have to go through with it?”
His muscles were rigid, his hands fisted on his thighs. He couldn’t believe he’d let himself love this woman and imagine a future. Wasn’t this exactly the kind of rejection he’d never wanted to have to endure?
“You can say no,” he said woodenly. “I told you at the beginning, nothing personal between us will affect your job or our relationship at work.”
“It’s just...you’ve never said anything, and now this. I thought—”
“We were having hot sex, no harm, no foul?”
“No!”
She looked completely miserable, but he couldn’t seem to summon any sympathy. He felt too wounded himself.
“Cait, let’s let it ride for now,” he said wearily. “You’re not committed to anything. We’ll see what happens, okay?”
Lips compressed, she finally nodded.
He started the engine, released the emergency brake and backed out of the driveway as if nothing had changed. They didn’t talk during the ten-minute trip. He parked in the mayor’s reserved slot beneath city hall and got out, barely conscious of the dozen or more people locking cars, hurrying across the garage or waiting for the elevator. No point in subterfuge now.
Cait joined him, her face as pinched as it had been after her ex’s escapades, and they joined the stream of city employees.
Packed in the elevator with others, both stared at the lighted numbers. They reached her floor first. “I’ll call,” he said, and she nodded and exited with a couple of other women.
* * *
IT TOOK NOAH longer than it should have to get over being an idiot.
He’d stalked past his assistant with a curt “I don’t want to be interrupted,” closed his office door behind him and dropped down in his desk chair to brood. As usual, he swiveled the chair so he could look out the window toward the butte and the angel atop it.
Hurt was a knot in his chest and acid in his belly. He hadn’t been so devastated since he was a boy coming to terms with how little he mattered to either of his parents. His thoughts swung wildly between this morning’s sweet lovemaking and the scene after George had left.
It had to be an hour or more before the cramp of pain let up enough for him to really think.
There was a good reason he had planned to take it slowly with Cait. She’d been stalked for months by her creepy ex-boyfriend. Barely free of him, but dealing with the fact that he was going to jail because of his obsession with her, she had become the target of a cold-blooded killer. And, oh, yeah, meantime she’d come home to a town that didn’t seem to hold many good memories for her.
Sometimes he thought there was yet more bothering her. Her relationship with her brother had a level of discomfort on both sides that Noah didn’t entirely understand. Like him, she’d grown up in a dysfunctional family. Afraid of her father, she had ended up disillusioned with her mother, which left her more alone than a woman should be when someone like Ralston put her in his sights. And that following whatever Ralston had done that he had to be so damn sorry for.
On top of all that, right now she needed both Noah and her brother to keep her safe. If things blew up between them, Noah had been afraid she’d be reluctant to turn to him.
Keeping her safe mattered more than his wounded feelings, his ambitions, his business. He would do anything for her.
Including marry her? Wasn’t that what she had accused him of this morning? Making that stupid announcement out of misguided chivalry rather than love and commitment?
Circling back to his own idiocy and insensitivity was all too easy. He made love to her with blistering desire and enjoyed her company at the dinner and breakfast table. But he distinctly remembered telling her he didn’t see himself as a family man. He hadn’t so much as hinted at a future. And even this morning, the words I love you had stuck in his throat.
How could she not be shocked by his declaration? And why would she think for a minute that he actually wanted her and her alone till death do them part?
No, he still had no idea whether she had any interest in a future with him. The tightening in his belly and chest had him bowing his head, elbows braced on his knees. God! What this debacle meant was he’d have to lay himself open again. Invite her to hurt him.
And that was what he’d never wanted. The lesson was one only Cait could teach him. With a ferocity that stunned him, he had discovered that he wanted a woman to love and to love him, even children. The trust it took to get there was where he faltered.
Which was probably why those three all-important words had stuck in his throat.
Oh, hell, he thought. Waiting was no longer an option. Neither was sulking. He had to talk to her; he had to be honest.
He had to get her alone first, in the middle of city hall, where they were already the subject of too many whispers.
* * *
CAIT TURNED DOWN his offer to take her to lunch. She was burningly, painfully aware of appearances. It was like having to get dressed and go to work despite being fiery red and blistering head to toe from having forgotten suntan lotion during a day on the water.
In a way, she thought miserably, that’s exactly what she’d done—let herself forget to take any precaution. How could she have plunged from the disaster of her last romantic relationship into this one?
And why did this hurt so much worse?
She felt even more singed every time she remembered Noah’s cool declaration.
This is a little more than the two of us sleeping together. Cait has agreed to marry me.
And, yes, she had behaved badly. She knew he’d said that to protect her. She should be touched instead of hurt, shouldn’t she?
All she could think when he called was I’m not ready.
Of course, they had to talk before George spread the word and people started wanting to congratulate her, commiserate with her or demand explanations.
Cait cringed. Colin would definitely fall into the latter category. Oh, Lord—no matter what, she’d have to tell him so he wasn’t blindsided. She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if he and Noah came face-to-face right now.
I could call Colin and ask him to pick me up after work. She could live for one night without anything in her bag—um, except for her birth control pills, she realized. They were kind of significant right now, given how sexually active she’d been this past week.
Anyway—remember how it felt when Noah seemed to be dodging her? Didn’t her resolve to start over include the determination that she’d never be a coward again?
The drive to Colin’s would take just about the right length of time for Cait to tell Noah about Blake. She had to get that out of the way, to find out how he’d look at her once she let him see beneath the shell of confident, professional woman to the weakling inside.
* * *
SHE WAS READY to go when Noah stopped by her office at five. He was frowning and reserved. The comparison with his laughing, sexy, sated expression that morning after they’d made love was painful.
They walked silently down the hall and joined other people in the elevator. He looked just grim enough to keep anyone else from trying to make conversation.
In the parking garage, he stayed right at her side. Cait felt peculiar. Engines were starting up around them, brakes squealing, even the click of her heels echoing. Ahead, through the gated exit, she could see out to the heavy traffic on the street. It all felt and sounded...distant, as if the two of them were in a bubble. Too bad the atmosphere wasn’t quite breathable in there.
Once in the SUV, he glanced to be sure she’d put on her seat belt, then backed out and joined the line of vehicles exiting the garage.
Cait squeezed her hands together. “There’s something I have to tell you,” she said in a voice that came out a little too high.
He shot her a look. “Did someone say something to you today?”
“What? Oh. No. Nothing like that. It’s about me.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw his fingers flex hard on the steering wheel.
“All right,” he said, sounding wary.
“I’d sworn off men when I came to Angel Butte.” And how dumb was that as a beginning? Especially when her swearing off lasted such a millisecond?
They turned out onto the street. Noah waited for her to go on. She was becoming used to his surprising ability to be patient when he wanted to. He was quite capable of relentlessly using silence as a tool.
“Because of Blake, of course. The thing is...” Get on with it. “You’ve probably guessed that my father hit my mother. Me, too, when I got in the way. Colin, when he was younger and smaller. But mostly Mom. Until I found out about Jerry, I was proud of her, that she’d eventually found the courage to leave Dad.”
“I understand,” Noah said, voice a notch huskier even than usual.
He accelerated when the light ahead turned green. Traffic was beginning to open up as they left downtown behind. She had only a few minutes.
“She didn’t think she could support herself and two kids, or she’d have left him way sooner. That’s what she told me. And it was true. She and I lived in shelters off and on for a while before she finally found a decent job.”
He made a sound in his throat she couldn’t interpret.
“I was so filled with hate, I couldn’t imagine how she had stayed with Dad. Acted so normal in the morning when she was moving stiffly from the night before. I didn’t understand how a woman could blame herself when a man hits her.” The sharp pain in Cait’s knuckles came from the way she was knotting her hands so tightly. She was glad of it, needing to hurt on the outside to go with the hurt that was deep inside. “I swore I would never let anyone treat me that way.”
“Cait...”
“Until I did.” In her shame, she couldn’t look at Noah. “Until I let him brainwash me into believing it was my fault he got mad at me. I quit getting together with friends because he didn’t like it. The last time I saw Colin, Blake insisted on going with me. I sat there quiet as a mouse. It wasn’t until he hurt me enough to put me in the hospital that I realized what had happened to me.”
“May he rot in hell,” Noah snarled as he pulled into Colin’s driveway.
Aching to escape, she finally turned her head to see his furious face. “I’m talking about me, Noah. Not him. Don’t you understand? I let him do that to me.”
The muscle in his jaw flexing, he braked in front of the house and turned searing blue eyes on her. “If you think that, you’re still letting him victimize you.”
There it was, the contempt she’d feared most. With one hand she unfastened the seat belt even as she opened the door. “Then I guess I’m just cut out to be a victim.”
“Goddamn it, Cait, that’s not what I meant!”
“Please open the back so I can get my bag.”
He came around and unlocked it, giving a hunted glance toward the house. “Cait, come home with me again. Please.”
Determined not to cry in front of him, she shook her head. She grabbed the bag and backed away. “I needed to tell you what happened with Blake so you’d know that I’m not who you think I am.” Her smile didn’t quite come off, but she’d tried. “I hope you’re not a man who wants a woman who is a wimp. I don’t know if I can be anything else, Noah.”
He appeared so stunned, she took pity on him and kept backing up until she bumped into the porch steps. Children’s laughter and then a screech came from beyond a veil of pines.
“Thank you for the ride,” she said politely and fled up the steps.
She was barely inside when he drove away.
The house was completely silent. “Colin?” she called.
No answer.
Too soon for Nell to be home and—oh, no—Colin was speaking to some community group. Eagles or Jaycees or... She didn’t remember. Because of her, he was still putting off announcing his candidacy for sheriff, but when his bodyguard duties allowed, he was trying to squeeze in more of these kinds of events to bring name and face recognition.
The worry was sticking with her like a burr. There were already a couple of other candidates besides the incumbent sheriff. What if her problems dragged on and Colin entered the race too late?
And yet, for all her guilt, right this minute she was ungrateful enough to be swept with relief because she could be alone, if only for a few minutes.
Still carrying both bags, she had started down the hall toward the bedroom when she heard the sound of breaking glass.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
NOAH WASN’T TWO minutes down the road when he abruptly wrenched the wheel to the side and skidded to a stop on the shoulder.
“Shit,” he said explosively.
How could he have left her like that, thinking there was any truth at all in the crap about being a wimp. He winced at the memory of her eyes, darkened to charcoal by pain he hadn’t done a single thing to ease.
If you think that, you’re still letting him victimize you.
“Letting him” had to be the worst thing he could have said, after she’d just finished telling him that she’d “let” that bastard Ralston brainwash her, dominate her, hit her. As if “letting him” wasn’t bad enough—he’d tacked still onto it.
Noah groaned, hearing her response.
Then I guess I’m just cut out to be a victim.
The irony was, despite what she had to have seen as his cruelty, her chin had had a belligerent cast, her wounded eyes were dry, her pride alive and well.
Couldn’t she see that her childhood had set her up to ac
cept abuse? Living in fear of her father, seeing her mother cower? Noah had read between the lines in Cait’s few stories about her childhood. To survive, she’d made herself the next thing to invisible. She grew up knowing only two survival tactics: going unnoticed and enduring.
Animals like Blake Ralston seemed to have a gift for homing in on susceptible women. Noah guessed that Cait had had no idea she was until she’d gotten involved with him. She’d made herself into a strong woman in so many ways. Why would she suspect her instinct would be to revert to those childhood lessons?
Noah swore a few more times, then checked the road both ways and swung into a sharp U-turn. He should have marched right in the house with Cait, told her brother and his wife that they needed privacy and straightened her out. Instead, he’d left her thinking...
He didn’t like knowing what she was thinking.
* * *
CAIT FROZE. It was all her nighttime fears made real.
The bedroom, she thought frantically. She could push the dresser over to block the door, give herself time to get out the window.
Heart slamming, she ran in, closed the door and pushed the useless little button to lock it. Her bags dropped with a thud and she began to wrestle the tall dresser across the floor.
The door splintered, and she whirled as the lock gave and a man shoved his way in. The lethal-looking gun in his hand riveted her. And, oh, God, that hand wore a thin latex glove. Only slowly did she lift her gaze to his face.
An ordinary face. Thin, to go with his medium height and lean runner’s build. Graying brown hair, brown eyes.
Shaking, she whispered, “I would never have recognized you.”
His expression didn’t even change. “I couldn’t take that chance. You did recognize Jerry.”
“Only because I knew him.”
He shook his head and stepped away from the door. “We need to go.”
“I won’t.”
“Your choice.” He sounded truly indifferent, although beads of sweat dripped down his forehead. “There are kids playing outside next door so I’d rather not kill you here, but I will if you’re too much trouble.”
Harlequin Superromance January 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: Everywhere She GoesA Promise for the BabyThat Summer at the Shore Page 24
