Flirting with Disaster & Fanning the Flames

by Victoria Dahl

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  TOM WOKE TO the smell of frying bacon, and he floated there for a long minute, warm beneath the covers of his childhood bed while his mom made Sunday breakfast. It was a strange feeling. Half contentment and half a niggling awareness that he’d have to get up soon and go to church for two excruciatingly boring hours.

  He frowned. No, the worry was something darker than that. His mind touched on his brother before it shied away in horror. That was when his eyes opened, and he looked around in a panic, wondering where he was and if his brother was still dead.

  His brain finally recognized that he was in Isabelle’s bedroom. And yes, his brother was still dead.

  But there the darkness was, hovering above him. Not grief for Michael, but something more urgent.

  He had to help Isabelle. Keep Gates away from her. Or deliver Isabelle to him, if that was the wisest option.

  But he didn’t think it was.

  Tom glanced around, looking for his phone. It was in his pants, probably, somewhere on the floor. But at least he found a clock. It was only 6:15. If he jumped in the shower right now, he could be at the judge’s in twenty minutes. Thirty if he stayed for bacon.

  Then Tom would take care of his team, get the judge to the courthouse and take an hour of calm to look into Isabelle’s situation.

  He knew the bare bones of it. He knew what her father had been charged with and the further crimes he’d been suspected of. But the supporting cast was a sticky, tangled, dangerous mess of unnamed cops and shady figures.

  The FBI had known that people high up in the Chicago PD were, at best, protecting some of the players. At worst, they’d been in charge of the whole racket.

  But...

  Tom stretched hard, noting the various sore muscles in his body and wishing he had time to enjoy the memory of what had caused them. But he couldn’t. Because there was that one big question hanging over him as he headed naked for Isabelle’s small shower and turned on the tap.

  The FBI wouldn’t have put a flag on a federal file because of the activity of the Chicago PD. It wouldn’t have attached a warning about leaking information to Chicago. Unless it had already been done.

  Someone in the FBI was working with those bigwigs in Chicago, or had been.

  Tom had gotten only a quick look at the federal files before Gates had called. He knew Gates hadn’t been the head agent on the case back then, but what if he’d been associated? What if he’d been the leak?

  A long shot, but Gates was suspiciously invested. If he hadn’t been the leak then, that didn’t mean he hadn’t been bought off since.

  Tom needed another look at that file. And shit, Gates was already here. Tom didn’t need to worry about drawing more attention if he looked again.

  Determined now, he cleaned up and got out of the shower in record time. He was pulling on his wrinkled suit pants when Isabelle walked in.

  “Hello,” she said, her mysterious smile in place as she looked over his bare chest. “Sleep well?”

  “I don’t remember a thing after I passed out. I hope I didn’t snore.”

  She moved closer and kissed his chest. Tom closed his arms around her without even thinking about it. Fuck, she felt good against him. He recognized the blue shirt she’d been wearing the night before, and he wanted to strip it off her. Again.

  “I didn’t hear you snore,” she said against his skin. “But are you saying you don’t remember that second round?”

  His mind flashed on warm skin and dark pleasure. “Damn. I do remember that. I half thought it was a dream.”

  “A wet dream,” she murmured. “Want breakfast?”

  “Hell, yes,” he said, not realizing he’d decided to stay until he spoke.

  He followed her to the kitchen, buttoning his shirt as he walked.

  “It’s not much,” she explained. “Bacon and scrambled eggs. Leftover lemon cake.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  It was. Nothing had ever tasted so good. Or he was really hungry and finally remembering the night before, when Isabelle had come so beautifully around his cock. She was beautiful. And as soon as he left her house, this spell would be broken.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, stopping her as she moved to pour him another cup of coffee. “I have to run. It’s not very romantic...”

  “I’m not very romantic,” she said with a smile. But it wavered. “And you’re not my boyfriend. We both have a lot of work to do.”

  Right. He wasn’t her boyfriend. He couldn’t be, and he knew why. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe she didn’t like him that much, and sex was always this good for her.

  But if it was only her past between them, maybe they could work it out. Maybe she wouldn’t panic and lash out and hate him. Shit.

  “Isabelle—” he started, but she shook her head.

  “Go to work. Maybe I’ll see you again tonight. But it’s no big deal if you can’t.”

  It was a big deal to him. And he thought it might be a big deal to her, too. She had to say it didn’t mean much, because what choice did she have? He was a US marshal.

  He opened his mouth, one more attempt to tell her the truth. He’d hoped to come up with a plan sometime between midnight and morning, but it seemed more impossible than ever. He needed Mary’s advice. He couldn’t just wing this, or he’d screw it up and lose Isabelle for good.

  “I’ll see you later, then,” he said as he shrugged on his coat and pulled his gun off the shelf he’d left it on the night before.

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek, a gesture so innocent that it made him smile. Once he had everything together, he pulled on the boots he’d left on the porch and headed down the steps, trying to think of ways to mitigate the reaction she’d have to the truth. He wanted to keep seeing her. It wasn’t just sex, at least not for him.

  He didn’t hear the car approaching until after Isabelle had closed the door behind him. Not that it mattered in that first moment, when he assumed it must be Mary. He even had a fleeting thought that she’d spent the night at Jill’s and was swinging around to pick him up.

  But then the car appeared, easing up Isabelle’s driveway in the muted light of sunrise. Tom froze on the last step and thanked God that Isabelle wasn’t here. Because the driver wasn’t Mary. It was Gates.

  His heart filled so quickly with fear that Gates could have seen Isabelle in the doorway that Tom was halfway down the walk before he realized he himself shouldn’t be here. It was before seven in the morning. The FBI agent was already suspicious. And Tom was walking out of this woman’s house, unshaven and in wrinkled clothes. He almost stopped dead at the realization, but bluffing was all he had at this point.

  He met Gates halfway down the driveway and glared as the man rolled down his window. “Can I help you with something, Agent Gates?”

  One look at his face, and Tom’s heart fell. Shit. The guy looked smug. “Help me?” Gates asked. “You’re the one who seems to be lost.”

  “Not lost at all. This is my jurisdiction. You, on the other hand...”

  Gates looked past Tom toward the cabin. “Yeah. I wasn’t sure what your motive was here, but now I get it.”

  “Motive?”

  “In protecting a certain Isabelle West.” Agent Gates offered that smarmy, helpful smile as he pulled a square of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolded it.

  Tom caught the flash of the Wyoming state seal, and his blood froze even before he saw Isabelle’s picture on the driver’s-license photo.

  Gates smiled wider. “I’ll inform your supervisor as soon as I’ve brought her in.”

  “She’s not a fugitive,” Tom snapped.

  “So why lie to me?”

  Tom looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t like you. And I don’t trust you, either.”

  Gates put up his hands. “Come on, Duncan. We’re on the same side. Well...” He inclined his head toward the cabin. “Maybe not quite the same side. But that hardly matters now.” Gates put the car in gear.

&nbs
p; “Wait,” Tom barked, gripping the window frame as if he could stop the vehicle with his hand. “You want her father.”

  Gates frowned. “Her father is dead.”

  “Yet you’re asking around about him.”

  He put the truck back in Park and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “Are you telling me you know he’s not?”

  Tom almost lied. He needed to buy time. But he knew he could buy it with manipulation instead of an outright lie. “I don’t know. She hasn’t opened up much about him yet.”

  He felt filthy just saying that to this guy, discussing Isabelle and her private life, but there was going to be a whole lot more of it in the future. He just wanted to get her alone and explain what was happening. He could help if only she’d let him.

  Tom leaned down, bracing his forearm against the top of the truck. “Let me work on her. If I can get her to talk about her father, maybe you can have him.”

  “Bullshit. He’s not here.”

  “He’s not here,” Tom agreed, “but maybe she knows where he is. She has a life here. She won’t want to blow it up.”

  Gates shrugged. “She already did it once, my friend. She gave up Chicago for that fucking killer.”

  My friend. Tom wanted to punch him in the face. She hadn’t left Chicago; she’d left everything, and she hadn’t done it for her dad.

  Then again, she hadn’t come straight to Wyoming. She’d been somewhere else for a while. And that was what really pissed Tom off, because maybe she’d done exactly what Gates suspected.

  Agent Gates eased back a little to look up at Tom. “You planning to help her run again?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Tom barked. “I’m a fucking marshal. You think I’m gonna throw away a twenty-year career for a woman I met a week ago?”

  “You’re here, aren’t you? Just doing reconnaissance?”

  Tom’s hand squeezed into a fist. He ignored it and kept his voice calm. “Give me a few hours. That’s all I’m asking.”

  “She’ll run.”

  “Where’s she going to go? This is her place, her land, her life. Christ, let me help you find the guy you really want. You won’t even be able to hold her for more than twenty-four hours.”

  “Oh, I’d bet she’s got a few felonies piled up by now.”

  Shit. Gates was probably right. She was living under an assumed name. There was no way that had been accomplished legally.

  But Gates seemed to have thought it over. “An hour,” he said. “I’ll be at the bottom of the hill.”

  He backed down the driveway while Tom’s mind spun. Relief tangled up with anxiety until he thought his head would explode. He had to tell her. Now.

  Tom moved numbly up her driveway. He couldn’t feel his feet as he walked to her porch and stepped up, but he knew he was moving. Her door opened before he could reach it. He looked at her pale face and wished this wasn’t happening.

  “Why was he here?” she asked.

  He stopped at the threshold.

  “He’s FBI,” she said, surprising Tom.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s not part of your team. What was he doing here?”

  He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t tell her. But her face crumpled as he stared at her.

  “Tom.” Her voice cracked. “Why was he here?”

  He took a deep breath and tried to pretend this was any other case. “He’s here about your father,” he said.

  Isabelle slammed the door in his face.

  * * *

  SHE BACKED UP until she felt the wall behind her. The doorknob jiggled.

  “Isabelle,” he said through the wood. “Please open the door.”

  She pressed both hands to her mouth and flattened herself against the wall. This couldn’t be happening. He knew.

  How long had he known?

  “Isabelle, let me help you. Please.” His hand slapped the wood. “Beth.”

  “Don’t call me that,” she whispered as fear swept through her body. When it hit her heart, it turned to rage. “Don’t call me that!” She leaped for the door and wrenched it open. “How long have you known?”

  Instead of answering her, he pushed past her. It didn’t matter that she tried to hold him back; he just walked in as if she weren’t even there.

  “Get out of my house!” she yelled.

  “I’m trying to help you.”

  “How? By fucking me?”

  “Isabelle.” He actually had the nerve to reach for her.

  She heard the growling noise coming from her own throat, and she couldn’t stop it. She didn’t want to. She slapped his hands away, and then she kept on slapping, hitting his arms, his face, trying to scratch him and make him bleed. Trying to make him hurt for what he’d done.

  He caught her wrists before she was satisfied. “Stop it.”

  “Why didn’t you take me in, huh? Were you waiting to see if my dad showed up? Or were you just holding out for a few more blow jobs?”

  “It wasn’t like that, damn it!” He looked furious, as if he was the one who had a right to be mad.

  She tried to jerk her arms away, and when that didn’t work, she kneed him in the balls. Or she tried to. He blocked her knee with his thigh and twisted her arms around until she was facing away from him.

  “Stop,” he said close to her ear, his arms wrapped around her in a parody of intimacy. She screamed and struggled, but she knew it was hopeless. All those muscles she’d admired so much weren’t just for show, and she was just a stupid, useless artist who couldn’t fight or hide or protect herself. Her screams turned to sobs.

  “Isabelle. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “How long have you known?” she managed to say past her thick throat. Her voice sounded like a stranger’s.

  “Shit,” he muttered, and she knew. He’d known from the start.

  “You knew before. Before you even got here.”

  “No. It wasn’t like that. You acted so suspicious of me when I first showed up that I started checking into you. That’s all. That’s all it was.”

  She slumped, giving up on fighting. She’d given herself away, just as she’d feared, and now it was all over. “Just take me in,” she rasped. “I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Ever.”

  “I’m not taking you in. Stand up.”

  She eyed him warily, suspicious about what he wanted from her now. But when his arms loosened, she found the strength to stand on her own two feet, though she put one hand on the wall as he let her go, just in case.

  “Do you know where your father is?”

  She laughed. “No.”

  “Are you helping him?”

  “I haven’t heard from him since I left Chicago. He doesn’t know where I am or what my name is. All right? Is that all you wanted?”

  He sighed. “Can we sit down?”

  “Sure. Maybe I can serve coffee and cake. We can pretend we’re fuck buddies again.”

  “Just sit!”

  Isabelle shrugged. She’d gotten her composure, finally, but her legs still trembled as she moved carefully to the living room. She took the chair so he couldn’t sit near her.

  He collapsed onto the couch. “I didn’t know who you were the first time we... After your party... I didn’t know until the next day when I had a chance to look up your mom and her accident.”

  Her heart twisted so hard it hurt. “You were spying on my personal conversations. And trying to get me to talk about myself... I thought you were actually interested in me. Jesus.”

  “I was. I’d realized how much I liked you and, I swear to God, at that point I was trying to disprove my own suspicions so I could let it go and get to know you.”

  She concentrated on the one mark she’d managed to leave on his face. The scratch was already fading. It wouldn’t hurt him for more than a few more minutes, if he’d even felt it at all. “We slept together,” she said, “and you kept checking into me.”

  He looked away from her. “Yes.”


  “And you thought that was okay?”

  He met her gaze again and set his jaw. “I thought you might have needed help. And I was right.”

  “How were you right? I didn’t need any help. I was fine until you called the FBI.”

  “I didn’t call them. When I finally realized who you were, I checked the federal file on your dad. The account was flagged. Agent Gates called me a few minutes later. I denied having seen you or your father. Told him I was only conducting some routine research on federal fugitives. He didn’t believe it.”

  “Agent Gates?” She frowned. That name sounded familiar.

  “Do you know him?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. There were a lot of people involved in my father’s case. A lot of bad people. And you’ve led them to my door.”

  “What happened?” he asked.

  She shook her head. It was hopeless. There’d never been anything terrible enough to put a stop to any of it. There’d been late-night visits and veiled threats and anything she’d told a federal investigator had gotten to all of her father’s associates within hours.

  Once her father had vanished, the visits had increased, the cops constantly asking if her father had left anything or asked her to hide anything or if she’d seen him leaving with a package. Some of them had been the good guys, maybe. Some of them hadn’t. And the only one her father had warned her about had been the one she’d refused to believe was involved. She’d needed him not to be.

  “Why did you run, Isabelle?”

  “Because I was afraid I’d end up dead if I didn’t.”

  “Someone threatened you?”

  She laughed again, an ugly sound. “No one out and out said they would kill me, but there was a lot of ‘If you don’t help us, there’s nothing we can do to protect you.’ And that was true. My own father didn’t protect me. He left. So did my fiancé. I ran because I was on my own, and I didn’t know any other way to save myself.”

  “Why were they threatening you?”

  “At first they wanted to know where my father was. Everyone wanted to know.”

  “Were you helping him?”

  She shrugged. “Barely. He was moving place to place, asking for money. I obliged a few times in those first weeks and then told him to fuck off. I have no idea where he went after that. Out of the country, I assume. You want to arrest me now for aiding and abetting?”