Last Chance 05 - Second Chance

by Christy Reece

  “He’s made several mistakes in the last few days. I’m betting he’ll make more.”

  “Like what?” She swallowed a sob. “Not killing you?”

  “That and the fact that he’s revealed the camera. Something set him off … made him out himself.”

  The fierce satisfaction she saw in Cole’s expression grounded her. He was right. This person had made mistakes; now they needed to figure out how to capitalize on them. Keeley drew in a breath. “What do we do now?”

  “We’ve got experts arriving in about an hour. They’ll comb the house and the grounds. Ethan’s already got a safe house ready for us. We’ll pack a few things and get out.”

  As much as she didn’t like being forced from her own home, Keeley knew she wouldn’t be comfortable until every nook and cranny was searched.

  “Can the cameras be traced?”

  “If we can find the place of purchase, we can find who bought them.”

  Though he sounded confident, it didn’t sound that easy to her. “Isn’t that kind of like a needle in a haystack?”

  “Not necessarily. I don’t know that much about cameras, but this one looked expensive. And if we find more throughout the house, so much the better. I’d be willing to bet there are only a few places in the state that sell it in quantity.”

  A slight optimism surged through her. Even though it sickened her to know she’d been spied on for God knows how long, if substantial information was gained from it, she’d be glad about it.

  “I’ll get Hannah’s things together.”

  “Try to say as little as possible inside. If Hannah asks where you’re going, just tell her it’s a surprise.” He smiled and she knew he was trying to make her feel better. “We’ll just pretend this is an adventure. Hannah will love it.”

  “You’re right, she will.” She reached up to touched his face that was still bloodied. “We need to get some antiseptic and bandages on you.”

  “It’s just a few scrapes. I’ll take care of them while you pack.”

  She headed back to the house. Cole’s voice stopped her.

  “The more mistakes he makes, the better our chances. We’re getting closer. I promise you.”

  Gratitude and affection blended with desire and a thousand other emotions she could barely recognize. Unable to stop herself, Keeley came back to him and pressed a soft kiss to his mouth. Numerous words came to mind. Some would embarrass him; others would probably scare the hell out of him. He wouldn’t want to hear that she was falling in love with him. So she settled for “I’m glad you’re here with me.” Lukewarm words, compared to her real feelings, but true nonetheless.

  Before he could respond, she whirled around and ran to the house.

  Gnawing at her lip as she stared at the screen, she ignored the fact that her red lipstick was probably staining her teeth. Cole Mathison’s warning had unnerved her. Not only because he’d found the camera. Dammit, he was supposed to be dead.

  Making the decision to get rid of him hadn’t been that easy. It’d been a long time since a man had stirred anything in her other than antipathy and disgust. Cole had the looks and the charm to make any woman, no matter how jaded, want a taste of him. But he’d become entirely too important to Keeley … which meant he had to go.

  Once again the freak of a pervert Wesley had failed. The bastard had become undependable. He’d screwed up the last two jobs she’d given him. Their association had been a long one and he’d done some damn fine work for her. However, every business relationship had to end sometime. Theirs would end with Wesley’s death.

  Finding the camera wasn’t that unexpected. She’d known when she sent the email to Keeley about the elephant jumpsuit that Cole would suspect something. Of course, if he’d been killed, that would’ve taken the focus off the camera.

  She shouldn’t have sent the message, but that passionate little love scene she’d witnessed between them had pissed her off. How dare Keeley be getting off when one of her kids was still missing? Especially when she’d been wanting a taste for herself.

  Keeley had needed a painful reminder and the email had accomplished that. Too bad it had outed the camera, but what was done was done.

  Despite her unease, a little chuckle escaped. Keeley would be racking her brain, trying to figure out how the camera got there. And since Stephen had given the stuffed animals to the girls, there was no way in hell she’d ever figure out where it had really come from.

  Just another hard but painful lesson to be learned. Life was like that—full of pain-filled, sometimes devastating surprises. Keeley should know that by now.

  twenty-one

  The move to the safe house was handled with relative ease. Cole was right. Hannah was excited to be going on an adventure, and had been promised an extra bedtime story when they arrived at their hideaway.

  Finding a safe house in a small town should have been impossible. Trust an LCR operative to make it seem easy. Ethan had found a lovely lake house about twenty miles from Fairview. It apparently belonged to an older couple who used it for vacations and family get-togethers. With five bedrooms, including a child’s room with cartoon character décor, it was the perfect size.

  Tucking her daughter in, Keeley pressed a kiss to her forehead. After two “happily ever after” stories and an hour of mindless television, Hannah’s eyelids were drooping with exhaustion.

  Double-checking the baby monitor by the bed one last time, Keeley tiptoed out of the room.

  Her heart racing, she went to her own room and took a long look in the full-length mirror. She felt like a geeky teen about to ask the captain of the football team for a date. On the ride over here, she’d made a decision. Actually, that wasn’t the truth. Days ago, when she’d been picking up a prescription at the drugstore, she’d made an additional purchase that cemented what she’d been thinking about for weeks, since the night Cole had selflessly offered his body to her in comfort.

  Hopeless it might be, but she was hoping he might reconsider a relationship.

  While packing, she’d thrown that additional purchase into her suitcase. Unfortunately, she hadn’t packed anything remotely sexy. Not that she had a lot of sexy clothes or even considered herself the type who could wear sexy clothes. True, the jeans hugged her curves nicely, and leaving the two buttons open at the top of her lavender shirt allowed a hint of cleavage to show.

  Thanks to Jenna’s gentle urging to eat more and Cole’s insistence on running every day, she’d gained a little weight and had a healthier color than she’d had in months. She scrunched her nose at her image. Still she was no sexy siren.

  Determined to make the best of what she had to offer, Keeley brushed her teeth and her hair and then applied a small amount of mascara and colorless lip gloss. She stepped back to view the results. As long as Cole was attracted to the somewhat pale plain-Jane type, she had it made.

  Tucking the small packet of condoms into her jeans pocket, she grabbed the child monitor she never went without. If Hannah stirred at all, she’d be able to hear. Her chin set with determination, Keeley took a deep breath, steeled her backbone, and marched out the door. Now or never.

  As she knocked on his door, she fought the urge to dash back to her room. Before meeting Cole, she’d never come on to a man. This would be the second time she’d asked him to make love to her. No, she was being silly. She wasn’t absolutely going to ask. If he acted the least bit uninterested, they’d just talk awhile and then she’d leave. And he never had to know that—

  The door swung open and all thoughts of any kind of seduction vanished. Cole’s expression told her it wasn’t a good time to talk, much less anything else.

  He held a cellphone to his ear and the icy coldness in his eyes had her backing away. “Sorry to bother you, I can come back later.”

  Without a word, he grabbed her arm, pulled her into the room, and closed the door.

  Keeley stumbled in, astonished. Before she could ask what was going on, he spoke into the phone.

&nbs
p; “I’m not that person anymore, DeAnn. I haven’t been for a long time.”

  It was impossible to act as though she couldn’t hear the conversation, since the voice on the other end of the line spoke rather loudly. Keeley couldn’t understand every word, but from the sound of it, a woman was trying to convince Cole to come home where he belonged.

  The tic in his jaw was a good indication that he wasn’t happy about the call.

  “Look, I’ll try to come back for a visit in the next few months. Give Larry my regards. Goodbye.”

  He closed the phone and kept his back to her for several tense seconds. She watched him rub the back of his neck and suspected that he had a headache.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

  “Was that someone in your family?”

  “My mother-in-law. Rather my former mother-in-law. She thinks I should come back to Texas and teach again. Try to get back to my old life.”

  “You don’t agree?”

  “No way in hell.”

  Sensing that he needed to talk, Keeley took a seat in a chair and watched him pace. When it didn’t appear he was going to say anything, she asked, “Why did you become a teacher?”

  “My parents were teachers. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to follow in their footsteps.”

  “Do they live in Texas, too?”

  “I lost both of them right after Jill and I got married. My dad died of a heart attack, my mom got sick a few weeks later. We thought it was a bad cold. Turned into pneumonia. She was gone before we knew it.”

  This man had suffered so much loss. First his parents, then his wife and daughter. Keeley hadn’t yet been able to ask him about the scars on his back, but something horrific had to have happened—the pain would have been tremendous. Cole’s amazing strength astounded her.

  “I’m sorry about your parents.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How long were you a teacher?”

  He dropped into a chair across from her. “Counting my internship in college, about seven years.”

  “Was your wife a teacher, too?”

  “Sort of … she was a stay-at-home mom.” His mouth twisted in a bitter smile. “Jill’s degree was in criminal justice. After college she wanted to go into law enforcement. I convinced her it was too dangerous, too risky. We moved to Dallas so I could teach in a larger school system. That way I could make more money and she could stay at home with Cassidy.” His face darkened. “Hell of a note that she ended up getting killed because of my non-dangerous job.”

  Keeley hurt for him. Life was so damn unfair sometimes.

  “Tell me about Cassidy.”

  She instantly regretted asking. The stark pain she saw in his eyes was a reflection of what she saw in hers each time she looked in the mirror. Only she still had hope. Cole didn’t even have that.

  Unable to see his pain without doing something to comfort him, Keeley slid from her chair and went to her knees in front of him. “If it’s too painful, you don’t—”

  “Sorry. I should be able to talk about her … I need to be able to talk about her.” He took a breath. “What can I say but that she was the light of my life. The light of our lives. She had the kind of young, innocent curiosity that made me want to talk with her for hours. Her favorite thing was story time. She used to make up stories for us and keep us in stitches.”

  “She sounds like a beautiful child. Do you have pictures of her?”

  Cole shook his head. “Not on me. I have some back home in Tampa.”

  “Tell me about Jill.”

  “She was funny and smart.” He smiled. “Much smarter than me.”

  “Where did you meet?”

  “Grammar school. First grade … first day of school. She spilled her milk at lunchtime and I gave her mine. We were best friends from then on. We didn’t date until our senior year.”

  “Why not?”

  “I think we were too busy being best friends to see each other as anything else.”

  “What made the change?”

  “She got her heart bruised by a friend of mine. I comforted her, but realized how glad I was that they weren’t together anymore. Somehow she saw me differently, too.”

  “What was she like?”

  Cole closed his eyes as he tried to remember the woman he’d forgotten for months while in captivity. He’d seen photographs of her, recalled some events, but the majority of his memories were still sketchy and probably always would be. “She had vibrant auburn hair, green eyes, and a beautiful smile.”

  “You just described Shea.”

  Time for a small confession. “Shea’s my ex-wife.”

  “What?”

  He chuckled at her astonishment. It felt good to be able to laugh about his stupidity. “Long story short … Ethan, Shea, and I were friends. Ethan acted like an ass back then and I was looking for someone to take care of. Ethan broke it off with her and Shea was going through a bad time.”

  “So Mr. Knight in Shining Armor came in and rescued the damsel in distress?”

  “Something like that. We both realized it was a mistake and ended up having it annulled.”

  “I’ll bet that made things slightly awkward between you and Ethan.”

  Cole winced. That was one memory he’d just as soon not have. Seeing Ethan’s hurt had been hard to take, but his acceptance of the marriage had been even harder. The idiot had believed Shea was better off with Cole. “‘Slightly awkward’ would be an understatement. Though we did our best to hide it, since we still worked ops together.”

  “How did Ethan and Shea finally get it right?”

  They were headed in a direction best kept for another day. After his conversation with his former mother-in-law, Keeley’s warmhearted compassion had already made him share things he hadn’t thought of or talked about in years. Telling her anything more would lead to an area he couldn’t yet discuss.

  He shrugged and gave a vague answer, hoping she’d let it go. “They both came to their senses.”

  There were questions in her eyes, but she seemed to sense he didn’t want to talk about it any longer. There would be a time he’d have to tell her everything. Now wasn’t that time.

  “How’s Hannah?”

  She stood and began walking around the room as if she was suddenly nervous. “Enjoying herself.” She laughed. “That kid is amazing. Give her a snack and a few fairy tales and she’s content.”

  “And how are you doing?”

  “Feeling violated, on top of everything else. The one place I thought I had some privacy was in my own home. Now to know that whoever this person is planned this so well that they could actually install a camera or cameras to record my pain …” She stopped pacing for a second and looked at him. “And it’s apparently someone who knew Stephen, too.”

  And that made him even more suspicious that the two abductions were related in some way. Had the same person who’d commissioned Stephen’s abduction also arranged for the children’s kidnapping?

  “Since the house is so large, we won’t know for a couple of days the extent of the bugging. Who has access to your house?”

  “Very few people. Everyone who does is someone I’d trust with my life.”

  “How old is the house?”

  “About six years old.” Her eyes widened. “Wait. I had a plumbing problem last year. It took almost two weeks for them to get everything fixed. The girls and I stayed with Jenna while they were making repairs. I’m sure there were all sorts of people coming in and out of the house. Any of them could have put in cameras.”

  Hell, she was right. The list had just grown larger.

  “Give me the names of the contractors. If more cameras are found, I’ll contact them and see what we can come up with.”

  She nodded and then dropped down onto the bed. Everything inside Cole went still except for the one body part that went on high alert anytime Keeley was near. Did she realize where she was sitting? He’d been dying to get h
er back in bed for weeks. Now that’s where she was and it was taking all of his considerable willpower not to join her.

  “Cole, do you find me attractive?”

  He almost glared at her. What the hell did she think the rigid bulge in his pants meant? And what did she think the incredible sexual encounter they’d had in her bedroom was all about? Not to mention all those kisses they’d shared, orgasm included. Did she think he reacted that way to just anybody? Hell yeah, he found her attractive … more than just attractive. But there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  He could have told her that and a whole lot more. Instead he said simply, “Yes.”

  She wrapped her arms around herself in a defensive, self-conscious movement. “I didn’t date in school…. Stephen is the only man I’ve ever been with, until you.” A blush, bright red and almost painful to look at, covered her face. She was obviously embarrassed by what she was saying, but for some reason she forged on. “But he didn’t … I rarely …” She swallowed convulsively. “I guess what I’m trying to say—and very badly at that—is—until you—until we—that night we—I’ve never really enjoyed—” She broke off, unable to finish.

  Holy hell, what was he supposed to do now? He wanted this woman with every fiber of his being, and from what he could tell, she was, in an awkward but incredibly sweet way, telling him she wanted to have sex with him again.

  “I know I’m not really the type to attract men in that way, but—”

  He jerked at the most ridiculous statement he’d ever heard. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She jumped to her feet. “I’m sorry I brought it up. I’ll go now.”

  Cole moved in front of her to block her exit. No way could he let her out of this room now. She looked hurt and humiliated.

  Unable to keep from touching her, he lightly caressed her arm. “Keeley, you are one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever known, inside and out. How in hell could you believe that you’re not attractive?”

  Her eyes glittered with uncertainty. “I’m too big.”

  “Too big where?”