“I won’t let you fall in.”
“Pax, I—”
“I promise. I will hold you and keep you safe, but we need to hide and can use the noise from the movement of the boats as cover.”
It all sounded so logical. For some people, jumping out of a plane probably sounded sane. Not her.
He shifted his weight, holding on to her and watching the area around them at the same time. “Ready?”
“No.” She’d never even agreed to this stupid plan. Then there was the part where her legs refused to move.
None of that stopped Pax. Without a word, he coaxed and guided. His hand rested on her lower back. He didn’t push or shove, but he had her stretching her upper body and one foot leaving the ground.
The material of the boat chilled her warm hands. Shaking with teeth rattling, she lifted one leg and then the other. Waves of fear pummeled her, but she kept her gaze forward and down until she could see only the boat and a small sliver of sky above as she shifted and climbed on board.
Then he was there. His body covered hers as she crawled. The rough feel of the bow dug into her knees, but she didn’t stop or let her mind wander to his leg injury for even a second.
Maybe it was her imagination, but she heard the footsteps, slow and steady and coming closer. The men talked but the breeze caught the tone and she couldn’t make out the words.
She’d gone a few feet and slid down onto the padded seats when he pulled her with him to the floor of the front seating area and flattened his body over hers. The heat from his skin and the brush of the air had her sweating and sticking to the hard fiberglass underneath her cheek.
She closed her eyes, trying to fight off a new wave of terror, but without a focal point the rocking of the boat had her shifting from side to side. Much more of that and she wouldn’t have to be in the water to hate it.
“Nothing here.” The stranger’s deep voice sounded so close, just above her.
She even held her breath to keep from giving away their location. With her palms against the floor and her body spread as low as possible, she tried to make out the conversation. She’d settle for anything to make all of this worthwhile. One piece could be the difference between her running and getting back to her life.
“We need to check in,” another voice said.
The sounds came from all around her. The water, the wind, the men. Everything pressed in on her until she had to bite back the scream rushing up her throat.
It felt like hours before the footsteps grew softer and the quiet of the night took over again. She didn’t move but Pax shifted. He slid to the side and all of a sudden the weight was gone. Only the smelly air suffocated her now.
“Wait here.” Pax whispered the near-soundless command against her ear.
She stayed plastered to the floor but peeked up at him.
Instead of jumping out of the boat or standing up, he slipped up onto the front bench, seemingly boneless in his movements and not hampered by the leg. Their bag sat on the edge of the boat, and he crouched down as he looked over the area toward the shore.
With a small tap against his ear, he started talking. “Now you can listen because I need eyes here. We had company and I need to know how many more are out there.”
Kelsey knew the words went back to Joel and Connor, who would somehow handle it all from a distance. She appreciated the backup plan, but it didn’t change the facts in front of her. She wanted off the boat, and her skin itched to jump from it.
“Let’s go.” He motioned for her to stand up.
She didn’t hesitate. “There has to be a hotel around here. Preferably one nowhere near the water.”
Every muscle in her body shouted for her to sprint off the boat and right back to the car, but she didn’t. Seeing the boats shift and bob around them, watching them bang against the slips, would not ease the fear pulsing through her and scrambling whatever was left in her stomach.
Pax felt around the front of his jeans. “My phone.”
Oh, no, no, no. “We can get you a new one.”
“It can’t be found there. I can lock and wipe it wirelessly, but we don’t want to take the risk,” Joel said into the comm. “If these guys are fishing based on your love for boating, that’s one thing. If they get confirmation you were there, they won’t give up on your trail until they pick you up again.”
She hated it when Joel got all logical.
Before her brain could signal flight, she dropped back to the floor and he joined her. The light on the dock didn’t reach into this area of the boat, which had made it such a good hiding place but also hard to find anything. They had to pat and feel their way around. Her fingers hit against ropes and hard objects she couldn’t identify.
“Got it.”
The words had barely left Pax’s mouth before she jumped to her feet. She had one leg on the edge of the boat and a winding terror in her gut when Joel’s voice cut across the comm again. “They’re coming back.”
Pax stared at her. “What?”
“Directly for your end of the dock,” Connor said. “Move.”
Pax pushed her toward the back of the boat and deeper into the darkness surrounded by water. The back of her thigh smacked into the chair by the wheel, and the shot of pain had her vision going black. Her legs got tangled up and her footing fumbled, but Pax’s strong arms grabbed her before she hit the floor with a thud. He rushed her forward and had her pressed up against the back edge of the boat in a muscle-cramping crouch when the footsteps and talk closed in.
“I saw it back here,” the one with the deeper voice said. “Just sitting there.”
“You should have said something the first time.”
She didn’t know what they were talking about, but the conversation seemed to center on their area. Then she remembered the bag and her head dropped back. They were coming right in her direction.
Dizziness crashed in on her from every side. Pax stood bent over in the shadows, hiding behind the windshield with his body covering hers. But if the attackers came on the boat, the impromptu hiding place would not protect them.
As the attackers’ voices grew louder, Pax pressed back even farther. His butt hit against her stomach and threw her off balance.
She made a stumbling step and her calves hit the edge. A cry for help bounced around her head but her body kept going. She fell over, her hands flapping as she tried to grab on to anything that would break her fall before she slapped against the water. The air whipped through her hair and she held her breath, waiting for the horrible dunk.
Just when she thought she’d hit, her body jerked to a stop and her sneakers splashed in the water. Her eyes flew open and Pax’s face filled her vision. He looked at her from his position, bent over the side of the boat and holding her around the waist and one thigh. He’d caught her like a net and left her hanging like dead weight off the side.
“I have you.” That’s it. A soft whisper that backed up his earlier promise.
In the darkness with attackers lurking and dead weight in his arms, he acted as if none of it added up to a big deal. The individual pieces would break most men, never mind the pileup of problems.
He took it in stride and held on with a death grip that had his fingers digging into her side. His jaw clenched and his forearms shook. He even choked up on his hold when the water splashed into her hair.
The potential attackers had arrived at the front of the boat and even now discussed the bag. Kelsey searched her mind to remember if there was anything in the duffel that gave away their identities. Connor had been very specific about that issue, but she’d thought the worry amounted to overkill. And it would have if they’d actually ended up at a hotel as she expected instead of hanging over the terrifying black water she had avoided for her entire grown-up life.
Her head fell back and
water trickled over her cheek. She lifted up fast enough to cramp her neck. It was like the worst stomach crunch ever.
She heard shuffling noises and looked around for any signs of light. The men grunted and argued and made enough noise to contrast with Pax’s complete silence. If he was breathing, he did so without making a sound.
More footsteps and a thud. “Leave it,” the deep voice said.
It was another minute before the echo of their footsteps receded. Pax held on through it all. She strained to hear the conversation, but only the ding of the lines on the boat and the shifting of the wooden deck greeted her.
She tried to raise a hand to touch Pax’s face, but gravity pushed it down to her stomach again. “I think we’re okay.”
Pax nodded but didn’t pull her up. “Joel?”
“All clear.”
Pax slammed his teeth together and yanked her up, bending his arms inch by painful inch. In the last second he went for speed and yanked her harder. Her body slipped up over the lip of the boat. Momentum picked up from there. She flew through the air and crashed into Pax, taking them both down to the deck. She landed in a sprawl over top of him with her legs on each side of his slim hips.
This time she gave in to the need to run her fingers over Pax’s cheek. “That weight-lift trick bordered on showing off.”
“It was fun.”
“Which part, where we almost got discovered, or where I almost ripped your arms out of their sockets?”
He sat up, keeping his hand pressed against her back and easing her along with him. “Both, but now it’s time to find a place to sleep tonight.”
She straddled his lap, facing him, and had no desire to move, but she would bolt if he answered this question wrong. “Please don’t say a boat.”
“I have something much better in mind. Should have started there and skipped the marina, but I promise you’ll be happy with the second choice.”
If he wasn’t talking about a hotel, she might just kill him. “Lead the way.”
Chapter Fourteen
It was almost midnight when Bryce stumbled out of his office. He’d been working on a statement about the initial testing of the new program. He had to report to a special Senate subcommittee in private session. He didn’t have a choice. This was a command performance requested by members. To be more accurate, ordered.
He stopped in front of Glenn’s desk and scanned the papers thrown around in an uncharacteristic mess. Bryce’s able assistant’s keys sat on the corner with a suit coat resting against the back of the chair. He’d gone somewhere, but Bryce didn’t know where.
He started to leave and then stopped. His gaze went back to the papers. Glenn’s obsessive tidiness was well-known in the office. Bryce depended on the efficiency that came with having everything in its place. The riot of paperwork didn’t fit Glenn at all.
As the boss, Bryce had the right to know about everything that happened in his workspace. That rule was explained in great detail in the employee manual. There could not be any confusion.
Rather than wait and ask for permission, he picked up the documents half tucked under the keyboard and read the name on the top sheet. Kelsey Moore. This was part of her file, which meant Glenn continued to work the sister angle. Once again Glenn exceeded Bryce’s expectations. They’d been unsuccessful so far in tracing the sister’s location, but Bryce sensed she was the key and wanted her in front of him as soon as possible, and Glenn ran with the possibility.
Bryce swore under his breath. Looked as if he’d underestimated the coffee girl. She’d gotten out of town at the right time and somehow managed to stay off the grid. Her helper likely had something to do with that. Bryce still worried using the facial recognition program had tipped this Paxton Weeks off, who was even now tracing the personnel file breach back to Kingston. The concern kept Bryce in the office late and had him turning in bed for hours last night.
The only thing that made Bryce question Weeks’s role as anything more than a boyfriend was the quiet. There was a way about these things. You tripped into the wrong government file, and the FBI or some agency with a few letters would come banging on the door, asking questions.
Bryce had his excuse ready, but he hadn’t had to use it yet. That delay made Bryce question all of his expectations.
The what-if game brought him right back to the file and Kelsey Moore.
Glenn walked into the area with a can of soda in his hand. The space consisted of four half-wall screens and stacks of work. Glen didn’t waste his time with personal objects or ridiculous stuffed animals, which Bryce admired. No need to clog up the head with mindless chatter and silly hopes during the workday.
Glenn slid by Bryce and into his chair. “Sir?”
“You should go home. You’re no good to me after consecutive nights without sleep.”
Glenn tapped on his computer keys to bring up lines of code. “I’ve developed a matrix to determine where Kelsey might be.”
Bryce could answer that question without a fancy computer program. “Wherever Paxton Weeks is we’ll find her and, likely, Sean sniffing right behind them both. This is one big circle—Sean to Kelsey to Paxton Weeks.”
“I have a list of possibilities.”
Bryce took the paper and scanned down the line. “Most of these locations are out of town.”
“As you said, she doesn’t have a huge number of friends.”
Bryce handed the sheet back. “The last line is the answer. She’s in Annapolis.”
“How do you know?”
This is why he was the boss. Why people like Dan would never ruin him. “I know.”
* * *
SHE HATED THE WATER.
Pax flicked off the bathroom light with a click and walked down the hallway on the second floor of his brother’s row house. Less than a mile from Corcoran headquarters and located in the historic section of Annapolis, the two-story fixer-upper had been Davis’s refuge when Lara walked out. Now it was the place they’d build a family and life.
Pax had spent many nights in the house, having dinner and staying over when the idea of the office crash pad had him finding excuses to stay. Not that he needed one. He had a standing invitation by Davis and Lara to move in with them until he got his living situation worked out post-boat destruction. But he didn’t want to interrupt. Not when they’d just found each other.
But Davis being Davis, he made sure Pax had a key and knew the security codes. Title to the place was buried under a series of fake corporate names.
Attackers had once come to the door looking for Lara, but those days were behind her. Connor zipped up the security hole so that Davis wouldn’t have to move out of the home he loved so much.
Pax trusted the cover to hold. No one could trace this house to him, or to Davis for that matter. He stayed on guard but didn’t hunker down by the windows holding his gun. He could relax here.
Tonight he’d showered off the slime from crawling around on the docks and checked in with Connor. But he couldn’t wrap his mind around the news of her fears. Traffic and crowds choked him. Open water handed him his breath back.
And she hated the water.
He rolled his sore shoulder back and repeated the idea again in the hope of accepting it better this time. No such luck.
That fear of hers was going to be a problem. It wasn’t as if he could ignore that tremble in her voice or the way her moves turned jerky and frantic when she ventured too far to one side of the dock. If the plan was to finish this job and put her back in the coffeehouse and then walk away, all would have been fine. But he’d already decided the only walking he’d be doing was to her, not from her.
He turned the corner and came to a slamming halt in the doorway of the guest bedroom. Dresser, bed...and Kelsey. He’d set her up in the master bedroom after changing the sheets and c
learing out all evidence of Davis, including his extra watch on the nightstand and pants thrown over the chair in the corner by the window.
She’d slipped down the hall and landed here.
The woman sure knew how to test a man’s control.
“Everything okay?” His voice sounded thick and muffled to his ears.
She leaned back stiff-armed with her hands on the bed behind her and her feet on the floor. “Yep.”
The outfit she had on slowly killed off the last of his good sense. Tiny straps on the flimsy shirt and shorts that barely reached the middle of her thighs. The pajamas had tiny purple flowers all over them. Probably meant to be sweet, but his gaze kept slipping to the deep V-neck and the shadowed valley between her breasts. The same breasts not bound by a bra.
He had no idea where she’d gotten the set, but he wanted to rip the thin pieces right off her.
The countdown to poor judgment started in his head and radiated right down to his pants. Being alone in the house with her proved tough enough. He’d spent every minute of his quick cold shower imagining her dropping her bath towel and slipping into the cool white sheets he just tucked into the king-size bed in the other room. Seeing her on the small mattress five feet away had his mind scrambling and the alphabet slipping from his mental grasp.
“I thought you were sleeping in the other room.” That was the deal he made with his lower half. A short kiss and then hands off.
She smiled as she crossed one leg over the other and let her ankle swing in the air above the plush carpet. “Nope.”
“No?” The seductive move sucked all the moisture out of his mouth. He almost swallowed his tongue, which was obvious from how the word slurred.
She shook her head and then patted the space next to her. “Come sit.”
She. Was. Killing. Him.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Her head tilted to the side and her long hair brushed over her shoulder, the strands shifting and picking up the light. “Does your leg hurt?”
That was just about the sexiest thing ever. Wait...
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