“I know you’ve just returned from vacation and I’m sorry to do this to you, but we need your help.”
“I can’t begin to guess what he’s trying to pull.”
“You’re the person who knows Hart best.”
“You want to ask me questions.” The reminder of her life with Carl put a queasy feeling in the pit of Kelly’s stomach. She couldn’t bear to relive the humiliation, the anger. The fear. She couldn’t control the tremor in her voice. “When you showed up last time, I had just gotten myself, my life back together. I had to start all over. I’m not doing that again. I don’t talk about Carl. To anybody.”
“You have to talk to me.” Cantrell moved into the room, only a step, but enough to intimidate. “I’m a federal marshal.”
“You’d fall into that anybody category.” She edged around to the other side of the couch, putting something solid between her and this man she’d thought about too often over the last eighteen months.
“What if he kills people? Takes that plane out of the country? What if you could’ve stopped him?”
“Don’t try to lay that on me.” The fear numbed her insides. She heard her voice, but was barely aware of her words. “You guys are the ones who keep losing him.”
Cantrell put his hands on his hips, lean fingers splayed wide. His jaw clenched. “I need all the information on him I can get. And on any associates he may have had.”
“I don’t see how I can help you. Everything I thought I knew about him was a lie.”
“Anything you tell me can help me build a profile, try to figure out what he hopes to gain by hijacking a con-air flight. Why would he do something like this?”
“Because he’s a wacko, that’s why.”
“That may be.” His eyes darkened, but Kelly couldn’t tell whether it was from impatience or amusement. “But it’s not specific enough to help me come up with a plan.”
She didn’t want to think about Carl, let alone talk about him. But if she refused to help, she couldn’t live with the consequences. “How many people are on that plane?”
“One hundred and eight.”
Compassion stabbed deep. There were convicts on that plane, but also marshals, men who gave their lives to protect civilians. Men with sweethearts, families. Men who could die if Carl wished it. “Ask me whatever you need to. I wouldn’t put it past him to kill someone.”
Spence was close, his woodsy scent tickling her nostrils. Her nerves shimmered as she realized she didn’t feel physically threatened by him. Emotionally was another matter.
Compassion flashed across the rugged planes of his face. This was the man who’d given her his business card and told her to call, day or night, if she ever needed anything. “I’m going to have to ask you to get some things together and come with me.”
“Some things? How many things? Go where?”
“Hart’s threatened to start killing marshals if his demands aren’t met.”
“Why would you come all this way to inform me that Carl hijacked a plane? You could’ve called me if all you want is information.” Kelly went still, apprehension knotting her throat. “What demands?”
“He wants to talk to you.”
She swayed, reaching down to clutch at the back of the couch.
Spence’s gaze scoured her face and a small frown furrowed his brow. Concern? she wondered vaguely.
“Do you feel faint?”
“No. I don’t know,” she murmured, her fingers digging into the nubby plaid upholstery. She’d never fainted in her life; for once, she wished she could. Anything to escape this returning nightmare of Carl. “Why? Why does he want to talk to me?”
“I was hoping you’d know.”
She shook her head. “I have no idea.”
She knew she had to go with Spence Cantrell, but she needed a moment to accept that, to work through the shock that scalded her senses like a live flame. Would she ever be free of Carl?
Cantrell reached toward her, then let his hand drop back to his side. “Miss Jackson, are you all right?”
“Yes.” She blinked back tears. She wasn’t going to cry in front of him this time, though she couldn’t help the longing that stabbed through her to lean against his strong chest once again, to grab the hand he’d nearly offered. “You’re not going to make me…see him? Please?”
Cantrell’s eyes darkened. “No, ma’am. You don’t have to get within a hundred yards of him, but we have to be able to tell him you’re on your way. And I do need information from you.”
She searched his eyes, her chest aching with the need to breathe. “That’s all?”
“That’s all,” Cantrell said firmly, his eyes turning intense with the promise, masking the shadows there.
She was not talking about the physical abuse. In the first place, that kind of information wouldn’t help the marshal. In the second place, she felt stupid enough for marrying Carl. She wasn’t going to humiliate herself by admitting he’d hit her. Or that it had taken her until the second time to leave.
Numb with shock, she came around the couch and started for the stairs. “I’ll get my things.”
“I’m not sure how long this will take. Pack enough clothes for a couple of days.” His strong fingers closed over her elbow, guiding her steps gently.
Her arm brushed the hard, flat plane of his stomach. Steadying herself with a hand on the banister, she managed a smile. “I’m all right. Thank you.”
She drew away, grateful for the support, but uncomfortable with the feel of his hand on her arm, the silent strength that pulsed from him.
She hurried up the stairs to her bedroom, her emotions seesawing. The marshal scrambled her common sense. She didn’t want to be within a hundred miles of Carl. And she didn’t want to be this close to Spence Cantrell.
As she threw some things in her overnight bag, Kelly tried to calm the panic that pushed at her like a swelling tide. She knew why she didn’t want to go to Whiskey Springs with Spence Cantrell. It was because of the man, not the marshal.
It was the man who tangled her thoughts, caused her pulse to go haywire. The man whom she’d tried to forget since their first encounter. The man whose haunted eyes touched something deep inside her. The man whom she wanted to ask if he’d ever been married. If he had a family.
Invisible walls, perfected by years of practice, snapped up to guard against the dangerous, insistent curiosity she felt. She hadn’t been curious about a man since her divorce. Why did she have to be curious about Spence Cantrell?
She felt off-balance and not only because of her loathing to revisit the past. That wounded look in Cantrell’s eyes reached deep inside her, stirred feminine impulses she’d managed to repress since Carl.
It wasn’t just that Spence was handsome. Or, she admitted with gritted teeth, that she felt attracted to him. But there was a connection. It was the torture she’d seen in his eyes. She knew torture, had survived her own private hell, was still surviving it.
Gathering her bag, she walked into the hall and started down the stairs. When Cantrell looked up, her steps faltered as those blue eyes bore straight into her soul.
She felt something with Spence she’d never felt with Carl. Safe. And that scared the fire out of her.
She forced herself to descend the next step, then the next. Drawing in a ragged breath, she tried to quell the sudden flurry of anticipation and apprehension in her stomach. Safe, hah. Protected? Those feelings were dangerous. Another time, they’d swept her up like a twister—merciless, fast, hard. She’d gone with her emotions once, listened to her heart instead of her head. Never again.
That was the problem. Cantrell jumbled the signals between her head and her heart. Usually so clear, right now they crackled with static and she had to listen hard. Her heart said she could trust Spence Cantrell; her head screamed don’t.
As she reached the bottom of the steps, his gaze slid over her. There was no heat in his blue eyes, but an intensity that put a hum in her blood, made her skin tight. As
if he were aware of every inch of her beneath the blue silk pantsuit.
Tension stiffened his shoulders, but when he spoke, his voice was neutral. “Ready?”
“Yes.” No! Even as she experienced the sensation of stepping blindfolded into thin air, she held out her bag to him.
He took it and she followed him to a dark sedan, then slid into the passenger seat when he held open her door. Muscles rigid, hands clasped tightly together in her lap, Kelly stared straight ahead as he climbed behind the steering wheel.
It was bad enough that she had never forgotten Spence’s dark blue eyes or the strength in that broad chest. Now he wanted something from her. Something she didn’t want to give.
She didn’t like men who were able to talk her into things, badge or not. She’d been taken in by a convincing, trust-me type before.
As much as she hated to admit it, Kelly knew her reluctance to accompany the marshal had very little to do with Carl and a lot to do with the raw-edged vulnerability she glimpsed in Spence Cantrell. Those haunted eyes rocked her to her soul and she knew she couldn’t trust that. She couldn’t.
Ever since Spence had agreed to this assignment two days ago, he had refused to think about Kelly Jackson. Trusting her neighbors’ word that Kelly was due back any minute, Spence had issued a nationwide teletype on her vehicle. He’d managed not to think about her as he’d cooled his heels staking out her home and waiting for word on that teletype. Now, pulling out of the circle drive of the decades-old white farmhouse in Ryan, Texas, he knew by the hard squeeze in his chest that he’d never forgotten her.
Their first meeting eighteen months ago had lasted only an hour, and yet he didn’t need the bright midday light sliding over her features to recall the high slash of molded cheekbones, the wide, expressive eyes that were as much blue as gray, the delicately boned nose, the silky tumble of mink brown hair.
He set his jaw. Focus. Remember Hart, the hijacking.
Spence and the other members of the hurriedly formed federal task force knew that at any moment Hart might start killing the marshals on board Flight 407 and maybe some of the other prisoners. As Spence waited for Kelly to return home, he hadn’t been able to put that grim possibility out of his mind. Or ease the urgency crawling over his skin. Even though the FBI was in charge of the operation, Spence itched to get back to Whiskey Springs. He’d advised Special Agent Mason Taggart that Kelly was scheduled to return from her vacation at any moment. It was a good thing she had. Hart had issued a deadline for producing his ex-wife: noon tomorrow.
He merged onto Highway 287 South and accelerated. Little traffic traveled the state roadway today. At Vernon, he would take US-183 South. They should easily make Sam Houston International Airport in about two hours.
“I heard there was a tornado in Whiskey Springs,” Kelly murmured, staring out her window as she had since they’d left her house.
“Yeah.” He glanced at her. “It took the airport out of commission for a while, but the airport director is trying to get things operational again.”
She nodded, her thick, brown hair framing a fragile profile. Her vulnerability tugged at something inside him.
“I have a manifest of the passengers on our plane, along with their pictures. I need you to take a look at those once we get to Whiskey Springs.”
“Is there a picture of Carl, too?”
“Yes.” Spence couldn’t miss the way fear sharpened her features, turned her eyes a dusky gray. He told himself his job was to focus on Hart, but his senses hummed with every nervous tap of Kelly’s finger against her leg. He couldn’t ignore the fact that every mile took her closer to the man who terrified her.
She smelled soft, subtle, like wildflowers and powder. Tantalizing. Annoying. Sitting so close to her unleashed memories of another woman, a woman who would hold his heart until he died. Spence shoved away the razor-sharp images that clenched his gut and clouded his focus. He couldn’t think about Anna, not now.
“All right, I’ll look at the pictures.”
He forced his gaze to the road. Damn, it was hot in here. Wasn’t it? Kelly didn’t seem bothered, but Spence thought he could feel heat shimmering up from the floorboard. After flipping the air conditioner up another notch, he undid the second button on his now-limp dress shirt.
“Did Carl have any good buddies, relatives maybe, who could be helping him out now?”
“You mean, on the plane?”
“Or on the ground.”
She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “He had a hundred cousins, aunts, uncles—you get the picture. Only a few of them came to our wedding. As for buddies, he was good at getting people to do what he wanted, but he was never that close to anybody.”
“How did you meet him?” Spence asked soberly.
Kelly shifted and with her movement he caught the freshness of her shampoo, the silky warmth of woman. Her scent settled in his lungs. It had been years since he’d even noticed the scent of a woman. Something about her launched a frisson of restlessness through him and he didn’t like it. He wanted to push her away, let someone else talk to her, but there was no one else.
“He was the president of the bank in Oklahoma City where I worked.”
Spence could sense her reticence to talk, yet she did it anyway. Impressive as hell. “How long did you know him before you began to see each other?”
“A little over a month. He was very personable. I worked at his bank part-time during college so I knew who he was. Still, he didn’t really notice me until I started as a full-time secretary.”
“How did Hart approach you?”
“At first he would stop by my desk, tell me I was doing a good job, but one night I stayed late and so did he. He said since his wife’s death, he didn’t have much reason to go home on time and we started talking. It went from there.”
“He asked you out?”
“Yes.”
“What was that like?”
“Actually, it was very nice. Carl can be a charmer…when he wants to. I wish I’d known that then.” She swallowed hard, her gaze drifting to the horizon. Her fingers curled into a fist on her thigh. “He literally swept me off my feet. Wonderful dinners, surprise tickets to the theater, picnics, flowers. He was very attentive and I was totally snowed.” She couldn’t keep the bitter edge out of her voice.
Giving Kelly a minute, he let his gaze skim the new green of passing wheat fields, the knee-high corn plants. Angus and Hereford cattle were spots of black and red against the hills that flashed by the car window. “How long before you married?”
“From the time we met until the wedding, about four months. My mother always advocated long courtships. Now I know why.” Kelly tried to smile, but he caught the pain in her eyes.
His voice softened. Despite his best efforts, his words came out husky, inviting. “When did the problems start?”
“I guess the first time was about two weeks after our wedding. We’d just gotten back from our honeymoon. It was little things at first. My clothes, then my hair. Then the house. They were never right. I was never right.”
As far as Spence could tell, she was damn near perfect. His gaze slid over her, taking in the full breasts beneath her silky blue top, her lean thighs encased in the same royal silk. When he lifted his gaze, she was watching him steadily.
Something hot and electric passed between them, zinged Spence right down to his toes. He dragged his gaze back to the road. “You quit your job at his bank?”
She chewed her bottom lip and looked out the window. “After we married, I had to quit since he was the president. It was all right, though, because I’d just learned my mom had systemic lupus and I wanted to take care of her.”
“What did Carl think of that?”
“It was fine with him. He didn’t want me to work anyway, said it made people think he couldn’t provide for me. He paid for a lot of Mom’s medical bills, but—” She broke off, her voice cracking. “One day, I brought a dog home from the shelter. Carl blew his
temper.”
“He didn’t like that you hadn’t asked him first.”
“Right.” She aimed a wobbly smile in his direction. “You’re getting his number a lot faster than I did.”
The same tight heat he’d felt on his first visit with Kelly uncurled in his chest. Last time, he’d been blindsided. He’d arrived with news of Hart’s escape only a day after Kelly had buried her mother. When Spence had informed her she needed to gather her things and leave, she’d broken down. Unable to turn away from the raw agony in her sobs, he’d held her.
Holding her had been as much about steadying himself as comforting her, but the resulting assault of pure, undiluted emotion had suffocated him. He hadn’t felt anything in years, hadn’t expected to since Anna, and suddenly a wall of compassion, loss, attraction had swallowed him up like quicksand.
“He was so angry at me, he kicked the dog and—” She pressed trembling fingers to her mouth and Spence wanted to reach across the seat, curl her hand into his. “That’s when I left.”
Her shaky voice tugged at something deep inside him, igniting…emotion. Spence didn’t do emotion. He ran a hand over his face and made himself ask, “Was your dog the only one Carl hit?”
Shock and shame flashed across her features, then her expression tightened with defiance. She tore her gaze away and stared straight ahead. “I came back home, to Ryan. I filed for divorce. When Carl was served the papers, he came after me.”
She slid a look at him, like a cornered suspect gauging her chances for escape.
Spence had read the trial transcripts, thanks to his uncle Vaughn, a federal judge. He knew that she’d testified Hart had hit her. He should press her about that, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. After a pregnant pause, he straightened. “He kidnapped you?”
Her movement was small, but he noted how she relaxed against the seat. “Yes.”
“And since he took you across state lines, the feds handled it.”
“Yes.”
He needed for her to tell him about the abuse, needed to know she trusted him. Professionally speaking, of course. But something about Kelly Jackson reached inside him, touched places he’d thought long dead. Places that weren’t professional at all and caused the memories he’d worked so hard to bury to surface. Despite his best efforts, thoughts of Anna—vivacious, vulnerable, sweet Anna—wound insidiously into his mind’s eye.
Special Report Page 9
