“Don’t be afraid. You’re safe now,” he said.
She shook her head, feeling out of sorts and confused by everything. What should she feel, and could she trust this man? Slowly, as if she might be a scared animal ready to bolt, he put his hands on her shoulders. He squeezed gently. When she looked up at him, he towered over her. In the low light she could see his eyes were liquid brown, at once penetrating but soft with understanding. Tall, dark and handsome didn’t describe him. No, that description was too damn bland. He was over six feet of lethal male testosterone with smoldering eyes and a lean but powerful build. He wore a blue rain jacket of some kind, jeans and white athletic shoes. His voice held a smoky essence that made a low, sweet arousal burn in her stomach. He didn’t smile much but he was always polite, and the way he looked at her—well, she might have imagined the hunger she saw in his eyes all those times he stopped by the Tastee Freez. One of the women she worked with had asked him out but he’d turned her down, or so the woman had said. The woman had promptly suggested Jake was gay but Cecelia didn’t believe it.
Trust your gut. Janey had always said that too.
“You killed a man,” she said, knowing how stupid and obvious it sounded but unable to utter another coherent statement.
He nodded and took a big breath. He released it gradually between his parted lips. “Yeah.”
“How can you be so calm?”
“I’m not. But it’s not the first time for me.”
A tingle darted up her spine. “What?”
He released her shoulders and held out his hand. “Jake McNamara. We’ve never been officially introduced.”
She shook his hand and his big palm fit snugly around hers. His grip squeezed firmly but gently. He released her promptly.
“You’re in the military right?”
“U.S. Army.”
It came clear to her, and she wondered why her brain was so damn sluggish. “You killed people in the desert.”
One of those small nods again. She dared look into his intense eyes and saw the truth. He’d killed, but he’d done it to survive. Not for the joy of it. How she knew that, she couldn’t say.
“Sure you’re not hurt?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine.” She glanced over at Peter, so still and lifeless. Her stomach lurched. The dark stain on Peter’s chest told her in no uncertain terms where the bullet had hit him. Rain soaked his body, just as it did hers. Shocks of lightning darted overhead, so close she should have flinched. Yet she was numb, cold to the bone emotionally and physically.
“We need to get help,” she said.
“What we need is to go back to my car. I’ve got water, a Thermos of coffee and some trail mix. That’ll hold us until this rain stops. I don’t think we should try to walk down until it clears up.”
She glanced around. “We’re close to Redemption Ridge?”
He gestured with one thumb back down the hill. “Ten miles that way.”
Rain came down harder. “What were you doing out here?”
“I was on my way up to the cabin I’m staying at for a month’s leave.”
She heard secrets in his voice but didn’t dare ask what they were in this situation. She rubbed her cold hands together.
“Do you live in Redemption Ridge?” he asked.
“Yes.” Another round of shaking took hold of her. “I need to get back there. I’m scheduled to work at the mall tonight at Ladies Luxuries. If I’m late—”
“Whoa. I don’t think you’ll work tonight. Once we get to the cops there will be a hell of a lot of explaining to do.”
She rubbed her forehead as pain throbbed in her temple. Fear spiked as she imagined what might happen. “Right. Of course.”
“It’s okay. Give yourself slack. It was self-defense. He kidnapped you. I know that and so do you. We’ll clear it up.”
“I’m glad you’re so positive. I’m not.”
“Both of us are innocent of any wrongdoing. Your ex intended to kill you.”
She knew it, and yet what had happened rocked through her like the storm above. The storm didn’t care about her drama—thunder rumbled like an earthquake under her feet, her body so soaked now she wondered if she’d ever be dry again. She felt sick to her stomach.
“Look I’m not sorry about your ex,” he said. “Hate me if you want but I wasn’t going to stand by and let him hurt or kill you.”
She closed her eyes temporarily. “I don’t hate you. I thought I was going to die unless I fought him off.”
When he lifted his hand to wipe rain off his face, she saw his fingers shake. The man might be cool under pressure but what had happened bothered him too.
A sharp pain lanced through her ankle when she took a step and she gasped.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Damn ankle. I twisted it when Peter threw me in the trunk.” Without a word he lifted her into his arms as if she weighed no more than a feather. “Wait. I can walk.”
He grunted and started to walk back to the road. “I’ve got you.”
Cecelia decided she had to trust a man someday. Maybe tonight was as good as any other time.
Chapter Four
Jake’s old blue truck came into view after a short walk.
He put her on her feet on the driver’s side and opened the truck. “I know you don’t trust me one hundred percent.” He handed her the keys. “Try and start the truck. You’ll know I’m telling the truth.”
Surprised by the gesture, she took him up on it. She slid into the driver’s side and tried to start the automatic. No such luck.
Satisfied, she gave him the keys. “Thanks.”
She slid across the bench seat to the passenger side and sank into the warm interior with a grateful sigh. Before she knew it he was inside the truck beside her.
He opened the glove box and retrieved a small flip phone. “Here. Try the phone.”
Automatically she opened it, and discovered it was as dead as a rock. Just as he’d said.
“You don’t have a cell phone on you anywhere, do you?” he asked, hope in his eyes.
“No. Peter dumped my purse on the sidewalk when he grabbed me at the mall.”
“Someone probably found your purse by now and has called the cops.”
She hoped.
“She gave him the quick-and-dirty version of what happened when she’d left her job at the Tastee Freez.
He poured black coffee into the Thermos cup and handed it to her. “This’ll take the edge off.”
She laughed. “Got any whiskey?”
“Wish I did.”
She sipped gratefully. “This is great coffee.”
He grinned, but it was short-lived. “One of my few talents. My last girlfriend thought it was too strong.”
“Last girlfriend?”
He shrugged. “She thought I should dye my hair blond and get manicures. Said it would take my edge off.”
Cecelia wrinkled her nose. Jake in blond hair? “I think I like your edge.”
A half smile curved his lips. “I’m better off without her. She sent me a Dear John letter while I was in Afghanistan.”
For one moment she tried to imagine sending this man a Dear John letter and couldn’t. Obviously the woman was a fool. True, Cecelia didn’t know much about Jake, but what she’d learned so far…wow.
As she allowed the hot beverage to thaw her, she watched the storm. She couldn’t see a thing with water streaming down the windows, the steady pounding rain adding a humming background noise to their seclusion. He reached for the glove compartment again and fished out a flashlight. “We’ll use it sparingly.”
As Cecelia watched him take care of their situation, she told herself she shouldn’t feel secure in this stranger’s presence. Yet everything about him said he only meant to keep her safe.
“I’ve seen that look before,” he said when she paused to stare at him. He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and drew out a wallet. He handed it to her. “Rifle through it all
you like if it’ll make you feel any better.”
All the things you’d expect to find in a wallet were there. A credit card, Arizona driver’s license declaring he was Jake Morgan McNamara age thirty-five. A military identification card proved he was a major in the army.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“Are you from Arizona originally?”
“Yeah. Near Pinetop. I grew up there.”
“Not so far from Redemption Ridge.”
“No.” He opened the bag of trail mix and grabbed a handful. “You should eat a bit. You look shaky.”
She did as he suggested and realized she was ravenous. She ate one handful and then another before stopping. She didn’t want to make herself sick.
After she took another sip of coffee she said, “We should be hoofing it out of here to the police.”
“You aren’t walking ten miles on that ankle. Besides, ten miles is a long walk with lightning like this.” She remembered the lightning striking the tree, and as if he could read her mind, he said, “You almost got hit.”
“True. I just feel guilty sitting here waiting. You’re a soldier. I’m sure it’s no trouble for you to walk ten miles.”
He smiled, and this time it lit his eyes and touched his mouth with genuine warmth. When he looked at her she felt an entirely inappropriate and shocking reaction. He stripped off his jacket to reveal a plain navy blue t-shirt and she got an unmistakable view of broad shoulders, strong chest and powerful arms. The man was ripped. Her mouth went dry and she gulped more coffee.
His gaze did an impersonal assessment of her. “You could walk farther than that if you had to.”
One more glance at the weather gave her doubts. Water rushed across the road and night crept through the thunderstorm. Lightning threw strange shadows around the truck and Jake McNamara looked more dangerous than ever. Which was worse? A raging storm or a lethal soldier?
As if he’d read her mind he said, “I’m not going to hurt you. I don’t hurt women, I protect them.”
A strange sensation, a warm curling of forbidden excitement, did a dance in her stomach. God, I’m sick. Perfectly sick. Finding this man attractive right here and now was twisted. She’d heard men and women sometimes had a sexual reactions and urges right after surviving a brush with death. That’s all this was. Nothing more.
“Forgive me if I don’t have a whole lot of trust right now,” she said in defense against the odd arousal.
“It’s all right.”
His calm acceptance was different too. She wasn’t used to any man accepting her disagreement.
She couldn’t acknowledge him, that one little bit of caution remaining. As she flipped through the rest of his wallet she saw a photograph that made her breath catch. Jake dressed in military dress blues next to a beautiful blonde woman in a wedding dress. Happiness was in every inch of his face and the woman’s.
“Are you… Is this your wife?” she asked.
“My sister. Her husband is my best friend. I was one of the groomsmen at their wedding two years ago.”
A weird and crazy relief went through her. She handed him the wallet.
“Trust me now?” he asked.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” She took another slow sip of the coffee then held out the Thermos cup. “Sorry. Did you want some?”
“No. Drink up and get warm.” Silence surrounded them a short time before he said, “You never told me your name.”
“Cecelia Finnegan.”
“Irish?”
“Yep. Just like you I’ll bet.”
“My grandfather McNamara was from Northern Ireland. I went back there when I was a teenager on a family visit.”
She’d always wanted to go to Ireland and her thoughts rushed out. “That’s wonderful. My great-great grandparents were from County Mayo.”
“Belfast for my ancestors. Linen makers.”
Her hard-won cynicism came to the forefront. “God, I can’t believe we’re sitting here talking about Irish ancestors.”
What could she say? How could she say it? She hadn’t just watched her ex-husband be murdered. It was self-defense and she knew it. Still, it had opened a crack in her a mile wide she didn’t know how to fill.
“I can’t believe you were married to that scumbag,” he said.
“I divorced him two years ago when he was caught drug smuggling for a Mexican cartel.”
“Jesus. How did you get mixed up in that?”
She snorted. “Sheer stupidity. I’ve known Peter since we were high school sweethearts. I trusted him when I shouldn’t have.”
“Let me guess. A cheerleader and a football player.”
She wanted to laugh at his accuracy but couldn’t find any humor in it. “Close. He was a soccer player and I was prom queen.” He refilled her coffee. She held the cup between both palms and tried to absorb some warmth into her chilled body. “After college he started acting weird. He was unreliable, angry all the time. I called off our engagement. Five years ago he came back into my life. Everything had gone to crap for me. My parents were…” God, she couldn’t believe she was telling him this.
When she stopped, he waited. What the hell? Maybe talking about her whole messy life would make her feel better.
“My parents weren’t who I thought they were,” she said.
Jake shrugged. “Doesn’t seem unusual to me. My dad is colder than a fish and my mother something of a doormat. It took me until I was fifteen to get it through my head their relationship wasn’t the way it should be between a man and a woman.”
His statement took her by surprise but it gave her strength as well. Maybe her situation wasn’t as odd as she’d believed.
“Only child?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“Me too.”
Silence found them, and she wiped at one of the foggy windows and tried to see outside. Night had grown closer, darkening the shadows and making it harder to see. Inside this warm haven she started to feel more at ease even though her clothes were soaked.
“My father was a lawyer and my mother a homemaker,” she finally said. “They lived a traditional life, very conservative. At least that’s what I thought. They were churchgoing. I didn’t like one minute of it but I did it because they said I had to.”
“Sounds like a normal childhood in that respect.”
“Maybe it was. Until I found out Dad was having an affair with this other couple at the church.”
One of his dark brows went up. “Couple?”
“You heard it right. He was having sex with both of them. I didn’t care that he was bisexual. I cared that he cheated on my mother. But that wasn’t all. It turns out I’m not even his real daughter.”
Jake’s eyes widened. “You’re serious?”
“Mom told me right after we found out about my father’s affair. I’m the product of a one-night stand when she was pissed at my father.”
“Heavy stuff.”
She was on a roll. “After that I got real dumb real fast. I was twenty and had all the brains of a beetle apparently.”
He tilted his handsome head to one side. “Hell no. I don’t believe that.”
“I did drugs. At college, I woke up one morning in the bed of this other college student. I didn’t even remember sleeping with the guy, or whether I’d used birth control or…you get the picture.” She caught the cynical look in his eyes. “I know this sounds like a soap opera. Like I’m lying through my teeth.”
He leaned back against the window and folded his arms over his chest. “I believe you.”
“Anyway, after that I just made one wrong decision after another. Dropped out of college, slept around. Found drugs. I was lost.”
Unlike the distaste she’d seen in many other’s faces when she’d told them her life story, Jake’s eyes warmed with understanding.
“You’re pretty hard on yourself,” he said.
Tension tightened the muscles at the back of her neck and she rubbed at them. She screwed the empty Thermos top
back onto the container. “There’s a good reason. I got into rehab with help from friends after I spent a week on the streets. But then I hooked up with Peter again and discovered we’d taken similar screwed-up paths. He claimed to have cleaned up his act too. A few years later he was arrested on the drug charges. We went bankrupt; I lost my legal assistant job. The cops looked at me as a person of interest for a long time until I was able to prove I didn’t know about Peter’s association with drug cartels.” The ache in her throat kept her on a roll. “My self-esteem was so mangled that I believed every time he belted me in the mouth that I deserved it.”
“Damn.” He whispered low and gravelly, as if he almost couldn’t speak.
He ran a hand over his hair, a few strands sticking up, wet and unruly. “And here I thought I had the run on SNAFU.”
“Are you going to one-up me?”
“I might. I just might.” He sighed deeply.
She waited, curiosity draining away some of the fear that had threatened to unravel her earlier.
He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the headrest. “Dad was a car salesman and a stereotypical smarmy bastard to customers. All his charm turned off when it came to the family. Mom was weak-willed for most of their marriage and did whatever he told her to do. I lost a lot of respect for her when I was a kid because she didn’t protect me from his verbal abuse.”
“Is your father alive?”
“Yeah. Mom got the bravery to divorce him three years ago. She went to school and got training in secretarial skills. She works for a doctor’s office. She doesn’t make much money but she has her freedom and self-respect. I admire her for it.”
“And your father? Do you respect him?”
Jake took a big breath and opened his eyes. “After my mother divorced him he disappeared. We haven’t seen or heard from him since. I’ve thought about hiring a private detective to find him but…”
“But?”
“I’m still damned pissed at him. I’m not sure I want to find him. Not right now.”
“Well look at how you turned out. You rescue women from asshats. That’s pretty heroic.”
He snorted. “Me? There’s no way I’m a hero.”
The vehemence in his voice made her curious. What could have happened to him to make him believe that?
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