“Well, I really appreciate it.” Samantha slung the towel around her shoulders and turned off the bathroom light. “Most people wouldn’t be this cool about someone waking everyone else up by screaming in the middle of the night and running around in the darkness.”
She meant it as a bit of a joke, poking fun at herself to lighten the mood.
But Zoe didn’t smile. “Joshua, Alex and I aren’t most people.”
There was an edge to her voice, a warning even, that Samantha couldn’t quite translate.
“Well, thanks again for all your help. I hope you manage to get some sleep.” Samantha turned and started for the stairs.
Zoe touched her elbow.
“Look, it’s not my place to say anything,” she said. “But Joshua is a good guy. A really good guy. One of the best I know. Honest. Honorable. Steady. Like a second big brother to me.”
Samantha turned back. “Joshua seems really fantastic.”
She could still feel the pressure of Zoe’s fingertips on her skin.
“Then don’t hurt him,” Zoe said plainly. “Be really clear and really direct about who you are and what you want right now. Look, I don’t know what your deal is or what you’re going through, and I’m not going to judge you. But I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He’s got some pretty strong feelings for you already. He grew up without a single reliable woman in his life, and you two barely know each other. You could hurt him pretty badly, whether you mean to or not.”
“Okay. I hear you. Thank you.” It seemed the safest thing to say and once again totally inadequate for the conflicting thoughts and feelings cascading through her heart and mind.
Samantha went downstairs to the kitchen. The clock over the stove was ending closer toward five thirty. Four and a half hours until her appointment with Theresa. Five and a half until she headed for the train station. Six until she was gone from Joshua’s life. And he was gone from hers. Joshua and Alex were sitting in the living room, on opposite sides of the coffee table, their head bowed together over Alex’s laptop computer. Her tablet was propped up beside it. But whatever they were looking at, they leaped up the moment she walked in.
“Hey.” Her voice felt weak between her lips, as if it still wasn’t sure it was ready to return.
Joshua stood, his eyes on her face and his back to the dark sky filling the windows behind him. A fresh khaki sweatshirt hung open over a plain white T-shirt. Blue jeans hung loose from his hips. Her heart flipped a beat. He was the most handsome man she’d ever seen. The bravest. The strongest. The kindest. It was like since she’d met him something had started filling up inside her, slowly and steadily, until it was ready to burst her heart open from the inside.
All this time, she’d thought she was incapable of ever feeling drawn to anyone. Like the night back in the dorm room had broken her heart’s ability to beat. Now here was the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time. But somehow he was unlocking her heart in ways she didn’t even think were possible.
And here she was staring at him, not knowing what to say to him. While his hazel eyes scanned her face, like he didn’t know what to say to her either.
Alex crossed the room toward her. “Feeling better?”
It was the same question his sister had asked, in the same tone of voice.
“Yes. Much. Thank you. I’m so sorry I woke you guys up. Your sister’s gone back to bed.”
“No worries.” Alex glanced from her to Joshua. “I’m going to go and try to get some more sleep too. If you need me, you know where to find me.”
Alex closed the living room door behind him. Samantha sat down on a chair. Joshua sat down opposite her. Her lips still felt the faint tingle of his mouth on hers. Did he regret the spur-of-the-moment kiss? Had the overwhelming relief of being alive just gotten the better of them? Or did it mean as much to him as it did to her? She didn’t know how to find the words for what she was thinking and feeling.
And for a long moment, neither of them said anything.
“How does your story end?” Joshua asked. Something soft moved through the strength in his voice. “The one you were telling me out in the snow.”
“I don’t really know if it has an end,” she said. “That’s the worst thing about it. I don’t know why that guy broke into my room that night and attacked me. I went to the campus police the next morning, and they fired all sorts of questions at me, and I didn’t know how to even answer them. Was it possible I’d let him in? Was it possible my door was open? Could I have invited him in? Had I ever led him to believe I was romantically interested in him? Could I have imagined the whole thing because I’d taken half a sleeping pill? Was it possible I’d dreamed it? They told me I couldn’t file an official police report without any ‘real’ information. It wasn’t until years later, when I was working at Torchlight that I learned that actually I could’ve. Since police use multiple reports to build crime maps, even when they don’t have enough information to arrest someone with a crime, they still find the information useful, even if it has gaps and is incomplete.” She leaned her head into her hands and looked down at her knees. “Anyway, that’s really all there is to the story. I barely knew him. One night he attacked me. I fought him and ran, before he could do any real damage. I didn’t even have bruises the next day. He was suspended, I think, and made to move buildings. I never really saw him again, just a couple of glimpses in crowded places where I wasn’t even sure it was him.”
She looked up at him. “Campus security told me if I couldn’t remember then it probably didn’t really happen. But I felt different. I felt like something was wrong with me, something was broken in me. Then the nightmares started. Like I was reliving it in my sleep but couldn’t remember it when I woke up. I saw a counselor on campus at the time and he told me the night terrors would go away when I made peace with what had happened. But how do you make peace with something that you don’t remember? I never went to the police beyond the ones on campus that pooh-poohed me. I never charged him with a crime. I can’t do anything about it now.”
“I’m sorry,” Joshua said.
“The worst thing is the feeling that I’m never going to understand it. Because there’s no way to understand it. And if I can’t understand it, I can’t fix my memory of it.”
“I know the feeling.” A sad chuckle crossed his lips. “Few years back, I was driving with some friends in a jeep convoy through a territory that was supposed to be safe and suddenly this blast hits the jeep in front of us. Comes out of nowhere. But just like that one guy’s dead and two more have serious injuries. And you know what the worst part was? For months afterwards every single time somebody in that region gave us the stink-eye—even hours away from that place, all I could think was, ‘Was it you? Was it you who did that?’ Because, somehow, part of me just couldn’t let go of the need to know who that person was who hurt and killed my friends, so I could make sure he faced justice. Nobody likes to think life’s a series of bad, random things that happen for no reason. So, we all try to put our own sense to it.”
“Because if you can make everything fit together, it’s logical and you can fix it,” she said. “And you can stop it from happening again.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “My grandfather served in the military. In a way Gramps was a series of contradictions, because he never stopped trying to rationalize exactly why my grandmother died and why my mother left, so I could learn from his mistakes and wouldn’t ever go through either of those types of pains. But one of the wisest things he used to say was that life was like a jigsaw puzzle you find in the bottom of the closet. If we’re blessed, we’ll be able to put enough of it together to get a bigger picture to go by. But sometimes, our puzzle’s going to be missing a few pieces. Sometimes our puzzles are going to have spare pieces in them that actually belong to other puzzles, and if we’re not careful we’ll drive ourselves crazy trying to make them fit somewhere they don’t belong.”
“Yeah,” she said. She’d gotten into her job because
she liked knowing that sometimes it was possible to collect even the hardest-to-find pieces and put impossible puzzles together. “I just don’t want this thing with Magpie to be yet another thing that I have to accept will never make sense.”
“I know,” he said, “and I’ve been praying that it won’t be.”
She looked down at the tiny sliver of space between his body and hers. His hands rested on his knees, just a tiny motion away from her fingers. Something inside her ached to feel the comforting strength of his arms around her again, to run her hands around his neck and pull him close and feel his warm lips brush against hers again.
You’re going to hurt him, if you’re not careful. Zoe’s voice echoed in her ears. He deserved better than a dented, battered heart like hers, that wasn’t even sure it knew how to beat.
The fire crackled gently in the fireplace. The snow lightened its steady beat against the window.
“Anyway,” she said. “You said we need to talk.”
“We do.” Joshua shifted in his seat. “Alex found this on the floor.”
He reached down beside him on the chair and pulled out a string of diamonds and rubies in a vintage setting. It flashed in the firelight, and it took her a moment to even realize it was the same jewelry she’d gotten from Eric.
“That’s what was in the gift that Eric left on my door.” She stretched out her hand. “It’s his Christmas present to me. I’m going to talk to him about it after the holidays.”
He didn’t hand it to her. “But I thought you’d told me you’d made it clear you didn’t want to be in a romantic relationship with him?”
“I have.” A flush rose to her cheeks. Had he seen and read the note? Giving a trinket to a girl was a bit pushy, but hardly a crime. “Maybe he’s just way too generous with his friends. Either way I’m going to have to talk to him again and make it clearer.”
He hesitated another moment and then handed her the bracelet. She stuffed it into her pocket.
“Are you sure you should be going around with something like this in your pocket? It could make you a target. I never even considered that money could be a factor in any of what you’re going through. If he’s given you multiple pieces like this, and people know that you’re carrying them, it could be a serious motive. People have killed for less.”
“Less than what? He told me it was just some old piece of jewelry his mom thought I’d like. Or something like that. Although, considering the lie he told you about the nature of our relationship, it might be even more likely he went overboard, splashed out a couple hundred for it, and then made up some story about some mother I’ve never met because he thought that sounded better.”
“It’s worth almost ten thousand dollars.”
“What?” She yanked it out of her pocket and dropped it on the coffee table like some kind of deadly thorn. It lay there and glittered at her in the firelight. “You can’t be serious.”
Yes, he was a popular radio host. But that didn’t mean he’d splash out that much money on his friends, even friends he had a crush on.
“Alex’s mother—Zoe’s stepmother—is a very wealthy woman. He recognized the designer’s stamp and looked it up online. It’s not actually old, it was just designed to look old. Comparable items sell anywhere from seven to ten thousand.” He turned the laptop around. It was open to a jewelry website. “If someone knew you had a wealthy romantic suitor, even if you weren’t accepting their advances, that would give them a reason to go after you. This could be that missing piece you were talking about. That one fact to pull everything together and make sense of everything.”
“Or it could be one of those random, spare pieces from that puzzle metaphor that belong to a completely different puzzle! This bracelet might not even be real. It could just be some knockoff he picked up somewhere for next to nothing. He knows I like secondhand stores. They sell a lot of fake jewelry.” True, fake jewelry didn’t usually glisten and glitter like that. She picked up her tablet, zoomed in, and took a picture of the jewelry. “Or he could’ve picked it up from a secondhand shop that didn’t know what it was worth. I’ll email the designer and see if they can tell me more about it. I’m sure they’d be happy to authenticate it for me.”
“So you agree that Eric could have something to do with what’s happened to you?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. He certainly still seems hung up on my neighbor, which is how I met him in the first place.” She stood. He stood too. Why was he pushing this? “Yes, Eric might have a crush on me. And sure, he doesn’t like the fact I’m a workaholic who doesn’t have time for coffee and apparently isn’t ready to be in a romantic relationship with anyone.” No matter how hard her heart beat whenever Joshua was around. “But he had no motive for hiring someone to kidnap me, dump me in the middle of nowhere and threaten my life. He’s not vicious. He’s very, very protective of me. He’s like a big sad but also hyper puppy dog who’s been dumped too many times.”
Joshua crossed his arms. “Even sad puppy dogs bite.”
“Yes. Fine. Sometimes they do. And like I said, I’ll email the company right away and see what they can tell me about the piece. I promise I won’t be alone with Eric, if that makes you feel better. Eric’s behavior has been iffy recently. Even for him. Maybe he’s increased the dosage on the amount of caffeine he’s using to get buzzed in the morning. I thought he was over Bella, or had at least made peace with her leaving. But then today he was all worried that something bad might have happened to her. I told him about Roy and that seemed to set him off. But I’ll return the jewelry and I’ll tell the police about it.”
Why had he turned this into an argument? And why was he pushing so hard on the topic of Eric? It was like a wedge to push her away.
Here they were, alone together, in the darkened living room, standing face-to-face, so close she could almost feel the heat of his breath. He’d risked his life to save her. He’d carried her in his arms through a snowstorm. She’d shared with him the darkest secret in her heart, right here in this firelight. They’d shared an all-too-brief but affectionate kiss. Yet, rather than hugging and reassuring her as a friend would, he was quizzing her about her relationship with Eric. He’d even searched out her bracelet online while she was upstairs.
She stepped toward him. Her earnest gaze met his. “I thought we were on the same team. Why does it feel like you’re investigating me?”
“I’m trying to protect you.” Joshua sighed like a man twenty years older than he was. “I’m trying to keep you alive. And to do that I can’t be your buddy, or best friend or...” He stepped back and ran both hands through his hair. “And I can’t be holding you in my arms or kissing you like I did. I’m sorry. That was out of line, and I apologize. Protecting you is the most important thing. And I think it’s time I took a step back and started acting like a bodyguard.”
* * *
The click-clack of Samantha typing on the tablet filtered through the closed study door. Joshua stretched out on the couch again. But he didn’t sleep.
Instead he lay there, staring at the ceiling and wanting things he didn’t know how to put into words. How was it even possible to feel like this about someone? To feel so drawn to them? To feel like...like there’d been a part of himself missing all this time and he’d found it in someone else’s eyes. Like she was a part of him he didn’t want to live without. He groaned and punched the pillow behind his head until it fit more comfortably under his neck.
I married your mother because I was lonely, Dad had told him one day when they were working side by side in the workshop, after fleeing another one of Gramps’s epic rants. It was love at first sight. I was eating with my friends in a pizza joint. She walked in the door. And bam. I fell boots over brains for her. I asked her to marry me too soon. She said yes too soon. We were young and dumb. She wasn’t happy. I asked her to stay. She didn’t.
He stood up and started pacing and praying. His eyes darted from the darkness outside to her closed door to the minutes ticking past o
n the clock.
He wasn’t sure exactly what he felt for Samantha. But he did want what was best for her. She deserved a hero. She deserved someone who was going to stick around and be there for her.
She deserved a man better than Joshua Rhodes.
He sighed. Was that it? Samantha deserved so many good things in life and a man who could give them to her. Not a man at a crossroads who had no way of knowing where his life was heading or even if he still wanted to stay in the career he’d committed his life to.
Alex came downstairs an hour later, put on a pot of coffee and then went outside to shovel out his truck. Joshua followed. Slowly, as the day rose around them, Joshua and Alex stood in the winter cold and methodically dug out the driveway.
“Daniel needs a snowblower,” Alex said. He leaned his shoulder into the shovel and drove it through the snow. “Who in their right mind owns a property this big without one?”
“He probably has one, and we haven’t found it yet.” Joshua chuckled. His eyes rose to where the crisp morning sun was rising in a crystal-clear blue sky, sending light dazzling over last night’s deep snow. He could still see just the very faintest of imprints in the snow from where he and Samantha had trudged the night before. A shiver ran down his spine. They really could’ve frozen to death just twenty steps from safety.
“I should come with you,” Alex said. “I don’t like the idea of you two going alone.”
“What, are you worried I’ll crash your truck like you crashed mine?” Joshua asked.
Alex didn’t laugh at the joke.
“Don’t worry,” Joshua said. “We’ll be fine. All I need to do is drive Samantha to Theresa’s office. I’ll wait outside, guarding the door pretty much while they talk. Then I’ll drive her to the train station and wait while she sorts out her train. I’ll be back here in time for dinner. Simple, really.”
So simple somehow it felt wrong. Like it shouldn’t be this easy for them to just walk out of each other’s lives this way.
“I know,” Alex said. He yanked off his hat and ran his hand through his hair. “I just hate the idea of my personal stuff getting in the way of my being there for you.”
Kidnapped at Christmas Page 13
