by Alison Kent
He looked totally debauched. Unshaven. Uncombed. Sweetly slovenly. Only one leg was covered by the wrinkled sheet, and the one beneath him was a maid’s worst nightmare. She couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward and bit him, right where his thigh met his ass. Then she kissed him. Then she bit him again just because she could.
He, of course, hadn’t been asleep at all. And while her ass was up in the air and she was bending over playing with his, he planted his mouth similarly and bit at hers.
Only his bite went on forever, and he used his tongue and his fingers as well as his teeth, and then—just as he’d done last night—the weight of his body, too, lowering himself on top of her, penetrating her, and nibbling on her ear.
“Good morning, chère. And that’s from both of us,” he added as he thrust.
She closed her eyes and gave herself up because she couldn’t focus on conversation, or even remember what she’d wanted to know with him filling her, and moving inside of her the way she loved him to do.
He drove forward again, rocking her into the bed, back and forth in a slow lazy motion that made her think of hammocks and mint juleps and the Mississippi River. Her, a Jersey girl, who’d never crossed that Civil War line.
And the way he called her chère when she wanted to hear it most…it just did her in. She was in so much trouble here, a trouble that was as good as the one stalking her was bad, yet trouble she needed to ditch before she lost her edge and King distracted her to death.
But then he moved and the distraction consumed her body. Her nerve endings sizzled, her skin burned, her womb tensed, then released and relaxed. Sensation washed over her, sending her soaring, a stalk of grass caught up on the wind, her limbs loose, her body weightless.
King followed, grunting and rutting like an animal while she slipped into a spiritual coma of bliss. Moments later she returned to earth, and the man beast collapsed on top of her, rolled off and looked at her, his eyes drowsy and sexy and satisfied, as was the smile that pulled up one corner of his bad boy mouth.
Even his voice was all aged Scotch whisky and rich smoky Cubans when he said, “People get one look at your neck, chère? They’re going to know all the nasty you’ve been up to in this room.”
The next thing she knew, he was snoring.
She rolled her eyes, rolled herself out of bed, and set off to the sitting room to find clothes for the day. She showered while he got in the rest of his good night’s sleep; when she looked in the mirror, she realized he’d been right about her neck. Ugh.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a hickey—though with the rest of her bruises, these at least wouldn’t stand out any worse than the others.
While she was dressing and doing spiky things to her hair, King grumbled and stomped past to clean himself up, and she spent that time packing up their things in case Fitz called with a change of plans.
Oh, yeah. That was the reason she’d woke King up! To talk about Fitz, and why the hell he’d stranded them here. If that’s what he’d done, or allowed Malling to do…whichever one it was, there had to be a reason.
As she was loading her laptop into its slot in her backpack, King came out of the bathroom wearing his towel around his shoulders and nothing else. The drowsiness was gone. As was the satisfaction. The only thing she saw in his eyes now was sex.
“You like being naked, don’t you?”
“I like being naked around you.”
“Well, get dressed. I’m hungry.”
He snorted. “Like that’s any kind of surprise.”
“I’m hungry and feeling a lot like a sitting duck. Not to mention more than a little bit gullible.” She zipped her backpack, set it by the door. “I thought Fitz would’ve made contact by now, and I don’t like not knowing if the wreck was part of his plan or Malling’s.”
She glanced over to see King standing there, eyes closed as he towel dried his hair. Now he was wearing an unbuttoned denim shirt. That was it. “You’re not listening to me. You’re not even getting dressed.” The ring of the room’s phone cut her off. “Can you answer that at least?”
“Sure thing, chère. Anything to stop you railing like a fish wife.”
“Hello?” he said, and she stared at him, her face heating as the echo of her words and tone pinged back. Ugh. She was railing. She did sound like a fish wife. She was just so ready to move forward that she’d forgotten about patience, much less remembered perspective.
“That’s fine. Send him up,” King said, grabbing for his boxers and jeans the second he hung up the phone.
“Mrs. Wind?”
He nodded, found socks and his boots. “A courier’s bringing up a package. She’d heard the shower so knew we were awake, but wanted our okay before she let him interrupt. Guess she thought we’d be all fresh and clean, and ready to go at it again. You know. Like bunnies.”
Cady ignored the dig. “The courier. He couldn’t leave the package with her?”
“Guess not.”
“You think it’s from McKie?”
“She said the insurance company.”
“Addressed to you?”
“It’s got this address, but all the driver knew was that it was for the people who’d been in the wreck.”
So it was from someone who knew they were here. McKie knew they were here. Did Tuzzi’s people? Did King’s insurance company? “Did you ever call them?”
“Nope.”
“Then how could it be—”
“My thoughts exactly,” he said, and went to meet the delivery at the door.
The older man, nearly Jarrell’s twin but for a hundred pounds and a pair of glasses, handed King the letter-size file box and a clipboard.
He was wheezing from the three-story climb as he told him, “Sign here.”
King did, scrawling his signature. Cady came close enough to look over his shoulder at the name on the bill of lading, a hot shot service out of Reading. The insignia on his shirt pocket matched.
She took their copy of the receipt, folded it, and tucked it into her back pocket. Later, she’d give the number a call, or check the URL online and see if the place really existed. She did not like the idea of them being caught up in someone’s elaborate hoax.
King handed her the box while he dug for his wallet to tip the driver. Cady was tempted to shake the contents, see if they rattled, or if they sounded like something more than a bunch of insurance paperwork.
The return address was, indeed, that of a national agency, complete with their red and white logo, and the address of a branch in Reading. She would Google that office, too, because it was obvious someone was sparing no expense or skimping on the set or the costumes.
After closing the door behind the driver, King nodded at the box. “You going to open that?”
“I don’t know,” she said, bringing it up to her ear and gently jiggling it, laughing as she added, “Do you think it’s safe?”
And then she stopped laughing. “King?”
He took it from her hands, leaned close, and listened. “Goddamnit. Cady. Get the hell out of here.”
She was at the door before he could push her toward it, grabbing her backpack and heading for the stairs as he called from behind her, “Mrs. Wind!”
The stout older woman met them at the bottom of the staircase. Cady opened the front door and waited. Mrs. Wind frowned, twisting a dish cloth in her hands as she looked from Cady to King. “What is it, dear? Was the package bad news? Is there anything I can do to help?”
“Is anyone else in the house?” King asked, holding her by the shoulders so that he had her attention. “Anyone other than you and me and Cady?”
“No, dear.” Her dish towel was now a ball of cotton threads. “You’re my only guests, and Mr. Wind—”
“Then run, Mrs. Wind.” King turned her toward the door. “We’ve got to get outside. Now.”
Cady didn’t hear anything else after that, leaving the B&B’s proprietress to King as she bolted through the door and onto t
he wraparound porch, forgoing the stairs, leaping, and sailing over Mrs. Wind’s bed of tulips.
She hit the ground running, and didn’t stop until she was half a block up the street. She’d seen the damage rent by Jason Malling’s explosives. And she didn’t for a moment think Fitzwilliam McKie had sent either one of them a watch.
King caught up moments later, one arm around Mrs. Wind’s shoulders, his other hand holding her nearest elbow to keep her close. Once the three of them were safely away, King pulled his cell phone from his waistband, and asked, “Is there a way to reach the closest cops rather than through 911?”
“Jarrell or Delton can raise them on the radio as fast as they can be dispatched.” Mrs. Wind was frightened, but made of sturdy stuff, and didn’t panic. “Will one of you please tell me what’s going on?”
Cady took the other woman aside as King dug for Jarrell’s card and made the call. “The package, Mrs. Wind. It was ticking.”
“Ticking? Like a bomb?”
“We don’t know if it’s a bomb,” she said, feeling like she might as well be telling the older woman a lie. “We just want to be safe.”
“But you were just in an accident. And now this?” Mrs. Wind had obviously dropped her dish towel, so reached for her apron, and worried the hem. “Is someone trying to hurt you? Jarrell didn’t mention that someone was trying to hurt you. It might have been a better idea for you to stay someplace else. Mr. Wind has a bad heart…”
Cady didn’t know what to say—she obviously had no reassurance to offer—and was glad when King finished with his call and joined them. “Jarrell’s putting out the word, and evacuating the adjoining blocks.”
“He can do that?” Cady looked from the top floor of the B&B toward King.
His gaze, grim and bitter, was focused on the three-story Victorian, where white smoke had started pouring from the windows of their room. “It’s a small town. I have a feeling Jarrell can get just about anything done.”
“Oh, he can,” said Mrs. Wind. “He and Delton, too. I hope it’s nothing big. The volunteers have to come from all over. I just wish Mr. Wind hadn’t gone to Pittsburgh this week. Oh, look at the smoke!”
Cady wanted to reach for King, but she held Mrs. Wind’s hand instead, standing beside Tuzzi’s newest victim as others joined them. Everyone in the small crowd kept their eyes on the house. Sirens sounded in the distance, and Cady heard an engine rumbling toward them from behind.
She turned, looking for the flashing colored lights of a police cruiser or fire truck as the vehicle drew close, seeing instead the overly bright headlights of a car bearing down—a car that matched the description of the one that had run King’s Hummer off the road.
“King!” she screamed, her heart exploding from her chest into her throat.
With King right behind her, she grabbed Mrs. Wind, pulling the older woman across the street and onto the raised sidewalk, ducking into the doorway of the nearest shop and huddling beneath the block-long awning. The others who’d gathered scattered and scrambled, too.
The driver whipped his wheel, turned toward where Cady stood, revved his engine even higher, and hit the gas—all as Jarrell’s tow truck roared off the side street and into the car’s path.
The bulk of the bigger vehicle blocked the smaller one from view. Only the rooster tails of smoke, dust, and gravel thrown up by the tires were visible.
No one but Jarrell had a chance to react. Cady watched him dive across the tow truck’s front seat seconds before the car rammed into the driver’s side. The truck jolted, rocked. Metal screeched, rending.
People screamed, jumped, and dashed away, some toward their friend in the truck, others heading for the car, its engine now steaming on the far side.
Cady couldn’t move. Her knees were locked, her whole body shaking, her stomach lying somewhere at her feet. The car had been coming for her, the second time that it had.
If not for Jarrell Bradley…
She looked at King, reached up to wipe away the trail of tears stinging her skin like rubber tire tracks burned on the road. “You still think someone doesn’t want me dead?”
Twenty-seven
No. King didn’t think that at all. Not any longer. He wouldn’t think it ever again.
But the smoke bomb—and that had to be what was set off by the timer ticking in the box—had already fizzled out into cloudy white wisps and just wasn’t enough to make that happen.
Neither was the accident on the state road that had brought them to Cushing Township. Both of those were more of Tuzzi’s psychological assaults on Cady.
The driver doing the wild thing, however…. King tried to cough out a sharp curse, one that stuck in his closed-up throat. Yeah, that could’ve done the job, he mused, hardly happy to make the admission, to realize how close the threat to Cady’s life had come.
Thanks to Jarrell Bradley, whoever had been behind that wheel wasn’t going to be doing anything anymore. More than a few people here owed the burly mechanic their lives.
And King, well, he wasn’t sure his heart would ever find its rhythm again.
He held Cady hugged to his chest, stroked her head while shaking his and trying to breathe. Goddamn but his chest hurt. His chest and his gut, and even his head as he tried to make sense of what was happening.
Someone had wanted them out of that room…so another someone could run them down with a car? Why something so complicated? Why a bomb that did nothing but smoke up the place instead of one that laid them out, did some damage?
Was Tuzzi trying to silence Cady permanently? And why would he, if her role in what had gone down eight years ago was as small as she claimed? More than any of those questions, however, there was one that wouldn’t let go.
What the hell had McKie gotten them into?
At King’s side, Mrs. Wind doubled over, whether crying or coughing or choking King couldn’t be sure. He kept one arm around Cady as he bent to assist the other woman. “Mrs. Wind? Are you okay?”
“The driver. Did he survive?” She straightened, her chest heaving, one hand pressed there. “I lost my son Allen in a car accident when he was only ten. I can’t bear the thought of anyone dying that way.”
King looked up and down the township’s main street. He was unfamiliar with everything here but Jarrell and Delton’s garage, the Winds’ B&B, and McCluskey’s.
The state trooper who’d responded to Jarrell’s call and arrived to cordon off Mrs. Wind’s home had left two locals guarding the block and moved to the accident. He’d also radioed for help.
King knew things would be busting out like a downed beehive here soon, and that he and Cady were going to be the honeycomb, the prize right in the middle that everyone was going to come after.
He turned to Cady. Cady, who’d been abandoned by so many people. Cady, who’d been paying for a bad choice with more personal currency than was reasonably due. Cady, who’d been expecting him to keep her safe.
He shoved a hand through his hair, glanced toward the accident, back to Mrs. Wind, then to the woman who was becoming his whole world. Asking Cady to see to the older woman while he stayed at the scene….
“I want to be here. I need to be here.” Her face was pale, drawn. Her voice cracked. “This is about me. You know that.”
He did know, but as soon as law enforcement descended, the information free flow would be cut off. These minutes, even these seconds they were wasting were crucial. Goddamnit! He needed to get to that car now!
“May, oh May!”
Hearing her name called, May Wind looked up, and before either King or Cady could react, their hostess rushed toward the taller woman of about the same age waving a handkerchief to flag her down.
The two of them embraced, and then hands were waving and flapping as they gathered with a gaggle of other friends to cluck and peck at the goings-on.
That left King free to grab Cady’s hand. “Let’s go.”
He led her the length of the sidewalk toward the tow truck. They descended
the steps at the end of the block and made their way onto the edge of the side street.
Her fingers tightened around his as they circled the back end of Jarrell’s vehicle, stopping when met with the wreckage. Cady choked back a gasp.
Steam hissed from under the crumpled hood. The grill dangled in two pieces. The left front tire was blown and that fender peeled back toward the driver’s side door.
The accident wasn’t any worse than what King had seen on the side of many a road down in bayou country, and was sure Cady had driven by the same in the past. But knowing this car had been gunning for her…
The driver had obviously braked when Jarrell had rolled into view. Braked, fishtailed, overcorrected, and spun out of control. The front of the car on the driver’s side had slammed into the tow truck.
And the shattered windshield made it pretty clear the driver hadn’t been buckled in.
If King had been the compassionate sort, he would’ve said no one deserved to be taken out by such a blow. But he wasn’t, and this guy had been after Cady, so he deserved exactly what he’d been given—if not worse.
That didn’t mean King wanted her to see what happened when a hard head met windshield glass. “You can stay here, but I want to see if the driver was the same one who ran us off the road yesterday.”
“Who else would it be?”
“Have you forgotten who we’re dealing with here?”
“I haven’t forgotten anything.” She hooked her arm through his, her hands shaking. “I’m coming with you.”
He covered her fingers with his palm, looked into her eyes. “Cady—”
“I’m coming with you,” she said again, stressing each syllable of every word.
He stared at her long and hard, and she stared right back, talking him out of talking her out of joining him. “No passing out, puking, or screaming.”
“I’m not a screamer.”
“Oh yeah, chère,” he leaned close to tell her, to tease her and raise her spirits. “You are.”
