“Are you ready to go?” he asked from the opposite side of the table.
She stared at the laptop a moment longer before meeting his gaze and smiling unsteadily. “Uh, yeah, almost. Would you mind getting those boxes out of the trunk while I—” nervously she tugged at her ear, and inspiration struck “—while I put on my earrings?”
For a moment he had no response, and she waited for him to point out that she rarely wore earrings, and there was no reason why tonight should be any different. But the moment passed, and all he did was nod and head for the door.
She stayed where she was until the screen door closed, then she darted to the table, ripped open the Velcroed flap and gathered the items inside, making a mental note to replace the rubber band that had held the licenses together until it had broken. Then she rushed into the bedroom and shoved them as far under the mattress as they would go before grabbing a pair of earrings from the open box on the dresser. She stabbed them through the holes in her ears, secured the backs, then forced a leisurely smile as she strolled back into the living room. “I’m ready now,” she said when he came through the door, one box balanced on top of the other.
He left the boxes on the table, then held the door for her. After locking up, she stepped off the deck into the hot, heavy evening. “Until today I thought the stories I’d heard about Oklahoma summers were exaggerated.”
“Okies? Exaggerate?” He gave her a sidelong look of pretended shock as well as genuine amusement. “We’re far enough north to get cold in winter and far enough south to get hot and humid in summer. We generally start hitting a hundred degrees in July, though it came close today.”
“How do people without air-conditioning manage?”
“Hey, we’re sturdy stock. Pioneers, oil men, cowboys.” He gave her another of those sideways looks as he opened the truck door for her. “Indians.”
Heat rolled out of the SUV in waves, making her take a step back. Gingerly she climbed in, then tugged at her dress as she settled on the leather seat, trying to stretch the cotton to protect the backs of her legs. As soon as he started the engine, he turned the AC to high and rolled down all four windows, but they’d gone more than a mile before the sauna feeling gave way to semicomfort.
After three miles Cassidy got chilled and pointed the vents away from her. When Jace adjusted the fan speed, she murmured her thanks, then directed her gaze out the window.
A man and a woman who knew each other well enough to make love shouldn’t feel so awkward afterward. She couldn’t think of anything to say— No, that wasn’t true. There was plenty to say…just not things she was brave enough or foolish enough to risk. Things such as, Thank you for two incredible orgasms. And May I have more, please? Or You want to pull off the road and pretend we’re teenagers again?
How about, Ask me your questions once more—who I am, where I’m from, why I’m running—and I’ll answer them truthfully in exchange for your protection, your body, your love.
If you’re going to dream, dream big, her mother used to tell her. Obviously it was advice Cassidy had totally embraced. How else could she even suggest that Jace might care enough about her to protect her? Hadn’t he made it crystal-clear that he wasn’t getting involved in other people’s troubles, including—maybe even especially—hers?
And as for loving her…what were the odds of an honest man ever learning to love a dishonest woman? A man to whom trust and right and honor were important loving a woman who discounted all three as meaningless?
She intended her snicker to remain entirely in her head, but some part of it must have escaped because he looked at her curiously. “You okay?”
“Yeah. Uh…yeah.” She focused her gaze on their surroundings and realized they were only a half mile or so from the highway. She was beginning to recognize pastures and fences, farm houses and barns and even a particular white horse who liked to graze along the barbed wire.
God, she would miss this place when she left!
A black-and-white SUV with lights on top was approaching from the opposite direction. She half expected Jace to stop if he knew the driver, but all he did was lift one hand from the steering wheel in a wave that was returned by Reese as he drove past.
“No chitchat?”
“He’s probably working, and I’m hungry.” Suddenly he grinned at her, transforming from merely handsome to handsomely wicked in the space of a heartbeat. “I worked up quite an appetite this afternoon.”
A faint blush warmed her cheeks even as she tartly replied, “You already had quite an appetite.”
“Hey, it had been a long time. Besides, you were a little on the greedy side yourself.”
Greedy? Oh, yeah. She’d needed release, intimacy, comfort and memories. Memories to keep her warm—to keep her alive—in the months to come.
“I, uh, I didn’t realize until later that…we, uh…” He was looking straight ahead and a hint of a blush colored his bronzed cheeks. After flexing his fingers on the steering wheel, then taking a breath, he said bluntly, “I didn’t even think about using a condom. I know it was stupid and reckless and…and stupid, but…”
Cassidy couldn’t blame him. After all, the thought hadn’t popped into her head until just now. Though he was the one with all the experience. He should have been prepared. But she was the one who was weak, so she should have been equally as prepared.
“I don’t think timing is a problem as far as getting pregnant and…other than Phil, you’re the only man I’ve ever…” She ended with a shrug as he stopped at the intersection with the highway. “For what it’s worth.”
He murmured something, his head turned away to look for oncoming traffic. She didn’t ask him to repeat the words. If she’d misunderstood, she didn’t want to know, because it had sounded as if he’d said exactly what she’d wanted to hear.
It’s worth a lot.
Chapter 11
The restaurant was part of the rapid overgrowth in southeast Tulsa, built to look like a Mexican hacienda. A pretty young hostess showed them to a table in the central dining room, where another pretty young girl brought chips and salsa. Jace didn’t look at the menu—he always ordered the same dish—but he watched Cassidy instead. She’d put on a silky-looking jacket a few shades lighter than her dress, then pushed the sleeves partway up her arms, and she was studying the menu as if the dishes were too tempting to choose between.
Blonde or brunette, brown eyes or blue, she really was pretty. Fine features, delicate bones, natural sensuality. He called her city girl, but she had a freshness about her, almost an innocence, that reminded him instead of the country. She could be right at home in a rural small-town environment…if she let herself.
The waitress returned for their order, then they talked about nothing important. He didn’t mention her parents. She didn’t talk about leaving. He didn’t ask about the driver’s licenses or the gun or the money, and she didn’t volunteer any new truths. As far as he could tell, though, she didn’t offer any new lies, either. That counted for something, didn’t it?
As their food arrived, so did a new diner, a man alone. The hostess escorted him to a table near the back. Instead he gestured to the empty one nearest theirs. She called for a busboy to clear the table, then seated the customer. As he settled in, Cassidy glanced at him. So did Jace. White male, late thirties, early forties, five-ten, about one hundred and eighty pounds, blond hair, blond mustache.
Jace never would have given him another thought if Cassidy hadn’t sent frequent, skittish glances toward the guy. Her growing discomfort was visible, finally reaching the point that he had to ask. “What’s wrong?”
Her voice was little more than a whisper. “That man keeps looking at me.”
Jace checked, and sure enough, the guy was watching her. “So? You’re a beautiful woman.”
The look she gave him was as dry as the desert. “Oh, yeah, men stare at me wherever I go.”
“Maybe not stare, but look. He’s just being a little obvious about it.” He
paused to consider the wisdom of what he was about to ask, decided silence would be the wisest course, then asked it anyway. “Is someone looking for you?”
He expected her to brush it off—to laugh, maybe, and say, “Of course not. I’m just a romance writer researching and writing a new book. Why would anyone be looking for me? The people who need to know where I am know.”
Instead, for one uncomfortable moment, she looked stricken. She took a long, long drink from the wine she’d ordered, then set the glass down with unusually controlled movements before looking at him. “Don’t make me lie to you, Jace. Not tonight.”
Hell. Damn it all to hell. He wanted details, particularly who and why—wanted to shake her until she told him everything. Wanted to kiss her until she couldn’t tell him anything. Wanted…
With another uneasy glance toward the nearby diner, she folded her napkin and laid it on the table. “Can we go now?”
He paid the bill, then walked with her to the door, his hand on the small of her back. There he glanced back and saw the blonde still watching. Resisting the urge to make an obscene gesture, he followed her through the door and swore he could actually feel when the solid wood blocked the weight of the man’s gaze.
“You need to stop anywhere while we’re in town?” he asked as they crossed the parking lot to his truck.
“Well, actually…”
He unlocked the doors, then opened the passenger door for her, but instead of letting her get in, he pulled her up tight against him and bent his head so his mouth brushed hers. “There’s a twenty-four-hour drugstore down the street. If what you want is different from what I need, can you get it there?”
She nodded, then he kissed her. He shouldn’t want to, not knowing what he knew. She was guilty of at least twelve felonies, and who knew what else. When Reese got back the results on her fingerprints, most likely he would come knocking with a warrant for her arrest. She was one of the people he’d spent his entire career trying to take off the streets and put behind bars. Kissing her, wanting her, needing her more than he’d ever needed any woman…he shouldn’t.
But damned if he didn’t.
When they got to the drugstore, she primly volunteered to wait in the truck, confirming that the purchase she’d wanted was the same as his. “You have any preferences?” he asked, the door propped open, one foot already on the ground. “Ribbed? Glow-in-the-dark? Flavored?”
She laughed in spite of her proper demeanor. “They don’t come in flavors…do they?”
“They do, though I doubt you can get them here.”
“Hey, you’re the expert. Get what you want.”
It took him less than five minutes to make the purchase. He picked up the same conversation thread when he got back in the truck. “What do you mean, expert? You make it sound like I sleep around, and I don’t.”
“Have you been with another woman besides Amanda and me?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you have more experience than I do.”
“That still doesn’t make me an expert.”
“It sure felt like it to me,” she said softly. Her smile as she looked away wasn’t intended for him, but he saw enough of it. It was the smile of a satisfied, well-pleasured woman, and it made his body tighten and go hard.
Maybe it was wrong, but right at that moment it didn’t matter who or what she was in the bigger scheme of things. He had an answer to one of the whos—she was the only woman he wanted, the only one he could remember needing this much.
For the moment, that was enough.
It was dark when he pulled onto the grass near the cabin. His headlights illuminated the yard and lake directly in front of them, with the light spilling to the sides showing both cabins. His was dark. Cassidy’s porch and kitchen lights were on. Did the fact that she didn’t like coming home to a dark house have anything to do with the question she couldn’t have answered this evening without lying—Is someone looking for you?
Not necessarily. Women who’d never broken any laws, who had never come within five miles of a crime or a criminal, left lights burning when they went out. It was called common sense.
He shut off the engine and met her at the front of the truck. For the first time since she’d awakened to catch him watching her, he felt awkward. Even when he’d stood there near the dining table, playing dumb while she debated the best way to get her secret stash out of the computer case and into hiding, awkward hadn’t been the word that came to mind. But now, standing in the moonlight, everything quiet around them, no one else for miles, with a light breeze blowing and the temperature dropped past bearable to almost pleasant, with a paper bag containing a box of twelve condoms in his hand, awkward sounded just about right.
“Well…” Cassidy tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, appearing as uncertain as he felt. Her smile was none too steady as she gestured with both hands. “Your place or mine?”
He was ninety-nine percent certain Reese hadn’t left any evidence of his visit behind, but if he took her inside, he would be all too aware that his cousin had been there. That he’d betrayed her. That he’d betrayed himself in beginning an investigation he’d sworn would never happen. That he had probably set in motion events that would result in her arrest.
Of course, he had plenty of defenses. He hadn’t forced her to acquire all those bogus licenses. He hadn’t pulled the money from her purse to purchase a gun that had been illegally tampered with. He hadn’t twisted her arm and made her lie to him. He damn well hadn’t chosen to fall in love with her.
But none of that changed the fact that, thanks to him, her future, as well as his, would probably turn out pretty damn bleak.
“How about yours?” he responded at last. “We’ve still got some unpacking to do…among other things.”
Her laugh was soft and light as she started toward the bridge. For a moment he just stood there and watched, admiring the way her hips swayed with such invitation and the way her dress clung to her curves and exposed so much shapely leg. Then, shaking his head to clear it, he caught up with her at the far end of the bridge, scooped her into his arms and carried her, laughing, the rest of the way.
“What’s out there?”
Cassidy lay on her side, Jace’s arms around her, her own hands tucked beneath her head for a pillow, and gazed into the dark woods that stretched into the distance behind the cabin. When she’d first moved in, she had fully intended to do some exploring, but she’d never managed.
With a smile, she corrected herself. She’d just gotten preoccupied with discoveries of a different nature.
“Gremlins,” Jace replied, his mouth near her ear. “Wood sprites. Creepy, crawly creatures.”
“There’s no such thing as a gremlin.”
“Better not say that too loudly or one of them will slither through your window one night and feast on your bones.”
“Don’t say that or I’ll have to start sleeping with the windows closed, and I’ll shrivel away to nothing in the heat.”
“Or you could just sleep with me.”
“Hmm…shriveling away or sleeping with the big strong man next door….” While she pretended to consider it, he gently pinched her nipple at the same time his tongue stroked over her ear. A soft moan escaped her before she found her voice again. “That’s an easy choice. I’ll take the big strong man protecting me, please.”
At the sound of the P-word—protecting—tension streaked through every part of his body she could feel. Taking into account the way they were lying, that was a considerable amount of tension.
“Bad choice of words, huh?” she asked quietly. “I should have said ravishing. Seducing. Exhausting. Pleasing. They would have been more accurate. I’m not looking for protection. I don’t—I don’t need it. So don’t feel your being a cop—having been a cop—has any bearing on why you’re in my bed again for the second time in half a day. Besides…” She rolled to face him without giving up his embrace. “It’s not as if the gremlin is really going to come and eat m
e up.” Stealing a hopeful look at him, she added, “Is he?”
For a time he simply looked at her, his eyes dark with indecision and hesitation. Then, as if her last words had finally sunk in, he laughed, pulled her into the middle of the bed, then raised over her. “Is that an invitation?”
“Just a question,” she replied, coquettishly batting her lashes.
“A hopeful question.”
“If we were discussing the same about you, you would be hopeful, too.”
“Damn straight.” He kissed her throat, the swell of one breast, the underside of the other, her stomach, her hipbone, her—
Her eyes fluttered shut and her back arched, granting him better access. Hopeful? That, and every other incredible, intense, breath-stealing, quivery emotion in the world.
Damn straight.
She didn’t have a clue how much time passed before she started thinking clearly again. It was late, but she had energy to spare. She eased out of bed without waking Jace, dressed—for the fifth time that day!—and went into the living room, pulling the bedroom door closed behind her.
He’d done some unpacking while she had dressed for dinner. Now, standing between the sofa and the dining table, she rested her hands on her hips and surveyed the boxes that remained. The first time she’d run, there had been no time to pack anything. She’d taken off with nothing more than her purse, her laptop and the clothes on her back—and the money Phil had insisted they squirrel away for emergencies. At the time she’d thought he was being paranoid. They were safe. They were protected. What kind of emergency were they likely to face?
But he had insisted, so they had lived off his income and every payday, she’d cashed her check and put the majority of it in their hiding place in the garage. She had suggested a savings account, but he’d adamantly refused. Cash was the only way to go. It was readily available, impossible to track, and their banker, an old tin popcorn can, hadn’t given them any hassle about withdrawals.
One True Thing Page 20
