“No. We. Are. Not,” she annunciated, but he still didn’t get it.
“I know you’re hurt, but try to put that aside and share this special time with us.”
“I’ll give you special.” She attempted to lunge at them, but Ryder grabbed her apron tie again, and she boomeranged right back into his chest.
“She can’t make the cake.” Ryder cut in and Andrew frowned, his eyes flashing with impatience.
“And you are?”
“Ryder.”
“Well, Ryder, I don’t want to be rude—”
“I’m afraid I don’t feel the same way. As a matter of fact, I’m more than happy to be rude. Come on. Let’s go, Shelby Ann.” He started walking, and Shelby hurried to follow.
“This will only take a minute. We just—”
Ryder knocked on a door, completely ignoring Andrew’s sputtered protest as it opened and Maureen’s son appeared.
Tall and handsome with pitch-black hair and sky-blue eyes, Hunter Lewis studied them dispassionately, light purple dress shirt wrinkled, his chin covered with stubble.
“You’re Ryder, right? And you’re Shelby Simons. I recognize you from some pictures Mom posted to her website. Best cheese Danishes in town, right?”
“That’s right.”
“Come on in. I’m sorry that our meeting will have to be quick. The sheriff asked me to take a polygraph test in an hour. My lawyer suggested I comply.”
“You didn’t want to?” Ryder asked as they stepped into the room.
“I have a business to run in Chicago. It’s not running itself while I’m gone. Drink?” He lifted a decanter of amber liquid, setting it back down when they both declined.
“Yeah. Me, neither. Sad to say, alcohol won’t fix my problems. So, you want to pick my brain about Mom, right? What do you want to know? If she was a good mother? If we got along? If I paid someone to murder her?” He directed the question at Ryder, but his gaze was on Shelby, his blue eyes seeming to be searching for something.
“I was wondering what you were doing in town the morning of her murder.” Ryder didn’t hold back, and Hunter shrugged.
“It was her birthday. I thought that was as good a time as any to try to mend fences with her. I guess I left it for too long.”
“So, you didn’t get along?”
“Is it possible to get along with someone who isn’t around? Mom spent most of my childhood flying from city to city doing research for her books. When I was eighteen, she gave me fifty thousand dollars and told me to get an apartment and a car and find a job.”
The story reminded Shelby of her own, and her heart went out to the young man Hunter must have been. Scared. On his own. No family to depend on.
“You did pretty well for yourself on that fifty thousand. You’re CEO of a software company, living in a penthouse in Chicago’s business district and earning a six-figure salary. Not bad for a kid who was kicked to the curb at eighteen.”
“You’ve been doing your research, Ryder, and you’re right. I did do just fine. I never took another dime from my mother, and I never planned to. Like I told the police, I don’t need her money. Even if I did, I’d have rather begged on the street than ask for it. If they want a murder suspect, they’re going to have to look somewhere else.”
“Where else do you think they should look?” Ryder seemed completely relaxed, but Shelby could almost feel the energy humming through him.
“Back four years. The police need to reopen the Dark Angel case. If they find the real Good Samaritan murderer, they’ll find the person who killed my mother.”
“The murderer is in jail,” Shelby said, and Hunter speared her with a hard look.
“Is she? Mom called me up a couple of days ago, almost manic with excitement. She was convinced a murderer was still on the loose, and she said she was going to prove it. I laughed. Told her there was no way she was going to be able to prove that a guilty woman was innocent. We argued, and she ended up hanging up on me. If you want to know the truth, that’s why I decided to come out for her birthday. I felt guilty for upsetting her. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get ready for my polygraph test.” He opened the door, tension oozing out of him as he waited for them to leave.
“I’m really sorry for your loss, Hunter,” Shelby offered, and he nodded.
“Thanks. Mom was a huge fan of your bakery, and I’m sorry that you had to be dragged into this mess. My mother was self-absorbed, but I know she wouldn’t have wanted to cause you any trouble.” He smiled, his face changing from somber and slightly angry to handsome and charming. A chameleon, but was he a killer?
Shelby didn’t think so.
Then again, she hadn’t thought Andrew was a lying, cheating creep, either.
She hadn’t thought Andrew would kiss her best friend while wearing the tux he was supposed to marry Shelby in.
She hadn’t thought either of those things, but they’d been true.
Going with her feelings wasn’t a good idea.
She’s proven that over and over again, but the thought of Hunter killing his mother just didn’t seem to fit with what she knew about Maureen’s life.
She sighed, following Ryder down the hall as the door clicked softly behind her.
TWELVE
“What do you think?” Ryder asked as he pushed the elevator button for the lobby.
“About Hunter?” Shelby asked, because she wasn’t sure how to answer.
Maybe she wasn’t the best judge of character, but she really didn’t think Hunter had hired someone to kill Maureen. Still, saying it felt wrong. As if by giving her opinion, she might prove the opposite to be true.
Wasn’t that how it always happened with her?
As soon as she decided someone was worth trusting, she was proven wrong.
“Who else? Did he plan his mother’s murder and come here to try to throw the police off his scent? Or is he as innocent as he says? Come on, Shelby Ann. I know you have an opinion. Share it.”
“Innocent,” she said, because she couldn’t seem to deny Ryder anything.
Which was another problem altogether.
“That’s what I think.”
“Really?” she asked as the elevator doors swung open, and Ryder pressed a hand to her back, urging her into the lobby.
She went reluctantly, bracing herself for what she knew she’d see.
There was no way Andrew had left without asking her about the cake again.
He wasn’t the kind of person to give up that easily, and Shelby was sure he was lying in wait somewhere, probably smooching his fiancée.
A sight she definitely did not want to see again.
“The way I see things, Hunter would have to be a fool to have come here to throw the police off his scent. He’s not a fool,” Ryder continued, apparently oblivious to her tension.
Why shouldn’t he be?
She shouldn’t be tense.
Not about seeing a man she didn’t love with a woman she didn’t like.
“What’s wrong?” he said, proving that he sensed more than she wanted him to.
“Nothing.”
“Something.”
“Okay. You want to know the truth? I’m sure Andrew is still lurking around here somewhere, and I’m not happy about it.”
“Andrew the ex with the Barbie-doll fiancée? Why do you care if he’s here?”
“Because he’s going to ask me about the cake again, and he’s going to keep asking.”
“So, just keep saying no.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“It is.”
“No. It’s not.” She rounded on him, looking into his dark eyes and almost losing her train of thought, because ma
ybe he was right. Maybe it really was that easy.
“Why not? He’s your ex. He doesn’t have any power over you.”
“Of course he does. He was the last straw, Ryder. He proved what I didn’t want to believe, and now he expects me to pretend he did me a favor.”
“Don’t.” He touched her cheek, wiping away a tear she hadn’t even realized had fallen.
“Pretend he owes me a favor? I don’t plan to.”
“No, Shelby Ann. Don’t cry over someone who isn’t worth it.”
“I’m not. I’m crying for what he represented and what I’m never going to have. Dreams and forever and all that stuff my mother and grandmother and sister insisted I’d never find. I guess they were right.”
“Maybe not,” he said, his gaze lifting, his eyes focused on something just behind her.
“They’re there, aren’t they?” She started to turn, but Ryder wound an arm around her waist, his hand skimming across her lower spine and hooking in her apron tie.
“Don’t turn around, Shelby Ann. Don’t let them know you know they’re watching.”
“I don’t care if they know, and Andrew is going to come over here whether I acknowledge him or not.”
“Let him come, then.” Ryder’s lips brushed her ear, his rough whisper raking along her nerves, bringing every one of them to life.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her heart thundering in her ears, her body soft with longing for whatever it was he had planned.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
But she couldn’t seem to step away.
“Just a little evasive action. Nothing to be worried about.” He tugged her into a cozy alcove, tracked tiny kisses along the line of her jaw, stopping at the corner of her mouth, his dark eyes staring into hers, all his amusement gone.
“Ryder—”
“Do you want me to stop?”
Did she?
“Do you?” he repeated, and she nodded her head while her foolish arms wrapped around his neck and pulled him closer.
So close.
Their lips touched, light, easy, but she felt the kiss more than she’d ever felt anything else. Felt it swirling through her, stealing away all her worries and fears and doubts.
Andrew didn’t exist.
Stephanie didn’t exist.
Hunter didn’t exist.
The lobby, the people, the reality of where she was and who she was with and what she should not be doing didn’t exist.
All that existed was that moment, that light touch of lips.
She sighed, pulled him even closer, let herself get lost in the moment.
“Really, Shelby. Is this the place for that kind of display?” Andrew’s voice was like a splash of ice water, bringing Shelby to full awareness again.
She jumped back, her chest heaving, heart pounding, lips burning.
Ryder’s kiss still swirling through her.
“She’s not baking that cake for you, Andrew, so beat it,” Ryder growled, his voice hard and just slightly uneven.
“I’ll let Shelby tell me that.”
Shelby tried to turn to face Andrew, to tell him what he claimed he needed to hear, but Ryder caught her jaw in his broad hand, his touch as gentle as a summer breeze, and kissed her again.
Kissed her as if he meant it.
Kissed her as if she’d never been kissed before.
Kissed her until she forgot all about Andrew and weddings and cakes and two strikes and being out.
She broke away, scared by the force of her emotions, scared of what she saw in his eyes. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“I didn’t. We did.” He looked as shaken as she felt, and she wanted to deny that, deny the truth of his words.
But she couldn’t.
Because they had kissed.
Right there in the lobby of the Davenport Hotel with a dozen people looking on.
With Andrew looking on.
A little evasive action had turned into something unexpectedly strong and real and undeniable.
She took a shaky breath, tried to clear her head, but it was impossible with Ryder watching so intently.
“We need to go. I’ve got work to do at the bakery. A wedding tomorrow night, and those flowers have to be done. I—”
“Stop,” he said quietly, and she did, blinking back more of the tears that been falling since the day Maureen died.
“I can’t do this, Ryder.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“But I already did.”
“It was just a kiss, Shelby Ann. It doesn’t have to mean forever,” he said gently, hooking a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingers searing her skin.
“But it could be?” she asked, the question slipping out before she could stop it.
“If you want it to.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You asked.”
“But I didn’t really want to know the answer.”
“Too late,” he said, and she couldn’t look in his eyes anymore, couldn’t stand there listening to his deep voice and his easy words.
Couldn’t, so she ran from him for the second time in twenty-four hours, her heart shouting coward as she beelined for the door.
Ryder barely managed to snag the back of Shelby’s apron before she made it out the door. Slow and sluggish, his mind and body still wrapped up in the feel of her lips, the silkiness of her hair, he’d almost let her walk outside ahead of him.
Almost.
He’d meant to keep the kiss friendly and light. Meant to do nothing more than show Andrew and his insipid fiancée how little Shelby cared about their wedding, their cake, their presence.
He’d made an error of calculation.
Hadn’t factored in just how deeply the kiss would affect him.
He wouldn’t make another one.
“I really have to stop wearing this apron,” Shelby muttered as he pulled her to a stop.
“That would be a shame, Shelby Ann, since it gives me something to grab on to when you’re trying to run from me.”
“I’m not running,” she said, and he raised an eyebrow, waiting for the truth.
“Okay,” she admitted. “So I am running, but I still need to stop wearing this, because I really do need to go back to the bakery, and you stopping me every five seconds isn’t getting me there.”
“This time I stopped you because I need to walk outside first.”
“Right. While I stand here waiting for you to make the ultimate sacrifice.”
“No need for dramatics. Just stay here until I signal for you to follow,” he said, purposely trying to ruffle her feathers. Better to have her angry and spewing fire than embarrassed and shut down.
“I am not being drama—”
He walked outside, cool air bathing his heated skin and cooling his fevered blood.
Focus.
That’s what he needed to keep Shelby safe.
Not kisses in hotel lobbies.
But he couldn’t deny he’d enjoyed it.
Couldn’t deny that he’d meant what he’d said.
One kiss could lead to forever if he and Shelby let it.
Sunset painted the sky in shades of gold and purple and cast long shadows across the parking lot. People strolled along the sidewalk, the busy shopping district sparkling in the dusky light. Not a good time of day to be out. Too many people. Too many shadows. Ryder scanned the area, searching for signs of trouble before gesturing for Shelby to follow him outside.
He hurried Shelby into the Hummer, closing the door quickly. She wanted to go back to the bakery to work for a few hours, and that was fine by him, but he h
ad no intention of leaving her there alone. Even with a new alarm system and security cameras installed, she wouldn’t be safe until the guy who was after her was behind bars.
He pulled out his cell phone, dialing a navy buddy who worked for the state police.
“Delaney, here. What’s up?” Tyson Delaney grumbled, and Ryder imagined him pouring over a cold case, searching for new leads. As a detective with the Washington State Police, he had a reputation for solving cases others couldn’t. The job kept him working late and running full tilt, which was probably how Tyson wanted it.
“You set up that appointment with Catherine Miller for me?” Ryder asked, knowing his friend had. When Tyson said he was going to do something, he followed through.
“Tomorrow morning at nine. I went and visited her myself a few minutes ago. The Spokane County deputy sheriff was walking out as I was walking in. Miller wasn’t happy about so many visitors, and she refused to answer my questions.”
“Hopefully, she’ll be in a better frame of mind in the morning.”
“Don’t count on it, friend.”
“I’ll try not to,” he glanced at Shelby, but she was staring out the window, probably trying hard to pretend she wasn’t listening. “One more thing, Ty. What do you know about the serial arsonist who’s been working in the area?”
“I know I was assigned the case six months ago, and I haven’t found one new lead, and I know that the Spokane County Sheriff’s Department just sent me information about the explosion that killed Maureen Lewis. I’m hoping I’ll find a fresh lead there.”
“You think the cases are connected?”
“The sheriff does, so it’s worth looking into. I’ve got a dinner engagement in ten, so I need to go. Call me if you have any trouble getting in to see Miller.”
“Will do.” He hung up, pulling up next to Old Blue, the bakery dark and untouched.
“Thanks for dropping me off, Ryder,” Shelby said as if he were going to let her out of the Hummer and leave her there.
“Who said anything about dropping you off?”
“Me. I need some…space.”
“Because of the kiss?” he asked, and she shrugged.
“Maybe.”
“Tell you what, you can have all the space you need after we catch the guy who’s trying to kill you. Stay here until I come for you. The less time you spend out in the open, the happier I’ll be.” He got out of the Hummer, not waiting for her response. In this instance, her need for space was superseded by the safety plan he’d put into place. He used the spare key to open the bakery, turning off the alarm before walking back to the Hummer. “Ready?”
Undercover Bodyguard Page 11
