Time to Run

by Marliss Melton

  “What about the other two clowns?”

  “Les Wright and Tim Olsen are nowhere to be found,” Cannard admitted, with an edge to his voice.

  Two bomb squad personnel from Tulsa had been called into the meeting, along with the fifteen SOT members, Chase included. They all sat there looking at each other. Columbus Day was two days away. The suspects were at large, and the clock was ticking. Chase suffered the premonition that FOR Americans was going to get away with whatever bad shit it had planned.

  Hannah burst into the dampening silence like a musical symphony. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, bustling in with her laptop slung over one shoulder and papers in hand. Her pantsuit today was the color of a freshly cut watermelon. Nineteen pairs of eyes blinked at her as she handed the papers off to Captain Lewis.

  “What’s this?” he asked.

  “We have a positive ID on Will,” Hannah announced. “Do you mind passing out these copies? They’re the reason I’m late. Willard Douglas Smith is his full name. He is a decorated veteran of the Vietnam War and a member of the Seventy-fifth Ranger Division. He retired in 1992 in Broken Arrow—at least, that’s where his pension benefits are sent, to a PO Box address. I’m afraid I wasn’t able to find a street address.”

  Chase hid a smirk behind his hand. Yeah, but she’d found a hell of a lot more than Cannard, who was staring down at the paper in his hand, looking chagrined.

  “As for Les Wright and Timothy Olsen, the IRS faxed me their last year’s tax returns. Both men worked menial jobs. Tim didn’t even make enough income to pay taxes. I’ve requested five years of returns for Willard Smith. If he worked at all, we’ll have a record of his employers, who might be of help in locating him.”

  Captain Lewis waited respectfully for Hannah to finish. “This is excellent,” he admitted. “We’ll disseminate this information to the public right away. We should have Willard apprehended in no time. SOT members, you’re on call for the remainder of the holiday weekend. I’ll keep you posted if anything changes. Flint and Sievers,” he added to the bomb squad duo, “I’d like to talk with you a moment longer. Dismissed.”

  Chase was the first man out of his seat. “I’ve got to go,” he said to Hannah.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” she said, snatching up her laptop. “Be right back, sir,” she said, to Captain Lewis.

  Chase glanced at his watch. This morning’s meeting had lasted only twenty minutes, but he didn’t like leaving Sara at the ranch alone, not even with phone service installed, especially not with the skinheads still at large.

  “So, how’s it going at the ranch?” Hannah asked, matching his long stride as they headed toward the exit.

  “Fine,” he said shortly. He’d struggled for two nights straight with the burning desire to sneak down the hall and slip into Sara’s bed. But the fear that Hannah was right, that he really was in love, had kept him paralyzed.

  Hannah eyed him sidelong. “You can’t even leave her for half an hour,” she pointed out. “How’re you going to leave her for months at a time?”

  He came to an abrupt halt, causing her to step back warily. “I told you not to talk about that.”

  “It’s not going to go away.”

  The aching hunger inside him had to go away. He couldn’t operate like this in the field. He had to be cool, completely unemotional. He turned toward the exit. “You’re invited to dinner tonight,” he said, switching topics abruptly as he pushed open the door for her.

  “Really?” Hannah asked. “Isn’t that going to make Sara uncomfortable?”

  “Serenity,” he reminded her. He didn’t answer her question until they were clear across the parking lot, out of range of anyone who might overhear. “She doesn’t know that the FBI gets involved with Amber Alerts,” he explained, sending her a warning look. “And she isn’t going to find out from you.”

  “Gotcha,” said Hannah, with a wink.

  “See you at six,” said Chase, dropping into his car.

  He left Hannah standing on the curb, contemplating his haste with a lopsided grin.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hannah arrived at Chase’s ranch at promptly 7:00 P.M., which was quite a feat, she acknowledged, giving herself a mental pat, because it was pitch-black already, and there wasn’t a single streetlight on any of the roads headed out of town, only the welcoming light on Chase’s front porch.

  As she knocked on the door, Hannah tried to wipe the little smirk off her face. But then she recalled how often Chase had smirked at her when she’d gone through the wringer, falling in love with Luther a year ago. Payback was such a bitch.

  He pulled the door open. Seeing her expression, he gave her a warning scowl. “Behave yourself.”

  She was hit with the wonderful aroma of chicken enchiladas. The woman coming out of the kitchen taking off oven mitts couldn’t be Sara Garret. “Hello,” she said, with a shy smile. “I remember you.”

  It took Hannah several seconds to realize that, yes, she was Sara Garret. The eyes and the cheekbones were the same, but that was all. “Holy Toledo,” she exclaimed, “you look completely different!” From the hip-hugging, bootleg jeans, to the flattering knit top to the blond tips of her short, spiky hair. “No wonder Chase is crazy about you.”

  “Dinner ready yet?” he interrupted on a testy note.

  “I just need to set the table,” Sara rushed to assure him.

  “I’ll do it,” he said, relieving her worried look.

  Minutes later, they sat down at the scarred kitchen table, joined by Kendal, a quiet, watchful boy, who vaguely resembled the photo that Hannah had peeked at on the FBI Web site for lost and missing children.

  Watching the threesome eat, Hannah couldn’t help but notice how comfortable they seemed with each other. Chase kept Kendal’s milk cup filled. He made a point of praising Sara’s cooking. She, in turn, handed him the salt without his asking. It was like they’d known each other for years.

  And yet, Chase had been adamant that Sara was too good for him, from a different world. Hannah set out to prove him wrong. “So, Sara—Serenity,” she caught herself, with an apologetic smile, “forgive me if I get too nosy, but what is it that you plan to do for a living?”

  “Pretty much what I did before,” she replied, “which was to teach English to speakers of other languages. I’ve checked with the local library, and they said they’re fine with letting me use their facilities for tutoring.”

  “That’s great. So you majored in English in college?”

  “Linguistics,” Sara corrected her.

  “She has a master’s degree,” Kendal piped up, speaking for the first time.

  Oh, dear. And here she was trying to bridge the gap. Undaunted, Hannah plowed on. “Linguistics,” she mused, glancing at Chase. “You speak several languages, don’t you, Westy?” she asked him.

  Sara eyed Chase with surprise. “You do? What do you speak?”

  Given the wry gleam in his eyes, he knew exactly what Hannah was up to. “Enough Malay to keep myself from getting shot. Basic Thai,” he added. “I used to speak Bosnian, but that’s rusty.”

  “And you went to language school for . . .” Hannah left it to him to fill in the blank.

  “French,” he finished.

  “He speaks French like a native,” Hannah boasted. “You should hear him.”

  Sara looked at Chase like he had horns growing out of his head. “I went to France as an exchange student my junior year,” she volunteered. “Pouquoi as-tu besoin d’apprendre le francais?” she added, asking him why he’d needed to learn French.

  “Not everyone likes Americans,” he answered succinctly.

  “This past year he pretended to be a French botanist while cozying up to an arms smuggler with a passion for plants,” Hannah divulged, noting Sara’s intense interest. “Is it okay for me to tell her that?” she asked, sending Chase a wide-eyed look.

  Chase just frowned at her.

  “A botanist,” Sara marveled, with a visible shudde
r for the danger inherent in such a mission. “I didn’t realize that your concealment had to be so complete.”

  “It was a special assignment linked to a CIA-related endeavor,” Hannah explained. “Not his usual thing.”

  “I knew a lot about plants already,” Chase admitted, shifting the focus to his cover. “’Course the varieties in Southeast Asia are different from the plants I grew up with,” he acceded with a shrug. “But it wasn’t that much of a problem learning what I needed to know.”

  “I love to garden,” Sara confided. “I was thinking that all those pots on the step could be put to good use, if you don’t mind,” she asked him.

  He stabbed at his food. “Why would I mind?” he answered.

  Sara’s smile lit her up from the inside. Chase glanced up and stared.

  Watching him wrestle with his attraction was probably the best entertainment Hannah had enjoyed in years. She couldn’t wait to tell her husband that Westy, the baddest boy in SEAL Team Twelve, had fallen hard.

  But the evening wasn’t over yet. They retired to the living room, where Kendal popped a video about bobcats into his VCR. He’d checked it out at the library. Hannah seated herself intentionally in the armchair, leaving Chase and Sara to share the sofa. She sat at one end; he at the other.

  But every glance, every nuance of their body language, betrayed nerve-plucking awareness of each other.

  An hour later, Hannah decided to let nature take its course. Chase trailed her into the kitchen, where she carried her glass. “You’re not leavin’, are you?” he asked with a hint of desperation.

  “Yeah, it’s getting late. I need to pester some IRS people who left the office early on Friday. I still don’t have those tax returns for Willard Smith that I requested.”

  “You could stay a little longer,” he suggested.

  She put her hands on his shoulders, thinking he was certainly a lot shorter than Luther was. “You’ll be fine without me, Westy,” she reassured him. “Stop fighting it,” she added on a whisper. “That only makes it worse.”

  The muscles flexing under her hand were every bit as dense as Luther’s, though.

  With a sisterly pat, she let him go. Bidding Sara good night, she thanked her and Kendal both for an enjoyable evening.

  Chase escorted her out to her car, notably quiet.

  “Check in with me tomorrow,” Hannah invited, slipping behind the wheel. She couldn’t wait to find out how his evening ended.

  “Take it slow on the way home,” he replied. “Watch for deer.”

  She backed up, executing a swift U-turn. A final glance in her rearview mirror showed Chase still standing in the driveway, looking as tense as a loaded gun.

  Hannah chuckled.

  Sara tucked a sleepy Kendal into bed. They discussed the possibility of a play date tomorrow with Kendal’s new friend, Eric. She left his room, confident that he would be happy here in Broken Arrow, even after Chase was gone.

  Hearing Chase in the shower, she slipped into her own room to prepare for bed. She had just donned the pale pink nightgown Rachel had bought for her and was heading to the kitchen for a glass of cold water, when Chase emerged from the bathroom, towel girded around his hips.

  They collided—slinky polyester meeting warm, moist skin—and jumped back.

  “Sorry.”

  A tense silence ensued as they eyed each other under the hall light. A water droplet slid from Chase’s collarbone, over a dense pectoral muscle, and down washboard abs, drawing Sara’s gaze down to where the towel covered his lean hips. His half-naked splendor made her head spin. She reached for the wall, needing it to keep her balance.

  “Good night,” Chase said, but he seemed incapable of turning away.

  She thought of the kiss they’d shared before she left for Texas. For days after, she’d recited all the reasons why she couldn’t kiss Chase like that again. Oddly enough, she couldn’t recall a single one of those reasons right now.

  With an impulsive step, she closed the space between them, rolled up on her toes, and kissed his cheek. “Good night.”

  His response was far more demonstrative. In a lightning move, he hooked an arm around her waist. He hauled her against him, caught her lips with his, and kissed her hard.

  With a groan of relief, Sara kissed him back, blindly, arms coiling around his neck, fingers sliding into his damp, wavy hair. The kiss was a scalding eruption of repressed passion.

  It escalated to the next level as Chase backed her against the wall, using the partition to secure her to him as he slid his scorching palms up her body and cupped both of her breasts. “Tell me to stop,” he commanded roughly.

  “Don’t stop,” she countered, welcoming the heady plundering of his tongue as he kissed her again.

  He grasped her bottom, lifting her higher. His towel shifted. Sara groaned as his arousal prodded her hip.

  With a glance at Kendal’s closed door, he turned and half carried Sara into her darkened bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him.

  There in the cool shadows, he kissed and kissed and kissed her, until her senses were befuddled, and she was too weak to stand.

  He eased her onto the edge of the bed. “Be right back,” he promised, releasing her.

  As he disappeared down the hall, securing his towel as he went, she wondered what he was up to. At the same time, she questioned herself. Was she really going to do this, acting against her better judgment?

  But how could she stop now, when every cell in her body, every nerve, every inch of skin cried out for his touch?

  Chase reappeared with a fistful of shiny wrappers. He’d closed the door and tossed them onto the bedside table before she realized what they were.

  “Oh,” she said, wondering how to tell him that condoms weren’t necessary.

  He didn’t seem inclined to talk. He reached for her again, pressing her gently back into the patch of moonlight that warmed her sheets. Then he came up over her, tugging the towel off his hips.

  Oh, my heavens.

  Her heart pounded with anticipation. She’d never seen anything more erotic than the way Chase looked, braced on his elbows above her, eyes hot with desire, fully aroused.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he rasped, his thoughts obviously running parallel to hers.

  He put his mouth to the artery that pulsed warmly at the side of her neck. With nips and licks, he followed the slender column to the curve of her shoulder and lower, pushing down the straps of her nightgown as he went. He peeled back the slinky fabric of her gown, revealing her breasts to the moonlight.

  With a groan, he lowered his head. Sara gasped and arched her back, welcoming the scalding heat of his mouth as he worshipped her tenderly, honestly. Her fingers sifted through the untamed locks of his hair, finding it soft, silky to the touch.

  Drawing her nipples into peaks, he blew a moist stream of air over them as he lifted the hem of her nightgown past her thighs. His work-roughened hands skimmed her hips, her abdomen, and slipped between her legs to caress the warm, moist fabric in between. “Sara,” he whispered with intense feeling.

  She couldn’t believe it either, that her private fantasies were becoming real, that they were even more powerful than she’d imagined.

  She touched him back, smoothing her hands over the breadth of his shoulders, to the furred mounds of his chest muscles, over rock-hard abs, and lower, until she held him in her hands, thinking . . . Oh, yes, this’ll be nothing like it was with Garret.

  But then he was easing away from her, and she realized his intent with a hot flash of anticipation. His tongue slid warmly along her inner thigh, so close that she thought she would die. Then, again, closer still. He dragged her panties over her hips and nudged her legs apart.

  She had to fist the sheets to keep the bed from whirling. Intense, heated pleasure spread from the apex of her thighs to her breasts, to every extremity of her body. Chase pressed his palm into the plane of her pelvis. He slipped a finger into her warmth, and then two, his tongue neve
r ceasing its gentle lashing.

  A fever swept through Sara, moistening her skin. She looked down at her breasts, gilded with moonlight. Beyond them was Chase, his bright eyes watchful even in the dark, waiting for her to . . . Oh, my God . . . to fall apart.

  With a sob of bliss, she climaxed.

  He brought her gently back to earth. When her eyes fluttered open, he was reaching for a condom.

  “You don’t need that,” she said, hardly recognizing the husky voice that came from her.

  At the verge of tearing it open, he hesitated. “You want me to stop?” he asked on a strange note.

  “Oh, no. Oh, Chase, I wouldn’t do that.” She came up on her elbows. “It’s just that . . . you can’t get me pregnant. I can’t have any more children.”

  Even in the shadows, she saw his searching look. “Complications?”

  “Lots of complications,” she admitted. “So many that I gave Garret Power of Attorney because I was hospitalized for weeks before my due date. I had no idea he’d use it the way he did.”

  Chase frowned and waited.

  “He told the doctor that I wanted my tubes tied so that it would never happen again,” she added. “Garret told me later that he never wanted children in the first place.”

  Chase didn’t move. Sara sensed his anger growing. “I have to say something,” he finally grated. “That man had better not come anywhere close to you ever again, or I’ll rip his fucking head off.”

  The lethal tone in which he spoke made Sara’s blood run cold. “Don’t say that,” she whispered, not in defense of Garret but because she didn’t want Chase to have to go to jail for protecting her. “He won’t find me here,” she reassured him.

  “No,” Chase agreed with a shuddering breath. He reached out and gently stroked the side of her face, “I’m sorry,” he added. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “That’s okay.” His vehemence gave her hope that he cared about her, enough to come back to her when his four years were up. His gentle touch had her melting all over again.