Switchback

by Catherine Anderson

  At last, Mac drew up beside a black Cadillac. Relief washed through Mallory when Mac tried the door and it wasn’t locked. He threw his gun on the seat and bent to locate the ignition wires under the dash. Within seconds, the engine sputtered, kicked over and roared to life. “Let’s go!” he cried.

  Mallory leaped in on the passenger side, slammed her door and put on her seat belt. Glancing over at Mac, she clamped a hand to her chest and gulped for air. He ran his palms over her, feeling for blood. “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  He jerked the shift into Drive and peeled the tires in a U-turn, throwing her sideways in the seat. As the car sped down the street, she leaned her head against the rest and struggled for air, her mouth slack, eyes closed, body slick with sweat. They were safe—at least for now. It didn’t matter that they were in a stolen car. It didn’t matter that there was a dead man in her kitchen. It didn’t matter that her house was shot apart, bullets embedded everywhere. They were safe... She didn’t know how she would ever explain this to the police, and for the moment, she didn’t have the energy to worry about it.

  * * *

  MAC DROVE NORTH to a seedy motel on Highway 99 on the outskirts of Everett. Mallory sat in the stolen car while he rousted the motel manager out of his bed and rented a room. At any moment, she expected him to come back to the car and say he had been turned away, but evidently run-down motels with white paint and hot-pink trim weren’t all that particular about their patrons. Shirtless and barefoot, Mac looked none too respectable, nice car or not. Thank goodness he hadn’t emptied his pants pockets earlier tonight before crawling into bed. He had his charge cards with him.

  “Room eleven, my lucky number,” he said as he climbed back into the Cadillac. His voice sounded oddly tight. He pulled into a parking space only a short distance from the office and cut the car engine. Picking up his gun, he wedged it under his waistband. “I’m afraid this isn’t the Ritz. The big advertised feature is a vibrating bed.”

  Mallory hugged her robe to her breasts and climbed from the car, glancing nervously around the dark parking lot before she closed the door. The manager peered out the lobby window at her and shook his gray head, clearly bewildered. She supposed it wasn’t often that women arrived here in their nightclothes. It was putting the cart before the horse, she had to admit. Just so long as he didn’t think they looked so suspicious that he called the police. That was all that mattered.

  Horrid wasn’t the word to describe their room, but close. The hot-pink walls had faded and gathered grime until they were more gray than pink. The pink chenille bedspread was missing sections of fringe. The scarlet rug was worn bare in places. Mac jerked the bedding back. “Sheets are fresh.” He stepped into the bathroom and flipped on the fan-light. A loud rattle began in the ceiling. He quickly hit the switch again to turn it off. “Clean towels and a sanitary guard on the toilet. I guess it’ll do until daylight. Sorry, Mallory, but places like this don’t ask questions or call in to check license plates.”

  With that, he put his gun on the dresser and sank into a frayed red easy chair, propping his elbows on his knees and burying his face in his hands. Mallory stared at him. He was shaking. She had seen him walk away from a switchblade fight and an exploding car without any outward sign of fear. Had he been shot and not told her? She scanned him for any trace of blood.

  “Mac?” She took a halting step toward him. “Mac, you aren’t hurt?” He didn’t answer. She ran to him and began searching frantically for a wound. “Mac?”

  With no warning, he snaked an arm around her waist, fell back in the chair and swept her onto his lap. A strange sound erupted from his chest as his arms tightened their hold. His body trembled violently. He buried his face in the curve of her neck and clung to her. She felt wetness trickle past the collar of her gown and realized, with a shock, that he was crying.

  “I—I thought they’d killed you,” he croaked. “I woke up to the gunfire, and I thought they’d killed you.”

  “Oh, Mac... I’m all right.” She ran her hands into his hair and closed her eyes. “I’m fine. Nothing happened.”

  For an endless time, he clung to her. Then he rubbed his cheeks dry on her robe and whispered, “I’ve never felt this way before. Not about anyone.”

  She knew he was referring to the crazy, irrational attachment they were developing for each other. How long had she known him now? She tried to count the days, but they stretched into eternity in her mind. Mac had always been there, always would be.

  “Mallory...?”

  There was a weak note of warning in his voice. He loosened his hold on her and moved back to capture her face between his hands. His eyes searched hers, aching with confusion and need. For a moment, she thought he might kiss her. But at the last second, he cursed under his breath and averted his face.

  “This is insane,” he said with ragged intensity. His hands dropped to his lap and he gave her a little nudge to move her. The moment she stood, he sprang from the chair, took a step and sprawled on the bed, rolling onto his back. He grabbed the pillow lying above his head and plopped it down in the middle of the mattress. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting some sleep before I do something we’ll both regret. And, please, no cracks about a pillow not being enough to keep me away from you. It’s better than nothing.”

  With that, he turned onto his side, his broad back to the pillow, his head resting on his folded arm. For a moment, Mallory stared at the pitifully inadequate barrier he had erected, then she stepped to the door and touched the light switch. The room was plunged into an eerie blackness that was soon streaked by muted pink rays of light that shone through the red drapes. The silence dripped tension, suffocating and electrical. She pressed her back to the wall.

  “Come lie down,” he whispered. “You can’t stand there all night.”

  Mallory peeled off her robe, slung it on the floor and circled him to climb into the bed, careful to stay on her side. The pillow was soft against her hip as she stretched out on her back. His breathing was tense and measured. She found herself wishing he would fall asleep and begin to snore. It was a comfortable sound, and she had grown accustomed to hearing it.

  For what seemed like forever, she lay there, rigid and uncertain. She had already slept several hours and, tired as she was from running, it wasn’t a drowsy tired, just bone-deep weariness. Than, at last, he started snoring and her eyelids grew heavy. She slipped into slumber without realizing it. At first she dreamed of men chasing them with guns.

  Then the scene changed abruptly, and Mallory found herself in a room filled with small white gift boxes, lids decorated with shimmering ribbons. For some reason, the sight of them struck terror into her. She didn’t want to open them, didn’t want to see what they held, but there were so many on the floor that she couldn’t take a step without bumping one. Her skin began to prickle with panic. A scream slid up the back of her throat. She whirled to run and overturned a box. A fluff of tissue paper spilled out and began to unfurl. Within its folds was a child’s hand. Mallory stared down at it. Emily. She began to whimper. All the boxes began to tip sideways. She knew what they held. She heard Darren’s voice pleading with her. Do something. Don’t just stand there and let us die. Not again. Save us. Cruel laughter began to echo off the walls...

  Mac jerked awake, his muscles knotted, every nerve ending alert. He wasn’t sure what had disturbed him. Then he heard it, a strangled whimpering sound. Rolling over, he rose on an elbow. In the shafts of pink light, he could see Mallory thrashing in her sleep. He grasped her shoulder to waken her. Her flannel gown was sopped with sweat. “Mallory? Sweetheart, wake up.”

  She woke up, all right, swinging at him and screaming, the sounds shrill and piercing. Acutely aware of how thin the walls probably were, Mac clamped a hand over her mouth and scrambled over the pillow lying between them. He felt her teeth sinking into his palm. He used his body to pin her thrashing limbs.

  “Mallory—honey, it’s me, it’s only me. It’s a
nightmare, just a nightmare.”

  Her teeth worried the leather skin that padded his knuckles. Her breath whined through her nose. Her eyes were huge above his hand, still glazed with terror. Then, with a muffled sob, she went limp and began to cry, an awful, tearing sound. His stomach knotted. He drew his hand from her mouth and enfolded her in his arms, pulling her close and slinging his leg over hers.

  “Boxes,” she sobbed. “Everywhere. He did it, Mac, he did it. Her hand...he sent her home to me in pieces.”

  Nausea rolled through him in waves. “Oh, Mallory...”

  The violent shaking of her body reminded him of that first night when he had found her rocking Ragsdale. Only this time, he didn’t have to ask her to come to him. She was wrapped around him like a sarong. He could feel her heart slamming, her skin pulsating and growing hot as her blood sluiced through her veins. Her slender arms were cinched around his neck, rigid in their hold, her face pressed against his shoulder.

  Mac feathered kisses from her temple to her brow and whispered softly, not sure what he was saying, responding instinctively to her need. Running his hands over her, he kneaded her tortured muscles, forcing out the kinks, his one thought being to comfort her. Damn Lucetti for doing this to her.

  He wasn’t sure when his motives changed. Desire flared inside him with a suddenness that blinded him, red and searing. His own heart accelerated its beat to match hers. He wanted her, had to have her. It wasn’t a thought or even a decision, just an instinctive taking that erupted from a dark, conscienceless place within him.

  As overwhelming as the impulse was, Mac would have stopped if Mallory had seemed hesitant. But when he kissed her, she sobbed into his mouth and pressed closer, the urgency in her body matching his own. He had imagined loving her...sweetly, gently, languorously, coaxing her not to be shy. This was nothing like that. It was hunger that left no room for gentle coaxing, too elemental to be sweet.

  In the nether regions of his mind, he was vaguely aware that he was peeling off her gown as though it were the skin on a succulent fruit and he was a starving man. As the flannel hem skidded up her torso, he followed in its wake with his mouth, devouring the taste of her skin, nibbling with his lips, then with his teeth, his senses electrified by her cries as he grazed each of her ribs. Like a moth drawn to flame, he found her breast, drawing its sensitive peak into his mouth to lave it with wet heat. She whimpered and arched her body up to him, her muscles quivering and jerking with each relentless pull. Little warning bells went off inside his head. She was a small woman with skin as soft as velvet. He didn’t want to hurt her. But the moment he started to surface to a more reasoning plane of consciousness, she moaned and clung, dragging him back down with her into a kaleidoscopic world where sensation ruled.

  Mallory. She was rose petals and honey, berry froth and cream, an elusive, silken temptress who entwined herself in a pink mist around him. Or was it the pink shimmering shafts of light that angled across the bed? When he slitted his eyes, he saw only her, felt only her. A delectable confection that melted against him. Beautiful, precious, unattainable Mallory.

  With feverish urgency, he trailed his hungry lips down her belly to her navel and the satiny skin below, his tongue finding the tiny white ridges left there by her pregnancy with Em. Oddly enough, each mark made her all the more beautiful to him. When he started to move lower to find the throbbing sweetness of her womanhood, he felt her stiffen, heard her call his name in a tremulous whisper.

  He murmured a husky protest, but forced himself to stop. He could tell by the way she had said his name that she was shocked right down to her prim little manicured toenails. Trailing kisses back up her body, he once again found her mouth, claiming it with masterful thrusts of his tongue that soon made her forget her momentary shyness. When he felt her melting against him, he slid his hand to the juncture of her thighs, found her moistness and contented himself with gently stroking her. The first sweep of his fingers made her gasp. He felt her lashes brush his cheek as her eyes flew open. Perplexed, he deepened their kiss. She grabbed his wrist and tried to pull his hand away. It was his turn to feel shocked. Maybe wealthy fellows didn’t make love the same way poor boys did.

  Freeing her mouth, he feathered kisses to her ear, keeping his hand insinuated between her thighs. “Trust me, Mallory.”

  “I—” Her breath caught and she shuddered. “I’m sorry.”

  He drew back slightly to see her. “Sorry?”

  “It’s been—since Darren—no one else—ever.” Her eyes widened and her facial muscles tightened as his fingers found with unerring accuracy the supersensitive flesh they had been seeking.

  He couldn’t resist kissing the quivering corners of her mouth even though part of him wanted nothing more than to watch her small face while he explored her sensitive flesh and made her passions peak. “Don’t hold back. Trust me.” He felt her legs relaxing, parting ever so slightly. Her hips instinctively lifted toward his hand and he watched as her pupils dilated and her lashes drifted halfway closed. A tremor ran the length of her, slight but unmistakable. He read her expressions and knew the exact moment when she felt herself slipping over the edge. “Ah, Mallory, let go, let it happen.”

  A whimper worked its way up her throat and her eyes drifted completely closed. With arms that were suddenly aquiver, she hugged his neck and arched toward his hand with mindless abandon, a cry tearing up from her throat as he brought her to climax. Afterward, he cradled her shuddering form against him, pressing kisses to her closed eyelids. When at last the aftershocks left her body, he peeled off his slacks and rose over her.

  She showed no hesitation as he entered her. She was honey and silk and fire, all rolled into one small perfectly shaped woman who clung to him and met him thrust for thrust. So sweet. He couldn’t believe how good she felt, how good she made him feel.

  When he had spent himself, Mac didn’t want to release her. It was over, yet it wasn’t. He realized as he gathered her close in his arms that with Mallory it would never be over, never be something he could walk away from and forget the moment his tie was straightened. He doubted that he’d ever get all of her that he wanted.

  A smile curved his mouth. He buried his face in her hair and inhaled the sweet smell of her. When had her scent become so familiar and so dear to him? Mallory. How had he let himself fall for her like this? Was he out of his mind? Had Randy’s death taught him nothing? He closed his eyes and drew her closer. Later, he’d worry about it later...

  Time drifted by like mist on a windless night. Mallory had no idea how long she lay there in Mac’s arms. He was long since asleep, his arms locked tightly around her, his face buried in her hair, clinging to her as if to assure himself, even in slumber, that she was there and safe. She pressed closer to him. He had been her one and only constant since this had begun. Warm, solid, her only security. She stared into the shadows, afraid to close her eyes. The nightmare she was living was terrifying enough. She couldn’t bear to face it in her sleep, where she was completely helpless against it.

  * * *

  COME DAYLIGHT, the room looked even dingier than it had last night. Mac woke slowly, deliciously aware of the silken body he held clamped in his arms, of the soft curve of buttock pressed against his awakening manhood. He had a small breast cupped in one hand. Desire shot through him like an electrical charge. Instinctively he started to disentangle himself, then hesitated. Sudden movement would wake Mallory, and she needed rest.

  He closed his eyes on a wave of guilt. What had he been thinking last night? That was exactly the problem. He hadn’t been thinking, period. He had woken up out of a sound sleep and done what came naturally, the devil take tomorrow. She wasn’t the kind of woman to have sex with just anyone. And what could he offer her? He had seen the look on her face the night before last when she had first seen him in his street clothes. Shock, apprehension, uncertainty as to what to expect from him. And later, on the streets, she had been completely out of her element.

  She was th
e daughter of an ex-congressman. She had grown up eating her cereal out of a crystal bowl. She thought poor meant driving a Cadillac instead of a Mercedes-Benz. Mac could show her what poor really was. He had lived poverty, breathed it, clawed his way up from it. They had nothing in common, nothing. If they ever once got into a deep conversation, she would immediately realize how little education he had. And it would tear him apart to lose her once he let himself start to love her.

  Once he let himself? What a joke that was. He was already in over his head and floundering. Gently he disengaged himself from her sweet softness and slid from the bed, dragging on his slacks. She murmured something and rolled over, reaching for him. He stared over his shoulder at the bruise on her face, at the cut on her collarbone. Fragile. If he had even a grain of decency, he’d end this now. For her sake. And for his own.

  “Mac?”

  “I’m here.” His throat tightened as her thick lashes lifted and her deep brown eyes sought his. How could he be brusque with her? Or hold her at arm’s length? She needed someone to lean on, someone to hold her, comfort her and care. And like it or not, he was the only someone available. With a silent groan, he sat down and enfolded her hand in his. “I’m here, honey.”

  She clung to his fingers. “I thought you’d left.”

  “I won’t leave. You know that.” His problem was that he liked being there for her all too well.

  She started to sit up, then remembered she was naked. Her cheeks flushed a delicate pink as she scrambled for the sheet and covered herself. Momentary confusion played upon her face. He could almost read her thoughts as she slowly cataloged the room around her and remembered exactly what had transpired between them a few hours before. Guilt roiled within him. He should have maintained control. Her blush deepened to crimson as her gaze slid to his back. Slowly her eyes climbed the ladder of his ribs to meet his gaze. There was a question in the look. Are you sorry?

  He jerked his hand from hers, stood and buckled his belt. Damned right, he was sorry. To distract her and himself, he strode to the window and glanced out, pretending he thought there might be someone out there. He didn’t, but any ruse that worked wasn’t beneath him. “You know, I just can’t figure it out. We’ve both agreed that it can’t be Lucetti trying to kill you. But if it’s not Lucetti, who?”