by Rita Herron
Sarah nodded, and signed that she was bruised and shaken, but had no life-threatening injuries.
“I know you must be upset.” Bernstein said. “I—”
“Sarah.”
Sarah jerked her head up at the sound of Adam’s familiar gruff voice. Bernstein craned her neck to see him, a smile lifting her lips. “Made it awfully fast, Black.”
“I was at the marina.”
Sarah ached for him to hold her, but he stood ramrod straight, his jaw tight, countless emotions swirling in his dark gazehe didn’t understand. But the pain that resided in those depths told her he hadn’t found his sister.
As if she sensed Sarah wanted to talk to Adam, Officer Bernstein moved aside to speak to another officer.
“What did you find out about Denise?” Sarah asked, letting the paramedic interpret for her.
A second of anguish tightened Adam’s jaw, but he swallowed, his voice controlled when he spoke. “Gates is dead. Looks like suicide. He left a note declaring his love for Denise, implying that he might have killed her.”
Tears filled Sarah’s eyes. She’d tried to hold it together after the accident, had tried to be brave, but seeing the desolation in Adam’s expression hammered away the last of her control. Somehow, though irrationally, she felt responsible for not finding Denise in time. Adam knelt, a shaky sigh escaping him, then pulled her into his arms.
Sarah buried herself in his warmth, taking solace in his strong embrace as he crooned comforting words and held her tight.
EMOTIONS CLOGGED Adam’s throat as he pulled Sarah tighter against his chest. He might have already lost Denise; he could barely even think of it. He didn’t want to lose Sarah, too.
He didn’t have time to analyze his feelings or even fight them; but he knew that at that moment he was more connected to her than to any woman he’d ever known, and her silent tears tore into him.
Silent, suffering, brave Sarah.
He shouldn’t have left her alone. He wouldn’t do so again, not until he’d found the person trying to hurt her and locked him behind bars.
“Are you really all right?” he choked out.
She nodded against his chest, her tears soaking his already damp shirt.
Adam turned to the paramedic with raised brows.
“She has a sprain and some bruises,” the young man replied, “but she’s going to be fine. She should have that ankle X-rayed.”
“All right. We will,” Adam assured him. He stroked Sarah’s wet hair from her face, cupped her chin in his jerky hands and forced her to look into his eyes. A muscle ticked in his jaw when he noticed the sharp redness to her cheek.
Her trembling started again.
“I’m so sorry, Sarah, you don’t deserve all this.” Adam gently traced a finger over her swollen cheek. “Do you want me to call your godfather?”
She shook her head no, an odd almost frightened look in her eye. Why wouldn’t she want Santenelli to know she’d been in an accident?
He pressed a gentle kiss to her temple. “Tell me everything that happened.”
She pulled away from him slightly and signed, letting the paramedic interpret for her again, relaying the details of the accident.
Adam’s face blanched. “Someone intentionally forced you off the road?She nodded, her bottom lip quivering.
“Did you see what kind of car hit you?”
“No, it was dark and the storm was raging around me.”
“I don’t understand,” Adam said, questions racing through his head. “We thought the person tried to hurt you because of Denise. But if Gates kidnapped Denise, and he’s dead, we must be wrong.”
Unless Gates hadn’t kidnapped his sister, Adam thought, silently. Or unless someone wanted Sarah dead and it had nothing to do with Denise.
IT SEEMED LIKE HOURS later when they finished with X rays and Adam drove her home from the hospital. Sarah huddled inside the blanket. She couldn’t get warm, couldn’t relax, couldn’t forget that she and Sol had fought. That she had seen the article about her father possibly being alive. That she had almost died. And that Adam thought Denise might already be dead at the hands of Donny Gates.
Adam’s questions tumbled through her mind. If Gates had kidnapped Denise and killed himself, who had followed her and caused her to crash? And why? With Denise’s death being blamed on Donny, all the questions about Adam’s sister would be put to rest.
It didn’t make sense.
She stole a look at Adam and shivered, a cold engulfing her from the inside out. He looked as if he were barely holding himself together. His hands were clenched around the steering wheel, his shoulders stiff, his eyes glued to the road. He must be hurting so much inside. She ached for him, and desperately wanted to make everything all right.
But then there was Sol. She hadn’t told Adam about the article suggesting her father might still be alive. Although Sol had denied it, she had to find out if there had been any reason to think her father might have survived the fire.
But if he had, wouldn’t the police or the FBI have gone after him?
So what had upset her godfather so badly? She’d never seen him lose his temper before like that, especially at her. He’d always been so loving, her Rock of Gibraltar.
But her rock had crumbled, and she didn’t know if she would ever feel the same about him again.
Adam’s hands shook so badly he didn’t know if he could make it to Sarah’s. The day had been too much. The revelations about Gates, finding those pictures, discovering Gates dead, then not finding Denise. And Sarah’s accident.
She could have died.
His chest constricted, the air caught in his lungs, and suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Feeling out of control, he slowed the car and pulled into a picnic area overlooking the ocean and forced himself to do some breathing exercises.
Sarah stirred and opened her sleepy bedroom eyes. The rain had finally slacked off, and a sliver of the moon peeked from behind the black clouds, illuminating the red bruise on her cheek. She looked so pale and fragile, yet she was so tough. She’d put herself in danger to help him and Denise.
He couldn’t fight his need any longer. He dragged her into his arms and kissed her, forgeing all about her innocence as he sated himself with her sweet, tantalizing taste. A mixture of Earl Grey tea, heat and passion.
Her lips felt supple beneath his, her soft sigh of surrender a plea for more. Like a starving man, he had to touch her. His hands skated along her neck, then skimmed down her back, pulling her tightly into the hard planes of his body. She felt soft and filled him with a headiness he’d never felt before. She threaded her fingers in the sides of his hair, responding with a fiery hunger that sent his senses spinning. His sex stirred and swelled as he cupped her breasts. Her chest heaved with a shaky breath, and he drove his tongue inside her mouth, tracing a finger over her tight nipple. The ocean crashed in the background and the whisper of night sounds played music around them, her raspy breath like a lover’s caress.
Dropping kisses along her neck, he slipped his hand beneath her shirt, groaning when his palm brushed warm skin. Then he was pulling at her bra, tearing away the cups so his hands could fit over her bare breast. The soft whimper she emitted nearly undid him.
He wanted to hear her call his name.
The realization that she couldn’t jolted him back to reality. To the fact that Sarah was vulnerable and needed things he could never give her. Like a tender man, not one driven by lust and rough emotions, not one constantly surrounded by danger. She needed marriage and children. The kind of life he’d given up on a long time ago. The kind of life he didn’t deserve, not after letting Pamela die.
Still, he wanted her so badly he could barely help himself. And he cared for her more than he could ever tell her.
“God, Sarah, I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
She clutched his arms and tried to force him to meet her gaze, but he shook his head. “Don’t. I shouldn’t have mauled you like that. For God’s s
ake, someone just tried to kill you.”
His harsh words snapped her out of the sensual haze surrounding them, and she stiffened. Without another word, he righted her clothes, pulled back onto the street and drove in silence the rest of the way home.
Chapter Fourteen
The minute Adam helped Sarah into her house, the phone trilled. Adam watched, letting the answering machine kick on.
“Sarah, listen this is Sol. I’m—” he hesitated, his voice cracking “—I’m sorry about earlier. I don’t know what came over me. I’ve been under a lot of stress with the center, and I thought we got past this thing with your dad a long time ago.” He cleared his throat. “I guess I thought that after all these years, you considered me your father, and…well, I’m sorry I lost my temper. Please call me, honey. I love you.”
The phone clicked into silence. Sarah looked shaken. Adam coaxed her to sit down and take the weight off her injured ankle.
“What was he talking about, Sarah?”
She shrugged, not meeting his eyes.
He lifted her chin with his thumb, his gut clenching at the raw emotions swirling in her expressBecause of their heated kiss or her godfather? “Tell me what happened. When I left you at Santenelli’s, I thought you planned to stay there.”
She tapped her fingernails on her leg for a moment, then picked up a pad and wrote, “I was, but Sol and I got into an argument.”
“About what?”
She sighed. “I was asking questions about my dad. He didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Then what?”
“I wanted to keep the scrapbooks he had, he wanted to burn them. We argued and he—”
“He what?”
“He hit me,” Sarah finished.
Anger blazed inside Adam, swift and hard. His hand rose to her cheek, the barest touch of his fingertip grazing the tender spot. “Is that how you got this bruise?”
Sarah nodded, still not meeting his gaze.
Her godfather was the one person she trusted and loved, yet he’d hurt her.
Trembling with the power of his emotions, Adam took a deep breath. “Is that why you borrowed his car and drove off?”
She nodded again, hugging her arms around her waist.
He wanted to touch her again so badly he had to fist his hands by his sides. If he did touch her, it would be a repeat of what happened in the car. He’d be helpless to control his hunger.
So he didn’t touch her. He simply whispered her name. “Sarah.”
She finally looked into his eyes.
“Has your godfather ever hit you before?”
She shook her head no, and relief surged through him. The shock of the evening was wearing on her, though. Her face looked pale, her vibrant blue eyes dull. “Why don’t you take a warm bath? I’ll fix us something to eat.”
She tried to stand, wincing when she put weight on her sore ankle, so he picked her up, then headed to the bathroom. He helped her sit down on the toilet, then turned the hot water on and added bubble bath to the steamy water.
“I’m sorry about your godfather,” he said quietly.
She shrugged, lifted her chin in defiance as if to say it didn’t matter.
But it did.
He saw the anguish in the way she stiffened.
Only he had no idea how to help her.
SARAH SLOWLY undressed, the stiffness in her body a testament to her earlier fall. The day had been hell.
But Adam’s kiss had been heaven.
Why had he stopped? And why did he think it was a mistake?
Granted she was innocent, but she’d had the powerful urge to throw herself into his arms again and beg him to make lo
He obviously found her lacking.
She couldn’t allow herself to lean on him again. She had taken care of herself for a long time. She would go on doing so when Adam walked out of her life.
After all, if she needed anything, Sol was always there for her. Or at least he had been in the past. But would she feel comfortable going to him after what had happened between them today?
Could her father truly be alive?
She slipped on a robe, tiptoed over to her laptop and pulled up all the stories she could find on her father and the company. But a half hour later, she’d discovered nothing to suggest he might have survived.
Exhausted, she pinned her hair on top of her head, reheated the water and sank into the warm soapy water in the bathtub.
Her muscles protested, the strain of the day wearing on her physically and emotionally. Closing her eyes, she forced her breathing to slow, but the day’s events refused to leave her in peace.
Images of the fire that had killed her mother and almost taken her own life worked their way into her subconscious.
She was five years old again, lying on the couch taking a nap when the first sound of the explosion hit. A storm was brewing outside, thunder and lightning heating up the sky. She’d thought the sound had been thunder. She tried to run to her mother.
“Get out! Run!” her mother screamed.
But Sarah couldn’t, not without her mother. Then another explosion rent the air and flames burst all around her. Sarah’s mother appeared in the doorway, flames eating at her. Sarah screamed and ran toward her. But her mother pushed her away and Sarah cried out.
“Run, Sarah, run!”
Sarah panicked and tripped. Flames licked at her as she sprawled on the floor. Terrified, she searched for her daddy. She saw him outside the window looking in.
Yes, her father would save them.
Then pain slammed into her head, and she fell into silence. A cold, deafening, lonely, terrifying silence.
Blackness swirled around her. Then she was waking up in the hospital. She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t talk.
“Your mommy and daddy are gone,” Sol had whispered.
She couldn’t hear his voice, but she saw the tears in his eyes and she knew her parents were dead.
No, she cried silently. It couldn’t be true. She had screamed out for her daddy to save them.
And then a few months later, someone told her that her father had set the explosion….
FRUSTRATED, Adam scrounged through Sarah’s cabinets and the refrigerator, searching for something to make a late-night supper for her. He wasn’t hungry
At least not for food.
He wanted Sarah.
Knowing she was lying naked in a bubble bath next door only added torture to his already pounding need. He imagined the water lapping at her breasts, touching her soft round flesh the way his hands itched to. He could see her long slender legs stretched out in the tub, bubbles dotting her calves, her thighs, the water kissing her bare belly, her navel, then lower….
Cursing his wandering libido, he forced himself to block out the images. His hunger for food could be abated. But his hunger for Sarah would have to go unfulfilled.
A quick survey of her cozy kitchen, the bright yellow-and-blue colors, the ceramic calico kittens she collected, the cheery wallpaper and the cozy den with its throw rugs and antiques, only made him think of Sarah more. Sarah Cutter spelled home—the cozy kind of home a normal family would have. The kind he’d had before his parents had died. Before he’d become a cop and learned how hard it was to support a family. Sarah was accustomed to nice things, things he’d never be able to give her.
He’d seen the vermin on the streets, and he’d pledged his life to deal with them. No, his lifestyle had nothing to do with home and hearth and raising kids.
That last night with his parents rose to taunt him. His dad hadn’t made much money, but he’d always made time for Adam. He’d thrown the ball with him at night, come to all his baseball games, built model cars with him. But his parents’ lives had been cut short by a drunk driver. The police had bungled the case, though, and the man had gotten away—the reason Adam had gone into police work. He’d sworn to avenge their deaths by being a good cop, by protecting other innocent people. Especially his sister. But he’d failed her.
He opened the wine and poured two glasses. He and Sarah both deserved a drink to settle their nerves. So, why did he ache for Sarah so much? She was nothing like the no-strings women he usually dated.
Whatever the reason, his hunger raged inside him like an uncontrollable beast. And his feelings for her increased by the minute. But he would not take Sarah. He was in control. Adam Black, detective, desperado, always in control.
A soft cry invaded his thoughts.
He hesitated, one hand on a container of something that appeared to be homemade soup, the other a loaf of French bread. What was that noise? Sarah’s cat?
No, Tigger lay curled up on the overstuffed armchair in the corner of the den. The cries grew louder, heart-wrenching in their intensity. The sound drifted from the bathroom. Sarah.
He sipped the wine, struggling over whether to go to her or to let her vent her emotions in private, the way he suspected she’d meant to do.
Only his gut was being torn in two.
He sipped the wine again, opened the container of soup and zapped it in the microwave. Her cries continued to haunt him. She would never ask for help, he realized, because he’d pushed her away.
Fisting his hands, he found himself at the bathroom door. He knocked gently, and waited, but she didn’t reply. Right or wrong, he couldn’t stop himself; he slipped inside.
She lay back in a sea of bubbles, her beautiful dark hair piled on top of her head, her face dropped forward in her hands, her body trembling with soft silent sobs.
He moved on autopilot, not questioning what he should do. He grabbed the big bath towel, pulled her up to stand, wrapped it around her and carried her to bed.
EMBARRASSED THAT Adam had seen her crying, and hating that she’d lost control, she pulled back. But Adam tunneled his fingers through her hair and held her tightly. She was naked and exposed, both physically and emotionally, she thought, willing herself to be strong. But Adam whispered her name, and she lost all willpower. She buried her head in his shoulder.
“Shh, it’s all right.”