She pulled off the cover and threw it on the floor. Deciding she didn’t want anything slithering over her in the dark, she left the lamp on. Careful not to touch the stain, she crawled onto the right side of the mattress.
Bedbugs be damned, she was exhausted.
CHAPTER TWO
The man chased her, the heavy tread of his boots pounding the pavement, growing louder as he caught up with her. Maria tried to run faster, but her legs refused to cooperate. Oh God, he was right behind her. He reached for her and grabbed her hair.
She screamed and shot out of the bed, gasping for air. Frantically searching her surroundings, she saw nothing familiar.
Where the hell was she?
The pounding continued.
“Dammit, Maria. Open the fucking door.”
Jake.
Thank God. She rushed to the door, tripping over the cover she’d thrown on the floor.
“Stop your banging, I’m coming.” The noise mercifully ceased.
“Unlock the damn door,” he said, much quieter.
Untangling herself from the offending spread, she stumbled toward the safety of his voice. The lock and chain were barely open before he pushed his way in and took her in his arms. Unable to resist Jake’s strong, fierce hold on her, Maria pressed into his embrace and tried to catch her breath. Maybe she should’ve called her brother, but she was glad she’d called Jake. So very, very glad.
He rested his chin on the top of her head, and she felt his chest rise and fall as though he too craved air. “Christ, you scared the hell out of me, woman. I was about ready to kick the door down. Why were you screaming? Why are you hiding out in a motel room?”
Where to begin? Wriggling away, she stumbled back, although it was the last thing she wanted to do. If she could spend eternity in his arms—no questions needing answers—she would fall to her knees in gratitude. But he hadn’t traveled two hundred miles to be put off.
The cover she’d removed from the bed rested on the floor between them. She stared at it, half expecting the thing to undulate like some kind of giant anaconda, proving the nightmare was real.
“What happened to you?” He brushed back her hair and gently touched the bruise. “Jesus, Maria, who did this? You better start explaining, or I’m going to call your brother. You should’ve called him in the first place. Talk.”
His tone sounded so cold and forbidding when she’d thought he would show up and . . . what? Cuddle her? Carry her home with him—no explanations needed? Stupid, stupid Maria. So naive. She just never learned.
“Tell me what’s going on, or I’m getting in my car and returning to my warm bed . . .” Something she couldn’t decipher glimmered in his eyes as he paused, his gaze focusing on her. “. . . where a lady eagerly awaits me.”
Maria didn’t believe him. He wouldn’t leave her like this. Not that she doubted there’d been a woman in his bed. There always was. She quashed the hurt, although why she cared was a mystery. Jake was what he was, and he hadn’t earned the nickname Romeo from his teammates for no reason. All that really mattered was that he had come when she’d called, and she somehow knew he always would.
“Start talking.” There wasn’t a sliver of tolerance in his voice.
She glanced around the dingy room. There were no chairs to be seen, and she couldn’t imagine them snuggling on the bed while she told him about her quest for Daddy dearest.
“Can we go somewhere else? This room gives me the creeps. Besides, I’m hungry.” When stressed, food comforted her, and she really was starving. Her last meal had been lunch the day before.
Jake gestured at the tote and plastic bag on the dresser. “Is this it?”
She nodded.
He picked them up along with her keys, wrapped his hand around her elbow, and escorted her out the door. “Where’s your car?”
“Sally’s over there behind the dumpster.”
“Why doesn’t it surprise me you named your car?” His lips thinned as he took in how she’d tried to hide the Mustang behind the dumpster. “Just how deep have you stepped in it, Maria?”
“I don’t know.” At his raised brow, she admitted to what she feared. “Maybe up to my eyeballs, I just don’t know.”
His gaze swept across the parking lot. “I don’t see anyone suspicious lurking about. We’ll leave your car here for now, at least until I know what I’m dealing with.” He prodded her toward his Challenger.
Maria glanced over her shoulder at her beloved Mustang and sent up a little prayer that no one would steal it.
Expecting a grilling as soon as the doors closed, she found Jake’s silence unnerving as he drove away from the motel. Tension rolled off him in waves. The all-night diner he pulled up to was only a few streets over from the motel. How he knew it was there was anyone’s guess. But then, he always seemed to know things others didn’t. When she started to open her door, he put his hand on her arm.
“Wait.” He stared into the rearview mirror for a minute. “Seems safe enough. Don’t get out until I’m at your side.”
Yes, safe. Jake would make certain of it. Maybe she should have tried to handle this herself, but at least she could admit she was out of her element. There were things she was good at, but creeping into dark basements the way women did in scary movies wasn’t one of them. She didn’t know how to investigate this on her own.
Maria dreaded having to explain why she had asked him to come. Poor little girl, looking for a daddy who’d obviously never tried to find her—although to give him credit, he probably didn’t know she existed. With all her being, she hoped Fortunada wasn’t him. Either way, he’d stolen her fantasy that all she had to do was announce herself and her father would welcome her with open arms, and most important, he’d be nothing like Lovey Dovey.
Positioning himself behind her, Jake followed Maria into the diner. The place was empty except for one man in a business suit at the counter. Jake led them to a table away from the window and sat facing the door. She slid into the booth across from him.
The waitress sauntered over, slapped a food-stained menu down, and poured two cups of coffee before turning her attention to Jake.
“Morning, honey, what can I get ya?”
He glanced at the woman’s name tag. “Surprise me, Terri.”
“If only. As for breakfast, big boy like you, you look like a steak and eggs kind of man.”
“How ’bout that? We’ve only just met and already you know me so well.” He flashed a grin that would have curled Maria’s toes if he’d meant it for her.
A dreamy smile appeared on Terri’s face.
Maria rolled her eyes. “I’d like a chili dog, loaded. Fries and a chocolate shake.”
The waitress tore her gaze away from Jake. “For breakfast?” Before Maria could answer, Terri’s eyes narrowed. “He do that to your face?”
Maria put her hand over the bruise. She shook her head. “No. No, it wasn’t him. I was . . . I was in a car accident.”
Terri’s obvious relief that the handsome devil sitting in her diner wasn’t a woman beater was almost funny. Or it would have been if Maria had been up to laughing. She didn’t blame Terri for eyeing him like he was a piece of candy she wanted to devour. He was a handsome, hazel-eyed devil. The only thing marring his face was a shrap-metal scar along his right cheek near his ear. She’d always thought it gave him character, that without it he would be too perfect.
“I see your ordeal, whatever it is, hasn’t affected your appetite,” he said after Terri left.
“You know I eat junk food when I’m upset.”
“And when you’re happy, sad, and all the emotions in between.”
True. Next to Logan and their foster mother, Mrs. Jankowski, he knew her better than anyone else. Not even her one boyfriend had understood her the way Jake did. There had been a time when she’d thought he liked her as more th
an a friend. But if he had, he hadn’t acted on it. She’d had a suspicion—still did—that her brother had warned him away.
“Time to talk, Maria.”
She supposed it was, but couldn’t stop a sigh from escaping. “I found a book—”
“More coffee, honey?”
“Yes, please,” Jake said.
Terri shoved a milk shake in front of Maria. While the waitress tried to make small talk with Jake, Maria busied herself removing the paper from the straw. Forgetting about her cut lip, she tried to suck the shake through the straw and winced.
Once they were alone again, Jake shrugged. “Sorry. I’m not trying to encourage her.”
No, he wasn’t. He just couldn’t help being a chick magnet. “Didn’t say you were.”
He leaned back and closed his eyes for a moment. His head lowered and he leveled an intense gaze on her. “I have a feeling we’re going to be interrupted all through breakfast. We’ll put a hold on the conversation we need to have for now.”
A reprieve. “Okay.”
All too soon, he’d paid the bill and ushered her out to his car. Ten minutes later, he pulled into a mall parking lot and parked at the far edge, under the shade of a tree. After turning off the engine, he shifted to face her. “Spill.”
No putting it off any longer. She touched her swollen face. “A man by the name of Hernando Fortunada did this, but I’m not sure what I interrupted. If I had to guess, I’d say he was about to rape a teenage girl.”
Jake didn’t trust himself to speak, and instead, focused his attention on the fingers clinching the steering wheel. His knuckles had turned white from the force of his grip. From the moment he’d seen the bruise on her face and the cut lip, he’d been on the edge of violence. He itched to get his hands on the bastard who’d dared to hurt her. And now, she was telling him she’d been a witness to an attempted rape and the man beat her up for stopping it?
That certainly explained her not wanting to call the boss. One glimpse of his sister’s face and Kincaid would’ve gone on a rampage. And she thought she could hide this from her brother? Her only chance of that would be if she moved to another planet.
As calmly and tenderly as he could manage, he said, “How the hell did you get involved in something like this?”
She jerked back against the car door. Well hell, he might as well have slapped her. Around her, he just didn’t act right. He scrubbed at his face. “Sorry, that came out wrong. Start from the beginning . . . please.”
Her eyes filled with tears. God help him, but he wanted to pull her onto his lap and hold her, somehow take away the hurt. The first time he’d met her, he had actually stuttered when her brother introduced them. A first for Romeo.
She’d been nineteen, a college student—a girl, for Christ’s sake. He didn’t touch girls, liked his women grown up, something he reminded himself every time he saw her. No longer a girl, she was twenty-four and so stunning he had trouble breathing normally around her.
Long hair so black it almost shimmered ink-blue; dark brown, cat-shaped eyes—bedroom eyes—and full lips that begged to be kissed to forever and back. Instead, he took her hand, the most he would allow himself to touch. It was ice cold even though the early Florida morning was already warm. She gripped him as if he were her lifeline. He shouldn’t like that so much.
In an effort to put a wall between them, he’d purposely told her there had been a woman in his bed. Although true, he wasn’t sure there was a barrier he could erect to keep Maria out, simply because he didn’t want to.
“Well? I’m waiting.” The only thing he really wanted to know was where to find Hernando Fortunada.
She darted a glance at him before focusing on their joined hands. “You want to hear it from the beginning? That would be the day I was conceived by an unknown man, but I’ll skip ahead. After Lovey Dovey died, Mrs. Jankowski helped me pack up her stuff. A few things worth salvaging we gave to Goodwill, but most of it we threw away. But there was one box she said I should keep and go through some day. I finally did that a few months ago.” She paused and turned her face to the window.
He stayed quiet, giving her time to compose herself. Every problem Maria and her brother faced seemed to be tangled up somehow with their mother. Jake had never met the woman, she’d died before he and Kincaid had left the SEALs.
Maria had once told him Mrs. Jankowski was the only reason her brother wasn’t in prison and she wasn’t a whore like Lovey Dovey. It was impossible to comprehend a woman like their biological mother. Jake himself couldn’t wish for a better mom, one who was everything a mother should be.
“I’m guessing you found something that led you to this point?”
Maria nodded. “I found her stud book.”
Huh? “You’d better explain that.”
“This is so embarrassing.” Her head fell back on the seat and she closed her eyes. “I found a book she’d kept the year I would have been conceived. Across the front . . . you know those little gold stick-on letters you can buy?”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.”
“On the front in gold it said Stud Book. She kept a record of the names of the men she’d been with, and she rated them with stars. Their looks, their proficiency in bed, and the . . . the size of their penis. Stars . . . they got stars with five being the best.”
Good God Almighty. Jake tried to imagine his mom doing something like that and almost laughed at the absurdity of it. Just managing to smother his ill-advised humor, he tried to think of what to say. This was far from amusing to Maria. Was “I’m sorry” appropriate? Maybe, “interesting mother you had”?
“I don’t know what to say.” That seemed safe enough.
“Yeah, not Mommy of the Year material, was she?” Maria slipped her hand out of his and wrapped her arms around her waist.
That was when he noticed the red stain on her sleeve. “Dammit, Maria.” He grabbed her hand again and pushed the sleeve of the T-shirt up her arm. Dried blood crusted the edges of a bandage just above her elbow.
Brown, sad eyes peered hopelessly up at him. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He kissed her.
CHAPTER THREE
She kissed him back.
Maria’s chilled hand slipped around the back of his neck, bringing Jake to his senses, and he pushed her away. What had made him forget she was off-limits? When he thought about it later—and he thought about it a lot—he couldn’t pinpoint the moment he forgot she was off-limits.
Was it the blood? The sad eyes? The small voice? He was almost willing to chance ruining his friendship with Kincaid, but she was hurting, and he was taking advantage of her.
He attempted to make a joke of his misstep. “Sorry. I was aiming for your arm but missed the mark. You know, kiss it and make it better.”
“Whatever. It was just a stupid kiss. Nothing to get all weird about.”
Her eyes shuttered, became blank. The boss could do that, too, Jake thought. Must be something they learned growing up in their house of horrors.
“Wait here,” he said as he exited the car.
At the back of the Challenger, he grabbed the first aid kit from the trunk. His lips tingled, and he put a finger on them. It had been wrong to kiss her, and even though he should regret it, he didn’t. Her warm, soft mouth had been everything—and more—that he’d imagined for years now.
The trick would be not kissing her again. Because he desperately wanted to, especially now that he knew how incredibly good she tasted. Spicy and sweet—a little like a chili dog and a milk shake. He grinned as he closed the trunk.
Once he got her Band-Aid changed, he tossed the kit onto the back seat. “So, you found your mother’s book. How did that get you to what happened last night?”
“Will you hold my hand again?”
Touching her was as dangerous as stepping his way through a minefield, b
ut apparently he thrived on danger because he laced his fingers through hers. Oh yeah, he was in serious trouble.
She blew out a weary-sounding breath. “As soon as I realized what the book was, I stuffed it away in a drawer. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. What if my father’s name was in there?”
“Considering your mother’s . . . um, activities, I would think there could be a lot of possibilities,” he said, hoping she wouldn’t take offense.
That earned him a little snort. “Now there’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one. I hadn’t given much thought to who my father might be before. I mean, there were so many possibilities, why bother? But then I had this book that might have his name in it. It was like being a kid and dying to open a present under the Christmas tree, one you can’t stop shaking and poking at.” She gave a mirthless laugh. “Not that I know what that’s like either.”
The woman was breaking his heart. “So you got the book back out?”
“I tried to ignore it. I even threw it in the garbage when I couldn’t stop thinking about it. That same night, I got out of bed and dug it back out. I don’t know if I can make you understand, but the only parent I have to define myself by is my mother, and she never loved me. Not that she loved Logan either, but at least she sometimes seemed to like him. I didn’t even get that from her.”
Soulful eyes peered up at him. “She might be dead, but I can still hear her. ‘You’re so stupid, Maria.’ I heard that one over and over. ‘I wish you’d never been born, Maria.’ That one was her favorite.”
Jesus. The way her voice had changed just then—sounding exactly like a vindictive, chain-smoking bitch—planted a clear picture in his mind of how it must have been for her as a little girl. He’d give a thousand dollars to unsee it. It was one thing to be aware of how Maria and the boss had grown up, but he’d never considered the hurt that lived in her.
“Your mother was the stupid one, Maria. You must know that.”
“Must I?” She shrugged as if having a mother who hated her was of no importance. “So, to answer your question—”
Someone Like Her (A K2 Team Novel) Page 2