Lucas put his hand on Rachel’s lower back. Looking up at him, she saw his accurate reading of what she’d just felt.
“You have me now,” he said, low and gruff as they left the office.
Yes, she did have him. For the investigation. To free herself from danger and to catch his sister’s killer. As much as her heart clamored for more, that was all it could be for them.
“Rachel?”
She spun her head forward to see Jared standing outside the office, leaning against Eldon’s secretary’s desk with his arms and ankles crossed. He pushed to his feet, Eldon’s secretary’s eyes rolling up in curiosity.
“What are you doing here?” He looked to Lucas as he pushed off the desk and approached, stopping before Rachel, eyeing her in a way a man did when he liked what he saw, only in an aggressive way. “Did Eldon ask to see you?”
“No,” Rachel said, betting he’d like a chance to exert power over her, to control her. “We came here to talk to him.”
Jared’s head moved back with the boldness of that. “Why?”
“Let’s go, Rachel.” Lucas slid his arm farther around her waist.
She moved out of his hold, putting her hands on his chest. “In a minute.” She wanted to see how Jared reacted to this. She may not have ever dared go against him after he’d threatened her before Lucas had come to find her, but she dared now. Lucas gave her courage, support.
She faced Jared and saw his tension had increased as he watched how she touched Lucas.
“Why are you here?” he asked her with a note of resentment.
“We asked him about you,” she said.
Jared glanced menacingly at Lucas and then back to her. “Why did you break into my office? What were you looking for?”
Was he playing? He had to know.
“Angie Johnson,” she said.
Nothing changed on his face. “She didn’t pay for her policy.”
“That’s how it appears,” Lucas said.
Jared turned to him, the hint of a response to the innuendo. “So that’s why you came here.” He bestowed on Rachel another control-needy once-over. “You wasted your time.”
Beside her, Lucas waited in stoic silence. He wouldn’t give anything away about their investigation. He’d let Jared ramble on if that was what he did.
“Imagine my surprise when I received a call from security saying you were arrested,” Jared said. “Was it his idea or yours?”
Mindful she could be talking to the man who’d killed two people—that they knew of—she didn’t respond.
“What were you looking for?” he repeated.
“Did you kill Angie Johnson?” Rachel asked outright.
He drew his head back again, as though that was a preposterous thing to say. Jared pushed the lapels of his jacket back as he put his hands on his hips. “I can see someone’s been poisoning your mind. What are you doing with him?”
“He’s looking for his sister’s killer. He’s also protecting me. Someone’s been trying to kill me...or at least scare me into backing off.” She watched for signs in Jared’s face, any change to indicate guilt. She saw none, only hints of jealousy, which she found odd from a man like him.
“Backing off? Why are you so interested in his sister’s murder?”
“Don’t you know?” she taunted.
His eyebrows twitched. “What am I supposed to know, Rachel?”
“Let’s go,” Lucas said again, reaching for her hand.
She realized he did it on purpose, touched her intimately. His arm around her waist, his gaze, which now regarded her in a way a man would look at a woman he’d slept with. She began to fume over that. And then cheer him all the same. Jared barely contained his jealousy.
After a few seconds Jared regained his aplomb. “Rachel, have you thought any more about what we talked about?”
His profession of love? She kept what she wanted to say inside her head.
“I don’t need to, Jared. You aren’t the settling-down kind.”
“I would be, with you.”
He expected her to believe him? His declaration in such a public setting disconcerted her and exposed a little desperation.
“There’s nothing more to discuss,” she said. “You aren’t the kind of man I see myself with in my future.”
Jared’s gaze hardened, and he slid it over to Lucas.
Rachel couldn’t resist a peek at Lucas’s reaction. Nothing could penetrate that face. He simply observed Jared, unmoving and unaffected. And ready to protect her.
Then Lucas moved closer and put his hand on her lower back without wavering his eyes, targeted on Jared.
Rachel felt a tingle chase through her, and it had nothing to do with the intentional display of possessiveness. Lucas meant to push Jared. See if he cracked.
Jared didn’t crumble. He did something worse. He let his desperation get the best of him.
“Rachel.” He reached for her hand. She withdrew, sickened and trying not to let her nausea show. She did not love this man. Never had. For him to shower her with his perception of that sacred feeling made her squirm inside.
Jared swiped the lapels of his jacket back as he’d done before, hands on hips. It was an entirely non-masculine pose.
“I’ve apologized for not telling you I was married,” he said. “That was a mistake. Rachel, you’re different than all the others. If I married you, I wouldn’t need anyone else.” His sleazy eyes took in her shape again. “You’d complete me.”
“It’s really time to go now,” Lucas said.
Rachel felt the staged words, empty and meaningless. But she wasn’t finished with Jared. She played along.
“I’d never be able to trust you again. What makes you think I ever could?”
He let out a frustrated breath. “Rachel—”
“Did you pay someone to come after me?”
“No. Of course not.”
He almost sounded sincere. She leaned forward, putting her face up to his. “I may have been vulnerable before, but I’m not now. This is your warning, Jared. Leave me alone. Or else.” Straightening, she glanced over at Lucas, her handsome, strong, sexy sentinel. “Now it’s time to go.”
His kissable lips curved up at the corners. She felt the shrewd light in his eyes all the way to her toes.
He stuck out his elbow, and she hooked her arm with his. Together they walked toward the elevator.
“Rachel.”
She didn’t turn to acknowledge Jared.
“Don’t continue with this, Rachel.” He sounded more confident.
Lucas pressed the elevator button and looked toward Jared. No way would Jared try to stop her, not as long as she was with a man like this. But what would happen if she no longer had Lucas?
Rachel recognized limits. A woman with a slender build, she didn’t have the strength to go up against a man stronger than her, especially one with guns or hired guns and one who didn’t think twice about threatening the weaker sex. Lucas liberated her.
She liked that. She liked it a lot.
Chapter 11
When Rachel and Lucas arrived back at his apartment, she recognized the old Jeep Wrangler in the driveway.
“You told Nan where to find me?”
“She misses you.” Lucas pulled into the driveway beside the Wrangler. “You shouldn’t have closed her out of your life.”
Nan waved as they passed and pulled into the garage. Rachel got out and waited for her friend. She was still shapely and beautiful, with shoulder-length hair and blond streaks.
“Oh, Rachel.” Nan came into the garage and hugged her. “After your boyfriend came to see me, I had to come here.”
Rachel rolled her eyes to see Lucas, his head visible over the roof of the car. He shrugge
d to indicate he had no idea what Nan meant.
Nan leaned back. “When he asked me all those questions, it dawned on me that I haven’t been a very good friend to you.”
Rachel slid her hands off Nan’s long black leather jacket. “Yes, you have.”
“No.” She shook her head, shiny silver dangling earrings swaying with a slight jingle. “I should have seen what you were doing.”
While Rachel still tried to understand what she meant, Nan unzipped her leather jacket. Underneath she wore a beaded, turquoise-and-black V-neck with a black skirt and boots up to her knees. She had always taken fashion seriously. Much more so than Rachel.
“Let’s go inside.” Lucas had gone to the garage door.
Nan walked there and Rachel followed.
“I lost you after your mom and dad died, and my parents wouldn’t let me try to find you,” Nan said when they entered the laundry room of Lucas’s house. “And then you straightened out and we got close again.”
“Of course we did,” Rachel said. “You’re my best friend. You always will be.”
Nan removed her jacket, and Lucas took it from her. Draping that over his arm, he helped Rachel out of her simpler, thigh-length cloth jacket with faux fur-lined hood. She thought his touch a lot gentler with her than with Nan, more intimate, lingering longer.
“You pushed me away,” Nan said. Lucas hung up their jackets. “Now I know why.” Nan reached out and put her hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “You weren’t just scared.”
“You’re right. I did it to protect you.”
“Yes, but you also did it because you felt alone. You got used to being alone when you were in foster care. It’s what was familiar to you.”
“No. It had nothing to do with that. Jared threatened me. Well...he didn’t, but he paid someone to.”
“All noble, Rachel, but it still isn’t the core of why you pushed me away. Lucas made me realize that. Not with anything he said. It was more the way he acted when I told him you were afraid of being accused of fraud. I realized he was falling for you.”
No wonder she’d called him her boyfriend.
Lucas closed the closet door after hanging his jacket and with a good-humored smirk, walked down the hall toward the great room. Rachel admired the swaggering rise and fall of his butt cheeks before he vanished around the wall to the kitchen.
“Nice,” Nan said.
Rachel smiled with her friend and then led her into the great room. At the kitchen island, she saw Lucas take out three cans of flavored iced tea. Sitting on a stool, she admired him some more, the way his muscles moved as he opened the cans and poured them over ice in three glasses.
“How long have you been seeing him?”
Jarred from her preoccupation, Rachel said, “I’m not seeing him.”
“I didn’t think so at first, either, the way he came to my salon asking questions like he thought you killed somebody.” Nan laughed, a breathy, light sound that so fit her. Nan was always optimistic, always saw the bright side of things, no matter how rough they got. “But then I told him that you were afraid, and he changed. He got protective. I doubt he even realized it. Hell, I didn’t, either, until after he left and I had some time to digest our conversation—and the fact that he left me his card.”
“He does that with everyone.” Lucas never left opportunities behind when he fished for clues.
“Hey,” Nan teased, “don’t ruin my popular moment.”
Rachel smiled. “I’m not seeing him.”
“All right. You aren’t. That’s not why I came here. I can’t believe I didn’t do something about this sooner. You’ve been hiding away all this time, and I had the reason all wrong. Yeah, you were scared, but you could have reached out to someone. Me. You didn’t have to take on Jared on your own.”
“No. Then Jared could have used you against me.”
Lucas put two glasses down and moved back into the kitchen, leaving them alone to talk. But he could still hear them. Rachel found she didn’t mind.
“I’m not afraid of Jared.”
“He’s trying to kill me, Nan.”
“What?” She looked accusingly at Lucas, who hadn’t told her that.
“Not at first, but ever since Lucas came to town, he’s sent a man after me. And Lucas.”
“Are you sure?”
Lucas met Rachel’s eyes, and together they communicated they were.
“Okay, I can see why you went away, but you did that as a teen, too, Rachel. No one was after you, but you ran away from anyone who tried to get close. That’s why I came here. You have to stop. If you ever want to find happiness and live the life I know you dream of having, you have to let go of your past and not be afraid of letting someone get close to you. You used to have so many friends. Then you went into foster care and that all changed.” Nan put her hand over Rachel’s. “I’m really worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“I took it personally, the way you shut me out. I felt like you blamed me for not doing anything to help you when Family Services took you away.”
That came as a surprise to her. “I never blamed you.” Nan had been a teen, just like her. What could she have done?
“I’ve always regretted never asking my parents to take you in.”
“Would they have?”
Nan’s parents had a rocky marriage. They fought a lot and had struggled financially. They couldn’t have handled another kid, especially one as traumatized as Rachel.
As they sat exchanging silent thoughts, Rachel laughed at the same time she did.
“No way,” Nan said between laughs.
“I’d have become a drunk and a thief,” Rachel said, unable to believe she could laugh about that.
After sharing a few more moments of humor, Nan sobered. “I wish I could have been there for you.”
“You were. Whenever I thought about you, I felt better. I wondered how you were and what you were doing. I’d picture you dyeing your doll’s hair, and all was well again.”
“You aren’t alone, Rachel. Don’t isolate yourself anymore. Promise?”
Rachel glanced at Lucas, feeling a strong pull that he’d be the one to draw her out, to make her trust again. Having the only source of security and love ripped from her life and then thrust into a life of survival had formed a hardness in her she wasn’t sure she could soften.
Maybe he’d be able to soften it for her.
And if so, what then? What about what Lucas wanted? What about his ex-wife, who still loved him, or so it seemed.
“Some risks are worth it, Rachel,” Nan said. She’d seen her look at Lucas. “Nothing worthwhile is easy, either.”
Easy for her friend to say. She wasn’t falling for a man who had trust issues and regrets that shaped everything he did with his life.
But then, didn’t she? Rachel had trust issues and regrets, too. Did that make them a perfect couple or a disaster?
* * *
Nan had given Rachel plenty to think about after she finally left late that night. They’d had dinner and talked; well, mostly Lucas had listened to them catch up on the happenings of their lives. Nan had loved hearing about Rachel’s many jobs that always ended with her being fired.
You’re meant for something bigger, Nan had said. You didn’t believe in yourself so you took those low-level jobs. Start believing, Rachel. You believed enough to go to college, so finish it.
I am, Rachel had said with admirable certainty.
Lucas hadn’t wanted to let her go into the guest room, not with her dreamy smile and the healing balm spending time with a good friend had delivered. Her strength shined.
He lay on his bed with his arm under his head, staring at the dark ceiling, unable to stop thinking of her. She may have fallen into a pattern of withdrawal, b
ut she wasn’t a weak woman. She’d never been that, not when she went in and out of juvenile court, and not when Jared’s thug had begun to threaten her. She may have felt weak, and Lucas admitted he’d thought the same, but he knew now that Rachel was anything but weak. She was a true survivor and brave enough to sacrifice time with her best friend to protect her.
An hour faded away before he closed his eyes. And then it seemed only moments later when he woke to breaking glass.
Bounding off the bed, he yanked on a pair of jeans and grabbed his gun before running out of the room. At the loft railing, he saw smoke billowing from a ball of flames that quickly spread across the area rug and climbed the drapes and walls. Someone had thrown a firebomb through the window.
Rachel rushed up from behind him, her hands going to the railing.
“Oh, my God!”
She’d dressed in jeans and a light blue and white long-sleeved shirt, and stared in horror as the flames spread ever wider.
“Let’s get out of here!” Lucas took her hand and pulled her down the stairs. Flames jumped to the railing at the bottom, quickly engulfing the lower stairs.
“This way!” He led her down the hall to his bedroom. Another firebomb had been thrown through the window in there.
Rachel ran into the guest room and he followed, slamming the door shut. She slid the window open. It was a long drop to the ground level.
When she clawed at the screen, he moved her out of the way, punched a hole and then ripped it open. He could hear the roar of flames in the hall as they swallowed the house.
Rachel climbed through the ripped screen and stepped out onto the roof. Lucas stepped out after her. He had mature trees in his front yard. One of them had branches that nearly reached the house. If they jumped, they might make it.
“Lucas!” Rachel peered over the edge of the roof.
He leaned forward and saw flames licking their way up the siding, coming out from the broken front window. Following Rachel along the edge of the roof, he stopped her at the tree.
She looked at him as though he’d lost his mind.
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