by Lisa Childs
“Can you kiss me good-night?” she asked.
That question struck him harder than anything else she might have asked him. The vise gripped his heart tightly, squeezing it so that it stopped pounding for a second before resuming at a frantic pace. He leaned forward and brushed his lips across her forehead.
Maisy closed her eyes and settled into her pillows with a whisper-soft sigh. And something else flooded his chest: love.
Cole had fallen for her. Just like that.
Just as quickly and hard as he’d fallen for her mother all those years ago. He closed his eyes for a moment to deal with all the emotions flooding him. Despite how furious he would be at Shawna if she’d kept his daughter from him, he wanted Maisy to be his. He wanted to be her father.
He had to know. But when he opened his eyes again, he found only the child in the room.
Shawna was gone.
*
Shawna wanted to run. But she didn’t know where to flee. She didn’t know where she would be safe or whom she could trust. After nearly being strangled to death in her room, she hesitated outside the door. The jamb was splintered from where Cole had kicked it open.
If he hadn’t…
She shuddered with the certainty that she would be dead. She wouldn’t have been able to fight off her attacker any longer.
Then her little girl would have thought she was an orphan and all alone like Shawna had once been. Shawna needed to tell not just Cole but Maisy, too, the truth. That they had each other.
The fear of them both hating her was what she wanted to run from now. She couldn’t handle Cole looking at her the way his father had looked at his mother—with contempt. And while Maisy was too sweet to ever hate anyone, she would be confused and hurt to learn that Shawna had lied to her. Her trust in her mother would be irrevocably shattered.
After that, would they ever be able to have the relationship they’d once had? Would Shawna have damaged it beyond repair?
Strong hands gripped her shoulders, and a gasp of fear and surprise slipped through her lips. But then she recognized that touch, as her skin began to tingle. She didn’t have to fear physical harm. Cole would never hurt her that way, no matter how angry he got when she told him the truth.
And she had to tell him the truth.
She had already waited six years too long. She couldn’t wait another moment, especially with someone so determined to kill her.
But before she could say anything, Cole turned her away from her bedroom door and steered her down the hall. “It’s not safe for you to stay in that room,” he told her. “Not until the door and the jamb get repaired.” He removed one hand from her shoulder to open another door and escorted her inside.
“Whose room is this?” she asked as she noticed the suitcase lying on the bench at the foot of the bed. “I can’t just take someone else’s room.”
“It’s mine,” he told her. “All of the bodyguards have rooms near yours and Maisy’s.”
“Maisy,” she said. “Is she safe?” She shouldn’t have left her little girl alone and unprotected. But as she glanced back toward the hall, she saw Nikki passing by.
“She will be very safe,” Cole assured her. “Nikki won’t let anything happen to her.”
She trusted the female bodyguard, which slightly eased the burden of concern for her daughter’s safety.
It was time to ease another of those burdens. It was time to tell Cole the truth. She pushed the door to his room closed and turned back toward him. He was so damn handsome even with dark circles of fatigue rimming his deep blue eyes. It was late, and it had already been a long day for him.
A long day of saving her from danger…
“Thank you,” she said. She had not been very gracious when he’d first showed up at the funeral and the memorial brunch. And she’d been so terrified over the intruder nearly strangling her and so afraid for Maisy that she couldn’t remember if she had thanked him or not.
But he shrugged off her gratitude. “You shouldn’t have been in that situation. We should have protected you better.”
“I shouldn’t need protection,” she said. And she had no idea why she would. Why in the world would someone want her dead?
“You didn’t recognize anything about your attacker?” he asked. “Size? Smell? Did he say anything?”
She shook her head. “I’m not even sure it was a man. I was lying in bed, so I have no idea how tall the person is. And I didn’t smell anything.” The carbon monoxide had probably affected her sense of smell, though.
“Damn it,” he murmured, and a muscle twitched along his tightly clenched jaw. “There was nothing at all familiar about the attacker?”
“No, but it’s obvious you think I should have recognized him,” she said. “You really think it could be one of them? Of your family?” From the tension on his face and in his voice, it was clearly tearing him up inside to suspect one of them of being a killer.
“It has to be,” he said.
She wasn’t as convinced. While she wasn’t a fan of his cousins and uncles, she couldn’t see any of them being ruthless enough to kill someone. “Why?”
“Access,” he said. “It has to be someone staying inside this house. That’s why no one has noticed anyone being where they shouldn’t be—like when your laptop was left in the library.”
She felt obligated to point out, “Family are not the only people in this house.” She was not family. Unfortunately her daughter was.
His brow furrowed with his confusion. “Who are you talking about? My friends?”
They were his friends. If they all considered her marrying Emery to be a betrayal of Cole, they also had a motive for wanting to kill her.
“Manny certainly doesn’t like me.”
He snorted. “He’s loyal.”
She tensed. “And I’m not?” She had been faithful to him since she’d met him. When he’d left for boot camp and his deployments, she’d never considered dating anyone else even though she’d been asked.
He arched a brow. “You must have already known Emery to have married him as quickly as you did.”
“We met at the high school while I was helping coach the cheerleaders and he worked with the marching band,” she said. But there had never been an attraction between them. Ten years older than she was, he’d always been more like an overprotective big brother than a potential lover.
“I don’t remember you ever talking about him,” Cole said, and now there was suspicion in his voice.
Did he think she had been having an affair with Emery while they’d been engaged?
“He was a friend,” she said. “Just a friend.” Even after they’d married. She needed to tell Cole that, so he would realize that Maisy was his. But would he even believe her?
Her heart pounded frantically as she worried about his reaction. She was nearly as afraid as she’d been when she’d been locked in the garage, or when the noose had wrapped so tightly around her neck. Feeling as if she was being strangled again, she lifted her fingers to her throat.
Cole’s fingers covered hers, pushing aside the collar of her robe.
He sucked in a sharp breath as he studied her neck. Then he said, “I should have brought you to the hospital.”
“I’m a nurse,” she reminded him—and herself. Her job was to take care of others, not to have them take care of her. But then, usually members of the medical profession made the worst patients. “I would know if I needed treatment.”
“It’s already beginning to bruise,” he told her, as he stroked his fingers across hers and then along her throat.
Her skin tingled from his touch. “Nothing’s broken,” she said. Except her heart, which had been broken for the past six years. Not even the birth of her beautiful baby had mended the wound Cole had inflicted on her.
“My friends wouldn’t have done this to you,” he assured her. “And they certainly wouldn’t have set the bomb in your vehicle. They were thousands of miles away in River City when your car blew
up. It has to be someone else in this house, some member of my family.”
“Why?” she asked. “What possible motive would anyone have to kill me?” Nobody knew, at least not for certain, that Maisy was a Bentler. And even if somebody knew, that would make Maisy the target—not Shawna.
Of course, once she told him the truth, she would understand if he didn’t care what happened to her. He would never be able to get back the almost six years he had missed of his daughter’s life. Guilt nearly overwhelmed her. No matter how angry and hurt Shawna had been, she never should have kept the truth from him. She never should have kept Maisy from him.
He shrugged. “I don’t know what the motive is.”
“I am not a threat to anyone’s inheritance,” she pointed out. Maisy would have been if anyone knew the truth about her paternity. So maybe she hadn’t done such a bad thing when she’d kept her paternity secret. And maybe it was better, especially now, for no one to learn the truth. She couldn’t risk putting Maisy in danger, too.
His blue eyes—so like their daughter’s—narrowed as he studied her face. “No, you’re not.”
He must have begun to suspect that Maisy was his. And while revealing her paternity might put the child more at risk, her father and his friends would be even more motivated to protect the little girl and find out who was after Shawna.
Tears of frustration burned her eyes, and pain gripped her heart. Knowing that someone hated her enough to want her dead made her physically ill. The thought of Cole coming to hate her just as much made her feel even sicker, so that she just couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth. “So why?” she asked instead. “Why is someone so determined to kill me?”
His fingers skimmed up from her throat to her cheek. “We’ll figure it out,” he assured her.
She believed him. She only hoped that it wasn’t too late to save her when they did. It was already too late to save her heart. She was falling for Cole all over again, just like she’d done all those years ago.
“Cole…” She murmured his name as she linked her arms around his neck.
He lowered his head until his mouth brushed across hers. It probably would have been a kiss like the one he’d given her a couple hours ago…if she hadn’t opened her mouth, if she hadn’t brushed her tongue across his lips.
If he hadn’t groaned and deepened the kiss.
Passion ignited, burning hotly inside her. She knew once she told him the truth that he might not want her like she wanted him. That she might never get this chance again.
So she didn’t stop him when he lifted and carried her the few feet away to the bed. And when he laid her down, she pulled him down with her—on top of her. And she welcomed the weight of his muscular body.
But it wasn’t enough. She wanted him inside her, filling her like he once had. Maybe it was coming so close to dying that had her desperate to experience the pleasure she’d only felt with Cole. Or maybe it was just Cole—being near him again—that made her desperate.
*
Desperate times called for desperate measures. The plan—that had been so well thought out—had to be scrapped. There was no way to make Little’s and Shawna’s deaths look like a murder-suicide now.
Thanks to Cole.
Damn him!
What had he seen when he’d broken down that bedroom door? Had there been enough light from the hall to reveal the identity of the person who’d had the noose around Shawna’s neck?
She’d been gasping for breath, nearly blacked out. So she hadn’t seen anything. She’d been so close to death.
So close…
Her murder had nearly gone according to plan. Once she’d passed out, she would have been strung up from the railing of the balcony just outside her bedroom window. It would have looked like a suicide.
But Cole had ruined that when he’d rushed to her rescue, just like he always had. When would he learn to stop playing her white knight?
What had he seen?
Not enough or he would have been knocking down this bedroom door just like he had hers. No. Cole hadn’t seen anything. He didn’t know anything. And he wouldn’t have time to figure anything out—because now Cole had to die.
The only way to get to Shawna would be to kill Cole first. And that would be no problem at all.
The ex-Marine bodyguard would never see it coming.
Chapter 10
What the hell was he thinking?
He wasn’t. That was the problem. Whenever Cole got close to Shawna, he couldn’t think at all. He could only feel. The attraction, the desire… It burned inside him, so hot, so desperate.
He’d spent the past six years missing her, aching for her.
He needed to be with her, inside her. He needed to be part of her. So that he wouldn’t crush her, he levered himself up on an arm and a knee, keeping the majority of his weight from settling on top of her slight body.
But she arched up from the mattress and clung to him, her lips moving hungrily over his. He deepened the kiss, and she eagerly welcomed his tongue sliding inside her mouth. Her hips pushed against the erection straining the fly of his black dress pants. Even through the material of his pants and her robe, he felt her heat. She was every bit as desperate for him as he was for her. He couldn’t believe it.
And it was that doubt that began to clear the passion clouding his brain and overtaking his body. He pulled back, opened his eyes and stared down at her.
Her usually pale skin was flushed now with desire. Her dark eyes were even darker as she opened them and stared up into his face. Her brow furrowed with confusion, she blinked. And some of the passion cleared, leaving mostly fear.
The bruises on her throat were a painful reminder that she had every reason to be afraid. But she looked almost as afraid of him as she was of what could happen to her. Was she afraid that he was going to stop? Or did she have another reason to fear him?
Then he tensed as he realized what the reason could be: Maisy. Was she afraid that he might learn the truth and try to take his daughter away from her? Was that why she’d wound her arms around his neck? To distract him? If so, mission accomplished.
He was distracted. Even now, his body was tense and achy for hers. His erection throbbed, and his pulse pounded erratically. He found it difficult to even draw a breath. Although it wasn’t just passion he felt now, but panic, as well.
He couldn’t fall for her again. He couldn’t love a woman he couldn’t trust.
“What is this?” he asked, and he was surprised his voice didn’t shake with how hard his heart was beating. “You haven’t even buried your husband yet.” His ashes still sat in that urn, abandoned in the library. Had she forgotten all about him? “Are you using me to replace him?” he wondered. “Or did you use him to replace me?”
She struggled beneath him, trying to buck him off. He knew, though, that if he let her up, she would run out of the room and probably straight into danger again. Just as she had the last time, when she’d run from the library into the garage where she’d been trapped.
Knowing how much danger she was in, he shouldn’t have provoked her. But her passion had provoked him. How could she have married another man so soon after their breakup if she’d really loved him? Or had she had another reason for her quickie marriage? He had to know.
So he asked again, “Which is it, Shawna?”
Which of them was the man she really loved? Him or Emery? That was the question he really wanted to ask, but he didn’t quite dare. He wasn’t certain he could handle her answer.
*
Shawna was afraid. Not because of how Cole was holding her. She knew that he wouldn’t hurt her. Physically. His grip on her wrist was light enough that she was able to tug free. He also let her up so that she could scoot out from under him on the bed.
She was afraid that the moment had come to tell the truth. And she wasn’t certain how he would react. She wasn’t convinced that he wouldn’t hurt her emotionally. He was not the man she remembered, the man she’d lo
ved. Something had changed him, had made him harder and more cynical. Had war done that?
Or had she?
She hadn’t realized how he would react to her marrying another man. After the way he’d broken up with her, she hadn’t thought he would even care. He’d seemed to want her out of his life for good then.
He had already changed then—six years ago—into a man she hadn’t recognized. He’d grown more distant and colder, so cold that he had had no problem breaking their engagement and her heart.
No. She hadn’t changed him. He’d already been changed because the man she’d known wouldn’t have been able to hurt her like that.
“Why does it bother you?” she asked.
He snorted. “Wouldn’t it bother you if you thought I was just using you to replace some other woman?”
Was he?
She knew why she wanted him. Despite her best efforts to get over him, she still loved him. What had been his excuse for kissing her back, for bringing her to the bed?
She had no doubt that he’d wanted her every bit as much as she’d wanted him. She’d felt his erection, had felt his heat and his passion. Her body ached still with need for his. If only he hadn’t stopped…
“What if it was the other way around?” she asked.
His brow furrowed with his confusion. “What? I wasn’t using you.”
“What if I had used Emery?” she asked.
He tensed now. And she saw the realization on his face. He knew…
He already knew.
But that didn’t mean she didn’t have to confirm it. She owed him the truth, the whole truth, but she didn’t know how much of it her pride would allow her to admit. He’d hurt her so badly. Her pride—and her daughter—were all she had left. But when he learned the truth about Maisy, would he be angry enough to try to keep her from her daughter?
“Then I’d feel even sorrier for him than I already do,” Cole replied.
She flinched. Why did he pity her husband so much? Because he had died? Or because he’d married her? How could he think so little of her?