Harlequin Superromance September 2014 - Bundle 1 of 2: This Good ManPromises Under the Peach TreeHusband by Choice

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Driven by a sense of impending disaster, Anna hurried.

  “Ah, this would be Caleb’s father...?” the doctor began.

  “How dare you show your face here?” Reid snarled. “Don’t think I’m letting you get within touching distance of Caleb.”

  Anna reached him, but if he noticed her, he didn’t indicate it. He vibrated with fury. His lips were drawn back from his teeth and his hands were fisted at his side. She knew every muscle in his body was taut, ready to fling him forward.

  “You tried to steal my boy,” his father snapped, “but you’re not getting away with it. You’re not speaking for Caleb. I am.”

  Anna willed Reid not to attack. He needed to keep his cool. Devastate with words, not fists, however much he wanted to punish and hurt this man.

  She took a chance and touched his arm. A jolt went through him and he looked down at her hand, then at her face. And then his furious stare returned to his father.

  “Sergeant Renner here has questions for you,” he said in a voice that chilled to arctic. “You’re now a person of interest in the attempted murder of Caleb Sawyer.”

  Dean Sawyer’s face suffused with dark color. “What the hell—”

  “We already know you can kill, don’t we, Dad? And so cold-bloodedly, you have no trouble staging the scene to look innocent.”

  Reid’s father flung himself forward. Anna had been oblivious to what the sergeant was doing, but with seeming effortlessness, he caught Dean Sawyer in a headlock and pulled him away from Reid.

  “Captain Sawyer is correct. I do have questions for you. Attempted assault now will not help your cause, sir.”

  Reid’s father yanked free of Sergeant Renner’s loosened grip. A stare filled with hate arrowed in on his son. “Threats will get you nowhere. I’m going to be taking Caleb home with me.”

  “No.” All the tension was still there in Reid’s body language, but he spoke calmly. “I will be filing for custody, and I will have no difficulty at all proving the horrific abuse you visited on me and Caleb. You’re not at home now, where your cronies support you no matter what the evidence says. Home court, Dad. The judge here is going to hear the truth and believe it.”

  With a face that was nearly purple, Dean looked as if he was going to have a stroke any minute. A vein throbbed in his neck. Whatever he saw on Reid’s face had him retreating a step. “Any weight of truth is on my side,” he blustered. “Do your worst, and I’ll slap you down in court as fast as I would anywhere else.”

  “Yeah, you did a lot of that, didn’t you, Dad? Except you tended to use your fist instead of your open hand.” Reid shook his head and looked at Sergeant Renner. “He’s all yours.” Then he turned his back on his father.

  The sergeant gripped Dean’s arm and said, “Please accompany me now, sir. I do have some questions and will need to take a look at your vehicle.”

  Reid’s gaze seemed blind when it met Anna’s. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  She wanted to tell him she’d been right where she wanted to be: at his side. But he wouldn’t like hearing anything like that. “I’m not,” she settled for instead.

  Reid looked at the doctor, a thin man with salt-and-pepper hair. “I’m sorry you had to see that, too, Dr. Stafford. But I’m going to ask that Caleb’s father not be allowed any access to him. First thing in the morning, I’ll file for a restraining order.”

  The doctor looked perturbed, but finally nodded. “I think I can agree to that. Although, given the accusations you made, you’d better be prepared with persuasive evidence.”

  The muscles tightening in Reid’s jaw was his only reaction. “I am.”

  Anna turned her head to see Sergeant Renner escorting Reid’s father away. After a few more reassurances about Caleb, the doctor vanished into the ICU.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?” Anna asked in lieu of the comfort she wanted to offer. “If you’d rather not go to the cafeteria, I’d be glad to get you one.”

  His mouth quirked, but as smiles went it was weak. “How about a root-beer float?”

  Almost choking up, she said, “Even better.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut for an instant. “Let’s sit down.”

  Once they took a pair of chairs some distance from the only other occupants of the waiting room, a family group huddled together in a corner, Reid reached for her hand. He held on with a tight grip.

  “I keep expecting—” He couldn’t finish.

  “Don’t.” Anna bit her lip. “Do you have any updates?”

  He shook his head. “They come out to talk to me every so often, but they’re not saying anything new. ‘Wait and see.’” He said that almost violently.

  “That’s pretty normal for a head injury.”

  His eyes met hers. “You should have seen him. Raw and bloody, and his head swollen grotesquely. He must have bounced like a goddamn basketball.”

  Her stomach clenched. “How could someone do that? Just aim at a group of boys and run them over?”

  He shook his head, obviously baffled, though, given his job, he must have seen as bad or worse repeatedly.

  Anna couldn’t bring herself to question him about Diego yet. Instead, they sat together, mostly quiet. He was allowed to go back to be with Caleb for a few minutes and told her she didn’t have to stay, but when she shook her head and said, “I’ll be here,” his relief was obvious.

  Perhaps an hour after leaving, Sergeant Renner returned. He nodded at Anna, but said to Reid, “Walk with me.”

  Anna pushed herself up from the chair. “If you’d like privacy, I can—”

  Reid touched her shoulder. “No. Stay put.”

  The two of them strolled toward the hospital proper, disappearing around a corner. Anna sat again, but tensely, worrying. There’d been something on the sergeant’s face. He had something to say he didn’t expect Reid to like. What?

  Feeling fidgety, she got up and walked around herself, the tingling in her legs telling her she’d been planted on her butt too long anyway. Her entire being was concentrated on the hallway where the two men had disappeared. Reid didn’t need one more devastating piece of news.

  It was a good ten minutes before they returned. When they did, his face was utterly expressionless. Anna didn’t kid herself it meant he’d regained some of his equilibrium.

  He came straight to her, the sergeant still beside him.

  “Don’t look so worried. Sergeant Renner has been able to determine that it wasn’t my father who ran down Caleb and Diego.”

  “How?”

  “A receipt for a gas purchase in Umatilla.”

  Anna knew Umatilla to be a town just on the Oregon side of the Columbia River. If Dean had been driving down here from Spokane, the logical route would have taken him across the Columbia there.

  “They looked hard at the front of his SUV, too.” He sounded almost numb. “There’d almost have to be some damage from hitting a pair of bicycles. Nothing there.”

  She nodded, seeing compassion on Sergeant Renner’s face. He took his leave, and Reid stumbled to a chair, sitting with his elbows on his knees and his hands gripping his head. His knuckles showed white. All she could do was sit beside him and gently rub his back. She didn’t wonder why he wasn’t glad that his father hadn’t done this particular vile thing. Besides...now they were left with no idea who had tried to kill a pair of teenage boys.

  Not much later, a woman Reid introduced as Lieutenant Renner from Investigative Services arrived. She seemed too young to be a lieutenant, and then there was the ponytail, bouncing as she walked.

  Wait. Renner?

  The lieutenant saw Anna’s surprise. “You must have met my husband. He told me what’s going on.”

  “Oh. Yes. I didn’t realize...”

  She and Reid went for a wal
k, too. Anna was beginning to wonder what he knew that he wasn’t telling her. She didn’t like this feeling that she was being stonewalled not only by Diego, but by Reid, as well.

  Maybe it was nothing that would affect how she handled Diego’s case. Law enforcement officers did tend to keep quiet about details of an investigation.

  Recognizable from photos and television news, Police Chief Raynor appeared next. He shook Anna’s hand when Reid introduced them, and, gee whiz, the two of them left her, walking down the hall that ought to be developing ruts by now. Anna was less sure this time that Chief Raynor had anything special to say, beyond sympathy. An air of restless energy surrounded him, making her suspect he wasn’t any better at just sitting than Reid usually was.

  After that, a succession of plainclothes and uniformed Angel Butte officers came and went. It seemed there was hardly a moment when one or two weren’t sitting near Reid and Anna, letting him know they were there for him. Watching Reid thanking them broke Anna’s heart. She could tell he was moved by the support, even as it was killing him to have to answer questions and thank them for coming. She wanted to snatch him away and just hold him.

  Twice she left to go upstairs and check on Diego, but both times found him still asleep. Or pretending to be asleep—she wasn’t positive which.

  What didn’t he want to tell her? Even as she stayed focused on Reid, the question nibbled at the back of her mind. Diego was a runaway, fifteen years old. What could he possibly have to hide?

  The answer came to her suddenly, in an oh duh moment.

  Diego and Caleb hadn’t been alone. Weren’t alone. Diego couldn’t send her out to get his stuff because she would have come across another runaway. Even several other runaways.

  Had they been close by enough to have heard the sirens and thereby guess why Caleb and Diego hadn’t returned? Or were they—or only one scared boy on his own?—currently huddled in the woods somewhere, or maybe in an empty house the group had broken into, wondering what had gone wrong?

  Thinking about it, she was seized by pity, but also frustration. Diego’s history was a good lesson in why some kids did go on the run. Every single person who could have made a difference had let him down. The brutal parent was only the beginning. From what Reid had said, Caleb was another example. Anna knew full well that too often adults in a position of power in particular evaded any reckoning. Cops were classic, but they weren’t alone. She’d had a boy briefly in a receiving home who had been sexually molested for years by his father, a juvenile probation counselor. No one would listen to the boy, even when he attempted suicide twice. Deeply troubled, he was now in a group home. His father had known how to work the system, how to make his kid look like a liar.

  Like Reid’s father did, she thought, anger hardening inside her.

  It was almost one in the morning when Reid emerged from ICU after having spent ten or fifteen minutes sitting at Caleb’s bedside. Anna was the only person left out here. Weariness and despair altered his face into someone less handsome and more human.

  He shook his head even before she could ask if there’d been any change. “We both need some sleep. I can come back first thing in the morning.”

  Almost as tired as he looked, Anna pushed herself to her feet. “That’s a good idea. You need to take care of yourself. Especially if you’re going to file for a restraining order in the morning, too.”

  “God, yes. If it’s possible on a Sunday.” He ran his fingers through his already disheveled hair. “Let’s go.”

  They walked silently toward the parking lot, Reid escorting Anna to her RAV4. They seemed to be completely alone, their footsteps the only sound. Once at her vehicle, she unlocked the door, then turned to him.

  “Do you think you can sleep?”

  “I don’t know.” He swallowed. “Anna.”

  She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his waist, laying her head on his shoulder. “Oh, Reid.”

  “Will you come home with me?” The question sounded as if it had been ripped from him.

  Surprised, she lifted her head. Before she could respond, he made a ragged sound.

  “No. You’ve got to be beat, too. You’ve done enough, Anna. I’m sorry.”

  “Of course I want to come home with you,” she said almost steadily.

  Shadowed from the yellow-tinted sodium lamps, his eyes searched hers. “You mean that.”

  “You know I do.”

  There was another of those sounds, so uncharacteristic for such a guarded man.

  “Do you want to ride with me?”

  “I’d better follow you. You’ll need to see an attorney first thing tomorrow.”

  He frowned, but finally nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

  At this time of night, the drive was short. Thank goodness, his father wasn’t parked across the street from Reid’s house. That would have been the last straw.

  Reid unlocked his front door. The sight of his partially furnished home made her wish she’d suggested they go to her place instead. But then she remembered what he’d said to his father: Home court, Dad. Maybe Reid needed his own refuge, however bleak it looked to her.

  He’d no sooner closed the door than he turned to her. “You’re sure about this?” His voice was hoarse.

  Her eyes burned and she reached for him. He came to her fast, yanking her against him, pushing aside her hair to nuzzle her neck. She felt the edges of his teeth, the tautness of his body. The hard ridge that pressed into her belly. With no warning, her own body shot into full arousal. Weariness was forgotten.

  “I need you,” he growled, backing her up against the door. “Say no if you’re going to. Now.”

  “Yes,” she whispered and yanked at his suit coat, momentarily trapping his arms.

  His kiss seared her. His wall had been dynamited, leaving a desperate man whose hands shook as he tried to strip her. Her parka fell to the floor along with his suit coat. Reid got her blouse partially unbuttoned before giving up. He lifted her and suckled her breast through bra and shirt alike. The sensation was electrifying. She heard herself crying out. Her back arched, pushing her hips against him.

  He was talking as he pulled up her skirt and yanked tights and panties down. Anna’s brain wouldn’t parse what he was saying, only fixated on his voice, the roughened nap of velvet. And his hands, oh God, his hands, still shaking, sliding against her bare skin then squeezing. He had his trousers open when he went completely still.

  “No!” she moaned. “Why are you stopping?”

  He seemed to be struggling for breath, his eyes dark and intense. “Need to get a condom.”

  “I’m on birth control.”

  The sound he made then was indescribable. He lifted and spread her in one movement, filling her before she could snatch a breath. The weight of her body pushed him deeper than he’d ever been, making her cry out again. She was helpless in this position. All she could do was hold on and ride the current of his need.

  “Now, Anna.”

  She did hear that, said from between gritted teeth. It wasn’t necessary. Her body imploded, and then he thrust hard a couple more times, pulsing inside her.

  Anna knew she was sagging in his arms. He leaned against her for a moment, flattening her to the door, and she couldn’t have protested if she’d wanted to.

  Instead of releasing her, Reid sank to his knees still holding her tight. They leaned against each other, swaying.

  “We can’t stay here,” he mumbled, sounding drunk.

  Anna wanted to topple over. But Reid gently smoothed her skirt down, then staggered to his feet. He adjusted his trousers, zipping them, but not bothering with the button or belt. When he bent and lifted her, she managed to help. She felt drunk. Totally done for. Even so, she managed to totter the short distance into his bedroom and stood like a child as he disrobed her. She was tot
ally naked when she crawled into bed and already half-asleep by the time he joined her. She snuggled close, instinctively seeking his warmth, laid her hand over the hard beat of his heart and her head on his shoulder, and dropped off.

  * * *

  REID HAD NEVER felt anything like that before. He’d never slept like that, either, so deeply he wasn’t sure he had dreamed.

  The idea made him wince. Was Caleb dreaming? Hearing voices? Or was he just...gone? Lost in blackness? Was a coma like death, except the heart continued to beat?

  Reid groaned and bent his head under the hot, pounding water from the showerhead. It was the one bit of remodeling he’d bothered with after moving in here—no low-flow showerhead for him. He needed the closest thing to a massage he could get before he went out the door every morning.

  The word echoed in his head.

  Needed.

  That was what he’d said to Anna. I need you.

  It shook him, how frantic he’d been. How...naked.

  And damn if it wasn’t the most explosive orgasm of his life. Cause and consequence. Simple.

  She could destroy him.

  But he kept seeing her face as she sat in that waiting room watching him. The softness and the worry and, God, something else he’d never seen on a woman’s face before, not when she was looking at him. Maybe love. Was that possible?

  His chest tightened. What was with him, that he kept thinking things like that? Imagining...

  Don’t, he told himself harshly. At least...not yet. Get through this first. Protect Caleb from their father while waiting for him to wake up—or not. Keep lying to Anna.

  He stumbled over that one.

  From a practical standpoint, it was likely the story would unravel. Clay Renner hadn’t committed to keeping his mouth shut yet. It might be different if this was a random hit-and-run—some guy out driving too fast, comes around a bend and takes out a couple of bicyclists, decides in a panic to take off. But Renner, like Roger, had believed TJ, who swore it had been deliberate. The lack of skid marks was compelling, too. And if the driver had been trying to kill or at least maim those boys—he almost had to be the same person who’d set the fires, slashed the tires, buried a knife blade in the front door of the lodge. Someone with a burning grudge.