Trusting a Stranger

by Melinda Di Lorenzo

  To hell with slow.

  Graham’s grip on her neck tightened, and she gasped. He pulled her forcefully into his lap, making her teeter a bit on his knee, her legs dangling down. Her choice was between holding him tightly and falling to the ground. Thankfully, she chose the former. Her arms slid up to Graham’s neck while his arms slipped to her waist.

  He kissed her again. Forcefully. Possessively. She opened her mouth, welcoming his exploration. Her hands were in his hair and then they were sliding down his back, then holding him as if he was her lifeline.

  “Graham,” she said against his mouth, and he liked the way his name sounded on her lips.

  “Yes, love?” he breathed back.

  “I’m scared.”

  Fierce protectiveness filled his heart.

  “I won’t let anyone hurt you,” he promised, and he meant it. Not as long as I’m alive.

  Keira shook her head slowly. “No. I’m not scared for me.”

  “What’re you scared for?”

  “You. And us. If there is one, I mean. Or could be. I don’t want this to be it.”

  Graham heard the need in her voice, and he had a matching one—an almost painful one—in his own when he answered. “I like you, Keira. More than like you. I have since the second I saw you in that car. That’s the real, selfish reason I pulled you out. I wanted to know you. As crazy as it is, I felt like I had to. Or maybe I felt a little like I already did. The line is kind of blurred. I don’t know if I can promise you a future—hell, maybe that’s not even what you’re asking—but I can give you now. I can give you honesty. I can give you us.”

  Her eyes were wide and hopeful. “All right.”

  Trust, unexpected and almost unbelievable, expanded in Graham’s chest.

  “I’m not a perfect man,” he warned her.

  “I know,” she replied.

  Graham grinned. “Oh, you do, do you?”

  She went pink. “I meant I don’t expect you to be perfect.”

  When in doubt, go for shock.

  “I lit your car on fire,” Graham stated.

  Keira face went a little redder. “I know that, too.”

  Graham raised an eyebrow.

  “Dave told me,” Keira admitted.

  “Did he tell you why?”

  “To cover up the evidence. But he meant it in a bad way. I know better.”

  Graham swallowed. His throat was raw with appreciation of her understanding, but his heart was dark with guilt at needing it.

  “How do you think I meant it?” he asked.

  “You were buying time. Protecting yourself.”

  “I don’t know if you know this, Keira, but most men don’t commit a felony in the name of self-preservation.” He was half joking, but she didn’t smile.

  “I’m glad you’re not most men,” she said.

  He leaned in to give her a soft kiss. “Did Dave tell you anything else about me?”

  “Not really.”

  “But?” Graham pushed.

  “I searched you on Google.”

  “I’ll bet that didn’t have anything nice to say about me.”

  “I don’t believe everything I read.”

  “But some of it?”

  “Not most of it.”

  Graham closed his eyes for a long moment, but he could still feel Keira’s gaze on him. It wasn’t judgmental or even assessing. Just patient. She put a hand on his cheek.

  “You can tell me,” she said.

  Graham opened his eyes and nodded. “Holly was wild. Impetuous. A little crazy, sometimes. Her mom died when she was young—just nineteen—and left her a lot of money. Her dad was never able to control her and, believe me, he tried. Screened her boyfriends, put a tracking device on her car, recorded her phone calls, you name it. But she was an adult. At least in the strictest sense of the word. She refused to be reined in. She wasn’t even trying. It’s just who she was. The baby—Sam—slowed her down for a while. But as soon as she was settled, as soon as I was settled...she started up again. Drinking and other men...”

  “It’s not your fault,” Keira said, sounding very sure.

  Graham was sure, too. Holly couldn’t be controlled, and it had nothing to do with Graham. That didn’t stop him from feeling guilty about her death.

  The truth.

  “I didn’t love her.” The admission came out hoarse, and Graham cleared his throat and tried again. “I didn’t love her, but I was a good husband. A faithful husband. And that kid... I loved him more than I’ve loved anyone before or since.” His voice was rough once more, and this time he let it stay that way. “I couldn’t let anyone think I had anything to do with his murder. I’d rather die myself. That’s why I ran. Why I paid Dave to search for the man who killed them. Why I’ve never been able to walk away and start fresh, even though I’ve got the means.” He looked at her face and saw the tears threatening to overflow, and his heart broke a little more. “I’m sorry, Keira—”

  Her lips cut him off. Her fingers dug in to his hair, then ran smoothly, soothingly, over the back of his neck. She was pouring herself into the kiss, and Graham accepted it. Reluctantly at first, but with increased acceptance. Then with enthusiasm. He met her attention forcefully, his tongue finding purchase between her lips, his hands getting lost in her auburn tresses. She sank into his arms. She belonged there. When she pulled away, Graham felt the loss all over.

  Then she spoke, and the loss was forgotten.

  “My bedroom is upstairs,” she said, her words loaded with promise. “Third door on the left.”

  Wordlessly, Graham scooped her up and moved at double time to the staircase.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  They were a tangled mess of arms and legs and bedsheets and sweat. Calloway’s muscular, oversize body took up three quarters of the available space. Never before had Keira’s double bed in her childhood room seemed so small.

  But it’s the perfect size, too, she thought as she opened her sleepy eyes and looked over at him.

  His face was still peaceful, and Keira was a little envious. A silly grin was plastered on her own. And her mind refused to sit still because it was too full of sweet nothings.

  Beautiful.

  Incredible.

  Amazing.

  And the way he said her name. The way he whispered it. The way he called it out, as if there was no one else in the world.

  And what he’d said earlier was right. It was crazy to feel like this. It would be crazy to feel like this even after a few months. But after only a few days... That pushed it right over the edge. But damned if Keira cared.

  She examined his face carefully, memorizing the lines of it in the soft morning light. She liked the thick crest of his eyebrows and the dusting of silver in his hair. Already, the shadow of a beard peppered his cheeks. She liked that, too.

  Her heart wanted to burst through her chest with its fullness.

  But there was a heaviness there, too. One the allover glow couldn’t quite mask.

  Because Calloway wasn’t safe, and their time together was finite. His hideaway was no longer an option, her parents’ house wasn’t any better and her own apartment was the first place the man who’d killed Calloway’s family would look.

  Their only option was to run somewhere else.

  “No.”

  Calloway’s statement was soft but decisive. And he hadn’t even opened his eyes.

  “No, what?” Keira replied.

  “I can feel you thinking.”

  “Someone else’s thinking can’t be felt,” she argued.

  He cracked one lid. “Yours can.”

  Keira made a weak effort to detangle herself from his arms, but he held her firmly in place. She didn’t struggle too hard. Truthfull
y, she was happier to rest her head against him than she was to resist him.

  “I didn’t even know you were awake,” she said as she trailed her palm across his chest.

  “Little hard to stay asleep while you’re plotting something that’s going to kill you.”

  “That isn’t what I was doing.”

  Calloway eased his hold and rolled both of them to their sides, so they were facing each other.

  “No?” he said. “What were you thinking about, then?”

  “Leaving.”

  “Leaving?” he repeated, sounding surprised.

  “Leaving together,” she clarified. “You don’t have to find Ferguson. Or risk your life. Not if we run.”

  “Keira...”

  “They already think I’m dead,” she reminded him. “Dave told me the media was all over the story.”

  Calloway’s expression clouded. “And you’re just going to walk away and let it stay that way?”

  A lump formed in Keira’s throat. “They’ll mourn and move on.”

  “How long will you last? What if one of them dies? Will you stay away when they have the funeral? Or one of your parents gets sick or has an accident?” He shook his head, then added in a harsh voice, “You have no idea what you’re saying. What you’re committing to.”

  “I don’t see what other choice I have.”

  “You can stay here, and let your family and friends know you’re alive.”

  “And what happens to you?”

  He smoothed her hair back from her face. “Are you asking what happens to me, or what happens to that us we talked about?”

  Keira didn’t answer him. She was worried about Calloway directly. She didn’t want the police to catch him or for him to be arrested for a crime he hadn’t committed. But she also had to admit—at least to herself—that she was scared of losing him. She was just too embarrassed to make the declaration out loud.

  Two short days, and you need this man as badly as you need air.

  Even thinking it was enough to make her face heat up.

  When she stayed silent, Calloway sighed. “I’ve spent a long time isolated from the people I knew. It nearly killed me to hear the rumors. It nearly broke me a hundred times. Hiding is the hardest damned thing I’ve ever done. I would never forgive myself for dragging you into that life.”

  “I don’t care,” Keira said, her voice full of residual post-lovemaking conviction.

  “You think you don’t care.”

  “Don’t tell me what I think.”

  “I wouldn’t dare.”

  Calloway leaned forward and gave her bottom lip a little tug with his teeth. Then he released it and ran a hand over the same spot, sending renewed sparks of desire through her. Keira stifled a pleasure-filled sigh. Calloway’s face was determined, his jaw set and his eyes not in the slightest bit tired. And Keira had the distinct feeling that he was trying to distract her. He formed a lazy path from her mouth to her shoulder to her hip, then traced a circle over her sheet-covered abdomen.

  Two more seconds of that and it’s going to work.

  Keira grabbed his hand, determined herself. She needed to make him understand that she wasn’t going to just let him slip away. He tried to pull his hand out of hers. She held firm. Take that. But his thumb was still loose, and it began to move up and down, just below her belly button, and it was far more distracting than his whole palm had been.

  She willed herself not to give in to the temptation he presented.

  “You’ve been gone for a long time,” she said. “So maybe you’ve forgotten how to compromise. Relationships are a two-way street, Calloway.”

  He didn’t even blink at her use of the R word. “What do you want me to do, Keira? Let Dave take me in? Say the word, and that’s what will happen. But there is absolutely zero chance of me allowing you to abandon your life on my behalf.”

  Keira’s stomach dropped. “You can’t go to jail.”

  “I will, if it means keeping you safe.”

  “I’m not letting you sacrifice yourself for me any more than you’re letting me sacrifice myself for you!”

  In an unexpected move, Calloway flipped her from her side to her back, then propped himself above her, his biceps flexing with the effort.

  “You’re a stubborn girl, aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “That blush tells me you know you’re a stubborn girl,” he teased. “I have to prove my innocence, Keira. Or we don’t stand a chance. Do you know where Dave went?”

  “He said he had to take care of a few things.” She paused. “Calloway...”

  “Yes?”

  Keira pulled the sheet over her chest, then propped herself on her elbow, facing him. “Why would he suddenly start thinking you’re guilty?”

  Calloway’s expression clouded with surprise. “Is that what he said?”

  “Not exactly. It’s what he implied. Or maybe what I inferred. But it was like he was trying to scare me.”

  “But he knows I’m innocent,” Calloway muttered.

  “He knows it?”

  Calloway gave her tight nod. “Dave’s the one who found Holly. Hours before I got home.”

  Keira frowned. “But the papers said it was you who found her.”

  He ran his fingers over the ridges in her forehead. “I thought you didn’t believe everything you read.”

  “I don’t. But that’s a pretty big discrepancy.”

  “Lie down with me again.”

  Keira opened her mouth to tell him no, they had more important things to worry about. But when she caught the pleading look in his eyes, she was powerless to resist. She curled up beside him, her body tucked beside his, her head resting on his chest.

  * * *

  GRAHAM WAITED UNTIL Keira was settled, the soft scent of her hair flooding his senses, calming the thud of his heart.

  “If you want to listen, I’ll tell you the story,” he said, his voice low.

  “Okay,” she agreed.

  And for the first time, he told the full truth, and shared the hard thoughts that kept him awake for four years.

  “Dave and I met in high school. We started out hating each other. We fought, actually, in one of those parking-lot fights, with the crowd of guys egging us on and screaming for blood. God knows what it was about. We both got suspended. Not a first for me, but Dave’s dad was a cop, and he was royally pissed off that I was ruining his kid’s life. He turned up at my house, demanding to know what I had done. When he saw my living situation, well, I guess he took pity on me. Absentee mom. Drunk dad. So instead of giving me hell, he took me home and commanded Dave to take care of me.” Graham paused and laughed as he remembered it.

  Dave’s father was everything Dave wasn’t. Hard and decisive on the outside, kind and insightful on the inside. He didn’t take anyone’s garbage. Graham admired him. Loved him.

  “He changed my life,” Graham told Keira, curling a strand of her hair around one of his fingers. “He gave me value. Helped me get that scholarship for med school and made me believe I could do it. He died when we were twenty, and I promised him I’d see it through. He even left me a bit of money to help out. But Dave took his death badly, and pretty soon it was me carrying his weight instead of the other way around. Sorting out his fights and saving his rear end every weekend. If it hadn’t been for his father’s name, I doubt he would ever have made it past the first day as a policeman. He developed a hell of a gambling problem and I was always bailing him out of one debt or another. We went on like that for years, Dave messing up and me picking up the pieces.”

  “Just like you did with Holly,” Keira added.

  “Just like that,” Graham agreed, then took a thick breath. “Which brings me to the next bit. Things moved fast for Holly and me. Met and
married in less than a year. I adopted Sam...and Holly adopted Dave.”

  “They had an affair?” Keira asked.

  “There were things...a pattern, I guess, that took me a while to notice. Money moved from her account on the same day he paid off a car he could never afford in the first place. Every time Holly made a cash withdrawal, Dave would show up with something newer and shinier. A suit. A computer. A vacation in the Bahamas. And he stopped asking me for money. Holly got more and more distant. And once, I overheard a very heated conversation between the two of them. Holly was yelling about jealousy and entitlement, and Dave was yelling back about sharing what should never have been mine.”

  “But you never asked either of them if your suspicion was true?”

  Graham shook his head. “I rationalized not asking. What if I was wrong? I didn’t want to ruin nearly a decade and a half of friendship. Or worse, jeopardize what I had with Sam. So I just started the divorce process on the sly. I hired the best lawyer I could afford, who promptly figured out that we were near to broke. My income and our assets were the only thing keeping us afloat. All of Holly’s savings were gone, her investments mostly sold off, her cards maxed out. Which meant I had no choice but to confront her. But I never even got as far as asking about Dave before she flipped out. She threw everything I owned out on the street. Then threw me out, too. Three days later, the cops were at my hotel room door. Holly had drunk herself into a stupor, fallen down the stairs and called 9-1-1, blaming me. For the first time in a long time, Dave had to come to my aid. He bailed me out, dropped me off, then went to reason with Holly. Instead... Well, you know what he found.”

  “That’s terrible.” Keira’s voice was full of the same ache that plagued Graham’s heart, but then she spoke again, and her tone was also puzzled. “Why didn’t he just report it himself?”

  “I told him not to,” Graham admitted. “I thought I was protecting him. And what was left of Holly’s reputation.”

  “And that’s why he helped you all these years?”

  “Yes.”

  Keira pushed herself up and met Graham’s eyes. “But, if he just admitted that he was there first, wouldn’t that exonerate you?”