by Cindi Myers
She looked wary. “Why?”
“I want to take a look at those cuts. I found a first aid kit in the trunk.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and he angled the lamp shade to give him a better view of her uptilted face. The gash on her forehead where Carlo’s kidnapper had hit her had scabbed over, and the bruising around it was an ugly purple and yellow, the skin slightly puffy and raised. He cleaned it with a cotton ball dipped in antiseptic, then dabbed antibiotic ointment along it, before covering it with a gauze pad held in place with strips of surgical tape. “I should have done this before now,” he said.
“We haven’t exactly had a lot of free time,” she said.
He began cleaning the dozens of other scratches on her cheeks and along her jaw. “You look like you ran through a rosebush,” he said, pausing to pluck a thorn from alongside her ear.
“I didn’t stop to identify the local flora. Maybe they were wild roses.”
He dabbed ointment on the deepest of the scratches, then cradled her jaw in his hand and turned her head to study the bruise along the side of her face. “Which one of those thugs did this?” he asked.
She closed her eyes and swallowed. “The one with the pale eyes. He threatened to cut out my tongue.”
He forced himself to relax his hold on her jaw, to continue tending to her wounds without comment. He was getting good at holding back his anger, but he couldn’t hold back his memories of another hotel room and another woman whose cuts and bruises he’d nursed like this. His sister was safe and well now, long free of her abuser, but the years when she’d suffered and he’d been unable to help her had left their scars.
“Do they make you take first aid when you train to be a marshal?” she asked.
“I was a Boy Scout.” He leaned back to study his handiwork. She was still a mess, but with luck none of her injuries would become infected, and she’d heal without any major scars.
“Let me guess—you were an Eagle Scout.”
“Yes.”
She looked triumphant. “I knew it. Eagle Scout to U.S. Marshal. I guess it makes sense.”
“There was a stint in Iraq in between. College before that.”
“Did you think when you were doing all that you’d end up babysitting a mafia wife?”
“It’s a little more than that, don’t you think?” Her eyes met his and he felt the jolt of connection, and the weight of emotions he didn’t dare examine too closely.
He stepped back, and began packing up the first aid kit. “Why don’t you take a shower? I’ll see what I can find for dinner. I think we passed a café right before I turned in here.”
He felt her gaze on him for a long moment before she stood and went into the bathroom. Only when he heard the door close behind her did he raise his head to stare after her. He was treading on shaky ground here. In his career with the U.S. Marshal’s office, he’d shepherded half a dozen women through the Witness Security program, many of them single, beautiful and vulnerable. He’d never crossed the line that separated professional from personal. But Stacy had him tiptoeing across that line, contemplating how close he could get before he reached a point where he could never go back.
* * *
A SHOWER REVIVED Stacy somewhat. Afterward, she stood wrapped in a towel, contemplating her ruined clothing. Between the mud, brambles, blood and other bodily fluids to which the garments had been subjected, they were little better than rags, but, since she had nothing else to wear, she had no choice but to wash them. She dumped the rest of the bottle of hotel shampoo in the tub and added several inches of hot water, then dumped the clothing in to soak.
Patrick was gone—she assumed to get dinner—when she emerged from the bathroom. She spied the suitcases by the door and hefted one onto the bed. The two thugs were unlikely to have anything that would fit her, but even a T-shirt and boxers would do for sleeping. Fortunately, Pale Eyes or his buddy hadn’t bothered to lock the bag. She unzipped it and breathed a sigh of relief when she spotted clean boxers and socks. No T-shirts, but she found a man’s dress shirt, neatly folded and still in a bag from the cleaners.
By the time Patrick returned with two plastic bags, she’d changed into the borrowed clothing and sat cross-legged on the bed, rifling through the rest of the contents of the suitcase. The marshal paused in the doorway. “Feeling better?” he asked.
“Much. I’m washing my clothes, so I borrowed some from our two late friends. There’s probably stuff in here that will fit you.”
“Good idea.” He set the bags on the table by the window. “Anything else interesting?”
“One of them liked science-fiction novels.” She tossed a paperback onto the bed. “And one of them wore a night guard.” She pointed to a case for the dental appliance. “Who knew?”
“What about the other case?” he asked.
“I haven’t checked it yet.”
“We’ll take a look after we eat. I got a couple burgers. There wasn’t much choice.”
“I’m so hungry, I could eat almost anything.”
She followed him to the table, where he unpacked the food from one of the plastic bags. “What’s in the other bag?” she asked.
“Since we had to leave everything back at the other car, I picked up a few things—toothbrush, toothpaste, a razor, things like that.”
She peered into the bag, then reached in and pulled out a tube of lipstick and a powder compact. The lipstick was pink. “I’m guessing these aren’t for you.”
The tips of his ears turned almost as pink as the lipstick, though his face remained impassive. She suppressed the urge to giggle. There was something about an otherwise tough guy who got embarrassed about buying a girl makeup that was sweet—as was the purchase in the first place. “I notice you went to a lot of trouble to fix yourself up before,” he said. “I thought it might help you feel better.”
“You thought right. Thank you.” She resisted the urge to kiss his cheek—just as a gesture of thanks. That might be taking things too far.
They sat across from each other at the little table, eating burgers and fries and drinking from bottles of water. The food tasted good, but as her hunger abated, the familiar anxiety about the future returned. “What do we do next?” she asked.
“In the morning I’ll call my office again—see if they’ve come up with an address for Uncle Abel.” He wiped mustard from the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin. “I also want to know if they’ve found out any more about Sam and Sammy’s wills.”
“So you still believe Carlo’s kidnapping is related to the will?”
“People commit crimes for many different reasons, but a lot of times they’re motivated by what they stand to gain, such as money, power or revenge. A three-year-old doesn’t have any power. Kidnapping him hurts you the most. Have you thought of anyone who would use Carlo to get back at you?”
She shook her head. “The only person who hated me that much is dead.”
“Are you talking about Sammy?”
Yes, Sammy. Her not-so-dear departed spouse. “Don’t tell me a husband can’t hate his wife, because he can.”
“Did you feel the same way about him?”
“Sometimes I thought I did....” She studied the remains of her hamburger, her appetite fading. “Other times... In the beginning, things between us were pretty good. Sammy was sweet on our honeymoon. He seemed to really like me, and we had fun. But later, after Carlo was born...” She shook her head. Nothing she’d done had pleased her husband, and he’d lost the desire to please her. After a while it felt safer to stop trying.
“Did he hit you?” Patrick’s voice was low, his gaze boring into her, as if the answer to this question made a difference to him.
“No. He was proud of that. ‘You can’t say I’m cruel,’ he used to tell me. ‘I never hit you.’ But there are wor
se things than being hit. Bruises and even broken bones can heal, but the things people say to you... Those wounds can go a lot deeper.” She felt the pain from those injuries still—maybe some of them would never heal.
She waited for him to ask what Sammy had said to her, but he didn’t. Maybe he respected her privacy too much—or maybe he didn’t really care. Why should he? Though he’d seemed concerned about her welfare, maybe that was just part of doing his job. Mr. Eagle Scout would never shirk his duty.
She set aside the remains of her burger. “Why don’t we see what’s in the other suitcase?” she said. “Maybe there’s some clothes you can wear.”
He looked down at his mud-stained shirt and jeans. “You think I need new clothes?”
“I think it’s a miracle the motel clerk didn’t call the police. You look like a derelict.”
He rubbed his hand over his chin, and the scrape of bristles against his palm sent a hot shiver up her spine. “I could probably do with a little sprucing up.” He leaned over and grasped the handle of the second suitcase. “Let’s see what my options are.”
He tugged, but the case didn’t budge. “I remember this one was heavy,” he said. He stood and used both hands to heave the suitcase onto the bed.
Stacy stood beside him as he unzipped the top and folded it back. She let out a squeak, and covered her mouth with her closed fist. “Is that real?” she asked, her voice scarcely above a whisper.
Patrick nodded, and reached into the case and took out a stack of bills from the rows and rows of similar stacks filling the case. “It looks real to me,” he said. “There must be thousands of dollars in here. But what were our two late friends doing with it?”
Chapter Ten
Stacy stared at the suitcase full of money. It didn’t even look real, so much of it all together. “How much do you think is in there?” she asked.
Patrick rifled through the stacks of bills. “Looks like all twenties, in bundles of fifty—I’d guess fifty thousand dollars.”
She sank onto the bed. “What were those two doing with that much money?”
He felt along the side of the case and in all the pockets. “There’s nothing else in here—no notes or ID or anything like that.”
“It’s the kind of thing you see in those TV mysteries,” she said. “The unmarked bag of bills, dropped off in the park to pay ransom. But ransom for whom? Have they kidnapped someone besides Carlo?”
Patrick pulled out his phone. “Let’s see if headquarters knows anything.”
While he waited on hold to speak to who knows who, Stacy looked through the other suitcase—the one with the clothes. She found another science-fiction novel, a phone charger (but no phone) and an open box of condoms. Nothing incriminating or even threatening. Except for the fact that they’d attacked her and Patrick with guns and knives, they might have been any traveling businessmen.
“Let me know what you find. I’ll call back in the morning.” Patrick ended his call and slid his phone back into his pocket. “They’re going to do a trace for large sums of missing cash, but I’m not holding out much hope that that will turn up anything. A team is on its way to the canyon to see if they can ID the guys.”
She studied the open suitcase. “Maybe we could trade the cash for Carlo.”
“We could try—if we knew how to get in touch with whoever has him.” He closed the suitcase and set it on the floor. “I’m going to take a shower. You should try to get some sleep. Maybe we’ll be able to get more information in the morning.”
He took some clothes from the other suitcase and carried them and the plastic bag of toiletries into the bathroom. In a few minutes, she heard the shower running.
Stacy lay back on the bed, on top of the covers. One bed. That was all right. Sleeping with Patrick last night had been nice—even if they were only sleeping. She’d never met a man like him. He could be hard, brutal even—he hadn’t hesitated to kill three men to save their lives. But he’d been so gentle, too, when he was tending her wounds, or when he held her while she cried.
He was the kind of man she wished Sammy had been. But Sammy had never looked at her the way Patrick did—as if she was an intelligent person whose opinions mattered. As if she counted.
And she could never think of Sammy the way she thought of Patrick—that he was a good man who deserved her respect and admiration. All the bad things Sammy had done had blotted out any good that might have remained, whereas the more she knew about Patrick, the more good there was to see.
She closed her eyes, the soothing rhythm of the water in the shower beating against the tile lulling her to sleep. She dreamed she was on a beach with Patrick, and they were lying in the warm sun and he was smiling and taking her in his arms....
* * *
PATRICK LIFTED STACY and held her close, her head resting against his chest, his heartbeat a steady, strong rhythm in her ear. His hands caressed her back, and she slid her arms around his neck and snuggled closer, pressing her breasts against his bare chest, her nipples straining against the thin fabric of the T-shirt.
He grew still, his heart beating harder in her ear. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said softly. “I was just trying to get you under the covers.”
She opened her eyes, the fog of sleep clearing as she stared up at him, at the jut of his chin and the masculine plane of his freshly shaved cheek in profile. He smelled of soap and shaving cream and warm male skin. This wasn’t a dream or a fantasy; he was really holding her in his arms. And the thought of him releasing her and moving away, as much as the memory of her erotic dreams, made her brazen.
“I’ll get under the covers if you’ll get under there with me,” she said. She smoothed her palm down the taut muscles of his chest to his flat abdomen, stopping just short of the waistband of his boxers.
He took her by the upper arms and gently pushed her away from him. “I’d better sleep on the floor tonight,” he said.
She looked into his eyes, feeling bolder than she had in a long time. Maybe because she’d reached the point where she had nothing to lose. She’d given up everything—her name, her dignity, even her child. She had nothing left but the need to be honest with herself about what she really wanted, and right now, she wanted Patrick. “Don’t sleep on the floor,” she said. “I want you to sleep with me. To make love with me.”
“I don’t think that would be a good idea.” He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, a gentle caress that negated his words.
“Because you think it would be unprofessional?” She trailed her hand along his jaw, enjoying the smooth coolness of the freshly shaved skin.
“I’m supposed to be protecting you,” he said.
“No one’s going to hurt me while you’re this close.” She kissed him just below the ear, then began feathering kisses along the path her hand had just traced.
“Stacy, no.” He cradled the side of her head.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t felt this...this heat between us,” she said. She held her breath, waiting for him to lie.
“I’ve felt it,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.
She leaned back to look up at him. She wanted to see his face, to read all the emotion there. “We’ve been through hell the past couple days,” she said. “I can’t think of much worse. I’ve been terrified and hurt and my whole life right now feels like a nightmare. I can’t think about the future and I don’t want to relive the past. All I can do is hang on to this moment and focus on getting through the next day, the next hour, the next minute.”
“You should sleep,” he said. “We both should sleep.”
“Or we could lie down together on this bed and forget about everything else for a while by focusing on each other. We could give in to that attraction we’ve both felt and create at least one good memory from this whole mess.”
“I am
attracted to you.” He smoothed his hand down her shoulder, his thumb grazing the side of her breast and sending a tremor through her. “But duty doesn’t always allow me to do the things I want.”
Heaven save her from logical, steadfast men. She’d heard that men liked women who played hard to get, but apparently the reverse was true—the more Patrick resisted, the more she wanted him, and the more she was determined to persuade him. “You’ll be right here with me. You said yourself we can’t do anything else until the morning. We’re stuck here in this room. In this bed.” She took his hand and kissed his palm. “Please. I don’t want to beg, but I need you tonight. And I think you need me.”
“What about protection?”
She laughed. Even on the verge of giving in, he was still so calm and practical. “There’s a box of condoms in the suitcase. More than enough, trust me.”
“Then I guess we have everything we need.” His eyes met hers, the intensity of his gaze pinning her back against the pillows and stealing her breath. “If you’re sure this is what you want,” he said. “Because once this starts between us, I don’t know if I can stop.”
He would stop if she asked; he was that kind of man. But she wouldn’t ask. “I want this, Patrick,” she said. “I want you.”
He leaned forward, covering her with his body, lips pressed to hers, chest flattening her breasts, stomach to stomach and thigh to thigh. He held himself up just enough to keep from crushing her, but the weight of him felt good. She wanted him close—even closer. She shifted to shape herself more firmly to him and opened her mouth to deepen the kiss. His tongue caressed and claimed her, and she reveled in the sensation.
He was such a contradiction—hard muscle and tender caresses, insistent pressure and whispered encouragement. He helped her out of the boxers, and then the shirt, so that she lay alongside him naked. She should have felt vulnerable—exposed. But seeing her reflection in his eyes, she felt more beautiful than ever.