IN LOVE WITH HER BOSS

by Christie Ridgway

  Lori's gaze jumped to his. "N-nothing."

  He shook his head. "Won't wash, honey."

  She hesitated, then her shoulders slumped. "I suppose it doesn't matter. Not now," she muttered to herself.

  "What doesn't matter?"

  "I…" Lori closed her eyes, opened them. "I came to Whitehorn because I wanted to be where my mother grew up. And I wanted to get to know my half sister."

  Josh stilled. "Melissa?" His mind whirled. The resemblance, Lori's interest in the other woman, it all made sense. "Why didn't you ever say anything?"

  "I wasn't sure what to say. Or do. What if she didn't like me? What if she didn't like me because I was the product of an affair between her father and my mother? I wanted to give us a chance to know each other first, without bringing the past into it."

  Josh listened to her oh-so-reasonable explanation, his mood growing darker by the minute. "Hell, Lori, I meant why didn't you ever tell me?"

  She blinked. "I—" Her mouth clamped shut.

  "You never even considered it, did you?" His voice was harsh. While he'd been opening himself to her, while he'd been wooing her, loving her, she'd been clutching her secrets to herself as tightly as ever.

  Her expression closed. Then she stood up. "I have to go."

  Josh grabbed her wrist. "When you go, we'll go together. Let me gather a few things and then I'll follow you over to my house. We can work at home today."

  "No," Lori said.

  Josh sighed. "We don't need to stop by your place, Lori. Not now, anyway. We'll get your things later."

  "No." Lori shook her head. "I'm not moving in with you."

  Josh reined in his sudden spike of anger. "Don't be stupid. You'll be safer at my house."

  "I'm leaving Whitehorn. Today. Right now."

  He just stared at her, her words echoing in his head. "You're leaving me?"

  Her mouth set. She nodded. "It's for the best."

  "Lori—"

  "I'll be fine."

  The three words turned back the clock five years and his temper exploded. "Fine? What the hell kind of word is that?"

  Lori swallowed. "I'll be fine on my own."

  "Meaning you don't need me," he said flatly. "You don't need my protection."

  She swallowed again. "Yes."

  "You don't need my help."

  "Yes."

  Josh stared at her. "You're just like Kay," he said.

  Lori flinched. "I don't know what you mean."

  "Rash. Foolhardy. Unable to ask for help when you need it."

  "I told you," Lori answered, her voice fierce. "I'm not weak. I don't need help."

  Josh's anger spiked again as he realized how serious Lori was. Her face was set and her eyes were hard. His heart twisted and he grimaced. This was pain he'd never wanted to feel again.

  "Damn it. Damn it." He jumped to his feet and paced around the reception area. "What the hell is wrong with me?"

  Lori rose to her feet, too. "Josh, it's not—" She broke off, started again. "Believe me, there's nothing wrong with you."

  As if that little assurance was going to take the edge off. "Yeah?" He shook his head. "Then how do you explain me finding, me loving, the one woman in the world who wants to put me through this kind of hell again?"

  Lori's face paled. "You … love me?"

  "No. I couldn't possibly." He stalked to the window and braced his hands on the sill. "I won't do this again. I blamed myself for Kay's death, and the truth is, I blamed her too. How could she be so foolish? If she'd thought of me, been willing to share more of herself with me, she wouldn't have taken such a pointless risk that day."

  "I don't know what drove Kay. But I know I can't lean on you, Josh. I can't let myself be weak in that way." Lori's voice sounded strained. "I'm leaving town right now. I'll be safe that way. I'm not doing it to hurt you, Josh."

  Then why was his chest aching? He closed his eyes. Steeled himself. "And you're not going to hurt me." He turned his head and looked at her, willing it to be true. "I told you, I don't just want a lover. I want a partner, a life partner. Well, you've just proven that you can't be that."

  "Josh—"

  "Go ahead and leave town, Lori." The words tasted like ashes in his mouth, but he had to find a way to survive without her. "Leave Whitehorn with a clear conscience. Because I don't love you. I won't love you."

  "I know." Lori's voice cracked.

  So did Josh's heart. He whirled around.

  She was speeding toward the door and had wrenched it open before he could stop her. Her hair fluttered behind her as she ran out.

  "Lori!" He rushed to the open doorway, only to come face-to-face with someone new.

  "Hey, Mr. Anderson." A kid marched up. in the uniform white shirt and dark pants of the nearby parochial school. He held out a glossy brochure. "We have the day off and I'm selling herbs and stuff for a school fundraiser." The kid paused, then grinned. "How many can I sign you up for?"

  The interruption made Josh pause for a crucial moment. Just as he was digging for some cash to shove at the kid, he saw Lori's car tear out of the parking lot.

  * * *

  Though her eyes were dry, Lori's breath came in hiccupy sobs as she drove the short distance to her apartment. She'd made it out of the construction office without betraying the shattered state of her heart, but once inside her car she hadn't been able to control her feelings.

  Still, she had to believe that leaving town was the right choice to make.

  It was one thing to forge a relationship with Josh and with Melissa when David was a threat she'd left behind. It was entirely another to bring that threat into the lives of these two people she cared so much about.

  People that she loved.

  As she braked in her apartment's parking lot, she blinked back the tears stinging her eyes. Josh loved her. No, that wasn't right. If he had loved her, he didn't anymore.

  Pulling her keys from her purse, she rushed up the path to her front door. Getting out of Whitehorn was the thing to think about now. Not Josh.

  Once inside, she double-locked her door and dragged her suitcases from the narrow hall closet. There were only her clothes and a few personal items to pack. After years of looking over her shoulder she'd learned the importance of being able to pick up and move on quickly. Like the last three places she'd lived, she'd rented the apartment furnished.

  Once she'd stuffed everything into her luggage, she took one last look around. Her gaze snagged on a flannel shirt of Josh's, one he'd left behind after spending the night in her bed.

  She stared at it, biting down on her lower lip. She had to leave him, for God's sake. What kind of woman could profess to love a man in one breath, then put him in danger in another?

  Josh thought he could handle David. But so had she, and she had the scars to prove how wrong she'd been. She swallowed hard, trying to rein in another rush of regret. This wasn't the time or place to second-guess herself! She knew David was in Whitehorn. And deep in her soul, call it instinct, call it intuition, she sensed that he was more determined than ever. He'd come all the way to Montana, hadn't he?

  She could almost smell the evil stench of the demons that drove her ex-husband. She could almost hear their vicious whispers.

  Lori rushed back into the bedroom and slammed shut one of her suitcases then grabbed for the handle. It slipped from her grasp, thumping to the carpet, and Lori stared down at her nerveless fingers. They quaked, her hands trembling like an old woman's.

  She wouldn't be able to drive like this. Lord, she'd kill herself or someone else before she made it two blocks.

  Her breath hiccuped again, and she closed her eyes, willing herself to calm. But instead, faces kaleidoscoped in her imagination: Josh, Melissa – David. Their images shattered, reformed, shattered again.

  She dropped onto the mattress. If only she could find the kind of peace she found when running. The kind of tranquility she found in the zone.

  Her gaze landed on the one still-open suitcase
, her running shoes tucked into one corner. If only she could put them on and run away from her problems!

  She looked down at her shaking hands. Why not? Of course she couldn't run away from her problems, but why couldn't she go for a calming run before leaving town?

  Because David had been told about her habit of visiting the gym, that's why. If he operated as he had all the other times he'd found her, right now he was parked in the gym parking lot, patiently waiting for her to show up.

  But a new thought jumped into her mind. It was nearly seventy degrees outside. Why couldn't she take her run outside? With David staked out at the gym, she could take one last goodbye run around Whitehorn before driving away from the town forever.

  Without letting herself think on it anymore, Lori started dressing in her running clothes. It took her a long time; her fingers were still almost useless, but her panic was easing.

  She knew she was taking a chance. But she needed this. She needed to run the Whitehorn streets one time and pretend that it was her town. Pretend that her life was her own.

  Her fingers fumbled again as she locked her apartment door, but them she slipped the key into the interior pocket of her shorts. Nerves strung tight, she didn't go through her usual stretching. Instead, she started out jogging, letting the slow, deliberate steps warm up her muscles.

  The Montana air was sweet and she sucked it in, trying to capture this precursor of a Whitehorn spring that she wouldn't be here to see. She passed the occasional person as she headed out, but for the most part, the streets she moved along were quiet and semi-rural.

  As her pace sped up she anticipated that blissful zone. Surely by the next corner she'd be there. Or the next.

  But it didn't happen. Her mind didn't smooth out as she so desperately needed it to do. Instead, it filled with Josh. With his slow smile, his slow lovemaking, the desperate and angry edge to his voice after she'd told him she was leaving.

  She wasn't wrong to leave him!

  Was she?

  Once that little doubt entered her mind, she couldn't seem to shake it. Her feet moved faster, trying to outrun it, but instead it kept pace with her. With every step the question jabbed at her.

  By staying, by counting on Josh, by leaning on him, then he would have power over her. That was a kind of vulnerability she'd sworn never to feel again the day she'd crossed the state line into Montana. Relying on herself, training and honing her own strength so that she could do that, was what had kept her sane all these years David had been stalking her.

  Josh wanted a partner, and she couldn't be that.

  Her footsteps faltered. A partner.

  Josh wanted to share with a woman. He wanted a woman's dreams, her emotions, her strength. In return he wanted to give his own back. Give and take. Take and give.

  She thought of the anguished expression on his face when she'd said she was going away. You're leaving me? he'd asked.

  Shared vulnerability.

  Air stuttered into Lori's lungs and she stopped running to stand still, flummoxed by her thoughts. Melissa and Wyatt flashed in her mind. That same anguished expression on Wyatt's face when he was watching over Melissa in the hospital. Lori, just this morning, begging her half sister to let her husband take care of her.

  At the same time rejecting the caring that the man she herself loved wanted to give – to share – with her.

  A sudden, new certainty burst upon her like another blast of warm, chinook wind. Lori glanced about quickly, trying to get her bearings. Would it be quicker to run back home and get her car or just head to the Anderson, Inc., office from here?

  Because she had to go to Josh. She couldn't, shouldn't give him up. Her heart lifting, she assessed that she was just a couple of blocks from the old schoolhouse that housed the office. Picking up her pace once more, she turned the next corner and sped forward.

  Josh. She had to ask his forgiveness. She had to make him see that she knew she was wrong. That by choosing to leave him she'd nearly let David win.

  "Lori!"

  It was as if just thinking his name caused him to materialize. Lori heard her own name called out in a familiar, almost friendly voice. Her feet tripped, and she nearly pitched forward.

  "Lori!"

  She caught herself and straightened, her body going ice-cold as she saw the slender blond man leaning against the nondescript car across the street. Oh, God.

  David Post smiled pleasantly. "I got tired of waiting at that high school, so I've been driving around town looking for you," he said.

  Lori glanced about. This short block dead-ended into downtown Whitehorn's main street, but the lots on either side of her and David were vacant. From here she could even see cars tooling along the main thoroughfare, people going to the shops and businesses of Whitehorn. And, as the crow flew, even Josh's office was close, but there was no reason for him or anyone to venture into this deserted area.

  "What do you want, David?" Lori spoke the words slowly, sizing up the situation. If she ran, he was close enough that he would easily overtake her before she made it to the populated street – she knew how quick he was – but that was also why she'd taken those self-defense classes. There was no reason to panic.

  David smiled again. "It's you, Lori. It's always been you." Then he lifted the hand at his side and pointed a gun at her.

  * * *

  Josh hadn't budged from the office's reception area since Lori had left. After pressing some bills on the uniformed kid, he'd gone to stand by the window. He stood there still, his head pounding, his stomach roiling, the kind of sour taste in his mouth that he only associated with a bad hangover. And just as he had the few times he'd felt this lousy, he wanted to go back in time and undo his stupidity.

  But you could never reverse a night of over-imbibing. You could never take back the words that had let the woman you loved get away.

  The front door swung open and Josh jerked his head around, hoping—

  But it wasn't Lori walking over the threshold. Instead, it was her half sister Melissa, followed by Wyatt. Their concerned expressions turned alarmed the instant they caught sight of him.

  He must look like hell.

  Not surprising, because that's exactly where he deserved to go.

  Melissa hurried toward him, holding out one hand. Knowing now that she was Lori's half sister, the older woman's beauty only made him miss his Southern beauty more.

  "What's the matter, Josh?" Melissa asked. "What's happened?" She touched his forearm, then patted his shoulder, as if convincing herself he was still all there.

  Josh rubbed a hand over his face. "Lori's gone." Wyatt came up behind his wife and laid his palm on her shoulder. "Gone where?"

  "Gone, gone." Josh tried swallowing down the taste in his mouth. "I told her I don't love her."

  Melissa winced. "You're an idiot," she said, though her kind tone didn't take out the sting.

  "You can't call me anything I haven't called myself," he answered. He swiped his face again. "I can't believe I let her get away." Just as he had with Kay, he'd swallowed his misgivings, he'd held back on his need to protect Lori, he'd given her the freedom she wanted.

  "She was only trying to protect you, you know." Melissa said.

  "What?" Puzzled, Josh looked down at her. "Protect me?"

  "Remember how she told me to be careful? How she told me to let Wyatt take care of me?"

  "Yeah, I remember," Josh answered. "So you'd think she'd take her own advice and let me take care of her."

  Melissa shook her head. "That's not the way love works, silly. Lori's first instinct was to shield you."

  Josh blinked, then lifted his arms from his sides. "Melissa, let's get serious here. I'm six-five, 220 pounds. If we want to determine who makes the better shield, I think we can all agree—"

  "You're an idiot, Josh Anderson," Melissa said again, this time not as kindly. She jammed her hands on her hips. "For goodness sake, how many times do we have to tell you male dimwits that size doesn't matter?"
<
br />   Wyatt looked like he was holding back a grin, but then his face sobered. "Maybe we should argue about that later, my love." He glanced at Josh. "Do you think Lori's in real danger from this ex-husband of hers? Should we call the sheriffs office?"

  Lori's ex-husband. The sheriff. The words rubbed like salt against the raw wound that was Josh's soul. "Hell, I don't know what to do," he told Wyatt. "Lori said she was leaving town. That should throw off the bastard."

  Melissa's face froze. "She probably went home to pack her things," she said, turning to look at Wyatt.

  Her husband's hand squeezed her shoulder, but his gaze went to Josh. "That's why we came. Rick Weber talked to the blond man, too."

  Josh frowned. "Wily Rick Weber?"

  Wyatt nodded. "He came out earlier today to work up a landscape bid at the Hip Hop. A few minutes ago he stopped by to drop it off and he told us a blond man had asked him about Lori when he was outside the café this morning." Wyatt hesitated. "And Rick had made it his business to find out where Lori lives when she first showed up in town."

  Josh's heart stopped. "He told him."

  Wyatt nodded. "So—"

  But Josh didn't hear any more, because he was sprinting for the door. "I've got to find her."

  With one hand he groped for the car keys in his pocket while he pulled open the front door with the other. The springlike air washed over him, its warmth incongruous against his cold determination. He wasn't going to swallow anything anymore, least of all a threat to Lori. He'd start at her apartment. But no matter what it took, he was going to find her.

  No matter what it took, he was going to tell her he loved her. That he couldn't stop loving her.

  He dashed toward the parking lot, the soles of his boots skidding on the gravel. Even with the skittery noise of the pebbles beneath his feet, though, he heard it.

  A gunshot.

  His heart jolted. Without a second's hesitation, he switched directions, racing toward the sound. He vaguely heard Wyatt shout from behind him, but Josh didn't slow.

  He didn't know how he knew, but he did.

  Lori was hurt.

  His strides ate up the half block to the nearest intersection. He flew across the road in the direction of Anders Street