Hunted

by Karen Robards

  She turned to look at him. Her eyes were big and dark. Her face was utterly white.

  In her hands she clutched a bloodstained blue plush teddy bear.

  It was all he could do to breathe.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “I—I WAS LOOKING for another shirt. I spilled coffee on myself.” Caroline knew she was stammering, but she couldn’t help it. The coffee had splashed down her right side: she had a ridiculous urge to point to the wet streak as proof. Reed stood immobile just inside the door. He looked big and tough and formidable, and he was standing absolutely still. The expression on his face was truly awful. He looked as if he’d just taken a powerful body blow. His eyes—she could hardly stand to look into his eyes. The raw pain in them was indescribable. “I’m so sorry, Reed.”

  Of course she shouldn’t have touched the teddy bear. If she had realized sooner what it was, what she was looking at, she would have closed the compartment’s doors and pretended she had never looked inside. But she had opened the doors, and there the bear had been, just sitting inside the upper portion of the armoire, a plump, pale blue toy with a white belly and a blue satin ribbon around its neck. Its presence in the armoire, in the shanty, was so unexpected that she’d succumbed to curiosity and picked it up before she’d thought it through. She’d just been noticing the pictures arranged behind it—maybe half a dozen framed photos of a chubby-cheeked little boy with curling black hair and a wide grin—when Reed had walked through the door.

  In that horrifying split second as she’d turned her head toward him, she’d realized what the teddy bear and the pictures had to mean: she was looking at Reed’s private shrine to his dead son. It was so personal, and at the same time so heartrending, that she felt like she had been punched in the stomach.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again, her voice faltering. He hadn’t moved, and his very immobility conveyed more than any words could have. That, and those anguished eyes.

  She watched him take a breath. Watched his eyes flicker and some kind of protective shield come down, hiding the pain from view.

  “It’s okay,” he said, and closed the door. He came toward her, treading lightly, his hard, handsome face as unreadable as if it had been carved from stone.

  Caroline hadn’t realized that she was still holding the teddy bear until he took it from her.

  “Reed.” She put her hand on his arm. “Can you talk to me about it?”

  His eyes met hers. The shield was up, but she’d already seen past it. The teddy bear was like a spear thrusting through the barrier he’d erected around his emotions.

  “There’s no big secret. This was Brandon’s.” Brandon was his son, Caroline knew. She also realized that she had never heard him say the child’s name before. His tone was conversational, almost casual. It didn’t fool her for a minute. She could feel how much he was suffering with some kind of new internal radar that seemed to be attuned specifically to him. “He loved this thing. He called it Blueberry. It was tucked into the car seat with him when he died.” He glanced down at the bear in his hands, and Caroline followed his gaze. His long fingers, tan and strong looking against the pale blue, were digging into the soft plush. She saw a few small brown stains marring the fur on one side, and wondered with a sickening feeling if they were indeed what they looked like: spots of blood. Her heart lurched as she made the connection: if the spots were indeed blood, they had in all likelihood come from his son. “By the time they gave it to me, it was too late to put it into the coffin with him, or I would have. But he was already buried.”

  Reed’s voice didn’t break. But Caroline’s heart did. A lump rose in her throat. A knot formed in her chest. She could feel the sting of tears rising in her eyes. She didn’t say anything. What was there to say? All she could do was listen to whatever he chose to tell her.

  “I gave it to him the Christmas before he died,” he continued. “After that, I almost never saw him without it. I brought it out here with me after the funeral. I stayed out here for a while, did some work on the place. I still come out here when I can. It seemed like a good place to keep it.”

  “I’m so sorry,” she told him again helplessly as he put the bear back inside the armoire, setting it down with a tenderness that tore at her heart before closing the doors on it.

  “I know.” He sounded perfectly normal, perfectly composed. She knew he was not. “It’s all right. It’s been a few years now. I’m over it. At least, most of the time.”

  He walked away, heading for the opposite side of the shanty. She followed him, knowing that he was hurting, knowing that nothing she could do could change anything. When he stopped beside the kitchen table, gripping the back of the chair she had so recently been sitting in, looking down at her coffee cup and the phone on the table without, she was almost sure, seeing either, she took one look at the unyielding set of those hard shoulders and came up beside him and put a hand on his back in wordless sympathy. The softness of the well-washed T-shirt did nothing to conceal the rigidity of the muscles beneath.

  “I don’t imagine anyone ever really gets over something like that,” she murmured.

  “There are good days and bad days. Christmas is hard.” Reed’s tone was still just as emotionless as if he were discussing the weather. “His birthday’s hard. He was killed three weeks before his fourth birthday. I was getting him his first bicycle, this little red thing with training wheels. He’d been begging me for one every time he saw me. His mother said he was too young, that we should wait until he was five or six, but I bought it anyway. It’s still in my garage.”

  “You must have been such a good father to him.” She rested her cheek against the firm muscles of his upper arm, offering what little she could by way of comfort. She could feel him fighting his grief, trying to reel it back into whatever closed-off place it must normally dwell in, and her heart ached for him.

  The sound he made then might have been meant as a laugh, but there was no amusement in it at all. He shook his head. “Not really. I married his mother—Susan—because she got pregnant. We fought all the damned time. When she left me—she hated my hours, hated how little I got paid, basically hated me being a cop—I would have counted it as my lucky day except for Brandon. Not having him around all the time—it was tough. I’d been drinking quite a bit before we split up, and after that I started drinking more. I mean, it never interfered with my work, never really interfered with anything, but I could—and did—put it away upon occasion. Anyway, one night I’d had plans to take Brandon out—nothing special, basically McDonald’s and the park—and when I showed up to pick him up they weren’t there. Susan was always doing that to me, ‘forgetting’ when I was supposed to have him, making plans that conflicted with stuff he and I were scheduled to do together.

  “That night, for some reason, it just really pissed me off. There was a restaurant down the street, so I walked down there and got something to eat and waited for Susan to bring him home. Of course, I knew she wouldn’t answer her cell phone—by that time, she never would answer when I called—so I sat down there eating my burger and knocking back a few beers and getting more and more pissed until finally, around ten o’clock, I saw Susan’s car scoot past the window. By the time I got back down there she’d parked the car in the driveway—she was staying with her mother, but that night her mother wasn’t home—and was getting out. Well, she and I had the mother of all arguments right out there on the driveway. Brandon was still in the back, in his car seat, hugging Blueberry and watching us and listening to every damned word. Finally she said, ‘I’m not going to talk to you anymore, you goddamned drunk,’ and jumped back in the car. Hell, I was buzzed but I wasn’t drunk, and that pissed me off even more, so I called her a few choice names and she peeled rubber out of there. I can still see Brandon waving good-bye to me as they left.” His head dropped forward. Caroline could feel the tension in his long body, see the rigidity in his wide shoulders, see in the whiteness of his knuckles how hard he was gripping the back of th
e chair. “I was so mad at Susan, I fucking didn’t even wave back. Twenty minutes later they were dead.”

  “Reed.” Caroline slid a hand down his back. Her throat was so tight that it hurt to swallow. But she had to swallow before she could get another word out. “There wasn’t anything you could have done to save them.”

  He slanted a look at her. There were lines bracketing his eyes and mouth that she had never seen there before, and his voice was harsh as he said, “It was my damned fault. If I hadn’t waited around to have it out with Susan, she would have taken Brandon in the house when she got there and they would have been fine.”

  Her stomach twisted. Her eyes prickled with tears. She couldn’t bear that he was taking such guilt on his shoulders. The pain on its own was bad enough. “It was not your fault. You had no way of knowing that would happen. You would have done anything to have made it turn out differently.”

  “You’re right, I would have. Anything. But that doesn’t make it any less my fault.” He took a deep breath, grimacing, and she could feel him working to ratchet his emotions back down again. She watched as he let go of the chair, slowly and deliberately, as if he had to consciously order his fingers to release their grip. “You know what I’ve never been able to get out of my head? The last time my kid saw me I was pissed and buzzed.” His eyes were bleak. “I haven’t had a drink since that goddamned night, but that doesn’t change a thing.”

  “You loved him,” she said, sliding her arms around his waist and laying her head on his chest, offering whatever slight solace might be found in a hug. Her eyes felt hot with unshed tears. “That’s what matters. You were doing your best for him. I’m sure he knew that. I’m sure he knows that.”

  She looked up at him earnestly as she spoke, and he cupped her face in both hands. His fingers felt warm and strong against her skin. His face was all hard bone and angles with the intensity of emotion. The crow-black hair, the dark gleam of his eyes, the high cheekbones, the beautifully cut mouth, the lean jaw shadowed with stubble, were, she realized with dismay, all etched on her heart now. What pained him, pained her, too.

  His thumb brushed her eyelashes. He looked down at the glistening drops it captured, and frowned.

  “Damn it, Caroline. Are those tears for me?” His voice was husky.

  Without waiting for her answer—not that there was any answer she meant to give besides her tears, which spoke for themselves—he bent his head and kissed her. Urgently, thoroughly, his lips hard, his tongue exploring her mouth, as if kissing her was the only hope of salvation he had. She closed her eyes and kissed him back just as intensely, welcoming the steamy heat they generated as an antidote to grief, embracing the blaze of passion that flared between them as a balm for pain. The inside of his mouth was hot and wet, and the slide of his tongue against hers made her shiver and cling. His hand found her breast, closing over it, squeezing, caressing, and her heart pounded and her pulse raced and her back arched as she wordlessly offered herself to him.

  “I want you. So damned much,” he murmured, feathering kisses across her cheek as she ran her hands up under his T-shirt to stroke over the sleek warm skin of his back. His body was taut with muscle and his arms were tight around her. She could feel the unmistakable evidence of how turned on he was pressing against her, and in response her body caught fire.

  “I want you, too,” she whispered. At that he lifted his head to look down at her for the briefest moment, just long enough for her to see how heavy lidded and hot his eyes were. Then he was kissing her again, his mouth fierce and hungry. She could feel the urgency in him, feel his tension in the rigidity of the arms around her. When he pulled her shirt off over her head, she lifted her arms for him, then tugged his shirt up until he pulled that over his head, too. She had just a second to admire the breadth of his shoulders and his wide chest before he was tugging her skirt down her legs. As he crouched in front of her and she obediently stepped out of it at his command, he tossed it aside and then slid his hands up the backs of her legs to cup her bottom. She shivered as he pressed his mouth against the silkiness of her panties right at the apex of her legs. The moist heat of his mouth penetrating the flimsy barrier made her suck in air and clutch at his shoulders.

  “Reed.” It was the merest breath of sound, uttered as he moved his mouth on her and licked against the silk and the hot dampness of it reached the quivering little nub that burned for his attention. Her heart lurched, her body clenched, and her bones melted, but before she could collapse into a puddle at his feet he stood up, steadying her with his hands on her waist. She looked up to see that he was taking in her slender curves in the delicate black bra and panties. His eyes blazed as they ran over her body, making her mouth go dry and her insides go haywire.

  “Caroline.” He bent his head to briefly kiss each nipple through the thin layer of cloth, drawing them into his mouth until she moaned and slid her fingers through the crisp strands of his hair and held him to her.

  When he let her go and stepped away from her, she had to steady herself by grabbing hold of the chair. Passion throbbed between them. The sizzle of it was in the air.

  “Get naked for me,” he said. His voice was thick and low. “I want to watch.”

  The mere idea of it excited her. Her lips parted because that was the only way she could get enough oxygen. Fiery little pinwheels of desire shot through her bloodstream.

  He stood there wearing nothing but his jeans, all broad-shouldered and muscular and hot. His eyes held a gleam she could only describe as carnal. His mouth had taken on a sensuous curve. Just looking at him made her toes curl. Her heart raced. Her body throbbed and burned. If he was using sex as a distraction and a solace, which she thought that he was, well, it worked for her, too. She was shivery with arousal, more turned on than she could ever remember being in her life. Burningly conscious of his eyes on her, she reached around behind her back to unclasp her bra. Holding it in place with one hand, she slid the straps down her arms before slowly, finally, allowing the flimsy garment to drop.

  His eyes were narrow and glittering as they roamed over her breasts before rising to meet hers. At the look in them, her bones turned to water. The air between them sizzled and steamed.

  “Now take your panties off,” he said.

  She did that for him, too.

  His eyes moved over her, not missing an inch, scorching her everywhere they touched.

  “You are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said, and reached for her. She went into his arms, burningly conscious of how erotic it felt to be naked against his bare chest and the abrasion of his jeans, and wrapped her arms around his neck.

  Then they were kissing again, hot and deep, and he was picking her up and taking her to bed.

  Stripping off his jeans, tumbling her down on the bed, he came into her hard, setting the pace, taking what he wanted with an urgent need that had her writhing and clinging to him and responding with a fiery passion that was explosive in its intensity. He demanded and she gave, letting him take her to places she had never been, losing every inhibition she had ever had. In the end, when pleasure broke over her, as she arched against him and cried out his name and he thrust inside her one last time, she was mindless at the wonder of it.

  Then they did it again.

  The sex was wild, the climax shattering.

  Lying there in his arms in the aftermath, she knew that everything had changed.

  She had fallen in love with him. Hopelessly. Irretrievably. Terrifyingly. Not a thing she could do.

  He lay flat on his back with her next to him. His arm was heavy and warm around her, and her head was pillowed on his chest. Her hand rested just above his heart. She could feel its steady beat beneath her palm.

  For a moment she considered telling him.

  Then she tilted her head and met his eyes.

  They were absolutely unreadable.

  She was just opening her mouth to say something, anything, except the one truly important thing that
she was having instant doubts about revealing, when music began to play. Happy music. Young music. Bebopping.

  For a moment the two of them lay there looking at each other in mystified silence as the opening bars of Miley Cyrus’ “We Can’t Stop” filled the air.

  It hit Caroline first: “It’s Elizabeth’s cell phone. I left it on.”

  Glad of an excuse to get out of bed and thus avoid any awkward postcoital chat until she had a chance to get her thoughts, and heart, in order, Caroline scrambled for the phone.

  “Don’t answer it,” Reed said sharply, rolling out of bed behind her.

  “I won’t.”

  After everything she and Reed had done together, and not forgetting that at this point he had seen and more than seen every square inch of her, it was ridiculous to feel shy about being naked in front of him, she knew. But still, she did. She grabbed his T-shirt—hers was stained with coffee—and pulled it on as she went, which was why they reached the table, and the still-bleating phone, at almost the same time.

  The name Julio Perez and a phone number blazed from the screen.

  It meant nothing to her.

  But apparently it did to Reed. He stared at it for a split second. Then, cursing, he snatched the phone up.

  “I thought you said don’t answer it,” Caroline protested.

  Hushing her with a shake of his head, Reed said a cautious, “Yes?” into the phone.

  Then his brows snapped together in a ferocious frown.

  “Hey, Dick—” Caroline could hear the urgent voice on the other end perfectly well. Her eyes widened as she recognized it. “I know where Ant is.”

  “Where?” Reed’s voice was sharp.

  “They got him at the Six Flags. In the theater. Where are you?”