by Karen Rose
The doctor walked away leaving them in silence.
Then a sob broke free. Ned’s. Standing upright, the man just seemed to crumble inside. Without a thought, Jenna wrapped her arms around him and held him like Casey had held her all the times Adam’s illness had become too much to bear. It only seemed right she support Ned now. She held on, rocking him, smoothing his hair, letting him cry. It helped, giving comfort to another. Gave her something to do, kept her own fear from choking her to death.
“Jenna,” Lucas said urgently.
Jenna looked up and her eyes widened. There, not ten feet away, stood a pale Steven Thatcher next to a man she’d never seen before. A sense of relief coursed through her. Why? Just because he was here? Yes, just because he’s here. He came.
Then Steven looked at Ned in her arms and his brown eyes flashed in—what? Anger? It sure as hell better not be, she thought. She hadn’t done anything this time. Hurt? Unwarranted. Jealousy? Not acceptable considering she’d done nothing more than try to be Steven’s friend.
Or more.
She cleared her throat as he turned to walk away while the mystery man remained planted in place, his dark eyes narrowed and alert.
“Steven, wait,” she called and watched him stop. “Just wait.” She turned Ned toward the chairs and gently pushed him into one and looked at his ravaged face. “I’ll be right back. Do you want some water or anything?”
“Do you have any scotch?” Ned asked, leaning back and closing his eyes. “Scratch that, I’ve got to go to the airport for her folks in an hour. Water would be good.”
“Have you eaten anything?” she asked and he grimaced. “I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. Just water.” Ned opened his eyes and met Jenna’s even gaze. “Thanks, Jen. I know what you think of me, and I guess most of it’s been true, but—”
Jenna put her fingers over his mouth. “No, Ned. You’re here for Casey and that’s enough for me. I’ll go get your water. Lucas, you’ll stay here with him?”
And with Lucas’s nod she turned to find Steven still waiting, his expression more humble.
“Casey’s boyfriend,” Jenna said, looking up at him. “How is she?” Steven murmured. His hands opened and closed like he wanted to touch her. She wished he would. She really, really wished he would.
Jenna shrugged. “Touch and go. Next forty-eight hours will tell.” She closed her eyes. “If only she’d been in her own car. The air bag would have deployed and she’d be okay right now.”
Steven looked at her, feeling a burst of relief that she was standing here on her own two feet. Alive. She could have been the one in critical condition right now. But she wasn’t. She was alive. Wearing her karate gi and a pair of sandals, her face worn from worry, but she was alive. He needed to touch her, to prove to himself she was solid flesh and bone.
He just needed to touch her. But after the last time, would she let him?
It didn’t matter. His hand was lifting to her cheek on its own. Then she turned her face into his palm and that was all he needed. He pulled her into his arms and she came willingly, sliding her arms around his waist beneath his jacket. He pressed a kiss to her temple and she shuddered.
He shuddered right along with her, but for a very different reason. Her best friend was clinging to life because somebody tried to kill her. Over a damn football game. How would she feel when she found out her life was worth less than a damn football game to Lutz and his hoodlum friends? And what if Davies was right and Lutz was capable of so much more? Anger clawed at his gut, but he kept his voice, his touch, gentle. He smoothed a hand over her shiny hair and lifted her chin so he could see her face. He brushed his thumb across her lower lip. “I came as soon as I heard.”
Her dark brows snapped together, creating worry lines in her forehead he wanted to kiss away. “How did you know?”
This wasn’t the time to tell her she’d been the target, Steven thought. He’d tell her when he got her alone. Where she could curse and cry in private. “The police called me,” he said softly, still touching her face, still convincing himself she was okay. “You know how the rumor mill is. You visit me at a search site and half the force knows we’re . . .” He shrugged. “Whatever we are.”
She searched his face and his heart stumbled. “What are we?” she whispered.
You’re mine, his mind answered. Mine, mine, mine. But he drew a breath and murmured instead, “I want to find out if you’re still willing.”
She blinked her violet eyes, then nodded. “I am.”
A new wave of relief practically cut him at the knees. “Then will you wait for me here? I want to take you home, but I need to give someone a ride first. I’ll be back to get you in an hour. Hour and a half, tops.”
Jenna looked over his shoulder to where Davies still stood. “Who is he?”
Davies stepped forward, his hand outstretched. “I’m Detective Neil Davies. I’m working with Agent Thatcher on a case.”
Steven looked at Davies and wanted to frown. There was a light in Davies’s eyes, a light Steven recognized and didn’t like one iota. It was the light that came on in a man’s eyes when he saw a woman that he wanted. Steven was sure the same look had come into his eyes when he’d first seen Jenna.
Jenna pulled her arms from around his waist to shake Davies’s hand, leaving Steven feeling bereft. And pissed at Davies. He’d let Davies on his professional turf because he knew the mind of their killer, but... But stay away from my woman.
“It’s good to meet you, Detective,” she said, giving him one of her beautiful smiles, and Steven felt irrational jealousy simmer. “I’m Jenna. I’m glad Steven has some support on this case. I know it’s been consuming his time.” She turned back to Steven with a sigh. “Thanks for offering to take me home tonight, but I think I’ll stay here.”
“No, she won’t.”
Surprise on her face, she turned around to where an older man stood, looking determined. She frowned at him. “Yes, I will, Lucas.”
The man named Lucas shook his head stubbornly. “You heard what the doctor said. We can’t see her till she’s stable. You might as well get some rest so you’ll be strong tomorrow.”
“He makes sense, Jenna,” Steven said quietly.
Jenna sighed. “His logic is solid, this once. I’ll wait for you here, Steven.”
She’s as beautiful up close as she was through binoculars, Neil thought. As beautiful as she’d been in his dreams. And now, having seen her up close, having heard the smoothness of her voice, he knew he’d never get Jenna Marshall out of his mind.
“So who is she?” Neil demanded without preamble as he and Thatcher pulled out of the parking garage ten minutes later. Thatcher had been wearing a self-satisfied smile since Jenna had promised to wait for him and Neil wanted to wipe it from Thatcher’s face with a ferocity that shocked him.
Thatcher glanced over at him, his smile becoming a hard frown. “She’s my son’s teacher.” Thatcher was no idiot, Neil mused. He knew another man on the hunt.
“Just your son’s teacher?”
Thatcher clenched his teeth. “And my . . .”
If Thatcher didn’t know, Neil figured Jenna Marshall was not his woman after all. “Friend, girlfriend, lover, betrothed?” he asked sardonically.
A muscle twitched in Thatcher’s jaw. “Yes to one and two, not yet to three and four.”
“I see.”
“Make sure you do,” Steven said with false mildness. It must be the way Southern men posture, Neil thought and was not impressed.
They were quiet for several miles until Thatcher said harshly, “That accident was no accident.”
Neil turned in his seat, giving Thatcher his full attention. “What do you mean?”
“Jenna flunked one of the football players last week, suspending him from the team. The ballplayer and his friends have been making her life a living hell for the last week, slashing her tires, vandalizing her classroom. That call earlier was from the Raleigh PD. Her brakes were cut.�
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A new fury burned inside him. “Then Jenna was the target and her friend was just in the wrong place, wrong time.”
“Yeah.” Thatcher’s voice shook when he said the word. “I’ll tell her when I pick her up later. Oh, and three guesses as to who the football player is.”
Neil shot upright in the seat. “No fucking way.”
“Yes fucking way. Our own Rudy Lutz.”
His heart began to race. Close. They were close. “Can you prove he’s done the vandalism?”
“None of it so far,” Thatcher said tightly. “We could bring him in for questioning, but we don’t have enough to hold him. Certainly not enough to arrest him at this point. His father’s fancy lawyers would have anything we gathered tossed out of court.”
“But if we could arrest him—”
“We could get our own DNA sample to compare to the hair we found at the clearing.” Thatcher nodded. “Yeah, I thought of that already.”
“So what next?” Neil asked, practically vibrating, charged up and ready to pounce.
“See if we can’t more closely link Rudy to the trouble at the school or Jenna’s car tonight. Stay back for now, Davies. Let’s let the locals do their job and see where we come out.”
Neil bit his cheek. “I’ll stay back for now.” From Parker, he thought, but not from Jenna.
Thursday, October 6, 11:30 P.M.
“What do you know that you’re not telling me?” Jenna asked when they’d stopped in front of her apartment. “You’re too quiet. Too something. I don’t know. Tell me what you know.”
Steven braced himself. “Your brakes were cut, Jenna. Casey’s accident was no accident.”
Her face drained of all color leaving her white and trembling. “No,” she whispered. “They wouldn’t.” He said nothing, but took her hand and let her squeeze the life out of his. She leaned back, her eyes shut, her lips a strange fluorescent purple in the glare of the parking lot lights. “I thought it, in the waiting room, but didn’t want to believe it was true,” she said, her voice harsh. “But it is.” She clenched her teeth. “Steven, I need to run an errand. Will you drive me?”
“Where?” Steven asked warily.
“Just drive, please. I’ll tell you where.”
Thursday, October 6, 11:50 P.M.
After twenty minutes Steven stopped, looking up at their destination in a combination of disbelief and a strange feeling of karma. “This isn’t a good idea, Jenna.”
Her lips were set in mutinous determination. “You don’t have to go in. I, however, do.”
He guessed she did. He watched for a moment as she got out of the Volvo and marched up to the front door of the house, the whiteness of her karate gi making her look like she glowed in the dark. He caught up with her as she rang the doorbell.
Nobody answered. The house was dark.
“I think they’re all asleep,” he said mildly.
“Then let them wake up,” she gritted and leaned into the doorbell, creating one continuous chime they could hear through the expensive stained-glass door.
Finally a light came on. The door opened revealing a tired-looking woman in a flannel nightgown. A god-awful ugly flannel nightgown. “What is this about?” she asked imperiously.
Jenna pushed the door open and stalked in, leaving the woman agape. “Mrs. Lutz, I’m Dr. Marshall and I want to talk to you and your husband. You might as well cooperate, unless you want to call the police. Then we’ll have a nice conversation about what a saintly son you have.”
Mrs. Lutz paled. “Get out.”
Jenna stood her ground, nose to nose with Mrs. Lutz. “I will not. I will talk to you and your husband. Now.”
“Nora, what’s going on?”
Steven looked up to see Mr. Lutz coming down the stairs, tucking his shirt into his slacks. Jenna waited until he got to the base of the stairs before speaking.
“I have had enough of your terror tactics,” she said coldly and Lutz had the nerve to look bored. Big mistake, Steven thought.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Miss Marshall.” Jenna advanced until she was toe to toe with the hulking man and Steven poised himself to drag her away before it became physically confrontational. “It’s Dr. Marshall, you sniveling little man,” she said and Steven bit back a grin.
“Nora, call the police,” Lutz said calmly.
“Go ahead, call the police,” Jenna returned, now as calm as Lutz. On the surface only, Steven knew. “Call Al Pullman of the Investigative Division. I’m sure he’d like to talk with you.”
Lutz scowled. “Get out. Miss Marshall.”
“I will,” she said evenly, “but not until I’ve said what I came to say. You think you’re clever. You think I’ll give your son a grade he did not earn. But you’re wrong. Not only will I ensure your son never graduates from my school, I will not rest until he’s behind bars for what he’s done.”
Steven watched Lutz but didn’t see a single flicker of fear. Either Davies was wrong and Rudy was not the infamous William Parker or Lutz was good. Steven preferred to believe the sonofabitch was good. Really good. But ultimately not good enough.
Lutz said nothing and Jenna shook her head in disbelief. “A few spray-painted epithets I can take. Slashed tires and water in my gas tank I can take. I can even take the dead possum your son hung in my classroom yesterday morning.”
Steven straightened. He hadn’t heard about that. Animal mutilation was inextricably linked to serial killers. Almost all of them had killed animals at one time or another.
“But,” Jenna was continuing, “attempted murder I cannot take. Neither will the police.”
Lutz raised a brow. “You’re delusional.”
Jenna’s jaw went rigid. “No, I’m not delusional. I’m alive. But I may not have been and now my best friend’s lying in ICU because she drove my car this afternoon. My brakes were cut today, Mr. Lutz. That is not adolescent vandalism. That is no longer a misdemeanor. That is a felony.”
Lutz did pale at that. “What are you talking about?”
“I suggest you ask your son.” Jenna turned away, then turned back for one more exchange. “One more thing, Mr. Lutz. You’d better be praying my friend pulls through or the charge will be murder. And that doesn’t sit well with college scouts.”
She turned on her heel and walked out the door. Steven followed her quietly, still mulling over the look of shock on Lutz’s face. Of two things Steven was fairly certain. Lutz hadn’t known about the brakes nor did he care for the idea of his son being charged with felony murder. Go figure.
TWENTY-ONE
Friday, October 7, 12:30 A.M.
JENNA DIDN’T SAY A WORD UNTIL THEY WERE in her apartment with the door closed.
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered, jerking at the belt on her gi. Her fingers stilled and her shoulders sagged. “Dammit,” she whispered and his heart sagged, too. A wave of tenderness washed over him, and with it, a fierce need to protect her.
“Here, let me,” Steven said softly and went to work on the knot in her brown belt. He slipped the belt from around her waist and draped it over the soft arm of her sofa. Then he slipped the gi from her shoulders and laid it on top of the belt, leaving her in T-shirt and the gi bottoms.
And a bra, he thought, tenderness sliding over to make way for lust. He tried not to think about it. “Turn around,” he ordered, his voice husky in the quiet of her apartment. She obeyed and he massaged her shoulders, trying not to let her soft groan distract him from his relatively innocent task.
To make her feel good. To take away her stress. Be honest. To get your hands on her again.
“That feels good,” she said thickly, dropping her chin to her chest. He pushed her ponytail to one side and went to work on her neck. Tried to ignore the urge to kiss it. Tried to ignore the throbbing of his body. His erection was nothing new. He’d been stiff as a board since she’d given Lutz a piece of her mind. She’d been magnificent. But this was different. This was more.
He gave in and dipped his head, brushing his lips across the back of her neck, her sigh making his heart beat faster. Slipped his left arm around her, bracketing the underside of her breasts while his right hand massaged the long, lean line of her spine. Felt her heart beating hard against his arm. Felt her settle her incredible ass against his groin. He fought the urge to thrust, to bury himself deep inside her. He moved his arm, over and around so that her breast fell into his hand.
She drew a breath and he didn’t move. Neither did she. “Jenna,” he whispered.
“What?” she whispered back.
I want you, his brain screamed. I want to come inside you and pound and pound until everything else in the universe goes away. “I want to kiss you.”
She was quiet a moment, then drew another deep breath, pressing her breast into his hand, her nipple as hard as a diamond against his palm. “On one condition.”
“Which is?” he breathed, ready to grant her anything. “That you don’t run away again,” she whispered and he groaned.
He spun her around, pulling her into his arms, grinding his mouth against hers. Finding relief in the kiss even as the wanting built hotter and higher. Her arms came around his neck and she pressed against him, her breast to his chest. Her hips against his hips. Her soft mound against the hard ridge of his cock.
She was perfect. And mine. Mine, mine, mine. His hands slid down her back and under her waistband of her gi. Down until they touched lace. Until they covered her ass. Until they yanked, drawing her higher, closer, bringing him deeper into her softness. Making her moan his name.
His name. He pulled back, staring at her face. Her eyes, dilated and aroused. Her lips, full and pouty from their kiss. Her cheeks, slightly reddened from the scrape of his beard. “Say that again.”
“Steven,” she whispered again, but differently. Playfully. Flirtatiously. Her fingers dropped to his shirt, to the button in the middle of his chest. Nimbly she freed the buttons up until she reached his holster and down until she reached the waist of his pants. Then her hands were inside his shirt, splayed flat against his skin, her clever fingers tangling in the hair that covered his pecs. He shivered from the pleasure. Her hands felt so damn good. “Steven,” she whispered huskily.