by Gina Wilkins
There was a long, taut moment of silence. Both Gabe and Blake were motionless, looking at Page, waiting for her response. She seemed frozen in indecision, her expression tortured, fine tremors running visibly through her.
“Please, Gabe,” she whispered finally, the words hardly loud enough for him to hear. “You must believe that I know what I’m doing. It would be best for everyone if you were to go back to Austin and forget you ever saw me again. Please. Give me my things and let me go.”
He waited a heartbeat, then deliberately opened her purse and dumped the contents onto the coffee table.
Page moved as if to stop him, but Blake cleared his throat in warning. She sighed in angry resignation and returned to her chair, her face expressionless again.
While Blake looked on, Gabe rummaged through the contents of the large leather bag. What he found told him a great deal about the way Page had been living.
Apparently she’d adapted the Boy Scout motto: Be Prepared. She seemed to be prepared for just about anything.
Gabe found a sewing kit, a flashlight, a small first-aid kit, a lighter, and a Swiss army knife with half a dozen functional accessories. There was even another slender spray can like the one she’d used on him. He tossed that to Blake, who stowed it safely in his pocket. Two granola bars. A folding toothbrush and travel-size toothpaste. Travel-size soap and deodorant.
“How the hell did you haul this thing around?” he asked, glancing up at Page. “It must have weighed a ton.”
She didn’t answer.
Still digging, Gabe found a notepad with an attached ballpoint pen, a solar-powered calculator, a tube of lip balm, a folding comb-and-mirror set, sunglasses and a pair of thick reading glasses. He held those up to his eyes; the glass was clear. The glasses would serve no purpose other than to change her appearance.
He turned the purse inside out to make sure he hadn’t overlooked anything of interest.
He found a wallet and a thick, zippered leather pouch concealed at the bottom of the bag. Her driver’s license had expired. The address was an apartment in Houston, where she’d lived before Austin. The photograph was more than four years old.
He studied it for a moment, and his throat tightened as the face of the woman he’d married smiled back at him. Clear blue eyes, honey-blond hair. Young and happy-looking.
He couldn’t resist glancing at the woman sitting near him now, her face sullen beneath the tousled cap of dark auburn hair, her brown eyes narrowed in resentment. And for only a moment, he allowed himself to grieve again for his lost bride.
He cleared his throat and turned his attention back to the wallet. There were no credit cards or other ID, only two twenty-dollar bills and a handful of change.
And then he unzipped the leather pouch, and he choked. He quickly counted the stack of bills inside, then stared incredulously at Page. “Tell me you don’t carry this much money all the time.”
She only shrugged and looked away, and he had his answer. Every dollar she’d earned in the various jobs she’d held during the past couple of years apparently went directly into her purse. She hadn’t even been willing to commit to a bank account since she’d left him.
“Talk to me, Page,” he said again.
She looked down at her lap, where she held her hands in a white-knuckled grip.
He cursed in frustration and opened her suitcase. He found it crammed with clothing, underthings, shoes, sleepwear and toiletries. Nothing superfluous or frivolous—no books, no mementos, nothing that could in any way be construed as sentimental. If she’d had any of those things in her apartment in Des Moines, she’d left them behind.
He almost missed the small, tattered cardboard square stuck in one corner of the suitcase, trapped in the lining. He pulled the card out curiously, feeling as though he’d just made a significant discovery.
“‘James K. Pratt,’” he read out loud. “‘Detective. Richmond Virginia Police Department.’”
The strangled noise Page made in response to the name sounded very much like anguish.
Gabe brought his head up sharply to look at her. Her expression was still wooden, but her eyes were tortured.
“Who is he?” he demanded.
She turned her head away.
Gabe turned to Blake and held out the card. “Find out,” he ordered curtly.
Taking no offense, Blake nodded and slipped the card into his pocket. “Can you hold her here for a while?”
“I’ll hold her here if I have to tie her to that chair,” Gabe answered flatly. “I’m keeping the batteries charged for my cell phone. Call me when you’ve got something.”
Blake nodded again and pushed himself to his feet. He paused beside Page’s chair. “He’s not going to give up, you know,” he said, his tone surprisingly gentle. “But he only wants to help you. Aren’t you getting tired of trying to handle whatever it is by yourself?”
A quiver seemed to run through her, but she remained silent.
Blake sent Gabe a sympathetic look. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, and then left them alone again.
Gabe was beginning to feel the effects of stress and exhaustion. He tried asking Page a few more questions, but it soon became obvious that she wasn’t talking. He decided to stop wasting his energy until Blake provided him with more information.
“I’ve got to get some sleep,” he said, nodding toward the cabin’s only bedroom. “Come on.”
“I’ll wait here,” she said, looking rooted to her chair.
“Yeah, sure you will,” he agreed sarcastically. “Until I’ve left the room, anyway.”
He held out his hand. “Let’s go.”
Without touching him, she stood, watching him warily. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to make sure you don’t go anywhere while I’m resting,” he answered, reaching out to set a hand on her shoulder and turn her toward the bedroom door.
She stiffened at his touch, and stumbled when he gave her a slight push toward the bedroom. “I don’t suppose you’d take my word that I won’t try to escape while you’re sleeping.”
“I don’t suppose I will,” he said dryly. “Either walk or be carried, Page.”
“I could really hate you for this.”
He found her wording interesting, but didn’t try to pursue it “That’s just a risk I’ll have to take, isn’t it?”
With a long-suffering sigh, she finally stopped resisting him and walked the rest of the way into the bedroom without further protest.
He shoved the bed against one wall and nodded toward it. “Lie down.”
“You’re the one who wants the nap.”
He cleared his throat.
She said something beneath her breath he didn’t think he wanted to hear. And then she kicked off her shoes and fell heavily onto the bed. At his command, she scooted close to the wall.
He unclipped the cellular phone from his belt and set it on the nightstand. And then he slipped off his shoes and lay beside her, on the outside edge of the bed, his back turned to her.
“I warn you, I’ve become a very light sleeper,” he muttered, settling into the thin pillow. “If you try to get up, I’ll know it. And I’ll be highly annoyed.”
This time he understood her low-voiced response. It was crude and earthy and physically impossible, but for some reason it made him smile. He kept his inappropriate amusement to himself as he closed his eyes and drifted into a light sleep.
PAGE LAY on her back, staring at the cabin’s dingy ceiling and asking herself what she’d done in her youth to deserve this sort of pain. She’d always tried to be a good person, to do the right thing. She’d obeyed her parents, followed the rules, made good grades, hadn’t smoked or drank or done drugs or been promiscuous.
Her nickname in school had been Mary Poppins, because she’d been so moral and responsible.
And what did she have to show for all those years of clean living? Two and a half years of terror. No family. No friends. No home. No peace.
The only man she’d ever loved lay beside her now, and yet they might as well be in separate states. He was hurt and bitter, and she was too afraid to reach out to him. She still had every intention of getting away from him as soon as possible, even if it meant she had to knock him out and lock him up. And it had to be soon.
She wished he hadn’t kissed her.
Her mouth still tingled. Her body throbbed with needs she’d thought long forgotten. And her heart ached with the knowledge that she’d hurt Gabe desperately. And she’d do so again.
She had no other choice.
She had to get away soon, she told herself again. Blake made her nervous. He was much too good at whatever it was he did. It wouldn’t be long before he’d have the information about Detective Pratt.
Gabe seemed to have implicit trust in Blake’s abilities. For a weak moment Page wished she had Blake on her side. There was a chance that he could help her...
No. That was a gamble she wasn’t willing to take.
No one else would die because of her.
She’d learned, to her lifelong regret, that when she made a wrong choice, she wasn’t the only one who suffered the consequences. She would cause no more innocent bystanders to pay for her sins. Whatever those sins might have been.
Gabe had been sleeping soundly for a couple of hours. He’d turned in his sleep so that he faced her now, though he hadn’t stirred since. His breathing was steady, his lips slightly parted, his muscles relaxed.
She studied him for a moment, thinking that he looked younger in sleep. More the way she’d remembered him on those very rare occasions when she’d allowed herself to think of him.
A lock of brown hair had tumbled onto his forehead. Her fingers itched to brush it back, the way she had so many times in the past.
She curled her hand into a fist to keep herself from making that mistake.
Experimentally, she lifted her head from the pillow. Gabe didn’t stir.
Holding her breath, she rose to one elbow, never taking her gaze from his face. When he still didn’t move, she tried shifting her weight, inching slowly downward toward the foot of the bed. If she could just slip off without waking him, she could—
His hand shot out to catch her forearm. “Forget it,” he growled, his voice gravelly.
She pushed away from him, hoping his reflexes might still be dulled from sleep.
He rolled on top of her, pinning her to the bed with his weight. “You never give up, do you?”
“I was only going to the bathroom,” she muttered.
“Be glad your name isn’t Pinocchio,” he advised, yawning. “As much as you lie, your nose would be ten feet long by now.”
“You may get off of me now,” she said, clinging to her dignity, despite her embarrassing position.
He didn’t move. With his face very close to hers, he took his time studying her. “You look different with brown eyes. But I suppose that was the intention, wasn’t it?”
Taking it as a rhetorical question, Page didn’t answer. “I can’t breathe,” she complained instead, pushing futilely against his broad shoulders.
“I’ve been on top of you in bed before, remember? You never complained then.”
She swallowed a groan. Her body was already reminding her of other times when he’d been on top of her—and vice versa. To make it worse, she could tell that his body was remembering, as well.
“Gabe, please,” she said, her voice strained. “I’d like to get up.”
“It seems that I already have,” he commented, shifting his hips against her.
She flushed. “There’s no need to be crude.”
“Why not? Nothing else has worked so far. Maybe I can embarrass some answers out of you.”
“I don’t embarrass easily,” she said coolly. “Get off of me, Gabe.”
He seemed to take the order as a challenge. “I will—when I’m ready.”
She curled her lip. “You’ve resorted to stalking, assault, kidnapping, threats. What’s it to be now? Rape?”
She’d hoped to shame him into releasing her. Instead, he cupped her face in one hand, and lowered his mouth to within an inch of hers. “Would it be rape, Page?” he asked in a seductive murmur, his breath caressing her lips. “Would it really?”
Automatically, she moistened her lips. She tried to answer, but her voice stuck in her throat
Gabe brushed his lips against hers. Lightly. Testingly.
And then he abandoned the taunting and took her mouth in a hard, deep, hungry kiss.
A need greater than her willpower made Page stop fighting him.
Despite her better judgment, she couldn’t seem to find the strength to struggle against him just then. Her arms slipped around her husband’s neck. Emotions that had been pent up for much too long flooded through her as she abandoned herself to his embrace.
It had been so long since Gabe had held her like this.
GABE COULD ALMOST FEEL his brain empty of thought as he sank more deeply into Page’s welcoming softness. The faint scent of strawberries clouded his mind, and the sweetness of her taste made his entire body pulse with need.
He’d been dreaming for so long of holding her this way again.
He closed his eyes so that he couldn’t see the differences in her. He could almost imagine that he was holding his Page again.
The little sound she made when his hand closed over her breast was familiar, as was the ragged cadence of her breathing when he pressed his open mouth to her throat. He remembered every detail as clearly as though it had been only yesterday since he’d last held her.
Hurt, anger and bitterness faded, overshadowed by the heat of passion. Gabe didn’t want to acknowledge any feelings beyond desire.
Anything else was simply too painful to contemplate at the moment.
“Page,” he muttered, burying his face in her throat. “It’s been so damned long.”
Her fingers tightened in his hair. Her chest heaved .beneath him.
It took him a moment to realize that she was crying.
He lifted his head. She turned her face away, but not before he saw her tormented expression.
Deep sobs racked her. The utter hopelessness of the sounds she made tore at his heart.
“Page, talk to me,” he asked one more time.
Her only response was to curl tightly into herself and cry harder. Gabe suspected that it had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to break down.
He rolled to his side and pulled her into his arms. She resisted for a moment, but then allowed him to press her head into his shoulder. He held her while she cried as though her heart were broken.
His own eyes felt suspiciously damp. Whatever the reasons for her behavior, it was obvious that she was in terrible pain. She felt so slight and vulnerable in his arms. She’d been so very much alone..
For the first time since he’d found her again, he concentrated solely on her feelings instead of his own. And he realized that he wasn’t the only one who’d suffered during the past two and a half years.
“Let me help you, Page,” he murmured, stroking her, hair. “You don’t have to be alone any longer. Tell me what’s going on so I’ll know how to help.”
“I can’t,” she whispered, her breath hitching pitifully. “I can’t—I won’t take that risk.”
“Tell me,” he insisted. “Whatever it is, we can deal with it together. You can’t go on like this—and neither can I.”
He wiped her wet face gently with his hand and gazed into her tear-filled eyes. He held his breath as she parted her lips, looking as though she wanted to speak but was afraid to do so. He willed her to overcome the fear, to finally answer the questions that had been burning inside him for so long.
She cleared her throat. “I—”
Gabe groaned in frustration when the cellular phone on the nightstand suddenly chirped, shattering the intimacy between them. Page’s expression grew shuttered, and she fell silent, looking away from him.
Gabe swu
ng his feet to the floor. He snatched up the phone as it rang again, flipped it open and snapped, “What?”
“Detective James K. Pratt is dead,” Blake said without preface. “He died in a rather mysterious car accident sixteen months ago, leaving a young widow and twin toddlers. My sources say he was working a case on his own time, but no one seems to know exactly what it was.”
“Pratt’s dead.” Gabe rubbed a hand over his face as he repeated the news, wondering how many other walls he would slam into before this was all over.
Why had Page been carrying the card of a dead police officer? What did she know about his death, or the case he’d supposedly been investigating?
What the hell was going on with her?
“That’s all I’ve found out so far,” Blake concluded. “I’m going to try to get some more details about his last case—unless you need me there?”
“No. Everything’s under control here,” Gabe lied. “Call me when you find something else.”
Gabe closed the phone and turned to Page, who was moving toward the end of the bed again. “Where are you going?”
“I have to wash my face,” she mumbled, keeping her tear-streaked cheeks averted from him.
He considered going with her. It irked him that he still couldn’t trust her not to try to escape the moment she was out of his sight. But then he realized that the attached bath had no windows, and the bedroom was still boarded up. She would have to go through the bedroom door to get out of the cabin, and she would find Gabe waiting in the other room.
“All right. But don’t take long,” he warned.
He could almost feel her resentment of his tone, but she only nodded and headed for the bathroom.
Pushing his unsteady hand through his hair, Gabe went into the living room. He needed to get out of the bedroom, away from that rumpled bed.
He was still cursing the unfortunate timing of Blake’s call. If the phone hadn’t disturbed them, would Page have told him everything? Or would she have withdrawn from him even without the interruption?
The contents of her purse were still scattered on the couch, and her suitcase lay open on the floor. Though he’d already made a thorough search of each, Gabe felt himself being drawn back to them.