by Docter, K. L
“Is that the baby’s name? It’s pretty,” Suze said. “My baby’s name is Susan, like me, but I wish it was Becca.”
“I understand you like Becca but you can’t keep her.”
“But we shared!” The little girl rounded on Amanda. “We’re blood sisters!”
With only a small hesitation, Amanda nodded her support of Suze’s claim. She hugged the new doll fiercely in a display her mother couldn’t misunderstand.
Rachel wished she knew how to proceed. How had a five-year-old, in less than three days, broken through the barriers she and a trained psychologist hadn’t breached in six months? “As long as you are both okay with this, I guess you can trade for a while. But what’s this about being blood sisters?”
“There was this cowboy and Indian. Ya know…on T.V.” Suze shrugged a shoulder. “They traded and cut their hands with this big ol’ knife. They shared secrets and stuff and was blood brothers. Kinda like that.”
Rachel frantically searched the parts of their sun-kissed bodies not covered by shorts and T-shirts. “Where did you cut yourselves?”
“Ew!” Suze screwed up her face. “That part was yucky! We make-believed.”
Vowing to monitor their friendship more carefully in the future, Rachel examined Amanda’s expression for clues to her feelings. “So now you’re sisters and keep each other’s secrets. What if you want to trade back?”
Suze answered for Amanda. “We can’t be sisters, if I’m mean and don’t give it back. It’s tem-tem—”
“Temporary?”
“Yeah.” She stood abruptly. “Grandma has cookies and milk so’s we can play tea party. Ya want some?”
“Grandma” was Suze’s grandmother, Jane Brown. The older woman worked next door as office manager for Evelyn Thorne’s son and had accompanied her granddaughter over that first day to make sure it was all right for the little girls to play together.
Thankfully, the big boss hadn’t tagged along. Try as she might, Rachel couldn’t get over her one unnerving glimpse of Patrick Thorne. His mother had pointed out the eighteen-year-old wearing an army uniform in a family photo when she’d shown her around the house, telling Rachel she could count on him for anything while they were in the Virgin Islands. She’d promptly forgotten the young man with the goofy grin, holding rabbit ears over one of his brother’s heads…until he’d walked out of his back door Sunday night to toss a couple of bags in the trash.
She wasn’t prepared for the man in the flesh. He was at least ten years older than she’d expected, a virile man in his prime that drew a woman’s gaze and made her forget the necessity to breathe. With one look, her heart hammered too hard for comfort. She’d felt an overwhelming urge to sneak off the side porch where she’d gone to calm her restless thoughts, and lock all the doors behind her. She avoided most men these days. If they exuded a blatant masculinity that made her pulse skitter, she ran in the opposite direction quicker than a wind devil on a Texas prairie.
Rachel would have bolted, too, if she’d thought she could do it without alerting him to her presence in the protective shadows. Left with nothing to do but watch the shirtless man walk through the moon-washed night, she’d allowed herself the pleasure. His naked chest and back, broad and muscular above the waistband of his jeans, gleamed in the moonlight. Iron tight abs and powerful legs carried him across the backyard with an almost feral grace. His biceps barely straining under the weight of two thirty-gallon trash bags, there was no question the man’s occupation had made him fit. Raw power in motion.
“You want some?”
Startled, Rachel stared at Suze. “Some what?”
The child rolled her eyes and sighed with exaggerated patience. “Cookies.”
“Um, no, thank you.” She turned to Suze. “Won’t you be in your grandmother’s way when she’s working?”
“Naw. We have tea parties when Grandma’s s’posed to rest.”
“When she takes a break?”
“Yeah.” Suze fidgeted. “Mr. Patrick said he might eat a cookie, too, but we gots to ask him.”
“You have to ask him,” Rachel corrected. It was a struggle to visualize the man perched on a tiny seat at a child’s tea table wearing his construction helmet, pinkie raised, a fragile porcelain teacup balanced in his hand.
No. The muscular contractor oozed testosterone. She’d recognized it two nights ago from yards away, still felt it right down to her bare tingling toes. Patrick Thorne would be more at home in the overtly masculine surroundings of his building sites, or in a darkened bedroom, naked, tangled in damp sheets with a woman writhing beneath him. Her skin heated when she realized the woman she’d visualized beneath him looked too much like her.
“He’ll prob’ly say yes if he’s done ’spections.” Suze sighed again. “Can we go now?”
Shaking off the impossible image of Patrick Thorne in her bed—sex in real life was not as pleasurable or satisfying as fantasy—Rachel jammed her rebellious hormones in a mental hole where they belonged. “Okay, but only for a small tea party.” She turned to Amanda. “Honey, come back after that because we have to go grocery shop—”
If she hadn’t looked straight at her daughter at that moment she might have missed the abrupt change in her demeanor. Her eyes widening, Amanda stared at something over her mother’s shoulder. Her smile faltered. Disappeared.
The fine hairs on the back of Rachel’s neck tickled a warning, alerted her to imminent danger. Once she inhaled, she didn’t have to look over her shoulder to know who stood behind her. She’d always be able to identify that particular brand of designer men’s cologne. It still nauseated her.
Greg.
He’d found them!
“Hello, darlin’. Miss me?”
Her heart stalled. She started to rise and face her ex-husband. But she hesitated when she saw a shudder wrack Amanda’s small frame, followed quickly by another, precursors to one of her anxiety attacks if Rachel didn’t distract her…and quickly.
Grab Amanda and run!
The voice in her head reminded her she was all that stood between the two little girls and a conscienceless monster. She smoothed the back of her knuckles over her child’s cheek and dredged up a steady smile. “Run along with Suze and have your tea party with Ms. Jane and Mr. Patrick. Stay there until Mama comes for you.”
“She’s not going anywhere!”
A coldness that always lined Greg’s voice when he was crossed told Rachel she didn’t have much time to get the helpless children out of harm’s way. “Run along, baby,” she whispered. “Go!”
Tears welled in Amanda’s eyes. She opened her mouth as if, at last, she wanted to say something. Then she grabbed Suze’s hand in hers and dashed off, leaving Rachel to stand and face her ex-husband alone.
The children disappeared safely from view around the front corner of Patrick’s house as Rachel fought to dampen her own gut-wrenching terror. She wanted to run after the children to find a hiding place of her own.
Too late.
The stench of Greg’s cologne smothered her senses. His hand clamped around her wrist. “You may have chopped off all of your hair and stopped wearing the makeup I like,” he muttered next to her ear, “but I see some things haven’t changed while I was gone. You still mollycoddle that kid like she’s something special.”
“Amanda is special,” she said, goaded as much by his sneering words as his revolting touch. She tried to pull away, but his hand tightened until she was sure her wrist would snap in two. “She’s your daughter,” she said quickly. “She’s the one good thing to come out of our marriage.” How this man could produce such a wondrous child in the first place was a miracle.
His grip tightened further and she knew his bruising fingerprints would ring her wrist by morning like some kind of slave bracelet, a reminder of what she’d been forced to pay over and again for that miracle.
“You’ve obviously forgotten how good it was between us, darlin’.” He rubbed his erection on her hip. “I’ve been thin
king about it for six long months, about all the ways I want to refresh your memory. Do you have any idea what it felt like sitting in that jail cell wanting you, knowing you stabbed me in the back only to make me pay for messing with your home-wrecking friend?”
Swallowing back the urge to retch, she winced when she thought of Katy. Her friend hadn’t been the only reason she’d done something to escape the untenable situation she’d lived for four years. Katy had simply given Rachel hope. That she could leave Greg. That she could escape without losing Amanda. The older woman had offered her old job back, reminded her of the peaceful joy of landscaping, a settled place for her heart and dreams that didn’t include a man who controlled her every waking moment.
Righteous anger stiffened her spine. She suddenly tore free of Greg’s grasp, staggered away and sucked clean air into her lungs. “You’re lucky they only arrested you for theft and fraud. If Katy had died from the heart attack you caused, you’d have been charged with murder too.”
On a roll, she said more than she’d ever dared before. “As for how good it was between us, darlin’, my memory’s a lot different than yours. I stayed to protect Amanda, and you know it. Do you think I’ve forgotten what you did to me?”
Her laughter overflowed with bitterness six years of marriage had left seared on her battered soul. “You’re deluded if you think I’ll ever let you touch me again. I never wanted you after I knew you for the snake you are!”
She regretted her final words the moment she uttered them because snakes strike when provoked. Greg’s handsome face mottled with familiar fury. She didn’t see his hand move, but she felt it pass through her blessedly short hair where he used to grab the waist-length strands, heard his growl of frustration when he didn’t snag anything. Before he could try again, she jerked away. Her legs tangled up beneath her and she sprawled flat, her head snapping backward to hit the ground with a sickening thud.
Dizziness swirling through her mind, the taste of blood on her tongue, she stared at the metal weed bucket she’d forgotten at her feet. She shook her head, then looked up at Greg, debating the wisdom of rising.
“Get up,” he ordered.
Staying put sounded like a better idea. “You can’t tell me what to do anymore. We’re divorced.”
He laughed. “You think a piece of paper means a fucking thing to me? To us? You’re mine ’til the day you die, darlin’.”
Maybe it was the blow to her head messing with her good sense, but she couldn’t stop baiting him. “If you want to kill me,” she said, “you’re going to have to come down here and get your hands dirty. I’m not moving.”
“Killing you isn’t in the plan.” His expression twisted. “But don’t force my hand.”
Trepidation centered in her midsection beneath her scars. “How did you find us?”
“I know a tracker.”
“You’ve had me watched? Followed?” She’d thought it was her imagination, sheer paranoia, the few times she’d felt unseen eyes upon her these past couple of days. “How long?”
“Since the day I discovered you turned me over to the FBI. My plan was foolproof,” his smile held no humor, “except for the knife my darlin’ wife thrust in my back.”
Six months? He’d been keeping tabs on her the entire time he was in jail? Dear God, hadn’t she paid enough when he beat her that night? Her answer was burning through his ice-blue eyes. Killing you isn’t in the plan.
No. She hadn’t paid nearly enough.
Why did you allow Katy and Evelyn to convince you to stop running? It’s harder to shoot at a moving target. Had she learned nothing at her own daddy’s knee?
She moaned as a series of sharp stabbing pains began to creep around the back of her head like a filigree iron band. Exploring the area behind her left ear with one hand, she discovered a large goose egg. One light graze of her fingertips over the tender knob sent more streaks of pain radiating in all directions. When she yanked her hand away and looked down, her fingertips were smeared with blood. She’d knocked her head harder than she’d thought!
The reality of her situation hit her full force. How could she be so stupid thinking she could handle Greg alone? And Amanda! Greg knew where she was now. What was she going to do?
“Get up and go inside,” he ordered. “You’ve got ten minutes to pack. Then we’ll get your precious brat and hit the road.” He glared at her bare legs and feet below her favorite cutoffs. “And put on a dress and heels. No woman of mine is going to embarrass me looking like filthy white trash.”
She bit her tongue so she couldn’t blurt out what she’d done with the walk-in closet full of designer clothes he’d forced her to wear. The FBI had frozen all of their assets with the exception of her personal clothing. She’d asked Simon to get rid of it all. Greg would not appreciate learning he’d clothed a dozen women housed in an inner city domestic violence shelter. What Rachel had kept could be wadded into one suitcase in five minutes less than the ten he’d given her to pack.
In the mood he was in, he just might decide to kill her here and now.
Rachel would go inside to do as he’d ordered, the moment she figured out a way to climb out the bedroom window without this man on her heels. She’d only gain a five-minute head start and a climb down Evelyn Thorne’s rose trellis would be precarious, with or without a head injury, but the risks were worth it if she could somehow get her emotionally fragile daughter to another safe place out of her father’s reach.
Was there such a place? Assuming she successfully gathered up Amanda from next door and made it to the rental car still gassed up behind Evelyn’s greenhouse, where could she go? It was an exercise in futility if Greg hadn’t called off his watchdog once he’d arrived in Denver.
Panic won’t help you. Chances were good Greg sent her shadow on his way. The man’s arrogant enough to think he can handle you alone. The challenge is to keep him from following her upstairs. One step at a time. “I’ll go with you. But I must make arrangements—”
His lifted hand cut off her words. “Don’t give me any more crap unless you want one of these. I didn’t come all this way to go away empty-handed.”
Hope fled with the realization he’d never leave her out of his sight long enough for her to escape. No one could save her.
Except, possibly, the large man jumping over the dwarf cranberry hedge that delineated the property line between the two Thorne households.
Rachel’s heart began to pound as she looked across the yard into Patrick Thorne’s furious brown eyes.
Chapter Five
Patrick stalked across his parents’ lawn past the woman he’d promised to watch over, lying on the ground like a negligent child’s broken toy. He didn’t stop moving until he’d slammed Rachel’s attacker back into the painted wood siding of the house. “Hit her again, pal,” he gritted out, pressing his forearm down on the man’s windpipe, “and you won’t have any hands at all!”
The man clawed ineffectually at Patrick’s arm, his lips moved. All that came out was a gurgling noise.
“Wait! Stop!” Rachel said from behind them. “I-I fell!”
Patrick froze. That wasn’t the impression he got running out of his house on the heels of Suze’s interruption of his planning meeting with overwrought pleas to “save ’Manda’s mommy from the bad man”. All he saw was Rachel sprawled on the ground, a strange man looming over her with a raised fist. In Patrick’s experience a man didn’t raise a hand unless he were a hair’s breath away from using it or already had, but he slowly backed off and released the stranger.
The man scuttled quickly around him to the middle of the yard, his hand rubbing his neck as he gasped for air. Blond, handsome in that cookie-cutter, preppy way many women couldn’t seem to resist, at first glance he didn’t look like a bad man. But Patrick had to give Suze credit for her ability to spot the mean look in his eyes. Pretty boy or not, this man was capable of violence.
“Preppy” stiffened. “How dare you come between me and my wife?”
When her fingers slid across his calloused palm, a ragged edge of awareness zipped through his bloodstream, awakening something inside him he’d buried long ago. Craving. White hot and mind-numbing desire. He couldn’t release Rachel fast enough. She swayed unsteadily, and her slender frame tumbled into his arms. The top of her head came to just below his chin and, damn it all to hell, she smelled like his mother’s Persian lilacs after a spring rain. Lush. Potent.
He gave himself a mental shake. He had no business wrapping his starved libido in the scent and feel of this woman! Lifting a pale honey curl away from her cheekbone, he worked to reestablish his distance. “You okay?” he asked, the words like gravel in his throat. His gut knotted as she simply gazed back at him with those liquid brown eyes so like the mute, blond cutie that had traipsed through his house and office on Suze’s heels these past few days.
“Let go of my wife.”
“Screw you.” It wasn’t often he threw his bulk in another man’s face, but for reasons he didn’t want to acknowledge, he was spoiling for a fight. No matter what he’d told himself earlier about Rachel being on her own, he couldn’t allow any woman to be threatened under his nose. He didn’t think she “fell” all by her lonesome either. All of his protective instincts primed, he tucked her under his left arm.
The ages-old display of masculine possession wasn’t lost on the stranger. His face turned the color of Mrs. Steinbecker’s new dining room walls, a sickening shade of puce. “Who do you think you are?”
Rachel’s Southern-laced voice punched through Patrick’s senses like a double shot of raw whiskey, but it was the words she uttered that robbed his speech. “Patrick’s my boyfriend, Greg.”