Mercy, the man had her hormonal number.
Here she was, reacting to him as if he hadn’t just minutes earlier given her the orgasm of her life. And he’d done that without even having sex with her. Leave it to Lucas to accomplish the impossible.
“So, where do we go from here?” she asked, not really expecting an answer. And she certainly didn’t expect the answer that came from his sensual mouth, which she’d been admiring.
“Cold showers are out. They’re useless. They just make you cold.”
She laughed, until she realized there might be an underlying message there. “I have the same effect on you—I leave you cold.”
“I wish.”
He couldn’t have shocked her more if he’d hauled her to the floor and had sex with her. “You’re admitting that?”
He lifted his shoulder. “Seems pointless not to. I mean, after that whole dark and primal sex thing against the door.”
Lucas was right. They’d been tiptoeing and lying to themselves. Well, at least she had. “I wish it was just lust,” she mumbled.
“Me, too,” he said after a moment.
All this honesty was really starting to get to her. “Sweet heaven, Lucas. What are we doing to each other? We’re driving each other crazy, that’s what. We really need to catch those kidnappers and their boss so all of this will end.”
“And you think that will end it?”
Lucas reached out and pulled her to him, easing her into his warm embrace. Unlike before, this embrace wasn’t fueled by passion. It probably would have been safer if it had. But while this wasn’t safe, it was like coming home.
And Kylie wasn’t exactly pleased about that.
Because this would end. The close quarters, the embraces, the kisses. The nonsexual orgasms. The poignant, heart-revealing moments.
It would end.
And like the broken glass from the picture, she’d be left with only the pieces. The Humpty Dumpy syndrome.
“You’re thinking too much,” Lucas said as he tightened his grip around her. He brushed a kiss on her forehead.
And that’s how Cordelia found them when she unlocked the door, threw it open and stormed inside.
“WHAT THE HELL is going on here?” Cordelia demanded. Her hands went on her hips, and Lucas could see that the muscles in her face were so rigid that she looked as if she just had a massive injection of Botox.
Because their guest had tripped the security alarm when she had barged in, Lucas crossed the room and disengaged it to stop the noise.
“I can’t believe what I’m seeing here.” And just in case there was any doubt at to what she meant, Cordelia aimed a glare at Kylie.
“Well, you wouldn’t have seen it if you’d knocked first,” Lucas reminded her. He also did something he should have done months ago. He grabbed Cordelia’s key ring and extracted the key to his house.
She grabbed his arm with a fierce grip when he tossed the key ring into her open purse and started to walk away. “Why are you doing this to Marissa?”
Oh, this was going to get messy.
But then, things often got that way with Cordelia. She was a messy, complicated person.
For years, Cordelia had resented Kylie’s friendship with Marissa. But she hadn’t resented it enough to try to build a relationship with her own sister. Cordelia was a scratch-the-surface, superficial kind of person who wasn’t really into deep meaningful interactions. However, there were times, like now, when he saw genuine concern cloud her eyes.
Too bad her concern was misplaced.
“Kylie is in my protective custody,” Lucas explained. Of course, that didn’t explain the embrace or the flush still on Kylie’s cheeks. Still, he didn’t owe Cordelia that kind of explanation.
“I know about the baby,” Cordelia announced.
Because that intrigued him, and because he thought it was a good precaution, Lucas repositioned himself between the two women. “And what do you think you know?” Lucas asked.
“That she’s your surrogate. That the child she’s carrying is yours.”
Okay. So, her announcement no longer intrigued him, but it was a little alarming.
“And just how do you know that?” Lucas asked.
Kylie took his question one step further. “Better yet—why would you know?”
She spared Kylie another glare but addressed Lucas. “I was concerned. I wanted to make sure the clinic you used was reputable so I had Finn make a few calls—”
That had Kylie moving closer. “Finn?”
Cordelia paused and had that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look. “Yes. Because he’s a doctor, I thought he could get answers faster than I could.”
“And he got those answers,” Kylie concluded, not sounding any happier about it than Lucas was.
Why hadn’t his best friend mentioned any of this? It wasn’t as if they hadn’t seen each other. In fact, over the past forty-eight hours, he’d seen more of Finn than he had in a month. Finn had had plenty of opportunity to tell him.
“I went to the surrogacy clinic,” Cordelia continued. “I met with the director, Mr. Windham. He tried to assure me that Kylie was a suitable surrogate. Obviously, he didn’t know she’s unfit to carry your child.”
Lucas decided to inform her of a few conclusions of his own. “You’re wrong. But let’s assume for one minute that you’re right. What am I supposed to do about it? The pregnancy’s a done deal. The baby will be here in four and a half months. He or she isn’t a toy I can exchange at Wal-Mart.”
Cordelia had to get her teeth unclenched before she could speak. “Just because she conned her way into being your surrogate, it doesn’t mean she has to be part of your life. You could order her out of your house. You could have her stay with someone else.”
“I don’t want her to stay with anyone else. I want Kylie right here.” To prove his point, he hooked his arm around Kylie’s waist and pulled her closer.
Kylie’s glanced at him. She had that have-you-lost-your-mind? look on her face.
Cordelia reacted as if he’d slapped her. She actually pressed her hand to her heart and started to back away. “I won’t let you do this. I won’t let Kylie Monroe destroy your life the way she destroyed Marissa’s.”
“Well, that’s not up to you, now is it?” Lucas hated to be cruel, but what he hated even more was Cordelia being cruel to Kylie.
Now, Cordelia turned her venomous gaze on Kylie. “If you continue to stay here and insinuate yourself into Lucas’s life, I’ll pursue legal action.”
“For what?” Kylie asked. “Last I heard, it wasn’t illegal for a grown woman to become a surrogate.”
“I’ll sue the sheriff’s office for the wrongful death of my sister. I’ll ask for millions, and I’ll keep suing until I’ve bankrupted both of you and the entire town if necessary.”
It was an anger-laden threat, but Lucas knew that didn’t mean Cordelia wouldn’t go through with it. If she did, it would hurt not only the sheriff’s office, but it would also hurt Kylie. Still, there was no way he could back down now. Kylie was just starting to trust him. He was starting to trust her. There was a spark of life in him that he’d believed he would never feel again.
Kylie and the baby were responsible for that.
He wasn’t going back to that dark, lonely place where he’d spent the past three years.
Lucas was on the verge of telling Cordelia a less emotional version of that when her cell phone rang. Still obviously steaming, she gave him a this-isn’t-over huff and yanked the phone from her purse. He was close enough to see the caller ID information as it flashed onto the lighted screen.
Oh, hell.
That information set off all kinds of alarms in Lucas’s head.
Lucas watched Cordelia carefully as she, too, glanced down at the caller ID. Turning away from them, she answered the call. She kept her responses whispered, simple and brief. It’s not a good time. No. No. Yes.
“I have to go,” Cordelia said abruptly. She dropped
her phone back into her purse and went to the door. “Think about what I’ve said.”
“Do I have to?” Lucas called out.
But he was talking to the air because Cordelia was already gone, leaving just a blast of arctic chill where she’d once been standing.
Lucas went to the door, as well, closed it, locked it and reset the security alarm.
“Cordelia knows Kendrick Windham, the surrogacy clinic director,” he said, turning back to Kylie.
Kylie blinked. “What?”
“That call was from him. I saw his name and number on her caller ID.”
Kylie shook her head. “You think he’s the one who told her that I’m your surrogate?”
“Seems reasonable that the info would come from him. What isn’t reasonable is that those two would feel the need to continue to stay in phone contact. Maybe Cordelia bribed him, and now he wants more money.” But then something else came to mind. “Or maybe Finn’s the one who did the bribing.”
“I don’t understand—why would Finn help Cordelia find out anything, especially about the baby? And why wouldn’t he tell you about it?”
Both were darn good questions, and Lucas grabbed the phone and punched in Finn’s number. Because it was time he had some answers.
“Talk to me about Cordelia,” Lucas said the moment Finn answered.
“Well, good evening to you, too.”
“Cordelia,” Lucas prompted, ignoring his friend’s sarcasm. “She was just here and said you’d helped her find out about Kylie being my surrogate.”
“Hell’s bells.” Finn didn’t stop there. He cursed some more, and it would have done a sailor proud. “Cordelia is a pain-in-the-butt-blabbermouth.”
“That might be, but did you help her?”
“Only because she was relentless. She kept calling and kept dropping by the clinic to say how worried she was about you. She’d read Kylie’s article, and she said she kept thinking that maybe the surrogacy was all a scam.”
“Why would she care if it was?” Lucas asked.
“She didn’t want you to get hurt.”
Lucas played with that explanation a few seconds. It wasn’t something he could totally discard. From time to time, Cordelia had tried to mother him.
When it suited her mood and motives.
“I made a few calls to the surrogacy clinic for her,” Finn continued. “That’s all. And it was just to give her peace of mind.”
“It didn’t work. Definitely no peace of mind.”
“No. But then, I didn’t know that Kylie was your surrogate. And I damn sure didn’t know that Cordelia would be able to finagle that kind of information out of the clinic director.” He paused. “Does Cordelia plan to cause trouble for you?”
“Seems that way.” In fact, he could count on it. “I want the truth, Finn. Is there more to this than what Cordelia and you are saying?”
“What are you accusing me of?” Finn demanded.
“I don’t know—yet.”
But Lucas hung up the phone with an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach that something horrible had been set in motion and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Chapter Thirteen
Something wasn’t right.
That particular feeling had been with Kylie for nearly an hour now, and it just wouldn’t go away. It was something raw and hot that churned her stomach. At first, she’d tried to dismiss it as indigestion brought on by Cordelia’s visit and the homemade vegetable beef soup and buttery garlic bread that Lucas had fixed for dinner. But unfortunately, Kylie didn’t think this uneasy feeling was related to food or Cordelia.
“Woman’s intuition?” she mumbled under her breath. “Wild imagination?” She tried again. Grasping at straws. “Leftover orgasm adrenaline?”
Whatever it was, she obviously wasn’t going to get much sleep tonight, so Kylie tossed back the log cabin quilt and reached for the pair of thick socks that she’d left next to the bed. She slipped them on, along with Lucas’s bulky berry-red robe and started to pace across the hardwood floor.
However, she stopped momentarily when she got to the window and decided it was a good idea to avoid openly pacing in front of it. There was a curtain, but she didn’t want to risk that her shadow would fall against that curtain and give away her exact location.
Oh, great.
Now, she was bordering on paranoia. This certainly wasn’t the quiet, serene pregnancy she’d dreamed of having. Of course, that’s exactly what she had managed for four and a half months. Peace and quiet. Well, quiet anyway. It’d been three years since she’d had any real peace. And now things had heated up with the kidnappers, Tiffany’s death and the way Lucas and she were carrying on in the lust department. Kylie hoped she didn’t have to say which of those things surprised her the most.
Who was she kidding?
Lucas was the big surprise. He cared for her, he’d admitted. Yet, he’d also quickly added that it didn’t matter, that it might lead to nothing. So Kylie did her best to rein in her feelings.
Even though she knew it was already too late.
Somewhere along the way, she’d started to fall pretty hard for Lucas Creed. But the real question was, what was she going to do about it?
She heard the slight cracking sound, and her pacing came to a dead stop. She lifted her head. Listened. Even though she didn’t hear anything else, she retraced the sound and realized it’d come from outside.
Not that unusual, she reminded herself.
After all, the ranch was surrounded by woods. Lots of things could make cracking sounds in the night. Tree limbs stirring in the breeze. A coyote savaging for his dinner. Even Finn’s dogs.
But her stomach churned even harder.
Keeping out of the direct line of visibility, Kylie eased toward the window and fingered back the edge of the ivory-colored cotton curtain. The moon was still relatively full, and the sky was clear. She could see a portion of the backyard and the barn.
No one was lurking out there.
No bad guys in ski masks.
Nothing.
That thought barely had time to settle in her mind when the door to her bedroom flew open. Kylie reached for her gun, which she’d put on the nightstand. But it was Lucas. He stood there with the golden light from the hall haloing behind him. He looked like the answer to a few raunchy fantasies she’d recently had.
He was armed and naked.
Well, almost naked, anyway. He wore only gray boxers that dipped below his navel.
Well below it.
No shirt. No shoes. Nothing to obstruct the rather nice view she had of his rather nice body. And what a view it was. He was solid. Not overly muscled. Not overly anything. A real man’s body, with a toned stomach and a sprinkling of chest hair.
“Did you see anything?” he asked.
She was certain that she looked surprised. Because her mind was on, well, having sex with Lucas, it took her a moment to realize that wasn’t a sexual kind of come-on look in his eyes. Those were cautious, vigilant eyes. Only then did Kylie remember she was in the process of peeking out the window. Plus, there’d been that little cracking sound she’d heard only moments earlier.
Oh, yes.
She wasn’t having trouble keeping her priorities straight.
“All seems well out there,” she reported, releasing the curtain so that it closed. That didn’t ease his vigilant expression. “Is it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I heard something. A crunching sound.”
Cracking. Crunching. Both synonyms for noises they shouldn’t ignore, especially after everything that’d happened. “I heard something, too.”
That was the only verification Lucas needed to get moving across the room toward her. First, he eased her away from the curtain and, while avoiding the window himself, he reached for the phone on the nightstand next to the guest bed.
“Stay down,” he told her.
Kylie did. She grabbed the log cabin quilt and carried it to the co
rner near the closet. That new position took her out of the line of fire from both the window and the doorway. Just in case.
She listened as Lucas called Mark Jensen, his healthy deputy, and requested assistance. He hung up and made his way to her in a crouching position.
“You think it’s necessary to bring Mark in on this?” Kylie asked.
“We need backup so that someone will be in here with you while the grounds are being checked.”
“Good point.” Kylie didn’t consider it cowardly that she didn’t want to be left alone, either. The pregnancy had made her vulnerable. Dying wasn’t nearly as much of a fear as was having something happen to the baby.
She motioned toward his snug boxers. “Just a suggestion, but you might want to put something else on before Mark gets here. Appearances and all that.”
He glanced down at his lack of clothing. “I’m not that concerned about appearances. But I am a little worried about freezing my butt off when I head outside. Stay here. I’ll grab something.”
“Wait a minute. You’re going out there?” It was a bizarre question, especially considering he was the sheriff and that the ranch was his property. It was reasonable that Lucas would be the one to check out things while Mark waited with her.
But to her heart, it didn’t sound reasonable at all.
“Those kidnappers could be out there,” she pointed out unnecessarily.
Lucas turned, stared at her. “Is this about what I think it’s about?”
“Depends.” She pulled the quilt around her. “If you think it’s about me having irrational feelings for a man I care about, then yes.”
He seemed to ponder that a moment and then nodded. “I’m still going out there.”
She hadn’t thought for a second that her asinine rationalization would stop him. But she would try to figure out a way to make it as safe as she could possibly make it. Maybe they could request additional backup from Sheriff Knight so that Lucas wouldn’t be alone during surveillance.
“I’ll be right back,” he told her. Still crouching, he made his way out of the room and into the hall.
Kylie sat there on the floor, snuggled in the warm blanket, and listened. She could hear Lucas moving around in his room. She could hear the winter wind push against the windows.
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