Safe by His Side

by Debra Webb

  “Someplace safe.”

  Kate swallowed. She doubted that anyplace on earth would be safe from a man like Dillon. Her gaze moved over Raine’s strong profile. Or him, for that matter.

  RAINE DROVE SOUTH for more than two hours before he reached the city limits of Russellville. He glanced at Kate, asleep in the seat beside him. She had slept most of the way and that was good, she needed the rest. He, on the other hand, had been awake for twenty-four hours straight, and probably would be for most of the next twenty-four. Lack of sleep didn’t bother him much though. During his stint in the special forces he had learned to function for days at a time with almost no sleep at all, catching a few minutes here and there.

  The sun peeked over the mountaintops just in time to highlight the carefully restored historic buildings lining both sides of the main street that divided Russellville. Banks, coffee shops and other businesses occupied the federalist-style structures. Just before he reached the bridge that crossed the river, Raine turned left onto a narrow country road. He drove parallel to the river on his right. Farmhouses dotted the landscape on the left.

  He slowed for a hairpin curve, then turned left at the top of the hill onto a gravel road. Over a mile later, a two-story farmhouse came into view and Raine smiled. Although the place had never really been his home, it felt like home.

  Early-morning sunlight glinted from the damp-with-dew, green metal roof. A wide porch graced the front of the house like the apron on a proud southern lady. Fresh white paint coated the century-old clapboard siding, and green louvered shutters framed each window. The house didn’t have much in the way of contemporary amenities, but it belonged to Raine. And so did the land, wooded and pastured, for as far as the eye could see. Raine definitely approved of the new fence that was almost complete, acres and acres of white split-rail fencing.

  No one knew about this place, not even Lucas. Raine had bought it two years ago under an assumed name. A local contractor had made the essential renovations and repairs, like central heat and air and a new roof. Raine could live without a lot of things, but efficient heat and air-conditioning were not among them.

  He had only been here three times, the time he’d found the place, again to close the deal, and once more six months ago to look over the renovations. But it was home, or, at least, the closest thing to a home Raine had known since he was a child. He had lain awake many, many nights and planned a life here. A new life as far away and as different from his old one as could be found. Of course, he had always known there was a strong possibility he would never have the chance to enjoy that life. He lived each day with death just one step behind him.

  He might never have the opportunity to live in this house, Raine decided, but if the place served no other purpose than to keep Kate safe then that was fine with him. He drove past the house and parked the Thunderbird in one of the open side sections of the enormous barn.

  Raine turned to Kate and watched her sleep. He clenched his jaw as regret washed over him. It was a miracle he hadn’t killed her on that damn mountain. Without her medication and with him pushing her to the breaking point, her heart had surely been stressed to the limit. He shook his head at the emotion twisting his insides. What a fool he was. Selfish, too. Even after the doctor had emphasized that she needed rest, Raine had kissed her. Kissed her with much more than kissing on his mind. The feel of her heart fluttering in her chest had forced him to realize what he was doing and he had stopped.

  Selfish, he repeated silently.

  Well, it wouldn’t happen again. He would protect Kate not only from Dillon, but from himself as well. He would stay with her for a little while to make sure she was okay, and then he would go. He still couldn’t be sure that someone hadn’t sent her for him—that she wasn’t, in effect, his enemy. If Kate was his enemy, she didn’t know it, and, as far as he was concerned, that made her innocent. But what happened when she got her memory back? Time was running out for him. This last unexpected run-in with Dillon had been entirely too close for comfort.

  He couldn’t take anymore unnecessary risks.

  “Kate.” Raine gently shook her.

  She jerked to attention and surveyed her surroundings like a sentry caught sleeping on his watch. “Where are we?” she asked when her gaze met his.

  Instinct nagged at Raine again, an instinct he knew better than to ignore, but he ignored it all the same. More mystery definitely lay behind that pretty face, but he didn’t want to analyze that right now. “My place,” he told her, then smiled when confusion stole into her eyes.

  Raine got out, skirted the hood and opened Kate’s door. He took her by the hand and led the way to the house. He reached beneath the third rock from the bottom step and retrieved his key. Inside what had once been a back porch and was now a mudroom, Raine flipped the necessary breaker for the hot-water heater. The real estate agent who had sold him the house checked on the place monthly and maintained the utilities. Raine would need to adjust the thermostat to a higher setting, since the heat was only set at a level necessary to prevent frozen plumbing.

  “You live here?” Kate asked as they entered the kitchen.

  “Well, I’ve stayed here a total of seven nights, does that qualify?”

  “I suppose so,” she said distractedly as she followed him into the hallway.

  He moved the thermostat to a more comfortable setting and tried to remember what canned goods, if any, he had in the pantry. Kate wandered down the hall past him, obviously ready to explore. “Make yourself at home,” he told her. “I’ll get our things from the car.”

  Kate had already disappeared into the living room before he finished speaking. It pleased him immensely to share this place with her. Raine recognized the feeling for what it was. He had grown entirely too fond of Kate in the last few days, a dangerous allowance for a man like him. Those emotions had no place in his world, but he couldn’t escape them where Kate was concerned.

  When he returned from the car with their purchases from the day before, Kate was upstairs checking out the second floor. Since there were only three bedrooms and one bathroom up there, it didn’t take Raine long to find her. He leaned against the doorway and watched her survey a bedroom.

  Kate smiled when her gaze came to rest on him. “This place is wonderful. I love all the antiques.” She gestured to the sparse furnishings.

  “Most of them came with the house.” He straightened and scanned the room. “My real estate agent picked up the rest.” Tiny bouquets of pink and blue flowers dotted the faded wallpaper. Rich mahogany flooring and white painted trim made this bedroom just like the other two, only the finish on the walls differentiated the rooms. One had yellow-and-white-striped paper, while beige paint dressed the walls of the third. Raine had decided, on his first look at the house, that he favored the painted room. Flowers and stripes just weren’t to his taste. Luckily all the rooms had beds. “How about you take this room?” he suggested, bringing his gaze back to his very first house-guest. This room was the farthest from the stairs and had only one window, therefore the most secure.

  A look of mild surprise clouded her expression, but she recovered quickly. “This one will be fine.”

  Raine’s heart thumped in his chest. Had she expected to share one with him? His groin tightened at the thought. “Okay.” He crossed the room and placed the shopping bag containing her new clothes on the bed. “The water should be hot in a few minutes if you’d like to have a shower or bath. I’ll go see what I can find to eat.”

  “Thanks,” she said on a smile.

  Instead of doing something completely crazy like pulling her into his arms for another kiss as he so wanted to, Raine pivoted and left the room. He strode down the hall and left his own bag on the bed in the room next to hers. He would have preferred something on the other side of the globe, but a single wall would have to suffice. He only hoped that a mere wall would prove an adequate barrier to the temptation she represented.

  Raine had a bad feeling that the day and night t
o come were going to be the longest of his life.

  Chapter Nine

  Steam curled around Kate, feathering against her skin like an angel’s caress. The deep, hot water eased her sore, aching muscles. She relaxed fully against the smooth porcelain surface of the old claw-footed tub. Moisture beaded on her face, and Kate brushed back a strand of freshly washed hair. How could anything else on earth feel quite this heavenly? she wondered.

  Kate had to admit that Raine’s kiss had been pretty heavenly as well. The memory of his kiss flooded her mind, resurrecting that intense desire. A thousand sensations bombarded her. The way he touched her, the way his hard, muscular body felt against hers. His scent, his taste. Those amazing blue eyes.

  She knew that allowing herself to dwell on thoughts of Raine’s mind-boggling kisses wasn’t safe, but she just couldn’t help herself. Had any other man ever made her feel that way? Kate searched her mind for any memory of a former boyfriend or lover, but nothing came.

  She sighed and slipped farther into the water’s comforting depths. Maybe if she never remembered her past it would be best. Considering what she had learned about herself so far, Kate had a feeling the rest could be devastating.

  She pressed her hand next to her left breast and felt for her heartbeat. She extended one leg at a time out of the water and scrutinized its muscle tone, then looked long and hard at her arms. How could she appear to be in such good physical condition, and have something so terribly wrong with her? Anxiety shuddered through her at the thought of just how wrong her problem was.

  Fearing another panic attack, Kate forced the troublesome thoughts away and concentrated on relaxing. Raine probably thought she was mental already. Another bout of hysteria wouldn’t help. She suddenly longed for the time before the doctor had revealed her heart problem. The time in the mountains when it had been just she and Raine. When she’d been a “normal” person who’d bumped her head and lost her memory. For a little while she had been free of the big, ugly problem that haunted the past she couldn’t remember.

  Kate focused on the warmth surrounding her. She inhaled deeply of the moist, clean air. Slowly, the heat plied her exhausted body into a state just shy of sleep. Her thoughts whirled, unhampered. Snatches of short-term memory flitted through her mind in no particular order. Raine kissing her in the darkness. Dillon’s evil smile. The doctor’s kind voice. Raine holding her naked against him in the shower. Danny telling her how many men Raine had killed. Raine facing Dillon to save her. She examined that last bit of memory more closely. Raine could have been killed trying to save her. But he had come for her all the same. Why had he done that? Was it merely a dogmatic sense of responsibility, as he claimed? Or could there be more to it?

  Sleep tugged at Kate, enticing her toward oblivion. She was so tired and so warm. There was no reason not to give in, to escape the reality of what might lay in store for Raine, for her. Her thoughts slowed and focused inward. A kind of calmness enveloped her. She was safe for the moment, and so was Raine. She could rest. A sigh of surrender eased past her lips as sleep captured her in its serene embrace…

  Kate wore black….

  The man next to her wore a navy blue uniform. A policeman’s uniform. Her heartbeat accelerated. Kate peered through the haze of billowing steam to more closely see the man sitting next to her. She couldn’t make out his features through the thick steam. No, it wasn’t steam. It was more like fog. She was dreaming, she realized. The haze cleared then. The man beside her looked at Kate with sad, dark eyes.

  Her father. The man was her father.

  An ache, soul deep, rushed through her. Kate was sitting on a church pew with her father. She forced her gaze forward, to the man speaking from the podium. A priest. His long, white robes and gray hair looked stark against the darkness of her dream. Where was she?

  A funeral.

  A polished oak coffin stood in front of the podium. The priest continued to chant some sort of prayer. Kate looked to her father, who wept at her side.

  “He’s gone, Katie.” He shook his head in resignation. “He’s gone.”

  “But I’m here, Daddy,” Kate insisted, confused.

  Her father smiled sadly. “I know. But you don’t understand the special bond he and I shared.” Then he began to weep again, louder than before.

  Kate frowned. She looked at the priest for answers but he wasn’t paying attention to her. A mixture of fear and sorrow tightening her throat, Kate stood and stepped toward the open coffin. Why couldn’t she reach her father? What was it she didn’t understand? Whose funeral was this?

  She looked down, into the white satin interior of the beautifully crafted oak box, and saw what it was she didn’t understand.

  Her brother, Joseph.

  Tears slid down Kate’s cheeks. Joseph was as handsome as ever. His dark hair short and styled a bit more stiffly than he would have liked. His dark eyes closed in eternal sleep. His usually smiling lips, permanently drawn into a line that wasn’t quite frown nor smile. His uniform crisp and decorated, a deep blue against the white satin. His hands folded beneath his policeman’s cap.

  Kate could never be like him. Never live up to his super-cop reputation. Never have the place in her father’s heart that Joseph held, even in death.

  She would never measure up. She would always fall short of the mark. Her heart would never allow her to be all that her brother had been, all her father was….

  Kate sat straight up. Water sloshed around her and over the edge of the tub. Her heart pounded while she fought to catch her breath. Her brother, her only sibling, was dead. And he had been a cop. A cop like her father, and his father and grandfather before him. She could never be a cop. She had failed the required physical.

  She had failed her father.

  The tradition stopped with her, because she didn’t measure up. And Joseph was dead. He wouldn’t be able to father a son or daughter to keep the tradition alive. Tears crowded her throat. She should have been the one to die. Joseph was perfect, handsome and healthy. He should have lived. But a twelve-year-old boy on crack cocaine had killed him with a stolen handgun. Kate’s heart fluttered wildly as tears slid down her cheeks. Her stupid faulty heart. She should have died in that alley, not Joe.

  A loud knock on the door penetrated the fog of grief shrouding her. “Kate, what’s wrong? I heard you cry out all the way downstairs.”

  Kate shivered as the coolness of the water penetrated her consciousness. How long had she been dozing? Why did her dream feel so real, yet make no sense at all? She swiped at her cheeks and willed her heart to calm. She could examine those new snatches of memory later, when she was calmer. “I’m…I’m fine,” she managed to say, knowing if she didn’t say something Raine would grow suspicious.

  “You’re not fine,” he argued. “Now open this damned door before I break it down.”

  Kate splashed the cool water on her heated face before she stood on shaky legs. She pulled the plug so the tub would drain, then stepped out onto the cold tile floor. She drew in a long, deep breath and let it out slowly. She had to pull herself together before facing him.

  “Open the door, Kate,” he demanded impatiently.

  “Give me a minute!” she snapped right back. Kate squeezed her hair dry, then quickly blotted the water from her skin. She remembered belatedly that she had forgotten to bring clean clothes into the bathroom with her. “Damn,” she muttered. She snatched up her dirty sweatshirt, but it was wet from the water that had sloshed over the side of the tub. She swore again and swiped the damp hair from her face. She had to put on something.

  Kate glanced at the wet towel and considered it. At least it was clean. Before she could make a decision, something draped on the pedestal mirror in the corner caught her eye. She dropped the towel and crossed to the mirror. A white dress shirt hung on one of the decorative arms that supported the full-length oval-shaped mirror. Kate picked up the shirt and examined it more closely. From all indications it had been hanging there for a while, but it ap
peared fairly clean. She shook it, then held the short-sleeved garment to her face and inhaled deeply. The slightest hint of Raine’s unique scent lingered on the fabric. He must have left it the last time he stayed here, she decided.

  “Your minute is up.” The deep timbre of his voice rumbled through the closed door.

  A surge of renewed warmth flowed through Kate as the sound shivered across her nerve endings, pushing aside the sadness she couldn’t bear to think about. She donned the shirt, made fast work of the buttons and opened the door before he carried through with his threat to break it down.

  “What the hell took you so long?” he demanded, his shoulders rigid, concern creasing his forehead.

  Kate propped her hands on her hips and stared up into those fierce blue eyes. “I had to put something on, you know,” she retorted, shooting for nonchalance but not quite achieving it.

  His lips parted as if he might say something else, but he changed his mind when his gaze slid down her body. Kate’s stomach flip-flopped when he lingered on her breasts. The shirt clung to her still-damp skin, the white material becoming transparent and revealing almost as much as if she wore nothing at all.

  “I…ah…heated up some canned soup,” he said distractedly.

  He lifted his gaze back to hers and Kate panicked. Her heart stumbled at the longing in his eyes. “I’m not hungry,” she said quickly. No way could she trust herself in the same room with the man right now. His hunger was too strong, and she was weak—and none of it had anything to do with soup. What they both needed right now was distance. At least until she could sort out all these crazy, mixed-up memories and emotions.

  He blinked twice, vacating his gaze of lust. “You need to eat.”

  “I’ll eat later.” Kate manufactured a smile. “I think I’ll rest for a while.” She crossed her arms over her chest and prayed he would leave. He made entirely too tempting a picture in those tight-fitting jeans and faded gray T-shirt. Early-morning stubble glistened on his jaw, inviting her touch.