by Terry Odell
She heard sounds of water running and sat on the edge of the bed. “That’s not what I mean.” Her voice cracked. Frustration mounted and tears welled. Shit. Her throat tightened.
Blake returned to her side, but didn’t touch her, as if he sensed she’d crumble. The caring in his eyes nearly drove her to the breaking point.
“Hey. I’m sorry. It’s late and you’ve hardly slept for the last few days. You’ve got to be exhausted. I’ll shower and you try to get some sleep.” He retreated to the bathroom.
Kelli flopped onto her back and stared at the ceiling. She knew how to get information out of computers, but not what to do with it once she had it. She was a programmer, not a detective. And a pretty rusty programmer at that. Her mind whirled, trying to figure the easiest way to correlate the thousands of pieces of information she had about Hollingsworth with what she was gleaning about Thornton.
The glare of light when the bathroom door opened washed over the bed. Blake stood there in silk boxers, leaning against the doorjamb, staring in her direction.
“What?” she snapped. “What are you looking at?”
“A beautiful woman.”
“Windsor, I told you, I’m—”
He cut her off with a raised hand, turned off the light and crossed to the bedside. “You need help getting undressed?”
Indignation filled her and she lifted herself to her elbows. “I said, ‘no’. What part of that don’t you understand?”
“And I said you need to sleep. You’ll be more comfortable out of those clothes. Tell me where to find whatever you sleep in and I’ll bring it to you.”
Mollified, she sat up and started undressing. “Shirt on the bathroom hook.”
He returned with the oversize cotton shirt she’d worn in place of a robe earlier. Holding it between thumb and forefinger, he waited for her to take it. “I thought I’d read for a while. If you want, I’ll crash in Torrie’s room so I won’t bother you.”
She shrugged into the shirt. “Where? There’s no bed.”
“Murphy bed in the wall. Used to be mine.” He raised his eyebrows in question.
Looking at him stilled some of the quivering inside her. “I think I’d like having you closer.” As if she was going to be able to sleep. Maybe she should find a book herself, but getting up was too much of an effort.
“Turn over,” Blake said.
“Why?”
“Stop questioning everything I say. A little faith, Sweetheart, a little faith.”
She complied and felt his warm hands kneading the muscles of her shoulders and neck. She groaned—almost cried—as tension left her. His fingers, nimble and strong, moved down her back, finding knots and releasing them. Then to her legs, her calves, even her feet. She and the mattress merged into a single entity.
* * * * *
Blake came out of the bathroom and stumbled back into bed. An empty, cold bed. Again. He looked at the clock. Three. Holy crap, would the woman never get a decent night’s sleep? He could use one himself. Swearing under his breath, he trudged down the hall, following a shaft of yellow light coming from under the office door.
He caught himself before flinging the door open. Took a deep breath, counted to ten, tapped, then entered the room. Kelli looked up from the monitor. Even from across the room, he could see shadows like tea bags under her eyes. She gave him an apologetic smile.
“I woke up—I was dreaming about matching all kinds of files and suddenly it came to me. I was making things too hard—doing it all bassackward.”
He scratched his head. “It’s three o’clock in the morning. I need it simple. What did you figure out?”
“There was too much data to go through.” She picked up a sheet of paper. “Instead of looking at Hollingsworth Industries, or Thornton’s corporate files, I went back to CompSecure.”
“Your company?” He sank onto the edge of the recliner, leaned forward and clasped his hands between his knees.
“Yeah. I was an idiot to miss it. If Hollingsworth was looking for Casey, he had to be looking for something I did for CompSecure. So instead of trying to look at thousands of his files, I can look at something closer to fifty.”
“I got it. Look at your files, see if they match his, instead of looking at his to see if they match yours.”
“Simple, isn’t it? What an idiot I’ve been. I never went back to the jobs I did before Charles died.”
He noticed the lack of hesitation when she mentioned her husband’s death. Had the pain been buried a little deeper? He hoped so and dared to hope it might be because she was opening her heart to him.
“I don’t have all the details of my jobs here—I’m not sure I remember every single company I worked for. I have to go back to Spokane, to EnviroCon. I can reconstruct a lot from memory, but the details might help.”
He sat up with a start. He wasn’t letting her out of his sight. “What’s there? I thought you wanted to stay away.”
“My personal stuff. CompSecure’s business records. Computer files. I always made copies.”
“Now that you have a plan of action, can’t it wait until morning? Or can I help so you’re done faster? Sweetheart, you’re going to collapse if you don’t get some uninterrupted sleep.”
“I’m too fired up to sleep.”
Not surprised, he went to the desk, picked up some files and rested a hip on the cleared surface. “Let me look. I’m familiar with a lot of Hollingsworth’s holdings. Maybe some of the companies you worked for will ring a bell with me.” Now that she’d laid it out, it did seem much simpler and he gave himself a mental kick for not thinking of it himself.
She looked up, her gray eyes, rimmed with red, showed a single-minded determination that burned straight into his heart. “I guess. But do you know how to work Brian’s coffeemaker? I could use a cup.”
“This is going to be an all-nighter, isn’t it?”
“Depends. Maybe we’ll get lucky and make a connection right away.”
“How long have you been at it?”
“Not long—maybe half an hour. I’ve been trying to recreate my client list from memory. I’m sure I’m missing some.”
He shivered and realized he was wearing only his boxers. Kelli had on the t-shirt she’d slept in. He touched her arms and they were ice cold. He gave them a brisk rub. “Go put something warmer on. I’ll make the coffee.”
Only the rich coffee aroma kept Blake from dozing to the lulling gurgles of the coffeemaker. His cell phone, plugged into its charger, sat on the counter. He reached for it, turned it on and saw he’d missed a call while the phone had been charging. A glance told him the coffee hadn’t finished dripping into the carafe, so he punched the button to listen.
A man’s voice, vaguely familiar. “Blake? Vance Griffith. Look, I know it’s Saturday, but I’d like to talk to you about joining us. Dwight agrees you’d be great. Maybe dinner? And feel free to bring your cousin. Call me.”
He ignored the number Griffith had left the day before. He wasn’t going to return the call. He might be having doubts about his job, but giving it up for politics—that was the greater of two evils, as far as he was concerned. Maybe the greatest of all evils.
He deleted the message and put the phone back on the counter. While he waited for the coffee to finish, he wondered what it was about Kelli that had made him cross the line from the casual relationships into this unfamiliar territory of love.
Not her looks, although she was more than pretty. Not the way she kept him in a state of arousal—sex with her was nothing like anything he’d experienced before and she was so much more than a way to scratch his itches. He wanted to protect her, but that wasn’t it. She didn’t need his protection.
That must be it. Her strength. He couldn’t imagine any of the women he’d dated doing what Kelli had done to survive. He could see them fighting off someone for a taxi, maybe. Or finagling theater seats. Looking good at a cocktail party.
At last the coffee was done and he poured two mugs. Af
ter adding milk and sugar to his, he took a sip. Maybe he’d wake up a little and stop trying to make sense out of something that needed no explanation. He loved Kelli. Period. What difference did it make why? He picked up the mugs and shuffled down the hall.
He set one mug on the desk by Kelli’s hand. “Hot and black.”
“Thanks,” she said without looking up.
“I take it you haven’t found anything.” He picked up the papers. “You want me to read these off and you cross-reference them? Or do you want me to take half? With your laptop, we might be able to go twice as fast.”
She picked up her coffee and inhaled, then sipped. He watched her eyes close, then open in surprised pleasure. “Good.”
“Hey, don’t look so shocked. I admit I have a limited repertoire in the kitchen, but I know how to make coffee.”
“But you don’t own a coffeemaker.”
“Actually, I do, but it’s behind a door on the counter. Something the decorator called an appliance garage. Besides, even though I’m good, Starbucks is better. And there’s one in the office building lobby, so why bother?” He sipped from his own mug, feeling the caffeine sweep away more cobwebs. “Let’s get to work. You have a job for me?”
She looked almost embarrassed when she raised her gaze to his. “I don’t know why I never asked you to help before … I guess I thought—”
He cut her off. “That I couldn’t possibly have your skills?”
Her face reddened and she lowered her eyes. “Not exactly—it’s that I’ve always done everything on my own. Charles had his work, I had mine. Our professional lives didn’t cross.” Her eyes misted and he knew she was thinking of the non-professional side of her late husband.
He jumped in, trying to ignore the hollow feeling that he’d been cast aside for a memory. “Well, it appears my ass is on the line here along with yours, so whatever skills I have are at your disposal.”
Kelli swiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “You had the right idea about splitting the work. You can take my list and compare it to Hollingsworth’s holdings. Mark the ones that might match. I’ll do the same for Thornton. You can use the laptop. There’s a folder called H.I. on the desktop. I’m still doing searches on Mr. Thornton’s philanthropic ventures. There are a lot of them.”
He crossed the room to the table by the recliner where Kelli had left the laptop. He raised the cover and found a picture of a bowl of chocolates as her desktop wallpaper. He smiled and made a mental note to get her a box of Godiva truffles as soon as things calmed down. He clicked open the H.I. folder and picked up the list of companies Kelli had given him.
He gave a low whistle as he glanced down the list. In addition to an assortment of corporations, she’d worked for local government agencies and some major financial institutions. For some reason, he’d expected to find her working for small businesses, not so many heavy hitters.
“You must have been on the road a lot,” he said, immediately wishing he could suck back the words. Her road trips had triggered the chain of events leading up to the convenience store shooting, and he kicked himself for not thinking before opening his mouth.
“Not really.” Without looking, he knew she hadn’t taken her eyes off her monitor. “I had the occasional meeting and one or two jobs where they wanted me on site, but most of the time I had access to their computer systems from home. That way I could be with Lucas.”
Her voice softened at the mention of her son’s name. There was still pain there. He cleared his throat. “I think I need to work at a table. Whoever decided to call these things laptops obviously never tried to work with one on his lap.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Kelli sniffed the air. A hint of smoke wafted through the room. Great. Wonder Chef must be trying to toast a bagel. She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the clock on the monitor. Seven-thirty. Breakfast might not be a bad idea. She’d accumulated copious data on Thornton’s endeavors, but without more details, she was stuck. Remembering the companies she’d worked for wasn’t enough. Her files would give her access to employee lists, company bank accounts and phone records—a smaller pool of things to compare than trying to look at everything and everyone Thornton dealt with.
With a sigh of frustration, she pushed away from the desk, picked up her empty coffee mug and padded toward the kitchen. Sunday morning. She’d bet this town had a place where you could get homemade waffles, fresh eggs fried in real butter and sausage that hadn’t come wrapped in plastic. Probably called Mom’s. And she’d bet it wouldn’t take much persuading for Blake to take her there.
God, what a domestic thought. She must be exhausted. She rounded the corner into the kitchen. Blake was slumped over the laptop, soft snoring sounds coming from his mouth.
“Geez, Windsor—wake up. You’d better not be drooling on my laptop.”
His head jerked and she bit her cheek trying not to laugh at the confused expression on his face as he tried to get his bearings. And then—she knew exactly when—he knew where he was and he saw her and the expression on his face had an entirely different feeling building inside her belly.
“I smelled smoke—thought you might be cooking.” When he gave her a perfect imitation of her head shake, she laughed out loud.
Blake got up, stretched, sniffed and poked his head outside the kitchen door. “Looks like someone’s burning leaves up the road.”
She stepped toward him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “Does this town do Sunday morning breakfast?”
“Mmph.” He placed his hand on top of hers. “Lucille’s.”
Well, not too far off. Lucille was probably someone’s mom. “As long as you’re not cooking, maybe we could grab a bite?”
Blake’s eyes widened. “You’re hungry? You want to go out? In public? With me? Give me five minutes.” He started toward the bedroom.
“Take fifteen. I need a shower.”
Sitting in a vinyl and Formica booth an hour and a half later, Kelli pushed her plate away and refilled her white ceramic coffee mug from the thermal carafe on the table. A cross between a Denny’s and a diner, Lucille’s had met all her expectations, down to the waitresses wearing frilly aprons over their black skirts. And little white caps, too.
Blake extended his mug and she topped it off. He added cream from the metal pitcher, tipped in sugar from the glass container, his spoon clicking against the mug as he stirred. Then he set the mug down, rested his elbows on the table and leaned his chin on his fists. His brown eyes held a relaxed, almost dreamy quality and she felt—normal.
Her cell phone vibrated. So much for normal.
She fished the phone out of her jeans pocket and glanced at the display. Jack Stockbridge. Her heart rate skyrocketed and a clammy trickle of sweat dripped down her back.
She pressed the button. Blake was already motioning for the check.
“God, Jack, are you all right?”
“Fine, Kiddo. I can’t talk long. The cops showed up with a warrant for the office.”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know. They got me out of bed and I’m going with them as soon as I’m dressed. Something about a lead on the guy who assaulted me.”
She heard a knocking sound and a muffled voice telling Jack to hurry it up. Phone to her ear, she slid out of the booth and strode toward the door. “Call me when you know more. I’m on my way.” She disconnected before Jack could reply.
Before she reached the café’s glass door, Blake had caught up and pushed it open. “Where are we going?”
Without breaking stride, she said, “You’re going back to Chicago. Or staying here. I’m going to EnviroCon.” Blake grabbed the arm of her parka, but she slipped out of his grasp. “I told you I might have to go back, and things have escalated. It’s time to for me to stop running and confront this mess. And for you to get on with your life.”
“I’m in this, too.”
“Maybe so, but I see no reason for you to get involved until the cops ask you to.”
&n
bsp; By now, they were in the pickup and driving toward the house. Blake’s jaw muscles were working, his hands were clenched on the wheel, but he wasn’t talking. She tried not to look at him, but even in anger, his features compelled her attention. His gaze would slide over to her, then break, his lips pressed together so tightly they almost disappeared. Then he’d look like he was going to say something, but inhale audibly instead.
What could she say? Words whirled through her head. It’s been fun? An adventure? Something we’ll remember, but it isn’t meant to be? Two people thrown together, fighting for survival? It wasn’t love.
She knew it was. But it was a love they’d both have to get past. She felt the ache building around her heart. Blake was sitting less than two feet from her and she was already lonely.
She turned her face toward the window, opening it a crack to admit the cool, crisp air. They’d left the more populated residential section behind, and she concentrated on the passing landscape with its fields and patches of trees, their leaves painted with shades of red and gold. Smoke billowed from the occasional chimney. Fall had definitely arrived.
A short while later, the truck wheeled down the driveway toward the garage behind the house. She saw Blake’s hand reach up toward the sun visor to press the remote, and then a quick flash of light.
She was flat on her belly with Blake pressed on top of her. Leaves and sticks dug into her abdomen and dirt filled her nose. Once she managed to turn her head and breathe, she tried to squirm free. “Get off of me.”
“Don’t move.” Blake’s mouth was beside her ear.
And then she was surrounded by heat, by smoke and by explosions that left her ears ringing. The weight lifted from her back and she rolled over. Eyes closed, still tearing from the smoke, she heard Blake coughing. She pushed herself to a sitting position, knees up, with her head resting on them.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said between coughs. “Fine. The garage is toast, though.”