Mary’s heart plummeted into a deep cave of disappointment.
“After all, I’ve protected you. I’ve helped you face this problem. I’ve comforted you.”
The sting of his rejection stabbed her like a thousand needles in her heart. Mary opened the SUV door, wanting only to escape the pain. She tossed over her shoulder. “Are you questioning my feelings for you? Or are you only avoiding your feelings for me?”
He caught her elbow before she slipped away. “What do you mean by that?”
“Are you just a rogue who ravages damsels in distress with those wicked kisses?” she snapped, tugging free.
“No. I’ve never kissed anyone the way I’ve kissed you.”
“Then why?”
“I don’t know why,” he admitted. “But I do know that unless we catch your attacker, we won’t have a chance to figure it out.”
“Just forget it,” Mary mumbled, her wounded pride not salved by his reply.
She hopped down from the black SUV and stormed away, her arms crossed as if that might prevent her heart from breaking. She’d have marched all the way back to town and left Mr. Super Cop, who sleeps in his office and lives by his scanner, high and dry on his precious case if only Nancy’s life didn’t depend on her. He might be married to his job, or devoted to his deceased high school sweetheart, or both, but whatever the case, with those issues hanging over him, he didn’t have the right to dismiss her feelings as some misplaced hero worship.
Mary drifted around the gravel lot, refocusing on the mission at hand. “This is where you found me?”
“Not me personally but the rescue team, yes,” Thom replied, coming around the front of the SUV to join her. “Luckily the pay phone still works. You used it to dial 9-1-1.”
“It looks different in the daylight,” Mary commented. That night, the building appeared abandoned but she hadn’t noticed the boarded up windows. No other buildings interrupted the vista composed of woods and the ribbon of asphalt curving past. It could have been far removed from civilization, just a ruin in the wilderness proving that humans had once settled here before moving on or disappearing, like a lost Mayan city in the jungles of Central America.
That night, this abandoned gas station served as a lifeboat in an empty ocean for Mary. The phone standing unassumingly to the side of the empty lot acted like a radio beacon to connect her with the real world and led her out of the nightmare she’d been dragged into. Mary touched the phone, saying a silent prayer of thanks that it had been there for her in her need.
“We need to backtrack from here.” Thom touched Mary’s shoulder, bringing her out of her private thoughts.
“Right,” she said, wiping the moisture from her cheeks. Mary glanced at her wet hand. She hadn’t even realized she wept.
Thom squeezed her shoulder, “You can do this.”
“I know.” She shook her head, clearing away her emotions and focusing on remembering the details. “I’m ready.”
“We found some bits of grass on your socks. We think you must have walked through the weeds on the side of the road.” Thom prompted. “Do you recall that at all?”
“I remember everything,” she said, straightening up. “Just follow me.”
Mary forced her feet to obey and guide her back toward the terror from which they’d fled. Suddenly cold, Mary crossed her arms over her chest as she walked up the road. Thom let her lead the way, staying a few steps behind her. Although she heard his footfalls, she felt hollow inside as if she faced this path alone. She never thought she’d willingly take this journey but there was more than her safety and comfort at stake. She’d brought danger into the lives of everyone she knew and loved and now only she could make things right.
In the back of her mind, she remembered a fairytale about a princess who willingly went to a dragon as a sacrifice so he would spare her village and her family. In the story the dragon turned out to be kind but misunderstood and everyone lived happily ever after. But this wasn’t a fairytale and she might indeed have to sacrifice herself to whatever awful fate she found at the end of this path.
Thom was right. She possessed strength enough to face her demon. Thom thought he could defeat it once he’d found it but Mary wasn’t counting on it. She’d escaped her fate for a couple of days and even found a few moments of happiness with Thom but she couldn’t shake the feeling that all of that was coming to an end.
“There it is.” Mary pointed to the power lines up ahead where they arched across the road. “That’s where we turn off the road.”
Thom strode up beside her. She’d stopped when the power lines rose into view over the wall of trees marking the border of the grassy field. Holding up a map book he’d brought with him, Thom made a note on it in pencil. “You walked nearly two miles down the road and no one drove past?”
“I didn’t walk on the road. I stayed in the grassy ditch along the side.” Mary pointed to the drainage ditch full of overgrown weeds. “I was afraid he’d change his mind and come looking for me. I hid from the cars that passed.”
Chapter Six
“That was a good idea,” said Thom, turning toward Mary with approval clear in his face. “I’m impressed.”
Thom meant to resist. He really did. Her sweetness, her sadness, tore open his heart and his resolve. His lips found hers as if he couldn’t draw another breath unless he did. The kiss, tender and timeless, melted Mary into him. Pulling her to him was so natural, like breathing, he couldn’t remember why he shouldn’t.
Her leg slipped between his and pressed against Thom’s upper thigh. His hands moved on instinct, one cradling Mary’s rear and drawing her hips hard against him, the other supported her back, lest the force of his kiss knock her backward. Her honeyed scent mesmerized him. The softness of her breasts against his chest inflamed his passion.
Thom wanted nothing more than to throw her down and have his way with her right now and his kiss expressed that. Thom drank of her mouth as if from the cup of life itself and to stop meant death. All his intentions, the world itself, blurred away and left only Mary, forever in his embrace.
Breaking the breath-stealing kiss but not the embrace, Thom feathered kisses against her peaches and cream cheek and down her neck. Her skin radiated like embers under his persistence. Desperate to feel her, to know her, his hands slipped under her sweatshirt, to find the trembling smoothness of her stomach.
Mary’s gasps charged his hunger as Thom’s tongue found the sensitive spot beneath her ear. He clamped on, sucking and licking voraciously, sending her into squeals of pleasure. With her arms locked desperately around his neck, Mary writhed against him as her need matched his own.
His hands plundered further under her shirt, until his fingertips brushed the satin cups of her bra. Her curves filled and overflowed his palms as he massaged her into a frenzy. The hardening nipples pressed against the restraining fabric as he circled them with the pads of his thumbs.
“Thom…” Mary gasped, “I want you.” She thrust her hips erotically against his thigh. “I want you to want me.”
He withdrew his hands from her shirt and settled his grip on her waist. Drawing back, Thom gazed into Mary’s warm face. He did want her. He wanted her more than anything else, ever.
But that was the problem.
Mary’s expression darkened at his prolonged silence. “You can’t keep doing this to me.” Angrily, she pushed his hands away. “You can’t keep kissing me so passionately and then shutting me out.”
“I don’t mean to.”
Thom stepped back from Mary, ejected from the moment of passion and not yet finding his footing. “Sorry,” Thom muttered and then cleared his throat. He reached to straighten her shirt but snatched back his hand before his control weakened.
“What is this barrier between us?” Mary twisted the sweatshirt—the
sweatshirt that he’d loaned her—centering its Steelers logo on her chest. The over-sized shirt spared him the details of her fabulous shape. If he ever glimpsed her sensuous body, the curves he’d luxuriated in moments before, he wouldn’t be able to remember his own name, much less think about fighting crime. Thom rubbed his hands roughly through his hair, trying to reengage the brain cells that still buzzed from the kiss.
“It’s Tammy Jo, isn’t it?”
Thom retrieved the map he’d dropped when he engaged Mary in the kiss. “We need to focus on this case.”
“You still love her, don’t you?”
Smacking the map against his leg with excessive force to knock off the dust, he said, “You don’t really want to open that Pandora’s Box.”
“But she is the reason, isn’t she?” Mary caught his hand and sandwiched it between her own. “She’s why you won’t even give us a chance.”
“Tammy Jo is dead because of me.” He snagged her by the shoulders and shook her. “I don’t want to love you, only to lose you too.”
An icy trickle traced down Mary’s spine. “What do you mean; she’s dead because of you?”
“I didn’t kill her but I might as well have.” He released her and stormed several paces away. “I don’t want to get into this right now. We don’t have time.”
Chapter Seven
Mary stared after him, her mouth open. She’d struck a major nerve. For a full minute she watched him march off, consulting his map and muttering to himself. When he didn’t turn back, she raced to catch up. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To the damn power lines.” he snapped.
“But you don’t know where you are going.”
The map crumpled and ripped in his clenched fists. “Maybe if someone would stay focused,” he drew out the word sarcastically, “we could accomplish something.”
“Fine!” she snapped.
“Back at you!”
Mary stomped her foot in frustration. “You’re being a real poop-head. You know that?”
“A poop-head?” He cracked, “How old are you anyway?”
“Are you insulting me?”
“I wasn’t the one calling you a poop-head.”
“You’re pretty cocky considering you are going in the wrong direction.”
He turned on her, his green eyes snapping with temper. “I was following your directions.”
“Why don’t you follow me instead of storming off?”
Thom stepped in close, too close, sucking the air from her. He hissed between his teeth, “Because you were walking slower than my grandmother’s arthritic Pekinese.”
“Hey, give me a break,” Mary shoved at Thom’s hard chest but failed to budge him. “I’ve been traumatized, remember?”
“Well, get over it,” he growled, “and start helping me.”
“Fine!” she snapped, “Then follow me.” She crossed the street and climbed the rise to the barely visible path she’d followed to the street days before. “You stupid poop-head.”
Thom growled under his breath as Mary marched off ahead of him. She’d gotten under his skin in more ways than one, Thom thought, as he watched the way his sweatpants molded to Mary’s sweetly rounded rump. Her happiness, or the lack of it, meant a lot more to him than it should. Every time she beat herself up for what that creep did, he just wanted to shake some sense into her, or kiss her senseless—one or the other.
More than just that, he felt possessive of her. It rankled to know some other man had snatched her away, even for a short time. Primitively, Thom felt the love bite he had left on Mary’s neck just now marked her as his and he liked that thought deep down in his chest-thumping, testosterone-soaked, caveman nature. But his mark rested beside the fading bruises left by Mary’s attacker, so he’d marked her too. Thom definitely wanted the guy to pay for that.
On top of all that, his conviction to subjugate his basic attraction to Mary failed utterly. Not only did she attract him physically but emotionally as well. Her trust in him instilled him with confidence. Her students loved her and despite the promise, she loved them back. Hell, with her own life at risk, she still bothered worrying about the safety of her cat. For the first time since he joined the force, his thoughts centered not on the disturbingly overstuffed unsolved cases file, or what new breaking cases the scanner announced but on returning her safely home. His home.
Not since Tammy Jo had Thom entertained such domestic fantasies. When Thom looked at Mary, he not only saw the woman he wanted to make love to, he saw a future, with hearth, home and laughing children with his eyes and her spun gold hair.
Shaking himself from his daydream, Thom consulted his map again. Just glancing around, someone unfamiliar with the area would never realize that a sprawling suburban area actually surrounded them. The ravine Mary guided him along protected them with six foot high ridges on either side, keeping them from the view of anyone else traveling in the field. A wide undeveloped stretch of land buffered the path where the high power lines crossed the area but beyond the grassy meadow and the bordering line of trees snoozed the nice neighborhood streets of the Elmwood Heights area. Homes in that section of town sold for the low to mid six figures and presumably nice, middle class families raised their honor students there in relative safety.
“So, I gather you were told to go this way.”
“Yes. ‘Follow the power lines’ he said.”
If Mary had not followed the power lines but went in any other direction she would have stumbled smack dab in the middle of all that suburban activity. Instead, she walked miles away from where he’d released her. Maybe this guy wasn’t as dumb as Mary surmised.
“What else did he tell you?”
“You mean besides warning me not to talk with you?” She glanced back at him. Her lemon colored hair swished with the movement so that it shone and tumbled invitingly down her back. Her dark eyes didn’t hold the regretful cast they usually held whenever she reminded him of that promise but instead he found challenge in them. She was still annoyed with him. Good. Anger he could use. Scared people clammed up. Angry people talked.
“Do you know where you are going? How long did you follow the power lines?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed. “To stay out of sight, I followed this ravine most of the way. As we go along, I keep noticing things that look familiar. Like that droopy bush off to the side there, I remember passing it, so we must not have gone off track yet.”
“Take it a step back,” Thom said. “Where were you before this?”
Mary gave a squeak of shock and started running.
Thom drew his pistol and raced after her. His adrenaline kicked in, triggering his protective instincts, only he saw nothing significant enough to trigger her reaction. “What is it? Mary, what’s wrong?”
Ten yards further up, she collapsed to her knees. She covered her face with her hands and moaned.
“What is it?” Thom stood over her, scanning the area for danger.
Mary rocked back and forth, hugging herself tightly. “It was here,” she sobbed. “He left me here.”
Thom knelt down beside her and stroked her hair. “How do you know?”
Mary pointed to a crumpled red handkerchief half hidden in the grass. “He blindfolded me with that.”
Chapter Eight
Mary felt as if some giant hand reached inside her, grabbed a handful of her guts and gave a wicked twist. Her legs wouldn’t support her; in fact she couldn’t feel them at all. The words “hysterical paralysis” floated briefly across her thoughts, as the memories that haunted the spot where she trembled opened beneath her like a giant mouth rising up in massive jaws on either side of her to swallow her whole. With a moan of utter agony, Mary realized she’d never left this horrible place but huddled here helpless all this ti
me, merely dreaming that she escaped. Sinking quickly into despair, her arms shot out as the world unbalanced.
“All right,” Thom soothed, catching her before she crumbled. “Don’t fall apart on me now.”
“Thom!” She clung to him. “Don’t let me go. I’ll die.”
He hugged her furiously to him. “I won’t let you go. Ever.”
“It was here,” she gasped. “He left me here, blindfolded. He told me to count to a hundred. I did and then I ripped off the blindfold and ran. I left it here.”
Thom glanced around again, still gripping his gun as if he expected her attacker to spring out at them, just like she did. “Which way did you come from?”
“I don’t know.” Mary shook her head. She pressed her face against his powerful chest, breathing in his scent and absorbing his warmth, needing both, as desperately as the air she gasped.
“Think!” Thom demanded, grabbing her shoulders and forcing her a step back and fixing her with his powerful gaze. “You are not helpless. You can do this.”
Mary swayed, fighting successfully to keep her footing and shocked to find her legs would hold her. She told them to and they did. Maybe Thom was right. Maybe she wasn’t completely helpless after all.
“I need you,” Thom said.
Mary met his gaze. He meant that sincerely she could tell, but did he mean only to solve this case? Could he mean more by that, or was she just seeing what she wanted? What she needed?
“Wait, let me think.” Mary touched her fingers to her forehead, willing her mind to go back to that frightening evening. The lengthening shadows fleeing from the fading light of the sun as it dipped wearily toward the horizon hadn’t yet closed her in its dark embrace. She could still see her surroundings even though the growing darkness muted the colors. The claustrophobic blanket of twilight hadn’t wrapped around her until she’d reached the road and then she’d clung to the deeper shadows to hide from the passing headlights. “I was sitting on the ground there.”
Her Dangerous Promise - Part 3: (Romantic Suspense Serial) Page 3