Why had he stopped? Was he worried about the timing, too? Did he need a sign that she wanted him to keep going? Elle was too out of practice to know how to be subtle. She opened her mouth to do the only thing she could think of and ask him directly to kiss her. But her lips barely parted before he spoke first.
“See?” he said.
Puzzlement made her frown. “See what?”
“All of your seams are perfectly intact. At least from my perspective.” His mouth twitched up into a wide grin, revealing his perfectly even teeth.
Elle stared at him for a second, connecting the dots between her minute-earlier comment and his exploration of her body and the terrible joke. And something unexpected happened. A laugh built up in her chest. It was a foreign feeling. Like she hadn’t laughed in a year. It bubbled out all the same. And the fact that Noah had managed to make it happen only made Elle want to kiss him even more. But as she leaned forward a little more—with the giggles not quite subsiding—and pressed up in anticipation of lip-to-lip contact, Noah’s visible amusement wiped abruptly off his face. His hand came up to clamp over her mouth. But the move was unnecessary. The look in his eyes was enough to kill her laughter all on its own. For several seconds, she was confused by his tense expression. But right when she was about to assume it had been for naught, Elle figured out what had sparked the sudden change.
From outside the small space, a man’s one-sided conversation carried in.
CHAPTER 8
A string of curses coursed through Noah’s head. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d been assuming that if—when—someone burst in to his motel room, they’d literally burst in. Smash through the door with enough force to send the crappy wood flying and enough noise to alert him to the entry.
Stupid assumption.
A less experienced bounty hunter might’ve had a good excuse for thinking everyone on the chasing end of things was a mindless thug. Noah knew better. Caution and subtlety were what got the marks caught, not smashing through doors. He was just thankful that his floorboards had creaked right as Elle’s laughter had started to taper off. Much like the squeak of the courtyard gate, it was a sound only a resident would recognize. The protest of the weakened floor came from a spot two steps into the room, and he knew it well enough to know that someone over two hundred pounds had triggered it.
Peeling his hand from Elle’s mouth—certain she’d stay still and silent now—he mouthed an apology, then strained to hear what was happening on the other side of the wall. Words trickled in, muffled by both the drywall and the man’s position in the room.
“Empty.” Pause. “I know what I…” Indistinguishable. “No.” Pause again. “Yes.” Heavy feet thumping on the carpet. “Hang on.” The rattle of the closet door. “Call you back.” The shuffle of someone coming closer.
Even though he was certain that there was no way to know they were there, Noah tensed. Beside him, he felt Elle do the same. He immediately had to fight an urge to reach out and draw her in close. But as the need to keep her safe hit him, Noah realized something. It was the growing softness toward the woman he barely knew that had left them vulnerable. He’d been thinking about her, when the man out there had managed to sneak in. He’d been wanting to see her smile. To make her feel as okay as possible in a very not-okay situation. To kiss away the suffering that played out over her features every single time she thought of her daughter. He knew that’s what was happening when her eyes grew tight and her lips pressed together like she was holding her breath. Maybe she thought she was hiding it, but it was too late. Noah could already read her. He’d let the emotion creep in, dammit, and it was backfiring as it was always guaranteed to do. What he needed now was to get back into professional mode, and to pretend like there was no bubbling need to be or do more than that.
Under the guise of trying to hear what the man in his room was doing, he took the tiniest step away from Elle. Instead of relief, Noah just felt an unexpected sense of wrongness. Growling silently at himself, he forcibly turned his attention to the shuffling noises still going on in the closet. He pictured a vague figure—above-average height, above-average built, features made indistinct by a hood covering his face—searching methodically for clues. Digging through the clothes. Opening the two shoeboxes full of miscellaneous papers that gave away nothing aside from Noah’s preference for Vietnamese food. Bending to look into the empty safe, then realizing his search was futile. What Noah didn’t do was take any satisfaction in being sure that his subterfuge had worked; he was too aware of how cockiness could lead to a downfall. He just waited. And after another few moments of stuff moving around, the unseen man spoke up again, obviously resuming his call.
“They’re gone,” he announced, pausing for a response. “Yeah, I’m damn sure. Cleared out whatever valuables he had.” The stranger’s feet hit the ground again, signaling his move away from the closet, but his speech was agitated now, and loud enough to hear. “The door was locked from the inside.” Another pause. “How the hell would I know? Through a window?” There was a muttered curse, clearly not intended for his phone audience, and then he said, “No, don’t tell Trey that. I’ll call him myself as soon as I figure out who the hell this guy is and why he’s suddenly so involved.” There was a final moment of silence before the man signed off with some chilling words, then his feet tapped away and the door slammed behind him. “Okay. You need something to say to him? Then go ahead and let him know the first of his backup hunters is dead.”
Noah’s eyes sank shut as a name floated up, then stuck to the front of his mind. Dez.
Intuitively, he knew that his colleague was the backup hunter in question. From that, it was easy enough to infer that what had killed him was the shot that he and Elle had heard, and Noah’s gut twisted at the dark conclusion. His mind shot back to that first night when he’d met the other man. The story he’d recounted to Elle was true. Dez had been less than half a man. Broken and lost. Understandably so. And for whatever reason, Noah had suspended his rules that night, too. He’d shared some—though nowhere near all—of the pieces of his own past, and he’d told the other man how he’d found purpose.
“I didn’t expect it to have any effect,” he murmured.
“Didn’t expect what to have any effect?” Elle replied.
Noah didn’t open his eyes right away, even though he knew he should’ve. He just felt too off balance. Or maybe more like he was balancing on the edge of something. On one side of it was what he’d just acknowledged, just reaffirmed—that emotion equaled weakness. On the other side of it was the need to tell Elle everything.
“Noah?”
Her voice dragged him back to reality, and he forced himself to lift his lids. He met her gaze. Her bright blue irises seemed to absorb the darkness, turning their color from cloudless sky to deepest ocean. He stared into them, then gave his head a shake.
“C’mon,” he said gruffly. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
He didn’t wait for her to answer, or even offer her his hand this time. He was afraid if he did, that balance would tip. He’d sink into her eyes. Dredge up the past. His past. Which would throw away any chance at all of maintaining the distance he’d just sworn to keep. So he inhaled, and just slid past. It was impossible not to notice, though, how quickly she followed. It wasn’t just the narrow space, either. Yeah, he could physically feel her nearness as he navigated the hidden corridor by memory. Her soft, slightly floral scent filled his nose, too. Except if he was being honest, it felt like more than that. He had an awareness of her that was entirely unreasonable. So when the awareness broke off abruptly, Noah spun back, and he wasn’t surprised at all to see that Elle had stopped just a few feet behind.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“I think I’m stuck,” she replied, her hands moving behind her.
He stepped toward her. “Here, let me—”
“No.”
&n
bsp; “I can—”
“I’ve got it.”
Noah gave his chin a scratch and hung back as Elle wiggled and wriggled and tried to free herself. When it became apparent that she wasn’t going to get loose easily, he tried again to offer her some assistance. She again waved him off.
“My shirt’s just stuck on a nail or something,” she said.
“I can probably get it off more easily than you can,” Noah told her.
“No,” she repeated. “I said I’ve got it.”
He frowned. “Okay. But—No. Never mind. You go ahead.”
He watched as she twisted and turned, and he wondered why the hell she wouldn’t just let him help. As she pulled, yanked and fiddled, the seconds ticked by. But just when Noah was about to override her random determination to do it on her own, Elle abruptly stopped and lifted her eyes up to him.
“You think it was him, don’t you?” she asked.
“What?”
“That guy out there… He was talking about the first hunter or whatever. Saying he was dead. And you think it’s Dez.”
Noah started to argue, then thought better of it and nodded instead. “Yeah, Elle. I do.”
Her eyes dropped to her fingers, which she squeezed tight around the fabric of her T-shirt. Of his T-shirt.
“It’s my fault,” she said softly.
Realizing her stubbornness was a foil for her feelings, he forewent his need for space, and he stepped toward her. He closed one of his hands over hers, and he used the other to grip her chin and lift it so he could see her face again.
“It is not your fault,” he told her.
“If I’d gone with him…”
“If you’d gone with him, you’d both be dead. Or he’d be dead, and you’d be bound and gagged, and on your way to wherever it is Trey Charger wants you.”
“Maybe they would’ve let him go.”
“Do you really believe that?” he asked her softly.
She drew in a shaky breath. “No. But I don’t feel any less guilty.”
“Elle, you don’t need to feel responsible for his death. This job comes with risks. There are dangerous clients and dangerous operations, and God knows most people don’t want to be forcibly retrieved.”
“He didn’t deserve to die.”
“No, he didn’t. And I’m not trying to make it sound lighter than it is. All I’m saying is that it wasn’t even close to your fault. Dez was well aware of the risks, and he took them anyway. Hell. He liked to push the boundaries.” He dropped her chin and let out a heavy sigh. “Let me help you with the shirt, and we’ll mourn Dez when the time is right. I promise.”
Noah felt like he’d made more promises to Elle in the last few hours than he’d made to anyone in a year. It was worth it, though, when she blinked away her tears and nodded. When Noah reached behind her, though, another surprising sentence popped out of her mouth.
“I’m not good at taking help,” she said.
Fumbling for the offending nail—and not finding it as easily as he assumed he would—Noah frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I just—I can barely even admit that I need help, okay?” She sounded a little embarrassed and a little defensive at the same time, but she went on anyway, her voice tickling his neck when he had to lean in even more. “I’m used to being on my own. I take of everything for Katie and me. I hate owing anyone anything.”
Noah felt a chuckle build, and it escaped before he could stop it. And he still hadn’t found the damn spot where her shirt was stuck.
“What?” Elle said. “What’s funny?”
One side of his mouth went up, and he seized the fabric and slowly worked his fingers along in search of the snag. “You chased me down and ordered me to help you.”
“I…” She trailed off like she hadn’t thought of that, and muttered, “Usually.”
“Usually?” he echoed.
“I’m usually terrible at admitting it.”
“Okay,” he said doubtfully.
“Seriously,” she replied. “Last month, I got a flat tire, and a tow truck literally stopped in front of me. Pure lucky coincidence. When the driver pulled over and offered me a spare, I told him to stuff it.”
“Why would you do that?”
He finally found the thing that the cotton was stuck on—it was actually somehow wedged between two beams—and he yanked it free. He leaned back, a small smile playing over his mouth at her apparent stubbornness. His amusement faded, though, when he saw the look in her eyes. Haunted. The same way she’d looked when he’d first seen her in the park. Concern reared up. But then Elle blinked, and her expression changed.
“I guess I feel like if I can’t control the big things around me, then I should at least be able to control the little ones,” she explained.
Noah nodded. Just once. Tightly. Then faced the other direction again. He believed her explanation, at least on a superficial level. In fact, he completely understood it. The problem was, he didn’t buy that there wasn’t something more behind her words.
Do you really need something more than a single mom who not only has a missing kid, but who’s also mixed up with a notoriously shady businessman?
Noah’s mind slipped to Elle’s reaction to the opening in the closet. Then to her comment about not wanting to disclose the whole truth because he might not want to help her anymore. He thought of her guilt over Dez. It all mingled together in his head and told him that yeah, there was something else behind that fleeting look. And that as soon as they were safely on their way, he was going to find a way to ask her what it was.
* * *
It was strange. Elle knew she should’ve felt relief that things had finally sped up. They made it through the rest of the hidden corridor without interruption. They slipped out another closet panel into a second motel room—this one empty and pristine—which Noah casually mentioned he rented, too. Just in case. He snagged a pair of keys from under an umbrella stand and an expensive-looking suitcase from under the bed.
Elle barely processed the oddity of all of that before he guided her to the door, explaining in a low voice that it was the very last unit in the building, and due to a construction flaw, the exit was located on the side. In spite of the relative cover and lack of visibility, they still moved through it with caution, taking care to look for any would-be assailants. But the care they took didn’t slow them down much at all. In moments they were cutting through the residential streets of Low River at a clipped speed. Five minutes of quick turns brought them to a stop in front of a sealed garage at a seemingly random home. There, Elle watched as Noah punched in a code to the keypad on the side. The door chugged open to reveal a surprisingly elegant car—sleek maroon paint, two chrome-lined doors and a leather interior that screamed of money.
Noah offered no explanation for the vehicle, and Elle didn’t ask for one as she climbed in and buckled up. The engine purred to life, the A/C kicked on, and they were off. Headed for the highway and into a nearby town where Noah said another underhanded, well-connected acquaintance hid out. One who would be able to help them out for the right price.
It was strange. Almost surreal. Yet all in all, it was the least eventful chunk of time in Elle’s day. There were no more stuck shirts. No more murderous visitors employed by Trey. And no drawn-out conversations that brought her dangerously close to revealing the more disturbing parts of her past. They were finally physically moving—toward Katie, with any luck—and Elle knew she should’ve been feeling nothing but relief. Instead, she felt off-kilter.
The thick pit of worry was still in her gut, shortening her breath every time she thought about the little girl and her current fate. About Trey. About the way their lives intersected, and how hard she’d worked to keep the three of them apart. The devastation at having failed. And—in spite of Noah’s reassurances that she wasn’t to blame—there was Dez’
s death.
The collateral damage.
Elle would do almost anything to protect Katie. She’d sacrificed personal goals and dreams and any semblance of a normal life. And she didn’t resent it. Not even a little bit. But when people started dying, her heart couldn’t help but twist with regret. What kind of person would she be if that didn’t bother her? And what if Dez wasn’t the last one to die? What if someone else got caught in the crossfire?
What if it’s Noah?
Elle’s hands tried to knit together with worry, and she forced them to stay still, flattening them against her bare knees. She stole the smallest look at the big bounty hunter. His mouth was set in an even line, his hands gripped tightly on the steering wheel. He looked tense. Harried. But like he was trying not to let on.
Guilt washed over her, and she refocused her attention out the front windshield.
Anything for Katie, she thought. But is it fair to expect a good man like Noah to give up his life for her?
She inhaled a breath that she hoped wasn’t too noticeable, and she watched the scenery—residential had given way to highway, and rural properties dotted the horizon now—go by for a few very long seconds, considering what her options were.
She needed Noah. At least until she had a proper lead on where Trey had taken her little girl. But once she had that lead…
I can promise to pay him what I owe him, and I can sneak off.
The thought no sooner formed than Noah’s voice—deep and laced with warning—startled her.
“Whatever it is you’re thinking about doing…” he said. “Don’t.”
Harlequin Romantic Suspense January 2021 Page 77