by Theresa Weir
He unwrapped his legs from hers and shoved her away from him. Feeling mad enough to move the whole damn house, he got to his feet and pulled, not caring if the cuffs cut into his wrist.
He dragged the bed across the floor. The woman—Claire—walked backward, trying to move fast enough to stay out of his way. “Slow down!” she gasped when the bed collided with her for the second time.
“Get out of the way!” He pulled until the bed built up enough momentum to slam into the open doorway, almost pinning Claire to the wall.
“Phew.”
She stared up at him in surprise and more than a little fear. “I’d get that removed if I were you,” she said, indicating the tattoo.
He smiled a completely joyless smile. “It’s the only thing that keeps me going.”
“And I thought you hadn’t exhibited many Type A traits. You sure made up for it fast.”
“Can you see the key?” he asked.
She twisted around. “No.”
“Here. Get your feet off the floor.”
She tucked her feet under her bottom as he spun the bed around so the head was near the door.
“I see it,” he said. “Give me that blanket.” Keeping a grip on one corner of the blanket, he gave it a toss, dragging the quilt across the floor and back to him.
On the fourth try, Claire heard the soft ping of metal. Dylan pulled the blanket closer, then bent and picked up the key.
He unlocked his cuff, then looked up at Claire, who was kneeling on the edge of the bed waiting.
She held out her hand. “The key.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Come on,” she said in disbelief. “You’re not going to leave me here. You can’t.”
“It might be fun.”
“For you.”
“Exactly.”
“Give me the key.”
“I’ll brush your teeth. I’ll shave you. Do you have any places that need to be shaved?” His gaze traveled slowly down her body, then back up to make sensual contact with her eyes.
“Yeah, my back.”
His mouth dropped open, then he let out a shout of laughter. Hand to his stomach, he doubled over, unable to stop laughing.
She frowned. Her intent had been to disgust him, not set him off in an orgasm of mirth. “You can stop laughing now.”
He finally started to wind down, actually reaching that period where you stop laughing completely, then start again, then stop until the whole thing finally fizzles out.
A shiver ran through her. It was so cold! The temperature in the room had to have dropped twenty degrees during their little intimacy session.
With a smile still hovering at the edges of his mouth, he reached over—and unlocked the cuff.
Her hand fell away from the bed rail, her arm too weak to do anything but drop to the mattress. With her other hand, she rubbed her wrist, trying to get some of the feeling back in it. Then she scrambled off the bed and ran for the bathroom. The lock was broken so she only pretended to secure the door behind her, hoping he would leave her alone.
Chapter 13
Back to square one, she thought, peeling off clothes that were almost dry. Not bothering with a bra, she grabbed a flannel shirt from the hook on the back of the door and slipped it on. But when she tried to button it, she couldn’t make her left hand work.
Two minutes later she was still struggling. Dylan knocked on the door. “Hurry up.”
“I am.”
She was still working on button number two. Damn. It was next to impossible with only one hand.
The doorknob turned and he walked right in. “Here. Move your hands.”
“I can do it.”
“I'm standing right here.”
“I don't want your help.”
“For chrissake.” He brushed her hand away. She watched as he buttoned her shirt, all the while aware of her nakedness under the soft flannel. There had been a moment back there when she had wanted him to kiss her. And even now, the thought of such a kiss scared her. But it also intrigued her. She kept wondering what his mouth would feel like pressed to hers.
“What’s a girl like you doing with a set of handcuffs?” he asked, his head bent in studious concentration.
“You mean someone who smells like mothballs and drinks castor oil?”
“No, I mean someone who lives in the mountains by herself and chops her own firewood.” He actually sounded curious about her, wonder of wonders. Maybe she wasn’t quite as boring as she thought.
“They were a present.”
“From Anton?”
“Maybe.” It was none of his business.
Was it her imagination, or did his hands linger over the last button?
When he was finished, he ran his fingers down the entire row, starting just below her chin and ending above her belly. “There,” he said looking up, his hand still on her stomach.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
They were standing in the tiny bathroom, face-to-face, toe-to-toe.
She inched past him, her heart racing. She didn't look back, but she knew he was watching her. In the living room, she discovered that he'd loaded the stove with wood. From the bathroom came the sound of the shower.
Still cold, Claire slipped on her down jacket and crocheted cap. She fed Hallie, then put a kettle of water on the stove and waited for the room to warm up.
Whenever she was really cold, she went outside to the sauna. It used electric heat, and took only a short while to warm up. But lately she'd been trying to conserve on the electricity, plus she didn't think her relationship with the criminal had moved to sharing a sauna, and somehow she thought he would probably follow her there.
A few minutes later, she heard him in the bedroom, shoving the bed back where it had been. Maybe it was because she was exhausted, but the whole handcuff thing seemed so stupid now. The guy was harmless. Was it really her duty to be a good citizen and turn him in? She didn't know. She just wondered who Olivia was.
~0~
Five minutes later, she was curled up in the corner of the couch in front of the stove, a cup of hot chocolate in her hands. Behind her, Dylan opened the front door, letting in a blast of arctic air. He whistled.
Hallie made an instant appearance, slobbering all over Dylan, her nails tapping on the wooden floor as she danced around in excitement.
Dylan good-doggied her and pet her hard, the way guys did when they roughhoused with dogs. Claire didn’t think Anton had ever given Hallie a single pat on the head.
“There’s water for hot chocolate on the stove,” she said over her shoulder.
She heard him banging around in the kitchen. A few minutes later, he sat down on the floor near the fire, his back against the couch. Hallie dropped down beside him, her head resting on his thigh.
“How much trouble can you get into if the police catch you?” Claire asked.
He ruffled the thick hair around Hallie’s neck. His wrist was red and raw-looking from his angry tug at the bed.
“I don’t know.”
She swallowed. “A life sentence?” She could barely get the question past her tight throat.
“I don’t know.”
The room was getting almost hot. Claire suddenly remembered her jacket and cap. She took them off.
“That’s the ugliest damn thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” he said, staring at the cap with the same horrified expression Libby often used.
“I like it.”
“Why?”
“Because it was a present. Because someone went to the trouble to make it for me.”
The heat, after the cold, was making them both drowsy.
Ten minutes later, Claire was half-asleep in one corner of the couch. She opened her eyes once to see Dylan sprawled out in front of the fire.
She didn’t know another thing until pounding at the front door had her sitting upright, her heart hammering in alarm the way it always did whenever something awakened her from a deep sleep. Hallie r
an to the door, barking.
Claire was surprised to see that it was light out.
She checked the wall clock—6:45 A.M.
Knock, knock.
“Claire!'" A man’s voice.
On the floor near her feet, Dylan stirred. His eyes came open to stare at her. Scared. Don’t say anything. Please.
“Just a minute!” Claire shouted, rubbing her face, getting to her feet.
She sneezed violently. Once. Twice. Behind her, she heard the sound of Dylan scrambling across the floor, getting the hell out of there.
She opened the door just in time for another sneeze. “Sorry,” she mumbled behind her hand, eyes watering.
Sheriff Docherty.
Hallie gave him a welcome of her own, the usual crotch sniff.
“Hallie.” Claire pulled her away.
“I stopped by yesterday and nobody was home. Then this morning we found your Jeep. You okay?”
“Fine.” She sniffled. “Except for a cold.” Hallie wandered a few feet away, then squatted in a pile of snow. Poor girl had a weak bladder.
“I don’t want to scare you, but you probably heard there’s a criminal loose. You sure everything is okay?”
Claire looked down at the bucket of frozen vomit Dylan had left at the door. She looked back up. “Fine.”
“Haven’t seen anything, have you?” he asked, watching her intently. All she would have to do was nod, or mouth the word help. He wasn’t slow. He would understand.
“Like I said, I have a cold. I’ve been holed up here, trying to get over it. I was probably asleep when you stopped by yesterday. That cold medicine really knocks me out.”
“If you see or hear anything, get in touch with me, okay?”
She gave him a rough smile. She’d always suspected that Sheriff Docherty liked her. Seeing her at this time of day would cure him of that. She felt kind of sorry for him. Nothing worse than a shattered dream.
Chapter 14
Dylan stood wedged into a corner of the loft, his heart hammering, his breathing ragged.
He listened to the sound of Claire’s voice, waiting to hear the policeman’s surprised shout. Waiting to hear heavy footfalls. Waiting to have a gun pointed at him. Instead, he heard Claire telling the person at the door that she had a cold. Then, instead of telling him that Dylan had stolen her Jeep, she said that she herself had run into the tree.
Dylan strained to hear the rest of the conversation.
“Could you do me a favor and call a tow truck?” she asked.
“You should get a phone,” the man answered in a concerned voice. He liked her. Dylan could hear it in the guy’s voice. Kind of a shy respect, but also frustration. He wanted her to be safe, but it wasn’t his place to say too much.
He said his good-byes. The door slammed.
Dylan listened to the fading sound of the police vehicle. Then he collapsed to the floor. A minute later, he rolled to his back, a bent hand to his chest. That was close.
Little by little, he began to relax. Little by little, he began to take note of his surroundings. An artist's studio. The loft was an artist's studio. There were a couple of worktables, two easels, flood lights, tubes of paints—watercolors, not oils or acrylics. Bottles of artist's ink. Brushes, pens, mat boards, sketchpads, rags.
He got to his feet and moved to the center of the room where the skylight dropped a rectangle of sunshine on the wooden floor. He'd found himself wondering what Claire did for a living, speculating about the possibility of her being a musician, or maybe a writer. So ... Claire was an artist. She’d painted the pictures he'd seen downstairs.
How strange ...
His thoughts went back to another time, to another artist he’d known in another life, a friend who’d blended his dreams in pastels on public sidewalks. That was so long ago.
Dylan picked up a paint tube. Mars Violet. He put it down and picked up another. Hooker's Green. He smiled to himself. Rose Madder. Raw Umber. What great names. Cool names. He'd always loved paint names.
He heard footsteps on the ladder. He didn't turn. He put down the tube of paint and approached the worktable where a dozen or so pictures, some finished, some not, were strewn.
She liked birds. No, she loved birds. But there were other things, too. Flowers. Frogs. Doorways with vines. Trees. Grasshoppers.
He picked up a watercolor of a grasshopper. It was so damn detailed. He hadn't known grasshoppers had all those dots along their legs. He hadn't known they were such a miracle.
“He's gone.”
“Mmm?”
“The policeman. He's gone.”
Dylan was so absorbed in her paintings that he'd forgotten about the person at the door.
He turned. “Are all of these yours?” he asked, even though he knew the answer.
She crossed the room, walking under the shaft of sunlight and beyond to stand at the table next to him. “I'm putting together a proposal for a card company.” She shifted the pictures around, uncovering one miracle after the other, then just as quickly covering them back up, as if she couldn't bear to look at her own work. “People always say my drawings are too exact. That they lack imagination.” She sounded frustrated and dissatisfied with what she’d created, obviously not seeing what he saw.
“Who told you that? The same people who look at a pile of twisted metal and call it art?”
“Maybe that pile of twisted metal is art. Maybe the whole idea of art is to create something new, not duplicate what's already there.”
“You aren't duplicating. You're showing me what I missed, what I never took the time to notice. You're helping me to see things with clearer eyes.”
She looked at him for a long moment, as if trying to decide if he was feeding her a line.
“Why'd you do that?” he asked.
“What?”
“Not tell the cop I was here.” Had she been scared that he'd do something drastic that might hurt her, or hurt the cop?
“I didn’t want to get you into any more trouble than you're already in. I didn't want them to find out you'd abducted me.”
That surprised him. Surprised the hell out of him. “I wish I could do something for you in return.”
“Like what?”
“I don't know. Knit you a goofy-ass hat maybe, but I don't know how to knit.”
“If you just turn yourself in, they would go easier on you. You know that.”
He ignored her. Instead, he took both of her hands and slowly lifted them to his mouth.
“Don't.” She tried to pull her hands away, but he wouldn't let her. “My hands are so ugly.”
“They're beautiful.” He kissed one set of raw, dry knuckles at a time. “Take good care of these babies.”
Chapter 15
You’ve never killed anybody, have you?” Claire’s nose was stuffy, so her question came out more like, “You’ve nebber killed anybuddy, hab you?”
She was propped up in bed, a pile of quilts over her, reeking of cough drops, and Vicks VapoRub, a mound of rumpled tissues on the bed and floor.
“No.”
She believed him. Did she believe him simply because she wanted to?
Yes.
That was never a good reason to believe somebody.
He sat down on the edge of the bed. “There are limits to what I’ll do.”
“You’d better stay back. You don’t want to catch this.”
“I have a strong immune system.”
“Nobody has a strong enough system to keep from getting this cold. It's bad. Really bad.”
“I've never had a cold.”
Having a cold always dropped her IQ about twenty points, but no way was she falling for such a whopper. “Everybody gets colds.”
He blandly lifted his eyebrows, as if to say she could believe him if she wanted to. It didn't make any difference to him.
“I've got to get up.” She tossed the covers, tissues flying, but she didn't make a move to get out of bed.
Dylan covered her again. �
�Stay in bed. I'll cut some wood and do whatever else needs to be done.”
“Hallie. Hallie needs to be fed.”
“I'll take care of it.”
She let her head fall back against the pillow, thinking, I could get used to this.
~0~
Trying to be as quiet as possible, Dylan tore a piece of duct tape from the roll, then smoothed it across the rip in his jacket where the down was coming out. Then he put on the jacket, feathers flying. He blew, trying to keep them away from his face. He'd found a wool cap in a wooden box by the door. He slapped it on his head, curving the bill the way he liked it. Nothing worse than a flat bill. He shrugged into Claire's backpack, the straps adjusted to accommodate his larger frame. One last thing.
Before leaving, he opened her purse and pulled out her wallet. Three-hundred bucks. What was she doing going around with three hundred bucks in her purse?
Trying not to think about what he was doing, he stuffed all but fifty dollars deep in the front pocket of his jeans and headed out the door.
He took off, sticking to the tracks left by the cop’s vehicle. He was almost to the end of the lane when he realized Hallie was following him.
“Stay,” he commanded, looking back at the house.
Hallie just wagged her tail and jumped on him, leaving huge paw prints on the front of his jacket. “Dumb dog. I don’t think Claire would appreciate it if I took you, too.”
He felt bad enough leaving the way he was, he didn’t need Hallie’s reproach to drive home his betrayal. But this might be his only chance, and it wasn’t like he was going keep her money. He’d pay her back as soon as he got someplace safe where he could put in a call to Zeke, the brain behind Dylan’s financial dealings. Wouldn’t Zeke be surprised to hear from him? Good ol’ Zeke. He’d taken care of everything while Dylan had been away.
He headed back to the house, Hallie at his heels. He opened the door and silently motioned for her to go inside. Instead she sat there smiling up at him. “Go on,” he whispered, motioning with his hand again. She just sat there.
He shoved her, pushing at her rump with both hands. Once she was inside, he quickly shut the door, turned, and ran.
~0~