by Selena Kitt
Chapter 7
There was no way she could sleep. Weslyn was bleary-eyed, but the passenger seat of the sedan Findley had rented was too confining to be comfortable. The way she’d been handcuffed to the seat belt made her feel awkward, and forced to sit so close to another person, trapped in a car with a man, a federal agent at that, didn’t give her the warm fuzzies—though she did feel too warm, and even a little fuzzy deep inside. Deep and low.
Weslyn was used to sleeping alone, in a safe place. Every time she closed her eyes on the nearly six-hour drive to Cleveland, she’d jolted awake, her heart racing and her body confused. She hardly knew where she was or who she was with, until she got a whiff of Findley’s somewhat-stale cologne.
He was probably more tired than her, she conceded. Grudgingly. Coming from Buffalo, he had to have been up all day too, and then had gotten into the scuffle at the train station. Weslyn felt bad about that. She knew better than to put herself in questionable circumstances, but the access to the platforms was unblocked—for once—and it wouldn’t have been the first time she’d hopped on a train without a ticket…or a destination.
A perfect plan, an unexpected escape. Findley never would have looked for her on a train. It was simple bad luck that those guys had tried to mug her.
Findley to the rescue. He’d been right, they’d missed the train east. However, the police were helpful enough to get him a rental car at that hour of night, and Weslyn and Findley were on the road in no time at all. Alone and together.
Six hours to Cleveland. Weslyn was counting the miles. She needed to pee and she’d love to have a shower, and Findley had sworn they would stop long enough they could both get some sleep. So far, in spite of herself, she believed him. He hadn’t lied, and he hadn’t hurt her. Based on those two things, she had to admit that Findley was doing better than half the men she’d ever met.
With two hours left until Cleveland, Weslyn glanced over at her federal escort. She could just make out a few of his features by the dashboard lights, as the sky only held the promise of day, just then. Nolan Findley was a handsome bastard. She’d spent the past four months thinking about that, hoping her child would inherit the kindness she’d seen in his face, just as now she hoped it inherited its father’s gentleness.
Remembering the way his lips had brushed her belly in the doctor’s office brought a round of goose bumps rising up in the same place as before. Thinking about the way she’d struggled in his grip, and had still come away without a single bruise, set her back on her heels somehow. Looking at him then, the fuzzy warmth inside her grew into a tingly heat.
As if he sensed her staring at him, Findley glanced her way. “You all right, Moon?”
“I need to pee.”
“There’s a rest stop a few miles on. We can pull over there for a few minutes.”
“Will you have to come in with me?”
“Yes.” His grin flashed in the dark. “I’ll turn my back, I swear.”
“A woman prefers privacy,” she grumbled, shifting in her seat to face fully forward again. She watched the yellow lines on the asphalt race toward them and had a flashback of bitter days gone by. “Not that privacy exists on road trips.”
“You’ve proven yourself a runner, Moon.” A moment went by before Findley asked, “Been on a lot of road trips, have you?”
She opened her eyes wide, no matter that he probably couldn’t see her do it. “What, that wasn’t in my file?”
“Lots of things were in your file. Not everything, though. This is your chance to share, make me feel for you, babe. Maybe I’ll even get you a lawyer better than whatever Vermont’s got in the way of public defenders.”
Weslyn thought of the way Findley looked at her. She never claimed to be an expert when it came to men, and she’d never been the type of woman who drew male admiration, but she did recognize the look on Nolan’s face.
A deep, feminine part of her recognized that look, that expression, that gentleness… The way he’d seemed to lay claim to both her and their baby in the emergency clinic.
“You’re going to get me a lawyer, anyway,” she whispered, confident. “You think I’ll serve time for getting pregnant?”
“Extortion, Moon. The Barre Birth and Reproductive Center is on the hook for the sample you stole, because I never gave them permission to store it. My ex forged my name, but Doctor Milliken is telling the State’s Attorney that you blackmailed him.”
Weslyn shrugged. “He’s responsible for stealing a semen sample from the Center’s storage. Why should the state care what that criminal says?”
“An excellent point,” Nolan drawled in such a way Weslyn’s stomach cramped. “You see, Milliken is also copping to knowingly selling a fake Lepine painting. He’s even admitted to commissioning the painting with the intention of duping the buyer.”
“Mmm.” Weslyn cleared her throat delicately. “That sounds like one of those things nobody really cares about. I doubt the great state of Vermont would—”
“But Uncle Sam does care, Moon.”
“He does?”
“Oh, yeah. He does, and that’s gonna catch you between state and federal punishment. So help me help you, Moon. Tell me something I can use to make the jury go easier on you.”
She shook her head. “Easier on me? What does Milliken’s art have to do with me?”
“Do you like landscapes? Do you like forging them with signatures of the greats, long past? Lepine, Hobbema, Corot—”
“Everybody and their monkey’s uncle forged a Corot. Except me.” Weslyn lifted her nose and sniffed. She knew the gig was up, that Milliken would hand her over to the state of Vermont without even a second’s hesitation, so it wouldn’t matter if Findley knew how she’d supported herself. It might even help.
“You haven’t?”
“What was the point? There are thousands of them, driving down the price.”
“But, you are admitting to art forgery?”
She turned to him, suddenly nervous. “Are you admitting that you didn’t know?”
“I knew.” Findley nodded slowly. “So far, we’ve tracked down five Moon forgeries. All landscapes.”
“Not a Corot, though. That would be a forgery of a Moon forgery that Moon never did.” Weslyn laughed. “Fake fakes. Go figure.”
“It happens. You’ve got quite a reputation in the underground art world, in spite of not being very prolific.” Findley looked her way long enough to make Weslyn wonder if he’d drive them off the road before putting his attention back on the asphalt in front of them.
“I’m very good.”
“I know. One of your forgeries sold for nearly half a million dollars.”
Weslyn shook her shoulders, a little irritated at hearing that. She was certain she knew which painting had gotten such a sum too, and it broke her heart. “I’m very good, Agent Findley. No one can tell my work from the masters, except by carbon dating the paint. I mimic brush strokes exactly, spend hours matching perfect hues…”
“I know that, too.” He breathed audibly. “Why, though, Moon? Of all the things you could have done, why this? The money?”
Weslyn was suddenly furious. All the years she’d spent with nothing, begging for a crust of bread, and the years when they’d had enough, but her father and brother took the lion’s share and drank it. The nights she’d gone to sleep hungry, the times her sister had tried to give her extra and was slapped down for it.
And then, after finally getting freedom from her sadistic father, Moon had been dependent on the kindness of strangers, and she’d hated it. Some of her foster parents were decent people, true, but they weren’t her people, and they weren’t interested in helping her reach her goals. They weren’t willing to support her beyond her seventeenth birthday, they wouldn’t fund her artistic pursuits and they wouldn’t even help her figure out how to do it herself.
“Of course the money!” she raged. “I had to eat. I had to live! God, and after Brian put me in the hospital, what did you th
ink I should do? I didn’t want to stay with him. I didn’t want to forgive him.”
“Because of your father?”
“That sick bastard,” Weslyn hissed. “I swore I would never let myself stay in a place where someone hit me ever again. I even left one of my foster homes because of that.”
“I know. I’m proud of you too.” Findley’s voice did, in fact, sound as if he was bursting with pride. “It’s hard for a woman to get out of an abusive relationship, and triply so for a woman raised in an abusive household. But you had courage and grit.”
“My father used to call me stubborn.”
Findley laughed. “That too.”
“You asked about road trips.” Weslyn took a deep breath. “Growing up, we were always on the move. This town, that campground. Never in one place for too long.”
“Your father kidnapped you. He had to keep moving.”
“Yeah, that’s what the state said when they took me away. After that, I still moved around. I came from nothing, Agent Findley, and I had nothing.”
“Tell me, Moon.”
She stared at the patch of road illuminated by the headlights, estimating the time until they wouldn’t need them anymore, even as she thought back to how life used to be. “Everyone wanted me to be a cashier, or get a job as a waitress, or do some other boring, normal thing that would make some money. But the money wasn’t enough. I mean, it was, until Brian hit me.”
“But you left him and had to start over. You needed money to go, to set up a new life.”
“That’s when I painted the Monet.” She nodded, her head suddenly feeling too heavy. She leaned back and lifted her gaze to the top of the windshield, taking in the sight of the lightening horizon through the line of tint. “Half-done, like he’d abandoned the project. I sold it, and my soul, for twenty thousand dollars.”
“The guy you sold it to eventually put it up for auction. Told everybody it had been in a private collection. Got a half mil for it.”
Weslyn put her hand to her stomach. “That’s hard to hear. I tried to sell my own artwork, but nobody bought it. I tried to get a job at various museums across the country, but I only finished high school, and they wanted art degrees from big-name universities. The money runs out, you know?”
“So you painted another.” Findley shot her a strange look.
“Lesser known artist, though. Less money, but less chance of getting picked up for it, too.”
“Still a crime.”
“Yup.” Weslyn closed her eyes. “I painted seven, in all. For the record, I could have painted a hundred, flooded the market with Moon fakes, made billions of dollars and bought my own island, where no one would ever find me again.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“The old masters don’t deserve that.”
“And that, Moon,” Findley said, “is the reason why I’ll get you a lawyer in Vermont.”
Chapter 8
Weslyn woke up screaming. The pain ripping through her leg stole her sanity, the heat that came with it seemed to burn her alive. From her thigh to her calf, an unbearable, knotted mass of agony twisted and turned inside her skin. She’d never felt anything like it.
She tried to move, but that only brought another scream from her aching throat. She tried to turn over, but her hand was cuffed to the headboard. Then a warm presence sprang into action, jumping onto her bed and seizing her roughly.
For a moment, she traveled far beyond panic. Weslyn had no idea what was going on, who the man on the bed with her might be, or where she was. Fear pierced deep, but then a familiar voice called her name and a big, hot hand closed on her hip. Emotional comfort flooded her, instincts telling her she was safe, even as another pain scored her calf.
“Weslyn, what? What’s going on?” The bedside lamp flicked on, showing her the terror etched into Findley’s face. He tossed his gun onto his own bed. “What’s wrong?”
Tears streamed down her cheeks—she was unable to hold them back. Weslyn panted through parted lips and gritted teeth, but as another rolling cramp stretched down her leg, she had no words to explain. She could only pull against the handcuff and arch her back, fighting to drag her knee up to her chest even as she forced it straight.
Findley tore at her waistband. For the second time in less than twenty four hours, he pulled her jeans low, but this time he kept yanking until they were down her legs, then off and on the floor. Weslyn whimpered, caught between the fear of being in her underwear in front of him, and the possibility of something truly terrible happening in her muscles.
He glared at her plain cotton panties. “Is it the baby? There’s no blood.”
She managed to shake her head. She also made an effort to reach her calf, where the pain seemed to bite harder. “My…leg,” she gasped.
Huge, hot hands closed around her calf and thigh. Findley’s heat sank deep, through muscle and bone, maybe deeper, bringing an immediate relief of mind, if not body. For the first time in years, Weslyn wasn’t alone, and the federal agent’s presence next to her suddenly brought a larger measure of comfort than she could have expected.
In the lamplight, Findley’s eyes turned silver. “Charley horse. Back when I was married and my wife and I were trying to conceive, I read a bunch of baby books. What to expect, you know? It’ll be all right, Moon, relax and trust me.”
His voice was soft and smooth, encouraging. Weslyn let his tone wash over her and soothe her. His fingers worked over her skin, his hands kneaded and massaged. The pain still ebbed and flowed, but little by little the cramp released its awful grip on her. As the knot in her leg unraveled, Moon let her body relax more, and she closed her eyes to better appreciate the relief Findley brought her.
His hands felt nice on her skin.
She didn’t like to be touched. For years, she’d avoided any contact at all, but Findley had kept a near constant hold on her since he burst through her door in Chicago. At first, she could hardly think beyond the need to make him let go, but somewhere along the way, Weslyn had started getting used to him.
He’d been gentle and careful in the emergency clinic. He’d been a safe haven at the train station and agreed to be her legal protector in the car on the way to Cleveland. And now he was a healer, easing her cramp at the same time he teased her with the possibility of what it could be like, to let a good man touch, stroke and fondle.
A good man she’d been dreaming about for months.
“You should see the look on your face,” he whispered. “You close your eyes to hide, Moon, but I can still see you.”
She felt Findley’s touch change, soften. His palms smoothed over the curve of her calf, cupped the heel of her foot, then his thumbs dug into her sole with beautiful pressure. Pleasure bloomed, racing up Weslyn’s spine until she felt as if she could melt into the mattress. Her foot was warm and relaxed, and Findley repeated the caress on the other one.
His hands gripped her ankles, but his touch was light enough that Weslyn felt no panic, no fear. In some way, she trusted Findley, and she recognized the alien emotion and allowed it to work on her nerves. She remained pliant as he stroked up her calves, kneaded her knees, then massaged her thighs.
His touch changed again, not just a warm, soothing slide of skin against skin, but suddenly charged with intent. He drew circles on her thighs, edging higher, farther between her legs. Heat transferred from his hands to Weslyn’s body, curling through her at an alarming rate. But this was the fantasy she’d held secret since she’d picked his picture out of a book. She gasped, and before she realized what she was about to do, she’d spread her legs to let his fingers roam a little farther.
“Better now?” he asked quietly. “Or should I keep going?”
“W-we probably shouldn’t.” Weslyn tried to think past the tingling plea growing in her clit. She fought to be rational. “I’m your prisoner and…it’s probably unethical.”
“We’re consenting adults.” Findley’s fingertip drifted over the damp center of Weslyn’s underwear
, then away. “I’ve just had my medical evaluation and I saw your records in the clinic. We’re both clean, and you’re already pregnant with my child.”
“But…but…” Weslyn gasped and arched as Findley found her clit with his thumb and rubbed over it a single time. His retreat left her feeling empty and deprived, a true battle against needs she hadn’t surrendered to in a decade.
She was torn, unable to decide what she really wanted in that moment. It wasn’t as if she’d never experienced pleasure, but after her last boyfriend, Weslyn hadn’t been able to trust anyone enough to let them anywhere close to her body. For some reason, Findley was different. Different than any man she’d ever known—harsher in some ways, but gentler in others.