Hidden Hearts

by Susan Kearney

  New fears sprinted through her brain. Although he’d told her that he’d bugged her phone, she still hadn’t absorbed all the implications of his confession. Now, with her brother on the run, she couldn’t confirm anything Roarke told her. As much as she wanted to pretend none of this was happening, she’d always faced her problems head-on. But she feared if she learned more about what it was like to live in his world, she’d become like Roarke, a man who seemed unable to trust anyone, not a partner, not the local authorities, not even her.

  “The less you tell the cops, the faster you’ll get to work—assuming you still insist on being there today?”

  “It’s imperative.”

  “You did say you needed to be there by six?”

  Damn him! “Do you ever not get your way?”

  Taking her question for agreement, he let her scoot out from beneath the deck. She brushed off the sand, expecting Roarke to follow her and explain the mistake to the police.

  But he stayed hidden. And then a flashlight caught her in its beam. “Place your hands above your head. Slowly,” a cop ordered.

  Alexandra did as she was told, wondering why it was she who’d ended up explaining to the police when it should have been Roarke. He was the one who’d made her nervous by spying on her. He was the one who’d bugged her phone and set up perimeter defenses. His suspicious actions had caused her to call for help. And yet now, when she could use his expertise, he’d suddenly vanished.

  Just like Patrick—Roarke was nowhere to be found when she needed him. But since when did she need a man? Especially one like Roarke Stone? She didn’t like his methods. Didn’t like the way he refused to explain his intentions to her. He’d treated her like a child, and she fully intended to tell him that in the future, they needed to work as a team. He needed to inform her how and where he intended to protect her so she could make intelligent decisions.

  This morning had been a fiasco. While she’d avoided telling the police about the man at her apartment yesterday, it still took too long to fill out the paperwork and give her statement about this morning’s call.

  To top it all off, by the time she finished with the police, she was close to an hour late to the job site. And Roarke had insisted that she pack all her things. He didn’t want her to spend another night at the same place, claiming it was too easy for a good hacker to do a computer search on the police records and find her address. She’d stuffed the papers Jake had sent into a briefcase and her clothes into her soft-sided bag. Another fifteen minutes went by before they could drive to her work site.

  She showed her pass to the guard at the gate and instructed Roarke to park along the fence. Ignoring the dust in the air, she hurried to inspect the building’s northeast section. Her chief engineer was overseeing the cement trucks dumping wet concrete into pump trucks which transported it by hose three hundred feet into wooden forms with a smooth regularity she found comforting. Workers manned vibrating tubes to remove the air from the concrete. At the top of the forms, men checked final placement of rebar as it poked through the concrete.

  However, as they strode toward her crew, Alexandra carrying her briefcase, Roarke’s next suggestion threw her totally off balance. “Introduce me as your new friend.”

  She halted in her tracks, grateful for the loud machines which gave them a measure of privacy. “Friend?”

  His expression didn’t change. His gorgeous face looked as calm as if he were discussing whether to turn right or left. “Boyfriend. Lover. Whatever.”

  Long after he left, she would have to deal with the consequences of this decision. Introducing him like that to coworkers would have the same effect as if one of her foremen brought a Playboy bunny on site. Roarke’s good looks were simply too stunning to avoid speculation. And she wanted the crew’s minds on their work.

  She scowled at Roarke. “Why can’t you be a business associate?”

  Her annoyance ricocheted right off him. His eyes lit with amusement at her suggestion, but he scanned the building site with an efficiency that told her not once had he neglected the primary reason for his presence, to protect her. While his presence made her feel safer, she didn’t want to think about Roarke when she had work to supervise. Today’s concrete pour was the beginning of the culmination of a dream that had begun when she was in high school. She wanted to enjoy the moment. And she didn’t want to think about her coworkers’ reactions to Roarke’s presence.

  Even as he raised his voice to be heard above the heavy concrete trucks, he managed to portray an intimacy between them. “Have you forgotten I intend to stick close to you? Real close.” His words evoked images of him holding her in his arms, kissing her again. Going further. She fought down a shiver of excitement mixed with fear as he kept speaking. “You’re vulnerable here on the construction site.”

  “We have a guarded gate.”

  “That guard didn’t examine your pass very closely.”

  “He knows me.”

  “He didn’t ask about me. Suppose I had a gun on you and forced you inside. He wouldn’t have known.”

  “He’s a construction security guard. He doesn’t work for the FBI.”

  “Exactly.” It irritated her that he thought her words proved the point he’d been trying to make. Once again she wondered what it did to a person always to live with suspicion. But Roarke didn’t give her time to speculate. “And we didn’t have time to fit you with a bullet-proof vest, copy those papers Jake sent you or hide the originals.”

  “They should be safe in my briefcase for now, and the construction office has a copy machine. We can make duplicates later. Or you could do it while I work.”

  He shook his head with a grin—a grin that seemed both persuasive and firm. “My job is to protect you—not necessarily the papers Jake sent.”

  “Fine.”

  “I may have to act as your personal body armor, and I can’t do that if you’re more than two feet from me.” His eyes twinkled with an easy confidence that she wanted to slap off his face. “Besides, if you introduce me as your lover, no one will ask questions about the case we don’t want to answer.”

  Instead they’d just speculate endlessly behind her back. And she’d worked too hard in a field dominated by men to win the respect of her employees and associates to allow them to wonder if she might not have her mind on the job because she had a new lover in her life.

  As her chief foreman headed over, speculation in his eyes, she had to think fast. She didn’t want anyone believing that she’d bring a lover to work with her. She couldn’t think of anything more unprofessional. But she understood that Roarke needed a reason to stay close to her.

  Think!

  Ha! She came up with just the thing.

  She knew she should discuss her plan with Roarke, but there wasn’t time. Her chief engineer and head foreman tipped their hard hats to her and waited for introductions.

  “Sorry I got held up,” Alexandra explained. “I’d like you both to meet my brother, Jake Cochran. We were split up when we were adopted and haven’t seen one another since. We just reunited. Jake, this is Aaron Blake, my engineer, and our foreman, Tyson Coldwell.” As she lied about Roarke’s identity, the men shook hands. Not even by the quiver of one inch-long eyelash did Roarke reveal his surprise at her lie. Man, oh, man, he was smooth.

  But for once she had him where she wanted him—at an emotional distance. As her pretend brother, he couldn’t suddenly kiss her to shut her up. He couldn’t take her into his arms, touch her as a lover would.

  Her cover story would force him to keep his movements fraternal, and therefore she could keep her mind on work, where it belonged. She didn’t need the distractions of his searing looks and her undependable hormones.

  Besides, she enjoyed outthinking Roarke. The man was simply too accustomed to having his own way. Let him see how it felt to be left out of the loop, and maybe he’d learn to communicate his own plans a little better.

  But right now, her concern turned to the city building in
spectors who checked everything from the concrete’s PSI—pounds per square inch—to her paperwork. While she supposed the inspectors were a necessary evil, they seemed to take pleasure in making her work more difficult.

  The building inspector frowned at her, then looked at the sky. “You’ve been lucky we’re having a drought. But if it starts to rain, you’ll need heavy plastic ready to cover the pour.”

  Duh!

  Alexandra nodded sweetly through gritted teeth. While the inspectors needed to justify their cushy jobs, they wouldn’t have done it by pointing out the obvious to a man, but she’d long ago learned to deal with their chauvinism.

  She turned up her smile a notch. “Thanks for the reminder. We have several pallets of plastic stored in a semi-truck. Want to take a look?”

  “Won’t be necessary.” The inspector looked at his watch then at the sky that only had a few high cirrus clouds in sight.

  It hadn’t rained in months. The state was in the middle of the worst drought in a decade. On the radio Alexandra had heard about fires breaking out in the state parks. And while the dry conditions hurt agriculture and kept the state’s fire fighters on full alert, it was perfect weather for pouring concrete.

  She supervised work all morning and was pleasantly surprised by how smoothly Roarke synchronized his movements to hers. He could work unobtrusively when he wanted to, and she appreciated his silent efficiency as she dealt with a multitude of minor problems. It was amazing that such a gorgeous man could make himself almost invisible. Somehow he turned down that megawatt smile and the sex appeal, yet she never lost her constant awareness of his presence.

  As she worked, she worried over her responsibility to the project. Suppose the intruder interfered with her life again? Suppose she couldn’t check on her building with the regularity she preferred? While no one was indispensable and she had a great crew, it still would make sense to warn her coworkers that they might have to pick up the slack if she couldn’t supervise on a regular basis.

  And yet she hesitated. Roarke had warned her that anyone she confided in might be placed in danger. Personally, she thought he might be way too cautious—but she wouldn’t risk other people’s lives by telling them the truth.

  However, there was no reason she, too, couldn’t come up with a plausible story. So, as she worked on the site, she came up with another plan. Just as they broke for lunch, she called over Aaron and Tyson. “I may take off some time here and there to spend with my brother.” She tried to look at Roarke with sisterly fondness and absolutely no hint of lust. “We have a lot of catching up to do.” Her glance went back to her coworkers. “If I’m out of touch, I hope I can depend on you two to cover for me.”

  “No problem.”

  “Count on us.”

  As her men left, Roarke spoke teasingly in her ear. “Smart thinking. I might make a competent spook out of you yet.”

  Just like switching up the volume on a CD, he upped his masculine intensity. He stood closer. His mesmerizing eyes appeared bluer, and he almost knocked her over with one of those killer smiles.

  All morning she’d worked, and the simmering tension between them had stayed in the background. Suddenly they were alone. And whammo! He radiated enough sex appeal to dance and strip with the Chippendales.

  Just the intimacy of his look sucked the moisture from her mouth. She licked her bottom lip, nervously reminding herself that she didn’t like Roarke Stone. But she didn’t have to like him to allow him to do his job. Nor did she have to respond to the magnetism he projected. Having a man protect her might be inherently sexy, but all she had to do to cool her hormones was remember he’d probably flashed those sexy smiles to a myriad of women.

  Grateful for the sunglasses that prevented him from seeing her eyes and hoping he’d think the flush rising up her neck was due to the noonday sun, she told herself to get a grip. Most of the construction people had left, but some had stayed behind to stir and smooth the wet cement.

  Although food was the last thing on her mind, she’d like a break from the heat. A cool drink, air-conditioning and people around them were just the ticket to break the spell of intimacy he’d effortlessly woven around them.

  She set down her briefcase, removed her hard hat and wiped her brow. “How about lun—?”

  Without warning, Roarke tackled Alexandra.

  The dusty ground flew up before she could put her hands out to brace herself. The packed earth knocked the air out of her.

  Roarke’s six-foot-four body fell on top of her.

  Her lungs fought to draw air. Couldn’t.

  Through dizziness, she heard curses. Men climbing down from the scaffolding. Machines stopping.

  Roarke sat up and rolled her over, cradling her head in his lap. He leaned and blocked the sun, his irises dark with concern. Gently, his hands smoothed her forehead. “Are you all right?”

  Again she tried for a ragged gasp, sounded as if she was choking, still not breathing. Roarke finally got the idea that she couldn’t draw air into her burning lungs.

  “You got the wind knocked out of you. Try to relax. Give your diaphragm a second to recover.”

  She was lightheaded; his words came to her from a great distance. He was talking. She knew because she could see his lips moving, but she couldn’t hear his words. Couldn’t hear the crews or the machines or the nearby traffic.

  What the hell happened?

  Oh, God. She couldn’t breathe.

  She was going to suffocate out here on the ground. Blackness closed in.

  Alexandra opened her eyes, and the first thing she saw was the face of an angel. He just needed wings and a halo to complete his perfection. With a wet cloth, the prettiest man in the world was wiping her forehead.

  Men aren’t pretty, she thought groggily.

  “Welcome back,” the gorgeous hunk told her with a sexy smile, and suddenly everything came back. He wasn’t an angel, but Roarke Stone, her bodyguard. Here to protect her.

  Instead he’d tried to squash her. No, that couldn’t be right.

  She raised her head and sipped the water he offered, noting her familiar surroundings. Her briefcase on the floor. A battered desk, fluorescent lights and a fax machine and computer. Someone had carried her from the work site to the construction trailer.

  The air-conditioning felt wonderful, but Roarke’s gentle hands bathing her forehead with a damp towel were glorious. For a minute she rested, enjoying the contrast between his fierce look of concern and the gentle ministrations of his hands, the coolness of the damp cloth and the warmth of his fingertips.

  She shouldn’t be enjoying him like this. She tried to sit up and he eased her back onto the couch.

  “Take a moment.”

  “What happened?” Her mouth seemed as dry as old cement and she reached for the water glass with shaking hands.

  Roarke beat her to it, lifting her head, holding the glass to her lips. She drank greedily, enjoying the wet coolness as it trickled down her parched throat.

  “Easy.”

  She raised her eyes to look at him. “The last thing I remember was you tackling me.”

  “I knocked the wind out of your lungs. Sorry. I didn’t realize you were so delicate.”

  “I’m not delicate. You’re a brute!”

  “I did what was necessary to save your life.”

  “Huh?” Save her life? She didn’t recall any attack, just Roarke knocking her off her feet with the expertise of a pro wrestler. “Was someone shooting at me?”

  “Do you remember setting down your briefcase and taking off your hard hat to wipe the perspiration from your forehead?”

  “Vaguely”

  “I knocked you out of the way when a wrench hurtled down off the scaffolding.”

  She frowned. “But the crew had knocked off for lunch.”

  “Exactly. I sent one of the security guards to look around, but they didn’t find anything suspicious.”

  She knew that look of his. Suspicion darkening his blue irises
until they appeared dark navy. His lips tightening and a muscle in his neck flickering. He believed someone had deliberately dropped that wrench. “It could have been an accident. Construction sites are notoriously dangerous places. That’s why our insurance rates are so high.”

  “And it’s just a coincidence that the wrench fell on you—just after you removed your hard hat? If you believe that, there’s a tropical island in the middle of the Arctic Ocean I’d like to sell you.”

  She forced herself to a sitting position and warily peered out the window. Her mind wasn’t on the construction, the concrete or the building she wanted to create. Someone may have just tried to kill her. If that wrench had landed on her head, her skull would have been squashed like a rotten melon. “But what’s the point of trying to hurt me? We thought this was connected to the materials Jake sent. Dropping a wrench on my head won’t give them what they are after.”

  Grimly, Roarke crossed his arms over his chest and peered out the dusty trailer window. “We don’t know what they’re after. But we need to get you out of here. And it’s not going to be easy.”

  Chapter Six

  Roarke didn’t want to worry Alexandra any more than necessary, but he had to make her understand that the danger could come from several directions. Yet he couldn’t force himself into scaring her further. Not while her whiskey-gold irises remained dilated from shock. Not while her slender fingers still shook. Not when her normal olive color still hadn’t returned to her too-pale cheeks. Although he could have kicked himself for downing her like a sack of potatoes, he’d reacted instinctively to danger, pushing her way too hard to safety, accidentally knocking the wind out of her in his hurry to protect her in case additional tools hurtled down. Although he’d saved her from a terrible injury, his own actions could have hurt her. She’d been lucky he hadn’t caused more damage.

  It wasn’t like him to overreact, but when a tiny metal rattling sound from overhead had caused him to glance up and see that shiny object plummeting down, he’d acted instantly and on pure instinct. And he’d almost done serious harm.